[Illustration: The Goddess Mother in the Grecian Pantheon.]

VIRGIN BIRTHS



Stories of gods born of virgins are to be found in nearly every age
and country. There have been many virgin mothers, and Mary with her
child is but a recent version of a very old and universal myth. In
China and India, in Babylonia and Egypt, in Greece and Rome, "divine"
beings selected from among the daughters of men the purest and most
beautiful to serve them as a means of entrance into the world of
mortals. Wishing to take upon themselves the human form, while
retaining at the same time their "divinity," this compromise--of an
earthly mother with a "divine" father--was effected. In the form of a
swan Jupiter approached Leda, as in the guise of a dove, or a
_Paracletus,_ Jehovah "overshadowed" Mary.

A nymph bathing in a river in China is touched by a lotus plant, and
the divine Fohi is born.

In Siam, a wandering sunbeam caresses a girl in her teens, and the
great and wonderful deliverer, Codom, is born. In the life of Buddha
we read that he descended on his mother Maya, "in likeness as the
heavenly queen, and entered her womb," and was "born from her right
side, to save the world." [Footnote: Stories of Virgin Births.
Reference: Lord Macartney. Voyage dans 'interview de la Chine et en
Tartarie. Vol. I, P. 48. See also Les Vierges Meres et les Naissance
Miraculeuse. P. Saintyves. P. 19, etc.] In Greece, the young god