description of the Luxor picture. "The first scene on the left hand
shows the god Taht, the divine Word or Loges, in the act of hailing
the virgin queen, announcing to her that she is to give birth to a
son. In the second scene the god Kneph (assisted by Hathor) gives life
to her. This is the Holy Ghost, or Spirit that causes conception....Next
the mother is seated on the midwife's stool, and the child is supported
in the hands of one of the nurses. The fourth scene is that of the
adoration. Here the child is enthroned, receiving homage from the gods
and gifts from men." [Footnote: Natural Genesis. Massey, Vol. II, P.
398.] The picture on the wall of the Luxor temple, then, is one of the
sources to which the anonymous writers of the Gospels went for their
miraculous story. It is no wonder they suppressed their own identity
as well as the source from which they borrowed their material.

Not only the idea of a virgin mother, but all the other miraculous
events, such as the stable cradle, the guiding star, the massacre of
the children, the flight to Egypt, and the resurrection and bodily
ascension toward the clouds, have not only been borrowed, but are even
scarcely altered in the New Testament story of Jesus.

[Illustration: The Nativity of the God Dionysius, Museum of Naples. ]

That the early Christians borrowed the legend of Jesus from earthly
sources is too evident to be even questioned. Gerald Massey in his
great work on Egyptian origins demonstrates the identity of Mary, the
mother of Jesus, with Isis, the mother of Horus. He says: "The most
ancient, gold-bedizened, smoke-stained Byzantine pictures of the
virgin and child represent the mythical mother as Isis, and not as a
human mother of Nazareth." [Footnote: Vol. ii, P. 487.] Science and
research have made this fact so certain that, on the one hand