Key of Knowledge

SR No.: 006702
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown
Publication Year: 1919
Total Pages: 1204
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 25 MB

Page 500

RESURRECTION.
479
also be made more and more evident as we progress with our investigation. It would have doubtless amused the ancients if they could have read what modern scholars have to say about their mental development. We shall leave the reader to determine for himself the worth of the modern view as contained in the following extract from Mr. Joseph McCabe's otherwise excellent work, the Bankruptcy of Religion (p. 167):
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"This is not the place to inquire into the real origin and nature of these [crucifixion and resurrection] myths. It has been widely believed that they refer, ultimately, to the annual death (or enfeeblement) of the sun as winter approaches, its re-birth at the solstice, and its resurrection (usually preceded by a dramatic representation of the death) in the spring. The seasons differ so much in different latitudes-the sun is so differently regarded in a tropical and a temperate clime-that confusion of dates is quite intelligible. In Egypt the annual fall and rise of the Nile was the chief factor. Sir J. G. Frazer, however, contends......that these myths refer to the annual death and re-birth of the spirit of Vegetation; a much more conspicuous case, to the ignorant mind, of death and resurrection. Probably both spectacles have had a share in inspiring and shaping the myths.... What is clear is that the naive philosophy of primitive man, his child-like wonder at the annual death and rebirth of sun and flowers and corn, is the real root of the stories that still engross millions of our neighbours at Christmas and Easter."
The real justification for the view of the moderns, if there can be any justification for the loss of the sense of relevancy and such unmitigated ignorance, is to be found in the intellectual shabbiness and bankruptcy of the counter-hypothesis put forth by the theologian, who is, however, as much a moderner as the critic of the ancient lore himself!
To proceed with our explanation, it was seen in the chapter on the "fall" that the wretched condition of