Among the Manichæans God was really the sun. One of the most remarkable works extant, where the Pagan, Asiatic, Hellenic and Christian intermingle, is the Ἐξήγησις περὶ τῶν ἐν Περσίδι πραχθέντων, edited by Wirth.61 This is a book of fables, but, nevertheless, a mine for near-Christian phantasies, which gives a profound insight into Christian symbolism. In this is found the following magical dedication: Διὶ Ἡλίῳ θεῷ μεγάλῳ βασιλεῖ Ἰησοῦ—[1] In certain parts of Armenia the rising sun is still worshipped by Christians, that "it may let its foot rest upon the faces of the worshippers."62 The foot occurs as an anthropomorphic attribute, and we have already met the theriomorphic attribute in the feathers and the sun phallus. Other comparisons of the sun's ray, as knife, sword, arrow, and so on, have also, as we have learned from the psychology of the dream, a phallic meaning at bottom. This meaning is attached to the foot as I here point out,63 and also to the feathers, or hair, of the sun, which signify the power or strength of the sun. I refer to the story of Samson, and to that of the Apocalypse of Baruch, concerning the phœnix bird, which, flying before the sun, loses its feathers, and, exhausted, is strengthened again in an ocean bath at evening.
Under the symbol of "moth and sun" we have dug down into the historic depths of the soul, and in doing this we have uncovered an old buried idol, the youthful, beautiful, fire-encircled and halo-crowned sun-hero, who, forever unattainable to the mortal, wanders upon the
- ↑ "To Zeus, the Great Sun God, the King, the Saviour."
