any symbolism express more tenderly the idea that the
glorious youth--who represented Spring, too soon slain by the rude tusk
of Winter--was himself the very human soul of the pine-tree? (1) At some
earlier period, no doubt, a real youth had been sacrificed and his body
bound within the pine; but now it was deemed sufficient for the maidens
to sing their wild songs of lamentation; and for the priests and male
enthusiasts to cut and gash themselves with knives, or to sacrifice
(as they did) to the Earth-mother the precious blood offering of their
virile organs--symbols of fertility in return for the promised and
expected renewal of Nature and the crops in the coming Spring. For
the ceremony, as we have already seen, did not end with death and
lamentation, but led on, perfectly naturally, after a day or two to a
festival of resurrection, when it was discovered--just as in the case of
Osiris--that the pine-tree coffin was empty, and the immortal life had
flown. How strange the similarity and parallelism of all these things to
the story of Jesus in the Gospels--the sacrifice of a life made in order
to bring salvation to men and expiation of sins, the crowning of the
victim, and arraying in royal attire, the scourging and the mockery, the
binding or nailing to a tree, the tears of Mary, and the resurrection
and the empty coffin!--or how not at all strange when we consider in
what numerous forms and among how many peoples, this same parable
and ritual had as a matter of fact been celebrated, and how it had
ultimately come down to bring its message of redemption into a somewhat
obscure Syrian city, in the special shape with which we are familiar.

(1) See Julius Firmicus, who says (De Errore, c. 28): "in sacris
Phrygiis, quae Matris deum dicunt, per annos singulos arbor pinea
caeditur, et in media arbore simulacrum uvenis subligatur. In Isiacis
sacris de pinea arbore caeditur truncus; hujus trunci media pars
subtiliter excavatur, illis de segminibus factum idolum Osiridis
sepelitur. In Prosperpinae sacris caesa arbor in effigiem virginis
formaraque componitur, et cum intra civitatem fuerit illata, quadraginta
noctibus piangitur, quadragesima vero nocte comburitur."

Though the parable or legend in its special Christian form bears with it
the consciousness of the presence of beings whom we may call gods, it is
important to remember that in many or most of its earlier forms, though
it dealt in 'spirits'--the spirit of the co