and as influencing the generative processes, is shown by various
passages in the Avestas. In the Khordah Avesta, praise is
offered to "the Moon which contains the seed of cattle, to the
only begotten Bull, to the Bull of many kinds."
Perhaps the most widely diffused and universally adored
representation of the ancient female Deity in Egypt was the
Virgin Neit or Neith, the Athene of the Greeks and the Minerva of
the Romans. Her name signifies "I came from myself." This Deity
represents not only creative power, but abstract intelligence,
Wisdom or Light. Her temple at Sais was the largest in Egypt.
It was open at the top and bore the following inscription: "I am
all that was and is and is to be; no mortal has lifted up my
veil, and the fruit which I brought forth was the sun." She was
called also Muth, the universal mother. Kings were especially
honored in the title "Son of Neith."
To express the idea that the female energy in the Deity
comprehended not alone the power to bring forth, but that it
involved all the natural powers, attributes, and possibilities of
human nature, it was portrayed by a pure Virgin who was also a
mother. According to Herodotus, the worship of Minerva was
indigenous in Lybia, whence it travelled to Egypt and was carried
from thence to Greece. Among the remnants of Egyptian mythology,
the figure of a mother and child is everywhere observed. It is
thought by various writers that the worship of the black virgin
and child found its way to Italy from Egypt.
The change noted in the growth of the religious idea by which the
male principle assumes the more important position in the Deity
may, by a close investigation of the facts at hand, be easily
traced, and, as has before been expressed, this change will be
found to correspond with that which in an earlier age of the
world took place in the relative positions of the sexes. In all
the earliest representations of the Deity, the fact is observed
that within the mother element is contained the divinity adored,
while the male appears as a child and dependent on the
ministrations of the female for existence and support.
Gradually, however, as the importance of man begins to be
recognized in human affairs, we find that the male energy in the
Deity, instead of appearing as a child in the arms of its mother,
