NEITH....THE GREAT MOTHER AND
IMMACULATE VIRGIN....THE "PATTERN"
Neith
or Nout is neither more nor less than the Great Mother, and yet the
Immaculate Virgin, or female god, from whose bosom all things has
proceeded.
On monuments she is generally
represented as an elongated female figure, extended with drooping arms as
a sort of arch, beneath which are portrayed not only the sun and stars of
heaven, but gods and men. One of the finest illustrations may be seen in
London, at the Soane Museum, Lincoln's Inn. She is more than once shown
upon the magnificent alabaster sarcophagus there. She is yet living among
us, in the continuation of her solemn Sais festival, then, as now,
accompanied by great lights; for the learned Mr. Sharpe tells us that, "the
Feast of Candlemas—in honour of the goddess Neith—is yet marked
in our almanacs as Candlemas day, or the Purification of the Virgin Mary."
And M. Beauregard speaks of "the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin,
who can henceforth, as well as the Egyptian Minerva, the mysterious Neith,
boast of having come from herself, and of having
given birth to God." The
Council of Ephesus, 431, declared Mary, Mother of God. Her Assumption was
declared in 813, and her Immaculate Conception by the Pope and Council in
1855.
