The evil eye. An account of this ancient and wide spread superstition

II ORIENTATION 65
worshippers, though the Sun does not appear to have
been the chief of their divinities. Lug was the per-
sonification of the sun ;
he was the son of Dagda ^•'^
•'the good god," who was "grayer than the gray
mist," and he had another son named " Ogma the
sun-faced," the patron of writing and prophecy.
It may well be maintained that all our modern
notions included in the general term Orientation are
but survivals of the once universal sun-worship.
A great authority '^^^ says that the ceremony of
Orientation " unknown in primitive Christianity . . .
was developed within its first four centuries."
This statement (and here he differs from his usual
practice) is unsupported by any authority ; with all
deference we would submit that there is much
evidence to the contrary. Sun-worship was un-
doubtedly an abomination to the Jews, but the very
facts recorded in connection with Ezekiel's horror
(ch. viii. 16) at the idolatry of the twenty-five men
who worshipped the sun in the temple of the Lord,
show first a careful Orientation of the temple itself,
in accordance with the plan the Israelites had learnt
in Egypt ; and next that general importance attached
to the directions of east and west. Thus, although
actual sun-worship was considered as idolatry, the
Sun was both actually and typically regarded as
the almighty life-giving power of nature— giving his
own name to the great emanation, the only begotten
Son of the Father, the Light of the World, the Sun
of Righteousness. Surely these very names speak
eloquently of the idea, if not of the practice implied
in the term Orientation. Primitive Christianity
1^1 Elton, Origins of English History, p. 276.
102 Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. ii. p. 3S7.
F