The idea prevailed that no remission of sins was possible without shedding of blood. It was also a cardinal belief from remotest times that inspiration, a fresh access of life, was derived from drinking blood. The sacrament of eating bread and drinking wine (partaking of the body and blood of the gods of productivity) was a part of the ancient mysteries. And the idea of sanctifying one's self by assimilating a divine being goes back to remotest times. It was but a step up to transform the symbol into the Christian sacrament of the Eucharist. "He that. . . drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me and I in him" perpetuates an old belief founded on nature worship or the worship of life.
In the vibration of religious thought which gave supremacy first to the moon and then to the sun we may suppose that "even among the water worshippers of Eridu" the belief finally obtained that the sun and moon had a common origin as reflections of the One S:upreme Absolute, the sun representing the generating, life giving power of the deity, the active principle, and the moon the passive principle. Thus the Egyptians recognised as their greatest gods the Sun and Moon (Osiris and Isis) and that the reciprocal action of the two great luminaries produced all life and growth upon the earth. It was the Sun the great Fecundator who communicated to the Moon the principles of generation which she afterwards disseminated through the air and the elements, which in turn transmitted them to the earth.
A Sun-disk resting in a Crescent symbolised the "conjunction of the divine pair."
