XXXIX. EXPLANATION…

XXXIX. EXPLANATION

After what we have seen concerning the numerous virgin-born, crucified and resurrected Saviours, believed on in the Pagan world for so many centuries before the time assigned for the birth of the Christian Saviour, the questions naturally arise: were they real personages? did they ever exist in the flesh? whence came these stories concerning them? have they a foundation in truth, or are they simply creations of the imagination?

The historical theory--according to which all the persons mentioned in mythology were once real human beings, and the legends and fabulous traditions relating to them were merely the additions and embellishments of later times--which was so popular with scholars of the last century, has been altogether abandoned.

Under the historical point of view the gods are mere deified mortals, either heroes who have been deified after their death, or Pontiff-chieftains who have passed themselves off for gods, and who, it is gratuitously supposed, found people stupid enough to believe in their pretended divinity. This was the manner in which, formerly, writers explained the mythology of nations of antiquity; but a method that pre-supposed an historical Crishna, an historical Osiris, an historical Mithra, an historical Hercules, an historical Apollo, or an historical Thor, was found untenable, and therefore, does not, at the present day, stand in need of a refutation. As a writer of the early part of the present century said:

"We shall never have an ancient history worthy of the perusal of men of common sense, till we cease treating poems as history, and send back such personages as Hercules, Theseus, Bacchus, etc., to the heavens, whence their history is taken, and whence they never descended to the earth."

The historical theory was succeeded by the allegorical theory, which supposes that all the myths of the ancients were allegorical and symbolical, and contain some moral, religious, or philosophical truth or historical fact under the form of an allegory, which came in process of time to be understood literally.

In the preceding pages we have spoken of the several virgin-born, crucified and resurrected Saviours, as real personages. We have attributed to these individuals words and acts, and have regarded the words and acts recorded in the several sacred books from which we have quoted, as said and done by them. But in doing this, we have simply used the language of others. These gods and heroes were not real personages; they are merely personifications of the SUN. As Prof. Max Müller observes in his Lectures on the Science of Religion:

"One of the earliest objects that would strike and stir the mind of man, and for which a sign or a name would soon be wanted, is surely the Sun.[467:1] It is very hard for us to realize the feelings with which the first dwellers on the earth looked upon the Sun, or to understand fully what they meant by a morning prayer or a morning sacrifice. Perhaps there are few people who have watched a sunrise more than once or twice in their life; few people who have ever known the meaning of a morning prayer, or a morning sacrifice. But think of man at the very dawn of time. . . . think of the Sun awakening the eyes of man from sleep, and his mind from slumber! Was not the sunrise to him the first wonder, the first beginning of all reflection, all thought, all philosophy? Was it not to him the first revelation, the first beginning of all trust, of all religion? . . . .

"Few nations only have preserved in their ancient poetry some remnants of the natural awe with which the earlier dwellers on the earth saw that brilliant being slowly rising from out of the darkness of the night, raising itself by its own might higher and higher, till it stood triumphant on the arch of heaven, and then descended and sank down in its fiery glory into the dark abyss of the heaving and hissing sea. In the hymns of the Veda, the poet still wonders whether the Sun will rise again; he asks how he can climb the vault of heaven? why he does not fall back? why there is no dust on his path? And when the rays of the morning rouse him from sleep and call him back to new life, when he sees the Sun, as he says, stretching out his golden arms to bless the world and rescue it from the terror of darkness, he exclaims, 'Arise, our life, our spirit has come back! the darkness is gone, the light approaches.'"

Many years ago, the learned Sir William Jones said:

"We must not be surprised at finding, on a close examination, that the characters of all the Pagan deities, male and female, melt into each other, and at last into one or two; for it seems as well founded opinion, that the whole crowd of gods and goddesses of ancient Rome, and modern Varanes, mean only the powers of nature, and principally those of the SUN, expressed in a variety of ways, and by a multitude of fanciful names."[467:2]

Since the first learned president of the Royal Asiatic Society paved the way for the science of comparative mythology, much has been learned on this subject, so that, as the Rev. George W. Cox remarks, "recent discussions on the subject seem to justify the conviction that the foundations of the science of comparative mythology have been firmly laid, and that its method is unassailable."[468:1]

If we wish to find the gods and goddesses of the ancestors of our race, we must look to the sun, the moon, the stars, the sky, the earth, the sea, the dawn, the clouds, the wind, &c., which they personified and worshiped. That these have been the gods and goddesses of all nations of antiquity, is an established fact.[468:2]

The words which had denoted the sun and moon would denote not merely living things but living persons. From personification to deification the steps would be but few; and the process of disintegration would at once furnish the materials for a vast fabric of mythology. All the expressions which had attached a living force to natural objects would remain as the description of personal and anthropomorphous gods. Every word would become an attribute, and all ideas, once grouped around a simple object, would branch off into distinct personifications. The sun had been the lord of light, the driver of the chariot of the day; he had toiled and labored for the sons of men, and sunk down to rest, after a hard battle, in the evening. But now the lord of light would be Phoibos Apollon, while Helios would remain enthroned in his fiery chariot, and his toils and labors and death-struggles would be transferred to Hercules. The violet clouds which greet his rising and his setting would now be represented by herds of cows which feed in earthly pastures. There would be other expressions which would still remain as floating phrases, not attached to any definite deities. These would gradually be converted into incidents in the life of heroes, and be woven at length into systematic narratives. Finally, these gods or heroes, and the incidents of their mythical career, would receive each "a local habitation and a name." These would remain as genuine history, when the origin and meaning of the words had been either wholly or in part forgotten.

For the proofs of these assertions, the Vedic poems furnish indisputable evidence, that such as this was the origin and growth of Greek and Teutonic mythology. In these poems, the names of many, perhaps of most, of the Greek gods, indicate natural objects which, if endued with life, have not been reduced to human personality. In them Daphne is still simply the morning twilight ushering in the splendor of the new born sun; the cattle of Helios there are still the light-colored clouds which the dawn leads out into the fields of the sky. There the idea of Hercules has not been separated from the image of the toiling and struggling sun, and the glory of the life-giving Helios has not been transferred to the god of Delos and Pytho. In the Vedas the myths of Endymion, of Kephalos and Prokris, Orpheus and Eurydike, are exhibited in the form of detached mythical phrases, which furnished for each their germ. The analysis may be extended indefinitely: but the conclusion can only be, that in the Vedic language we have the foundation, not only of the glowing legends of Hellas, but of the dark and sombre mythology of the Scandinavian and the Teuton. Both alike have grown up chiefly from names which have been grouped around the sun; but the former has been grounded on those expressions which describe the recurrence of day and night, the latter on the great tragedy of nature, in the alternation of summer and winter.

Of this vast mass of solar myths, some have emerged into independent legends, others have furnished the groundwork of whole epics, others have remained simply as floating tales whose intrinsic beauty no poet has wedded to his verse.[469:1]

"The results obtained from the examination of language in its several forms leaves no room for doubt that the general system of mythology has been traced to its fountain head. We can no longer shut our eyes to the fact that there was a stage in the history of human speech, during which all the abstract words in constant use among ourselves were utterly unknown, when men had formed no notions of virtue or prudence, of thought and intellect, of slavery or freedom, but spoke only of the man who was strong, who could point the way to others and choose one thing out of many, of the man who was not bound to any other and able to do as he pleased.

"That even this stage was not the earliest in the history of language is now a growing opinion among philologists; but for the comparison of legends current in different countries it is not necessary to carry the search further back. Language without words denoting abstract qualities implies a condition of thought in which men were only awakening to a sense of the objects which surrounded them, and points to a time when the world was to them full of strange sights and sounds, some beautiful, some bewildering, some terrific, when, in short, they knew little of themselves beyond the vague consciousness of their existence, and nothing of the phenomena of the world without. In such a state they could but attribute to all that they saw or touched or heard, a life which was like their own in its consciousness, its joys, and its sufferings. That power of sympathizing with nature which we are apt to regard as the peculiar gift of the poet was then shared alike by all. This sympathy was not the result of any effort, it was inseparably bound up with the words which rose to their lips. It implied no special purity of heart or mind; it pointed to no Arcadian paradise where shepherds knew not how to wrong or oppress or torment each other. We say that the morning light rests on the mountains; they said that the sun was greeting his bride, as naturally as our own poet would speak of the sunlight clasping the earth, or the moonbeams as kissing the sea.

"We have then before us a stage of language corresponding to a stage in the history of the human mind in which all sensible objects were regarded as instinct with a conscious life. The varying phases of that life were therefore described as truthfully as they described their own feelings or sufferings; and hence every phase became a picture. But so long as the conditions of their life remained unchanged, they knew perfectly what the picture meant, and ran no risk of confusing one with another. Thus they had but to describe the things which they saw, felt, or heard, in order to keep up an inexhaustible store of phrases faithfully describing the facts of the world from their point of view. This language was indeed the result of an observation not less keen than that by which the inductive philosopher extorts the secrets of the natural world. Nor was its range much narrower. Each object received its own measure of attention, and no one phenomenon was so treated as to leave no room for others in their turn. They could not fail to note the changes of days and years, of growth and decay, of calm and storm; but the objects which so changed were to them living things, and the rising and setting of the sun, the return of winter and summer, became a drama in which the actors were their enemies or their friends.

"That this is a strict statement of facts in the history of the human mind, philology alone would abundantly prove; but not a few of these phrases have come down to us in their earliest form, and point to the long-buried stratum of language of which they are the fragments. These relics exhibit in their germs the myths which afterwards became the legends of gods and heroes with human forms, and furnished the groundwork of the epic poems, whether of the eastern or the western world.

"The mythical or mythmaking language of mankind had no partialities; and if the career of the Sun occupies a large extent of the horizon, we cannot fairly simulate ignorance of the cause. Men so placed would not fail to put into words the thoughts or emotions roused in them by the varying phases of that mighty world on which we, not less than they, feel that our life depends, although we may know something more of its nature.

"Thus grew up a multitude of expressions which described the sun as the child of the night, as the destroyer of the darkness, as the lover of the dawn and the dew--of phrases which would go on to speak of him as killing the dew with his spears, and of forsaking the dawn as he rose in the heaven. The feeling that the fruits of the earth were called forth by his warmth would find utterance in words which spoke of him as the friend and the benefactor of man; while the constant recurrence of his work would lead them to describe him as a being constrained to toil for others, as doomed to travel over many lands, and as finding everywhere things on which he could bestow his love or which he might destroy by his power. His journey, again, might be across cloudless skies, or amid alternations of storm and calm; his light might break fitfully through the clouds, or be hidden for many a weary hour, to burst forth at last with dazzling splendor as he sank down in the western sky. He would thus be described as facing many dangers and many enemies, none of whom, however, may arrest his course; as sullen, or capricious, or resentful; as grieving for the loss of the dawn whom he had loved, or as nursing his great wrath and vowing a pitiless vengeance. Then as the veil was rent at eventide, they would speak of the chief, who had long remained still, girding on his armor; or of the wanderer throwing off his disguise, and seizing his bow or spear to smite his enemies; of the invincible warrior whose face gleams with the flush of victory when the fight is over, as he greets the fair-haired Dawn who closes, as she had begun, the day. To the wealth of images thus lavished on the daily life and death of the Sun there would be no limit. He was the child of the morning, or her husband, or her destroyer; he forsook her and he returned to her, either in calm serenity or only to sink presently in deeper gloom.

"So with other sights and sounds. The darkness of night brought with it a feeling of vague horror and dread; the return of daylight cheered them with a sense of unspeakable gladness; and thus the Sun who scattered the black shade of night would be the mighty champion doing battle with the biting snake which lurked in its dreary hiding-place. But as the Sun accomplishes his journey day by day through the heaven, the character of the seasons is changed. The buds and blossoms of spring-time expand in the flowers and fruits of summer, and the leaves fall and wither on the approach of winter. Thus the daughter of the earth would be spoken of as dying or as dead, as severed from her mother for five or six weary months, not to be restored to her again until the time for her return from the dark land should once more arrive. But as no other power than that of the Sun can recall vegetation to life, this child of the earth would be represented as buried in a sleep from which the touch of the Sun alone could arouse her, when he slays the frost and cold which lie like snakes around her motionless form.

"That these phrases would furnish the germs of myths or legends teeming with human feeling, as soon as the meaning of the phrases were in part or wholly forgotten, was as inevitable as that in the infancy of our race men should attribute to all sensible objects the same kind of life which they were conscious of possessing themselves."

Let us compare the history of the Saviour which we have already seen, with that of the Sun, as it is found in the Vedas.

We can follow in the Vedic hymns, step by step, the development which changes the Sun from a mere luminary into a "Creator," "Preserver," "Ruler," and "Rewarder of the World"--in fact, into a Divine or Supreme Being.

The first step leads us from the mere light of the Sun to that light which in the morning wakes man from sleep, and seems to give new life, not only to man, but to the whole of nature. He who wakes us in the morning, who recalls all nature to new life, is soon called "The Giver of Daily Life."

Secondly, by another and bolder step, the Giver of Daily Light and Life becomes the giver of light and life in general. He who brings light and life to-day, is the same who brought light and life on the first of days. As light is the beginning of the day, so light was the beginning of creation, and the Sun, from being a mere light-bringer or life-giver, becomes a Creator, and, if a Creator, then soon also a Ruler of the World.

Thirdly, as driving away the dreaded darkness of the night, and likewise as fertilizing the earth, the Sun is conceived as a "Defender" and kind "Protector" of all living things.

Fourthly, the Sun sees everything, both that which is good and that which is evil; and how natural therefore that the evil-doer should be told that the sun sees what no human eye may have seen, and that the innocent, when all other help fails him, should appeal to the sun to attest his guiltlessness!

Let us examine now, says Prof. Müller, from whose work we have quoted the above, a few passages (from the Rig-Veda) illustrating every one of these perfectly natural transitions.

"In hymn vii. we find the Sun invoked as 'The Protector of everything that moves or stands, of all that exists.'"

"Frequent allusion is made to the Sun's power of seeing everything. The stars flee before the all-seeing Sun, like thieves (R. V. vii.). He sees the right and the wrong among men (Ibid.). He who looks upon the world, knows also all the thoughts in men (Ibid.)."

"As the Sun sees everything and knows everything, he is asked to forget and forgive what he alone has seen and knows (R. V. iv.)."

"The Sun is asked to drive away illness and bad dreams (R. V. x.)."

"Having once, and more than once, been invoked as the life-bringer, the Sun is also called the breath or life of all that moves and rests (R. V. i.); and lastly, he becomes the maker of all things, by whom all the worlds have been brought together (R. V. x.), and . . . Lord of man and of all living creatures."

"He is the God among gods (R. V. i.); he is the divine leader of all the gods (R. V. viii.)."

"He alone rules the whole world (R. V. v.). The laws which he has established are firm (R. V. iv.), and the other gods not only praise him (R. V. vii.), but have to follow him as their leader (R. V. v.)."[473:1]

That the history of Christ Jesus, the Christian Saviour,--"the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,"[473:2]--is simply the history of the Sun--the real Saviour of mankind--is demonstrated beyond a doubt from the following indisputable facts:

1. The birth of Christ Jesus is said to have taken place at early dawn[473:3] on the 25th day of December. Now, this is the Sun's birthday. At the commencement of the sun's apparent annual revolution round the earth, he was said to have been born, and, on the first moment after midnight of the 24th of December, all the heathen nations of the earth, as if by common consent, celebrated the accouchement of the "Queen of Heaven," of the "Celestial Virgin of the Sphere," and the birth of the god Sol. On that day the sun having fully entered the winter solstice, the Sign of the Virgin was rising on the eastern horizon. The woman's symbol of this stellar sign was represented first by ears of corn, then with a new-born male child in her arms. Such was the picture of the Persian sphere cited by Aben-Ezra:

"The division of the first decan of the Virgin represents a beautiful virgin with flowing hair, sitting in a chair, with two ears of corn in her hand, and suckling an infant called IESUS by some nations, and Christ in Greek."[474:1]

This denotes the Sun, which, at the moment of the winter solstice, precisely when the Persian magi drew the horoscope of the new year, was placed on the bosom of the Virgin, rising heliacally in the eastern horizon. On this account he was figured in their astronomical pictures under the form of a child suckled by a chaste virgin.[474:2]

Thus we see that Christ Jesus was born on the same day as Buddha, Mithras, Osiris, Horus, Hercules, Bacchus, Adonis and other personifications of the SUN.[474:3]

2. Christ Jesus was born of a Virgin. In this respect he is also the Sun, for 'tis the sun alone who can be born of an immaculate virgin, who conceived him without carnal intercourse, and who is still, after the birth of her child, a virgin.

This Virgin, of whom the Sun, the true "Saviour of Mankind," is born, is either the bright and beautiful Dawn,[474:4] or the dark Earth,[474:5] or Night.[474:6] Hence we have, as we have already seen, the Virgin, or Virgo, as one of the signs of the zodiac.[474:7]

This Celestial Virgin was feigned to be a mother. She is represented in the Indian Zodiac of Sir William Jones, with ears of corn in one hand, and the lotus in the other. In Kircher's Zodiac of Hermes, she has corn in both hands. In other planispheres of the Egyptian priests she carries ears of corn in one hand, and the infant Saviour Horus in the other. In Roman Catholic countries, she is generally represented with the child in one hand, and the lotus or lily in the other. In Vol. II. of Montfaucon's work, she is represented as a female nursing a child, with ears of corn in her hand, and the legend IAO. She is seated on clouds, a star is at her head. The reading of the Greek letters, from right to left, show this to be very ancient.

In the Vedic hymns Aditi, the Dawn, is called the "Mother of the Gods." "She is the mother with powerful, terrible, with royal sons." She is said to have given birth to the Sun.[475:1] "As the Sun and all the solar deities rise from the east," says Prof. Max Müller, "we can well understand how Aditi (the Dawn) came to be called the 'Mother of the Bright Gods.'"[475:2]

The poets of the Veda indulged freely in theogonic speculations without being frightened by any contradictions. They knew of Indra as the greatest of gods, they knew of Agni as the god of gods, they knew of Varuna as the ruler of all; but they were by no means startled at the idea that their Indra had a mother, or that Varuna was nursed in the lap of Aditi. All this was true to nature; for their god was the Sun, and the mother who bore and nursed him was the Dawn.[475:3]

We find in the Vishnu Purana, that Devaki (the virgin mother of the Hindoo Saviour Crishna, whose history, as we have seen, corresponds in most every particular with that of Christ Jesus) is called Aditi,[475:4] which, in the Rig-Veda, is the name for the Dawn. Thus we see the legend is complete. Devaki is Aditi, Aditi is the Dawn, and the Dawn is the Virgin Mother. "The Saviour of Mankind" who is born of her is the Sun, the Sun is Crishna, and Crishna is Christ.

In the Mahabharata, Crishna is also represented as the "Son of Aditi."[475:5] As the hour of his birth grew near, the mother became more beautiful, and her form more brilliant.[475:6]

Indra, the sun, who was worshiped in some parts of India as a Crucified God, is also represented in the Vedic hymns as the Son of the Dawn. He is said to have been born of Dahana, who is Daphne, a personification of the Dawn.[475:7]

The humanity of this SOLAR GOD-MAN, this demiurge, is strongly insisted on in the Rig-Veda. He is the son of God, but also the son of Aditi. He is Purusha, the man, the male. Agni is frequently called the "Son of man." It is expressly explained that the titles Agni, Indra, Mitra, &c., all refer to one Sun god under "many names." And when we find the name of a mortal, Yama, who once lived upon earth, included among these names, the humanity of the demiurge becomes still more accentuated, and we get at the root idea.

Horus, the Egyptian Saviour, was the son of the virgin Isis. Now, this Isis, in Egyptian mythology, is the same as the virgin Devaki in Hindoo mythology. She is the Dawn.[476:1] Isis, as we have already seen, is represented suckling the infant Horus, and, in the words of Prof. Renouf, we may say, "in whose lap can the Sun be nursed more fitly than in that of the Dawn?"[476:2]

Among the goddesses of Egypt, the highest was Neith, who reigned inseparably with Amun in the upper sphere. She was called "Mother of the gods," "Mother of the sun." She was the feminine origin of all things, as Amun was the male origin. She held the same rank at Sais as Amun did at Thebes. Her temples there are said to have exceeded in colossal grandeur anything ever seen before. On one of these was the celebrated inscription thus deciphered by Champollion:

"I am all that has been, all that is, all that will be. No mortal has ever raised the veil that conceals me. My offspring is the Sun."

She was mother of the Sun-god Ra, and, says Prof. Renouf, "is commonly supposed to represent Heaven; but some expressions which are hardly applicable to heaven, render it more probable that she is one of the many names of the Dawn."[476:3]

If we turn from Indian and Egyptian, to Grecian mythology, we shall also find that their Sun-gods and solar heroes are born of the same virgin mother. Theseus was said to have been born of Aithra, "the pure air," and OEdipus of Iokaste, "the violet light of morning." Perseus was born of the virgin Danae, and was called the "Son of the bright morning."[476:4] In Iô, the mother of the "sacred bull,"[476:5] the mother also of Hercules, we see the violet-tinted morning from which the sun is born; all these gods and heroes being, like Christ Jesus, personifications of the Sun.[476:6]

"The Saviour of Mankind" was also represented as being born of the "dusky mother," which accounts for many Pagan, and so-called Christian, goddesses being represented black.[477:1] This is the dark night, who for many weary hours travails with the birth of her child. The Sun, which scatters the darkness, is also the child of the darkness, and so the phrase naturally went that he was born of her. Of the two legends related in the poems afterwards combined in the "Hymn to Apollo," the former relates the birth of Apollo, the Sun, from Leto, the Darkness, which is called his mother.[477:2] In this case, Leto would be personified as a "black virgin," either with or without the child in her arms.

The dark earth was also represented as being the mother of the god Sun, who apparently came out of, or was born of her, in the East,[477:3] as Minos (the sun) was represented to have been born of Ida (the earth).[477:4]

In Hindoo mythology, the Earth, under the name of Prithivi, receives a certain share of honors as one of the primitive goddesses of the Veda, being thought of as the "kind mother." Moreover, various deities were regarded as the progeny resulting from the fancied union of the Earth with Dyaus (Heaven).[477:5]

Our Aryan forefathers looked up to the heavens and they gave it the name of Dyaus, from a root-word which means "to shine." And when, out of the forces and forms of nature, they afterwards fashioned other gods, this name of Dyaus became Dyaus pitar, the Heaven-father, or Lord of All; and in far later times, when the western Aryans had found their home in Europe, the Dyaus pitar of the central Asian land became the Zeupater of the Greeks, and the Jupiter of the Romans, and the first part of his name gave us the word Deity.

According to Egyptian mythology, Isis was also the Earth.[477:6] Again, from the union of Seb and Nut sprung the mild Osiris. Seb is the Earth, Nut is Heaven, and Osiris is the Sun.[477:7]

Tacitus, the Roman historian, speaking of the Germans in A. D. 98, says:

"There is nothing in these several tribes that merit attention, except that they all agree in worshiping the goddess Earth, or as they call her, Herth, whom they consider as the common mother of all."[477:8]

These virgin mothers, and virgin goddesses of antiquity, were also, at times, personifications of the Moon, or of Nature.[478:1]

Who is "God the Father," who overshadows the maiden? The overshadowing of the maiden by "God the Father," whether he be called Zeus, Jupiter or Jehovah, is simply the Heaven, the Sky, the "All-father,"[478:2] looking down upon with love, and overshadowing the maiden, the broad flushing light of Dawn, or the Earth. From this union the Sun is born without any carnal intercourse. The mother is yet a virgin. This is illustrated in Hindoo mythology by the union of Pritrivi, "Mother Earth," with Dyaus, "Heaven." Various deities were regarded as their progeny.[478:3] In the Vedic hymns the Sun--the Lord and Saviour, the Redeemer and Preserver of Mankind--is frequently called the "Son of the Sky."[478:4]

According to Egyptian mythology, Seb (the Earth) is overshadowed by Nut (Heaven), the result of this union being the beneficent Lord and Saviour, Osiris.[478:5] The same thing is to be found in ancient Grecian mythology. Zeus or Jupiter is the Sky,[478:6] and Danae, Leto, Iokaste, Io and others, are the Dawn, or the violet light of morning.[478:7]

"The Sky appeared to men (says Plutarch), to perform the functions of a Father, as the Earth those of a Mother. The sky was the father, for it cast seed into the bosom of the earth, which in receiving them became fruitful, and brought forth, and was the mother."[479:1]

This union has been sung in the following verses by Virgil:

"Tum pater omnipotens fecundis imbribis æther Conjugis in grenium lætæ descendit."

(Geor. ii.)

The Phenician theology is founded on the same principles. Heaven and Earth (called Ouranos and Ghè) are at the head of a genealogy of æons, whose adventures are conceived in the mythological style of these physical allegorists.[479:2]

In the Samothracian mysteries, which seem to have been the most anciently established ceremonies of the kind in Europe, the Heaven and the Earth were worshiped as a male and female divinity, and as the parents of all things.[479:3]

The Supreme God (the Al-fader), of the ancient Scandinavians was Odin, a personification of the Heavens. The principal goddess among them was Frigga, a personification of the Earth. It was the opinion among these people that this Supreme Being or Celestial God had united with the Earth (Frigga) to produce "Baldur the Good" (the Sun), who corresponds to the Apollo of the Greeks and Romans, and the Osiris of the Egyptians.[479:4]

Xiuletl, in the Mexican language, signifies Blue, and hence was a name which the Mexican gave to Heaven, from which Xiuleticutli is derived, an epithet signifying "the God of Heaven," which they bestowed upon Tezcatlipoca, who was the "Lord of All," the "Supreme God." He it was who overshadowed the Virgin of Tula, Chimelman, who begat the Saviour Quetzalcoatle (the Sun).

3. His birth was foretold by a star. This is the bright morning star--

"Fairest of stars, last in the train of Night, If better, thou belongst not to the Dawn, Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling morn With thy bright circlet"--

which heralds the birth of the god Sol, the beneficent Saviour.

A glance at a geography of the heavens will show the "chaste, pure, immaculate Virgin, suckling an infant," preceded by a Star, which rises immediately preceding the Virgin and her child. This can truly be called "his Star," which informed the "Wise Men," the "Magi"--Astrologers and Sun-worshipers--and "the shepherds who watched their flocks by night" that the Saviour of Mankind was about to be born.

4. The Heavenly Host sang praises. All nature smiles at the birth of the Heavenly Being. "To him all angels cry aloud, the heavens, and all the powers therein." "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men." "The quarters of the horizon are irradiate with joy, as if moonlight was diffused over the whole earth." "The spirits and nymphs of heaven dance and sing." "Caressing breezes blow, and a marvelous light is produced." For the Lord and Saviour is born, "to give joy and peace to men and Devas, to shed light in the dark places, and to give sight to the blind."[480:1]

5. He was visited by the Magi. This is very natural, for the Magi were Sun-worshipers, and at early dawn on the 25th of December, the astrologers of the Arabs, Chaldeans, and other Oriental nations, greeted the infant Saviour with gold, frankincense and myrrh. They started to salute their God long before the rising of the Sun, and having ascended a high mountain, they waited anxiously for his birth, facing the East, and there hailed his first rays with incense and prayer.[480:2] The shepherds also, who remained in the open air watching their flocks by night, were in the habit of prostrating themselves, and paying homage to their god, the Sun. And, like the poet of the Veda, they said:

"Will the powers of darkness be conquered by the god of light?"

And when the Sun rose, they wondered how, just born, he was so mighty. They greeted him:

"Hail, Orient Conqueror of Gloomy Night."

And the human eye felt that it could not bear the brilliant majesty of him whom they called, "The Life, the Breath, the Brilliant Lord and Father." And they said:

"Let us worship again the Child of Heaven, the Son of Strength, Arusha, the Bright Light of the Sacrifice." "He rises as a mighty flame, he stretches out his wide arms, he is even like the wind." "His light is powerful, and his (virgin) mother, the Dawn, gives him the best share, the first worship among men."[480:3]

6. He was born in a Cave. In this respect also, the history of Christ Jesus corresponds with that of other Sun-gods and Saviours, for they are nearly all represented as being born in a cave or dungeon. This is the dark abode from which the wandering Sun starts in the morning.[481:1] As the Dawn springs fully armed from the forehead of the cloven Sky, so the eye first discerns the blue of heaven, as the first faint arch of light is seen in the East. This arch is the cave in which the infant is nourished until he reaches his full strength--in other words, until the day is fully come.

As the hour of his birth drew near, the mother became more beautiful, her form more brilliant, while the dungeon was filled with a heavenly light as when Zeus came to Danae in a golden shower.[481:2]

At length the child is born, and a halo of serene light encircles his cradle, just as the Sun appears at early dawn in the East, in all its splendor. His presence reveals itself there, in the dark cave, by his first rays, which brightens the countenances of his mother and others who are present at his birth.[481:3]

6. He was ordered to be put to death. All the Sun-gods are fated to bring ruin upon their parents or the reigning monarch.[481:4] For this reason, they attempt to prevent his birth, and failing in this, seek to destroy him when born. Who is the dark and wicked Kansa, or his counterpart Herod? He is Night, who reigns supreme, but who must lose his power when the young prince of glory, the Invincible, is born.

The Sun scatters the Darkness; and so the phrase went that the child was to be the destroyer of the reigning monarch, or his parent, Night; and oracles, and magi, it was said, warned the latter of the doom which would overtake him. The newly-born babe is therefore ordered to be put to death by the sword, or exposed on the bare hillside, as the Sun seems to rest on the Earth (Ida) at its rising.[481:5]

In oriental mythology, the destroying principle is generally represented as a serpent or dragon.[482:1] Now, the position of the sphere on Christmas-day, the birthday of the Sun, shows the Serpent all but touching, and certainly aiming at the woman--that is, the figure of the constellation Virgo--who suckles the child Iessus in her arms. Thus we have it illustrated in the story of the snake who was sent to kill Hercules, when an infant in his cradle;[482:2] also in the story of Typhon, who sought the life of the infant Saviour Horus. Again, it is illustrated in the story of the virgin mother Astrea, with her babe beset by Orion, and of Latona, the mother of Apollo, when pursued by the monster.[482:3] And last, that of the virgin mother Mary, with her babe beset by Herod. But like Hercules, Horus, Apollo, Theseus, Romulus, Cyrus and other solar heroes, Christ Jesus has yet a long course before him. Like them, he grows up both wise and strong, and the "old Serpent" is discomfited by him, just as the sphynx and the dragon are put to night by others.

7. He was tempted by the devil. The temptation by, and victory over the evil one, whether Mara or Satan, is the victory of the Sun over the clouds of storm and darkness.[482:4] Growing up in obscurity, the day comes when he makes himself known, tries himself in his first battles with his gloomy foes, and shines without a rival. He is rife for his destined mission, but is met by the demon of storm, who runs to dispute with him in the duel of the storm. In this struggle against darkness the beneficent hero remains the conqueror, the gloomy army of Mara, or Satan, broken and rent, is scattered; the Apearas, daughters of the demon, the last light vapors which float in the heaven, try in vain to clasp and retain the vanquisher; he disengages himself from their embraces, repulses them; they writhe, lose their form, and vanish.

Free from every obstacle, and from every adversary, he sets in motion across space his disk with a thousand rays, having avenged the attempts of his eternal foe. He appears then in all his glory, and in his sovereign splendor; the god has attained the summit of his course, it is the moment of triumph.

8. He was put to death on the cross. The Sun has now reached his extreme Southern limit, his career is ended, and he is at last overcome by his enemies. The powers of darkness, and of winter, which had sought in vain to wound him, have at length won the victory. The bright Sun of summer is finally slain, crucified in the heavens, and pierced by the arrow, spear or thorn of winter.[483:1] Before he dies, however, he sees all his disciples--his retinue of light, and the twelve hours of the day, or the twelve months of the year--disappear in the sanguinary mêlée of the clouds of the evening.

Throughout the tale, the Sun-god was but fulfilling his doom. These things must be. The suffering of a violent death was a necessary part of the mythos; and, when his hour had come, he must meet his doom, as surely as the Sun, once risen, must go across the sky, and then sink down into his bed beneath the earth or sea. It was an iron fate from which there was no escaping.

Crishna, the crucified Saviour of the Hindoos, is a personification of the Sun crucified in the heavens. One of the names of the Sun in the Vedic hymns is Vishnu,[483:2] and Crishna is Vishnu in human form.[483:3]

In the hymns of the Rig-Veda the Sun is spoken of as "stretching out his arms," in the heavens, "to bless the world, and to rescue it from the terror of darkness."

Indra, the crucified Saviour worshiped in Nepal and Tibet,[484:1] is identical with Crishna, the Sun.[484:2]

The principal Phenician deity, El, which, says Parkhurst, in his Hebrew Lexicon, "was the very name the heathens gave to their god SOL, their Lord or Ruler of the Hosts of Heaven," was called "The Preserver (or Saviour) of the World," for the benefit of which he offered a mystical sacrifice.[484:3]

The crucified Iao ("Divine Love" personified) is the crucified Adonis, the Sun. The Lord and Saviour Adonis was called Iao.[484:4]

Osiris, the Egyptian Saviour, was crucified in the heavens. To the Egyptian the cross was the symbol of immortality, an emblem of the Sun, and the god himself was crucified to the tree, which denoted his fructifying power.[484:5]

Horus was also crucified in the heavens. He was represented, like Crishna and Christ Jesus, with outstretched arms in the vault of heaven.[484:6]

The story of the crucifixion of Prometheus was allegorical, for Prometheus was only a title of the SUN, expressing providence or foresight, wherefore his being crucified in the extremities of the earth, signified originally no more than the restriction of the power of the SUN during the winter months.[484:7]

Who was Ixion, bound on the wheel? He was none other than the god Sol, crucified in the heavens.[484:8] Whatever be the origin of the name, Ixion is the "Sun of noonday," crucified in the heavens, whose four-spoked wheel, in the words of Pindar, is seen whirling in the highest heaven.[484:9]

The wheel upon which Ixion and criminals were said to have been extended was a cross, although the name of the thing was dissembled among Christians; it was a St. Andrew's cross, of which two spokes confined the arms, and two the legs. (See Fig. No. 35.)

The allegorical tales of the triumphs and misfortunes of the Sun-gods of the ancient Greeks and Romans, signify the alternate exertion of the generative and destructive attributes.

Hercules is torn limb from limb; and in this catastrophe we see the blood-red sunset which closes the career of Hercules.[485:1] The Sun-god cannot rise to the life of the blessed gods until he has been slain. The morning cannot come until the Eôs who closed the previous day has faded away and died in the black abyss of night.

Achilleus and Meleagros represent alike the short-lived Sun, whose course is one of toil for others, ending in an early death, after a series of wonderful victories alternating with periods of darkness and gloom.[485:2]

In the tales of the Trojan war, it is related of Achilleus that he expires at the Skaian, or western gates of the evening. He is slain by Paris, who here appears as the Pani, or dark power, who blots out the light of the Sun from the heaven.[485:3]

We have also the story of Adonis, born of a virgin, and known in the countries where he was worshiped as "The Saviour of Mankind," killed by the wild boar, afterwards "rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven." This Adonis, Adonai--in Hebrew "My Lord"--is simply the Sun. He is crucified in the heavens, put to death by the wild boar, i. e., Winter. "Babylon called Typhon or Winter the boar; they said he killed Adonis or the fertile Sun."[485:4]

The Crucified Dove worshiped by the ancients, was none other than the crucified Sun. Adonis was called the Dove. At the ceremonies in honor of his resurrection from the dead, the devotees said, "Hail to the Dove! the Restorer of Light."[485:5] Fig. No. 35 is the "Crucified Dove" as described by Pindar, the great lyric poet of Greece, born about 522 B. C.

"We read in Pindar, (says the author of a learned work entitled "Nimrod,") of the venerable bird Iynx bound to the wheel, and of the pretended punishment of Ixion. But this rotation was really no punishment, being, as Pindar saith, voluntary, and prepared by himself and for himself; or if it was, it was appointed in derision of his false pretensions, whereby he gave himself out as the crucified spirit of the world." "The four spokes represent St. Andrew's cross, adapted to the four limbs extended, and furnish perhaps the oldest profane allusion to the crucifixion. The same cross of St. Andrew was the Taw, which Ezekiel commands them to mark upon the foreheads of the faithful, as appears from all Israelitish coins whereon that letter is engraved. The same idea was familiar to Lucian, who calls T the letter of crucifixion. Certainly, the veneration for the cross is very ancient. Iynx, the bird of Mautic inspiration, bound to the four-legged wheel, gives the notion of Divine Love crucified. The wheel denotes the world, of which she is the spirit, and the cross the sacrifice made for that world."[486:1]

This "Divine Love," of whom Nimrod speaks, was "The First-begotten Son" of the Platonists. The crucifixion of "Divine Love" is often found among the Greeks. Iönah or Juno, according to the Iliad, was bound with fetters, and suspended in space, between heaven and earth. Ixion, Prometheus, Apollo of Miletus, (anciently the greatest and most flourishing city of Ionia, in Asia Minor), were all crucified.[486:2]

Semi-Ramis was both a queen of unrivaled celebrity, and also a goddess, worshiped under the form of a Dove. Her name signifies the Supreme Dove. She is said to have been slain by the last survivor of her sons, while others say, she flew away as a bird--a Dove. In both Grecian and Hindoo histories this mystical queen Semiramis is said to have fought a battle on the banks of the Indus, with a king called Staurobates, in which she was defeated, and from which she flew away in the form of a Dove. Of this Nimrod says:

"The name Staurobates, the king by whom Semiramis was finally overpowered, alluded to the cross on which she perished," and that, "the crucifixion was made into a glorious mystery by her infatuated adorers."[486:3]

Here again we have the crucified Dove, the Sun, for it is well known that the ancients personified the Sun female as well as male.

We have also the fable of the Crucified Rose, illustrated in the jewel of the Rosicrucians. The jewel of the Rosicrucians is formed of a transparent red stone, with a red cross on one side, and a red rose on the other--thus it is a crucified rose. "The Rossi, or Rosy-crucians' idea concerning this emblematic red cross," says Hargrave Jennings, in his History of the Rosicrucians, "probably came from the fable of Adonis--who was the Sun whom we have so often seen crucified--being changed into a red rose by Venus."[487:1]

The emblem of the Templars is a red rose on a cross. "When it can be done, it is surrounded with a glory, and placed on a calvary (Fig. No. 36). This is the Naurutz, Natsir, or Rose of Isuren, of Tamul, or Sharon, or the Water Rose, the Lily Padma, Pena, Lotus, crucified in the heavens for the salvation of man."[487:2]

Christ Jesus was called the ROSE--the Rose of Sharon--of Isuren. He was the renewed incarnation of Divine Wisdom. He was the son of Maia or Maria. He was the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley, which bloweth in the month of his mother Maia. Thus, when the angel Gabriel gives the salutation to the Virgin, he presents her with the lotus or lily; as may be seen in hundreds of old pictures in Italy. We see therefore that Adonis, "the Lord," "the Virgin-born," "the Crucified," "the Resurrected Dove," "the Restorer of Light," is one and the same with the "Rose of Sharon," the crucified Christ Jesus.

Plato (429 B. C.) in his Pimæus, philosophizing about the Son of God, says:

"The next power to the Supreme God was decussated or figured in the shape of a cross on the universe."

This brings to recollection the doctrine of certain so-called Christian heretics, who maintained that Christ Jesus was crucified in the heavens.

The Chrèstos was the Logos, the Sun was the manifestation of the Logos or Wisdom to men; or, as it was held by some, it was his peculiar habitation. The Sun being crucified at the time of the winter solstice was represented by the young man slaying the Bull (an emblem of the Sun) in the Mithraic ceremonies, and the slain lamb at the foot of the cross in the Christian ceremonies. The Chrest was the Logos, or Divine Wisdom, or a portion of divine wisdom incarnate; in this sense he is really the Sun or the solar power incarnate, and to him everything applicable to the Sun will apply.

Fig. No. 37, taken from Mr. Lundy's "Monumental Christianity," is evidently a representation of the Christian Saviour crucified in the heavens. Mr. Lundy calls it "Crucifixion in Space," and believes that it was intended for the Hindoo Saviour Crishna, who is also represented crucified in space (See Fig. No. 8, Ch. XX.). This (Fig. 37) is exactly in the form of a Romish crucifix, but not fixed to a piece of wood, though the legs and feet are put together in the usual way. There is a glory over it, coming from above, not shining from the figure, as is generally seen in a Roman crucifix. It has a pointed Parthian coronet instead of a crown of thorns. All the avatars, or incarnations of Vishnu, are painted with Ethiopian or Parthian coronets. For these reasons the Christian author will not own that it is a representation of the "True Son of Justice," for he was not crucified in space; but whether it was intended to represent Crishna, Wittoba, or Jesus,[488:1] it tells a secret: it shows that some one was represented crucified in the heavens, and undoubtedly has something to do with "The next power to the Supreme God," who, according to Plato, "was decussated or figured in the shape of a cross on the universe."

Who was the crucified god whom the ancient Romans worshiped, and whom they, according to Justin Martyr, represented as a man on a cross? Can we doubt, after what we have seen, that he was this same crucified Sol, whose birthday they annually celebrated on the 25th of December?

In the poetical tales of the ancient Scandinavians, the same legend is found. Frey, the Deity of the Sun, was fabled to have been killed, at the time of the winter solstice, by the same boar who put the god Adonis to death, therefore a boar was annually offered to him at the great feast of Yule.[489:1] "Baldur the Good," son of the supreme god Odin, and the virgin-goddess Frigga, was also put to death by the sharp thorn of winter.

The ancient Mexican crucified Saviour, Quetzalcoatle, another personification of the Sun, was sometimes represented as crucified in space, in the heavens, in a circle of nineteen figures, the number of the metonic cycle. A serpent (the emblem of evil, darkness, and winter) is depriving him of the organs of generation.[489:2]

We have seen in Chapter XXXIII. that Christ Jesus, and many of the heathen saviours, healers, and preserving gods, were represented in the form of a Serpent. This is owing to the fact that, in one of its attributes, the Serpent was an emblem of the Sun. It may, at first, appear strange that the Serpent should be an emblem of evil, and yet also an emblem of the beneficent divinity; but, as Prof. Renouf remarks, in his Hibbert Lectures, "The moment we understand the nature of a myth, all impossibilities, contradictions, and immoralities disappear." The serpent is an emblem of evil when represented with his deadly sting; he is the emblem of eternity when represented casting off his skin;[489:3] and an emblem of the Sun when represented with his tail in his mouth, thus forming a circle.[489:4] Thus there came to be, not only good, but also bad, serpents, both of which are referred to in the narrative of the Hebrew exodus, but still more clearly in the struggle between the good and the bad serpents of Persian mythology, which symbolized Ormuzd, or Mithra, and the evil spirit Ahriman.[489:5]

As the Dove and the Rose, emblems of the Sun, were represented on the cross, so was the Serpent.[489:6] The famous "Brazen Serpent," said to have been "set up" by Moses in the wilderness, is called in the Targum (the general term for the Aramaic versions of the Old Testament) the SAVIOUR. It was probably a serpentine crucifix, as it is called a cross by Justin Martyr. The crucified serpent (Fig. No. 38) denoted the quiescent Phallos, or the Sun after it had lost its power. It is the Sun in winter, crucified on the tree, which denoted its fructifying power.[490:1] As Mr. Wake remarks, "There can be no doubt that both the Pillar (Phallus) and the Serpent were associated with many of the Sun-gods of antiquity."[490:2]

This is seen in Fig. No. 39, taken from an ancient medal, which represents the serpent with rays of glory surrounding his head.

The Ophites, who venerated the serpent as an emblem of Christ Jesus, are said to have maintained that the serpent of Genesis--who brought wisdom into the world--was Christ Jesus. The brazen serpent was called the WORD by the Chaldee paraphrast. The Word, or Logos, was Divine Wisdom, which was crucified; thus we have the cross, or Linga, or Phallus, with the serpent upon it. Besides considering the serpent as the emblem of Christ Jesus, or of the Logos, the Ophites are said to have revered it as the cause of all the arts of civilized life. In Chapter XII. we saw that several illustrious females were believed to have been selected and impregnated by the Holy Ghost. In some cases, a serpent was supposed to be the form which it assumed. This was the incarnation of the Logos.

The serpent was held in great veneration by the ancients, who, as we have seen, considered it as the symbol of the beneficent Deity, and an emblem of eternity. As such it has been variously expressed on ancient sculptures and medals in various parts of the globe.

Although generally, it did not always, symbolize the god Sun, or the power of which the Sun is an emblem; but, invested with various meanings, it entered widely into the primitive mythologies. As Mr. Squire observes:

"It typified wisdom, power, duration, the good and evil principles, life, reproduction--in short, in Egypt, Syria, Greece, India, China, Scandinavia, America, everywhere on the globe, it has been a prominent emblem."[491:1]

The serpent was the symbol of Vishnu, the preserving god, the Saviour, the Sun.[491:2] It was an emblem of the Sun-god Buddha, the Angel-Messiah.[491:3] The Egyptian Sun-god Osiris, the Saviour, is associated with the snake.[491:4] The Persian Mithra, the Mediator, Redeemer, and Saviour, was symbolized by the serpent.[491:5] The Phenicians represented their beneficent Sun-god Agathodemon, by a serpent.[491:6] The serpent was, among the Greeks and Romans, the emblem of a beneficent genius. Antipator of Sidon, calls the god Ammon, the "Renowned Serpent."[491:7] The Grecian Hercules--the Sun-god--was symbolized as a serpent; and so was Æsculapius and Apollo. The Hebrews, who, as we have seen in Chapter XI., worshiped the god Sol, represented him in the form of a serpent. This is the seraph--spoken of above--as set up by Moses (Num. xxi. 3) and worshiped by the children of Israel. SE RA PH is the singular of seraphim, meaning Semilicé--splendor, fire, light--emblematic of the fiery disk of the Sun, and which, under the name of Nehush-tan, "Serpent-dragon," was broken up by the reforming Hezekiah.

The principal god of the Aztecs was Tonac-atlcoatl, which means the Serpent Sun.[491:8]

The Mexican virgin-born Lord and Saviour, Quetzalcoatle, was represented in the form of a serpent. In fact, his name signifies "Feathered Serpent." Quetzalcoatle was a personification of the Sun.[491:9]

Under the aspect of the active principle, we may rationally connect the Serpent and the Sun, as corresponding symbols of the reproductive or creative power. Figure No. 40 is a symbolical sign, representing the disk of the Sun encircled by the serpent Uraeus, meaning the "KING SUN," or "ROYAL SUN," as it often surmounts the persons of Egyptian monarchs, confirmed by the emblem of LIFE depending from the serpent's neck.[492:1]

The mysteries of Osiris, Isis, and Horus, in Egypt; Atys and Cybele, in Phrygia; Ceres and Proserpine, at Eleusis; of Venus and Adonis, in Phenicia; of Bona Dea and Priapus, in Rome, are all susceptible of one explanation. They all set forth and illustrated, by solemn and impressive rites, and mystical symbols, the grand phenomenon of nature, especially as connected with the creation of things and the perpetuation of life. In all, it is worthy of remark, the SERPENT was more or less conspicuously introduced, and always as symbolical of the invigorating or active energy of nature, the SUN.

We have seen (in Chapter XX.) that in early Christian art Christ Jesus also was represented as a crucified Lamb. This crucified lamb is "the Lamb of God taking away the sins of the world, and slain from the foundation of the world."[492:2] In other words, the crucified lamb typifies the crucified Sun, for the lamb was another symbol of the Sun, as we shall presently see.

We find, then, that the stories of the crucifixions of the different so-called SAVIOURS of mankind all melt into ONE, and that they are allegorical, for "Saviour" was only a title of the Sun,[492:3] and his being put to death on the cross, signifies no more than the restriction of the power of the Sun in the winter quarter. With Justin Martyr, then, we can say:

"There exists not a people, whether Greek or barbarian, or any other race of men, by whatsoever appellation or manners they may be distinguished, however ignorant of arts or agriculture, whether they dwell under the tents, or wander about in crowded wagons, among whom prayers are not offered up in the name of A CRUCIFIED SAVIOUR[493:1] to the Father and creator of all things."[493:2]

9. "And many women were there beholding afar off."[493:3] The tender mother who had watched over him at his birth, and the fair maidens whom he has loved, will never forsake him. They yet remain with him, and while their tears drop on his feet, which they kiss, their voices cheer him in his last hour. In these we have the Dawn, who bore him, and the fair and beautiful lights which flush the Eastern sky as the Sun sinks or dies in the West.[493:4] Their tears are the tears of dew, such as Eôs weeps at the death of her child.

All the Sun-gods forsake their homes and virgin mothers, and wander through different countries doing marvellous things. Finally, at the end of their career, the mother, from whom they were parted long ago, is by their side to cheer them in their last hours.[493:5]

The ever-faithful women were to be found at the last scene in the life of Buddha. Kasyapa having found the departed master's feet soiled and wet, asked Nanda the cause of it. "He was told that a weeping woman had embraced Gautama's feet shortly before his death, and that her tears had fallen on his feet and left the marks on them."[493:6]

In his last hours, OEdipous (the Sun) has been cheered by the presence of Antigone.[493:7]

At the death of Hercules, Iole (the fair-haired Dawn) stands by his side, cheering him to the last. With her gentle hands she sought to soothe his pain, and with pitying words to cheer him in his woe. Then once more the face of Hercules flushed with a deep joy, and he said:

"Ah, Iole, brightest of maidens, thy voice shall cheer me as I sink down in the sleep of death. I saw and loved thee in the bright morning time, and now again thou hast come, in the evening, fair as the soft clouds which gather around the dying Sun."

The black mists were spreading over the sky, but still Hercules sought to gaze on the fair face of Iole, and to comfort her in her sorrow.

"Weep not, Iole," he said, "my toil is done, and now is the time for rest. I shall see thee again in the bright land which is never trodden by the feet of night."

The same story is related in the legend of Apollo. The Dawn, from whom he parted in the early part of his career, comes to his side at eventide, and again meets him when his journey on earth has well nigh come to an end.[494:1]

When the Lord Prometheus was crucified on Mt. Caucasus, his especially professed friend, Oceanus, the fisherman, as his name, Petræus, indicates,[494:2] being unable to prevail on him to make his peace with Jupiter, by throwing the cause of human redemption out of his hands,[494:3] "forsook him and fled." None remained to be witnesses of his dying agonies, but the chorus of ever amiable and ever-faithful women, which also bewailed and lamented him, but were unable to subdue his inflexible philanthropy.[494:4]

10. "There was darkness all over the land."[494:5] In the same manner ends the tale of the long toil and sorrows of other Sun-gods. The last scene exhibits a manifest return to the spirit of the solar myth. He must not die the common death of all men, for no disease or corruption can touch the body of the brilliant Sun. After a long struggle against the dark clouds who are arrayed against him, he is finally overcome, and dies. Blacker and blacker grow the evening shades, and finally "there is darkness on the face of the earth," and the din of its thunder clashes through the air.[494:6]

It is the picture of a sunset in wild confusion, of a sunset more awful, yet not more sad, than that which is seen in the last hours of many other Sun-gods.[494:7] It is the picture of the loneliness of the Sun, who sinks slowly down, with the ghastly hues of death upon his face, while none is nigh to cheer him save the ever-faithful women.

11. "He descended into hell."[494:8] This is the Sun's descent into the lower regions. It enters the sign Capricornus, or the Goat, and the astronomical winter begins. The days have reached their shortest span, and the Sun has reached his extreme southern limit. The winter solstice reigns, and the Sun seems to stand still in his southern course. For three days and three nights he remains in hell--the lower regions.[495:1] In this respect Christ Jesus is like other Sun-gods.[495:2]

In the ancient sagas of Iceland, the hero who is the Sun personified, descends into a tomb, where he fights a vampire. After a desperate struggle, the hero overcomes, and rises to the surface of the earth. "This, too, represents the Sun in the northern realms, descending into the tomb of winter, and there overcoming the power of darkness."[495:3]

12. He rose again from the dead, and ascended into heaven. Resurrections from the dead, and ascensions into heaven, are generally acknowledged to be solar features, as the history of many solar heroes agree in this particular.

At the winter solstice the ancients wept and mourned for Tammuz, the fair Adonis, and other Sun-gods, done to death by the boar, or crucified--slain by the thorn of winter--and on the third day they rejoiced at the resurrection of their "Lord of Light."[495:4]

With her usual policy, the Church endeavored to give a Christian significance to the rites which they borrowed from heathenism, and in this case, the mourning for Tammuz, the fair Adonis, became the mourning for Christ Jesus, and joy at the rising of the natural Sun became joy at the rising of the "Sun of Righteousness"--at the resurrection of Christ Jesus from the grave.

This festival of the Resurrection was generally held by the ancients on the 25th of March, when the awakening of Spring may be said to be the result of the return of the Sun from the lower or far-off regions to which he had departed. At the equinox--say, the vernal--at Easter, the Sun has been below the equator, and suddenly rises above it. It has been, as it were, dead to us, but now it exhibits a resurrection.[496:1] The Saviour rises triumphant over the powers of darkness, to life and immortality, on the 25th of March, when the Sun rises in Aries.

Throughout all the ancient world, the resurrection of the god Sol, under different names, was celebrated on March 25th, with great rejoicings.[496:2]

In the words of the Rev. Geo. W. Cox:

"The wailing of the Hebrew women at the death of Tammuz, the crucifixion and resurrection of Osiris, the adoration of the Babylonian Mylitta, the Sacti ministers of Hindu temples, the cross and crescent of Isis, the rites of the Jewish altar of Baal-Peor, wholly preclude all doubt of the real nature of the great festivals and mysteries of Phenicians, Jews, Assyrians, Egyptians, and Hindus."[496:3]

All this was Sun and Nature worship, symbolized by the Linga and Yoni. As Mr. Bonwick says:

"The philosophic theist who reflects upon the story, known from the walls of China, across Asia and Europe, to the plateau of Mexico, cannot resist the impression that no materialistic theory of it can be satisfactory."[496:4]

Allegory alone explains it.

"The Church, at an early date, selected the heathen festivals of Sun worship for its own, ordering the birth at Christmas, a fixed time, and the resurrection at Easter, a varying time, as in all Pagan religions; since, though the Sun rose directly after the vernal equinox, the festival, to be correct in a heathen point of view, had to be associated with the new moon."[496:5]

The Christian, then, may well say:

"When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of winter, thou didst open the kingdom of heaven (i. e., bring on the reign of summer), to all believers."

13. Christ Jesus is Creator of all things. We have seen (in Chapter XXVI.) that it was not God the Father, who was supposed by the ancients to have been the Creator of the world, but God the Son, the Redeemer and Saviour of Mankind. Now, this Redeemer and Saviour was, as we have seen, the Sun, and Prof. Max Müller tells us that in the Vedic mythology, the Sun is not the bright Deva only, "who performs his daily task in the sky, but he is supposed to perform much greater work. He is looked upon, in fact, as the Ruler, as the Establisher, as the Creator of the world."[496:6]

Having been invoked as the "Life-bringer," the Sun is also called--in the Rig-Veda--"the Breath or Life of all that move and rest;" and lastly he becomes "The Maker of all things," by whom all the worlds have been brought together.[497:1]

There is a prayer in the Vedas, called Gayatree, which consists of three measured lines, and is considered the holiest and most efficacious of all their religious forms. Sir William Jones translates it thus:

"Let us adore the supremacy of that spiritual Sun, the godhead, who illuminates all, who re-creates all, from whom all proceed, to whom all must return; whom we invoke to direct our undertakings aright in our progress toward his holy seat."

With Seneca (a Roman philosopher, born at Cordova, Spain, 61 B. C.) then, we can say:

"You may call the Creator of all things by different names (Bacchus, Hercules, Mercury, etc.), but they are only different names of the same divine being, the Sun."

14. He is to be Judge of the quick and the dead. Who is better able than the Sun to be the judge of man's deeds, seeing, as he does, from his throne in heaven, all that is done on earth? The Vedas speak of Sûrya--the pervading, irresistible luminary--as seeing all things and hearing all things, noting the good and evil deeds of men.[497:2]

According to Hindoo mythology, says Prof. Max Müller:

"The Sun sees everything, both what is good and what is evil; and how natural therefore that (in the Indian Veda) both the evil-doer should be told that the sun sees what no human eye may have seen, and that the innocent, when all other help fails him, should appeal to the sun to attest his guiltlessness."

"Frequent allusion is made (in the Rig-Veda), to the sun's power of seeing everything. The stars flee before the all-seeing sun, like thieves. He sees the right and the wrong among men. He who looks upon the world knows also the thoughts in all men. As the sun sees everything and knows everything, he is asked to forget and forgive what he alone has seen and knows."[497:3]

On the most ancient Egyptian monuments, Osiris, the Sun personified, is represented as Judge of the dead. The Egyptian "Book of the Dead," the oldest Bible in the world, speaks of Osiris as "seeing all things, and hearing all things, noting the good and evil deeds of men."

15. He will come again sitting on a white horse. The "second coming" of Vishnu (Crishna), Christ Jesus, and other Sun-gods, are also astronomical allegories. The white horse, which figures so conspicuously in the legend, was the universal symbol of the Sun among Oriental nations.

Throughout the whole legend, Christ Jesus is the toiling Sun, laboring for the benefit of others, not his own, and doing hard service for a mean and cruel generation. Watch his sun-like career of brilliant conquest, checked with intervals of storm, and declining to a death clouded with sorrow and derision. He is in constant company with his twelve apostles, the twelve signs of the zodiac.[498:1] During the course of his life's journey he is called "The God of Earthly Blessing," "The Saviour through whom a new life springs," "The Preserver," "The Redeemer," &c. Almost at his birth the Serpent of darkness attempts to destroy him. Temptations to sloth and luxury are offered him in vain. He has his work to do, and nothing can stay him from doing it, as nothing can arrest the Sun in his journey through the heavens. Like all other solar heroes, he has his faithful women who love him, and the Marys and Martha here play the part. Of his toils it is scarcely necessary to speak in detail. They are but a thousand variations on the story of the great conflict which all the Sun-gods wage against the demon of darkness. He astonishes his tutor when sent to school. This we might expect to be the case, when an incomparable and incommunicable wisdom is the heritage of the Sun. He also represents the wisdom and beneficence of the bright Being who brings life and light to men. As the Sun wakens the earth to life when the winter is done, so Crishna, Buddha, Horus, Æsculapius, and Christ Jesus were raisers of the dead. When the leaves fell and withered on the approach of winter, the "daughter of the earth" would be spoken of as dying or dead, and, as no other power than that of the Sun can recall vegetation to life, this child of the earth would be represented as buried in a sleep from which the touch of the Sun alone could rouse her.

Christ Jesus, then, is the Sun, in his short career and early death. He is the child of the Dawn, whose soft, violet hues tint the clouds of early morn; his father being the Sky, the "Heavenly Father," who has looked down with love upon the Dawn, and overshadowed her. When his career on earth is ended, and he expires, the loving mother, who parted from him in the morning of his life, is at his side, looking on the death of the Son whom she cannot save from the doom which is on him, while her tears fall on his body like rain at sundown. From her he is parted at the beginning of his course; to her he is united at its close. But Christ Jesus, like Crishna, Buddha, Osiris, Horus, Mithras, Apollo, Atys and others, rises again, and thus the myth takes us a step beyond the legend of Serpedon and others, which stop at the end of the eastward journey, when the night is done.

According to the Christian calendar, the birthday of John the Baptist is on the day of the summer solstice, when the sun begins to decrease. How true to nature then are the words attributed to him in the fourth Gospel, when he says that he must decrease, and Jesus increase.

Among the ancient Teutonic nations, fires were lighted, on the tops of hills, on the 24th of June, in honor of the WENDING SUN. This custom is still kept up in Southern Germany and the Scotch highlands, and it is the day selected by the Roman Catholic church to celebrate the nativity of John the Baptist.[499:1]

Mosheim, the ecclesiastical historian, speaking of the uncertainty of the time when Christ Jesus was born, says: "The uncertainty of this point is of no great consequence. We know that the Sun of Righteousness has shone upon the world; and although we cannot fix the precise period in which he arose, this will not preclude us from enjoying the direction and influence of his vital and salutary beams."

These sacred legends abound with such expressions as can have no possible or conceivable application to any other than to the "God of day." He is "a light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory (or brightness) of his people."[499:2] He is come "a light into the world, that whosoever believeth in him should not abide in darkness."[499:3] He is "the light of the world."[499:4] He "is light, and in him no darkness is."[499:5]

"Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, Adonai, and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night."--Collect, in Evening Service.

God of God, light of light, very God of very God."--_Nicene Creed._

"Merciful Adonai, we beseech thee to cast thy bright beams of light upon thy Church."--Collect of St. John.

"To thee all angels cry aloud, the heavens, and all the powers therein."

"Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of thy glory" (or brightness).

"The glorious company of the (twelve months, or) apostles praise thee."

"Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ!"

"When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man, thou passest through the constellation, or zodiacal sign--the Virgin."

"When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of winter, thou didst open the kingdom of heaven (i. e., bring on the reign of the summer months) to all believers."

"All are agreed," says Cicero, "that Apollo is none other than the SUN, because the attributes which are commonly ascribed to Apollo do so wonderfully agree thereto."

Just so surely as Apollo is the Sun, so is the Lord Christ Jesus the Sun. That which is so conclusive respecting the Pagan deities, applies also to the God of the Christians; but, like the Psalmist of old, they cry, "Touch not MY Christ, and do my prophets no harm."

Many Christian writers have seen that the history of their Lord and Saviour is simply the history of the Sun, but they either say nothing, or, like Dr. Parkhurst and the Rev. J. P. Lundy, claim that the Sun is a type of the true Sun of Righteousness. Mr. Lundy, in his "Monumental Christianity," says:

"Is there no bright Sun of Righteousness--no personal and loving Son of God, of whom the material Sun has been the type or symbol, in all ages and among all nations? What power is it that comes from the Sun to give light and heat to all created things? If the symbolical Sun leads such a great earthly and heavenly flock, what must be said to the true and only begotten Son of God? If Apollo was adopted by early Christian art as a type of the Good Shepherd of the New Testament, then this interpretation of the Sun-god among all nations must be the solution of the universal mythos, or what other solution can it have? To what other historical personage but Christ can it apply? If this mythos has no spiritual meaning, then all religion becomes mere idolatry, or the worship of material things."[500:1]

Mr. Lundy, who seems to adhere to this once-upon-a-time favorite theory, illustrates it as follows:

"The young Isaac is his (Christ's) Hebrew type, bending under the wood, as Christ fainted under the cross; Daniel is his type, stripped of all earthly fame and greatness, and cast naked into the deepest danger, shame and humiliation." "Noah is his type, in saving men from utter destruction, and bringing them across the sea of death to a new world and a new life." "Orpheus is a type of Christ. Agni and Crishna of India; Mithra of Persia; Horus and Apollo of Egypt, are all types of Christ." "Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza and defeating the Philistines by his own death, was considered as a type of Christ bursting open and carrying away the gates of Hades, and conquering His and our enemies by his death and resurrection."[501:1]

According to this theory, the whole Pagan religion was typical of Christ and Christianity. Why then were not the Pagans the Lord's chosen people instead of the children of Israel?

The early Christians were charged with being a sect of Sun worshipers.[501:2] The ancient Egyptians worshiped the god Serapis, and Serapis was the Sun. Fig. No. 11, page 194, shows the manner in which Serapis was personified. It might easily pass for a representation of the Sun-god of the Christians. Mr. King says, in his "Gnostics, and their Remains":

"There can be no doubt that the head of Serapis, marked as the face is by a grave and pensive majesty, supplied the first idea for the conventional portraits of the Saviour."[501:3]

The Imperial Russian Collection boasts of a head of Christ Jesus which is said to be very ancient. It is a fine intaglio on emerald. Mr. King says of it:

"It is in reality a head of Serapis, seen in front and crowned with Persia boughs, easily mistaken for thorns, though the bushel on the head leaves no doubt as to the real personage intended."[501:4]

It must not be forgotten, in connection with this, that the worshipers of Serapis, or the Sun, were called Christians.[501:5]

Mrs. Jameson, speaking on this subject, says:

"We search in vain for the lightest evidence of his (Christ's) human, individual semblance, in the writing of those disciples who knew him so well. In this instance the instincts of earthly affection seem to have been mysteriously overruled. He whom all races of men were to call brother, was not to be too closely associated with the particular lineaments of any one. St. John, the beloved disciple, could lie on the breast of Jesus with all the freedom of fellowship, but not even he has left a word to indicate what manner of man was the Divine Master after the flesh. . . . Legend has, in various form, supplied this natural craving, but it is hardly necessary to add, that all accounts of pictures of our Lord taken from Himself are without historical foundation. We are therefore left to imagine the expression most befitting the character of him who took upon himself our likeness, and looked at the woes and sins of mankind through the eyes of our mortality."[501:6]

The Rev. Mr. Geikie says, in his "Life of Christ":

"No hint is given in the New Testament of Christ's appearance; and the early Church, in the absence of all guiding facts, had to fall back on imagination."

"In its first years, the Christian church fancied its Lord's visage and form marred more than those of other men; and that he must have had no attractions of personal beauty. Justin Martyr (A. D. 150-160) speaks of him as without beauty or attractiveness, and of mean appearance. Clement of Alexandria (A. D. 200), describes him as of an uninviting appearance, and almost repulsive. Tertullian (A. D. 200-210) says he had not even ordinary human beauty, far less heavenly. Origen (A. D. 230) went so far as to say that he was 'small in body and deformed', as well as low-born, and that, 'his only beauty was in his soul and life.'"[502:1]

One of the favorite ways finally, of depicting him, was, as Mr. Lundy remarks:

"Under the figure of a beautiful and adorable youth, of about fifteen or eighteen years of age, beardless, with a sweet expression of countenance, and long and abundant hair flowing in curls over his shoulders. His brow is sometimes encircled by a diadem or bandeau, like a young priest of the Pagan gods; that is, in fact, the favorite figure. On sculptured sarcophagi, in fresco paintings and Mosaics, Christ is thus represented as a graceful youth, just as Apollo was figured by the Pagans, and as angels are represented by Christians."[502:2]

Thus we see that the Christians took the paintings and statues of the Sun-gods Serapis and Apollo as models, when they wished to represent their Saviour. That the former is the favorite at the present day need not be doubted when we glance at Fig. No. 11, page 194.

Mr. King, speaking of this god, and his worshipers, says:

"There is very good reason to believe that in the East the worship of Serapis was at first combined with Christianity, and gradually merged into it with an entire change of name, not substance, carrying with it many of its ancient notions and rites."[502:3]

Again he says:

"In the second century the syncretistic sects that had sprung up in Alexandria, the very hotbed of Gnosticism, found out in Serapis a prophetic type of Christ, or the Lord and Creator of all."[502:4]

The early Christians, or worshipers of the Sun, under the name of "Christ," had, as all Sun-worshipers, a peculiar regard to the East--the quarter in which their god rose--to which point they ordinarily directed their prayers.[502:5]

The followers of Mithra always turned towards the East, when they worshiped; the same was done by the Brahmans of the East, and the Christians of the West. In the ceremony of baptism, the catechumen was placed with his face to the West, the symbolical representation of the prince of darkness, in opposition to the East, and made to spit towards it at the evil one, and renounce his works.

Tertullian says, that Christians were taken for worshipers of the Sun because they prayed towards the East, after the manner of those who adored the Sun. The Essenes--whom Eusebius calls Christians--always turned to the east to pray. The Essenes met once a week, and spent the night in singing hymns, &c., which lasted till sun-rising. As soon as dawn appeared, they retired to their cells, after saluting one another. Pliny says the Christians of Bithynia met before it was light, and sang hymns to Christ, as to a God. After their service they saluted one another. Surely the circumstances of the two classes of people meeting before daylight, is a very remarkable coincidence. It is just what the Persian Magi, who were Sun worshipers, were in the habit of doing.

When a Manichæan Christian came over to the orthodox Christians, he was required to curse his former friends in the following terms:

"I curse Zarades (Zoroaster?) who, Manes said, had appeared as a god before his time among the Indians and Persians, and whom he calls the Sun. I curse those who say Christ is the Sun, and who make prayers to the Sun, and who do not pray to the true God, only towards the East, but who turn themselves round, following the motions of the Sun with their innumerable supplications. I curse those person who say that Zarades and Budas and Christ and the Sun are all one and the same."

There are not many circumstances more striking than that of Christ Jesus being originally worshiped under the form of a LAMB--the actual "Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world." As we have already seen (in Chap. XX.), it was not till the Council of Constantinople, called In Trullo, held so late as the year 707, that pictures of Christ Jesus were ordered to be drawn in the form of a man. It was ordained that, in the place of the figure of a LAMB, the symbol used to that time, the figure of a man nailed to a cross, should in future be used.[503:1] From this decree, the identity of the worship of the Celestial Lamb and the Christian Saviour is certified beyond the possibility of doubt, and the mode by which the ancient superstitions were propagated is satisfactorily shown. Nothing can more clearly prove the general practice than the order of a council to regulate it.

The worship of the constellation of Aries was the worship of the Sun in his passage through that sign. "This constellation was called by the ancients the Lamb of God. He was also called the Saviour, and was said to save mankind from their sins. He was always honored with the appellation of Dominus or Lord. He was called The Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world. The devotees addressed him in their litany, constantly repeating the words, 'O Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. Grant us thy peace.'"

On an ancient medal of the Phenicians, brought by Dr. Clark from Citium (and described in his "Travels," vol. ii. ch. xi.) this Lamb of God is described with the CROSS and the ROSARY, which shows that they were both used in his worship.

Yearly the SUN-GOD, as the zodiacal horse (Aries) was supposed by the Vedic Aryans to die to save all flesh. Hence the practice of sacrificing horses. The "guardian spirits" of the prince Sakya Buddha sing the following hymn:

"Once when thou wast the white horse,[504:1] In pity for the suffering of man, Thou didst fly across heaven to the region of the evil demons, To secure the happiness of mankind. Persecutions without end, Revilings and many prisons, Death and murder; These hast thou suffered with love and patience, Forgiving thine executioners."[504:2]

We have seen, in Chapter XXXIII., that Christ Jesus was also symbolized as a Fish, and that it is to be seen on all the ancient Christian monuments. But what has the Christian Saviour to do with a Fish? Why was he called a Fish? The answer is, because the fish was another emblem of the SUN. Abarbanel says:

"The sign of his (Christ's) coming is the junction of Saturn and Jupiter, in the Sign Pisces."[504:3]

Applying the astronomical emblem of Pisces to Jesus, does not seem more absurd than applying the astronomical emblem of the Lamb. They applied to him the monogram of the Sun, IHS, the astronomical and alchemical sign of Aries, or the ram, or Lamb [Symbol: Aries]; and, in short, what was there that was Heathenish that they have not applied to him?

The preserving god Vishnu, the Sun, was represented as a fish, and so was the Syrian Sun-god Dagon, who was also a Preserver or Saviour. The Fish was sacred among many nations of antiquity, and is to be seen on their monuments. Thus we see that everything at last centres in the SUN.

Constantine, the first Christian emperor, had on his coins the figure of the Sun, with the legend: "To the Invincible Sun, my companion and guardian," as being a representation, says Mr. King, "either of the ancient Phoebus, or the new Sun of Righteousness, equally acceptable to both Christian and Gentile, from the double interpretation of which the type was susceptible."[505:1]

The worship of the Sun, under the name of Mithra, "long survived in Rome, under the Christian emperors, and, doubtless, much longer in the remoter districts of the semi-independent provinces."[505:2]

Christ Jesus is represented with a halo of glory surrounding his head, a florid complexion, long golden locks of hair, and a flowing robe. Now, all Sun-gods, from Crishna of India (Fig. No. 41) to Baldur of Scandinavia, are represented with a halo of glory surrounding their heads, and the flowing locks of golden hair, and the flowing robe, are not wanting.[505:3] By a process of metaphor, the rays of the Sun were changed into golden hair, into spears and lances, and robes of light. From the shoulders of Phoibus Lykêgenes, the light-born, flow the sacred locks over which no razor might pass. On the head of Nisos, as on that of Samson, they became a palladium invested with a mysterious power. From Helios, the Sun, who can scorch as well as warm, comes the robe of Medeia, which appears in the poisoned garments of Deianeira.[506:1]

We see, then, that Christ Jesus, like Christ Buddha,[506:2] Crishna, Mithra, Osiris, Horus, Apollo, Hercules and others, is none other than a personification of the Sun, and that the Christians, like their predecessors the Pagans, are really Sun worshipers. It must not be inferred, however, that we advocate the theory that no such person as Jesus of Nazareth ever lived in the flesh. The man Jesus is evidently an historical personage, just as the Sakaya prince Buddha, Cyrus, King of Persia, and Alexander, King of Macedonia, are historical personages; but the Christ Jesus, the Christ Buddha, the mythical Cyrus, and the mythical Alexander, never lived in the flesh. The Sun-myth has been added to the histories of these personages, in a greater or less degree, just as it has been added to the history of many other real personages. If it be urged that the attribution to Christ Jesus of qualities or powers belonging to the Pagan deities would hardly seem reasonable, the answer must be that nothing is done in his case which has not been done in the case of almost every other member of the great company of the gods. The tendency of myths to reproduce themselves, with differences only of names and local coloring, becomes especially manifest after perusing the legendary histories of the gods of antiquity. It is a fact demonstrated by history, that when one nation of antiquity came in contact with another, they adopted each other's myths without hesitation. After the Jews had been taken captives to Babylon, around the history of their King Solomon accumulated the fables which were related of Persian heroes. When the fame of Cyrus and Alexander became known over the then known world, the popular Sun-myth was interwoven with their true history. The mythical history of Perseus is, in all its essential features, the history of the Attic hero Theseus, and of the Theban OEdipus, and they all reappear with heightened colors in the myths of Hercules. We have the same thing again in the mythical and religious history of Crishna; it is, in nearly all its essential features, the history of Buddha, and reappears again, with heightened colors, in the history of Christ Jesus. The myths of Buddha and Jesus differ from the legends of the other virgin-born Saviours only in the fact that in their cases it has gathered round unquestionably historical personages. In other words, an old myth has been added to names undoubtedly historical. But it cannot be too often repeated that from the myth we learn nothing of their history. How much we really know of the man Jesus will be considered in our next, and last, chapter.[507:1] That his biography, as recorded in the books of the New Testament, contains some few grains of actual history, is all that the historian or philosopher can rationally venture to urge. But the very process which has stripped these legends of all value as a chronicle of actual events has invested them with a new interest. Less than ever are they worthless fictions which the historian or philosopher may afford to despise. These legends of the birth, life, and death of the Sun, present to us a form of society and a condition of thought through which all mankind had to pass before the dawn of history. Yet that state of things was as real as the time in which we live. They who spoke the language of these early tales were men and women with joys and sorrows not unlike our own. In the following verses of Martianus Capella, the universal veneration for the Sun is clearly shown:

"Latium invokes thee, Sol, because thou alone art in honor, after the Father, the centre of light; and they affirm that thy sacred head bears a golden brightness in twelve rays, because thou formest that number of months and that number of hours. They say that thou guidest four winged steeds, because thou alone rulest the chariot of the elements. For, dispelling the darkness, thou revealest the shining heavens. Hence they esteem thee, Phoebus, the discoverer of the secrets of the future; or, because thou preventest nocturnal crimes. Egypt worships thee as Serapis, and Memphis as Osiris. Thou art worshiped by different rites as Mithra, Dis, and the cruel Typhon. Thou art alone the beautiful Atys, and the fostering son of the bent plough. Thou art the Ammon of arid Libya, and the Adonis of Byblos. Thus under a varied appellation the whole world worship thee. Hail! thou true image of the gods, and of thy father's face! thou whose sacred name, surname, and omen, three letters make to agree with the number 608.[507:2] Grant us, oh Father, to reach the eternal intercourse of mind, and to know the starry heaven under this sacred name. May the great and universally adorable Father increase these his favors."

FOOTNOTES:

[467:1] "In the Vedas, the Sun has twenty different names, not pure equivalents, but each term descriptive of the Sun in one of its aspects. It is brilliant (Sûrya), the friend (Mitra), generous (Aryaman), beneficent (Bhaga), that which nourishes (Pûshna), the Creator (Tvashtar), the master of the sky (Divaspati), and so on." (Rev. S. Baring-Gould: Orig. Relig. Belief, vol. i. p. 150.)

[467:2] Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 267.

[468:1] Preface to "Tales of Anct. Greece."

[468:2] See Appendix B.

[469:1] Aryan Mytho., vol. ii. pp. 51-53.

[473:1] Müller: Origin of Religions, pp. 264-268.

[473:2] John, i. 9.

[473:3] The Christian ceremonies of the Nativity are celebrated in Bethlehem and Rome, even at the present time, very early in the morning.

[474:1] Quoted by Volney, Ruins, p. 166, and note.

[474:2] See Ibid. and Dupuis: Origin of Religious Belief, p. 236.

[474:3] See Chap. XXXIV.

[474:4] The Dawn was personified by the ancients--a virgin mother, who bore the Sun. (See Max Müller's Chips, vol. ii. p. 137. Fiske's Myths and Mythmakers, p. 156, and Cox: Tales of Ancient Greece, and Aryan Mytho.)

[474:5] In Sanscrit "Idâ" is the Earth, the wife of Dyaus (the Sky), and so we have before us the mythical phrase, "the Sun at its birth rests on the earth." In other words, "the Sun at birth is nursed in the lap of its mother."

[474:6] "The moment we understand the nature of a myth, all impossibilities, contradictions and immoralities disappear. If a mythical personage be nothing more than a name of the Sun, his birth may be derived from ever so many different mothers. He may be the son of the Sky or of the Dawn or of the Sea or of the Night." (Renouf's Hibbert Lectures, p. 108.)

[474:7] "The sign of the Celestial Virgin rises above the horizon at the moment in which we fix the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ." (Higgins: Anacalypsis, vol. i. p. 314, and Bonwick: Egyptian Belief, p. 147.)

"We have in the first decade the Sign of the Virgin, following the most ancient tradition of the Persians, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, Hermes and Æsculapius, a young woman called in the Persian language, Seclinidos de Darzama; in the Arabic, Aderenedesa--that is to say, a chaste, pure, immaculate virgin, suckling an infant, which some nations call Jesus (i. e., Saviour), but which we in Greek call Christ." (Abulmazer.)

"In the first decade of the Virgin, rises a maid, called in Arabic, 'Aderenedesa,' that is: 'pure immaculate virgin,' graceful in person, charming in countenance, modest in habit, with loosened hair, holding in her hands two ears of wheat, sitting upon an embroidered throne, nursing a BOY, and rightly feeding him in the place called Hebraea. A boy, I say, names IESSUS by certain nations, which signifies Issa, whom they also call Christ in Greek." (Kircher, OEdipus Ægypticus.)

[475:1] Max Müller: Origin of Religions, p. 261.

[475:2] Ibid. p. 230.

[475:3] "With scarcely an exception, all the names by which the Virgin goddess of the Akropolis was known point to this mythology of the Dawn." (Cox: Aryan Myths, vol. i. p. 228.)

[475:4] We also read in the Vishnu Purana that: "The Sun of Achyuta (God, the Imperishable) rose in the dawn of Devaki, to cause the lotus petal of the universe (Crishna) to expand. On the day of his birth the quarters of the horizon were irradiate with joy," &c.

[475:5] Cox: Aryan Myths, vol. iii. pp. 105, and 130, vol. ii.

[475:6] Ibid. p. 133. See Legends in Chap. XVI.

[475:7] Fiske: Myths and Mythmakers, p. 113.

[476:1] Renouf: Hibbert Lectures, p. 111 and 161.

[476:2] Ibid. p. 161 and 179.

[476:3] Ibid. pp. 179.

[476:4] See Tales of Ancient Greece, pp. xxxi. and 82.

[476:5] The Bull symbolized the productive force in nature, and hence it was associated with the SUN-gods. This animal was venerated by nearly all the peoples of antiquity. (Wake: Phallism in Anct. Religs., p. 45.)

[476:6] See Aryan Myths, vol. i. p. 229.

[477:1] See Chap. XXXII.

[477:2] See Tales of Ancient Greece, p. xviii.

[477:3] "The idea entertained by the ancients that these god-begotten heroes were engendered without any carnal intercourse, and that they were the sons of Jupiter, is, in plain language, the result of the ethereal spirit, i. e., the Holy Spirit, operating on the virgin mother Earth." (Knight: Ancient Art and Mythology, p. 156.)

[477:4] Cox: Aryan Myths, p. 87.

[477:5] See Williams' Hinduism, p. 24, and Müller's Chips, vol. ii. pp. 277 and 290.

[477:6] See Bulfinch, p. 389.

[477:7] See Renouf's Hibbert Lectures, pp. 110, 111.

[477:8] Manners of the Germans, p. xi.

[478:1] See Knight: Ancient Art and Mythology, pp. 81, 99, and 166.

The Moon was called by the ancients, "The Queen;" "The Highest Princess;" "The Queen of Heaven;" "The Princess and Queen of Heaven;" &c. She was Istar, Ashera, Diana, Artemis, Isis, Juno, Lucina, Astartê. (Goldzhier, pp. 158. Knight, pp. 99, 100.)

In the beginning of the eleventh book of Apuleius' Metamorphosis, Isis is represented as addressing him thus: "I am present; I who am Nature, the parent of things, queen of all the elements, &c., &c. The primitive Phrygians called me Pressinuntica, the mother of the gods; the native Athenians, Ceropian Minerva; the floating Cyprians, Paphian Venus; the arrow-bearing Cretans, Dictymian Diana; the three-tongued Sicilians, Stygian Proserpine; and the inhabitants of Eleusis, the ancient goddess Ceres. Some again have invoked me as Juno, others as Beliona, others as Hecate, and others as Rhamnusia: and those who are enlightened by the emerging rays of the rising Sun, the Ethiopians, Ariians and Egyptians, powerful in ancient learning, who reverence my divinity with ceremonies perfectly proper, call me by a true appellation, 'Queen Isis.'" (Taylor's Mysteries, p. 76.)

[478:2] The "God the Father" of all nations of antiquity was nothing more than a personification of the Sky or the Heavens. "The term Heaven (pronounced Thien) is used everywhere in the Chinese classics for the Supreme Power, ruling and governing all the affairs of men with an omnipotent and omniscient righteousness and goodness." (James Legge.)

In one of the Chinese sacred books--the Shu-king--Heaven and Earth are called "Father and Mother of all things." Heaven being the Father, and Earth the Mother. (Taylor: Primitive Culture, pp. 294-296.)

The "God the Father" of the Indians is Dyaus, that is, the Sky. (Williams' Hinduism, p. 24.)

Ormuzd, the god of the ancient Persians, was a personification of the sky. Herodotus, speaking of the Persians, says: "They are accustomed to ascend the highest part of the mountains, and offer sacrifice to Jupiter (Ormuzd), and they call the whole circle of the heavens by the name of Jupiter." (Herodotus, book 1, ch. 131.)

In Greek iconography Zeus is the Heaven. As Cicero says: "The refulgent Heaven above is that which all men call, unanimously, Jove."

The Christian God supreme of the nineteenth century is still Dyaus Pitar, the "Heavenly Father."

[478:3] Williams' Hinduism, p. 24.

[478:4] Müller: Origin of Religions, pp. 261, 290.

[478:5] Renouf: Hibbert Lectures, pp. 110, 111.

[478:6] See Note 2.

[478:7] See Cox: Tales of Ancient Greece, pp. xxxi. and 82, and Aryan Mythology, vol. i. p. 229.

[479:1] Quoted by Westropp: Phallic Worship, p. 24.

[479:2] Squire: Serpent Symbol, p. 66. "In Phenician Mythology Ouranos (Heaven) weds Ghe (the Earth) and by her becomes father of Oceanus, Hyperon, Iapetus, Cronos, and other gods." (Phallic Worship, p. 26.)

[479:3] Squire: Serpent Symbol, p. 64.

[479:4] See Mallet's Northern Antiquities, pp. 80, 93, 94, 406, 510, 511.

[480:1] See Chap. XIV.

[480:2] See Dupuis: Orig. Relig. Belief, p. 234. Higgins' Anacalypsis, vol. ii. pp. 96, 97, and Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. p. 272.

[480:3] Extracts from the Vedas. Müller's Chips, vol. ii. pp. 96 and 187.

[481:1] Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. i. p. 153.

[481:2] Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 133.

[481:3] When Christ Jesus was born, on a sudden there was a great light in the cave, so that their eyes could not bear it. (Protevangelion, Apoc. ch. xiv.)

[481:4] "Perseus, Oidipous, Romulus and Cyrus are doomed to bring ruin on their parents. They are exposed in their infancy on the hill-side, and rescued by a shepherd. All the solar heroes begin life in this way. Whether, like Apollo, born of the dark night (Leto), or like Oidipous, of the violet dawn (Iokaste), they are alike destined to bring destruction on their parents, as the Night and the Dawn are both destroyed by the Sun." (Fiske: p. 198.)

[481:5] "The exposure of the child in infancy represents the long rays of the morning sun resting on the hill-side." (Fiske: Myths and Mythmakers, p. 198.)

The Sun-hero Paris is exposed on the slopes of Ida, Oidipous on the slopes of Kithairon, and Æsculapius on that of the mountain of Myrtles. This is the rays of the newly-born sun resting on the mountain-side. (Cox: Aryan Myths, vol. i. pp. 64 and 80.)

In Sanscrit Ida is the Earth, and so we have the mythical phrase, the Sun at its birth is exposed on Ida--the hill-side. The light of the sun must rest on the hill-side long before it reaches the dells beneath. (See Cox: vol. i. p. 221, and Fiske: p. 114.)

[482:1] Even as late as the seventeenth century, a German writer would illustrate a thunder-storm destroying a crop of corn, by a picture of a dragon devouring the produce of the field with his flaming tongue and iron teeth. (See Fiske: Myths and Mythmakers, p. 17, and Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. ii.)

[482:2] The history of the Saviour Hercules is so similar to that of the Saviour Christ Jesus, that the learned Dr. Parkhurst was forced to say, "The labors of Hercules seem to have been originally designed as emblematic memorials of what the REAL Son of God, the Saviour of the world, was to do and suffer for our sakes, bringing a cure for all our ills, as the Orphic hymn speaks of Hercules."

[482:3] Bonwick's Egyptian Belief, pp. 158, 166, and 168.

[482:4] In ancient mythology, all heroes of light were opposed by the "Old Serpent," the Devil, symbolized by Serpents, Dragons, Sphinxes and other monsters. The Serpent was, among the ancient Eastern nations, the symbol of Evil, of Winter, of Darkness and of Death. It also symbolized the dark cloud, which, by harboring the rays of the Sun, preventing its shining, and therefore, is apparently attempting to destroy it. The Serpent is one of the chief mystic personifications of the Rig-Veda, under the names of Ahi, Suchna, and others. They represent the Cloud, the enemy of the Sun, keeping back the fructifying rays. Indra struggles victoriously against him, and spreads life on the earth, with the shining warmth of the Father of Life, the Creator, the Sun.

Buddha, the Lord and Saviour, was described as a superhuman organ of light, to whom a superhuman organ of darkness, Mara, the Evil Serpent, was opposed. He, like Christ Jesus, resisted the temptations of this evil one, and is represented sitting on a serpent, as if its conqueror. (See Bunsen's Angel-Messiah, p. 39.)

Crishna also overcame the evil one, and is represented "bruising the head of the serpent," and standing upon it. (See vol. i. of Asiatic Researches, and vol. ii. of Higgins' Anacalypsis.)

In Egyptian Mythology, one of the names of the god-Sun was Râ. He had an adversary who was called Apap, represented in the form of a serpent. (See Renouf's Hibbert Lectures, p. 109.)

Horus, the Egyptian incarnate god, the Mediator, Redeemer and Saviour, is represented in Egyptian art as overcoming the Evil Serpent, and standing triumphantly upon him. (See Bonwick's Egyptian Belief, p. 158, and Monumental Christianity, p. 402.)

Osiris, Ormuzd, Mithras, Apollo, Bacchus, Hercules, Indra, OEdipus, Quetzalcoatle, and many other Sun-gods, overcame the Evil One, and are represented in the above described manner. (See Cox's Tales of Ancient Greece, p. xxvii. and Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 129. Baring-Gould's Curious Myths, p. 256. Bulfinch's Age of Fable, p. 34. Bunsen's Angel-Messiah, p. x., and Kingsborough's Mexican Antiquities, vol. vi. p. 176.)

[483:1] The crucifixion of the Sun-gods is simply the power of Darkness triumphing over the "Lord of Light," and Winter overpowering the Summer. It was at the Winter solstice that the ancients wept for Tammuz, the fair Adonis, and other Sun-gods, who were put to death by the boar, slain by the thorn of winter. (See Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 113.)

Other versions of the same myth tell us of Eurydike stung to death by the hidden serpent, of Sifrit smitten by Hagene (the Thorn), of Isfendiyar slain by the thorn or arrow of Rustem, of Achilleus vulnerable only in the heel, of Brynhild enfolded within the dragon's coils, of Meleagros dying as the torch of doom is burnt out, of Baldur, the brave and pure, smitten by the fatal mistletoe, and of Crishna and others being crucified.

In Egyptian mythology, Set, the destroyer, triumphs in the West. He is the personification of Darkness and Winter, and the Sun-god whom he puts to death, is Horus the Saviour. (See Renouf's Hibbert Lectures, pp. 112-115.)

[483:2] "In the Rig-Veda the god Vishnu is often named as a manifestation of the Solar energy, or rather as a form of the Sun." (Indian Wisdom, p. 322.)

[483:3] Crishna says: "I am Vishnu, Brahma, Indra, and the source as well as the destruction of things, the creator and the annihilator of the whole aggregate of existences." (Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 131.)

[484:1] See Chap. XX.

[484:2] Indra, who was represented as a crucified god, is also the Sun. No sooner is he born than he speaks to his mother. Like Apollo and all other Sun-gods he has golden locks, and like them he is possessed of an inscrutable wisdom. He is also born of a virgin--the Dawn. Crishna and Indra are one. (See Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. i. pp. 88 and 341; vol. ii. p. 131.)

[484:3] Wake: Phallism, &c., p. 55.

[484:4] See Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 113.

[484:5] Ibid. pp. 115 and 125.

[484:6] See Bonwick's Egyptian Belief, p. 157.

[484:7] Knight: Ancient Art and Mythology, p. 88.

A great number of the Solar heroes or Sun-gods are forced to endure being bound, which indicates the tied-up power of the sun in winter. (Goldzhier: Hebrew Mythology, p. 406.)

[484:8] The Sun, as climbing the heights of heaven, is an arrogant being, given to making exorbitant claims, who must be bound to the fiery cross. "The phrases which described the Sun as revolving daily on his four-spoked cross, or as doomed to sink in the sky when his orb had reached the zenith, would give rise to the stories of Ixion on his flaming wheel." (Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 27.)

[484:9] "So was Ixion bound on the fiery wheel, and the sons of men see the flaming spokes day by day as it whirls in the high heaven."

[485:1] Cox: Tales of Ancient Greece, p. xxxii.

[485:2] Ibid. p. xxxiii.

[485:3] "That the story of the Trojan war is almost wholly mythical, has been conceded even by the stoutest champions of Homeric unity." (Rev. G. W. Cox.)

[485:4] See Müller's Science of Religion, p. 186.

[485:5] See Calmet's Fragments, vol. ii. pp. 21, 22.

[486:1] Nimrod: vol. i. p. 278, in Anac., i. p. 503.

[486:2] At Miletus was the crucified Apollo--Apollo, who overcome the Serpent or evil principle. Thus Callimachus, celebrating this achievement, in his hymn to Apollo, has these remarkable words:

"Thee thy blest mother bore, and pleased assign'd The willing SAVIOUR of distressed mankind."

[486:3] These words apply to Christ Jesus, as well as Semiramis, according to the Christian Father Ignatius. In his Epistle to the Church at Ephesus, he says: "Now the virginity of Mary, and he who was born of her, was kept in secret from the prince of this world, as was also the death of our Lord: three of the mysteries the most spoken of throughout the world, yet done in secret by God."

[487:1] The Rosicrucians, p. 260.

[487:2] Ibid.

[488:1] The Sun-gods Apollo, Indra, Wittoba or Crishna, and Christ Jesus, are represented as having their feet pierced with nails (See Cox: Aryan Mytho., vol. ii. p. 23, and Moor's Hindu Pantheon.)

[489:1] Knight: Anct. Art and Mytho., pp. 87, 88.

[489:2] Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 32.

[489:3] "This notion is quite consistent with the ideas entertained by the Phenicians as to the Serpent, which they supposed to have the quality of putting off its old age, and assuming a second youth." Sanchoniathon: (Quoted by Wake: Phallism, &c., p. 43.)

[489:4] Une serpent qui tient sa queue dans sa gueule et dans le circle qu'il decrit, ces trois lettres Greques {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER XI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}, qui sont le nombre 365. Le Serpent, qui est d'ordinaire un emblème de l'eternetè est ici celui de Soleil et des ses revolutions. (Beausobre: Hist. de Manich. tom. ii. p. 55. Quoted by Lardner, vol. viii. p. 379.)

"This idea existed even in America. The great century of the Aztecs was encircled by a serpent grasping its own tail, and the great calendar stone is entwined by serpents bearing human heads in their distended jaws."

"The annual passage of the Sun, through the signs of the zodiac, being in an oblique path, resembles, or at least the ancients thought so, the tortuous movements of the Serpent, and the facility possessed by this reptile of casting off his skin and producing out of itself a new covering every year, bore some analogy to the termination of the old year and the commencement of the new one. Accordingly, all the ancient spheres--the Persian, Indian, Egyptian, Barbaric, and Mexican--were surrounded by the figure of a serpent holding its tail in its mouth." (Squire: Serpent Symbol, p. 249.)

[489:5] Wake: Phallism, p. 42.

[489:6] See Cox: Aryan Mytho., vol. ii. p. 128.

[490:1] Being the most intimately connected with the reproduction of life on earth, the Linga became the symbol under which the Sun, invoked with a thousand names, has been worshiped throughout the world as the restorer of the powers of nature after the long sleep or death of Winter. In the brazen Serpent of the Pentateuch, the two emblems of the Cross and Serpent, the quiescent and energizing Phallos, are united. (Cox: Aryan Mytho. vol. ii. pp. 113-118.)

[490:2] Wake: Phallism, &c., p. 60.

[491:1] Squire: Serpent Symbol, p. 155.

[491:2] Wake: Phallism in Anct. Religs., p. 72.

[491:3] Ibid. p. 73. Squire: Serpent Symbol, p. 195.

[491:4] Faber: Orig. Pagan Idol., in Squire, p. 158.

[491:5] Ibid.

[491:6] Kenrick's Egypt, vol. i. p. 375.

[491:7] Ibid.

[491:8] Squire: p. 161.

[491:9] Ibid. p. 185.

[492:1] Squire: p. 169.

[492:2] Lundy: Monumental Christianity, p. 185.

[492:3] "SAVIOUR was a common title of the SUN-gods of antiquity." (Wake: Phallism in Anct. Religs., p. 55.)

The ancient Greek writers speak of the Sun, as the "Generator and Nourisher of all Things;" the "Ruler of the World;" the "First of the Gods," and the "Supreme Lord of all Beings." (Knight: Ancient Art and Mytho., p. 37.)

Pausanias (500 B. C.) speaks of "The Sun having the surname of SAVIOUR." (Ibid. p. 98, note.)

"There is a very remarkable figure copied in Payne Knight's Work, in which we see on a man's shoulders a cock's head, whilst on the pediment are placed the words: "THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD." (Inman: Anct. Faiths, vol. i. p. 537.) This refers to the SUN. The cock being the natural herald of the day, he was therefore sacred, among the ancients, to the Sun." (See Knight: Anct. Art and Mytho., p. 70, and Lardner: vol. viii. p. 377.)

[493:1] The name Jesus is the same as Joshua, and signifies Saviour.

[493:2] Justin Martyr: Dialog. Cum Typho. Quoted in Gibbon's Rome, vol. i. p. 582.

[493:3] Matt. xxvii. 55.

[493:4] The ever-faithful woman who is always near at the death of the Sun-god is "the fair and tender light which sheds its soft hue over the Eastern heaven as the Sun sinks in death beneath the Western waters." (Cox: Aryan Myths, vol. i. p. 223.)

[493:5] See Ibid. vol. i. p. 80.

[493:6] Bunsen: The Angel-Messiah, p. 49.

[493:7] Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. i. p. 223.

[494:1] See Tales of Ancient Greece, p. xxxi.

[494:2] PETRÆUS was an interchangeable synonym of the name Oceanus.

[494:3] "Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee." (Matt. xvi. 22.)

[494:4] See Potter's Æschylus.

[494:5] Matt. xxvii. 45.

[494:6] As the Sun dies, or sinks in the West, blacker and blacker grows the evening shades, till there is darkness on the face of the earth. Then from the high heavens comes down the thick clouds, and the din of its thunder crashes through the air. (Description of the death of Hercules, Tales of Ancient Greece, pp. 61, 62.)

[494:7] It Is the battle of the clouds over the dead or dying Sun, which is to be seen in the legendary history of many Sun-gods. (Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 91.)

[494:8] This was one of the latest additions of the Sun-myth to the history of Christ Jesus. This has been proved not only to have been an invention after the Apostles' time, but even after the time of Eusebius (A. D. 325). The doctrine of the descent into hell was not in the ancient creeds or rules of faith. It is not to be found in the rules of faith delivered by Irenæus (A. D. 190), by Origen (A. D. 230), or by Tertullian (A. D. 200-210). It is not expressed in those creeds which were made by the Councils as larger explications of the Apostles' Creed; not in the Nicene, or Constantinopolitan; not in those of Ephesus, or Chalcedon; not in those confessions made at Sardica, Antioch, Selencia, Sirmium, &c.

[495:1] At the end of his career, the Sun enters the lowest regions, the bowels of the earth, therefore nearly all Sun-gods are made to "descend into hell," and remain there for three days and three nights, for the reason that from the 22d to the 25th of December, the Sun apparently remains in the same place. Thus Jonah, a personification of the Sun (see Chap. IX.), who remains three days and three nights in the bowels of the earth--typified by a fish--is made to pay: "Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardst my voice."

[495:2] See Chapter XXII.

[495:3] Baring-Gould: Curious Myths, p. 260.

"The mighty Lord appeared in the form of a man, and enlightened those places which had ever before been in darkness; and broke asunder the fetters which before could not be broken; and with his invincible power visited those who sat in the deep darkness by iniquity, and the shadow of death by sin. Then the King of Glory trampled upon Death, seized the Prince of Hell, and deprived him of all his power." (Description of Christ's Descent into Hell. Nicodemus: Apoc.)

[495:4] "The women weeping for Tammuz was no more than expressive of the Sun's loss of power in the winter quarter." (King's Gnostics, p. 102. See also, Cox: Aryan Mytho., vol. ii. p. 113.)

After remaining for three days and three nights in the lowest regions, the Sun begins to ascend, thus he "rises from the dead," as it were, and "ascends into heaven."

[496:1] Bonwick: Egyptian Belief, p. 174.

[496:2] Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 100.

[496:3] Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 125.

[496:4] Egyptian Belief, p. 182.

[496:5] Ibid.

[496:6] Origin of Religions, p. 264.

[497:1] Origin of Religions, p. 268.

[497:2] Aryan Mythology, vol. i. p. 384.

[497:3] Origin of Religion, pp. 264-268.

[498:1] The number twelve appears in many of the Sun-myths. It refers to the twelve hours of the day or night, or the twelve moons of the lunar year. (Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. i. p. 165. Bonwick: Egyptian Belief, p. 175.)

Osiris, the Egyptian Saviour, had twelve apostles. (Bonwick, p. 175.)

In all religions of antiquity the number twelve, which applies to the twelve signs of the zodiac, are reproduced in all kinds and sorts of forms. For instance: such are the twelve great gods; the twelve apostles of Osiris; the twelve apostles of Jesus; the twelve sons of Jacob, or the twelve tribes; the twelve altars of James; the twelve labors of Hercules; the twelve shields of Mars; the twelve brothers Arvaux; the twelve gods Consents; the twelve governors in the Manichean System; the adectyas of the East Indies; the twelve asses of the Scandinavians; the city of the twelve gates in the Apocalypse; the twelve wards of the city; the twelve sacred cushions, on which the Creator sits in the cosmogony of the Japanese; the twelve precious stones of the rational, or the ornament worn by the high priest of the Jews, &c., &c. (See Dupuis, pp. 39, 40.)

[499:1] See Mallet's Northern Antiquities, p. 505.

[499:2] Luke, ii. 32.

[499:3] John, xii, 46.

[499:4] John, ix. v.

[499:5] I. John, i. 5.

[500:1] Monumental Christianity, p. 117.

[501:1] See Monumental Christianity, pp. 189, 191, 192, 238, and 296.

[501:2] See Bonwick's Egyptian Belief, p. 283.

[501:3] King's Gnostics, p. 68.

[501:4] Ibid. p. 137.

[501:5] See Chapter XX.

[501:6] Hist. of Our Lord in Art, vol. i. p. 31.

[502:1] Geikie: Life of Christ, vol. i. p. 151.

[502:2] Monumental Christianity, p. 231.

[502:3] King's Gnostics, p. 48.

[502:4] Ibid. p. 68.

[502:5] See Bell's Pantheon, vol. i. p. 13.

[503:1] Following are the words of the decree now in the Vatican library: "In quibusdam sanctorum imaginum picturis agnus exprimitur, &c. Nos igitur veteres figuras atque umbras, et veritatis notas, et signa ecclesiæ tradita, complectentes, gratiam, et veritatem anteponimus, quam ut plenitudinem legis acceptimus. Itaque id quod perfectum est, in picturis etiam omnium oculis subjiciamus, agnum illum qui mundi peccatum tollit, Christum Deum nostrum, loco veteris Ayni, humanâ formâ posthæ exprimendum decrevimus," &c.

[504:1] "The solar horse, with two serpents upon his head (the Buddhist Aries) is Buddha's symbol, and Aries is the symbol of Christ." (Arthur Lillie: Buddha and Early Buddhism, p. 110.)

[504:2] Quoted by Lillie: Buddha and Early Buddhism, p. 93.

[504:3] Quoted by King: The Gnostics &c., p. 138.

[505:1] Quoted by King: The Gnostics, &c., p. 49.

[505:2] Ibid. p. 45.

[505:3] Indra, the crucified Sun-god of the Hindoos, was represented with golden locks. (Cox: Aryan Myths, vol. i. p. 341.)

Mithras, the Persian Saviour, was represented with long flowing locks.

Izdubar, the god and hero of the Chaldeans, was represented with long flowing locks of hair (Smith: Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 193), and so was his counterpart, the Hebrew Samson.

"The Sâkya-prince (Buddha) is described as an Aryan by Buddhistic tradition; his face was reddish, his hair of light color and curly, his general appearance of great beauty." (Bunsen: The Angel-Messiah, p. 15.)

"Serapis has, in some instances, long hair formally turned back, and disposed in ringlets hanging down upon his breast and shoulders like that of a woman. His whole person, too, is always enveloped in drapery reaching to his feet." (Knight: Ancient Art and Mythology, p. 104.)

"As for yellow hair, there is no evidence that Greeks have ever commonly possessed it; but no other color would do for a solar hero, and it accordingly characterizes the entire company of them, wherever found." (Fiske: Myths and Mythmakers, p. 202.)

Helios (the Sun) is called by the Greeks the "yellow-haired." (Goldzhier: Hebrew Mytho., p. 137.)

The Sun's rays is signified by the flowing golden locks which stream from the head of Kephalos, and fall over the shoulders of Bellerophon. (Cox: Aryan Mytho., vol. i. p. 107.)

Perseus, son of the virgin Danae, was called the "Golden Child." (Ibid. vol. ii. p. 58.) "The light of early morning is not more pure than was the color on his fair cheeks, and the golden locks streamed bright over his shoulders, like the rays of the sun when they rest on the hills at midday." (Tales of Ancient Greece, p. 83.)

The Saviour Dionysus wore a long flowing robe, and had long golden hair, which streamed from his head over his shoulders. (Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 293.)

Ixion was the "Beautiful and Mighty," with golden hair flashing a glory from his head, dazzling as the rays which stream from Helios, when he drives his chariot up the heights of heaven; and his flowing robe glistened as he moved, like the vesture which the Sun-god gave to the wise maiden Medeia, who dwelt in Kolchis. (Tales of Ancient Greece, p. 47.)

Theseus enters the city of Athens, as Christ Jesus is said to have entered Jerusalem, with a long flowing robe, and with his golden hair tied gracefully behind his head. His "soft beauty" excites the mockery of the populace, who pause in their work to jest with him. (Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 63.)

Thus we see that long locks of golden hair, and a flowing robe, are mythological attributes of the Sun.

[506:1] Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. i. p. 49.

[506:2] We have already seen (in Chapter XX.) that the word "Christ" signifies the "Anointed," or the "Messiah," and that many other personages beside Jesus of Nazareth had this title affixed to their names.

[507:1] The theory which has been set forth in this chapter, is also more fully illustrated in Appendix C.

[507:2] These three letters, the monogram of the Sun, are the celebrated I. H. S., which are to be seen in Roman Catholic churches at the present day, and which are now the monogram of the Sun-god Christ Jesus. (See Chapter XXXVI.)

XL. CONCLUSION

We now come to the last, but certainly not least, question to be answered; which is, what do we really know of the man Jesus of Nazareth? How much of the Gospel narratives can we rely upon as fact?

Jesus of Nazareth is so enveloped in the mists of the past, and his history so obscured by legend, that it may be compared to footprints in the sand. We know some one has been there, but as to what manner of man he may have been, we certainly know little as fact. The Gospels, the only records we have of him,[508:1] have been proven, over and over again, unhistorical and legendary; to state anything as positive about the man is nothing more nor less than assumption; we can therefore conjecture only. Liberal writers philosophize and wax eloquent to little purpose, when, after demolishing the historical accuracy of the New Testament, they end their task by eulogizing the man Jesus, claiming for him the highest praise, and asserting that he was the best and grandest of our race;[508:2] but this manner of reasoning (undoubtedly consoling to many) facts do not warrant. We may consistently revere his name, and place it in the long list of the great and noble, the reformers and religious teachers of the past, all of whom have done their part in bringing about the freedom we now enjoy, but to go beyond this, is, to our thinking, unwarranted.

If the life of Jesus of Nazareth, as related in the books of the New Testament, be in part the story of a man who really lived and suffered, that story has been so interwoven with images borrowed from myths of a bygone age, as to conceal forever any fragments of history which may lie beneath them. Gautama Buddha was undoubtedly an historical personage, yet the Sun-god myth has been added to his history to such an extent that we really know nothing positive about him. Alexander the Great was an historical personage, yet his history is one mass of legends. So it is with Julius Cesar, Cyrus, King of Persia, and scores of others. "The story of Cyrus' perils in infancy belongs to solar mythology as much as the stories of the magic slipper, of Charlemagne and Barbarossa. His grandfather, Astyages, is purely a mythical creation, his name being identical with that of the night demon, Azidahaka, who appears in the Shah-Nameh as the biting serpent."

The actual Jesus is inaccessible to scientific research. His image cannot be recovered. He left no memorial in writing of himself; his followers were illiterate; the mind of his age was confused. Paul received only traditions of him, how definite we have no means of knowing, apparently not significant enough to be treasured, nor consistent enough to oppose a barrier to his own speculations. As M. Renan says: "The Christ who communicates private revelations to him is a phantom of his own making;" "it is himself he listens to, while fancying that he hears Jesus."[509:1]

In studying the writings of the early advocates of Christianity, and Fathers of the Christian Church, where we would naturally look for the language that would indicate the real occurrence of the facts of the Gospel--if real occurrences they had ever been--we not only find no such language, but everywhere find every sort of sophistical ambages, ramblings from the subject, and evasions of the very business before them, as if on purpose to balk our research, and insult our skepticism. If we travel to the very sepulchre of Christ Jesus, it is only to discover that he was never there: history seeks evidence of his existence as a man, but finds no more trace of it than of the shadow that flits across the wall. "The Star of Bethlehem" shone not upon her path, and the order of the universe was suspended without her observation.

She asks, with the Magi of the East, "Where is he that is born King of the Jews?" and, like them, finds no solution of her inquiry, but the guidance that guides as well to one place as another; descriptions that apply to Æsculapius, Buddha and Crishna, as well as to Jesus; prophecies, without evidence that they were ever prophesied; miracles, which those who are said to have seen, are said also to have denied seeing; narratives without authorities, facts without dates, and records without names. In vain do the so-called disciples of Jesus point to the passages in Josephus and Tacitus;[510:1] in vain do they point to the spot on which he was crucified; to the fragments of the true cross, or the nails with which he was pierced, and to the tomb in which he was laid. Others have done as much for scores of mythological personages who never lived in the flesh. Did not Damus, the beloved disciple of Apollonius of Tyana, while on his way to India, see, on Mt. Caucasus, the identical chains with which Prometheus had been bound to the rocks? Did not the Scythians[510:2] say that Hercules had visited their country? and did they not show the print of his foot upon a rock to substantiate their story?[510:3] Was not his tomb to be seen at Cadiz, where his bones were shown?[510:4] Was not the tomb of Bacchus to be seen in Greece?[510:5] Was not the tomb of Apollo to be seen at Delphi?[510:6] Was not the tomb of Achilles to be seen at Dodona, where Alexander the Great honored it by placing a crown upon it?[510:7] Was not the tomb of Æsculapius to be seen in Arcadia, in a grove consecrated to him, near the river Lusius?[510:8] Was not the tomb of Deucalion--he who was saved from the Deluge--long pointed out near the sanctuary of Olympian Jove, in Athens?[510:9] Was not the tomb of Osiris to be seen in Egypt, where, at stated seasons, the priests went in solemn procession, and covered it with flowers?[510:10] Was not the tomb of Jonah--he who was "swallowed up by a big fish"--to be seen at Nebi-Yunus, near Mosul?[510:11] Are not the tombs of Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Seth, Abraham, and other Old Testament characters, to be seen even at the present day?[510:12] And did not the Emperor Constantine dedicate a beautiful church over the tomb of St. George, the warrior saint?[510:13] Of what value, then, is such evidence of the existence of such an individual as Jesus of Nazareth? The fact is, "the records of his life are so very scanty, and these have been so shaped and colored and modified by the hands of ignorance and superstition and party prejudice and ecclesiastical purpose, that it is hard to be sure of the original outlines."

In the first two centuries the professors of Christianity were divided into many sects, but these might be all resolved into two divisions--one consisting of Nazarenes, Ebionites, and orthodox; the other of Gnostics, under which all the remaining sects arranged themselves. The former are supposed to have believed in Jesus crucified, in the common, literal acceptation of the term; the latter--believers in the Christ as an Æon--though they admitted the crucifixion, considered it to have been in some mystic way--perhaps what might be called spiritualiter, as it is called in the Revelation: but notwithstanding the different opinions they held, they all denied that the Christ did really die, in the literal acceptation of the term, on the cross.[511:1] The Gnostic, or Oriental, Christians undoubtedly took their doctrine from the Indian crucifixion[511:2] (of which we have treated in Chapters XX. and XXXIX.), as well as many other tenets with which we have found the Christian Church deeply tainted. They held that:

"To deliver the soul, a captive in darkness, the 'Prince of Light,' the 'Genius of the Sun,' charged with the redemption of the intellectual world, of which the Sun is the type, manifested itself among men; that the light appeared in the darkness, but the darkness comprehended it not; that, in fact, light could not unite with darkness; it put on only the appearance of the human body; that at the crucifixion Christ Jesus only appeared to suffer. His person having disappeared, the bystanders saw in his place a cross of light, over which a celestial voice proclaimed these words; 'The Cross of Light is called Logos, Christos, the Gate, the Joy.'"

Several of the texts of the Gospel histories were quoted with great plausibility by the Gnostics in support of their doctrine. The story of Jesus passing through the midst of the Jews when they were about to cast him headlong from the brow of a hill (Luke iv. 29, 30), and when they were going to stone him (John iii. 59; x. 31, 39), were examples not easily refuted.

The Manichean Christian Bishop Faustus expresses himself in the following manner:

"Do you receive the gospel? (ask ye). Undoubtedly I do! Why then, you also admit that Christ was born? Not so; for it by no means follows that in believing the gospel, I should therefore believe that Christ was born! Do you then think that he was of the Virgin Mary? Manes hath said, 'Far be it that I should ever own that Our Lord Jesus Christ . . . . . . .'" etc.[512:1]

Tertullian's manner of reasoning on the evidences of Christianity is also in the same vein, as we saw in our last chapter.[512:2]

Mr. King, speaking of the Gnostic Christians, says:

"Their chief doctrines had been held for centuries before (their time) in many of the cities in Asia Minor. There, it is probable, they first came into existence as Mystæ, upon the establishment of direct intercourse with India, under the Seleucidæ and Ptolemies. The college of Essenes and Megabyzæ at Ephesus, the Orphics of Thrace, the Curets of Crete, are all merely branches of one antique and common religion, and that originally Asiatic."[512:3]

These early Christian Mystics are alluded to in several instances in the New Testament. For example:

"Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God."[512:4] "For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh."[512:5]

This is language that could not have been used, if the reality of Christ Jesus' existence as a man could not have been denied, or, it would certainly seem, if the apostle himself had been able to give any evidence whatever of the claim.

The quarrels on this subject lasted for a long time among the early Christians. Hermas, speaking of this, says to the brethren:

"Take heed, my children, that your dissensions deprive you not of your lives. How will ye instruct the elect of God, when ye yourselves want correction? Wherefore admonish one another, and be at peace among yourselves; that I, standing before your father, may give an account of you unto the Lord."[512:6]

Ignatius, in his Epistle to the Smyrnæans, says:[512:7]

"Only in the name of Jesus Christ, I undergo all, to suffer together with him; he who was made a perfect man strengthening me. Whom some, not knowing, do deny; or rather have been denied by him, being the advocates of death, rather than of the truth. Whom neither the prophecies, nor the law of Moses, have persuaded; nor the Gospel itself even to this day, nor the sufferings of any one of us. For they think also the same thing of us; for what does a man profit me, if he shall praise me, and blaspheme my Lord; not confessing that he was truly made man?"

In his Epistle to the Philadelphians he says:[513:1]

"I have heard of some who say, unless I find it written in the originals, I will not believe it to be written in the Gospel. And when I said, It is written, they answered what lay before them in their corrupted copies."

Polycarp, in his Epistle to the Philippians, says:[513:2]

"Whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, he is Antichrist: and whosoever does not confess his sufferings upon the cross, is from the devil. And whosoever perverts the oracles of the Lord to his own lusts; and says that there shall neither be any resurrection, nor judgment, he is the first-born of Satan."

Ignatius says to the Magnesians:[513:3]

"Be not deceived with strange doctrines; nor with old fables which are unprofitable. For if we still continue to live according to the Jewish law, we do confess ourselves not to have received grace. For even the most holy prophets lived according to Jesus Christ. . . . Wherefore if they who were brought up in these ancient laws came nevertheless to the newness of hope; no longer observing Sabbaths, but keeping the Lord's Day, in which also our life is sprung up by him, and through his death, whom yet some deny. By which mystery we have been brought to believe, and therefore wait that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only master. . . . . These things, my beloved, I write unto you, not that I know of any among you that be under this error; but as one of the least among you, I am desirous to forewarn you that ye fall not into the snares of vain doctrine."

After reading this we can say with the writer of Timothy,[513:4] "Without controversy, great is the MYSTERY of godliness."

Beside those who denied that Christ Jesus had ever been manifest in the flesh, there were others who denied that he had been crucified.[513:5] This is seen from the words of Justin Martyr, in his Apology for the Christian Religion, written A. D. 141, where he says:

"As to the objection to our Jesus's being crucified, I say, suffering was common to all the Sons of Jove."[513:6]

This is as much as to say: "You Pagans claim that your incarnate gods and Saviours suffered and died, then why should not we claim the same for our Saviour?"

The Koran, referring to the Jews, says:

"They have not believed in Jesus, and have spoken against Mary a grievous calumny, and have said: 'Verily we have slain Christ Jesus, the son of Mary' (the apostle of God). Yet they slew him not, neither crucified him, but he was represented by one in his likeness. And verily they who disagreed concerning him were in a doubt as to this matter, and had no sure knowledge thereof, but followed only an uncertain opinion."[514:1]

This passage alone, from the Mohammedan Bible, is sufficient to show, if other evidence were wanting, that the early Christians "disagreed concerning him," and that "they had no sure knowledge thereof, but followed only an uncertain opinion."

In the books which are now called Apocryphal, but which were the most quoted, and of equal authority with the others, and which were voted not the word of God--for obvious reasons--and were therefore cast out of the canon, we find many allusions to the strife among the early Christians. For instance; in the "First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians,"[514:2] we read as follows:

"Wherefore are there strifes, and anger, and divisions, and schisms, and wars, among us? . . . Why do we rend and tear in pieces the members of Christ, and raise seditions against our own body? and are come to such a height of madness, as to forget that we are members one of another."

In his Epistle to the Trallians, Ignatius says:[514:3]

"I exhort you, or rather not I, but the love of Jesus Christ, that ye use none but Christian nourishment; abstaining from pasture which is of another kind. I mean Heresy. For they that are heretics, confound together the doctrine of Jesus Christ with their own poison; whilst they seem worthy of belief. . . . Stop your ears, therefore, as often as any one shall speak contrary to Jesus Christ, who was of the race of David, of the Virgin Mary. Who was truly born, and did eat and drink; was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate; was truly crucified and dead; both those in heaven and on earth, and under the earth, being spectators of it. . . . But if, as some who are atheists, that is to say, infidels, pretend, that he only seemed to suffer, why then am I bound? Why do I desire to fight with beasts? Therefore do I die in vain."

We find St. Paul, the very first Apostle of the Gentiles, expressly avowing that he was made a minister of the gospel, which had already been preached to every creature under heaven,[514:4] and preaching a God manifest in the flesh, who had been believed on in the world,[514:5] therefore, before the commencement of his ministry; and who could not have been the man of Nazareth, who had certainly not been preached, at that time, nor generally believed on in the world, till ages after that time.[514:6] We find also that:

1. This Paul owns himself a deacon, the lowest ecclesiastical grade of the Therapeutan church.

2. The Gospel of which these Epistles speak, had been extensively preached and fully established before the time of Jesus, by the Therapeuts or Essenes, who believed in the doctrine of the Angel-Messiah, the Æon from heaven.[515:1]

Leo the Great, so-called (A. D. 440-461), writes thus:

"Let those who with impious murmurings find fault with the Divine dispensations, and who complain about the lateness of our Lord's nativity, cease from their grievances, as if what was carried out in later ages of the world, had not been impending in time past. . . .

"What the Apostles preached, the prophets (in Israel) had announced before, and what has always been (universally) believed, cannot be said to have been fulfilled too late. By this delay of his work of salvation, the wisdom and love of God have only made us more fitted for his call; so that, what had been announced before by many Signs and Words and Mysteries during so many centuries, should not be doubtful or uncertain in the days of the gospel. . . God has not provided for the interests of men by a new council or by a late compassion; but he had instituted from the beginning for all men, one and the same path of salvation."[515:2]

This is equivalent to saying that, "God, in his 'late compassion,' has sent his Son, Christ Jesus, to save us, therefore do not complain or 'murmur' about 'the lateness of his coming,' for the Lord has already provided for those who preceded us; he has given them 'the same path of salvation' by sending to them, as he has sent to us, a Redeemer and a Saviour."

Justin Martyr, in his dialogue with Typho,[515:3] makes a similar confession (as we have already seen in our last chapter), wherein he says that there exists not a people, civilized or semi-civilized, who have not offered up prayers in the name of a crucified Saviour to the Father and Creator of all things.

Add to this medley the fact that St. Irenæus (A. D. 192), one of the most celebrated, most respected, and most quoted of the early Christian Fathers, tells us on the authority of his master, Polycarp, who had it from St. John himself, and from all the old people of Asia, that Jesus was not crucified at the time stated in the Gospels, but that he lived to be nearly fifty years old. The passage which, most fortunately, has escaped the destroyers of all such evidence, is to be found in Irenæus' second book against heresies,[515:4] of which the following is a portion:

"As the chief part of thirty years belongs to youth, and every one will confess him to be such till the fortieth year: but from the fortieth year to the fiftieth he declines into old age, which our Lord (Jesus) having attained he taught us the Gospel, and all the elders who, in Asia, assembled with John, the disciple of the Lord, testify; and as John himself had taught them. And he (John?) remained with them till the time of Trajan. And some of them saw not only John but other Apostles, and heard the same thing from them, and bear the same testimony to this revelation."

The escape of this passage from the destroyers can be accounted for only in the same way as the passage of Minucius Felix (quoted in Chapter XX.) concerning the Pagans worshiping a crucifix. These two passages escaped from among, probably, hundreds destroyed, of which we know nothing, under the decrees of the emperors, yet remaining, by which they were ordered to be destroyed.

In John viii. 56, Jesus is made to say to the Jews: "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it and was glad." Then said the Jews unto him: "Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?"

If Jesus was then but about thirty years of age, the Jews would evidently have said: "thou art not yet forty years old," and would not have been likely to say: "thou art not yet fifty years old," unless he was past forty.

There was a tradition current among the early Christians, that Annas was high-priest when Jesus was crucified. This is evident from the Acts.[516:1] Now, Annas, or Ananias, was not high-priest until about the year 48 A. D.;[516:2] therefore, if Jesus was crucified at that time he must have been about fifty years of age;[516:3] but, as we remarked elsewhere, there exists, outside of the New Testament, no evidence whatever, in book, inscription, or monument, that Jesus of Nazareth was either scourged or crucified under Pontius Pilate. Josephus, Tacitus, Plinius, Philo, nor any of their contemporaries, ever refer to the fact of this crucifixion, or express any belief thereon.[516:4] In the Talmud--the book containing Jewish traditions--Jesus is not referred to as the "crucified one," but as the "hanged one,"[516:5] while elsewhere it is narrated he was stoned to death; so that it is evident they were ignorant of the manner of death which he suffered.[516:6]

In Sanhedr. 43 a, Jesus it said to have had five disciples, among whom were Mattheaus and Thaddeus. He is called "That Man," "The Nazarine," "The Fool," and "The Hung." Thus Aben Ezra says that Constantine put on his labarum "a figure of the hung;" and, according to R. Bechai, the Christians were called "Worshipers of the Hung."

Little is said about Jesus in the Talmud, except that he was a scholar of Joshua Ben Perachiah (who lived a century before the time assigned by the Christians for the birth of Jesus), accompanied him into Egypt, there learned magic, and was a seducer of the people, and was finally put to death by being stoned, and then hung as a blasphemer.

"The conclusion is, that no clearly defined traces of the personal Jesus remain on the surface, or beneath the surface, of Christendom. The silence of Josephus and other secular historians may be accounted for without falling back on a theory of hostility or contempt.[517:1] The Christ-idea cannot be spared from Christian development, but the personal Jesus, in some measure, can be."

"The person of Jesus, though it may have been immense, is indistinct. That a great character was there may be conceded; but precisely wherein the character was great, is left to our conjecture. Of the eminent persons who have swayed the spiritual destinies of mankind, none has more completely disappeared from the critical view. The ideal image which Christians have, for nearly two thousand years, worshiped under the name of Jesus, has no authentic, distinctly visible, counterpart in history."

"His followers have gone on with the process of idealization, placing him higher and higher; making his personal existence more and more essential; insisting more and more urgently on the necessity of private intercourse with him; letting the Father subside into the background, as an 'effluence,' and the Holy Ghost lapse from individual identity into impersonal influence, in order that he might be all in all as Regenerator and Saviour. From age to age the personal Jesus has been made the object of an extreme adoration, till now faith in the living Christ is the heart of the Gospel; philosophy, science, culture, humanity are thrust resolutely aside, and the great teachers of the age are extinguished in order that his light may shine." But, as Mr. Frothingham remarks, in "The Cradle of the Christ": "In the order of experience, historical and biographical truth is discovered by stripping off layer after layer of exaggeration, and going back to the statements of contemporaries. As a rule, figures are reduced, not enlarged, by criticism. The influence of admiration is recognized as distorting and falsifying, while exalting. The process of legend-making begins immediately, goes on rapidly and with accelerating speed, and must be liberally allowed for by the seeker after truth. In scores of instances the historical individual turns out to be very much smaller than he was painted by his terrified or loving worshipers. In no single case has it been established that he was greater, or as great. It is, no doubt, conceivable that such a case should occur, but it never has occurred, in known instances, and cannot be presumed to have occurred in any particular instance. The presumptions are against the correctness of the glorified image. The disposition to exaggerate is so much stronger than the disposition to underrate, that even really great men are placed higher than they belong oftener than lower. The historical method works backwards. Knowledge shrinks the man."[518:1]

As we are allowed to conjecture as to what is true in the Gospel history, we shall now do so.

The death of Herod, which occurred a few years before the time assigned for the birth of Jesus, was followed by frightful social and political convulsions in Judea. For two or three years all the elements of disorder were abroad. Between pretenders to the vacant throne of Herod, and aspirants to the Messianic throne of David, Judea was torn and devastated. Revolt assumed the wildest form, the higher enthusiasm of faith yielded to the lower fury of fanaticism; the celestial visions of a kingdom of heaven were completely banished by the smoke and flame of political hate. Claimant after claimant of the dangerous supremacy of the Messiah appeared, pitched a camp in the wilderness, raised the banner, gathered a force, was attacked, defeated, banished or crucified; but the frenzy did not abate.

The popular aspect of the Messianic hope was political, not religious or moral. The name Messiah was synonymous with King of the Jews; it suggested political designs and aspirations. The assumption of that character by any individual drew on him the vigilance of the police.

That Jesus of Nazareth assumed the character of "Messiah," as did many before and after him, and that his crucifixion[520:1] was simply an act of the law on political grounds, just as it was in the case of other so-called Messiahs, we believe to be the truth of the matter.[520:2] "He is represented as being a native of Galilee, the insurgent district of the country; nurtured, if not born, in Nazareth, one of its chief cities; reared as a youth amid traditions of patriotic devotion, and amid scenes associated with heroic dreams and endeavors. The Galileans were restless, excitable people, beyond the reach of conventionalities, remote from the centre of power, ecclesiastical and secular, simple in their lives, bold of speech, independent in thought, thoroughgoing in the sort of radicalism that is common among people who live 'out of the world,' who have leisure to discuss the exciting topics of the day, but too little knowledge, culture, or sense of social responsibility to discuss them soundly. Their mental discontent and moral intractability were proverbial. They were belligerents. The Romans had more trouble with them than with the natives of any other province. The Messiahs all started out from Galilee, and never failed to collect followers round their standard. The Galileans, more than others, lived in the anticipation of the Deliverer. The reference of the Messiah to Galilee is therefore already an indication of the character he is to assume."

To show the state the country must have been in at that time, we will quote an incident or two from Josephus.

A religious enthusiast called the Samaritans together upon Mount Gerizim, and assured them that he would work a miracle. "So they came thither armed, and thought the discourse of the man probable; and as they abode at a certain village, which was called Tirathaba, they got the rest together of them, and desired to go up the mountain in a great multitude together: but Pilate prevented their going up, by seizing upon the roads by a great band of horsemen and footmen, who fell upon those who were gotten together in the village; and when it came to an action, some of them they slew, and others of them they put to flight, and took a great many alive, the principal of whom, and also the most potent of those that fled away, Pilate ordered to be slain."[521:1]

Not long before this Pilate pillaged the temple treasury, and used the "sacred money" to bring a current of water to Jerusalem. The Jews were displeased with this, "and many ten thousands of the people got together and made a clamor against him. Some of them used reproaches, and abused the man, as crowds of such people usually do. So he habited a great number of his soldiers in their habits, who carried daggers under their garments, and sent them to a place where they might surround them. So he bade the Jews himself go away; but they boldly casting reproaches upon him, he gave the soldiers that signal which had been beforehand agreed on; who laid upon them with much greater blows than Pilate had commanded them, and equally punished those that were tumultuous, and those that were not; nor did they spare them in the least: and since the people were unarmed, and were caught by men prepared for what they were about, there were a great number of them slain by this means, and others ran away wounded. And thus an end was put to this sedition."[522:1]

It was such deeds as these, inflicted upon the Jews by their oppressors, that made them think of the promised Messiah who was to deliver them from bondage, and which made many zealous fanatics imagine themselves to be "He who should come."[522:2]

There is reason to believe, as we have said, that Jesus of Nazareth assumed the title of "Messiah." His age was throbbing and bursting with suppressed energy. The pressure of the Roman Empire was required to keep it down. "The Messianic hope had such vitality that it condensed into moments the moral result of ages. The common people were watching to see the heavens open, interpreted peals of thunder as angel voices, and saw divine potents in the flight of birds. Mothers dreamed their boys would be Messiah. The wildest preacher drew a crowd. The heart of the nation swelled big with the conviction that the hour of destiny was about to strike, that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. The crown was ready for any kingly head that might assume it."[522:3]

The actions of this man, throughout his public career, we believe to be those of a zealot whose zeal overrode considerations of wisdom; in fact, a Galilean fanatic. Pilate condemns him reluctantly, feeling that he is a harmless visionary, but is obliged to condemn him as one of the many who persistently claimed to be the "Messiah," or "King of the Jews," an enemy of Cæsar, an instrument against the empire, a pretender to the throne, a bold inciter to rebellion. The death he undergoes is the death of the traitor and mutineer,[522:4] the death that was inflicted on many such claimants, the death that would have been decreed to Judas the Galilean,[522:5] had he been captured, and that was inflicted on thousands of his deluded followers. It was the Romans, then, who crucified the man Jesus, and not the Jews.

"In the Roman law the State is the main object, for which the individual must live and die, with or against his will. In Jewish law, the person is made the main object, for which the State must live and die; because the fundamental idea of the Roman law is power, and the fundamental idea of Jewish law is justice."[523:1] Therefore Caiaphas and his conspirators did not act from the Jewish standpoint. They represented Rome, her principles, interest, and barbarous caprices.[523:2] Not one point in the whole trial agrees with Jewish laws and custom.[523:3] It is impossible to save it; it must be given up as a transparent and unskilled invention of a Gentile Christian, who knew nothing of Jewish law and custom, and was ignorant of the state of civilization in Palestine, in the time of Jesus.

Jesus had been proclaimed the "Messiah," the "Ruler of the Jews," and the restorer of the kingdom of heaven. No Roman ear could understand these pretensions, otherwise than in their rebellious sense. That Pontius Pilate certainly understood under the title, "Messiah," the king (the political chief of the nation), is evident from the subscription of the cross, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews," which he did not remove in spite of all protestations of the Jews. There is only one point in which the four Gospels agree, and that is, that early in the morning Jesus was delivered over to the Roman governor, Pilate; that he was accused of high-treason against Rome--having been proclaimed King of the Jews--and that in consequence thereof he was condemned first to be scourged, and then to be crucified; all of which was done in hot haste. In all other points the narratives of the Evangelists differ widely, and so essentially that one story cannot be made of the four accounts; nor can any particular points stand the test of historical criticism, and vindicate its substantiality as a fact.

The Jews could not have crucified Jesus, according to their laws, if they had inflicted on him the highest penalty of the law, since crucifixion was exclusively Roman.[524:1] If the priests, elders, Pharisees, Jews, or all of them wanted Jesus out of the way so badly, why did they not have him quietly put to death while he was in their power, and done at once. The writer of the fourth Gospel seems to have understood this difficulty, and informs us that they could not kill him, because he had prophesied what death he should die; so he could die no other. It was dire necessity, that the heathen symbol of life and immortality--the cross[524:2]--should be brought to honor among the early Christians, and Jesus had to die on the cross (the Roman Gibbet), according to John[524:3] simply because it was so prophesied. The fact is, the crucifixion story, like the symbol of the crucifix itself, came from abroad.[524:4] It was told with the avowed intention of exonerating the Romans, and criminating the Jews, so they make the Roman governor take water, "and wash his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it." To be sure of their case, they make the Jews say: "His blood be on us, and on our children."[524:5]

"Another fact is this. Just at the period of time when misfortune and ruination befell the Jews most severely, in the first post-apostolic generation, the Christians were most active in making proselytes among Gentiles. To have then preached that a crucified Jewish Rabbi of Galilee was their Saviour, would have sounded supremely ridiculous to those heathens. To have added thereto, that the said Rabbi was crucified by command of a Roman Governor, because he had been proclaimed 'King of the Jews,' would have been fatal to the whole scheme. In the opinion of the vulgar heathen, where the Roman Governor and Jewish Rabbi came in conflict, the former must unquestionably be right, and the latter decidedly wrong. To have preached a Saviour who was justly condemned to die the death of a slave and villain, would certainly have proved fatal to the whole enterprise. Therefore it was necessary to exonerate Pilate and the Romans, and to throw the whole burden upon the Jews, in order to establish the innocence and martyrdom of Jesus in the heathen mind."

That the crucifixion story, as related in the synoptic Gospels, was written abroad, and not in the Hebrew, or in the dialect spoken by the Hebrews of Palestine, is evident from the following particular points, noticed by Dr. Isaac M. Wise, a learned Hebrew scholar:

The Mark and Matthew narrators call the place of crucifixion "Golgotha," to which the Mark narrator adds, "which is, being interpreted, the place of skulls." The Matthew narrator adds the same interpretation, which the John narrator copies without the word "Golgotha," and adds, it was a place near Jerusalem. The Luke narrator calls the place of crucifixion "Calvary," which is the LATIN Calvaria, viz., "the place of bare skulls." Therefore the name does not refer to the form of the hill, but to the bare skulls upon it.[525:1] Now "there is no such word as GOLGOTHA anywhere in Jewish literature, and there is no such place mentioned anywhere near Jerusalem or in Palestine by any writer; and, in fact, there was no such place; there could have been none near Jerusalem. The Jews buried their dead carefully. Also the executed convict had to be buried before night. No bare skulls, bleaching in the sun, could be found in Palestine, especially not near Jerusalem. It was law, that a bare skull, the bare spinal column, and also the imperfect skeleton of any human being, make man unclean by contact, and also by having either in the house. Man, thus made unclean, could not eat of any sacrificial meal, or of the sacred tithe, before he had gone through the ceremonies of purification; and whatever he touched was also unclean (Maimonides, Hil. Tumath Meth., iii. 1). Any impartial reader can see that the object of this law was to prevent the barbarous practice of heathens of having human skulls and skeletons lie about exposed to the decomposing influences of the atmosphere, as the Romans did in Palestine after the fall of Bethar, when for a long time they would give no permission to bury the dead patriots. This law was certainly enforced most rigidly in the vicinity of Jerusalem, of which they maintained "Jerusalem is more holy than all other cities surrounded with walls," so that it was not permitted to keep a dead body over night in the city, or to transport through it human bones. Jerusalem was the place of the sacrificial meals and the consumption of the sacred tithe, which was considered very holy (Maimonides, Hil. Beth Habchirah, vii. 14); there, and in the surroundings, skulls and skeletons were certainly never seen on the surface of the earth, and consequently there was no place called "Golgotha," and there was no such word in the Hebrew dialect. It is a word coined by the Mark narrator to translate the Latin term "Calvaria," which, together with the crucifixion story, came from Rome. But after the Syrian word was made, nobody understood it, and the Mark narrator was obliged to expound it."[526:1]

In the face of the arguments produced, the crucifixion story, as related in the Gospels, cannot be upheld as an historical fact. There exists, certainly, no rational ground whatever for the belief that the affair took place in the manner the Evangelists describe it. All that can be saved of the whole story is, that after Jesus had answered the first question before Pilate, viz., "Art thou the King of the Jews?" which it is natural to suppose he was asked, and also this can be supposed only, he was given over to the Roman soldiers to be disposed of as soon as possible, before his admirers and followers could come to his rescue, or any demonstration in his favor be made. He was captured in the night, as quietly as possible, and guarded in some place, probably in the high-priest's court, completely secluded from the eyes of the populace; and early in the morning he was brought before Pilate as cautiously and quietly as it could be done, and at his command, disposed of by the soldiers as quickly as practicable, and in a manner not known to the mass of the people. All this was done, most likely, while the multitude worshiped on Mount Moriah, and nobody had an intimation of the tragical end of the Man of Nazareth.

The bitter cry of Jesus, as he hung on the tree, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" disclosed the hope of deliverance that till the last moment sustained his heart, and betrayed the anguish felt when the hope was blighted; the sneers and hooting of the Roman soldiers expressed their conviction that he had pretended to be what he was not.

The miracles ascribed to him, and the moral precepts put into his mouth, in after years, are what might be expected; history was simply repeating itself; the same thing had been done for others. "The preacher of the Mount, the prophet of the Beatitudes, does but repeat, with persuasive lips, what the law-givers of his race proclaimed in mighty tones of command."[527:1]

The martyrdom of Jesus of Nazareth has been gratefully acknowledged by his disciples, whose lives he saved by the sacrifice of his own, and by their friends, who would have fallen by the score had he not prevented the rebellion ripe at Jerusalem.[527:2] Posterity, infatuated with Pagan apotheoses, made of that simple martyrdom an interesting legend, colored with the myths of resurrection and ascension to that very heaven which the telescope has put out of man's way. It is a novel myth, made to suit the gross conceptions of ex-heathens. Modern theology, understanding well enough that the myth cannot be saved, seeks refuge in the greatness and self-denial of the man who died for an idea, as though Jesus had been the only man who had died for an idea. Thousands, tens of thousands of Jews, Christians, Mohammedans and Heathens, have died for ideas, and some of them were very foolish. But Jesus did not die for an idea. He never advanced anything new, that we know of, to die for. He was not accused of saying or teaching anything original. Nobody has ever been able to discover anything new and original in the Gospels. He evidently died to save the lives of his friends, and this is much more meritorious than if he had died for a questionable idea. But then the whole fabric of vicarious atonement is demolished, and modern theology cannot get over the absurdity that the Almighty Lord of the Universe, the infinite and eternal cause of all causes, had to kill some innocent person in order to be reconciled to the human race. However abstractly they speculate and subtilize, there is always an undigested bone of man-god, god-man, and vicarious atonement in the theological stomach. Therefore theology appears so ridiculous in the eyes of modern philosophy. The theological speculation cannot go far enough to hold pace with modern astronomy. However nicely the idea may be dressed, the great God of the immense universe looks too small upon the cross of Calvary; and the human family is too large, has too numerous virtues and vices, to be perfectly represented by, and dependent on, one Rabbi of Galilee. Speculate as they may, one way or another, they must connect the Eternal and the fate of the human family with the person and fate of Jesus. That is the very thing which deprives Jesus of his crown of martyrdom, and brings religion in perpetual conflict with philosophy. It was not the religious idea which was crucified in Jesus and resurrected with him, as with all its martyrs; although his belief in immortality may have strengthened him in the agony of death. It was the idea of duty to his disciples and friends which led him to the realms of death. This deserves admiration, but no more. It demonstrates the nobility of human nature, but proves nothing in regard to providence, or the providential scheme of government.

The Christian story, as the Gospels narrate it, cannot stand the test of criticism. You approach it critically and it falls. Dogmatic Christology built upon it, has, therefore, a very frail foundation. Most so-called lives of Christ, or biographies of Jesus, are works of fiction, erected by imagination on the shifting foundation of meagre and unreliable records. There are very few passages in the Gospels which can stand the rigid application of honest criticism. In modern science and philosophy, orthodox Christology is out of the question.

"This 'sacred tradition' has in itself a glorious vitality, which Christians may unblameably entitle immortal. But it certainly will not lose in beauty, grandeur, or truth, if all the details concerning Jesus which are current in the Gospels, and all the mythology of his person, be forgotten or discredited. Christianity will remain without Christ.

"This formula has in it nothing paradoxical. Rightly interpreted, it simply means: All that is best in Judæo-Christian sentiment, moral or spiritual, will survive, without Rabbinical fancies, cultured by perverse logic; without huge piles of fable built upon them: without the Oriental Satan, a formidable rival to the throne of God; without the Pagan invention of Hell and Devils."

In modern criticism, the Gospel sources become so utterly worthless and unreliable, that it takes more than ordinary faith to believe a large portion thereof to be true. The Eucharist was not established by Jesus, and cannot be called a sacrament. The trials of Jesus are positively not true: they are pure inventions.[528:1] The crucifixion story, as narrated, is certainly not true, and it is extremely difficult to save the bare fact that Jesus was crucified. What can the critic do with books in which a few facts must be ingeniously guessed from under the mountain of ghost stories,[528:2] childish miracles,[529:1] and dogmatic tendencies?[529:2] It is absurd to expect of him to regard them as sources of religious instruction, in preference to any other mythologies and legends. That is the point at which modern critics have arrived, therefore, the Gospels have become books for the museum and archæologist, for students of mythology and ancient literature.

The spirit of dogmatic Christology hovers still over a portion of civilized society, in antic organizations, disciplines, and hereditary forms of faith and worship; in science and philosophy, in the realm of criticism, its day is past. The universal, religious, and ethical element of Christianity has no connection whatever with Jesus or his apostles, with the Gospel, or the Gospel story; it exists independent of any person or story. Therefore it needs neither the Gospel story nor its heroes. If we profit by the example, by the teachings, or the discoveries of men of past ages, to these men we are indebted, and are in duty bound to acknowledge our indebtedness; but why should we give to one individual, Jesus of Nazareth, the credit of it all? It is true, that by selecting from the Gospels whatever portions one may choose, a common practice among Christian writers, a noble and grand character may be depicted, but who was the original of this character? We may find the same individual outside of the Gospels, and before the time of Jesus. The moral precepts of the Gospels, also, were in existence before the Gospels themselves were in existence.[529:3] Why, then, extol the hero of the Gospels, and forget all others?

As it was at the end of Roman Paganism, so is it now: the masses are deceived and fooled, or do it for themselves, and persons of vivacious fantasies prefer the masquerade of delusion, to the simple sublimity of naked but majestic truth. The decline of the church as a political power proves beyond a doubt the decline of Christian faith. The conflicts of Church and State all over the European continent, and the hostility between intelligence and dogmatic Christianity, demonstrates the death of Christology in the consciousness of modern culture. It is useless to shut our eyes to these facts. Like rabbinical Judaism, dogmatic Christianity was the product of ages without typography, telescopes, microscopes, telegraphs, and power of steam. "These right arms of intelligence have fought the titanic battles, conquered and demolished the ancient castles, and remove now the débris, preparing the ground upon which there shall be the gorgeous temple of humanity, one universal republic, one universal religion of intelligence, and one great universal brotherhood. This is the new covenant, the gospel of humanity and reason."

"----Hoaryheaded selfishness has felt Its death-blow, and is tottering to the grave: A brighter morn awaits the human day; War with its million horrors, and fierce hell, Shall live but in the memory of time, Who, like a penitent libertine, shall start, Look back, and shudder at his younger years."

FOOTNOTES:

[508:1] "For knowledge of the man Jesus, of his idea and his aims, and of the outward form of his career, the New Testament is our only hope. If this hope fails, the pillared firmament of his starry fame is rottenness; the base of Christianity, so far as it was personal and individual, is built on stubble." (John W. Chadwick.)

[508:2] M. Renan, after declaring Jesus to be a "fanatic," and admitting that, "his friends thought him, at moments, beside himself;" and that, "his enemies declared him possessed by a devil," says: "The man here delineated merits a place at the summit of human grandeur." "This is the Supreme man, a sublime personage;" "to call him divine is no exaggeration." Other liberal writers have written in the same strain.

[509:1] "The Christ of Paul was not a person, but an idea; he took no pains to learn the facts about the individual Jesus. He actually boasted that the Apostles had taught him nothing. His Christ was an ideal conception, evolved from his own feeling and imagination, and taking on new powers and attributes from year to year to suit each new emergency." (John W. Chadwick.)

[510:1] This subject is considered in Appendix D.

[510:2] Scythia was a name employed in ancient times, to denote a vast, indefinite, and almost unknown territory north and east of the Black Sea, the Caspian, and the Sea of Aral.

[510:3] See Herodotus, book 4, ch. 82.

[510:4] See Dupuis, p. 264.

[510:5] See Knight's Anct. Art and Mythology, p. 96, and Mysteries of Adoni, p. 90.

[510:6] See Dupuis, p. 264.

[510:7] See Bell's Pantheon, vol. i. p. 7.

[510:8] See Ibid. vol. i. p. 27.

[510:9] Ibid.

[510:10] Ibid. vol. i. p. 2, and Bonwick, p. 155.

[510:11] See Chambers, art. "Jonah."

[510:12] See Bible for Learners, vol. i. p. 152, and Goldzhier, p. 280.

[510:13] See Curious Myths, p. 264.

[511:1] "Whilst, in one part of the Christian world, the chief objects of interest were the human nature and human life of Jesus, in another part of the Christian world the views taken of his person because so idealistic, that his humanity was reduced to a phantom without reality. The various Gnostic systems generally agreed in saying that the Christ was an Æon, the redeemer of the spirits of men, and that he had little or no contact with their corporeal nature." (A. Réville: Hist. of the Dogma of the Deity of Jesus.)

[511:2] Epiphanius says that there were TWENTY heresies BEFORE CHRIST, and there can be no doubt that there is much truth in the observation, for most of the rites and doctrines of the Christians of all sects existed before the time of Jesus of Nazareth.

[512:1] "Accipis avengelium? et maxime. Proinde ergo et natum accipis Christum. Non ita est. Neque enim sequitur ut si evangelium accipio, idcirco et natum accipiam Christum. Ergo non putas cum ex Maria Virgine esse? Manes dixit, Absit ut Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum per naturalia pudenda mulieris de scendisse confitear." (Lardner's Works, vol. iv. p. 20.)

[512:2] "I maintain," says he, "that the Son of God was born: why am I not ashamed of maintaining such a thing? Why! because it is itself a shameful thing--I maintain that the Son of God died: well, that is wholly credible because it is monstrously absurd. I maintain that after having been buried, he rose again: and that I take to be absolutely true, because it was manifestly impossible."

[512:3] King's Gnostics, p. 1.

[512:4] I. John, iv. 2, 3.

[512:5] II. John, 7.

[512:6] 1st Book Hermas: Apoc., ch. iii.

[512:7] Chapter II.

[513:1] Chapter II.

[513:2] Chapter III.

[513:3] Chapter III.

[513:4] I. Timothy, iii. 16.

[513:5] Irenæus, speaking of them, says: "They hold that men ought not to confess him who was crucified, but him who came in the form of man, and was supposed to be crucified, and was called Jesus." (See Lardner: vol. viii. p. 353.) They could not conceive of "the first-begotten Son of God" being put to death on a cross, and suffering like an ordinary being, so they thought Simon of Cyrene must have been substituted for him, as the ram was substituted in the place of Isaac. (See Ibid. p. 857.)

[513:6] Apol. 1, ch. xxi.

[514:1] Koran, ch. iv.

[514:2] Chapter XX.

[514:3] Chapter II.

[514:4] Col. i. 23.

[514:5] I. Timothy, iii. 16.

[514:6] The authenticity of these Epistles has been freely questioned, even by the most conservative critics.

[515:1] See Bunsen's Angel-Messiah, and Chapter XXXVII., this work.

[515:2] Quoted by Max Müller: The Science of Relig., p. 228.

[515:3] Ch. cxvii.

[515:4] Ch. xxii.

[516:1] Ch. iv. 5.

[516:2] Josephus: Antiq., b. xx. ch. v. 2.

[516:3] It is true there was another Annas high-priest at Jerusalem, but this was when Gratus was procurator of Judea, some twelve or fifteen years before Pontius Pilate held the same office. (See Josephus: Antiq., book xviii. ch. ii. 3.)

[516:4] See Appendix D.

[516:5] See the Martyrdom of Jesus, p. 100.

[516:6] According to Dio Cassius, Plutarch, Strabo and others, there existed, in the time of Herod, among the Roman Syrian heathens, a wide-spread and deep sympathy for a "Crucified King of the Jews." This was the youngest son of Aristobul, the heroic Maccabee. In the year 43 B. C., we find this young man--Antigonus--in Palestine claiming the crown, his cause having been declared just by Julius Cæsar. Allied with the Parthians, he maintained himself in his royal position for six years against Herod and Mark Antony. At last, after a heroic life and reign, he fell in the hands of this Roman. "Antony now gave the kingdom to a certain Herod, and, having stretched Antigonus on a cross and scourged him, a thing never done before to any other king by the Romans, he put him to death." (Dio Cassius, book xlix. p. 405.)

The fact that all prominent historians of those days mention this extraordinary occurrence, and the manner they did it, show that it was considered one of Mark Antony's worst crimes: and that the sympathy with the "Crucified King" was wide-spread and profound. (See The Martyrdom of Jesus of Nazareth, p. 106.)

Some writers think that there is a connection between this and the Gospel story; that they, in a certain measure, put Jesus in the place of Antigonus, just as they put Herod in the place of Kansa. (See Chapter XVIII.)

[517:1] Canon Farrar thinks that Josephus' silence on the subject of Jesus and Christianity, was as deliberate as it was dishonest. (See his Life of Christ, vol. i. p. 63.)

[518:1] Many examples might be cited to confirm this view, but the case of Joseph Smith, in our own time and country, will suffice.

The Mormons regard him very much as Christians regard Jesus; as the Mohammedans do Mohammed; or as the Buddhists do Buddha. A coarse sort of religious feeling and fervor appears to have been in Smith's nature. He seems, from all accounts, to have been cracked on theology, as so many zealots have been, and cracked to such an extent that his early acquaintances regarded him as a downright fanatic.

The common view that he was an impostor is not sustained by what is known of him. He was, in all probability, of unbalanced mind, a monomaniac, as most prophets have been; but there is no reason to think that he did not believe in himself, and substantially in what he taught. He has declared that, when he was about fifteen, he began to reflect on the importance of being prepared for a future state. He went from one church to another without finding anything to satisfy the hunger of his soul, consequently, he retired into himself; he sought solitude; he spent hours and days in meditation and prayer, after the true manner of all accredited saints, and was soon repaid by the visits of angels. One of these came to him when he was but eighteen years old, and the house in which he was seemed filled with consuming fire. The presence--he styles it a personage--had a pace like lightning, and proclaimed himself to be an angel of the Lord. He vouchsafed to Smith a vast deal of highly important information of a celestial order. He told him that his (Smith's) prayers had been heard, and his sins forgiven; that the covenant which the Almighty had made with the old Jews was to be fulfilled; that the introductory work for the second coming of Christ was now to begin; that the hour for the preaching of the gospel in its purity to all peoples was at hand, and that Smith was to be an instrument in the hands of God, to further the divine purpose in the new dispensation. The celestial stranger also furnished him with a sketch of the origin, progress, laws and civilization of the American aboriginals, and declared that the blessing of heaven had finally been withdrawn from them. To Smith was communicated the momentous circumstance that certain plates containing an abridgment of the records of the aboriginals and ancient prophets, who had lived on this continent, were hidden in a hill near Palmyra. The prophet was counseled to go there and look at them, and did so. Not being holy enough to possess them as yet, he passed some months in spiritual probation, after which the records were put into his keeping. These had been prepared, it is claimed, by a prophet called Mormon, who had been ordained by God for the purpose, and to conceal them until he should produce them for the benefit of the faithful, and unite them with the Bible for the achievement of his will. They form the celebrated Book of Mormon--whence the name Mormon--and are esteemed by the Latter-Day Saints as of equal authority with the Old and New Testaments, and as an indispensable supplement thereto, because they include God's disclosures to the Mormon world. These precious records were sealed up and deposited A. D. 420 in the place where Smith had viewed them by the direction of the angel.

The records were, it is held, in the reformed Egyptian tongue, and Smith translated them through the inspiration of the angel, and one Oliver Cowdrey wrote down the translation as reported by the God-possessed Joseph. This translation was published in 1830, and its divine origin was attested by a dozen persons--all relatives and friends of Smith. Only these have ever pretended to see the original plates, which have already become traditional. The plates have been frequently called for by skeptics, but all in vain. Naturally, warm controversy arose concerning the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, and disbelievers have asserted that they have indubitable evidence that it is, with the exception of various unlettered interpolations, principally borrowed from a queer, rhapsodical romance written by an eccentric ex-clergyman named Solomon Spalding.

Smith and his disciples were ridiculed and socially persecuted; but they seemed to be ardently earnest, and continued to preach their creed, which was to the effect that the millennium was at hand; that our aboriginals were to be converted, and that the New Jerusalem--the last residence and home of the saints--was to be near the centre of this continent. The Vermont prophet, later on, was repeatedly mobbed, even shot at. His narrow escapes were construed as interpositions of divine providence, but he displayed perfect coolness and intrepidity through all his trials. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was first established in the spring of 1830 at Manchester, N. Y.; but it awoke such fierce opposition, particularly from the orthodox, many of them preachers, that Smith and his associates deemed it prudent to move farther west. They established themselves at Kirtland, O., and won there many converts. Hostility to them still continued, and grew so fierce that the body transferred itself to Missouri, and next to Illinois, settling in the latter state near the village of Commerce, which was renamed Nauvoo.

The Governor and Legislature of Illinois favored the Mormons, but the anti-Mormons made war on them in every way, and the custom of "sealing wives," which is yet mysterious to the Gentiles, caused serious outbreaks, and resulted in the incarceration of the prophet and his brother Hiram at Carthage. Fearing that the two might be released by the authorities, a band of ruffians broke into the jail, in the summer of 1844, and murdered them in cold blood. This was most fortunate for the memory of Smith and for his doctrines. It placed him in the light of a holy martyr, and lent to them a dignity and vitality they had never before enjoyed.

[520:1] When we speak of Jesus being crucified, we do not intend to convey the idea that he was put to death on a cross of the form adopted by Christians. This cross was the symbol of life and immortality among our heathen ancestors (see Chapter XXXIII.), and in adopting Pagan religious symbols, and baptizing them anew, the Christians took this along with others. The crucifixion was not a symbol of the earliest church; no trace of it can be found in the Catacombs. Some of the earliest that did appear, however, are similar to figures No. 42 and No. 43, above, which represent two of the modes in which the Romans crucified their slaves and criminals. (See Chapter XX., on the Crucifixion of Jesus.)

[520:2] According to the Matthew and Mark narrators, Jesus' head was anointed while sitting at table in the house of Simon the leper. Now, this practice was common among the kings of Israel. It was the sign and symbol of royalty. The word "Messiah" signifies the "Anointed One," and none of the kings of Israel were styled the Messiah unless anointed. (See The Martyrdom of Jesus of Nazareth, p. 42.)

[521:1] Josephus: Antiquities, book xviii. ch. iv. 1.

[522:1] Josephus: Antiquities, book xviii. chap. iii. 2.

[522:2] "From the death of Herod, 4 B. C., to the death of Bar-Cochba, 132 A. D., no less than fifty different enthusiasts set up as the Messiah, and obtained more or less following." (John W. Chadwick.)

[522:3] "There was, at this time, a prevalent expectation that some remarkable personage was about to appear in Judea. The Jews were anxiously looking for the coming of the MESSIAH. This personage, they supposed, would be a temporal prince, and they were expecting that he would deliver them from Roman bondage." (Albert Barnes: Notes, vol. i. p. 7.)

"The central and dominant characteristic of the teaching of the Rabbis, was the certain advent of a great national Deliverer--the MESSIAH. . . . The national mind had become so inflammable, by constant brooding on this one theme, that any bold spirit rising in revolt against the Roman power, could find an army of fierce disciples who trusted that it should be he who would redeem Israel." (Geikie: The Life of Christ, vol. i. p. 79.)

[522:4] "The penalty of crucifixion, according to Roman law and custom, was inflicted on slaves, and in the provinces on rebels only." (The Martyrdom of Jesus, p. 96.)

[522:5] Judas, the Gaulonite or Galilean, as Josephus calls him, declared, when Cyrenius came to tax the Jewish people, that "this taxation was no better than an introduction to slavery," and exhorted the nation to assert their liberty. He therefore prevailed upon his countrymen to revolt. (See Josephus: Antiq., b. xviii. ch. i. 1, and Wars of the Jews, b. ii. ch. viii. 1.)

[523:1] The Martyrdom of Jesus of Nazareth, p. 30.

[523:2] "That the High Council did accuse Jesus, I suppose no one will doubt; and since they could neither wish or expect the Roman Governor to make himself judge of their sacred law, it becomes certain that their accusation was purely political, and took such a form as this: 'He has accepted tumultuous shouts that he is the legitimate and predicted King of Israel, and in this character has ridden into Jerusalem with the forms of state understood to be royal and sacred; with what purpose, we ask, if not to overturn our institutions, and your dominion?' If Jesus spoke, at the crisis which Matthew represents, the virulent speech attributed to him (Matt. xxiii.), we may well believe that this gave a new incentive to the rulers; for it is such as no government in Europe would overlook or forgive: but they are not likely to have expected Pilate to care for any conduct which might be called an ecclesiastical broil. The assumption of royalty was clearly the point of their attack. Even the mildest man among them may have thought his conduct dangerous and needing repression." (Francis W. Newman, "What is Christianity without Christ?")

According to the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus was completely innocent of the charge which has sometimes been brought against him, that he wished to be considered as a God come down to earth. His enemies certainly would not have failed to make such a pretension the basis and the continual theme of their accusations, if it had been possible to do so. The two grounds upon which he was brought before the Sanhedrim were, first, the bold words he was supposed to have spoken about the temple; and, secondly and chiefly, the fact that he claimed to be the Messiah, i. e., "The King of the Jews." (Albert Réville: "The Doctrine of the Dogma of the Deity of Jesus," p. 7.)

[523:3] See The Martyrdom of Jesus, p. 30.

[524:1] See note 4, p. 522.

[524:2] See Matt. xx. 19.

[524:3] John xviii. 31, 32.

[524:4] That is, the crucifixion story as related in the Gospels. See note 1, p. 520.

[524:5] Matthew xxvii. 24, 25.

[525:1] Commentators, in endeavoring to get over this difficulty, say that, "it may come from the look or form of the spot itself, bald, round, and skull-like, and therefore a mound or hillock," but, if it means "the place of bare skulls," no such construction as the above can be put to the word.

[526:1] The Martyrdom of Jesus of Nazareth, pp. 109-111.

[527:1] O. B. Frothingham: The Cradle of the Christ, p. 11.

The reader is referred to "Judaism: Its Doctrines and Precepts," by Dr. Isaac M. Wise. Printed at the office of the "American Israelite," Cincinnati, Ohio.

[527:2] If Jesus, instead of giving himself up quietly, had resisted against being arrested, there certainly would have been bloodshed, as there was on many other similar occasions.

[528:1] If what is recorded In the Gospels on the subject was true, no historian of that day could fail to have noticed it, but instead of this there is nothing.

[528:2] See Matthew, xxvii. 51-53.

[529:1] See Matt. xiv. 15-22: Mark, iv. 1-3, and xi. 14; and Luke, vii. 26-37.

[529:2] See Mark, xvi. 16.

[529:3] This fact has at last been admitted by the most orthodox among the Christians. The Rev. George Matheson, D. D., Minister of the Parish of Innellan, and a member of the Scotch Kirk, speaking of the precept uttered by Confucius, five hundred years before the time assigned for the birth of Jesus of Nazareth ("Whatsoever ye would not that others should do unto you, do not ye unto them"), says: "That Confucius is the author of this precept is undisputed, and therefore it is indisputable that Christianity has incorporated an article of Chinese morality. It has appeared to some as if this were to the disparagement of Christianity--as if the originality of its Divine Founder were impaired by consenting to borrow a precept from a heathen source. But in what sense does Christianity set up the claim of moral originality? When we speak of the religion of Christ as having introduced into the world a purer life and a surer guide to conduct, what do we mean? Do we mean to suggest that Christianity has, for the first time, revealed to the world the existence of a set of self-sacrificing precepts--that here, for the first time, man has learned that he ought to be meek, merciful, humble, forgiving, sorrowful for sin, peaceable, and pure in heart? The proof of such a statement would destroy Christianity itself, for an absolute original code of precepts would be equivalent to a foreign language. The glory of Christian morality is that it is NOT ORIGINAL--that its words appeal to something which already exists within the human heart, and on that account have a meaning to the human ear: no new revelation can be made except through the medium of an old one. When we attribute originality to the ethics of the Gospel, we do so on the ground, not that it has given new precepts, but that it has given us a new impulse to obey the moral instincts of the soul. Christianity itself claims on the field of morals this originality, and this alone--'A new commandment give I unto you, that you love one another." (St. Giles Lectures, Second Series: The Faiths of the World. Religion of China, by the Rev. George Matheson, D. D., Minister of the Parish of Innellan. Wm. Blackwood & Sons: Edinburgh, 1882.)