* According to Eratosthenes, the celestial Virgin wassupposed to be Isis, that is, the symbol of the returningyear. It was in honor of this goddess that the Egyptianscelebrated the famous festival of light, which was imitatedby the Christians in their feast of Candlemas. From theEgyptians, the Romans took their Solar festivals, in honorof the birth of the god of light, celebrated on the 25thDecember, at which time, says Sexvius, the Sun may, properlyspeaking, be said to be new, or to have a new birth. Hencethe Christmas of the Christians, which had also been,previously, a Druidical festival, in honor of the solarGod's birth; hence the evergreen emblems—the holly, themistletoe, etc., all sacred among the Druids thousands ofyears before Christ.
Porphyry corroborates the above thus:—"The learned Egyptians admit the existence of no other gods except what are called the planets, the gods which give completion to the zodiac; and such as rise together with these; and likewise the sections of the zodiac into decans." Such were the Egyptian and Chaldeans roots of Christianity; and such was Christianity itself, until it became abused and falsified by the introduction of Platonic visions, and a belief in the reality of supernatural personifications, which by degrees supplanted the sublime natural and moral principles of the Pagan stock.
The metaphysical phantasma called soul (revived by Plato from the divine philosophy of the Pagans), and its future state of rewards and punishments, is one of the most pernicious and fatal of those dogmas. Without this notion priests would be comparatively harmless, as it forms the basis of their secret influence, by working upon the hopes and fears of ignorance, and thereby becomes the chief source of riches and power. By this mischievous invention they have turned this fair world into an abode of gloomy despair, terrifying their weak-minded victims into slavish obedience, by keeping them in perpetual dread of imaginary punishments, in the infliction of which they paint their god as a capricious and malevolent tyrant. This story of the soul's immortality must have been unknown, or at least not fashionable at the time in which it is said Moses lived, since no allusion whatever is made to it throughout the books attributed to him;* and David, Solomon, and Job deny it in the most positive manner. Even the testator of the Jewish will seems at that time to have had no such idea. The fact is, the Jews had heard nothing of the matter until they learnt it of the Platonist Greeks, as is proved by many parts of the Bible; for instance, Moses makes the Jewish god threaten to "visit the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation." The rewards were also purely temporal, such as "their corn their wine shall abound." These were all the ideas that Moses had of future rewards and punishments; and the Pharisees did not publicly maintain the dogma of the soul's immortality, etc., until about the time of Herod.
* The great Warburton has shown that the Jews in the time ofMoses, entertained no such opinion as the immortality of thesoul. "This is admitted (says Ensor) although unwillingly,by Tillotson and Wilkins, and candidly by Le Clereq andGeddes." This platonic notion is flatly denied in Psalmscxlvi., 4; and in Eccles. iii, 19, 20.
Pythagoras and Plato seemed to have been the mere revivers of this ancient doctrine, which, as the learned, say, sprang from the Brahminism of India, the most ancient of all the mythologies, the priests of which are said to have been the first who corrupted human society, by the invention of souls, and other spiritual or celestial existences; but, unlike their imitators of' the west, they neither persecuted nor shed a drop of blood for religion's sake; nor the blood of animals for food. Christians! we know ye can very ill bear to be told, that from India through Persia ye have your cosmogony, fall of man, immortality of the soul, redemption, incarnation, future rewards and punishments, heaven and hell, desolation of all things, universal restoration, trinity in unity, eternity, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, and omnibenevolence of God;* all are derived from the Vedas and Shastras, or Bible of the Brahmins, and the Sadder of the Zoroastrians. Out of these oriental materials, all the successive religions that have sprung up in the west have been fabricated, with such variations in the machinery as suited the civil and clerical despotism in the different countries, and the degree of ignorance in the people.
One of the insidious and baneful arts of theology, has ever been to make man believe that he is something else than that which nature has made him in reality; and this delusive flattery has moulded him into that self-important and credulous animal, which best suits the interests of his deceivers;** hence his proudly assumed knowledge of his personified deity. If this be true his boasted spiritual knowledge seems to have the effect of making him more wicked and vicious than any other animal, for he is not only the scourge of all the rest, but will, to gratify the pride and ambition of lay and spiritual tyrants (leagured together for his oppression), cut the throats of his own species; though, by so doing, he the more closely rivets the chains of his own subjection, and maintains those very delusions which enslave his mind, poison society, and distract the world.
* And this God was no other than the Sun!** In commencing this nefarious process no time is lost manis seized upon the moment he is born, and the firstsacerdotal spell is the water incantation; after which hismind is gradually mortgaged to the priest by more potentcharms; he is carefully shorn of his natural liberties, andthus donkified, all his motions are regulated until death,when the last priestly spell is performed. But this is notall—clerical rapacity holds property even in the corpsewhich cannot be interred until this last grasping charge issatisfied.
The spiritual arsenal of Plato having thus supplied the human animal with what is called an "immortal soul,"* our Christian priests have ever since found it an excellent foundation for their scheme, and a secure medium through which to make permanent their riches and power.
* As the word soul, heaven, spirit, hell, metaphysio, ghost,immaterial, etc., are not representatives of things whichexist in reality, why are they suffered to confound commonsense? Because, in serving that purpose, they are the mostuseful auxiliaries of priest-mare delusion. The Theologian'sdefinition of them is his best refutation.
Plato would not at this day know his foster-child, disfigured as it now is by a train of hideous inventions, the theory of which is, that death is the only way to a new and eternal life; that all who believe in this paradoxical speculation of the priest shall be rewarded, and that all who believe himnotshall be tortured by an eternal roasting in that life. Considering the weak and credulous nature of the human mind in a state of ignorance, we must acknowledge the bold ingenuity which invented this tremendous dogma; it is calculated to confound even the strongest intellect; for the terrors of death, under so frightful a predicament, utterly debase and enslave the prostrate mind, making it a prey to all the combined efforts of sacerdotal fraud. By this pernicious fiction, the morality of nations has been destroyed, the blackest crimes that man can commit have been pardoned,* and the priest has filled his coffers to the glory of the three divinities! Theology, in its vain attempts to raise man above that sphere in which nature has placed him, as a link in her animated chain, hath thus created for him an imaginary futurity; but, in so doing, by a strange incongruity, the creature so exalted above himself, and made the exclusive object of divine clemency, has against him, nevertheless, 999 chances in the 1,000 that he is predestined to everlasting torments, (yet even this inexorably forlorn hope flatters his pride) whilst the remaining unit only shall enjoy the beatitude of celestial bliss:—
No matter,Better to be in hell, it seems, thanNot to be at all. We say negatur.* Oh, Plato! Plato! you have paved the wayWith your confounded fantasies, to moreImmoral conduct, by the fancied sway.Your systems feign o'er the controlless coreOf human hearts, than all the long arrayOf poets and romances; you're a bore,A charlatan, a coxcomb, and have been,At best, no better than a go-between.—Byron.
To create that essential difference between man and the other animals which is necessary to the ends of priestcraft, the spiritualist conjures up his chimerical invention called soul; which, for certain considerations to him well and truly paid, he bestows exclusively upon man; and as the other animals have no money, he declares, in the not-to-be-questioned tone, that not one of them has a rag of any such appendage. There is no necessity for proving this in the usual manner, nor even to demonstrate that the article in question has a real existence, as these are points offaithimposed by dint of infallible dogmas, the truth of which is sufficiently proved by the power which nine millions a-year confers upon our spiritual guides; and by the ignorance which that power and influence fosters.
The bee, the beaver, the ant, and many more of those called "inferior animals," have shown in community, equal, if not superior wisdom, in all their customs and social institutions, to that displayed by man in society; yet priests will not allow them a scrap ofsoul. But this deficiency will be remedied whenever spiritual impostors, pretending to heavenly inspiration, shall spring up amongst themselves; for then supernatural religions, with their accompaniments of priesthoods, will be simultaneous blessings, as the latter will not only supply in abundance the little "immortal" articles in question, but save and cure them for the voyage to heaven, for the trifling remuneration of being allowed the means of living in luxury and ease for life, at the expense of the wealth producers. These conditions are so customary and moderate, that a priesthood, even amongst ants, could not be expected both to create and save souls on more reasonable terms. Before these tiny examples of industry give way to the introduction of supernaturalism, and its hierarchical plagues, let them well weigh whether the possession of souls (subject to the terrible risks above stated), and a postmortemlifewill compensate for the corruption of government, the debasement of character, the immoralities, the vices, and shocking crimes which will most assuredly pervade their communities for ever in this life, whenever they adopt spiritualism, and its train of locusts to prey upon their industry. We have been more particular in regard to ants, owing to its having been ascertained that in many of their republics, a military force, or "standing army," in peace as well as in war, has been established; and as that scourge has never been known among men, but as part of a grand enslaving scheme, which embraced, as a vital correlative, some system of superstition and its priesthood, it is greatly to be feared that the ants are verging towards the sacerdotal mania, which is the hand and glove concomitant of the former evil.
The indisputable fact that man, taking him as the Christian superstition has moulded him, has more vices, than any other animal whatsoever, and not a single virtue that may not be found in most of them, is rather a lame proof of his exclusive possession of the immortal item to which he pretends.
That which was called "soul" in Platonism and Christianity, was precisely thePneumaof the Greeks, and theAnimaof the Latins, to which they attached no other meaning than simply the breath of life* in all animals; and as that is composed of elements which are eternal, immortality may, in this sense, be justly ascribed to it.| But mind or soul is not a thing of itself (res sui), but a consequence resulting from, and depending upon, animal organisation. In regard to the "innate ideas" which it has pleased our theological doctors to bestow upon the human mind, the better to adapt it for their own purpose, it would be quite as philosophical and true, to assert that a violin had innate music. This physical property called mind, the result of organisation, and, in degree, common to everything that has life, is, at birth, a tabula rasa, but acquires ideas as it grows to maturity, from the senses being acted upon by external objects, much in the same manner that the mechanically organised violin produces music, from the external action of the bow.
* Its supposed existence after death is merely a freshversion of the ancient Metempsychosis.** Aristotle maintained the eternity of matter, and did notbelieve that the governing power of the universe extendedany particular providence to sublunary things. As for theimmortality of the soul, or even the existence of any suchthing, as taught in modern theology, it was quiteinconsistent with his principles; yet he was, at one and thesame tune, the master of theologians, and the chief of theAtheists.
The next dogma we shall notice is that of Savior, or Mediator. This is evidently derived from the Christna of the Hindu trinity, who, as theRedeemerof the human race, was the most important of the three. This personification of the sun seems to have been adopted by the Persian lawgiver, Zoroaster, under the name of Mithra (which still meant Mediator), when he founded the religion of the Mithriacs, or worshippers of the sun. According to Plutarch, Zoroaster taught that there existed two principles, one good, and the other evil; the first was called Oromazes, "the ancient of days," being the principle of good or light; the other, Ahrimanes, was the principle of evil, or cold and darkness. Between these personified principles, he placed his Mithra, who, as the source of genial heat and life, annually redeems the human race from the power of evil or cold and darkness.* From this beautiful allegory of the sun, is derived the Christian dogma of Savior, of which proof maybe found even amongst the fathers. (See Tertullian, Adv. Qentes.) Celsus asserts that the early Christians were merely a sect of adorers of the sun, and such a sect were the Manicheans. The principles of what man callsgoodandevil, have also been personified** in the Osiris and Typhon of the Egyptians, the Jupiter and Pandora of the Greeks, the Jehovah and Satan of the Jews, and the present God and devil of the Christians.
* This Indian and Persian Trinity was symbolical of thethree-fold, power of the Sun, or God Mithra: in spring andsummer, he is the Producer; in autumn, the Preserver; and byhis absence in winter, the Destroyer.** The fraud of personifying principles, and the physicalpowers of Nature has always been easy and indispensable withpriests in all ages. During the French revolution, Gobet,Bishop of Paris, acknowledged that up to that time, himselfand his clergy had taught the people nothing but a mass offalsehood, for which he apologised; disowned the god he hadtaught the people to worship, and promised to devote himselfto the worship of reason, morality, liberty and virtue. Butthe stupid and credulous mob soon personified thesequalities, and worshipped, them as deities and realentities. At Rome, in like manner, the compliments of thenew year, Perpetua Felicitas, were turned into twogoddesses, and receive divine honors to this day.
Diogenes Laertius says expressly that the Jews adopted the doctrine of the two principles from the Magi; and St. Augustine assures us that it was the foundation of the religion of the Assyrians, who were so often the masters of the little miserable Jewish horde. Manicheism (so called from Manes, the founder) was one of the first branches of Christianism; but adhered more than any other of the heresies, to the original Zoroastrian stock, though it lay as a stage between that religion and the recent version of Christianity, which, as well as Judaism, is a mere heresy from the religion of the Persians. Since the Persian cosmogony and religion, as well as all others of the East, were purely and confessedly allegorical, is it rational to suppose that anything of the kind got up by the Jews, could be other than a rough and ignorant version of that of their masters?
It has been admitted by most of the learned that the Shastras and Vedas, or scriptures of the Hindus, were in existence 1,400 years before the alleged time of Moses; and, in all probability, the Zendavesta, or Persian Bible, was long anterior also. Sir William Jones, of pious and orthodox memory, confesses that, "the name of Chrishna,* and the general outline of his story,was long anterior to the birth of our Savior, and, to the time of Homer,we know very certainly. I am persuaded also (continues he), that a connexion existed between the old idolatrous nations of Egypt, India, Greece, and Italy,long before the time of Moses. In the Sanscrit Dictionary, compiled more than two thousand years ago, we have the whole story of the incarnate Deity, BORN OF A VIRGIN, and miraculously escaping in his infancy from the reigning tyrant of his country."
* Sir William Jones says, in his "Asiatic Researches," thathe was assured by Colonel Valency, that Chrishna in Irishmeans the sun. The Baal-fire feast, or meeting, was a greatfestival in Ireland, on the 25th of December, and midsummereye. Baal, or Bel, was a name of the sun all over the east.** This probably alludes to the great period of nearly26,000 years, in which time the sun passes through the wholecircle of the zodiac. That is, he is in each sign, at thevenial equinox, for the space of 2,155 years.
This tyrant, alarmed at some prophecy, sought the infant's life; and, to make sure work, he ordered all the male children under two years of age to be put to death. Here is the true origin of the horrid story about Herod, of which no Greek or Roman historian says a single word. That the Christian story was taken from the Indian allegory, is traceable in every circumstance—the reputed father of Chrishna was a carpenter—a new star appeared at the child's birth—he was laid in a manger—(celestial)—he underwent many incarnations! to redeem the world from sin and mental darkness, (ignorance and winter) and was, therefore, calledSavior;—he was put to death between two thieves—he arose from the dead, and returned to his heavenly seat in Vaicontha. In corroboration of this, Albert the Great admits as follows "We know that the sign of the celestial Virgin did come to the horizon at the moment where we have fixed the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. All the mysteries of the incarnation of our Savior Christ: and all the circumstances of his marvellous life, from his conception to his ascension,are to be traced out in the constellations, and are figured in the stars." Volney, Dupuis, and others, have shown that these, and many more of our Scripture stories, which are absurd and revolting, if taken literally, were originally, in the learning of the east, pregnant with truth as astronomical allegories; having primary allusion to the sun, the elements and seasons, and to the progress of that luminary through the different signs of the zodiac; but more particularly, as he is the sole and glorious source from which flows all and everything that man can rationally call good. We repeat the melancholy truth, that all these beautiful astro-allegories have been lost in the ignorance or roguery of priestcraft.
Miraculous conceptions.—All antiquity is full of such conceptions and births, springing from the fabulous amours of gods withvirgins, whereby "sons of God" were engendered. These fables also had their origin in physical and moral allegories; but they were subsequently found to be extremely convenient to cover the real fruits of sacerdotal intrigues and seductions, which the priests could always saddle upon some good-natured god. In all probability the virgin votaries of Vesta were instituted for no other purpose than the privatedevotionsof the priesthood* and when it happened that they were unable to conceal the natural effects of these amours, the paternity was charged upon some easy accommodating god; by which means the girl remained in spotless virginity. This opinion is the more valid from their being allowed to marry at thirty, when the priests no longer wantedtheirservices, but those of the younger girls: if they chose to remain, in the temple, however, they were
"Doomed to deck the bed they once enjoyed."* In the highest apartment of the Temple of Belas, inBabylon, a woman was kept for theprivate devotionof thepriest whose turn it was to make astronomical observations.This was done under the pretence that the lady was visitedonce a year by the god Bel. History dees not inform us inregard to Bel's progeny, by these housekeepers.
By such artful intrigues, the Hindu virgin, Rohini, conceived and brought forth a "son of God," one of the Brahmin trinity. A Chinesevirgin, impregnated by a ray of theSun, became the mother of the god Foê, who always acted as themediatorbetween his followers and another god of still greater power. Mademoiselle Creusa, in all her virgin purity, was safely delivered of another "son of God" as was also the virgin mother of Somonocodom, who, according to the scriptures of the Talapoins of Siam, was the god expected tosavethe universe. Jupiter himself was fabled to have given birth to children from all parts of his body, from forehead to leg: thus Minerva sprang from his head.* The followers of Plato, two hundred and fifty years after his death, and one hundred before the Christian era, raised the story that he was born of a virgin:—Aristo, his father, was on his marriage, warned in adreamby Apollo, not to have any commerce with his wife, because she was with child by him (Apollo); Aristo obeyed; and Plato was born as another "son of God" It was no doubt owing to the holy paternity of some priest, that Sylva Rhea, under cover of a love affair with the god Mars, had the honor to lay the foundation of the Roman religion, by producing another "son of God."
* The severe study, or brain-labor necessary in acquiringsound knowledge, is here prettily allegorized in the birth,of Minerva, who was the personification of wisdom.
The writers of the most ancient chronicles of Alexandria, after attesting the universal prevalence of ourgospel religionin Egypt for ages before the date of its alleged origin, in the reign of Tiberius, testify as follows:—
"To this day, Egypt has consecrated the pregnancy of a virgin, and the nativity of her son, whom they annually present in a cradle, to the adoration of the people; and when king Ptolemy, three hundred and fifty years before our Christian era, demanded of the priests the significancy of this religions ceremony, they told him it was a mystery."*
All the above conceptions and incarnations are merely the poetical and allegorical fictions of Paganism. We have already seen that the first fabricators and compilers of our religion were men of the greatest honesty and veraciousness of character: and as they had just received the divine light of "the only true revelation," we are "bound to believe" that their story of a miraculous conception is the only true one, confirmed as it is byghosts, dreams, angels, and shadows. It is true that it cannot boast of such remote antiquity as the foregoing prodigies; but it is ancient enough to constitute truth in the orthodox eye ofFaith; and we must not give way to the impiety of supposing that it is an imitatio of any one of the heathen fables enumerated;** or the "blasphemy" of surmising that God's sending "his message to a carpenter's wife," is a varied version of Jupiter's loving message to Alcmena, by Mercury.
* According to Macrobius, this was the solar god Bacchus,who appears at the winter solstice, as an infant. Plutarchsays that at the winter solstice, Isis (Nature) broughtforth a son, a weak and feeble infant. On the inscription atSais, Isis says, "The fruit which I have produced, was, andwill become a Sun."** The whole story about the conception and birth, was toldin precisely the same manner as it is now, in India, Persia,Egypt, and Greece, for more than 1,600 years before itsalleged occurrence in Palestine.
Neither must we entertain the shocking idea that the conception of Mary was occasioned by any carnal agency; or that either theshadow or substanceof any priest was at all concerned in the holy mystery. Yet heresy will tell untoward tales; for her pregnancy has been accounted for in the most natural way imaginable, thus:—"According to the apocryphal gospel of the nativity of Mary which Father Jerome Xavier entirely adopts, Mary, when a child, was consecrated to the Lord (that is, to the priests), by the usual vow; and was brought up in the temple, which she did not leave until she was sixteen years of age. This created a suspicion that her pregnancy was the effect of some intrigue with the priests, who made her believe, or say, that it was the Holy Ghost who had begotten a child upon her."*—(Codex. Apox. N. T.) Some profane persons have said that the high priest was himself the chief actor in this sacerdotal amour; for he anxiously, pitched upon old Joseph to be the husband of Mary. St. Epiphanjus assures us in his book "Adv. Heresies," that Joseph was very old at the time of his marriage with thevirgin; and adds that he was the father of six children by his first wife. Moreover, the gospel ascribed to St. James the younger affirms that the good old man espoused Mary with much reluctance, owing to the disparity of their ages; but the high priest prevailed on him at last; and it further informs us of the very ill-humor of Joseph, when he found that his wife had been with child before their marriage, and the reproaches with which he loaded her, on account of her lewdness, unworthy, as he thought,of a virgin reared under the eyes of priests. Mary excused herself with tears and protestations, and swore by the living God that she did not know who begot the child. In her distress, the best excuse would have been her adventure with the archangel Gabriel; but it appears she forgot that. [It is indeed passing strange that Mary, according to Matthew, is wholly ignorant of her justification, according, to Luke.]
The fathers of our Church have disputed and quarreled in the most obscene terms, about this mystic impregnation by the Holy Ghost. St. Ambrose says:—"Non enim, secreta reseravit, sed immaculatum semen inviolabili utero spiritus sanctus infudit!"**
* The followers of Loatze say, that his mother becamepregnant of him, by a junction of heaven and earth. This isa sublime and boldconception; and far excels the puerileprating aboutghosts, angels, dreams, and shadows.** Of the miraculous impregnation, St. Ambrose says, "Mariaper aurem impregnata est."
In one of the Church hymns it was sung, "Non ex virili, sed mystico spiramine." Justin Martyr, in his apology, justifies these dogmas as modified by the Christians,not because they were true, but from the example of the heathen; he says:—"By declaring the Logos, the first begotten of God, our Master Jesus Christ, to be born of a virgin, without any human mixture, and to be crucified and dead, and to have risen again, and ascended into heaven,—we say no more in this, than what you say of those whom you style the sons of Jove." This was honestly lugging in one fable to apologise for another. The logic of Tertullian on this subject was decisive, and peculiar to himself—it might be called an axiomatic, or self-evident mode of reasoning; for instance, he says, "I am not ashamed of maintaining that the son of God was born,because it is itself a shameful thing. I maintain that he died and rose again,because it is absurd" When preachers use such convincing arguments, there is no excuse for the incredulity of hearers. This great Father contended also, that souls were material—that they had sexes, and were as much begotten by each other; as our bodies are by the bodies of our immediate parents. He asserted also, that "God is a body."
"The wordbegottennecessarily infers and associates the ideas of three distinct and separate Beings—the begetters, the begotten, and the person on whom he was begotten; and the termbegotten, alluding as it does to the performance of a particular action, must imply a particular time when that action was performed and of course that there was a time when that action was performed; now as the very, definition of the word eternity is that which iswithout beginningas well aswithout end, to talk of a personbegottenfrom eternity, is to compose a sentence of words the most contradictory to each other, or downright nonsense; it is to tell us of an action that wasbegun without any beginning; of a finite infinite, or an immortal mortal!" But the mystic conceptions, births, and incarnations of Paganism, being rooted in, and having exclusive allusion either to physical or moral principles, there were no such absurdities, terms, or monstrous perversions of them, as the early Christiana fell into, by converting mere words intobeings, in forming their mythology.
That the Christian dogma of the immaculate conception and birth of Christ, was originally an astronomical allegory of the Sun, "the day-spring from on high," can be proved by a hundred corroborating facts, which, are irresistibly convincing, except where interest, or the most inveterate prejudice, stands in the way. These facts have been elucidated by Albert, Alphonso, Volney, Boulanger, Dupuis, Taylor, and by all astronomers, who have not been deterred from speaking the truth by their interests, their fears, or their prejudices. On the 19th of August, the constellation of the Virgin disappears in the sun's rays; and hence the figurative expression in Luke i., 35, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee,and the power of the Highest shall OVERSHADOW thee." On the same day the ancients celebrated the assumption of Astrea,* (another name of the Virgin,) and about the same time, the Christians celebrate the assumption of the blessed Virgin. On the 9th of September, this constellation emerges out of the Sun's rays, at which time the Catholics celebrate the nativity of the mother of the Sun, or Christ.
* That is, the starry goddess. She was also the Miriam (thesame as Mary, Eve, Ac.,) of Numbers xii., 14, and the sevendays' leprosy of her face was allegorical of the same numberof days exactly, when the brightness of the zodiacal virginis wholly absorbed, or obscured, by the effulgence of thesolar rays.
The "star in the east," (a sign containing more than a hundred stars,) mentioned in Matthew, was no other than this zodiacal sign of the celestial Virgin, which arose on the eastern horizon precisely at the time at which we fix the birth of Jesus Christ, viz., the 25th of December, when the sun has risen one degree above the solstitial point: which answers to a moment to the births of the Egyptian Osiris, the Grecian Bacchus, and the Mithra of the Persians. These mystic births are manifestly identical, being metaphorical of the Sun's annual birth at the winter solstice, after which he gradually becomes, not only figuratively, but positively, the Savior of the world. The resemblance, or rather the sameness of every circumstance relating to Mithras, the Mediator of the Persians, and those connected with the Savior, or Mediator of the Christians, is so apparent, that no rational man can doubt, or hesitate a moment, in pronouncing the latter to be a counterpart of the former.
Zoroaster taught the Magi that this celestial birth would be announced by the rising of this star, or constellation of Virgo, in the middle of which would appear the figure of a young woman, suckling an infant child, called Jesus by some nations, and Christ, or Christos,* in Greek. This was the goddess of theyearnursing the god ofday. Under this beautiful symbol, the new born child is said to be feeble, weak, and obscure, which is metaphoric of the Sun below the horizon in winter; that he was brought forth in a stable, and laid in a manger, alluding to the "stabulum jovium," one of the winter constellations. At the vernal equinox, when the Sun entered the sign Aries, or the Bam, the emblem was a lamb, (the lamb of God,) and as he gained strength towards the summer solstice, he became the conqueror of the powers of darkness and evil, that is, the constellations of winter; and was figuratively said to bruise the serpent's head, that constellation being, as it were, depressed below the horizon. By a like metonymy of language, the "Ascension" of Christ has also allusion to the Sun at the summer solstice.
* In the ancient zodiacs of India and Egypt, there is seenthis virgin nursing a male child with sun rays around hishead, (frown not, ye priests!) which is emblematical of theinfant sun at the winter solstice, and of his being then inthe sign Virgo. When he was in that sign in summer, thevirgin was represented with a bunch of fruit; and when inharvest, she appropriately held out an ear of corn. Thesezodiacs were devised at various periods of antiquity, as thesun passed through the different signs, in the phenomena ofwhich the learned priests always found plenty of gods andgoddesses for the worship of the vulgar, as is still done inChristianism.
Upon the sun's annual progression through the twelve signs of the zodiac was founded the mythological or allegorical astronomy of the ancients, (Christianity has no other foundation); and in this zodiacal picture, the allegory supposes that sign to have rule, through which the sun is passing; the knowledge of which science was conveyed in a striking and sublime manner, under the disguise of miraculous narrative: of this sort is the story of the three children, in the book of Daniel, a relic of Chaldean astronomy. The "burning fiery furnace" was nothing else than an emblem of that region of the great circle which the sun enters at midsummer, or the sign Cancer. Each of the twelve signs of the zodiac had a presiding genius, or imaginary personification, and these were the twelve greater gods of Paganism. Each of these signs was again subdivided into three parts, called Decans, who were also personified; and, consequently, there were three of these geniuses in each of the signs: therefore, when the sun enters Cancer, there must be three of these Decans, or personifications, in the burning fiery furnace. Here the astronomer in Daniel,* concealing his science under the veil of allegory, exclaims: "Did we not reckon three children in the burning fiery furnace? Behold, I see four, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God!" No person but a Christian, under his strongest prejudices, is capable of denying the manifest meaning of this metaphor, that being evidently thesun itself; which, with three personified Decans, Shadrach, Mesach, and Abednego, in the sign Cancer, makes the fourth. It is almost needless to point out that Nebuchadnezzar, the king, is a personification of the constellation Sirius, or the dog-star, which is always supposed to heat "the burning fiery furnace," in a sevenfold degree, while the sun is in its vicinity, that is, from the 3rd of July till about the 11th of August.
* The zodiacal sign of the lion being below the horizon, andthe sun appearing to set in the direction of thatconstellation, "Dom-el, Daniel, or Daniel, that is, the Sun"was said to be cast into the Lion's Den.** The author is much indebted to the Rev. Mr. Taylor forthe satisfactory manner in which he proves many of theseastronomical allegories.
What is the signification of the many Bible allusions to the "Horseand hisRider," the "triumphant" breaking of the arrows and his bow, he being always denoted as essentially opposed to what is good, and forming part of, or belonging to, that which is evil? This allegory evidently points to the Centaur sign, Sagittarius, half horse and half man, armed with bow and arrows. This is the zodiacal sign of November; and the sun being in that adverse constellation in that dark and gloomy month, it is naturally spoken against, as being emblematical of his weak, low, and depressed influence; and, consequently, its inseparable connexion withevil, or cold and darkness. But when the sun rises "triumphantly" in the heavens, and is most truly "the day star on high," as he ascends towards the summer solstice, and becomes the "Lion of Juda," in July, he has victoriously thrown the zodiacal archer, Sagittarius, as it were, "into the sea" that is, below where the sea bounds the horizon. Then have we Miriam's sublime song of victory:—"Sing ye to the Lord (the sun), for he hath triumphed gloriously; theHorseand hisRiderhath he thrown into the sea." As this victory is achieved annually, the song is equally applicable at every midsummer. Thus, though a large portion of the miscellany called the Bible appears in the guise of immoral or absurd narrative, much of it is really and truly the allegorised astronomy of the Chaldees and Persian Magi, and therefore rooted in science.
Like everything else relating to Christ, or Christos, the dogma of the ascension has no doubt its allegorical root in the Sun's apparent exaltation in the heavens, from the vernal equinox to the summer solstice. This miraculous story, as we have seen it in the New Testament, is more replete with inconsistency than even any of the others of that book. The Fathers have attributed the anonymous book called the "Acts" to Luke; but his gospel contradicts the Acts: the latter makes Jesus remain on earth forty days after his crucifixion; whereas Luke makes him ascend into heaven the very same day he arose from the dead. Those who are stated to have been eye-witnesses of the ascension, being present as disciples at the time, viz., Matthew, John, Peter, James, and Jude, have not, in the epistles ascribed to them, left even an allusion to that most wonderful phænomenon. Matthew and John were said to be present—how came they to omit even the slightest notice of this vital root of Christianity? Mark and Luke werenotpresent; yet they alone notice it, in rather a vague and abrupt manner. In short, no person whateversays he saw it. Mark says that Jesus ascended at Jerusalem; Luke says it was at Bethany, places two miles distant from each other. Matthew says the last seen with the disciples was on a mountain in Galilee; Luke, that it was at Bethany, which is at least seventy-five miles from Galilee.
The dogma of the redemption of man by Jesus Christ, appears not to have been thought of by the New Testament fabricators; and is clearly a subsequent invention of the Church of Rome. Paul, In Corinthians xv., gives us abundant assertions about the resurrection of the same body, which is his chief doctrine, but there is not a word about redemption. This dogma, then, is the lucrative forgery of priestcraft, after the councils of Nice and Laodicea haddecided by votethat the spurious miscellany called the New Testament should be the new Will of God. The amount of moral evil done by this fable, is enormous beyond all expression. When men are taught that their wicked deeds and vices are to be rubbed off by a device so unjust and iniquitous as the sacrifice of the innocent, to atone for the crimes of the guilty, we cannot wonder at the horrid depravity of society.
Having already shown that Christianism is merely a compound emanating from the Egyptian, Brahmin, and Zoroastrian systems, or a new version of the fables of Prometheus, Christna, Mithras, Adonis, Bacchus,** etc., engrafted with some variations upon the Jewish scriptures; and that the above names, with hundreds of others, are so many personified emblems of the Sun, which, together with the planetary system and the fixed stars (in Bible phrase, "the host of heaven") formed the occult basis of all the religions of Paganism,*** the important question will be asked—has "may penetrate into the signification of all oriental mysteries; but the Vulgar can only see the exterior symbol, or the bark which covers them." Again, he says, "It is allowed by all who have any knowledge of the scriptures, that everything is mentioned enigmatically."
* That man should be redeemed from the sin of eating anapple, by the murder of an innocent person called Jesus, iscertainly by far the strangest system of religion that everwas palmed upon the world. Never was there so great anoutrage on common-sense!** Even the wordDivine, pluralised in Dii Vini, deitiesof wine, or priests of Bacchus, is taken from heathenism,and pressed into the service of a very different order ofpriests, save that wine-loving has ever been common to both.*** Origen tells Celsus that the Egyptian philosophersveiled their knowledge of things in fables and allegories."The learned," he adds,
Christianity has no tangible or anthentic historical foundation,to be understood according to the literal sense of the New Testament?If such events or incidents in any way similar to those detailed in the New Testament, had in reality taken place at the times and places stated, they could not possibly have failed to excite the intense attention of the public authorities amongst the Romans, even if denuded of their miraculous accompaniments the infant butchery of Herod would alone have caused this attention. But as no one of all the historians or noted writers, Roman, Jewish, or Greek, who lived in the period of the alleged prodigies, nor those who came upon the public stage immediately after them, though there were upwards of twenty such distinguished authors, who wrote between the years 20 and 140 A.D., have taken the slightest notice of the life or crucifixion of a person called Christ—(the passage in Josephus is universally given up as forgery)—the inadmissible violations of Nature's laws, said to have accompanied that event, as narrated in the Gospels, which contradict each other in almost every important circumstance, we are forced to the conclusion that independently of everything miraculous, the story is totally unsupported by any concurrent testimony;* but when the miracles are taken into consideration in the literal sense, reason and all experience at once decide the whole to be grossly fabulous; and seems to be a circumstantial imitation of the crucifixion of Prometheus, as we have it in the tragedy of Æschylus, which is a dramatic allegory of the sun, and the planetary system.