Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History Part 9

Nicodemus, Gospel of...253 Norton, Genuineness of the Gospels...215, 216, 219, 247, 263, 269, 295

Origen, quoted in Gibbon...213 " " Diegesis...234 " " Supernatural Religion...323

Paley, Evidences of Christianity...198, 202, 203, 205 208, 209, 210, 212, 228, 229, 231 235, 236, 243, 244, 247, 248, 260 262, 269, 273, 281, 290, 309, 317 319 Papias, quoted by Eusebius...291 " Irenaeus...291 Parkhurst, Hebrew Lexicon...346 Pliny, Epistles...203 Pilate, Acts of...253

Quadratus, quoted by Eusebius...230

Renan, Vie de Jesus...197 Row, The Supernatural in the New Testament...325, 327

Sanday, Gospels in the Second Century...248, 269, 270 279, 287, 298, 300, 302, 305, 311 Scott, English Life of Jesus...334 Sharpe, Egyptian Mythology...347 Smyrna, Circular Epistle of the Church of...221 Strange, Portraiture and Mission of Jesus...198, 201, 210 321, 348 Strauss, Life of Jesus...289, 312, 320, 330, 331, 332 Suetonius...201, 202, 225 Supernatural Religion... 215, 216, 219, 229, 246, 247, 248 249, 260, 261, 266, 268, 269, 271 276, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283 290, 292, 293, 295, 301, 302, 303 304, 322, 325

Tacitus, Annals...199, 222, 225 Taylor, Diegesis...196, 200, 201, 205, 206, 208, 212, 346 Tertullian, Apology...226 " De Spectaculis...323 " quoted in Gibbon...213 " " Meredith...225 Thomas, Gospel of...251 Tischendorf, When were our Gospels Written?...248, 270

Westcott, On the Canon of the New Testament...216, 229, 247, 249 256, 268, 270, 274 275, 278, 286

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

a.n.a.logies of Christian doctrines...347 Apocryphal Gospels, specimens of...250 " Books, recognised...245 Authenticity of Apology of Quadratus...230 " Epistle of Barnabas...229 " " Clement...214 " " Ignatius...217 " " Polycarp...216 " " Smyrna...220 " Vision of Hermas...216

Books read in churches...248 " in volume of Scriptures...249

Christian Agapae...223 Christianity advantageous to tyrants...237

Date of birth of Christ...333 Dates of Fathers, etc...349 Dates of Roman Emperors...350 Diatessaron of Tatian...259

Evidence of Adrian...206 " Apostolic Fathers...263, 267 " Barnabas...268 " Basilides and Valentinus...280 " Canon of Muratori...282 " Clement ...269 " Clementines...279 " Hegesippus...277 " Hermas...269 " Ignatius...270 " Josephus...195 " Justin Martyr...271 " Marcion...281 " Marcus Aurelius...206 " Papias...271 " Pliny...203 " Polycarp...270 " Suetonius...201 " Tacitus...199

Forgeries in Early Church...238 " List of...240 Four Gospels: when recognised...257 " why only four...258

Gospels, changes made in...283 " contradictions in...328 " contradictions between synoptical and fourth...337 " growth of...285, 289 " ident.i.ty of modern and ancient unproven...262 " many current...266 " of later origin...311 " of Matthew and Mark not those of Papias...290 " original, different from canonical...298 " similarity of canonical and uncanonical...245 " synoptical...286 " time of selection unknown...256 Genealogies of Jesus...328 Greek not commonly known by Jews...314

Ignorance of Early Fathers...232

Krishna, meaning of...345

Length of Jesus' Ministry..336 Life of Christ from Justin Martyr...306

Martyrs, small number of...212 Ma.s.sacre of infants unlikely...333 Matthew, written in Hebrew...394 Miracles...316 Morality of Early Christians...221 Mythical Theory of Jesus...340

Pa.s.sages in Fathers, not in canonical Gospels...301 Persecution, absence of...209 Phrase "it is written"...247 Positions laid down as to Gospels...236 Position A...238 " B...245 " C...256 " D...257 " E...261 " F...262 " G...290 " H...298 " I...311 " J...314 " K...316 Prophecies, Messianic...342

Silence of Jewish writers...198, 201, 259 " Pagan " ...193, 206 Story of Christ pre-Christian...340 Son-wors.h.i.+p and Christ...343

Temptation of Christ...334 Ten Persecutions...350 Types of Christ...345

SECTION II.--ITS ORIGIN PAGAN.

There are two ancient and widely-spread creeds to which we must chiefly look for the origin of Christianity, namely, Sun-wors.h.i.+p and Nature-wors.h.i.+p. It is doubtful which of the twain is the elder, and they are closely intertwined, the central idea of each being the same; personally, I am inclined to think that Nature-wors.h.i.+p is the older of the two, because it is the simpler and the nearer; the barbarian, slowly emerging into humanity, would be more likely to wors.h.i.+p the force which was the most immediately wonderful to him, the power of generation of new life; to recognise the sun as the great life producer seems to imply some little growth of reason and of imagination; sun-wors.h.i.+p seems the idealisation of nature-wors.h.i.+p, for the same generative force is adored in both, and round the idea of this production of new life all creeds revolve. Christian symbols and Christian ceremonies speak as plainly to the student of ancient religions as the stars speak to the astronomer, and the rocks to the geologian; Christian Churches are as full of the fossil relics of the old creeds as are the earth's strata of the bones of extinct animals. We shall expect to find, then, a family resemblance running through all Eastern creeds--of which Christianity is one--and we shall not be surprised to find similar symbols expressing similar ideas; there are, in fact, cardinal symbols re-appearing in all these allied religions; the virgin and child; the trinity in unity; the cross; these have their roots struck deep in human nature, and are found in every Eastern creed. So also can we trace sacraments and ceremonies, and many minor dogmas. In looking back into those ancient creeds it is necessary to get rid of the modern fas.h.i.+on of regarding any natural object as immodest. Sir William Jones justly remarks that in Hindustan "it never seems to have entered the heads of the legislators, or people, that anything natural could be offensively obscene; a singularity which pervades all their writings and conversation, but is no proof of depravity in their morals" ("Asiatic Researches," vol. i., p. 255).

Gross injustice is sometimes done to ancient creeds by contemplating them from a modern point of view; in those days every power of Nature was thought divine, and most divine of all was deemed the power of creation, whether wors.h.i.+pped in the sun, whose beams impregnated the earth, or in the male and female organs of generation, the universal creators of life in the animal world; thus we find in all ancient sculptures carvings of the phallus and the yoni, expressed both naturally and symbolically, the representations becoming more and more conventional and refined as civilisation advanced; of the infant world it may be said that it was "naked, and was not ashamed;" as it grew older, and clothed the human form, it also draped its religious symbols, but as the body remains unaltered under its garments, so the idea concealed beneath the emblems remains the same.

The union of male and female is, then, the foundation of all religions; the heaven marries the earth, as man marries woman, and that union is the first marriage. Saturn is the sky, the male, or active energy; Rhea is the earth, the female, or receptive; and these are the father and the mother of all. The Persians of old called the sky Jupiter, or Jupater, "Ju the Father." The sun is the agent of the generative power of the sky, and his beams fecundate the earth, so that from her all life is produced. Thus the sun becomes wors.h.i.+pped as the Father of all, and the sun is the emblem which crowns the images of the Supreme G.o.d; the vernal equinox is the resurrection of the sun, and the sign of the zodiac in which he then is becomes the symbol of his life-producing power; thus the bull, and afterwards the ram, became his sign as Life-Giver, and the Sun-G.o.d was pictured as bull, or as ram (or lamb), or else with the horns of his, emblem, and the earthly animals became sacred for his sake. Mithra, the Sun-G.o.d of Persia, is sculptured as riding on a bull; Osiris, the Sun-G.o.d of Egypt, wears the horns of the bull, and is wors.h.i.+pped as Osiris-Apis, or Serapis, the Sun-G.o.d in the sign of Apis, the bull. Later, by the precession of the equinoxes, the sun at the vernal equinox has pa.s.sed into the sign of the ram (called in Persia, the lamb), and we find Jupiter Ammon, Jupiter with ram's horns, and Jesus the Lamb of G.o.d. These symbols all denote the sun victorious over darkness and death, giving life to the world. The phallus is the other great symbol of the Life-Giver, generating life in woman, as the sun in the earth. Bacchus, Adonis, Dionysius, Apollo, Hercules, Hermes, Thammuz, Jupiter, Jehovah, Jao, or Jah, Moloch, Baal, Asher, Mahadeva, Brahma, Vishnu, Mithra, Atys, Ammon, Belus, with many another, these are all the Life-Giver under different names; they are the Sun, the Creator, the Phallus. Red is their appropriate colour. When the sun or the Phallus is not drawn in its natural form, it is indicated by a symbol: the symbol must be upright, hard, or else burning, either conical, or clubbed at one end. Thus--the torch, flame of fire, cone, serpent, thyrsus, triangle, letter T, cross, crosier, sceptre, caduceus, k.n.o.bbed stick, tall tree, upright stone, spire, tower, minaret, upright pole, arrow, spear, sword, club, upright stump, etc., are all symbols of the generative force of the male energy in Nature of the Supreme G.o.d.

One of the most common, and the most universally used, is THE CROSS.

Carved at first simply as phallus, it was gradually refined; we meet it as three b.a.l.l.s, one above the two; the letter T indicated it, which, by the slightest alteration, became the cross now known as the Latin: thus "Barnabas" says that "the cross was to express the grace by the letter T" (ante, p. 233). We find the cross in India, Egypt, Thibet, j.a.pan, always as the sign of life-giving power; it was worn as an amulet by girls and women, and seems to have been specially worn by the women attached to the temples, as a symbol of what was, to them, a religious calling. The cross is, in fact, nothing but the refined phallus, and in the Christian religion is a significant emblem of its Pagan origin; it was adored, carved in temples, and worn as a sacred emblem by sun and nature wors.h.i.+ppers, long before there were any Christians to adore, carve, and wear it. The crowd kneeling before the cross in Roman Catholic and in High Anglican Churches, is a simple reproduction of the crowd who knelt before it in the temples of ancient days, and the girls who wear it amongst ourselves, are--in the most innocent unconsciousness of its real signification--exactly copying the Indian and Egyptian women of an elder time. Saturn's symbol was a cross and a ram's horn. Jupiter bore a cross with a horn. Venus a circle with a cross. The Egyptian deities a cross and oval. (The signification of these will be dealt with below.) The Druids sought oak trees with two main arms growing in shape of a cross, and, if they failed to find such, nailed a beam cross-wise.

The chief paG.o.das in India are built, like many Christian churches, in the form of a cross. I have read in a book on church architecture that churches should be built either in the form of a cross, or else in that of a s.h.i.+p, typifying the ark; i.e., they should either be built in the form of the phallus or the yoni, the s.h.i.+p or ark being one of the symbols of the female energy (see below, p. 361).

The CRUCIFIX, or cross with human figure stretched upon it, is also found in ancient times, although not so frequently as the simple cross.

The crucifix appears to have arisen from the circle of the horizon being divided into four parts, North, South, East, and West, and the Sun-G.o.d, drawn within, or on, the circle, came into contact with each cardinal point, his feet and head touching, or intersecting, two, while his outstretched arms point to the other quarters. Plato says that the "next power to the Supreme G.o.d was decussated, or figured in the shape of a cross, on the universe." Krishna is painted and sculptured on a cross.

The Egyptians thus drew Osiris, and sometimes we find a circle drawn with the dividing lines, and in the midst is stretched the dead body of Osiris. Robert Taylor gives another origin for the crucifix: "The ignorant grat.i.tude of a superst.i.tious people, while they adored the river [Nile] on whose inundations the fertility of their provinces depended, could not fail of attaching notions of sanct.i.ty and holiness to the posts that were erected along its course, and which, by a _transverse beam_, indicated the height to which, at the spot where the beam was fixed, the waters might be expected to rise. This cross at once warned the traveller to secure his safety, and formed a standard of the value of land. Other rivers may add to the fertility of the country through which they pa.s.s, but the Nile is the absolute cause of that great fertility of the Lower Egypt, which would be all a desert, as bad as the most sandy parts of Africa without this river. It supplies it both with soil and moisture, and was therefore gratefully addressed, not merely as an ordinary river-G.o.d, but by its express t.i.tle of the Egyptian Jupiter. The crosses, therefore, along the banks of the river would naturally share in the honour of the stream, and be the most expressive emblem of good fortune, peace, and plenty. The two ideas could never be separated: the fertilising flood was the _waters of life_, that conveyed every blessing, and even existence itself, to the provinces through which they flowed. One other and most obvious hieroglyph completed the expressive allegory. The _Demon of Famine_, who, should the waters fail of their inundation, or not reach the elevation indicated by the position of the transverse beam upon the upright, would reign in all his horrors over their desolated lands. This symbolical personification was, therefore, represented as a miserable emaciated wretch, who had grown up 'as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground, who had no form nor comeliness; and when they should see him, there was no beauty that they should desire him.' Meagre were his looks; sharp misery had worn him to the bone. His crown of thorns indicated the sterility of the territories over which he reigned. The reed in his hand, gathered from the banks of the Nile, indicated that it was only the mighty river, by keeping within its banks, and thus withholding its wonted munificence, that placed an unreal sceptre in his gripe. He was nailed to the cross, in indication of his entire defeat.

And the superscription of his infamous t.i.tle, 'THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS,' expressively indicated that _Famine, Want_, or _Poverty_, ruled the destinies of the most slavish, beggarly, and mean race of men with whom they had the honour of being acquainted" ("Diegesis," p. 187).

While it may very likely be true that the miserable aspect given to Jesus crucified is copied from some such original as Mr. Taylor here sketches, we are tolerably certain that the general idea of the crucifix had the solar origin described above.

Very closely joined to the notion of the cross is the idea of the TRINITY IN UNITY, and we need not delay upon it long. It is as universal in Eastern religions as the cross, and comes from the same idea; all life springs from a trinity in unity in man, and, therefore, G.o.d is three in one. This trinity is, of course, symbolised by the cross, and especially by the lotus, and any "three in one" leaf; from this has come to Christianity the conventional triple foliage so constantly seen in Church carvings, the _fleur-de-lis_, the triangle, etc., which are now--as of old--accepted as the emblems of the trinity. The persons of the trinity are found each with his own name; in India, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, and it is Vishnu who becomes incarnate; in Egypt different cities had different trinities, and "we have a hieroglyphical inscription in the British Museum as early as the reign of Sevechus of the eighth century before the Christian era, showing that the doctrine of Trinity in Unity already formed part of their religion, and that in each of the two groups last mentioned the three G.o.ds only made one person"

("Egyptian Mythology and Egyptian Christology," by S. Sharpe, p. 14).

Mr. Sharpe might have gone to much earlier times and "already" have found the adoration of the trinity in unity; as far back as the first who bowed in wors.h.i.+p before the generative force of the male three in one. Osiris, Horus, and Ra form one of the Egyptian trinities; Horus the Son, is also one of a trinity in unity made into an amulet, and called the Great G.o.d, the Son G.o.d, and the Spirit G.o.d. Horus is the slayer of Typhon, the evil one, and is sometimes represented as standing on its head, and as piercing its head with a spear, reminding us of Krishna, the incarnation of Vishnu, the second person of the Indian Trinity.

These trinities, however, were not complete in themselves, for the female element is needed for the production of life; hence, we find that in most nations a fourth person is joined to the trinity, as Isis, the mother of Horus, in Egypt, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, in Christendom; the Egyptian trinity is often represented as Osiris, Horus, and Isis, but we more generally find the female const.i.tuting the fourth element, in addition to the triune, and symbolised by an oval, or circle, typical of the female organ of reproduction; thus the _crux ansata_ of the Egyptians, the "symbol of life" held in the hand by the Egyptian deities, is a cross or oval, i.e., the T with an oval at the top; the circle with the cross inside, symbolises, again, the male and female union; also the six-rayed star, the pentacle, the double triangle, the triangle and circle, the pit with a post in it, the key, the staff with a half-moon, the complicated cross. The same union is imaged out in all androgynous deities, in Elohim, Baalim, Baalath, Arba-il, the bearded Venus, the feminine Jove, the virgin and child. In countries where the Yoni wors.h.i.+p was more popular than that of the Phallus, the VIRGIN and CHILD was a favourite deity, and to this we now turn.

Here, as in the history of the cross, we find sun and nature wors.h.i.+p intertwined. The female element is sometimes the Earth, and sometimes the individual. The G.o.ddesses are as various in names as the G.o.ds. Is, Isis, Ishtar, Astarte, Mylitta, Sara, Mrira, Maia, Parvati, Mary, Miriam, Eve, Juno, Venus, Diana, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hera, Rhea, Cybele, Ceres, and others, are the earth under many names; the receptive female, the producer of life, the Yoni. Black is the special colour of female deities, and the black Isis and Horus, the black Mary and Jesus are of peculiar sanct.i.ty. Their emblems are: the earth, moon, star of the sea, circle, oval, triangle, pomegranate, door, ark, fish, s.h.i.+p, horseshoe, chasm, cave, hole, celestial virgin, etc. They bore first the t.i.tles now worn by Mary, the virgin mother of Jesus, and were reverenced as the "queen of heaven." Ishtar, of Babylonia, was the "Mother of the G.o.ds,"

and the "Queen of the Stars." Isis, of Egypt, was "our Immaculate Lady."

She was figured with a crown of stars, and with the crescent moon. Venus was an ark brooded over by a dove, or the moon floating on the water.

They are "the mother," "mamma," "emma," "ummah," or "the woman." The symbols are everywhere the same, though given with different names.

Everywhere it is Mary, the mother; the female principle in nature, adored side by side with the male. She shares in the work of creation and salvation, and has a kind of equality with the Father of all; hence we hear of the immaculate conception. She produces a child alone in some stories, without even divine co-operation. The Virgo of the Zodiac is represented in ancient sculptures and drawings as a woman suckling a child, and the Paamylian feasts were celebrated at the spring equinox, and were the equivalent of the Christian feast of the Annunciation, when the power of the highest overshadowed Mary of Nazareth. Thus in India, we have Devaki and Krishna; in Egypt, Osiris and Horus--the "Saviour of the World;" in Christendom, Mary and Christ; the pictures and carvings of India and Egypt would be indistinguishable from those of Europe, were it not for the differences of dress. Apis, the sacred Egyptian bull, was always born without an earthly father, and his mother never had a second calf. So the later Sun-G.o.d, Jesus, is born without s.e.xual intercourse, and Mary never bears another child. Jupiter visits Leda as a swan; G.o.d visits Mary as an overshadowing dove. The salutation of Gabriel to Mary is curiously like that of Mercury to Electra: "Hail, most happy of all women, you whom Jupiter has honoured with his couch; your blood will give laws to the world, I am the messenger of the G.o.ds." The mother of Fohi, the great Chinese G.o.d, became _enceinte_ by walking in the footsteps of a giant. The mother of Hercules did not lose her virginity.

The savages of St. Domingo represented the chief divinity by a female figure called the "mother of G.o.d." On Friday, the day of Freya, or Venus, many Christians still eat only fish, fish being sacred to the female deity.

In Comtism we find the latest development of woman-wors.h.i.+p, wherein the "emotional s.e.x" becomes the sacred s.e.x, to be guarded, cherished, sustained, adored; and thus in the youngest religion the stamp of the eldest is found.

Thus womanhood has been wors.h.i.+pped in all ages of the world, and maternity has been deified by all creeds: from the savage who bowed before the female symbol of motherhood, to the philosophic Comtist who adores woman "in the past, the present, and the future," as mother, wife, and daughter, the wors.h.i.+p of the female element in nature has run side by side with that of the male; the wors.h.i.+p is one and the same in all religions, and runs in an unbroken thread from the barbarous ages to the present time.

The doctrines of the mediation, and the divinity of Christ, and of the immortality of the soul, are as pre-Christian as the symbols which we have examined.

The idea of _the Mediator_ comes to us from Persia, and the t.i.tle was borne by Mithra before it was ascribed to Christ. Zoroaster taught that there was existence itself, the unknown, the eternal, "Zeruane Akerne,"

"time without bounds." From this issued Ormuzd, the good, the light, the creator of all. Opposite to Ormuzd is Ahriman, the bad, the dark, the deformer of all. Between these two great deities comes Mithra, the Mediator, who is the Reconciler of all things to G.o.d, who is one with Ormuzd, although distinct from him. Mithra, as we have seen, is the Sun in the sign of the Bull, exactly parallel to Jesus, the Sun in the sign of the Lamb, both the one and the other being symbolised by that sign of the zodiac in which the sun was at the spring equinox of his supposed date. "Mithras is spiritual light contending with spiritual darkness, and through his labours the kingdom of darkness shall be lit with heaven's own light; the Eternal will receive all things back into his favour, the world will be redeemed to G.o.d. The impure are to be purified, and the evil made good, through the mediation of Mithras, the reconciler of Ormuzd and Ahriman. Mithras is the Good, his name is Love.

In relation to the Eternal he is the source of grace, in relation to man he is the life-giver and mediator. He brings the 'Word,' as Brahma brings the Vedas, from the mouth of the Eternal. (See Plutarch 'De Isid.

et Osirid.;' also Dr. Hyde's 'De Religione Vet. Pers.,' ch. 22; see also 'Essay on Pantheism,' by Rev. J. Hunt.) It was just prior to the return of the Jews from living among the people who were dominated by these ideas, that the splendid chapter of Isaiah (xl.), or indeed the series of chapters which form the closing portion of the book, were written: 'Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your G.o.d. Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our G.o.d. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.' And then follows a magnificent description of the greatness and supremacy of G.o.d, and this is followed by chapters which tell of a Messiah, or conquering prince, who will redeem the nation from its enemies, and restore them to the light of the divine favour, and which predict a millennium, a golden age of purified and glorified humanity. It is thus manifest that the inspiration of these writings came to the Jewish people from their contact with the religious thought of the Persians, and not from any supernatural source. From this time the Jews began to hold worthier ideas concerning G.o.d, and to cherish expectations of a golden age, a kingdom of heaven, which the Messiah, who was to be the sent messenger of G.o.d, should inaugurate. And this kingdom was to be a kingdom of righteousness, a day of marvellous light, a rule under which all evil and darkness were to perish" ("Plato, Philo, and Paul," Rev.

J.W. Lake, pp. 15, l6.)

The growth of the philosophical side of the dogma of the _Divinity of Christ_ is as clearly traceable in Pagan and Jewish thought as is the dogma of the incarnation of the Saviour-G.o.d in the myths of Krishna, Osiris, etc. Two great teachers of the doctrine of the "Logos," the "Word," of G.o.d, stand out in pre-Christian times--the Greek Plato and the Jewish Philo. We borrow the following extract from pp. 19, 20, of the pamphlet by Mr. Lake above referred to, as showing the general theological position of Plato; its resemblance to Christian teaching will be at once apparent (it must not be forgotten that Plato lived B.C.

400):--

"The speculative thought and the religious teaching of Plato are diffused throughout his voluminous writings; but the following is a popular summary of them, by Madame Dacier, contained in her introduction to what have been cla.s.sed as the 'Divine Dialogues:'--