Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions Part 113

The "_Sacred Heart_," was a great mystery with the ancients.

_Horus_, the Egyptian virgin-born Saviour, was represented carrying the sacred heart outside on his breast. _Vishnu_, the Mediator and Preserver of the Hindoos, was also represented in that manner. So was it with _Bel_ of Babylon.[405:1] In like manner, Christ Jesus, the Christian Saviour, is represented at the present day.

The amulets or charms which the Roman Christians wear, to drive away diseases, and to protect them from harm, are other relics of paganism.

The ancient pagans wore these charms for the same purpose. The name of their favorite G.o.d was generally inscribed upon them, and we learn by a quotation from Chrysostom that the Christians at Antioch used to bind bra.s.s coins of Alexander the Great about their heads, to keep off or drive away diseases.[405:2] The Christians also used amulets with the name or monogram of the G.o.d _Serapis_ engraved thereon, which show that it made no difference whether the G.o.d was their own or that of another.

Even the charm which is worn by the Christians at the present day, has none other than the monogram of _Bacchus_ engraved thereon, _i. e._, I.

H. S.[405:3]

The ancient Roman children carried around their necks a small ornament in the form of a heart, called _Bulla_. This was imitated by the early Christians. Upon their ancient monuments in the Vatican, the heart is very common, and it may be seen in numbers of old pictures. After some time it was succeeded by the _Agnus Dei_, which, like the ancient _Bulla_, was supposed to avert dangers from the children and the wearers of them. Cardinal Baronius (an eminent Roman Catholic ecclesiastical historian, born at Sora, in Naples, A. D. 1538) says, that those who have been baptized carry pendent from their neck an _Agnus Dei_, in imitation of a devotion of the Pagans, who hung to the neck of their children little bottles in the form of a heart, which served as preservatives against charms and enchantments. Says Mr. c.o.x:

"That ornaments in the shape of a _vesica_ have been popular in all countries as preservatives against dangers, and especially from evil spirits, can as little be questioned as the fact that they still retain some measure of their ancient popularity in England, where horse-shoes are nailed to walls as a safeguard against unknown perils, where a shoe is thrown by way of good-luck after newly-married couples, and where the villagers have not yet ceased to dance round the May-pole on the green."[405:4]

All of these are emblems of either the Linga or Yoni.

The use of amulets was carried to the most extravagant excess in ancient Egypt, and their Sacred Book of the Dead, even in its earliest form, shows the importance attached to such things.[406:1]

We can say with M. Renan that:

"Almost all our superst.i.tions are the remains of a religion anterior to Christianity, and which Christianity has not been able entirely to root out."[406:2]

Baptismal fonts were used by the pagans, as well as the little cisterns which are to be seen at the entrance of Catholic churches. In the temple of Apollo, at Delphi, there were two of these; one of silver, and the other of gold.[406:3]

Temples always faced the east, to receive the rays of the rising sun.

They contained an outer court for the public, and an inner sanctuary for the priests, called the "_Adytum_." Near the entrance was a large vessel, of stone or bra.s.s, filled with water, made holy by plunging into it a burning torch from the altar. All who were admitted to the sacrifices were sprinkled with this water, and none but the unpolluted were allowed to pa.s.s beyond it. In the center of the building stood the statue of the G.o.d, on a pedestal raised above the altar and enclosed by a railing. On festival occasions, the people brought laurel, olive, or ivy, to decorate the pillars and walls. Before they entered they always washed their hands, as a type of purification from sin.[406:4] A story is told of a man who was struck dead by a thunderbolt because he omitted this ceremony when entering a temple of Jupiter. Sometimes they crawled up the steps on their knees, and bowing their heads to the ground, kissed the threshold. Always when they pa.s.sed one of these sacred edifices they kissed their right hand to it, in token of veneration.

In all the temples of Vishnu, Crishna, Rama, Durga, and Kali, in India, there are to be seen idols before which lights and incense are burned.

Moreover, the idols of these G.o.ds are constantly decorated with flowers and costly ornaments, especially on festive occasions.[406:5] The ancient Egyptian wors.h.i.+p had a great splendor of ritual. There was a morning service, a kind of ma.s.s, celebrated by a priest, shorn and beardless; there were sprinklings of holy water, &c., &c.[406:6] All of this kind of wors.h.i.+p was finally adopted by the Christians.

The sublime and simple theology of the primitive Christians was gradually corrupted and degraded by the introduction of a popular mythology, which tended to restore the reign of polytheism.

As the objects of religion were gradually reduced to the standard of the imagination, the rites and ceremonies were introduced that seemed most powerfully to affect the senses of the vulgar. If, in the beginning of the fifth century, Tertullian, or Lactantius, had been suddenly raised from the dead, to a.s.sist at the festival of some popular saint or martyr, they would have gazed with astonishment and indignation on the profane spectacle, which had succeeded to the pure and spiritual wors.h.i.+p of a Christian congregation.[407:1]

Dr. Draper, in speaking of the early Christian Church, says:

"Great is the difference between Christianity under Severus (born 146) and Christianity under Constantine (born 274). Many of the doctrines which at the latter period were pre-eminent, in the former were unknown. Two causes led to the amalgamation of Christianity with Paganism. 1. The political necessities of the new dynasty: 2. The policy adopted by the new religion to insure its spread.

"Though the Christian party had proved itself sufficiently strong to give a master to the empire, it was never sufficiently strong to destroy its antagonist, Paganism. The issue of the struggle between them _was an amalgamation of the principles of both_. In this, Christianity differed from Mohammedanism, which absolutely annihilated its antagonist, and spread its own doctrines without adulteration.

"Constantine continually showed by his acts that he felt he must be the impartial sovereign of all his people, not merely the representative of a successful faction. Hence, if he built Christian churches, he also restored Pagan temples; if he listened to the clergy, he also consulted the haruspices; if he summoned the Council of Nicea, he also honored the statue of Fortune; if he accepted the rite of Baptism, he also struck a medal bearing his t.i.tle of 'G.o.d.' His statue, on top of the great porphyry pillar at Constantinople, consisted of an ancient image of Apollo, whose features were replaced by those of the emperor, and its head surrounded by the nails feigned to have been used at the crucifixion of Christ, arranged so as to form a crown of glory.

"Feeling that there must be concessions to the defeated Pagan party, in accordance with its ideas, he looked with favor on the idolatrous movements of his court. In fact, the leaders of these movements were persons of his own family.

"To the emperor,--a mere worldling--a man without any religious convictions, doubtless it appeared best for himself, best for the empire, and best for the contending parties, Christian and Pagan, to promote their _union or amalgamation as much as possible_. Even sincere Christians do not seem to have been averse to this; perhaps they believed that the new doctrines would diffuse most thoroughly by incorporating in themselves ideas borrowed from the old; that Truth would a.s.sert herself in the end, and the impurities be cast off. In accomplis.h.i.+ng this amalgamation, Helen, the Empress-mother, aided by the court ladies, led the way.

"As years pa.s.sed on, the faith described by Tertullian (A. D.

150-195) was transformed into one more fas.h.i.+onable and more debased. It was incorporated with the old Greek mythology.

Olympus was restored, but the divinities pa.s.sed under new names. . . .

"Heathen rites were adopted, a pompous and splendid ritual, gorgeous robes, mitres, tiaras, wax-tapers, processional services, l.u.s.trations, gold and silver vases, were introduced.

"The festival of the Purification of the Virgin was invented to remove the uneasiness of heathen converts on account of the loss of their Lupercalia, or feasts of Pan.

"The apotheosis of the old Roman times was replaced by canonization; tutelary _saints_ succeeded to local mythological divinities. Then came the mystery of _transubstantiation_, or the conversion of bread and wine by the priest into the flesh and blood of Christ. As centuries pa.s.sed, the _paganization_ became more and more complete."[408:1]

The early Christian saints, bishops, and fathers, _confessedly_ adopted the liturgies, rites, ceremonies, and terms of heathenism; making it their boast, that the pagan religion, properly explained, really was nothing else than Christianity; that the best and wisest of its professors, in all ages, had been Christians all along; that Christianity was but a name more recently acquired to a religion which had previously existed, and had been known to the Greek philosophers, to Plato, Socrates, and Herac.l.i.tus; and that "if the writings of Cicero had been read as they ought to have been, there would have been no occasion for the Christian Scriptures."

And our Protestant, and most orthodox Christian divines, the best learned on ecclesiastical antiquity, and most entirely persuaded of the truth of the Christian religion, unable to resist or to conflict with the constraining demonstration of the data that prove the absolute sameness and ident.i.ty of Paganism and Christianity, and unable to point out so much as one single idea or notion, of which they could show that it was peculiar to Christianity, or that Christianity had it, and Paganism had it not, have invented the apology of an hypothesis, that the Pagan religion was _typical_, and that Crishna, Buddha, Bacchus, Hercules, Adonis, Osiris, Horus, &c., were all of them _types_ and forerunners of the _true_ and _real_ Saviour, Christ Jesus. Those who are satisfied with this kind of reasoning are certainly welcome to it.

That Christianity is nothing more than Paganism under a new name, has, as we said above, been admitted over and over again by the Fathers of the Church, and others. Aringhus (in his account of subterraneous Rome) acknowledges the conformity between the Pagan and Christian form of wors.h.i.+p, and defends the admission of the ceremonies of heathenism into the service of the Church, by the authority of the wisest prelates and governors, whom, he says, found it necessary, in the conversion of the Gentiles, to dissemble, and wink at many things, and yield to the times; and not to use force against customs which the people were so obstinately fond of.[409:1]

Melito (a Christian bishop of Sardis), in an _apology_ delivered to the Emperor Marcus Antoninus, in the year 170, claims the patronage of the emperor, for the _now_ called Christian religion, which he calls "_our philosophy_," "on account of its _high antiquity_, as having been _imported_ from countries lying beyond the limits of the Roman empire, in the region of his ancestor Augustus, who found its _importation_ ominous of good fortune to his government."[409:2] This is an absolute demonstration that Christianity did _not_ originate in Judea, which was a Roman province, but really was an exotic oriental fable, _imported_ from India, and that Paul was doing as he claimed, viz.: preaching a G.o.d manifest in the flesh who had been "believed on in the world" centuries before his time, and a doctrine which had already been preached "unto every creature under heaven."

Baronius (an eminent Catholic ecclesiastical historian) says:

"It is permitted to the Church to use, _for the purpose of piety_, the ceremonies which the pagans used _for the purpose of impiety_ in a superst.i.tious religion, after having first expiated them by consecration--to the end, that the devil might receive a greater affront from employing, in honor of Jesus Christ, that which his enemy had destined for his own service."[409:3]

Clarke, in his "Evidences of Revealed Religion," says:

"Some of the ancient writers of the church have not scrupled expressly to call the Athenian _Socrates_, and some others of the best of the _heathen moralists_, by the name of _Christians_, and to affirm, as the law was as it were a schoolmaster, to bring the Jews unto Christ, so true moral philosophy was to the Gentiles a preparative to receive the gospel."[409:4]

Clemens Alexandrinus says:

"Those who lived according to the _Logos_ were really _Christians_, though they have been thought to be atheists; as Socrates and Herac.l.i.tus were among the Greeks, and such as resembled them."[409:5]

And St. Augustine says:

"_That_, in our times, is the _Christian religion_, which to know and follow is the most sure and certain health, called according to that name, but not according to the thing itself, of which it is the name; for the thing itself which is now called the _Christian religion_, really was known to the ancients, nor was wanting at any time from the beginning of the human race, until the time when Christ came in the flesh, from whence the true religion, _which had previously existed_, began to be called _Christian_; and this in our days is the Christian religion, not as having been wanting in former times, but as having in later times received this name."[410:1]

Eusebius, the great champion of Christianity, admits that that which is called the Christian religion, is neither new nor strange, but--if it be lawful to testify the truth--was known to the _ancients_.[410:2]

How the common people were Christianized, we gather from a remarkable pa.s.sage which Mosheim, the ecclesiastical historian, has preserved for us, in the life of Gregory, surnamed "_Thaumaturgus_," that is, "the wonder worker." The pa.s.sage is as follows:

"When Gregory perceived that the simple and unskilled mult.i.tude persisted in their wors.h.i.+p of images, on account of the pleasures and sensual gratifications which they enjoyed at the Pagan festivals, _he granted them a permission to indulge themselves in the like pleasures_, in celebrating the memory of the holy martyrs, hoping that in process of time, they would return of their own accord, to a more virtuous and regular course of life."[410:3]

The historian remarks that there is no sort of doubt, that by this permission, Gregory allowed the Christians to dance, sport, and feast at the tombs of the martyrs, upon their respective festivals, and to do everything which the Pagans were accustomed to do in their temples, during the feasts celebrated in honor of their G.o.ds.

The learned Christian advocate, M. Turretin, in describing the state of Christianity in the fourth century, has a well-turned rhetoricism, the point of which is, that "it was not so much the empire that was brought over to the faith, as the faith that was brought over to the empire; not the Pagans who were converted to Christianity, but Christianity that was converted to Paganism."[410:4]

Edward Gibbon says:

"It must be confessed that the ministers of the Catholic church imitated the profane model which they were impatient to destroy. The most respectable bishops had persuaded themselves, that the ignorant rusties would more cheerfully renounce the superst.i.tions of Paganism, if they found some resemblance, some compensation, in the bosom of Christianity.

The religion of Constantine achieved, in less than a century, the final conquest of the Roman empire: _but the victors themselves were insensibly subdued by the arts of their vanquished rivals_."[411:1]

Faustus, writing to St. Augustine, says:

"You have subst.i.tuted your agapae for the sacrifices of the Pagans; for their idols your martyrs, whom you serve with the very same honors. You appease the shades of the dead with wine and feasts; you celebrate the solemn festivities of the _Gentiles_, their calends, and their solstices; and, as to their manners, those you have retained without any alteration.

_Nothing distinguishes you from the Pagans, except that you hold your a.s.semblies apart from them._"[411:2]