Paul: "A man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the

faith of Jesus Christ, ... for by the works of the law shall no flesh

be justified" (Galatians ii, 16). "If righteousness come by the law

then Christ is dead in vain" (21). "To him that worketh not, but

believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted

for righteousness" (Romans iv, 5). "Therefore, we conclude that a

man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law" (iii, 28).

James: "But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is

dead?" (ii, 20). "Ye see, then, how that by works a man is justified,

and not by faith only" (24).

The church accepts the teachings of Paul and condemns or ignores

the teachings of James. Martin Luther, in his "Table Talk," thus

defines the position of the Protestant church: "He that says the

gospel requires works for salvation, I say flat and plain he is a

liar." "Every doer of the law and every moral worker is accursed,

for he walketh in the presumption of his own righteousness." "If men

only believe enough in Christ they can commit adultery and murder

a thousand times a day without periling their salvation." Luther

rejected and denounced the book of James because it teaches the

efficacy of good works.

The English "Confession of Faith" affirms the following: "That we

are justified by Faith only, is a most wholesome doctrine, and very

full of comfort" (Art. XI). "Works done before the grace of Christ,

and the inspiration of the Spirit, are not pleasant to God, forasmuch

as they spring not of faith in Jesus Christ.... Yea rather, for that

they are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be done,

we doubt not but they have the nature of sin" (Art. XIII).

"Morality! thou deadly bane,

Thy tens o' thousands thou hast slain!

Vain is his hope, whose stay and trust is

In moral mercy, truth and justice!

"No--stretch a point to catch a plack;

Abuse a brother to his back;

Be to the poor like onie whunstane,

And haud their noses to the grunstane;

Ply ev'ry art o' legal thieving:

No matter, stick to sound believing.

"Learn three-mile prayers, and half-mile graces,

Wi weel-spread loaves, and lang wry faces,

Grunt up a solemn, lengthen'd groan,

And damn a' parties but your own:

I'll warrant, then, ye're nae deceiver,

A steady, sturdy, staunch believer."

--Robert Burns.

526

What does Christ teach regarding salvation?

"Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die" (John xi, 26).

"He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth

not is condemned already" (iii, 18).

"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that

believeth not on the Son shall not see life" (36).

A demand so preposterous could have been made only in support of claims

that were realized to be untenable. Credulity was appealed to because

convincing evidence could not be adduced. Claims which reason rejects

are manifestly false, and it is only by a renunciation of reason that

they can be accepted as true.

The absurdity of this requirement of Christ is thus exposed by

the poet Shelley: "This is the pivot upon which all religions turn;

they all assume that it is in our power to believe or not to believe:

whereas the mind can only believe that which it thinks true. A human

being can only be supposed accountable for those actions which are

influenced by his will. But belief is utterly distinct from and

unconnected with volition: it is the apprehension of the agreement

or disagreement of the ideas that compose any proposition. Belief

is a passion or involuntary operation of the mind, and, like other

passions, its intensity is precisely proportionate to the degree

of excitement. Volition is essential to merit or demerit. But the

Christian religion attaches the highest possible degree of merit

and demerit to that which is worthy of neither, and which is totally

unconnected with the peculiar faculty of the mind whose presence is

essential to their being" (Notes to Queen Mab).

527

Did Christ abrogate the Mosaic law?

"Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise

pass from the law" (Matthew v, 18).

"The law and the prophets were until John; since that time the Kingdom

of God is preached" (Luke xvi, 16).

Paul: "The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that

we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come we are

no longer under a schoolmaster" (Galatians iii, 24, 25). "But now we

are delivered from the law" (Romans vii, 6).

"Christ certainly did come to destroy the law and the prophets."--Henry

Ward Beecher.

528

What is taught regarding the forgiveness of sin?

"He [God] is faithful and just to forgive sins" (1 John i, 9).

"The Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins" (Mark ii, 10).

"Today I offer you the pardon of the gospel--full pardon, free

pardon. I do not care what your crime has been. Though you say you

have committed a crime against God, against your own soul, against

your fellow-man, against your family, against the day of judgment,

against the cross of Christ--whatever your crime has been, here

is pardon, full pardon, and the very moment you take that pardon

your heavenly Father throws his arms about you and says: 'My son,

I forgive you. It is all right. You are as much in my favor now as

if you never had sinned.'"--Dr. Talmage.

This doctrine of forgiveness of sin is a premium on crime. "Forgive

us our sins" means "Let us continue in our iniquity." It is one of the

most pernicious of doctrines, and one of the most fruitful sources of

immorality. It has been the chief cause of making Christian nations the

most immoral of nations. In teaching this doctrine Christ committed

a sin for which his death did not atone, and which can never be

forgiven. There is no forgiveness of sin. Every cause has its effect;

every sinner must suffer the consequences of his sins.

529

What is taught regarding future rewards and punishments?

"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that

believeth not shall be damned" (Mark xvi, 16).

These words, while appearing in the unauthentic appendix to Mark, yet

express clearly the alleged teachings of Jesus. Above all they have

formed the key note of orthodox Christianity in all ages of the church.

Between the lines of this passage the eye of the unfettered mind

discerns in large capitals the word FRAUD. These words are the words

of an impostor. Had Jesus been divine he would not have been compelled

to resort to bribes and threats to secure the world's adherence. Had

he even been a sincere man he would not have desired converts on

such terms. These words are either the utterance of a false Messiah,

conscious of his impotency, or the invention of priests who intended

them to frighten the ignorant and credulous into an acceptance of

their faith.

Concerning this teaching Col. Ingersoll says: "Redden your hands

with human blood; blast by slander the fair fame of the innocent;

strangle the smiling child upon its mother's knees; deceive, ruin,

and desert the beautiful girl who loves and trusts you, and your

case is not hopeless. For all this, and for all these, you may

be forgiven. For all this, and for all these, that bankrupt court

established by the gospel will give you a discharge; but deny the

existence of these divine ghosts, of these gods, and the sweet and

tearful face of Mercy becomes livid with eternal hate. Heaven's

golden gates are shut, and you, with an infinite curse ringing in

your ears, with the brand of infamy upon your brow, commence your

endless wanderings in the lurid gloom of hell--an immortal vagrant,

an eternal outcast, a deathless convict."

"A gloomy heaven above opening its jealous gates to the

nineteen-thousandth part of the tithe of mankind! And below an

inexorable Hell expanding its leviathan jaws for the vast residue of

mortals! O doctrine comfortable and healing to the weary wounded soul

of man!"--Robert Burns.

530

Did he teach the doctrine of endless punishment?

"And these shall go away into everlasting punishment" (Matthew xxv,

46).

That is the most infamous passage in all literature. It is the

language, not of an incarnate God, but of an incarnate devil. The

being who gave utterance to those words deserves not the worship,

but the execration of mankind. The priests who preach this doctrine

of eternal pain are fiends. There is misery enough in this world

without adding to it the mental anguish of this monstrous lie.

Less than a hundred years ago, when Christ was yet believed to

be divine, in nearly every pulpit, to frighten timid and confiding

mothers, dimpled babes were consigned to the red flames of this eternal

hell. Then came the preachers of humanity--the Ballous, the Channings,

the Parkers and the Beechers--preachers with hearts and brains, who

sought to humanize this heavenly demon, to make of him a decent man,

and civilize his fiendish priests. To these men is due the debt of

everlasting gratitude. With the return of every spring the emancipated

of the race should build above their sacred dust a pyramid of flowers.

Not by the sects known as Universalists and Unitarians, small in

numbers, though in the character of their adherents the greatest of

the Christian sects, must we estimate the importance of the work of

Ballou and Channing and other Liberal ministers. The influence of

their teachings has permeated every Christian sect, and quickened

every humane conscience. In the minds of all intelligent Christians,

largely as the result of their labors, this heartless demon and this

cruel dogma are dead. In their creeds they still survive. They are

ashamed of the dogma; they abhor it. They should abhor its author,

and banish both.

"What! I should call on that Infinite Love that has served us so well?

Infinite cruelty rather, that made everlasting hell,

Made us, foreknew us, foredoom'd us, and does what he will with his own;

Better our dead brute mother who never has heard us groan."

--Tennyson.

531

Is it possible to fall from grace?

Peter: "If after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through

the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again

entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them

than the beginning" (2 Peter ii, 20).

"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and

I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither

shall any man pluck them out of my hand" (John x, 27, 28).

"There is no condemnation for them that believe and are

baptized."--Confession of Faith, Art. IX.

532

Is baptism essential to salvation?

"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved" (Mark xvi, 16).

"Except a man be born of the water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter

the Kingdom of God" (John iii, 5).

"Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them" (Matthew

xxviii, 19).

Was the penitent thief baptized?

Paul says: "I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and

Gaius.... For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel"

(1 Corinthians i, 14, 17).

533

What constitutes Christian baptism, immersion or sprinkling?

With millions of Bibles in circulation, the Christian does not

know. If he affirms, as many scholars affirm, that immersion is the

mode authorized by the Bible, then he must admit that the greater

portion of Christendom has rejected this mode and adopted one not

authorized by the Scriptures.

To whom is this rite to be administered, to both adults and infants,

or to adults alone?

After eighteen centuries of controversy; after employing millions of

priests to interpret the Scriptures; after Anabaptists and Pedobaptists

have baptized their swords in each others' blood, the church is not

prepared to answer.

534

Did Christ command his disciples to repeat and perpetuate the

observance of the Eucharist?

Luke: He did. "This do in remembrance of me."

Matthew, Mark and John: He did not.

It is admitted by Dr. Westcott and others that the earlier versions

of Luke did not contain the injunction quoted. Christ, then, according

to the Four Gospels did not institute the Eucharist as a sacrament to

be observed by his disciples and the church. Referring to the Twelve

Apostles, the Rev. Dr. Minot J. Savage says: "They knew nothing about

any sacraments; they had not been instituted" (What is Christianity?).

535

What did he teach in regard to the efficacy of prayer?

"All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall

receive" (Matthew xxi, 22).

This is one of the cardinal doctrines of his religion. He is

continually impressing upon the minds of his hearers the necessity

and the efficacy of prayer. Referring to this doctrine, Greg says:

"This doctrine has in all ages been a stumbling block to the

thoughtful. It is obviously irreconcilable with all that reason and

revelation teach us of the divine nature; and the inconsistency has

been felt by the ablest of the Scripture writers themselves. Various

and desperate have been the expedients and suppositions resorted to,

in order to reconcile the conception of an immutable, all-wise,

all-foreseeing God, with that of a father who is turned from his

course by the prayers of his creatures. But all such efforts are,

and are felt to be, hopeless failures. They involve the assertion and

negation of the same proposition in one breath. The problem remains

still insoluble; and we must either be content to leave it so, or we

must abandon one or other of the hostile premises.

"The religious man, who believes that all events, mental as well as

physical, are pre-ordered and arranged according to the decrees of

infinite wisdom, and the philosopher, who knows that, by the wise

and eternal laws of the universe, cause and effect are indissolubly

chained together, and that one follows the other in inevitable

succession--equally feel that this ordination--this chain--cannot be

changed at the cry of man. To suppose that it can is to place the

whole harmonious system of nature at the mercy of the weak reason

and the selfish wishes of humanity. If the purposes of God were not

wise, they would not be formed: if wise, they cannot be changed,

for then they would become unwise. To suppose that an all-wise Being

would alter his designs and modes of proceeding at the entreaty of

an unknowing creature, is to believe that compassion would change

his wisdom into foolishness.... If the universe is governed by fixed

laws, or (which is the same proposition in different language), if all

events are pre-ordained by the foreseeing wisdom of an infinite God,

then the prayers of thousands of years and generations of martyrs and

saints cannot change or modify one iota of our destiny. The proposition

is unassailable by the subtlest logic. The weak, fond affections of

humanity struggle in vain against the unwelcome conclusion" (Creed

of Christendom, pp. 322, 323).

536

Where are we commanded to pray?

"When thou prayest enter into thy closet" (Matthew vi, 6).

How long ought we to continue in prayer?

"Men ought always to pray" (Luke xviii, 1).

537

Did Christ assume for himself the power of answering petitions?

"Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name that will I do" (John xiv, 13). But

soon realizing that his capital was too small to conduct a business

of such magnitude, he was compelled to announce that, "Whatsoever ye

shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you" (xv, 16).

538

Does God know our wants?

"Your father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him"

(Matthew vi, 8).

Then what is the use of prayer? Is God a mischievous urchin taunting

his hungry dog with a morsel of bread, and shouting, "Beg, Tray, beg!"?

539

What portion of their goods did he require the rich to give the poor

to obtain salvation?

Rich Ruler, No. 1: "Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal

life?" (Luke xviii, 18.)

Jesus: "Sell all that thou hast and distribute unto the poor" (22).

Rich Ruler, No. 2: "Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor"

(Luke xix, 8).

Jesus: "This day is salvation come to this house" (9).

540

What did he teach respecting the publicity of good works?

"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works"

(Matthew v, 16).

"Take heed that ye do not your righteousness before men to be seen

of them" (vi, 1, New Ver.).

541

What original rules of table observance did he teach his disciples?

Matthew: To abstain from washing their hands before eating. "They

wash not their hands when they eat bread" (xv, 2).

John: To wash their feet after eating. "He riseth from supper, and laid

aside his garments; and took a towel and girded himself. After that

he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet,

and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded" (xiii, 4, 5).

The proneness of Christ's followers to neglect his ordinances and

precepts which require some sacrifice or effort to obey, and the

readiness with which they observe those which do not, find a fitting

illustration in the reception accorded these teachings. While the

early Christians, many of them, accepted the first as a religious

obligation not to be violated, the second was ignored. Writing

of Christian monks and nuns, Lecky says: "The cleanliness of the

body was regarded as a pollution of the soul, and the saints

who were most admired had become one hideous mass of clotted

filth. St. Athanasius relates with enthusiasm how St. Antony, the

patriarch of monachism, had never, to extreme old age, been guilty of

washing his feet.... St. Abraham the hermit, however, who lived for

fifty years after his conversion, rigidly refused from that date to

wash either his face or feet.... St. Euphraxia joined a convent of one

hundred and thirty nuns, who never washed their feet, and who shuddered

at the mention of a bath" (European Morals, Vol. II, pp. 109, 110).

542

What religious formula is to be found in the New Testament?

"In the name of Jesus."

"In the name of Jesus" the disciples cast out devils and performed

other miracles; "In the name of Jesus" they baptized their converts;

"In the name of Jesus" salvation was secured. This formula, with

various modifications, is in general use in the church today. It

betrays the heathen origin of Christianity. Referring to its use

Prof. Meinhold of Bonn University says: "Name and person were at one

time closely combined, and elementary religious ideas were connected

with the words. He who knew the name of a divinity and could pronounce

it was in this way able to secure a blessing. It was the use of the

name of Jesus in the sacraments that made them effective, in the

spirit of sorcery. This idea came from the lowest type of religious

thought, reflected in religious mysteries in the days of Jesus,

and was embodied in the earliest Christianity."

543

What is taught respecting the use of oaths?

God: "Swear by my name" (Jeremiah xii, 16).

Christ: "Swear not at all" (Matthew v, 34).

544

What opposing rules of proselytism did Christ promulgate?

"He that is not with me is against me" (Luke xi, 23).

"He that is not against us is for us" (Luke ix, 50).

545

What is to befall him that hath nothing?

"Whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath"

(Matthew xiii, 12).

Ex nihilo nihil fit.

546

What did he say would be the fate of those who took up the sword?

"They that take the sword shall perish with the sword" (Matthew

xxvi, 52).

He evidently considered this commendable, for he immediately issued

the following command to his disciples:

"He that hath no sword let him sell his garments and buy one" (Luke

xxii, 36).

547

What did he say regarding the fear of death?

"Be not afraid of them that kill the body" (Luke xii, 4).

"After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk

in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him" (John vii, 1).

548

What is to be the earthly reward of those that follow Christ?

"There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or

father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and

the gospel's, but he shall receive a hundred fold now in this time"

(Mark x, 29, 30).

"Who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is

good?" (1 Peter iii, 13.)

"For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matthew xi, 30).

"In the world ye shall have tribulation" (John xvi, 33).

"Ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake" (Luke xxi, 17).

"Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer

persecution" (2 Tim. iii, 12).

"For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom

he receiveth" (Hebrews xii, 6).

549

What promise did Christ make to Paul at the commencement of his

ministry?

"I am with thee and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee" (Acts

xviii, 10).

"Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice

was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned" (2 Corinthians xi, 24, 25).

550

How are Christ's true followers to be distinguished from those of

the devil?

"Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin" (1 John iii, 9).

"He that committeth sin is of the devil" (8).

Judged by this standard what is the comparative strength of these

sovereigns' subjects?

"There is no man that sinneth not" (1 Kings viii, 46).

"There is not a just man upon earth" (Ecclesiastes vii, 20).

"There is none righteous, no, not one" (Romans iii, 10).

551

Great stress is placed upon the moral teachings of Jesus. What did

he teach? Did he advocate industry and frugality?

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth" (Matthew vi, 19).

"Take no thought for your life what ye shall eat or what ye shall

drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on" (25).

"Take therefore no thought for the morrow" (34).

552

What were the early Christians?

Acts: They were Communists. "They had all things common.... For as many

as were possessors of land or houses sold them, and brought the prices

of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet;

and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need"

(iv, 32-35).

Most Christians condemn Communism; but was the Communism of nineteen

hundred years ago better than the Communism of today? To condemn

Communism is to condemn primitive Christianity. Yet, Christians profess

to abhor the Communistic ideas of modern teachers, while they worship

as a God the founder of this Communistic sect of Palestine.

553

What did he teach respecting poverty and wealth?

"Blessed be ye poor" (Luke vi, 20).

"Woe unto you that are rich" (24).

Poverty is a curse; wealth honestly acquired and wisely used is a

blessing. "The rich man's wealth is his strong city: the destruction

of the poor is their poverty" (Proverbs x, 15).

554

In the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, what befell the

representatives of vagrancy and respectability?

"The beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom"

(Luke xvi, 22).

"The rich man also died, ... and in hell he lifted up his eyes"

(22, 23).

"See the red flames around him twine

Who did in gold and purple shine!

"While round the saint so poor below,

Full rivers of salvation flow.

"Jesus, my Lord, let me appear

The meanest of thy creatures here."

555

Why was Dives' request that his brothers be informed of their impending

fate refused?

"They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them" (Luke xvi, 29).

Moses and the prophets do not teach the doctrine of endless punishment,

nor even that of a future existence, much less that the mere possession

of wealth, acquired perhaps by honest industry, is a crime which can

be expiated only by the sufferings of an endless hell.

Christ's Kingdom was a kingdom of vagrants and paupers. "A rich

man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew xix,

23). "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle,

than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (24).

556

While at the temple with his disciples what act did he commend?

Mark and Luke: That of the poor widow who threw two mites into the

treasury (Mark xii, 43; Luke xxi, 3).

This widow's offering illustrates the characteristic generosity of the

poor and the heartless greed of the church. This text has enabled a

horde of indolent priests to prey upon widows and orphans; to filch

the scanty earnings of the poor, and live like parasites upon the

weak and sickly calves of humanity.

557

Did he practice the virtue of temperance?

"The Son of Man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a

gluttonous man and a winebibber" (Luke vii, 34).

558

What was his first miracle?

John: "There was a marriage in Cana of Galilee.... And both Jesus

was called, and his disciples, to the marriage. And when they wanted

wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine.... And

there were set there six water pots of stone, ... containing two or

three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto them, Fill the water pots with

water. And they filled them up to the brim" (ii, 1-7). This water he

turned into wine.

Here is Christ supplying a party already "well drunk" with more

than one hundred gallons of wine. As they were intoxicated when he

performed the miracle, would it not have been better for them and

better for the millions who have accepted him as a moral guide,

if at the beginning of the feast he had turned the wine into water?

The morality taught by Jesus suffers in comparison with that taught

by Mohammed. Mohammed prohibited the use of intoxicating drink, and

the Mohammedans are a temperate people; Jesus sanctioned the use of

intoxicating drink, and the Christian world abounds with drunkenness.

Referring to the miracle at Cana, Strauss says: "Not only, however,

has the miracle been impeached in relation to possibility, but also

in relation to utility and fitness. It has been urged both in ancient

and modern times, that it was unworthy of Jesus that he should not only

remain in the society of drunkards, but even further their intemperance

by an exercise of his miraculous power" (Leben Jesu, p. 584).

559

Did he oppose slavery?

All: He did not.

"Slavery was incorporated into the civil institutions of Moses; it was

recognized accordingly by Christ and his apostles."--Rev. Dr. Nathan

Lord, President of Dartmouth College.

"At the time of the advent of Jesus Christ, slavery in its worst

forms prevailed over the world. The Savior found it around him in

Judea; the apostles met with it in Asia, Greece and Italy. How did

they treat it? Not by denunciation of slave-holding as necessarily

sinful."--Prof. Hodge of Princeton.

"I have no doubt if Jesus Christ were now on earth that he would, under

certain circumstances, become a slaveholder."--Rev. Dr. Taylor of Yale.

Rousseau says: "Christ preaches only servitude and dependence.... True

Christians are made to be slaves."

560

What did the apostles teach?

Peter: "Servants [slaves], be subject to your masters with all fear;

not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward" (1 Peter

ii, 18).

Paul: "Let as many servants [slaves] as are under the yoke count

their own masters worthy of all honor" (1 Timothy vi, 1). "Servants,

be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh,

with fear and trembling" (Ephesians vi, 5).

The Rev. Dr. Wilbur Fisk, president of Wesleyan University, says:

"The New Testament enjoins obedience upon the slave as an obligation

due to a present rightful authority."

561

Did he favor marriage?

Matthew: He advocated celibacy, and even self-mutilation as preferable

to marriage (xix, 10-12).

Following this teaching of their Master, Christians, many of them,

have condemned marriage. A Christian pope, Siricius, branded it as "a

pollution of the flesh." St. Jerome taught that the duty of the saint

was to "cut down by the axe of Virginity the wood of Marriage." Pascal

says: "Marriage is the lowest and most dangerous condition of the

Christian."

G. W. Foote of England says: "Jesus appears to have despised the union

of the sexes, therefore marriage, and therefore the home. He taught

that in heaven, where all is perfect, there is neither marrying nor

giving in marriage."

"Monks and nuns innumerable owe to this evil teaching their shriveled

lives and withered hearts."--Mrs. Besant.

562

What did he encourage women to do?

Luke: To leave their husbands and homes, and follow and associate

with him and his roving apostles--"Mary, called Magdalene, out of whom

went seven devils, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and

Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance"

(viii, 2, 3).

563

What did he say respecting children?

"Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not."

But it was only the children of Jews he welcomed. The afflicted child

of a Gentile he spurned as a dog. When the woman of Canaan desired

him to heal her daughter, he brutally replied: "It is not meet to

take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs" (Matthew xv,

26). The soldiers who spit on Jesus in Pilate's hall did not do a

meaner thing than Jesus did that day. And if he afterwards consented

to cure the child it was not as an act of humanity to the sufferer,

but as a reward for the mother's faith in him.

Concerning this brutal act of Jesus, Helen Gardener says: "Do you think

that was kind? Do you think it was godlike? What would you think of a

physician, if a woman came to him distressed and said, 'Doctor, come

to my daughter; she is very ill. She has lost her reason, and she is

all I have!' What would you think of the doctor who would not reply

at all at first, and then, when she fell at his feet and worshiped

him, answered that he did not spend his time doctoring dogs? Would

you like him as a family physician? Do you think that, even if he

were to cure the child then, he would have done a noble thing? Is

it evidence of a perfect character to accompany a service with an

insult? Do you think that a man who could offer such an indignity to

a sorrowing mother has a perfect character, is an ideal God?"

564

He enjoined the observance of the commandment, "Honor thy father and

thy mother." Did he respect it himself?

More striking examples of filial ingratitude are not to be found than

are exhibited in the Gospel history of Jesus Christ. When visiting

Jerusalem with his parents, he allows them to depart for home without

him, thinking that he is with another part of the company; and when

they return to search for him and find him, he manifests no concern

for the trouble he has caused; when during his ministry his mother and

brothers are announced, he receives them with a sneer; at the marriage

feast, when his mother kindly speaks to him, he brutally exclaims,

"Woman, what have I to do with thee?" Throughout the Four Gospels

not one respectful word to that devoted mother is recorded. Even

in his last hours, when the mental anguish of that mother must have

equaled his own physical suffering, not one word of comfort or farewell

greeting escapes from his lips; but the same studied disrespect that

has characterized him all his life is exhibited here.

565

Did he not promote domestic strife?

"Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay;

but rather division: for from henceforth there shall be five in one

house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father

against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against

the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother-in-law

against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her

mother-in-law" (Luke xii, 51-53).

"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send

peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his

father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law

against her mother-in-law" (Matthew x, 34, 35).

566

What did he require of his disciples?

"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife,

and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also,

he cannot be my disciple" (Luke xiv, 26).

It is scarcely possible in this age of enlightenment and unbelief

to realize what sorrows and miseries these accursed teachings of

Christ once caused. The eminent historian Lecky, in his "History

of European Morals," has attempted to describe some of their awful

consequences. From his pages I quote the following:

"To break by his ingratitude the heart of the mother who had borne him,

to persuade the wife who adored him that it was her duty to separate

from him forever, to abandon his children, uncared for and beggars,

to the mercies of the world, was regarded by the true hermit as the

most acceptable offering he could make to his God. His business was

to save his own soul. The serenity of his devotion would be impaired

by the discharge of the simplest duties to his family. Evagrius,

when a hermit in the desert, received, after a long interval, letters

from his father and mother. He could not bear that the equable tenor

of his thought should be disturbed by the recollection of those who

loved him, so he cast the letters unread into the fire. A man named

Mutius, accompanied by his only child, a little boy of eight years old,

abandoned his possessions and demanded admission into a monastery. The

monks received him, but they proceeded to discipline his heart. 'He

had already forgotten that he was rich; he must next be taught to

forget that he was a father.' His little child was separated from

him, clothed in rags, subjected to every form of gross and wanton

hardship, beaten, spurned and ill-treated. Day after day the father

was compelled to look upon his boy wasting away with sorrow, his once

happy countenance forever stained with tears, distorted by sobs of

anguish. But yet, says the admiring biographer, 'though he saw this day

by day, such was his love for Christ, and for the virtue of obedience,

that the father's heart was rigid and unmoved' (Vol. ii, 125, 126).

"He [St. Simeon Stylites] had been passionately loved by his parents,

and, if we may believe his eulogist and biographer, he began his

saintly career by breaking the heart of his father, who died of grief

at his flight. His mother, however, lingered on. Twenty-seven years

after his disappearance, at a period when his austerities had made

him famous, she heard for the first time where he was and hastened

to visit him. But all her labor was in vain. No woman was admitted

within the precincts of his dwelling, and he refused to permit her

even to look upon his face. Her entreaties and tears were mingled with

words of bitter and eloquent reproach. 'My son,' she is represented

as having said, 'why have you done this? I bore you in my womb, and

you have wrung my soul with grief. I gave you milk from my breast,

you have filled my eyes with tears. For the kisses I gave you, you

have given me the anguish of a broken heart; for all that I have

done and suffered for you, you have repaid me by the most cruel

wrongs.' At last the saint sent a message to her to tell her that

she would soon see him. Three days and three nights she had wept and

entreated in vain, and now, exhausted with grief and age and privation,

she sank feebly to the ground and breathed her last sigh before that

inhospitable door. Then for the first time the saint, accompanied by

his followers, came out. He shed some pious tears over the corpse of

his murdered mother, and offered up a prayer consigning her soul to

heaven" (Ibid, 130).

567

Did he not indulge in vituperation and abuse?

"Ye fools and blind" (Matthew xxiii, 17).

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites" (14).

"All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers" (John x, 8).

"Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation

of hell?" (Matthew xxiii, 33.)

Regarding these abusive epithets of Christ, Prof. Newman says: "The

Jewish nation may well complain that they have been cruelly slandered

by the gospels. The invectives have been burnt into the heart of

Christendom, so that the innocent Jews, children of the dispersion,

have felt in millennial misery--yes, and to this day feel--the deadly

sting of these fierce and haughty utterances" (Jesus Christ, p. 25).

568

Relate his treatment of the Pharisee who invited him to dine with him.

Luke: "And as he spake, a certain Pharisee besought him to dine with

him; and he went in, and sat down to meat. And when the Pharisee saw

it, he marveled that he had not first washed before dinner. And the

Lord said unto him, now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of

the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening

and wickedness. Ye fools ... hypocrites!" (xi, 37-44.)

Was such insolence of manners on the part of Jesus calculated to

promote the interest of the cause he professed to hold so dear at

heart? Supposing a Freethinker were to receive an invitation to dine

with a Christian friend and were to repay the hospitality of his

host with rudeness and abuse, interrupting the ceremony of "grace"

with an oath or a sneer, and showering upon the head of his friend

such epithets as "hypocrite" and "fool." Would such insolent behavior

have a tendency to gain for him the world's esteem or aid the cause

he represents? And are we to approve in a God conduct that we regard

as detestable in a man? It may be urged that God is not subject to

the rules of human conduct. Grant it; but is it necessary for him in

order to exhibit his divine character to assume the manners of a brute?

569

Do the Pharisees deserve the sweeping condemnation heaped upon them

by Christ and his followers?

In marked contrast to the diatribes of Jesus is the testimony of

Josephus: "Now, for the Pharisees, they live meanly [plainly], and

despise delicacies in diet, and they follow the conduct of reason;

and what that prescribes to them as good for them, they do; and they

think they ought earnestly to strive to observe reason's dictates for

practice.... The cities give great attestations to them on account

of their entire virtuous conduct, both in the actions of their lives,

and their discourses also" (Antiquities, Book xviii, chap. i, sec. 3).

Paul, the Christian, when arraigned before Agrippa, believed that no

loftier testimonial to his character could be adduced than the fact

that he had been a Pharisee (Acts xxvi, 4, 5).

570

What is said in regard to his purging the temple?

John: "And the Jews' Passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to

Jerusalem, and found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep

and doves, and the changers of money sitting: and when he had made

a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple,

and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money,

and overthrew the tables" (ii, 13-15).

No currency but the Jewish was accepted in the temple, while doves,

lambs, and other animals were required for offerings. These persons

performed the very necessary office of supplying the Jews with

offerings and exchanging Jewish coins for the Roman money then in

general circulation. What right he had to interfere with the lawful

business of these men, and especially in the manner in which he did,

it is difficult to understand.

571

Describe the cursing of the fig tree.

Matthew: "Now in the morning as he returned into the city, he

hungered. And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it,

and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no

fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree

withered away" (xxi, 18, 19).

Jesus cursed a living tree and it died; Mohammed blessed a dead tree

and it lived.

The alleged conduct of Jesus on many occasions, notably his harsh

treatment of his mother, his abuse of the Pharisees, his purging the

temple and his cursing the fig tree, is not the conduct of a rational

being, but rather that of a madman. If these stories be historical

they would indicate that he was not wholly responsible for his words

and acts. Dr. Jules Soury, of the University of France, believes that

he was the victim of an incurable mental disorder. In a work on morbid

psychology, entitled "Studies on Jesus and The Gospels," Dr. Soury

cites a long array of seemingly indisputable facts in support of his

theory. From his preface to the work, I quote the following:

"Jesus the God, gone down in his glory, like a star sunk beneath the

horizon but still shedding a few faint rays on the world, threw a halo

round the brow of Jesus the Prophet. In the dull glow of that twilight,

in the melancholy but charming hour when everything seemed wrapped in

vague, ethereal tints, Jesus appeared to Strauss and Renan such as he

had shown himself to his first disciples, the Master par-excellence,

a man truly divine. Then came the night; and as darkness descended

on those flickering gospel beginnings there remained nought to be

descried through the obscurity of dubious history, but dimly looming,

the portentous outline of the gibbet and its victim.

"In the present work Jesus makes his appearance, perhaps for the

first time, as a sufferer from a grave malady, the course of which

we have attempted to trace.

"The nervous, or cerebral disorder, at first congestive and then

inflammatory, under which he labored, was not only deep-seated and

dangerous--it was incurable. Among us at the present time that

affection may be seen daily making kings, millionaires, popes,

prophets, saints, and even divinities of poor fellows who have lost

their balance; it has produced more than one Messiah.

"If we be right in the interpretation of data which has been followed

in the study of morbid psychology, Jesus, at the time of his death,

was in a somewhat advanced stage of this disorder, He was, to all

appearance, cut off opportunely; the gibbet saved him from actual

madness.

"The diagnosis which we have ventured to draw is based on three sets

of facts which are attested by the most ancient and trustworthy of

the witnesses of his career.

"1. Religious excitement, then general in Palestine, drove Jesus to

the wilderness, where he lived some time the life of a recluse, as

those who considered themselves to have the prophetic mission often

did. Carried away with the idea that he was divinely inspired to

proclaim the coming of the Messiah, he left his own people and his

native place, and, attended by a following of fishermen and others

of the same class, went about among the towns and villages of Galilee

announcing the speedy approach of the Kingdom of Heaven.

"2. After having proclaimed the coming of the Messiah, like other

contemporary Jewish prophets, Jesus gradually came to look upon himself

as the Messiah, the Christ. He allowed himself to be called the Son of

David, the Son of God, and had among his followers one, if not more,

of those fanatical Sicarii, so graphically described by Josephus,

who were waiting for the deliverance of Israel from the yoke of

Rome. Progressive obliteration of the consciousness of his personal

identity marks the interval between the somewhat vague revelation

which he made to his disciples at the foot of Mount Hermon and the

day when, before Caiaphas and before Pilate, he openly declared that

he was the Messiah, and by that token the King of the Jews.

"3. The cursing of the fig tree whereon there were no figs, because

'the time of figs was not yet,' the violent conduct toward the dealers

and changers at the temple, were manifestly foolish acts. Jesus had

come to believe that everything was permitted him, that all things

belonged to him, that nothing was too hard for him to do. For a

long time he had given evident signs of perversion of the natural

affections, especially with respect to his mother and brethren. To

the fits of anger against the priests and religious ministers of

his nation, to the ambitious extravagance of his words and acts, to

the wild dream of his Messianic grandeur, there rapidly supervened

a characteristic depression of the mental faculties and strength,

a giving way of the intellectual and muscular powers.

"Each of those periods in the career of Jesus corresponds to a certain

pathological state of his nervous system.

"By reacting on the heart, the religious excitement he labored under

and the attendant functional exacerbations had the immediate effect

of accelerating the circulation, unduly dilating the blood vessels,

and producing cerebral congestion.

"Chronic congestion of the brain, subjectively considered, is always

attended in the initial stage with great increase of the moral

consciousness, extraordinary activity of the imagination, often

leading to hallucinations, and later on with absurdly exaggerated,

frequently delirious ideas of power and greatness. That stage is also

usually characterized by irritability and fits of passion.

"Objectively considered what is observable is hypertrophy of the

cellules and nerve-tubes, excessive cerebral plethora and vascularity

due to the great efflux of blood and superabundant nutrition of

the encephalon. Inflammation of the meningeal covering, and of the

brain itself, is, sooner or later, a further result of the chronic

congestion. The vessels, turgid and loaded with blood, permit the

transudation of the blood globules; the circulation becomes impeded,

then arrested, with the result of depriving the cortical cerebral

substance of arterial blood, which is its life; the histological

elements undergo alteration, degenerate, become softened, and as the

disorganization proceeds are finally reduced to inert detritus.

"The brain may remain capable more or less well of performing its

functions when deprived to a large extent of its necessary food,

but not so when the cerebral cellules are disorganized. Dementia

consequently is the natural sequel of the congestive stage. To the

destruction of the cortical substance supervenes partial or total

loss of consciousness, according to the extent of the lesion. Such

portions of the encephalon as continue capable of performing any duty

being in a state of hyperaemia, there is often delirium more or less

intense up to the last.

"The process of the disorder is irregular; remissions occur during

which the reasoning faculties seem to be recovered. But whether

the duration extends only to a few months or to several years, the

increasing weakness of the patient, the intellectual and muscular

decay, the cachetic state into which he falls, the lesions of other

organs performing essential functions which ensue, bring life to a

close, and frequently without suffering.

"This is how Jesus would have ended had he been spared the violent

death of the cross."

Nearly all the religious founders have been affected, to a greater

or less extent, with insanity. Genius itself is closely allied to

insanity--is indeed, in many cases, a form of insanity. Moreau de

Tours in his "La Psychologie Morbide" (p. 234) says: "The mental

disposition which causes a man to be distinguished from his fellows

by the originality of his mind and conceptions, by his eccentricity,

and the energy of his affective faculties, or by the transcendence of

his intelligence, take their rise in the very same organic conditions

which are the source of the various mental perturbations whereof

insanity and idiocy are the most complete expressions." Buddha,

Mohammed, and probably Jesus, united with certain strong mental and

moral characteristics, a form of insanity which manifested itself in

a sort of religious madness--a madness that was contagious and which

has attacked and afflicted the greater portion of the human race.

572

Did he not teach the doctrine of demoniacal possession and exorcism?

Synoptics: He did.

After alluding to the prevalency of superstition among the Jews of

this period, Renan says: "Jesus on this point differed in no respect

from his companions. He believed in the devil, whom he regarded as

a kind of evil genius, and he imagined, like all the world, that

nervous maladies were produced by demons who possessed the patient

and agitated him" (Life of Jesus, p. 59). Dr. Geikie says: "The New

Testament leaves us in no doubt of the belief, on the part of Jesus

and the Evangelists, in the reality of these demoniacal possessions"

(Life of Christ, vol. ii, p. 573).

Demonology was born of ignorance and superstition. In this debasing

superstition Jesus believed. It was a part of his religion, and has

remained a part of Christianity; for while the more intelligent of

his professed disciples have outgrown this superstition they have to

the same extent outgrown Christianity. The more ignorant, the more

depraved, and, at the same time, the more devout of his followers,

still accept it.

Regarding this superstition, the author of "Supernatural Religion"

says: "The diseases referred to by the gospels, and by the Jews of

that time, to the action of devils, exist now, but they are known to

proceed from purely physical causes. The same superstition and medical

ignorance would enunciate the same diagnosis at the present day. The

superstition and ignorance, however, have passed away, and, with them,

the demoniacal theory. In that day the theory was as baseless as in

this. It is obvious that, with the necessary abandonment of the theory

of 'possession' and demoniacal origin of disease, the largest class

of miracles recorded in the gospels is at once exploded. The asserted

cause of the diseases of this class, said to have been miraculously

healed, must be recognized to be a mere vulgar superstition" (p. 159).

Prof. Huxley, in one of his essays, discussing the Gadarene miracle,

says: "When such a story as that about the Gadarene swine is placed

before us, the importance of the decision, whether it be accepted or

rejected, cannot be overestimated. If the demonological part of it

is to be accepted, the authority of Jesus is unmistakably pledged to

the demonological system current in Judea in the first century. The

belief in devils who possess men and can be transferred from men

to pigs becomes as much a part of Christian dogma as any article of

the creeds."

573

What became of the swine into which Jesus ordered the devils to go?

Matthew: "And behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a

steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters" (viii, 32).

It may be pertinent to inquire what these inoffensive animals had

done that they should merit such cruelty, or what their owner had

done that his property should be thus wantonly destroyed.

In his narrative of this miracle Fleetwood says: "The spectators

beheld, at a distance, the torments these poor creatures suffered;

with what amazing rapidity they ran to the confines of the lake,

leaped from the precipices into the sea, and perished in the waters"

(Life of Christ, p. 121).

In striking contrast to the religion of Buddha, the religion of Christ

has made its adherents cruel and unmerciful. To this Christian writer

the torture and destruction of these domestic animals is no more than

the burning of a field of stubble. In this miracle he sees only a

manifestation of love and kindness on the part of his Savior. Referring

to the request of the inhabitants that he depart from their country,

he says: "The stupid request of the Gadarenes was complied with by

the blessed Jesus, who, entering the ship, returned to the country

from whence he came, leaving them a valuable pledge of his love,

and us a noble pattern of perseverance in well-doing, even when our

kindnesses are condemned or requited with injuries" (Ibid, p. 122).

574

What did Jesus say to the strange Samaritan woman whom he met at

the well?

"Thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy

husband" (John iv, 18).

"Christ here makes himself a wandering gypsy, or Bohemian fortune

teller, and I much wonder that our gypsies do not account themselves

the genuine disciples of Jesus, being endowed with like gifts, and

exercising no worse arts than he himself practiced."--Woolston.

575

Was he not an egotist and given to vulgar boasting?

Speaking of himself, he said: "Behold, a greater than Solomon is here"

(Matthew xii, 41, 42).

576

Did he not practice dissimulation?

John: "And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee

that thou hast heard me. And I know that thou hearest me always,

but because of the people which stand by I said it" (xi, 41, 42).

Luke: After his resurrection when he intended to stop at Emmaus

with his companions, "He made as though he would have gone further"

(xxiv, 28).

577

After performing one of his miraculous cures, what charge did he make

to those who witnessed it?

Mark: "He charged them that they should tell no man: but the more

he charged them, so much the more a great deal they published it"

(vii, 36).

Did he desire them to disregard his commands? If he did he was a

hypocrite; if he did not he was an impotent--in either case a fallible

man instead of an omnipotent God.

578

On the approach of the Passover what did he say to his brethren?

"Go ye up unto this feast; I go not up yet unto this feast" (John

vii, 8).

The correct reading of the last clause is, "I go not up unto the

feast." The American revisers, to their credit, urged the adoption of

this reading; but the Oxford revisers retained the error. In uttering

these words, Jesus, if omniscient, uttered an untruth; for John says:

"But when his brethren were gone up, then went he also up unto the

feast, not openly, but as it were in secret" (10).

579

Why did he teach in parables?

"That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may

hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted,

and their sins should be forgiven them" (Mark iv, 12).

He deceived the people that he might have the pleasure of seeing

them damned.

580

What immoral lesson is inculcated in the parable of the Steward?

He commends as wise and prudent the action of the steward, who,

to provide for his future welfare, causes his master's creditors

to defraud him. "There was a certain rich man, which had a steward;

and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. And

he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of

thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer

steward. Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for

my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg

I am ashamed. I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of

the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. So he called

every one of his lord's debtors unto him, and said unto the first,

How much owest thou unto my lord? And he said, An hundred measures of

oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and

write fifty. Then said he unto another, And how much owest thou? And

he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy

bill and write fourscore. And the lord commended the unjust steward,

because he had done wisely; for the children of this world are in

their generation wiser than the children of light. And I say unto you,

Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that,

when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations"

(Luke xvi, 1-9).

581

In the parable of the Laborers what unjust doctrine is taught?

The assignment of equal rewards for unequal burdens. He justifies

the dishonest bargaining of the householder who received twelve hours

of labor for a penny, when he paid the same amount for one (Matthew

xx, 1-16).

Regarding the parables of Jesus, W. P. Ball, an English writer, says:

"With one single exception, the parables attributed to Jesus are

thoroughly religious and decidedly inferior in their moral tone,

besides possessing minor faults. The God who is to be the object of our

adoration and imitation is depicted to us as a judge who will grant

vengeance in answer to incessant prayer, as a father who loves and

honors the favorite prodigal and neglects the faithful and obedient

worker, as an employer who pays no more for a life-time than for the

nominal service of a death-bed repentance, as an unreasonable master

who reaps where he has not sown and punishes men because he made them

defective and gave them no instructions, as a harsh despot who delivers

disobedient servants to tormentors and massacres those who object to

his rule, as a judge who is merciful to harlots and relentless towards

unbelievers, as a petulant king who drives beggars and outcasts into

the heaven which is ignored by the wise and worthy, as a ruler of

the universe who freely permits his enemy the devil to sow evil and

then punishes his victims, as a God who plunges men in the flames of

hell and calmly philosophizes over the reward of the blest who from

Abraham's bosom behold the sight and are not permitted to bestow even

so much as a drop of cold water to cool the parched tongues of their

fellow-creatures amidst hopeless and unending agonies, in comparison

with which all earthly sufferings are but momentary dreams."

582

What did he teach regarding submission to theft and robbery?

"Of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again" (Luke vi, 30).

583

Why was the woman taken in adultery released without punishment?

John: Because those having her in custody were not without sin

themselves (viii, 3-11).

The adoption of this principle would require the liberation of every

criminal, because all men are fallible.

If man cannot punish crime because not free from sin himself, is it

just in God, the author of all sin, to punish man for his sins?

584

Whom did he pronounce blessed?

"Blessed are the poor in spirit" (Matthew v, 3).

"Is poverty of spirit a blessing? Surely not. Manliness of spirit,

honesty of spirit, fulness of rightful purpose, these are virtues;

but poverty of spirit is a crime."--Bradlaugh.

585

Did he teach resistance to wrong?

"Unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other"

(Luke vi, 29).

"He who courts oppression shares the crime."

Lord Amberley, referring to this teaching of Jesus, says: "A doctrine

more convenient for the purposes of tyrants and malefactors of every

description it would be difficult to invent" (Analysis of Religious

Belief, p. 355).

586

He taught his hearers to return good for evil. Did he do this himself?

"I pray for them [his followers], I pray not for the world" (John

xvii, 9).

"Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my

Father" (Matthew x, 33).

587

The Golden Rule has been ascribed to Christ. Was he its author?

Five hundred years before the time of Christ Confucius taught: "What

you do not like when done to yourself do not to others." Centuries

before the Christian era Pittacus, Thales, Sextus, Isocrates and

Aristotle taught the same.

588

What maxim does Paul attribute to Jesus?

"Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed

to give than to receive" (Acts xx, 35).

These are not "the words of the Lord Jesus," but of the Pagan Epicurus,

a man whose character Christians have for centuries defamed.

Concerning the teachings of Jesus, Col. Thomas W. Higginson says:

"When they tell me that Jesus taught a gospel of love, I say I

believe it. Plato taught a gospel of love before him, and you deny

it. If they say, Jesus taught that it is better to bear an injury

than to retaliate, I say, yes, but so did Aristotle before Jesus was

born. I will accept it as the statement of Jesus if you will admit

that Aristotle said it too. I am willing that any man should come

before us and say, Jesus taught that you must love your enemies, it

is written in the Bible; but, if he will open the old manuscript of

Diogenes Laertus, he may there read in texts that have never been

disputed, that the Greek philosophers, half a dozen of them, said

the same before Jesus was born."

Buckle says: "That the system of morals propounded in the New Testament

contained no maxim which had not been previously enunciated, and that

some of the most beautiful passages in the apostolic writings are

quotations from Pagan authors, is well known to every scholar.... To

assert that Christianity communicated to man moral truths previously

unknown, argues on the part of the asserter either gross ignorance

or wilful fraud" (History of Civilization, vol. i, p. 129).

John Stuart Mill says: "It can do truth no service to blind the fact,

known to all who have the most ordinary acquaintance with literary

history, that a large portion of the noblest and most valuable moral

teaching has been the work not only of men who did not know, but of

men who knew and rejected the Christian faith" (Liberty).

589

We are told that Christ manifested "a strong and enduring courage

which never shrank or quailed before any danger however formidable." Is

this true?

It is not. When he heard that John was imprisoned, he retreated to

the Sea of Galilee (Matthew iv, 12, 13); when John was beheaded, he

took a ship and retired to a desert (xiv, 13); in going from Galilee

to Judea, he went beyond the Jordan to avoid the Samaritans; when his

brethren went up to Jerusalem he refused to accompany them for fear of

the Jews (John vii, 8, 9); when the Jews took up stones to stone him he

"hid himself" (viii, 59); when the Pharisees took council against him

he fled (Matthew xii, 14, 16): at Gethsemane, in the agonies of fear,

he prayed that the cup might pass from him; at Calvary, he frantically

exclaimed, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!"

Commenting on this dying exclamation of Christ, Dr. Conway says:

"That cry could never be wrung from the lips of a man who saw in his

own death a prearranged plan for the world's salvation, and his own

return to divine glory temporarily renounced for transient misery on

earth. The fictitious theology of a thousand years shrivels beneath

the awful anguish of that cry."

590

What was the character of Christ's male ancestors?

Assuming Matthew's genealogy to be correct, nearly all of those whose

histories are recorded in the Old Testament were guilty of infamous

crimes or gross immoralities. Abraham married his sister and seduced

her handmaid; Jacob, after committing bigamy, seduced two of his

housemaids; Judah committed incest with his daughter-in-law; David

was a polygamist, an adulterer, a robber and a murderer; Solomon had

a thousand wives and concubines; Rehoboam, Abijam, Joram, Ahaziah,

Jotham, Ahaz, Manasseh, Amon and Jehoiachin, are all represented as

monsters of iniquity; while others are declared to have been too vile

to even name in his genealogy.

591

What female ancestors are named in his genealogy?

Matthew: Thamar, Rachab, Ruth and Bathsheba.

Regarding these women the Rev. Dr. Alexander Walker says: "It is

remarkable that in the genealogy of Christ, only four women have been

named: Thamar, who seduced the father of her late husband; Rachab, a

common prostitute; Ruth, who, instead of marrying one of her cousins,

went to bed with another of them; and Bathsheba, an adulteress,

who espoused David, the murderer of her first husband" (Woman, p. 330).

Matthew Henry, a noted Christian commentator, says: "There are

four women, and but four, named in this genealogy, ... Rachab, a

Canaanitess, and a harlot besides, and Ruth, the Moabitess.... The

other two were adulteresses, Tamar and Bathsheba" (Commentary, Vol. v).

592

Who was his favorite female attendant?

Luke: "Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils" (viii, 2).

Referring to this woman, Dr. Farrar says: "This exorcism is not

elsewhere alluded to, and it would be perfectly in accordance with

the genius of Hebrew phraseology if the expression had been applied to

her in consequence of a passionate nature and an abandoned life. The

Talmudists have much to say respecting her--her wealth, her extreme

beauty, her braided locks, her shameless profligacy, her husband

Pappus, and her paramour, Pandera" (Life of Christ, p. 162).

In a chapter on "Sanctified Prostitution," Dr. Soury writes:

"The Jewess is full of naive immodesty, her lip red with desire,

her eye moist and singularly luminous in the shade. Yearning with

voluptuousness, superb in her triumphs, or merely feline and caressing,

she is ever the 'insatiable,' the woman 'with seven devils' of whom

the scripture speaks, a kind of burning furnace in which the blond

Teuton melts like wax. So far as in her lay, the Syrian woman, with

her supple and nervous arms, drew into the tomb the last exhausted

sons of Greece and Rome. But who can describe the grace and the

soft languor of these daughters of Syria, their large black eyes,

the warm bistre tints of their skin? All the poets of the decadence,

Catullus, Tibullus, Propercius, have sung this wondrous being. With

soft and humble voice, languid and as though crushed by some hidden

ill, dragging her limbs over the tiles of a gynaecium, she might have

been regarded as a stupid slave. Often, her gaze lost in long reveries,

she seemed dead, save that her bosom began to swell, her eye lighted

up, her breath quickened, her cheeks became covered with crimson. The

reverie becoming a reality by a matchless power of invovation and

desire, such is the sacred disease which, thanks to Mary Magdalene,

gave birth to Christianity" (Religion of Israel, pp. 70, 71).

593

Who were his apostles?

"A dozen knaves, as ignorant as owls and as poor as church

mice."--Voltaire.

"Palestine was one of the most backward of countries; the

Galileans were the most ignorant of the inhabitants of Palestine;

and the disciples might be counted among the most simple people of

Galilee."--Renan.

"His followers were 'unlearned and ignorant men,' chosen from the

humblest of the people."--Farrar.

594

What power is Christ said to have bestowed on Peter?

"And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven:

and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven:

and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven"

(Matthew xvi, 19).

On this remarkable bestowal of power, which has exerted such a

mighty influence in the government of the church, but of which Mark,

Luke and John know nothing, Greg comments as follows: "Not only

do we know Peter's utter unfitness to be the depositary of such a

fearful power, from his impetuosity and instability of character,

and Christ's thorough perception of this unfitness, but we find

immediately after it is said to have been conferred upon him, his

Lord addresses him indignantly by the epithet of Satan, and rebukes

him for his presumption and unspirituality; and shortly afterwards

this very man thrice denied his master. Can any one maintain it

to be conceivable that Jesus should have conferred the awful power

of deciding the salvation or damnation of his fellow-men upon one

so frail, so faulty, and so fallible? Does any one believe that he

did?" (Creed of Christendom, p. 189).

595

When Peter discovered that Jesus was the Christ what did he do?

Mark: "And Peter took him [Christ] and began to rebuke him" (viii, 32).

What did Jesus do in turn?

Mark: "He rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me Satan" (33).

What a spectacle! The incarnate God of the universe and his vicegerent

on earth indulging in a petty quarrel!

596

Give an account of Peter's denial of his Master.

Matthew: "Now when Peter sat without in the palace: and a damsel came

unto him, saying, Thou also wast with Jesus of Galilee. But he denied

before them all, saying, I know not what thou sayest. And when he was

gone out into the porch, another maid saw him, and said unto them

that were there, This fellow was also with Jesus of Nazareth. And

again he denied with an oath, I do not know the man. And after a

while came up to him they that stood by, and said to Peter, Surely

thou also art one of them; for thy speech bewrayeth thee. Then began

he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man" (xxvi, 69-74).

597

What did Peter say to Jesus in regard to compensation for his services?

"Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have

therefore?" (Matthew xix, 27).

What request was made by James and John?

Mark: "They said unto him, Grant unto us that we may sit, one on thy

right hand, and the other on thy left hand, in thy glory" (x, 37).

This shows that self-aggrandizement inspired the actions of his

followers then as it does today.

598

What is said of John in the Gospel of John?

"There was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples whom he loved"

(xiii, 23).

"The disciple standing by whom he [Jesus] loved" (xix, 26).

"The other disciple whom Jesus loved" (xx, 2).

"Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved

following; which also leaned on his breast at supper.... This is the

disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things"

(xxi, 20, 24).

If the Apostle John wrote this Gospel, as claimed by Christians and

as declared in the Gospel, he was a vulgar egotist.

599

What is said regarding the conduct of his Apostles on the evening

preceding the crucifixion?

Luke: "And there was also a strife among them, which of them should

be accounted the greatest" (xxii, 24).

This was immediately after he had announced his speedy betrayal

and death and when his disciples, if sincere, must have manifested

the deepest sadness and humility. If the Evangelist is not a base

calumniator the Apostles were a set of heartless knaves.

600

When the Jews came to arrest Jesus what did the disciples do?

Matthew: "Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled" (xxvi, 56).

Mark: "And they all forsook him, and fled" (xiv, 50).

Justin says: "All his friends [the Apostles] stood aloof from him,

having denied him" (Apology i, 50).

One scarcely knows which to detest the more, the treachery of Judas

in betraying his Master, or the imbecility and cowardice of the other

apostles who took no measures to prevent it and who forsook him in

the hour of danger.

601

What became of the Twelve Apostles?

The New Testament, a portion of which is admitted to have been written

as late as the latter part of the first century and nearly all of

which was really written in the second century, is silent regarding

them. Christian martyrology records their fates as follows:

St. Peter was crucified, at his own request head downward, and buried

in the Vatican at Rome.

St. Andrew, after having been scourged seven times upon his naked body,

was crucified by the proconsul of Achaia.

St. James was beheaded by Herod Antipas in Palestine.

St. John was "thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil" by Domitian,

but God "delivered him."

St. Philip was scourged and crucified or hanged by the magistrates

of Hierapolis.

St. Bartholomew was put to death by a Roman governor in Armenia.

St. Matthew suffered martyrdom at Naddabar in Ethiopia.

St. Thomas was shot to death with arrows by the Brahmans in India.

St. James the Less was thrown from the pinnacle of the temple at

Jerusalem and dispatched with a club where he fell.

St. Simon was "crucified and buried" in Britain.

St. Jude was "cruelly put to death" by the Magi of Persia.

St. Matthias, the successor of Judas Iscariot, if Christian tradition

is to be credited, was put to death three times, crucified, stoned,

and beheaded.

Nothing can be more incredible than these so-called traditions

regarding the martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles, the most of them

occurring in an empire where all religious sects enjoyed as perfect

religious freedom as the different sects do in America today. Whatever

opinion may be entertained respecting the existence of Jesus, the

Twelve Apostles belong to the realm of mythology, and their alleged

martyrdoms are pure inventions. Had these men really existed Christian

history at least would contain some reliable notice of them, yet all

the stories relating to them, like the story of Peter at Rome, and

John at Ephesus, are self-evident fictions. In the significant words of

the eminent Dutch theologians, Dr. Kuenen, Dr. Oort and Dr. Hooykaas,

"All the Apostles disappear without a trace."

602

What are Paul's teachings regarding woman and marriage?

"It is good for a man not to touch a woman" (1 Corinthians vii, 1).

"I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them

if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry;

for it is better to marry than to burn" (8, 9).

"Art thou loose from a wife? seek not a wife" (27).

"He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord,

how he may please the Lord; but he that is married careth for the

things that are of the world, how he may please his wife. There is

difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman

careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy in body and

spirit; but she that is married careth for the things of the world,

how she may please her husband" (32-34).

"So then he that giveth her in marriage doeth well; but he that giveth

not in marriage doeth better" (38).

"This coarse and insulting way of regarding women, as though they

existed merely to be the safety-valves of men's passions, and that

the best men were above the temptation of loving them, has been the

source of unnumbered evils."--Annie Besant.

"Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands" (Colossians iii, 18).

"As the church is subject unto Christ so let the wives be to their

own husbands in everything" (Ephesians v, 24).

"Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted

unto them to speak, but they are commanded to be under obedience,

as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask

their husbands at home; for it is a shame for a woman to speak in

the church" (1 Corinthians xiv, 34, 35).

"Let women learn in silence with all subjection" (1 Timothy ii, 11).

"That she [woman] does not crouch today where St. Paul tried to bind

her, she owes to the men who are grand and brave enough to ignore

St. Paul, and rise superior to his God."--Helen Gardener.

603

Did Paul encourage learning?

"The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God" (1 Corinthians

iii, 19).

"Knowledge puffeth up" (viii, 1).

"If any man be ignorant let him be ignorant" (xiv, 38).

"Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy" (Colossians ii, 8).

"The clergy, with a few honorable exceptions, have in all modern

countries been the avowed enemies of the diffusion of knowledge, the

danger of which to their own profession they, by a certain instinct,

seem always to have perceived."--Buckle.

"We know the clerical party; it is an old party. This it is which

has found for the truth those two marvelous supporters, ignorance and

error. This it is which forbids to science and genius the going beyond

the Missal and which wishes to cloister thought in dogmas. Every step

which the intelligence of Europe has taken has been in spite of it. Its

history is written in the history of human progress, but it is written

on the back of the leaf. It is opposed to it all. This it is which

caused Prinelli to be scourged for having said that the stars would

not fall. This it is which put Campanella seven times to torture for

saying that the number of worlds was infinite and for having caught a

glimpse of the secret of creation. This it is which persecuted Harvey

for having proved the circulation of the blood. In the name of Jesus

it shut up Galileo. In the name of St. Paul it imprisoned Christopher

Columbus. To discover a law of the heavens was an impiety, to find a

world was a heresy. This it is which anathematized Pascal in the name

of religion, Montaigne in the name of morality, Moliere in the name

of both morality and religion. There is not a poet, not an author,

not a thinker, not a philosopher, that you accept. All that has been

written, found, dreamed, deduced, inspired, imagined, invented by

genius, the treasures of civilization, the venerable inheritance of

generations, you reject."--Victor Hugo.

"There is in every village a lighted torch, the schoolmaster; and a

mouth to blow it out, the parson."--Ibid.

604

What admissions are made by Paul regarding his want of candor and

honesty?

"Being crafty, I caught you with guile" (2 Corinthians xii, 16).

"Unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews"

(1 Corinthians ix, 20).

"I am made all things to all men" (22).

"For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his

glory, why yet am I also judged as a sinner?" (Romans iii, 7.)

"I robbed other churches, taking wages of them, to do you service"

(2 Corinthians xi, 8).

605

What is said of the persecutions of Paul?

"And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the

disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, and desired of him

letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this

way, whether they were men or women he might bring them bound unto

Jerusalem" (Acts ix, 1, 2).

This was Saul the Jew.

"But there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel

of Christ.... If any man preach any other gospel than that ye have

received, let him be accursed" (Galatians i, 7, 9).

"I would they were even cut off which trouble you" (v, 12).

This was Paul the Christian.

The leopard changed his name but did not change his spots.

The alleged cause of Paul's sudden conversion and the transference of

his hatred from Christianity to Judaism may well be questioned. The

story of the apparition will not account for it. A genuine change

of belief is not usually effected suddenly. Men sometimes change

their religion for gain or revenge. It has been charged that Paul

twice changed his, the first time for the hope of gain, the second

from a desire for revenge. The Ebionites, one of the earliest of the

Christian sects, claimed that Paul was originally a Gentile, that

becoming infatuated with the daughter of the high priest he became

a convert to Judaism for the purpose of winning her for a wife, but

being rejected, he renounced the Jewish faith and became a vehement

opponent of the law, the Sabbath, and circumcision (Epiphanius Against

Heresies, chapter xxx, sec. 16).

606

What was Christ's final command to his disciples?

"Love one another" (John xiii, 34).

Christian writers prate about brotherly love, and yet from the very

beginning the church of Christ has been filled with dissensions. Christ

himself quarreled with his apostles. Paul opposed the teachings of

James (Galatians ii, 16-21); James condemned the teachings of Paul

(ii, 20). Paul proclaimed himself the divinely appointed apostle to

the Gentiles: "The gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me"

(Galatians ii, 7). Peter contended that the mission had been assigned

to him: "And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and

said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago

God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear

the word of the gospel" (Acts xv, 7).

Paul declared Peter to be a dissembler. "But when Peter was come to

Antioch, I withstood him face to face, because he was to be blamed. For

before that certain came from James, he did eat with Gentiles; but

when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them

which were of the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled likewise

with him" (Galatians ii, 11-13).

John denounced Paul as a liar. "Thou hast tried them which say they are

apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars" (Revelation ii, 2).

From these seeds of dissension death has reaped a bloody

harvest. Dr. Talmage says: "A red line runs through church history

for nearly nineteen hundred years--a line of blood; not by hundreds,

but by millions we count the slain."

Lord Byron says: "I am no Platonist; I am nothing at all. But I would

sooner be a Paulician, Manichean, Spinozist, Gentile, Pyrrhonian,

Zoroastrian, than one of the seventy-two villainous sects who are

tearing each other to pieces for the love of the Lord and hatred of

each other."

607

Quote Paul's characterization of Christians.

"Not many wise ... not many noble are called" (1 Corinthians i, 26).

"Base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God

chosen" (28).

"We are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of

all things" (iv, 13).

"We are fools for Christ's sake" (10).

608

What did Christ say respecting the intellectual character of his

converts?

"I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast

hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them

unto babes" (Matthew xi, 25; Luke x, 21).

Commenting on this expression of thanks, Celsus, who lived at the

time the Four Gospels made their appearance, says: "This is one of

their [the Christians'] rules: Let no man that is learned, wise,

or prudent come among us; but if they be unlearned, or a child,

or an idiot, let him freely come. So they openly declare that none

but the ignorant, and those devoid of understanding, slaves, women,

and children, are fit disciples for the God they worship."

Concerning the Christian teachers of that age Celsus writes as follows:

"You may see weavers, tailors, fullers, and the most illiterate of

rustic fellows, who dare not speak a word before wise men, when they

can get a company of children and silly women together, set up to

teach strange paradoxes among them."

609

Whom did Christ declare to be among the first to enter the Kingdom

of Heaven?

Harlots and thieves.

"The harlots go into the Kingdom of God before you" (Matthew xxi, 31).

"Today shalt thou [the thief] be with me in paradise" (Luke xxiii, 43).

610

What promise did he make to his followers?

"In my Father's house are many mansions.... I go to prepare a place

for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again,

and receive you unto myself" (John xiv, 2, 3).

"Christians believe themselves to be the aristocracy of heaven upon

earth, they are admitted to the spiritual court, while millions of

men in foreign lands have never been presented. They bow their knees

and say they are 'miserable sinners,' and their hearts rankle with

abominable pride. Poor infatuated fools! Their servility is real and

their insolence is real but their king is a phantom and their palace

is a dream."--Winwood Reade.

The Christ is a myth. The Holy Ghost Priestcraft overshadowed the

harlot Superstition; this Christ was born; and the Joseph of humanity,

beguiled by the Gabriel of credulity, was induced to support the

family. But the soldiers of Reason have crucified the illegitimate

impostor; he is dead; and the ignorant disciples and hysterical women

who still linger about the cross should take his body down and bury it.

CHAPTER IX.

THE CHRIST A MYTH.

The conceptions regarding the nature and character of Christ, and the

value of the Christian Scriptures as historical evidence, are many,

chief of which are the following:

1. Orthodox Christians believe that Christ is a historical character,

supernatural and divine; and that the New Testament narratives,

which purport to give a record of his life and teachings, contain

nothing but infallible truth.

2. Conservative Rationalists, like Renan, and the Unitarians,

believe that Jesus of Nazareth is a historical character and that

these narratives, eliminating the supernatural elements, which they

regard as myths, give a fairly authentic account of his life.

3. Many radical Freethinkers believe that Christ is a myth, of which

Jesus of Nazareth is the basis, but that these narratives are so

legendary and contradictory as to be almost, if not wholly, unworthy

of credit.

4. Other Freethinkers believe that Jesus Christ is a pure myth--that

he never had an existence, except as a Messianic idea, or an imaginary

solar deity.

The first of these conceptions must be rejected because the existence

of such a being is impossible, and because the Bible narratives which

support it are incredible. The second cannot be accepted because,

outside of these incredible narratives, there is no evidence to confirm

it. One of the two last is the only true and rational conception of

the Christ.

Jesus Christ is a myth. But what do we understand by the term

myth? Falsehood, fable, and myth, are usually considered synonymous

terms. But a falsehood, a fable, and a myth, while they may all be

fictions and equally untrue, are not the same. A falsehood is the

expression of an untruth intended to deceive. A fable is an avowed

or implied fiction usually intended to instruct or entertain. A myth

is a falsehood, a fable, or an erroneous opinion, which eventually

becomes an established belief. While a falsehood and a fable are

intentional and immediate expressions of fiction, a myth is, in most

cases, an unconscious and gradual development of one.

Myths are of three kinds: Historical, Philosophical, and Poetical.

A Historical myth according to Strauss, and to some extent I follow

his language, is a real event colored by the light of antiquity, which

confounded the human and divine, the natural and the supernatural. The

event may be but slightly colored and the narrative essentially true,

or it may be distorted and numberless legends attached until but

a small residuum of truth remains and the narrative is essentially

false. A large portion of ancient history, including the Biblical

narratives, are historical myths. The earliest records of all nations

and of all religions are more or less mythical. "Nothing great has been

established," says Renan, "which does not rest on a legend. The only

culprit in such cases is the humanity which is willing to be deceived."

A Philosophical myth is an idea clothed in the dress of historical

narrative. When a mere idea is personified and presented in the form

of a man or a god it is called a pure myth. Many of the gods and

heroes of antiquity are pure myths. John Fiske refers to a myth as

"a piece of unscientific philosophizing," and this is a fairly good

definition of the philosophical myth.

A Poetical myth is a blending of the historical and philosophical,

embellished by the creations of the imagination. The poems of Homer

and Hesiod, which were the religious text books of the ancient Greeks,

and the poetical writings of the Bible, which helped to form and

foster the Semitic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism,

belong to this class.

It is often difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish a historical

from a philosophical myth. Hence the non-agreement of Freethinkers in

regard to the nature of the Christ myth. Is Christ a historical or a

philosophical myth? Does an analysis of his alleged history disclose

the deification of a man, or merely the personification of an idea?

The following hypothesis, written by Mrs. Besant, of England, is,

to a considerable extent, an epitome of the views of Strauss, who,

in his masterly "Leben Jesu," adopts the historical myth:

"The mythic theory accepts an historical groundwork for many

of the stories about Jesus, but it does not seek to explain the

miraculous by attenuating it into the natural.... It attributes

the incredible portions of the history to the Messianic theories

current among the Jews. The Messiah would do this and that; Jesus

was the Messiah; therefore, Jesus did this and that--such, argue the

supporters of the mythical theory, was the method in which the mythus

was developed.... Thus, Jesus is descended from David, because the

Messiah was to come of David's lineage; his birth is announced by an

angelic visitant, because the birth of the Messiah must not be less

honored than that of Isaac or of Samson; he is born of a virgin,

because God says of the Messiah, 'this day have I begotten thee,'

implying the direct paternity of God, and because the prophecy in

Is. vii, 14, was applied to the Messiah by the later Jews; born at

Bethlehem, because there the Messiah was to be born (Micah v, 2);

announced to shepherds, because Moses was visited among the flocks,

and David taken from the sheepfolds at Bethlehem; heralded by a star,

because a star should arise out of Jacob (Num. xxiv, 17), and 'the

Gentiles shall come to thy light' (Is. lx, 3); worshiped by Magi,

because the star was seen by Balaam, the magus, and astrologers would

be those who would most notice a star; presented with gifts by these

Eastern sages, because kings of Arabia and Saba shall offer gifts

(Ps. lxxii, 10); saved from the destruction of the infants by a

jealous king, because Moses, one of the great types of the Messiah,

was so saved; flying into Egypt and thence returning, because Israel,

again a type of the Messiah, so fled and returned, and 'out of Egypt

have I called my son' (Hos. xi, 1); at twelve years of age found

in the temple, because the duties of the law devolved on the Jewish

boy at that age, and where should the Messiah then be found save in

his Father's temple? recognized at his baptism by a divine voice,

to fulfil Is. xlii, 1; hovered over by a dove, because the brooding

spirit (Gen. i, 2) was regarded as dove-like, and the spirit was to be

especially poured on the Messiah (Is. xlii, 1); tempted by the devil to

test him, because God tested his greatest servants, and would surely

test the Messiah; fasting forty days in the wilderness, because the

types of the Messiah--Moses and Elijah--thus fasted in the desert;

healing all manner of disease, because Messiah was to heal (Is. xxxv,

5-6); preaching, because Messiah was to preach (Is. lxi, 1-2);

crucified, because the hands and feet of Messiah were to be pierced

(Ps. xxii, 16); mocked, because Messiah was to be mocked (Ib. 6-8);

his garments divided, because thus it was spoken of Messiah (Ib. 18);

silent before his judges, because Messiah was not to open his mouth

(Is. liii, 7); buried by the rich, because Messiah was thus to find

his grave (Ib. 9); rising again, because Messiah could not be left

in hell (Ps. xvi, 10); sitting at God's right hand, because there

Messiah was to sit as king (Ps. cx, 1). Thus the form of the Messiah

was cast, and all that had to be done was to pour in the human metal;

those who alleged that the Messiah had come in the person of Jesus

of Nazareth, adapted his story to the story of the Messiah, pouring

the history of Jesus into the mould already made for the Messiah,

and thus the mythus was transformed into a history."

The foregoing theory, with various modifications, is accepted by a

majority of Freethinkers at the present time.

The hypothesis that Christ is a philosophical myth, based, like

the preceding one, upon the Messianic idea, is thus presented by

T. B. Wakeman:

"Never was there an example of a word becoming a believed person,

under this law of materialization, more plainly and evolutionally

than the 'Messiah' and 'Son of Man' of the Hebrew prophecies.... The

Christ, 'Jesus,' was no man, for the reason that he was prophesied

and visionated into this world and life to do a work that it would

be utterly absurd to suppose a man could ever do. The Romans had

killed, and could easily kill, every man who had tried to resist

their oppression. Now the God Yahweh by his 'eternally begotten son,'

spiritized as the 'Son of Man,' that is the 'Soul of the State,' as

Shakespeare makes Ulysses say it, must, in order to be of any avail

appear with supernatural powers. He was the personified people, Israel;

he had been crucified alive, in their subjection and massacre even to

the death and Hades. But by supernatural power he, the Israel, would

rise again and bring the final judgment backed by the infinite power

of the nation's Father, Yahweh. It was only a Spirit-God who could do

this--nothing less could be originated, or thought of, or provided,

for such a superhuman purpose. A person, a man, a reformer, a weak

edition of Socrates, or Savonarola or Bruno! How absurd! The human

heart in its despair by its imagination, brought a God into the world

to do a God's work. 'No man,' said Napoleon; 'nor a God,' says Science,

except the idea. Such it was that finally united the millions of Asia,

Africa, Europe, and America, in a dream so intoxicating that it dares

not to be awakened though the dawn of Science is here."

Mr. Wakeman argues that the silence of history for one hundred years

after the alleged appearance of Christ can be explained only upon this

hypothesis of an ideal Christ. To this the advocate of the historical

mythus may, I think, very properly reply: History, for the most part,

takes cognizance only of noted men and important events; and while

this silence precludes the existence of the supernatural Christ of

Christians, and even that of the human Jesus of Renan, it does not

necessarily preclude the existence of an obscure religious teacher

and an insignificant sect which subsequently, by a chain of fortuitous

circumstances, became the mightiest among the religions of the world.

Again, this hypothesis presupposes a considerable degree of

intellectuality on the part of those who evolved this ideal Christ,

while tradition represents the founders of the Christian religion

as grossly ignorant. Had this Christ originally sprung from the

Hellenistic Jews of intellectual Alexandria instead of from the Jewish

dregs of illiterate Galilee, Mr. Wakeman's theory would appeal with

surprising force. Still it must be admitted that some of the earliest

Christian sects denied the material existence of Christ.

Another philosophical hypothesis, the astronomical, which regards

Christ as a solar myth, is advanced by Volney.

"These mythological traditions recounted that, 'in the beginning,

a woman and a man had, by their fall, introduced into the world sin

and misery.'

"By this was denoted the astronomical fact that the celestial virgin

and the herdsman (Bootes), by setting heliacally at the autumnal

equinox, delivered the world to the wintry constellations, and seemed,

on falling below the horizon, to introduce into the world the genius

of evil (Ahrimanes), represented by the constellation of the serpent.

"These traditions related that the woman had decoyed and seduced

the man.

"And, in fact, the virgin setting first seems to draw the herdsman

after her.

"That the woman tempted him by offering him fruit fair to the sight,

and good to eat, which gave the knowledge of good and evil.

"And, in fact, the virgin holds in her hand a branch of fruit which

she seems to offer to the herdsman; and the branch, emblem of autumn,

placed in the picture of Mithra between winter and summer seems to

open the door and give knowledge, the key to good and evil.

"That this couple had been driven from the celestial garden, and that

a cherub with a flaming sword had been placed at the gate to guard it.

"And, in fact, when the virgin and the herdsman fall beneath the

western horizon, Perseus rises on the other side; and this genius,

with a sword in his hand, seems to drive them from the summer heaven,

the garden and dominion of fruits and flowers.

"That of the virgin should be born, spring up, an offspring, a child,

who should bruise the head of the serpent, and deliver the world

from sin.

"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 astrological pictures

under the form of a child suckled by a chaste virgin, and became

afterward, at the vernal equinox, the ram, or lamb, triumphant over

the constellation of the serpent, which disappeared from the skies.

"That, in his infancy, the restorer of divine and celestial nature

would live abased, humble, obscure and indigent.

"And this, because the winter sun is abased below the horizon and that

this first period of his four ages or seasons is a time of obscurity,

scarcity, fasting and want.

"That being put to death by the wicked, he had risen gloriously; that

he had reascended from hell to heaven, where he would reign forever.

"This is a sketch of the life of the sun, who, finishing his career

at the winter solstice, when Typhon and the rebel angels gain the

dominion, seems to be put to death by them; but who soon after is

born again, and rises into the vault of heaven, where he reigns."

Count Volney's portraiture of the second member of the Christian

godhead is, for the most part, accurate. Numerous other analogies

between him and the ancient sun gods might be named.

It is the belief of many, however, that these solar attributes of

Christ are later accretions borrowed by the Roman Catholic church

from the Pagan religions which it supplanted.

While all Freethinkers are agreed that the Christ of the New

Testament is a myth they are not, as we have seen, and perhaps never

will be, fully agreed as to the nature of this myth. Some believe

that he is a historical myth; others that he is a pure myth. Some

believe that Jesus, a real person, was the germ of this Christ whom

subsequent generations gradually evolved; others contend that the

man Jesus, as well as the Christ, is wholly a creation of the human

imagination. After carefully weighing the evidence and arguments in

support of each hypothesis the writer, while refraining from expressing

a dogmatic affirmation regarding either, is compelled to accept the

former as the more probable.

CHAPTER X.

SOURCES OF THE CHRIST MYTH--ANCIENT RELIGIONS.

Christ and the religion he is said to have founded are composite

products, made up, to a great extent, of the attributes, the doctrines,

and the customs of the gods and the religions which preceded them and

existed around them. The Christian believes that Christ is coexistent

with his father, Jehovah--that he has existed from the foundations

of the world. This is in a measure true. The years that have elapsed

since his alleged incarnation are few compared with the years of his

gestation in the intellectual womb of humanity.

To understand the origin and nature of Christ and Christianity it is

necessary to know something of the religious systems and doctrines

from which they were evolved. The following, some in a large and

others in but a small degree, contributed to mold this supposed

divine incarnation and inspire this supposed revelation: 1. Nature

or Sex Worship. 2. Solar Worship. 3. Astral Worship. 4. Worship

of the Elements and Forces of Nature. 5. Worship of Animals and

Plants. 6. Fetichism. 7. Polytheism. 8. Monotheism. 9. The Mediatorial

Idea. 10. The Messianic Idea. 11. The Logos. 12. The Perfect Man.

1. Nature or Sex Worship.

The deification and worship of the procreative organs and the

generative principles of life is one of the oldest and one of the

most universal of religions. It has been called the foundation

of all religions. In some nations the worship of the male energy,

Phallic worship, predominated; in others the worship of the female

energy, Yoni worship, prevailed. But in all both elements were

recognized. Mrs. Besant says: "Womanhood has been worshiped 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 worship of the

female element in nature has run side by side with that of the male;

the worship is one and the same in all religions, and runs in an

unbroken thread from the barbarous ages to the present time."

Among the life generating gods may be named Vishnu, Osiris,

Zeus, Priapus, Adonis, Bacchus, Saturn, Apollo, Baal, Moloch, and

Jehovah. Among the receptive life producing goddesses were Isis, Rhea,

Ceres, Venus, Istar, Astarte, Aschera, Devaki, Eve, and Mary. Where

the worship of the female element largely prevailed the Virgin

and Child was a favorite deity. Isis and Horus, Rhea and Quirinus,

Leto and Apollo, Devaki and Krishna, Mary and Christ, all had their

inception in the sex worship of primitive man.

The symbol of Phallic worship, the cross, has become the emblem of

Christianity. I quote again from our English authoress: "We find

the cross in India, Egypt, Thibet, Japan, 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

[sacred prostitutes], 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 worshipers, 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 significance--exactly copying the Indian

and Egyptian women of an elder time."

The "American Cyclopedia" says: "The crux ansata, so common on Egyptian

monuments, symbolizes the union of the active and passive principles of

nature. In the Etruscan tombs have been found crosses of four phalli."

Regarding this subject, McClintock and Strong's "Cyclopedia of

Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature," a standard

orthodox Christian authority, says: "The sign of the cross is found

as a holy symbol among several ancient nations.... Sometimes it is

the phallus" (Art. Cross). The same authority says that the Tau or

sign of life (one form of the Phallic cross) "was adopted by some of

the early Christians in lieu of the cross.... Christian inscriptions

at the great oasis are headed by this symbol; it has been found on

Christian monuments at Rome" (Art. Egypt).

Dr. Thomas Inman, of England, one of the foremost authorities on

ancient symbolism, says: "It has been reserved for Christian art to

crowd our churches with the emblems of Bel and Astarte, Baalim and

Ashtoreth, linga and yoni, and to elevate the phallus to the position

of the supreme deity" (Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism,

p. 16).

Describing the chasuble, worn by Christian priests, Dr. Inman says:

"Its form is that of the vesica piscis, one of the most common emblems

of the yoni. It is adorned by the Triad. When worn by the priest,

he forms the male element, and with the chasuble completes the sacred

four. When worshiping the ancient goddesses, whom Mary has displaced,

the officiating ministers clothed themselves in feminine attire. Hence

the use of the chemise, etc. Even the tonsured head, adopted from

the priests of the Egyptian Isis, represents 'l'anneau'; so that on

head, shoulders, breast and body, we may see on Christian priests

the relics of the worship of Venus, and the adoration of woman! How

horrible all this would sound if, instead of using veiled language,

we had employed vulgar words. The idea of a man adorning himself,

when ministering before God and the people, with the effigies of those

parts which nature as well as civilization teaches us to conceal,

would be simply disgusting, but when all is said to be mysterious

and connected with hidden signification, almost everybody tolerates

and many eulogize or admire it!" (Ibid, p. 104).

Westropp and Wake, in their "Ancient Symbol Worship," state that

Judaism and Christianity have been largely derived from Phallic

worship. Westropp says: "Circumcision was in its inception a purely

Phallic ordinance." Our Christian marriage ceremonies, he says, are

relics of this worship. Wake says: "In the recognition of God as the

universal father, the great Parent of mankind, there is a development

of the fundamental idea of Phallism. In the position assigned to Mary

as the mother of God the paramount principle of the primitive belief

is again predominant. The nimbus, the aureole, the cross, the fish,

and even the spires of churches, are symbols retained from the old

Phallic worship."

Dr. Alexander Wilder says: "There is not a fast or festival, procession

or sacrament, social custom or religious symbol, existing at the

present day which has not been taken bodily from Phallism, or from

some successive system of Paganism."

Aschera, the voluptuous goddess of fertility, was a Hebrew goddess

and was worshiped, along with Jehovah, in the temple itself at

Jerusalem. Jules Soury, of France, in his "Religion of Israel"

(p. 68), says: "Under the kings of Judah and Israel, the symbol of

Aschera [the phallus] became an object of general piety which was

found in every house. Thus in the provinces of France, we still find

gigantic crosses on the high roads, on the crossways of the woods which

serve as resting places at the Fete Dieu, while, under the porches

of churches, vendors of religious toys still sell little Christs

in wood or metal for a few half-pence. The rich women of Israel,

the bourgeoises of Jerusalem, wore the symbols of Aschera in gold

and silver, a sort of medals of the Virgin of the time, which were at

once jewels and objects of devotion." Dulaure, another French author,

tells us that the worship of Priapus, the god of procreation, under

the name of St. Fontin, with rites of the most indelicate character,

prevailed in the Catholic church in several provinces of France and

Italy up to the middle of the eighteenth century, or later.

The sex worship of the Semitic tribes of Western Asia had its origin,

it is believed, in India, where, under the name of Sakti worship, it

prevails today, three-fourth of the Hindoos, it is claimed, belonging

to this sect. The worship is thus described by the "Encyclopedia

Britannica's" chief authority on the subject, Prof. H. H. Wilson:

"The ceremonies are mostly gone through in a mixed society, the

Sakti being personified by a naked female, to whom meat and wine are

offered and then distributed amongst the company. These eat and drink

alternately with gesticulations and mantras--and when the religious

part of the business is over, the males and females rush together

and indulge in a wild orgy."

The foregoing is almost an exact description of the Agapae, or Love

Feasts, as they were observed for a time in the early Christian church.

Associated with the worship of Aschera and other goddesses of this

character was what is known as sacred prostitution. Thousands of women,

the fairest and best bred of their race, and also men (sodomites),

prostituted themselves for the support of their religion. John

Clark Ridpath, in his "History of the World," dwells upon this

institution. It was practiced for centuries among the Hebrews,

constituting a part of the temple worship, the Jewish kings, with

the exception of a few, like Hezekiah and Josiah, sanctioning

it. Solomon's temple was largely a Pagan temple. Before it stood

two Phallic pillars, while its doors were ornamented with symbols of

Phallic and Solar worship. Solomon worshiped, in addition to other

Pagan deities, Astarte (Ashtoreth), the Sidonian Aschera (1 Kings xi,

5, 7). The pietistic writers of the Bible condemn it, but in spite

of a few spasmodic efforts to suppress the worship, it continued to

flourish until long after the Captivity. From Soury's account of the

sanctified prostitution of Israel I quote the following: "The tents of

the sacred prostitutes were generally erected on the 'high places,'

where sacrifices were offered, beside the tablet of Baal or Iahveh

[Jehovah] and the symbol of Aschera (Isaiah lvii, 7, et seq.; Ezekiel

xxiii, 14; Hosea iv, 17). These tents were woven and ornamented with

figures by the priestesses of Aschera. Robed in splendid garments,

their tresses dripping with perfumes, their cheeks painted with

vermilion, their eyes black-circled with antimony, their eyelashes

lengthened with a compound of gums, musk and ebony, the priestesses

awaited the worshipers of the goddess within these tents (Numbers xxv,

8) on spacious beds (Isaiah lvii, 8); they fixed their own price and

conditions, and poured the money into the treasury of the temple"

(Religion of Israel, p. 71). After describing the temple of Zarpanit,

which was furnished with cells for the use of the Babylonian women,

Dr. Soury says: "Cells of the same kind, serving the same purpose,

existed at Jerusalem in the very temple of Jehovah, wherein Aschera

had her symbol and was adored" (Ibid 72). "Prostitutes," says this

writer, "were of both sexes. The men were called kedeschim, the women

kedeschoth--that is 'holy, vowed, consecrated.' Deuteronomy bears

witness that both the one and the other brought the hire of their

prostitution into the treasury of the temple of Jehovah. This paid

in part the expenses of worship at Jerusalem" (Ib. 73).

"If then, in Hebrew law and practice," says Dr. Inman, "we find such

a strong infusion of the sexual element, we cannot be surprised if

it should be found elsewhere, and gradually influence Christianity"

(Ancient Symbolism). "The worship of God the Father has repeatedly

clashed with that of God the Mother, and the votaries of each

respectively have worn badges characteristic of the sex of their

deity.... Our sexual sections are as well marked as those in ancient

Jerusalem, which swore by Jehovah and Ashtoreth respectively" (Ibid).

It is well known that religious prostitution has been practiced

in some form by Christ's devotees from the earliest ages of the

church down to the present time. Writing of the middle ages, Lecky,

the historian of European morals, says: "We may not lay much stress

on such isolated instances of depravity as that of Pope John XXIII.,

who was condemned, among many other crimes, for incest and adultery;

or the abbot-elect of St. Augustine, at Canterbury, who in 1171 was

found, on investigation, to have seventeen illegitimate children in

a single village; or an abbot of St. Pelayo, in Spain, who in 1130

was proved to have kept no less than seventy concubines; or Henry

III., Bishop of Liege, who was deposed in 1274 for having sixty-five

illegitimate children; but it is impossible to resist the evidence of

a long chain of Councils and ecclesiastical writers, who conspire in

depicting far greater evils than simple concubinage.... The writers

of the middle ages are full of accounts of nunneries that were like

brothels, of the vast multitude of infanticides within their walls,

and of that inveterate prevalence of incest among the clergy, which

rendered it necessary again and again to issue the most stringent

enactments that priests should not be permitted to live with their

mothers or sisters" (History of European Morals, Vol. II, P. 331).

For centuries the worship of the Virgin Mary, the Christian goddess

of reproduction and motherhood, was supreme; the worship of God and

Christ being subordinated to it. During these centuries, Hallam tells

us, chastity was almost unknown. In every land, every class ignored

the seventh commandment, because it was taught and believed that all

offenses of this character were condoned by the Virgin. Hallam cites

numerous instances of her alleged interventions in behalf of those who

indulged in illegitimate practices. The following is one: "In one tale

the Virgin takes the shape of a nun, who had eloped from the convent,

and performs her duties ten years, till, tired of a libertine life,

she returns unsuspected. This was in consideration of her having never

omitted to say an Ave as she passed the Virgin's image" (Middle Ages,

p. 604).

Christian chivalry, so much lauded in our day, was simply a form of

sex worship. Hallam characterizes it as unbridled libertinism. The

writings of that age, like those of Boccaccio, he says, indicate

"a general dissoluteness in the intercourse of the sexes.... The

violation of marriage vows passes in them for an incontestable

privilege of the brave and the fair" (Ibid, p. 666).

Holy pilgrimages to the shrines of saints were usually pilgrimages to

the shrine of Venus. "Some of the modes of atonement which the church

most approved, were particularly hostile to public morals. None was

so usual as pilgrimage; whether to Jerusalem or Rome, which were the

great objects of devotion, or to the shrine of some national saint,

a James of Compostella, a David, or a Thomas Becket. This licensed

vagrancy was naturally productive of dissoluteness, especially among

the women. Our English ladies, in their zeal to obtain the spiritual

treasures of Rome, are said to have relaxed the necessary caution

about one that was in their own custody" (Ib., p. 607).

The prelates of the church, being equally culpable, winked at the

licentiousness of the lower orders of the clergy. "In every country,"

says Hallam, "the secular and parochial clergy kept women in their

houses, upon more or less acknowledged terms of intercourse, by

a connivance of their ecclesiastical superiors" (Ib., p. 353). "A

writer of respectable authority asserts that the clergy frequently

obtained a bishop's license to cohabit with a mate" (Ib., p. 354).

Another form of "sanctified" sexual indulgence, and which received the

sanction of the church, was what is known as Marquette. Concerning

this custom Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage, in her "Woman, Church and

State," says: "The law known as Marchetta, or Marquette, compelled

newly-married women to a most dishonorable servitude. They were

regarded as the rightful prey of the Feudal Lord from one to three days

after their marriage, and from this custom the eldest son of the serf

was held as the son of the Lord.... Marquette was claimed by the Lord's

Spiritual, as well as by the Lord's Temporal. The Church, indeed,

was the bulwark of this base feudal claim." This is affirmed by the

French historian, Michelet. He says: "The lords spiritual (clergy) had

this right no less than the lords temporal. The parson, being a lord,

expressly claimed the first fruits of the bride" (La Sorcerie, p. 62).

The brazen lewdness of medieval Christianity has been driven into

privacy. But it still exists, and it is still religious. The Italian

patriot, Garibaldi, bears this testimony: "In Rome, in 1849, I myself

visited every convent. I was present at all the investigations. Without

a single exception we found instruments of torture, and a cellar with

the bodies of infant children." Referring to the priests connected

with certain convents, Dr. Inman says: "Their practice was to instruct

their victims that whatever was said or done must be accompanied by a

pious sentence. Thus, 'I love you dearly' was a profane expression;

but 'I desire your company in the name of Jesus,' and 'I embrace in

you the Holy Virgin,' was orthodox."

Protestant readers, generally, will accept this testimony as

true of Catholic countries. But have Protestant countries a purer

record? Lecky, classed as a Protestant historian, says: "The two

countries which are most thoroughly pervaded by Protestant theology

are probably Scotland and Sweden; and if we measure their morality

by the common though somewhat defective test that is furnished by

the number of illegitimate births, the first is well known to be

considerably below the average morality of European nations, while

the second, in this as in general criminality, has been pronounced by

a very able and impartial Protestant witness, who has had the fullest

means of judging, to be very far below every other Christian nation"

(European Morals, Vol. I, p. 391).

The religion of Christ as it exists today is not only in its external

forms, but in its very essence, largely a survival of the nature

worship of old. That it is closely allied to it is admitted by

Christian ministers themselves. The Rev. Frederick Robertson says:

"The devotional feelings are often singularly allied to the animal

nature. They conduct the unconscious victim of feelings that appear

divine, into a state of life at which the world stands aghast;

fanaticism is always united with either excessive lewdness or

desperate asceticism" (Essays). The Rev. S. Baring-Gould, in "Freaks

of Fanaticism," says: "The religious passion verges so closely on

the sexual passion that a slight additional pressure given to it

bursts the partition, and both are confused in a frenzy of religious

debauch." The Rev. J. H. Noyes says: "Religious love is a very near

neighbor to sex love, and they always get mixed in the intimacies

and social excitement of [religious] revivals."

2. Solar Worship.

Scarcely less prevalent than sex worship was the worship of the

sun. While sex worship was confined chiefly to the generation of human

life, sun worship comprehended the generation of all life. The sun

was recognized as the generative power of the universe. He overshadows

the receptive earth from whom all life is born. I quote from M. Soury:

"Amid all these forces, the mightiest is, without contradiction, the

sun, the fire of heaven, father of earthly fire, unique and supreme

cause of motion and life on our planet. There is no need or reason

to understand that the very life, and as it were the blood of our

celestial father flows in the veins of the Earth, our mother. In

the time of love, when the luminous heaven embraces her, from her

fertilized womb springs forth a world. It is she who quivers on

the plains where the soft moist air waves gently on the grasses;

it is she who climbs in the bush, who soars in the oak, who fills

the solitude with the joyous twitter of birds beneath the cloudlet,

or from the leaf-lined nests; it is she who in seas and in running

waters, or mountains and in woods, couples the gorgeous male with

the ardent female, throbs in every bosom, loves in every life. But

all this terrestrial life, all this warmth and all this light are

but effluents from the sun." (Religion of Israel, pp. 3, 4.)

Prof. Tyndall says: "We are no longer in a poetical but in a purely

mechanical sense, the children of the sun." "The sun," said Napoleon

Bonaparte, "gives all things life and fertility. It is the true God

of the earth."

John Newton, M.R.C.S., of England, says: "The glorious sun, that 'god

of this world,' the source of life and light to our earth, was early

adored, and an effigy thereof used as a symbol. Mankind watched with

rapture its rays gain strength daily in the Spring, until the golden

glories of Midsummer had arrived, when the earth was bathed during

the longest days in his beams, which ripened the fruits that his

returning course had started into life. When the sun once more began

its course downwards to the winter solstice, his votaries sorrowed,

for he seemed to sicken and grow paler at the advent of December,

when his rays scarcely reached the earth, and all nature, benumbed

and cold, sunk into a death-like sleep. Hence feasts and fasts were

instituted to mark the commencement of the various phases of the

solar year, which have continued from the earliest known period,

under various names, to our own times" (The Assyrian Grove).

The most prominent deities in the pantheons of the gods were solar

deities. Among these were Osiris, Vishnu, Mithra, Apollo, Hercules,

Adonis, Bacchus, and Baal. In the worship of some of these gods sex

and solar worship were united.

The early Israelites were mostly sun worshipers. And even in later

times, the sun god, Baal, divided with Jehovah the worship of the

Jews. Saul, Jonathan, and David named their children in honor of this

god. "Saul begat Jonathan, ... and Esh-baal. And the son of Jonathan

was Merib-baal" (1 Chron. viii, 33, 34). David named his last son,

save one, Beeliada, "Baal Knows," (1 Chron. xiv, 7). Solomon's worship

included not merely the worship of Jehovah, but that of Baal and other

gods. His temple was filled with Pagan ornaments and emblems pertaining

to solar worship. Regarding this the Rev. Dr. Oort of Holland says:

"Solomon's temple had much in common with heathen edifices, and slight

modifications might have made it a suitable temple for Baal. This need

not surprise us, for the ancient religion of the Israelitish tribes

was itself a form of Nature-worship just as much as the religions

of the Canaanites, Phenicians, Philistines, and other surrounding

peoples were. Most of the Israelites certainly saw no harm in these

ornaments, since they were not aware of any very great difference

between the character of Yahweh [Jehovah] and that of Baal, Astarte,

or Moloch" (Bible for Learners, vol. ii, p. 88). Long after the time

of Solomon the horses and chariots of the Sun were kept in the temple

(2 Kings xxiii, 11). Many of the stories concerning Moses, Joshua,

Jonah, and other Bible characters are solar myths. Samson was a sun

god. Dr. Oort says: "Sun-worship was by no means unknown to the

Israelites.... The myths that were circulated among these people

show that they were zealous worshipers of the sun. These myths

are still preserved, but, as in all other cases, they are so much

altered as to be hardly recognizable. The writer who has preserved

them for us lived at a time when the worship of the sun had long ago

died out. He transforms the sun god into an Israelite hero [Samson]"

(Ibid i, p. 414). St. Augustine believed that Samson and the sun god

Hercules were one.

Charles Francois Dupuis, in his "Origin of Worship," one of the most

elaborate and remarkable works on mythology ever penned, shows that

nearly all the religions of the world, including Christianity, were

derived largely from solar worship. All the solar deities, he says,

have a common history. This history, summarized, is substantially

as follows: "The god is born about December 25th, without sexual

intercourse, for the sun, entering the winter solstice, emerges in the

sign of Virgo, the heavenly Virgin. His mother remains ever-virgin,

since the rays of the sun, passing through the zodiacal sign,

leave it intact. His infancy is begirt with dangers, because the

new-born Sun is feeble in the midst of the winter's fogs and mists,

which threaten to devour him; his life is one of toil and peril,

culminating at the spring equinox in a final struggle with the

powers of darkness. At that period the day and night are equal,

and both fight for the mastery. Though the night veil the Sun and he

seems dead; though he has descended out of sight, below the earth,

yet he rises again triumphant, and he rises in the sign of the Lamb,

and is thus the Lamb of God, carrying away the darkness and death of

the winter months. Henceforth he triumphs, growing ever stronger and

more brilliant. He ascends into the zenith, and there he glows, on

the right hand of God, himself God, the very substance of the Father,

the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person,

upholding all things by his life-giving power."

Dr. G. W. Brown, author of "Researches in Oriental History," says:

"Strange as it may seem, whilst Mithras and Osiris, Dionysos and

Bacchus, Apollo and Serapis, with many others [including Christ] in

name, all masculine sun gods, and all interblended, a knowledge of one

is generally a knowledge of the whole, wherever located or worshiped."

If Christ was not originally a solar god he wears today the livery

of one. His mother, the Virgin, was the mother of the solar gods;

his birthday, Christmas, is the birthday of all the gods of the sun;

his Twelve Apostles correspond to the twelve signs of the Zodiac;

according to the Gospels, at his crucifixion the sun was eclipsed, he

expired toward sunset, and rose again with the sun; the day appointed

for his worship, the Lord's day, is the die solis, Sunday, of the sun

worshipers; while the principal feasts observed in memory of him were

once observed in honor of their gods. "Every detail of the Sun myth,"

says the noted astronomer, Richard A. Proctor, "is worked into the

record of the Galilean teacher."

The cross we have seen was a symbol of Phallic worship. The cross, and

especially the crucifix, was also an emblem of solar worship. It was

carved or painted on, or within, a circle representing the horizon,

the head and feet and the outstretched arms of the sacrificial

offering or crucified Redeemer pointing toward the four quarters

of the horizon. The Lord's Supper, observed in memory of Christ,

was observed in memory of Mithra, Bacchus, and other solar gods. The

nimbus, or aureola, surrounding the head of Jesus in his portraits

represents the rays of the sun. It was thus that the ancient adorers

of the sun adorned the effigies of their god. There still exists a

pillar erected by the sun worshipers of Carthage. On this pillar is

carved the sun god, Baal, with a nimbus encircling his head.

The Christian doctrine of the resurrection had its origin in sun

worship. As the sun, the Father, rose from the dead, so it was believed

that his earthly children would also rise from the dead. "The daily

disappearance and the subsequent rise of the sun," says Newton,

"appeared to many of the ancients as a true resurrection; thus,

while the east came to be regarded as the source of light and warmth,

happiness and glory, the west was associated with darkness and chill,

decay and death. This led to the custom of burying the dead so as

to face the east when they rose again, and of building temples and

shrines with an opening toward the east. To effect this, Vitruvius,

two thousand years ago, gave precise rules, which are still followed

by Christian architects."

Max Mueller, in his "Origin of Religion," (pp. 200, 201), says:

"People wonder why so much of the old mythology, the daily talk,

of the Aryans was solar: what else could it have been? The names of

the sun are endless and so are his stories; but who he was, whence

he came and whither he went, remained a mystery from beginning to

end.... Man looked up to the sun, yearning for the response of a soul,

and though that response never came, though his senses recoiled,

dazzled and blinded by an effulgence which he could not support,

yet he never doubted that the invisible was there, and that, where

his senses failed him, where he could neither grasp nor comprehend,

he might still shut his eyes and trust, fall down and worship."

This worship of old survives in the worship of today. A knowledge

of the location, the limits and the nature of the sun has gradually

convinced the world that this is not God's dwelling place; but

somewhere in the infinite expanse of the blue beyond they fancy

he has his throne. To this imaginary being is rendered the same

adoration that was rendered to him by primitive man--the adoration

of childish ignorance.

3. Astral Worship.

The worship of the planets and stars was probably a later development

than sex and solar worship. It flourished for a time in nearly

every part of the world, and left its impress on the religions that

succeeded it.

In Chaldea, one of the principal sources of Judaism and Christianity,

the worship of the stars prevailed. I quote from Dr. Ridpath: "In their

aspirations for communion with the higher powers, the yearning of the

ancient Chaldeans turned upwards to the planets and the stars. The

horizon of the Babylonian plain was uniform and boundless. It was the

heaven above rather than the earth beneath, which exhibited variety and

life. The Zodiac was ever new with its brilliant evolutions. Through

the clear atmosphere the tracks of the shining orbs could be traced

in every phase and transposition. With each dawn of morning light,

with each recurrence of the evening twilight, a new panorama spread

before the reverent imagination of the dreamer, and he saw in the

moving spheres not only the abode but the manifested glory of his gods"

(History of the World, vol. 1, p. 138).

"Until today, in the high light of civilization, the idea of some

kind of domination of the stars over the affairs of human life has

hardly released its hold on the minds of men; and the language of

the old Chaldean ritual of signs has still a familiar sound in the

ears of the credulous" (Ibid, p. 140).

After alluding to the ancient Vedic religion, which recognized in

the stars the souls of our departed ancestors, Prof. John Fiske says:

"The Christianized German peasant, fifty centuries later, tells his

children that the stars are angels' eyes, and the English cottager

impresses it on the youthful mind that it is wicked to point to the

stars, though why he cannot tell" (Myths and Myth Makers, p. 76).

In the Zodiac the Sun had twelve palaces. Each palace had a star

for a god, and each was subject to the Sun. Each day of the week was

governed by a planet, and each hour of the day had its controlling

star. Many scholars, including Jefferson, have held that Christ and

his Twelve Apostles relate to the Zodiac and were derived from this

stellar worship. The seven days of the week are still dedicated to the

old planetary gods, and, with a few modifications, bear their names.

"Chambers' Encyclopedia" says: "The Jews, as well as the early

Christians, had no special names for the single days, but counted

their number from the previous Sabbath, beginning with Sunday, as the

first after the Sabbath, and ending with Friday, as the sixth after the

previous, or eve (Ereb) of the next Sabbath. After a very short time,

however, young Christianity, which in the same manner had endeavored

to count from the feria secunda, or second day after Sunday, to the

Septima (or Saturday), had to fall back again upon the old heathen

names" (Art. Week).

The planetary gods Nardouk (Jupiter), Adar (Saturn), Istar (Venus),

Nergal (Mars), and Nebo (Mercury), were all worshiped by the ancient

Israelites. Istar was called "Queen of the Stars." Moloch, the rival

of Jehovah, who shared for centuries the worship of the Hebrews,

had his blazing star, the emblem of his implacable cruelty. The

worship of Astarte, daughter of the moon, and "Queen of Heaven,"

whose emblem was a star, was introduced by Solomon himself (1 Kings

xi, 5; 2 Kings xxiii, 13). For more than three hundred years she had

her temple in Jerusalem. And even today devout Jews address orizons

to the new moon, a relic of the worship of Astarte. The rosary is a

survival of astral worship. It was once a symbol of the stars.