_Revelation_ and other _Bible_ books, as well as from the _Kabala_,
was proved by him practically; so much so, that he is called by
many the “father of magic and founder of the occult physics of the
_Kabala_ and magnetism.”[964]
So firm was the popular belief in the supernatural powers of
Paracelsus, that to this day the tradition survives among the
simple-minded Alsatians that he is not dead, but “sleepeth in his
grave” at Strasburg.[965] And they often whisper among themselves
that the green sod heaves with every respiration of that weary
breast, and that deep groans are heard as the great fire-philosopher
awakes to the remembrance of the cruel wrongs he suffered at the
hands of his cruel slanderers for the sake of the great truth!
It will be perceived from these extended illustrations that the Satan
of the _Old Testament_, the Diabolos or Devil of the _Gospels_ and
_Apostolic Epistles_, were but the antagonistic principle in matter,
necessarily incident to it, and not wicked in the moral sense of the
term. The Jews, coming from the Persian country, brought with them
the doctrine of _two principles_. They could not bring the _Avesta_,
for it was not written. But they--we mean the _Astdians_ and
_Pharsi_--invested Ormazd with the secret name of יהוה, and
Ahriman with the name of the gods of the land, Satan of the Hittites,
and _Diabolos_, or rather Diobolos, of the Greeks. The early Church,
at least the Pauline part of it, the Gnostics and their successors,
further refined upon their ideas; and the Catholic Church adopted and
adapted them, meanwhile putting their promulgators to the sword.
The Protestant is a reaction from the Roman Catholic Church. It is
necessarily not coherent in its parts, but a prodigious host of
fragments beating their way round a common centre, attracting and
repelling each other. Parts are centripetally impelled towards old
Rome, or the system which enabled old Rome to exist; part still
recoil under the centrifugal impulse, and seek to rush into the broad
ethereal region beyond Roman, or even Christian influence.
The modern Devil is their principal heritage from the Roman Cybelè,
“Babylon, the Great Mother of the idolatrous and abominable religions
of the earth.”
But it may be argued, perhaps, that Hindu theology, both Brahmanical
and Buddhistic, is as strongly impregnated with belief in objective
devils as Christianity itself. There is a slight difference. This
very _subtlety_ of the Hindu mind is a sufficient warrant that the
well-educated people, the learned portion, at least, of the Brahman
and Buddhist divines, consider the Devil in another light. With them
the Devil is a metaphysical abstraction, an allegory of necessary
_evil_; while _with Christians the myth has become a historical
entity, the fundamental stone on which Christianity, with its dogma
of redemption, is built_. He is as necessary--as Des Mousseaux has
shown--to the Church as the beast of the seventeenth chapter of the
_Apocalypse_ was to his rider. The English-speaking Protestants, not
finding the _Bible_ explicit enough, have adopted the _Diabology_ of
Milton’s celebrated poem, _Paradise Lost_, embellishing it somewhat
from Goethe’s celebrated drama of _Faust_. John Milton, first a
Puritan and finally a Quietist and Unitarian, never put forth his
great production except as a work of fiction, but it thoroughly
dovetailed together the different parts of Scripture. The Ilda-Baoth
of the Ophites was transformed into an angel of light, and the
morning star, and made the Devil in the first act of the _Diabolic
Drama_. Then the twelfth chapter of the _Apocalypse_ was brought in
for the second act. The great red Dragon was adopted as the same
illustrious personage as _Lucifer_, and the last scene is his fall,
like that of Vulcan-Hephaistos, from Heaven into the island of
Lemnos; the fugitive hosts and their leader “coming to hard bottom”
in Pandemonium. The third act is the Garden of Eden. Satan holds a
council in a hall erected by him for his new empire, and determines
to go forth on an exploring expedition in quest of the new world. The
next acts relate to the fall of man, his career on earth, the advent
of the Logos, or Son of God, and his redemption of mankind, or the
elect portion of them, as the case may be.
This drama of _Paradise Lost_ comprises the unformulated belief of
English-speaking “evangelical Protestant Christians.” Disbelief of
its main features is equivalent, in their view, to “denying Christ”
and “blaspheming against the Holy Ghost.” If John Milton had supposed
that his poem, instead of being regarded as a companion of Dante’s
_Divine Comedy_, would have been considered as another _Apocalypse_
to supplement the _Bible_, and complete its demonology, it is more
than probable that he would have borne his poverty more resolutely,
and withheld it from the press. A later poet, Robert Pollok, taking
his cue from this work, wrote another, _The Course of Time_, which
bade fair for a season to take the rank of a later _Scripture_;
but the nineteenth century has fortunately received a different
inspiration, and the Scotch poet is falling into oblivion.
We ought, perhaps, to make a brief notice of the European Devil. He
is the genius who deals in sorcery, witchcraft, and other mischief.
The Fathers taking the idea from the Jewish Pharisees, made devils of
the Pagan gods, Mithras, Serapis, and the others. The Roman Catholic
Church followed by denouncing the former worship as commerce with
the powers of darkness. The _malefecii_ and witches of the middle
ages were thus but the votaries of the proscribed worship. Magic in
all ancient times had been considered as divine science, wisdom, and
the knowledge of God. The healing art in the temples of Æsculapius,
and at the shrines of Egypt and the East, had always been magical.
Even Darius Hystaspes, who had exterminated the Median Magi, and
even driven out the Chaldean theurgists from Babylon into Asia
Minor, had also been instructed by the Brahmans of Upper Asia, and,
finally, while establishing the worship of Ormazd, was also himself
denominated the instituter of magism. All was now changed. Ignorance
was enthroned as the mother of devotion. Learning was denounced, and
savants prosecuted the sciences in peril of their lives. They were
compelled to employ a jargon to conceal their ideas from all but
their own adepts, and to accept opprobrium, calumny, and poverty.
The votaries of the ancient worship were persecuted and put to
death on charges of witchcraft. The Albigenses, descendants of the
Gnostics, and the Waldenses, precursors of the Protestants, were
hunted and massacred under like accusations. Martin Luther himself
was accused of companionship with Satan in proper person. The whole
Protestant world still lies under the same imputation. There is no
distinction in the judgments of the Church between dissent, heresy,
and witchcraft. And except where civil authority protects, they are
alike capital offences. Religious liberty the Church regards as
intolerance.
But the reformers were nursed with the milk of their mother. Luther
was as bloodthirsty as the Pope; Calvin more intolerant than Leo or
Urban. Thirty years of war depopulated whole districts of Germany,
Protestants and Catholics cruel alike. The new faith too opened its
batteries against witchcraft. The statute books became crimsoned
with bloody legislation in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Great
Britain, and the North American Commonwealth. Whosoever was more
liberal, more intelligent, more free-speaking than his fellows was
liable to arrest and death. The fires that were extinguished at
Smithfield were kindled anew for magicians; it was safer to rebel
against a throne than to pursue abstruse knowledge outside the
orthodox dead-line.
In the seventeenth century Satan made a sortie in New England, New
Jersey, New York, and several of the Southern colonies of North
America, and Cotton Mather gives us the principal chronicles of
his manifestation. A few years later he visited the Parsonage of
Mora, in Sweden, and _Life in Dalecarlia_ was diversified with the
burning alive of young children, and the whipping of others at
the church-doors on Sabbath-days. The skepticism of modern times
has, however, pretty much driven the belief in witchcraft into
Coventry; and the Devil in personal anthropomorphic form, with his
Bacchus-foot, and his Pan-like goat’s horns, holds place only in
the _Encyclical Letters_, and other effusions of the Roman Catholic
Church. Protestant respectability does not allow him to be named at
all except with bated breath in a pulpit-enclosure.
Having now set forth the biography of the Devil from his first advent
in India and Persia, his progress through Jewish, and both early
and later Christian _Theo_logy down to the latest phases of his
manifestation, we now turn back to review certain of the opinions
extant in the earlier Christian centuries.
Avatars or incarnations were common to the old religions. India had
them reduced to a system. The Persians expected Sosiosh, and the
Jewish writers looked for a deliverer. Tacitus and Suetonius relate
that the East was full of expectation of the Great Personage about
the time of Octavius. “Thus doctrines obvious to Christians were the
highest arcana of Paganism.”[966] The Maneros of Plutarch was a child
of Palestine,[967] his mediator Mithras, the Saviour Osiris is the
Messiah. In our present “_Canonical Scriptures_” are to be traced the
vestigia of the ancient worships; and in the rites and ceremonies
of the Roman Catholic Church we find the forms of the Buddhistical
worship, its ceremonies and hierarchy. The first _Gospels_, once as
canonical as any of the present four, contain pages taken almost
entire from Buddhistical narratives, as we are prepared to show.
After the evidence furnished by Burnouf, Asoma, Korosi, Beal, Hardy,
Schmidt, and translations from the _Tripitaka_, it is impossible to
doubt that the whole Christian scheme emanated from the other. The
“Miraculous Conception” miracles and other incidents are found in
full in Hardy’s _Manual of Buddhism_. We can readily realize why the
Roman Catholic Church is anxious to keep the common people in utter
ignorance of the Hebrew _Bible_ and the Greek literature. Philology
and comparative Theology are her deadliest enemies. The deliberate
falsifications of Irenæus, Epiphanius, Eusebius and Tertullian had
become a necessity.
The _Sibylline Books_ at that period seem to have been regarded with
extraordinary favor. One can easily perceive that they were inspired
from the same source as those of the Gentile nations.
Here is a leaf from Gallæus:
“New Light has arisen:
Coming from Heaven, it assumed a mortal form....
----Virgin, receive God in thy pure bosom--
And the Word flew into her womb:
Becoming incarnate in Time, and animated by her body,
It was found in a mortal image, and a Boy was created
By a Virgin.... The new God-sent Star was adored by the Magi,
The infant swathed was shown in a manger....
And Bethlehem was called “God-called country of the Word.”[968]
This looks at first-sight like a prophecy of Jesus. But could it
not mean as well some other creative God? We have like utterances
concerning Bacchus and Mithras.
“I, son of Deus, am come to the land of the Thebans--Bacchus, whom
formerly Semelé (the virgin), the daughter of Kadmus (the man from
the East) brings forth--being delivered by the lightning-bearing
flame; and having taken a mortal form instead of God’s, I have
arrived.”[969]
The _Dionysiacs_, written in the fifth century, serve to render this
matter very clear, and even to show its close connection with the
Christian legend of the birth of Jesus:
“Korè-Persephoneia[970] ... you were wived as the Dragon’s spouse,
When Zeus, very coiled, his form and countenance changed,
A Dragon-Bridegroom, coiled in love-inspiring fold....
Glided to dark Korè’s maiden couch....
Thus, by the alliance with the Dragon of Æther,
The womb of Persephonè became alive with fruit,
Bearing Zagreus,[971] the Horned Child.”[972]
Here we have the secret of the Ophite worship, and the origin of
the Christian later-_revised_ fable of the immaculate conception.
The Gnostics were the earliest Christians with anything like a
regular theological system, and it is only too evident that it was
Jesus who was made to fit their theology as Christos, and not their
theology that was developed out of his sayings and doings. Their
ancestors had maintained, before the Christian era, that the Great
Serpent--Jupiter, the Dragon of Life, the Father and “Good Divinity,”
had glided into the couch of Semelé, and now, the post-Christian
Gnostics, with a very trifling change, applied the same fable to
the man Jesus, and asserted that the same “Good Divinity,” Saturn
(Ilda-Baoth), had, in the shape of the Dragon of Life, glided over
the cradle of the infant Mary.[973] In their eyes the Serpent was the
Logos--Christos, the incarnation of Divine Wisdom, through his Father
Ennoïa and Mother Sophia.
“Now my mother, the Holy Spirit (Holy Ghost) took me,” Jesus is made
to say in the _Gospel of the Hebrews_,[974] thus entering upon his
part of Christos--the Son of Sophia, the Holy Spirit.[975]
“The _Holy Ghost shall come upon thee_, and the POWER of the Highest
shall overshadow thee; therefore, that holy thing which shall be born
of thee shall be called Son of God,” says the angel (_Luke_ i. 35).
“God ... hath at the last of these days spoken to us by a Son, whom
he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the Æons”
(Paul: _Heb._ i.).[976]
All such expressions are so many Christian quotations from the
_Nonnus_ verse “... through the Ætherial Draconteum,” for Ether
is the Holy Ghost or third person of the Trinity--the Hawk-headed
Serpent, the Egyptian Kneph, emblem of the Divine Mind,[977] and
Plato’s universal soul.
“I, Wisdom, came out of the mouth of the Most High, and _covered the
earth as a cloud_.”[978]
Pimander, the Logos, issues from the Infinite Darkness, and covers
the earth with clouds which, serpentine-like, spread all over the
earth (See Champollion’s _Egypte_). The Logos is the _oldest_ image
of God, and he is the _active_ Logos, says Philo.[979] The Father is
the _Latent Thought_.
This idea being universal, we find an identical phraseology
to express it, among Pagans, Jews, and early Christians. The
Chaldeo-Persian _Logos_ is the Only-Begotten of the Father in the
Babylonian cosmogony of Eudemus. “Hymn now, ELI, child of Deus,”
begins a Homeric hymn to the sun.[980] Sol-Mithra is an “image of the
Father,” as the kabalistic Seir-Anpin.
That of all the various nations of antiquity, there never was one
which believed in a personal devil more than liberal Christians in
the nineteenth century, seems hardly credible, and yet such is the
sorrowful fact. Neither the Egyptians, whom Porphyry terms “the
most learned nation of the world,”[981] nor Greece, its faithful
copyist, were ever guilty of such a crowning absurdity. We may add
at once that none of them, not even the ancient Jews, believed in
hell or an eternal damnation any more than in the Devil, although our
Christian churches are so liberal in dealing it out to the heathen.
Wherever the word “hell” occurs in the translations of the Hebrew
sacred texts, it is unfortunate. The Hebrews were ignorant of such
an idea; but yet the gospels contain frequent examples of the same
misunderstanding. So, when Jesus is made to say (_Matthew_ xvi. 18)
“... and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it,” in the
original text it stands “the gates of _death_.” Never is the word
“hell”--as applied to the state of _damnation_, either temporary or
eternal--used in any passage of the _Old Testament_, all hellists to
the contrary, notwithstanding. “Tophet,” or “the Valley of Hinnom”
(_Isaiah_ lxvi. 24) bears no such interpretation. The Greek term
“Gehenna” has also quite a different meaning, as it has been proved
conclusively by more than one competent writer, that “Gehenna” is
identical with the Homeric Tartarus.
In fact, we have Peter himself as authority for it. In his second
_Epistle_ (ii. 2) the Apostle, in the original text, is made to say
of the sinning angels that God “cast them down into _Tartarus_.” This
expression too inconveniently recalling the war of Jupiter and the
Titans, was altered, and now it reads, in King James’s version: “cast
them down to _hell_.”
In the _Old Testament_ the expressions “gates of death,” and the
“chambers of death,” simply allude to the “gates of the grave,” which
are specifically mentioned in the _Psalms_ and _Proverbs_. Hell and
its sovereign are both inventions of Christianity, coëval with its
accession to power and resort to tyranny. They were hallucinations
born of the nightmares of the SS. Anthonys in the desert. Before our
era the ancient sages knew the “Father of Evil,” and treated him no
better than an ass, the chosen symbol of Typhon, “the Devil.”[982]
Sad degeneration of human brains!
As Typhon was the dark shadow of his brother Osiris, so Python is
the evil side of Apollo, the bright god of visions, the seer and
the soothsayer. He is killed by Python, but kills him in his turn,
thus redeeming humanity from sin. It was in memory of this deed
that the priestesses of the sun-god enveloped themselves in the
snake-skin, typical of the fabulous monster. Under its exhilarating
influence--the serpent’s skin being considered magnetic--the
priestesses fell into magnetic trances, and “receiving their voice
from Apollo,” they became prophetic and delivered oracles.
Again Apollo and Python are one and morally androgynous. The sun-god
ideas are all dual, without exception. The beneficent warmth of the
sun calls the germ into existence, but excessive heat kills the
plant. While playing on his seven-stringed planetary lyre, Apollo
produces harmony; but, as well as other sun-gods, under his dark
aspect he becomes the destroyer, Python.
St. John is known to have travelled in Asia, a country governed by
Magi and imbued with Zoroastrian ideas, and in those days full of
Buddhist missionaries. Had he never visited those places and come
in contact with Buddhists, it is doubtful whether the _Revelation_
would have been written. Besides his ideas of the dragon, he gives
prophetic narratives entirely unknown to the other apostles, and
which, relating to the second advent, make of Christ a faithful copy
of Vishnu.
Thus Ophios and Ophiomorphos, Apollo and Python, Osiris and Typhon,
Christos and the Serpent, are all convertible terms. They are all
Logoi, and one is unintelligible without the other, as day could not
be known had we no night. All are regenerators and saviours, one in
a spiritual, the other in a physical sense. One insures immortality
for the Divine Spirit; the other gives it through regeneration of
the seed. The Saviour of mankind has to die, because he unveils
to humanity the great secret of the immortal ego; the serpent of
_Genesis_ is cursed because he said to _matter_, “Ye shall not die.”
In the world of Paganism the counterpart of the “serpent” is the
second Hermes, the reïncarnation of Hermes Trismegistus.
Hermes is the constant companion and instructor of Osiris and Isis.
He is the personified wisdom; so is Cain, the son of the “Lord.” Both
build cities, civilize and instruct mankind in the arts.
It has been repeatedly stated by the Christian missionaries in
Ceylon and India that the people are steeped in demonolatry; that
they are devil-worshippers, in the full sense of the word. Without
any exaggeration we say that they are no more so than the masses of
uneducated Christians. But even were they worshippers of (which is
more than believers in) the Devil, yet there is a great difference
between the teachings of their clergy on the subject of a personal
devil and the dogmas of Catholic preachers and many Protestant
ministers also. The Christian priests are bound to teach and impress
upon the minds of their flock the existence of the Devil, and the
opening pages of the present chapter show the reason why. But not
only will the Cingalese Oepasampala, who belong to the highest
priesthood, not confess to belief in a personal demon but even the
Samenaira, the candidates and novices, would laugh at the idea.
Everything in the external worship of the Buddhists is allegorical
and is never otherwise accepted or taught by the educated _pungis_
(pundits). The accusation that they allow, and tacitly agree to leave
the poor people steeped in the most degrading superstitions, is not
without foundation; but that they enforce such superstitions, we
most vehemently deny. And in this they appear to advantage beside
our Christian clergy, who (at least those who have not allowed their
fanaticism to interfere with their brains), without believing a word
of it, yet preach the existence of the Devil, as the personal enemy
of a personal God, and the evil genius of mankind.
St. George’s Dragon, which figures so promiscuously in the grandest
cathedrals of the Christians, is not a whit handsomer than the King
of Snakes, the Buddhist Nammadānam-nāraya, the great Dragon. If the
planetary Demon Rawho, is believed, in the popular superstition of
the Cingalese, to endeavor to destroy the moon by swallowing it; and
if in China and Tartary the rabble is allowed, without rebuke, to
beat gongs and make fearful noises to drive the monster away from its
prey during the eclipses, why should the Catholic clergy find fault,
or call this superstition? Do not the country clergy in Southern
France do the same, occasionally, at the appearance of comets,
eclipses, and other celestial phenomena? In 1456, when Halley’s comet
made its appearance, “so tremendous was its apparition,” writes
Draper, “that it was necessary for the Pope himself to interfere.
He exorcised and expelled it from the skies. It slunk away into the
abysses of space, terror-stricken by the maledictions of Calixtus
III., and did not venture back for seventy-five years!”[983]
We never heard of any Christian clergyman or Pope trying to disabuse
ignorant minds of the belief that the Devil had anything to do with
eclipses and comets; but we do find a Buddhist chief priest saying to
an official who twitted him with this superstition: “Our Cingalese
religious books teach that the eclipses of the sun and moon denote an
attack of Rahu[984] (one of the nine planets) _not by a devil_.”[985]
The origin of the “Dragon” myth so prominent in the _Apocalypse_ and
_Golden Legend_, and of the fable about Simeon Stylites converting
the Dragon, is undeniably Buddhistic and even pre-Buddhistic. It was
Gautama’s pure doctrines which reclaimed to Buddhism the Cashmerians
whose primitive worship was the Ophite or Serpent worship.
Frankincense and flowers replaced the human sacrifices and belief
in personal demons. It became the turn of Christianity to inherit
the degrading superstition about devils invested with pestilential
and murderous powers. The _Mahâvansa_, oldest of the Ceylonese
books, relates the story of King Covercapal (cobra-de-capello), the
snake-god, who was converted to Buddhism by a holy Rahat;[986] and
it is earlier, by all odds, than the _Golden Legend_ which tells the
same of Simeon the Stylite and his Dragon.
The Logos triumphs once more over the great Dragon; Michael, the
luminous archangel, chief of the Æons, conquers Satan.[987]
It is a fact worthy of remark, that so long as the initiate kept
silent “on what he knew,” he was perfectly safe. So was it in days
of old, and so it is now. As soon as the Christian God, emanating
forth from _Silence_, manifested himself as the _Word_ or Logos, the
latter became the cause of his death. The serpent is the symbol of
wisdom and eloquence, but it is likewise the symbol of destruction.
“To dare, to know, to will, _and be silent_,” are the cardinal axioms
of the kabalist. Like Apollo and other gods, Jesus is killed by his
_Logos_;[988] he rises again, kills him in his turn, and becomes
his master. Can it be that this old symbol has, like the rest of
ancient philosophical conceptions, more than one allegorical and
never-suspected meaning? The coincidences are too strange to be
results of mere chance.
And now that we have shown this identity between Michael and Satan,
and the Saviours and Dragons of other people, what can be more
clear than that all these philosophical fables originated in India,
that universal hot-bed of metaphysical mysticism? “The world,” says
Ramatsariar, in his comments upon the _Vedas_, “commenced with a
contest between the Spirit of Good and the Spirit of Evil, and so
must end. After the destruction of matter evil can no longer exist,
it must return to naught.”[989]
In the _Apologia_, Tertullian falsifies most palpably every doctrine
and belief of the Pagans as to the oracles and gods. He calls them,
indifferently, demons and devils, accusing the latter of taking
possession of even the birds of the air! What Christian would now
dare doubt such an authority? Did not the Psalmist exclaim: “All
the gods of the nations are _idols_;” and the Angel of the School,
Thomas Aquinas, explains, on his own _kabalistic_ authority, the
word _idols_ by _devils_? “They come to men,” he says, “and offer
themselves to their adoration by operating certain things which seem
miraculous.”[990]
The Fathers were prudent as they were wise in their inventions. To
be impartial, after having created a Devil, they set to creating
apocryphal saints. We have named several in preceding chapters;
but we must not forget Baronius, who having read in a work of
Chrysostom about the holy _Xenoris_, the word meaning a _pair_, a
couple, mistook it for the name of a saint, and proceeded forthwith
to create of it a _martyr_ of Antioch, and went on to give a most
detailed and authentic biography of the “blessed martyr.” Other
theologians made of Apollyon--or rather _Apolouôn_--the anti-Christ.
Apolouôn is Plato’s “washer,” the god _who purifies_, who washes off,
and _releases_ us from sin, but he was thus transformed into him
“whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue
hath his name Apollyon”--Devil!
Max Müller says that the serpent in Paradise is a conception which
might have sprung up among the Jews, and “seems hardly to invite
comparison with the much grander conceptions of the terrible power of
Vritra and Ahriman in the _Veda_ and _Avesta_.” With the kabalists
the Devil was always a myth--God or good reversed. That modern Magus,
Eliphas Levi, calls the Devil _l’ivresse astrale_. It is a blind
force like electricity, he says; and, speaking allegorically, as he
always did, Jesus remarked that he “beheld Satan like lightning fall
from Heaven.”
The clergy insist that God has sent the Devil to tempt mankind;
which would be rather a singular way of showing his boundless love
to humanity! If the Supreme One is really guilty of such unfatherly
treachery, he is worthy, certainly, of the adoration only of a Church
capable of singing the _Te Deum_ over a massacre of St. Bartholomew,
and of blessing Mussulman swords drawn to slaughter Greek Christians!
This is at once sound logic and good sound law, for is it not a maxim
of jurisprudence: “_Qui facit per alium, facit per se?_”
The great dissimilarity which exists between the various conceptions
of the Devil is really often ludicrous. While bigots will invariably
endow him with horns, tail, and every conceivable repulsive feature,
even including an offensive _human_ smell,[991] Milton, Byron,
Goethe, Lermontoff,[992] and a host of French novelists have sung
his praise in flowing verse and thrilling prose. Milton’s Satan,
and even Goethe’s Mephistopheles, are certainly far more commanding
figures than some of the angels, as represented in the prose of
ecstatic bigots. We have but to compare two descriptions. Let us
first award the floor to the incomparably sensational des Mousseaux.
He gives us a thrilling account of an incubus, in the words of the
penitent herself: “Once,” she tells us, “during the space of a
whole half-hour, she saw _distinctly_ near her an individual with a
black, dreadful, horrid body, and whose hands, of an enormous size,
exhibited _clawed_ fingers strangely hooked. The senses of sight,
feeling, and _smell_ were confirmed by that of hearing!!”[993]
And yet, for the space of several years, the damsel suffered herself
to be led astray by such a hero! How far above this odoriferous
gallant is the majestic figure of the Miltonic Satan!
Let the reader then fancy, if he can, this superb chimera, this ideal
of the rebellious angel become incarnate Pride, crawling into the
skin of the most disgusting of all animals! Notwithstanding that
the Christian catechism teaches us that Satan in _propria persona_
tempted our first mother, Eve, in a real paradise, and that in the
shape of a serpent, which of all animals was the most insinuating
and fascinating! God orders him, as a punishment, to crawl eternally
on his belly, and bite the dust. “A sentence,” remarks Levi, “which
resembles in nothing the traditional flames of hell.” The more so,
that the real zoölogical serpent, which was created before Adam and
Eve, crawled on his belly, and bit the dust likewise, before there
was any original sin.
Apart from this, was not Ophion the Daimon, or Devil, like God
called _Dominus_?[994] The word _God_ (deity) is derived from the
Sanscrit word _Deva_, and Devil from the Persian _daëva_, which words
are substantially alike. Hercules, son of Jove and Alcmena, one of
the highest sun-gods and also Logos manifested, is nevertheless
represented under a double nature, as all others.[995]
The Agathodæmon, the beneficent dæmon,[996] the same which we find
later among the Ophites under the appellation of the Logos, or divine
wisdom, was represented by a serpent standing erect on a _pole_, in
the Bacchanalian Mysteries. The hawk-headed serpent is among the
oldest of the Egyptian emblems, and represents the divine mind, says
Deane.[997]
Azazel is Moloch and Samael, says Movers,[998] and we find Aaron,
the brother of the great law-giver Moses, making equal sacrifices to
Jehovah and Azazel.
“And Aaron shall cast lots _upon the two goats_; one lot for the Lord
(_Ihoh_ in the original) and one lot for the scape-goat” (_Azazel_).
In the _Old Testament_ Jehovah exhibits all the attributes of old
Saturn,[999] notwithstanding his metamorphoses from Adoni into Eloi,
and God of Gods, Lord of Lords.[1000]
Jesus is tempted on the mountain by the Devil, who promises to
him kingdoms and glory if he will only fall down and worship him
(_Matthew_ iv. 8, 9). Buddha is tempted by the Demon Wasawarthi Mara,
who says to him as he is leaving his father’s palace: “Be entreated
to stay that you may possess the honors that are within your
reach; go not, go not!” And upon the refusal of Gautama to accept
his offers, gnashes his teeth with rage, and threatens him with
vengeance. Like Christ, Buddha triumphs over the Devil.[1001]
In the Bacchic Mysteries a _consecrated cup_ was handed around after
supper, called the cup of the Agathodæmon.[1002] The Ophite rite of
the same description is evidently borrowed from these Mysteries. The
communion consisting of bread and wine was used in the worship of
nearly every important deity.[1003]
In connection with the semi-Mithraic sacrament adopted by the
Marcosians, another Gnostic sect, utterly kabalistic and _theurgic_,
there is a strange story given by Epiphanius as an illustration of
the cleverness of the Devil. In the celebration of their Eucharist,
three large vases of the finest and clearest crystal were brought
among the congregation and filled with white wine. While the
ceremony was going on, in full view of everybody, this wine was
instantaneously changed into a blood-red, a purple, and then into an
azure-blue color. “Then the magus,” says Epiphanius, “hands one of
these vases to a woman in the congregation, and asks her to bless
it. When it is done, the magus pours out of it into another vase
of much greater capacity with the prayer: “May the grace of God,
which is above all, inconceivable, inexplicable, fill thy inner
man, and augment the knowledge of Him within thee, sowing the grain
of mustard-seed in good ground.[1004] Whereupon the liquor in the
larger vase swells and swells until it runs over the brim.”[1005]
In connection with several of the Pagan deities which are made after
death, and before their resurrection to descend into Hell, it will
be found useful to compare the pre-Christian with the post-Christian
narratives. Orpheus made the journey,[1006] and Christ was the last
of these subterranean travellers. In the _Credo_ of the Apostles,
which is divided in twelve sentences or _articles_, each particular
article having been inserted by each particular apostle, according
to St. Austin[1007] the sentence “He descended into hell, the third
day he rose again from the dead,” is assigned to Thomas; perhaps,
as an atonement for his unbelief. Be it as it may, the sentence is
declared a forgery, and there is no evidence “that this creed was
either framed by the apostles, or indeed, that it existed as a creed
in their time.”[1008]
It is the most important addition in the Apostle’s Creed, and dates
since the year of Christ 600.[1009] It was not known in the days of
Eusebius. Bishop Parsons says that it was not in the ancient creeds
or rules of faith.[1010] Irenæus, Origen, and Tertullian exhibit
no knowledge of this sentence.[1011] It is not mentioned in any of
the Councils before the seventh century. Theodoret, Epiphanius, and
Socrates are silent about it. It differs from the _creed_ in St.
Augustine.[1012] Ruffinus affirms that in his time it was neither in
the Roman nor in the Oriental creeds (_Exposit. in Symbol. Apost._
§ 10). But the problem is solved when we learn that ages ago Hermes
spoke thus to Prometheus, chained on the arid rocks of the Caucasian
mount:
“To such labors look thou for no termination, UNTIL SOME GOD SHALL
APPEAR AS A SUBSTITUTE IN THY PANGS, AND SHALL BE WILLING TO GO BOTH
TO GLOOMY HADES AND TO THE MURKY DEPTHS AROUND TARTARUS!” (ÆSCHYLUS:
_Prometheus_, 1027, ff.).
This god was Herakles, the “Only-Begotten One,” and the Saviour.
And it is he who was chosen as a model by the ingenious Fathers.
Hercules--called Alexicacos--for he brought round the wicked and
converted them to virtue; _Soter_, or Saviour, also called Neulos
Eumelos--the _Good Shepherd_; Astrochiton, the star-clothed, and
the Lord of Fire. “He sought not to subject nations by force but
by _divine wisdom_ and persuasion,” says Lucian. “Herakles spread
cultivation and a mild religion, and destroyed the _doctrine of
eternal punishment_ by dragging Kerberus (the Pagan Devil) from the
nether world.” And, as we see, it was Herakles again who liberated
Prometheus (the Adam of the pagans), by putting an end to the
torture inflicted on him for his transgressions, by descending to
the Hades, and going round the Tartarus. Like Christ he appeared
as a _substitute for the pangs of humanity_, by offering himself
in a self-sacrifice on a funereal-burning pile. “His voluntary
immolation,” says Bart, “betokened the ethereal new birth of men....
Through the release of Prometheus, and the erection of altars,
we behold in him the mediator between the old and new faiths....
He abolished human sacrifice wherever he found it practiced. He
descended into the sombre realm of Pluto, as a shade ... he _ascended
as a spirit to his father Zeus in Olympus_.”
So much was antiquity impressed by the Heraklean legend, that even
the _monotheistic_ (?) Jews of those days, not to be outdone by their
contemporaries, put him to use in their manufacture of original
fables. Herakles is accused in his mythobiography of an attempted
theft of the Delphian oracle. In _Sepher Toldos Jeschu_, the Rabbins
accuse Jesus of stealing from their Sanctuary the Incommunicable Name!
Therefore it is but natural to find his numerous adventures, worldly
and religious, mirrored so faithfully in the _Descent into Hell_. For
extraordinary daring of mendacity, and unblushing plagiarism, the
_Gospel of Nicodemus_, only _now_ proclaimed apocryphal, surpasses
anything we have read. Let the reader judge.
At the beginning of chapter xvi., Satan and the “Prince of Hell” are
described as peacefully conversing together. All of a sudden, both
are startled by “a voice as of thunder” and the rushing of winds,
which bids them to lift up their gates for “_the King of Glory_
shall come in.” Whereupon the Prince of Hell hearing this “begins
quarrelling with Satan for minding his duty so poorly, as not to have
taken the necessary precautions against such a visit.” The quarrel
ends with the prince casting Satan “forth from his hell,” ordering,
at the same time, his impious officers “to shut the brass gates of
cruelty, make them fast with iron bars, and fight courageously lest
we be taken captives.”
But “when all the company of the saints ... (in Hell?) heard this,
they spoke with a loud voice of anger to the Prince of Darkness,
‘Open thy gates, that the King of Glory may come in,’” thereby
proving that the prince needed spokesmen.
“And the _divine_ (?) prophet David cried out, saying: ‘Did not I,
when on earth, truly prophesy?’” After this, another prophet, namely
holy Isaiah spake in like manner, “Did not I rightly prophesy?” etc.
Then the company of the saints and prophets, after boasting for
the length of a chapter, and comparing notes of their prophecies,
begin a riot, which makes the Prince of Hell remark that, “the dead
never durst before behave themselves so insolently towards us” (the
devils, xviii. 6); feigning the while to be ignorant _who_ it was
claiming admission. He then innocently asks again: “But who is the
King of Glory?” Then David tells him that he knows the voice well,
and understands its words, “because,” he adds, “I spake them by his
Spirit.” Perceiving finally that the Prince of Hell would not open
the “brass doors of iniquity,” notwithstanding the king-psalmist’s
voucher for the visitor, he, David, concludes to treat the enemy
“as a Philistine, and begins shouting: ‘And now, thou _filthy_ and
_stinking_ prince of hell, open thy gates.... I tell thee that the
King of Glory comes ... let him enter in.’”
While he was yet quarrelling the “mighty Lord appeared in the form of
a _man_” (?) upon which “impious _Death_ and her cruel officers are
seized with fear.” Then they tremblingly begin to address Christ with
various flatteries and compliments in the shape of questions, each of
which _is an article of creed_. For instance: “And who art thou, so
powerful and so great who dost release the captives that were _held
in chains by original sin_?” asks one devil. “Perhaps, thou art that
Jesus,” submissively says another, “of whom Satan just now spoke,
that by the _death of the Cross thou wert about to receive the power
over death_?” etc. Instead of answering, the King of Glory “tramples
upon Death, seizes the Prince of Hell, and deprives him of his power.”
Then begins a turmoil in Hell which has been graphically described
by Homer, Hesiod, and their interpreter Preller, in his account of
the Astronomical Hercules _Invictus_, and his festivals at Tyre,
Tarsus, and Sardis. Having been initiated in the Attic Eleusinia, the
Pagan god descends into Hades and “when he entered the nether world
he spread such terror among the dead that all of them fled!”[1013]
The same words are repeated in _Nicodemus_. Follows a scene of
confusion, horror, and lamenting. Perceiving that the battle is lost,
the Prince of Hell turns tail and prudently chooses to side with
the strongest. He against whom, according to Jude and Peter, even
the Archangel Michael “durst not bring a railing accusation before
the Lord,” is now shamefully treated by his ex-ally and friend,
the “Prince of Hell.” Poor Satan is abused and reviled for all his
crimes both by devils and saints; while the _Prince_ is openly
rewarded for his treachery. Addressing him, the King of Glory says
thus: “Beelzebub, the Prince of Hell, Satan the Prince shall now
be subject to thy dominion _forever, in the room of Adam_ and his
righteous sons, who are mine ... Come to me, all ye my saints, who
were _created in my image_, who _were condemned by the tree of the
forbidden fruit_, and _by the Devil and death_. Live now _by the wood
of my cross_; the Devil, the prince of this world is overcome (?) and
_Death is conquered_.” Then the Lord takes hold of Adam by his right
hand, of David by the left, and “_ascends_ from Hell, followed by all
the saints,” Enoch and Elias, and by the “_holy_ thief.”[1014]
The pious author, perhaps through an oversight, omits to complete the
cavalcade, by bringing up the rear with the penitent dragon of Simon
Stylites and the converted wolf of St. Francis, wagging their tails
and shedding tears of joy!
In the _Codex_ of the Nazarenes it is _Tobo_ who is “the _liberator
of the soul of Adam_,” to bear it from Orcus (Hades) to the place of
LIFE. Tobo is Tob-Adonijah, one of the twelve disciples (Levites)
sent by Jehosaphat to preach to the cities of Judah the _Book of the
Law_ (_2 Chron._ xvii.). In the kabalistic books these were “wise
men,” Magi. They drew down the rays of the sun to enlighten the
sheol (Hades) Orcus, and thus show the way out of the _Tenebræ_,
the darkness of ignorance, to the soul of Adam, which represents
collectively all the “souls of mankind.” Adam (Athamas) is Tamuz
or Adonis, and Adonis is the sun Helios. In the _Book of the Dead_
(vi. 231) Osiris is made to say: “I shine like the sun in the
star-house at the feast of the sun.” Christ is called the “Sun of
Righteousness,” “Helios of Justice” (Euseb.: _Demons. Ev._, v. 29),
simply a revamping of the old heathen allegories; nevertheless, to
have made it serve for such a use is no less blasphemous on the
part of men who pretended to be describing a true episode of the
earth-pilgrimage of their God!
“Herakles, who _has gone out from the chambers of earth_,
Leaving the nether house of Plouton!”[1015]
“At THEE the Stygian lakes trembled; Thee the janitor of Orcus
Feared.... Thee not even Typhon frightened....
Hail _true_ SON _of_ JOVE, GLORY added to the gods!”[1016]
More than four centuries before the birth of Jesus, Aristophanes
had written his immortal parody on the _Descent into Hell_, by
Herakles.[1017] The chorus of the “blessed ones,” the initiated, the
Elysian Fields, the arrival of Bacchus (who is Iacchos--Iaho--and
_Sabaoth_) with Herakles, their reception with lighted torches,
emblems of _new life_ and RESURRECTION from darkness, death unto
light, eternal LIFE; nothing that is found in the _Gospel of
Nicodemus_ is wanting in this poem:[1018]
“Wake, burning torches ... for thou comest
Shaking them in thy hand, Iacche,
Phosphoric star of the nightly rite!”[1019]
But the Christians accept these _post-mortem_ adventures of their
god, concocted from those of his Pagan predecessors, and derided
by Aristophanes four centuries before our era, _literally_! The
absurdities of _Nicodemus_ were read in the churches, as well as
those of the _Shepherd of Hermas_. Irenæus quotes the latter under
the name of _Scripture_, a divinely-inspired “revelation;” Jerome and
Eusebius both insist upon its being publicly read in the churches;
and Athanasius observes that the Fathers “appointed it to be read
in _confirmation of faith and piety_.” But then comes the reverse
of this bright medal, to show once more how stable and trustworthy
were the opinions of the strongest pillars of an _infallible_ Church.
Jerome, who applauds the book in his catalogue of ecclesiastical
writers, in his later comments terms it “apocryphal and foolish!”
Tertullian, who could not find praise enough for the _Shepherd of
Hermas_ when a Catholic, “began abusing it when a Montanist.”[1020]
Chapter xiii. begins with the narrative given by the two resuscitated
ghosts of Charinus and Lenthius, the sons of that Simeon who,
in the _Gospel according to Luke_ (ii. 25-32), takes the infant
Jesus in his arms and blesses God, saying: “Lord, now lettest
thou thy servant depart in peace ... for mine eyes have seen thy
salvation.”[1021] These two ghosts have arisen from their cold
tombs on purpose to declare “the mysteries” which they saw after
death in hell. They are enabled to do so only at the importunate
prayer of Annas and Caïaphas, Nicodemus (the author), Joseph (of
Arimathæa), and Gamaliel, who beseech them to reveal to them the
great secrets. Annas and Caïaphas, however, who bring the _ghosts_
to the synagogue at Jerusalem, take the precaution to make the two
resuscitated men, who had been dead and buried for years, to swear
on the _Book of the Law_ “by God Adonai, and the God of Israel,” to
tell them only the truth. Therefore, after making the _sign of the
cross_ on their tongues,[1022] they ask for some paper to write their
confessions (xii. 21-25). They state how, when “in the depth of hell,
in the blackness of darkness,” they suddenly saw “a substantial,
purple-colored light illuminating the place.” Adam, with the
patriarchs and prophets, began thereupon to rejoice, and Isaiah also
immediately boasted that he had _predicted all that_. While this was
going on, Simeon, their father, arrived, declaring that “the infant
he took in his arms in the temple was now coming to liberate them.”
After Simeon had delivered his message to the distinguished company
in hell, “there came forth one like a little hermit (?), who proved
to be John the Baptist.” The idea is suggestive and shows that even
the “Precursor” and “the Prophet of the Most High,” had not been
exempted from drying up in hell to the most diminutive proportions,
and that to the extent of affecting his brains and memory. Forgetting
that (_Matthew_ xi.) he had manifested the most evident doubts as to
the Messiahship of Jesus, the Baptist also claims his right to be
recognized as a prophet. “And I, John,” he says, “when I saw Jesus
coming to me, being moved by the Holy Ghost, I said: ‘Behold the Lamb
of God, who takes away the sins of the world’ ... And I baptized him
... and I saw the Holy Ghost descending upon him, and saying, ‘This
is my Beloved Son,’ etc.” And to think, that his descendants and
followers, like the Mandeans of Basra, utterly reject these words!
Then Adam, who acts as though his own veracity might be questioned
in this “impious company,” calls his son Seth, and desires him to
declare to his sons, the patriarchs and prophets, what the Archangel
Michael had told him at the gate of Paradise, when he, Adam, sent
Seth “to entreat God that he would anoint” his head when Adam was
sick (xiv. 2). And Seth tells them that when he was praying at the
gates of Paradise, Michael advised him not to entreat God for “the
oil of the tree of mercy wherewith to anoint father Adam for his
_headache_; because thou canst not by any means obtain it till the
LAST DAY and times, namely _till 5,500 years be past_.”
This little bit of private gossip between Michael and Seth was
evidently introduced in the interests of Patristic Chronology; and
for the purpose of connecting Messiahship still closer with Jesus,
on the authority of a recognized and divinely-inspired Gospel. The
Fathers of the early centuries committed an inextricable mistake in
destroying fragile images and mortal Pagans, in preference to the
monuments of Egyptian antiquity. These have become the more precious
to archæology and modern science since it is found they prove that
King Menes and his architects flourished between four and five
thousand years before “Father Adam” and the universe, according to
the biblical chronology, were created “out of nothing.”[1023]
“While all the saints were rejoicing, behold Satan, the prince and
captain of death,” says to the Prince of Hell: “Prepare to receive
Jesus of Nazareth himself, who boasted that he was the Son of God,
and yet was a man afraid of death, and said: ‘My soul is sorrowful
even to death’” (xv. 1, 2).
There is a tradition among the Greek ecclesiastical writers that the
“Hæretics” (perhaps Celsus) had sorely twitted the Christians on this
delicate point. They held that if Jesus were not a simple mortal,
who was often forsaken by the Spirit of Christos, he could not have
complained in such expressions as are attributed to him; neither
would he have cried out with a loud voice: “My _god_, My _god_! why
hast thou forsaken me?” This objection is very cleverly answered in
the _Gospel of Nicodemus_, and it is the “Prince of Hell” who settles
the difficulty.
He begins by arguing with Satan like a true metaphysician. “Who is
that so powerful prince,” he sneeringly inquires, “who is he so
powerful, and yet a man who is afraid of death?... I affirm to thee
that when, therefore, he said he was afraid of death, _he designed to
ensnare thee_, and unhappy it will be to thee for everlasting ages!”
It is quite refreshing to see how closely the author of this _Gospel_
sticks to his _New Testament_ text, and especially to the fourth
evangelist. How cleverly he prepares the way for seemingly “innocent”
questions and answers, corroborating the most dubious passages of
the four gospels, passages more questioned and cross-examined in
those days of subtile sophistry of the learned Gnostics than they
are now; a weighty reason why the Fathers should have been even more
anxious to burn the documents of their antagonists than to destroy
their heresy. The following is a good instance. The dialogue is still
proceeding between Satan and the metaphysical _half-converted_ Prince
of the under world.
“Who, then, is that Jesus of Nazareth,” naïvely inquires the prince,
“that by his word hath taken away the dead from me, without prayers
to God?” (xv. 16).
“Perhaps,” replies Satan, with the innocence of a Jesuit, “_it is the
same who took away from me_ LAZARUS, _after he had been four days
dead_, and did both stink and was rotten?... It is the very same
person, Jesus of Nazareth.... I adjure thee, by the powers which
belong to thee and me, that thou bring him not to me!” exclaims the
prince. “For when I heard of the power of his word, I trembled for
fear, and all my _impious_ company were disturbed. And we were not
able to detain Lazarus, but he gave himself _a shake_, and _with all
the signs of malice_, he immediately went away from us; and the very
earth, in which the dead body of Lazarus was lodged, presently turned
him alive.” “Yes,” thoughtfully adds the Prince of Hell, “I know
now _that he is Almighty God_, who is mighty in his dominion, and
mighty _in his human nature_, who is the Saviour of mankind. Bring
not therefore this person hither, for he will set at liberty all
those I held in prison under unbelief, and ... _will conduct them to
everlasting life_” (xv. 20).
Here ends the _post-mortem_ evidence of the two ghosts. Charinus
(ghost No. 1) gives what he wrote to Annas, Caïaphas, and Gamaliel,
and Lenthius (ghost No. 2) his to Joseph and Nicodemus, having done
which, both change into “exceedingly white forms and were seen no
more.”
To show furthermore that the “ghosts” had been all the time under
the strictest “test conditions,” as the modern spiritualists would
express it, the author of the _Gospel_ adds: “But what they had wrote
was _found perfectly to agree_, the one not containing one letter
more or less than the other.”
This news spread in all the synagogues, the Gospel goes on to state,
that Pilate went to the temple as advised by Nicodemus, and assembled
the Jews together. At this historical interview, Caïaphas and Annas
are made to declare that their Scriptures testify “_that He (Jesus)
is the Son of God and the Lord and King of Israel_” (!) and close the
confession with the following memorable words:
“And so it appears _that Jesus, whom we crucified, is Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, and true and Almighty God_. Amen.” (!)
Notwithstanding such a crushing confession for themselves, and the
recognition of Jesus as the Almighty God himself, the “Lord God of
Israel,” neither the high priest, nor his father-in-law, nor any of
the elders, nor Pilate, who wrote those accounts, nor any of the Jews
of Jerusalem, who were at all prominent, became Christians.
Comments are unnecessary. This _Gospel_ closes with the words:
“In the name of _the Holy Trinity_ [of which Nicodemus could know
nothing yet] _thus ends the Acts of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which
the emperor Theodosius the Great found at Jerusalem, in the hall of
Pontius Pilate among the public records_;” and which history purports
to have been written in Hebrew by Nicodemus, “_the things being acted
in the nineteenth year of Tiberius Cæsar, emperor of the Romans, and
in the seventeenth year of the government of Herod, the son of Herod,
king of Galilee, on the eighth before the calends of April_, etc.,
etc.” It is the most barefaced imposture that was perpetrated after
the era of pious forgeries opened with the first bishop of Rome,
whoever he may have been. The clumsy forger seems to have neither
known nor heard that the dogma of the Trinity was not propounded
until 325 years later than this pretended date. Neither the _Old_
nor the _New Testament_ contains the word Trinity, nor anything that
affords the slightest pretext for this doctrine (see page 177 of this
volume, “Christ’s descent into Hell”). No explanation can palliate
the putting forth of this spurious gospel as a divine revelation,
for it was known from the first as a premeditated imposture. If the
gospel itself has been declared apocryphal, nevertheless every one
of the dogmas contained in it was and is still enforced upon the
Christian world. And even the fact that itself is now repudiated, is
no merit, _for the Church was shamed and forced into it_.
And so we are perfectly warranted in repeating the amended _Credo_ of
Robert Taylor, which is substantially that of the Christians.
I believe in Zeus, the Father Almighty,
And in his son, Iasios Christ our Lord,
Who was conceived of the Holy Ghost,
Born of the Virgin Elektra,
Smitten with a thunderbolt,
Dead and buried,
He descended into Hell,
Rose again and ascended up on high,
And will return to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Nous,
In the Holy circle of Great Gods,
In the Community of Divinities,
In the expiation of sins,
The immortality of the Soul
And the Life Everlasting.
The Israelites have been proved to have worshipped Baal, the Syrian
Bacchus, offered incense to the Sabazian or Æsculapian serpent, and
performed the Dionysian Mysteries. And how could it be otherwise
if Typhon was called Typhon Set,[1024] and Seth, the son of Adam,
is identical with Satan or Sat-an; and Seth was worshipped by the
Hittites? Less than two centuries B.C., we find the Jews either
reverencing or simply worshipping the “golden head of an ass” in
their temple; according to Apion, Antiochus Epiphanes carried it off
with him. And Zacharias is struck dumb by the apparition of the deity
under the shape of an ass in the temple![1025]
El, the Sun-God of the Syrians, the Egyptians, and the Semites, is
declared by Pleytè to be no other than Set or Seth, and El is the
primeval Saturn--Israel.[1026] Siva is an Æthiopian God, the same
as the Chaldean Baal--Bel; thus he is also Saturn. Saturn, El, Seth
and Kiyun, or the biblical Chiun of Amos, are all one and the same
deity, and may be all regarded in their worst aspect as Typhon the
Destroyer. When the religious Pantheon assumed a more definite
expression, Typhon was separated from his androgyne--the _good_
deity, and fell into degradation as a brutal _unintellectual_ power.
Such reactions in the religious feelings of a nation were not
unfrequent. The Jews had worshipped Baal or Moloch, the Sun-God
Hercules,[1027] in their early days--if they had any days at all
earlier than the Persians or Maccabees--and then made their prophets
denounce them. On the other hand, the characteristics of the Mosaic
Jehovah exhibit more of the moral disposition of Siva than of a
benevolent, “long-suffering” God. Besides, to be identified with Siva
is no small compliment, for the latter is God of wisdom. Wilkinson
depicts him as the most intellectual of the Hindu gods. He is
_three-eyed_, and, like Jehovah, terrible in his resistless revenge
and wrath. And, although the Destroyer, “yet he is the re-creator
of all things in perfect wisdom.”[1028] He is the type of St.
Augustine’s God who “prepares _hell_ for pryers into his mysteries,”
and insists on trying human reason as well as common sense by forcing
mankind to view with equal reverence his good and evil acts.
Notwithstanding the numerous proofs that the Israelites worshipped
a variety of gods, and even offered human sacrifices until a far
later period than their Pagan neighbors, they have contrived to blind
posterity in regard to truth. They sacrificed human life as late as
169 B.C.,[1029] and the _Bible_ contains a number of such records. At
a time when the Pagans had long abandoned the abominable practice,
and had replaced the sacrificial man by the animal,[1030] Jephthah
is represented sacrificing his own daughter to the “Lord” for a
burnt-offering.
The denunciations of their own prophets are the best proofs against
them. Their worship in high places is the same as that of the
“idolaters.” Their prophetesses are counterparts of the Pythiæ and
Bacchantes. Pausanias speaks of women-colleges which superintend the
worship of Bacchus, and of the sixteen matrons of Elis.[1031] The
_Bible_ says that “Deborah, a prophetess ... judged Israel at that
time;”[1032] and speaks of Huldah, another prophetess, who “dwelt
in Jerusalem, _in the college_;”[1033] and _2 Samuel_ mentions
“_wise_ women” several times,[1034] notwithstanding the injunction
of Moses not to use either divination or augury. As to the final and
conclusive identification of the “Lord God” of Israel with Moloch,
we find a very suspicious evidence of the case in the last chapter
of _Leviticus_, concerning _things devoted not to be redeemed_....
A man shall devote unto the Lord of all that he hath, _both of man_
and beast.... None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be
redeemed, _but shall surely be put to death_ ... for it is _most holy
unto the Lord_.”[1035]
The duality, if not the plurality of the gods of Israel may be
inferred from the very fact of such bitter denunciations. Their
prophets _never approved of sacrificial worship_. Samuel denied
that the Lord had any delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices (_1
Samuel_, xv. 22). Jeremiah asserted, unequivocally, that the Lord,
Yava Sabaoth Elohe Israel, never commanded anything of the sort, but
contrariwise (vii. 21-24).
But these prophets who opposed themselves to human sacrifices were
all _nazars_ and _initiates_. These prophets led a party in the
nation against the priests, as later the Gnostics contended against
the Christian Fathers. Hence, when the monarchy was divided, we
find the priests at Jerusalem and the prophets in the country of
Israel. Even Ahab and his sons, who introduced the Tyrian worship
of Baal-Hercules and the Syrian goddess into Israel, were aided and
encouraged by Elijah and Elisha. Few prophets appeared in Judea till
Isaiah, after the northern monarchy had been overthrown. Elisha
anointed Jehu on purpose that he should destroy the royal families of
both countries, and so unite the people into one civil polity. For
the Temple of Solomon, desecrated by the priests, no Hebrew prophet
or initiate cared a straw. Elijah never went to it, nor Elisha,
Jonah, Nahum, Amos, or any other Israelite. While the initiates were
holding to the “secret doctrine” of Moses, the people, led by their
priests, were steeped in idolatry exactly the same as that of the
Pagans. It is the popular views and interpretations of Jehovah that
the Christians have adopted.
The question is likely to be asked: “In the view of so much evidence
to show that Christian theology is only a _pot-pourri_ of Pagan
mythologies, how can it be connected with the religion of Moses?”
The early Christians, Paul and his disciples, the Gnostics and
their successors generally, regarded Christianity and Judaism as
essentially distinct. The latter, in their view, was an antagonistic
system, and from a lower origin. “Ye received the law,” said Stephen,
“from the ministration of angels,” or æons, and not from the Most
High Himself. The Gnostics, as we have seen, taught that Jehovah, the
Deity of the Jews, was Ilda-Baoth, the son of the ancient _Bohu_, or
Chaos, the adversary of Divine Wisdom.
The question may be more than easily answered. The _law of Moses,
and the so-called monotheism of the Jews, can hardly be said to have
been more than two or three centuries older than Christianity_. The
_Pentateuch_ itself, we are able to show, was written and revised
upon this “new departure,” at a period subsequent to the colonization
of Judea under the authority of the kings of Persia. The Christian
Fathers, in their eagerness to make their new system dovetail with
Judaism, and so avoid Paganism, unconsciously shunned Scylla only
to be caught in the whirlpool of Charybdis. Under the monotheistic
stucco of Judaism was unearthed the same familiar mythology of
Paganism. But we should not regard the Israelites with less favor for
having had a Moloch and being like the natives. Nor should we compel
the Jews to do penance for their fathers. They had their prophets and
their law, and were satisfied with them. How faithfully and nobly
they have stood by their ancestral faith under the most diabolical
persecutions, the present remains of a once-glorious people bear
witness. The Christian world has been in a state of convulsion from
the first to the present century; it has been cleft into thousands
of sects; but the Jews remain substantially united. Even their
differences of opinion do not destroy their unity.
The Christian virtues inculcated by Jesus in the sermon on the mount
are nowhere exemplified in the Christian world. The Buddhist ascetics
and Indian fakirs seem almost the only ones that inculcate and
practice them. Meanwhile the vices which coarse-mouthed slanderers
have attributed to Paganism, are current everywhere among Christian
Fathers and Christian Churches.
The boasted wide gap between Christianity and Judaism, that is
claimed on the authority of Paul, exists but in the imagination
of the pious. We are nought but the inheritors of the intolerant
Israelites of ancient days; not the Hebrews of the time of Herod
and the Roman dominion, who, with all their faults, kept strictly
orthodox and monotheistic, but the Jews who, under the name of
Jehovah-Nissi, worshipped Bacchus-Osiris, Dio-Nysos, the multiform
Jove of Nyssa, the Sinai of Moses. The kabalistic demons--allegories
of the profoundest meaning--were adopted as objective entities, and a
Satanic hierarchy carefully drawn by the orthodox demonologists.
The Rosicrucian motto, “_Igne natura renovatur integra_,” which
the alchemists interpret as nature renovated by fire, or matter by
spirit, is made to be accepted to this day as _Iesus Nazarenus rex
Iudæorum_. The mocking satire of Pilate is accepted literally, and
the Jews made to unwittingly confess thereby the royalty of Christ;
whereas, if the inscription is not a forgery of the Constantinian
period, it yet is the action of Pilate, against which the Jews were
first to violently protest. I. H. S. is interpreted _Iesus Hominum
Salvator_, and _In hoc signo_, whereas ΙΗΣ is one of the most ancient
names of Bacchus. And more than ever do we begin to find out, by the
bright light of comparative theology, that the great object of Jesus,
the initiate of the inner sanctuary, was to open the eyes of the
fanatical multitude to the difference between the highest
Divinity--the mysterious and never-mentioned ΙΑΟ of the ancient
Chaldean and later Neo-platonic initiates--and the Hebrew Yahuh, or
Yaho (Jehovah). The modern Rosicrucians, so violently denounced by the
Catholics, now find brought against them, as the most important
charge, the fact that they accuse Christ of having destroyed the
worship of Jehovah. Would to Heaven he could have been allowed the
time to do so, for the world would not have found itself still
bewildered, after nineteen centuries of mutual massacres, among 300
quarrelling sects, and with a personal Devil reigning over a
terrorized Christendom!
True to the exclamation of David, paraphrased in _King James’
Version_ as “all the gods of the nations are idols,” _i.e._, devils,
Bacchus or the “first-born” or the Orphic theogony, the Monogenes, or
“only-begotten” of Father Zeus and Koré, was transformed, with the
rest of the ancient myths, into a devil. By such a degradation, the
Fathers, whose pious zeal could only be surpassed by their ignorance,
have unwittingly furnished evidence against themselves. They have,
with their own hands, paved the way for many a future solution, and
greatly helped modern students of the science of religions.
It was in the Bacchus-myth that lay concealed for long and dreary
centuries both the future vindication of the reviled “gods of the
nations,” and the last clew to the enigma of Jehovah. The strange
duality of Divine and mortal characteristics, so conspicuous in the
Sinaitic Deity, begins to yield its mystery before the untiring
inquiry of the age. One of the latest contributions we find in a
short but highly-important paper in the _Evolution_, a periodical of
New York, the closing paragraph of which throws a flood of light on
Bacchus, the Jove of Nysa, who was worshipped by the Israelites as
Jehovah of Sinai.
“Such was the Jove of Nysa to his worshippers,” concludes the author.
“He represented to them alike the world of nature and the world
of thought. He was the ‘Sun of righteousness, with healing on his
wings,’ and he not only brought joy to mortals, but opened to them
hope beyond mortality of immortal life. Born of a human mother,
he raised her from the world of death to the supernal air, to be
revered and worshipped. At once lord of all worlds, he was in them
all alike the Saviour.
“Such was Bacchus, the prophet-god. A change of cultus, decreed by
the Murderer-Imperial, the Emperor Theodosius, at the instance of
Ghostly-Father Ambrosius, of Milan, has changed his title to Father
of Lies. His worship, before universal, was denominated Pagan or
_local_, and his rites stigmatized as witchcraft. His orgies received
the name of _Witches’ Sabbath_, and his favorite symbolical form
with the bovine foot became the modern representative of the Devil
with the cloven hoof. The master of the house having been called
Beelzebub, they of his household were alike denounced as having
commerce with the powers of darkness. Crusades were undertaken; whole
peoples massacred. Knowledge and the higher learning were denounced
as magic and sorcery. Ignorance became the mother of devotion--such
as was then cherished. Galileo languished long years in prison for
teaching that the sun was in the centre of the solar universe.
Bruno was burned alive at Rome in 1600 for reviving the ancient
philosophy; yet, queerly enough, the Liberalia have become a festival
of the Church,[1036] Bacchus is a saint in the calendar four times
repeated, and at many a shrine he may be seen reposing in the arms
of his deified mother. The names are changed; the ideas remain as
before.”[1037]
And now that we have shown that we must indeed “bid an eternal
farewell to all the rebellious angels,” we naturally pass to an
examination of the God Jesus, who was manufactured out of the man
Jesus to redeem us from these very mythical devils, as Father
Ventura shows us. This labor will of course necessitate once more a
comparative inquiry into the history of Gautama-Buddha, his doctrines
and his “miracles,” and those of Jesus and the predecessor of
both--Christna.