On the back-ground appeared the Christian fathers, rearing a
form of superstition the most sanguinary and destructive of
human happiness that has ever afflicted the world. Her limbs
bestrode the prostrate nations to the extremities of the
earth; her head lowered to the clouds, whilst the right hand
of the gigantic monster brandished a burning torch.
Beware of a bull before, a horse behind, _and a priest all round_.
Old Proverb.
It has constantly been assumed by church chronologists that the Jewish
sect of Galileans, who afterwards took the old Pagan appellation of
Christian, had writings of their own as early as the first century; but
this is mere gratuitous assumption, and rests only on the authority
of men entirely undeserving of credit. As for this _new Christian
Theogony_, and how it came to receive the first stitches of its
patchwork during the second and third centuries, we know nothing about
the matter, except what we have on the authority of Eusebius (see
preceding lecture), Bishop of Caesarea, a man who was confessedly the
most notorious of all the Church historians for forgery and every other
species of pious falsehood.* In getting up his history, he confesses
that he entered upon "a solitary and untrodden way" that he could nowhere
find as much as the bare steps of those who had passed the same path
before him; that he had "not found any ecclesiastical writer which unto
this day hath in this behalf employed any diligence."
* Vide Baronius.
These confessions from such a man are ample proof that he had no
authentic matter to found his "history" upon; but he could call to his
aid, legends, fables, and traditions, all very plastic and convertible
materials, and in the use of them he has certainly shown himself a
consummate workman. The rest of that class of men who are generally
denominated the "Fathers of the Church," some of whom lived before, and
others after the time of Eusebius, were persons equally addicted to holy
frauds and forgeries (with perhaps one or two exceptions), but most of
them were much inferior to him in zeal and industry. As habitual lying
and deception were charged upon most of them by the learned of their
Pagan contemporaries, and also by the candid and impartial amongst their
modern successors in the church, it is proper to notice what some of the
latter have written of them. In this delineation of character we find
that a large majority of the vices and crimes which are found among the
worst of mankind, have been fixed upon, them; viz., avarice, faction,
ignorance, sedition, persecution of each other, lying, perjury,
_Clogherism_* (the crime of the Church in all ages), cruelty, and
murder. And some writers have gone so far as to declare that early
ecclesiastical history is nothing but a compendium of their evil deeds.
* We learn from "Barnet's Exposition," that the practice of
unnatural lusts had been so common among the dignitaries of
the Church, that St. Bernard, in a sermon preached to the
clergy of France, affirmed sodomy to be so common in his
time, _that bishops with bishops lived in it_
In times still earlier, the grossest vices are acknowledged to have been
common, if not habitual, among the "faithful;" for Paul, in his epistle
to the Roman Christians, chapter first, charges, his friends and
followers, and even the women amongst them, as guilty of the unnatural
crime. In chapter vi., 19, he evidently alludes to it again. St.
Barnabas, indeed, calls the first Christians, "the most wicked of all
the wicked." Some of the fathers of the second century, such as Papias,
and his admirer, Irenaeus, were actuated by follies so absurd, that they
seem rather to have deserved the name of madmen; witness the romances
about the grape vines, and others of a similar nature, which are not
exceeded by the wildest fictions of ancient or modern times. Such being
the soil, Christians, out of which your religion sprung from old roots,
we need not wonder that the fruit it has borne has been rather bitter.
The historians of the Popes confess that many of them were condemned by
their own general councils for adultery, dogherasty, simony, sorcery,
and Atheism.
In the third and fourth centuries, the fathers had arrived at higher
tact and skill, and became adepts in trimming up all kinds of pious
deceptions and falsifications, and some of them were avowed forgers
on principle and by profession. But it frequently happened that as
hostilities grew up between the leaders of contending sects, they were
useful in exposing the nefarious inventions of each other, which led
to deadly animosities amongst their followers. It was, probably, a late
knowledge of the utter fallaciousness of his newly adopted religion,
and the perpetual contentions which he saw to be inseparable from such
a system, that eventually disgusted Origen, and caused him, as is well
known, to abandon Christianity, recur to Paganism, and sacrifice to
idols, publicly denying his lord and master, Jesus Christ. This appears
in his own writings, but more fully in his life, written in Greek by
Suidas.
Episcopius says of the Council of Nice, and others of that early period,
"that they were led on by fury, faction, and madness;" and this is
corroborated by another author, who relates, that at the second Synod of
Ephesus, Dioscorus, Bishop of Alexandria, "knocked and kicked Flavianus,
Patriarch of Constantinople, with such fury, that within three days
after he died." The philosopher Ammianus Marcellinus, complains that
"no beasts were such deadly enemies to men as the more savage Christians
were to each other." What better could be expected, when the example
was shown by the leaders of sects, the fathers themselves, who were
constantly quarrelling about the smallest as well as the greatest
points, and for the smallest as well as the greatest they damned one
another.*
In a former lecture, it has been observed that the famous passage which
we find in Josephus about Jesus Christ, was never mentioned nor alluded
to in any way whatever by any of the fathers of the first, second, or
third centuries; nor until the time of Eusebius, "_when it was first
quoted by himself_." The truth is, none of these fathers could quote or
allude to a passage which did not exist in their times, but was, to
all points short of absolute certainty, forged and interpolated by
Eusebius, as suggested by Gibbon and others. Even the redoubtable
Lardner has pronounced this passage to be a forgery.
That most ingenuous and fair dealing son of the Church, Mosheim, whose
authority and unimpeachable veracity have never been questioned, even by
divines, certifies as follows:--"The Platonists and Pythagoreans
held it as a maxim, that it was not only lawful, but praiseworthy to
_deceive_, and even to make use of the expedient of a _lie_ in order
to advance the cause of truth and piety.** The Jews, who had lived in
Egypt, had learned and received this maxim from them (the Pythagoreans
and Platonists) before the coming of Christ, as appears incontestably
from a multitude of ancient records; and the Christians were infected
from both these sources with the same pernicious error, as appears from
the number of books _attributed falsely_ to great and venerable names."
The above extract refers to the second century only, when numerous
gospels, epistles, etc., were fabricated and falsely fathered in the
manner stated by Mosheim; but in the fourth century there were few
exceptions to the standard maxim, that it was an act of the highest
merit to deceive and lie, whenever the interests of the priesthood might
be promoted thereby.
* In the inexhaustible arsenal of St. Paul's conundrums,
ambiguous oracles, and common-sense-defying quibbles, they
got arms, which answered equally well to combat each other,
and to confound all experience and reason.
** Upon this principle exactly, every priest, before he can
become a member of the English established church, is
obliged to perjure himself on his adoption by the bishop, in
swearing two tremendous, palpable, glaring lies; namely,
_that he does not seek the living or office for the sake of
lucre; but that he is impelled thereto by the Holy Ghost!_
Hear, hear, stall-fed John Bull.
The writings of the most virtuous and meritorious authors among the
Pagans, if they inculcated good morals alone, and condemned all vulgar
superstitions, were reckoned superlatively dangerous by these fathers;
for even the amiable Plutarch did not escape their wasteful malice,
there being upwards of a hundred of his opuscula, or moral treatises
destroyed. But while they indulged in this _prudent_ destruction, they
took care to preserve such extracts from the writings of Porphyry,
Celsus, Hierocles, and others, as they could fit up by contortion, and
press into the service of their new superstition, inserting, at the same
time, concessions which were never made by these philosophers, whose
works were exceedingly obnoxious, on account of the reason and good
sense which they contained. Nay, it has even been known that some of
the finest of these literary productions have, in certain parts, been
entirely obliterated by these, falsifying priests, and their own knavish
jargon substituted on the same parchment.
Daille freely avers, "that the writings of the fathers are in great part
forged, either anciently or in latter times, full of frauds, both pious
and malicious, against Pagan learning, mutually witnesses against each
other, _and are absolutely not to be believed_. They would forge whole
books to serve the ends of the priesthood."
These examples were too interesting and praiseworthy not to be followed,
as far as possible, by the English clergy. They falsified, again and
again, says Hume, the rolls of Parliament to serve their own dominion,
taking care to publish only the articles that were favorable to
themselves. And they were guilty of another imposture in adding one to
the number--(See the first edition of Hume).
Jortin, in his remarks on ecclesiastical history, charges the fathers
with _perverting, misquoting_, defaming, defacing and destroying the
works of their adversaries, and even those of each other.
Blondel, when speaking of the second century, says, "whether you
consider the immediate impudence of impostors, or the deplorable
credulity of believers, it was a most miserable period, and exceeded
all others in pious frauds; _there was more aversion to lying, and more
fidelity among profane, than among Christian, authors_."
Bishop Fell confesses, that "in the first ages of the Church, so
extensive was the license of forging, so credulous were the people in
believing, that the evidence of transactions was grievously obscured."
Casaubon complains as follows:--"I am much grieved to observe, in
the early ages of the Church, that there were very many who deemed it
praiseworthy to assist the divine word with their own fictions; that
their new doctrine might find a readier admittance among the wise men
of the Gentiles." This is confirmed by Scaliger, who declares that, so
inefficacious did they deem their "word of God," that they distrusted
the success of Christ's kingdom, "_without the aid of lying._"*
* Their "New Jerusalem" was heaven-constructed, and formed a
cube of five hundred leagues; it descended through the air
for forty nights successively. Tertullian saw it himself--
Bravo.
This "New Jerusalem" was figurative of the "Houses of the
sun," or the signs of the zodiac.
Bishop Burnet has _shown_ that the Athanasian creed was a forgery of the
eighth century.
To the testimony and authority of the above seven highly respectable
divines, we might add that of a host of other theologians, which shows
that it has generally been the sons of the Church themselves who have
most fully exposed the utterly worthless and deceitful characters of the
fabricators of our religion: but for the present we shall only cite
the "Free Inquiry" of the ingenuous and learned Dr. Middleton, who, in
quoting the authority of St. Cyprian as to the frauds of the
Christians in the third century, observes as follows:--"From all these
considerations taken together, it must, I think, be allowed that the
forged miracles of the fourth century give us just reason to suspect the
pretensions of _every other age, both before and after it._ My argument
would be much the same if it were grounded on the allowed forgeries of
any later age." Again, he says; "So far I agree with them both (Drs.
Chapman and Berriman) and own their defence to be true, that the earlier
miracles rest on no better foundation, nor are supported by any better
evidence than the latter." It is true that elsewhere Dr. Middleton seems
to concede the truth of the New Testament and apostolic miracles, but
who does not see that this was a shift to ward off persecution and ruin?
It has elsewhere been observed, that according to the confessions of
the apostolic father, St. Hermas, which we have in his book called "The
Pastor," he was a liar upon principle and avowed profession. Beausobre
says of, him: "His principle was, that faith was only fit for the
rabblement."
"Saint Augustine, one of the most veracious, and the least given to
lying of all the Fathers, declares in his 33rd sermon, and stakes his
eternal salvation to the truth of the fact, which he said was as true
as the Gospel, that while he was bishop of Hippo Regiup, he preached the
gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to a whole nation of men and
women, _who had no heads_, but had their eyes in their bosoms; and in
countries still more southerly, he preached to a nation amongst whom
each individual had but one eye, and that situate in the middle of the
forehead!" What a glorious field this affords the "_long-eared rout_"
for the exercise of their faith!
That falsehood was quite the order of the day amongst the Fathers,
witness the maxim of Tertullian, "_Credo quia impossibile est_;" upon
which unerring rule he founded his implicit belief in the resurrection
and other such miracles, that is, he believed them true, _because they
were utterly impossible_. Saint Jerome accuses not only St. Paul, but
Jesus Christ, of frauds.
Justin Martyr speaks of the fable of the Phoenix as an incontrovertible
truth. Tertullian affirms, in his usual manner, that when the Christians
cast out devils, they (the devils) acknowledged themselves to be the
heathen deities, Mars, Bacchus, Apollo, etc., etc. These, and such as
these, are our Christian authorities!
At the head of all these _Fathers of the Church_, in point of rank and
pre-eminence in wickedness, stands the imperial assassin, the Emperor
Constantine. As a forger and falsifier, it was not in his line to equal
his protege Eusebius; but in all the arts of dissimulation he seems not
to have been his inferior. As a cool family murderer, Nero and Caligula
may hide their diminished heads in his presence. He drowned his wife in
boiling water; put to death his son Crispus; murdered the two
husbands of his sisters, Constantia and Anastasia; murdered his own
father-in-law, Maximiam Hercules; murdered his nephew, his sister
Constantia's son, only twelve years of age; with some others, not so
nearly related, amongst whom was Sapator, a pagan priest, who refused
absolution for the crimes of the royal assassin.
There is nothing easier to conceive than the eagerness with which
such tyrants as Constantine, and his son Constantins, would embrace
so _convenient_ a religion as the one newly vamped. The Pagan priest,
Sapator, was put to death for expressing horror at the crimes of the
former, which were readily absolved by the Christian priests; and when
the latter wanted to commit similar murders, he found a ready assistant
in the Bishop of Nicomedia, a _holy father_ of the fourth century,
who forged a fatal deed, which he affirmed to be the testament of the
deceased emperor; in which his son Constantius was enjoined and conjured
to murder his two uncles (one of whom was his father-in-law), Optatus,
the husband of his aunt, and seven cousins german, one of whom was his
brother-in-law. These were the first imperial patrons of Christianity!
The good bishop no doubt justified Constantine in the bloody injunction
laid in his forged will, by the example of David, who, with his last
breath, enjoined his son Solomon to murder his faithful general, Joab,
and Shimei, though he had sworn not to harm the latter; in like manner
Constantius had pledged his solemn oath for the security of his kinsmen.
When the foregoing sketches and opinions are considered as proof
specimen of the true characters and conduct of a few of the men called
"the Fathers," an estimate of the general worthlessness and fraudulent
motives of the whole may easily be formed; yet such were the men who
_systematized_ Christianism, headed by St. Paul, who afforded them a
notable example in all the arts of mystery or fraud, these two terms
being synonymous. His justification of lying is as follows:--"For if the
truth of God hath more abounded _through my lie unto his glory_, why yet
am I also judged as a sinner?" Rom. iii., 7. It ought not, therefore,
to excite any surprise, that from so foul a source should emanate those
unsightly and revolting dogmas, which, sooner or later, must bring this
superstition into utter contempt, before the tribunal of reason and
science. The root of all these dogmas is distinctly traceable to the
astro-theology of the ancient Pagans; but the whole has been hideously
perverted by the fabricator of our religion, either by knavishly
teaching the exoteric, or literal sense, though they knew the esoteric,
or hidden meaning; or by adopting the former through ignorance of the
mythological mysteries. The fable of the fall of man, the garden of
Eden, the serpent and Eve, etc., are clearly astronomical allegories;*
and the most learned of the early fathers held them to be so; but they
were abused by others, and taken in the literal sense, in order that
they might serve as tenterhooks, upon which to stretch the New Testament
dogmas of original sin and redemption.
* "At the autumnal equinox, when the celestial sign, Virgo
(Eye) is setting heliacally, she seems to be followed by the
constellation Bootes (Adam, or a personification of solar
heat) and by seeming to hold out to him a branch with
beautiful fruit upon it, was said to tempt or seduce Adam,
whom she appears to draw after her; and when the two link
below the western horizon, they are said to fall; and to
resign the heavens to the dominion of the serpent, and other
wintry signs, i.e. cold and darkness, figuratively, evil.
While the man and woman are retiring from the summer garden
of fruits and flowers, the sign Perseus is seen rising in
the east, and with his flaming sword is said to drive the
happy pair from the reign of summer. As Virgo sinks first in
the west, she is said to be first in transgression."
That these fables have allusion to the signs of the zodiac, the solar
system, the elements and seasons, has been shown by Volney, Dupuis, and
others. Many of the apparently gross absurdities of the Bible are easily
explained by the key of ancient astronomy. Indeed, all the principal
personages of that book, as well as those of remote pagan antiquity,
whether, ranking as deities or men, were either personifications of
constellations, planets, seasons, or other natural objects, or their
affects; and whenever miraculous powers were ascribed to those fanciful
creations, all men who understood the mysteries, such as Herodotus,
Philo, Origen, etc., knew that the literal sense could not be true; and
that the right interpretation was allegorical. The ancient languages of
the East having no neuter gender, the host of celestial existences were
denominated in the masculine or feminine. Amongst these, their grand
immaculate chieftain, the sun, in all the eastern theogonies, and
under a thousand different names, was always adored as the omnipotent
_Creator_ and _Regulator_. "O Sun," cried the great prophet of Persia,
"thou art powerful in thy blaze! glorious in thy lustre! the burster of
darkness! head of the world! king of stars! mightiest of beings above!"
That those polytheisms of the East, from which emanated Judaism and
Christianity, had their root in astronomy, is proved from the most
authentic sources. "The Egyptians," says Plutarch, "inserted nothing
into their worship without a reason, nothing merely fabulous, nothing
superstitious, as many suppose; but their institutions have either a
reference to morals, or to something useful in life; and many of them
bear a beautiful resemblance of some appearance in nature." Chaeremon,
the Egyptian philosopher, says: "What is said of Osiris and Isis,*
and all the sacred fables, may be resolved into the stars--their
occultations and risings--into the course of the Sun through the zodiac;
or the nocturnal and diurnal hemispheres."
* According to Eratosthenes, the celestial Virgin was
supposed to be Isis, that is, the symbol of the returning
year. It was in honor of this goddess that the Egyptians
celebrated the famous festival of light, which was imitated
by the Christians in their feast of Candlemas. From the
Egyptians, the Romans took their Solar festivals, in honor
of the birth of the god of light, celebrated on the 25th
December, at which time, says Sexvius, the Sun may, properly
speaking, be said to be new, or to have a new birth. Hence
the Christmas of the Christians, which had also been,
previously, a Druidical festival, in honor of the solar
God's birth; hence the evergreen emblems--the holly, the
mistletoe, etc., all sacred among the Druids thousands of
years before Christ.
Porphyry corroborates the above thus:--"The learned Egyptians admit the
existence of no other gods except what are called the planets, the gods
which give completion to the zodiac; and such as rise together with
these; and likewise the sections of the zodiac into decans." Such
were the Egyptian and Chaldeans roots of Christianity; and such was
Christianity itself, until it became abused and falsified by the
introduction of Platonic visions, and a belief in the reality of
supernatural personifications, which by degrees supplanted the sublime
natural and moral principles of the Pagan stock.
The metaphysical phantasma called soul (revived by Plato from the
divine philosophy of the Pagans), and its future state of rewards and
punishments, is one of the most pernicious and fatal of those dogmas.
Without this notion priests would be comparatively harmless, as it forms
the basis of their secret influence, by working upon the hopes and fears
of ignorance, and thereby becomes the chief source of riches and power.
By this mischievous invention they have turned this fair world into
an abode of gloomy despair, terrifying their weak-minded victims into
slavish obedience, by keeping them in perpetual dread of imaginary
punishments, in the infliction of which they paint their god as a
capricious and malevolent tyrant. This story of the soul's immortality
must have been unknown, or at least not fashionable at the time in
which it is said Moses lived, since no allusion whatever is made to it
throughout the books attributed to him;* and David, Solomon, and Job
deny it in the most positive manner. Even the testator of the Jewish
will seems at that time to have had no such idea. The fact is, the Jews
had heard nothing of the matter until they learnt it of the Platonist
Greeks, as is proved by many parts of the Bible; for instance, Moses
makes the Jewish god threaten to "visit the sins of the fathers upon the
children unto the third and fourth generation." The rewards were also
purely temporal, such as "their corn their wine shall abound." These
were all the ideas that Moses had of future rewards and punishments;
and the Pharisees did not publicly maintain the dogma of the soul's
immortality, etc., until about the time of Herod.
* The great Warburton has shown that the Jews in the time of
Moses, entertained no such opinion as the immortality of the
soul. "This is admitted (says Ensor) although unwillingly,
by Tillotson and Wilkins, and candidly by Le Clereq and
Geddes." This platonic notion is flatly denied in Psalms
cxlvi., 4; and in Eccles. iii, 19, 20.
Pythagoras and Plato seemed to have been the mere revivers of this
ancient doctrine, which, as the learned, say, sprang from the Brahminism
of India, the most ancient of all the mythologies, the priests of which
are said to have been the first who corrupted human society, by the
invention of souls, and other spiritual or celestial existences; but,
unlike their imitators of' the west, they neither persecuted nor shed
a drop of blood for religion's sake; nor the blood of animals for food.
Christians! we know ye can very ill bear to be told, that from India
through Persia ye have your cosmogony, fall of man, immortality of the
soul, redemption, incarnation, future rewards and punishments, heaven
and hell, desolation of all things, universal restoration, trinity
in unity, eternity, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, and
omnibenevolence of God;* all are derived from the Vedas and Shastras, or
Bible of the Brahmins, and the Sadder of the Zoroastrians. Out of these
oriental materials, all the successive religions that have sprung up in
the west have been fabricated, with such variations in the machinery as
suited the civil and clerical despotism in the different countries, and
the degree of ignorance in the people.
One of the insidious and baneful arts of theology, has ever been to make
man believe that he is something else than that which nature has made
him in reality; and this delusive flattery has moulded him into that
self-important and credulous animal, which best suits the interests of
his deceivers;** hence his proudly assumed knowledge of his personified
deity. If this be true his boasted spiritual knowledge seems to have the
effect of making him more wicked and vicious than any other animal, for
he is not only the scourge of all the rest, but will, to gratify the
pride and ambition of lay and spiritual tyrants (leagured together
for his oppression), cut the throats of his own species; though, by so
doing, he the more closely rivets the chains of his own subjection, and
maintains those very delusions which enslave his mind, poison society,
and distract the world.
* And this God was no other than the Sun!
** In commencing this nefarious process no time is lost man
is seized upon the moment he is born, and the first
sacerdotal spell is the water incantation; after which his
mind is gradually mortgaged to the priest by more potent
charms; he is carefully shorn of his natural liberties, and
thus donkified, all his motions are regulated until death,
when the last priestly spell is performed. But this is not
all--clerical rapacity holds property even in the corpse
which cannot be interred until this last grasping charge is
satisfied.
The spiritual arsenal of Plato having thus supplied the human animal
with what is called an "immortal soul,"* our Christian priests have ever
since found it an excellent foundation for their scheme, and a secure
medium through which to make permanent their riches and power.
* As the word soul, heaven, spirit, hell, metaphysio, ghost,
immaterial, etc., are not representatives of things which
exist in reality, why are they suffered to confound common
sense? Because, in serving that purpose, they are the most
useful auxiliaries of priest-mare delusion. The Theologian's
definition of them is his best refutation.
Plato would not at this day know his foster-child, disfigured as it now
is by a train of hideous inventions, the theory of which is, that death
is the only way to a new and eternal life; that all who believe in this
paradoxical speculation of the priest shall be rewarded, and that all
who believe him _not_ shall be tortured by an eternal roasting in that
life. Considering the weak and credulous nature of the human mind in
a state of ignorance, we must acknowledge the bold ingenuity which
invented this tremendous dogma; it is calculated to confound even the
strongest intellect; for the terrors of death, under so frightful a
predicament, utterly debase and enslave the prostrate mind, making it a
prey to all the combined efforts of sacerdotal fraud. By this pernicious
fiction, the morality of nations has been destroyed, the blackest crimes
that man can commit have been pardoned,* and the priest has filled his
coffers to the glory of the three divinities! Theology, in its vain
attempts to raise man above that sphere in which nature has placed him,
as a link in her animated chain, hath thus created for him an imaginary
futurity; but, in so doing, by a strange incongruity, the creature so
exalted above himself, and made the exclusive object of divine clemency,
has against him, nevertheless, 999 chances in the 1,000 that he is
predestined to everlasting torments, (yet even this inexorably forlorn
hope flatters his pride) whilst the remaining unit only shall enjoy the
beatitude of celestial bliss:--
No matter,
Better to be in hell, it seems, than
Not to be at all. We say negatur.
* Oh, Plato! Plato! you have paved the way
With your confounded fantasies, to more
Immoral conduct, by the fancied sway.
Your systems feign o'er the controlless core
Of human hearts, than all the long array
Of poets and romances; you're a bore,
A charlatan, a coxcomb, and have been,
At best, no better than a go-between.--Byron.
To create that essential difference between man and the other animals
which is necessary to the ends of priestcraft, the spiritualist
conjures up his chimerical invention called soul; which, for certain
considerations to him well and truly paid, he bestows exclusively
upon man; and as the other animals have no money, he declares, in the
not-to-be-questioned tone, that not one of them has a rag of any such
appendage. There is no necessity for proving this in the usual manner,
nor even to demonstrate that the article in question has a real
existence, as these are points of _faith_ imposed by dint of infallible
dogmas, the truth of which is sufficiently proved by the power which
nine millions a-year confers upon our spiritual guides; and by the
ignorance which that power and influence fosters.
The bee, the beaver, the ant, and many more of those called "inferior
animals," have shown in community, equal, if not superior wisdom, in
all their customs and social institutions, to that displayed by man in
society; yet priests will not allow them a scrap of _soul_. But this
deficiency will be remedied whenever spiritual impostors, pretending
to heavenly inspiration, shall spring up amongst themselves; for then
supernatural religions, with their accompaniments of priesthoods,
will be simultaneous blessings, as the latter will not only supply in
abundance the little "immortal" articles in question, but save and cure
them for the voyage to heaven, for the trifling remuneration of being
allowed the means of living in luxury and ease for life, at the expense
of the wealth producers. These conditions are so customary and moderate,
that a priesthood, even amongst ants, could not be expected both to
create and save souls on more reasonable terms. Before these tiny
examples of industry give way to the introduction of supernaturalism,
and its hierarchical plagues, let them well weigh whether the possession
of souls (subject to the terrible risks above stated), and a postmortem
_life_ will compensate for the corruption of government, the debasement
of character, the immoralities, the vices, and shocking crimes which
will most assuredly pervade their communities for ever in this life,
whenever they adopt spiritualism, and its train of locusts to prey upon
their industry. We have been more particular in regard to ants, owing to
its having been ascertained that in many of their republics, a military
force, or "standing army," in peace as well as in war, has been
established; and as that scourge has never been known among men, but
as part of a grand enslaving scheme, which embraced, as a vital
correlative, some system of superstition and its priesthood, it is
greatly to be feared that the ants are verging towards the sacerdotal
mania, which is the hand and glove concomitant of the former evil.
The indisputable fact that man, taking him as the Christian superstition
has moulded him, has more vices, than any other animal whatsoever, and
not a single virtue that may not be found in most of them, is rather a
lame proof of his exclusive possession of the immortal item to which he
pretends.
That which was called "soul" in Platonism and Christianity, was
precisely the _Pneuma_ of the Greeks, and the _Anima_ of the Latins, to
which they attached no other meaning than simply the breath of life*
in all animals; and as that is composed of elements which are eternal,
immortality may, in this sense, be justly ascribed to it.| But mind or
soul is not a thing of itself (res sui), but a consequence resulting
from, and depending upon, animal organisation. In regard to the "_innate
ideas_" which it has pleased our theological doctors to bestow upon the
human mind, the better to adapt it for their own purpose, it would be
quite as philosophical and true, to assert that a violin had innate
music. This physical property called mind, the result of organisation,
and, in degree, common to everything that has life, is, at birth, a
tabula rasa, but acquires ideas as it grows to maturity, from the senses
being acted upon by external objects, much in the same manner that the
mechanically organised violin produces music, from the external action
of the bow.
* Its supposed existence after death is merely a fresh
version of the ancient Metempsychosis.
** Aristotle maintained the eternity of matter, and did not
believe that the governing power of the universe extended
any particular providence to sublunary things. As for the
immortality of the soul, or even the existence of any such
thing, as taught in modern theology, it was quite
inconsistent with his principles; yet he was, at one and the
same tune, the master of theologians, and the chief of the
Atheists.
The next dogma we shall notice is that of Savior, or Mediator. This is
evidently derived from the Christna of the Hindu trinity, who, as the
_Redeemer_ of the human race, was the most important of the three. This
personification of the sun seems to have been adopted by the Persian
lawgiver, Zoroaster, under the name of Mithra (which still meant
Mediator), when he founded the religion of the Mithriacs, or worshippers
of the sun. According to Plutarch, Zoroaster taught that there existed
two principles, one good, and the other evil; the first was called
Oromazes, "_the ancient of days_," being the principle of good or light;
the other, Ahrimanes, was the principle of evil, or cold and darkness.
Between these personified principles, he placed his Mithra, who, as the
source of genial heat and life, annually redeems the human race from the
power of evil or cold and darkness.* From this beautiful allegory of
the sun, is derived the Christian dogma of Savior, of which proof maybe
found even amongst the fathers. (See Tertullian, Adv. Qentes.) Celsus
asserts that the early Christians were merely a sect of adorers of the
sun, and such a sect were the Manicheans. The principles of what man
calls _good_ and _evil_, have also been personified** in the Osiris
and Typhon of the Egyptians, the Jupiter and Pandora of the Greeks,
the Jehovah and Satan of the Jews, and the present God and devil of the
Christians.
* This Indian and Persian Trinity was symbolical of the
three-fold, power of the Sun, or God Mithra: in spring and
summer, he is the Producer; in autumn, the Preserver; and by
his absence in winter, the Destroyer.
** The fraud of personifying principles, and the physical
powers of Nature has always been easy and indispensable with
priests in all ages. During the French revolution, Gobet,
Bishop of Paris, acknowledged that up to that time, himself
and his clergy had taught the people nothing but a mass of
falsehood, for which he apologised; disowned the god he had
taught the people to worship, and promised to devote himself
to the worship of reason, morality, liberty and virtue. But
the stupid and credulous mob soon personified these
qualities, and worshipped, them as deities and real
entities. At Rome, in like manner, the compliments of the
new year, Perpetua Felicitas, were turned into two
goddesses, and receive divine honors to this day.
Diogenes Laertius says expressly that the Jews adopted the doctrine of
the two principles from the Magi; and St. Augustine assures us that it
was the foundation of the religion of the Assyrians, who were so often
the masters of the little miserable Jewish horde. Manicheism (so called
from Manes, the founder) was one of the first branches of Christianism;
but adhered more than any other of the heresies, to the original
Zoroastrian stock, though it lay as a stage between that religion and
the recent version of Christianity, which, as well as Judaism, is a mere
heresy from the religion of the Persians. Since the Persian cosmogony
and religion, as well as all others of the East, were purely and
confessedly allegorical, is it rational to suppose that anything of
the kind got up by the Jews, could be other than a rough and ignorant
version of that of their masters?
It has been admitted by most of the learned that the Shastras and Vedas,
or scriptures of the Hindus, were in existence 1,400 years before the
alleged time of Moses; and, in all probability, the Zendavesta, or
Persian Bible, was long anterior also. Sir William Jones, of pious
and orthodox memory, confesses that, "the name of Chrishna,* and the
general outline of his story, _was long anterior to the birth of our
Savior_, and, to the time of Homer, _we know very certainly_. I am
persuaded also (continues he), that a connexion existed between the old
idolatrous nations of Egypt, India, Greece, and Italy, _long before
the time of Moses_. In the Sanscrit Dictionary, compiled more than two
thousand years ago, we have the whole story of the incarnate Deity, BORN
OF A VIRGIN, and miraculously escaping in his infancy from the reigning
tyrant of his country."
* Sir William Jones says, in his "Asiatic Researches," that
he was assured by Colonel Valency, that Chrishna in Irish
means the sun. The Baal-fire feast, or meeting, was a great
festival in Ireland, on the 25th of December, and midsummer
eye. Baal, or Bel, was a name of the sun all over the east.
** This probably alludes to the great period of nearly
26,000 years, in which time the sun passes through the whole
circle of the zodiac. That is, he is in each sign, at the
venial equinox, for the space of 2,155 years.
This tyrant, alarmed at some prophecy, sought the infant's life; and, to
make sure work, he ordered all the male children under two years of age
to be put to death. Here is the true origin of the horrid story about
Herod, of which no Greek or Roman historian says a single word. That
the Christian story was taken from the Indian allegory, is traceable in
every circumstance--the reputed father of Chrishna was a
carpenter--a new star appeared at the child's birth--he was laid in a
manger--(celestial)--he underwent many incarnations! to redeem the world
from sin and mental darkness, (ignorance and winter) and was, therefore,
called _Savior_;--he was put to death between two thieves--he arose
from the dead, and returned to his heavenly seat in Vaicontha. In
corroboration of this, Albert the Great admits as follows "We know that
the sign of the celestial Virgin did come to the horizon at the
moment where we have fixed the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. All
the mysteries of the incarnation of our Savior Christ: and all the
circumstances of his marvellous life, from his conception to his
ascension, _are to be traced out in the constellations, and are figured
in the stars_." Volney, Dupuis, and others, have shown that these, and
many more of our Scripture stories, which are absurd and revolting, if
taken literally, were originally, in the learning of the east, pregnant
with truth as astronomical allegories; having primary allusion to the
sun, the elements and seasons, and to the progress of that luminary
through the different signs of the zodiac; but more particularly, as he
is the sole and glorious source from which flows all and everything that
man can rationally call good. We repeat the melancholy truth, that all
these beautiful astro-allegories have been lost in the ignorance or
roguery of priestcraft.
Miraculous conceptions.--All antiquity is full of such conceptions
and births, springing from the fabulous amours of gods with _virgins_,
whereby "_sons of God_" were engendered. These fables also had their
origin in physical and moral allegories; but they were subsequently
found to be extremely convenient to cover the real fruits of sacerdotal
intrigues and seductions, which the priests could always saddle upon
some good-natured god. In all probability the virgin votaries of Vesta
were instituted for no other purpose than the private _devotions_ of the
priesthood* and when it happened that they were unable to conceal the
natural effects of these amours, the paternity was charged upon some
easy accommodating god; by which means the girl remained in spotless
virginity. This opinion is the more valid from their being allowed to
marry at thirty, when the priests no longer wanted _their_ services,
but those of the younger girls: if they chose to remain, in the temple,
however, they were
"Doomed to deck the bed they once enjoyed."
* In the highest apartment of the Temple of Belas, in
Babylon, a woman was kept for the _private devotion_ of the
priest whose turn it was to make astronomical observations.
This was done under the pretence that the lady was visited
once a year by the god Bel. History dees not inform us in
regard to Bel's progeny, by these housekeepers.
By such artful intrigues, the Hindu virgin, Rohini, conceived and
brought forth a "son of God," one of the Brahmin trinity. A Chinese
_virgin_, impregnated by a ray of the _Sun_, became the mother of the
god Foe, who always acted as the _mediator_ between his followers and
another god of still greater power. Mademoiselle Creusa, in all her
virgin purity, was safely delivered of another "_son of God_" as was also
the virgin mother of Somonocodom, who, according to the scriptures of
the Talapoins of Siam, was the god expected to _save_ the universe.
Jupiter himself was fabled to have given birth to children from all
parts of his body, from forehead to leg: thus Minerva sprang from his
head.* The followers of Plato, two hundred and fifty years after his
death, and one hundred before the Christian era, raised the story that
he was born of a virgin:--Aristo, his father, was on his marriage,
warned in a _dream_ by Apollo, not to have any commerce with his wife,
because she was with child by him (Apollo); Aristo obeyed; and Plato
was born as another "_son of God_" It was no doubt owing to the holy
paternity of some priest, that Sylva Rhea, under cover of a love affair
with the god Mars, had the honor to lay the foundation of the Roman
religion, by producing another "_son of God_."
* The severe study, or brain-labor necessary in acquiring
sound knowledge, is here prettily allegorized in the birth,
of Minerva, who was the personification of wisdom.
The writers of the most ancient chronicles of Alexandria, after
attesting the universal prevalence of our _gospel religion_ in Egypt for
ages before the date of its alleged origin, in the reign of Tiberius,
testify as follows:--
"To this day, Egypt has consecrated the pregnancy of a virgin, and the
nativity of her son, whom they annually present in a cradle, to the
adoration of the people; and when king Ptolemy, three hundred and fifty
years before our Christian era, demanded of the priests the significancy
of this religions ceremony, they told him it was a mystery."*
All the above conceptions and incarnations are merely the poetical and
allegorical fictions of Paganism. We have already seen that the first
fabricators and compilers of our religion were men of the greatest
honesty and veraciousness of character: and as they had just received
the divine light of "the only true revelation," we are "bound to
believe" that their story of a miraculous conception is the only true
one, confirmed as it is by _ghosts, dreams, angels, and shadows_. It
is true that it cannot boast of such remote antiquity as the foregoing
prodigies; but it is ancient enough to constitute truth in the orthodox
eye of _Faith_; and we must not give way to the impiety of supposing
that it is an imitatio of any one of the heathen fables enumerated;**
or the "blasphemy" of surmising that God's sending "his message to a
carpenter's wife," is a varied version of Jupiter's loving message to
Alcmena, by Mercury.
* According to Macrobius, this was the solar god Bacchus,
who appears at the winter solstice, as an infant. Plutarch
says that at the winter solstice, Isis (Nature) brought
forth a son, a weak and feeble infant. On the inscription at
Sais, Isis says, "The fruit which I have produced, was, and
will become a Sun."
** The whole story about the conception and birth, was told
in precisely the same manner as it is now, in India, Persia,
Egypt, and Greece, for more than 1,600 years before its
alleged occurrence in Palestine.
Neither must we entertain the shocking idea that the conception of
Mary was occasioned by any carnal agency; or that either the _shadow or
substance_ of any priest was at all concerned in the holy mystery. Yet
heresy will tell untoward tales; for her pregnancy has been accounted
for in the most natural way imaginable, thus:--"According to the
apocryphal gospel of the nativity of Mary which Father Jerome Xavier
entirely adopts, Mary, when a child, was consecrated to the Lord (that
is, to the priests), by the usual vow; and was brought up in the temple,
which she did not leave until she was sixteen years of age. This created
a suspicion that her pregnancy was the effect of some intrigue with the
priests, who made her believe, or say, that it was the Holy Ghost who
had begotten a child upon her."*--(Codex. Apox. N. T.) Some profane
persons have said that the high priest was himself the chief actor in
this sacerdotal amour; for he anxiously, pitched upon old Joseph to
be the husband of Mary. St. Epiphanjus assures us in his book "Adv.
Heresies," that Joseph was very old at the time of his marriage with the
_virgin_; and adds that he was the father of six children by his first
wife. Moreover, the gospel ascribed to St. James the younger affirms
that the good old man espoused Mary with much reluctance, owing to the
disparity of their ages; but the high priest prevailed on him at last;
and it further informs us of the very ill-humor of Joseph, when he
found that his wife had been with child before their marriage, and
the reproaches with which he loaded her, on account of her lewdness,
unworthy, as he thought, _of a virgin reared under the eyes of priests_.
Mary excused herself with tears and protestations, and swore by the
living God that she did not know who begot the child. In her distress,
the best excuse would have been her adventure with the archangel
Gabriel; but it appears she forgot that. [It is indeed passing
strange that Mary, according to Matthew, is wholly ignorant of her
justification, according, to Luke.]
The fathers of our Church have disputed and quarreled in the most
obscene terms, about this mystic impregnation by the Holy Ghost. St.
Ambrose says:--"Non enim, secreta reseravit, sed immaculatum semen
inviolabili utero spiritus sanctus infudit!"**
* The followers of Loatze say, that his mother became
pregnant of him, by a junction of heaven and earth. This is
a sublime and bold _conception_; and far excels the puerile
prating about _ghosts, angels, dreams, and shadows_.
** Of the miraculous impregnation, St. Ambrose says, "Maria
per aurem impregnata est."
In one of the Church hymns it was sung, "Non ex virili, sed mystico
spiramine." Justin Martyr, in his apology, justifies these dogmas as
modified by the Christians, _not because they were true_, but from the
example of the heathen; he says:--"By declaring the Logos, the first
begotten of God, our Master Jesus Christ, to be born of a virgin,
without any human mixture, and to be crucified and dead, and to have
risen again, and ascended into heaven,--_we say no more in this, than
what you say of those whom you style the sons of Jove_." This was
honestly lugging in one fable to apologise for another. The logic of
Tertullian on this subject was decisive, and peculiar to himself--it
might be called an axiomatic, or self-evident mode of reasoning; for
instance, he says, "I am not ashamed of maintaining that the son of God
was born, _because it is itself a shameful thing_. I maintain that he
died and rose again, _because it is absurd_" When preachers use such
convincing arguments, there is no excuse for the incredulity of hearers.
This great Father contended also, that souls were material--that they
had sexes, and were as much begotten by each other; as our bodies are by
the bodies of our immediate parents. He asserted also, that "_God is a
body_."
"The word _begotten_ necessarily infers and associates the ideas of
three distinct and separate Beings--the begetters, the begotten, and the
person on whom he was begotten; and the term _begotten_, alluding as it
does to the performance of a particular action, must imply a particular
time when that action was performed and of course that there was a time
when that action was performed; now as the very, definition of the word
eternity is that which is _without beginning_ as well as _without end_,
to talk of a person _begotten_ from eternity, is to compose a sentence
of words the most contradictory to each other, or downright nonsense; it
is to tell us of an action that was _begun without any beginning; of a
finite infinite, or an immortal mortal!_" But the mystic conceptions,
births, and incarnations of Paganism, being rooted in, and having
exclusive allusion either to physical or moral principles, there were no
such absurdities, terms, or monstrous perversions of them, as the early
Christiana fell into, by converting mere words into _beings_, in forming
their mythology.
That the Christian dogma of the immaculate conception and birth of
Christ, was originally an astronomical allegory of the Sun, "the
day-spring from on high," can be proved by a hundred corroborating
facts, which, are irresistibly convincing, except where interest, or
the most inveterate prejudice, stands in the way. These facts have been
elucidated by Albert, Alphonso, Volney, Boulanger, Dupuis, Taylor, and
by all astronomers, who have not been deterred from speaking the truth
by their interests, their fears, or their prejudices. On the 19th of
August, the constellation of the Virgin disappears in the sun's rays;
and hence the figurative expression in Luke i., 35, "The Holy Ghost
shall come upon thee, _and the power of the Highest shall OVERSHADOW
thee_." On the same day the ancients celebrated the assumption of
Astrea,* (another name of the Virgin,) and about the same time, the
Christians celebrate the assumption of the blessed Virgin. On the 9th
of September, this constellation emerges out of the Sun's rays, at which
time the Catholics celebrate the nativity of the mother of the Sun, or
Christ.
* That is, the starry goddess. She was also the Miriam (the
same as Mary, Eve, Ac.,) of Numbers xii., 14, and the seven
days' leprosy of her face was allegorical of the same number
of days exactly, when the brightness of the zodiacal virgin
is wholly absorbed, or obscured, by the effulgence of the
solar rays.
The "star in the east," (a sign containing more than a hundred stars,)
mentioned in Matthew, was no other than this zodiacal sign of the
celestial Virgin, which arose on the eastern horizon precisely at
the time at which we fix the birth of Jesus Christ, viz., the 25th of
December, when the sun has risen one degree above the solstitial point:
which answers to a moment to the births of the Egyptian Osiris, the
Grecian Bacchus, and the Mithra of the Persians. These mystic births are
manifestly identical, being metaphorical of the Sun's annual birth
at the winter solstice, after which he gradually becomes, not only
figuratively, but positively, the Savior of the world. The resemblance,
or rather the sameness of every circumstance relating to Mithras,
the Mediator of the Persians, and those connected with the Savior, or
Mediator of the Christians, is so apparent, that no rational man
can doubt, or hesitate a moment, in pronouncing the latter to be a
counterpart of the former.
Zoroaster taught the Magi that this celestial birth would be announced
by the rising of this star, or constellation of Virgo, in the middle
of which would appear the figure of a young woman, suckling an infant
child, called Jesus by some nations, and Christ, or Christos,* in Greek.
This was the goddess of the _year_ nursing the god of _day_. Under this
beautiful symbol, the new born child is said to be feeble, weak, and
obscure, which is metaphoric of the Sun below the horizon in winter;
that he was brought forth in a stable, and laid in a manger, alluding to
the "stabulum jovium," one of the winter constellations. At the vernal
equinox, when the Sun entered the sign Aries, or the Bam, the emblem was
a lamb, (the lamb of God,) and as he gained strength towards the summer
solstice, he became the conqueror of the powers of darkness and evil,
that is, the constellations of winter; and was figuratively said
to bruise the serpent's head, that constellation being, as it were,
depressed below the horizon. By a like metonymy of language, the
"_Ascension_" of Christ has also allusion to the Sun at the summer
solstice.
* In the ancient zodiacs of India and Egypt, there is seen
this virgin nursing a male child with sun rays around his
head, (frown not, ye priests!) which is emblematical of the
infant sun at the winter solstice, and of his being then in
the sign Virgo. When he was in that sign in summer, the
virgin was represented with a bunch of fruit; and when in
harvest, she appropriately held out an ear of corn. These
zodiacs were devised at various periods of antiquity, as the
sun passed through the different signs, in the phenomena of
which the learned priests always found plenty of gods and
goddesses for the worship of the vulgar, as is still done in
Christianism.
Upon the sun's annual progression through the twelve signs of the zodiac
was founded the mythological or allegorical astronomy of the ancients,
(Christianity has no other foundation); and in this zodiacal picture,
the allegory supposes that sign to have rule, through which the sun is
passing; the knowledge of which science was conveyed in a striking and
sublime manner, under the disguise of miraculous narrative: of this sort
is the story of the three children, in the book of Daniel, a relic of
Chaldean astronomy. The "burning fiery furnace" was nothing else than
an emblem of that region of the great circle which the sun enters at
midsummer, or the sign Cancer. Each of the twelve signs of the zodiac
had a presiding genius, or imaginary personification, and these were
the twelve greater gods of Paganism. Each of these signs was again
subdivided into three parts, called Decans, who were also personified;
and, consequently, there were three of these geniuses in each of the
signs: therefore, when the sun enters Cancer, there must be three of
these Decans, or personifications, in the burning fiery furnace. Here
the astronomer in Daniel,* concealing his science under the veil of
allegory, exclaims: "Did we not reckon three children in the burning
fiery furnace? Behold, I see four, and the form of the fourth is
like the Son of God!" No person but a Christian, under his strongest
prejudices, is capable of denying the manifest meaning of this metaphor,
that being evidently the _sun itself_; which, with three personified
Decans, Shadrach, Mesach, and Abednego, in the sign Cancer, makes the
fourth. It is almost needless to point out that Nebuchadnezzar, the
king, is a personification of the constellation Sirius, or the dog-star,
which is always supposed to heat "the burning fiery furnace," in a
sevenfold degree, while the sun is in its vicinity, that is, from the
3rd of July till about the 11th of August.
* The zodiacal sign of the lion being below the horizon, and
the sun appearing to set in the direction of that
constellation, "Dom-el, Daniel, or Daniel, that is, the Sun"
was said to be cast into the Lion's Den.
** The author is much indebted to the Rev. Mr. Taylor for
the satisfactory manner in which he proves many of these
astronomical allegories.
What is the signification of the many Bible allusions to the "_Horse_
and his _Rider_," the "triumphant" breaking of the arrows and his bow,
he being always denoted as essentially opposed to what is good, and
forming part of, or belonging to, that which is evil? This allegory
evidently points to the Centaur sign, Sagittarius, half horse and half
man, armed with bow and arrows. This is the zodiacal sign of November;
and the sun being in that adverse constellation in that dark and gloomy
month, it is naturally spoken against, as being emblematical of his
weak, low, and depressed influence; and, consequently, its inseparable
connexion with _evil_, or cold and darkness. But when the sun rises
"triumphantly" in the heavens, and is most truly "the day star on high,"
as he ascends towards the summer solstice, and becomes the "Lion
of Juda," in July, he has victoriously thrown the zodiacal archer,
Sagittarius, as it were, "_into the sea_" that is, below where the
sea bounds the horizon. Then have we Miriam's sublime song of
victory:--"Sing ye to the Lord (the sun), for he hath triumphed
gloriously; the _Horse_ and his _Rider_ hath he thrown into the sea."
As this victory is achieved annually, the song is equally applicable at
every midsummer. Thus, though a large portion of the miscellany called
the Bible appears in the guise of immoral or absurd narrative, much of
it is really and truly the allegorised astronomy of the Chaldees and
Persian Magi, and therefore rooted in science.
Like everything else relating to Christ, or Christos, the dogma of
the ascension has no doubt its allegorical root in the Sun's apparent
exaltation in the heavens, from the vernal equinox to the summer
solstice. This miraculous story, as we have seen it in the New
Testament, is more replete with inconsistency than even any of the
others of that book. The Fathers have attributed the anonymous book
called the "Acts" to Luke; but his gospel contradicts the Acts: the
latter makes Jesus remain on earth forty days after his crucifixion;
whereas Luke makes him ascend into heaven the very same day he arose
from the dead. Those who are stated to have been eye-witnesses of the
ascension, being present as disciples at the time, viz., Matthew, John,
Peter, James, and Jude, have not, in the epistles ascribed to them, left
even an allusion to that most wonderful phaenomenon. Matthew and John
were said to be present--how came they to omit even the slightest notice
of this vital root of Christianity? Mark and Luke were _not_ present;
yet they alone notice it, in rather a vague and abrupt manner. In short,
no person whatever _says he saw it_. Mark says that Jesus ascended at
Jerusalem; Luke says it was at Bethany, places two miles distant from
each other. Matthew says the last seen with the disciples was on a
mountain in Galilee; Luke, that it was at Bethany, which is at least
seventy-five miles from Galilee.
The dogma of the redemption of man by Jesus Christ, appears not to
have been thought of by the New Testament fabricators; and is clearly
a subsequent invention of the Church of Rome. Paul, In Corinthians xv.,
gives us abundant assertions about the resurrection of the same body,
which is his chief doctrine, but there is not a word about redemption.
This dogma, then, is the lucrative forgery of priestcraft, after the
councils of Nice and Laodicea had _decided by vote_ that the spurious
miscellany called the New Testament should be the new Will of God.
The amount of moral evil done by this fable, is enormous beyond all
expression. When men are taught that their wicked deeds and vices are to
be rubbed off by a device so unjust and iniquitous as the sacrifice of
the innocent, to atone for the crimes of the guilty, we cannot wonder at
the horrid depravity of society.
Having already shown that Christianism is merely a compound emanating
from the Egyptian, Brahmin, and Zoroastrian systems, or a new version
of the fables of Prometheus, Christna, Mithras, Adonis, Bacchus,** etc.,
engrafted with some variations upon the Jewish scriptures; and that the
above names, with hundreds of others, are so many personified emblems of
the Sun, which, together with the planetary system and the fixed stars
(in Bible phrase, "the host of heaven") formed the occult basis of all
the religions of Paganism,*** the important question will be asked--has
"may penetrate into the signification of all oriental mysteries; but the
Vulgar can only see the exterior symbol, or the bark which covers them."
Again, he says, "It is allowed by all who have any knowledge of the
scriptures, that everything is mentioned enigmatically."
* That man should be redeemed from the sin of eating an
apple, by the murder of an innocent person called Jesus, is
certainly by far the strangest system of religion that ever
was palmed upon the world. Never was there so great an
outrage on common-sense!
** Even the word _Divine_, pluralised in Dii Vini, deities
of wine, or priests of Bacchus, is taken from heathenism,
and pressed into the service of a very different order of
priests, save that wine-loving has ever been common to both.
*** Origen tells Celsus that the Egyptian philosophers
veiled their knowledge of things in fables and allegories.
"The learned," he adds,
Christianity has no tangible or anthentic historical foundation, _to be
understood according to the literal sense of the New Testament?_ If
such events or incidents in any way similar to those detailed in the New
Testament, had in reality taken place at the times and places stated,
they could not possibly have failed to excite the intense attention
of the public authorities amongst the Romans, even if denuded of their
miraculous accompaniments the infant butchery of Herod would alone have
caused this attention. But as no one of all the historians or noted
writers, Roman, Jewish, or Greek, who lived in the period of the alleged
prodigies, nor those who came upon the public stage immediately after
them, though there were upwards of twenty such distinguished authors,
who wrote between the years 20 and 140 A.D., have taken the slightest
notice of the life or crucifixion of a person called Christ--(the
passage in Josephus is universally given up as forgery)--the
inadmissible violations of Nature's laws, said to have accompanied that
event, as narrated in the Gospels, which contradict each other in almost
every important circumstance, we are forced to the conclusion that
independently of everything miraculous, the story is totally unsupported
by any concurrent testimony;* but when the miracles are taken into
consideration in the literal sense, reason and all experience at
once decide the whole to be grossly fabulous; and seems to be a
circumstantial imitation of the crucifixion of Prometheus, as we have it
in the tragedy of AEschylus, which is a dramatic allegory of the sun, and
the planetary system.
* Bishop Talleyrand, in a letter which, he is said to have
written to the Pope, after their quarrel, states that after
Christianity had made some noise in the Empire, the entire
absence of all testimony in regard to its pretended origin,
excited the curiosity of the Roman Senate, to know what
really was the foundation of the story; so they "ordered
affidavits to be procured in the very centre of Palestine,
in places fixed by them, which affidavits were sent to Rome,
with the most conclusive evidence of the correctness of the
report. These proved that Mary, who was of the tribe of
Levi, and wife of the carpenter Joseph, who was of the tribe
of Juda, had had an illicit intercourse with a Roman
soldier, named Panther, who served in the 14th legion,
stationed in Egypt, whence he was detached into Palestine.
From this criminal intercourse a child was born, whom they
called Arenias; and who was adopted by Joseph, according to
the Roman practice, though it was contrary to the Jewish
customs. With Joseph he learned the carpenter's trade; but
after the death of his putative father, he abandoned his
home and mother, and became a vagrant. Having met a few
vagrants like himself, they all took the road to Galilee,
where they lived for some time by begging. Having at last
become the leader of a band of freebooters, he was arrested
by the police of Jerusalem, and finally condemned to death
by the general acclamation of the people." By thus
instituting inquiries in the country in which he was born,
the Roman Senate became acquainted with the origin of Mary's
son, which, in regard to paternity, differs from the
apocryphal gospel of the nativity of Mary.
This new version of the old mythology was gradually constructed by
priestcraft during the second, third, and fourth centuries, of materials
taken from all the oriental polytheisms; and is a similar sort of
fraudful quackery upon these allegorical religions, that astrology is
upon legitimate astronomy. Thus, (let us repeat the melancholy truth)
out of the comparatively harmless astro-fables of antiquity hath sprung
a foul collusion of religious and political tyranny, that has been
dreadful in its effects; and every successive invention to strengthen
this accursed coalition of an aristocracy of nobles and priests,
linked together with royalty,* has tended more and more to depress the
interests of the laboring population, or wealth producers of Europe, and
served to crush them under the most merciless of all despotisms. And as
it is utterly hopeless that our English _hereditary lawgivers_, who are
virtually our feudal rulers, and whose interests are entirely exclusive,
will ever pass any laws but such as support and perpetuate these
interests, it is much to be feared that, as in France before the
revolution, nothing but a sanguinary reaction on the part of the people,
will reestablish their right to just representation in Parliament, equal
laws, and a dissolution of that baneful state-confederacy between our
aristocratic rulers and the reigning superstition; the support of which,
we are tempted to conclude, _is more the object of government than the
interests of the common weal_.
* In 1822, the clergy of Austria persuaded the monarch of
over forty millions of people to declare, "I want no men of
science; I want only obedient subjects. I want no education
among my subjects, but what is given by the priesthood."