GODS
JESUS CHRIST A DEMIGOD, ACCORDING TO CHRISTIAN WRITERS.
IT is truly surprising to observe the damaging concessions of some of
the early Christian writers, ruinous to the dogmas of their own faith
with respect to the divinity of Jesus Christ, placing him, as they do,
on an exact level with the heathen demigods, proving that the belief in
his divinity originated in the same manner the belief in theirs did,
by which it is clearly shown to be a pagan derived doctrine. Several
Christian writers admit the belief in earth-born Gods (called Sons of
Gods), and their coming into the world by human birth was prevalent
among the heathen long prior to the time of Christ. Hear the proof.
We will first quote St. Justin relative to the prevalence of the belief
among the ancient Greeks and Romans. Addressing them, he says, "The
title of Son of God (As applied to Jesus Christ) is very justifiable
upon the account of his wisdom, considering you have your Mercury in
your worship, under the title of Word or Messenger of God." (Reeves
Apol. p. 76.) Here is the proof that the tradition of the Son of God
coming into the world, and "the Word becoming flesh," was established
amongst the ancient Greeks and Romans long prior to the era of
Christianity, or the birth of Christ.
And yet more than a hundred millions of Christian professors can now be
found, who, in their historic ignorance, suppose St. John was the first
writer who taught the doctrine of "the Word becoming flesh," and that
Jesus Christ was "the first and only begotten Son of God" who ever made
his appearance on earth. How true it is that "ignorance is the mother of
devotion" to creeds.
How "the man Christ Jesus" came to be worshiped as a God, is pretty
clearly indicated by Bishop Horne, who shows that the doctrine of the
incarnation was of universal prevalence long before Jesus Christ came
into the flesh. He says, "That God should, in some extraordinary manner,
visit and dwell with man, is an idea, which, as we read the writings of
the ancient heathen, meets us in a thousand different forms." If,
then, the tradition of God being born into the world was so universally
established in heathen countries before the Christian era, as here
shown, why should not, and why will not, our good Christian brethren
dismiss their prejudices, and tear the scales from their eyes, so as
to see that this universal belief would as naturally lead to the
deification and worship of "the man Christ Jesus" as water flows down a
descending plane?
And, certainly a thousand times more reasonable is the assumption
that his deification originated in this way, than that, with all his
frailties and foibles, he was entitled to the appellation of a God--a
conclusion strongly corroborated by the testimony of that able Christian
writer, Mr. Norton, who tells us that "many of the first Christians
being converts from Gentileism, their imaginations were familiar with
the reputed incarnation of heathen deities." How natural it would be for
such converts to worship "the man Christ Jesus" as a God on account of
his superior manhood!
Again, that ancient pillar of the Christian church, St. Justin, concedes
that the ancient oriental heathen held all the cardinal doctrines of
the Christian faith relating to the incarnation long prior to the
introduction and establishment of Christianity. Hear him: Addressing the
pagans, he says, "For by declaring the Logos the first begotten Son 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 into
heaven, we say no more in this than what you say of those whom you style
the sons of Jove." (Reeves, Apol. vol. i. p. 69.) Now, Christian reader,
mark the several important admissions which are made here:--
1. Here is traced to ancient heathen tradition the belief in an
incarnate Son of God.
2. The doctrine of a "first begotten Son of God."
3. Of his being born of a virgin.
4. Of his crucifixion.
5. Of his resurrection.
6. Of his final ascension into heaven.
All these cardinal doctrines of Christianity are here shown to have been
in existence, and to have been preached by pagan priests long anterior
to the Christian era, thus entirely oversetting the common belief of
Christendom that these doctrines were never known or preached in the
world until heralded by the first disciples of the Christian religion.
A fatal mistake, truly! This suicidal admission of St Justin (a standard
Christian writer) thus entirely uptrips all pretensions to originality
in the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith, and shows it to be
a mere travesty of the more ancient heathen systems.
And we have still other testimony to corroborate this conclusion. The
French writer Bazin says, "The most ancient histories are those of Gods
becoming incarnate in order to govern mankind." Again he says, "The
idea sprang up everywhere from confused ideas of God, which prevailed
everywhere among mankind that Gods formerly descended upon earth. The
fertile imagination of the people of various nations converted men into
Gods."
And to the same effect is the declaration of Mr. Higgins, that "there
was incarnate Gods in all religions." Sadly beclouded and warped indeed
must be that mind which cannot see that here is set in as plain view as
the cloudless sun at noonday, the origin of the deification of "the man
Christ Jesus." No unbiased mind can possibly stave off the conclusion
that such a universal prevalence of the practice of God-making
throughout the religious world would cause such a man as Jesus Christ
to be worshiped as a God--especially when we look at the various motives
which promoted men to Gods, which we will now present.
MOTIVES TO INCARNATION, OR THE CAUSE OF MEN BEING WORSHIPED AS GODS.
The causes which led to the conception of Gods and Sons of God becoming
clothed in human flesh--the manner in which the absurd idea originated
of an infinite being descending from heaven, assuming the form of a man,
being born of a pure and spotless virgin, and finally being killed by
his own children, the subjects of his own government, are palpably plain
and easily understood' in the light of oriental history.
And at the same time it is so shockingly absurd, that the rapid march
of science and civilization will soon inaugurate the era when the man
or woman who shall still be found clinging to these childish and
superstitious conceptions--the offspring of ignorance, and the relics
of barbarism, and a certain proof of undeveloped or unenlightened
minds--will be looked upon as deplorably ignorant and superstitious. We
will proceed to enumerate some of the causes which promoted men to the
dignity of Gods.
1. God must come down to suffer and sympathize with the people.
The people of all ancient religious countries were so externally-minded,
that they demanded a God whom they could know by virtue of his
corporeity, really sympathized with their sorrows, their sufferings,
their wrongs, and their oppressions, and, like Jesus Christ, "touched
with a feeling of our infirmities" (Heb. iv. 15)--a God so far invested
with human attributes, human frailties, and human sympathies, that
he could shoulder their burdens and their infirmities, and take upon
himself a portion of their sufferings. Hence it is said of Christ,
"himself took our infirmities." (Matt. iii. 17.)
The same conception runs through the pagan systems. One writer sets
forth the matter thus: "The Creator occasionally assumed a mortal form
to assist mankind in great emergencies" (as Jesus Christ was afterward
reported as being the Creator. See Col. i. 16.) "And as repeated
sojourners on earth in various capacities, they (the Saviors) became
practically acquainted with all the sorrows and temptations of humanity,
and could justly judge of its sins while they sympathized with its
weaknesses and its sufferings. When they again returned to the higher
regions (heaven), they remembered the lower forms they had dwelt
amongst, and felt a lively interest in the world they had once
inhabited. They could penetrate even the secret thoughts of mortals."
The people then demanding a God of sympathy and suffering (as shown
above), their credulous imaginations would not be long in finding one.
Let a man rise up in society endowed with an extraordinary degree of
spirituality and sympathy for human suffering; let him, like Chrishna,
Pythagoras, Christ, and Mahomet, spend his time in visiting the hovels
of the poor, or consoling their sorrows, laboring to mitigate their
griefs, and in performing acts of charity, disinterested alms and deeds
of benevolence, kindness and love, and so certain would he sooner or
later command the homage of a God. For this was always the mode adopted,
in an ignorant, undeveloped, and unenlightened age, for accounting
not merely for moral greatness, but for every species of mental and
physical superiority, as will be hereafter shown. We will proceed to
notice the second cause of men being invested with divine attributes.
2. The people must and would have an external God they could see, hear,
and talk to.
All the oriental nations, as well as Christian, taught that "God was
a spirit," but no nation or class of people, not even the founders of
Christianity, entertained a consistent view of the doctrine. Only a
few learned philosophers saw the scientific impossibility of an
infinite spirit being crowded into the human form. Hence they alone
were contented to "worship God in spirit and in truth." Every religious
nation went counter to the spirit of this injunction in worshiping for a
God a being in the human form. Even the founders of Christianity, though
making high claims to spirituality, were too gross, too sensuous in
their conceptions, too externally-minded, and too idolatrous in their
feelings and proclivities, to be content to "worship God in spirit."
Hence their deification of the "man Christ Jesus" to answer the
requisition of an external worship, by which they violated the command
to "worship God as a spirit." That the practice of promoting men to the
Godhead originated with minds on the external plane, and evinces a want
of spiritual development, is clearly set forth by the author of "The
Nineteenth Century" (a Christian writer) who tells us, "The idea of the
primitive ages were wholly sensuous, and the masses did not believe in
anything except that which they could touch, see, hear and taste." A
true description, no doubt, of the ancient pagan worshipers of demigods.
But we warn the Christian reader not to cast anchor here, for we have
at our elbow abundance of Christian testimony from the pens of the very
oracles of the church to prove that the same state of things, the
same state of society, the same state of mind, the same proclivity for
God-making, existed with the people among whom Christ was born, and
that it was owing to this sensuous, idolatrous state of mind among his
disciples that he received the homage and title of a God.
Hence the famous Archbishop Tillotson says, "Another very common notion,
and rife in the heathen world, and a great source of their idolatry, was
their deification of great men fit to be worshiped as Gods."... "There
was a great inclination in mankind to the worship of a visible Deity.
So God was pleased to appear in our nature, that they who were fond of a
visible Deity might have one, even a true and natural incarnation of God
the Father, the express image of his person." Now, we enjoin the reader
to mark this testimony well, and impress it indelibly upon his memory.
According to this orthodox Christian bishop, Jesus Christ appeared on
earth as a God in condescension to the wishes of a people too devoid of
spirituality, and too strongly inclined to idolatry, to worship God as a
spirit. For he admits the worship of a God-man or a man-God is a species
of idolatry. This tells the whole story of the apotheosis of "the man
Christ Jesus." We have no doubt but that here is suggested one of the
true causes of his elevation to the Deityship. Again he says, "The world
was mightily bent on addressing their requests and supplications, not to
the Deity immediately, but by some Mediator between the Gods and men."
(See Wadsworth's Eccles. Biog. p. 172.) Here, then, we have the most
conclusive proof that the belief in mediators is of pagan origin. We
will now hear from another archbishop on this subject. In his "Caution
to the Times" (p, 71 ), Archbishop Whately says, "As the Infinite Being
is an object too remote and incomprehensible for our minds to dwell
upon, he has manifested himself in his Son, the man Jesus Christ"
Precisely so 1 just the kind of reasoning employed to account for the
worship of man-Gods among the heathen. This logic fits one case as well
as the other.
The Christian writer F. D. Maurice declares in like manner, "We accept
the fact of the incarnation (of Jesus Christ), because we feel that it
is impossible to know the absolute invisible God without an incarnation,
as man needs to know him, and craves to know him." (Logical Essay, p.
79.) Here is more pagan logic--the same reasoning they employed to prove
the divinity of their Saviors and demigods. And the Rev. Dr. Thomas
Arnold declares, "It (the incarnation of Christ) was very necessary,
especially at a time when men were so accustomed to worship their
highest Gods under the form of men" (Sermon on Christian Life, p. 61.)
Let the reader attentively observe the explicit avowal here made, and
mark well its pregnant inferences. He makes Jesus Christ come into the
world in condescension to the idolatrous rivalry of the Jews to be up
with the heathen nations in worshiping God in the form of man; that
is, the founders of Christianity, having been Jews, disclosed the true
Jewish character in running after and adopting the customs of heathen
countries then so rife--that of hunting up a great man, and making him
a God--which was only one case out of many of the Jews adopting some
of the numerous forms of idolatry and other religious customs of their
heathen neighbors. Their whole history, as set forth in the Bible,
proves, as we have shown in another chapter, that they were strongly
prone to such acts. It is not strange, therefore, that they should and
did convert "the man Christ Jesus" into a God. We will now listen to
another Christian writer, the notable and noteworthy Dr. T. Chambers.
"Whatever the falsely or superstitiously fearful imagination conjures up
because of God being at a distance, can only be dispelled by God being
brought nigh to us.... The veil which hides the unseen God from the eyes
of mortals must be somehow withdrawn." (Select Works, vol. iii. p. 161.)
Most significant indeed is this species of reasoning. It is the same
kind of logic which had led to the promotion of more than a score of
great men to the Godhead among the ancient heathen. "The veil which
hides the unseen God must be removed'" says Dr. Chambers; and so had
reasoned in soliloquy a thousand pagans long before, when determined to
worship men for Gods. It is simply saying, "We are too carnally-minded
to worship God in spirit; we must and will have a God of flesh and
blood--a God who can be recognized by the external senses;" he must
"become flesh, and dwell amongst us." (See John i. 14.) Our author
continues: "Now all this (removing the veil from the unseen God) has
been done once, and done only once in the person of Jesus Christ."
(Ibid.) Mistake, most fatal mistake, brother Chambers! It has been done
more than a score of times in various heathen countries--a fact which
proves you ignorant of oriental history.
Now let the reader mark the foregoing citations from standard Christian
authors, setting forth some of the reasons which led the founders of
Christianity to adopt a visible man-God in their worship in the
person of Jesus Christ, Language could hardly be used to prove more
conclusively that the whole thing grew out of an idolatrous proclivity
to man-worship,--that is, the gross, sensuous, carnally-minded
propensity to worship an extetnal, visible God,--proving, with the
corroborative evidence of many other facts, that they were not a whit
above the heathen in spiritual development. The reason employed by the
Thibetan for the worship of the Hindoo Chrishna as a God, tells the
whole story of the worship and the deification of Jesus Christ "We could
not always have God behind the clouds; so we had him come down where we
could see him." This is the same kind of reasoning made use of by the
Christian writer above quoted, all of which discloses a state of mind
among both heathen and Christians that would not long rest satisfied
without deifying somebody, in order to have a visible God to worship. And
hence Christians deified "the man Christ Jesus" for this purpose.
"The more externally minded (says Fleurbach), the greater was the
determination to worship a personal God"--God in the form of man. And as
the Jewish founders of Christianity (as every chapter of their history
demonstrates) were dwelling on the external plane, it was not an act
of direct innovation, therefore, for them to fall into the habit of
worshiping the personal Jesus as a God. It involved no serious incursion
on previous thoughts or habits. And warped and blinded, indeed, must be
that mind which cannot here discover the true key to the apotheosis of
Jesus--one of the real causes of his being stripped of his manhood, and
advanced to the Godhead. It was as naturally to be expected from the
then state of the religious world, and the state of the Jewish mind
concerned in the founding of Christianity, as that an autumnal crop of
fruit should succeed the bloom of spring.
Let it be specially noted, that all the Christian writers above cited
tell us, in effect, that God sent his Son Jesus Christ into the world
to be worshiped as a God in condescension to the ignorance and
superstitious tendencies, and we will add, idolatrous proclivities of
the people. From this stand-point we challenge the world to show why
God may not have sent the oriental Saviors into the world for the
same reason--that is, in condescension to the prejudices of the devout
worshipers under the heathen systems. Why, then, is there not as
much probability that he did do so? Why would he not be as likely to
accommodate their ignorance and prejudices in this way as those of the
founders of the Christian system. This question we shall keep standing
before the Christian world till it is answered, and we challenge them to
meet it, and overthrow it if they can.
3. Men deified on account of mental and moral superiority.
The ancient nations, in their entire ignorance of the philosophy of the
human mind, and the laws controlling its actions, always accounted for
the appearance of great men amongst them by supposing them to be Gods.
Every country occasionally produced a man, who, by virtue of natural
superiority, rose so high in the scale of moral and intellectual
greatness as to fill the ideal of the people with respect to the
characteristics of a God. So low, so limited, so narrow, so greatly
circumscribed were the conceptions of deity, of the undeveloped and
intellectually dwarfed minds of all religious countries in that age,
that a man had to rise but a few degrees above the common level of the
populace to become a God. He could "easily fill the bill," and exhibit
all the qualities they assigned to the highest God in the heavens.
And this is as true of the Jewish mind as that of any other nation, a
portion of whom adored Jesus as a God. Or if they lacked anything in
natural inclination, they made it up by imitation, a propensity which
they possessed in no small degree, that is, a proneness to imitate the
customs of other nations.
Mr. Higgins tells us that "men of brilliant intellects and high moral
attainments, and great healers (of which Christ was one), were almost
certain to be deified." In like manner Archbishop Tillotson says, "they
deified famous and eminent persons by advancing them after their death
to the dignity of an inferior kind of Gods fit to be worshiped by men
on earth." Mark the expression, "after their death" We have shown in
another chapter that Jesus Christ was not generally considered a God,
even by his followers, till more than three hundred years after
his death, when Constantine declared him to be "God of very God"--a
circumstance of itself sufficient to establish the conclusion that
he did not possess this character. A God would be adored as such by
everybody while living, but a man's worshipers rise up after his death,
as in the case of "the man Christ Jesus." Great mental endowments,
or great moral attainments, would, in most countries, bring the most
ignorant down on their knees to worship such a man as a God. But it
re-quired years, and sometimes centuries, to get him fully established
among the Gods. This is as true of Jesus Christ as the other
human-descended deities. Whatever amount of homage Jesus might have
received while living, any person who will institute a thorough,
unbiased scrutiny in the case will discover that it was his great
healing powers and superior mental qualities which finally deified him.
His ignorant admirers knew no way of accounting for such extraordinary
qualities but to suppose him to be the embodiment of infinite wisdom.
Like the Chinaman who exclaimed, "See the God in that man," when an
Englishman cured a young woman of partial blindness by anointing her eyes
with kerosene. Such a deed would deify almost any man, in almost any
country, before the dawn of letters and the recognition of the science
of mind.
The missionary Rev. D. O. Allen's method of accounting for the
deification of the Hindoo God Chrishna is so suggestive, that we here
present it. He tells us that "as the exploits ascribed to Chrishna
exceed mere human power, the difficulty was removed by placing him among
the incarnations of Vishnu." (India, Ancient and Modern, p. 26.) Exactly
so! We are glad of such historic information. We hope the Christian
reader will note the lesson it suggests. For certainly, every reader,
who has not had his reason shipwrecked on the shoals of a blind and
dogmatic theology, can see here a key to unlock the great mystery of
the Christian incarnation--the divinity of Jesus Christ As some of the
exploits of Chrishna were supposed to "exceed mere human power," we
are told the difficulty was explained by imagining him to be a God. How
powerful the suggestion! how conclusive the explanation, not only for
the Godhood of this sin-atoning Savior, but for that of "our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ," and all the other Lords, and Gods, and Saviors of
antiquity! A single hint will sometimes explain whole volumes of obscure
history, as does this of the Rev. Christian Hindoo missionary D. O.
Allen. And surely, most deplorably blinded by superstition must be the
two hundred millions of Christ worshipers, the three hundred millions
who worship Chrishna, the one hundred and twenty million adorers of
Confucius, the fifty millions of suppliants of Mithra the Mediator, and
the one hundred and fifty millions of followers of Mahomet, who cannot
see here a satisfactory solution of the deityship of all these Gods, and
all the other man-Gods of antiquity.
The question is sometimes asked, How could two hundred millions of
people come to believe that Jesus was a God merely because of his
superiority as a man? We will answer by pointing to the history of the
Hindoo Chrishna, and by asking the same question with respect to his
Godhead. How could three hundred millions of people be brought to
believe in his divinity, and worship him as a God, merely because he was
a superior human being? One question is as easily answered as the other,
and posterity will answer both questions alike. When we observe it
taught as an important and easily learned lesson of history, and one
based on a thousand facts, that no man could rise to intellectual
greatness or moral distinction in the era in which Christ was born
without being advanced to the dignity of a God, and worshiped as such,
it is really a source of humility and sorrow to every unshackled lover
of truth and humanity to reflect that there are so many millions of
people whose mental vision is so beclouded by a dogmatic and inexorable
theology that they cannot see the logical potency of these facts,--that
they cannot be even moved by this great and overwhelming amount of
evidence against the divinity dogma, and observe that it explodes it
into a thousand fragments, but still cling to the delusion that "the
man Christ Jesus," with all the human qualities and human frailties
with which his own history (the Gospels) invest him, was nevertheless
a God,--ay, the monstrous delusion that any being possessing a _finite
form_ could be an _infinite being_--a most self-evident and shocking
absurdity. And we challenge all Christendom to show, or approximate one
inch toward showing, that there was sufficient difference between Christ
and Chrishna to require us to accept one as a man and the other as a
God. It cannot be done.
We have shown, then, by the foregoing exposition, that one cause of the
deification of men was simply an attempt to solve the problem of
human greatness,--an attempt to account for the moral and intellectual
superiority of men which enabled them to perform deeds and otherwise
exhibit a character far above the capacity of the multitude to
comprehend, and which they could find no other way to account for than
to suppose them to be Gods, while the low and groveling conceptions
which most religious nations, and especially the Jews, had formed of
the character and essential attributes of the Infinite Deity (often
investing him with the most ignoble human attributes, human passions,
and human imperfections), made it perfectly easy to convert their great
men by imagination into Gods. The Jews represented God not only as
a coming down from heaven in propria persona, and walking, talking,
wrestling, &c., as a man (on one occasion we are told he and Jacob
scuffled all night), but he is often represented as acting the part of
a wicked man, such as lying (see 2 Chron. v. 22), getting mad (see Deut.
i. 37), swearing, sanctioning the highhanded and demoralizing crimes of
stealing (see Ex. iii. 2), of robbery (see Ex. xii. 36), of murder (see
Deut. xiii. 2) and even fornication (see Gen. xxxi. 1, and Num. xxxi)
and thus they invested Diety with such mean, low, despicable attributes
as to reduce his moral character to a level with the most immoral man in
society. So that it was very easy, if not very natural, to elevate their
great men (if it really required any elevation) to a level with their
God.
Men and Gods were in character and conception so nearly alike, that it
was easy to bring them on a level, or to mistake one for the other. And
hence it is we find an incarnated God, Savior, Son of God, Redeemer,
&c., figuring in the early history of nearly every oriental religious
nation whose name and history has descended to us. Indeed, the practice
of deifying men, or mistaking men for Gods, was once so common, so
nearly universal, that it must require a mind very ignorant of oriental
history to adore Jesus Christ as having been the only character of this
kind who figured in the religious world. It was, as before suggested,
deemed the most rational way of accounting for the marked superiority
among men, to suppose that some men had a divine birth, and were
begotten by the great Infinite Deity himself, and descended to the earth
through the purest human (virgin) channel.
As Mr. Higgins remarks, "Every person who possessed a striking
superiority of mind, either for talent or goodness, was supposed
anciently to have a portion of the divine mind or essence incorporated
or incarnated in him." The Jews had a number of men whose names imply a
participation in the divine nature, among which we will cite Elijah and
Elisha (El-i-jah and El-i-sha), El being the Hebrew name or term for
God, while Jah is Jehovah (see Ps. lxviii. 4), and Sha means a Savior.
Elijah, then, is an approximation to God--Jehovah, and Elisha is
God--a Savior. The character of men and Gods were cast in molds so
approximately similar, so nearly identical, as to make the transition,
or change from one to the other, so slight and easy; either of men into
Gods or Gods into men, that several nations went so far as to teach
that a man might by his own natural exertions, his own voluntary powers,
raise himself to a level with the Diety, and thereby become a God.
Mr. Ritter in his "History of Ancient Philosophy" (Chap. II.), tells
us that some of the Budhist sect held that "a man by freeing himself
by holiness of conduct from the obstacles of nature, may deliver his
fellows from the corruption of the times, and become a benefactor and
redeemer of his race, and also even become a God"--a "Budha"--i. e., a
Savior and Son of God. Singular enough that the Christian should
object to this doctrine as being rather blasphemous, when his own bible
abundantly and explicitly teaches the same doctrine in effect!
We find the same thing substantially taught over and over again in the
Christian Scriptures. "Be ye perfect even as your Father in heaven is
perfect" (Matt. v. 18), requires a man to become morally perfect as God,
which is all that the Budhist precept requires or contemplates, and no
man can become perfect as God without becoming a God. But we are not
left to mere inference in the matter, We have the doctrine several times
expressed and unquestionably taught in the Christian bible of man's
power and prerogative to become either a God or Son of God. "Said I not
that ye are Gods?" (Ex. iv. 16). "Behold now, we are the sons of God."
(i John i. 2.)
Here is the Budhist doctrine as explicitly stated as it can be taught.
It is, then, a Christian bible doctrine as well as a pagan doctrine,
that man can become a God, and that God can be born of woman, and
thereby invested with all the frail and imperfect attributes of man. It
cannot be considered a matter of marvel, therefore, that so many of the
good, the great, and the wise men of almost every country, including
"the man Christ Jesus," should be honored and adored with the titles
of Deity, and worshiped as God absolute, "Son of God," "Savior,"
"Redeemer," "Intercessor" "Mediator," &c.
4. God comes down and is incarnated to fight and conquer the devil. We
will proceed to enumerate other causes and motives which conspired in
various cases to invest some one or more of the great men of a nation
with divine honors, and adore them as veritable Gods and Saviors "come
down to us in the form of men." It was a tenant of faith with most of
the ancient religions, that almost at the dawn of human existence a
devil or evil principle found its way into the world, to the great
discomfiture of man and the no small annoyance of the Supreme Creator
himself, and that hence there must needs be a Savior, a Redeemer, an
Intercessor to combat and if possible "destroy the devil and his works."
For this purpose appeared the Savior Chrishna, in India, the Savior
Osiris, in Egypt, the God or Mediator Mithra, in Persia, the Redeemer
Quexalcote, in Mexico, the Savior Jesus Christ, in Judea, &c. In the
initiatory chapter on the transgression and fall of man, some of the
oriental bibles graphically describe the scene of "the war in heaven"--a
counterpart to the story of St. John, as found in the twelfth chapter
of Revelation, wherein Michael and the dragon are represented as the
captains and commander-in-chief of their respective embattled hosts,
and in which the former was crowned as victor in the contest, as he
succeeded in vanquishing and "casting out the evil one." In the pagan
military drama the scene of the war in heaven is transferred to the
earth. A God, a Savior (a Son of God), comes down to put a stop to the
machinations of the "Evil One," i. e., to "destroy the devil and his
works" as we are told Christ came for that purpose. (1 John iii. 8 ) See
the Author's "Biography of Satan."
The Egyptian story runs thus: "Osiris appeared on earth to benefit
mankind, and after he had performed the duties of his mission, and had
fallen a sacrifice to Typhon (the devil, or evil principle), which,
however, he eventually overcame ('overcame the wicked one,' 1 John ii.
11), by rising from the dead, after being crucified, he became the
judge of mankind in a future state." (See Kerrick's "Ancient Egypt",
also Wilkinson's "Egypt.")
The Budhist, or Hindoo, version of the story is on this wise: "The
prince (of darkness), or evil spirit, Ravana, or Mahesa, got into a
contest and a war with the divine hero Rama, in which the latter proved
victorious, and put to flight the army of 'the wicked one,' but not till
after considerable injury had been done to the human family, and the
whole order of the universe subverted; to rectify which, and to achieve
a final and complete triumph over Ravana (the devil) and his works,
and thus save the human race from utter destruction, the gods besought
Vishnu (the second person of the Trinity) to descend to the earth and
take upon himself the form and flesh of man. And it was argued that as
the mission appertained to man, the God Vishnu, when he descended to the
earth in the capacity of a Savior, should become half man and half God,
and that the most feasible way to accomplish this end was for him to be
born of a woman."
And that the glory and honor of his triumph over Ravana, the devil,
would be greater if achieved in this capacity than if he were to come
down from heaven and conquer Ravana wholly with his attributes as a God,
or wholly in his divine character--i.e., as absolute God, uninvested
with human nature. The suggestion was approved by Vishnu, who descended
and took upon himself "the form of man" ("the form of a servant"--Phil.
ii. 7). And that his metamorphosis or earth-born life might be
the purer, it was decided that he should be born of a woman wholly
uncontaminated with man--that is, a virgin. And thus, far back in the
midnight of mythology and fable, originated the story of divine Saviors
and Gods being born of virgins--a conception now found incorporated in
the religious histories of various ancient nations.
And now let us observe how substantially the Christian story of a Savior
conforms to the above. Jesus, like the Saviors of India and Egypt, was
believed to be a man-God--half man and half God, and reputedly he came
into the world, like them, to "destroy the devil and his works," or
the works of the devil--that is, to put an end to the evil or malignant
principle introduced into the world by the serpent in the garden
of Eden; as it is declared "the seed of the woman shall bruise the
serpent's head" (Gen. iii. 15)--which is interpreted as referring to
Christ. And like these and various other pagan Saviors Jesus is assigned
the highest and most ennobling human origin--a birth from a virgin. And,
as in the instances above named, Jesus had also several encounters with
the devil; first in the wilderness, then on a mountain, and finally,
like them, falls a sacrifice to his insidious, malignant power acting
through the agency and mediumship of Judas Iscariot; for his betrayal
is ascribed wholly to Satan, whom John called the serpent, entering into
Judas and prompting the act. (See Rev. xii. 3). And thus Christ, like
the other saviors, falls a victim to the serpentine or satanic power
acting through the instrumentality of a Judas Iscariot; but finally,
triumphed, like the Savior of Egypt (Osiris), by rising from the
dead--"the first fruits of immortality." And thus the stories run
parallel--the more modern Christian with the more ancient pagan.
(For a full exposition of the belief and traditions
respecting a devil and a hell in all ages and all countries,
see the Author's "Biography of Satan.")