PAGAN ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE SUPREME DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST.
IT will be demonstrated that the doctrine of the supreme divinity of
Jesus Christ is of Pagan origin, if it can be proved, 1st, That the
Church of Rome, from which the self-called Orthodox Protestant Churches
borrowed this doctrine, in the sixteenth century, did not hold it from
the apostles of Jesus Christ; and, 2d, That the Church of Rome uses, in
her adoration to Jesus Christ, rites and ceremonies of a striking
similarity with those used by the Pagans, in their adoration to the sun,
under the names of Bacchus, Hercules, Osiris, Mithra, Atys, etc.
But it can be proved, 1st, That the Church of Rome, from which the
self-called Orthodox Protestant Churches, in the sixteenth century,
borrowed the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ, did not
hold it from the apostles of Jesus Christ; and, 2d, That the Church of
Rome uses, in her adoration to Jesus Christ, rites and ceremonies of a
striking similarity with those used by the Pagans in their adoration to
the sun, under the names of Bacchus, Hercules, Osiris, Mithra, Atys,
etc.
1st. We prove that the Church of Rome, from which the self-called
Orthodox Protestant Churches, in the sixteenth century, borrowed the
doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ, did not hold it from
the apostles of Jesus Christ.
It will be evident that the Church of Rome, from which the self-called
Orthodox Protestant Churches, in the sixteenth century, borrowed the
doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ, did not hold it from
the apostles of Jesus Christ, if, until nearly the end of the third
century, the various Christian denominations, or sects, did not believe
the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ. But, until nearly
the end of the third century, the various Christian denominations, or
sects, did not believe the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus
Christ.
This we prove:--
We request the readers to bear in mind, in reading this chapter, that
we have extracted all the proofs and statements brought forth therein,
from the works of the Roman Catholic priest Bergier, which we have
studied in our Catholic theological school; from the works of
the Rev. Father Jesuit Feller; from the History of the Church,
by Berrault-Ber-Castel, a Roman Catholic priest; and from the
Ecclesiastical History, by the Roman Catholic clergyman Fleury. Those
proofs and statements can be verified, in the first two writers, at the
articles of the sects, and of their authors, arranged in alphabetical
order; and in the other authors at the dates of the centuries and years.
Bergier says: "The Cerinthians pretended that Jesus Christ was born from
Joseph and Mary like other men; but that he was endowed with a superior
wisdom and holiness; that when he was baptized, Christ, or the Son of
God, had descended on him under the form of a dove, and had revealed to
him God the Father, till then unknown, in order that he might make him
known to men." The Cerinthians sprung up, according to St. Epiphane, in
the middle of the first century, but according to St. Ireneus, at about
the year 88.
Therefore the Cerinthians did not believe the doctrine of the supreme
divinity of Jesus Christ.
Bergier says: "The Carpocratians supposed the pre-existence of the
souls; pretended that they had sinned in an anterior life; that as a
punishment of their crimes they had been condemned to be shut up in
bodies.... In their belief, the soul of Jesus Christ, before her
incarnation, had been more faithful to God than the others. It is for
this reason that God had endowed her with more knowledge than the souls
of other men; also with more strength both to defeat the geniuses
opposed to humanity, and to return to heaven against their will. God,
they said, grants the same favor to those who love Jesus Christ; and
who, like him, know the dignity of their souls. Thus the Carpocratians
considered Jesus Christ as being simply a man, though more perfect than
the others; they believed that he was the son of Joseph and Mary, and
confessed his miracles and sufferings. They are not accused of denying
the resurrection, but of denying the general resurrection; and of
holding that the soul only (not the body) of Jesus Christ, had ascended
to the heavens." The sect of the Carpocratians commenced towards the end
of the first century.
Therefore the Carpocratians did not believe the doctrine of the supreme
divinity of Jesus Christ.
Bergier writes thus about the Ebionites: "It is very probable that
(although some authors say that they date from the year 72 of the first
century) they commenced to be known only in the year 103, or even later,
under the reign of Adrian, after the total ruin of Jerusalem, in the
year 119; that the Ebionites and the Nazarenes are two different sects;
it is the opinion of Mosheim, Hist. Christ., soec. 1, par. 58, soec. 2,
par. 39.... The Ebionites considered Jesus Christ as being simply a man
born from Joseph and Mary."
Consequently the Ebionites did not believe the doctrine of the supreme
divinity of Jesus Christ.
The Christian sect of the Basilidians was founded in the beginning of
the second century by Basilide of Alexandria, Feller says; he had been
converted from the philosophy of Pythagoras and Plato to Christianism.
Bergier writes about the Basilidians: "They believed that God had sent
his Son, or intelligence, under the name of Jesus Christ, to liberate
those who would believe in him; that Jesus Christ had really performed
the miracles ascribed to him by the Christians; but that he had only a
fantastical body and the appearances of a man."
Therefore the Basilidians did not believe the doctrine of the supreme
divinity of Jesus Christ.
The sect of the Marcionites was established, in the middle of the second
century, by Marcio, the son of a bishop of Pontus. The Marcionites held
that God, principle of the spirits, had given to one of them, Jesus
Christ, the appearances of humanity; and had sent him to the earth to
abolish the law and the prophets; to teach to men that their souls come
from heaven, and that they cannot be restored to happiness except in
reuniting to God.
Therefore the Marcionites did not believe the doctrine of the supreme
divinity of Jesus Christ.
Valentin founded the sect of Valentinians in 140. He was an Egyptian,
and had been converted from philosophy to Christianism. Bergier, after
lengthily exposing the doctrines of his sect, says, "Consequently the
Valentinians neither admitted the eternal generation of the Word, nor
his incarnation, nor the divinity of Jesus Christ, nor the redemption of
mankind, in the proper sense. In their opinion, the redemption of
mankind by Jesus Christ did not extend farther than this--Jesus Christ
had come to the world to liberate men from the tyranny of the Eons, and
had given them examples and lessons of virtue, and had taught them the
true means of obtaining eternal happiness."
Therefore the Valentinians did not believe the doctrine of the supreme
divinity of Jesus Christ.
The Ptolemaïtes did not believe the doctrine of Jesus Christ, and held
that he was but the Son of God.
St. Epiphane in his work Hære. 36, and Bergier, inform us that the
Heracleonites, whose chief was Heracleon, and who were widely spread,
particularly in Sicily, believed that the Word divine did not create the
world, but that it had been created by one of the Eons, or spirits. In
their opinion, there were two worlds, the one corporeal and visible, and
the other spiritual and invisible, and they only ascribed the formation
of the latter to Jesus Christ, who was one of the greatest Eons, or
spirits. The Heracleonites were organized as a sect in the year 140.
The Colarbasians did not believe the doctrine of the supreme divinity of
Jesus Christ.
Sanderus and Bergier say, that the Barules professed to believe that the
Son of God had but a fantastical body; that there was no original sin;
that all our souls had been created before the world, and all had sinned
in that former state of existence; and that Jesus Christ was not God.
The Bardesanists, thus named from their founder, Bardesanes, a Syrian,
who lived in the second century, became a large sect. Beausobre in his
History of Manicheanism, tome 2, book 4, chap. 9, writes, that they
believed in two Principles, originators of all things, the one good and
the other bad. They denied that the eternal Word, or Son of God, had
taken a human flesh; they said that he had taken only a celestial and
aerial body. They denied the future resurrection of the body. Bergier,
Feller, etc., say the same.
Then the Bardesanists did not believe the doctrine of the supreme
divinity of Jesus Christ.
The Marcosians rejected the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus
Christ, and held only that he was one of the principal Eons, or spirits.
The Marcosians were founded by Marc in the second century.
The Theodotians, Bergier says, believed that Jesus Christ was not God
but a man; that he was above the other men only by his miraculous birth,
and by his extraordinary virtues. Theodote, a native of Bysance, founded
them in the second century.
The Artemonians also denied the doctrine of the supreme divinity of
Jesus Christ.
The Docetes held that Jesus Christ was only the Son of God, and that he
had but apparently suffered humiliations, torments, and death.
The Tatianists did not believe the doctrine of the supreme divinity of
Jesus Christ. Tatian gave them his name when he organized them as a
Christian denomination, in the second century. Bergier pretends that
some passages of the writings of this learned author can be understood
of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ, but Fauste Socin, and others,
in the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum, in ten volumes, in folio, proves
the contrary; and at the same time they prove that Clement of Alexandria
and other Fathers of the second century disbelieved the doctrine of the
supreme divinity of Jesus Christ. Bergier confesses, however, that it is
doubtful that Tatian had been Orthodox about the generation of the Word.
The Apellites denied the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus
Christ. In their belief there was but one God, who sent to the world his
Son, who took a body not in the womb of the virgin Mary, but from the
four elements. Their sect widely spread in the East during the second
century.
Bergier says, writing about the doctrines of the Ophites, a Christian
sect of the second century: "In their belief, matter was eternal; the
world was created against the will of God, and was governed by a
multitude of spirits who govern the world. Christ united to the man
Jesus to destroy the empire of the Demiourge, or creator of the world."
Therefore the Ophites did not believe the doctrine of the supreme
divinity of Jesus Christ.
One of the doctrines of the Cainites was, that Jesus Christ was a spirit
sent by God to save the world.
The Hermogenians, or followers of Hermogene, a Stoician philosopher,
converted to Christianism at the end of the second century, believed
that matter was eternal; that there was but one God, who had sent a
spirit, Jesus Christ, to correct the evil that was among men.
"The Hermians, or disciples of Hermias," Bergier says, "taught that
matter is eternal; that God is the soul of the world; that Jesus Christ,
ascending to the heavens left his body in the Sun, from whom he had
taken it; that the soul of man is composed of fire and of subtle air;
that the birth of children is the resurrection, and that the world is
hell." Bergier adds, in another article, that they believed that there
was but one God, who had sent to the world a spirit, Jesus Christ.
Therefore the Hermians did not believe the doctrine of the supreme
divinity of Jesus Christ.
Bergier, writing about the Sethians, says: "They said that the soul of
Seth had passed to the body of Jesus Christ, and that Seth and Jesus
Christ were the same person."
St. Augustine informs us that the Severians did not believe the doctrine
of the resurrection of the flesh, and rejected the Old Testament. They
did not believe that Jesus Christ was God himself.
The Encratites never held that Jesus Christ was God. Bergier says, "They
did not believe that the Son of God was truly born from the virgin
Mary."
The Valesians rejected the doctrine that Jesus Christ was God himself.
Bergier writes: "The Hieracites, heretics of the third century, were
established by Hierax, or Hieracas, a physician by profession, born at
Leontium, or Leontople, in Egypt. St. Epiphane, who relates and refutes
the errors of this Sectarian, confesses that the austerity of his morals
was exemplary; that he was familiar with the Greek and Egyptian
sciences; that he had thoroughly studied the Scriptures, and that he was
gifted with a persuasive eloquence. He denied the resurrection of the
body, and admitted but a spiritual resurrection of the souls. He
confessed that Jesus Christ had been generated by the Father; that the
Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father as well as the Son; but he had
dreamed that the Holy Ghost had taken a human body under the form of
Melchisedek. He denied that Jesus Christ had a true human body."
Therefore the Hieracites denied the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ.
Bergier thus writes about the Samosatians: "They were disciples and
followers of Paul of Samosate, bishop of Antioch, at or about the year
262. This heretic taught that there is in God one sole person, namely,
the Father; that the Son and the Holy Spirit are only two attributes of
God, under which he manifested himself to men: that Jesus Christ is not
God, but a man to whom God has communicated his wisdom in an
extraordinary manner."
Therefore the Samosatians did not believe the doctrine of the supreme
divinity of Jesus Christ.
The Manicheans denied the divinity of Jesus Christ, and believed that
Jesus Christ had not a real body while on earth. His soul, they said,
was of a nature similar to the nature of the souls of other men, though
more perfect. He was the Son of God.
Therefore the Manicheans denied the doctrine of the supreme divinity of
Jesus Christ.
All the above sects composed nearly the whole Christian body, during the
first three centuries; and, as shown to the reader, every one either
ignored or denied the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ.
Then it remains evident that the Church of Rome, from which the
self-called Orthodox Protestant Churches, in the sixteenth century,
borrowed the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ, did not
hold it from the apostles of Jesus Christ.
_Confirmatur._--As a confirmation of this last and very important
consequence, we are to prove,
1st. That in the Church of Rome, herself, the doctrine of the supreme
divinity of Jesus Christ was established only at about the year 180.
_Remark._--By the Church of Rome, we mean only the church whose bishop
(who after centuries assumed the title of Pope,) was at Rome, and which,
then, did not extend farther than the province of Rome, and a few other
occidental places.
2d. That in the council of Nice, held in 325, despite the efforts of
the Bishop of Rome; and despite the tyranny of the emperor Constantine
I., who invoked the council at his own expense, attended, surrounded,
and enforced it with military force, it was with the greatest difficulty
that the Church of Rome obtained, from the bishops who composed it, a
decision in favor of the doctrine she held, that Jesus Christ was God
himself.
3d. That it was only long after the council of Nice that its decision,
in favor of the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ,
prevailed among the churches which depended on the Emperor of
Constantinople, and on the Bishop of Rome.
4th. We will also present a succinct view of the large number of
Christians, who, without the pale of the communion of Rome, preserved
the former belief that Jesus Christ was not God.
1st. We prove that in the Church of Rome herself, the doctrine of the
supreme divinity of Jesus Christ was established only at about the year
180.
Bergier himself makes the following confession: "An ancient author, who
is believed to be Caïus, bishop of Rome, who had written against
Artemon, and of whom Eusebe has related the words, Ecclesiastical
History, book 5, chap. 22, seems to confound together the Theodotians
and the Artemonians.... They maintain, he says, that their doctrine is
not new; that it has been taught by the apostles, and that it has been
followed in the church until the pontificates of Victor and of Zephyrine
his successor, but that since that time the truth has been altered."
Bergier adds, "The Theodotians believed that Jesus Christ was a man, and
not God, that Jesus Christ was above the other men only by his
miraculous birth, and by his extraordinary virtues." Also, Bergier says,
that, although Theodote was a native of Bysance, he resided in Rome,
where he preached the same doctrine as Theodote, at least in regard to
Jesus Christ being a man and not God.
Therefore in the Church of Rome herself, the doctrine of the supreme
divinity of Jesus Christ was established only at about the year 180.
2d. We prove that in the council of Nice, held in 325, despite the
efforts of the Bishop of Rome; and despite the tyranny of the emperor
Constantine I., who convoked the council at his own expense, attended,
surrounded, and enforced it with military force, it was with the
greatest difficulty that the Church of Rome obtained, from the bishops
who composed it, a decision in favor of the doctrine she held, that
Jesus Christ was God.
Arius, a priest of Alexandria, surprised at hearing Alexander, his
bishop, teaching in an assembly of priests, that Jesus Christ was God,
protested against this new doctrine. An animated controversy between him
and Alexander, and then between the friends of the Church of Rome,
which held this doctrine, and other churches which did not, ensued. The
council of Nice assembled, and there seventeen bishops boldly faced the
legate of Sylvestre, the emperor Constantine and his military force; and
they sided with Arius. Eusebe, bishop of Cesarea, the most learned of
the bishops who composed the council, sided with Arius. He is the same
Eusebe who wrote the Evangelical Preparation and Demonstration, in two
volumes in folio; who wrote an Ecclesiastical History, the Life of
Constantine, a Chronic and a Commentary on the Psalms and on Isaiah.
Constantine forced them either to yield and to acquiesce to the doctrine
of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ, or to be expelled from their
episcopal sees; and Arius, exiled, had to retire in Palestine.
Consequently, in the council of Nice, held in 325, despite the efforts
of the Bishop of Rome; and despite the tyranny of the emperor
Constantine I., who convoked the council at his own expense, attended,
surrounded, and enforced it with military force, it was with the
greatest difficulty that the Church of Rome obtained, from the bishops
who composed it, a decision in favor of the doctrine she held, that
Jesus Christ was God himself.
3d. We prove that it was only long after the council of Nice, that its
decision in favor of the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus
Christ, prevailed among the churches which depended on the Emperor of
Constantinople, and on the Bishop of Rome.
Bergier, despite his partiality in favor of the Church of Rome, is
obliged to make the following avowal:
"The anathema pronounced against Arianism did not destroy it; _the
larger portion of those_ (bishops) _who had signed the decision of the
council, only for fear of being exiled, remained attached to the party
of Arius_. Constantine himself, influenced by an Arian priest,
recommended to him by his sister Constantia, at her death bed, and who
had gained his confidence, consented to the repeal of Arius from his
exile, in 328. This heretic reunited to his partisans, and commenced
spreading his errors with even more earnestness than before. But St.
Athanase, who had succeeded to Alexander in the episcopal see of
Alexandria, constantly refused to commune with him, and by this firmness
displeased Constantine I.
"Since that time the Arians became a redoubtable party. They held
several councils where they obtained the majority.... Arius died in a
tragic manner, in the year 337. After the death of Constantine I., in
337, the party of the Arians was alternatively the stronger, in ratio of
the less or greater protection extended to them or to the Orthodox by
the Emperors. Under Constance, who favored them, they filled the Orient
with seditions and troubles; but Constantine Junior and Constant, who
reigned in Occident, prevented Arianism from spreading. In 351,
Constance, who had become the master of the whole empire by the death of
his two brothers, protected Arianism more openly than before. Several
councils were held in Italy, in which the Arians had the majority; and
others, in which the Catholics had the superiority.... Julian, who was
emperor in 362, sided neither with one party nor with the other. Valens,
emperor of the Orient, in 364, favored and embraced Arianism; whereas
Valentinian, his brother, did all in his power to extirpate it from the
Occident.
"Gratian, and afterwards Theodose, proscribed Arianism from the whole
empire.... In the beginning of the fifth century, the Goths, the
Burgundians, and the Vandals, spread it in Gaul and in Africa. The
Visigoths introduced it in Spain, where it subsisted as long as the
kings of that country were Arians themselves, until the year 660.
"Arianism was to be revived in the sixteenth century. It is probable
that Arianism would have invaded the whole Orient if the Arians had been
united."
Therefore, it was only long after the Council of Nice, that its
decision, in favor of the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus
Christ, prevailed among the churches which depended on the Emperor of
Constantinople, and on the Bishop of Rome.
4th. We will also present a succinct view of the large number of
Christians, who, without the pale of the communion of Rome, preserved
the former belief that Jesus Christ was not God.
We have proved, in the course of this chapter, that the following
Christian sects, or denominations, did not believe the doctrine of the
divinity of Jesus Christ: the Corinthians, the Carpocratians, the
Ebionites, the Basilidians, the Marcionites, the Valentinians, the
Ptolemaïtes, the Heracleonites, the Colarbasians, the Barules, the
Bardesanists, the Marcosians, the Theodotians, the Artemonians, the
Docetes, the Tatianists, the Apellites, the Ophites, the Cainites, the
Hermogenians, the Hermians, the Sethians, the Severians, the Encratites,
the Valesians, the Hieracites, the Samosatians, and the Manicheans. But
nearly all these Christian sects of the first three centuries outlived
the Council of Nice, and preserved through centuries the doctrine that
Jesus Christ was not God himself: this is the unanimous testimony of
historians.
From the four heads of convincing historical proofs brought forth in
this _confirmatur_, we draw once more the conclusion:
1st. Then the Church of Rome, from which the self-called Orthodox
Protestant Churches, in the sixteenth century, borrowed the doctrine of
the divinity of Jesus Christ, did not hold it from the apostles of Jesus
Christ.
2d. We prove the second proposition of the argument of this chapter,
namely, that the Church of Rome uses, in her adoration to Jesus Christ,
rites and ceremonies of a striking similarity with those used by the
Pagans in their adoration to the sun, under the names of Bacchus,
Hercules, Osiris, Mithra, Atys, etc.
Every year the Pagans celebrated with pomp the death of Bacchus. Those
celebrations were called Titanical, and celebrations of the perfect
night. They supposed that this god had been slain by the Giants; but
that his mother, or Ceres, had reunited his bones. To retrace his death
they killed a bull, whose raw flesh they ate, because Bacchus,
represented with the horns of an ox, had been thus torn by the Titans.
Julius-Firmicus, an orthodox author of the fourth century, who wrote
about the legend of Bacchus, says that the Pagans considered those
fictions as solar fables. He adds that the sun was irritated at being
thus worshiped: here, in being immersed into the Nile river, under the
names of Osiris and of Horus; there, in being mutilated under the names
of Atys and of Adonis; and in other places, in being boiled or roasted,
like Bacchus. The Bacchanals, or disorderly, noisy, tumultuous, and
frantic scenes took place.
St. Athanase, St. Augustine, Theophile, Athenagoras, Minutius-Felix,
Lactance, Firmicus, and other Christian writers of the first centuries,
as well as more ancient authors, describe the general mourning of the
Egyptians in the anniversary day of the death of Osiris. They describe
the ceremonies practiced on his tomb, and the tears shed thereon during
several days. The mysteries in which the representation of his death was
exhibited, and which took place during the night, were called mysteries
of night.
Likewise the death of Mithra was celebrated. To the usual magnificence
of his temples succeeded a gloomy sight. The priests, during the night,
carried his image in a tomb, and laid it on a litter, in the same manner
as the Phoenicians laid the image of Adonis. This ceremony was
accompanied with dismal songs, and with groans. The priests, after this
feigned expression of grief, kindled a flambeau, called sacred; anointed
the image of Mithra with chrisma, or with perfumes; and then one of
them, in a solemn and loud voice, pronounced these words: "Cheer up,
holy mourners, your god is come again to life; his sorrows and his
sufferings will save you."
Julius Firmicus, who relates this, exclaims: "Why do you exhort those
unfortunate to rejoice? Why do you deceive them with false promises? The
death of your god is known; but his new life is not proved. There is no
oracle that ascertains his resurrection; he has not appeared to men
after his resurrection to prove his divinity. An idol you bury; upon an
idol you mourn; an idol you lift up from the tomb, and having expressed
your grief you rejoice," etc.
The Church of Rome practices alike ceremonies in celebrating the
anniversary day of the death of Jesus Christ. All the ornaments of each
church, the statues and images of saints, etc., are clothed in black. In
one of the chapels of the church a tomb is prepared, in which, on the
Holy Thursday morning, Jesus Christ--namely, a wafer which has been
consecrated--is laid, shut up, not in the ostensorium, but in a
ciborium, as a sign of mourning. The priests perform this ceremony.
During the whole day the church is thronged with people, who come to
express to Jesus Christ their sympathy in his sufferings. At about eight
o'clock in the evening, a gloomy procession, composed of the priests and
the people, march along the streets in the dark (this procession takes
place only in Catholic countries,) now and then reciting in a low and
dismal tone a verse of the psalm, _Miserere mei Deus_, [translation,]
Lord have mercy on me. When this procession has taken place, hymns of
suffering and of death are sung in the church, around the tomb in which
Jesus Christ lays. At eleven o'clock a priest goes to the pulpit, and in
an affecting manner relates to the sobbing and weeping multitude the
sufferings and death of Jesus Christ. This address is called Passion's
sermon.
The people spend the whole night in the church to keep company to Jesus
Christ in his sufferings, they say, and to relieve him by their
sympathy. In the morning of the Holy Friday the church is yet filled
with mourners. The priests, processionally, but in silence, go to the
tomb where Jesus Christ lays, take him out, and carry him into the
tabernacle, where they shut him up, but without leaving any taper
burning in the whole church. In the evening, after the recitation of the
_Officium Tenebrarum_, [translation,] Office of Darkness, boys, men,
women and all, fill the church with their yells, with the sharp sound of
rattles, with the blows they strike on boards with small and large
sticks, and with sounding, sonorous instruments, such as horns, etc. A
few days after they eat the wafer, which they pretend to be the raw
flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.
The Pagans, in celebrating the resurrection of Bacchus, Osiris, etc.,
who represented the sun, lighted the lamps of their temples with a fire,
which the priests obtained by striking a piece of steel with silex, and
was called new fire. That day the priests were clothed in white
ornaments; the lustral waters were renewed, and also the decorations of
the temples: so in every church the Romish priests strike a piece of
steel with silex, and obtain a fire called new fire; with it they light
the lamps, and the taper called Paschal taper. They renew the holy
water, which the people piously carry to their homes, and keep for
protection during the storms, etc. The priests change their priestly
garments, and clothe in white.
The Pagans worshiped the sun under the name of Aries, because the Aries
was one of the celestial signs: so the Church of Rome worships Jesus
Christ under the form of a lamb. Formerly, the Roman Catholic parents
suspended on the necks of their children the symbolic image of a lamb;
and the women, instead of wearing a cross, as they do now, wore a lamb.
This practice had been introduced by the Romish priests, who sold, as
they sell now, Agnus Dei, which have been consecrated with prayers and
sprinkled with holy water, as being the emblems of Jesus Christ.
A lamb was represented bleeding, and under it was a vessel in which the
blood dropped. This practice was in use till the year 680, under the
pontificate of the pope Agathon, and under the reign of the emperor
Constantine III., surnamed Pogonat. Then it was ordered by the sixth
council of Constantinople, canon 82, that a man nailed to a cross should
be substituted to the ancient symbol of a lamb. However, this symbol was
partly preserved in the church, as seen above. The symbol of a lamb is
yet seen on the tabernacle, or small box of marble, or of wood, richly
wrought upon, placed on the altar; also on the ostensorium, and on the
forepart of the altars.
The Pagans placed a sunlike halo around the heads of the statues of
Osiris, Bacchus, and other gods, who, in their opinion, represented the
sun: likewise in the Church of Rome the priests place the wafer, which,
they think, is Jesus Christ himself, in an ostensorium, which is shaped
like the disc of the sun; and which represents his beams; the wafer
itself is circular. This ostensorium is of silver, or of gold, and
adorned with diamonds, or gems. Above the altar a large sun is
generally either painted, or carved, or formed with draperies. The
Pagans kept in their temples a lamp burning, in the honor of the sun:
so, in the Roman Catholic churches a lamp is kept burning, day and
night, near the altar, in the honor of Jesus Christ.
The Pagans built their temples so that the sanctuary was turned towards
the rising sun: likewise, the Roman Catholic churches are built so that
the sanctuary be turned towards the rising sun.
The Pagans carried in triumph, processionally, and with the most
brilliant pomp, the statues of Bacchus, Osiris, and other gods,
representing the sun: likewise, on the feast day of the body of Jesus
Christ, the consecrated wafer is carried in triumph, processionally, and
with the most brilliant pomp. The priestly and other ornaments are of a
tissue of silver, or of gold. A multitude of people follow: the various
confraternities of Penitents, the ones grey, the others blue, the others
white, etc., and the many confraternities of virgins, of married women,
all in variegated costumes, march before the consecrated wafer. The
civil, judiciary, and military authorities, regiments of soldiers with
brass bands, with drums beating, with banners and flags unfurled, escort
the consecrated wafer, which is carried by the first priest of the
parish, under a canopy of the most costly and magnificent tissue.
The Pagans burnt flambeaux before the statues of Osiris, Bacchus, etc.,
to represent the planets; and sometimes to represent the signs of the
Zodiac: so, in the Roman Catholic churches, upon the altar, there are
six chandeliers, with candles burning around the consecrated wafer,
namely, Jesus Christ, who is in the middle.
From all the above facts we may legitimately draw the conclusion, that
the Church of Rome uses, in her adoration to Jesus Christ, rites and
ceremonies of a striking similarity with those used by the Pagans in
their adoration to the sun, under the names of Bacchus, Hercules,
Osiris, Mithra, Atys, etc.
We now come to the general conclusions of the present chapter.
It has been proved, 1st, That the Church of Rome, from which the
self-called Orthodox Protestant Churches, in the sixteenth century,
borrowed the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus Christ, did not hold it
from the apostles of Jesus Christ.
2d. It has been proved that the Church of Rome uses, in her adoration to
Jesus Christ, rites and ceremonies of a striking similarity with those
used by the Pagans in their adoration to the sun, under the names of
Bacchus, Hercules, Osiris, Mithra, Atys, etc.
Then the Church of Rome, from which, in the sixteenth century, the
self-called Orthodox Protestant Churches borrowed the doctrine of the
supreme divinity of Jesus Christ had borrowed it from the Pagans.
_Therefore the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ is of
Pagan origin._