Chapter IV.

THE GRAVE SUSPICIONS AROUSED BY THE STUDY OF ANCIENT BELIEFS

§ 1. The New Theological Theory of a Progressive Revelation.

The facts and truths established by Science are no longer made the

subject of attacks by Christian apologists in the manner that they

used to be; they are now considered by them to be the unfolding,

through God's Providence, of pieces of information hitherto concealed

from us. A scientific discovery (by men who are more often than not

Agnostics) simply means that God wills to reveal another detail of His

eternal methods. There must be, we are told, a frank modification,

or even the abandonment, of certain preconceived ideas which,

faulty as they were, had sufficed for man in an earlier stage of

his development, and had come to be regarded as integral parts of

his religious faith. This is the substance of the modern apologist's

argument which is intended to reconcile all outlying discrepancies

between our new knowledge and our old beliefs. The new explanation,

based upon the assumption that revelation is progressive, will

come as a surprise to the rank and file of Christendom, who have

hitherto been given to understand that the Bible contained the one,

only, and sufficient revelation of God to man. However, there is

no alternative. If accepted, many grave difficulties of faith are

swept away. Nay, more; the reasonableness of our faith is immensely

strengthened, and the facts of science and research become a valuable

adjunct to the armour of the Christian apologist. On the other hand,

a refusal to accept spells disaster to the Christian faith. The truth

of progressive revelation is, therefore, a matter of life or death

for the Christian religion; and, of all branches of modern research,

it is Comparative Mythology which absolutely demands the complete

establishment of this theory. If true, our belief is further verified

by the startling discoveries of the ethnologist; if untrue, it is

irrevocably shattered. Accordingly, in this chapter I am giving a

prominent place to the discussion of this theory.

I think I may safely say that there is no department of knowledge about

which so little is known by the ordinary man, and even, I regret to

say, by the majority of ecclesiastics, as Comparative Mythology. Yet

it is the study of this science perhaps more than of any other which is

causing well-informed men and women to lose faith in Christianity. Ask

Christian professors in our universities who are in touch with the

thought around them, and you will hear that their sceptical friends are

all telling them the same thing; they cannot get over anthropology,

and especially that branch of it which concerns itself with the

traditions and beliefs of primitive peoples. Recent ethnological

research has thrown an entirely new light upon old problems. The

discoveries of science, including the animal origin of man, may,

by a stretch of imagination and faith, be reconciled with belief;

so also the disclosures of the Higher Criticism; but the very origin

of Christianity is exposed by the study of Comparative Mythology. "It

is indeed a melancholy and in some respects thankless task to strike

at the foundations of beliefs in which, as in a strong tower, the

hopes and aspirations of humanity through long ages have sought a

refuge from the storm and stress of life. Yet sooner or later it is

inevitable that the battery of the comparative method should breach

these venerable walls, mantled over with the ivy and mosses and wild

flowers of a thousand tender and sacred associations." [88]

Some years ago there were ecclesiastics who took a lively interest

in Comparative Mythology. Students of Pagan religions as well as

Christian missionaries were bent on discovering more striking and

more startling coincidences in order to use them in confirmation

of their favourite theory that some rays of a primeval revelation,

or some reflection of the Jewish religion, had reached the uttermost

ends of the world. Subsequently the study of comparative mythology

seems to have lost much of its charm. Why?

"The theory that there was a primeval preternatural revelation granted

to the fathers of the human race, and that the grains of truth which

catch our eye when exploring the temples of heathen gods are the

scattered fragments of that sacred heirloom--the seeds that fell by the

wayside or upon stony places--would find but few supporters at present;

no more, in fact, than the theory that there was in the beginning

one complete and perfect primeval language, broken up in later times

into the numberless languages of the world." "The opinion," again,

"that the Pagan religions were mere corruptions of the religion of

the Old Testament, once supported by men of high authority and great

learning, is now as completely surrendered as the attempts to explain

Greek and Latin as corruptions of Hebrew." [89]

It will be as well, in the first place, to see exactly what the

Church herself now says on the matter; how far she recognises that

gigantic strides have been made in a study formerly pursued in a manner

necessarily elementary by the Alexandrian schools; how far she concedes

the conclusions of the modern ethnologist; and how far she approves

of progressive revelation as the explanation for the whole enigma of

the parallels between ancient beliefs and our own. For this purpose

I think I cannot do better than quote from two striking articles on

the subject in the Church Times. They were contributed by the editor

of The Treasury magazine. "The study," he says, "of folk-lore, of

anthropology, of primitive myth and ritual, has made enormous strides

within the last quarter of a century, and the fruits of that study

are now forced, for the first time, [90] upon the attention of the

general public. Presented in outline, the situation is as follows:

We have been accustomed to consider Christianity apart from all other

religions. We have recognised, indeed, the historical preparation

for it so far as that is described in the pages of the Old Testament;

but we have thought of that preparation as conducted among a single

people, and by means of a unique revelation. Of pagan religions we have

known practically nothing. The mythology of the Greeks and Romans,

which some of us had to learn at school, seemed to be a collection

of pointless fairy tales. And as regards other and more primitive

races, both ancient and modern, the statement that 'the heathen,

in his blindness, bows down to wood and stone' comprised accurately

the sum of our knowledge. That there could be any but the vaguest

likeness between them and our own beliefs was unimaginable. Possibly

there was a belief in the Fatherhood of some supreme being, some vague

conception of a future life; while sacrificial rites, as we knew,

were not peculiar to the Jews. But the other doctrines of our Creed

we regarded as exclusively our own. The ideas of a Triune God-head,

of an Incarnate Saviour, of the Virgin Birth, of the Second Advent,

of the Sacraments, of the Communion of Saints--these seemed to

be the distinctive possessions of Christianity; these were marks

clearly dividing it from any form of paganism. So, at least, we

imagined. [Had we not every reason thus to imagine on the authority of

Holy Scripture?] But it proves that we were completely mistaken. The

modern study of primitive religion shows that every one of these

beliefs is, or has been, held in some part or other of the pagan world

quite independently of Christian influence, and that, while we are

bound to speak of these beliefs as, in a sense, distinctly Christian,

to term them exclusively Christian is no longer possible.... In

these early mythologies we can discern the longing for a personal

God, capable of direct communication with man, and for some sort of

union between the divine and human natures. Whence did these instincts

themselves originate? The one tenable reply seems to be that they were

God-implanted.... The Zoroastrian anticipates the advent of a 'Saviour'

(Saoshyas), who will end the strife between good and evil, personified

as Ormuzd and Ahriman, by sweeping away evil from the earth. In the

ancient Vedic and Scandinavian religions, in the Old-World creeds of

Egypt and Babylon, in the legends of Mexico and Polynesia, is found,

in a variety of guises, the same fundamental idea. Always there

is a sense of a supremely righteous Power; of a world tainted with

evil, and out of harmony with the Power above it; of the coming of

some Deliverer, who will establish a kingdom of righteousness. Once

more, in many mythologies the idea of a Virgin Birth is associated

with that of a Divine Incarnation. Men felt instinctively that the

entrance of a Divine Being into the human race must take place in

a miraculous way. And thus the Spirit of God, working by means of

what we may term the instinctive feelings of mankind, prepared the

human race throughout the world for the coming of the Son of God, to

be born of a pure Virgin, to take our nature upon Him for evermore,

and to redeem us from the power of sin.... We find conceptions, such

as that of the Hindu Trimurti, which seem to remember the doctrine

of the Trinity. In the sacramental meals of totem-worship, when a

sacred animal is killed, and partaken of by the worshippers in order

that its power may be communicated to them [not to mention "sacred"

men killed with the same idea], there seems a dim anticipation of

the highest Christian rite. Baptism as a cleansing and symbolical

ceremony was known centuries before the Christian era.... These rites

and beliefs, obscured by superstition and insufficient to satisfy

the longing which brought them into existence, were designed to serve

as the schoolmasters who would lead the heathen at length to Christ"

(cf. Galatians iii. 24).

These remarks, by a clergyman of the Church of England, will enable

the ordinary person, who for the most part knows nothing whatever

about these things, to realise the immense importance of the questions

raised by Comparative Mythology.

§ 2. Parallels in Ancient Religions, and Some Remarks Upon Them.

Before proceeding any further, it will be advisable to consider some

concrete examples of the parallels between the beliefs and teachings

of ancient religions and those of the Christian religion.

KRISHNA AND BUDDHA.

Krishna.--Krishna was a miraculous incarnation of Vishnu in the

womb of Devaki. A chorus of angels exclaimed: "In the delivery of

this favoured woman nature shall have cause to exult." The birth

was indicated in the heavens by a star. On the morning of his birth

the spirits of heaven danced and sang, and the clouds emitted low,

pleasing sounds. Though royally descended, he was actually born in a

cave. [91] The divine child was recognised and adored by cowherds. He

was presented with gifts of sandalwood and perfumes. The holy Indian

prophet, Nared, paid him a visit, consulted the stars and declared

him to be of celestial descent. His birth was beset by peril, and his

foster father was warned by a heavenly voice to fly with the child,

as the reigning monarch, King Kansa, might take his life. The king

ordered the massacre in all his States of all the male children born

during the night of the birth of Krishna. One of the first miracles

performed by Krishna, when mature, was the curing of a leper. A lame

woman came with a vessel filled with spices and sweet oil, and anointed

his head. Krishna was slain. At his death a black circle surrounded the

moon, and the sun was darkened at noonday. Spirits were to be seen on

all sides. Krishna descended into hell, rose again from the dead, and

ascended bodily into heaven, many persons witnessing his ascent. He

is to come again on earth in the latter days. He will appear as an

armed warrior riding a white horse. At his approach the sun and moon

will be darkened, the earth will tremble, and the stars fall from the

firmament (compare Rev. vi. 2, 12, 13). He is to judge the dead at the

last day. Krishna is the Creator of all things visible and invisible,

and is the beginning, middle, and end of all things. Krishna was

transfigured before his beloved disciple, Arjuna. Krishna was the

meekest of beings. He preached sublimely. According to the purer

Vaishnava faith, he was pure and chaste in reality; any amorousness

related of him is to be explained allegorically, as symbolising

the longing of the human soul for the Supreme; just as the amorous

"Song of Solomon" is said to be allegorical, and to mean "Christ's

love for his Church." Krishna even condescended to wash the feet of

the Brahmins. He is the incarnation of Vishnu, the second person in

the Hindoo Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva; and Vishnu in his

incarnations is a saviour, protector, and friend. Krishna said: "Let

a man, if seeking God by deep abstraction, abandon his possessions and

his hopes, betake himself to some secluded spot, and fix his heart and

thoughts on God alone." And, again: "Then be not sorrowful; from all

thy sins I will deliver thee." Many other such remarkable passages

might be adduced from the Bhagavad-gita. Justice, humanity, good

faith, compassion, disinterestedness--in fact, all the virtues--are

said to have been taught by Krishna, both by precept and example;

but we must remember, as Monier Williams informs us in his Hinduism,

that Krishna, in the ancient epic poems, is simply a great hero, and

it is not until about the fourth century B.C. that he is deified and

declared to be an incarnation of Vishnu. In conclusion, the accounts

of Krishna's childhood agree very closely with the apocryphal accounts

of Christ's childhood.

Buddha.--If the similarity between the histories of Krishna and Jesus

is remarkable, what shall we say of that between the mythological

[92] portions of the history of Gautama Buddha and the history of

Jesus? Looked upon as a confirmation of Progressive Revelation, it

is nothing short of marvellous, whether we regard the similarity

in events, characters, actions, or sayings. From Buddha's divine

incarnation until his ascension into the celestial regions,

almost every important episode of the life of Christ appears to

be paralleled. Attendant miraculous events, spotless character,

wonderful doings, cherished sayings--all are here.

Buddha was miraculously [93] born of the pure and holy Maya. He

descended into her womb from heaven in a spiritual manner. There

was joy in heaven, the Devas singing: "To-day Bodhisatwa is born on

earth, to give joy and peace to men and Devas." He was recognised by

the aged and devout Asita as the perfect Buddha come to the world for

its salvation. His life was threatened by the King Bimbisara, who was

advised to destroy the child. He was presented in the temple. When

still a mere child he was found to be as proficient as his masters,

and he disputed with learned doctors. His ancestry was traced from

his father to Maha Sammata, the first monarch of the world. He bathed

in water, the spirits making their presence known as he did so. When

about to adopt a religious life, he fasted for a long time, and was

tempted by Mara, the author of Evil; but he heeded not the words

of the Evil One, and bade him depart from him. The heavens showed

their appreciation of this defeat by raining flowers. Towards the end

of his life he was transfigured when on a mountain in India called

Pandava. He performed great miracles. For instance, on one occasion he

floated through the air across a river; and, on another, he caused a

tempest to cease, and so saved a disciple, who was in imminent danger

of shipwreck. Shortly before his death a weeping woman embraced his

feet. When Buddha died many miracles occurred. The coffin was opened,

and the body uncovered, supernaturally. He promised that another

Buddha would be sent to them. He foretold his departure, and after

death entered Nirvana. He was very early regarded as omniscient and

absolutely sinless. Earth and heaven did homage to him at birth and

death. A great earthquake occurred at his Temptation. He is represented

as saying: "Let all the sins that are committed in the world fall

upon me, that the world may be delivered"; and again: "Hide your good

deeds, and confess before the world the sins you have committed";

and again: "Though the great world be swallowed up and pass away,

yet be assured the words of Buddha are true"; and again: "Beware of

fixing your eyes upon women"; "A wise man should avoid unchaste life,

as if it were a burning pit of live coals"; "One who is not able to

live in a state of celibacy should not commit adultery." According to

Buddha, the motives of all our actions should be pity, or love for our

neighbour. Those who became his disciples were told they must renounce

the world, give up their riches, and take the vow of poverty. Finally,

we should note that Buddha aimed to establish a "Kingdom of Heaven"

(Dharmachakra); that the account given by St. Peter (Ep. ii., ch. 3) of

the earth once destroyed by water, and about to be destroyed by fire,

is in agreement with the Buddhist story; and that the Jews believed

in the pre-existence of souls and a modified form of metempsychosis

(transmigration of the soul).

It is difficult to separate fiction from fact; but the generally

accepted records show that, together with superior natural endowments,

Gautama Buddha attained to an exceptional purity of life and integrity

of purpose. Probably he never arrogated to himself any higher authority

than that of a teacher; but his followers, turning for consolation

to the theory that he still lived, exalted him, within a quarter of

a century of his death, to a place among their deities. As already

mentioned, he was very early regarded as omniscient and absolutely

sinless. [94] All sorts of legends, borrowed from current myths,

attach themselves to the story of his life, while his teaching as a

simple-hearted, truth-seeking philanthropist became encrusted with

the superstitions and religious speculations that were current. As

with Krishna, so here there are stories of Buddha's childhood of

which the apocryphal stories of Christ's childhood are an almost

exact reproduction.

PARALLELS OTHER THAN KRISHNA AND BUDDHA.

In the case of Krishna and Buddha it is contended by some Christian

writers that the stories must have been borrowed from Christian

sources both canonical and apocryphal. This contention, founded on the

lateness of the mythical stories in literary form, will be considered

in due course; but first let us have clearly before our minds those

parallels concerning which there is no such contention, for the simple

reason that there is no getting away from the fact that the beliefs

existed long before the advent of Christ. In ancient religions other

than Hindooism and Buddhism, there are, among many others, distinct

parallels to--the Virgin Birth; the Heavenly Choir; the Epiphany;

the Slaughter of the Innocents; the Temptation and Forty Days' Fast;

the Miracles; the Crucifixion Darkness, and Descent into Hell; the

Resurrection and Ascension; the Second Coming and Day of Judgment.

The Virgin Birth.--According to Chinese legends, the sages Fohi

(? 3468 B.C.) and Lao-Kiun (about 600 B.C.) were born of virgins. Dean

Milman mentions in his History of Christianity that the first

Jesuit missionaries who went to China were appalled at finding in the

mythology of that country a counterpart of the story of the Virgin. In

Persia, Zoroaster, [95] the founder of the Perso-Iranian national

religion, was miraculously conceived. All attempts to connect him

with Hebrew influences are groundless. In Egypt, Horus, who had the

epithet of Saviour, was born of the virgin Isis. The Egyptian Bible,

remember, is the oldest in the world! Plutarch mentions the notion

of the Egyptians that a woman might conceive by the approach of some

divine spirit. Egyptian monuments represent the infant saviour in

the arms of his virgin mother, or sitting on her knee. The image

of the child was worshipped just as the Bambino is worshipped in

Rome to-day. Women then, as now, believed in its efficacy for their

relief in time of nature's sorrows. In Grecian and Roman mythology

the "Sons of Jove"--Hercules, Bacchus, Amphion, Perseus, Mercury,

Æolus, Apollo, and others--have mortal mothers. Speaking of this,

the Christian Father, Justin Martyr, declared that the myths regarding

the multitude of sons of gods, and especially the myth regarding the

virgin's son Perseus, had been invented by the demons in order to rob

the manifestation of Jesus, the true Son of God, of its importance. He

also insisted that, with their doctrine of the Virgin-birth of Jesus,

of His passion, and of His ascension, the Christians were affirming

nothing new as compared with what was alleged of the so-called

sons of Zeus. [96] Even regarding Plato there was a legend that his

mother, Perictione, had experienced a miraculous conception through

the influences of the God Apollo, and that the God had declared to

Aris, to whom she was betrothed, the parentage of the child (compare

St. Matthew i. 20). This was believed in by the disciples of Plato

centuries before the Christian era. Among northern nations the sons

of Odin take the place of the sons of Jove. Thus "Baldur the Good,"

the Beneficent Saviour, was the son of Odin and Friga. The worship of

Friga was continued until that of the Virgin Mary took its place. In

Mexico, the "Saviour" Quetzalcoatl was born of a pure virgin, who was

called the "Queen of Heaven." An ambassador from heaven announced

to the virgin Sochiquetzal, mother of Quetzalcoatl, that it was

the will of God that she should conceive a son without connection

with man. Here we have an exact parallel to the annunciation of the

Virgin Mary (St. Luke i. 26-35), in a part of the globe that was not

discovered by Christians till nearly 1,500 years after the birth of

Christ! Similar traditions of Saviours are found among various tribes

of North and South America.

Regarding the tendency to believe in incarnations, Dr. Illingworth

[97] explains that "a general tendency in the human mind to expect

a thing cannot possibly be twisted into a presumption against its

occurrence.... The fact of the expectation does not logically make

invention a likelier alternative than occurrence, except upon one

hypothesis--namely, that the occurrence is impossible." This argument

skims over--or, I might almost say, neglects--the real contention of

the Rationalist. Let us assume that incarnation is not ruled out of

court as being à priori impossible; the virgin-birth of Jesus was

subsequently invented by the Christian Church because its eminent

suitability necessitated its invention. Only thus could the divinity

and sinlessness of Jesus Christ be firmly established. More especially

would this be the case in an age when everyone was familiar with the

notion of virgin-born Saviours. The minds of men were deeply imbued

with the idea of miraculous birth in the case of anyone claiming to

be of divine origin. Only on this understanding would the heathen,

already believing in their own virgin-born Saviours, have accepted

Christianity.

The Heavenly Choir.--Even Confucius, the celebrated philosopher

(born 551 B.C.), was ushered into the world with dragons and angels

hovering about the couch, and with the sound of heavenly music in the

air. At the birth of Osiris, the father of Horus, another Egyptian

"Saviour," a voice was heard proclaiming that the "Ruler of all the

earth is born." There was joy in Olympus when Apollo was born, and at

the time of the birth of Hercules his father Zeus spake from heaven,

and said: "This day shall a child be born of the race of Perseus,

who shall be the mightiest of the sons of men."

The Epiphany.--Legends of the coming of wise men to see an infant

grew up in various places. Krishna was visited by sages who brought

perfumes. Confucius has a somewhat similar legend, and one occurs

even in connection with the birth of Plato.

The Slaughter of the Innocents.--The story of the "dangerous child"

is almost universal. Horus, Zoroaster, and Bacchus, for example, were

"dangerous" children.

The Forty Days' Fast and the Temptation.--According to Pliny,

Zoroaster lived for thirty years in the wilderness upon cheese. The

Devil made Zoroaster magnificent promises; but the temptations

were in vain. The ancient Persians had a religious festival, which

they annually celebrated, called the "Salutation of Mithras (the

sun-god)," and during it forty days were set apart for sacrifice

and thanksgiving. Among the ancient Egyptians the priest submitted to

abstinence of the most severe description. "The priests in Heliopolis,"

says Plutarch, "have many fasts, during which they meditate upon

divine things." Fasting and self-denial were observances required

of the Greeks who desired initiation into the mysteries. The same

practice was found among the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians. The

Mexicans had a forty days' fast, in memory of Quetzalcoatl, who was

tempted and fasted forty days on a mountain. Lord Kingsborough says:

"The temptation of Quetzalcoatl and the fast of forty days ... are very

curious and mysterious." [98] Mr. Bonwick says: "The Spaniards were

surprised to see the Mexicans keep the vernal forty days' fast." [99]

Turning to the Old Testament, we may remind ourselves that Moses

went up into a mountain to receive certain instructions from God,

and "was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights, and he did

neither eat bread nor drink water." On a second occasion, when he

received the Ten Commandments, he was again with the Lord forty days

and forty nights, and did neither eat bread nor drink water. Elijah

fled to the desert, where an angel gave him cake and water, and in

the strength of that meat he went for forty days without food. The

number "forty" occurs over and over again in that portion of the Old

Testament which the Higher Criticism has shown to be unhistorical. The

Rationalist avers that the number "forty" is mythological, and that

we have this story of the Forty Days' Fast and the Temptation in the

New Testament because the writer wishes to show that Jesus Christ was

proof against all temptation; that He, too, as well as other Christs,

could resist the powers of the Prince of Evil. It may be urged that

in all these cases the number is quite immaterial. Are we not, then,

to take the author of "The Acts" literally when he informs us that

Christ spent forty days on earth after His resurrection?

The Miracles.--Not only Krishna and Buddha, but all leaders

of religious movements, had the reputation of having performed

miracles. Religions were established as much by the miracles as by

the preachings. Miracles were needed in those days on all special

occasions. Many of them are attested in the gravest manner by

the gravest writers, and were firmly believed at the time by the

people. Healing miracles, such as those performed by Jesus, were the

commonest of all. The Gospel miracles are in no respect singular

or more wonderful. Horus, as well as Krishna, raised the dead to

life. Bacchus changed water into wine. Æsculapius not only cured the

sick, but raised the dead. Pausanias, the eminent Greek geographer

and historian, writes that in the temple of Æsculapius at Epidaurus

there was an old pillar dedicated to the memory of Hippolytus,

who had been raised from the dead. [100] Apollonius of Tyana was

celebrated for the wonderful miracles he performed. He caused a devil

to depart out of a youth, and he restored a dead maiden to life. The

Christian Fathers inform us that Simon Magus, with the Devil's aid,

could make his appearance wherever he pleased at any moment; could

poise himself in the air; produce trees from the earth suddenly

[the mango tree trick?]; fling himself from high precipices unhurt

[the very feat suggested by the Devil in the Temptation]; and walk

through the streets accompanied by spirits of the dead. Tacitus, the

celebrated Roman historian, tells us that the Emperor Vespasian (born

9 A.D.) performed wonderful miracles for the good of mankind, and among

others he describes the cure of a blind man with the emperor's spittle.

The Atonement.--In China the Holy One (Tien) dies to save the

world. "The sufferings and death of Osiris were the great mystery of

the Egyptian religion. His being the divine goodness, and the abstract

idea of 'good,' his manifestation upon earth (like an Indian god),

his death and resurrection, and his office as judge of the dead in a

future life, look like the early revelation of a future manifestation

of the deity converted into a mythological fable." [101] While Osiris

is the judge, Horus, his son, is the mediator. In the Judgment scene

in the Book of the Dead, Horus, the son of Isis, leads the deceased,

after his heart has been weighed, into the presence of Osiris (see

Papyrus of Ani, plates 3 & 4). Mithras, the sun-god of the Persians,

was a "Mediator" between God and men--the "Saviour," who, by his

laborious conflicts, worked their salvation. He was also called the

"Word." Attys, called the "Only Begotten Son" and the "Saviour," was

worshipped by the Phrygians, and represented by them as a man tied or

nailed to a tree. Adonis was another virgin-born "Saviour" who suffered

for mankind. The yearly festival of Adonis in the spring was a special

favourite with women. In the Old Testament reference is made to the

weeping of the women over Tammuz, the Babylonian equivalent of Adonis

(Ezekiel viii. 14). According to the Rev. Sir G. W. Cox, [102] he was

the crucified Tao (divine love personified). The Rev. Dr. Parkhurst,

in the chapter on the Resurrection in his Hebrew lexicon, says:

"I find myself obliged to refer Tammuz to that class of idols which

were originally designed to represent the promised Saviour, the

desire of all nations." Prometheus was a Saviour who suffered the

most fearful tortures as the friend of the human race. Æschylus's

tragedy, Prometheus Vinctus, was acted in Athens five hundred years

before the Christian era. Even Bacchus, whom most of us think of as

the rollicking wine-god of classical mythology, was a slain Saviour.

When we turn to the New World we find the worship of a crucified

Saviour among the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians. Lord Kingsborough

tells us that, according to the belief of the ancient Mexicans, "the

death of Quetzalcoatl upon the cross" was "an atonement for the sins of

mankind." [103] Dr. Daniel Brinton relates how the Aztecs had a feast

which they celebrated in the early spring, when "victims were nailed

to a cross and shot with an arrow." [104] Alexander von Humboldt, in

his American Researches, also speaks of a feast, at which the Mexicans

crucified a man and pierced him with an arrow. The Rev. J. P. Lundy,

speaking of this, says: "Here is the old story of Prometheus crucified

on the Caucasus, and of all other pagan crucifixions of the young

incarnate divinities of India, Persia, Asia Minor, and Egypt." [105]

Moral Teaching.--There is not only an extraordinary similarity in

beliefs, but also in moral teachings. The teachings of Confucius,

Mencius, and Wang Yang Ming might, as Professor Nitobe points

out, [106] just as well be considered plagiarisms from the Divine

library, for they furnish numerous remarkable parallels to the New

Testament teaching. Taoism, the philosophy of Laotze, for a long

time successfully rivalled the more utilitarian system of Confucius,

and its close agreement with many of the teachings of Christ is most

noticeable. The morals of the ancient Egyptians are clearly set forth

in the Book of the Dead, which came into use after 2000 B.C. They

indicate a far higher standard than existed in Israel in David's

time. "Yet," as Dr. Callaway remarks, [107] "in traditions which

still linger among us, the law under which David lived and reigned

was perfect and divine; while the name of Egypt stands for darkness

and sin."

With regard to the parallels in the moral teaching, Dean Farrar,

in his work, Seekers after God, has clearly shown that "to say that

pagan morality kindled its faded taper at the Gospel light, whether

furtively or unconsciously, that it dissembled the obligation and

made a boast of the splendour, as if it were originally her own,

is to make an assertion wholly untenable." He points out that the

attempts of the Christian Fathers to make out Pythagoras a debtor

to Hebraic wisdom, Plato an "Atticising Moses," Aristotle a learner

of ethics from a Jew, Seneca a correspondent of St. Paul, were due

"in some cases to ignorance, in some to a want of perfect honesty in

controversial dealing."

Apocryphal Gospels.--We are assured by Christian writers that the

parallels between the accounts of Krishna's and Buddha's childhood

and those in the apocryphal gospels of Christ's childhood are due

to the Hindoos having borrowed legends current among the early

Christians. Dr. Wallis Budge, the keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian

antiquities in the British Museum, informs us, however, that "several

of the incidents of the wanderings of the Virgin with the child

in Egypt, as recorded in the Apocryphal Gospels, reflect scenes in

the life of Isis as described in the texts found on the Metternich

Stele." [108] And, again, he says: "In the apocryphal literature of

the first six centuries which followed the evangelisation of Egypt,

several of the legends about Isis and her sorrowful wanderings were

made to centre round the mother of Christ." [109] The evidence is

conclusive that certain legends prevalent among the early Christians

were borrowed from the ancient Egyptian religion; yet we are to

believe that where the Krishna and Buddha parallels are concerned the

borrowing process was the other way! So be it. Let us suppose that

certain Egyptian superstitions reached the Hindoo through the medium

of the Christian; the fact remains that beliefs once held by devout

but unlettered Christians have a heathen origin. This is of serious

import, for it lends weight to the suspicion that the marvellous tales

in the canonical gospels have been similarly derived from heathen

legends--legends from which some of the more glaring absurdities and

all that would mar the ethical ideals of the Christian religion were

eclectically expunged.

ARE THE KRISHNA AND BUDDHA LEGENDS BORROWED FROM CHRISTIANITY?

I have indicated a few of the more striking parallels in other

religions besides Krishnaism and Buddhism. Did space permit, it

could be shown that there are also parallels to the teaching of

Christ, the darkness at the Crucifixion, the descent into Hell,

the Resurrection, the claim of Jesus Christ to be "Alpha and Omega"

(according to the Revelation of St. John), the prophecy of the

Second Coming, the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, the doctrine

of the Trinity, the worship of the Blessed Virgin, the Christian

symbols (cross, triangle, I.H.S., fish, serpent, dove, and lamb). I

cannot understand what the Christian cause can gain by ascribing the

parallels in Hindoo mythology to Christian sources, when there is all

this mass of evidence for parallels that are quite as extraordinary

(though less numerous) in those ancient religions where the priority

to Christianity cannot reasonably be denied. Certainly the Krishna

and Buddha parallels are extremely numerous and strikingly exact;

but a policy which seeks to explain them in a different manner from

that adopted in the case of the same phenomena in other religions,

while it serves to confirm the suspicions of the sceptic, is doomed

eventually to failure. This being so, it is unnecessary, I think,

to enter at any great length into the controversy.

In Mr. J. M. Robertson's book, Christianity and Mythology, there

is a scholarly investigation from which I extract the following

leading points [110]:--Hindoos, as Professor Tiele urges, could

perfectly well have borrowed, if they did borrow, from Egypt before

Christianity was heard of. There is hardly a leading detail in the

Krishna birth legend which is not variously paralleled in other early

non-Christian mythology. The more we collate the main Christian

myth-notions with those of Krishnaism, the more clearly does it

appear that, instead of the latter being borrowed from the former,

they are, not indeed the originals from which Christianity borrowed,

but always presumptively the more ancient, and in one or two cases they

do appear to be the actual sources of Gospel stories. The lateness

of the Purânic stories in literary form is no argument against their

antiquity. Scholars are agreed that late documents often preserve

extremely old myth-material. The leading elements in the Krishna myth

are inexplicable save on the view that the cultus is ancient. The

close coincidences in the legends of Krishna and Buddha are to be

explained in terms of borrowing by the latter from the former, and

not vice versa. I should add here that the denial of the "Christian

accretions" theory does not convey also the implication that the Bible

story was borrowed from the Krishna and Buddha myths. On the contrary,

the strong probability is that there has been little or no borrowing

either way--that there is a common source for both in earlier Aryan

and Semitic myths.

In the Introduction to his standard work, The Romantic History

of Buddha, [111] Mr. Beal refers to the legends concerning

the pre-existence of Buddha in heaven--his miraculous

incarnation--salutation by angels--recognition by Asita

(Simeon)--presentation in the Temple--baptism by fire and

water--disputation with doctors--temptation in the wilderness--life

passed in preaching and working miracles, etc.--and frankly admits

that, "if we could prove that they were unknown in the East for

some centuries after Christ, the explanation would be easy; but

all the evidence we have goes to prove the contrary." Regarding the

parallelisms with the Apocryphal Gospels, he says: "It would be a

natural inference that many of the events in the legend of Buddha

were borrowed from the Apocryphal Gospels (compare, for example, the

Gospel of the Infancy, chap. xx.: 'Our Lord learning his alphabet,'

with the account given in chap. xi. of this volume), if we were quite

certain that these Apocryphal Gospels had not borrowed from it." In

his later work, Buddhist Literature, Mr. Beal modifies his position.

Neither Max Müller in his Introduction to the Science of Religion, nor

Forlong in his Short Studies of the Science of Comparative Religions,

nor Senart in his learned work, La Légende du Buddha, nor Seydel in

his Evangelium von Jesu and his Buddha Legends, nor Pfleiderer in his

Urchristentum, supports the theory of Christian accretions. Bunsen, in

his Angel-Messiah, maintains (p. 18) "that, according to Sanscrit and

Chinese scriptures and the stone-cut edicts of Asoka and the Senchi

Tope, certain legends about Buddha circulated in India and China,

not only before the apostolic age, but more than three centuries

earlier," and that "among these legends the most ancient are those

which refer to the incarnation of Buddha as the Angel Messiah."

On page 10 of Rhys Davids' well-known little work, Buddhism (published

under the direction of the S.P.C.K.), we read: "There is every reason

to believe that the Pitakas now extant in Ceylon are substantially

identical with the books of the Orthodox Canon, as settled at the

Council of Patna about the year 250 B.C. As no works would have been

received into the canon which were not then believed to be very old,

the Pitakas may be approximately placed in the fourth century B.C.,

and parts of them possibly read back very nearly, if not quite,

to the time of Gautama himself." On page 15 it is explained that,

when the statements in the Sanscrit and Pali texts agree, the greatest

reliance may be placed upon them, "not indeed as to the actual facts of

Gautama's life, but as to the belief of the early Buddhists concerning

it." Professor Rhys Davids enumerates the more important of these

early beliefs, and they include many of the startling coincidences

which I have noticed. The later beliefs he passes over for the most

part in silence; but, speaking generally, he is of opinion that the

greater portion, if not all, of the legends could be explained by

hero-worship, mere poetical imagery, misapprehension, the desire

to edify, applications to Gautama of previously existing stories or

sun-myths, and so on. Nowhere does he state or imply that in any of

the legends, early or late, there can be any application to Gautama

of the Gospel stories of the life of Christ; while he considers

M. Senart's theory of the almost complete dependence of the Buddha

legends on solar myths "most interesting." Now, it is just those

very ideas of virgin-birth, resurrection, and ascension appearing

in the later legends which were nothing more nor less than solar

myths. In any case, whatever their origin, they were world-wide very

many centuries before the Christian era; so any argument from the

lateness of these legends is founded upon sand. In his Buddhism,

as also in his article on Buddhism in the Encyclopædia Britannica,

the Professor steers clear of the question of the parallels; but in

his Buddhist Suttas, translated by him from the Pali and appearing in

the "Sacred Books of the East" series, we read (in the Introduction,

p. 165) that while he "ventures to disagree with writers who argue that

the resemblances in the Pali Pitakas and passages in the New Testament

indicate that the New Testament as the later must be borrowed," he

holds that the resemblance is due not to any borrowing on the one

side or the other, but "solely to the similarity of the conditions

under which the two movements grew" [and, the Rationalist would add,

a similarity in the myths afloat is a part, and a very essential part,

of the similarity of the conditions].

So also with regard to the lateness of the Krishna legends in literary

form, it is futile to argue that they are, to use a familiar term,

cribbed from the canonical and apocryphal gospels, when most of them

are obviously plagiarisms of the ancient sun-myths. The Rev. Sir

G. W. Cox, speaking on this subject in his Aryan Mythology, says:

"There is no more room for inferring foreign influence in the growth

of any of these myths than, as Bunsen rightly insists, there is room

for tracing Christian influence in the early epical literature of the

Teutonic tribes. Practically the myths of Krishna seem to have been

fully developed in the days of Megasthenes (fourth century B.C.), who

identifies him with the Greek Hercules." [Megasthenes wrote a work

on India, which was the chief source of the later Greek information

on the subject.] Professor Monier Williams, the accepted authority

on Hinduism, writing for the S.P.G., in his book, Indian Wisdom,

and speaking of the Bhagavad-gita, says: "It may reasonably be

questioned whether there could have been any actual contact of the

Hindoo system with Christianity without a more satisfactory result

in the modification of Pantheistic and anti-Christian ideas." Again,

he says: "The religious creeds, rites, customs, and habits of thought

of the Hindoos generally had altered little since the days of Menu, 500

years B.C." In his Hinduism (p. 19) he shows that "we may be justified

in assuming that the hymns of the Veda were probably composed by a

succession of poets at different dates between 1500 and 1000 years

B.C." This is an important concession, because the ancient hymns of

the Veda furnish the germs of those sun-myths which tell of the death,

resurrection, and ascension of a virgin-born saviour.

Whatever may be thought of the conclusions of the highest authorities

regarding Krishnaistic and Buddhistic beliefs, I hope I may have so far

carried the reader with me that he will be prepared to admit that there

are very many striking resemblances to the Gospel stories in those

ancient beliefs whose priority to Christianity is not disputed. Now

that these resemblances are no longer attributed to a device of the

Evil One, an explanation for them is urgently required. The explanation

from the Christian side is the theory of a Progressive Revelation;

and, apparently, there can be no other, if Christianity be true. The

reader has been put in possession of a few details of the remarkable

parallels, and he should apply this theory for himself to each and

all of them, and see whether it furnishes a fair working hypothesis,

whether his mind can accept the explanation now offered to him, and,

I might almost add, whether he can honestly continue to call himself

a Christian believer. Let him ask himself which is the more probable,

that in the common mythos we have marvellous anticipations of the Bible

stories, or that in the latter we have reproductions of the former?

§ 3. Parallels in the Beliefs of Primitive Man, and some Remarks

Upon Them.

I must ask the reader's patience if I postpone my final remarks on

Progressive Revelation until I have adduced some illustrations of

the beliefs and customs of primitive man, as here also this same

theory has to apply. Thus far the pagan beliefs have appeared to

be of a comparatively harmless character; but this can by no means

be said of the beliefs of savage man. He does not confine himself,

like his more civilised brother, to mystical beliefs in Saviours who

once upon a time suffered for him, and whose body and blood are to be

symbolically assimilated; but, being of a realistic (or shall we say

materialistic?) turn of mind, he prefers (the inevitable result of a

restricted intellectual development) [112] to satisfy his religious

emotions with the spectacle of a real human-divine sufferer, and by a

sacrificial feast of real flesh and blood. Can this be God's method

of revealing Himself? True, the religious convictions of civilised

man have been a fruitful source of human agony, both physical and

mental, in many a bloody fight and massacre, in cruel and relentless

persecutions, in every refinement of excruciating torture and pitiable

distress to body and mind; but it is possible to gloze over all this

with various specious arguments. It is not so easy to do so with

examples drawn from the history of savage races. The only thing

is that so few have ever had these examples brought before them,

or, at least, have ever thought of connecting them with anything

that has to do with the truth of Christianity. I shall, therefore,

now give some illustrations of the beliefs and customs of primitive

man. A vivid description may succeed in convincing the reader of

the absurdity of the new theory, where mere vague ideas of savage

ritual would fail. "Of the human sacrifices of rude peoples, those

of the Mexicans are perhaps the most instructive, for in them the

theanthropic character of the victim comes out most clearly." [113]

"When we go to the records of the cultures and creeds of Mexico and

Peru, records wonderfully preserved in the teeth of the fanaticism

which would have destroyed them all if it could, we stand clear of

the frauds and prejudices alike of Jew and Christian.... We are faced

by a civilisation and a religion that reached wealth and complexity

by normal evolution from the stages of early savagery and barbarism

without ever coming in contact with those of Europe till the moment

of collision and destruction." [114] We shall begin, therefore,

with the ancient American.

THE RELIGIONS OF ANCIENT AMERICA.

"Terrible was the prestige of the priesthood of Mexico. The greater

the State grew, the larger were the hecatombs of human victims. Almost

every god had to be propitiated in the same way; but above all must

the war-god be for ever glutted with the smoking hearts of slain

captives. Scarcely any historian, says Prescott, estimates the number

of human beings sacrificed yearly throughout the Empire at less than

20,000, and some make it 50,000. The Franciscan monks computed that

2,500 victims were annually sacrificed in the town and district of

Mexico alone. Of this doomed host, Huitzilopochtli had the lion's

share; and it is recorded that at the dedication of his great new

temple A.D. 1486 [that is to say, nearly 1,500 years after God was

pleased to reveal Himself definitely to mankind] there were slain in

his honour 70,000 prisoners of war, who had been reserved for the

purpose for years throughout the Empire. They formed a train two

miles long, and the work of priestly butchery went on for several

days." [115]

"At every festival of the God there was a new hecatomb of victims,

and we may conceive how the chronic spectacle burnt itself in on the

imagination of the people.... And then the horror of the sacrificial

act! In the great majority of the sacrifices the victim was laid

living on the convex stone and held by the limbs, while the slayer

cut open his breast with the sacred flint (or rather obsidian)

knife--the ancient knife used before men had the use of metals, and

therefore most truly religious--and tore out the palpitating heart,

which was held on high to the all-seeing sun, before being set to

burn in incense in front of the idol, whose lips, and the walls of

whose shrines, were devoutly daubed with blood."

"In connection with one annual festival of Tezcatlipoca, the

Creator and 'soul of the world,' who combined the attributes of

perpetual youthful beauty with the function of the God of Justice and

Retribution, as the Winter Sun, there was selected for immolation a

young male captive of especial beauty, who was treated with great

reverence for a whole year before being sacrificed.... When all

was over the priests piously improved the occasion, preaching that

all this had been typical of human destiny, while the aristocracy

sacramentally ate the victim's roasted limbs."

"They [Christians] mystically eat the body of the slain God. Now,

this very act was performed by the Mexicans, not only literally as

we have seen, but in the symbolic way also; and they connected their

sacraments with the symbol of the cross."

"That the Mexicans were no longer cannibals by taste is shown by the

fact that in the great siege by Cortez they died of starvation by

thousands. They never ate fellow citizens: only the sacrificially

slain captive."

"The strangest thing of all is that their frightful system of sacrifice

was bound up not only with a strict and ascetic sexual morality,

but with an emphatic humanitarian doctrine. If asceticism be virtue,

they cultivated virtue zealously. There was a Mexican Goddess of

Love, and there was of course plenty of vice; but nowhere could men

win a higher reputation for sanctity by living in celibacy. Their

saints were numerous. They had nearly all the formulas of Christian

morality, so-called. The priests themselves mostly lived in strict

celibacy; and they educated children with the greatest vigilance in

their temple schools and higher colleges. They taught the people to

be peaceful, to bear injuries with meekness, to rely on God's mercy

and not on their own merits; they taught, like Jesus and the Pagans,

that adultery could be committed by the eyes and the heart; and, above

all, they exhorted men to feed the poor. The public hospitals were

carefully attended to, at a time when some Christian countries had

none. They had the practice of confession and absolution, and in the

regular exhortation of the confessor there was this formula: Clothe

the naked and feed the hungry, whatever privations it may cost thee;

for remember their flesh is like thine, and they are men like thee;

cherish the sick, for they are the image of God. And in this very

same exhortation there was further urged on the penitent the special

duty of instantly procuring a slave for sacrifice to the deity."

The Mexican believed in the resurrection of the Man-God. Dr. Frazer

relates how "the idea that the God thus slain in the person of

his representative comes to life again immediately was graphically

represented in the Mexican ritual by skinning the slain man-god,

and clothing in his skin a living man, who thus became the new

representative of the god-head." [116]

It is civilisation that determines the tone of religion. In Peru,

where the civilisation was higher and the priesthood less powerful,

the sacrificial system was less burdensome and less terrible. Thus

human sacrifices were practically extinct. The Peruvians had the

institution of a Holy Communion, in which they ate of a sacred bread,

sancu, sprinkled with the blood of a sacrificed sheep, the priest

pronouncing this formula: "Take heed how ye eat this sancu; for he who

eats it in sin and with a double will and heart is seen by our Father,

the Sun, who will punish him with grievous troubles." The Spaniards

themselves recognised that the Mexicans ate the mystical body of

the God with every sign of devotion and contrition; and they were

so far from depreciating the Peruvian Communion that they supposed

St. Bartholomew had established it. [117]

With these facts confronting us, it is nothing short of marvellous to

find many learned divines completely ignoring them in their apologetic

efforts. I say marvellous, for I assume they possess honesty of purpose

and some acquaintance with ancient beliefs; but perhaps I am wrong in

the latter assumption. The continuance of the celebration of the Holy

Eucharist until the present day is held to be one of the evidences

for the Christian faith, and this on the ground that the rite could

not have survived if Christ had not founded it. For some reason,

best known to the apologist, the almost universal observance of

the same ceremony, ages before the Christian era, and its survival

among the nations who finally adopted Christianity, are entirely

overlooked. Thus Dr. Maclear, in his book, The Evidential Value of

the Holy Eucharist, says: "The singular rite has survived all the

vicissitudes of more than 1,000 years.... The early Christian would

inform a supposed questioner that the meal was a sacrificial feast,

instituted by Him from Whom we are called Christians, and Who died

for us on the Cross. Here, then, we are on solid ground. The rite,

so unique and so unprecedented, rests on an objective historical

fact." One would think that Dr. Maclear had entirely neglected the

study of ancient and even modern non-Christian [118] beliefs.

VEGETATION GODS.

There is another class of primitive sacrificial custom which claims

our careful attention, in order that we may see whether it manifests

the beginning of a revelation from God. Even if we could agree

that all these gruesome details represent a savage's glimmerings

of the truth, we must allow that the theory collapses when the

object of the custom can be shown to have little or nothing to do

with religion in any true sense of the word. Subtle intellects are

capable of maintaining that the worship of ancestors, or of the Sun,

or of imaginary devils, betokens a dim perception of God; but when it

comes to the propitiation of a vegetation-god solely for the sake of

the material benefits expected to be derived from his cult, surely

it is time to dismiss the theory as worthless. "All the world over,

savages and semi-civilised people are in the habit of sacrificing human

victims, whose bodies are buried in the field with the seed of corn,

or other bread stuffs. Often enough the victim's blood is mixed with

grain in order to fertilise it. The most famous instance is that of

the Khonds of Orissa, who chose special victims, known as Meriahs,

and offered them up to ensure good harvests. The Meriah was often kept

years before being sacrificed. He was regarded as a consecrated being,

and treated with extreme affection, mingled with deference." [119]

"The periodical sacrifices," says Dr. Frazer, in The Golden Bough,

"were generally so arranged by tribes and divisions of tribes that

each head of a family was enabled, at least once a year, to procure a

shred of flesh for his fields, generally about the time when his chief

crop was laid down." Khonds in distress often sold their children

as Meriahs, "considering the beatification of their souls certain,

and their death, for the benefit of mankind, the most honourable

possible." Their children were representatives of the Deity. With

advancing civilisation we have the substitution of an animal in

place of the human representative of the God. In some cases the

worshippers tore the living animal to pieces with their teeth. The

rending and devouring of live bulls, calves, and goats seems to have

been a regular feature of the Dionysiac rites, the participators in

the orgy fancying that they were devouring the actual body and blood of

the god. With the further advance of civilisation (or, according to the

latest Christian theory, with the further advance of God's revelation),

as in the Mediterranean region, the bodies of the gods of agriculture

were eaten by their votaries in the shape of cakes of bread, or other

food stuffs, and their blood was drunk in the form of wine. [120]

If Dr. Frazer be right as to the priority of the idea of a

vegetation-god in cults commonly associated with the Sun, then Krishna,

Osiris, Dionysus or Bacchus, Adonis, Attis, and other Saviours whose

deaths and resurrections were annually celebrated at the spring equinox

(our Easter), may have been primarily vegetation-victims, the abstract

ideas which identified the death and resurrection of the god with

the annual winter sleep and spring revival being finally fathered

upon the worship. Whatever explanation may be the correct one for the

phenomenon of a common mythos over the greater portion of the globe, it

is certainly not that of a Progressive Revelation. Such an explanation

has never been mooted by anyone but the Christian apologist. "Among

early men and savages every act of life has a sacred significance,

and agriculture especially is everywhere and always invested with

a special sanctity. To us it would seem natural that the act of

sowing seed should be regarded as purely practical and physiological;

that the seed should be looked upon merely as the part of the plant

intended for reproduction, and that its germination should be accepted

as a natural and normal process. Savages and early men, however, had

no such conceptions. To them the whole thing is a piece of natural

magic." [121] Are we, then, to regard this working of primitive

thought as the working of the Holy Spirit? Surely we may dismiss such

a preposterous theory? It will serve the Church no good purpose; for,

while thinking men will be further than ever estranged, it will furnish

the militant agnostic with a fresh weapon for his attacks upon her.

WHY MEN EAT THEIR GOD.

Whatever may have been the ultimate origin of the idea of God, and

of the belief in His expiatory death and subsequent resurrection,

the origin of the custom of eating Him sacramentally permits of

a very simple explanation. "Du Chaillu notes that some of his West

African followers, when going on an expedition, brought out the skulls

of their ancestors (which they religiously preserved) and scraped

off small portions of the bone, which they mixed with the water and

drank, giving as a reason for this conduct that their ancestors were

brave, and that by drinking a portion of them they too became brave

and fearless. Here we have a simple and early case of that habit of

'eating the god' to whose universality and importance Dr. Frazer has

called attention." [122] It is a common early belief, which may still

be met with, that by eating a certain animal the consumer will become

possessed of its qualities. It is notorious, for instance, that the

Miris of Northern India prize tiger's flesh for men, because it gives

them strength and courage. And apparently the same belief exists also

in Southern India, for I remember our Madrassi ayah--a Christian by

the bye--begging for the hind leg of a panther (shot by my wife),

and explaining that she wanted to eat it in order to make her muzbut

(strong). I may mention also that certain religious rites still in

vogue among the Hindoos--disgusting as they are, not only to our ideas,

but in fact--arise from a similar notion.

Herbert Spencer discusses this primitive idea in his Principles of

Sociology. He explains how "attributes or properties, as we understand

them, are not recognisable by the savage--are abstractions which

neither his faculties can grasp nor his language express. Hence

certain beliefs, everywhere conspicuous among the uncivilised. A

special potency which some object or part of an object displays

belongs to it in such a wise that it may be acquired by consuming or

possessing this object or part. The powers of a conquered antagonist

are supposed to be gained by devouring him. The Dakotah eats the

heart of a slain foe to increase his own courage; the New Zealander

swallows his dead enemy's eyes that he may see further; the Abipone

consumes tiger's flesh thinking so to gain the tiger's strength

and ferocity--cases which recall the legend about Zeus devouring

Metis that he might become possessed of her wisdom. Clearly the

implied mode of thought, shown even in the medical prescriptions

of past ages, is a mode of thought necessarily persisting until

analysis has disclosed the complexities of causal relations." [123]

"The belief that the qualities of any individual are appropriated by

eating him is illustrated by the statement of Stanbridge, that when

Australians kill an infant they feed an older child with it, believing

'that by its eating as much as possible of the roasted infant it will

possess the strength of both.' Elsewhere dead relations are consumed

in pursuance of an allied belief. We read of the Cucamas that, 'as

soon as a relation died, these people assembled and ate him roasted

or boiled, according as he was thin or fat!'" [124]

It is easy, then, to understand why a savage should desire to partake

of the flesh of an animal or man whom he regards as divine. By eating

the body of the god he shares in the god's attributes and powers. "And

when," as Dr. Frazer points out, [125] "the god is a corn-god, the

corn is his proper body; when he is a vine-god, the juice of the

grape is his blood; and so by eating the bread and drinking the wine

the worshipper partakes of the real body and blood of the god." If

the apologist, nothing daunted, maintains that there is a religious

germ in these primitive superstitions, it is practically tantamount to

saying that every superstition contains such a germ; that superstition

and religion are, in fact, often synonymous terms. I thought it

was only the sceptic who said that. Before committing himself any

further to a supernatural theory which is so obviously untenable,

I do entreat the average apologist to read carefully the works of

great thinkers who have made primitive man their especial study. Let

him read, for instance, Herbert Spencer's Principles of Sociology,

where he will find a natural and mind-satisfying explanation of

primitive ideas concerning supernatural agents, ghosts, spirits,

demons, gods, resurrection, another life, inspiration, divination,

sacrifices, fasting, propitiation, and prayer. He will learn, also,

much that he ought to know concerning ancestor-worship, idol-worship,

fetish-worship, animal-worship, plant-worship, nature-worship, and

the heathen deities generally. He should also read Frazer's Golden

Bough, J. M. Robertson's Pagan Christs and Christianity and Mythology,

and other scholarly and informing works of this description, instead

of confining his studies to works of an apologetic character, where

everything incompatible with existing Christian theories is carefully

omitted, or coloured out of all recognition.

§ 4. The Solar Myth.

JONAH AND THE WHALE.

The resemblances to ancient myths are not confined to the principal

incidents in the life of Christ. Many of the most noteworthy events

related in the Old Testament have their counterpart in widespread

legends. That the stories of the Creation, Fall, and Deluge are legends

is well known--a visit to the British Museum should convince the most

captious critic on this point--but it is not so well known that ancient

folk-lore contains stories similar to those of the Tower of Babel,

the trial of Abraham's faith, Jacob's vision of the ladder between

earth and heaven, the finding of Moses in an ark, the transformation

of Moses' rod into a serpent, the Israelites' passage through the

Red Sea on dry land, Moses smiting the rock and thus producing

water, the reception by Moses of the Ten Commandments from God,

Balaam's expostulating ass, Joshua's command to the sun and the sun's

obedience, Samson and his exploits, Elijah's ascent to heaven, and

Jonah's sojourn for three days and three nights in the belly of a fish.

This Jonah episode has an important bearing on the subject under

discussion, as it is a typical case of an absorption of the universal

mythos. Among other authorities, Godfrey Higgins tells us: "The story

of Jonas swallowed up by a whale is nothing but part of the fiction

of Hercules, described in the Heracleid or Labours of Hercules, of

whom the same story was told, and who was swallowed up at the very

same place, Joppa, and for the same period of time, three days." [126]

Again, with the exception of those who refuse to acknowledge anything

damaging to the literal truth of Holy Writ, all professors of theology

are agreed that the miracle recorded in the book of Jonah is not a

historical fact. This in spite of the alleged personal interviews with

God as there recounted; while the plea that we must make allowance for

oriental imagery serves only to throw discredit upon historians on

whom we are relying for facts upon which the scheme of Christianity

depends. Now, the story of the three days' sojourn of Hercules and

other heroes in the bowels of the earth, or the belly of a fish,

is only a different version of the myth concerning the death and

resurrection of a god which we find to be prevalent over nearly the

whole world. And, according to the new Christian theory, this shows

an intuition of Christ's death and resurrection!

ANTICIPATIONS OF CHRISTIANITY IN SOLAR MYTHS.

The advanced theologians, who are presenting us with this theory, have

to explain, among other things, how it was that Christ himself took the

"Jonah and whale" story seriously, treating it as sober history. He

spoke of no mere allegory when He said: "For as Jonas was three days

and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of Man be

three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." [127] Neither

Christ himself nor the Apostles spoke of any revelation embodied in

heathen beliefs. Very much the reverse. Yet the Bishop of Birmingham

(late of Worcester), speaking to the adversaries of Christianity,

informs them: "You say that we find in Christianity the relics of

paganism. On the contrary, we find in paganism, intermingled with

much that is false, superstitious, and horrible, the anticipations

of Christianity." Is that why we have paid them the compliment of

adopting their dates for the birth and death of their Saviours? [128]

Canon P. H. Robinson goes so far as to say that Christianity has

benefited by the addition of heathen thought [N.B. He owns there has

been this addition], and that it is yet to benefit by further contact

with heathen thought! His actual words are: "If Greek and Roman thought

were needed for a full appreciation of the meaning of the Incarnation,

why may we not say the same of Indian and Chinese thought? Surely we

are justified in believing that every country and every people have

something to contribute to Christianity and that the completion of

the Christian revelation awaits the contribution of each. We believe

that there are many important aspects of the Christian truth which

have never been understood, simply because Christianity has not yet

been reflected in the experience of those nations of the world which

are still heathen." [129]

THE CHRISTIAN THEORY IGNORED BY SCIENCE.

The earliest attempts at a crude science of mythology were efforts

to reconcile the legends of the gods and heroes with the religious

sentiment which recognised in these beings objects of worship and

respect. When the Christians first approached the problem of heathen

mythology, they agreed with St. Augustine that the gods were real

persons--but diabolical, not divine. "Some later philosophers,

especially of the seventeenth century, misled by the resemblance

between Biblical narratives and ancient myths, came to the conclusion

that the Bible contains a pure, the myths a distorted, form of an

original revelation." [130] Now, however, in tracing myths and legends

to their probable origins, the modern mythologist never dreams of

calling to his aid any supernatural theory.

Myths present, I take it, two main problems--first as to their origin,

and second as to their resemblances to Biblical narratives. Some

mythologists, while no longer allowing orthodox tradition to hamper

them, only profess to answer the first question. They disclaim the

obligation of entering the arena of theological controversy. It is

important that the Church should thoroughly realise this, and that

any disagreement there may be among mythologists as to the solution

of the first problem--the origin of myths--has little or no bearing

upon the solution of the second problem--the Bible parallels. What

does it matter whether the gods had a vegetable or a solar origin,

or arose, as Max Müller thought, from "a disease of language"? The

all-important question for Christians is: Can any of these possible

origins point to a Progressive Revelation, and, if not, how are we

to account for the Bible parallels?

THE SUN AS A SYMBOL.

Suppose that, whatever the ultimate origin may have been, certain

myths containing the parallels are, as we know them, solar myths

(and on this point mythologists are now in complete accord); how

can a belief be, at one and the same time, a solar myth and also

an allegory expressing a spiritual truth? The sun is the object of

worship, and its apparent movements give rise to myths concerning

the birth, death, and resurrection of a Saviour. [131] Can we call

this Progressive Revelation? "Certainly," the apologists may reply;

"is there no bright Sun of Righteousness--no personal and loving

Son of God, of whom the material sun has been the type or symbol, in

all ages and among all nations? What power is it that comes from the

sun to give light and heat to all created things? If the symbolical

sun leads such a great and heavenly flock, what must be said of the

true and only begotten Son of God? If Apollo was adopted by early

Christian art as a type of the Good Shepherd of the New Testament,

this interpretation of the sun-god among all nations must be the

solution of the universal mythos. What other solution can it have? To

what other historical personage but Christ can it apply? If this

mythos has no spiritual meaning, all religion becomes mere idolatry,

or the worship of material things." [132]

Will this sort of reasoning satisfy the average man? To begin with,

the sun-worshippers themselves had no idea that the sun was, as is now

alleged, the symbol of a great Truth. The sun, or their conception

of the sun as a divine person in a blazing car, was the object of

their worship. What a waste of worship for thousands upon thousands of

years!--worship that might have been centred upon the true God. Even

now, nigh on 2,000 years after God was pleased at last to reveal

Himself, as we are told, to all mankind, the greater portion do not

know Him, or they deny Him. If God intended the sun to be a symbol

of Christ, why have we never been told this before? Why even now

is it only put forward by a certain school of apologists in costly

books that few will ever set their eyes upon? It is noteworthy, too,

that the horrors that accompanied the worship of this same "bright

Sun" are discreetly kept in the background by these advocates of the

"symbol" theory.

§ 5. Concluding Remarks on Christian and Anti-Christian Theories.

If Progressive Revelation be true, it is the most marvellous proof of

the truth of Christianity--far the greatest proof that has ever yet

been presented to us. Far greater, for instance, than the prophecies of

those so-called prophets of the Old Testament, who, it now transpires,

were only anticipating or describing events of their own times. It is

such a proof as Christianity is in dire need of just now--a proof that

will save her from a peril which every hour brings nearer. Why, then,

do we hear so little of this great discovery from the pulpit? [133] How

comes it that it is discovered so many years after the fulfilment of

these unconscious prophecies of the pagans? Why is it produced merely

to confute the sceptic and restore confidence to that infinitesimally

small number who happen to have studied, and therefore to have

had their suspicions aroused by, Comparative Mythology? We are

to believe that God revealed Himself by an exceedingly slow and

painful process, extending over thousands upon thousands of years,

and entailing the most horrible customs among savages. This process,

mark you, not only led to the establishment of Christianity as the

world became more civilised, but to the establishment of those other

great religions which to this day are hostile to the reception of

Christianity! Simple-minded people will never be induced to agree

that revelation can be progressive in the manner now indicated to

us by the apologist. Rather they will agree with the nationalist,

who denies the originality of Christianity, contending that it is a

cult which adopted, step by step, the mysteries, the miracles, and

the myths of the popular Gentile religions. Some freethinkers, indeed,

go so far as to say that the whole Gospel story is nothing more than

a myth; but the greater number consider that there is a substratum of

truth, and that round this have slowly gathered the religious ideas

and doctrines that were current in the old pagan world. The precise

manner in which, they conjecture, the transformation actually took

place is a large subject, and there are differences of opinion--e.g.,

some are inclined to think that Essenism, others that Mithraism,

played a leading part; but the point to be borne in mind is that

there is no difficulty whatever in understanding how the absorption

of myths could have taken place, or how the Christian cult could have

arisen and prospered.

I especially mention this, as some apologists argue that there

was not sufficient time for heathen accretions between the death

of Jesus and the writing of the Gospels. I can only reiterate the

remark of the well-known professor of Church history, Dr. Harnack:

"We know that the Gospels come from a time in which the marvellous

may be said to have been something of almost daily occurrence. We now

know that eminent persons have not to wait until they have been long

dead, or even for several years, to have miracles reported of them;

they are reported at once, often the very next day." Also, I should

call attention to the notes on Essenism and Mithraism at the close of

this chapter, as they contain the answer to this final objection. But,

personally, I fail to see how the "time" objection can in any case

be maintained when we remember that the whole world had already

been conversant for ages past with stories of suffering Saviours,

similar in all essentials to the Gospel narratives. Besides, we know

that documents have been tampered with more or less (the sceptic says

"more," the apologist "less"), and that the composition of the Gospels

took place many years after the events they purport to describe;

while the age was one when men were extremely credulous, and when,

consciously and unconsciously, imposing upon this credulity was the

ordinary method of propagating a Faith.

ARGUMENT FROM ESSENISM.

Regarding the difficulty of supposing that Jesus or the Evangelists

could have been imbued with any sun-myth ideas, we must take into

consideration the existence at that time of the Jewish sect, the

Essenes. It seems quite possible that they considered Jesus of

Nazareth to be the Messiah they were expecting, and that they came

over to Christianity in a body. This monastic brotherhood, living in

settlements in the desert west of the Dead Sea--i.e., within a day's

journey of Bethlehem and Jerusalem--not only placed love of God, of

goodness, and of man as articles in their programme, but also sought

with wonderful energy, according to their lights, to realise them

in their life. Bunsen assures us (p. 158 of his Angel-Messiah), and

furnishes strong grounds for his opinion, that the Essenes introduced

the new doctrine of an Angel-Messiah, and with it the doctrine of the

atoning death of the Messiah, into Judaism and Christianity. Canon

Cheyne likewise places them among the number of those who prepared

the way for the new world-religion. This seems to have been the very

reason of their disappearance in the second century A.D.--Christianity

dissolved them. So much so that the Essenes (often called Therapeutæ

or healers) are identified by Eusebius with the Christian monks, and

this opinion was generally adopted by the Fathers (see chap, xvii.,

bk. ii., p. 117, of The Church History of Eusebius, translated by the

Rev. A. C. McGiffert, under the editorial supervision of Henry Wace,

D.D., and Philip Schaff, D.D.).

From a perusal of the article on the "Essenes" in the Encyclopædia

Biblica, it will be seen that Essenism is not a purely Jewish

product, but that "Persian and Babylonian influence may reasonably

be admitted." "Oriental influences were," Canon Cheyne informs us,

"so to speak, in the air, and it is probable that the belief in the

resurrection was not the only great debt which Jewish religionists

owed to Zoroastrians." Bishop Lightfoot describes the Essenes as

sun-worshippers. Is there, then, no likelihood of Jesus and His

disciples being familiar with the ideas of sun-worshippers?

But, it may be urged, the teaching of Jesus Christ was opposed to

Essenic doctrines in the matter of asceticism. True; but, in one

way, this makes the case for the absorption of Essenic ideas all the

stronger, for it would account for the strange fact that the Christians

approved of asceticism in spite of their own Master's example to the

contrary. I do not wish to press this anti-Christian theory further

than to say that it appears to me that, among others, it is one

deserving of consideration. Presuming that in Jesus the Apostles

were confronted with a personality of overwhelming attractiveness

and power of appeal to themselves, their language can be interpreted

throughout as their attempt to expound and pass on their experience

to the world. In this attempt they were naturally driven to employ

such conceptions as were current in their day, and notably those

of Messianic anticipations and Greek philosophy. Assuming that the

Gospels are without any important interpolations, and that the authors

are the Evangelists, even then the partial insertion of solar-myths

would not necessarily be tantamount to any conscious dishonesty on

the part of the Evangelists; it only points to their impregnation

with the Jewish beliefs, such as those of the Essenes, that were

around them. If this theory be correct, the difficulty arising from

the shortness of the time between the Resurrection and the writing

of the Gospels vanishes, since accretions of a later date would no

longer be the sole cause for the events recorded by the Evangelists

becoming inextricably entwined with mythical beliefs.

ARGUMENT FROM MITHRAISM.

This argument is fully developed in Part III. of Mr. J. M. Robertson's

book, Pagan Christs, from which the following are quotations:

"Mithraism was in point of range the most nearly universal religion

of the Western world in the early centuries of the Christian era. As

to this students are agreed. [Here Mr. Robertson gives in a footnote

a formidable array of authorities.] To the early Fathers, we shall

see. Mithraism was a most serious thorn in the flesh; and the

monumental remains of the Roman period, in almost all parts of the

empire, show its extraordinary extension." Mr. Robertson points out

that there are a number of monuments in honour of Mithra in England,

France, Italy, Germany, and in many Mediterranean ports. He then

proceeds to give us some exceedingly important information regarding

Mithraism, out of which I select the following extracts for the more

particular attention of Christians:--

"We have the culture of Mithra as the Sun-god, the deity of light

and truth, created by, and yet co-equal with, the Supreme Deity, and

fighting on the side of the good against the evil power, Angra-Mainyu

(Ahriman)--this at a period long before the Christian era.... Mithra

comes to occupy a singular position as between the two great powers of

good and evil, Ormuzd and Ahriman, being actually named the Mediator,

and figuring to the devout eye as a humane and beneficent God,

nearer to man than the Great Spirit of Good, a Saviour, a Redeemer,

eternally young, son of the Most High, and preserver of mankind from

the Evil One.... The first day of the week, Sunday, was apparently

from time immemorial consecrated to Mithra by the Mithraists; and as

the Sun-god was pre-eminently 'the Lord,' Sunday was the 'Lord's Day'

long before the Christian era.... We have some exact information as

to the two chief Mithraic ceremonies or festivals, those of Christmas

and Easter, the winter solstice and the vernal equinox, the birthday of

the Sun-god, and the period of his sacrifice and his triumph.... There

were in antiquity, we know from Porphyry, several elaborate treatises

setting forth the religion of Mithra; and every one of these has

been destroyed by the care of the Church.... Of course, we are told

that the Mithraic rites and mysteries are borrowed and imitated from

Christianity. The refutation of this notion, as has been pointed out

by M. Havet, lies in the language of those Christian fathers who spoke

of Mithraism. Three of them, as we have seen, speak of the Mithraic

resemblances to Christian rites as being the work of devils. Now,

if the Mithraists had simply imitated the historic Christians,

the obvious course for the latter would be simply to say so.... The

Mithraic mysteries, then, of the burial and resurrection of the Lord,

the Mediator, the Saviour; burial in a rock tomb and resurrection

from the tomb; the sacrament of bread and water, the marking on the

forehead with a mystic mark--all these were in practice before the

publication of the Christian Gospel.... Nor was this all. Firmicus

informs us that the devil, in order to leave nothing undone for the

destruction of souls, had beforehand resorted to deceptive imitations

of the Cross of Christ.... Still further does the parallel hold. It

is well known that, whereas in the Gospels Jesus is said to have been

born in an inn-stable, early Christian writers, as Justin Martyr and

Origen, explicitly say he was born in a cave. Now, in the Mithra myth,

Mithra is both rock-born and born in a cave; and the monuments show

the new-born babe adored by shepherds who offer first-fruits.... Now,

however, arises the great question. How came such a cultus to die

out of the Roman and Byzantine Empire after making its way so far,

and holding its ground so long? The answer to that question has never,

I think, been fully given, and is for the most part utterly evaded,

though part of it has been suggested often enough. The truth is

Mithraism was not overthrown; it was merely transformed.... Though

Mithraism had many attractions, Christianity had more, having

sedulously copied every one of its rivals and developed special

features of its own.... In the Christian legend the God was humanised

in the most literal way; and for the multitude the concrete deity

must needs replace the abstract. The Gospels gave a literal story:

The Divine Man was a carpenter, and ate and drank with the poorest

of the poor.... Gradually the very idea of allegory died out of

the Christian intelligence; and priests as well as people came to

take everything literally and concretely.... This was the religion

for the Dark Ages.... Byzantines and barbarians alike were held by

literalism, not by the unintelligible: for both alike the symbol had

to become a fetish; and for the Dark Ages the symbol of the cross

was much more plausibly appealing than that of the god slaying the

zodiacal bull.... A Mithraist could turn to the Christian worship

and find his main rites unimpaired, lightened only of the burden of

initiative austerities, stripped of the old obscure mysticism, and

with all things turned to the literal and the concrete, in sympathy

with the waning of knowledge and philosophy throughout the world."

But I must now close these quotations, apologising to Mr. Robertson

for making such a free use of his book, and advising my readers to

study it. They will find that his facts are reliable; they are all

backed by the highest authorities, however much the conclusions drawn

from them may, at present, be a matter of opinion. Suffice it to

say here that the coincidences between Mithraism and Christianity

are indescribably marvellous, and require further explanation,

if Mr. Robertson's theory of the absorption of the former by the

latter be not very largely true. Whatever the substratum of real

history may be, there is no doubt that there was every opportunity

for an early absorption of Mithraism, and every probability that it

took place to an extent which throws a new flood of light upon many

Christian doctrines. "The first six centuries were characterised

by fierce controversies as to the most fundamental verities of the

Christian faith, by the wholesale introduction of adult converts, who

brought with them heathen and Jewish habits of thought, and who were

in many cases of a low type of civilisation; and the adulteration of

the Gospel was further facilitated by the purely nominal adhesion of

persons anxious to stand well with the first Christian Emperors. The

period was one of incessant fermentation and of rapid and continuous

change." These are not the words of Mr. Robertson, nor of any other

freethinker, but are an extract from the resolution adopted by the

Church Association in connection with the appeal by Dean Wace and

others to the authority of the First Six Centuries. What a period to

appeal to! When we know what we do of the credulity and the methods

of those "Fathers" of the Church, how can any rational being place

in them any confidence whatsoever?

What steps do the Churches propose to take concerning these

disclosures? Will they proclaim from the pulpit their new theory of a

Progressive Revelation, or will they by their silence evince their own

want of faith in this precious theory, and allow the storm of unbelief

slowly to gather force until it bursts and overwhelms the Christian

belief? Knowledge of the facts, so ably discussed by Mr. Robertson,

will soon be widely disseminated. Let there be no mistake on this

point. Here, for instance, are some instructive passages appearing

on page 496 of the Nineteenth Century, September, 1905:--

"It has been truly observed that the recovery, only partial as it

is, of the history of this religion [the Mithraic] is one of the most

remarkable triumphs of historical and antiquarian research. Originating

in Persia, it was spread through the Roman Empire by poor and humble

converts, who were at first mainly soldiers; but gradually, like

Christianity, it permeated all ranks, and its temples are found

scattered over the whole civilised world, from Babylon to the

hills of Scotland. Just as the religion of Isis did, it resembled

that of Christ in being a religion of inward holiness, of austere

self-discipline and purity; but the details of its resemblance are

incomparably more close and curious. The briefest sketch of the

matter is all that can be attempted here. According to Mithraic

theology, God considered in His totality is a Being so infinite and

so transcendent that His direct connection with man and the universe

is inconceivable. In order to become the father of man and creator,

He manifested Himself in a second personality--namely, Mithra, who

was in his cosmic character identified with the 'unconquered sun,'

and, as a moral and intellectual Being, was the Divine Word or Reason,

and, in more senses than one, 'the mediator' between man and the Most

High. Life on earth, according to the Mithraic doctrine, is for man a

time of trial. The Spirit of Evil, his adversary, is always seeking to

destroy him--to crush him with pain and sorrow, or to stain his soul

with concupiscence; but in all his struggles Mithra is at hand to aid

him, and will at the last day be at once his judge and advocate, when

the graves give up their dead, when the just are separated from the

unjust, when the saved are welcomed like children into eternal bliss,

and the lost are consumed in the fire prepared for the Devil and his

angels. This Divine Saviour came into the world as an infant. His

first worshippers were shepherds; and the day of His nativity was

December 25th. His followers preached a severe and rigid morality,

chief among their virtues being temperance, chastity, renunciation,

and self-control. They kept the seventh day holy, and the middle day

of each month was a special feast of Mithra, which symbolised his

function of Mediator. They had seven sacraments, of which the most

important were baptism, confirmation, and a Eucharistic supper, at

which the communicants partook of the divine nature of Mithra under

the species of bread and wine."

EVOLUTION