[484:9] "So was Ixion bound on the fiery wheel, and the sons of men see the flaming spokes day by day as it whirls in the high heaven."
[485:1] Cox: Tales of Ancient Greece, p. xxxii.
[485:2] Ibid. p. xxxiii.
[485:3] "That the story of the Trojan war is almost wholly mythical, has been conceded even by the stoutest champions of Homeric unity." (Rev. G. W. Cox.)
[485:4] See Müller's Science of Religion, p. 186.
[485:5] See Calmet's Fragments, vol. ii. pp. 21, 22.
[486:1] Nimrod: vol. i. p. 278, in Anac., i. p. 503.
[486:2] At Miletus was the crucified Apollo—Apollo, who overcome the Serpent or evil principle. Thus Callimachus, celebrating this achievement, in his hymn to Apollo, has these remarkable words:
[486:3] These words apply to Christ Jesus, as well as Semiramis, according to the Christian Father Ignatius. In his Epistle to the Church at Ephesus, he says: "Now the virginity of Mary, and he who was born of her, was kept in secret from the prince of this world, as was also the death of our Lord: three of the mysteries the most spoken of throughout the world, yet done in secret by God."
[487:1] The Rosicrucians, p. 260.
[487:2] Ibid.
[488:1] The Sun-gods Apollo, Indra, Wittoba or Crishna, and Christ Jesus, are represented as having their feet pierced with nails (See Cox: Aryan Mytho., vol. ii. p. 23, and Moor's Hindu Pantheon.)
[489:1] Knight: Anct. Art and Mytho., pp. 87, 88.
[489:2] Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 32.
[489:3] "This notion is quite consistent with the ideas entertained by the Phenicians as to the Serpent, which they supposed to have the quality of putting off its old age, and assuming a second youth." Sanchoniathon: (Quoted by Wake: Phallism, &c., p. 43.)
[489:4] Une serpent qui tient sa queue dans sa gueule et dans le circle qu'il decrit, ces trois lettres Greques ΓΞΕ, qui sont le nombre 365. Le Serpent, qui est d'ordinaire un emblème de l'eternetè est ici celui de Soleil et des ses revolutions. (Beausobre: Hist. de Manich. tom. ii. p. 55. Quoted by Lardner, vol. viii. p. 379.)
"This idea existed even in America. The great century of the Aztecs was encircled by a serpent grasping its own tail, and the great calendar stone is entwined by serpents bearing human heads in their distended jaws."
"The annual passage of the Sun, through the signs of the zodiac, being in an oblique path, resembles, or at least the ancients thought so, the tortuous movements of the Serpent, and the facility possessed by this reptile of casting off his skin and producing out of itself a new covering every year, bore some analogy to the termination of the old year and the commencement of the new one. Accordingly, all the ancient spheres—the Persian, Indian, Egyptian, Barbaric, and Mexican—were surrounded by the figure of a serpent holding its tail in its mouth." (Squire: Serpent Symbol, p. 249.)
[489:5] Wake: Phallism, p. 42.
[489:6] See Cox: Aryan Mytho., vol. ii. p. 128.
[490:1] Being the most intimately connected with the reproduction of life on earth, the Linga became the symbol under which the Sun, invoked with a thousand names, has been worshiped throughout the world as the restorer of the powers of nature after the long sleep or death of Winter. In the brazen Serpent of the Pentateuch, the two emblems of the Cross and Serpent, the quiescent and energizing Phallos, are united. (Cox: Aryan Mytho. vol. ii. pp. 113-118.)
[490:2] Wake: Phallism, &c., p. 60.
[491:1] Squire: Serpent Symbol, p. 155.
[491:2] Wake: Phallism in Anct. Religs., p. 72.
[491:3] Ibid. p. 73. Squire: Serpent Symbol, p. 195.
[491:4] Faber: Orig. Pagan Idol., in Squire, p. 158.
[491:5] Ibid.
[491:6] Kenrick's Egypt, vol. i. p. 375.
[491:7] Ibid.
[491:8] Squire: p. 161.
[491:9] Ibid. p. 185.
[492:1] Squire: p. 169.
[492:2] Lundy: Monumental Christianity, p. 185.
[492:3] "Saviour was a common title of the Sun-gods of antiquity." (Wake: Phallism in Anct. Religs., p. 55.)
The ancient Greek writers speak of the Sun, as the "Generator and Nourisher of all Things;" the "Ruler of the World;" the "First of the Gods," and the "Supreme Lord of all Beings." (Knight: Ancient Art and Mytho., p. 37.)
Pausanias (500 B. C.) speaks of "The Sun having the surname of Saviour." (Ibid. p. 98, note.)
"There is a very remarkable figure copied in Payne Knight's Work, in which we see on a man's shoulders a cock's head, whilst on the pediment are placed the words: "The Saviour of the World." (Inman: Anct. Faiths, vol. i. p. 537.) This refers to the Sun. The cock being the natural herald of the day, he was therefore sacred, among the ancients, to the Sun." (See Knight: Anct. Art and Mytho., p. 70, and Lardner: vol. viii. p. 377.)
[493:1] The name Jesus is the same as Joshua, and signifies Saviour.
[493:2] Justin Martyr: Dialog. Cum Typho. Quoted in Gibbon's Rome, vol. i. p. 582.
[493:3] Matt. xxvii. 55.
[493:4] The ever-faithful woman who is always near at the death of the Sun-god is "the fair and tender light which sheds its soft hue over the Eastern heaven as the Sun sinks in death beneath the Western waters." (Cox: Aryan Myths, vol. i. p. 223.)
[493:5] See Ibid. vol. i. p. 80.
[493:6] Bunsen: The Angel-Messiah, p. 49.
[493:7] Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. i. p. 223.
[494:1] See Tales of Ancient Greece, p. xxxi.
[494:2] Petræus was an interchangeable synonym of the name Oceanus.
[494:3] "Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee." (Matt. xvi. 22.)
[494:4] See Potter's Æschylus.
[494:5] Matt. xxvii. 45.
[494:6] As the Sun dies, or sinks in the West, blacker and blacker grows the evening shades, till there is darkness on the face of the earth. Then from the high heavens comes down the thick clouds, and the din of its thunder crashes through the air. (Description of the death of Hercules, Tales of Ancient Greece, pp. 61, 62.)
[494:7] It Is the battle of the clouds over the dead or dying Sun, which is to be seen in the legendary history of many Sun-gods. (Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 91.)
[494:8] This was one of the latest additions of the Sun-myth to the history of Christ Jesus. This has been proved not only to have been an invention after the Apostles' time, but even after the time of Eusebius (A. D. 325). The doctrine of the descent into hell was not in the ancient creeds or rules of faith. It is not to be found in the rules of faith delivered by Irenæus (A. D. 190), by Origen (A. D. 230), or by Tertullian (A. D. 200-210). It is not expressed in those creeds which were made by the Councils as larger explications of the Apostles' Creed; not in the Nicene, or Constantinopolitan; not in those of Ephesus, or Chalcedon; not in those confessions made at Sardica, Antioch, Selencia, Sirmium, &c.
[495:1] At the end of his career, the Sun enters the lowest regions, the bowels of the earth, therefore nearly all Sun-gods are made to "descend into hell," and remain there for three days and three nights, for the reason that from the 22d to the 25th of December, the Sun apparently remains in the same place. Thus Jonah, a personification of the Sun (see Chap. IX.), who remains three days and three nights in the bowels of the earth—typified by a fish—is made to pay: "Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardst my voice."
[495:2] See Chapter XXII.
[495:3] Baring-Gould: Curious Myths, p. 260.
"The mighty Lord appeared in the form of a man, and enlightened those places which had ever before been in darkness; and broke asunder the fetters which before could not be broken; and with his invincible power visited those who sat in the deep darkness by iniquity, and the shadow of death by sin. Then the King of Glory trampled upon Death, seized the Prince of Hell, and deprived him of all his power." (Description of Christ's Descent into Hell. Nicodemus: Apoc.)
[495:4] "The women weeping for Tammuz was no more than expressive of the Sun's loss of power in the winter quarter." (King's Gnostics, p. 102. See also, Cox: Aryan Mytho., vol. ii. p. 113.)
After remaining for three days and three nights in the lowest regions, the Sun begins to ascend, thus he "rises from the dead," as it were, and "ascends into heaven."
[496:1] Bonwick: Egyptian Belief, p. 174.
[496:2] Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 100.
[496:3] Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 125.
[496:4] Egyptian Belief, p. 182.
[496:5] Ibid.
[496:6] Origin of Religions, p. 264.
[497:1] Origin of Religions, p. 268.
[497:2] Aryan Mythology, vol. i. p. 384.
[497:3] Origin of Religion, pp. 264-268.
[498:1] The number twelve appears in many of the Sun-myths. It refers to the twelve hours of the day or night, or the twelve moons of the lunar year. (Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. i. p. 165. Bonwick: Egyptian Belief, p. 175.)
Osiris, the Egyptian Saviour, had twelve apostles. (Bonwick, p. 175.)
In all religions of antiquity the number twelve, which applies to the twelve signs of the zodiac, are reproduced in all kinds and sorts of forms. For instance: such are the twelve great gods; the twelve apostles of Osiris; the twelve apostles of Jesus; the twelve sons of Jacob, or the twelve tribes; the twelve altars of James; the twelve labors of Hercules; the twelve shields of Mars; the twelve brothers Arvaux; the twelve gods Consents; the twelve governors in the Manichean System; the adectyas of the East Indies; the twelve asses of the Scandinavians; the city of the twelve gates in the Apocalypse; the twelve wards of the city; the twelve sacred cushions, on which the Creator sits in the cosmogony of the Japanese; the twelve precious stones of the rational, or the ornament worn by the high priest of the Jews, &c., &c. (See Dupuis, pp. 39, 40.)
[499:1] See Mallet's Northern Antiquities, p. 505.
[499:2] Luke, ii. 32.
[499:3] John, xii, 46.
[499:4] John, ix. v.
[499:5] I. John, i. 5.
[500:1] Monumental Christianity, p. 117.
[501:1] See Monumental Christianity, pp. 189, 191, 192, 238, and 296.
[501:2] See Bonwick's Egyptian Belief, p. 283.
[501:3] King's Gnostics, p. 68.
[501:4] Ibid. p. 137.
[501:5] See Chapter XX.
[501:6] Hist. of Our Lord in Art, vol. i. p. 31.
[502:1] Geikie: Life of Christ, vol. i. p. 151.
[502:2] Monumental Christianity, p. 231.
[502:3] King's Gnostics, p. 48.
[502:4] Ibid. p. 68.
[502:5] See Bell's Pantheon, vol. i. p. 13.
[503:1] Following are the words of the decree now in the Vatican library: "In quibusdam sanctorum imaginum picturis agnus exprimitur, &c. Nos igitur veteres figuras atque umbras, et veritatis notas, et signa ecclesiæ tradita, complectentes, gratiam, et veritatem anteponimus, quam ut plenitudinem legis acceptimus. Itaque id quod perfectum est, in picturis etiam omnium oculis subjiciamus, agnum illum qui mundi peccatum tollit, Christum Deum nostrum, loco veteris Ayni, humanâ formâ posthæ exprimendum decrevimus," &c.
[504:1] "The solar horse, with two serpents upon his head (the Buddhist Aries) is Buddha's symbol, and Aries is the symbol of Christ." (Arthur Lillie: Buddha and Early Buddhism, p. 110.)
[504:2] Quoted by Lillie: Buddha and Early Buddhism, p. 93.
[504:3] Quoted by King: The Gnostics &c., p. 138.
[505:1] Quoted by King: The Gnostics, &c., p. 49.
[505:2] Ibid. p. 45.
[505:3] Indra, the crucified Sun-god of the Hindoos, was represented with golden locks. (Cox: Aryan Myths, vol. i. p. 341.)
Mithras, the Persian Saviour, was represented with long flowing locks.
Izdubar, the god and hero of the Chaldeans, was represented with long flowing locks of hair (Smith: Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 193), and so was his counterpart, the Hebrew Samson.
"The Sâkya-prince (Buddha) is described as an Aryan by Buddhistic tradition; his face was reddish, his hair of light color and curly, his general appearance of great beauty." (Bunsen: The Angel-Messiah, p. 15.)
"Serapis has, in some instances, long hair formally turned back, and disposed in ringlets hanging down upon his breast and shoulders like that of a woman. His whole person, too, is always enveloped in drapery reaching to his feet." (Knight: Ancient Art and Mythology, p. 104.)
"As for yellow hair, there is no evidence that Greeks have ever commonly possessed it; but no other color would do for a solar hero, and it accordingly characterizes the entire company of them, wherever found." (Fiske: Myths and Mythmakers, p. 202.)
Helios (the Sun) is called by the Greeks the "yellow-haired." (Goldzhier: Hebrew Mytho., p. 137.)
The Sun's rays is signified by the flowing golden locks which stream from the head of Kephalos, and fall over the shoulders of Bellerophon. (Cox: Aryan Mytho., vol. i. p. 107.)
Perseus, son of the virgin Danae, was called the "Golden Child." (Ibid. vol. ii. p. 58.) "The light of early morning is not more pure than was the color on his fair cheeks, and the golden locks streamed bright over his shoulders, like the rays of the sun when they rest on the hills at midday." (Tales of Ancient Greece, p. 83.)
The Saviour Dionysus wore a long flowing robe, and had long golden hair, which streamed from his head over his shoulders. (Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 293.)
Ixion was the "Beautiful and Mighty," with golden hair flashing a glory from his head, dazzling as the rays which stream from Helios, when he drives his chariot up the heights of heaven; and his flowing robe glistened as he moved, like the vesture which the Sun-god gave to the wise maiden Medeia, who dwelt in Kolchis. (Tales of Ancient Greece, p. 47.)
Theseus enters the city of Athens, as Christ Jesus is said to have entered Jerusalem, with a long flowing robe, and with his golden hair tied gracefully behind his head. His "soft beauty" excites the mockery of the populace, who pause in their work to jest with him. (Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 63.)
Thus we see that long locks of golden hair, and a flowing robe, are mythological attributes of the Sun.
[506:1] Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. i. p. 49.
[506:2] We have already seen (in Chapter XX.) that the word "Christ" signifies the "Anointed," or the "Messiah," and that many other personages beside Jesus of Nazareth had this title affixed to their names.
[507:1] The theory which has been set forth in this chapter, is also more fully illustrated in Appendix C.
[507:2] These three letters, the monogram of the Sun, are the celebrated I. H. S., which are to be seen in Roman Catholic churches at the present day, and which are now the monogram of the Sun-god Christ Jesus. (See Chapter XXXVI.)
We now come to the last, but certainly not least, question to be answered; which is, what do we really know of the man Jesus of Nazareth? How much of the Gospel narratives can we rely upon as fact?
Jesus of Nazareth is so enveloped in the mists of the past, and his history so obscured by legend, that it may be compared to footprints in the sand. We know some one has been there, but as to what manner of man he may have been, we certainly know little as fact. The Gospels, the only records we have of him,[508:1] have been proven, over and over again, unhistorical and legendary; to state anything as positive about the man is nothing more nor less than assumption; we can therefore conjecture only. Liberal writers philosophize and wax eloquent to little purpose, when, after demolishing the historical accuracy of the New Testament, they end their task by eulogizing the man Jesus, claiming for him the highest praise, and asserting that he was the best and grandest of our race;[508:2] but this manner of reasoning (undoubtedly consoling to many) facts do not warrant. We may consistently revere his name, and place it in the long list of the great and noble, the reformers and religious teachers of the past, all of whom have done their part in bringing about the freedom we now enjoy, but to go beyond this, is, to our thinking, unwarranted.
If the life of Jesus of Nazareth, as related in the books of the New Testament, be in part the story of a man who really lived and suffered, that story has been so interwoven with images borrowed from myths of a bygone age, as to conceal forever any fragments of history which may lie beneath them. Gautama Buddha was undoubtedly an historical personage, yet the Sun-god myth has been added to his history to such an extent that we really know nothing positive about him. Alexander the Great was an historical personage, yet his history is one mass of legends. So it is with Julius Cesar, Cyrus, King of Persia, and scores of others. "The story of Cyrus' perils in infancy belongs to solar mythology as much as the stories of the magic slipper, of Charlemagne and Barbarossa. His grandfather, Astyages, is purely a mythical creation, his name being identical with that of the night demon, Azidahaka, who appears in the Shah-Nameh as the biting serpent."
The actual Jesus is inaccessible to scientific research. His image cannot be recovered. He left no memorial in writing of himself; his followers were illiterate; the mind of his age was confused. Paul received only traditions of him, how definite we have no means of knowing, apparently not significant enough to be treasured, nor consistent enough to oppose a barrier to his own speculations. As M. Renan says: "The Christ who communicates private revelations to him is a phantom of his own making;" "it is himself he listens to, while fancying that he hears Jesus."[509:1]
In studying the writings of the early advocates of Christianity, and Fathers of the Christian Church, where we would naturally look for the language that would indicate the real occurrence of the facts of the Gospel—if real occurrences they had ever been—we not only find no such language, but everywhere find every sort of sophistical ambages, ramblings from the subject, and evasions of the very business before them, as if on purpose to balk our research, and insult our skepticism. If we travel to the very sepulchre of Christ Jesus, it is only to discover that he was never there: history seeks evidence of his existence as a man, but finds no more trace of it than of the shadow that flits across the wall. "The Star of Bethlehem" shone not upon her path, and the order of the universe was suspended without her observation.
She asks, with the Magi of the East, "Where is he that is born King of the Jews?" and, like them, finds no solution of her inquiry, but the guidance that guides as well to one place as another; descriptions that apply to Æsculapius, Buddha and Crishna, as well as to Jesus; prophecies, without evidence that they were ever prophesied; miracles, which those who are said to have seen, are said also to have denied seeing; narratives without authorities, facts without dates, and records without names. In vain do the so-called disciples of Jesus point to the passages in Josephus and Tacitus;[510:1] in vain do they point to the spot on which he was crucified; to the fragments of the true cross, or the nails with which he was pierced, and to the tomb in which he was laid. Others have done as much for scores of mythological personages who never lived in the flesh. Did not Damus, the beloved disciple of Apollonius of Tyana, while on his way to India, see, on Mt. Caucasus, the identical chains with which Prometheus had been bound to the rocks? Did not the Scythians[510:2] say that Hercules had visited their country? and did they not show the print of his foot upon a rock to substantiate their story?[510:3] Was not his tomb to be seen at Cadiz, where his bones were shown?[510:4] Was not the tomb of Bacchus to be seen in Greece?[510:5] Was not the tomb of Apollo to be seen at Delphi?[510:6] Was not the tomb of Achilles to be seen at Dodona, where Alexander the Great honored it by placing a crown upon it?[510:7] Was not the tomb of Æsculapius to be seen in Arcadia, in a grove consecrated to him, near the river Lusius?[510:8] Was not the tomb of Deucalion—he who was saved from the Deluge—long pointed out near the sanctuary of Olympian Jove, in Athens?[510:9] Was not the tomb of Osiris to be seen in Egypt, where, at stated seasons, the priests went in solemn procession, and covered it with flowers?[510:10] Was not the tomb of Jonah—he who was "swallowed up by a big fish"—to be seen at Nebi-Yunus, near Mosul?[510:11] Are not the tombs of Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Seth, Abraham, and other Old Testament characters, to be seen even at the present day?[510:12] And did not the Emperor Constantine dedicate a beautiful church over the tomb of St. George, the warrior saint?[510:13] Of what value, then, is such evidence of the existence of such an individual as Jesus of Nazareth? The fact is, "the records of his life are so very scanty, and these have been so shaped and colored and modified by the hands of ignorance and superstition and party prejudice and ecclesiastical purpose, that it is hard to be sure of the original outlines."
In the first two centuries the professors of Christianity were divided into many sects, but these might be all resolved into two divisions—one consisting of Nazarenes, Ebionites, and orthodox; the other of Gnostics, under which all the remaining sects arranged themselves. The former are supposed to have believed in Jesus crucified, in the common, literal acceptation of the term; the latter—believers in the Christ as an Æon—though they admitted the crucifixion, considered it to have been in some mystic way—perhaps what might be called spiritualiter, as it is called in the Revelation: but notwithstanding the different opinions they held, they all denied that the Christ did really die, in the literal acceptation of the term, on the cross.[511:1] The Gnostic, or Oriental, Christians undoubtedly took their doctrine from the Indian crucifixion[511:2] (of which we have treated in Chapters XX. and XXXIX.), as well as many other tenets with which we have found the Christian Church deeply tainted. They held that:
"To deliver the soul, a captive in darkness, the 'Prince of Light,' the 'Genius of the Sun,' charged with the redemption of the intellectual world, of which the Sun is the type, manifested itself among men; that the light appeared in the darkness, but the darkness comprehended it not; that, in fact, light could not unite with darkness; it put on only the appearance of the human body; that at the crucifixion Christ Jesus only appeared to suffer. His person having disappeared, the bystanders saw in his place a cross of light, over which a celestial voice proclaimed these words; 'The Cross of Light is called Logos, Christos, the Gate, the Joy.'"
Several of the texts of the Gospel histories were quoted with great plausibility by the Gnostics in support of their doctrine. The story of Jesus passing through the midst of the Jews when they were about to cast him headlong from the brow of a hill (Luke iv. 29, 30), and when they were going to stone him (John iii. 59; x. 31, 39), were examples not easily refuted.
The Manichean Christian Bishop Faustus expresses himself in the following manner: