Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions Part 142

[518:1] Many examples might be cited to confirm this view, but the case of _Joseph Smith_, in our own time and country, will suffice.

The Mormons regard him very much as Christians regard Jesus; as the Mohammedans do Mohammed; or as the Buddhists do Buddha. A coa.r.s.e sort of religious feeling and fervor appears to have been in Smith's nature. He seems, from all accounts, to have been cracked on theology, as so many zealots have been, and cracked to such an extent that his early acquaintances regarded him as a downright fanatic.

The common view that he was an impostor is not sustained by what is known of him. He was, in all probability, of unbalanced mind, a monomaniac, as most prophets have been; but there is no reason to think that he did not believe in himself, and substantially in what he taught.

He has declared that, when he was about fifteen, he began to reflect on the importance of being prepared for a future state. He went from one church to another without finding anything to satisfy the hunger of his soul, consequently, he retired into himself; he sought solitude; he spent hours and days in meditation and prayer, after the true manner of all accredited saints, and was soon repaid by the visits of angels. One of these came to him when he was but eighteen years old, and the house in which he was seemed filled with consuming fire. The presence--he styles it a personage--had a pace like lightning, and proclaimed himself to be an angel of the Lord. He vouchsafed to Smith a vast deal of highly important information of a celestial order. He told him that his (Smith's) prayers had been heard, and his sins forgiven; that the covenant which the Almighty had made with the old Jews was to be fulfilled; that the introductory work for the second coming of Christ was now to begin; that the hour for the preaching of the gospel in its purity to all peoples was at hand, and that Smith was to be an instrument in the hands of G.o.d, to further the divine purpose in the new dispensation. The celestial stranger also furnished him with a sketch of the origin, progress, laws and civilization of the American aboriginals, and declared that the blessing of heaven had finally been withdrawn from them. To Smith was communicated the momentous circ.u.mstance that certain plates containing an abridgment of the records of the aboriginals and ancient prophets, who had lived on this continent, were hidden in a hill near Palmyra. The prophet was counseled to go there and look at them, and did so. Not being holy enough to possess them as yet, he pa.s.sed some months in spiritual probation, after which the records were put into his keeping. These had been prepared, it is claimed, by a prophet called Mormon, who had been ordained by G.o.d for the purpose, and to conceal them until he should produce them for the benefit of the faithful, and unite them with the Bible for the achievement of his will. They form the celebrated Book of Mormon--whence the name Mormon--and are esteemed by the Latter-Day Saints as of equal authority with the Old and New Testaments, and as an indispensable supplement thereto, because they include G.o.d's disclosures to the Mormon world. These precious records were sealed up and deposited A. D. 420 in the place where Smith had viewed them by the direction of the angel.

The records were, it is held, in the reformed Egyptian tongue, and Smith translated them through the inspiration of the angel, and one Oliver Cowdrey wrote down the translation as reported by the G.o.d-possessed Joseph. This translation was published in 1830, and its divine origin was attested by a dozen persons--all relatives and friends of Smith.

Only these have ever pretended to see the original plates, which have already become traditional. The plates have been frequently called for by skeptics, but all in vain. Naturally, warm controversy arose concerning the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, and disbelievers have a.s.serted that they have indubitable evidence that it is, with the exception of various unlettered interpolations, princ.i.p.ally borrowed from a queer, rhapsodical romance written by an eccentric ex-clergyman named Solomon Spalding.

Smith and his disciples were ridiculed and socially persecuted; but they seemed to be ardently earnest, and continued to preach their creed, which was to the effect that the millennium was at hand; that our aboriginals were to be converted, and that the New Jerusalem--the last residence and home of the saints--was to be near the centre of this continent. The Vermont prophet, later on, was repeatedly mobbed, even shot at. His narrow escapes were construed as interpositions of divine providence, but he displayed perfect coolness and intrepidity through all his trials. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was first established in the spring of 1830 at Manchester, N. Y.; but it awoke such fierce opposition, particularly from the orthodox, many of them preachers, that Smith and his a.s.sociates deemed it prudent to move farther west. They established themselves at Kirtland, O., and won there many converts. Hostility to them still continued, and grew so fierce that the body transferred itself to Missouri, and next to Illinois, settling in the latter state near the village of Commerce, which was renamed Nauvoo.

The Governor and Legislature of Illinois favored the Mormons, but the anti-Mormons made war on them in every way, and the custom of "sealing wives," which is yet mysterious to the Gentiles, caused serious outbreaks, and resulted in the incarceration of the prophet and his brother Hiram at Carthage. Fearing that the two might be released by the authorities, a band of ruffians broke into the jail, in the summer of 1844, and murdered them in cold blood. This was most fortunate for the memory of Smith and for his doctrines. It placed him in the light of a holy martyr, and lent to them a dignity and vitality they had never before enjoyed.

[520:1] When we speak of Jesus being _crucified_, we do not intend to convey the idea that he was put to death on a cross of the _form_ adopted by Christians. This cross was the symbol of _life_ and _immortality_ among our heathen ancestors (see Chapter x.x.xIII.), and in adopting _Pagan religious symbols_, and baptizing them anew, the Christians took this along with others. The crucifixion was not a symbol of the _earliest_ church; no trace of it can be found in the Catacombs.

Some of the earliest that did appear, however, are similar to figures No. 42 and No. 43, above, which represent two of the modes in which the Romans crucified their slaves and criminals. (See Chapter XX., on the Crucifixion of Jesus.)

[520:2] According to the Matthew and Mark narrators, Jesus' head was _anointed_ while sitting at table in the house of Simon the leper. Now, this practice was common among the kings of Israel. It was the sign and symbol of royalty. The word "_Messiah_" signifies the "Anointed One,"

and none of the kings of Israel were styled the Messiah unless anointed.

(See The Martyrdom of Jesus of Nazareth, p. 42.)

[521:1] Josephus: Antiquities, book xviii. ch. iv. 1.

[522:1] Josephus: Antiquities, book xviii. chap. iii. 2.

[522:2] "From the death of Herod, 4 B. C., to the death of Bar-Cochba, 132 A. D., no less than _fifty_ different enthusiasts set up as the Messiah, and obtained more or less following." (John W. Chadwick.)

[522:3] "There was, at _this time_, a prevalent expectation that some remarkable personage was about to appear in Judea. The Jews were anxiously looking for the coming of the MESSIAH. This personage, they supposed, would be a _temporal prince_, and they were expecting that he would deliver them from Roman bondage." (Albert Barnes: Notes, vol. i.

p. 7.)

"The central and dominant characteristic of the teaching of the Rabbis, was the certain advent of a great national Deliverer--the MESSIAH. . . .

The national mind had become so inflammable, by constant brooding on this one theme, _that any bold spirit rising in revolt against the Roman power, could find an army of fierce disciples who trusted that it should be he who would redeem Israel_." (Geikie: The Life of Christ, vol. i. p.

79.)

[522:4] "The penalty of _crucifixion_, according to Roman law and custom, was inflicted on slaves, and in the provinces _on rebels only_."

(The Martyrdom of Jesus, p. 96.)

[522:5] Judas, the _Gaulonite_ or _Galilean_, as Josephus calls him, declared, when Cyrenius came to tax the Jewish people, that "this taxation was no better than an introduction to slavery," and exhorted the nation to a.s.sert their liberty. He therefore prevailed upon his countrymen to revolt. (See Josephus: Antiq., b. xviii. ch. i. 1, and Wars of the Jews, b. ii. ch. viii. 1.)

[523:1] The Martyrdom of Jesus of Nazareth, p. 30.

[523:2] "That the High Council did accuse Jesus, I suppose no one will doubt; and since they could neither wish or expect the Roman Governor to make himself judge of _their sacred law_, it becomes certain that their accusation was _purely political_, and took such a form as this: 'He has accepted tumultuous shouts that he is the legitimate and predicted _King of Israel_, and in this character has ridden into Jerusalem with the forms of state understood to be _royal_ and _sacred_; with what purpose, we ask, if not to overturn _our_ inst.i.tutions, and _your_ dominion?' If Jesus spoke, at the crisis which Matthew represents, the virulent speech attributed to him (Matt. xxiii.), we may well believe that this gave a new incentive to the rulers; for it is such as no government in Europe would overlook or forgive: _but they are not likely to have expected Pilate to care for any conduct which might be called an ecclesiastical broil_. The a.s.sumption of _royalty_ was clearly the point of their attack. Even the mildest man among them may have thought his conduct dangerous and needing repression." (Francis W. Newman, "What is Christianity without Christ?")

_According to the Synoptic Gospels_, Jesus was completely innocent of the charge which has sometimes been brought against him, _that he wished to be considered as a G.o.d come down to earth_. His enemies certainly would not have failed to make such a pretension the basis and the continual theme of their accusations, if it had been possible to do so.

_The two grounds upon which he was brought before the Sanhedrim were, first, the bold words he was supposed to have spoken about the temple; and, secondly and chiefly, the fact that he claimed to be the Messiah_, i. e., "_The King of the Jews_." (Albert Reville: "The Doctrine of the Dogma of the Deity of Jesus," p. 7.)

[523:3] See The Martyrdom of Jesus, p. 30.

[524:1] See _note_ 4, p. 522.

[524:2] See Matt. xx. 19.

[524:3] John xviii. 31, 32.

[524:4] That is, the crucifixion story _as related in the Gospels_. See _note_ 1, p. 520.

[524:5] Matthew xxvii. 24, 25.

[525:1] Commentators, in endeavoring to get over this difficulty, say that, "it _may_ come from the look or form of the spot itself, bald, round, and skull-like, and therefore a mound or hillock," but, if it means "_the place of bare skulls_," no such construction as the above can be put to the word.

[526:1] The Martyrdom of Jesus of Nazareth, pp. 109-111.

[527:1] O. B. Frothingham: The Cradle of the Christ, p. 11.

The reader is referred to "Judaism: Its Doctrines and Precepts," by Dr.

Isaac M. Wise. Printed at the office of the "American Israelite,"

Cincinnati, Ohio.

[527:2] If Jesus, instead of giving himself up quietly, had _resisted_ against being arrested, there certainly would have been bloodshed, as there was on many other similar occasions.

[528:1] If what is recorded In the Gospels on the subject was true, no historian of that day could fail to have noticed it, but instead of this there is _nothing_.

[528:2] See Matthew, xxvii. 51-53.

[529:1] See Matt. xiv. 15-22: Mark, iv. 1-3, and xi. 14; and Luke, vii.

26-37.

[529:2] See Mark, xvi. 16.

[529:3] This fact has at last been admitted by the most orthodox among the Christians. The Rev. George Matheson, D. D., Minister of the Parish of Innellan, and a member of the Scotch Kirk, speaking of the precept uttered by Confucius, five hundred years before the time a.s.signed for the birth of Jesus of Nazareth ("Whatsoever ye would not that others should do unto you, do not ye unto them"), says: "That Confucius is the _author_ of this precept is undisputed, _and therefore it is indisputable that Christianity has incorporated an article of Chinese morality_. It has appeared to some as if this were to the disparagement of Christianity--as if the originality of its Divine Founder were impaired by consenting to borrow a precept from a heathen source. _But in what sense does Christianity set up the claim of moral originality?_ When we speak of the religion of Christ as having introduced into the world a purer life and a surer guide to conduct, what do we mean? Do we mean to suggest that Christianity has, _for the first time_, revealed to the world the existence of a set of self-sacrificing precepts--that here, _for the first time_, man has learned that he ought to be meek, merciful, humble, forgiving, sorrowful for sin, peaceable, and pure in heart? The proof of such a statement would destroy Christianity itself, for an _absolute original code of precepts_ would be equivalent to a foreign language. _The glory of Christian morality is that it is_ NOT ORIGINAL--that its words appeal to something which _already exists within the human heart_, and on that account have a meaning to the human ear: _no new revelation can be made except through the medium of an old one_. When we attribute originality to the ethics of the Gospel, we do so on the ground, _not that it has given new precepts_, but that it has given us a new impulse to obey the moral instincts of the soul.

Christianity itself claims on the field of morals this originality, _and this alone_--'A new commandment give I unto you, that you love one another." (St. Giles Lectures, Second Series: The Faiths of the World.

Religion of China, by the Rev. George Matheson, D. D., Minister of the Parish of Innellan. Wm. Blackwood & Sons: Edinburgh, 1882.)

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX A.

Among the ancient Mexicans, Peruvians, and some of the Indian tribes of North and South America, were found fragments of the _Eden Myth_. The Mexicans said that the primeval mother was made out of a _man's bone_, and that she was the mother of _twins_.[533:1]

The Cherokees supposed that heavenly beings _came down_ and made the world, after which they made a man and woman of _clay_.[533:2] The intention of the creators was that men should live always. But the Sun, when he pa.s.sed over, told them that there was not land enough, and that people had better die. At length, _the daughter of the Sun_ was bitten by a _Snake_, and died. The Sun, however--whom they worshiped as a G.o.d--consented that human beings might live always. He intrusted to their care a _box_, charging them that they should not open it. However, impelled by curiosity, they opened it, contrary to the injunction of the Sun, and the _spirit_ it contained escaped, _and then the fate of all men was decided, that they must die_.[533:3]

The inhabitants of the New World had a legend of a _Deluge_, which destroyed the human race, excepting a few who were saved in a boat, which landed on a _mountain_.[533:4] They also related that _birds_ were sent out of the ark, for the purpose of ascertaining if the flood was abating.[533:5]