The Eliminator Part 16

These parallels might be given to an indefinite extent, as they appear in _Asiatic Researches_, by Sir William Jones; Upham's _History and Doctrine of Buddhism_; Hardy's _Manual of Buddhism_; numerous other ancient and modern writings on this subject; and the parallel facts presented by these authorities are admitted by the most distinguished Christian writers not a few.

In regard to miracles it is thought best to say only a pa.s.sing word.

It is admitted by the ablest theologians of the orthodox schools that miracles are indispensable to establish the claim of a special supernatural revelation, and great reliance is made upon the miracles accredited to the Christian Christ; and yet we find other saviors and heroes credited not only with the same miracles substantially, but with a larger number of even more wonderful miracles. It would be easy to fill a large volume with the alleged miracles of Buddha and Chrishna, and Prof. Max Muller affirms that the Buddhistic miracles "surpa.s.s in wonderfulness the miracles of all other religions." Zoroaster, Buddha, Osiris, Isis, and Horus all wrought miracles, even the raising of the dead; Serapis, Marduk, Bacchus, Esculapius, and Apollonius did the same; and the early Christian Fathers admitted the reality of heathen miracles, but very conveniently attributed them to the devil. In short, it may safely be affirmed that more wonderful and better-authenticated accounts of miracles are given of numerous other persons, both before and after the advent of the Christian Christ, than are given of his miracles in the Gospels.

The Greeks were accustomed to say, "Miracles for fools," and the Romans shrewdly said, "The common people like to be deceived-deceived let them be;" and even the Christian Father St. Chrysostom declared that "miracles are proper only to excite sluggish and vulgar minds; men of sense have no occasion for them." The modern theological idea of proving the record by the miracle, and the miracle by the record, has become too transparent for even the most credulous.

There is also great confusion about the time of the birth of Jesus, though the Church in a sort of perfunctory manner settled this by saying he was born December 25, A. D. One. But the Church adopted this date for reasons of an astronomical character. More than one hundred different dates, some extending back nearly a century, have been fixed as to his birth, showing that no one knew anything about it. A blundering notice of his birth a.s.signs its date to the period when Cyrenius was governor of Syria, and makes the enrolment ordered by that official the occasion of Joseph's temporary sojourn at Bethlehem when that event took place.

This enrolment, however, was not made till after the displacement of Archelaus from the kingdom of Judea and some ten years or more after the death of Herod, and the story is accordingly in direct contradiction with the account of the flight of Joseph into Egypt, while Herod was still alive, to preserve the life of his son from that monarch's jealousy. But what is very significant is the fact that when Cyrenius commanded the enrolment Judas of Galilee arose and denounced it. He established a distinct sect which continued till the overthrow of the Jewish people.

Josephus says: "When Cyrenius had now disposed of Archelaus's money, and when the taxings were come to a conclusion, which were made in the thirty-seventh year of Caesar's victory over Antony at Actium," Antiq.

xviii. 2. The battle of Actium, in which Octavia.n.u.s gained his final victory over Antony, occurred in b. c. 31. Counting thirty-seven years, would bring the date of the taxings down to A. d. 6. Archelaus after reigning ten years was deposed for misconduct, and banished into Gaul.

Cyrenius, a Roman senator, had been sent by the government to settle up his finances and take an account of the substance of the Jews, or, in other words, to a.s.sess their property in order to apportion their taxes.

These things were done in the thirty-seventh year after the battle of Actium, or in 6 A. d. Counting ten years back, we would be at the year 4 b. c., or the year Archelaus began to reign. As Herod of course was dead before Archelaus ascended the throne, he consequently died before Christ was born, and hence the entire story of the slaying of the infants, the journey of the wise men, and the flight into Egypt falls helplessly to the ground.

"But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea, in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of G.o.d in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee." Matt.

2:22.

Here we have a strange state of affairs. Joseph and the young child turned from Judea to Galilee when Archelaus was as powerful in the one country as in the other, for his ethnarchy included both!

In reading the first chapter of Matthew's Gospel we find an inexplicable mystery. The very first verse reads: "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." Then in the sixteenth verse it is said, "And Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ." In the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth verses the Holy Ghost is represented as the real Father of Jesus by a virgin; and his miraculous divine descent is elsewhere specifically taught in the Gospels, and the divine Sonship of Jesus has been accepted as a fact by the general Church-Roman Catholic, Greek, and Protestant.

On the other hand, there is proof positive, if the record is accepted, that Jesus claimed for himself simple humanity, and consequent inferiority and subjection to G.o.d; and Roman Catholics and orthodox Protestants very conveniently settle these contradictions by affirming that he was both G.o.d and man; while Unitarians reject the divinity of Jesus, and by way of apology for so doing magnify his manhood so as to make him quite divine, a human G.o.d.

It would be easy to fill volumes with accounts, with very slight variations, of the miraculous conception and birth of divine personages born of virgin mothers, who, after laboring and suffering for the good of men, came to a tragic death, which was generally followed by a triumphant resurrection and subsequent deification. The cases are so numerous that one hardly knows where to begin to enumerate them. It would be easy to furnish a roll containing the names of scores of incarnate deities, and it would be tedious to describe the many things in which they substantially agree.

According to some modern writers, supported by abundant sculptures in temples, caves, and rocks, Vishnu, the second person of the Hindoo trinity, has been incarnated eight or nine times, Buddha being the first, Chrishna the eighth, and Gautama, also called Sakya-Muni, the ninth. The fact that these alleged incarnations took place at uniform intervals show their astronomical origin.

Equally suggestive is the fact that there are so many peculiarities connected with the birth of these G.o.ds, and also so many incidents in their lives and deaths absolutely identical.

The name of the mother of Buddha was _Maia_ and the same name was given to the mother of the Greek Mercury and even to later divinities; which, like the name Mary, typifies the sea and sometimes the month of May.

Buddha had no earthly father, but was an immaculate conception of a ray of celestial light through a virgin mother. Chrishna, the eighth Indian incarnation, was born of the left intercostal rib of a virgin. His birth was concealed through fear of the tyrant Kansa. He raised the dead and wrought marvellous miracles, and washed the feet of the Brahmans. It would be tedious to give details, as almost every incident recorded in the Gospels of the life of the alleged Christian incarnation is recorded in circ.u.mstantial detail of some ancient pagan deity.

The fact is, that all the great nations of antiquity, and many of the smaller tribes, have had very similar views as to divine manifestations in human flesh; and you need only turn to the pages of any good dictionary of mythology to verify the truth of this allegation.

We might extend these a.n.a.logies to an indefinite extent. The author of _Bible Myths_ has specified about fifty particulars in which Jesus is said to have resembled Buddha, and as many more particulars in the case of Chrishna. n.o.body having any knowledge of the world's history will doubt that these Indian divinities preceded the Judean Christ by several centuries, as many distinguished writers, like Prof. Max Muller, have admitted.

We challenge the theologians to present one single prominent feature or characteristic said to have been shown in the career of Jesus which did not appear in several other alleged incarnations hundreds of years before. The fact is, that the Christ of modern times is a perfect copy of other Christs who preceded him. Not only are all ancient Oriental scriptures full of incarnated divine saviors, but the same symbols and ceremonies abound in their worship. Take the cross, for an example. In ancient India the cross was as common as in modern Rome, and heathen temples were built in the form of a cross centuries before papists and Puseyites and their liberal imitators ever thought of such a thing. It was a common symbol in the ancient worship of Egypt. It was a Druidic emblem in Britain five hundred years before the introduction of Christianity. Plato, the Grecian philosopher, four hundred or five hundred years before Christ proclaimed the cross to be the best symbol of the divinity next to the supreme. The worshippers of Serapis used it, and Hadrian, the Roman emperor, as late as A. d. 130 mistook them for Christians. The standard portrait of Jesus, so honored by modern Christians, is a copy of the head of Serapis, the well-known sun-G.o.d, according to the testimony of Mr. King in his able work, _Gnostics and their Remains_ (p. 68).

The same is true of baptism and the Eucharist, as ceremonies identical with these, in their main aspects, existed among the ancient pagans. The "Lord's Supper" virtually was in use more than two hundred and fifty years before Christ. Wherever Christian missionaries have gone they have found substantially the same dogmas and religious observances, and Tertullian, a Christian Father of the second century, conveniently explained this fact by saying that the devil had taught the heathen these same things to forestall the preaching of the missionaries.

And yet Justin Martyr in the second century (a. d. 140), in defending the Christian religion against the a.s.saults of pagans, said: "For declaring that the Logos, the first-begotten Son of G.o.d, our Master Jesus Christ, to be born of a virgin without any human mixture, and to be crucified and dead and to have arisen again into heaven, we say no more in this than what you say of those whom you style the sons of Jove." Here is a distinct admission in the second century, from one in high authority, that the doctrine of the death and resurrection of miraculously-incarnated deities born of virgin mothers was well known among pagans before the Christian era.

But we are not done with Justin Martyr yet. In his Apology to the emperor Hadrian he makes this most astonishing admission: "In saying that all things were made in this beautiful order by G.o.d, what do we seem to say more than Plato? When we teach a general conflagration, what do we teach more than the Stoics? By opposing the worship of the works of men's hands we concur with Menander the comedian.... For you need not be told what a parcel of sons the writers most in vogue among you a.s.sign to Jove; there's Mercury, Jove's interpreter, in imitation of the Logos, in worship among you. There's aesculapius, the physician, smitten by a thunderbolt, and after that ascending into heaven. There's Bacchus, torn to pieces; and Hercules, burnt to get rid of his pains. There's Pollux and Castor, the sons of Jove by Leda, and Perseus by Danae; and, not to mention others, I would fain know why you always deify the departed emperors, and have a fellow at hand to make affidavit that he saw Caesar mount to heaven from the funeral pile?

"As to the Son of G.o.d, called Jesus, should we allow him to be nothing more than man, yet the t.i.tle of the Son of G.o.d is very justifiable, upon the account of his wisdom, considering that you have your Mercury in worship under the t.i.tle of the Word and Messenger of G.o.d.

"_As to the objection of our Jesus being crucified,_ I say that suffering was common to all the forementioned sons of Jove, but only they suffered another kind of death. As to his being born of a virgin, you have your Perseus to balance that. As to his curing the lame and the paralytic and such as were cripples from birth, this is little more than what you say of your aesculapius."

St. Augustine says: "For the thing itself which is now called the Christian religion really was known to the ancients, nor was not wanting at any time from the beginning of the human race until the time when Christ came in the flesh, from whence the true religion which had previously existed began to be called Christian; and this in our day is the Christian religion, not as having been wanting in former times, but as having in later times received this name."

A fellow and tutor in Trinity College and lecturer on ancient history in the University of Dublin (Mr. Mahaffy) closes one of his lectures in the following manner: "There is, indeed, hardly a great or fruitful idea in the Jewish or Christian system which has not its a.n.a.logy in the (ancient) Egyptian faith. The development of the one G.o.d into a _trinity_; the incarnation of the mediating deity in a virgin, and without a father; his conflict and his momentary defeat by the powers of darkness; his partial victory (for the enemy is not destroyed); his resurrection and reign over an eternal kingdom with his justified saints; his distinction from, and yet ident.i.ty with, the uncreate incomprehensible Father, whose form is unknown and who dwelleth not in temples made with hands,-_all these theological conceptions pervade the oldest religion of Egypt_. So, too, the contrast and even the apparent inconsistencies between our moral and theological beliefs-the vacillating attribution of sin and guilt partly to moral weakness, partly to the interference of evil spirits, and likewise of righteousness to moral worth, and again to help of good genii or angels; the immortality of the soul and its final judgment,-_all these things have met us in the Egyptian ritual and moral treatises_. So, too, the purely human side of morals and the catalogue of virtues and vices are by natural consequences as like as are the theological systems. _But I recoil from opening this great subject now; it is enough to have lifted the veil and shown the scene of many a future contest._"

Indeed, the ablest of the Christian Fathers never claimed that Christianity was a new religion recently and specially revealed by Jesus, but made many admissions quite to the contrary. Clarke in his _Evidences_ says that the most ancient writers of the Church did not scruple to acknowledge the Athenian Socrates a Christian.

Clemens Alexandrinus, of the second century (a. d. 194), wrote: "And those who lived according to the _Logos_ were really Christians that is to say, those who practically accepted the Greek conception of a divine incarnation were really Christians." And why not, for is not John's Gospel an elaboration of the Neo-Platonism of the Greeks? and is not the whole Christian scheme an ingenious combination of Judaism and Oriental philosophy?

Lactantius well said: "If there had been one to have collected the truth that was scattered and diffused among the sects into one, and to have reduced it into a system, there would indeed have been no difference between him and us." Could anything be more emphatic than this admission of a Christian Father of the fourth century that Christianity is made up of fragments of other religions?

A volume might be filled with similar admissions from the highest Christian authority, for it would be easy to show that it was the main argument of Justin Martyr (a. d. 141) that the Christian religion contained nothing that might not be found in all earlier religions, and that therefore its votaries deserved toleration and protection rather than persecution.

Compare the following, furnished by Mr. Johnson, with the teachings of Jesus:

"When you have shut your doors and darkened your room, beware of saying that you are alone, for you are not alone, for G.o.d is within, and your genius is within, and what need have they of light to see what you are doing?" (Epictet., i. 14); "Dare look up to G.o.d, and say, 'Use me as thou wilt. I am one with thee. I refuse nothing that seems good to thee.

Lead me whither thou wilt'" (ii. 16); "Be not angry with the erring, but pity them rather" (i. 18); "Be patient, mild, ready to forgive, severe to none, knowing that the soul is never willingly deprived of truth"

(ii. 22); "No need to lift up the hands or get close to the ears of an image, so as to be heard. G.o.d is near thee, with thee, in thee. I tell thee, Lucilius, a holy spirit dwells within us, beholder of our conduct"

(Seneca, Ep., xli.); "Between G.o.d and good men is friendship, yea, necessary intimacy" (De Prov., i. 5); "What use in concealment from men?

Nothing is hid from G.o.d" (Ep., lx.x.xiii. 1); "G.o.d escapes the eyes; he is seen by thought only" (Nat. Quest., vii. 30); "No temples are to be built to him. He must be hallowed by each in his own breast" (Seneca, quoted by Lactantius, Ind., vi. 25); "Man's primal union is with G.o.d"

(Cicero, De Leg., i. 7); "Virtue is the same in G.o.d and man; man therefore is in the likeness of G.o.d" (ibid.).

We could multiply these quotations indefinitely, but we forbear. The fact cannot be denied that Christianity is but the continuation and modification of the old pagan religions, and that Egypt has to be largely credited with supplying a great portion of the subject-matter of our so-called "special revelation." We could take up the sun-G.o.ds of Egypt and show that all the t.i.tles and offices ascribed to them are given to Jesus, and that often the very language is used. "Out of Egypt have I called my Son" is emphatically true, but in a broader and wider sense than is generally supposed. This will be more clearly shown hereafter.

CHAPTER XIII. A REVERENT CRITIQUE ON JESUS

WE say "reverent" out of pure regard to the feelings of mult.i.tudes of devout persons who verily believe that Jesus was and is G.o.d, and so any criticism of him is simply blasphemous. This subject is not to be treated in a light or frivolous manner.

We say "reverent" also out of respect to a smaller number of so-called _liberals_ who deny the divinity of Christ, but who nevertheless believe that Jesus was the _one_ pre-eminently good and wise man, and that no man equal to him ever existed or ever will exist upon the face of this earth; that he was the special Son of G.o.d, the model man, worthy of worship as the man who possessed so much of the divine spirit as to ent.i.tle him to the place of honor and grateful remembrance among men for all time and in all countries.

We think it more honest and respectful to reverently inquire into the evidences of his divine character, and not to accept with blind credulity what other men say. We are endowed with reason, and it seems to us proper that we should exercise our rational faculties, and not ignore them altogether. Honest _doubt_ must be more acceptable to him, _if_ he is G.o.d, than unreasoning faith.

Now, we propose to look at him in the light of the New Testament, and especially of the Gospels, a.s.suming them to be authentic. We shall here pa.s.s by his infancy and childhood (utterly ignoring the doubtful and controverted pa.s.sages concerning his immaculate conception and miraculous birth), and take the first direct account we have of his life. This commences when he was about _twelve_ years of age. We are told that he accompanied his mother and putative father to Jerusalem, whither they went to attend the feast of the Pa.s.sover. Luke states that he strayed away from his parents, who were greatly concerned for his safety, but he was at length found in the temple among the doctors asking and answering wonderful questions, so as to astonish all who heard him with his wonderful knowledge. His mother gently reproved him for giving them so much anxiety, and he answered back, rather impatiently, "How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" But he went home with his parents and was subject to them, and for at least eighteen years dwelt with them and his brothers James, Joses, Judas, and Simon. The names of his several sisters are not given. During these eighteen years he is supposed to have learned the trade of a carpenter and worked with his reputed father, who was a carpenter, spending the most vigorous portion of his life in manual labor, only devoting about three years to his mission as the Messiah. Now, Jesus is held up as an "example," and we are "to follow his steps," and it does not appear that there was anything in his example specially worthy of imitation for about thirty years. We must find it in the last years of his earthly career if we find it at all.

The first instance in which the evangelists bring Jesus forward as a moral teacher is in the Sermon on the Mount. This discourse is supposed by Christians to be the masterpiece of wisdom and deep spiritual insight. While Matthew gives it as a complete discourse, Mark and Luke intersperse the substance of the sermon throughout their Gospels; which is strong presumptive proof that it was not delivered as a connected discourse. Like the book of Proverbs, it seems to be a collection of the moral sayings of former times, many of which can be pointed out, with slight verbal alterations, in the writings of pagan authors and of more modern Jews of the Hillel school. In fact, there is nothing in the sermon which had not been taught by many others a long time before, while there is much that is absurd and impracticable, not to say untrue and unjust. Even the deep spirituality involved in recognizing the spirit and intent of the law can be paralleled by several pa.s.sages in Buddhistic scriptures. The so-called "Golden Rule" was announced by Confucius as an axiom nearly five centuries before the Christian era, both in its positive and its negative form, while the same maxim is laid down in most choice and beautiful language by Isocrates, Aristotle, s.e.xtus, Pittacus, Thales, and many others from three to six centuries before Christ.

The same is true of the Lord's Prayer, though it is often a.s.serted that Jesus first taught the "Fatherhood of G.o.d and the brotherhood of man."

This is not true. The "Lord's Prayer" is found in the ancient Jewish rituals, and is ent.i.tled a "Prayer to the Father," and the expression "Our Father who art in heaven" is common to many, if not all, nations and religions.

While there are several things in the Sermon on the Mount truly beautiful, there is nothing that is strictly _original_; there are many sayings which show a great lack of knowledge, and that are positively impracticable and immoral in their tendency. No Christian tries to keep these sayings. It would lead to vagabondism and would convert a nation into a crowd of tramps. It would be positively immoral to obey them. If Jesus did not _intend_ that his teachings should be taken according to the common sense of the words used, why did he not say so? What is language for but to express one's meaning? So far from teaching the non-resistance of evil, in other places he runs into the extreme of teaching revenge. (See Luke 10:10-12; Matt. 10:14, 15; Mark 6:11.) He also sanctions the most gross injustice. He commends the unjust steward (Luke 16:5-8), saying that he had "done wisely" in cheating his employer by compounding with his creditors, and advises his hearers to make "friends" of the "mammon of unrighteousness."

Moreover, whoever is familiar with the teachings ascribed to Jesus must know that his first condition of discipleship is _the total surrender of all worldly possessions and the non-acc.u.mulation of earthly treasures thereafter_ (Matt. 16: 24; Luke 14: 26, 27; Matt. 19, etc.). Can words be more emphatic than the utterances of Jesus reported in Matt.

6:19-34?-"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal."... "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."... "Ye cannot serve G.o.d and mammon."... "Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on." This absolute unconcern about food and raiment is emphasized by repeating the injunction twice: "Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?"... "Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself."

The attempts of theologians to modify these precepts are most preposterous. They tell us that Jesus meant to discourage _anxious_ thought about worldly possessions and wants-that he intended to condemn undue anxiety and worriment of mind; and they even a.s.sert that the original word implies and justifies this rendering. To this it may be replied, We cannot be certain as to what particular words Jesus used, as we have no ma.n.u.scripts of the Gospels dating back to within four hundred years of his time, and the alleged copies that we have are not authenticated; so that an argument, even if justified by learned criticism, based upon the implied meaning of particular words is useless, unless we are sure, as we cannot be, that Jesus used those very words, and that he intended that his disciples and other unlearned and uncritical hearers should accept the implied rather than the obvious meaning.