Topic: THE WORLD’S Sixteen Crucified Saviors OR, Christianity before Christ 1878

[Prometheus]

8.   The shattered condition of their own religion, with all its
conventional creeds, customs, and ceremonies, now suspended
and literally prostrated, as above shown, vastly augmented the
temptation ever rife with them to make another change in
their religion, and subject their creed to another installment of
new doctrines, by which it became Christianity.

9.   The liberal character and tolerant spirit of the political
and religious institutions of the kingdom of Alexandria, with its
vast and attractive library of two hundred thousand volumes,
established principally by Ptolemy Philadelphus, with othei
attractive features already pointed out, furnished great facilh
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25}

ties, as well as increased temptations to religious propagandists
to absorb new theories, and make new creeds out of the vast
medley of religious doctrines and speculative dogmas preached
and propagated in that royal city by the disciples and repre-
sentatives of nearly every religious system then in existence,
brought together by the attractions above specified.

10 Hence every consideration would lead us to conclude,
taken in connection with the facts above -stated, and the well-
known borrowing proclivity and imitative propensity of the
Jews, that they would not, and could not, withstand the over-
weening and overpowering temptation to make another radical
change in their religion by a new draught on the boundless
reservoir of speculative ideas, religious tenets, and specious
theories then glowing in the popular schools of Alexandria.

11.   All the facts above enumerated would impel us to the
conclusion that the Jews would — and every page of history
touching the matter proves they did —make important changes
in their religion by this contact with the oriental systems, as
they had repeatedly done before. Some of this proof we will
here present, to show how they originated Christianity.

12.   “The schools of Alexandria,” says Mr. Enfield, a Chris-
tian writer, “ by pretending to teach sublime doctrines concern-
ing God and divine things, enticed men of different countries and
religions, and among the rest the Jews, to study its mysteries,
and incorporate them with their own. . . . The Jewish faith
mixed with the Pythagorean, and afterward with the Egyp-
tian oriental theology ” (that is, they became Essenes in the
Grecian school of Pythagoras, who taught the doctrines of
that religious order, then Budhists in the Egyptian schools of
Alexandria). And finally, with Christ as their leader, who
taught the doctrines of both schools (they being essential-
ly alike), they assumed the name of Christian in honor of
him, and thus is Christianity from Essene Budhism.

13.   Beers, in his “History of the Jews,” sustains the above
statement by the declaration that the Essenian Jews “ fled to
Egypt at the time of the Babylonian captivity, and there be-
came acquainted with the Pythagorean philosophy, and in-
grafted it upon the religion of Moses,” which would make them
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Essenian Budhists — for Cunningham assures us that “the
doctrines of Pythagoras were intensely Budhistic.” (Philsa.
Topus, chap, x.)

14.   We will condense a few more historical testimonies rela-
tive to the entire change of the Jewish faith, while in Alexandria,
as well as on other occasions, to show how easy and natural it
was for that portion of the Jews who afterward became the
founders of Christianity to slide into and adopt Essenian
Budhism, whose doctrines they took to constitute the Christian
religion.

15.   Mr. Gibbon (chap, xxi.) declares that the theological
opinions of the Jews underwent great changes by their contact
with the various foreigners they found in Alexandria. Mr.
Tytler likewise, in his u Universal History,” assures us that the
Jewish religion “ became totally changed by the intermixture
of heathen doctrines.” Dr. Campbell also testifies that “their
views came pretty much to coincide with those of the pagans.”
(See his Dissertation, vi.) And the author of “The Expositor
for 1854 ” complains that the pagan “ theology stole upon them
from every quarter, and mingled in all the views of the then
known tribes, so that by the year 150 B. C. it had wrought
visible changes in their notions and habits of thought.” (P.
428.) Here we have the proof that the whole Jewish religion
underwent a change in Alexandria.

16.   Now, most certainly a nation or sect professing a religion
so easily changed, and possessing a character so fickle, or so
impressible as to yield on every slight occasion, and embrace
every opportunity to imbibe new religious ideas and doctrines,
would easily, if not naturally, slide into the adoption of the re-
ligious system then promulgated in Alexandria under the name
of Budhism, and afterward remodeled or transformed, and
called Christianity.

17.   The Jews of the Essenian order, as \ye have in part
shown in a previous chapter, set forth in their creed all the
leading doctrines now comprised in the Christian religion hun-
dreds of years before the advent of Christ, not excepting the
doctrine of the divine incarnation and its adjuncts, as these
concomitants of the present popular faith, we will now prove,
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253

were not unknown to the Jewish theology, but constituted a
part of the religion of some of the principal Jewish sects. That
standard Christian author, Mr. Milman, in his “ History of Chris-
tianity,” tells us that “the doctrine of the incarnation (‘God
manifest in the flesh ’) was the doctrine from the Ganges, and
even the shores of the Yellow Sea to the Ilissus. It was the
fundamental principle of the Indian Budhist religion and phi-
losophy. It was the basis of Zoroasterism. It was pure Plato-
nism. It was Platonic Judaism in the Alexandrian school.”
Here it is positively declared, by a popular Christian writer,
whose work is a part of nearly every popular library in Chris-
tendom as a standard authority, that the appearance of God
amongst men in the human form, by human birth, was a doc-
trine of the Jewish religion in some of its branches, especially
the Essenian branch — further proof that Christianity originated
nothing, and gave utterance to no new doctrine or precepts,
and performed no new miracles. Where, then, is the claim
for its originality ? On what ground is it predicated ? Please
answer us, good Christian brother.

18.   It is a question of no importance, if it could be settled,
whether Christianity is a direct outgrowth from one of the new-
fangled sects of Judaism, or whether it derived a portion of its
doctrines from this source and the balance from ascetic Budh-
ism. Yet we regard it as an incontrovertible proposition that
it all grew out of Budhism originally, either directly or indi-
rectly.

19.   Christ may have received his doctrines second-handed,
all or a portion from the Essenian Jews; for that sect held all
the leading doctrines of Budhism (as we have shown in a pre-
vious chapter), which now goes under the name of the religion
of Jesus Christ.

20.   Or we may indulge the not unreasonable hypothesis that
the founders of Christianity, who republished the doctrines of
Budhism and adopted them as their own, received them all
direct from the disciples of that religious order; for “ they were
everywhere,” as one writer (Mr. Taylor) declares, speaking of
their extensive travels to propagate their doctrines through the
world. And it was about that period, as Mr. Goodrich informs
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us, they sent out nine hundred missionaries, who made six
millions of converts, — a small fraction of their present number
(three hundred and eighty millions, as given by some of our
geographies), — one third more than the entire census of
Christendom, and six times the number of believers in the
Christian religion, if we omit Greeks and Catholics. “ It is,” as
a writer remarks, “the oldest and most widely spread religion
in the world.” And, whatever hypothesis may be adduced to
account for the fact, Christianity is now all Budhism.

21.   It is impossible, with the historic darkness which at pres-
ent environs and beclouds our pathway, to determine at what
period or in what manner Christ became an Essene, — whether
he was born of Essenian parents, or became a convert to the
faith, — because the whole period of his life, with the exception
of about three years, is a total blank in history. There is but
one incident related of his movements by his bible biographers
prior to his twenty-seventh year, leaving more than a quarter
of a century of his probably active life unreported — a period
that may have witnessed several important changes in his re-
ligion. We have not even his ancestry reported in his scrip-
tural biography, in either parental line, unless we assume
Joseph to have been his father. The parental lineage of his
mother is entirely omitted. Had we his line of ancestry, or
could we trace him back to his national or family origin, we
doubt not but we should there find a full clew to the origin of
his religion. We should find his ancestors were Essenian
Jews.

22.   Nor can we fix the date when Essenian Budhism among
the Jews received the name of Christianity for a similar reason.
There is a link — a chain of events of four hundred years left
out of the bible between Judaism and Christianity — thus lack-
ing four hundred years of connecting the two religions together,
or of showing how the latter grew out of the former. Malachi,
the last book of the Old Testament, antedates the first events
of Christian history four centuries, or twelve generations, thus
leaving a wide and dark gap between them. And besides, we
cannot find the name of Christ or Christianity mentioned in any
vf the cotemporary histories of that era till one hundred and
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255

four years after the time fixed for Christ’s birth by Christen*
dom; Tacitus being the first writer who names either, and
this was at that date.

23.   These facts disclose the whole secret with respect to the
mystery and darkness thrown around the origin of the Chris-
tian religion — the how, the when, and the where of its origin.
That chapter of Christian history is left out of the record.
The bible account itself is but fragmentary, as it leaves nine
tenths of Christ’s history a blank, — twenty-seven years out of
the thirty, — and omits all mention of his ancestors beyond his
grandmother, and leaves even the time of his birth a blank.
“ The researches of the learned,” says Mr. Mosheim (a standard
Christian author), “though long and ably conducted, have been
unable to fix the time of Christ’s birth with certainty.” (Eccl.
Hist. p. 23.) Wonderful admission, truly, as it is an evidence
that nothing else can be fixed “ with certainty,” with respect to
the history of “the man Christ Jesus,” only that his doctrines
and precepts were all borrowed perhaps during the twenty-
seven dark and mysterious years of his life, if not an Essene
by birth.

24.   There is no escaping the conclusion that Christianity is
a borrowed system — an outgrowth and remodeling of Budh-
ism, with a change of name only. A thousand facts of history
prove and proclaim it, and the verdict of posterity will be unani-
mous in affirming it.

25.   From the almost endless chain of analogies, exhibiting
a striking resemblance even in their minute details of Chris-
tianity and Budhism, we are compelled to conclude that one
furnished the materials for the other : that one is the offspring
— the legitimate child — of the other. And as it is a settled
historical fact that Budhism is much the older system, there is
hence no difficulty in determining which is the parent and
which is the child.

26.   In the Hindoo story of the creation of the human race,
we find Adimo and Heva given as the names of the first man
and woman answering to our Adam and Eve. And our Shem,
Ham, and Japheth are traceable to their Sherma, Hama, and
Jiapheta: the difference in the mode of spelling is probably
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owing to the difference in the languages. And under the new
era we have Christ Jesus answering to their Chrishna Zeus, aa
some writers give the name of the eighth Avatar. And for
Maia, a godmother, we have Mary. And other similar analo-
gies might be pointed out besides the long string of strikingly
similar events previously presented in the history of the two
Saviors (Christ and Chrishna), amounting to hundreds.

27.   Such an almost countless list of similar and nearly iden-
tical incidents bids defiance, and absolutely sets at naught all
attempts to account for it as a mere fortuitous accident. There

is no other explanation possible but that Christianity is a re- .
vamp or re-establishment of Budhism.

28.   Here let it be noted that Christianity was not the only
religion which was rehabilitated in the Alexandrian schools.
On the contrary, all the popular oriental systems then in active
being had long previously passed through the same representa-
tive theological schools and creed-making institutions of that
royal and commercial city. All were remodeled in its theo
logical workshops—a fact which accounts most conclusively
for the same train of religious ideas and historical incidents
being found in the later sacred books of each. And besides,
Sir William Jones says, “The disciples of these various sys-
tems of religion had intercourse w*ith each other long before
the time of Christ,’which would necessarily bring about a uni-
formity in the doctrines and general character of each system.5

29.   The disciples of all the religious systems cited their initi-
atory miracles as a proof of being on familiar terms with God
Almighty. They all (as is claimed) healed the sick; all re-
stored the deaf, the dumb, and the blind; all cast out devils,
and all raised the dead. (See chapter on Parallels.) In fact, all
their miracles and legendary marvels run in parallel lines, be-
cause all were recast in the same creed-mold in Alexandria.

A coincidence is thus beautifully explained, which would other-
wise be hard to account for.

30.   Mr. Gibbon says, “ It was in the school of Alexandria
that the Christian theology appears to have assumed a regular
and scientific form” (Decline, &c., chap, xv.) ; that is, the regu-
lar and scientific form of Budhism or Essenism.
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257

31.   Pregnant with meaning is the text, “ It was in the city of
Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.” (Acts xi. 36.)
Here is conclusive proof that the disciples of the Christian faith
were not always known by the same name, and were not at
first called Christians. Then what were they called during the
earlier years of their history ? Here is a great and important
query, and one involving a momentous problem. Couple the
two facts together, that the disciples were first known as Chris-
tians at Antioch, and that the Essenian order of believers ex-
pired and went out of history about that period, and the ques-
tion is at once and forever satisfactorily settled. It was not an
infrequent act on making important changes in a religion, and
adopting some new items of faith to change the title of the
system, and give it a new name.

[Prometheus]

After Alexander Campbell had made some modifications in
his previous religious faith, and started a new church, his fol-
lowers were popularly called Campbellites. Elias Hicks in-
grafted some reform ideas into the Quaker faith, and instituted
a new society of that order. Hence, and henceforth, his disci-
ples were known as Hicksites. In like manner Jesus Christ
having made some innovations in his inherited Jewish faith
(which was of the Essene stamp) by ingrafting more of the
Budhist doctrine into it, his followers were henceforth called
Christians. How complete the analogy! Here let it be borne
in mind, as powerfully confirmatory of this conclusion, that the
first Christians were (as history affirms) “ merely reformatory
Jews.” The twelve chosen were all Jews, probably of the
Essene order. According to the Rev. Mr. Prideaux (Jewish
History), the Jews of this order were first called Israelites, in
common with the other tribes ; then Chassidim; and thirdly
Essenes. And finally, after the Essenian Jesus Christ, with some
new radical ideas, proclaimed, “Ye have heard it hath been said
by them of old time” thus and so, “but I say unto you” differ-
ently. The title was again changed, and they adopted or received
the name of Christians — the Essenes going out of history
at the very date Christians first appear in history. Put this
and that together, and the chain is welded. Thus we can as
easily trace the origin of Christianity as we can trace the origin
17
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of a root running beneath the soil in the direction of a certain
tree. History, then, proclaims that to the honest, pious, deep-
ly*devout, self-denying, yet ignorant, slothful, and filthy Budh-
istic Essenes must be awarded the honor or dishonor of giving
birth to that system of religion now known as Christianity.

Chrishna as a God—Additional Facts.

The following additional facts relative to the history, char-
acter, life, and teachings of Zeus Chrishna, or Jeseus Christna
(as styled by one writer) are drawn mostly from the Vedas,
Baghavat, Gita (Bible in India).

1. His Virgin Mother, her Character. — The holy book de-
clares, that “ through her the designs of God were accomplished.
She was pure and chaste; no animal food ever touched her
lips; honey and milk were her sustenance; her time wras spent
in solitude, lost in the contemplation of God, who showered
upon her innumerable blessings ; she looked upon death as the
birth to a new and better life; when she traveled, a column of
fire in the heavens went before her to guide her. One evening,
as she was praying, she heard celestial music, and fell into a
profound ecstasy, and being overshadowed by the spirit of
God, she conceived the God Chrishna.” (Baghavat Gita.)

2.   Chrishna, his Life and Mission. — This sin-atoning God
was about sixteen when he commenced active life. Like Christ,
he chose twelve disciples to aid him in propagating his doc-
trines. “ lie spent his time working miracles, resuscitating the
dead, healing lepers, restoring the deaf and the blind, defend-
ing the weak against the strong, and the oppressed against the
oppressor, and in proclaiming his divine mission to redeem
man from original sin, and banish evil, and restore the reign
of good.” (Baghavat, Gita.) It is declared that he came to
teach peace, charity, love to man, self-respect, the practice of
good for its own sake, and faith in the inexhaustible goodness
of the Creator; also to preach the immortality of the soul,
and the doctrine of future rewards and punishments, and to
vanquish the prince of darkness, Rakshas. It is further declared
that “Brahma sent his son (Chrishna) upon the earth to die
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259

for the salvation of man.” “Ilis lofty precepts and the purity
of his life spread his fame throughout all India, and finally won
for him more than three millions of followers.” “He inculcated
the snblimest doctrines, and the purest morals, and the grand
principles of charity and self-denial.” “He forbade revenge,
and commanded to return good for evil, and consoled the
feeble and the unhappy.” “ He lived poor, and loved the poor.”
“ He lived chaste, and enjoined chastity.” “Problems the most
lofty, and morals the most pure and sublime, and the future
destiny of man, were themes which engaged his most profound
attention.” “Chrishna, we will venture to say (says the Bible
in India), was the greatest of philosophers, not only of India,
but of the entire world.” “ He was the grandest moral figure
of ancient times.” (Bible in India.) “Chrishna was a moralist
and a philosopher.” “We should admire his moral lessons, so
sublime and so pure.” “He was recognized as the ‘Divine
Word.5” “He received the title of Jeseus, which means pure
Essense.” Chrishna signifies the “Promised of God,” the
“Messiah.” “ When he preached, he often spoke from a mount.
He also spoke in parables. ‘ Parable plays a large part in the
familiar instructions of this Hindoo Redeemer.5” He relates a
very interesting parable of a fisherman who was much perse-
cuted by his neighbors, but who in the time of a severe famine,
when the people were suffering and dying for the want of food,
being so noble as to return good for evil, he carried food to
these same persecuting enemies, and thus saved them from
starvation. “ Therefore,” said he, “ do good to all, both the evil
and the good, even your enemies.” His addresses to the peo-
ple were simple, but to his disciples they were elevated and
philosophical. Such was the wisdom of his sermons and his
parables, that the people crowded around him, eager to behold
and hear him, “ saying, This is indeed the Redeemer promised
to our fathers.” Great multitudes followed him, exclaiming,
“ This is he who resuscitates the dead, and heals the lame, and
the deaf, and the blind.” On one occasion, as he entered
Madura (as Christ once entered Jerusalem), “the people came
out in flocks to meet him, and strewed branches in his way.”
On another occasion two women approached him, anointed him
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with oil, and worshiped him. When the people murmured at
this waste, he replied, “Better is a little given with an humble
heart than much given with ostentation.” Such was his sense
of decorum, that he admonished some girls he once observed
playing in a state of nudity on the bank of a river after bathing.
They repented, asked his forgiveness, and reformed. “The
followers of Chrishna practiced all the virtues, and observed a
complete abnegation of self (self-denial), and lived poor, hoping
for a reward in the future life. They occupied all their time in
the service of their Divine Master. Pure and majestic was
their worship.” Chrishna had a favorite disciple, Adjaurna,
who sustained to him the relation of John to Christ, while
Angada acted the part of Judas by following him to the Ganges
and betraying him.

3.   His last Hours. — “When Chrishna knew his hour had
come, forbidding his disciples to follow him, he repaired to the
bank of the River Ganges; and having performed three ablu-
tions, he knelt down, and looking up to heaven, he prayed to
Brahma.” While nailed to the cross, the tree on which he was
suspended became suddenly covered with great red flowers,
which diffused their fragrance all around. And it is said he
often appeared to his disciples after his death “in all his divine
majesty.”

4.   The second Advent of Chrishna. — “ There is not a Hindoo
or a Brahmin who does not look upon the second coming of
Chrishna as an established article of faith.” Their holy bibles
(the Yedas and Gita) prophesy of him thus: “He shall come
crowned with lights; he shall come, and the heavens and the
earth shall be joyous; the stars shall pale before his splendor;
the earth will be too small to contain him, for he is infinite, he
is Almighty, he is Wisdom, he is Beauty, he is all and in all;
and all men, all animated beings, beasts, birds, trees, and plants,
will chant his praises; he will regenerate all bodies, and purify
all souls.” “ He will be as sweet as honey and ambrosia, and
as pure as the lamb without spot, or as the lips of a virgin.
All hearts will be transported with joy. From the rising to
the setting of the sun it will be a day of joy and exultation,
when this God shall manifest his power and his glory, and
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261

reconcile the world unto himself.” Such are a few of the
prophetic utterances of his devout and prayerful disciples.

44 We find,” says a writer, 44 in all the theogonies of different
countries the hope of the advent of a God (either his first or
second coming) — a hope which sprang from a sense of their
own imperfections and sufferings, which naturally induced
them to look for a divine Redeemer.”

5.   Precepts of Chrishna.— Numerous are the prescriptive
admonitions found in the holy books which set forth the religion
of41 this heathen demigod” (so called by Christian professors).
They appertain to all the duties of life, but are too numerous
to be quoted here. Those appertaining to woman enjoin the
most sacred regard for her rights, such as44 woman should be pro-
tected with tenderness, and shielded with fostering solicitude.”
44 There is no crime more odious than to persecute woman, or
take advantage of her weakness.” 44 Degrade woman, and you
degrade man.” For other similar precepts, see Chapter XXXII.
The injunctions to read their holy bible (the Yedas, &c.) are
quite numerous, such as, 44 Let him study the holy Scriptures
unceasingly.”   44 Pray night and morning, and read the holy

Scriptures in the attitude of devotion ” And many of them
read it through upon their knees. (See Chap.XLIV.) We have
not space for a further exposition of this subject here; but it
will be found more fully set forth in the pamphlet, 44 Christ and
Chrishna Compared,” which will, perhaps, become an Appen-
dix to this work. It may be objected that there are precepts
and stories to be found in the religion of this Hindoo God
(Chrishna), which reflect but little credit or honor upon
that religion. This is true. And similar reflections would
materially damage the religion of Christianity also. The story
of Christ beating and maltreating the money-changers in the
temple, his cursing an innocent, unoffending, and unconscious
fig tree, and his indulgence in profane swearing at his enemies,
—44 O ye fools and blind, ye generation of vipers, how can you
escape the damnation of hell! ”— does not reflect any credit upon
his religion, viewed as a system. Defects, then, may be found
in both systems In viewing the analogies of the two religions,
it should be noted that the Hindoos claim, with a forcible show
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of facts and logic, that the religion of Christianity grew out of
theirs. It has not been long since a learned Hindoo main*
tained this position in a public debate with a missionary. If
all these facts effect nothing in the way of inducing the Chris-
tian clergy to confess the falsity of their position in claiming
their religion to be a direct emanation from God, it will be a
sad commentary upon either their intelligence or their honesty.

These historical facts, with those set forth in the preceding
chapters, prove that the religion called Christianity, instead of
being, as Christians claim, “ the product of the Divine Mind,”
is the product of “heathen” minds; i. e., a spontaneous out*
growth of the moral and religious elements of the human mind.
And therefore, for God to have revealed it over again to the
founders of Christianity would have been superfluous, and a
proof of his ignorance of history.

Note. — The author deems it proper to state here, with respect to the
comparison between Christ and Chrishna, that some of the doctrines
which he has selected as constituting a part of the religion of the Hindoo
Savior, are not found in the reported teachings of that deified moralist.
But as they appear to breathe forth the same spirit, it is presumed he
would have indorsed them, had they come under his notice. As Christians
assume the liberty to arrange the doctrines of Paul and Peter under the
head of Christianity because claimed to be in consonance with the religion
of Christ, though not all taught by him, the author, in like manner, has
assumed, that some doctrines taught by other systems and religious teach-
ers of India accord with those taught by Chrishna, and hence has ar-
ranged them with his. The author’s purpose is not to set forth the doc-
trines of any sect, any system, or any religious teacher, but to show that
all the doctrines of Christianity are traceable to ancient India. But
whether taught by this sect or that sect, it is foreign to our purpose to
inquire; and hence, for convenience, he has arranged them all into one
system, and designated them Chrishnaanity (borrowing a new term).
There can be no more impropriety, he presumes, in arranging the doc-
trines of the various conflicting sects of India into one system (including
even Brahminism and Budhism), than to arrange, as Christians do, the
doctrines taught by the antagonistic systems of Catholicism and Protes-
tantism, and their six hundred conflicting sects, under the head of Chris-
tianity. Hence Christians, of course, will not fault the arrangement. The
classification above alluded to comprises, in part, the religion of many
of the Hindoo sects, but does not set forth all their doctrines, only those
analogous to Christianity. Chrishna was a Vishnuite, and not a Brahmin,
as some writers assume. He and Christ were both reformers, and de-
parted from the ancient faith. Vishnuism appears to have finally centered
in Budhism.
 APOLLONIUS. OSIRIS, -4JV2J MAGUS.

263

CHAPTER XXXIII.

APOLLONIUS, OSIRIS, MAGUS, &C.-G0DS.

Miraculous Achievements op other Gods and Demi-
gods op Antiquity.

The age in which Christ flourished, as before remarked,
was pre-eminently an age of miracle. The practice of thau-
maturgy, and the legends invested with the display of the mir-
acle-working power, both preceding and subsequent to that
era, rose to a great hight. “ All nations of that time,” says a
writer, “ were mightily bent on working miracles.” And the
disciples who acted the part of biographers for the various
crucified Gods and sin-atoning Saviors, throughout the East,
seemed to vie with each other in setting off the lives and his-
tories of their favorite objects of worship respectively, with
marvelous exploits and the pageantry of the most astounding
prodigies. And the miracles in each case were pretty much
of the same character, thus indicating a common source for
their origin, — all probably having been cast in the same
mold, in the theological schools of the once famous, world-
renowned city of Alexandria the capital of Egypt. Having, in
the preceding chapters, presented the miraculous achievements
of the Hindoo Gods Chrishna and Sakia, we will here bring to
notice those of other Gods.

The Miracles recorded op Alcides, Osiris, and other
Gods op Egypt.

1.   We have the miraculous birth by a virgin in the case of
Alcides.
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2.   Osiris, while a sticking infant in his cradle, killed two
serpents which came to destroy him.

3.   Alcides performed many miraculous cures.

4.   According to Ovid he cured by a miracle the daughter of
Archiades.

5.   Also the wife of Theogenes, after the doctors had given
her up.

6.   And both these Gods converted water into wine.

7.   Both of them frequently cast out devils.

8.   Julius declares Alcides raised Tyndarus and Hippolitus
from the dead.

9.   When Zulis was crucified, the sun became dark and the
moon refused to shine.

10.   Both he and Osiris were resurrected by a miracle.

11.   Both ascend to heaven in sight of many witnesses.

12.   And finally we are told that from Alexandria the whole
empire became filled with the fame of these miracle-workers,
who restored the blind to sight, cured the paralytic, caused the
dumb to speak, the lame to walk, &c. All these miracles were
as credibly related of these Gods as similar miracles of Jesus
Christ.

Miracles performed by Pythagoras and other Gods
of Greece.

1.   Pythagoras was a spirit in heaven before he was born on
earth.

2.   His birth was miraculously foretold.

3.   His mother conceived him by a specter (the Holy Ghost).

4.   His mother (Pytheas) was a holy virgin of great moral
purity.

5.   Plato’s mother, Paretonia (says Olympiodorus), conceived
him by the God Apollo.

6.   Pythagoras in his youth astonishes the doctors by his
wisdom.

7.   Was worshiped as the “ Son of God,” “ Paraclete,” “ Child
of Divinity,” &c.
 APOLLONIUS, OSIRIS, ^4iVZ> MAGUS.

265

[Prometheus]

8.   Could see events many ages in the future (says Rich*
ardson, his biographer).

9.   Could bring down the eagle from its lofty hight by
command.

10.   Could approach and subdue the wild, ferocious Daunian
bear.

11.   Could, like Christ, appear at two.places at once.

12.   Could walk on the water and travel on the air.

13.   Could discern and read the thoughts of his disciples.

14.   Could handle poisonous reptiles with impunity.

15.   Cured all manner of diseases.

16.   Restored sight to the blind.

17.   He “ cast out devils.”

18.   Jamblicus says he could allay storms on the sea.

19.   Raised several persons from the dead.

20.   And, finally, “ a thousand other wonderful things are
told of him,” says Jamblicus.

With respect to his character, it is said that “ for humility,
and practical goodness, and the wisdom of his moral precepts,
he stood without a rival.” He discarded bloody sacrifices,
discouraged wars, forbade the use of wine and other intoxicat-
ing drinks, enjoined the forgiveness of enemies and their kind
treatment, and also respect to parents. He was a special friend
to the poor, and taught that they were the favorites of God.
“ Blessed are ye poor.” He practiced and recommended the
silent worship of God. He retired from the world, and often
fasted, and was a great enemy to riches (like Jesus Christ).
He considered poverty a virtue, and despised the pomp of the
world. He recommended (like Christ) the abandonment of
parents, relations, and friends, houses and lands, &c., for reli-
gion’s sake. His disciples, like those of Christ, had a common
treasury and a general community of goods, to which all had
free access, so that there was no poverty or suffering amongst
them while the supply lasted. All shared alike. In fact, with
respect to the spirit of his precepts, his moral lessons, and near-
ly his whole practical life, he bore a striking resemblance to
Jesus Christ, and presented the same kind of evidence, and
equally convincing evidence, of being a God. And as he was
 266

THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

born into the world five hundred and fifty-four years before
Christ, the latter probably obtained the materials of his moral
system from that Grecian teacher, or in the same school of the
Essenian Budhists, in which both Pythagoras and Christ ap«
pear to have taken lessons.

Miracles op the Roman Gods Quirinus and Pro-
metheus.

1.   Prometheus was honored with a miraculous birth.

2.   Quirinus was miraculously preserved in infancy, when
threatened with destruction by the tyrant ruler Amulius.

3.   He performed the miracles, according to Seneca and He-
siod, of curing the sick, restoring the blind, raising the dead,
and casting out devils.

4.   Both these Gods were crucified amid signs, and wonders,
and miracles.

5.   All nature was convulsed, and the saints arose when they
were crucified.

6.   The sun was also darkened, and refused to shine.

7.   Both descended to hell, and rose from it by divine power.

8.   And Prometheus was seen to ascend to heaven.

We cite these lists of miraculous events as if real facts, not
because we believe they were such, but as possessing the same
degree of credibility as those related of Jesus Christ.

Miracles and Religion op Apollonius op Tyana.

1.   Everything was subject to his miraculous power.

2.   He performed many miraculous cures.

3.   He restored sight to the blind.

4.   He cast out devils, which sometimes “ cut up ” like those
of Christ.

5.   He enabled the lame to walk.

6.   He re-animated the dead.

7.   He could read the thoughts of bystanders.

8.   Sometimes disappeared in a miraculous manner.

9.   Caused a tree to bloom, while Christ made another tree to
wither away.
 APOLLONIUS, OSIRIS, ^4AZ> MAGUS.

267

10.   The laws of nature obeyed him.

11.   Could speak in many languages he had never learned.

12.   Was at one time transfigured, like Christ.   «

13.   His birth was miraculously foretold by an angel.

14.   Was bom of a spotless virgin.

15.   There were demonstrations of joy and singing at his
birth.

16.   Exhibited proofs in infancy of being a God.

17.   Manifested extraordinary wisdom in childhood.

18.   He was called “ the Son of God.”

19.   Also “the image of the Eternal Father manifested in
the flesh.”

20.   He was also styled “ a prophet.”

21.   Like Christ, he retired into mystic silence.

22.   His religion was one of exalted spirituality.

23.   He taught the doctrine of “ the Inner Life.”

24.   He possessed exalted views of purity and holiness.

25.   Like Christ, he was a religious ascetic.

26.   His religion, as in the case of Christ, forbade him to marry.

27.   He ate no animal food, and would wear no woolen
garments.

28.   Gave his substance to the poor.

29.   Eschewed love for wine and women.

30.   Refrained from artificial ornaments and sumptuous living.

31.   He was a high-toned moral reformer.

32.   He condemned external sacrifices.

33.   Also condemned gladiatorial shows.

34.   He religiously opposed dancing and sexual pleasures.

35.   He recommended the pursuit of wisdom.

36.   Was of a serene temper, and never got angry.

37.   Was a true prophet, foresaw and foretold many future
events.

38.   Foresaw a plague, and stopped it after it had commenced.

39.   Crowds were attracted by his great miracles and his
wisdom.

40.   He disputed with and vanquished the wise men of
Greece and Asia, as Christ did the learned doctors in the
temple.
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

41.   When imprisoned by Domitian and loaded with chains,
lie disenthralled himself by divine power.

42.   lie was followed by crowds when entering Alexandria,
like Christ when entering Jerusalem.

43.   Was crucified amidst a display of divine power.

44.   He rose from the dead.

45.   Appeared to his disciples after his resurrection.

46.   Like Christ, he convinced a Tommy Didymus by getting
him to feel the print of the nails in his hands and feet.

47.   Was seen by many witnesses after his resurrection, and
was hailed by them as the “God Incarnate,” “the Lord from
Heaven.”

48.   He finally ascended back to heaven, and now “ sits at
the right hand of the Father,” pleading for a sinful world.

49.   When he entered the temple of Diana, “ a voice from
above was heard saying, c Come to heaven.’ ”

50.   Accordingly he was seen no more on earth only as a
spirit.

The reader will observe that the foregoing list of analogies,
drawn from the history of Apollonius, as furnished us by his
disciple Damos and his biographer Philostratus, are found also,
in almost every particular, in the history of Jesus Christ. And
the list might have been extended. It is declared, “ A beauty
shone in his countenance, and the words he uttered were di-
vine,” which reminds us of Christ’s transfiguration. And his
“ staying a plague at Ephesus ” revives the case of Christ stilling
the tempest on the waters. Now, the question very naturally
arises here, How came the histories of Apollonius and Christ
to be so strikingly alike ? Was one plagiarized from the other?
As for the miraculous history of Apollonius being reconstruct-
ed from that of Jesus Christ, as some Christians have assumed,
there is not the slightest foundation for such a conclusion, as
the following facts will show, viz.: —

1.   The Cappadocian Savior (Apollonius) was born several
years anterior to the advent of the Christian Savior, and ap-
peared at an earlier date upon the stage of active life, and thus
got the start of Christ in the promulgations of his doctrines
and the exhibition of his miracles. Christ’s active life, Chris-
 APOLLONIUS, OSIRIS,   MAGUS.

20<>

tians concede and the bible proves, did not commence till about
liis twenty-eighth or thirtieth year, which was long after Ap-
ollonius had inaugurated his religion, and long after he* had
commenced the promulgation of his doctrines, and attested
them by wonderful miracles, according to his biographer Phi*
lostratus.

2.   The New American Cyclopedia tells us, “ Apollonius la-
bored for the purity of Paganism, and to sustain its tottering
edifice against the assaults of the Christians.” So that, being
placed in a hostile attitude toward the representatives of the
Christian faith, it is not likely he would condescend to borrow
their doctrines and the miraculous history of their incarnate
God, to invest his own life with. He was probably one of the
“anti-Christs” spoken of in the New Testament; but this cir-
cumstance reflects nothing dishonorable upon his character;
for some of those distinguished personages denounced as ^anti-
Christ,” by Christ’s gospel biographers, were, according to
impartial history, noble, honest, and righteous men. Their
only offense consisted in robbing Christ of his divine laurels,
by claiming similar titles, and claiming to perform the same
kind of miracles: and there is as much proof that they did
achieve these prodigies as that Christ did.

3.   The early Christian writers conceded that Apollonius and
the other oriental Gods did perform the miracles which are
ascribed to them by their respective disciples, but accounted
for it by the childish expedient of obsession. Christ was as-
sumed to perform miracles by divine power, they by the power
of the devil — a childish and senseless distinction truly, and
one which can have no logical force in this enlightened age.

Miracles and Claims for Simon Magus, B. C.

1.   It is declared, “he was in the beginning with God.”

2.   That “ he existed with God from all eternity.”

3.   That “ he took upon himself the form of a man.”

4.   That “he was the Son of God,” “the Word,” &c.

5.   That “ he was the second person in the godhead.”

6.   That “ he came down to destroy the devil and his works.”
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

7.   That “ he was the image of the Eternal Father ”

8.   That “ he was the first-born Son of God.”

9.   That he could control the elements.

10.   That he could walk on the air as Christ did on the
water.

11.   Could move anything by the command, “ Be thou re*

' moved.”

12.   That he could raise the dead.

13.   That he could transform himself into the image of any
man.

14.   That he was “ the Paraclete, or Comforter.”

15.   That he*came to “ redeem the world from sin.”

16.   ^Finally, he was the world’s “ Savior,” “Redeemer,” “the
Only Begotten of the Father,” and “ through bis name men
are to be saved.”

The reader will call to mind that this Simon Magus is men-
tioned and condemned in the Acts of the Apostles, for offering
to pay Peter for a bestowment of* the gift of the Holy Ghost.
And yet every philosopher in this age must concede that Ma-
gus’ assumption in the case is more sensible and philosophical
than that of Peter’s. For the latter calls it “ a gift from God,”
whereas every person now acquainted with the nature, princi-
ples, and science of animal magnetism, knows that such mani-
festation as that which Peter ascribes to God and the Holy
Ghost, is a simple natural phenomenon; and that, consequently,
it can be no more a violation of the rules of propriety to pay
for the labor of making such developments than it is to pay a
teacher for developing the mind of a child. It was certainly a
greater act of courtesy to offer to pay for it than to demand it
as a gratuitous favor. Hence we infer he excelled Peter in
his demeanor as a gentleman, especially as he bore Peter’s
severe reprimand with patience, and apparently with a better
spirit than that which dictated it. And we may remark here,
also, that notwithstanding this Samaritan Jew is so unsparingly
denounced by the godly Peter, and by the early Christian
fathers also, yet we have the historical proof that he was an
honest, pious, and ardently devout man. His whole life was
absorbed in the cause of religion, and his whole soul devoted
 APOLLONIUS, OSIRIS, ^4JVZ> MAGUS.

271

to his religious duties and the worship of his God. Hence we
think Peter’s rebuke was uncalled for.

Let the reader note the fact here that there are three circum-
stances amply sufficient to account for bibles and religious
books being profusely supplied with the reports of groundless
miracles.

1.   As everybody then believed in miracles (at least every-
body who dared speak) there was nobody to investigate the
reports of such occurrences, to learn whether they were true or
false.

2.   The few who attempted to disprove the truth of those
miraculous occurrences now found reported in sacred history,
had their books burned, as in the case of Porphyry and Celsus,
in the early history of Christianity, who called in question the
truth of bible miracles.

3.   These marvelous facts were not usually recorded till long
after the period in which they are said to have occurred, when
the witnesses had left the stage of time, and every event excit-
ing any attention had grown to a monstrous prodigy. These
circumstances, in an age of boundless credulity and scientific
ignorance, which magnified every phenomenon, and looked
upon every natural event as a direct display of divine power,
accounts most fully and satisfactorily for the burdensome repe-
tition of groundless miraculous stories found upon nearly every
page of the sacred history of every religious nation, without driv-
ing us to the necessity of challenging the veracity of the writers
who recorded them. They may all have been honest men.

Confucius of China, boen 551 B. C.

This moral teacher, religious chieftain, and philosopher,
though not subjected to the ignominious death of the cross,
deserves a passing notice for the excellency of his morals and
the acquisition of a world-wide fame. In the following par-
ticulars his history bears a strong analogy to that of Jesus
Christ.

1.   He commenced as a religious teacher when about thirty
years of age.
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

2.   The Golden Rule (see Chap. XXXIV.) was his favorite
maxim.

3.   Most of his moral maxims were sound and of a high order.
The New American Cyclopedia says (vol. v. p. 604), “ His
writings approach the Christian standard of morality;” and in
some respects they excel.

4.   He traveled in different countries, preaching and teach-
ing his doctrines.

5.   He made a host of converts, amounting now to one hun-
dred and fifty millions.

6.   His religion and morals have been propagated by apostles
and missionaries, some of whom are now traveling in this
country, laboring to convert Christians to their superior reli-
gion and morals. “ There was a time,” says the work above
quoted, “ when European philosophers vied with each other in
extolling Confucius as one of the sublimest teachers of truth
among mankind.”

In the following respects his teachings were superior to those
of Christ: —

1.   He taught that “ the knowledge of one’s self is the basis
of all real advances in morals and manners.” A lesson Christ
neglected to teach.

2.   “ The duties man owes to society and himself are minute-
ly defined by Confucius,” says the Cyclopedia. Another im-
portant work Christ partially omitted.

He constructed several hundred beautiful and instructive
moral maxims, which we have not space for here, and which
amply prove that u the holiest truths were inculcated by pagan
philosophers.”
 MIRACLES, PROPHECIES, ^4iVZ> PRECEPTS.   273

CHAPTER XXXIY.

THE THREE PILLARS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH
— MIRACLES, PROPHECIES, AND PRECEPTS,

When Christians are asked for the proof of the divinity of
Jesus Christ, they point to his miracles and precepts, and the
Messianic prophecies, said to have been fulfilled by his coming.
And the same kind of evidence is adduced to prove the divine
claims of their bible and its religion, including the Old Testa-
ment, which contains the prophecies. Their divine origin and
supernatural character are claimed to be proved by the miracles,
prophecies, and precepts found recorded in the Holy Book.
All, then, stand or fall together — the divinity of Christ, and
the divinity of the bible and its religion, all, rest on this three-
fold argument. All, it is claimed, are attested and proved by
a threefold display of divine power, manifested, —

1.   By the performance of various acts, transcending human
power and the laws of nature, called Miracles.

- 2. By the discernment of events lying in the future which
no human sagacity or prescience could have foreseen, unless
aided by Omniscience; the display of such power being called
Prophecy.

8. By the enunciation of Moral Precepts beyond the mental
capacity of human beings to originate.

[Prometheus]

These three propositions cover the whole ground. They con-
stitute the three grand pillars of the Christian faith, which, if
shown to be untenable, must prostrate the whole superstructure
to the ground. We will examine each separately, commencing
with miracles.

18
 1274

THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

I. Miracles the first Pillar of the Christian Faith.

We will not occupy space in discussing the various meanings
assigned to the word miracle by different writers, but take the
popular definition as given above, and proceed to inquire how
much evidence can be deduced from the miracles represented
as having been performed by Jesus Christ, toward proving his
divinity and the truth of his religion. In the first place, it
should be borne in mind that Christianity is not the only
religion which appeals to miracles as a proof of its divine
authorship. More than three hundred systems and sects are
reported in history, most of which have, from time immemorial,
gloried in being able to wield this knock-down argument, as
they claim it to be, in support of the truth and divine authen-
ticity of their various systems of faith. We will briefly notice
some of the miraculous achievements reported in their sacred
books, and ascribed to their Gods and sin-atoning Saviors, and
compare them with similar ones related of Jesus Christ, com-
mencing with

Pagan Miracles.

As the whole pathway of religious history is thickly bestud-
ded with miracles wrought in all ages and countries, and every
page of the oriental bibles and religious books is literally loaded
down with the relation of these marvelous prodigies said to
have been wrought by their Gods, Demigods, and crucified
Saviors, it places a writer in a quandary to know where to be-
gin to make a selection. We will express no opinion here as
to whether these astounding feats were ever witnessed or not;
but will merely state that they come to us as well authenticated
as those reported in the Christian bible. There is as much
evidence that Zoroaster, at the request of King Gustaph, caused
a tree to spring up in a man’s yard forthwith, of such magnifi-
cent proportions that no rope could be found large enough to
reach around it, as that Jesus Christ caused a fig tree to wither
away by merely cursing it. And we have the same kind of
evidence that the Hindoo Messiah, Chrishna, of India, restored
two boys to life who had been killed by the bites of serpents,
 MIRACLES, PROPHECIES, ,4iVZ> PRECEPTS.   275

as that Jesus Christ resurrected Lazarus and the widow’s son
of Nain ; and as much proof that Bacchus turned water into
wine, as that Jesus performed this act six hundred years after.
And a hundred other similar comparisons might be drawn.
The evidence of the truth of these performances in both cases,
pagan and Christian, is simply the report of the writer. If
there are any exceptions to be made in either case of better
evidence, it will be found in favor of the pagan religion ; for its
adherents are able in many cases to point to imperishable mon-
uments of stone erected in commemoration of their miracles.
And Mr. Goodrich tells us this is the highest species of evidence
that can be offered to prove the truth of any ancient event.
But as Christians, on the other hand, can find no such evidence
to prove the performance of any miracles reported in their bible,
it will be seen at once that the pagan miracles are the best au-
thenticated. The famous historian Pausanias states upon cur-
rent authority that Esculapius raised several persons from the
dead, and names Hippolytus among the number, and then
points to a stone monument erected as a proof of the occur-
rence — thus furnishing, according to Christian logic, the most
conclusive proof of one of the most astounding miracles ever
wrought. And yet’ no philosopher or man of science in this
age can credit the literal truth of the story. But a spiritualist
can easily conceive that he and others might have mistaken the
risen spirits of those resurrected persons for their physical
bodies, because they know that many mistakes of this kind
have occurred in modern times.

We might refer to many other cases of pagan miracles at-
tested by monumental evidence if our space would permit —
such as the names of many persons engraven upon the walls of
the Temple of Serapis, miraculously carved by the God Escu-
lapius. Strabo tells us the ancient temples are full of tablets
describing miraculous cures performed by virgin-born Gods of
those times, and names a case of two blind men being restored
to sight by the son of God Alcides in the presence of a large
multitude of people, “ who acknowledged the miraculous power
of the God with loud acclaim.” Many spiritualists at the pres-
ent day know by practical experience how these “ miraculous
 276

THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

cures” were performed. Without continuing the citation of
cases, suffice it to say, the sin-atoning Gods of the orientals are
reported as performing the same train of miracles assigned to
Jesus Christ, such as performing astonishing cures, casting out
devils, raising the dead, &c. Now, sadly warped indeed by
education must be that mind which cannot see that if the
account of such prodigies, reported in the history of Jesus
Christ, can do anything towards proving him to have been a
God, then the world must have been full of Gods long before
his time. It is impossible to dodge or evade such a conclusion.
Christians are in the habit of assuming that all the miraculous
reports in the bible are unquestionably true, while those re-
ported in pagan bibles are mere fable and fiction. But if they
will reverse this proposition, it can be easier supported, because
we have shown their miracles are better attested and authen-
ticated. Their own bible admits that the heathen not only
could and did perform miracles, but miraculous prodigies of
the most astonishing character, equal to anything reported in
their own religious history — such as transmuting water into
blood, sticks into serpents, and stones into frogs. In a word,
it is admitted they performed all the miraculous feats of Moses
with the single exception of turning dust into lice. But cer-
tainly making lice was not a more difficult achievement than
that of making frogs, and this it is admitted they did do success-
fully. Hence it will be seen that the Egyptian pagans made
as great a display of divine or miraculous power as “ God’s
Holy People,” according to the admission of the bible itself.
And there is no intimation that the mode of performing the
miracles was not the same in both cases, but a strong proba-
bility exists that it was, a conclusion confirmed by the bible
report of the case which leads us to infer that they performed
the miracles in the same way Moses did. For it is said, “ The
Egyptians did so with their enchantments ” — that is, with the
“ enchanting rod ” used on such occasions by the Egyptians,
Assyrians, Babylonians, and other nations, including also the
Jews. Now, as Moses always used the “enchanting rod” in
performing miracles, called by him “the rod of God, the rod
of divination,” &c. (see Ex. iv.), there is thus furnished the most
 MIRACLES, PROPHECIES, ^4AZ> PRECEPTS.   277

satisfactory proof that he performed his miracles on this occa-
sion, as well as all other occasions, by the same stratagem as
the Egyptians and other nations did. And even if the mode
adopted by the Egyptians had been different, it is still admitted
they performed the miracles. In the name of reason and com-
mon sense, then, we ask if such facts as here presented with
the case just referred to do not forever prostrate and annihilate
all arguments based on miracles toward proving the divine
character or divine origin of the religion of the bible, or to-
wards proving Jesus Christ, or any other being reported to have
performed miracles, as possessing divine attributes ?

Catholic Miracles.

Some of the most astonishing and best authenticated miracles
ever performed by any religious sect we find reported in the
history of the Roman Catholic church, looked upon and styled
by the Protestants “ the mother of Harlots and Abomination.”
And yet there is much stronger proof that the Catholic religion
has the divine sanction, if miracles can furnish such proof.
The editor of “ The Official Memoirs ” declares that during the
Italian war in 1797, several pictures of the virgin Mary, situ-
ated in different parts of the country, were seen to open and
shut their eyes for the space of six or seven months, and that
no less than sixty thousand people actually saw this miracle
performed, including many bishops, deacons, cardinals, and other
officers of the church, whose names are given. And Forsyth’s
Italy (p. 844), written by a highly accredited author, tells us
that a withered elm tree was suddenly restored to full life and
vigor by coming in contact with the body of St. Zenobis, and
that this miracle took place in the most public part of the
town, in the presence of many thousands of people; that “ it
is recorded by cotemporary historians, and inscribed upon a
marble column now standing where the tree stood.” Now, the
question may be asked here, Would the people have allowed
such an impudent trick to insult them as the erection of a
monument for an event that never took place ? If not, how is
the matter to be explained? These are only specimens of a
hundred more Catholic miracles of an astonishing character at
 278

THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

our command. Several queries may be entertained in the solu-
tion of these stories. 1st, Were some phenomena really wit-
nessed on which these stories were constructed, but which go*
magnified from a molehill to a mountain before they found
their way into history ? or, 2d, Were they manufactured as a
pious fraud, which was rather a fashionable business with the
early disciples of the Christian faith, according to Mr. Mosheim?
Whatever answer may be given to these questions will explain
the miracles of the Christian bible, excepting those which can
be accounted for on natural principles.

Satanic Miracles.

Among all the workers of miracles reported in the bible the
devil seems to have been pre-eminent, and hence must come
in for the better end of the argument toward proving him to
have been a God. No miracle could excel the act of his
“transforming himself into an angel of light,” as stated in
2 Cor. xi. 14. It is not transcended by any other case, not
even by Christ’s transfiguration. And according to Paul he
was endowed “ with all power, and signs, and lying wonders.”
(Thess. ii. 9.) If, then, he possessed “ all power,” Christ, and
no other God, could have possessed a miraculous power supe-
rior to his, for “ all ” comprehends the whole, beyond which
nothing can reach. Where, then, is the evidence to come from
to prove that Christ was a God, because he was a miracle-
worker, or his religion divine, because attested by miracles —
seeing the devil performed some of the most difficult miracles
ever wrought. Should we not then change his title from that
of a demon to a God, and place his religion amongst the di-
vinely endowed systems. St. John represents the “ Evil One ”
as having power to make “fire come down from heaven in the
sight of men,” and “to deceive those that dwell on the earth
by means of those miracles which he hath power to do.” (Rev.
xiii. 13 )

Here the question arises, What can a miracle prove, what end
can it serve, or wh^t good can possibly arise from the display
of the miracle-working power, when it is liable “to deceive
those that dwell upon the earth”? Certainly, therefore, it
 MIRACLES, PROPHECIES, yliVZ> PRECEPTS. 27!)

proves nothing, and accomplishes nothing. And may not the
apostles themselves have been deceived in ascribing some of
the miracles they record to Jesus instead of the devil? Cer-
tainly we are drifted upon the quicksands of uncertainty by such
a display of the miracle-working power, and are obnoxious to
most fatal deception, which proves the total inutility and futil-
ity of such prodigies.

Christ's Miracles not his Own, but wrought through Him and
not by Him.

How could Christ’s miracles, assuming they were wrought,
do anything toward proving his divinity, when he did not
claim to be their author, but merely the agent or instrument in
the hands of the Father, like the apostles, who are reported to
have performed the same miracles ? “ The Father he doeth the
work,” is his own declaration. And the apostles seem to have
accepted his word, and his view of the matter. For proof
listen to Peter: “ Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of
Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles,
and wonders, and signs, which God did by him in the midst of
you, as ye yourselves do know.” (Acts ii. 22.) Let it be noted,
then, that Christ’s miracles were not performed by him as a
God, but as “ a man approved of God; ” he was the mere
medium or instrument in the case — a fact which banishes at
once all grounds for controversy relative to his miracles serv-
ing the purpose of attesting his divinity, especially when it is
conceded that men, magicians, and devils could achieve the
same feats.

Christ's Miracles did not convince the People.

As the miracles of Christ seem to have had little effect
toward convincing the people of his claims to the godhead, it
is evident they could have been but little superior to those per-
formed by others, and therefore not designed, at least not cal-
culated, to convince them that he was a God. The frequent
instances in which he upbraids the people for their unbelief,
and calls them fools, “ slow of heart,” &c., is a proof of this state-
ment.
 280

THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

Christ's Miracles not designed to convince the People.

A circumstance involving pretty strong proof that Christ’s
miraculous achievements were not considered as evidence of
his divinity, is the fact that they were frequently performed in
private, sometimes in the night, and often under the injunction
of secrecy. “ See thou tell no man,” was the injunction, after
the feat was performed, perhaps, in a private room. How can
such facts be reconciled with the assumption that his miracles
were designed to convince the people of his claim to the Divine
Entity, as Christians frequently assert, when the people were
not allowed to witness them, nor his disciples even to report
them? Who can believe that he was a Divine Being, or Mes-
siah, when he charged his disciples to tell no man ” that he
was such a Being ? Such incongruities verge to a contradic-
tion. It is a logical contradiction to say that private miracles
were designed to dissolve public skepticism. And yet many, if
not most, of his reputed miraculous achievements were of this
character. When he cured a blind man, he not only *• led him
out of the town ” (Mark viii. 23), but forbid him, when his sight
was restored, returning to the city, for fear he would publish it.
When he resurrected Lazarus, he did not call the whole country
around to witness it, but performed the act before a private
party. The re animation of Jairus’s daughter was in the same
concealed manner, in a private room, where nobody was admit-
ted but his three confidential disciples (Peter, James, and John)
and the parents, none of whom make any report of the case.
How, therefore, the reporter (Mark) found it out, when he was
not present, and none of the party were allowed to tell it to
anybody, or why he should betray his trust by publishing it, if
he was informed of it, is a “ mystery of Godliness ” not easily
divined. When Christ cleansed the leper, he sent him to the
priest, enjoining him to “ say nothing to any man.” The dumb,
when restored to speech, was not allowed to exhibit any practi-
cal proof of the fact by using his tongue. His miraculous per-
ambulation on the surface of the sea (walking on the water) was
not only alone, but in the dark. His transfiguration, likewise,
according to Dr. Barnes, took place in the night, his three favor
 MIRACLES, PROPHECIES, /1VZ? PRECEPTS.   281

[Prometheus]

ite companions being the only witnesses, and they “ heavy with
sleep.” And finally, the crowning miracle of all, the resurrection,
is not only represented as taking place in the night, but without
one substantial or terrestrial witness to report it. Verily such
facts as these are not calculated to augment the faith or work the
conviction of a skeptic that these miracles were ever performed,
seeing so few are reported as witnessing them, and even their
testimony is not given. We have not the testimony of one
person who claims to have been present and seen these won-
ders performed. Such facts are calculated to cast distrust
upon the whole matter, especially when taken in connection
with the fact that nine tenths of his life form a perfect blank
in history. Is it possible, we ask, to reconcile such a fact with
the belief of his divinity ? Is it possible a God could lead a pri-
vate life, or live twenty-seven years on earth, and do nothing
worthy of note — a God known to nobody and noticed by no-
body ? Most transcendingly absurd is such a thought. Had
Christ possessed the character that is claimed for him, not an
hour of his life could have passed unaccompanied by some re-
markable incident that would have been heralded abroad, and
its record indelibly engraven upon the page of history; but in-
stead of this, his acts were too commonplace to be noticed.

All History ignores Him.

The fact that no history, sacred or profane, — that not one
of the three hundred histories of that age,— makes the slight-
est allusion to Christ, or any of the miraculous incidents ingraft-
ed into his life, certainly proves, with a cogency that no logic
can overthrow, no sophistry can contradict, and no honest
skepticism can resist, that there never was such a miraculously
endowed being as his many orthodox disciples claim him to
have been. The fact that Christ finds no place in the history
of the era in which he lived, — that not one event of his life is
recorded by anybody but his own interested and prejudiced
biographers,— settles the conclusion, beyond cavil or criticism,
that the godlike achievements ascribed to him are naught but
fable or fiction. It not only proves he was not miraculously
endowed, but proves he was not even naturally endowed to
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

such an extraordinary degree as to make him an object oi gen
eral attention. It would be a historical anomaly without a
precedent, that Christ should have performed any of the ex-
traordinary acts attributed to him in the Gospels, and no Ro-
man or Grecian historian, and neither Philo nor Josephus, both
writing in that age, and both living almost on the spot
where they are said to have been witnessed, and both record-
ing minutely all the religious events of that age and country,
make the slightest mention of one of them, nor their reputed
authors. Such a historical fact banishes the last shadow of
faith in their reality. It is true a few lines are found in one of
Josephus’s large works alluding to Christ. But it is so mani-
festly a forgery, that we believe all modern critics of any note,
even of the orthodox school, reject it as a base interpolation.
Even Dr. Lardner, one of the ablest defenders of the Christian
faith that ever wielded a pen in its support, and who has writ-
ten ten large volumes to bolster it up, assigns nine cogent
reasons (which we would insert here if we had space) for the
conclusion that Josephus could not have penned those few
lines found in his “ Jewish Antiquities ” referring to Christ. No
Jew could possibly use such language. It would be a glaring
absurdity to suppose a leading Jew could call Jesus “The
Christ,” when the whole Jewish nation have ever contested the
claim with the sternest logic, and fought it to the bitter end.
“It ought, therefore” (says Dr. Lardner, for the nine reasons
which he assigns), “to be forever discarded from any place
among the evidences of Christianity.” (Life of Lardner by Dr.
Kippis, p. 28.) As the passage is not found in any edition of
Josephus prior to the era of Eusebius, the suspicion has fas-
tened upon that Christian writer as being its author, who argued
that falsehood might be used as a medicine for the benefit of
the churches. (See his Eccles. Hist.) Origen, who lived before
Eusebius, admitted Josephus makes no allusion to Christ. Of
course the passage was not, then, in Josephus. One or two
other similar passages have been found, in other authors of that
era, which it is not necessary to notice here, as they are re-
jected by Christian writers. It must be conceded, therefore,
that the numerous histories covering the epoch of the birth of
 MIRACLES, PROPHECIES, ^4AZ? PRECEPTS.   288

Christ chronicle none of the astounding feats incorporated in
his Gospel biographies as signalizing his earthly career, and
make no mention of the reputed hero of these achievements,
either by name or character. The conclusion is thus irresisti-
bly forced upon us, not only that he was not a miracle-worker,
but that he must have led rather an obscure life, entirely in-
compatible with his being a God or a Messiah, who came “ to
draw all men unto him.” And it should also be noted here
that none of Christ’s famous biographers, Matthew, Mark, Luke,
or John, are honored with a notice in history till one hundred
and ninety years after the birth of Christ. And then the no-
tice was by a Christian writer (Ireneus).

“We look in vain,” says a writer, “for any cotemporary
notice of the Gospels, or Christ the subject of the Gospels, out-
side of the New Testament. So little was this ‘king of the
Jews’ known, that the Romans were compelled to pay one of
his apostles to turn traitor and act as guide before they could
find him. It is impossible to observe this negative testimony
of all history against Christ and his miracles, and not be struck
with amazement, and seized with the conviction that he was
not a God, and not a very extraordinary man.” Who can
believe that a God, from off the throne of heaven, could make
his appearance on earth, and while performing the most as-
tounding miracles ever recorded in any history, or that ever
excited the credulity of any people, and be finally publicly cru-
cified in the vicinity of a great city, and yet all the histories
written in those times, both sacred and profane, pass over with
entire silence the slightest notice of any of these extraordinary
events. Impossible — most self-evidently impossible !! And
when we find that this omission was so absolute that no record
was made of the day or year of his birth by any person in the
era in which he lived, and that they were finally forgotten, and
hence that there are, as a writer informs us, no less than one
hundred and thirty-three different opinions about the matter,
the question assumes a still more serious aspect. From the
logical potency of these facts we are driven to the conclusion
that Christ received but little attention outside of the circle of
his own credulous and interested followers, and consequently
 THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

284

stands on a level with Chrishna of India, Mithra of Persia, Osi-
ris of Egypt, and other demigods of antiquity, all whose mirac-
ulous legends were ingrafted in their histories long after their
death. This leads us to consider

IIow Christ's incredible Legends got into his History.

There is a remarkably easy and satisfactory way of account-
ing for all the marvelous feats and incredible stories found in
the Gospel narratives of Jesus Christ, without assuming their
reality or any intentional fraud or falsehood by the writers.
"When we learn that none of his evangelical biographies were
penned (as Dr. Lardner affirms) till long after his death, we are
no longer puzzled for a moment to understand exactly how
many statements wholly incredible and morally impossible
crept into his history, without challenging or calling in ques-
tion the veracity or honesty of the writer. Perhaps the most
powerful cord of moral conviction which holds the Christian
professor to a belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ, is the diffi-
culty of bringing himself to believe that the numerous mira-
cles ascribed to him in the Gospels are merely the work of
fiction, fabricated without a basis of truth, when they were
evidently penned by men of the deepest piety and the strictest
moral integrity. We ourselves were once environed with this
difficulty. But it stands in our way no longer. We are disin-
thralled. We have solved the problem. We have found the
true explanation. The key and clew to the whole secret is
found in the simple fact, admitted by Christian writers and evi-
denced by the bible itself, that no history of Christ's practical
life was written out by a person claiming to ham been an eye-
witness of the events reported, nor until every incident and act
of the noble-minded Nazarene had had ample time to become
enormously magnified and distorted by rumor, fable, and fic-
tion ; so that it was impossible to discriminate or separate the
real from the unreal, the true from the false, in his partly-for-
gotten life. It could not be done. A true history could not then
be, nor have been written under such circumstances. It is man-
ifestly impossible. The time for writing each Gospel is fixed by
Dr Lardner as follows, viz.: Matthew 62 A. D., Mark 64 A.D.,
 MIRACLES, PROPHECIES, .4AZ> PRECEPTS.   285

Luke 63 or 64 A. D., and John 68 A. D.; thus allowing ample
time for every noteworthy incident of his life to grow from mole-
hills to mountains, and to swell into fiction, fable, and prodigy, a
tendency to which was then very rife and very prevalent in all
religious countries. Having made a note of this fact, let the
reader treasure in memory, as another equally important fact,
that the biography of no man of note who figured in that era,
or who lived prior to the dawn of letters (if penned many years
after his death, as was frequently the case), is free from a large
percentage of extravagant detail, and simple incidents magni-
fied into miracles. This was the uncurbed tendency of the
age which ultimated into universal custom.

The simplest incident in every man’s life, who exhibited mind
enough to attract attention, by rolling from year to year, and
passing from mouth to mouth, invariably got to be finally
swelled into such undue and enormous proportions, that it
could only be accounted for by assuming the actor to have
been a God. In this way many men of different countries,
who had made a mark in the world, received divine honors and
divine attributes, including such characters as Chrishna of India,
Mithra of Persia, Quirinus of Rome, Eras of the Druids, Quex-
alcote of Mexico, Jesus Christ of Judea, and many others who
might be mentioned. This circumstance deified them. The
evidence of history to prove this declaration is abundant and
irresistible.

Posthumous Histories alone deified Men.

To the two important facts above cited, viz., that Jesus
Christ’s evangelical histories were all written long after his
death, and that unwritten histories of great men always become
swollen and distorted with the lapse of time, let the reader add
the equally significant fact that there is in all cases a vast dif-
ference in the biographies of famous men, penned during their
actual lives, or immediately subsequent to their death, while
every act and incident of their career was fresh and vigorous
in the minds and memories of the cotemporaneous people, and
before the ball of exaggerated rumor was set rolling, compared
with those written at a later date, after molehills of fact had
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

become mountains of fiction. The former are natural and rea-
sonable, the latter unnatural and extravagant, and often fabu-
lous. We will cite a few cases in proof. Let the reader com-
pare the biographical sketches of Alexander the Great written
near the epoch of his practical life, and those composed since
the dawn of the Christian era, and he will find that the posthu-
mous notices of him alone contain the story of the sun becom-
ing obscured, and the earth enveloped in darkness, at the time
of his mortal exit. It will be found, also, that Virgil’s account
of “the sheeted dead,” rising from their graves at the time of
Caesar’s death, and which was written long after that famous
hero left the stage of action, is omitted in all the cotemporary
notices of that monarch, having crept in subsequently.

In like manner, the various miracles recorded of Pythagoras
by his biographer Jamblicus, — such as his walking on the
air, stilling the tempest, raising the dead, &c., — are not related
of him by any cotemporaneous writers who lived in the era of
his practical life. And let the reader compare, also, Damos’
life of Apollonius with that of his later biography by Philos-
tratus, as an illustration of the same historical fact. Mahomet
and his biographies might be included in the same category.
It is a remarkable circumstance that neither Mahomet himself
nor any of his immediate followers claim for him more than the
humble title of prophet, or “God’s holy prophet,” while his
later admirers and devout disciples have elevated him to the
throne of heaven, and given him a seat among the Gods.

And this historical analysis might be extended much farther
if necessary. But cases enough have been cited to prove the
principle and establish the proposition. And what is the lesson
taught by these facts ? A deeply-instructive and all-important
one. From the foregoing historical illustrations we are im-
pelled to the important conclusion, that the tissue of extrava-
gant and incredible stories of demigod performances which run
as a vein of fiction through the Gospel narrations of Jesus Christ,
all grow out of long-continued rumor, in an age when the ima-
gination was untamed and unbounded, and credulity uncurbed
by a practical knowledge of the principles of science, and con-
sequently the pen of the historian had lawless scope. All diffi-
 MIRACLES, PROPHECIES, vliVZ> PRECEPTS.   287

# culty then vanishes, and the question is put fore rer at rest by
assuming that if the Gospel histories of Jesus had been written
by men who claimed to record only what they saw and heard
themselves, we should have a more credible and instructive his-
tory of the great Judean reformer, freed from those Munchau-
sen prodigies and that wild romance which mar the beauty
and credibility of those now in popular use. This conclusion
is not only natural, but irresistible, to a mind untrammeled by
education and unbefogged by priestcraft. All that is wanting
to convince us that miracles constitute no part of the real his-
tory of Christ, is a cotemporary instead of a posthumous biog-
raphy— a history written in the age which knew him, and by
an unprejudiced writer who witnessed all his movements. And
we are perfectly willing to risk our reputation in this life, and
our salvation in the next, by stating our conviction that this
will be the unanimous verdict of posterity before fifty genera-
tions pass away.

Christ’s Miracles reconstructed from former Miracles.

There are other circumstances than those noticed in the pre-
ceding chapter, which can aid us very materially in solving the
problem of Christ’s divinity; or, in other words, can aid us in
tracing his miracles to their origin, and thus confirm the truth
of the preceding proposition. Moses and the prophets were
considered by the evangelists antetypes or archetypes of the
coming Savior. Hence some of the more important incidents
of their lives were hunted up and worked over again, to make
them fit the life of Christ as the Messiah, reconstructed and
applied to him as the second Moses, and a new prophet; for
Moses is represented as saying, “A prophet shall the Lord
your God raise up like unto me.” Hence Moses comes in with
the prophets as an antetype of Christ. The transfiguration of
Christ is therefore constituted after the model of the transfigu-
ration of Moses on Mount Sinai. And Christ is represented as
raising the dead, not only because Elijah and Elisha had per-
formed such miracles, but did it under circumstances which
prove, as they suppose, he possessed superior power. For while
they could only reanimate the body immediately after the
 288

THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

breath had left it, Christ could raise a man after he had been *
dead four days (the case of Lazarus). Hence the New Prophet
was superior to the old, and more like a God — the thing they
desired to prove. Both Elijah and Christ are represented as
raising a widow’s son, — Elijah being considered the special
prototype of Christ, who, many believed, had re-appeared under
the changed name of Elias. (See John v. 17.) And then
we observe that while Elisha exhausted his skill in making
three gallons of oil, Christ could make thirty gallons of wine
— another proof of the superiority of the New Prophet. Then,
again, the miracle of feeding one hundred men with twenty
loaves is far excelled by the latter, who feeds five thousand
men with five loaves. And both prophets, Elisha and Christ,
-en countered unford able streams in their travels; the expedient
of the former is to make a passage, but Christ performed the
greater miracle of walking on the surface. And while Moses
had to send the leper without the camp before he could heal
him, Christ could heal him instantly with a single touch. The
same slaughter of the infants is commanded by Herod, in order
to destroy Christ, that Pharaoh had ordered to effect the de-
struction of Moses. And thus many of the miracles of Jesus
can be accounted for as reconstructions of former miracles. It
was simply a competition or rivalry between the New Messi-
anic prophet and the old prophets. The New Prophet excels
and comes off victorious in every case, and is thus considered
to be a God. The object of the competition is to show that
while the prophets, assisted by God, could perform marvelous
deeds, Christ, being God himself, could perform greater. This
was to be the proof of his being a God, that he could outvie
the servants of God in every miraculous thing ascribed to them.
This was one way adopted to prove his divinity.

[Prometheus]

Christs Miracles manufactured from Prophecies.

Several of Christ’s miracles seem to have grown out of the
Messianic prophecies; that is, were manufactured in order to
fulfill the prophecies. There was, as we learn by the Gospels,
an impression deep and wide-spread among the disciples of
Christ, that the Old Testament was full of texts foretelling the
 MIRACLES, PROPHECIES, yliVZ> PRECEPTS.   289

advent of their Messiah, and foreshadowing his practical life.
Under this conviction, a number of passages are quoted in the
Gospels from the prophets as referring to Christ, but which,
however, the context shows could not possibly.have been writ-
ten with any such thought or intention. Matthew has five
miracles appertaining to Christ, built on prophecies, in his first
two chapters. And they are represented as taking place 44 in
order that the prophecy might be fulfilled ; ” that is, Matthew,
writing sixty-four years after Christ’s advent, assumes those
miracles had taken place because the prophecy required their
performance, and hence recorded it as a fact without knowing
it to be such. A great deal of that kind of license was as-
sumed in that and subsequent ages, as the facts of history are
ample to prove. It was done under the religious conviction
that the cause of God and the church required it to be done,
and that therefore it was justifiable.

Strict Veracity not required or observed.

It is by no means necessary to assume that the recorders of
the New Testament miracles knew they had been performed,
or that they would hesitate to record them as facts because
they did not know them to be such. We are under no moral
obligation to suppose they knew anything about it. People in
that age were not so nice or so morally exact, as to require
proof of a thing before they stated it, or never to state it unless
they had the proof for its being true. We would be very far
from accusing the apostolic writers of malicious falsehood, or
criminal misrepresentation. But we find that the disciples of
all religions, in that age of the world, considered it not only
allowable, but a religious duty, in the absence of knowledge, to
supply omissions by guess-work or conjecture; that is, to use
assumption in the place of proof, and to state that a thing was
so when there was no proof of it whatever, and even when the
proof was against it. All religious history is fulKof the exhibi-
tion of this kind of elasticity of conscience. Even a species of
pious lying was considered justifiable in many cases. Paul fur-
nishes evidence of this, when he says,44 If the truth of God hath
more abounded through my lie unto his glory, why am I judged
19
 200

THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

a sinner? ” (Rom. iii. 16.) “No sin to lie for the glory of God,*
seems to be the teaching of this text. Although Paul does
not clearly disclose for what purpose this policy was employed,
yet it can easily be inferred. A part of the important business
of the New Testament writers was to build up a reputation
for Christ and his inspired band of disciples for working mira-
cles. A fame for achieving “ signs and wonders ” was the great
set off of the age. There seems to have been an almost bound-
less competition amongst the disciples of the various religious
orders, including Jews, Pagans, and Christians, as to who could,
or whose God could outstrip all competitors in achieving aston-
ishing prodigies that should set the laws of nature at defiance.
And no devout disciple, who had good inventive powers, would
allow any rival to outdo him. Nothing could authenticate the
claim of the adopted Messiah to the throne of heaven, or a par-
ticipation in the Divine Essence, like a miraculous display of
divine power. Hence the history of all the Gods and demi-
gods of the illiterate ages, including that of Christ, is loaded
down with miraculous feats. There is the clearest proof that
Christ’s disciples were in this general rivalry — this universal
miracle-working melee.

Two things very necessary to be accomplished, in the estima-
tion of the apostles, were, first, to show that Christ outdid the
heathen Gods, and even the prophets, in the display of the
wonder-exciting miraculous power, and thus proved his divin-
ity ; and second, that the prophecies had been fulfilled in his
coming and his practical life. And there is reason to believe
all the New Testament miracles are founded on and grew out
of prophecy. For, although we do not find prophecies in the
Old Testament for every miracle related of Christ, yet it is
probable, if we had the Book of God, “the Book of Jehu,”
“ the Life of Hezekiah,” and other lost books mentioned in the
Old Testament, we should find the supposed prophecy for every
miracle of the New Testament. We should there find the key to
every miracle. The true explanation of the matter seems to be,
that the apostolic writers, looking through the Old Testament,
and finding texts therein which they believed to be prophetic
of the display of the miraculous power of Jesus, and passages
 MIRACLES, PROPHECIES,   PRECEPTS. 291

which they religiously believed foreshadowed his coming and
mission, or some important event in his history, they were
impressed with the deepest conviction that God would not
suffer any prophecy to go unfulfilled. But Vhen they sat down
to write the history of their Messiah, long after his death,
they found they had not the evidence before them that the
prophecies had been fulfilled. A third of a century had rolled
away since his history had been practically before the people.
The subject of their narrative had long since gone to “ the
house of many mansions,” and left not a note, or scratch of a
pen, of any act of his life behind him. And the current of
time had washed away, or partially obliterated, nearly every
event of his earthly career. The witnesses had nearly all left
the stage of action, and their voices were forever hushed in the
silent tomb. What was to be done in such an emergency ? It
was all-important to show that the prophecies had been fulfilled
to the letter in his practical life. This quandary, however, did
not beset them long. The difficulty was easily surmounted.
Every religious country, including Judea, was full of miraculous
legends and astonishing prodigies appertaining to the terrestrial
movements of their Gods and demigods, some of which had
floated down on the stream of tradition from time immemorial.
And all had become blended, confounded, and mixed up to-
gether, until it was impossible to know whence they originated,
where they belonged, or to what God they appertained. These
miraculous stories were so numerous, and so varied in charac-
ter, that there was no little difficulty in finding which seemed
to be the fulfilment of any Messianic prophecy that had been
or might be found in the Old Testament; and thus of the
hundreds of miraculous stories afloat, one was picked out and
assumed to be the fulfillment of the prophecy. With the count-
less number of such stories before them, which had been for
half a century current in the community, they set themselves
to work to select and reject, prune and remodel, honestly be-
lieving that this miracle was intended to fulfill this prophecy,
and that miracle that prophecy, &c. And accordingly we now
find it so stated in the New Testament. As, for example, a
story had long been going the rounds that the parents of a
 THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

292

young God had to flee with him out of the country, to save
Ins life from being destroyed by its jealous ruler. This they
supposed must of course refer to Jesus, because they had found
a supposed prophecy of such an event in the Jewish bible,
when a more thorough acquaintance with history would have
taught them that the story did not refer to the ruler of Judea
(Ilerod), but to Cansa, an ancient, jealous, despotic king, who
ruled India at a much earlier period. And the story of the
darkness at the crucifixion they incorporated as a part of the
histoiy of Jesus, because they had seen a text in Joel which
they supposed presaged such an event, while, if they had been
well versed in oriental history, they would have known that it
had long been recorded as the last chapter in the earthly drama
of. the Hindoo God Chrishna. And so of the other miracles
now found related as a part of the history of Jesus. A histor-
ical investigation of the matter would have shown the Gospel
writers that they were a part of the written history of other
and more ancient Gods, and had never formed a part of the
practical life of Jesus, or been realized in his experience. This
is a more charitable and honorable explanation of the matter
than that found in the assumption of some other writers, that
every miracle was constructed for the occasion — that it is a
sheer fabrication; and yet there are some plausible grounds for
this solution of the case.

These critical writers tell us there was a religious persuasion
deeply enstamped upon the minds of all religious countries,
that God often justified a departure from the truth—the con-
scientious or veracious faculty being in that age but feebly
developed. And the bible itself is full of evidence to establish
the allegation. The prophets often disclose it, and the apostles
were their strict imitators. Ezekiel represents God as saying,
44 If a prophet is deceived, I the Lord deceived that prophet.”
(Ezek. xiv. 9.) And Jeremiah asks God,44 Wilt thou be to me
as a liar?” (Jer. xv. 8.) While the writer of Kings rep-
resents God as putting a lying spirit into the mouth of his own
prophets. (1 Kings xxii. 28.) And most certainly if God him-
self might thus habitually depart from the truth, it was an
ample warrant for his apostles, as well as the prophets, to adopt
 MIRACLES, PROPHECIES, yliVX> PRECEPTS.   293

the same expedient. The ease of Paul lying for tue glory of
God, which we have cited from Romans iii. 4, proves they wert
morally capable of doing this. Mosheim tells us that among
the early Christians, “it was an almost universally adopted
maxim, that it was an act of virtue to deceive and lie, wher. by
so doing they could promote the interest of the church.” (Mosh-
vol. i. p. 198.) And Mr. Higgins informs us that “great num-
bers, of every age and of every religion, have been guilty of
systematic frauds and falsehoods to support their religions, to
an extent of which we can have no conception. They not only
practiced it, but they reduced it to system. They avowed it,
and they justified it by declaring it to be meritorious to lie in a
good cause.” (Ana. vol. i. p. 143.) The reader who can hesi-
tate to credit these statements only betrays his ignorance of
the moral weakness of human nature, and the imperfect growth
in that era of the veracious faculty, which consequently had but
a feeble voice in the councils of the mind. Even the most pious
and devout professors of religion did not consider a rigid con-
formity to truth necessary, or morally obligatory, in their labors
to promote the glory of God and the salvation of souls. And
when direct falsehood was not resorted to, the writer still al-
lowed himself to color, magnify, and invent largely; that is, to
draw copiously upon the resources of his imagination, in the
way of supplying omissions and defects, and filling out missing
links in the chain of history. And hence it is that all ancient
sacred history is so profusely inlaid with stories and statements
manifestly fabricated for the occasion, without any historical
support, and therefore wholly incredible. Let the Christian
reader not, however, misapprehend us by supposing we wish to
drive him to the extreme alternative of accepting this as the
true explanation, or as indicating the real origin of the incred-
ible stories and senseless miraculous feats interwoven into the
Gospel life of Jesus. We only offer it as a plausible, but not
as the probable explanation. The above citations from the
Scriptures and other history prove most clearly that sacred
writers were morally capable of fabricating or manufacturing
history to supply assumed omissions. And this explanation
is twofold more reasonable than to accept the miracles as real
 294

THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

occurrences, for such a belief would be at war with common
sense, and prostrate our reason beneath our feet. But there
is no necessity of adopting lying hypotheses, while the borrow-
ing theory is amply adequate to account for every Gospel mir-
acle. There is not a miraculous story or incredible legend in-
corporated in the New Testament as a part of the history of
Jesus, that was not afloat in some shape or form, on the wings
of tradition, in nearly every religious country, ages before his
birth. The model for each and every miracle was already con-
structed, was already in the market, and already a part of the *
history or tradition of other and older Gods. And all that was
wanted to make it appear as a part of the history of the Chris-
tian’s deified Jesus, was to fill in names and dates. Yes, his-
tory with a hundred tongues proclaims it as the real explana-
tion of the incredible and the impossible in the history of
Jesus Christ. And the evidence is so voluminous and so over-
whelming to disprove the common Christian dogma which
makes the son of Joseph and Mary a miracle-working' God (a
portion of which we have presented under the several propo-
sitions of this chapter), that it really demolishes the last timber
in the Christian fabric, and leaves it a heap of ruins. And we
are certain that if we could divest the Christian reader’s mind,
for a few moments, of an inherited and fostered prejudice, he
would see that our explanation is much more rational, more
probable, more beautiful than the popular belief, which degrades
the illustrious Judean reformer to a level with the heathen
thaumaturgist, and gives him the same undignified reputation
as a miracle-worker.

But we are sometimes told we are under as much moral
obligation to believe in the miracles reported of Jesus, as to
believe in any other portion of his history; that we must ac-
cept his Gospel history as a whole, or reject it in toto. But
this is manifestly a false assumption, and one easily exploded.
No person who is acquainted with Grecian history doubts that
Alexander the Great was born in Macedonia, and founded a city
in Egypt bearing his own name. Yet not one of those readers
will credit for a moment what one of his biographers relates
pf him? that he stopped the sun in its course, or that he had
 MIRACLES, PROPHECIES, ^4iVZ> PRECEPTS.   295

no human father. We all accept Pythagoras as a real entity,
while we reject the story of his walking on the air. Are we
morally bound to accept Romulus and Remus, founders oi
Rome, as mere fabulous beings, because their biographers re-
late the incredible story of their being suckled by a wolf?
Many other illustrations might be given in proof of the falsity
of the assumption that, because a portion of a man’s biography
is found to be incredible, the whole must be rejected as false, as
unworthy of credence. This would be to annihilate history.
For no biography of any person, and no history of any nation,
can be accepted as plenarily pure, unmixed truth. There is
always more or less chaff with the grain, and it is our privilege
and our duty to separate them. And by so doing we not only
confer a favor on the cause of truth, but add to the luster and
honor of the name of the deceased reformer; and especially is
this true of the renowned Judean philanthropist and reformer.
Much more lovely and beautiful would his evangelical history
stand before the world if stripped of the wild, the weird, and
the miraculous. Much more interesting is he when viewed
and venerated as a man than when worshiped as a God, guilty
of the frequent violation of his own laws, by the display of the
miracle-working power.

And much more beautiful and much more rational is the doc-
trine which accepts every event that ever occurred as the legit-
imate and harmonious operation of the great machinery of
nature, than as the smart trick, the lawless caprice or wild feat,
of an arbitrary, wonder-exciting God, performed not to make
the people better, more moral or more righteous (for miracles
cannot do this), but merely to make them gape and stare, and
shout, What a smart God we have got!

[Prometheus]

And then the belief in miracles involves an utter repudiation
of all law, all order, and all system, and introduces in their
stead chaos, anarchy, and universal confusion. It is simply
“ the doctrine of chance,” which all orthodox Christendom pro-
fesses to deprecate and execrate as the quintessence of atheism.
But they make a mistake; “chance” is more legitimately the
fruit of miracle than of atheism; an assertion which we will
here briefly prove.
 296

THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

If tlie sun may be arrested in his coarse through the heavens,
“ the moon turned into blood,” and “the stars fall from heaven,”
— sticks turned into serpents, water into blood, and dust into
lice, — all of which orthodox Christians profess to believe were
witnessed in the days of Moses and Christ, then everything is
thrown upon the wheel of chance; everything is involved in
uncertainty. If the course of nature could be arrested, or the
natural qualities of objects changed by the prayer of a prophet,
patriarch, or apostle, then the food set before us to eat may
suddenly, in compliance with the prayers of some absent saint,
become a deadly poison; the clothes we wear may be instantly
transformed into virulent adders, which may inflict the fatal
sting before we- suspect it; some favorite servant of God (a
Moses or an Elijah) might be this moment praying to God to
stop the dews from falling, or the rain from descending for the
next three months, or three years, as the latter is reported as
doing (see James v. 17), so that we could not plant with any
certainty that the seed would grow, or that we should be re-
warded by a crop. Such would be the incertitude, such the
“chance” against us in everything in which we might engage,
if it were true that God ever intercepts the action of his laws
by working a miracle, that we should eventually become dis-
couraged by this chaos of u chance,” the wheels of industry
would stop, and the car of civilization go backward. If it
were true, as taught by orthodox Christians, that “God in his
providence,” or “ God in the dispensation of his providence,”
often “ visits people with sickness,” then it would be useless to
study the laws of health with a view of complying with them.
For we could not know in any case whether our sickness had
been brought upon us by an “ overruling providence,” or by
our own imprudence. Our incentives to study and comply
with these laws, if there could be any, would consequently be
very weak indeed, for we might comply with every physiological
requisition, and yet there would be several “chances,” against
us that to-morrow we may be stretched upon a “ sick bed and
rolling pillow by the visitation of God.” Thus the doctrine
of miracles is shown to be pre-eminently the doctrine of
“ chance.”
 MIRACLES, PROPHECIES,   PRECEPTS. 297

The doctrine of miraculous agency makes God an imperfect
being, by implying that his laws were defective in their original
construction, that by mistake he left some emergency unpro-
vided for, and now has to supply the omission by an afterclap
exercise of power. Or if his laws were originally perfect,
then the working of a miracle would disturb them, and make
them imperfect; if originally imperfect, then God himself must
have been imperfect, and hence no God at all. Think of a
wonder-working God violating, suspending, or intercepting his
own laws. Such a God would be a puerile, short-sighted being,
that only ignorant and uncultivated minds could admire and
adore.

The age of miracles, however, is gone. The belief in divine
prodigies has receded before the advancing genius of civiliza-
tion. It has died away in the exact ratio of the progress of
science and general intelligence. And a thorough acquaint-
ance with nature’s laws will banish the last vestige of such a
belief. Hence it is that the most illiterate and ignorant nations
and tribes have always been able to recount the longest list of
miraculous prodigies achieved by a disorderly God, who seems
to have taken pleasure in violating his own laws, or suspending
them, for the most trivial purposes.

Yes, the time is approaching when the belief in a “miracu-
lous interposition” or “special providences” must pass away
under the lights of science and civilization, and be numbered
amongst the things which have been and can be no more, and
men will cherish more noble and elevated ideas of the great
Ruler of the universe, who is infinite in order, infinite in wis-
dom, ay, infinite in all his attributes and virtues, ever un-
changeably the same.

II.   Prophecy, the second Pillar of the Christian
Faith, proves as much for Heathenism and Spirit-
ualism.

Truthful prophecy, attested to be such by its fulfillment, is
assumed to be one of the basic pillars and one of the main
proofs of the truth of the Christian religion. But the follow-
 298

THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

ing consideration will show that this assumption has no logical
force, or real, tangible foundation.

First. Every ancient system of religion had its prophets and
seers, who professed to be able to foresee events of the future.
And we find but little difference in the proofs each one has left
to the world that they possessed this power, if we except the
Greeks and Romans, some of whom evidently excelled all the
Jewish prophets in their ability to take cognizance of events
lying behind the curtain of time. Tacitus, the Latin historian,
prophesied the downfall of the Roman empire and its attend-
ant calamities more than five hundred years before its occur-
rence, which was fulfilled to the letter. And Solon, one of the
seven wise men of Greece, foresaw and foretold a series of
calamities which befell the Athenians two hundred years before
they were realized. A still more remarkable example is fur-
nished in the history of Marcus Tullius Cicero, who, writing of
the future, with his mind fixed on the west, about 50 B. C.,
exclaimed, “ There will arise after many ages (if we may credit
the Sibylline oracles), a hero who will deliver his oppressed
countrymen from bondage ” — a prophecy most signally fulfilled
in the life of General Washington. Many other examples of
heathen prophecy and their fulfillment might be cited, if we had
space for them.

Second. The history of modern spiritualism furnishes many
cases of future events being predicted long before they took
place. In fact, many of the most important events of modern
times which have occurred in this and other countries, wer«
foreseen and foretold by spiritual seers known as “ seeing medi-
ums,” when there was not the slightest probability that such
events would ever occur. We will cite one or two cases, by
way of proof and illustration. A few years ago John P. Coles,
of New York, known as a spiritual medium, prophesied, when
under spirit control, that Nicholas of Russia would shortly have
a serious difficulty with his secretary Menzicoff, and just three
months from that time would die — a prediction that was ful-
filled to the very letter and to the very hour. And yet there
was not the slightest probability, externally indicated, at the
time the prophecy was uttered, that either of these events
 MIRACLES, PROPHECIES, ^4iVZ> PRECEPTS. 29$

would ever be realized. And this prophecy, let it be noted,
was published in the New York Times at least two months
before it was verified, thus proving that the prediction was not
an u afterclap ” affair, but preceded the event. Take another
example. The serious calamity which befell the ill-fated steamer
known as the Arctic, which was lost at sea a few years ago,
with all on board, was prophetically described in minute detail,
by a spirit medium, several months before it occurred; and
was seen and described by another medium, while taking place
more than a thousand miles distant. The proof is at our com-
mand. And the late disastrous war was foreseen and described
by Cora Tappan, of New York, and other mediums, and its
principal events pointed out long before the war broke out —
a fact which is now a matter of history. These are only a few
cases out of hundreds that might be cited of a similar charac-
ter, drawn from the practical history of modern spiritualism.
If, then, prophecy can do anything toward the truth or divine
emanation of the Christian religion, it must do the same for the
heathen and spiritual systems. And thus proving too much,
it proves nothing at all.

Third, The Jewish prophecies not fulfilled. We have ex-
amined critically the various texts of the Christian bible called
prophecies, and find that, if claimed as predictions of future
events beyond the powers of the natural mind to foresee, they
have all failed. But few of them have been fulfilled in any
sense, and those few required no divine prescience to foresee
the result. Many events have transpired in every country,
which the natural sagacity of the most observant minds in that
country had anticipated as the result of natural causes, such as
the ravages and downfall of cities and the overthrow of empires
by the merciless hand of war. The Jewish prophet, fostering
a spirit of envy and enmity towards Egypt, Babylon, and other
superior kingdoms, because they had been overpowered by
them and long held in subjection to their superior sway, were
always prophesying evil things of these principalities. And
though some of the evils which constituted the burden of
prophecy might have been reasonably anticipated as natural
occurrences, it is a signal fact they never transpired at all, —
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

such as the total destruction of Babylon, Tyre, Damascus, and
other cities belonging to those hostile kingdoms the Jews so
much envied and execrated. Look, for proof, at the case of
Damascus. The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, all
poured out their fulminatory thunders upon this city. Isaiah
declared it should be a “ ruinous heap.” (Isa. xvii. 1.) And
Jeremiah predicted its destruction by fire. (Jer. xlix. 27.) And
yet, notwithstanding these predictions of ruin, Damascus still
stands as “ one of the paradises of the earth,” as one writer
styles it, with a population, according to Burckhardt, of not less
than two hundred and fifty thousand, being one of the most
magnificent and prosperous commercial cities on the glob&
Instead of being blotted out of existence, as the Jewish proph-
ets prayed and predicted, it has suffered less by the ravages of
war and the scythe of time than almost any other city of the
east. It has stood nearly three thousand years without becom-
ing a “ ruinous heap,” or being consumed by fire or destroyed
by war. (Jer. xlix. 26.) And the prophecy against Tyre has
most signally failed also. Ezekiel declared it should be de-
stroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, and never be found again. (Ezek.
xxvi.-xxix.) But two hundred and fifty years after Nebuchad-
nezzar’s time Alexander found it a strong commercial city. And
it still contains a population of five thousand or more. St. Je-
rome, of the fourth century, declared it to be then the finest
city of Phoenicia, and was astonished that Ezekiel’s prophecy
had so utterly failed.

And Isaiah’s famous prediction against Babylon furnishes
another proof of the utter failure of Jewish prophecy. He de-
clared, after predicting its destruction, “It shall never be in-
habited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to genera-
tion, neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there.” (Isa. xiii. 20.)
Of course he desired it should be so. But, unfortunately for
his credit as a prophet, it never suffered such a calamity. On
the contrary, according to Layard and Rawlinson, British com-
missioners who recently visited the place, it now presents “all
the-activity of a hive of bees ” (to use Layard’s language),
and contains several thousand inhabitants, though its name
is, since rebuilt, called Hill ah. And thus the prophecy it*
 MIRACLES, PROPHECIES, ,4iVZ> PRECEPTS. 301

falsified. “ No,” exclaims a good Christian brother, in forlorn
hope, it may be fulfilled yet. But if* he will examine the lan-
guage of the prophecy, he will find he is entirely cut off from
this “ saving clause.” The prophet says, “ Her time is near to
come, and her days shall not be prolonged.” (Isa. xiii. 22.)
Thus il is evident the prophecy was to be fulfilled in that age
and generation. The failure, then, is absolute and indisputable*
And these are but mere samples of the complete failure of every
text called a prophecy, when applied to the prognostication of
future events. Numerous texts can be found in the prophets
auguring evil for Egypt, which have made no approximation
toward fulfillment. Ezekiel prophesied “the fall of Egypt,”
“the desolation of Egypt,” “the destruction of Egypt,” &c.,
not one of which calamities has ever been realized in her expe-
rience. Prophecies respecting the restoration of the lost tribes
and the perpetuity of the Israelitish throne are complete fail-
ures ; also all “ the Messianic prophecies,” so called. (See Chap.
II.) With respect to the prophecy on Babylon, it may be fur-
ther observed that while the prophet declares, “Neither shall
the Arabian pitch tent there” (Isa. xiii. 22), Layard declares
that is the very thing they did do while he was there. He
says he saw a number of Arabian tents pitched on the ground ;
thus proving a failure of the prophecy all round in every par-
ticular. (See note page 379.)

Fourth. The bible itself is a witness that truthful prophecy
can do nothing toward authenticating a religion, or toward
proving the prophet divinely inspired. The same damaging
concession is made here as in the case of miracles, that a hea-
then and an unbeliever could and did succeed as well as the true
disciples of the faith. The proof of this statement is found in
the history of Balaam. His figurative representation of a star
coming out of Jacob and a scepter out of Judah (see Numb,
chap, xxiv.) is often quoted by Christian writers as presaging
or prefiguring the coming of Christ, — thus making a heathen
and an unbeliever the oracle of a Messianic prophecy, and a
heathen, too, of sinful and ungodly habits. So that the Chris-
tian subterfuge is not available here, that “ God might make a
righteous man of any nation the vehicle of prophecy.” For we
 8r2

THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

have the express declaration of the bible itself that he was not
a righteous man, but the very reverse. Peter tells us, “ He
loved the wages of unrighteousness,” at the very time this
prophecy so called was uttered (see 2 Peter ii. 13), which pros-
trates forever the Christian plea that “ he might have possessed
the true spirit of prophecy by virtue of being a righteous man,”
and drives us to the admission that an unconverted savage and
ungodly heathen unbeliever could make a true prophecy. It
not being necessary, then, to be a Jew, or a Christian, or a be-
liever, or even a moral man, to foresee or foretell the far-off
important events of the future, the argument falls forever to the
ground that the fulfillment of the Jewish prophecies, if admit-
ted to have been fulfilled, could do anything toward proving
the truth or divine acceptance of the religion of the bible, or
its superiority over any heathen or oriental religion then or
subsequently known to history, as they all present the same
evidence of being endowed with the true spirit of prophecy.
All argument for Christianity based on the prophecies, or “ the
gift of prophecy,” is, then, forever at an end, as it has been
shown that the power to foretell future events is not restricted
by the bible itself to any nation, to any religion, to any faith, to
any belief, or to any moral or religious qualification. What,
then, is prophecy worth, or what does it prove? Another case,
and one similar to that of Balaam in its essential points, is
found in the New Testament. Caiaphas, though not claiming
to be any part of a believer, utters a prophecy in the interest
of the Christian religion for which the bible itself gives him
full credit as a prophet. Here, then, is another case of a heathen
stealing the Christian’s thunder, and another proof that the
spirit of true prophecy has never been confined to any nation
or any religion ; and hence, according to the teachings of the
bible itself, does nothing at all toward establishing the exalted
claims of Christianity, or toward proving its superiority ovei
other systems of religion.

[Prometheus]

 MIRACLES, PROPHECIES,   PRECEPTS. 305

III.   .Moral Precepts the third Pillar of the Chris-
tian Faith.

It is declared, in view of the many wise precepts which is-
sued from the mouth of Jesus Christ, that “ he spake as never
man spake.” (John vii. 46.) If this were true, then Gods
must have been very numerous prior to the Christian era. For
there is not one of the moral maxims or preceptive commands
which he gave utterance to that cannot be found literally or
substantially in the older bibles of other nations, or the writings
of the Greek philosophers, and the religious dissertations of
heathen moralists, who gave out moral and religious lessons for
the instruction of the world long prior to the birth of Christ.
Even the Golden Rule, which Christian writers, ignorant of ori-
ental history, have erroneously ascribed to Jesus Christ, .and
lauded him as being the author of, is found variously expressed
in the writings of several heathen or oriental nations. We
find it in the Chinese bible, at least five hundred years older
than ours, almost word for word as Jesus uttered it. We will
here present it as expressed by different writers.

1.   Golden Rule by Confucius, 500 B. C.

“Do unto another what you would have him do unto you, and
do not to another what you would not have him do unto you.
Thou needest this law alone. It is the foundation of all the
rest.”

2.   Golden Rule by Aristotle, 385 B. C.

“We should conduct ourselves toward others as we would
have them act toward us.”

8. Golden Rule by Pittacus, 650 B. £7.

“ Do not to your neighbor what you would take ill from him.”

4.   Golden Rule by Thales, 464 B. C.

“ Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing/'

5.   Golden Rule by Isocrates, 338 B, C

“Act toward others as you desire them to act toward you.”
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

6.   Golden Rule by Aristippus, 365 B. C.

“ Cherish reciprocal benevolence, which will make you as
anxious for another’s welfare as your own.”

7.   Golden Rule by Sextus, a Pythagorean,, 406 JB. C.

“ What you wish your neighbors to be to you, such be also
to them.”

8.   Golden Rule by Hillel, 50 B. G.

“ Do not to others what you would not like others to do to
you.”

Here is the Golden Rule proclaimed by seven heathen moral-
ists and a Jew long before it was republished by the founder
of Christianity; thus proving it to be of heathen origin, and
proving that it does not transcend the natural capacity of the
human brain to originate, and hence needs no God to reveal it.
Indeed, it is one of the most natural sentiments of the human
mind. “ Would I like to be treated thus ? ” is the first thought
which naturally arises in the mind of a person when maltreat-
ing a neighbor; thus showing that the Golden Rule is a spon-
taneous utterance of the moral feelings of the human mind.

Love and kind Treatment of Enemies.

Love to enemies is considered to be another praiseworthy
precept, which Christ has erroneously the credit of being the
author of. We have heard the declaration made in the Chris-
tian pulpit, that Jesus Christ was the first moral teacher who
inculcated love to enemies; a most transcendent error, as the
following historical citations will show. Most of the religious
books and religious teachers of the ancient oriental heathen
breathe forth a spirit of love and kindness toward enemies.

The following is from the old Persian bible, the Sadder: —

1. “ Forgive thy foes, nor that alone ;

Their evil deeds with good repay;

Fill those with joy who leave thee none,

And kiss the hand upraised to slay.”

The Christian bible would be searched in vain to find a moral
sentiment or precept superior to this. Certainly it is the lofti-
 MIRACLES, PROPHECIES, .4AZ> PRECEPTS. 805

est sentiment of kindness toward enemies that ever issued from
human lips, or was ever penned by mortal man. And yet it is
found in an old heathen bible. Think of “kissing the hand
upraised to slay.” Never was love, and kindness, and forbear-
ance toward enemies more sublimely expressed than in the old
Persian ballad.

2.   “Treat thine enemy as though a friend, and he will be-
come thy friend,” was expressed by Publius Syrus, a Roman
slave, which is a wiser admonition than that of Christ, “ Love
thine enemy,” as it is a moral impossibility.

3.   “ All nature cries aloud, Shall man do less

Than heal the smiter, and the railer bless?”

(Hafiz, a Mahomedan.)

4.   “ Bridle thine anger, and forgive thine enemy; give unto
him who takes from thee.” (Koran, Mahomedan bible.)

5.   “ Let no man be offended with those who are angry at
him, but reply gently to those who curse him.” (Code of
Menu.)

6.   “ Let him endure injuries, and despise no one.” (Ibid.)

7.   “ Commit no hostile action for your own preservation.”
(Ibid.)

8.   “To be revenged on enemies, become more virtuous.”
(Diogenes.)

9.   “ To strike a man, or vex him with words, is a sin.” (Zend-
Avesta, Persian bible.)

10.   “ Even the intention to strike is a sin.” (Ibid.)

11.   “Desire not tfie death of thine enemy.” (Confucius.)

12.   “Acknowledge benefits, but never revenge injuries.
(Ibid.)

13.   “We may dislike an enemy without desiring revenge.”
(Ibid.)

14.   “Pardon the offenses of others, but never your own.”
(Publius Syrus.)

15.   “ The noble spirit cures injustice by forgiving it.” (Ibid.)

16.   “ It is much better to be injured than to kill a man.”
(Pythagoras.)

17.   “You can accomplish by kindness what you cannot by
force.” (Publius Syrus.)

20
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

18.   “ Better overlook an injury than avenge it.” (Publius
Syrus.)

19.   “It is enough to think ill of an enemy without avenging
it.” (Publius Syrus.)

20.   “ It is a kingly spirit to return good deeds for evil ones.”
(Ibid.)

21.   “Learn from yon orient shell to love thy foe,

And store with pearls the hand that brings thee woe;

Flee, like yon rock, from base, vindictive pride,

Emblaze with gems the wrist that rends thy side.”

(Hafiz.)

22.   “To revenge yourself on an enemy, make him your
friend.” (Pythagoras.)

28.   “ It is not permitted to a man who has received an injury
to revenge it by doing another.” (Socrates, in his Crito.)

24.   “Seek him who turns thee out, and pardon him who
injures thee.” (Koran.)

25.   “ Return not evil for evil.” (Socrates.)

26.   “Endure all things if you would serve God.” (Sextus.)

27.   “Desire to be able to benefit your enemies.” (Ibid.)

28.   “Receive an injury rather than do one.” (Publius Syrus.)

29.   “ Be at war with men’s vices, but at peace with their
persons.” (Ibid.)

80.   “ Cultivate friendship for an enemy.” (Pittacus.)

31.   “ Be kind to your friends that they may continue so, and
to your enemies that they may become so.” (Ibid.)

32.   “Prevent injuries if possible; if not, do not revenge
them.” (Ibid.)

33.   “ An enemy should not be hated, but cured.” (Seneca.)

34.   “To act unkindly toward an enemy will increase his
hate.” (Antonius.)

35.   “ Be to everybody kind and friendly.” (Ibid.)

36.   “ Speak evil of no one, not even your enemies.” (Pit-
tacus.)

Thus it will be observed that love and kindness toward all
mankind, both friends and enemies, is not confined to the teach-
ings of Christ or to the Christian religion, as many have erro-
neously supposed, but is unquestionably a natural sentiment
 MIRACLES, PROPHECIES,   PRECEPTS. £07

of the moral instinct or moral impulses of the human mind,
and hence is no proof that their teacher is either a God or di
vinely inspired.

And we have in our possession nearly eight hundred more
precepts (see vol. ii.) from the pens or mouths of the ancient
heathen, enjoining just and kind treatment of women, and set-
ting forth nearly all the duties of life, and teaching the immor-
tality of the soul, &c. And these precepts breathe the same
lofty moral sentiment and moral feeling as those quoted above.
How ignorant and how conceited must be the Christian profes-
sor who supposes all goodness is confined to Christianity, or that
it even possesses any great superiority over other religious sys-
tems ! And how completely the three foregoing parts of this
chapter, “Miracles,” “Prophecies,5’ and “Precepts,” prostrate
the divine claims of Christianity, and leave not an inch of ground
for them to rest upon!
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CHAPTER XXXV.   \

LOGICAL OR COMMON SENSE VIEW OF THE
DOCTRINE OF DIVINE INCARNATION.

The incarnation of an infinite God is a shocking absurdity, and
an infinite impossibility. We ask in all solemn earnestness,
and in the name of the intuitive monitions of an unshackled
reason and an unbiased conscience, can any man in his sober
senses, who has been in the habit of reflecting before he be-
lieves, entertain for a moment the monstrous absurdity that
the Almighty and Infinite Maker of the universe was once re-
duced to a little wailing infant, lying in senseless and helpless
weakness on the lap of its mother, unable to walk a step, or
lisp a word, or do aught but cry with pain or for the nourish-
ment stored in the mother’s breast ? What! Almighty God
fallen from his burnished, dazzling throne in the lofty heavens,
and reduced to helpless, senseless babyhood! Omnipotence
shorn of all power but to breathe, and cry, and smile! What!
that Omniscient Being, who “leads one world by day, and ten
thousand more by night,” becoming suddenly transformed into
a human bantling, which knows no higher enjoyment than that
of being “ pleased with a rattle, and tickled with a straw! ”
Who can believe it ? Ay, who dare believe it, if he would
escape the charge of blasphemy? Then say not that “the
man Christ Jesus,” though standing at the top of the ladder of
moral manhood, and high above the common plane of humanity,
was yet a God — “the Infinite Ruler of the infinite universe.”
Who can believe that that Being, whose existence stretches
to an eternity beyond human conception, yea, whom “ the
heaven of heavens cannot contain,” was ever cooped up in a
human body, reduced so near to nothing in dimensions as to
 DIVINE INCARNATION

309

be susceptible (as was Jesus) of being weighed in scales, and
measured with a yardstick ?

We ask again, Who, from the deepest depths of his inmost,
enlightened consciousness, can believe such revolting, such
atheistical doctrine as this ? Or who will venture to descend
still lower, and conceive of an Almighty, Omnipresent Being,
who fills all space above, around, and beneath, “ from infinity
below to yon fixed star above,” and millions upon millions of
miles beyond it, sinking and dwindling to that mere mite,
speck, or monad state and condition comprehended in the initi-
atory step to embryonic existence? And then think of the
Almighty, Omnipotent Creator of the universe lying in a man-
ger with four-footed beasts and creeping things, sleeping with
oxen and asses in a stable. Next he is seen an urchin on the
street playing with marbles and jack-knives, absorbed and for-
getful of the world around him. Who can believe that awfully
majestic Being, who is represented by his own inspired book as
being so transcendently grand and awe-inspiring that “ no man
can see him and live” (Ex. xxxiii. 20), was not only daily
seen by hundreds and thousands, but was on such familiar
terms with men, that they regarded him as their companion,
and equal, and even sometimes coolly reprimanded him for
supposed misdemeanors and errors? Could they believe this
to be Almighty God? Impossible! Impossible! And then
who can believe that that infinite Being, whom we have been
taught to regard as absolutely and eternally unchangeable,
could become subject to hunger and thirst (as did Jesus) ?
Or who can believe that the eternally and unceasingly watchful
Omnipotent Deity, whose eye, we are told, “ never slumbers,”
could sink into unconscious sleep, become “ to dumb forgetful-
ness a prey,” night after night, for thirty years, oblivious, and
unconscious of the world around him ? Think of a being of
incomprehensible majesty, dignity, and power, able to “ shake
the heavens and the earth also,” being unable to protect him-
self from insult, and was therefore derided and “ spit upon,”
and finally overcome by his enemies, as is related of Jesus.
Can any man believe, who has not made shipwreck of his senses,
or banished Reason from her courts, that God Almighty, who
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

comprehends in himself the most absolute and boundless per-
fection of goodness and wisdom, was tempted by demons, devils,
and crawling serpents ? Who can believe that the Lord, who
owns “the cattle upon a thousand hills” (Psalm 1. 10), and the
countless host of worlds besides, that wheel their course through
infinite space, had not “where to lay his head ”? Who can be-
lieve that that was the all-wise, omnipotent, and omnipresent
God, possessing all power in heaven above and the earth be-
neath, who was betrayed by weak, finite mortals ? What! the
Almighty Creator betrayed by a puny being of his own creation
into the hands of his disobedient and rebellious children ? Why
could he not, if possessing “ power to lay down his life, and
take it up again” (John x. 17), cause that all these children of
his (as we must assume they were, if he was Almighty God,
and hence Father of all) should love him, instead of hating
him ? Can any man believe that Jesus was possessed with
omnipotent power while standing to be whipped (scourged)
by Pontius Pilate, or that he possessed a power above that of
finite mortals while in the act of praying, with such extreme
ardor that the sweat dropped from his face, that the cup of
death might pass from his lips, or while calling for an angel to
support him in the hour of his mortal dissolution ? or that He,
“ by whom all things exist,” could cease himself to exist, by
dying upon the cross between malefactors? Think of this,
reader! and think of the eternal Creator, the infinite Deity,
the omnipotent Jehovah, the Maker of worlds as numberless
as the sands upon the sea-shore for multitude, fainting, bleed-
ing, dying, and pouring out his own blood to appease his own
wrath ; dying an ignominious death to satisfy an implacable re-
venge ! Away with such insulting mockery, such blasphemous
flummery! It can only find place in the dark chambers of an
unenlightened mind.

Well has Watts said of Locke’s skepticism,—

“Reason could scarcely sustain to see,

Or bear the infant Deity:

A ransomed world, a bleeding God,

And heaven appeased by flowing blood,

Were themes too painful to be understood/’
 DIVINE INCARNATION.

311

Yes, and too painful to be believed, too, Mr, Watts! Hero
we have a “bleeding God,” an “infant Deity,” and a vengeful
God, appeased by murder and streams of “ flowing blood ”
Gracious heavens ! Whose reason does not revolt at such a
picture ? Whose soul does not sicken at the thought, and
who would not prefer, infinitely prefer, to sink to annihilation,
if not to perdition itself, to being thus saved by navigating a
river of blood ? Dr. South hits off some of the absurdities in-
volved in the Christian doctrine of the incarnation so forcibly
and so lucidly, that we cannot resist the temptation to subjoin
here a few extracts from his sermon on the subject. “ But now,”
says this Christian clergyman, “ was there ever any wonder
comparable to this, to behold the Lord (Jesus Christ) thus
clothed in flesh, the Creator of all things, humbled, not only to
the company, but also to the cognation, of his creatures ? It
is as if one should imagine the whole world not only represent-
ed upon, but also contained in, one of our own artificial globes,
or the body of the sun enveloped in a cloud as big as a man’s
hand, all of which would be looked upon as astonishing impos-
sibilities, and yet is as short of the other as the finite is of the
infinite, between which the disparity is immeasurable. It is,
as it were, to cancel the essential distances of things, to remove
the bounds of nature, to bring heaven and earth, and what is
more, both ends of the contradiction, together. Men cannot
persuade themselves that a Deity and infinity should lie within
so narrow a compass as the dimensions of a human body;
that omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence should ever
be wrapped in swaddling clothes, and debased to the homely
usages of a stable and a manger; that the glorious Artificer of
the whole universe, who spread out the heaven like a curtain,
and laid the foundations of the earth, could ever turn carpenter,
and exercise an inglorious trade in a little cell. They cannot
imagine that He who once created and at present governs the
world, and shall hereafter judge the world, should be abased in
all his concerns and relations, be scourged, spit upon, mocked,
and at last crucified. All which are passages which lie ex-
tremely close to the notions or conceptions which reason has
made to itself of that high and impossible perfection that
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

[Prometheus]

resided in the divine Creator.” (Sermon, 1665.) Dr. South,
it will be observed, admits that the doctrine of the divine
incarnation involves many palpable absurdities and contradic-
tions, and lies directly across the path of reason. Fatal admis-
sion to the doctrine of the deityship of Christ, but true, as his
own elucidation of the subject demonstrates. To the author,
since he first subjected the question to a logical scrutiny, and
looked at it with an unbiased mind, it presents difficulties in-
surmountable, and absurdities innumerable. He can imagine
nothing more transcendently shocking, revolting, and dwarfing
to the mind, both morally and intellectually, than the thought
of believing that a being born of and suckled by a woman, and
possessing the mere form and dimensions of a man, can be re-
garded as the great Almighty and Omnipotent God, the Creator
of unnumbered worlds, millions of which are larger than this
planet, on which Jesus was born.

And then, reader, look for a moment at some of the many
childish incongruities and logical difficulties this giant absurdity
drags with it. It represents Almighty God as coming into the
world through the hands of a midwife, as passing through the
process of gestation and parturition. It insults our reason
with the idea that the great, infinite Jehovah could be molded
into the human form — a thought that is shocking to the moral
sense, and withering, cramping, and dwarfing to the intellect-
ual mind, imposing upon it a heavy drag-chain which checks
its expansion, and forbids its onward progress. Christians tell
us that the human and the divine were united in “ the man
Christ Jesus.” But this is a monstrous absurdity, which no
truly rational and unbiased mind can accept for an instant —
that of hitching, splicing, tying, or dovetailing together finite
man with the infinite Jehovah, that of amalgamating and com-
mingling human foibles with divine perfection. Think of
wedding mortal weakness to omnipotent power, local man with
the omnipresent Deity! Think of compounding the creature
and the Creator in one and the same being! Think of the
omnipresent “ I AM,” whose illimitable existence stretches
far away throughout the expansive arena of a boundless uni-
verse, occupying a dwelling within the narrow confines of the
 DIVINE INCARNATION.

313

human temple ! As well essay to crowd the universe into your
pocket, or the Himalayas Mountains into a thimble. On the
other hand, think of a small compound of flesh, blood, and bones,
a few feet in dimensions, and weighing perhaps not more than
one hundred and fifty pounds avoirdupois, containing that
infinite, omnipresent Being, whom, we are told (we repeat the
quotation), “the heaven of heavens cannot contain”! And
more than all, kind reader, I ask you if yoit can accept for a
moment, without the immolation of your common sense, and
the trampling of your reason beneath your feet, the monstrous
thought that that mighty and almighty Architect who created
the countless myriads upon myriads of ponderous worlds, which
now roll in majestic order and eternal rotation along the great
cerulean causeway of heaven, that mighty Architect who, from
time beyond human computation, has been rolling out orb after
orb, world after world, if not myriads at a time, ten thousand
times, ten thousand of which would dwindle our little pygmy,
Lilliputian planet into insignificance, if compared with it in size.

I ask, and drive home the query to your inward conscious-
ness, and the inmost temples of your sacred reason, Can you
believe, after a moment’s reflection, that a Being who is too
vast, infinitely too vast in power and ubiquity to be grasped by
the human understanding, did become (as did the finite and
humble Jesus) a helpless, senseless, unconscious, human infant;
a suckling, crying, squalling babe, powerless of speech, and un-
able to walk? Ay, worse, more startling still, we are shocked
with the thought that this mighty World-builder, this infi-
nite, omnipotent Creator, was reduced so near to the verge of
nonenity, so near to the last glimmering spark or speck of ex-
istence, and the world so near without a God, as to become an
inanimate foetus — a monad in the matrix of a human virgin?
Shocking the thought! Blasphemous the doctrine! Believe
it who will; believe it who can ! We cannot; we would not;
we are infinitely beyond it. Such a belief may be deposited
by educational tradition in the affections, but to enter the tem-
ple of Reason, it never did, it never can. She never unbarred
her doors to admit such monstrous, such enormous incongrui-
ties. And all these logical absurdities, and a thousand more,
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

grow legitimately out of the doctrine of the divine incarnation,
— out of the postulate which would (following in the line of the
pagan superstitions) elevate the finite, humble, mortal Jesus to
the throne of heaven, the exclusive prerogative of Almighty
God. Come away, my Christian friends, from such disparaging,
such dishonorable views of the Deity, such blasphemous cari-
catures of Almighty God. Come away from such morally
darkening and such intellectually dwarfing superstitions, the
moldering relics of oriental mythology, the expiring embers of
childish credulity and tradition, wrhich originated far back in
the dark cradle of human existence, in the infancy of an unde-
veloped age, ruled by ignorance, superstition, and priestcraft.
Yet millions of people laying claim to sense and intelligence,
even now profess to believe it! Talk not to me of infidelity
or blasphemy for denying the divinity or Godhead of Jesus
Christ.* The blasphemy lies in the other direction. The infi-
delity is with the opposite party. It is with those who thus
make the dignity and character of Deity the sport of childish
baubles, the game of priestly tawdryism. And be assured, dear
friends, one and all, that coming generations will mark the
man who now worships “ the man Christ Jesus ” as being “very
God ” as an idolater, if not a blasphemer — for worshiping a
finite man for an infinite God, even though the motives for
such worship may be as pure as the pearly stream that issues
forth from the golden fount which rolls and sparkles beneath
the throne of Almighty God.

Note. The words Creator, Maker, &c., are used from a Christian
standpoint. Science knows no Creator.


 ABSURDITIES OF DIVINE INCARNA1 ION. 315

CHAPTER XXXVI.

PHILOSOPHICAL ABSURDITIES OF THE DOCTRINE
OF THE DIVINE INCARNATION.

There is a philosophical principle underlying the doctiine
of the Divine Incarnation, whose logical deductions completely
overthrow the claim of Jesus of Nazareth to the Godhead, and
which we regard as settling the question as conclusively as any
demonstrated problem in mathematics. This argument is pred-
icated upon the philosophical axiom, that two infinite beings,
of any description or conception, cannot exist, either in whole
or in part, at the same time; and per consequence, it is impossi-
ble that the Father and Son should both be God in a divine
sense, either conjointly or separately. The word infinite com-
prehends all; it covers the whole ground; it fills the immensity
of the universe, and fills it to repletion, so that there is no
room left for any other being to exist. And whoever and what-
ever does exist must constitute a part of this infinite whole.

Now, the Christian world concedes (for it is the teaching of
their Scriptures), that the Father is God, always and truly, per-
fect, complete, and absolute; that there is nothing wanting in
him to constitute him God in the most comprehensive and
absolute sense of the term; that he is all we can conceive of
. as constituting God, “ the one only true God ” (John xvii. 3),
and was such from all eternity, before Jesus Christ was born
into the world; and Paul puts the keystone into the arch by
proclaiming, “ To us there is but one God, the Father.” (1
Cor. viii. 6.) Hence we have here a logical proposition (de-
spite the sophistry of Christendom) as impregnable as the rocks
of Gibraltar, that the Father alone is or can be God, which
effectually shuts out every other and all other beings in the
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

universe from any participation in the Godhead with the Father.
And thus this parity of reasoning demonstrates that the very
moment you attempt to make Christ God, or any part of the
Godhead, you attempt a philosophical impossibility. You can-
not introduce another being as God in the infinite sense until
the first-named infinite God is dethroned and put out of exist-
ence, and this, of course, is a self-evident impossibility. If it
were not such, then we should have two Gods, both absolute
and infinite. On the other hand, if that other being (who with
the Christians is Jesus Christ, with the Hindoos Christina,
with the Budhists Sakia, &c.) is introduced as only a part of
the infinite and perfect God, then it is evident to every mind
with the least philosophical perception, that some change or
alteration must take place in the latter before such a union can
be effected. But such a change, or any alteration, in a perfect
infinite being would at once reduce him to a changeable and
finite being, and thus he would cease to be God. For it is a
clear philosophical and mathematical axiom, that a perfect and
infinite being cannot become more than infinite. And if he
could and should become less than infinite, he would at once
become finite, and thus lose all the attributes of the Godhead.
To say or assume, then, that Christ wTas God in the absolute or
divine sense, and the Father also God absolute, and yet that
there is but one God, or that the two could in any manner be
united, so as to constitute but one God, is not only a glaring
solecism, but a positive contradiction in terms, and an utter
violation of the first axiomatic principles of philosophy and
mathematics. It also asserts the illogical hypothesis, that a
part can be equal to the whole : it first assumes the Father to
be absolutely God, then assumes the Son also to be abso-
lutely God, and finally assumes each to be only a part, and has
to unite them to make a whole and complete God; and thereby
culminates the theological farce. Such is Christian ratiocina-
tion

Again, it is conceded by Christians, that the Father is an
omnipresent being; and we have shown that it is a mathemati-
cal impossibility for two omnipresent beings, or two beings
possessing any infinite attributes, to exist at one and the same
 ABSURDITIES OF DIVINE INCARNATION. 317

time. Hence the clear logical deduction that the Se n could not
be omnipresent, and per sequence, not God. Again, we have
another philosophical maxim or axiom familiar to every school-
boy, that no two substances or beings can occupy the same place
at the same time; the first must be removed before the second
can by any possibility be introduced, in order thus to make room
for the latter. But as omnipresent means existing everywhere,
there can be no place to remove an omnipresent being to, or
rather there can be no place or space he can be withdrawn
from in order to make room for another being, without his ceas-
ing to be omnipresent himself, and thereby ceasing to be God.

It is thus shown to be a demonstrable truth that the omni-
presence of the Father does and must exclude that of the Son,
and thus exclude the possibility of his apotheosis or incarnated
deityship. In other words, it is established as a scientific prin-
ciple upon a philosophical and mathematical basis, that Jesus
Christ was not and could not be “the great I AM,” 1,6the only
true God.”

We will notice one other philosophical absurdity involved
in the doctrine of the divine incarnation — one other sole-
cism comprehended in the childish notion which invests the
infinite God with finite attributes. It is a well-established
and well-understood axiom in philosophy, that “the less can-
not be made to contain the greater.” A pint bottle cannot
be made to contain a quart of wine. For the same reason a
finite body cannot contain an infinite spirit. Hence philosophy
presses the conclusion that “the man Christ Jesus” could not
have comprehended in himself “ the Godhead bodily,” inasmuch
as it would have required the infinite God to be incorporated
in a finite human body. We are therefore compelled to reject
the doctrine of the incarnate divinity, the belief in the deity-
ship of Jesus Christ, because (with many other reasons enumer-
ated elsewhere) it involves a direct tilt against some of the
plainest principles of science, and challenges, ay, virtually over-
throws, some of the fundamental laws of both natural and moral
philosophy. No philosopher, therefore, does or can believe in
the absolute divinity of Jesus Christ.
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THE WORLD'S SAIIORS.

CHAPTER XXXVII.   x

PHYSIOLOGICAL ABSURDITIES OF THE DOCTRINE
OF THE DIVINE INCARNATION.

There is also a physiological principle (discovered by the
author) comprised in the doctrine of the Divine Incarnation
fatal in its practical and logical application to the divinity of
Jesus Christ, and all the other incarnate or flesh-invested Gods
of antiquity. It is evidently fraught with much logical force.
It is based upon the law of mental and physical correspondence.
As is the physical conformation, so is the mentality, is a law
of analogy which pilots us to nearly all our practical knowledge
of the natural world. A knowledge of either serves as an
index to the other.

When we observe an animal possessing that physical form
and construction peculiar to its species, we expect to find it
practically exhibiting the nature, character, disposition, and
habits peculiar to that class of animals. If it possesses, for ex-
ample, the conformation of a sheep, we infer at once that it has
the disposition of a sheep, and we are never disappointed in
this conclusion. And when we encounter an animal with the
tiger form, we expect to see exhibited the tiger spirit. If it
possesses the well-known physical conformation of the tiger, we
are never deceived or misled when we assign it a predatory
disposition. If it is a tiger in form, it is sure to be a tiger in
character and habits. And so of all the genera and species of
animals that range upon the face of the globe. We may travel
through the whole field of animated nature, and observe the
infallible operation of this beautiful law of correspondence till
we come, however, to the crowning work of God, called Man
 ABSURDITIES OF DIVINE INCARNATION.   319

Here we find this law, this beautiful chain of analogy, broken
by the doctrine of the “divine incarnation.” God becomes a
man, at least is made to exhibit every external appearance of a
man. All external distinction between God and man is thus
obliterated. So that the very first being we meet in the street
or on the highway possessing the form, size, and physical con-
formation of a man, and presenting every other external appear-
ance of being a man, may nevertheless be a God. And no less
is this'objection practically exemplified, and not less is the in-
fraction of this beautiful law of analogy observable in the case
of Jesus Christ, than in the numerous other incarnate Gods and
. demigods of antiquity. Being in appearance a man, how was he
to be, or how could he be, visually distinguished from a man ? Or
how could those men who were cotemporary with him, know, as
they approached him, or as they approached each other, whether
they were meeting a man or a God ? Seeing that “he was found
in fashion as a man ” (Phil. ii. , either he might be mistaken
for a man, or they for a God. They were constantly liable to
be confounded. If, then, the infinite deityship was lodged in
the person of Jesus Christ, it is evident that that important
fundamental law of nature — “ as is the form, so is the character ”
— was utterly annulled, prostrated, annihilated, and banished
from the world by the act. So that all was, and is henceforth
and forever, chaos, confusion, and uncertainty. For if the prin-
ciple can be violated in one instance, it may be in another, and
in thousands of cases, ad infinitum. If one case could be
allowed to occur, the principle is established, and nature’s uni-
versal chain of analogy is broken and destroyed; for to inter-
cept the law is to “break the tenth and ten thousandth link
alike.”

[Prometheus]

Hence it is evident that if a being resembling a man may
be a God, an animal resembling a cow may be a horse, and
yonder stick a poisonous adder; and fatal may be the conse-
quences, in thousands of instances, in judging or inferring the
nature and character of an animal by its form and size. A sup-
posed* innocent animal might be a deadly enemy, or vice versa.
Can we then believe, or dare we believe, a doctrine so atheisti-
cal in its tendencies as that the Infinite Deity was incorporated
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

in the person of the meek and lowly Jesus, when it would thus
set at naught, violate, prostrate, and utterly cancel from the
world one of God’s owTn fundamental laws, and one of the
essential principles of natural science, and banish forever the
co-ordinate harmony of the universe, and thus inaugurate a
state of universal disorder, incertitude, anarchy, and misrule
into the otherwise beautifully law-governed, well-regulated do-
main of nature ? Certainly, most certainly not! If the incar-
nation of the Deity should or could take place, there should be
something strikingly peculiar, ay, infinitely peculiar, in his
figure, size, and general appearance, in order to make him sus-
ceptible of being distinguished from the human. Otherwise,
men would be liable to be constantly mistaking and worship-
ing each other for the Great Almighty and Ubiquitous God, and
thus constantly blundering into idolatry. And we actually
find several cases reported in the Scriptures (mark the fact
well) of men, ay, the saints themselves, being led into this error;
being led to commit “the high-handed sin of idolatry ” in conse-
quence of their previous acceptance of the belief in a man-God
— that is, a God of human size and type. St. John, in two
instances, was in the act of worshiping a being possessing the
human form, whom he mistook for the omnipotent and omni-
present God. (See Rev. xix. 10, and xxii. 4.) Having, per-
haps, been taught that “ the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily
in Christ Jesus,” he probably mistook the being he met for
Him, and hence offered to worship him. If, then, Christ’s own
“inspired disciples” could be thus betrayed into “the sin of
idolatry ” by having abolished the infinite distinction between
the divine and the human, we surely find here a very weighty
argument against such a leveling and equalizing doctrine. And
certainly nothing could be better calculated to promote “ the
sin of idolatry” than thus to obliterate the broad, the in-
finitely grand line of demarkation between the infinite God and
his finite creature man. Indeed, may we not here find the
very origin and the cause of the now general prevalence of
idolatry in pagan countries ? Is it not directly traceable to the
demolition of the broad, high, and insurmountable wall of dis-
tinction which ought forever to stand between a God of infi-
 ABSURDITIES OF DIVINE INCARNATION.   32l

nite attributes, and a being caged up in the human form? Cer-
tainly, most certainly it is. Hence here 1 would ask, How
can Christians, after subscribing to the doctrine, “ that the full-
ness of the Godhead dwelt bodily in the man Christ Jesus ”
(as Paul very appropriately calls him), condemn the people of
any age or nation for worshiping as God their fellow-beings —
that is, beings with the human form ? Certainly the man who
could believe that the infinite God could be comprehended or
incorporated in the person of Jesus, could easily be brought to
believe that the Grand Lama of Thibet is a proper object of
divine worship. He only lacks the substitution of names.
Substitute the Grand Lama for that of Jesus Christ, and the
thing is done. And idolatry thus becomes an easily established
institution, and its abolition in any country an absolute moral
impossibility.

21
 822

THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

A HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE DIVINITY OF JESUS

CHRIST.

A most fatal distrust is thrown upon the miraculous portions
of the history of Jesus Christ, as found in his Gospel narratives,
by the discovery of the fact (brought to light through recent ar-
chaeological researches), that the same marvelous feats, the same
miraculous incidents, which were recorded in his life, were long
previously ingrafted into the sacred biographies of Gods and
demigods no less adored and worshiped as beings possessing
divine attributes. We shall leave the reader to account for
the long list of astonishing coincidences, as we proceed to re-
capitulate and abridge from previous chapters, the almost innu-
merable parallel incidents running through the legendary histo-
ry of the many demigods and sin-atoning saviors of antiquity.
The historical vouchers are given. We shall first direct atten-
tion to the long string of corresponding events recorded in the
sacred histories of ancient Hindoo Gods, as compared with
those of Jesus Christ at a much later period.

As far back as 1200 B. C., sacred records were extant and
traditions were current, in the East, which taught that the
heathen Savior (Chrishna) was, 1st. Immaculately conceived
and born of a spotless virgin, “ who had never known man.”
2d. That the author of, or agent in, the conception, was a spirit
or ghost (of course a Holy Ghost). 3d. That he was threat-
ened in early infancy with death by the ruling tyrant, Cansa.
4th. That his parents had, consequently, to flee with him to
Gokul for safety. 5th. That all the young male children under
two years of age were slain by an order issued by Cansa, similar
to that of Herod in Judea. 6th. That angels and shepherds
 DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST.

323

attended his birth. 7th. That his birth and advent occurred on
the 25th of December. 8th. That it occurred in accordance
with previous prophecy. 9th. That he was presented at birth
with frankincense, myrrh, &c.   10th. That he was saluted and

worshiped as “ the Savior of men,” according to the report of
the late Christian missionary Hue. 11th. That he led a life of
humility and practical moral usefulness. 12th. That he wrought
various astounding miracles, such as healing the sick, restoring
sight to the blind, casting out devils, raising the dead to life,
&c.   13th. That he was finally put to death upon the cross

(i. e., crucified) between two thieves. 14th. After which he
descended to hell, rose from the dead, and ascended back to
heaven “in the sight of all men,” as his biblical history declares.
For hundreds of other similar parallels, including his doctrines
and precepts, see Chapter XXXII.

Now, all these were matters of the firmest belief, more than
three thousand years ago, in the minds of millions of the most
devout worshipers that ever bowed the knee in humble prayer
to the Father of Mercies. The reader can draw his ow;n de-
duction.

And then we have presented similar brief lists of parallels in
Chapter XXXIII., comprised in a comparative view of the mi-
raculous lives of the Judean and Egyptian Saviors, Christ, Al-
cides, Osiris, Tulis, &c. In this analogous exhibition, it will
be observed the Egyptian Gods are reported, as remotely as
900 B. C., as performing, besides several of the miraculous
achievements enumerated above, other miracles equally indica-
tive of divine power, such as converting water into wine, caus-
ing “rain to descend from heaven,” &c. And on the occasion
of the crucifixion of Tulis we are told “ the sun became dark-
ened and the moon refused to shine.”

We find, also, several well-authenticated instances of raising
the dead to life, in works portraying the miraculous achieve-
ments of the Egyptian Gods, the relation being given in such
specific detail in some cases that the names of the reanimated
dead are furnished. Tyndarus and Hypolitus were instances
of this kind, both (according to Julius) having been raised
from the dead. Descending the line of history, until we arrive
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THE WORLD’S SAVIORS.

at the confines of Grecian theology, we find here die same train
of marvelous events recorded in the histories of their virgin-
born Gods, as we have shown in Chapter XXXIII., such as their
healing the sick and the cripples, causing the blind to see, the
lame to walk, the dead to be resuscitated to life, &c. And
cases, as we have shown, are reported of their reading the
thoughts of their disciples, as Jesus did those of the woman of
Samaria. Apollonius declares he knew many Hindoo saints to
perform this achievement with entire strangers.

Likewise Apollonius of Tyana and Simon Magus, both cotem-
porary with Jesus Christ, we have arranged in the historic par-
allel (see Chapter XXXIII.), with their long train of miracles,
constituting an exact counterpart with those related in the
Gospel history of Christ, and including in Apollonius’s case,
besides those specified in the histories of the Gods above
named, the miracle of transfiguration, the resurrection from the
dead, his visible ascent to heaven, &c., while Simon Magus was
very expert in casting out devils, raising the dead, allaying
storms, walking on the sea, &c. -

But without recapitulating further, we will recite some new
historic facts not embraced in any of the preceding chapters of
this work, and tending to demonstrate still further the univer-
sal analogy of all religions, past and present, in their claims for
a miraculous power for their Gods and incarnate Saviors. The
“New York. Correspondent,” published in 1828, furnishes us
the following brief history of an ancient Chinese God, known
as Beddou: —

“ All the Eastern writers agree in placing the birth of Bed-
dou 1027 B. C. The doctrines of this Deity prevailed over
Japan, China, and Ceylon. According to the sacred tenets of
his religion, c God is incessantly rendering himself incarnate,’
but his greatest and most solemn incarnation was three thou-
sand years ago, in the province of Cashmere, under the name
of Fot, or Beddou. He was believed to have sprung from the
right intercostal of a virgin of the royal blood, who, when she
became a mother, did not the less continue to be a virgin; that
the king of the country, uneasy at his birth, was desirous to
put him to death, and hence caused all the males that were
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325

born at the same period to be put to death, and alsD that, being
saved by shepherds, he lived in the desert to the age of thirty
years, at which time he opened his commission, preaching the
doctrines of truth, and casting out devils; that he performed a
multitude of the most astonishing miracles, spent his life fast-
ing, and in the severest mortifications, and at his death be-
queathed to his disciples the volume in which the principles of
his religion are contained.”

Here, it will be observed, are some very striking counterparts
lo the miraculous incidents found related in the Gospel history
of Jesus Christ. And no less analogous is the no less well-au-
thenticated story of Quexalcote of Mexico, which the Rev. Mr.
Maurice concedes to be, and Lord Kingsborough and Niebuhr
(in his history of Rome) prove to be much older than the Gospel
account of Jesus Christ. According to Maurice’s “ Ind. Ant.,”
Humboldt’s 66 Researches in Mexico,” Lord Kingsborough’s
“ Mexican Ant.,” and other works, the incarnate God Quexalcote
was born (about 800 B. C.) of a spotless virgin, by the name
Chimalman, and led a life of the deepest humility and piety;
retired to a wilderness, fasted forty days, was worshiped as a
God, and was finally crucified between two thieves; after which
he was buried and descended into hell, but rose again the third
day. The following is a part of Lord Kingsborough’s testimony
in the case: “ The temptation of Quexalcote, the fast of forty
days ordained by the Mexican ritual, the cup with which he
was presented to drink (on the cross), the reed which was his
sign, the ; Morning Star,’ which he is designated, the c Teotee-
pall, or Divine Stone,’ which was laid on his altar, and which
was likewise an object of adoration,— all these circumstances?
connected with many others relating to Quexalcote of Mexico,
but which are here omitted, are very curious and mysterious.”
(Vol. vi. p. 237, of Mexican Ant.)

Again, “Quexalcote is represented, in the painting of Co-
dex Borgianus, as nailed to the cross.” (See Mex. Ant. vol. vi.
p. 166.) One plate in this work represents him as being cruci-
fied in the heavens, one as being crucified between two thieves.
Sometimes he is represented as being nailed to the cross, and
sometimes as hanging with the cross in his hands. The same
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

work speaks of his burial, descent into hell, and his resurrec-
tion ; while the account of his immaculate conception and
miraculous birth are found in a work called “ Codex Vati-
can us.”

Other parallel incidents could be cited, if we had space for
them, appertaining to the history of this Mexican God. And
parallels might also be constructed upon the histories of other
ancient Gods, — as that of Sakia of India, Salivahana of Ber-
muda, Hesus, or Eros, of the Celtic Druids, Mithra of Persia,
Hil and Feta of the Mandaites, &c.

But we will close with the testimony of a French philoso-
pher (Bazin) on the subject of deific incarnations. This writ-
er says, “ The most ancient histories are those of Gods who
became incarnate in order to govern mankind. All those fables
are the same in spirit, and sprang up everywhere from con-
fused ideas, which have universally prevailed among mankind,
— that Gods formerly descended upon earth.”

Now, we ask the Christian reader, — and it will be the first
query of every man whose religious faith has not made ship-
wreck of his reason, — u What does all this mean ? How are
you going to sustain the declaration that Jesus Christ was the
only son and sent of God, in view of these historic facts?
Where are the superior credentials of his claim ? How will
you prove his apparently legendary history (that is, the miracu-
lous portion of his history) to be real, and the others false ? ”
We boldly aver it cannot be done. Please answer these ques-
tions, or relinquish your doctrine of the divinity of Jesus Christ.
 CHRIST'S DIVINITT\

32T

CHAPTER XXXIX.

THE SCRIPTURAL VIEW OF CHRIST'S DIVINITY.

The monstrous scientific paradox (as coming ages will regard
it) comprehended in the conception of an almighty, omnipres-
ent, and infinite Being, “ the Creator of innumerable worlds,”
(“by him [Christ] were all things made that were made,” John
i. 3-10), being born of a frail and finite woman, as taught by
both the oriental and Christian religion, is so exceedingly
shocking to every rational mind, which has not been sadly
warped, perverted, and coerced into the belief by early psycho-
logical influence, that we would naturally presume that those
who, on the assumption of the remotest possibility of its truth,
should venture to put forth a doctrine so glaringly unreasona-
ble and so obviously untenable, would of course vindicate it and
establish it by the strongest arguments and by the most unas-
sailable and most irrefragable proofs ; and that in setting forth a
doctrine so manifestly at war with every law and analogy of
nature and every principle of science, no language should have
been used, nor the slightest admission made, that could possibly
lead to the slightest degree of suspicion that the original authors
and propagators of this doctrine had either any doubt of the
truth of the doctrine themselves, or were wanting in the most
ample, the most abundant proof to sustain it. No language, no
text, not a word, not a syllable should have been used making
the most remote concession damaging to the validity of the
doctrine, so that not “ the shadow of a shade of doubt” could
be left on any mind of its truth. Omnipotent indeed should
be the logic, and irresistible the proof, in support of a thesis or
a doctrine which so squarely confronts and contradicts all the
observation, all the experience, the whole range of scientific
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

knowledge, and the common sense of mankind. How startling,
then, to every devout and honest professor of the Christian
faith ought to be the recent discovery of the fact, that the great
majority of the texts having any bearing upon the doctrine of
the divinity of Jesus Christ, — a large majority of the passages
in the very book on which the doctrine is predicated, and which
is acknowledged as the sole warranty for such a belief, — are ac-
tually at variance with the doctrine, and actually amount to its
virtual denial and overthrow. For we find, upon a critical ex-
amination of the matter, that at least three fourths of the texts,
both in the Gospels and Epistles, which relate to the divinity
of Christ, specifically or by implication either teach a different
and a contrary doctrine, or make concessions entirely fatal to
it, by investing him with finite human qualities utterly incom-
patible with the character and attributes of a divine or infinite
Being. How strange, then, how superlatively strange, that
millions should yet hold to such a strange “ freak of nature,”
such a dark relic of oriental heathenism, such a monstrously
foolish and childish superstition, as that which teaches that the
infinite Creator and “ Upholder of the universe ” could be re-
duced so near to nonentity, as wras required to pass through
the ordinary stages of human generation, human birth, and
human parturition, — a puerile notion which reason, science,
nature, philosophy, and common sense, proclaim to be supreme-
ly absurd and self-evidently impossible, and which even the
Scriptures fail to sustain, — a logical, scriptural exposition, of
which we will here present a brief summary : —

1.   The essential attributes of a self-existing God and Crea-
tor, and “Upholder of all things,” are infinitude, omnipotence,
omniscience, and omnipresence, and any being not possessing
all these attributes to repletion, or possessing any quality or
characteristic in the slightest degree incompatible with any one
of these attributes, cannot be a God in a divine sense, but
must of necessity be a frail, fallible, finite being.

2.   Jesus Christ disclaims, hundreds of times over, directly or
impliedly, the inherent possession of any one of these divine
attributes.

3.   His evangelical biographers have invested him witli the
 CHRIST'S DIVINITY.

329

[Prometheus]

entire category of human qualities and characteristics, each one
ot which is entirely unbefitting a God, and taken together are
the only distinguishing characteristics by which we can know
a man from a God.

4.   Furthermore, there issued from his own mouth various
sayings and concessions most fatal to the conception of his
being a God.

5.   His devout biographers have reported various actions and
movements in his practical life which we are compelled to re-
gard as absolutely irreconcilable with the infinite majesty, lofty
character, and supreme attributes of an almighty Being.

6.   Th ese human qualities were so obvious to all who saw
him and all who became acquainted with him, that doubts
sprang up among his own immediate followers, which ultimate-
ly matured into an open avowal of disbelief in his divinity in
that early age.

7.   Upon the axiomatical principles of philosophy it is an
utter and absolute impossibility to unite in repletion the divine
and the human in the same being.

8.   And then Christ had a human birth.

9.   He was constituted in part, like human beings, of flesh
and blood.

10.   Pie became, on certain occasions, “an hungered,” like
finite beings.

11.   He also became thirsty (John xix. 28), like perishable
mortals.

12.   He often slept, like mortals, and thus became “to dumb
forgetfulness a prey.”

13.   He sometimes became weary, like human beings. (See
John iv. 6.)

14.   He was occasionally tempted, like fallible mortals. (Matt.

ir,L)

15.   His “ soul became exceeding sorrowful,” as a frail, finite
being. (Matt. xxvi. 88.)

16.   He disclosed the weakness of human passion by weep-
ing. (John xi. 35.)

17.   He was originally an imperfect being, “ made perfect
through suffering.” (Heb. ii. 10.)
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

18.   He “ increased in wisdom and stature ” (Luke ii. 52) ;
therefore he must have possessed finite, changeable, mortal
attributes.

19.   And he finally died and was buried, like all perishable
mortals. He could not possibly, from these considerations, have
been a God. It is utterly impracticable to associate with or
comprehend, in a God of infinite powers and infinite attri-
butes, all or any of these finite human qualities.

20.   Dark, intellectually dark, indeed, must be that mind, and
sunk, sorrowfully sunk in superstition, that can worship a being
as the great omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent “ I AM,”
who possessed all those qualities which were constitutionally
characteristic of the pious, the noble, the devout, the Godlike,
yet finite and fallible Jesus, according to his own admissions
and the representations of his own interested biographers.

21.   The only step which the disciples of the Christian faith
have made toward disproving or setting aside these arguments,
objections, and difficulties, is that of assigning the incarnate
Jesus a double or twofold nature — the amalgamation of the
human .and the divine; a postulate and a groundless assump-
tion, which we have proved and demonstrated by thirteen ar-
guments, which we believe to be .unanswerable, is not only
absurd, illogical, and impossible, but foolish and ludicrous in
the highest degree. (See vol. ii.)

22.   This senseless hypothesis, and every other assumption
and argument made use of by the professors of the Christian
faith to vindicate their favorite dogma of the divinity of Jesus,
we have shown to be equally applicable to the demigods of the
ancient heathen, more than twenty of whom were invested
with the same combination of human and divine qualities which
the followers and worshipers of Jesus claim for him.

23.   Testimony of the Father against the divinity of the Son.
The Father utterly precludes the Son from any participation in
•the divine essence, or any claim in the Godhead, by such dec-
larations as the following: “I am Jehovah, and beside me
there is no Savior.” (Isaiah xliii, 11.) How, then, we would
ask, can Jesus Christ be the Savior? “I, Jehovah, am thy
Savior and thy Redeemer.” Then Christ can be neither the
 CHRIST'S DIVINITY.

331

Savior nor Redeemer. “ There is no God else beside me, a
just God and a Savior; there is none beside me.” (Isaiah xiv

21.) So the Father virtually declares, according to “ the in-
spired prophet Isaiah,” that the Son, in a divine sense, cannot
be either God, Savior, or Redeemer. Again, “ I am Jehovah,
thy God, and thou shalt not acknowledge a God beside me.”
(Hosea xiii. 4.) Here Christ is not only by implication cut off
from the Godhead, but positively prohibited from being wor-
shiped as God. And thus the testimony of the Father dis-
proves and sets aside the divinity of the Son.

24.   Testimony of the mother. When Mary found, after a long
search, her son Jesus in the temple, disputing with the doctors,
and chided or reproved him for staying from home without the
consent of his parents, and declared, “ thy father and I sought
thee, sorrowing” (Luke ii. 48), she proclaimed a twofold deni-
al of his divinity. In the first place it cannot be possible that
she regarded her son Jesus as “ that awful Being, before
whom e’en the devout saints bow in trembling fear,” when she
used such language and evinced such a spirit as she did.
“ Why hast thou thus dealt with us ? ” (Luke ii. 48) is her
chiding language. And then, when she speaks of Joseph as
his father, “ thy father and I,” she issues a declaration against
his divinity which ought to be regarded as settling the ques-
tion forever. For who could know better than the mother, or,
rather, who could know but the mother, who the father of the
child Jesus was? And as she acknowledges it was Joseph,
she thus repudiates the story of the immaculate conception,
which constitutes the whole basis for the claim of his divinity.
Hence the testimony of the mother, also, disproves his title to
the Godhead.

25.   Testimony or disclaimer of the Son. We will show
by a specific citation of twenty-five texts that there is not one
attribute comprehended in or peculiar to a divine and infinite
Being, but that Christ rejects as applicable to himself—that he
most conclusively disclaims every attribute of a divine Being,
both by precept and practice, and often in the most explicit
language.

26.   By declaring, “ The Son can do nothing of himself”
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

(John v. 19), he most emphatically disclaims the attribute of
omnipotence. For an omnipotent Being can need no aid, and
can accept of none.

27.   When he acknowledged and avowed his ignorance of the
day of judgment, which must be presumed to be the most im-
portant event in the world’s history, he disclaimed the attri-
bute of omniscience. “ Of that day and hour knoweth no
man, neither the Son, but the Father only.” (Matt. xxiv. 36.)
Now, as an omniscient Being must possess all knowledge, his
avowed ignorance in this case is a confession he was not omni-
scient, and hence not a God.

28.   And when he declares, “I am glad for your sakes I was
not there” (at the grave of Lazarus), he most distinctly disa-
vows being omnipresent, and thus denies to himself another es-
sential attribute of an infinite God.

29.   And the emphatic declaration, “ I live by the Father”
(John vi. 57), is a direct disclaimer of the attributes of self-
existence / as a being who lives by another cannot be self-exist-
ent, and, per consequence, not the infinite God.

30.   He disclaims possessing infinite goodness, another essen-
tial attribute of a supreme divine Being. “ Why callest thou
me good ? there is none good but one, that is God.” (Mark
x. 18.)

31.   He disclaimed divine honors, and directed them to the
father. “ I honor my Father.” (John viii. 49.) “ I receive not
honor from men.” (John v. 41.)

32.   He recommended supreme worship to the Father, and
not to himself. “ The true worshipers shall worship the Father
in spirit and in truth.” (John iv. 21.)

33.   He ascribed supreme dominion to the Father. “ Thine
is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.” (Matt.)
vi, 13.)

34.   It will be seen, from the foregoing text, that Christ also
acknowledges that the kingdom is the Father’s. A God with-
out a kingdom would be a ludicrous state of things.

35.   He conceded supreme authority to the Father. “My
doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.” (John vii. 16.)

36.   He considered the Father as the supreme protector and
 CHRIST9 S DIVINITY\

833

preserver of even his own disciples. “ I pray that thou shouldst
keep them from the evil.” (John xvii. 15.) What, omnipo*
tence not able to protect his own disciples ?

37.   In fine, he humbly acknowledged that his power, his
will, his ministry, his mission, his authority, his works, his
knowledge, and his very life, were all from, and belonged to,
and were under the control of, the Father. “ I can do nothing
of myself;” “I came to do the will of him that sent me;”
“ The Father that dwelleth within me, he doeth the work,”
&c. “ A God within a God,” is an old pagan Otaheitan doc-
trine.

38.   He declared that even spiritual communion was the work
of the Father. (See John vi. 45.)

39.   He acknowledged himself controlled by the Father. (See
John v. 30.)

40.   He acknowledged his entire helplessness and dependence
on the Father. “ The Son can do nothing of himself, but what
he seeth the Father do.” (John v. 19.)

41.   He acknowledged that even his body was the work of
his Father ; in other words, that he was dependent on his Fa-
ther for his physical life. (See Heb. xvi. 5.)

42.   And more than all, he not only called the Father “the
only true God” (John xvii. 3), but calls him “my Father and
my God.” (John xx. 17.) Now, it would be superlative non-
sense to consider a being himself a God, or the God\ who
could use such language as is here ascribed to the humble
Jesus. This text, this language, is sufficient of itself to show
that Christ could not have laid any claim to the Godhead on
any occasion, unless we degrade him to the charge of the
most palpable and shameful contradictions.

43.   He uniformly directed his disciples to pray, not to him,
but the Father. (See Matt. vi. 6.)

44.   On one occasion, as we have cited the proof (in Matt. xi.
in. he even acknowledged John the Baptist to be greater than
he ; while it must be patent to every reader that no man could
be greater than the almighty, supreme Potentate of heaven and
earth, in any sense whatever.

45.   Testimony of the disciples. Another remarkable proof
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

of the human sireship of Jesus is, that one of his own disciples
— ay, one of the chosen twelve, selected by him as being en-
dowed with a perfect knowledge of his character, mission, and
origin — this witness, thus posted and thus authorized, proclaims,
in unequivocal language, that Jesus was the son of Joseph.
Hear the language of Philip addressed to Nathanael. “We
have found him of whom Moses, in the law and the prophets,
did write — Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph? (John i.
45.) No language could be more explicit, no declaration more
positive, that Jesus was the son of Joseph. And no higher
authority could be adduced to settle the question, coming as it
does from “ headquarters.” And what will, or what can, the
devout stickler for the divinely paternal origin of Jesus Christ
do with such testimony ? It is a clincher which no sophistry
can set aside, ne reasoning can grapple with, and no logic over-
throw.

46.   liis disciples, instead of representing him as being “ the
only true God,” often speak of him in contradistinction to
God.

47.   They never speak of him as the God Christ Jesus, but as

“ the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Tim. ii. 5.)   “ Jesus of Nazareth,

a man approved of God.” (Acts ii. 23.) It would certainly be
blasphemy to speak of the Supreme Being as “ a man approved
of God.” Christian reader, reflect upon this text. “ By that man
whom he (the Father) hath ordained” (Acts xvii. 3), by the
assumption of the Godhead of Christ, we would be presented
with the double or twofold solecism, 1st. Of God being u or-
dained ” by another God \ and 2d. That of his being blasphe-
mously called a “man.”

48.   Paul’s declaration has been cited, that “ unto us there is
but one God — the Father.” (1 Cor. iv. 8.) Now, it is plain to
common sense, that if there is but one God, and that God is
comprehended in the Father, then Christ is entirely excluded
from the Godhead.

49.   If John’s declaration be true, that “ no man hath seen
God at any time ” (John iv. 12), then the important question
arises, How could Christ be God, as he was seen by thousands
of men, and seen hundreds of times ?
 CHRIST'S DIVINITY,

835

50.   God the Father is declared to be the “ One,” “ the Holy
One,” “the only One,” &c., more than one hundred times, as if
purposely to exclude the participation of any other being in
the Godhead.

51.   This one, this only God, is shown to be the Father alone
in more than four thousand texts, thirteen hundred and twenty*
six of which are found in the New Testament.

52.   More than fifty texts have been found which declare,
either explicitly or by implication, that God the Father has no
equal, which effectually denies or shuts out the divine equality
of the Son. “ To whom will ye liken me, or shall I be equal
with, saith the holy One.” (Isa. xl. 25.)

53.   Christ in the New Testament is called “man,” and “the
Son of man,” eighty-four times, — egregious and dishonorable
misnomers, most certainly, to apply to a supreme and infinite
Deity. On the other hand, he is called God but three times,
and denominates himself “ the Son of God” but once, and that
rather obscurely.

54.   The Father is spoken of, in several instances, as standing
in the relation of God to the Son, as “ the God of our Lord
Jesus Christ.” (Acts iii. 2.) “Ye are Christ’s, and Christ is
God’s.” (1 Cor. xi. 3.) Now, the God of a God is a polythe-
istic, heathen conception; and no meaning or interpretation, as
we have shown, can be forced upon such texts as these, that
will not admit a plurality of Gods, if we admit the titles as
applicable to Christ, or that his scriptural biographers intend
to apfffy such a title in a superior or supreme sense.

55.   Many texts make Christ the mere tool, agent, image, ser-
vant, or representative of God, as Christ, “the image of God”
(Heb. i. 3), Christ, the appointed of God (Heb. iii. 1), Christ,
“ the servant of God ” (Matt. xii. 18), &c. To consider a
being thus spoken of as himself the supreme God, is, as we
have demonstrated, the very climax of absurdity and nonsense.
To believe “the servant of God” is God himself, — that is,
the servant of himself, — and that God and his “ image ” are
the same, is to descend within one step of buffoonery.

56.   And then it has been ascertained that there are more
than three hundred texts which declare, either expressly or by
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

implication, Christ’s subordination to and dependence on thfc
Father, as, “I can do nothing of myself;” “Not mine, but his
that sent me;” UI came to do the will of him that sent me”
(John iv. 34) ; “ I seek the will of my Father,” &c.

57.   And more than one hundred and fifty texts make the
Son inferior to the Father, as “ the Son knoweth not, but the
Father does ” (Mark viii. 32) ; “ My Father is greater than I; ”
“The Son can do nothing of himself” (John v. 19), &c.

58.   There are many divine titles applied to the Father
which are never used with reference to the Son, as “ Jehovah,’*
“ The Most High,” “ God Almighty,” “ The Almighty,” &c.

On the other hand, those few divine epithets or titles which
are used in application to Jesus Christ, as Lord, God, Savior,
Redeemer, Intercessor, &c., it has been shown were all used
prior to the birth of Christ, in application to beings known and
acknowledged to be men, and some of them are found so ap-
plied in the bible itself; as, for example, Moses is called a
God in two instances, as we have shown, and cited the proof
(in Ex. iv. 16, vii. 1), while the title of Lord is applied to men
at this day, even in Christian countries. And instances have
been cited in the bible of the term Savior being applied to
men, both in the singular and plural numbers. (See 2 Kings
xiii. 5, and Neh. ix. 27.) Seeing, then, that the most important
divine titles which the writers of the New Testament have
applied to Jesus were previously used in application to men,
known and admitted to be such, it is therefore at once evident
that those titles do nothing toward proving him to be the
Great Divine Being, as the modern Christian world assume him
to be, even if we base the argument wholly on scriptural
grounds. While, on the other hand, we have demonstrated it
to be an absolute impossibility to apply with any propriety or
any sense to a divine infinite omnipotent Being those finite
human qualities which are so frequently used with reference to
Jesus throughout the New Testament. And hence, even if we
should suppose nr concede that the writers of the New Testa-
ment did really believe him to be the great Infinite Spirit, or
the almighty, omnipotent God, we must conclude they were
mistaken, from their own language, from their own description
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337

[Prometheus]

of him, as well as his own virtual denial and rejection of such
a claim, when he applied to himself, as he did in nine cases out
of ten, strictly finite human qualities and human titles (as we
have shown), wholly incompatible with the character of an in-
finite divine Being. We say, from the foregoing considerations,
if the primitive disciples of Jesus did really believe him to be
the great Infinite, both their descriptions of him and his de-
scription or representation of himself, would amply and most
conclusively prove that they were mistaken. At least we are
compelled to admit that there is either an error in applying
divine titles to Jesus, or often an error in describing his qual-
ities and powers, by himself and his original followers, as there
is no compatibility or agreement between the two. Divine
titles to such a being as they represent him to be, would be an
egregious misnomer. We say, then, that it must be clearly
and conclusively evident to every unbiased mind, from evi-
dence furnished by the bible itself, that if the divine titles ap-
plied to Jesus were intended to have a divine significance, then
they are misapplied. Yet we would not here conclude an
intentional misrepresentation in the case, but simply a mistake
growing out of a misconception, and the very limited childish
conception, of the nature, character, and attributes of the “ great
positive Mind,” so universally prevalent in that semi-barbarous
age, and the apparently total ignorance of the distinguishing
characteristics which separate the divine and the human. We
will illustrate: some children, on passing through a wild por-
tion of the State of Maine recently, reported they encountered
a bear; and to prove they could not be mistaken in the animal,
they described it as being a tall, slight-built animal, with long,
slender legs, of yellowish auburn hue, a short, white, bushy tail,
cloven feet, large branchy horns, &c. Now, it will be seen at
once that, while their description of the animal is evidently in
the main correct, they had simply mistaken a deer for a bear,
and hence misnamed the animal.

In like manner we must conclude, from the repeated in-
stances in which Christ’s biographers have ascribed to him all
the foibles, frailties, and finite qualities and characteristics of a
human being, that if they have in any instance called him a
22
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THE WORLD9S SAVIORS.

God in a divine sense, it is an egregious misnomer. Their de-
scription of him makes him a man, and hut a man, whatever
may have been their opinion with respect to the propriety of
calling him a God. And if the two do not harmonize, the for-
mer must rule the judgment in all cases. . The truth is, the
Jewish founders of Christianity entertained such a low, narrow,
contracted, and mean opinion of Deity and the infinite distinc-
tion and distance between the divine and the human, that their
theology reduced him to a level with man; and hence they
usually described him as a man.
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339

CHAPTER XL.

A METONYMIC VIEW OF THE DIVINITY OF JESUS
CHRIST.

If Jesus Christ were truly God, or if there exiited such a
co-equal and co-essential oneness between the Father and the
Son that they constituted but one being or divine essence,
then what is true of one is true of the other, and a change of
names and titles from one to the other cannot alter the sense
of the text. Let us, then, substitute the titles found applied to
the Son in the New Testament, to the Father, and observe the
effect: —

“My Son is greater than I.” (John viii. 28.)

“ God can do nothing of himself.” (John v. 19.)

“ I must be about my Son’s business.” (Luke ii. 49.)

“The kingdom of heaven is not mine to give, but the Son’s”
(Matt. xx. 23.)

“ I am come in my Son’s name, and ye receive me not.”
(John v. 43.)

“God cried, Jesus, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt,
xiii. 28.)

“No man hath seen Jesus at any time.” (1 John i. 5.)

“ Jesus created all things by his Son.” (Eph. iii. 9.)

“ God sat down (in heaven) at the right hand of Jesus.”
(Luke xxii. 69.)

“ There is one Jesus, one mediator between Jesus and men.”
(Gal. iii. 20.)

“Jesus gave his only begotten Father.” (1 John iv. 9.)

“ God knows not the hour, but Jesus does.” (Mark

viii.   32.)
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

“ God is the servant of Jesus.” (Mark xii. 18.)

“ God is ordained by Jesus.” (Acts xvii. 31.)

“The head of God is Christ.” (Eph. i. 3.)

“We have an advocate with Jesus, God the righteous.” (J
John ii. 1.)

“Jesus gave all power to God.” (Matt, xxviii. 18.)

“ God abode all night in prayer to Jesus.” (Luke vi. 12.)

“ God came down from heaven to do the will of Jesus.”
(John vi. 38.)

“Jesus has made the Father his high priest” (Heb
x. 24.)

“ Last of all, the Son sent the Father.” (Matt. xxi. 39.)

“Jesus will save the world by that God whom he hath
ordained.”

“Jesus is God of the Father.” (John xx. 17.)

“ Jesus hath exalted God, and given him a more excellent
name.” (Phil. ii. 9.)

“Jesus hath made God a little lower than the angels”
(Heb. ii. 9.)

“God can do nothing except what he seeth Jesus do.” (John

v.   19.)

Now, the question arises, Is the above representation a true
one ? Most certainly it must be, if Jesus and the Father are
but one almighty Being. A change of names and titles can-
not alter the truth nor the sense.

To say that Chief Justice Chase has gone south; Secretary
Chase has gone south; Governor Chase has gone south; Ex-
Senator Chase has gone south, or Salmon P. Chase has gone
south, are affirmations equally true and equally sensible, because
they all have reference to the same being; the case is too
plain to need argument.

The above reversal of names and titles of Jesus and the
Father may sound very unpleasant and rather grating to
Christ-adoring Christians, simply because it is the transposi-
tion of the titles of two very scripturally dissimilar beings,
instead of being, as generally taught by orthodox Christians,
“ one in essence, one in mind, one in body or being, and one
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341

in name,” as the Rev. Mr. Barnes affirms. Most self-evidently
false is his statement, based solely on scriptural ground. If
Jesus is “ very God,” and there is but one God\ then the fore-
going transposition cannot mar the sense nor alter the truth
of one text quoted.
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

CHAPTER XLI.

TEE PRECEPTS AND PRACTICAL LIFE OF JESUS
CHRIST.

His Two Hundred Errors.

The exaltation of men to the character and homage of divine
beings has always had the effect to draw a vail over their errors
and imperfections, so as to render them imperceptible to those
who worship them as Gods. This is true of nearly all the dei-
fied men of antiquity, who were adored as incarnate divinities,
among which may be included the Christian’s man~Gody Jesus
Christ. The practice of the followers of these Gods has been,
when an error was pointed out in their teachings, brought to
light by the progress of science and general intelligence, to be-
stow upon the text some new and unwarranted meaning, entirely
incompatible with its literal reading, or else to insist with a godly
zeal on the correctness of the sentiment inculcated by the text,
and thus essay to make error pass for truth. In this way millions
of the disciples of these Gods have been misled and blinded, and
made to believe by their religious teachers and their religious
education, that everything taught by their assumed-to-be divine
exemplars is perfect truth, in perfect harmony with science,
sense, and true morals. Indeed, the perversion of the mind and
judgment by a religious education has been in many cases
carried to such an extreme as to cause their devout and preju-
diced followers either to entirely overlook and ignore their
erroneous teachings, or to magnify them into God-given truths,
and thus, as before stated, clothe error with the livery of truth.
This state of things, it has long been noticed by unprejudiced
minds, exists amongst the rnilliojis of professed belieyers in the
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343

divinity of Jesus Christ. Hence the errors, both in his moral
lessons and his practical life, have passed from age to age unno-
ticed, because his pious and awe-stricken followers, having been
taught that he was a divine teacher, have assumed that his
teachings must all be true; and hence, too, have instituted no
serutiny to determine their truth or falsity. But we will now
proceed to show that the progress of science and general intel-
ligence has brought to light many errors, not only in his teach-
ings, but in his practical life also. In enumerating them, we
will arrange them under the head

Moral and Religious Errors.

1.   The first moral precept in the teachings of Christ, which
we will bring to notice, is one of a numerous class, which
may very properly be arranged under the head of Moral Ex-
tremism. We find many of his admonitions of this character.
Nearly everything that is said is oversaid, carried to extremes
— thus constituting an overwrought, extravagant system of
morality, impracticable in its requisitions; as, for example,
“ Take no thought for the morrow.” (Matt, v.) If the spirit
of this injunction were carried out in practical life, there would
be no grain sown and no seed planted in spring, no reaping
done in harvest, and no crop garnered in autumn; and the
result would be universal starvation in less than twelve mouths.
But, fortunately for society, the Christian world have laid this
positive injunction upon the table under the rule of “indefinite
postponement.”

2.   Christ’s assumed-to-be most important requisition is found
in the injunction, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and
his righteousness, and all else shall be added unto you.” (Matt,

vi.   33.) His early followers understood by this injunction, and
doubtless understood it correctly, that they were to spend their
lives in religious devotion, and neglect the practical duties of
life, leaving 4< Providence ” to take care of their families — a
course of life which reduced many of them to the point of star-
vation.

3.   The disciple of Christ is required, “ when smitten on one
cheek, to turn the other also;” that is, when one cheek is pom-
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

meled into a jelly by some vile miscreant or drunken wretch,
turn the other, to be smashed up in like manner. This is an
extravagant requisition, which none of his modern disciples
even attempt to observe.

4.   “Resist not evil” (Matt. v. 34) breathes forth a kindred
spirit. This injunction requires you to stand with your hands
in your pocket while being maltreated so cruelly and unmerci-
fully that the forfeiture of your life may be the consequence —-
at least Christ’s early followers so understood it.

5.   The disciple of Christ is required, when his cloak is for-
mally wrested from him, to give up his coat also. (See Matt.

v.   ) And to carry out the principle, if the marauder demands
it, he must next give up his boots, then his shirt, and thus strip
himself of all his garments, and go naked. This looks like an
invitation and bribe to robbery.

6.   “ Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth.” (Matt.

vi.   19.) This is another positive command of Christ, which the
modern Christian world, by common consent, have laid on the
table under the rule of “ indefinite postponement,” under the
conviction that the wants of their families and the exigencies
of sickness and old age cannot be served if they should live
up to such an injunction.

7.   “ Sell all that thou hast, . . . and come and follow me,”
is another command which bespeaks more piety than wisdom,
as all who have attempted to comply with it have reduced
their families to beggary and want.

8.   “ If any man love the world, the love of the Father is
not in him.” Then he must hate it, as there are but the two
principles, and “from hate proceed envy, strife, evil surmis-
ings, and persecution.” Evidently the remedy in this case for
“worldly-mindedness ” is worse than the disease.

9.   “ He that cometh to me, and hateth not father, mother,
brother, and sister, &c., cannot be my disciple.” (Luke xiv.
26 ) This breathes forth the same spirit as tne last text quoted
above. Many learned expositions have been penned by Christian
writers to make it appear that hate in this case does not mean
hate. But certainly it would be a slander upon infinite wis-
dom to leave it to be inferred that he could not say or “ in-
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345

spire” his disciples to say exactly what he meant, and to say it
so plainly as to leave no possibility of being misunderstood,
or leave any ground for dispute about the meaning.

10.   “Rejoice and be exceeding glad” when persecuted.
(Matt. v. 4.) Now, as a state of rejoicing is the highest con-
dition of happiness that can be realized, such advice must
naturally prompt the religious zealot to court persecution, in
order to obtain complete happiness, and consequently to pursue
a dare-devil life to provoke persecution.

11.   “ Whosoever shall seek to save his life, shall lose it,” &c.
(Luke xvii. 33.) Here is displayed the spirit of martyrdom
which has made millions reckless of life, and goaded on the
frenzied bigot to seek the fiery fagot and the halter. We re-
gard it as another display of religious fanaticism.

12.   “ Ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake.” (Matt,
x. 12.) How repulsive must have been their doctrines or their
conduct! No sensible religion could excite the universal hatred
of mankind. For it would contain something adapted to the
moral, religious, or spiritual taste of some class or portion of
society, and hence make it and its disciples loved instead of
hated. And then how could they be “hated of all men,” when
not one man in a thousand ever heard of them ? Here is more
of the extravagance of religious enthusiasm.

13.   “Shake off the dust of your feet” against those who can-
not see the truth or utility of your doctrines. (Matt. x. 14.)
Here Christ encourages in his disciples a spirit of contempt
for the opinions of others calculated to make them “ hated.” A
proper regard for the rules of good-breeding would have for-
bidden, such rudeness toward strangers for a mere honest differ-
ence of opinion.

14.   “Take nothing for your journey, neither staff, nor scrip,
nor purse ” (Mark vi. ; that is, “ sponge on your friends, and
force yourselves on your enemies,” the latter class of which
seem to have been much the most numerous. A preacher who
should attempt to carry out this advice at the present day would
be stopped at the first toll-gate, and compelled to return.
Here is more violation of the rules of good-breeding, and the
common courtesies of civilized life.
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

15.   “ Go and teach all nations,” &c. Why issue an injunc-
tion that could not possibly be carried out ? It never has been,
and never will be, executed, for three fourths of the human race
have never yet heard of Christianity. It was not, therefore, a
mark of wisdom, or a superior mind, to issue such an injunc-
tion.

16.   “And he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved;
but he that believeth not shall be damned.” What intolerance,
bigotry, relentless cruelty, and ignorance of the science of
mind are here displayed! No philosopher would give utter-
ance to, or indorse such a sentiment. It assumes that belief
is a creature of the will, and that a man can believe anything
he chooses, which is wide of the truth. And the assumption
has been followed by persecution, misery, and bloodshed.

17.   “ All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing,
ye shall receive.” (Matt. xxi. 22.) Here is an entire negation
of natural law in the necessity of physical labor as a means
to procure the comforts of life. When anything is wanted in
the shape of food or raiment, it is to be obtained, according to
this text, by going down on your knees and asking God to be-
stow it. But no Christian ever realized “all things whatso-
ever asked for in prayer,” though “believing with all his heart ”
he should obtain it. The author knows, by his own practical
experience, that this declaration is not true. This promise has
been falsified thousands of times by thousands of praying
Christians.

18.   “Be not called rabbi.” “Call no man your father.”
(Matt, xxiii.) The Christian world assume that much of what
Christ taught is mere idle nonsense, or the incoherent utterings
of a religious fanatic; for they pay no more practical atten-
tion to it than the barking of a dog. And here is one com-
mand treated in this manner: “ Call no man father.” Where
is the Christian who refuses to call his earthly sire a father?

19.   “ Call no man master.” (Matt, xxiii.) And yet mister,
which is the same thing, is the most common title in Christen-
dom.

20.   He who enunciates the two words, “4 Thou fool,’ shall
be in danger of hell fire.” (Matt, xxii.'l Mercy! Who, then,
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347

[Prometheus]

can be saved ? For there is probably not a live Christian in
the world who has not called somebody a “fool,” when he
knew him to be such, and could not with truthfulness be called
anything else. Here, then, is another command universally
ignored and “ indefinitely postponed.”

21.   “ Swear not at all, neither by heaven nor earth.” (Matt,
v.) And yet no Christian refuses to indulge in legal, if not pro-
fane, swearing which the text evidently forbids.

22.   “Men ought always to pray.” (Luke xviii.) No
time to be allowed for eating or sleeping. More religious
fanaticism.

23.   “ Whosoever will be chief among you let him be your
servant ” (Matt. xx. 27) ; that is, no Christian professor shall
be a president, governor, major-general, deacon, or priest.
Another command laid on the table.

24.   “Love your enemies.” (Matt. v. 44.) Then what kind
of feeling should we cultivate toward friends ? And how much
did he love his enemies when he called them “ fools,” “ liars,”
“ hypocrites,” “ generation of vipers,” &c. ? And yet he is held
up as “ our” example in love, meekness, and forbearance. But
no man ever did love an enemy. It is a moral impossibility,
as much so as to love bitter or nauseating food. The advice
of the Roman slave Syrus is indicative of more sense and
wisdom — “ Treat your enemy kindly, and thus make him a
friend.”

25.   We are required to forgive an enemy four hundred
and ninety times; that is, “ seventy times seven.” (Matt, vii.)
Another outburst of religious enthusiasm; another proof of an
overheated imagination.

26. “ Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is per-
fect.” (Matt. v. 48.) Here is more of the religious extrava-
gance of a mind uncultured by science. For it is self-evident
that human beings can make no approximation to divine per-
fection. The distance between human imperfection and a per-
fect God is, and ever must be, infinite.

27.   Christ commended those who “ became eunuchs for the
kingdom of heaven’s sake ” (Matt. xix. 12) — a custom requiring
a murderous, self-butchering process; destructive of the energies
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818

of life and the vigor of manhood, and rendering the subject
weak, effeminate, and mopish, and unfit for the business of life.
It is a low species of piety, and discloses a lamentable lack of a
scientific knowledge of the true functions of the sexual organs
on the part of Jesus.

28.   Christ also encouraged t his disciples to “ pluck out the
eye,” and “cut off the hand,” as a means of rendering it im-
possible to perpetrate evil with those members. And we would
suggest, if such advice is consistent with sound reasoning, the
head also should be cut off, as a means of more effectually carry-
ing out the same principle. Such advice never came from the
mouth of a philosopher. It is a part of Christ’s system of ex-
travagant piety.

29.   He also taught the senseless, oriental tradition of “ the
unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost” — a fabulous being,
who figured more anciently in the history of various countries.
(See Chapter XXII.) No philosopher orman of science could
harbor such childish conceptions as are embodied in this tradi-
tion, which neither describes the being nor explains the nature
of the sin.

80.   We find many proofs, in Christ’s Gospel history, that ha
believed in the ancient heathen tradition which taught that
disease is caused by demons and evil spirits. (See Luke vii.
21, and viii. 2.)

81.   Many cases are reported of his relieving the obsessed by
casting out the diabolical intruders, in imitation of the oriental
custom long in vogue in various couutries, by which he evinced
a profound ignorance of the natural causes of disease.

82.   Christ also taught the old pagan superstition that “ God
is a God of anger,” while modern science teaches that it would
be as impossible for a God of perfect and infinite attributes to
experience the feeling of anger as to commit suicide ; and recent
discoveries in physiology prove that anger is a species of sui-
cide, and that it is also a species of insanity. Hence an
angry God would be an insane God — an omnipotent lunatic5
“ ruling the kingdom of heaven,” which would make heaven a
lunatic asylum, and rather a dangerous place to live.

88. And Christ’s injunction to “fear God” also implies that
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349

he is an angry being. (See Luke xxiii. 40.) But past history
proves that “ the fear of God ” has always been the great lever
of priestcraft, and the most paltry and pitiful motive that ever
moved the human mind. It has paralyzed the noblest intel-
lects, crushed the elasticity of youth, and augmented the hesi-
tating indecision of old age, and finally filled the world with
cowardly, trembling slaves. No philosopher will either love or
worship a God he fears. “ The fear of the Lord ” is a very
ancient heathen superstition.

34. The inducement Christ holds out for leading a virtuous
life by the promise of “ Well done, thou good and faithful ser-
vant,” bespeaks a childish ignorance of the nature of the human
mind and the true science of life. It ranks with the promise
of the nurse of sugar-plums to the boy if he would keep his
garments unsoiled. (For the remainder of the two hundred
errors of Christ, see Yol. II.)

There are many other errors found in the precepts and prac-
tical life of Jesus Christ (which we are compelled to omit an
exposition of here), such as his losing his temper, and abusing
the money-changers by overthrowing their counting-table, and
expelling them from the temple with a whip of cords when en-
gaged in a lawful and laudable business; his getting mad at and
cursing the fig tree; his dooming Capernaum to hell in a fit of
anger; his being deceived by two of his disciples (Peter and
Judas), which prompted him to call them devils; his implied
approval of David, with his fourteen crimes and penitentiary
deeds, and also of Abraham, with his falsehoods, polygamy, and
incest, and his implied sanction of the Old Testament, with all
its errors and numerous, crimes; his promise to his twelve
apostles to “ sit upon the twelve thrones of Israel ” in heaven,
thus evincing a very limited and childish conception of the en-
joyments of the future life ; his puerile idea of sin, consisting in
a personal affront to a personal God; his omission to say any-
thing about human freedom, the inalienable rights of man, &c.

The Scientific Errors of Christ.

That Jesus Christ was neither a natural or moral philosopher
is evident from the following facts: —
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

1.   He never made any use of the word “ philosophy.”

2.   Never gave utterance to the word u science.”

3.   Never spoke of a natural law, or assigned a natural cause
for anything. The fact that he never made use of these words
now so current in all civilized countries, is evidence that he
was totally ignorant of these important branches of knowledge,
the cultivation of which is now known to be essential to the
progress of civilization. And yet it is claimed his religion has
been a great lever in the advancement of civilization. But this
is a mistake — a solemn mistake, as elsewhere shown. (See
Chap. XLV.)

4.   Everything to Christ was miracle; everything was pro-
duced and controlled by the arbitrary power of an angry or
irascible God. He evidently had no idea of a ruling principle
in nature or of the existence of natural law, as controlling any
event he witnessed. Hence he set no bounds to anything, and
recognized no limits to the possible. He believed God to be
a supernatural personal being, who possessed unlimited power,
and who ruled and controlled everything by his arbitrary will,
without any law or any limitation to its exercises. Hence he
told his disciples they would have anything they prayed for in
faith ; that by faith they could roll mountains into the sea, or
bring to a halt the rolling billows of the mighty deep. He
evidently believed that the forked lightning, the outbursting
earth-shaking thunder, and the roaring, heaving volcano were
but pliant tools or obsequious servants to the man of faith.
And he displays no less ignorance of the laws of mind than
the laws of nature; thus proving him to have been neither a
natural, moral, nor mental philosopher. He omitted to teach
the great moral lessons learned by human experience, of which
he was evidently totally ignorant.

5.   He never taught that the practice of virtue contains its
own reward.

6.   That the question of right and wrong of any action is to
be decided by its effect upon the individual, or upon society.

7.   That no life can be displeasing to God which is useful to
man.

8.   And he omitted to teach the most important lesson that
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351

can engage the attention of man, viz.: that the great purpose
of life is self-development.

9.   That no person can attain or approximate to real happi-
ness without bestowing a special attention to the cultivation
and exercise of all the mental and physical faculties, so far as
to keep them in a healthy condition. None of the important
lessons above named are hinted at in his teachings, which, if
punctually observed, would do more to advance the happiness
of the human race than all the sermons Christ or Chrishna ever
preached, or ever taught.

10.   And then he taught many doctrines which are plainly
contradicted by the established principle of modern science,
such as, —

11.   Disease being produced by demons, devils, or wicked
spirits. (See Mark ix. 20.)

Christ nowhere assigns a natural cause for disease, or a
scientific explanation for its cure.

12.   His rebuking a fever discloses a similar lack of scientific
knowledge. (See Luke iv. 39.)

13.   His belief in a literal hell and a lake of fire and brim-
stone (see Matt, xviii. is an ancient heathen superstition
science knows nothing about, and has no use for.

14.   His belief in a personal devil also (see Matt. xvii. 18),
which is another oriental tradition, furnishes more sad proof of
an utter want of scientific knowledge, as science has no place
for and no use for such a being.

15.   Christ taught the unphilosophical doctrine of repentance,
as he declared he “ came to call sinners to repentance” (Matt,

ix.   13) — a mental process, which consists merely in a revival of
early impressions, and often leads a person to condemn that
which is right, as well as that which is wrong. (For proof, see
Chapter XLIII.)

16.   The doctrine of “ forgiveness,” which Christ so often in
culcated, is also at variance with the teachings of science, as it
can do nothing toward changing the nature of the act forgiven,
or toward cancelling its previous effects upon society. Science
teaches that every crime has its penalty attached to it, which
no act of forgiveness, by God or man, can arrest or set aside.
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

17.   But nothing evinces, perhaps, more clearly Christ’s total
lack of scientific knowledge than his holding a man responsible
for his belief, and condemning for disbelief, as he does in nu-
merous instances (see Mark xvi. 16), for a man could as easily
control the circulation of the blood in his veins as control his
belief. Science teaches that belief depends upon evidence,
and without it, it is impossible to believe, and with it, it is impos-
sible to disbelieve. How foolish and unphilosophical, therefore,
to condemn for either belief or disbelief!

18.   The numerous cases in which Christ speaks of the heart
as being the seat of consciousness, instead of the brain, evinces
a remarkable ignorance of the science of mental philosophy.
He speaks of an “upright heart,” “a pure heart,” &c., when
“an upright liver,” “a pure liver,” would be as sensible, as
the latter has as much to do with the character as the former.

19.   And the many cases in which he makes it meritorious to
have a right “ faith,” and places it above reason, and assumes
it to be a voluntary act, shows his utter ignorance of the nature
of the human mind.

20.   And Christ evinced a remarkable ignorance of the cause
of physical defects, when he told his hearers a certain man was
born blind, in order that he might cure him. (Matt. vii. 22.)

21.   And Christ’s declaration, that those who marry are not
worthy of being saved (see Luke xx. 34), shows that he was
very ignorant of the nature of the sexual functions of the
human system.

22.   Nothing could more completely demonstrate a total
ignorance of the grand science of astronomy than Christ’s pre-
diction of the stars falling to the earth. (See Luke xxi. 25.)

23.   And the conflagration of the world, “ the gathering of
the elect,” and the realization of a fancied millennium, which
he several times predicted would take place in his time, “ before
this generation pass away” (Matt. xxiv. 34), proves a like
ignorance, both of astronomy and philosophy.

24.   And his cursing of the fig tree for not bearing fruit in
the winter season (see Matt. xxi. 20), not only proves his
ignorance of the laws of nature, but evinces a bad temper.

25.   Christ indorses the truth of Noah’s flood story (see Luke
 PRECEPTS OF JESUS.

353

xvii. 27), which every person at the present day, versed in
science and natural law, knows is mere fiction, and never took
place.

And numerous other errors, evincing the most profound
ignorance of science and natural law, might be pointed out in
Christ’s teachings, if we had space for them. It has always
been alleged by orthodox Christendom, that Christ’s teach-
ing and moral system are so faultless as to challenge criticism,
and so perfect as to defy improvement. But this is a serious
mistake. For most of his precepts and moral inculcations
which are not directly at war with the principles of science, or
do not involve a flagrant violation of the laws of nature, are*
nevertheless, characterized by a lawless and extravagant mode
of expression peculiar to semi-savage life, and which, as it
renders it impossible to reduce them to practice, shows they
could not have emanated from a philosopher, or man of science,
or a man of evenly-balanced mind. They impose upon the
world a system of morality, pushed to such extremes that its
own professed admirers do not live it out, or even attempt to
do so. They long ago abandoned it as an impracticable duty.
We will prove this by enumerating most of its requisitions, and
showing that they are daily violated and trampled under foot
by all Christendom. Where can the Christian professor be
found who, 1. “takes no thought for the morrow;” or, 2. who
“lays not up treasure on earth,” or, at least, tries to do it; or, 3.
who “gives up all his property to the poor;” or who, “when
his cloak is wrested from him by a robber, gives up his coat
also; or who calls no man master or mister (the most common
title in Christendom) ; or who calls no man father (if he has a
father) ; or who calls no man a fool (when he knows he is a fool) ;
or who, when one cheek is pommeled into a jelly by some vile
miscreant or drunken wretch, turns the other to be battered up
in the same way; or who prays without ceasing; or who rejoices
when persecuted; or who forgives an enemy four hundred and
ninety times (70 times 7); or who manifests by his practical
life that he loves his enemies (the way he loves him is to
report him to the grand jury, or hand him over to the sheriff) ;
or who forsakes houses and land, and everything, “for the king-
23
 854

THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

dom of heaven sake.” No Christian professor lives up to these
precepts, or any of them, or even tries to do so. To talk, there
fore, of finding a practical Christian, while nearly the whole
moral code of Christ is thus daily and habitually outraged and
trampled under foot by all the churches and every one of the
two hundred millions of Christian professors, is bitter irony and
supreme solecism. We would go five hundred miles, or pay
five hundred dollars, to see a Christian. If a man can be a
Christian while openly and habitually violating every precept
of Christ, then the word has no meaning. These precepts, the
Christian world finding to be impossible to practice, have unan-
imously laid upon the table under the rule of “indefinite post-
ponement.” They are the product of a mind with an ardent
temperament, and the religious faculties developed to excess,
and unrestrained by scientific or intellectual culture. A simi-
lar vein of extravagant religious duty is found in the Essenian,
Budhist, and Pythagorean systems. As Zera Colburn possessed
the mathematical faculty to excess, and Jenny Lind the musical
talent, Christ in like manner was all religion. And from the
extreme ardor of his religious feeling, thus derived, sprang his
extravagant notions of the duties of life. This peculiarity of
his organization explains the whole mystery.

Christ as a Man, and Christ as a Sectarian.

[Prometheus]

To every observant and unbiased mind a strange contrast
must be visible in the practical life of Jesus Christ when viewed
in his twofold capacity of a man and a priest. While standing
upon the broad plane of humanity, with his deep sympathetic
nature directed towTard the poor, the unfortunate, and the down-
trodden, there often gushed forth from his impassioned bosom
the most sublime expressions of pity, and the strongest out-
burst of commiseration for wrongs and sufferings, and his noble
goodness and tender love yearned with a throbbing heart to
relieve them. But the moment he put on the sacerdotal robe,
and assumed the character of a priest, that moment, if any one
crossed his path by refusing to yield to his requisitions of faith,
or dissented from his religious creed, his whole nature was
seemingly changed. It was no longer, “ Blessed are ye,” but
 355

PRECEPTS OP'^ESUS.

“Cursed are ye,” or “Woe unto you.” Like the founders of
other religious systems, he was ardent toward friends and bit-
ter toward enemies, and extolled his own religion, while he
denounced all others. His way was the only way, and a 1 who
did not walk therein, or conform thereto, were loaded with
curses and imprecations, and all who could not accomplish
the impossible mental achievement of believing everything he
set forth or urged upon their credence, and that, too, without
evidence, were to be eternally damned. All who climbed up
any other way were thieves and robbers. All who professed
faith in any other religion than his were on the road to hell.
Like the oriental Gods, he taught that the world was to be
saved through faith in him and his religion. All who did not
honor him were to be dishonored by the Father. And “ with-
out faith (in him and his religion), it is impossible to please
God.” He declared that all who were not for him were against
him; and all who were not on the same road are “ heathens
and publicans.” His disciples were enjoined to shake off the
dust from their feet as a manifestation of displeasure toward
those who could not conscientiously subscribe to their creeds
and dogmas. Thus we discover a strong vein of intolerance
and sectarianism in the religion of the otherwise, and in other
respects, the kind and loving Jesus. Though most benignantly
kind and affectionate while moving and acting under the con-
trolling impulses of his lofty manhood, yet when his ardent re-
ligious feelings were touched, he became chafed, irritated, and
sometimes intolerant. He then could tolerate no such thing as
liberty of conscience, or freedom of thought, or the right to
differ with him in religious belief. His extremely ardent devo-
tional nature, when roused into action in defense of a stereo-
typed faith, eclipsed his more noble, lofty, and lovely traits,
and often dimmed his mental vision, thus presenting in the same
individual a strange medley, and a strange contrast of the most
opposite traits of character. That such a being should have
been considered and worshiped as a God, and for the very
reason that he possessed such strange, contradictory traits of
character, and often let his religion run riot with his reason,
will be looked upon by posterity as one of the strangest chap-
 356

THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

ters in the history of the human race. But so it is. Extraor-
dinary good qualities, though intermingled with many errors
and human foibles, have deified many men.

Note. One Christian writer alleges, in defense of the objectionabU
precepts of Jesus Christ, that “He taught some errors in condescension
to the ignorance of the people.” If this be true, that he taught both truth
and falsehood, then the question arises, How can we know which is which?
By what rule can we discriminate them, as he himself furnishes none?
Or how are we to determine that he taught truth at all? And then
this plea would account for and excuse all the errors found in the teach-
ings of the oriental Gods. If it will apply in one case, it will in the other.
And thus it proves too much.
 CHRIST AS A SPIRITUAL MEDIUM.

357

CHAPTER XLII.

CHRIST AS A SPIRITUAL MEDIUM.

Theke are many incidents related in the life of Christ, which,
when critically examined, furnish abundant evidence that he
was what is now known as a spiritual medium. He unques-
tionably represented, and often practically exhibited, several
important phases of modern mediumship.

1.   The many instantaneous cures which he wrought, as re-
ported in his Gospel narrative, performed in the same manner
that “ spirit doctors ” now heal the sick, prove that he was an
excellent “ healing medium.”

2.   His declaration to Nathanael, “ When thou wast under the
fig tree, I saw thee,” and his recounting to the woman of
Samaria the deeds of her past life (acts similar to which are
now performed every day by spiritualists), are evidence that
he was also a “clairvoyant medium.”

3.   His walking on the water (if the story is true), as D. D.
Home has frequently, within the past few yeaiv, walked or
floated on the air in the presence of many witnesses (including
men of science, royal personages, and members of parliament),
entitles him to the appellation of a “ physical medium.”

4.   And the circumstance of his pointing his disciples to the
mark of the spear in his side, and the print of the nails in his
hands, while amongst them as a spirit, has led many spiritualists
to conclude he was also a “ medium for materialization.” His
spirit was made to present the peculiar marks which had
been inflicted upon his physical body, cases parallel to which
are now witnessed every day by modern spiritualists. Hun-
dreds of cases have occurred of departed spirits presenting
themselves to their friends with all the peculiar marks which
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THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

their physical bodies had long worn while in the earth life.
And the former physical wounds have often been exhibited by
the spirit in the same manner Christ exhibited his. And thus
spiritualism explains the phenomenon which otherwise would
be entirely incredible.

5.   And there is yet another phase of mediumship which
Christ often exhibited in his practical life. He claimed to have
frequent intercourse with some invisible being, whom he called
“ the Father.” But as modern science has settled the ques-
tion of the personality of God in the negative, we are led to
conclude that Christ, like many eminent persons since his time,
mistook some finite spirit for the great infinite but impersonal
Father spirit — though his attendant invisible companion was
probably a spirit of a very high order. And the great beauty
and grandeur of his life are exhibited by his frequent intercourse
with and dependence upon this his “ guardian spirit.” He de-
clared he did nothing of himself, so dependent was he upon
his invisible guide. And the strongest proof that he had a
spirit companion, which he often looked to for counsel and aid,
and that this was the being he called the Father, is furnished
by the fact, that when he prayed to the Father, his petition
was answered by an angel spirit. (See Luke xxii. 44.) And
there is no account and no evidence of any invisible or spirit-
ual being ever presenting itself to him but an angel or spirit.
That he should have supposed this spirit to be the great infinite
Father God was very natural. Thousands since, and some be-
fore his time, committed a similar mistake. The author has
known several persons who had long had intercourse with some
invisible being they supposed to be God, who have recently^ by
the light afforded by modern spiritualism, become entirely con-
vinced that they had simply mistaken a finite spirit for the great
Infinite Spirit. And did Christ live in our day, he would proba-
bly be rescued from a similar error in the same way. In con-
clusion, we will remark that it was doubtless his frequent dis-
plays of several very remarkable phases of spiritual medium-
ship that contributed much to lead the people into the error of
supposing him to be God. And this fact will yet be known.
 CONVERSION OF HEATHEN ORIGIN.

359

CHAPTER XLIII.

CONVERSION, REPENTANCE, AND “ GETTING
RELIGION ” OF HEATHEN ORIGIN.

Their Numerous Eyils and Absurdities.

Of all the follies ever enacted or exhibited under the
sun, and of all the ignorance of history, science, and human
nature ever displayed in the history of the human race, that
which stands out in bold relief, as pre-eminent, is the fashionable
custom of conversion, or “ getting religion.” When the evi-
dence lies all around us as thick as the fallen leaves of autumn,
clustering on the pages of history, and proclaimed by every
principle of mental science, that what is called conversion is
nothing but a mental and temperamental or nervous phenom-
enon— a psychological process — how can we rank those
amongst intelligent people who still claim it to be “the power
of God operating upon the soul of the sinner”? Ignorance is
the only plea that can acquit them of the charge of imbecility.
The number who daily fall victims to this priestly delusion in
various parts of the country may be reckoned by thousands.
We propose in this chapter to exhibit some of the evils and
absurdities of this wide-spread delusion and religious mono-
mania. To do so the more effectually, we will arrange the
presentation of the subject under four separate heads We
will attempt to show, —

1.   Its historical errors.

2.   Its logical errors.

3.   Its philosophical or scientific errors.

4.   Its moral evils.
 8G0

THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

1st. Its Historical Errors. — Can we conceive it possible that
the thousands of priests who are now employed in “ converting
souls to God” are so ignorant of history as not to know that it
is an old pagan custom ? that it was prevalent in heathen coun-
tries long before a single soul was converted to Christianity,
and is earned on to some extent now, both among pagans and
Mahomedans ? From such facts it would appear (viewing the
matter from the Christian stand-point) that God is indifferent
as to what kind of religion, or what sort of religious nonsense,
people are converted to, or whether it is truth or error they
embrace, or whether it is a true religion or a false one they
imbibe, so he gets them converted. According to Mr. Hig-
gins, the practice of converting people from one sect to another
by the popular priesthood was prevalent under the ancient
Persian system, and was carried on there quite extensively
more than three thousand years ago; and the process was essen-
tially the same as that now in vogue amongst modern Method^
ists, and the effect the same. At their large revival meetings
the whole congregation would sometimes become so affected
under the eloquent ministrations of the officiating priest, as
to cry, and shout, and prostrate themselves upon the ground,
which was afterward found to be drenched with their tears;
and on these occasions they would confess their sins to each
other, and to their priests; and yet those very sins they con-
demned were, perhaps, amongst the best acts of their lives,
while their real crimes were overlooked and justified, instead of
being condemned, thus showing that an honest, just, and sensi-
ble God could have had nothing to do with it. And we have
reports of similar scenes witnessed more recently among the
Mahomedans. Major Denham furnishes us an account of
some “revival meetings” he attended a few years since in
Arabia, carried on by one of the Mahomedan sects. On one
occasion the effect of the discourse of the preacher upon the
audience in the way of “ converting souls to God ” was so
powerful, that he could only convince himself that he was not
in a Methodist revival meeting by a knowledge of his geograph-
ical position. The preacher’s name was Malem Chadily, and
here is a specimen of some of his language. “ Turn, turn, sin-
 CONVERSION OF HEATHEN ORIGIN.

361

ner, unto God; confess he is good, and that Mahomet is his
prophet; wash, and become clean of your sins, and paradise
is open before you: without this nothing can save you from
eternal fire.” During this earnest appeal (says the major),
tears flowed plentifully, and everybody appeared to be affected.
One of his hearers, becoming converted, shouted, “Your words,
pierce my soul,” and fell upon the floor. Now let it be borne
in mind, that Mahomet is stigmatized and condemned by the
Christian churches as “ a false prophet,” and his religion de-
nounced as “ a system of fraud,” “ a false religion,” &c. Of
course, then, Christians will not argue, nor admit, that conver-
sion, and “getting religion,” in this case, is the work of God.
A just God would have nothing to do in converting people to
“a false religion.” What explanation shall we adopt for it
then ? To assume it to be the work of the devil (the dernier
ressort for all religious difficulties), and conversions among
Christians the work of God, when both are so clearly and
obviously alike, is to insult common sense. To assume that
two things, exactly alike in character, can be exactly and dia-
metrically unlike in origin, is a scientific paradox which no
person of common intelligence can swallow, or accept for a
moment. Both, then, we must admit, have the same origin.
This train of argument leads us to speak of,—

2d. The Logical Absurdities of the Doctrine of Conversion.
— There are several circumstances which point, unmistakably as
the needle to the pole, to the mundane origin of the phenome-
non of conversion.

The character of many of the priestly conductors who “ run
the battery,” is sufficient of itself to preclude the hypothesis of
any divine agency in the matter. The most powerful revivalist
we ever knew, the priest who could convert an audience the
quickest, and bring down sinners to the mourners’ bench faster
than any other clergyman we ever heard “ dealing out dam-
nation ” to the people, was a broad-shouldered, muscular, sten-
torian-voiced circuit rider of the “Buckeye State,” who, as
was afterward learned, was guilty of perpetrating some of the
blackest crimes that ever blotted the page of human history, at
the very time of his most successful career in the way of “ con*
 362

THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

victing souls of sin, and converting them to God.” He was
apprehended by the officers of the law in the midst of one of
his most flourishing revivals, under the twofold charge, 1. Of
being the father of an illegitimate child, the young mother
of which was a member of his church; 2. Of defrauding one
of his neighbors in a trade, to the amount of nearly a thousand
dollars — both of which charges he was convicted of. A
similar case, but possessing some worse features, occurred a few
years since in the county in which the author now resides. A
preacher, who had had criminal connection with a young woman
of his church, in order to conceal his guilt resorted to the
damnable expedient of administering poison to bis victim shortly
before his illicit intercourse with her would have been made
manifest by the birth of a child, thus committing a double murder.
He was apprehended for the crime while carrying on “ a most glo-
rious revival,” as it was styled by some of the deluded congre-
gation. Now to ascribe the irresistible power which these two
preachers exerted over their audience (in the way of “ convert-
them to God ”) to a divine source, as they claimed for it, would
be to trifle with common sense, common decency, and all
honorable conceptions of a God. These reverend scamps often
instituted the high claim of being “ called of God ” to their
ministerial labors. But if we concede the claim, we should have
to conclude that God knew but little about them, for he cer-
tainly would not knowingly employ such moral outlaws upon
such an important mission.

Having thus briefly spoken of the character of some of the
actors and agents in the work of conversion, we will now
glance at the character of some of the religions and religious
ideas, and moral course of conduct, to which the sinner is con-
verted. It is evident that if an All-wise God had anything to
do in the process of converting people to any system of reli-
gion, he would also convert them to correct moral habits. But
in many cases, after conversion they are no nearer right in this
respect, and in some cases further from it than before being
thus sanctified. In some cases their religion becomes worse,
their religious ideas less sensible, and their moral conduct more
objectionable, by “the change of heart” in “getting religion.”
 CONVERSION OF HEATHEN ORIGIN

363

Mr. Spencer informs us that the Vewas, a sect or tribe of the
Feegees, often cry for hours under conviction for sin. And
what is that sin ? Why, the neglect to offer sacrifices to their
God. And those sacrifices consist in human beings, sometimes
their own children. And their conviction, conversion, and re-
pentance only make them more diligent in practicing this
crime. It is evident, then, that their religion is at war with
their humanity, and the former always triumphs in the contest.
They are addicted to cannibalism, infanticide, and polygamy.
But as the process of “ getting religion ” never makes anybody
more intelligent, the “ change of heart,” with the Vewas, never
changes their views, or opens their eyes to see the enormity of
their crimes. In “ getting religion ” people get neither sense,
knowledge, nor morality. They get neither a larger stock, nor
an improved quality, of either. Their moral conduct is not
often sensibly improved, materially or permanently.

[Prometheus]

3d. Scientific Errors, and Scientific Explanations of Conver-
sion.— The phenomena of conversion and “getting religion”
are so easily explained in the light of science and philosophy,
and that explanation is susceptible of so many proofs and demon-
strations, that it seems remarakably strange that any persons
claiming to be intelligent, and situated in the focal, scientific
light of the nineteenth century, should still be hampered with
the delusion that such phenomena are the direct display of the
power of God. It requires but little investigation and reflec-
tion to convince any person that what is called conversion, and
“ repentance for sin,” is nothing but the revival of early educa-
tional impressions resuscitated by the influence of mind on
mind. No person has ever been known to get or embrace a
religion he was not biased in favor of prior to the time of his
conversion, unless we except a few weak-minded persons nega-
tive to any influence, and convertible to any religion the priest
may urge upon their attention. A very strong proof of this
statement is furnished by the history of the Christian mission-
ary enterprise. The reports of travelers and sojourners in
India show, that with two hundred years’ labor, and two hun-
dred missionaries in the field during a part of that period, the
churches have not succeeded in converting one in ten thousand
 364

THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

of the Hindoos to the Christian religion — unless we except
those who, while children, were sent to Christian schools insti-
tuted by the missionaries for the special purpose of converting
and warping the young mind, and welding it to the Christian
faith before it should receive an unchangeable and unyielding
bias in favor of another religion. So fruitless has been the
effort to convert to Christianity those who were already es-
tablished in the religion of the country, that, according to the
estimate of Colonel Dow, each convert, on an average, has cost
the missionary enterprise not less than ten thousand dollars.
An intelligent Hindoo, while lecturing recently in London,
made the remarkable statement, that conversions which are
made to the Christian religion are not amongst the intelligent
or learned classes, but are confined to the low, ignorant, and
superstitious classes, “ who have not sense or intelligence
enough to perceive the difference between the religion they are
converted toy and that which they are converted from.” And
the effort to convert the Mahomedans, Chinese, Persians, and
the disciples of other religions has been attended with the same
fruitless results — all seeming to warrant the conclusion that
God can do but little toward converting any nation to Chris-
tianity which has always been biased in favor of another reli-
gion. The reason why people are so easily converted from
one sect to another in Christian countries is owing to the fact
that their religious convictions are unsettled. The members
of the different Christian sects are all mixed up together in
the various settlements throughout the country, and are
brought in daily contact with each other in the busy scenes
of life.

Hence the children have the seeds of Methodism, Presbyteri-
anism, Baptistism, Quakerism, and various other isms implanted
in their minds in very early life. And which one of these will
ultimately predominate depends upon what priest they fhll
victims to first. Having thus the germs of so many religious
isms implanted in their minds, they are easily shifted about,
and converted from one sect to another. And this shuttlecock
process is called “getting religion,” while, if they had lived in
 CONVERSION OF HEATHEN ORIGIN.

365

a country where only one form of religion exists, they would be
as hard to convert as Mahomedans and Hindoos.

Repentance.— Much importance is attached by the orthodox
churches to the act of getting religion in the dying hour, —
called “ death-bed repentance,” — as if a person were better capa-
ble of discriminating between right and wrong when his brain
is deranged with fever, and his whole system racked with
disease and pain, than when in health. Such repentance can
do nothing more than prove the honesty of the dying man or
woman. For very often their doctrines, or religious belief, will
be found to be no nearer right, and sometimes more erroneous
after repentance than before, as repentance merely consists in
the return to early impressions — the revival of former convic-
tions, which may be either right or wrong, and are about as
likely to be the latter as the former. No instance can be found
of a person condemning a wrong act, or a wrong course of life,
in his dying moments, unless he had previously believed it to
be wrong, or if he had always believed it to be right. How
much, then, does repentance do toward deciding what is right
and what is wrong? Mahomedanism we know to be deeply
fraught with error, but we never read nor heard of an instance
of the many millions who had been educated to believe it
is right, condemning it on their death-beds, or repenting for not
having embraced Christianity, and led the life of a Christian,
or for adoring Mahomet instead of Jesus Christ. On the con-
trary we have a well-authenticated instance of a Mahomedan
(a Mr. Merton} who had embraced Christianity, and lived the
life of a Christian for many years, renouncing it all, and return-
ing to his primitive faith, when he was taken sick and became
apprehensive he was going to die : his early religious impres-
sions, returning involuntarily, wiped out his Christianity, and
he died glorying in Mahomedanism. And we have an equally
well authenticated case of an Indian of the Choctaw tribe, who
had been taught to believe from early life that the white man
was his natural enemy, and that it was his right and duty to
kill him, repenting on his death-bed for having a short time
previously neglected, when the opportunity presented, to de-
 366

THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

spatch a “pale face” he met in his travels. Instead of killing
him, he yielded for the moment to the impulse of his better
feelings, and passed him by. But on reviewing his past life at
the approach of death, he came to the conclusion he had sinned
in omitting to kill this man, and he grieved and lamented
sorely over this dereliction of apprehended duty. Here we have
a case of repentance sanctioning murder. Must we, therefore,
conclude that murder is morally right, or a righteous act?
Certainly, according to orthodox logic.

Their religious tracts assume that repentance is always for
the right, and is prima facie evidence of being right. If not,
what does it prove, or of what moral value is it ? According
to orthodox teaching, being “a murderer at heart,” he was
as consignable to perdition as if he had committed the act.
There is no escaping the conclusion, therefore, that his repent-
ance landed him in hell, or else proves murder to be right
according to orthodox logic.

We have known Quakers to leave their dying testimony
against water baptism; and Baptists, with their last breath,
declare it is right, and a sin to neglect it. Which is right ?
Who can tell? We have also known Quakers to condemn
dancing in their dying hours, but Shakers never; because one
had been taught that it is wrong, and the other that it is
right. And which testimony must we accept ? Mahomedans
often, when approaching the confines of time, repent (some-
times in tears) for not having lived out more rigidly the
injunctions of the Koran, but never regret not having been
Christians. They often call upon Mahomet to aid them
through the gates of death; but not one of the million who
die every year ever calls upon Jesus Christ. What, then, does
such a conflicting jargon of death-bed repentance prove ?
What good can grow out of it, or what moral value can pos-
sibly attach to it ? It establishes simply two principles, —

1st. That repentance grows out of education.

2d. That it depends entirely upon previous convictions as
to what it may sanction, and what it may condemn.

No Christian ever repents in favor of Mahomedanism; and
 CONVERSION OF HEATHEN ORIGIN.

367

no Mahomedan ever lifts up bis dying voice in favor of Chris-
tianity as being superior to his own religion; and no Hin-
doo has ever been known to indulge in death-bed lamenta-
tion for not having previously embraced either Christianity
or Mahomedanism; because their earlier education never
turned their minds in that direction. The mind has to be
educated over again before it can embrace a new religion,
or even condemn a wrong act, which, up to that period, it
had always believed to be right.

Hence it is evident repentance may lead a person to con-
demn what is right and sanction what is wrong. How pro-
foundly ignorant of religious history and mental science must
those persons therefore be who attach any importance to
those diseased and often incoherent utterances, called “ death-
bed recantations,” or who believe a thing the sooner because
sanctioned by a dying man or woman, or that they do any-
thing toward proving what is right or what is wrong with
respect to either our belief or our moral conduct! And yet
we find the orthodox churches printing every year, through
their tract societies, stories of death-bed repentance in tract
form, and scattering them over the country by the million.
As they prove nothing but the honesty of the dying man or
woman, they are not worth the paper on which they are
printed.

The phenomenon of repentance is simply the operation of
a natural law, by which the last impressions made upon the
“ mind are generally cancelled from the memory first, by the
progress of fever and disease, thus leaving the earlier impres-
sions to rule the judgment. The person is then virtually a
child, controlled by his early youthful convictions, with which,
if his late belief and conduct disagree, it causes a mental
conflict, called repentance. Thus, instead of being the visi-
tation of God, as Christians claim, repentance is shown to be
the product of natural causes. The conclusion is thus estab-
lished beyond disproof, that the mental processes called con-
version, repentance, and “getting religion ” are simply natural
psychological operations, depending upon education, organ-
 368

THE WORLD'S SAVIORS.

ization, and intelligence. They depend also upon intellect
and scientific knowledge. For persons of large intellectual
brains, or extensive scientific culture, never fall victims to these
mental derangements. Hence those priests who claim God
as their author are either deplorably and inexcusably ignorant,
or lacking in moral honesty.
 MORAL LESSONS OR RELIGIOUS IIISTORT. 869

CHAPTER XL1V.

THE MORAL LESSONS OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY.

1 The most important lesson deducible from all the religious
systems, commemorated in history, and noticed in this work, is,
that all religious conceptions, whether in the shape of doc-
trine, precept, prophecy, prayer, religious devotion, or a belief
in miracles, are a spontaneous outgrowth of the moral and
religious elements of the human mind. And to assign them
a higher origin is to ignore the developments of modern
science, and insult the highest intelligence of the age.

2.   From the elevated scientific plane occupied by the most
enlightened portion of the present age, there is no difficulty
in finding a satisfactory solution for every event, every occur-
rence, and every performance recorded in any of the numer-
ous bibles which have long been afloat in the world, and
which have always constituted the sole basis for the claim to
a divine origin of all the religious systems of the past; so
that such a claim can be no longer vindicated by historically
intelligent people.

3.   We have shown in this work that all the miraculous inci-
dents related in the history of Jesus Christ as a proof of his
divinity can find a more rational explanation than that which
assigns them to divine agency. Some of them are now known
to lie within the natural capacity of the human mind to
achieve, others are explained by recently discovered natural
laws. Another class are now well understood mental or
nervous phenomena. Other stories, now regarded by the
Christian world as referring to miraculous acchievements,
were probably designed by the writer as mere fable or meta-

24
 370

THE WORLDS SAVIORS.

phor. All the events in Christ’s history, we have shown, are
susceptible of a hundred fold more rational explanation than
that which regards them as the feats of a God in violation
of his own laws.

4.   We have also shown that the same marvelous inci-
dents now found incorporated in the Gospel history of Jesus
Christ were related long previously as a part of the sacred
history of other Gods; such as being miraculously conceived
and born of a virgin; born on the 25th of December; visited
in infancy by angels and shepherds; threatened by the ruler
of the country; being of royal lineage; receiving the same
divine titles; performing the same miracles, &c.

In a word, we have shown that various heathen Gods and
Demigods had, long before Christ’s advent, filled the same
chapter in history now reported of him in the Christian
New Testament. All these stories of the heathen Gods prove
as conclusively as any scientific problem can be demonstrated
by figures, that the same stories related of Jesus Christ have
no other foundation than that of heathen tradition. And
will the Christian world, then, hereafter stultify their common
sense by ignoring these facts of history so fatal to their claims ?
Past history points to an affirmative answer to this question,
as we will illustrate.

In the early history of this country, several reports were
published of showers of blood being seen to fall in some of
the sea-coast states, which were regarded as a divine judg-
ment. But the use of the telescope revealed the fact that
it was the ordure of butterflies, as those insects were seen at
the time in vast swarms. But the devout Christian, whose
faith in his religion has always been proof against the demon-
strations of science, would not give it up. He would not ac-
cept the butterfly explanation, but continued to teach his
children that it came from God out of heaven as a manifes-
tation of displeasure toward the sins of the people. And it
now remains to be seen whether Christian professors at the
present day will manifest a similar folly by standing out against
the demonstrated truths and facts of this work.
 MORAL LESSONS OF RELIGIOUS HISTORT. 371

5.   We here cite it as the last and most sorrowful lesson
of history, that no facts, no proofs, no demonstrations of
science can eradicate religious errors from the human mind,
if instilled in early life, and never disturbed till the possessor
arrives at mature age or middle life.
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THE WORLD’S SAVIORS.

CHAPTER XLV.

CONCLUSION AND REVIEW.

In writing the concluding chapter, of this work, the author
deems it proper to re-state some points, and elaborate others,
and anticipate some objections to some of the positions ad-
vanced. Each division of the subject will be marked by a
separate figure, and treated in a brief and succinct manner, as
follows: —

1.   Several persons, who examined this work before it went
to press, have expressed the opinion that it must exert a
powerful influence in the way of producing an entire revolution
in the religion of orthodox Christendom sooner or later. But
this must of course be the work of time, as moral revolutions
are not the work of a day. When the human system has been
long prostrated with chronic disease, no system of medication
can restore it at once to health. The same principle govern-
ing the mind makes it morally impossible to eradicate its deep-
ly-seated moral and religious errors in a day by even the
presentation of the most powerful and convincing truths and
demonstrations that can be brought to bear or operate upon
the human judgment. The mind instinctively repels every-
thing (no difference how true or how beautiful) that conflicts
with its long-established opinions and convictions. The fires
of truth usually require much time to burn their way through
those incrustations of moral and religious error which often
environ the human mind as the products of a false education.
But when they once enter, the work of convincement is com-
plete.

2.   It has been stated that the resemblance between Christi-
anity and the more ancient heathen systems is complete and
 CONCLUSION AND REVIEW.