[223:3] Dupuis: Origin of Religious Beliefs, pp. 246, 247.
[224:1] King"s Gnostics and their Remains, p. 225.
[224:2] Ibid. p. 226.
[224:3] See Higgins: Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 102. Dupuis: Origin of Religious Belief, pp. 256, 257, and Bonwick"s Egyptian Belief, p. 169.
[224:4] See Dupuis: Origin of Religious Belief, p. 135, and Higgins: Anacalypsis, vol. i. 322.
[224:5] Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. p. 294. See also, Goldzhier"s Hebrew Mythology, p. 127. Higgins: Anacalypsis, vol. i. p. 322, and Chambers"s Encyclo., art. "Hercules."
[224:6] Aryan Mytho., vol. ii. p. 90.
[224:7] See Bell"s Pantheon, vol. i. p. 56.
[224:8] Aryan Mytho., vol. ii p. 94.
[225:1] Mallet"s Northern Antiquities, p. 449.
[225:2] See Knight: Ancient Art and Mythology, p. 85.
[225:3] See Davies: Myths and Rites of the British Druids, pp. 89 and 208.
[225:4] See Kingsborough"s Mexican Antiquities, vol. vi. p. 166.
[225:5] Quoted in Bonwick"s Egyptian Belief, p. 174.
[225:6] As we shall see in the chapter on "The Birth-day of Christ Jesus."
[225:7] _Easter_, the triumph of Christ, was originally solemnized on the 25th of March, the very day upon which the Pagan G.o.ds were believed to have risen from the dead. (See Dupuis: Origin of Religious Belief, pp. 244, 255.)
A very long and terrible schism took place in the Christian Church upon the question whether _Easter_, the day of the resurrection, was to be celebrated on the 14th day of the first month, after the Jewish custom, or on the Lord"s day afterward; and it was at last decided in favor of the Lord"s day. (See Higgins: Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 90, and Chambers"s Encyclopaedia, art. "Easter.")
The day upon which Easter should be celebrated was not settled until the Council of Nice. (See Euseb. Life of Constantine, lib. 3, ch. xvii.
Also, Socrates" Eccl. Hist. lib. 1, ch. vi.)
[226:1] Even the name of "EASTER" is derived from the heathen G.o.ddess, _Ostrt_, of the Saxons, and the _Eostre_ of the Germans.
"Many of the popular observances connected with Easter are clearly of _Pagan origin_. The G.o.ddess Ostara or Eastre seems to have been the personification of the morning or East, and also of the opening year or Spring. . . . With her usual policy, the church endeavored to give a Christian significance to such of the rites as could not be rooted out; and in this case the conversion was practically easy." (Chambers"s Encyclo., art. "Easter.")
[226:2] Quoted in Dupuis: Origin of Religious Belief, p. 244.
[226:3] See Higgins: Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 340.
[227:1] Eccl. Hist., lib. 6, c. viii.
[227:2] Anacalypsis, ii. 59.
[228:1] See Bonwick"s Egyptian Belief, p. 24.
[228:2] See Chambers"s Encyclo., art. "Easter."
[228:3] Ibid.
[228:4] Matthew, xxviii. 17.
[228:5] See xii. 40; xvi. 21; Mark, ix. 31; xiv. 23; John, ii. 10.
[229:1] "And let not any one among you say, that _this very flesh_ is not judged, neither raised up. Consider, in what were ye saved? in what did ye look up, if not whilst ye were in this flesh? We must, therefore, keep our flesh as the temple of G.o.d. For in like manner as ye were called in the flesh, _ye shall also come to judgment_ in the flesh. Our one Lord Jesus Christ, who has saved us, being first a spirit, was made flesh, and so called us: _even so we also in this flesh, shall receive the reward_ (_of heaven_)." (II. Corinthians, ch. iv. _Apoc._ See also the Christian Creed: "I believe in the resurrection of the _body_.")
[229:2] Luke, xxiv. 37.
[229:3] Luke, xxiv. 42, 43.
[229:4] John, xxi. 12, 13.
[230:1] John, xx. 20.
[230:2] John, xx. 25.
[230:3] John, xx. 27.
[230:4] See, for a further account of the resurrection, Reber"s Christ of Paul; Scott"s English Life of Jesus; and Greg"s Creed of Christendom.
[230:5] See the Chapter x.x.xviii.
[231:1] Gibbon"s Rome, vol. i. p. 541.
[231:2] Nicodemus, Apoc. ch. xii.
[232:1] Baccalaureate Sermon, June 26th, 1881.
[232:2] Greg: The Creed of Christendom, p. 284.
[232:3] See Jameson"s Hist. of Our Lord in Art, vol. ii., and Lundy"s Monumental Christianity.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST JESUS, AND THE MILLENNIUM.
The second coming of Christ Jesus is clearly taught in the canonical, as well as in the apocryphal, books of the New Testament. Paul teaches, or _is made to teach it_,[233:1] in the following words:
"If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will G.o.d bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive _and remain unto the coming of the Lord_, shall not prevent them which are asleep. _For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven_ with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of G.o.d, and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be _caught up_ together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord _in the air_: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."[233:2]
He further tells the Thessalonians to "abstain from all appearance of evil," and to "be preserved blameless _unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ_."[233:3]