"The Logos is the physician "The spirit of the Lord is that heals all evil."--De upon me, because he hath Leg. Allegor. anointed me to heal the broken-hearted."--Luke iv.
18.
_The Logos the Seal of G.o.d._ _Christ the Seal of G.o.d._
"The Logos, by whom the "In whom also, after that world was framed, is the seal, ye believed, ye were sealed after the impression of which with the holy seal of promise."
everything is made, and is --Eph. i. 13 rendered the similitude and "Jesus, the son of man ... him image of the perfect Word of hath G.o.d the Father G.o.d."--De Profugis. sealed."--John vi. 27.
"The soul of man is an "Christ, the brightness of impression of a seal, of which his (G.o.d"s) glory, and the the prototype and original express image of his person.
characteristic is the everlasting --Heb. i. 3.
Logos."--De Plantatione Noe.
_The Logos the source of _Christ the source of eternal immortal life_. life_.
Philo says "that when the "The dead (in Christ) shall soul strives after its best and be raised incorruptible."--1 n.o.blest life, then the Logos Cor. xv. 52 frees it from all corruption, "Because the creature itself and confers upon it the gift also shall be delivered of immortality."--De C.Q. from the bondage of corruption Erud. Gratia. into the glorious liberty of the children of G.o.d."--Rom.
vii. 21.
The New Testament calls Philo speaks of the Logos Christ the Beloved Son:--"This not only as the Son of G.o.d is my beloved Son and his first begotten, but in whom I am well pleased."
also styles him "his beloved --Matt. iii. 17; Luke ix. 35; Son."--De Leg. Allegor. 2 Pet. i. 17 "The Son of his love."--Col.
i. 13.
Philo says "that good men "But ye are come unto mount are admitted to the a.s.sembly Zion, and to the city of the of the saints above. living G.o.d, and to an innumerable company of angels, "Those who relinquish human and to the spirits of just men doctrines, and become made perfect."--Heb. xii. 22, 23 the well-disposed disciples of G.o.d, will be one day translated "Giving thanks unto the Father to an incorruptible and which hath made us the perfect order of beings."--De inheritance of the saints in Sacrifices. light."--Col. i. 12.
Philo says "that the just The New Testament makes Jesus to man, when he dies is translated say: to another state by the Logos, by whom the world "No man can come to me, except was created. For G.o.d by the Father which hath sent me his said Word (Logos), by draw him; and I will raise him which he made all things, up on the last day."--John vi. 44 will raise the perfect man from the dregs of this world, "No man cometh to the Father but and exalt him near himself. by me."--John xvi. 6.
He will place him near his own person."--De Sacrificiis. "Where I am, there also shall my servant be ... him will my father Philo says that the Logos honour."
is the true High Priest, who is without sin and anointed The New Testament speaks of Jesus by G.o.d:-- as the High Priest:
"It is the world, in which "Seeing then that we have a great the Logos, G.o.d"s First-born, High Priest that is pa.s.sed into that great High Priest, resides. the heavens, Jesus, the Son of And I a.s.sert that this G.o.d, let is hold fast our High Priest is no man, but profession."--Heb. iv. 14.
the Holy Word of G.o.d; who is not capable of either "For such an High Priest became us, voluntary or involuntary sin, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, and hence his head is anointed separate from sinners."--Heb. vii. 26.
with oil."--De Profugis.
The New Testament says of Christ: Philo mentions the Logos as the great High Priest and "We have such an High Priest, who is Mediator for the sins of the set on the throne of the majest in world. Speaking of the rebellion the heavens, a mediator of a of Korah, he introduces the better covenant."--Heb. viii. 1-6.
Logos as saying :-- "But Christ being come an High "It was I who stood in the Priest ... entered at once into middle between the Lord and the holy place, having obtained you. eternal redemption for us."--Heb.
ix. 11, 12.
"The sacred Logos pressed with zeal and without remission The New Testament says of John, the that he might stand forerunner of Jesus, that he preached between the dead and the "the baptism of repentance for the living.--Quis Rerum Div. remission of sins."--Mark i. 4.
Haeres.
Jesus says:-- The Logos, the Saviour G.o.d, who brings salvation as "Ye will not come to me, that ye the reward of repentance and might have life."--John v. 40.
righteousness.
"Beloved, we be now the sons of "If then men have from G.o.d; and it doth not yet appear their very souls a just what we shall be; but we know that contrition, and are changed, when he doth appear we shall be and have humbled themselves for like him."--1 John iii. 2.
their past errors, acknowledging and confessing their "As we have born the image of the sins, such persons shall find earthy, we shall also bear the image pardon from the Saviour and of the heavenly."--1 Cor. xv. 49.
merciful G.o.d, and receive a most choice and great advantage "For if we have been planted of being like the Logos together in the likeness of his of G.o.d, who was originally death, we shall be also in the the great archetype after likeness of his resurrection."-- which the soul of man was Rom. vi. 5.
formed."--De Execrationibus.
Here, then, we get, complete, the idea of Christ as the Word of G.o.d, and we see that Christianity is as lacking in originality on these points as in everything else. We may note, also, that this Platonic idea was current among the Jews before Philo, although he gives it to us more thoroughly and fully worked out: in the apocryphal books of the Jews we find the idea of the Logos in many pa.s.sages in Wisdom, to take but a single case.
The widely-spread existence of this notion is acknowledged by Dean Milman in his "History of Christianity." He says: "This Being was more or less distinctly impersonated, according to the more popular or more philosophic, the more material or the more abstract, notions of the age or people. This was the doctrine from the Ganges, or even the sh.o.r.es of the Yellow Sea to the Ilissus; it was the fundamental principle of the Indian religion and the Indian philosophy; it was the basis of Zoroastrianism; it was pure Platonism; it was the Platonic Judaism of the Alexandrian school. Many fine pa.s.sages might be quoted from Philo, on the impossibility that the first self-existing Being should become cognisable to the sense of man; and even in Palestine, no doubt, John the Baptist and our Lord himself spoke no new doctrine, but rather the common sentiment of the more enlightened, when they declared that "no man had seen G.o.d at any time." In conformity with this principle, the Jews, in the interpretation of the older Scriptures, instead of direct and sensible communication from the one great Deity, had interposed either one or more intermediate beings as the channels of communication.
According to one accredited tradition alluded to by St. Stephen, the law was delivered by the "disposition of angels;" according to another, this office was delegated to a single angel, sometimes called the angel of the Law (see Gal. iii. 19); at others, the Metatron. But the more ordinary representative, as it were, of G.o.d, to the sense and mind of man, was the Memra, or the Divine Word; and it is remarkable that the same appellation is found in the Indian, the Persian, the Platonic, and the Alexandrian systems. By the Targumists, the earliest Jewish commentators on the Scriptures, this term had been already applied to the Messiah; nor is it necessary to observe the manner in which it has been sanctified by its introduction into the Christian scheme. This uniformity of conception and coincidence of language indicates the general acquiescence of the human mind in the necessity of some mediation between the pure spiritual nature of the Deity and the moral and intellectual nature of man" (as quoted by Lake). And "this uniformity of conception and coincidence of language indicates," also, that Christianity has only received and repeated the religious ideas which existed in earlier times. How can that be a revelation from G.o.d which was well known in the world long before G.o.d revealed it? The acknowledgment of the priority of Pagan thought is the destruction of the supernatural claims of Christianity based on the same thought; that cannot be supernatural after Christ which was natural before him, nor that sent down from heaven which was already on earth as the product of human reason. The Rev. Mr. Lake fairly says: "We have evidence--clear, conclusive, irrefutable evidence--as to what this doctrine really is. We can trace its birth-place in the philosophic speculations of the ancient world, we can note its gradual development and growth, we can see it in its early youth pa.s.sing (through Philo and others) from Grecian philosophy into the current of Jewish thought; then, after resting awhile in the Judaism of the period of the Christian era, we see it slightly changing its character, as it pa.s.ses through Gamaliel, Paul--the writers of the Fourth Gospel and of the Epistle to the Hebrews--through Justin Martyr and Tertullian, into the stream of early Christian thought, and now from a sublime philosophical speculation it becomes dwarfed and corrupted into a church dogma, and finally gets hardened as a frozen ma.s.s of absurdity, stupidity, and blasphemy, in the Nicene and Athanasian creeds" ("Philo, Plato, and Paul," pp. 71, 72).
The idea of IMMORTALITY was by no means "brought to light" by Christ, as is pretended. The early Jews had clearly no idea of life after death; "for in death there is no remembrance of thee; in the grave who shall give thee thanks?" (Ps. vi. 5). "Like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more.... Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead?
Shall the dead arise and praise thee? Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?" (Ps. lx.x.xviii. 5, 10-12). "The dead praise not the Lord"
(Ps. cxv. 17). "I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that G.o.d might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that man hath no pre-eminence above a beast" (Eccles. iii. 18, 19). "There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave" (Ibid, ix. 10).
"The grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise thee" (Is. x.x.xviii. 18, 19). In strict accordance with this belief, that death was the end of man, the pre-captivity Jews regarded wealth, strength, prosperity, and all earthly blessings, as the reward of virtue. After the captivity they change their tone; in the post-Babylonian Psalms life after death is distinctly spoken of: "My flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in h.e.l.l"
(Ps. xvi. 9, 10); together with other pa.s.sages. In the apocryphal Jewish Scriptures the belief in immortality appears over and over again.
To say that Jesus "brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel," even to the Jews, is to contend for a position against all evidence. If from the Jews we turn to the Pagan thinkers, immortality is proclaimed by them long before the Jews have dreamed about it. The Egyptians, in their funeral ritual, went through the judgment of the soul before Osiris: "The resurrection of the dead to a second life had been a deep-rooted religious opinion among the Egyptians from the earliest times" ("Egyptian Mythology," Sharpe, p. 52), and they appear to have believed in a transmigration of souls through the lower animals, and an ultimate return to the original body; to this end they preserved the body as a mummy, so that the soul, on its return, might find its original habitation still in existence: any who believe in the resurrection of the body should clearly follow the example of the ancient Egyptians. In later times, the more instructed Egyptians believed in a spiritual resurrection only, but the ma.s.s of the people clung to the idea of a bodily resurrection (Ibid, p. 54). "It is to the later times of Egyptian history, perhaps to the five centuries immediately before the Christian era, that the religious opinions contained in the funeral papyri chiefly belong. The roll of papyrus buried with the mummy often describes the funeral, and then goes on to the return of the soul to the body, the resurrection, the various trials and difficulties which the deceased will meet and overcome in the next world, and the garden of paradise in which he awaits the day of judgment, the trial on that day, and it then shows the punishment which would have awaited him if he had been found guilty" (Ibid, p. 64). We have already seen that the immortality of the soul was taught by Plato (ante, p. 364). The Hindus taught that happiness or misery hereafter depended upon the life here. "If duty is performed, a good name will be obtained, as well as happiness, here and after death" ("Mahabharata,"
xii., 6,538, in "Religious and Moral Sentiments from Indian Writers," by J. Muir, p. 22). The "Mahabharata" was written, or rather collected, in the second century before Christ. "Poor King Rantideva bestowed water with a pure mind, and thence ascended to heaven.... King Nriga gave thousands of largesses of cows to Brahmans; but because he gave away one belonging to another person, he went to h.e.l.l" (Ibid, xiv. 2,787 and 2,789. Muir, pp, 31, 32). "Let us now examine into the theology of India, as reported by Megasthenes, about B.C. 300 (Cory"s "Ancient Fragments," p. 226, _et seq_.). "They, the Brahmins, regard the present life merely as the conception of persons presently to be born, and death as the birth into a life of reality and happiness, to those who rightly philosophise: upon this account they are studiously careful in preparing for death"" (Inman"s "Ancient Faiths," vol. ii., p. 820). Zoroaster (B.C. 1,200, or possibly 2,000) taught: "The soul, being a bright fire, by the power of the Father remains immortal, and is the mistress of life" (Ibid, p. 821). "The Indians were believers in the immortality of the soul, and conscious future existence. They taught that immediately after death the souls of men, both good and bad, proceed together along an appointed path to the bridge of the gatherer, a narrow path to heaven, over which the souls of the pious alone could pa.s.s, whilst the wicked fall from it into the gulf below; that the prayers of his living friends are of much value to the dead, and greatly help him on his journey. As his soul enters the abode of bliss, it is greeted with the word, "How happy art thou, who hast come here to us, mortality to immortality!" Then the pious soul goes joyfully onward to Ahura-Mazdao, to the immortal saints, the golden throne, and Paradise" (Ibid, p. 834).
From these notions the writer of the story of Jesus drew his idea of the "narrow way" that led to heaven, and of the "strait gate" through which many would be unable to pa.s.s. Cicero (bk. vi. "Commonwealth," quoted by Inman) says: "Be a.s.sured that, for all those who have in any way conducted to the preservation, defence, and enlargement of their native country, there is a certain place in heaven, where they shall enjoy an eternity and happiness." It is needless to further multiply quotations in order to show that our latest development of these Eastern creeds only reiterated the teaching of the earlier phases of religious thought.
"But, at least," urge the Christians, "we owe the sublime idea of the UNITY OF G.o.d to revelation, and this is grander than the Polytheism of the Pagan world." Is it not, however, true, that just as Christians urge that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are but one G.o.d, so the thinkers of old believed in one Supreme Being, while the mult.i.tudinous G.o.ds were but as the angels and saints of Christianity, his messengers, his subordinates, not his rivals? All savages are Polytheists, just as were the Hebrews, whose G.o.d "Jehovah" was but their special G.o.d, stronger than the G.o.ds of the nations around them, G.o.ds whose existence they never denied; but as thought grew, the superior minds in each nation rose over the mult.i.tude of deities to the idea of one Supreme Being working in many ways, and the loftiest flights of the "prophets" of the Jewish Scriptures may be paralleled by those of the sages of other creeds. Zoroaster taught that "G.o.d is the first, indestructible, eternal, unbegotten, indivisible, dissimilar" ("Ancient Fragments,"
Cory, p. 239, quoted by Inman). In the Sabaean Litany (two extracts only of this ancient work are preserved by El Wardi, the great Arabic historian) we read: "Thou art the Eternal One, in whom all order is centred.... Thou dost embrace all things. Thou art the Infinite and Incomprehensible, who standest alone" ("Sacred Anthology," by M.D.
Conway, pp. 74, 75). "There is only one Deity, the great soul. He is called the Sun, for he is the soul of all beings. That which is One, the wise call it in divers manners. Wise poets, by words, make the beautiful-winged manifold, though he is One" ("Rig-Veda," B.C. 1500, from "Anthology," p.76). "The Divine Mind alone is the whole a.s.semblage of the G.o.ds.... He (the Brahmin) may contemplate castle, air, fire, water, the subtile ether, in his own body and organs; in his heart, the Star; in his motion, Vishnu; in his vigour, Hara; in his speech, Agni; in digestion, Mitra; in production, Brahma; but he must consider the supreme Omnipresent Reason as sovereign of them all" ("Manu," about B.C.
1200; his code collected about B.C. 300; from "Anthology," p. 81). On an ancient stone at Bonddha Gaya is a Sanscrit inscription to Buddha, in which we find: "Reverence be unto thee, an incarnation of the Deity and the Eternal One. OM! [the mysterious name of G.o.d, equivalent to pure existence, or the Jewish Jhvh] the possessor of all things in vital form! Thou art Brahma, Veeshnoo, and Mahesa!... I adore thee, who art celebrated by a thousand names, and under various forms" ("Asiatic Researches," Essay xi., by Mr. Wilmot; vol. i., p. 285). Plato"s teaching is, "that there is but one G.o.d" (ante, p. 364), and wherever we search, we find that the more thoughtful proclaimed the unity of the Deity. This doctrine must, then, go the way of the rest, and it must be acknowledged that the boasted revelation is, once more, but the speculation of man"s una.s.sisted reason.
Turning from these cardinal doctrines to the minor dogmas and ceremonies of Christianity, we shall still discover it to be nothing but a survival of Paganism.
BAPTISM seems to have been practised as a religious rite in all solar creeds, and has naturally, therefore, found its due place in the latest solar faith. "The idea of using water as emblematic of spiritual washing, is too obvious to allow surprise at the antiquity of this rite.
Dr. Hyde, in his treatise on the "Religion of the Ancient Persians,"
x.x.xiv. 406, tells us that it prevailed among that people. "They do not use circ.u.mcision for their children, but only baptism or washing for the inward purification of the soul. They bring the child to the priest into the church, and place him in front of the sun and fire, which ceremony being completed, they look upon him as more sacred than before. Lord says that they bring the water for this purpose in bark of the Holm-tree; that tree is in truth the Haum of the Magi, of which we spoke before on another occasion. Sometimes also it is otherwise done by immersing him in a large vessel of water, as Tavernier tells us. After such washing, or baptism, the priest imposes on the child the name given by his parents"" ("Christian Records," Rev. Dr. Giles, p. 129).
"The Baptismal fonts in our Protestant churches, and we can hardly say more especially the little cisterns at the entrance of our Catholic chapels, are not imitations, but an unbroken and never interrupted continuation of the same _aquaminaria_, or _amula_, which the learned Montfaucon, in his "Antiquities," shows to have been _vases of holy water, which were placed by the heathens at the entrance of their temples, to sprinkle themselves with upon entering those sacred edifices_" ("Diegesis," R. Taylor, p. 219). Among the Hindus, to bathe in the Ganges is to be regenerated, and the water is holy because it flows from Brahma"s feet. Tertullian, arguing that water, as being G.o.d"s earliest and most favoured creation, and brooded over by the spirit--Vishnu also is called Narayan, "moving on the waters"--was sanctifying in its nature, says: ""Well, but the nations, who are strangers to all understanding of spiritual powers, ascribe to their idols the imbuing of waters with the self-same efficacy." So they do, but these cheat themselves with waters which are widowed. For washing is the channel through which they are initiated into some sacred rites of some notorious Isis or Mithra; and the G.o.ds themselves likewise they honour by washings.... At the Appollinarian and Eleusinian games they are baptised; and they presume that the effect of their doing that is the regeneration, and the remission of the penalties due to their perjuries.... Which fact, being acknowledged, we recognise here also the zeal of the devil rivalling the things of G.o.d, while we find him, too, practising baptism in his subjects" ("On Baptism," chap. v.). As "the devil" did it first, it seems scarcely fair to accuse _him_ of copying.
Closely allied to baptism is the idea of regeneration, being born again.
In baptism the purification is wrought by the male deity, typified in the water flowing from the throne or the feet of the G.o.d. In regeneration without water the purification is wrought by the female deity. The earth is the mother of all, and "as at birth the new being emerges from the mother, so it was supposed that emergence from a terrestrial cleft was equivalent to a new birth" (Inman"s "Ancient Faiths," vol. i., p. 415; ed. 1868). Hence the custom of squeezing through a hole in a rock, or pa.s.sing through a perforated stone, or between and under stones set up for the purpose; a natural cleft in a rock or in the earth was considered as specially holy, and to some of these long pilgrimages are still made in Eastern lands. On emerging from the hole, the devotee is re-born, and the sins of the past are no longer counted against him.
CONFIRMATION was also a rite employed by the ancient Persians.
"Afterwards, in the fifteenth year of his age, when he begins to put on the tunic, the sudra and the girdle, that he may enter upon religion, and is engaged upon the articles of belief, the priest bestows upon him confirmation, that he may from that time be admitted into the number of the faithful, and may be looked upon as a believer himself" (Dr. Hyde on "Religion of the Ancient Persians," tr. by Dr. Giles in "Christian Records," pp. 129, 130).
LORD"S SUPPER.--Bread and wine appear to have been a regular offering to the Sun-G.o.d, whose beams ripen the corn and the grape, and who may indeed, by a figure, be said to be transubstantiated thus for the food of man. The Persians offered bread and wine to Mithra; the people of Thibet and Tartary did the same. Cakes were made for the Queen of heaven, kneaded of dough, and were offered up to her with incense and drink-libations (Jer. vii. 18, and xliv. 19). Ishtar was worshipped with cakes, or buns, made out of the finest flour, mingled with honey, and the ancient Greeks offered the same: this bread seems to have been sometimes only offered to the deity, sometimes also eaten by the worshippers; in the same way the bread and the wine are offered to G.o.d in the Eucharist, and he is prayed to accept "our alms _and oblations_."
The Easter Cakes presented by the clergyman to his parishioners--an old English custom, now rarely met with--are the cakes of Ishtar, oval in form, symbolising the yoni. We have already dealt fully with the apparent similarity between the Christian Agapae, and the Baccha.n.a.lian mysteries (ante, pp. 222-227). The supper of Adoneus, Adonai, literally, the "supper of the Lord," formed part of these feasts, identical in name with the supper of the Christian mysteries. The Eleusinian mysteries, celebrated at Eleusis, in honour of Ceres, G.o.ddess of corn, and Bacchus, G.o.d of wine, compel us to think of bread and wine, the very substance of the G.o.ds, as it were, there adored. And Mosheim gives us the origin of many of the Christian eucharistic ceremonies. He writes: "The profound respect that was paid to the Greek and Roman mysteries, and the extraordinary sanct.i.ty that was attributed to them, was a further circ.u.mstance that induced the Christians to give their religion a mystic air, in order to put it upon an equal foot, in point of dignity, with that of the Pagans. For this purpose they gave the name of mysteries to the inst.i.tutions of the gospel, and decorated particularly the holy Sacrament with that solemn t.i.tle. They used in that sacred inst.i.tution, as also in that of baptism, several of the terms employed in the heathen mysteries; and proceeded so far, at length, as even to adopt some of the rites and ceremonies of which these renowned mysteries consisted. This imitation began in the Eastern provinces; but after the time of Adrian, who first introduced the mysteries among the Latins, it was followed by the Christians, who dwelt in the Western parts of the Empire. A great part, therefore, of the service of the church, in this century [A.D.
100-200], had a certain air of the heathen mysteries, and resembled them considerably in many particulars" ("Eccles. Hist.," 2nd century, p. 56).
The whole system of THE PRIESTHOOD was transplanted into Christianity from Paganism; the Egyptian priesthood, however, was in great part hereditary, and in this differs from the Christian, while resembling the Jewish. The priests of the temple of Dea (Syria) were, on the other hand, celibate, and so were some orders of the Egyptian priests. Some cla.s.ses of priests closely resembled Christian monks, living in monasteries, and undergoing many austerities; they prayed twice a day, fasted often, spoke little, and lived much apart in their cells in solitary meditation; in the most insignificant matters the same similarity may be traced. "When the Roman Catholic priest shaves the top of his head, it is because the Egyptian priest had done the same before.
When the English clergyman--though he preaches his sermon in a silk or woollen robe--may read the Liturgy in no dress but linen, it is because linen was the clothing of the Egyptians. Two thousand years before the Bishop of Rome pretended to hold the keys of heaven and earth, there was an Egyptian priest with the high-sounding t.i.tle of Appointed keeper of the two doors of heaven, in the city of Thebes" ("Egyptian Mythology,"
S. Sharpe, preface, p. xi.). The white robes of modern priests are remnants of the same old faith; the more gorgeous vestments are the ancient garb of the priests officiating in the temple of female deities; the stole is the characteristic of woman"s dress; the pallium is the emblem of the yoni; the alb is the chemise; the oval or circular chasuble is again the yoni; the Christian mitre is the high cap of the Egyptian priests, and its peculiar shape is simply the open mouth of the fish, the female emblem. In old sculptures a fish"s head, with open mouth pointing upwards, is often worn by the priests, and is scarcely distinguishable from the present mitre. The modern crozier is the hooked staff, emblem of the phallus; the oval frame for divine things is the female symbol once more. Thus holy medals are generally oval, and the Virgin is constantly represented in an oval frame, with the child in her arms. In some old missals, in representations of the Annunciation, we see the Virgin standing, with the dove hovering in front above her, and from the dove issues a beam of light, from the end of which, as it touches her stomach, depends an oval containing the infant Jesus.
The tinkling bell--used at the Ma.s.s at the moment of consecration--is the symbol of male and female together--the clapper, the male, within the hollow sh.e.l.l, the female--and was used in solar services at the moment of sacrifice. The position of the fingers of the priest in blessing the congregation is the old symbolical position of the fingers of the solar priest. The Latin form, with the two fingers and thumb upraised--copied in Anglican churches--is said rightly by ecclesiastical writers to represent the trinity; but the trinity it represents is the real human trinity: the more elaborate Greek form is intended to represent the cross as well. The decoration of the cross with flowers, specially at Easter-tide, was practised in the solar temples, and there the phallus, upright on the altar, was garlanded with spring blossoms, and was adored as the "Lord and Giver of Life, proceeding from the Father," and indeed one with him, his very self. The sacred books of the Egyptians were written by the G.o.d Thoth, just as the sacred books of the Christians were written by the G.o.d the Holy Ghost. The rosary and cross were used by Buddhists in Thibet and Tartary. The head of the religion in those countries, the Grand Llama, is elected by the priests of a certain rank, as the Pope by his Cardinals. The faithful observe fasts, offer sacrifice for the dead, practise confession, use holy water, honour relics, make processions; they have monasteries and convents, whose inmates take vows of poverty and chast.i.ty; they flagellate themselves, have priests and bishops--in fact, they carry out the whole system of Catholicism, and have done so, since centuries before Christ, so that a Roman Catholic priest, on his first mission among them, exclaimed that the Devil had invented an imitation of Christianity in order to deceive and ruin men. As with baptism, the imitation is older than the original!
"The rites and inst.i.tutions, by which the Greeks, Romans, and other nations, had formerly testified their religious veneration for fict.i.tious deities, were now adopted, with some slight alterations, by Christian bishops, and employed in the service of the true G.o.d. [This is the way a Christian writer accounts for the resemblance his candour forces him to confess; we should put it, that Christianity, growing out of Paganism, naturally preserved many of its customs.].... Hence it happened that in these times the religion of the Greeks and Romans differed very little in its external appearance from that of the Christians. They had both a most pompous and splendid ritual. Gorgeous robes, mitres, tiaras, wax-tapers, crosiers, processions, l.u.s.trations, images, gold and silver vases, and many such circ.u.mstances of pageantry, were equally to be seen in the heathen temples and the Christian churches" (Mosheim"s "Eccles. Hist.," fourth century, p. 105). Says Dulaure: "These two Fathers [Justin and Tertullian] are in no fashion embarra.s.sed by this astonishing resemblance; they both say that the devil, knowing beforehand of the establishment of Christianity, and of the ceremonies of this religion, inspired the Pagans to do the same, so as to rival G.o.d and injure Christian worship" ("Histoire Abregee de Differens Cultes," t. i., p. 522; ed. 1825).
The idea of _angels and devils_ has also spread from the far East; the Jews learned it from the Babylonians, and from the Jews and the Egyptians it pa.s.sed into Christianity. The Persian theology had seven angels of the highest order, who ever surrounded Ormuzd, the good creator; and from this the Jews derived the seven archangels always before the Lord, and the Christians the "seven spirits of G.o.d" (Rev.
iii. 1), and the "seven angels which stood before G.o.d" (Ibid, viii. 2).
The Persians had four angels--one at each corner of the world; Revelation has "four angels standing on the four corners of the earth"
(vii. 1). The Persians employed them as Mediators with the Supreme; the majority of Christians now do the same, and all Christians did so in earlier times. Origen, Tertullian, Chrysostom, and other Fathers, speak of angels as ruling the earth, the planets, etc. Michael is the angel of the Sun, as was Hercules, and he fights with and conquers the dragon, as Hercules the Python, Horus the monster Typhon, Krishna the serpent. The Persians believed in devils as well as in angels, and they also had their chief, Ahriman, the pattern of Satan. These devils--or dews, or devs--struggled against the good, and in the end would be destroyed, and Ahriman would be chained down in the abyss, as Satan in Rev. xx. Ahriman flew down to earth from heaven as a great dragon (Rev. xii. 3 and 9), the angels arming themselves against him (Ibid, verse 7). Strauss remarks: "Had the belief in celestial beings, occupying a particular station in the court of heaven, and distinguished by particular names, originated from the revealed religion of the Hebrews--had such a belief been established by Moses, or some later prophet--then, according to the views of the supranaturalist, they might--nay, they must--be admitted to be correct. But it is in the Maccabaean Daniel and in the apocryphal Tobit that this doctrine of angels, in its more precise form, first appears; and it is evidently a product of the influence of the Zend religion of the Persians on the Jewish mind. We have the testimony of the Jews themselves that they brought the names of the angels with them from Babylon" ("Life of Jesus," vol. i., p. 101).
Dr. Kalisch, after having remarked that "the notions [of the Jews]
concerning angels fluctuated and changed," says that "at an early period, the belief in spirits was introduced into Palestine from eastern Asia through the ordinary channels of political and commercial interchange," and that to the Hebrew "notions heathen mythology offers striking a.n.a.logies;" "it would be unwarranted," the learned doctor goes on, "to distinguish between the "established belief of the Hebrews" and "popular superst.i.tion;" we have no means of fixing the boundary line between both; we must consider the one to coincide with the other, or we should be obliged to renounce all historical inquiry. The belief in spirits and demons was not a concession made by educated men to the prejudices of the ma.s.ses, but a concession which all--the educated as well as the uneducated--made to Pagan Polytheism" ("Historical and Critical Commentary on the Old Testament." Leviticus, part ii., pp.
284-287. Ed. 1872). "When the Jews, ever open to foreign influence in matters of faith, lived under Persian rule, they imbibed, among many other religious views of their masters, especially their doctrines of angels and spirits, which, in the region of the Euphrates and Tigris, were most luxuriantly developed." Some of the angels are now "distinguished by names, which the Jews themselves admit to have borrowed from their heathen rulers;" "their chief is Mithron, or Metatron, corresponding to the Persian Mithra, the mediator between eternal light and eternal darkness; he is the embodiment of divine omnipotence and omnipresence, the guardian of the world, the instructor of Moses, and the preserver of the law, but also a terrible avenger of disobedience and wickedness, especially in his capacity of Supreme Judge of the dead" (Ibid, pp. 287, 288). This is "the angel of the Lord" who went before the children of Israel, of whom G.o.d said "my name is in him"
(see Ex. xxiii. 20-23), and who is identified by many Christian commentators as the second person in the Trinity. The belief in devils is the other side of the belief in angels, and "we see, above all, Satan rise to greater and more perilous eminence both with regard to his power and the diversity of his functions." "This remarkable advance in demonology cannot be surprising, if we consider that the Persian system known as that of Zoroaster, and centering in the dualism of a good and evil principle, flourished most and attained its fullest development, just about the time of the Babylonian exile" (Ibid, pp. 292, 293). The Persian creed supplies us, as Dr. Kalisch has well said, with "the sources from which the demonology of the Talmud, the Fathers and the Catholic Church has been derived" (Ibid, p. 318).
The whole ideas of the _judgment of the dead_, the _destruction of the world by fire_, and the _punishment of the wicked_, are also purely Pagan. Justin Martyr says truly that as Minos and Rhadamanthus would punish the wicked, "we say that the same thing will be done, but by the hand of Christ" ("Apology" 1, chap. viii). "While we say that there will be a burning up of all, we shall seem to utter the doctrine of the Stoics; and while we affirm that the souls of the wicked, being endowed with sensation even after death, are punished, and that those of the good being delivered from punishment spend a blessed existence, we shall seem to say the same things as the poets and philosophers" (Ibid, chap.
xx). In the Egyptian creed Osiris is generally the Judge of the dead, though sometimes Horus is represented in that character; the dead man is accused before the Judge by Typhon, the evil one, as Satan is the "accuser of the brethren;" forty-two a.s.sessors declare the innocence of the accused of the crimes they severally note; the recording angel writes down the judgment; the soul is interceded for by the lesser G.o.ds, who offer themselves as an atoning sacrifice (see Sharpe"s "Egyptian Mythology," pp. 49-52). A pit, or lake of fire, is the doom of the condemned. The good pa.s.s to Paradise, where is the tree of life: the fruit of this tree confers health and immortality. In the Persian mythology the tree of life is planted by the stream that flows from the throne of Ormuzd (Rev. xxii. i and 2). The Hindu creed has the same story, and it is also found among the Chinese.