Here we have a series of events spoken of so strange, so unusual and so extraordinary that, had they occurred, they must have attracted the attention of the whole world – especially the amazing scene of the sun’s withdrawing his light and ceasing to shine, and thereby causing an almost total darkness near the middle of the day. And yet no writer of that age or country, or any other age or country, mentions the circumstance but Matthew. A phenomenon so terrible and so serious in its effects as literally to unhinge the planets and partially disorganise the universe must have excited the alarm and amazement of the whole world, and caused a serious disturbance in the affairs of nations. And yet strange, superlatively strange, not one of the numerous historians of that age makes the slightest allusion to such an astounding event.

Even Seneca and the elder Pliny, who so particularly and minutely chronicle the events of those times, are as silent as the grave relative to this greatest event in the history of the world. Nor do Mark, Luke or John, who all furnish us with a history of the crucifixion, make the slightest hint at any of these wonder-exciting events, except Mark’s incidental allusion to the darkness.

Gibbon says, ‘It happened during the life of Seneca and the elder Pliny, who must have experienced its immediate effects, or received the earliest intelligence of the prodigy. Each of these philosophers, in a labored work, has recorded all the phenomena of Nature’s earthquakes, meteors and eclipses, which his indefatigable curiosity could collect. Both the one and the other have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon, to which the mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the world.’ (Gibbon, p. 451.)

2.With reference to the ‘bodies’ of the dead saints coming out of their tombs (for it is declared their ‘bodies arose;’ see Matt. xxvii. 52), many rather curious and puzzling questions might be started, which would at once disclose its utter absurdity.

We might ask, for example:

1. Who were those ‘many saints’ who came out of their graves, seeing there were as yet but few Christians to occupy graves, if they had been all dead, as the enumeration at Antioch made out only one hundred and twenty? (See Acts.)
2. How long had they lain in their graves?
3. How long since their bodies had turned to dust, and been food for worms?
4. And would not those worms have to be hunted up and required to disgorge the contents of their stomachs in order to furnish the saints with the materials for their bodies again?
5. And were the shrouds or grave clothes of those saints also resurrected? or did they travel about in a state of nudity?
6. For what purpose were they re-animated?
7. And should not Matthew have furnished us, by way of proof, with the names of some of these ghostly visitors?
8. How long did they live the second time?
9. Did they die again, or did they ascent to heaven with their new-made bodies?
10. What business did they engage in?
11. Why have we not some account of what they said and did?
12. And what finally became of them?

Until these questions are rationally answered, the story must be regarded as too incredible and too ludicrous to merit serious notice.

3. Nearly all the phenomena represented as occurring at the crucifixion of Christ are reported to have been witnessed also at the final exit of Senerus, an ancient pagan demigod, who figured in history at a still more remote period of time. And similar incidents are related likewise in the legendary histories of several other heathen demigods and great men partially promoted to the honour of Gods. In the time-honoured records of the oldest religion in the world, it is declared, ‘A cloud surrounded the moon; and the sun was darkened at noonday, and the sky rained fire and ashes during the crucifixion of the Indian God Krishna.’ In the case of Osiris of Egypt, Mr. Southwell says, ‘As his birth had been attended by an eclipse of the sun, so his death was attended by a still greater darkness of the solar orb.’ At the critical juncture of the crucifixion of Prometheus, it is declared, ‘The whole frame of nature become convulsed, the earth shook, the rocks were rent, the graves opened, and in a storm which threatened the dissolution of the universe, the scene closed’ (Higgins). According to Livy, the last hours of the mortal demise of Romulus were marked by a storm and by a solar eclipse.

And similar stories are furnished us by several writers of Caesar and Alexander the Great. With respect to the latter, Mr. Nimrod says, ‘Six hours of darkness formed his aphanasia, and his soul, like Polycarp’s, was seen to fly away in the form of a dove.’ (Nimrod, vol. iii. p. 458.) ‘It is remarkable,’ says a writer, ‘what a host of respectable authorities vouch for an acknowledged fable – the preternatural darkness which followed Caesar’s death.’ Gibbon alludes to this event when he speaks of ‘the singular defect of light which followed the murder of Caesar.’ He likewise says, ‘This season of darkness had already been celebrated by most of the poets and historians of that memorable age.’ (Gibbon, p. 452.) It is very remarkable that Pliny speaks of a darkness attending Caesar’s death, but omits to mention such a scene as attending the crucifixion of Christ. Virgil also seeks to exalt this royal personage by relating this prodigy. (See his Georgius, p. 465.) Another writer says, ‘Similar prodigies were supposed or said to accompany the great men of former days.’

Let this fact be noted: The same story was told of the graves opening, and the dead rising at the final mortal exit of several heathen Gods and several great men long before it was penned as a chapter in the history of Christ.

Shakespeare, in his Hamlet says:

‘In the most high and palmy days of Rome,
A little ere the mighty Julius fell –
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.’

These historical citations strongly press the conclusion that this portion of the history of Christ was borrowed from old pagan legends.

4. Many cases are recorded in history of the light of the sun being obscured at midday so as to result in almost total darkness, when it was known not to be produced by an eclipse. And it is probable that these natural events furnish the basis in part for those wild legends we have brought to notice. Humboldt relates in his Cosmos, that, ‘in the year 358, before the earthquake of Numidia, the darkness was very dense for two or three hours,’ Another obscuration of the sun took place in the year 360, which lasted five or six hours, and was so dense that the stars were visible at midday. Another circumstance of this kind was witnessed on the nineteenth of May, 1730, which lasted eight hours. And so great was the darkness, that candles and lamps had to be lighted at midday to dine by. Similar events are chronicled for the years 1094, 1206, 1241, 1547, and 1730. And if any such solar obscurations occurred near the mortal exit of any of the Gods above named, of course they would be seized on as a part of their practical history wrought up into hyperbole, and interwoven in their narratives, to give eclat to the pageantry of their biographies – a fact which helps to solve the mystery.

There is but little ground to doubt but that the various stories of a similar character then current in different countries, as shown above, first suggested the thought to Christ’s biographers of investing history with the incredible events reported as being connected with the crucifixion. The principal motive, however, seems to have grown out of a desire to fulfil a prophecy of the Jewish prophet Joel, as we may find many of the important miraculous events engrafted into Christ’s history were recorded by way of fulfilling some prophecy. ‘That the prophecy might be fulfilled’ is the very language his evangelical biographers use.

Joel’s prediction runs thus: ‘And I will show wonders in the heavens, and in the earth, flood and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come.’ (Joel ii. 30.) A little impartial investigation will satisfy any unprejudiced mind that this poetic rhapsody has not the most remote allusion to the closing events in the life of Christ, and was not intended to have.

But his biographers, writing a long time after his death, supposing and assuming that this and various other texts, which they quote from the prophets, had reference to him, and had been fulfilled, incorporated it into his history as a part of his practical life. The conviction that the prophecy must have been fulfilled, without knowing that it had, added to similar stories of other Gods, with which Christ’s history became confounded, misled them into the conclusion that they were warranted in assuming that the incredible events they name were really witnessed at the mortal termination of Christ’s earthly career, when they did not know it, and could not have known it.

This view of the case becomes very rational and very forcible when we observe various texts quoted from the prophets by the gospel writers, or, rather, most butcheringly misquoted, tortured or distorted into Messianic prophecies, when the context shows they have no reference to Christ whatever.

The next most important event in the histories of the Saviours after their crucifixion, and the act of giving up the ghost, is that of their descent into the infernal regions. That Jesus Christ descended into hell after his crucifixion is not expressly taught in the Christian bible, but it is a matter of such obvious inference from several passages of Scripture, the early Christians taught it as a scriptural doctrine. Mr. Sears, a Christian writer, tells us that ‘on the doctrine of Christ’s underground mission the early Christians were united. It was a point too well settled to admit of dispute.’ (See Foregleams of Immortality, p. 262).

And besides this testimony, the ‘Apostles’ Creed’ teaches the doctrine explicitly, which was once as good authority throughout Christendom as the bible itself; indeed, it may be considered as constituting a part of the bible prior to the council of Nice (AD 325), being supposed to have been written by the apostles themselves. It declares that ‘Jesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified (dead) and buried. He descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead,’ etc. This testimony is very explicit.

And Peter is supposed to refer to the same event when he says ‘being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the spirit, by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison.’ (I Peter iii. 18.) The word prison, which occurs in this text, has undoubted reference to the Christian fabled hell. For no possible sense can be attached to the word prison in this connection without such a construction. Where have spirits ever been supposed to be imprisoned but in hell? And then we find a text in the Acts of the Apostles, which seems to remove all doubt in the case, and banishes at once all ground for dispute. It is explicitly stated that ‘his soul was not left in hell, neither did his flesh see corruption.’ (Acts ii. 31.) Why talk about his soul not being left in hell if it had never been there? Language could hardly be plainer. The most positive declaration that Christ did descend into hell could not make it more certainly a scriptural Christian doctrine.

We, then, rest the case here, and proceed to enumerate other cases of Gods and Saviours descending into Pandemonium (the realms of Pluto) long before Jesus Christ walked on the water or on the earth. It is unquestionably stated in the Hindu bible, written more than three thousand years ago, that the Saviour Krishna ‘went down to hell to preach to the inmates of that dark and dreary prison, with the view of reforming them, and getting them back to heaven, and was willing himself to stiffer to abridge the period of their torment.’ And certainly, in the midst of the fire and smoke of brimstone, it could not have been hard to effect their conversion or repentance. One writer tells us that ‘so great was his (Krishna’s) tenderness, that he even descended into hell to teach souls in bondage. Now observe how much ‘teaching souls in bondage’ sounds like ‘preaching to souls in prison,’ as Peter represents Christ as doing. And can any anyone doubt that the meaning in the two cases is the same? And must we not confess that we are greatly indebted to the Hindu bible for an explanation of the two occult and mysterious texts which I have quoted from the Christian bible, and which have puzzled so many learned critics to explain, or find a meaning for?

We have another case of a God descending into hell in the person or spirit of the Saviour Quexalcote of Mexico, (300 BC) The story will be found in the Codex Borgianus, wherein is related the account of his death, and burial after crucifixion, his descent into hell, and subsequent resurrection. Of Adonis of Greece it is declared, that ‘after his descent into hell, he rose again to life and immortality.’ Prometheus of Caucasus (600 BC) likewise is represented as ‘suffering and descending into hell, rising again from the dead, and ascending to heaven.’ Horus of Greece is described as ‘first reigning a thousand years, then dying, and being buried for three days, at the end of which time he triumphed over Typhon, the evil principle, and rose again to life evermore.’ And Osiris of Egypt also is represented as making a descent into hell, and after a period of three days rose again.

Homer and Virgil speak of several cases of descent into Pluto’s dominions. Hercules, Ulysses and Aeneas are represented as performing the hellward journey on, as we infer, benevolent missions. Higgins remarks, ‘The Gods became incarnate, and descended into hell to teach humility and set an example of suffering.’

The story of their descent into hell was doubtless invented to find employment for them during their three days of hibernation or conservation in the tomb, that they might not appear to be really dead nor idle in the time, and as a still further proof of their matchless and unrivalled capacity and fortitude for suffering.

And the story of the three days’ entombment is likewise clearly traceable in appearance to the astronomical incident of the sun’s lying apparently dead, and buried, and motionless for nearly three days at the period of the vernal epoch, from the twenty-first to the twenty-fifth of March. It was a matter of belief or fancy that the sun remained stationary for about three days, when he gradually rose again ‘into newness of life.’ And hence, this period or era was chosen to figuratively represent the three days’ descent of the Gods into hell. We are told that the Persians have all ancient astronomical figure representing the descent of a God, divine, into hell, and returning at the time that Orsus, the goddess of spring, had conquered the God or genus of winter, after the manner St. John describes the Lamb of God (see Rev. xii) as. conquering the dragon, which may be interpreted as the Scorpion or Dragon of the first month of winter (October) being conquered by the Lamb of March or spring.

We find presented in the canonised histories of several of the demigod Saviours the following remarkable coincidences appertaining to their death:

1. Their resurrection from the dead.

2. Their lying in the tomb just three days.

3. The resurrection of several of them about the time of the vernal equinox.

The twenty-fifth of March is the period assigned by the Christian world generally for the resurrection of Christ, though some Christian writers have assigned other dates for this event. They all agree, however, that Christ rose from the dead, and that this occurred three days after the entombment. Bishop Theophilus of Cesarea remarks, relative to this event, ‘Since the birth of Christ is celebrated on the twenty-fifth of December ... so also should the resurrection of Jesus be celebrated on the twenty-fifth of March, on whatever day of the week it may fall, the Lord having risen again on that day.’ (Cent. ii. Call. p. 118.) ‘All the ancient Christians,’ says a writer, ‘were persuaded that Christ was crucified on the twenty-third of March, and rose from the dead on the twenty-fifth.’ And accordingly Constantine and contemporary Christians celebrated the twenty-fifth of March with great ‘eclat’ as the date of the resurrection. The twenty-third and twenty-fifth, including the twenty-fourth, would comprise a period of three days, the time of the entombment.

Now mark, Quexalcote of Mexico, Chris of Chaldea, Quirinus of Rome, Prometheus of Caucasus, Osiris of Egypt, Atys of Phrygia, and ‘Mithra the Mediator’ of Persia did, according to their respective histories, rise from the dead after three days’ burial, and the time of their resurrection is in several cases fixed for the twenty-fifth of March. And there is an account more than three thousand years old of the Hindu crucified Saviour Krishna, three days after his interment, forsaking ‘the silent bourn, whence (as we are told) no traveller ever returns,’ and laying aside the mouldy cerements of the dead, again walking forth to mortal life, to be again seen, recognised, admired, and adored by his pious, devout and awe-stricken followers, and thus present to the gaze of a hoping yet doubting world ‘the first fruits of the resurrection.’

At the annual celebration of the resurrection of the Persian Saviour ‘Mithra the Mediator,’ more than three thousand years ago, the priests were in the habit of exclaiming in a solemn and loud voice,’ Cheer up, holy mourners; your God has come again to life; his sorrows and his sufferings will save you.’ (See Pitrat, p. 105.) The twenty-fifth of March was with the ancient Persians the commencement of a new year, and on that day was celebrated ‘the feast of the Neuroner’ and by the ancient Romans ‘the festival of the Hilaria.’ And we find the ancients had both the crucifixion and resurrection of a God symbolically and astronomically represented among the plants. ‘Their foundation,’ says Clement of Alexandria, ‘was the fictitious death and resurrection of the sun, the soul of the world, the principle of life and motion.’ The inauguration of spring (the twenty-fifth of March), and the summer solstice (the twenty-fifth of June), were both important periods with the ancients.

Hence, the latter period was fixed on as the birthday of John the Baptist (as marked in the almanacs), when the sun begins to decline southward – that is, decrease. How appropriately, therefore, John is made to say, ‘I shall decrease, but he shall increase.’ And the consecrated twenty-fifth of March is also the day marked in our calendars as the date of the conception and annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And it was likewise the period of the conception of the ancient Roman Virgin Asteria, and of the ever-chaste and holy virgin Iris, as well as the time of the conjugal embrace of the solar and lunar potentates of the visible universe. May we not, then, very appropriately exclaim of religion and astronomy, ‘what God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.’

With respect to the physical resurrection of the Christian Saviour, it may be observed that, aside from. the physical impossibility of such an occurrence, the account, as reported to us by his four ‘inspired’ Gospel biographers, are so palpably at variance with each other, so entirely contradictory in their reports, as to render their testimony as infallible writers utterly unworthy of credence, and impels us to the conclusion that the event is both physically and historically incredible. There is scarcely one incident or particular in which they all agree. They are at loggerheads:

• With respect to the time of its discovery.

• The persons who made the discovery (for no witness claims to have seen it).

• With respect to what took place at the sepulchre.

• What Peter saw and did there.

• And as to what occurred afterward, having a relation to that event.

1. Relative to the time the witness or witnesses visited the sepulchre and learned of the resurrection, Matthew (chap. xxviii.) tells us, ‘It was at the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn;’ but according to Mark (xvi.), the ‘Sabbath was past, and the sun was rising;’ while John (chap. xx) declares ‘it was yet dark.’ Now there is certainly some difference between the three periods, ‘the dawning of the day,’ ‘the rising of the Sun,’ and ‘the darkness of night.’ If the writers were divinely inspired, there would be a perfect agreement.
2. With respect to the persons who first visited the sepulchre, Matthew states that it was Mary Magdalene and another Mary; but Luke says it was ‘Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women;’ while, according to John (and he virtually reiterates it), Mary Magdalene went alone. It will be observed, then, that the first ‘inspired’ and ‘infallible’ witness testifies there were two women; the second that there were four; and the third witness declares there was but one. What beautiful harmony! No court in the civilised world would accept such discordant testimony!
3. And in relation to what took place at the tomb, Matthew testifies that ‘the angel of the Lord’ sat upon a stone at the door of the sepulchre, and told the women their Lord was risen. But Luke steps forward here, and avers that instead of an angel they found two men there, not outside, but inside, and not sitting, but standing. But Mark sets the testimony of both these ‘inspired’ witnesses aside by affirming there was but one man there, and he was sitting. While Matthew says ‘they,’ St. John says ‘she’ (speaking of the person or persons who left the sepulchre). According to Matthew the angel who rolled away the stone from the sepulchre sent a message to the disciples. But Mark affirms that it was not an ‘angel’ outside, but a ‘young man’ inside, who did this. And here the question naturally arises: Why was it necessary for a being who could say, ‘I have power to lay down my life and take it up again’ (John), to have an angel to roll away the stone from the sepulchre, Certainly, if he possessed such omnipotent power, he needed no aid from any being to perform such an act.
4. And relative to Peter’s visit to the tomb, there is a total disparity in the testimony of the witnesses. According to Luke, he did not go into the sepulchre, but only stooped down and looked in. But Mark affirms he did go in, and that it was the disciple who went with him who stooped down.
5. And with respect to the events which occurred immediately subsequent to the resurrection, there is no less discrepancy, no nearer agreement, in the testimony of the evangelical witnesses. Matthew says that when Christ’s disciples first met him after the resurrection, they worshiped him, and held him by the feet. (Matt. xxviii. 9) Strange, indeed, and wholly incredible, if John is a reliable witness, for he affirms he did not allow even his best and dearest friend (Mary) to touch him. And then John combats this testimony of his by declaring he invited the skeptical Thomas, not only to touch him, but to thrust his hand into his side for tangible proof of his identity.
6. And why, let us ask here, was not the skeptical Thomas damned for his doubting, when we, who live thousands of miles from the place, and nearly two thousand years from the time, are often told by the priesthood we must ‘believe or be damned?’
7. And if Thomas was really convinced by this occurrence, or if it ever took place, why have we no account of his subsequent life? What good was effected by his convincement if he never said or did anything afterward?
8. John tells us Mary first saw Christ, after his resurrection, at the tomb, but Matthew says it was on her way home she first saw him.
9. We are told by Luke (xxiv. 36) that when Christ appeared to his disciples on a certain occasion, they were frightened, supposing it to be a spirit. But John (XX. 20) says they were glad. Which must we believe?
10. According to Matthew, the disciples were all present on this occasion; but according to John, Thomas was not there.
11. Here let it be noted that none of the narrators claim to have seen Christ rise from the tomb, nor to have got it from anybody who did see it. The only proof in this case is their declaration, ‘It came to pass.’
12. And we are prompted to ask here, how ‘it came to pass’ that the chief priests and Pharisees cherished sufficient faith in Christ’s resurrection to set a watch for it, as Matthew reports, when his own disciples were too faithless in such an event to be present, or to believe he had risen after the report reached their ears; for we are told some doubted. (See Matt. xxiii.)
13. And how came Matthew to know the soldiers were bribed to say Christ’s body was stolen away by his disciples, when the disclosures of such a secret would have been death under the Roman government.
14. And their confession of being asleep, as related by Matthew, would have subjected them to the same fatal penalty by the civil rulers of Rome.
15. And if the soldiers were all asleep, can we not suggest several ways the body may have disappeared without being restored to life?
16. And here we would ask if Christ rose from the dead in order to convince the world of his divine power, why did not the event take place in public? Why was it seen only by a few credulous and interested disciples?
17. And if such an astonishing and miraculous event did occur, why does not one of the numerous contemporary writers of those times make any allusion to it? Neither Pliny, Tacitus, nor Josephus, who detail the events very minutely, not only of those times, but of that very country, says a word about such a wonder-exciting occurrence. This fact of itself entirely overthrows the credibility of the story.
18. And the fact that several Christian sects, which flourished near those times, as the Corinthians and Carpocratians, etc., rejected the story in toto, furnishes another powerful argument for discrediting it.
19. And then add to this fact that his own chosen followers were upbraided for their unbelief in the matter.
20. And what was Christ doing during the forty days between his resurrection and ascension, that he should only be seen a few times, and but a few minutes at a time, and by but a few persons, and those interested?
21. And we would ask, likewise: What more can be proved by Christ’s physical resurrection than that of the resurrection of Lazarus, the widow’s son, and several cases related in the Old Testament, or the numerous cases reported in oriental history?
22. And what analogy is there in the resurrection of the dead body of a perfect and self-existent God and that of vile man?
23. And why should Christ be called ‘the first fruits of the resurrection,’ when so many cases are reported as occurring before his?
24. And why do Christians build their hopes of immortality almost entirely upon Christ’s alleged resurrection, in view of the numerous facts we have cited showing it to be a mere sandy foundation?
25. Of course no person who believes in modern spiritualism will discredit the story of Christ being visually recognised after his death as a spirit – for they have ocular proof that many such cases have occurred within the last decade of years. But it is the story of his physical resurrection we are combating – the reanimation of his flesh and bones after having been subjected three days to the laws of decomposition. Neither science nor sense can endorse such a story.
26. It was a very easy matter, and very natural to mistake Christ’s spiritual body for his physical body; for such mistakes have been made a thousand times in the world’s history.
27. Is it not strange, in view of the countless defects in the story of Christ’s physical resurrection as enumerated above, that the orthodox Christian world should rely upon it as the great sheet anchor of their faith, and as their chief and almost their only hope of immortal life?

Many cases are related by their respective sacred narratives of the ancient Saviours, and other beings possessing the form of man, and previously recognised as men, reappearing to their disciples and friends, after having been consigned to the tomb for three days, or a longer or shorter period of time, and of their final ascension to the house of many mansions.

It is related of the Indian or Hindu Saviour Krishna, that after having risen from the dead, he appeared again to his disciples. ‘He ascended to Voiacantha (heaven), to Brahma,’ the first person of the trinity (he himself being the second), and that as he ascended, ‘all men saw him, and exclaimed, ‘Lo! Krishna’s soul ascends to his native skies.’’ And it is further related that, ‘attended by celestial spirits ... he pursued by his own light the journey between earth and heaven, to the bright paradise whence he had descended.’

Of the ninth incarnation of India, the Saviour Saki, it is declared, that he ‘ascended to the celestial regions;’ and his pious and devout disciples point the septic to indelible impressions and ineffaceable footprints on the rocks of a high mountain as an imperishable proof of the declaration that he took his last leave of earth and made his ascent from that point.

It is related of the crucified Prometheus, likewise, that after having given up the ghost on the cross, ‘descended to hell’ (Christ’s soul was ‘not left in hell,’ see Acts ii 31), ‘he rose again from the dead, and ascended into heaven.’

And then it is declared of the Egyptian Saviour Alcides, that ‘after having been seen a number of times, he ascended to a higher life,’ going up, like Elijah, in ‘a chariot of fire.’

The story of the crucifixion of Quexalcote of Mexico, followed by his burial, resurrection and ascension, is distinctly related in the ‘holy’ and inspired ‘gospels’ of that country, which Lord Kingsborough admitted to be more than two thousand years old.

Of Lao Tzu of China, it is said that when ‘he had completed his mission of benevolence, he ascended bodily alive into the paradise above.’ (Prog. of Rel. Ideas, vol. 214.) And it is related of Fo of the same country, that having completed his glorious mission on earth, he ‘ascended back to paradise, where he had previously existed from all eternity.’

It is related also in the ancient legends, that the Saviour or God Xamalxis of Thrace, having died, and descended beneath the earth, and remained there three years, made his appearance again in the fourth year after his death, as he had previously foretold, and eventually ascended to heaven about 600 BC Even some of the Hindu saints are reported in their ‘holy’ and time-honoured books to have been seen ascending to heaven. ‘And impressions on the rocks are shown,’ says an author, ‘said to be of footprints they had left when they ascended.’

It is related both by the Grecian biographer Plutarch, in his life of Romulus, and by a Roman historian, that the great founder of Rome (Romulus) suddenly ascended in a tempest during a solar eclipse, about 713 BC And Julius Proculis, a Roman senator of great fame and high reputation, declared, under solemn oath, that he saw him, and talked with him after his death.

Before dismissing this chapter, we may state that, in common with most other religious conceptions, the doctrine of the ascension has in the ancient legends an astronomical representation.

Having said that a planet was buried because it sunk below the horizon, when it returned to light and gained its state of eminence, they spoke of it as dead, risen again, and ascended into heaven. (Volney, p. 143.) What is the story of the ascension of Christ worth in view of these ancient pagan traditions of earlier origin?

1. The different scriptural accounts of the ascension of Christ are, like the different stories of the resurrection, quite contradictory, and, hence, entitled to as little credit. In Luke (xxiv.), he is represented as ascending on the evening of the third day after the crucifixion. But the writer of Acts (i. 3) says he did not ascend till forty days after his resurrection; while, according to his own declaration to the thief on the cross, ‘This day shalt thou be with me in paradise,’ he must have ascended on the same day of his crucifixion. Which statement must we accept as inspired, or what is proved by such contradictory testimony?
2. Which must we believe, Paul’s declaration that he was seen by above five hundred of the brethren at once (i Cor. xv. 6), or the statement of the author of the Acts (i. 15), that there were but one hundred and twenty brethren in all after that period?
3. How would his ascension do anything toward proving his divinity, unless it also proves the divinity of Enoch and Elijah, who are reported to have ascended long prior to that era?
4. As these stories of the ascension of Christ, according to Lardner, were written many years after his crucifixion. is it not hence probable they grew out of similar stories relative to the heathen Gods long previously prevalent in oriental countries?
5. As these gospel writers could not have been present to witness the ascension, as it must have occurred before their time of active life, does not this fact of itself seriously damage the credibility of the accounts, and more especially as neither Mark nor Luke, who are the only reporters of the occurrence, were not disciples of Christ at the time, while Matthew and John, who were, say nothing about it? – another fact which casts a shade on the credibility of the story.

There were various practices in vogue amongst the orientalists, which originated with the design of appeasing the anger and propitiating the favour of a presumed to be irascible deity. Most of these practices consisted in some kind of sacrifice or destructive offering called the ‘atonement.’ But here let it be observed, that the doctrine of atonement for sin, by sacrifice, was unfolded by degrees, and that the crucifixion of a God was not the first practical exhibition of it. On the contrary, it appears to have commenced with the most valueless or cheapest species of property then known. And from this starting-point ascended gradually, so as finally to embody the most costly commodities; and did not stop here, but reached forward till it laid its murderous hands on human beings, and immolated them upon its bloody altars. And finally, to cap the climax, it assumed the effrontery to drag a God off the throne of heaven, to stretch its blood-thirsty spirit, as evinced by Paul’s declaration, ‘Without the shedding of blood there can be no remission of sin.’ Rather a bloody doctrine, and one which our humanity rejects with instinctive horror.

We will trace the doctrine of the atonement briefly through its successive stages of growth and development.

The idea seems to have started very early in the practical history of the human race, that the sacrifice and consequent deprivation of earthly goods, or some terrestrial enjoyment, would have the effect to mitigate the anger, propitiate the favour, and obtain the mercy of an imaginary and vengeful God. This idea obviously was suggested by observing that their earthly rulers always smiled, and became less rigorous in their laws, and milder in their treatment of their subjects, when they made them presents of some valuable or desirable commodity. They soon learned that such offerings had the effect to cheek their cruel and bloody mode of governing the people; so that when their houses were shaken down, or swallowed up by earthquakes, the trees riven by lightning, and prostrated by storms, and their cattle swept away by floods, supposing it to be the work of an angry God, the thought arose in their minds at once, that perhaps his wrath could be abated by the same expedient as that which had served in the case of their mundane lords – that of making presents of property. But as this property could not be carried up to the celestial throne, the expedient was adopted of burning it, so that the substance or quintessence of it would be conveyed up to the heavenly Potentates in the shape of steam and smoke, which would make for him, as the Jews express it,’ a sweet-smelling saviour.’ Abundant and conspicuous is the evidence in history to show that the custom of burnt-offerings and atonements for sin originated in this way.

The first species of property made use of for burnt-offerings appears to have been the fruits of the earth – vegetables, fruits, roots, etc …the lowest kind of property in point of value. But the thought soon naturally sprang up in the mind of the devotee, that a more valuable offering would sooner and more effectively secure the divine favour. Hence, levies were made on living herds of cattle, sheep, goats and other domestic animals. This was the second step in the ascending scale toward Gods.

And here we find the key to open and solve the mystery of Jehovah’s preferring Abel’s offering to Cain’s. While the latter consisted in mere inanimate substances, the former embraced the firstlings of the flock – a higher and more valuable species of property, and quite sufficient to induce the selfish Jehovah to prefer Abel’s offering to Cain’s, or rather for the selfish Jews to cherish this conception. In all nations where offerings were made, the conclusion became established in the minds of the people that the amount of God’s favour procured in this way must be proportionate to the value of the commodity or victim offered up – a conviction which ultimately led to the seizure of human beings for the atoning offerings, which brings us to the third stage of growth in the atonement doctrine. Children frequently constituted the victims in this case. The sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter, as related in Judges xi. 30, and other cases cited by bible writers, Isaiah xxxii. 25, and modern Christian authors, prove that this practice was in vogue among ‘God’s holy people.’

One step more (constituting the fourth stage of development) brings us to the sacrifice of Gods. The climax is now reached; the conception can go no higher. The ancient Burmese taught that while common property in burnt-offerings would procure the temporary favour of the ruling God, the sacrifice of human beings would secure his good pleasure for a thousand years, and cancel out all the sins committed in that period. And when one of the three Gods on the throne of heaven was dragged down, or voluntarily came down (as some of the sects taught), and was put to death on the cross as an atonement for sin, such was the value of the victim, such the magnitude of the offering, that it ‘atoned’ for all sin, past, present and future, for all the human race.

The Hindus, cherishing this conception, taught that the crucifixion of their sin-atoning Saviour Krishna (1200 BC) put an end to both animal and human sacrifices, and accordingly such offerings ceased in most Hindu countries centuries ago. Thus far back in the mire and midnight of human ignorance, and amid the clouds of mental darkness, while man dwelt upon the animal plane, and was governed by his brutal feelings, and ‘blood for blood’ was the requisition for human offences, originated the bloody, savage and revolting doctrine of the atonement.

Another mode of adjudicating the sins of the people in vogue in some countries anterior to the custom of shedding blood as an expiation, was that of packing them on the back, head, or horns of some animal by a formal hocus-pocus process, and then driving the animal into a wilderness, or some other place so remote that the brute could not find its way back amongst the people with its cargo of sins. The cloth or fabric used for enclosing the sins and iniquities of the people was usually of a red or scarlet colour – of the semblance of blood. In fact, it was generally dipped in blood. This, being lashed to the animal, would of course be exposed to the weather and the drenching rains, would consequently, in the course of time, fade and become white. Hence, we have the key to Isaiah’s declaration, ‘Though your sins be (red) as scarlet, they shall become (white) as wool.’ (See Isaiah, i. 18.) And thus the meaning of this obscure text is clearly explained by tracing its origin to its oriental source.

And there are many other texts in the Christian bible which might be elucidated in a similar manner by using oriental tradition, or oriental sacred books, as a key to unlock and explain their meaning. We have stated above that some animal was made use of by different nations to convey the imaginary load of the people’s sins out of the country. For this purpose the Jews had their ‘scape-goat,’ the Egyptians their ‘scape-ox,’ the Hindus their ‘scape-horse,’ the Chaldeans their ‘scape-ram,’ the Britons their’ scape-bull,’ the Mexicans their ‘scape-lamb’ and ‘scape-mouse,’ the Tamalese their ‘scape-hen,’ and the Christians at a later period their scape-God. Jesus Christ may properly be termed the scape-God of orthodox Christians, as he stands in the same relation to his disciples, who believe in the atonement, as the goat did to the Jews, and performs the same end and office. The goat and the other sin-offering animals took away the sin of the nation in each case respectively. In like manner Jesus Christ takes away the sin of the world, being called ‘the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.’ (John i. 29.) And more than two thousand years ago the Mexicans sacrificed a lamb as an atonement, which they called ‘the Lamb of God’ – the same title scripturally applied to Jesus Christ. The conception in each case is, then, the same – that of the atonement for sin by the sacrifice of an innocent victim.

The above citations show that the present custom of orthodox Christendom, in packing their sins upon the back of a God, is just the same substantially as that of various heathen nations, who were anciently in the habit of packing them upon the backs of various dumb animals. If some of our Christian brethren should protest against our speaking of the church’s idea of atonement as that of packing their sins upon the back of a God, we will here prove the appropriateness of the term upon the authority of the bible. Peter expressly declares Christ bore our sins upon his own body on a tree (see I Peter ii. 24), just as the Jews declared the goat bore their sins on his body, and the ancient Brahmins taught that the bulls and the heifers bore theirs away, etc., which shows that the whole conception is of purely heathen origin. And hereafter, when they laugh at the Jewish superstition of a scapegoat, let them bear in mind that more sensible and intelligent people may laugh in turn at their superstitious doctrine of a scape-God.

These superstitious customs were simply expedients of different nations to evade the punishment of their sins – an attempt to shift their retributive consequences on to other beings. The divine atonement more especially possessed this character. This system teaches that the son of God and Saviour of the world was sent down and incarnated, in order to die for the people, and thus suffer by proxy the punishment meted out by divine wrath for the sins of the whole world. The blood of a God must atone for the sins of the whole human family, as rams, goats, bullocks and other animals had atoned for the sins of families and nations under older systems. Thus taught Brahminism, Budhism, Persianism, and other religious systems, before the dawn of Christianity. The nucleus of the atoning system is founded in the doctrine, ‘Without the shedding of blood there is no remission for sin’ (Rom. v. g). It is a doctrine which teaches us that somebody’s blood must be shed, somebody’s veins and arteries depleted, for every trivial offence committed against the moral law – a monstrous and morally revolting doctrine. Somebody must pay the penalty in blood, somebody must be slaughtered for every little foible or peccadillo or moral blunder into which erring man may chance to stumble while upon the pilgrimage of life, while journeying through the wilderness of time, even if a God has to be dragged from his throne in heaven, and murdered to accomplish it. Nothing less will mitigate the divine wrath.

Whose soul – possessing the slightest moral sensibility – does not inwardly and instinctively revolt at such a doctrine? We would not teach it to the world, for it is founded in butchery and bloodshed, and is an old pagan superstition, which originated far back in the midnight of mental darkness and heathen ignorance, when the whole human race were under the lawless sway of their brutal propensities, and when the ennobling attributes of love, mercy and forgiveness had as yet found no place, no abiding home, in the human bosom. The bloody soul of the savage first gave it birth. We hold the doctrine to be a high-handed insult to the All-loving Father, who, we are told, is ‘long-suffering in mercy,’ and ‘plentiful in forgiveness,’ to charge Him with sanctioning such a doctrine, much less with originating it.

There is no ‘mercy or forgiveness’ in putting an innocent being to death for any pretext whatever. And for the Father to consent to the brutal assassination of His own innocent Son upon the cross to gratify an implacable revenge toward his own children, the workmanship of his own hands, rather than forgive a moral weakness implanted in their natures by a voluntary act of his own, and for which consequently he alone ought to be responsible, would be nothing short of murder in the first degree.

We cherish no such conception. We cannot for a moment harbour a blasphemous doctrine, which represents the Universal Father as being a bloody-minded and murderous being, instead of a being of infinite love, infinite wisdom, and infinite in all the moral virtues. Such a character would be a deep-dyed stigma upon any human being. And no person actuated by a strict sense of justice would accept salvation upon any such terms as that prescribed by the Christian atonement.

It is manifestly too unjust, too devoid of moral principle, besides being a flagrant violation of the first principles of civil and criminal jurisprudence. It is a double wrong to punish the innocent for the guilty. It is the infliction of injustice on the one hand, and the omission of justice on the other. It inflicts the highest penalty of the law upon an innocent being, whom that law ought to shield from punishment, while it exculpates and liberates the guilty party, whose punishment the moral law demands. It robs society of a useful people on the one hand, and turns a moral pest upon community on the other, thus committing a two-fold wrong, or act of injustice. No court in any civilised country would be allowed to act upon such a principle; and the judge who should endorse it, or favour a law, or principle, which punishes the innocent for the guilty, would be ruled off the bench at once.

Here, however, we are sometimes met with the plea, that the offering of Jesus Christ was a voluntary act, that it was made with his own free will. But the plea don’t do away with either the injustice or criminality of the act.

No innocent person has a right to suffer for the guilty, and the courts have no right to accept the offer or admit the substitute. An illustration will show this. If Jefferson Davis had been convicted of the crime of treason, and sentenced to be hung, and Abraham Lincoln had come forward and offered to be stretched upon the gallows in his place, is there a court in the civilised world which would have accepted the substitute, and hung Lincoln, and liberated Davis? To ask the question is but to answer it. It is an insult to reason, law and justice to even entertain the proposition.

The doctrine of the atonement also involves the infinite absurdity of God punishing himself to appease his own wrath. For if ‘the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in Christ bodily’ (as taught in Col. ii. 9), then his death was the death of God – that is, a divine suicide, prompted and committed by a feeling of anger and revenge, which terminated the life of the Infinite Ruler – a doctrine utterly devoid of reason, science or sense. We are sometimes told man owes a debt to his Maker, and the atonement pays that debt. To be sure! And to whom is the debt owing, and who pays it? Why, the debt is owing to God, and God (in the person of Jesus Christ) pays it – pays it to himself. We will illustrate. A man approaches his neighbour, and says, ‘Sir, I owe you a thousand dollars, but can never pay it.’ ‘Very well, it makes no difference,’ replies the claimant, ‘I will pay it myself;’ and forthwith thrusts his hand into his right pocket and extracts the money, transfers it to the left pocket and exclaims – ‘There, the debt is paid!’ A curious way of paying debts, and one utterly devoid of sense. And yet the orthodox world have adopted it for their God. We find, however, that they carefully avoid practicing this principle themselves in their dealings with each other. When they have a claim against a neighbour, we do not find them ever thrusting their hands into their own pockets to pay it off, but sue him, and compel him to pay – if he refuses to do it without compulsion – thus proving they do not consider it a correct principle of trade.

But we find, upon further investigation, that the assumed debt is not paid – after all.

When a debt is paid, it is cancelled, and dismissed from memory, and nothing more said about it. But in this case the sinner is told he must still suffer the penalty for every sin he commits, notwithstanding Christ died to atone for and cancel that sin.

Where, then, is the virtue of the atonement? Like other doctrines of the orthodox creed, it is at war with reason and common sense, and every principle of sound morality, and will be marked by coming ages as a relic of barbarism.

Of all the weird, fanciful, and fabulous stories appertaining to the Gods and other spiritual entities of the olden times, whose capricious adventures we find so profusely narrated in oriental mythology – of all the strange, mythical and mystical feats, and ever-varying and ever-diverging changes in the shape, appearance, sex, and modes of manifestation which characterise the hobgoblins or ghostly beings which comprise the esoteric stock of the ancient mysteries, that appertaining to the third member of ‘the hypostatic union,’ the Holy Ghost, seems to stand pre-eminent. And I propose here to submit the facts to show that the Holy Ghost story of the Christian Gospels, like the more ancient pagan versions of the same story, is marked by the same wild, discordant and legendary characteristics which abound in all the accounts of gods and ghosts found recorded in the religious books of various nations.

The following brief exposition of the history and exploits of this anomalous, nondescript, chameleon-like being will clearly evince that the same fanciful, metaphorical and fabulous changes in the size, shape, sex and appearance of this third limb of the triune God are found in the Christian Scriptures which are disclosed in the more ancient oriental traditions.

We will first exhibit a classification of the names and characteristics of this imaginary being drawn from the gospels and epistles of the Christian bible, by which it will be observed that scarcely any two references to it agree in assigning it the same character or attributes.

1. In John xiv. 26, the Holy Ghost is spoken of as a person or personal God.

2. In Luke iii. 22, the Holy Ghost changes, and assumes the form of a dove.

3. In Matt. xiii. 16, the Holy Ghost becomes a spirit.

4. In John i. 32, the Holy Ghost is presented as an inanimate, senseless object.

5. In John v. 7, the Holy Ghost becomes a God – the third member of the Trinity.

6. In Acts ii. I, the Holy Ghost is averred to be ‘a mighty, rushing wind.’

7. In Acts x. 38, the Holy Ghost, we infer, from its mode of application, is an ointment.

8. In John XX. 22, the Holy Ghost is the breath, as we legitimately infer by its being breathed into the mouth of the recipient after the ancient oriental custom.

9. In Acts ii. 3, we learn the Holy Ghost ‘sat upon each of them,’ probably in the form of a bird, as at Jesus’ baptism.

10. In Acts ii. i, the Holy Ghost appears as ‘cloven tongues of fire.’

11. In Luke ii. 26, the Holy Ghost is the author of a revelation or inspiration.

12. In Acts viii. 17, the Holy Ghost is a magnetic aura imparted by the ‘laying on of hands.’

13. In Mark i. 8, the Holy Ghost is a medium or element for baptism.

14. In Acts xxviii. 25, the Holy Ghost appears with vocal organs, and speaks.

15. In Heb. vi. 4, the Holy Ghost is dealt out or imparted by measure.

16. In Luke iii. 22, the Holy Ghost appears with a tangible body.

17. In Luke 1, 5, and many other texts, we are taught people are filled with the Holy Ghost.

18. In Matt. xi. 15, the Holy Ghost falls upon the people as a ponderable substance.

19. In Luke iv. i, the Holy Ghost is a God within a God ‘Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost.’

20. In Acts xxi. ii, the Holy Ghost is a being of the masculine or feminine gender: ‘Thus saith the Holy Ghost.’

21. In John i. 32, the Holy Ghost is of the neuter gender it (the Holy Ghost) abode upon him.’

22. In Matt. i. 18, the Holy Ghost becomes a vicarious agent in the procreation of another God; that is, this third member of the Trinity aids the first member (the Father) in the creation or generation of the second member of the trinity of bachelor Gods – the Word, or Saviour, or Son of God.

Such are the ever-shifting scenes presented in the Scripture panorama of the Holy Ghost. Surpassing the fabulous changes of some of the more ancient demigods, the Christian Holy Ghost undergoes (as is shown by the above-quoted texts) a perpetual metathesis or metamorphosis – being variously presented on different occasions as a personal and rational being, a dove, a spirit, an inanimate object, a God, the wind or a wind, an ointment, the breath or a breath, cloven tongue of fire, a bird, or some other flying recumbent animal, a revelator or divine messenger, a medium or element for baptism, an intelligent, speaking being, a lifeless, bodiless, sexless being, a measurable fluid substance, a being possessing a body, ponderable, unconscious substance, a God dwelling within a God, and, finally – though really first in order – the author or agent of the incarnation of the second God in the Trinity (Jesus Christ). That many of these fabulous conceptions were drawn from mythological sources will be made manifest by the following facts of history:

1. The Holy Ghost in the shape of a bird, a dove or a pigeon. This is proven to be a very ancient pagan tradition, as it is found incorporated in several of the oriental religious systems. In ancient India, whose prolific spiritual fancies constitute the primary parentage of nearly all the doctrines, dogmas and superstitions found incorporated in the Christian Scriptures, a dove was uniformly the emblem of the Holy Spirit, or Spirit of God. Confirmatory of this statement, we find the declaration in the Anacalypsis, that a ‘dove stood for or represented a third member of the Trinity, and was the regenerator or regeneratory power.’ This meets the Christian idea of ‘regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost.’ (Titus iii. 5.) A person being baptised under the Brahminical theocracy was said to be regenerated and born again,’ or, as the above-quoted writer expresses it, ‘They were born into the spirit, or the spirit into them – that is, the ‘dove into or upon them,’ (As vide the case of the Christian’s ‘Holy Ghost descending in bodily shape like a dove,’ and alighting on Christ’s head at baptism, as related in Luke iii. 22.) In ancient Rome a dove or pigeon was the emblem of the female procreative energy, and frequently a legendary spirit, the accompaniment of Venus. And hence, as a writer remarks, ‘it is very appropriately represented as descending at baptism in the character of the third member of the Trinity.’ The same writer tells us, ‘The dove fills the Grecian oracles with their spirit and power.’ We find the dove, also, in the romantic eclogues of ancient Syria. In the time-chiselled Syrian temple of Hierapolis, Semiramis is represented with a dove on her head, thus constituting the prototype of the dove on the head of the Christian Messiah at baptism. And a dove was in more than one of the ancient religious systems: ‘The Spirit of God (Holy Ghost) moving on the face of the waters’ at creation, as implied in Gen. i. 2, though a pigeon, was often indiscriminately substituted. In Howe’s ‘Ancient Mysteries’ it is related that ‘in St. Paul’s Cathedral, at the feast of Whitsuntide, the descent of the Holy Ghost was performed by a white pigeon being let fly out of a hole in the midst of the roof of the great aisle.’ The dove and the pigeon, being but slight variations of the same species of the feathered tribe, were used indiscriminately.
2. As evinced above, the Holy Ghost was the third member of the Trinity in several of the oriental systems. Father, Son and Holy Ghost, or Father, Word and Holy Ghost (i John v. 7), are familiar Christian terms to express the divine triad, which shows the Holy Ghost to be the acknowledged third member of the Christian Trinity And, as already suggested, the same is true of the more ancient systems. ‘The Holy Spirit and the Evil Spirit were, each in their turn (says Mr. Higgins), third member of the Trinity.’ We might, if space would allow, draw largely upon the ancient defunct systems in proof of this statement. ‘In these triads (says Mr. Hillell) the third member, as might be supposed, was not of equal rank with the other two.’ And hence, in the Theban Trinity, Khonso was inferior to Arion and Mant. In the Hindu triad, Siva was subordinate to Brahma and Vishnu. And a score of similar examples might be adduced from the fancy-constructed trinities of other and older oriental religious systems (but for the inflexible rule of brevity which forbids their presentation here), with all of which the more modern Holy Ghost conception of the Christian world is an exact correspondence, as this imaginary, fabulous being is less conspicuous than and has always stood third in rank with the Father and second to the Son, alias the Word, and is now seldom addressed in practical Christian devotion; and thus the analogy is complete. Mr. Maurice says, This notion of a third person in the Deity (the Holy Ghost) was diffused among all the nations of the earth.’ See Ind. Antiq. vol. iv. p. 750.) And Mr. Worseley, in his ‘Voyage’ (vol. ix. 259), avers this doctrine to be ‘of very great antiquity, and generally received by all the Gothic and Celtic nations.’
3. The Holy Ghost was the Holy Breath which, in the Hindu traditions, moved on the face of the waters at creation, and imparted life and vitality into everything created. A similar conception is recognised in the Christian Scriptures. In Psalms xxxiii. 6, we read, ‘By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.’ Here is the Brahminical conception, square out, of the act of creation by the Divine Breath, which is the Holy Ghost, the same, also, which was breathed into Adam, by which he became ‘a living soul.’ M. Dubois observes, ‘The Prana, or principle of life, of the Hindus is the breath of life by which the Creator (Brahma) animates the clay, and man became a living soul.’ (Page 293.)
4. Holy Ghost, Holy Breath and Holy Wind appear to have been synonymous and convertible terms for the living vocal emanations from the mouth of the Supreme God, as memorialised in several of the pagan traditions. The last term (Holy Wind) is suggested by ‘the mighty rushing wind from heaven’ which filled the house, or church, on the day of Pentecost. (See Acts ii. 2.) Several of the old religious systems recognise ‘the Holy Wind’ as a term for the Holy Ghost. The doxology (reported by a missionary) in the religious service of the Syrian worship runs thus:
   ‘Praise to the Holy Spiritual Wind, which is the Holy Ghost;
   Praise to the three persons which are one true God.’
   Some writers maintain that the Hebrew Ruh Aliem, translated ‘Spirit of God’ (Gen. i. 2) in our version, should read, ‘Wind of the Gods.’ And we find that the word Pneuma, of our Greek New Testament, is sometimes translated ‘Ghost’ and sometimes ‘Wind,’ as best suited the fancy of the translators. In John iii. 5, we find the word Spirit, and in verse eight both Wind and Spirit are found. and in Luke i. 35, we observe the term Holy Ghost – all translated from the same word. Let it be specially noted that in the Greek Testament the word Pneuma is used in all these cases, thus proving that Spirit, Holy Ghost and Wind are used in the Christian Scriptures as synonymous terms; and proving, also, that an unwarranted license has been assumed by translators in rendering the same word three different ways. M. Auvaroff, in his ‘Essays on the Eleusinian Mysteries,’ speaks of ‘the torch being ignited at the command of Hermes of Egypt, the spiritual agent in the workshop of creation;’ relative to which statement a writer remarks, ‘Hermes appears in this instance as a personification of Wind or Spirit, as in the bible (meaning the Christian bible), God, Wind and Spirit are often interchangeable terms, and the Word appears to be from the same windy source.’
5. The Holy Ghost as ‘a tongue of fire, which sat upon each of them’ (the apostles). (See Acts. ii. 3.) Even this conception is an orientalism. Mr. Higgins tells us that ‘Buddha, an incarnate God of the Hindus (three thousand years ago), is often seen with a glory or tongue of fire upon his head.’ And the tradition of the visible manifestation of the Holy Ghost by fire was prevalent among the ancient Buddhists, Celts, Druids and Etrurians. In fact, as our, author truly remarks, ‘The Holy Ghost, or Holy Spirit, when visible, was always in the form of fire (or a bird), and was always accompanied with wisdom and power.’ Hence, is disclosed the origin of the ancient custom amongst the Hindus, Persians and Chaldeans, of making offerings to the solar fire, emblem of the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit.
6. Inspiration by the Holy Ghost. (Luke ii. 26.) ‘Holy men of God,’ including some of the prophets, are claimed to have been inspired by the Holy Ghost. (See 2 Peter i. 21; Acts xxviii. 25.) In like manner, as we are informed by Mr. Cleland in his ‘Specimens’ (see Appendix, the ancient Celts were not only ‘moved by the Holy Ghost’ in their divine decrees and prophetic utterances, but they claimed that their Salic laws (seventy-two in number) were inspired by the ‘Salo Ghost’ (Holy Ghost), known also as ‘the Wisdom of the Spirit, or the Voice of the Spirit.’ This author several times alludes to the fact, and exhibits the proof, that the doctrine of the Holy Ghost was known to this ancient people.
7. The Holy Ghost imparted by ‘the laying on of hands.’ This, too, is an ancient oriental custom. ‘And by the imposition of hands on the head of the candidate,’ says Mr. Cleland, speaking of the Celts, ‘the Holy Ghost, or Holy Spirit, was conveyed.’ And thus was the Holy Spirit, Ghost, Gas, Wind, Electrical Fire or Spirit of Authority imparted to the hierophant or gospel novitiate. ‘And their public assemblies’ continues our author, ‘were always opened by an invocation to the Holy Ghost.’
8. Baptism by or into the Holy Ghost accompanied with fire. (Matt. iii. ii.) This rite, too, is traceable to a very ancient period, and was practiced by several of the old symbolical and mythological systems. The Tuscans, or Etrurians, baptised with fire, wind (ghost) and water. Baptism into the first member of the Trinity (the Father) was with fire; baptism into the second member of the Trinity (the Word) was with water; while baptism into the third member of the Trinity (the Holy Ghost, or Holy Spirit) consisted of the initiatory spiritual or symbolical application of gas, gust, ghost, wind, or spirit. It appears from ‘Herbert’s Travels,’ that, in ‘ancient countries, the child was taken to the priest, who named him (christened him) before the sacred fire;’ after which ceremony he was sprinkled with ‘holy water’ from a vessel made of the sacred tree known as ‘The Holme.’
9. The Holy Ghost imparted by breathing. (See John xx. 22). ‘Sometimes,’ says Mr. Higgins, relative to this custom among the ancient heathen, ‘the priest blew his breath upon the child, which was then considered baptised by air, spiritus sanctus, or ghost, that is, baptism by the Holy Ghost.’ In case of baptism, a portion of the Holy Ghost was supposed to be transferred from the priest to the candidate. ‘The practice of breathing in or upon,’ says our author, ‘was quite common among the ancient heathen.’
10. The Holy Ghost as the agent in divine conception, or the procreation of other Gods. Jesus is said to have been conceived by the Holy Ghost (see Matt. i. 18), and we find similar claims instituted still more anciently for other incarnate demigods. In the Mexican Trinity, Y, ‘Zona’ was the father, ‘Bacal’ the Word, and ‘Echvah’ the Holy Ghost, by the last of whom Chimalman conceived and brought forth the enfleshed God Quexalcote. (See Mex. Ant., vol. vi. p. 1650.) In the Hindu mythos, Saki was conceived by the Holy Ghost Nara-an.

Other cases might be cited, proving the same point.

Thus, we observe that the various heterogeneous conceptions, discordant traditions, and contradictory superstitions appertaining to that anomalous nondescript being known as the Holy Ghost, are traceable to various oriental countries, and to a very remote antiquity.

We will only occupy space with one or two more historical citations of a general nature, tending to prove the prevalence of this ghostly myth in other countries, not yet cited. ‘Tell me, O thou strong in fire!’ ejaculated Sesostris of Egypt, to the oracle, as reported by Manetho, ‘who before me could subjugate all things, and who shall after me ?’ But the oracle rebuked him, saying, ‘First God, then the Word, and with them the Spirit.’ (See Nimrod, vol. ix. 119.) ‘And Plutarch, in his ‘Life of Numa,’’ says our oft-quoted author, ‘shows that the incarnation of the Holy Spirit was known both to the ancient Romans and Egyptians.’

The doctrine is thus shown to have been nearly universal.

The origin of the tradition respecting this fabulous and mythical being is easily traced to the ancient Brahminical trifold conception of the Deity, in which stands, in Trinity order, first, the God of power or might – Brahma or Brahman (the Father); second, the God of creation – the Word – answering to John’s creative Word (see John i. 3); and third the God of generation and regeneration – the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost. The last member of the triune conception of the Deity was considered, under the Brahminical theocracy, the living, vital, active, life-imparting agent in both the first and second births of men and the gods.

It will be borne in mind that the Holy Ghost is represented in the Christian Scripture as being the active generating agent of Christ’s conception, he being, as Matthew declares, ‘conceived by the Holy Ghost.’ The Holy Ghost was also the regenerating agent at his baptism. Although the specific object of the descent of the Holy Ghost on that occasion is not stated by Luke, who relates it; although it is not stated for what purpose the Holy Spirit, after assuming the form of a bird, alighted and sat upon his head, yet the motive is fully disclosed in the older mythical religions, where we find the matter in fuller detail.

Baptism itself is claimed by all its Christian votaries as regenerating or imparting a new spiritual life; and this new spiritual life was believed by several nations, as before stated, to make its appearance in the character and shape of a bird – sometimes a pigeon, sometimes a dove; and thus the origin of this tradition is most clearly and unmistakably exposed.

As the foregoing historical exposition exhibits the Holy Ghost as performing several distinct and discordant offices, so we likewise find it possessing at least two distinct genders, the masculine and neuter, that is, no gender – changing, ghost-like, from one to the other, as occasion seemed to require.

From all these metamorphoses it is shown and demonstrated that the sexual and other changes of this ‘mysterious’ being equal many of the demigods of mythology. The primary windy conception of the Holy Ghost is traceable to that early period of society when the rude and untutored denizens of the earth, in their profound ignorance of natural causes, were very easily and naturally led into the belief that wherever there was motion there was a God, or the active manifestation of a God, whether it was in the wind, breath, water, fire, or the sun.

Hence, the Buddhists had their god Vasus, who manifested himself variously in the shape or character of fire, wind, storms, gas, ghosts, gusts, and the breath, thus constituting a very nearly-allied counterpart to the Christian Holy Ghost, which Mr. Parkhurst tells us originally meant ‘air in motion.’ This god was believed to have sprung from the supreme, primordial God, which the ancient Brahmins and Buddhists generally believed was constituted of a fine, spiritual substance: aura, anima, wind, ether, igneous fluid, or electrical fire, that is., fire from the sun, giving rise to ‘baptism by fire;’ and hence, the third God, or third member of the Trinity, subsequently arising out of this compound being, was also necessarily composed of or consisted of the same properties – all of which were believed to be correlated, if not identical.

Such is a complete, though brief, historical elucidation of that mysterious, imaginary being so corporally intangible that Faustus, of the third century, declared respecting it, ‘The Holy Spirit, the third majesty, has the air for his residence.’ And it is a fabulous God whose scriptural biography is invested with so many ludicrous and abstruse incidents as to incite several hundred Christian writers to labor hard with a ‘godly zeal,’ by a reconstruction of God’s Word’ and a rehabiliment of the ghostly texts to effect some kind of a reconciliation of the story with reason and common sense – with what success one is left to judge.

Before dismissing our ghostly narrative, it may effect something in the way of mitigating the anxious fears of some of our Christian brothers and sisters to explain the nature of ‘the sin against the Holy Ghost,’ and assign the reason for its being unpardonable. The sin against the Holy Ghost consisted, according to the ancient Mexican traditions, in resisting its operations in the second birth – that is, the regeneration of the heart or soul by the Holy Ghost. And as the rectification of the heart or soul was a prominent idea with Christ, there is scarcely any ground to doubt but that this was the notion he cherished of the nature of the sin against the Holy Ghost. And it was considered unpardonable, simply because as the pardoning and cleansing process consisted in, or was at least always accompanied with baptism by water, in which operation the Holy Ghost was the agent in effecting a ‘new birth,’ therefore, when the ministrations or operations of this indispensable agent were resisted or rejected, there was no channel, no means, no possible mode left for the sinner to find a renewed acceptance with God. When a person sinned against the Father or the Word (the Son), he could find a door of forgiveness through the baptising processes spiritual or elementary, of the Holy Ghost, But an offence’ committed against this third limb of the Godhead had the effect to close and bar the door so that there could be ‘no forgiveness, either in this life or that which is to come.’ To sin against the Holy Ghost was to tear down the scaffold by which the door of heaven was to be reached.

And thus it is explained the great ‘mystery of godliness,’ the ‘unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost,’ which, on account of the frightful penalty annexed to it, while it is impossible to learn what it consists in – it being undefined and undefinable – has caused thousands, and probably millions, of the disciples of the Christian faith the most agonising hours of alarm and despair.

‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ (John i. 1.) The doctrine of the divine creative word (from the Greek Logos) appears to have been coeval in its origin with that of the Trinity, if not inseparably connected with it, as it constitutes the second member of the Trinity of ‘Father, Word, and Holy Ghost’ in most of the ancient systems of religion. Works on heathen mythology show that it was anciently a very prevalent custom to personify ideas, thoughts and words into angels and Gods. Words were first personated, and transformed into men, then into angels, and finally into Gods.

And here is foreshadowed the origin of John’s personification of ‘the Word made flesh.’ It was simply the word of the supreme God as it escaped from his mouth, assuming the form and characteristics of a divine being like himself, and taking position as a secondary God and second member of the Trinity. This was the orient conception, and it appears to have been John’s. He evidently had no thought of Christ experiencing human birth, at first, or being born of a woman, but believed, like some of the orientalists, that he came out of the mouth of the Father, and was thus ‘made flesh.’ (John i. 2.) Not a word of Christ being born is found in John’s Gospel, till after his existence as the Word is spoken of.

John also represents the Word as having been the Creator. ‘All things were made by him.’ (John i. 3.) And Peter declares, ‘By the word of God the heavens were of old.’ (2 iii. 5.) Now, let it be observed here, as a notable circumstance, that the Chinese bible, much older than the Christian’s New Testament, likewise declares, ‘God pronounced the primeval Word, and his own eternal and glorious abode sprang into existence.’ Mr. Guizot, in a note on Gibbon’s work, says, ‘According to the Zend-Avesta (the Persian bible, more than three thousand years old), it is by the Word, more ancient than the world, that Ormuzd created the universe.’

In like manner the sacred writings of the ancient Tibetans speak of ‘the Word which produced the world’ – an exact counterpart to John’s declaration, ‘All things were made by him.’ And the ancient Greek writer Amelias speaking of the God Mercury, says, ‘And this plainly was the Logos (the Word), by whom all things were made, he being himself eternal, as Heraclitus would say ... He assumed to be with God, and to be God, and in him everything that was made, has its life and being, who, descending into body, and putting on flesh, took the appearance of a man, though still retaining the majesty of his nature. Here is ‘the Word made flesh’ set forth in most explicit terms. The Psalmist exclaims, ‘By the Word of God were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the Breath of his mouth.’ (Ps. xxxiii. 6.) Here is disclosed not only the conception of the Word as Creator, but also the Word and the Breath as synonymous terms, both of which conceptions oriental history amply proves to be of heathen derivation.

It was anciently believed that the Word and Breath of God were the same, and possessed a vitalising power, which, as they issued from his mouth, might be transformed into another being known as a secondary God. Both the Jews and the Christians seem to have inherited this belief, as evinced by the foregoing quotations from their bible. The most ancient tradition taught that the Word emanated from the mouth of the principal God, and ‘became flesh,’ that is, took form, as the ancient Brahmins expressed it, for the special purpose of serving as agent in the work of creation, that is, to become the creator of the external universe. St. John evidently borrowed this idea. Read his first chapter.

The pre-existence or previous existence of the Word, antecedent to the date of its metamorphosis into the human form, we find taught in several of the ancient systems of religion, as well as the more modern Christian system. Several texts in the Christian New Testament set forth the doctrine quite explicitly. Christ, as the Divine Word, declared, ‘Before Abraham was I am,’ and that he had an existence with the Father before the foundation of the world, etc., which is a distinct avowal of the doctrine of preexistence.

But oriental history proves the doctrine is much older than Christianity.

The Hindu very anciently taught that ‘the Word had existed with God from all eternity, and when spoken it became a glorious form, the aggregate embodiment of all the divine ideas, and performed the work of creation.’ And of Krishna, it is affirmed that ‘while upon the earth he existed also in heaven.’ (See Baghavat Gita.)

In like manner it is declared of an Egyptian God, that ‘though he was born into the world, he existed with his father God before the world was made.’ And parallel to this is the statement of the Chinese bible, that ‘though the Holy Word (Chang-si) will be born upon the earth, yet he existed before anything was made.’ Even for Pythagoras it was claimed he existed in heaven before he was born upon the earth. Mr. Higgins, in summing up the matter, declares, ‘All the old religions believed the world was created by the Word, and that this Word existed before creation’ (Ana., vol. ii. p. 77), which clearly indicates the source of St. John’s creative Word.

In most cases the living Divine Word was known by different names and titles, prior to the era of its assuming the mortal form, from that by which it was known after its fleshly investment.

Among the ancient Persians, the name for the divine spiritual Word was Hanover. After its human birth, it was called ‘Mithra the Mediator.’ The Hindu oriental term for the primeval Word was Om, or Aum. After assuming its most important incarnate form, it was known as Krishna. The Chinese Holy Interior Word was Omi-to, and its principal incarnation was Chang-ti or Ti-enti. The Japanese also proclaimed their belief in a Divine Word before the Christian era, which, in their language, was Amina. They taught, like John, that it came forth from the mouth of the Supreme God (Brahman) to perform the work of creation, after which, it was known as Saki. And that popular Christian writer, Mr. Milman, informs us that the Jewish founders of Christianity believed in an original Divine Word, which they call Memra. When it descended to the earth, and ‘became flesh, and dwelt amongst us’ (John i. 4.) according to the evangelist John, it was known as Jesus Christ. Mr. Milman states also, that ‘the appellation to the Word is found in the Indian (Hindu), Persian, the Platonic, and the Alexandrian systems.’ (Hist. of Christ, Book I., Chap. 2.)

Thus, the question is settled by Christian testimony – that the various conceptions of the Divine Word are of heathen origin.

There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost.’ (i John v. 7.) Observe, the Word is the second person in the Trinity. And this was its post in the Brahman, Hindu, Persian, and other systems. ‘All religions,’ says a writer, ‘which taught the existence of the Word as a great primeval spirit, represent him as secondary to the supreme. (P.R. 3, vol. ii. p. 336.) ‘The Hindus reverenced it next to Brahman.’ Mr. Higgins cuts the matter short by declaring ‘The Logos, or Word, was the second person of the Trinity in all the ancient systems, as in the Christian system,’ which again indicates its heathen origin.

‘The Word.’ ‘the Holy Word,’ ‘the Divine Word,’ etc., are terms now frequently applied to the Christian bible, without any suspicion of their heathen origin. The Zend-Avesta, the Persian bible, was always called ‘The Living Word of God,’ for that is the meaning of the term Zend-Avesta, and the oldest bible in the world is the Vedas, and it means both Word and Wisdom. Om, the Egyptian’s Holy Word, they frequently applied both to their incarnate Gods and to their sacred writings.

The practice of calling bibles ‘The Word of God’ originated from the belief that, when the incarnate Word left the earth and returned to heaven, he infused a portion of his living spirits into the divine writings which contained his history and his doctrines, and which be himself had prompted his disciples to write as his ‘Last Revelation to man.’ They then must contain a portion of him, that is, a portion of the Holy Word – hence, both were called ‘The Holy Word.’

And this heathen custom Christians borrowed.

The motive which prompted a belief in the creative Word may be styled a theological necessity. It was believed that the principal God, like the rulers of earth, was too aristocratic to labor with his own hands. Hence, another God was originated to perform the work of creation, and called ‘The Word.’

The origin of the creative Word is still further indicated by Blackwood’s Magazine. It says: ‘Creation became impossible to a being already infinite, and was a derogation to a being already perfect. Some lower God, some Avatar, must be interposed (as an emanation from the mouth of the God supreme) to perform the subordinate task of creation. Hence, originated and came forth the Word as Creator.’

‘There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.’ (i John v. 7.) This text, which evidently discloses a belief in the existence of three separate and distinct beings in the Godhead, sets forth a doctrine which was anciently of almost universal prevalence. Nearly every nation, whether oriental or occidental, whose religious faith has been commemorated in history, discloses in its creed a belief in the trifold nature and triune division of the Deity. St. Jerome testifies unequivocally, ‘All the ancient nations believed in the Trinity.

And a volume of facts and figures might be cited here, if we had space for them, in proof of this statement.

A text from one of the Hindu bibles, (the Puranas) will evince the antiquity and prevalence of this belief in a nation of one hundred and fifty millions of people more than two thousand years ago. ‘O you three Lords!’ ejaculated Attention, ‘know that I recognise only one God. Inform me, therefore, which of you is the true divinity that I may address to him alone my vows and adorations. The three Gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, becoming manifest to him, replied, ‘Learn, O devotee, that there is no real distinction between us. What to you appears such is only by semblance. The single being appears under three forms by the acts of creation, preservation and destruction, but he is one.’

Now, note the remark here, that the ancient Christian fathers almost universally and unanimously proclaimed the doctrine of the Trinity as one of the leading tenets of the Christian faith, and as a doctrine derived directly by revelation from heaven. But here we find it most explicitly set forth by a disciple of a pagan religion more than three thousand years ago, as the Christian missionary D.O. Allen states, that the Hindu bible, in which it was found was compiled fourteen hundred years before Christ, and written at a still earlier period. And we find the same doctrine very explicitly taught in the ancient Brahmin, Persian, Chaldean, Chinese, Mexican and Grecian systems – all much older than Christianity.

No writer ever taught or avowed a belief in any tenet of religious faith more fully or plainly than Plato sets forth the doctrine of the Trinity in his Plaedon, written four hundred years BC And his terms are found to be in most striking conformity to the Christian doctrine on this subject, as taught in the New Testament. Plato’s first term for the Trinity was in Greek:

1. To Agathon, the supreme God or Father.

2. The Logos, which is the Greek term for the Word.

3. Psyche, which the Greek Lexicon defines to mean ‘soul, spirit or ghost’ – of course, the Holy Ghost.

Here we have the three terms of the Christian Trinity, Father, Word, and Holy Ghost, as plainly taught as language can express it, thus making Plato’s exposition of the Trinity and definition of its terms, published four hundred years BC, identical in meaning with those of St. John’s, as found in his Gospel, and contained in the above quoted text. Where, then, is the foundation for the dogmatic claim on the part of the Christian professors for the divine origin of the Trinity doctrine?

We will here cite the testimony of some Christian writers to prove that the Trinity is a pagan-derived doctrine. A Christian bishop, Mr. Powell, declares, ‘I not only confess but I maintain, such a similitude of Plato’s and John’s Trinity doctrines as bespeaks a common origin.’ (Thirteenth letter to Dr. Priestley.) What is that you say, bishop? ‘A common origin.’ Then you concede both are heaven-derived, or both heathen-derived. If the former, then revelation and heathenism are synonymous terms. If the latter, then Christianity stands on a level with heathen mythology. Which horn of the dilemma will you choose? St. Augustine confessed he found the beginning of John’s Gospel in Plato’s Phaedon, which is a concession of the whole ground.

Another writer, Chataubron, speaks of an ancient Greek inscription on the great obelisk at Rome, which reads:

1. The Mighty God.

2. The Begotten of God (as Christ is declared to be ‘the only begotten son of the Father’ (John i. 14.).

3. ‘Apollo the Spirit’ – the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost.

This presents, in plain language, the three terms of the Trinity. And Mr. Cudworth, in corroboration of this report, says, ‘The Greeks had a first God, and second God, and third God, and the second was begotten by the first. And yet for all that,’ continues Mr. Cudworth, ‘they considered all these one.’

In the Platonic or Grecian Trinity, the first person was considered the planner of the work of creation, the second person the creator, and the third person the ghost or spirit which moved upon the face of the waters, and infused life into the mighty deep at creation – the same Holy Ghost which descended from heaven to infuse life into the waters at Christ’s baptism; thus, the resemblance is complete. Mr. Basnage quotes a Christian writer of the fifth century as declaring, ‘The Athenian sage Plato marvellously anticipated one of the most important and mysterious doctrines of the Christian religion’ – meaning the Trinity – an important concession truly.

The oldest and probably the original form of the Trinity is that found in the Brahmin and Hindu systems – the terms of which are:

1. Brahma, the Father or supreme God.

2. Vishnu, the incarnate Word and Creator.

3. Siva, the Spirit of God, that is, the Holy Spirit or Ghost.

Each answers to corresponding terms of the Christian Trinity, and yet two thousand years older, according to Dr. Smith.

We have not allowable space for other facts and citations (as this work is designed as a mere epitome), although we have but entered upon the threshold of the evidence tending to prove that the Christian Trinity was born of heathen parents, that it is an offspring of heathen mythology, like other doctrines of the Christian faith, claimed by its disciples as the gift of divine revelation.

Here let it be noted as a curious chapter in sacred history that the numerous divine Trinities which have constituted a part of nearly every religious system ever propagated to the world were composed, in every case, of male Gods. No female has ever yet been admitted into the triad of Gods composing the orthodox Trinity. Every member of the Trinity in every case is a male, and an old bachelor – a doctrine most flagrantly at war with the principles of modern philosophy.

For this science teaches us that the endowment of a being with either male or female organs, presupposes the existence of the other sex; and that either sex, without the other would be a ludicrous anomaly, and a ludicrous distortion of nature unparalleled in the history of science. As sexual organs create an imperious desire for the other sex, no male or female could long enjoy full happiness in the absence of the other party. What an unhappy, lonesome place, therefore, the orthodox heaven must have been, during the eternity of the past, with no society but old bachelors! The Trinity was constituted of Males simply because woman has always been considered a mere cipher in society – a mere tool for man’s convenience, an appendage to his wants. Hence, instead of having a place among the Gods she led the practical life of a servant and a menial, which accounts for her exclusion from the Trinity. But the time is coming when she will rule both heaven and earth with the omnipotent power of her love nature. Then we shall have no ‘war in heaven,’ and no fighting on earth.

Some Christian writers have laboured to make it appear that this is exclusively a Christian doctrine, while others have laboured as hard to get it out of their bible, or make the people believe that it is not therein taught.

We shall show, upon scriptural and historical authority, that both are wrong.

There can be no question as to this rite having existed outside of Christianity, or of its being much older than Christianity. History proves both. Nor can it be successfully denied that it is taught in the Christian Scriptures, both the confessing of sins and that of forgiving sins. The apostle James, with respect to the former, is quite explicit. He enjoins, emphatically, ‘Confess your faults one to another.’ (James v. 16.) The practice of forgiving sins is also enjoined. ‘Forgiving one another is recommended both in Ephesians (iv. 32) and Colossians. (iii. 13) ‘And whatsoever ye shall lose on earth shall be loosed in heaven’ (Matthew xviii 18), is interpreted as conferring the power to forgive sins.

And then we remark that the practices both of confessing and forgiving sins are very ancient pagan rites and customs. Speaking of their prevalence in ancient India, the author of the Anacalypsis remarks, ‘The person offering sacrifices made a verbal confession of his sins, and received absolution.’ Auricular confession was also practiced among the ancient Mithriacs, or Persians, and the Parsees proper of the same country. Mr. Volney tells us, ‘They observed all the Christian sacraments, even to the laying on of hands in the confirmation.’ (211.) And the Christian Tertullian also tells us that ‘The priests of Mithra promised absolution from sin on confession and baptism,’ while another author adds, that ‘on such occasions Mithra marked his followers (the servants of God) in their foreheads,’ and that ‘he celebrated the sacrifice of bread, which is the resurrection.’

In the collection of the Jewish laws called ‘The Mishna,’ we are told the Jews confessed their sins by placing their hands upon a calf belonging to the priest, and that this was called ‘the Confession of Calves.’ (See Mishna, tom. ii. p. 394.) Confessing sins was practiced in ancient Mexico; also under Numa of Rome, whose priests, we are informed, had to clear their consciences by confessing their sins before they could offer sacrifices. The practice of confessing and forgiving sins as recommended in the Christian bible, and practiced by some of the Christian sects, has been the source of much practical evil by furnishing a pretext and license, to some extent, for the commission of crime and sin. While sans can be so easily obliterated they will be committed – perpetrated without much remorse or restraint.’ In China (says the Rev. Mr. Pitrat, 232), the invocation of Omito is sufficient to remit the punishment of the greatest crimes.’ The same author tells us, ‘The ancient initiation of the pagans had tribunals of penance, where the priests, under the name of Roes, heard from the mouth of the sinners themselves the avowal of their sins of which their souls were to be purified, and from the punishment of which they wished to be exempted.’ (Page 37.) The granting of absolution for sin or misconduct among the early primitive Christians was so common, St. Cyprian informs us, that ‘thousands of reprieves were granted daily,’ which served as an indirect license to crime. And thus the doctrine of divine forgiveness, as taught by pagans and Christians, has proved to be demoralising in its effects upon society.

Baptism, in some of its various forms, is a very ancient rite, and was extensively practiced in several oriental countries. It was administered in a great variety of forms, and with the use of different elements. Water was the most common, but fire and air, wind, spirit or ghost were also used; and both the living and the dead were made the subjects of its solemn and imposing ceremonies.

We will notice each of these modes of baptism separately – appropriating a brief space to each.

‘Baptism by water,’ says Mr. Higgins, ‘is a very old rite, being practiced by the followers of Zoroaster, by the Romans, the Egyptians, and other nations.’ It was also in vogue among the ancient Hindus at a still earlier date. Their mode of administering it was to dip the candidate for immersion three times in the watery element, in the same manner as is now practiced by some of the Christian sects, during the performance of which the hierophant would ejaculate the following prayer and ceremony: ‘O Lord, this man is impure, like the mud of this stream! But do thou cleanse and deliver his soul from sin as the water cleanses his body.’ They believed that water possessed the virtue of purifying both soul and body – the latter from filth and the former from sin. The ancient Mexicans, Persians, Hindus and Jews were in the habit of baptising their infants soon after they were born. And the water used for this purpose was called ‘the water of regeneration.’ Paul speaks of being ‘saved by the washing of regeneration. (See Titus iii. 5.) Those who touched these infants before they were baptise were deemed impure. And as this was unavoidable on the part of the mothers, they were required, as in the cases of the mothers of Krishna and Christ, to present themselves on the eighth day after accouchement to the priest in the temple to be purified. The Romans chose the eighth day for girls and the ninth for boys. The child was usually named (christened) at the time it was baptised. And in India, the name, or God’s name, or some other mark, was engraved or written on the forehead. This custom is several times recognised in the Christian bible, both in the old and in the New Testament. (See Ezek. ix 4; Rev. xiv. 9; xix. 20, etc.) John speaks of a mark being made on the forehead. (See Rev. xiii. 16.) Also of the name of God being written on the forehead. (Rev. iii. 12.)

At this stage of our inquiry it may be stated that several of the ancient religious orders had the legend of a dove or pigeon descending at baptism – a counterpart to the evangelical story of ‘the Spirit of God descending in bodily shape like a dove,’ and alighting on the head of Jesus Christ while being baptised by John in Jordan. (See Luke iii. 22.) It will be observed here that the spirit, or soul, of God descended not only in the manner, but in ‘bodily shape like a dove.’ This accords with the tradition anciently prevalent among the Hindus, Mexicans, Greeks, Romans and Persians, or Babylonians, that all souls, or spirits, possessed, or were capable of assuming, the form of a dove. Hence, it is reported of Polycarp, Semiramis, Caesar and others, that at death their souls, or spirits, were seen to leave the body in ‘bodily shape like a dove’ and ascend to heaven. ‘The Divine Love, or Eros,’ says Mr. Higgins, ‘was supposed by the oriental heathen to descend often in the form of a dove to bless the candidate for baptism.’ These traditions, doubtless, gave rise to the story of the dove descending at Christ’s baptism – that is God in the shape of a dove, for that is clearly the meaning of the text. We are also informed by our author just quoted, that a dove stood for and represented, among the orientalists, the third person of the Trinity, as it does in the gospel story of Christ – he being the second member of the Christian Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. It was considered ‘the regenerator, or regenerating spirit,’ and persons being baptised were said to be ‘born again’ into the spirit or the spirit into them; that is, the dove into or upon them.

What a master-key is furnished by these oriental religions for solving the mysteries of the Christian bible! How much more lucid than Divine Revelation – so-called!

We will quote again from Higgins: ‘Among all nations, from the very earliest period, water has been used as a species of religious sacrament. Because, as it dripped from the clouds, it was observed to have the power of reviving drooping nature and creating anew, or regenerating the whole vegetable kingdom in spring, it was hence chosen as an emblem of spiritual regeneration and a medium of baptism. Water was the element by means of which everything was born again through the agency of the Eros, Dove, or Divine Love.’ And, hence, the ceremony of dipping or plunging (or, as it is modernly termed, baptising) came into vogue for the remission of sins and ‘the regeneration into a new and more holy life.’

Some streams were supposed to have more efficacy in these respects than others. Hence, nearly all religious nations had their ‘Holy Rivers, ‘Holy Water,’ ‘Sacred Pools,’ etc. The Hindus resorted to the ‘Holy Ganges,’ the Egyptians to the ‘Holy Nile,’ the Chaldeans and Persians to the ‘Holy Euphrates,’ the Greeks to their ‘Holy Lustral Water,’ the Italians to the river Po, and the Jews and Christians to their holy river Jordan. If Jordan was not called ‘holy,’ it was undoubtedly considered so, else why did Elisha order Naaman to wash seven times in that stream instead of Damascus, which was much nearer and more accessible? And why was Christ baptised in Jordan? ‘And all the land of Judea, and they of Jerusalem, were baptised in Jordan, confessing their sins.’ (Matt. iii. vi.) Why, as several streams were handier to a large portion of the candidates, simply because Jordan was considered to be ‘more holy.’ And Christians had their sacred pool of Bethesda, as the Hindus had their Sahar.

The rite of baptism was at first generally practiced in caves – as were also other religious rites; and as these caves were often difficult of access, and their mouths, doors or gates narrow and difficult to enter, they fully exemplify Christ’s declaration, ‘Straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life.’ (Matt. vii. 14.) And when he declared, ‘Except a Man be born of water and of spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven’ (John iii. 5) he was only seconding the exhortation of the priests to enter these subterranean vaults and be baptised after the oriental and Jewish custom. Thus originated baptism by water in the form of dipping, or immersion.

Owing to the scarcity of water in some countries, and its entire absence in others, and the fatal effects sometimes resulting from the practice of baptising infants and invalids by immersion, a new mode of baptism eventually sprung up, now known as ‘sprinkling,’ in which sometimes water and sometimes blood was used. Virgil, Ovid and Cicero all speak of its prevalence amongst the ancient Romans or Latins. We are informed that the ancient Jews practiced it upon their women while in a state of nudity, the ceremony being administered by three rabbis, or priests. But the custom finally gave way to one more consonant with decorum. Blood, being considered ‘the life thereof’ of man, was deemed more efficacious than water, and hence was often used in lieu of that element. The Greeks kept a ‘holy vessel’ for this purpose, known as the Facina. The Romans used a brush, which may now be seen engraved upon some of their ancient coins and sculptured on their ancient temples. The Hindus and Persians used a branch of laurel or some other shrub for sprinkling the repentant candidate, whether water or blood was used.

In some countries the rite was practiced as a talisman against evil spirits. The Mexicans never approached their altars without sprinkling them with blood drawn from their own bodies, as the Jews sprinkled the walls and door-posts of their temples with blood under the requisition of the Levitical code. This mode of fancied purification by sprinkling either with water or blood we find recognised and apparently sanctioned, in the Christian bible, both in the Old and New Testaments. Ezekiel says, ‘I will sprinkle clean water on you.’ (Ezek. XXXVI. 25.) Peter uses the phrase, ‘The sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.’ (i Peter i. 2.) And Paul makes use of the expression, ‘The blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel’ (Heb. xii. 24), which we regard as an indirect sanction of the senseless heathen idea of effecting spiritual purification by drops of blood. (See Potter’s Antiquities and Herbert’s Travels.)

Baptism by fire was a form or mode of application which seems to have been introduced from the belief that it was productive of a higher degree of purification. There were several ways of using fire in the baptismal rite. In some cases the candidate for immortality ran through blazing streams of fire – a custom which was called ‘the baptism of fire.’ M. de Humboldt, in his ‘Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of America,’ informs us it prevailed in India, Chaldea and Syria, and throughout eastern Asia. It appears to have been gotten up as a substitute for sun-worship, as this luminary was believed to be constituted of fire, though in reality there never was any such thing as sun or solar worship. Christian writers represent the ancient Persians as has having been addicted to solar worship. But Firdausi, Cudworth and other authors declare that neither they nor any other nation ever worshiped the sun, but merely an imaginary Deity supposed to reside in the sun. Heathen nations have been charged with many things of which they were not guilty; though it is true that in the spirit of Christ’s exhortation, ‘Whosoever loseth his life for my sake shall find it,’ some of the candidates for the fiery ordeal voluntarily sacrificed their lives in the operation, under the persuasion that it was necessary to purify the soul, and would enable them to ascend to higher posts or planes of enjoyment in the celestial world. And some of them were taught that sins not expurgated by fire, or some other efficaciously renovating process in this life, would be punished by fire in the life to come. Here we will mention that there is a seeming recognition of this ancient heathen rite in both departments of the Christian’s bible. Isaiah says, ‘When thou walkest through fire thou shalt not be burned.’ (lxiii. 2.) And the Baptist John recognises three modes of baptism: I indeed baptise you with water, but he that cometh after me shall baptise you with fire and the Holy Ghost.’ (Matt, iii. 11. And Paul teaches the necessity of being purified by fire. (See i Cor. iii. 15.) So it is both a heathen and a Christian idea.

This fanciful ceremony is both a Christian and a heathen rite, and is undoubtedly of heathen origin. The mode of applying it was to breathe into or upon the seeker for divine favours. This was done by the priest, who, it was believed, imparted the Spirit of God by the process. The custom, Mr. Herbert informs us, was anciently quite common in oriental countries, and was at a later date borrowed by Christ and his apostles and incorporated into the Christian ceremonies. We find that Christ not only sanctioned it but practiced it, as it is declared when he met his disciples after his resurrection ‘he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.’ (John xx. 22.)

And the following language of Ezekiel is evidently a sanction of the same heathen custom: ‘Thus saith the Lord God, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slam, that they may live.’ (xxxvii. 9.) Let it be borne in mind here that breath, air, wind, spirit and ghost were used as synonymous terms, according to Mr. Parkhurst (see Chap. XXII.), and this breathing was supposed to impart spiritual life, being nothing less than the Spirit of God, the same as that breathed into Adam when ‘he became a living soul.’ (See Gen. ii. 7.) For a fuller exposition see Chapter XXII.

It was customary among the Hindus and other nations to postpone baptism till near the supposed terminus of life, in order that the ablution might extinguish all the sins and misdeeds of the subjects earthly probation. But it sometimes happened that men and women were killed, or died unexpectedly, before the rite was administered. And as it would not do for these unfortunate souls to be deprived of the benefit of this soul-saving ordinance, the custom was devised of baptising the defunct body, or more commonly some living person in its stead. The method of executing the latter expedient, according to St. Chrysostom, was to place some living person under the bed or couch on which the corpse was reclining, when the defunct was asked if he would be baptised. The living man, responding for the dead, answered in the affirmative. The corpse was then taken and dipped in a vessel prepared for the purpose. This silly practice was in vogue among the early Christians, and Paul seems to regard it as an important custom. ‘Else what shall they do which are baptised for the dead, if the dead rise not at all.’ (i Cor. xv. 9.)

The inference derivable from this text is, that Paul held that the labor of baptising the dead would be lost in the event of the falsification of the doctrine of the resurrection, but otherwise it would be valid – which evinces his faith in the senseless and superstitious practice. It will be observed from the historical exposition of this chapter that all the various ancient heathen modes and rites of baptism have been practiced by Christians, and are sanctioned by their bible.

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