in Bœotia, at Larissa among the Argives, and at Heliopolis in Egypt. "The Egyptians sometimes symbolized him by a radiated circle, and at others by a sceptre with an eye above it-a symbol which we see at this day consecrated to the representation of the Christian Providence. Nor should we forget the claims of his ministers to a peculiar character of sanctity and holiness, which we may well wonder how they should ever come to surrender to the pretensions of preachers of Christianity: unless, indeed, we should venture to imagine that there was never any real difference between them, and that the priests of Apollo and of Jesus were ministers of the same religion, and of one and the same deity, under different names. 'Tis certain, that Apollo had a celebrated shrine at Mount Soracte in Italy, where his priests were so remarkable for sanctity, and holiness of heart and life, that they could walk on burning coals unhurt."-Bell's Panth. in loco. Parkhurst, in his Hebrew Lexicon, under the word 4, informs us, that "the Praise ye Jah!' or 'Hallelujah!' which the Septuagint have left untranslated, novia, which begins and ends so many of the Psalms, ascribed to David, was a solemn form of praise to Ged, which, no doubt, was far prior to the time of David; since the ancient Greeks had their similar acclamation, Ehehev In- Hallelujee!' with which they both began and ended their paans, or hymns, in honour of Apollo." CHAPTER XXVI. MERCURY-JESUS CHRIST, THIS god calls for no further notice in our inquiry, than from the circumstance of his having been distinguished in the Pagan world by the evangelical title of the Logos, or the WORD "The Word that in the beginning was with God, and that also was a God." ། Our Christian writers, from whose partial pens we are now obliged to gather all they will permit us to know of the ancient forms of piety, discover considerable apprehension, and a jealous caution in their language, where the resemblance between Paganism and Christianity might be apt to strike the mind too cogently. Where Horace gives us a very extraordinary account of Mer cury's descent into hell,* and his causing a cessation of the sufferings there,† our Christian mythologist checks our curiosity, by the sudden break off-"As this perhaps may be a mystical part of his character, we had better let it alone."-Bell's Panth. vol. 2. p. 72. But the further back we trace the evidences of the Christian religion, the less concerned we find its advocates to maintain, or even to pretend that there was any difference at all between the essential doctrines of Christianity and Paganism. AMMONIUS SACCUs, a learned Christian Father, towards the end of the second century, had taught with the highest applause in the Alexandrian school, that "all the Gentile religions, and even the Christian, were to be illustrated and explained by the principles of an universal philosophy; but that, in order to this, the fables of the priests were to be removed from Paganism, and the comments and interpretations of the disciples of Jesus from Christianity;† while Justin Martyr, the first and most distinguished apologist for the Christian religion, who wrote within fifty years of the time of the Evangelist St. John, boldly challenges the respect of the emperor Adrian and his son, as due to the Christian religion, just exactly on the score of its sameness and identity with the ancient Paganism. "For by declaring the Logos, the first begotten of God, our Master, Jesus Christ, to be born of a virgin without any human mixture, to be crucified and dead, and to have risen again into heaven; we say no more in this, than what you say of those whom you style the sons of Jove, &c. As to the son of God, called Jesus, should we allow him to be nothing more than man, yet the title of the Son of God is very justifiable upon the account of his wisdom, considering that you have your MERCURY in worship under the title of THE WORD, and Messenger of God."—Reeve's Apologies of the Fathers, vol. 1, London, 1716. Justin might, if he had pleased, have been still more particular, and have shown, that "among the Gauls, more than a hundred years before the Christian era, in the district of Chartres, a festival was annually celebrated to the honour of the Virgo Paritura, the virgin that should bring forth."-Dupuis, tom. 3, p. 51, 4to edit. *He descended into hell."-Apostles' Creed. hell, and also did rise again."-Baptismal Service. and preached unto the spirits in prison."-1 Pet. iii. 19. † See the Apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus. + Mosheim's Eccl. Hist. vol. 1, p. 171. "That he went down into 66 By which also he went Gonzales also writes, that among the Indians he found a temple Parituræ Virginis, of the virgin about to bring forth. The good Christian Father Epiphanias glories in the fact, that the prophecy, "Behold a virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son," had been revealed to the Egyptians.Celtic Druids, p. 163. This prophecy, however, should rather have been revealed to the Irish, as its literal accomplishment is so strikingly of a piece with the equally authentic miracles of their patron saint, who sailed across the ocean upon a mill-stone, and contrived to heat an oven red-hot with nothing but ice.-"Life of the glorious Bishop St. Patrick, by Fr. B. B., St. Omers, 1625, by licence of the Censors of Louvaine, of the Bishop of St. Omers, and of the Commissary and Definitor-general of the Seraphic Order." THE WORD JESUS CHRIST. The celebrated passage, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," &c. (John i. 1.) is a fragment of some Pagan treatise on the Platonic philosophy, and as such is quoted by Amelius, a Pagan philosopher, as strictly applicable to the Logos, or Mercury, the WORD, as early as the year 263; and is quoted appropriately as an honourable testimony borne to the Pagan deity, by a barbarian. With no intention further off, than that of recognizing the claims of any human being to that title, Amelius has the words, "And this plainly was the WORD, by whom all things were made, he being himself eternal, as Heraclitus also would say; and by Jove, the same whom the barbarian affirms to have been in the place and dignity of a principal, and to be with God, and to be God, by whom all things were made, and in whom every thing that was made, has its life and being; who, descending into body, and putting on flesh, took the appearance of a man, though even then he gave proof of the majesty of his nature; nay, and after his dissolution, he was deified again."* This is the language of one, of whom there is not the least pretence to show that he was a believer of the * Και ετος αρα ην ο λογος, καθ'ον αει οντα τα γινόμενα εγενετο, ως αν και ο Ηρακλειτος αξιώσεις και τη δι', ον ο βαρβαρος αξιοι εν της αρχης τάξει τε και αξια καθεστηκότα προς θεον ειναι, Οι 8 πανθ' απλως γεγενησθαι εν ω το γενομενων ζων και ζην, και ον πεφυκεναι και εις σωματα πιπτειν, και σαρκα ενδυσάμενον, φανταζ εσθαι ανθρωπον, μετα και το τηνικαυτα δεικνύειν της φυσεως το μεγαλείον αμελεί και αναλυθεντα παλιν αναθεεοθαι και θεον ειναι, οιος ην προ το εις σωμα και της σακα και τον ανθρωπον καταχθειναι.-Euseb. præp. Evan lib. xi. c. 19. Citante Lardnero, tom. 4, p. 200. Gospel, or even if he had ever heard of it, that he did not reject it; it was the language of clear, undisguised, and unmingled Paganism. The Logos then, or Word, was a designation purely and exclusively appropriate to the Pagan mythology. The Valentinians, a sect of Christian heretics of the first century, approximated so closely to Paganism, as to respect and believe a regular theogony, holding, according to Cyrill, that Depth produced Silence, and upon Silence begat the Logos.* CHAPTER XXVII. BACCHUS-JESUS CHRIST WAS the god of good-cheer, wine, and hilarity; and as such, the poets have been eloquent in his praises. On all occasions of mirth and jollity, they constantly invoked his presence,t and as constantly thanked him for the blessings he bestowed. To him they ascribed the greatest happiness of which humanity is capable, the forgetfulness of cares, and the delights of social intercourse. It has been usual for Christians invariably to represent this God as a sensual encourager of inebriation and excess; and reason enough it must be admitted that they have, for giving such a colouring to the matter; since, only by so doing, could they conceal the resemblance which an impartial observance would immediately discover between the Phoenician YESUS, who taught mankind the culture of the vine, and so without a miracle changed their drink from mere water into wine, "which cheereth God and man," (Judges, ix. 13), and the Egyptian Jesus, who, by a manœuvre upon half a dozen water-pots, was believed to have persuaded a company of intoxicated guests, that he had turned water into wine; of which the narrator of the story, with a striking tone of sarcasm, remarks, "This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him," (John ii. 11). As much as to say, that his disciples only would be the advocates of so egregious an imposture. "He manifested forth his glory;" that is, his * Βυθος εγεννησε Σιγην, και απο της Σιγης ετεκνοποιει λογον. + "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."-Matt. xviii. 20. YESUS.-Volney has shown that YES was one of the names of Bacchus, which, with the Latin termination, is nothing else than Yesus, or Jesus. peculiar mythological character, as THE GOD OF WINE, which was in like manner the peculiar characteristic of Bacchus. The real origin of the mystical three letters I H S, surrounded with rays of glory, to this day retained even in our Protestant churches, and falsely supposed to stand for Jesus Hominum Salvator, is none other than the identical name of Bacchus-YES, exhibited in Greek letters, rнz.See Hesychius on the word rн, i. e. YES, Bacchus, Sol, the Sun. The well-paid apologists of this and all other absurdities that have obtained their translation from Pagan into Christian legends, in vain endeavour to blink the obscenity betrayed in their Greek text. This miracle was not performed till all the witnesses of it were in the last stage of intoxication. "Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine, and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse; but thou hast kept the good wine until now,' is the remark of the Architriclinus, or ruler of the feast, the only individual, perhaps, except those who contributed to the juggle, who could speak at all. "Hast kept the good wine until now;" that is to say, "Till now, that it is all over with them, and you see them sprawling under the table, or scarce knowing whether their heads or heels are uppermost." The original text supports this sense, as the same will be found in the drunken odes of Anacreon: "To arms! But I shall drink. Boy, bring me the goblet! for Ihad rather lie dead drunk, than dead."* Nothing short of a debility of intellect produced by religious enthusiasm, similar to the sedative effects of frequently-repeated intoxication, could have hindered Christians from seeing the deep and pungent sarcasm on their religion involved in this drunken miracle, which a moment's rational reflection would expose. In any sense but that of an imposition practised upon men's senses, the miracle involves a physical impossibility, and a moral contradiction. In no idea that a rational mind can form of the power of God himself, can we conceive that he could make a thing to be and not to be, and at the same time; or so operate on the past, as to cause that to have been, which really had not been. That fluid, therefore, * Οπγιζ' ελω δε πινω Φερ' εμοι κυπελλον ω παι ! Anacreon. Πας ανθρωπος πρωτον τον καλον οινον τίθησι, και οταν μεθυσθωσι τότε τον ελάσσω. |
