Religion in the Heavens; Or, Mythology Unveiled in a Series of Lectures

by Logan Mitchell

LECTURE THIRD. THE CHRISTIAN FATHERS, AND THEIR DOGMAS

On the back-ground appeared the Christian fathers, rearing a
form of superstition the most sanguinary and destructive of
human happiness that has ever afflicted the world. Her limbs
bestrode the prostrate nations to the extremities of the
earth; her head lowered to the clouds, whilst the right hand
of the gigantic monster brandished a burning torch.
Beware of a bull before, a horse behind, and a priest all round.
Old Proverb.

It has constantly been assumed by church chronologists that the Jewish sect of Galileans, who afterwards took the old Pagan appellation of Christian, had writings of their own as early as the first century; but this is mere gratuitous assumption, and rests only on the authority of men entirely undeserving of credit. As for this new Christian Theogony, and how it came to receive the first stitches of its patchwork during the second and third centuries, we know nothing about the matter, except what we have on the authority of Eusebius (see preceding lecture), Bishop of Cæsarea, a man who was confessedly the most notorious of all the Church historians for forgery and every other species of pious falsehood.* In getting up his history, he confesses that he entered upon "a solitary and untrodden way" that he could nowhere find as much as the bare steps of those who had passed the same path before him; that he had "not found any ecclesiastical writer which unto this day hath in this behalf employed any diligence."

* Vide Baronius.

These confessions from such a man are ample proof that he had no authentic matter to found his "history" upon; but he could call to his aid, legends, fables, and traditions, all very plastic and convertible materials, and in the use of them he has certainly shown himself a consummate workman. The rest of that class of men who are generally denominated the "Fathers of the Church," some of whom lived before, and others after the time of Eusebius, were persons equally addicted to holy frauds and forgeries (with perhaps one or two exceptions), but most of them were much inferior to him in zeal and industry. As habitual lying and deception were charged upon most of them by the learned of their Pagan contemporaries, and also by the candid and impartial amongst their modern successors in the church, it is proper to notice what some of the latter have written of them. In this delineation of character we find that a large majority of the vices and crimes which are found among the worst of mankind, have been fixed upon, them; viz., avarice, faction, ignorance, sedition, persecution of each other, lying, perjury, Clogherism* (the crime of the Church in all ages), cruelty, and murder. And some writers have gone so far as to declare that early ecclesiastical history is nothing but a compendium of their evil deeds.

* We learn from "Barnet's Exposition," that the practice of
unnatural lusts had been so common among the dignitaries of
the Church, that St. Bernard, in a sermon preached to the
clergy of France, affirmed sodomy to be so common in his
time, that bishops with bishops lived in it

In times still earlier, the grossest vices are acknowledged to have been common, if not habitual, among the "faithful;" for Paul, in his epistle to the Roman Christians, chapter first, charges, his friends and followers, and even the women amongst them, as guilty of the unnatural crime. In chapter vi., 19, he evidently alludes to it again. St. Barnabas, indeed, calls the first Christians, "the most wicked of all the wicked." Some of the fathers of the second century, such as Papias, and his admirer, Irenæus, were actuated by follies so absurd, that they seem rather to have deserved the name of madmen; witness the romances about the grape vines, and others of a similar nature, which are not exceeded by the wildest fictions of ancient or modern times. Such being the soil, Christians, out of which your religion sprung from old roots, we need not wonder that the fruit it has borne has been rather bitter. The historians of the Popes confess that many of them were condemned by their own general councils for adultery, dogherasty, simony, sorcery, and Atheism.

In the third and fourth centuries, the fathers had arrived at higher tact and skill, and became adepts in trimming up all kinds of pious deceptions and falsifications, and some of them were avowed forgers on principle and by profession. But it frequently happened that as hostilities grew up between the leaders of contending sects, they were useful in exposing the nefarious inventions of each other, which led to deadly animosities amongst their followers. It was, probably, a late knowledge of the utter fallaciousness of his newly adopted religion, and the perpetual contentions which he saw to be inseparable from such a system, that eventually disgusted Origen, and caused him, as is well known, to abandon Christianity, recur to Paganism, and sacrifice to idols, publicly denying his lord and master, Jesus Christ. This appears in his own writings, but more fully in his life, written in Greek by Suidas.

Episcopius says of the Council of Nice, and others of that early period, "that they were led on by fury, faction, and madness;" and this is corroborated by another author, who relates, that at the second Synod of Ephesus, Dioscorus, Bishop of Alexandria, "knocked and kicked Flavianus, Patriarch of Constantinople, with such fury, that within three days after he died." The philosopher Ammianus Marcellinus, complains that "no beasts were such deadly enemies to men as the more savage Christians were to each other." What better could be expected, when the example was shown by the leaders of sects, the fathers themselves, who were constantly quarrelling about the smallest as well as the greatest points, and for the smallest as well as the greatest they damned one another.*

In a former lecture, it has been observed that the famous passage which we find in Josephus about Jesus Christ, was never mentioned nor alluded to in any way whatever by any of the fathers of the first, second, or third centuries; nor until the time of Eusebius, "when it was first quoted by himself." The truth is, none of these fathers could quote or allude to a passage which did not exist in their times, but was, to all points short of absolute certainty, forged and interpolated by Eusebius, as suggested by Gibbon and others. Even the redoubtable Lardner has pronounced this passage to be a forgery.

That most ingenuous and fair dealing son of the Church, Mosheim, whose authority and unimpeachable veracity have never been questioned, even by divines, certifies as follows:—"The Platonists and Pythagoreans held it as a maxim, that it was not only lawful, but praiseworthy to deceive, and even to make use of the expedient of a lie in order to advance the cause of truth and piety.** The Jews, who had lived in Egypt, had learned and received this maxim from them (the Pythagoreans and Platonists) before the coming of Christ, as appears incontestably from a multitude of ancient records; and the Christians were infected from both these sources with the same pernicious error, as appears from the number of books attributed falsely to great and venerable names." The above extract refers to the second century only, when numerous gospels, epistles, etc., were fabricated and falsely fathered in the manner stated by Mosheim; but in the fourth century there were few exceptions to the standard maxim, that it was an act of the highest merit to deceive and lie, whenever the interests of the priesthood might be promoted thereby.

* In the inexhaustible arsenal of St. Paul's conundrums,
ambiguous oracles, and common-sense-defying quibbles, they
got arms, which answered equally well to combat each other,
and to confound all experience and reason.
** Upon this principle exactly, every priest, before he can
become a member of the English established church, is
obliged to perjure himself on his adoption by the bishop, in
swearing two tremendous, palpable, glaring lies; namely,
that he does not seek the living or office for the sake of
lucre; but that he is impelled thereto by the Holy Ghost! Hear, hear, stall-fed John Bull.

The writings of the most virtuous and meritorious authors among the Pagans, if they inculcated good morals alone, and condemned all vulgar superstitions, were reckoned superlatively dangerous by these fathers; for even the amiable Plutarch did not escape their wasteful malice, there being upwards of a hundred of his opuscula, or moral treatises destroyed. But while they indulged in this prudent destruction, they took care to preserve such extracts from the writings of Porphyry, Celsus, Hierocles, and others, as they could fit up by contortion, and press into the service of their new superstition, inserting, at the same time, concessions which were never made by these philosophers, whose works were exceedingly obnoxious, on account of the reason and good sense which they contained. Nay, it has even been known that some of the finest of these literary productions have, in certain parts, been entirely obliterated by these, falsifying priests, and their own knavish jargon substituted on the same parchment.

Daille freely avers, "that the writings of the fathers are in great part forged, either anciently or in latter times, full of frauds, both pious and malicious, against Pagan learning, mutually witnesses against each other, and are absolutely not to be believed. They would forge whole books to serve the ends of the priesthood."

These examples were too interesting and praiseworthy not to be followed, as far as possible, by the English clergy. They falsified, again and again, says Hume, the rolls of Parliament to serve their own dominion, taking care to publish only the articles that were favorable to themselves. And they were guilty of another imposture in adding one to the number—(See the first edition of Hume).

Jortin, in his remarks on ecclesiastical history, charges the fathers with perverting, misquoting, defaming, defacing and destroying the works of their adversaries, and even those of each other.

Blondel, when speaking of the second century, says, "whether you consider the immediate impudence of impostors, or the deplorable credulity of believers, it was a most miserable period, and exceeded all others in pious frauds; there was more aversion to lying, and more fidelity among profane, than among Christian, authors."

Bishop Fell confesses, that "in the first ages of the Church, so extensive was the license of forging, so credulous were the people in believing, that the evidence of transactions was grievously obscured." Casaubon complains as follows:—"I am much grieved to observe, in the early ages of the Church, that there were very many who deemed it praiseworthy to assist the divine word with their own fictions; that their new doctrine might find a readier admittance among the wise men of the Gentiles." This is confirmed by Scaliger, who declares that, so inefficacious did they deem their "word of God," that they distrusted the success of Christ's kingdom, "without the aid of lying."*

* Their "New Jerusalem" was heaven-constructed, and formed a
cube of five hundred leagues; it descended through the air
for forty nights successively. Tertullian saw it himself—
Bravo.
This "New Jerusalem" was figurative of the "Houses of the
sun," or the signs of the zodiac.

Bishop Burnet has shown that the Athanasian creed was a forgery of the eighth century.

To the testimony and authority of the above seven highly respectable divines, we might add that of a host of other theologians, which shows that it has generally been the sons of the Church themselves who have most fully exposed the utterly worthless and deceitful characters of the fabricators of our religion: but for the present we shall only cite the "Free Inquiry" of the ingenuous and learned Dr. Middleton, who, in quoting the authority of St. Cyprian as to the frauds of the Christians in the third century, observes as follows:—"From all these considerations taken together, it must, I think, be allowed that the forged miracles of the fourth century give us just reason to suspect the pretensions of every other age, both before and after it. My argument would be much the same if it were grounded on the allowed forgeries of any later age." Again, he says; "So far I agree with them both (Drs. Chapman and Berriman) and own their defence to be true, that the earlier miracles rest on no better foundation, nor are supported by any better evidence than the latter." It is true that elsewhere Dr. Middleton seems to concede the truth of the New Testament and apostolic miracles, but who does not see that this was a shift to ward off persecution and ruin?

It has elsewhere been observed, that according to the confessions of the apostolic father, St. Hermas, which we have in his book called "The Pastor," he was a liar upon principle and avowed profession. Beausobre says of, him: "His principle was, that faith was only fit for the rabblement."

"Saint Augustine, one of the most veracious, and the least given to lying of all the Fathers, declares in his 33rd sermon, and stakes his eternal salvation to the truth of the fact, which he said was as true as the Gospel, that while he was bishop of Hippo Regiup, he preached the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to a whole nation of men and women, who had no heads, but had their eyes in their bosoms; and in countries still more southerly, he preached to a nation amongst whom each individual had but one eye, and that situate in the middle of the forehead!" What a glorious field this affords the "long-eared rout" for the exercise of their faith!

That falsehood was quite the order of the day amongst the Fathers, witness the maxim of Tertullian, "Credo quia impossibile est;" upon which unerring rule he founded his implicit belief in the resurrection and other such miracles, that is, he believed them true, because they were utterly impossible. Saint Jerome accuses not only St. Paul, but Jesus Christ, of frauds.

Justin Martyr speaks of the fable of the Phoenix as an incontrovertible truth. Tertullian affirms, in his usual manner, that when the Christians cast out devils, they (the devils) acknowledged themselves to be the heathen deities, Mars, Bacchus, Apollo, etc., etc. These, and such as these, are our Christian authorities!

At the head of all these Fathers of the Church, in point of rank and pre-eminence in wickedness, stands the imperial assassin, the Emperor Constantine. As a forger and falsifier, it was not in his line to equal his protégé Eusebius; but in all the arts of dissimulation he seems not to have been his inferior. As a cool family murderer, Nero and Caligula may hide their diminished heads in his presence. He drowned his wife in boiling water; put to death his son Crispus; murdered the two husbands of his sisters, Constantia and Anastasia; murdered his own father-in-law, Maximiam Hercules; murdered his nephew, his sister Constantia's son, only twelve years of age; with some others, not so nearly related, amongst whom was Sapator, a pagan priest, who refused absolution for the crimes of the royal assassin.

There is nothing easier to conceive than the eagerness with which such tyrants as Constantine, and his son Constantins, would embrace so convenient a religion as the one newly vamped. The Pagan priest, Sapator, was put to death for expressing horror at the crimes of the former, which were readily absolved by the Christian priests; and when the latter wanted to commit similar murders, he found a ready assistant in the Bishop of Nicomedia, a holy father of the fourth century, who forged a fatal deed, which he affirmed to be the testament of the deceased emperor; in which his son Constantius was enjoined and conjured to murder his two uncles (one of whom was his father-in-law), Optatus, the husband of his aunt, and seven cousins german, one of whom was his brother-in-law. These were the first imperial patrons of Christianity! The good bishop no doubt justified Constantine in the bloody injunction laid in his forged will, by the example of David, who, with his last breath, enjoined his son Solomon to murder his faithful general, Joab, and Shimei, though he had sworn not to harm the latter; in like manner Constantius had pledged his solemn oath for the security of his kinsmen.

When the foregoing sketches and opinions are considered as proof specimen of the true characters and conduct of a few of the men called "the Fathers," an estimate of the general worthlessness and fraudulent motives of the whole may easily be formed; yet such were the men who systematized Christianism, headed by St. Paul, who afforded them a notable example in all the arts of mystery or fraud, these two terms being synonymous. His justification of lying is as follows:—"For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory, why yet am I also judged as a sinner?" Rom. iii., 7. It ought not, therefore, to excite any surprise, that from so foul a source should emanate those unsightly and revolting dogmas, which, sooner or later, must bring this superstition into utter contempt, before the tribunal of reason and science. The root of all these dogmas is distinctly traceable to the astro-theology of the ancient Pagans; but the whole has been hideously perverted by the fabricator of our religion, either by knavishly teaching the exoteric, or literal sense, though they knew the esoteric, or hidden meaning; or by adopting the former through ignorance of the mythological mysteries. The fable of the fall of man, the garden of Eden, the serpent and Eve, etc., are clearly astronomical allegories;* and the most learned of the early fathers held them to be so; but they were abused by others, and taken in the literal sense, in order that they might serve as tenterhooks, upon which to stretch the New Testament dogmas of original sin and redemption.

* "At the autumnal equinox, when the celestial sign, Virgo
(Eye) is setting heliacally, she seems to be followed by the
constellation Bootes (Adam, or a personification of solar
heat) and by seeming to hold out to him a branch with
beautiful fruit upon it, was said to tempt or seduce Adam,
whom she appears to draw after her; and when the two link
below the western horizon, they are said to fall; and to
resign the heavens to the dominion of the serpent, and other
wintry signs, i.e. cold and darkness, figuratively, evil.
While the man and woman are retiring from the summer garden
of fruits and flowers, the sign Perseus is seen rising in
the east, and with his flaming sword is said to drive the
happy pair from the reign of summer. As Virgo sinks first in
the west, she is said to be first in transgression."

That these fables have allusion to the signs of the zodiac, the solar system, the elements and seasons, has been shown by Volney, Dupuis, and others. Many of the apparently gross absurdities of the Bible are easily explained by the key of ancient astronomy. Indeed, all the principal personages of that book, as well as those of remote pagan antiquity, whether, ranking as deities or men, were either personifications of constellations, planets, seasons, or other natural objects, or their affects; and whenever miraculous powers were ascribed to those fanciful creations, all men who understood the mysteries, such as Herodotus, Philo, Origen, etc., knew that the literal sense could not be true; and that the right interpretation was allegorical. The ancient languages of the East having no neuter gender, the host of celestial existences were denominated in the masculine or feminine. Amongst these, their grand immaculate chieftain, the sun, in all the eastern theogonies, and under a thousand different names, was always adored as the omnipotent Creator and Regulator. "O Sun," cried the great prophet of Persia, "thou art powerful in thy blaze! glorious in thy lustre! the burster of darkness! head of the world! king of stars! mightiest of beings above!"

That those polytheisms of the East, from which emanated Judaism and Christianity, had their root in astronomy, is proved from the most authentic sources. "The Egyptians," says Plutarch, "inserted nothing into their worship without a reason, nothing merely fabulous, nothing superstitious, as many suppose; but their institutions have either a reference to morals, or to something useful in life; and many of them bear a beautiful resemblance of some appearance in nature." Chæremon, the Egyptian philosopher, says: "What is said of Osiris and Isis,* and all the sacred fables, may be resolved into the stars—their occultations and risings—into the course of the Sun through the zodiac; or the nocturnal and diurnal hemispheres."

* According to Eratosthenes, the celestial Virgin was
supposed to be Isis, that is, the symbol of the returning
year. It was in honor of this goddess that the Egyptians
celebrated the famous festival of light, which was imitated
by the Christians in their feast of Candlemas. From the
Egyptians, the Romans took their Solar festivals, in honor
of the birth of the god of light, celebrated on the 25th
December, at which time, says Sexvius, the Sun may, properly
speaking, be said to be new, or to have a new birth. Hence
the Christmas of the Christians, which had also been,
previously, a Druidical festival, in honor of the solar
God's birth; hence the evergreen emblems—the holly, the
mistletoe, etc., all sacred among the Druids thousands of
years before Christ.

Porphyry corroborates the above thus:—"The learned Egyptians admit the existence of no other gods except what are called the planets, the gods which give completion to the zodiac; and such as rise together with these; and likewise the sections of the zodiac into decans." Such were the Egyptian and Chaldeans roots of Christianity; and such was Christianity itself, until it became abused and falsified by the introduction of Platonic visions, and a belief in the reality of supernatural personifications, which by degrees supplanted the sublime natural and moral principles of the Pagan stock.

The metaphysical phantasma called soul (revived by Plato from the divine philosophy of the Pagans), and its future state of rewards and punishments, is one of the most pernicious and fatal of those dogmas. Without this notion priests would be comparatively harmless, as it forms the basis of their secret influence, by working upon the hopes and fears of ignorance, and thereby becomes the chief source of riches and power. By this mischievous invention they have turned this fair world into an abode of gloomy despair, terrifying their weak-minded victims into slavish obedience, by keeping them in perpetual dread of imaginary punishments, in the infliction of which they paint their god as a capricious and malevolent tyrant. This story of the soul's immortality must have been unknown, or at least not fashionable at the time in which it is said Moses lived, since no allusion whatever is made to it throughout the books attributed to him;* and David, Solomon, and Job deny it in the most positive manner. Even the testator of the Jewish will seems at that time to have had no such idea. The fact is, the Jews had heard nothing of the matter until they learnt it of the Platonist Greeks, as is proved by many parts of the Bible; for instance, Moses makes the Jewish god threaten to "visit the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation." The rewards were also purely temporal, such as "their corn their wine shall abound." These were all the ideas that Moses had of future rewards and punishments; and the Pharisees did not publicly maintain the dogma of the soul's immortality, etc., until about the time of Herod.

* The great Warburton has shown that the Jews in the time of
Moses, entertained no such opinion as the immortality of the
soul. "This is admitted (says Ensor) although unwillingly,
by Tillotson and Wilkins, and candidly by Le Clereq and
Geddes." This platonic notion is flatly denied in Psalms
cxlvi., 4; and in Eccles. iii, 19, 20.

Pythagoras and Plato seemed to have been the mere revivers of this ancient doctrine, which, as the learned, say, sprang from the Brahminism of India, the most ancient of all the mythologies, the priests of which are said to have been the first who corrupted human society, by the invention of souls, and other spiritual or celestial existences; but, unlike their imitators of' the west, they neither persecuted nor shed a drop of blood for religion's sake; nor the blood of animals for food. Christians! we know ye can very ill bear to be told, that from India through Persia ye have your cosmogony, fall of man, immortality of the soul, redemption, incarnation, future rewards and punishments, heaven and hell, desolation of all things, universal restoration, trinity in unity, eternity, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, and omnibenevolence of God;* all are derived from the Vedas and Shastras, or Bible of the Brahmins, and the Sadder of the Zoroastrians. Out of these oriental materials, all the successive religions that have sprung up in the west have been fabricated, with such variations in the machinery as suited the civil and clerical despotism in the different countries, and the degree of ignorance in the people.

One of the insidious and baneful arts of theology, has ever been to make man believe that he is something else than that which nature has made him in reality; and this delusive flattery has moulded him into that self-important and credulous animal, which best suits the interests of his deceivers;** hence his proudly assumed knowledge of his personified deity. If this be true his boasted spiritual knowledge seems to have the effect of making him more wicked and vicious than any other animal, for he is not only the scourge of all the rest, but will, to gratify the pride and ambition of lay and spiritual tyrants (leagured together for his oppression), cut the throats of his own species; though, by so doing, he the more closely rivets the chains of his own subjection, and maintains those very delusions which enslave his mind, poison society, and distract the world.

* And this God was no other than the Sun!
** In commencing this nefarious process no time is lost man
is seized upon the moment he is born, and the first
sacerdotal spell is the water incantation; after which his
mind is gradually mortgaged to the priest by more potent
charms; he is carefully shorn of his natural liberties, and
thus donkified, all his motions are regulated until death,
when the last priestly spell is performed. But this is not
all—clerical rapacity holds property even in the corpse
which cannot be interred until this last grasping charge is
satisfied.

The spiritual arsenal of Plato having thus supplied the human animal with what is called an "immortal soul,"* our Christian priests have ever since found it an excellent foundation for their scheme, and a secure medium through which to make permanent their riches and power.

* As the word soul, heaven, spirit, hell, metaphysio, ghost,
immaterial, etc., are not representatives of things which
exist in reality, why are they suffered to confound common
sense? Because, in serving that purpose, they are the most
useful auxiliaries of priest-mare delusion. The Theologian's
definition of them is his best refutation.

Plato would not at this day know his foster-child, disfigured as it now is by a train of hideous inventions, the theory of which is, that death is the only way to a new and eternal life; that all who believe in this paradoxical speculation of the priest shall be rewarded, and that all who believe him not shall be tortured by an eternal roasting in that life. Considering the weak and credulous nature of the human mind in a state of ignorance, we must acknowledge the bold ingenuity which invented this tremendous dogma; it is calculated to confound even the strongest intellect; for the terrors of death, under so frightful a predicament, utterly debase and enslave the prostrate mind, making it a prey to all the combined efforts of sacerdotal fraud. By this pernicious fiction, the morality of nations has been destroyed, the blackest crimes that man can commit have been pardoned,* and the priest has filled his coffers to the glory of the three divinities! Theology, in its vain attempts to raise man above that sphere in which nature has placed him, as a link in her animated chain, hath thus created for him an imaginary futurity; but, in so doing, by a strange incongruity, the creature so exalted above himself, and made the exclusive object of divine clemency, has against him, nevertheless, 999 chances in the 1,000 that he is predestined to everlasting torments, (yet even this inexorably forlorn hope flatters his pride) whilst the remaining unit only shall enjoy the beatitude of celestial bliss:—

No matter,
Better to be in hell, it seems, than
Not to be at all. We say negatur.
* Oh, Plato! Plato! you have paved the way
With your confounded fantasies, to more
Immoral conduct, by the fancied sway.
Your systems feign o'er the controlless core
Of human hearts, than all the long array
Of poets and romances; you're a bore,
A charlatan, a coxcomb, and have been,
At best, no better than a go-between.—Byron.

To create that essential difference between man and the other animals which is necessary to the ends of priestcraft, the spiritualist conjures up his chimerical invention called soul; which, for certain considerations to him well and truly paid, he bestows exclusively upon man; and as the other animals have no money, he declares, in the not-to-be-questioned tone, that not one of them has a rag of any such appendage. There is no necessity for proving this in the usual manner, nor even to demonstrate that the article in question has a real existence, as these are points of faith imposed by dint of infallible dogmas, the truth of which is sufficiently proved by the power which nine millions a-year confers upon our spiritual guides; and by the ignorance which that power and influence fosters.

The bee, the beaver, the ant, and many more of those called "inferior animals," have shown in community, equal, if not superior wisdom, in all their customs and social institutions, to that displayed by man in society; yet priests will not allow them a scrap of soul. But this deficiency will be remedied whenever spiritual impostors, pretending to heavenly inspiration, shall spring up amongst themselves; for then supernatural religions, with their accompaniments of priesthoods, will be simultaneous blessings, as the latter will not only supply in abundance the little "immortal" articles in question, but save and cure them for the voyage to heaven, for the trifling remuneration of being allowed the means of living in luxury and ease for life, at the expense of the wealth producers. These conditions are so customary and moderate, that a priesthood, even amongst ants, could not be expected both to create and save souls on more reasonable terms. Before these tiny examples of industry give way to the introduction of supernaturalism, and its hierarchical plagues, let them well weigh whether the possession of souls (subject to the terrible risks above stated), and a postmortem life will compensate for the corruption of government, the debasement of character, the immoralities, the vices, and shocking crimes which will most assuredly pervade their communities for ever in this life, whenever they adopt spiritualism, and its train of locusts to prey upon their industry. We have been more particular in regard to ants, owing to its having been ascertained that in many of their republics, a military force, or "standing army," in peace as well as in war, has been established; and as that scourge has never been known among men, but as part of a grand enslaving scheme, which embraced, as a vital correlative, some system of superstition and its priesthood, it is greatly to be feared that the ants are verging towards the sacerdotal mania, which is the hand and glove concomitant of the former evil.

The indisputable fact that man, taking him as the Christian superstition has moulded him, has more vices, than any other animal whatsoever, and not a single virtue that may not be found in most of them, is rather a lame proof of his exclusive possession of the immortal item to which he pretends.

That which was called "soul" in Platonism and Christianity, was precisely the Pneuma of the Greeks, and the Anima of the Latins, to which they attached no other meaning than simply the breath of life* in all animals; and as that is composed of elements which are eternal, immortality may, in this sense, be justly ascribed to it.| But mind or soul is not a thing of itself (res sui), but a consequence resulting from, and depending upon, animal organisation. In regard to the "innate ideas" which it has pleased our theological doctors to bestow upon the human mind, the better to adapt it for their own purpose, it would be quite as philosophical and true, to assert that a violin had innate music. This physical property called mind, the result of organisation, and, in degree, common to everything that has life, is, at birth, a tabula rasa, but acquires ideas as it grows to maturity, from the senses being acted upon by external objects, much in the same manner that the mechanically organised violin produces music, from the external action of the bow.

* Its supposed existence after death is merely a fresh
version of the ancient Metempsychosis.
** Aristotle maintained the eternity of matter, and did not
believe that the governing power of the universe extended
any particular providence to sublunary things. As for the
immortality of the soul, or even the existence of any such
thing, as taught in modern theology, it was quite
inconsistent with his principles; yet he was, at one and the
same tune, the master of theologians, and the chief of the
Atheists.

The next dogma we shall notice is that of Savior, or Mediator. This is evidently derived from the Christna of the Hindu trinity, who, as the Redeemer of the human race, was the most important of the three. This personification of the sun seems to have been adopted by the Persian lawgiver, Zoroaster, under the name of Mithra (which still meant Mediator), when he founded the religion of the Mithriacs, or worshippers of the sun. According to Plutarch, Zoroaster taught that there existed two principles, one good, and the other evil; the first was called Oromazes, "the ancient of days," being the principle of good or light; the other, Ahrimanes, was the principle of evil, or cold and darkness. Between these personified principles, he placed his Mithra, who, as the source of genial heat and life, annually redeems the human race from the power of evil or cold and darkness.* From this beautiful allegory of the sun, is derived the Christian dogma of Savior, of which proof maybe found even amongst the fathers. (See Tertullian, Adv. Qentes.) Celsus asserts that the early Christians were merely a sect of adorers of the sun, and such a sect were the Manicheans. The principles of what man calls good and evil, have also been personified** in the Osiris and Typhon of the Egyptians, the Jupiter and Pandora of the Greeks, the Jehovah and Satan of the Jews, and the present God and devil of the Christians.

* This Indian and Persian Trinity was symbolical of the
three-fold, power of the Sun, or God Mithra: in spring and
summer, he is the Producer; in autumn, the Preserver; and by
his absence in winter, the Destroyer.
** The fraud of personifying principles, and the physical
powers of Nature has always been easy and indispensable with
priests in all ages. During the French revolution, Gobet,
Bishop of Paris, acknowledged that up to that time, himself
and his clergy had taught the people nothing but a mass of
falsehood, for which he apologised; disowned the god he had
taught the people to worship, and promised to devote himself
to the worship of reason, morality, liberty and virtue. But
the stupid and credulous mob soon personified these
qualities, and worshipped, them as deities and real
entities. At Rome, in like manner, the compliments of the
new year, Perpetua Felicitas, were turned into two
goddesses, and receive divine honors to this day.

Diogenes Laertius says expressly that the Jews adopted the doctrine of the two principles from the Magi; and St. Augustine assures us that it was the foundation of the religion of the Assyrians, who were so often the masters of the little miserable Jewish horde. Manicheism (so called from Manes, the founder) was one of the first branches of Christianism; but adhered more than any other of the heresies, to the original Zoroastrian stock, though it lay as a stage between that religion and the recent version of Christianity, which, as well as Judaism, is a mere heresy from the religion of the Persians. Since the Persian cosmogony and religion, as well as all others of the East, were purely and confessedly allegorical, is it rational to suppose that anything of the kind got up by the Jews, could be other than a rough and ignorant version of that of their masters?

It has been admitted by most of the learned that the Shastras and Vedas, or scriptures of the Hindus, were in existence 1,400 years before the alleged time of Moses; and, in all probability, the Zendavesta, or Persian Bible, was long anterior also. Sir William Jones, of pious and orthodox memory, confesses that, "the name of Chrishna,* and the general outline of his story, was long anterior to the birth of our Savior, and, to the time of Homer, we know very certainly. I am persuaded also (continues he), that a connexion existed between the old idolatrous nations of Egypt, India, Greece, and Italy, long before the time of Moses. In the Sanscrit Dictionary, compiled more than two thousand years ago, we have the whole story of the incarnate Deity, BORN OF A VIRGIN, and miraculously escaping in his infancy from the reigning tyrant of his country."

* Sir William Jones says, in his "Asiatic Researches," that
he was assured by Colonel Valency, that Chrishna in Irish
means the sun. The Baal-fire feast, or meeting, was a great
festival in Ireland, on the 25th of December, and midsummer
eye. Baal, or Bel, was a name of the sun all over the east.
** This probably alludes to the great period of nearly
26,000 years, in which time the sun passes through the whole
circle of the zodiac. That is, he is in each sign, at the
venial equinox, for the space of 2,155 years.

This tyrant, alarmed at some prophecy, sought the infant's life; and, to make sure work, he ordered all the male children under two years of age to be put to death. Here is the true origin of the horrid story about Herod, of which no Greek or Roman historian says a single word. That the Christian story was taken from the Indian allegory, is traceable in every circumstance—the reputed father of Chrishna was a carpenter—a new star appeared at the child's birth—he was laid in a manger—(celestial)—he underwent many incarnations! to redeem the world from sin and mental darkness, (ignorance and winter) and was, therefore, called Savior;—he was put to death between two thieves—he arose from the dead, and returned to his heavenly seat in Vaicontha. In corroboration of this, Albert the Great admits as follows "We know that the sign of the celestial Virgin did come to the horizon at the moment where we have fixed the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. All the mysteries of the incarnation of our Savior Christ: and all the circumstances of his marvellous life, from his conception to his ascension, are to be traced out in the constellations, and are figured in the stars." Volney, Dupuis, and others, have shown that these, and many more of our Scripture stories, which are absurd and revolting, if taken literally, were originally, in the learning of the east, pregnant with truth as astronomical allegories; having primary allusion to the sun, the elements and seasons, and to the progress of that luminary through the different signs of the zodiac; but more particularly, as he is the sole and glorious source from which flows all and everything that man can rationally call good. We repeat the melancholy truth, that all these beautiful astro-allegories have been lost in the ignorance or roguery of priestcraft.

Miraculous conceptions.—All antiquity is full of such conceptions and births, springing from the fabulous amours of gods with virgins, whereby "sons of God" were engendered. These fables also had their origin in physical and moral allegories; but they were subsequently found to be extremely convenient to cover the real fruits of sacerdotal intrigues and seductions, which the priests could always saddle upon some good-natured god. In all probability the virgin votaries of Vesta were instituted for no other purpose than the private devotions of the priesthood* and when it happened that they were unable to conceal the natural effects of these amours, the paternity was charged upon some easy accommodating god; by which means the girl remained in spotless virginity. This opinion is the more valid from their being allowed to marry at thirty, when the priests no longer wanted their services, but those of the younger girls: if they chose to remain, in the temple, however, they were

"Doomed to deck the bed they once enjoyed."
* In the highest apartment of the Temple of Belas, in
Babylon, a woman was kept for the private devotion of the
priest whose turn it was to make astronomical observations.
This was done under the pretence that the lady was visited
once a year by the god Bel. History dees not inform us in
regard to Bel's progeny, by these housekeepers.

By such artful intrigues, the Hindu virgin, Rohini, conceived and brought forth a "son of God," one of the Brahmin trinity. A Chinese virgin, impregnated by a ray of the Sun, became the mother of the god Foê, who always acted as the mediator between his followers and another god of still greater power. Mademoiselle Creusa, in all her virgin purity, was safely delivered of another "son of God" as was also the virgin mother of Somonocodom, who, according to the scriptures of the Talapoins of Siam, was the god expected to save the universe. Jupiter himself was fabled to have given birth to children from all parts of his body, from forehead to leg: thus Minerva sprang from his head.* The followers of Plato, two hundred and fifty years after his death, and one hundred before the Christian era, raised the story that he was born of a virgin:—Aristo, his father, was on his marriage, warned in a dream by Apollo, not to have any commerce with his wife, because she was with child by him (Apollo); Aristo obeyed; and Plato was born as another "son of God" It was no doubt owing to the holy paternity of some priest, that Sylva Rhea, under cover of a love affair with the god Mars, had the honor to lay the foundation of the Roman religion, by producing another "son of God."

* The severe study, or brain-labor necessary in acquiring
sound knowledge, is here prettily allegorized in the birth,
of Minerva, who was the personification of wisdom.

The writers of the most ancient chronicles of Alexandria, after attesting the universal prevalence of our gospel religion in Egypt for ages before the date of its alleged origin, in the reign of Tiberius, testify as follows:—

"To this day, Egypt has consecrated the pregnancy of a virgin, and the nativity of her son, whom they annually present in a cradle, to the adoration of the people; and when king Ptolemy, three hundred and fifty years before our Christian era, demanded of the priests the significancy of this religions ceremony, they told him it was a mystery."*

All the above conceptions and incarnations are merely the poetical and allegorical fictions of Paganism. We have already seen that the first fabricators and compilers of our religion were men of the greatest honesty and veraciousness of character: and as they had just received the divine light of "the only true revelation," we are "bound to believe" that their story of a miraculous conception is the only true one, confirmed as it is by ghosts, dreams, angels, and shadows. It is true that it cannot boast of such remote antiquity as the foregoing prodigies; but it is ancient enough to constitute truth in the orthodox eye of Faith; and we must not give way to the impiety of supposing that it is an imitatio of any one of the heathen fables enumerated;** or the "blasphemy" of surmising that God's sending "his message to a carpenter's wife," is a varied version of Jupiter's loving message to Alcmena, by Mercury.

* According to Macrobius, this was the solar god Bacchus,
who appears at the winter solstice, as an infant. Plutarch
says that at the winter solstice, Isis (Nature) brought
forth a son, a weak and feeble infant. On the inscription at
Sais, Isis says, "The fruit which I have produced, was, and
will become a Sun."
** The whole story about the conception and birth, was told
in precisely the same manner as it is now, in India, Persia,
Egypt, and Greece, for more than 1,600 years before its
alleged occurrence in Palestine.

Neither must we entertain the shocking idea that the conception of Mary was occasioned by any carnal agency; or that either the shadow or substance of any priest was at all concerned in the holy mystery. Yet heresy will tell untoward tales; for her pregnancy has been accounted for in the most natural way imaginable, thus:—"According to the apocryphal gospel of the nativity of Mary which Father Jerome Xavier entirely adopts, Mary, when a child, was consecrated to the Lord (that is, to the priests), by the usual vow; and was brought up in the temple, which she did not leave until she was sixteen years of age. This created a suspicion that her pregnancy was the effect of some intrigue with the priests, who made her believe, or say, that it was the Holy Ghost who had begotten a child upon her."*—(Codex. Apox. N. T.) Some profane persons have said that the high priest was himself the chief actor in this sacerdotal amour; for he anxiously, pitched upon old Joseph to be the husband of Mary. St. Epiphanjus assures us in his book "Adv. Heresies," that Joseph was very old at the time of his marriage with the virgin; and adds that he was the father of six children by his first wife. Moreover, the gospel ascribed to St. James the younger affirms that the good old man espoused Mary with much reluctance, owing to the disparity of their ages; but the high priest prevailed on him at last; and it further informs us of the very ill-humor of Joseph, when he found that his wife had been with child before their marriage, and the reproaches with which he loaded her, on account of her lewdness, unworthy, as he thought, of a virgin reared under the eyes of priests. Mary excused herself with tears and protestations, and swore by the living God that she did not know who begot the child. In her distress, the best excuse would have been her adventure with the archangel Gabriel; but it appears she forgot that. [It is indeed passing strange that Mary, according to Matthew, is wholly ignorant of her justification, according, to Luke.]

The fathers of our Church have disputed and quarreled in the most obscene terms, about this mystic impregnation by the Holy Ghost. St. Ambrose says:—"Non enim, secreta reseravit, sed immaculatum semen inviolabili utero spiritus sanctus infudit!"**

* The followers of Loatze say, that his mother became
pregnant of him, by a junction of heaven and earth. This is
a sublime and bold conception; and far excels the puerile
prating about ghosts, angels, dreams, and shadows.
** Of the miraculous impregnation, St. Ambrose says, "Maria
per aurem impregnata est."

In one of the Church hymns it was sung, "Non ex virili, sed mystico spiramine." Justin Martyr, in his apology, justifies these dogmas as modified by the Christians, not because they were true, but from the example of the heathen; he says:—"By declaring the Logos, the first begotten of God, our Master Jesus Christ, to be born of a virgin, without any human mixture, and to be crucified and dead, and to have risen again, and ascended into heaven,—we say no more in this, than what you say of those whom you style the sons of Jove." This was honestly lugging in one fable to apologise for another. The logic of Tertullian on this subject was decisive, and peculiar to himself—it might be called an axiomatic, or self-evident mode of reasoning; for instance, he says, "I am not ashamed of maintaining that the son of God was born, because it is itself a shameful thing. I maintain that he died and rose again, because it is absurd" When preachers use such convincing arguments, there is no excuse for the incredulity of hearers. This great Father contended also, that souls were material—that they had sexes, and were as much begotten by each other; as our bodies are by the bodies of our immediate parents. He asserted also, that "God is a body."

"The word begotten necessarily infers and associates the ideas of three distinct and separate Beings—the begetters, the begotten, and the person on whom he was begotten; and the term begotten, alluding as it does to the performance of a particular action, must imply a particular time when that action was performed and of course that there was a time when that action was performed; now as the very, definition of the word eternity is that which is without beginning as well as without end, to talk of a person begotten from eternity, is to compose a sentence of words the most contradictory to each other, or downright nonsense; it is to tell us of an action that was begun without any beginning; of a finite infinite, or an immortal mortal!" But the mystic conceptions, births, and incarnations of Paganism, being rooted in, and having exclusive allusion either to physical or moral principles, there were no such absurdities, terms, or monstrous perversions of them, as the early Christiana fell into, by converting mere words into beings, in forming their mythology.

That the Christian dogma of the immaculate conception and birth of Christ, was originally an astronomical allegory of the Sun, "the day-spring from on high," can be proved by a hundred corroborating facts, which, are irresistibly convincing, except where interest, or the most inveterate prejudice, stands in the way. These facts have been elucidated by Albert, Alphonso, Volney, Boulanger, Dupuis, Taylor, and by all astronomers, who have not been deterred from speaking the truth by their interests, their fears, or their prejudices. On the 19th of August, the constellation of the Virgin disappears in the sun's rays; and hence the figurative expression in Luke i., 35, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall OVERSHADOW thee." On the same day the ancients celebrated the assumption of Astrea,* (another name of the Virgin,) and about the same time, the Christians celebrate the assumption of the blessed Virgin. On the 9th of September, this constellation emerges out of the Sun's rays, at which time the Catholics celebrate the nativity of the mother of the Sun, or Christ.

* That is, the starry goddess. She was also the Miriam (the
same as Mary, Eve, Ac.,) of Numbers xii., 14, and the seven
days' leprosy of her face was allegorical of the same number
of days exactly, when the brightness of the zodiacal virgin
is wholly absorbed, or obscured, by the effulgence of the
solar rays.

The "star in the east," (a sign containing more than a hundred stars,) mentioned in Matthew, was no other than this zodiacal sign of the celestial Virgin, which arose on the eastern horizon precisely at the time at which we fix the birth of Jesus Christ, viz., the 25th of December, when the sun has risen one degree above the solstitial point: which answers to a moment to the births of the Egyptian Osiris, the Grecian Bacchus, and the Mithra of the Persians. These mystic births are manifestly identical, being metaphorical of the Sun's annual birth at the winter solstice, after which he gradually becomes, not only figuratively, but positively, the Savior of the world. The resemblance, or rather the sameness of every circumstance relating to Mithras, the Mediator of the Persians, and those connected with the Savior, or Mediator of the Christians, is so apparent, that no rational man can doubt, or hesitate a moment, in pronouncing the latter to be a counterpart of the former.

Zoroaster taught the Magi that this celestial birth would be announced by the rising of this star, or constellation of Virgo, in the middle of which would appear the figure of a young woman, suckling an infant child, called Jesus by some nations, and Christ, or Christos,* in Greek. This was the goddess of the year nursing the god of day. Under this beautiful symbol, the new born child is said to be feeble, weak, and obscure, which is metaphoric of the Sun below the horizon in winter; that he was brought forth in a stable, and laid in a manger, alluding to the "stabulum jovium," one of the winter constellations. At the vernal equinox, when the Sun entered the sign Aries, or the Bam, the emblem was a lamb, (the lamb of God,) and as he gained strength towards the summer solstice, he became the conqueror of the powers of darkness and evil, that is, the constellations of winter; and was figuratively said to bruise the serpent's head, that constellation being, as it were, depressed below the horizon. By a like metonymy of language, the "Ascension" of Christ has also allusion to the Sun at the summer solstice.

* In the ancient zodiacs of India and Egypt, there is seen
this virgin nursing a male child with sun rays around his
head, (frown not, ye priests!) which is emblematical of the
infant sun at the winter solstice, and of his being then in
the sign Virgo. When he was in that sign in summer, the
virgin was represented with a bunch of fruit; and when in
harvest, she appropriately held out an ear of corn. These
zodiacs were devised at various periods of antiquity, as the
sun passed through the different signs, in the phenomena of
which the learned priests always found plenty of gods and
goddesses for the worship of the vulgar, as is still done in
Christianism.

Upon the sun's annual progression through the twelve signs of the zodiac was founded the mythological or allegorical astronomy of the ancients, (Christianity has no other foundation); and in this zodiacal picture, the allegory supposes that sign to have rule, through which the sun is passing; the knowledge of which science was conveyed in a striking and sublime manner, under the disguise of miraculous narrative: of this sort is the story of the three children, in the book of Daniel, a relic of Chaldean astronomy. The "burning fiery furnace" was nothing else than an emblem of that region of the great circle which the sun enters at midsummer, or the sign Cancer. Each of the twelve signs of the zodiac had a presiding genius, or imaginary personification, and these were the twelve greater gods of Paganism. Each of these signs was again subdivided into three parts, called Decans, who were also personified; and, consequently, there were three of these geniuses in each of the signs: therefore, when the sun enters Cancer, there must be three of these Decans, or personifications, in the burning fiery furnace. Here the astronomer in Daniel,* concealing his science under the veil of allegory, exclaims: "Did we not reckon three children in the burning fiery furnace? Behold, I see four, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God!" No person but a Christian, under his strongest prejudices, is capable of denying the manifest meaning of this metaphor, that being evidently the sun itself; which, with three personified Decans, Shadrach, Mesach, and Abednego, in the sign Cancer, makes the fourth. It is almost needless to point out that Nebuchadnezzar, the king, is a personification of the constellation Sirius, or the dog-star, which is always supposed to heat "the burning fiery furnace," in a sevenfold degree, while the sun is in its vicinity, that is, from the 3rd of July till about the 11th of August.

* The zodiacal sign of the lion being below the horizon, and
the sun appearing to set in the direction of that
constellation, "Dom-el, Daniel, or Daniel, that is, the Sun"
was said to be cast into the Lion's Den.
** The author is much indebted to the Rev. Mr. Taylor for
the satisfactory manner in which he proves many of these
astronomical allegories.

What is the signification of the many Bible allusions to the "Horse and his Rider," the "triumphant" breaking of the arrows and his bow, he being always denoted as essentially opposed to what is good, and forming part of, or belonging to, that which is evil? This allegory evidently points to the Centaur sign, Sagittarius, half horse and half man, armed with bow and arrows. This is the zodiacal sign of November; and the sun being in that adverse constellation in that dark and gloomy month, it is naturally spoken against, as being emblematical of his weak, low, and depressed influence; and, consequently, its inseparable connexion with evil, or cold and darkness. But when the sun rises "triumphantly" in the heavens, and is most truly "the day star on high," as he ascends towards the summer solstice, and becomes the "Lion of Juda," in July, he has victoriously thrown the zodiacal archer, Sagittarius, as it were, "into the sea" that is, below where the sea bounds the horizon. Then have we Miriam's sublime song of victory:—"Sing ye to the Lord (the sun), for he hath triumphed gloriously; the Horse and his Rider hath he thrown into the sea." As this victory is achieved annually, the song is equally applicable at every midsummer. Thus, though a large portion of the miscellany called the Bible appears in the guise of immoral or absurd narrative, much of it is really and truly the allegorised astronomy of the Chaldees and Persian Magi, and therefore rooted in science.

Like everything else relating to Christ, or Christos, the dogma of the ascension has no doubt its allegorical root in the Sun's apparent exaltation in the heavens, from the vernal equinox to the summer solstice. This miraculous story, as we have seen it in the New Testament, is more replete with inconsistency than even any of the others of that book. The Fathers have attributed the anonymous book called the "Acts" to Luke; but his gospel contradicts the Acts: the latter makes Jesus remain on earth forty days after his crucifixion; whereas Luke makes him ascend into heaven the very same day he arose from the dead. Those who are stated to have been eye-witnesses of the ascension, being present as disciples at the time, viz., Matthew, John, Peter, James, and Jude, have not, in the epistles ascribed to them, left even an allusion to that most wonderful phænomenon. Matthew and John were said to be present—how came they to omit even the slightest notice of this vital root of Christianity? Mark and Luke were not present; yet they alone notice it, in rather a vague and abrupt manner. In short, no person whatever says he saw it. Mark says that Jesus ascended at Jerusalem; Luke says it was at Bethany, places two miles distant from each other. Matthew says the last seen with the disciples was on a mountain in Galilee; Luke, that it was at Bethany, which is at least seventy-five miles from Galilee.

The dogma of the redemption of man by Jesus Christ, appears not to have been thought of by the New Testament fabricators; and is clearly a subsequent invention of the Church of Rome. Paul, In Corinthians xv., gives us abundant assertions about the resurrection of the same body, which is his chief doctrine, but there is not a word about redemption. This dogma, then, is the lucrative forgery of priestcraft, after the councils of Nice and Laodicea had decided by vote that the spurious miscellany called the New Testament should be the new Will of God. The amount of moral evil done by this fable, is enormous beyond all expression. When men are taught that their wicked deeds and vices are to be rubbed off by a device so unjust and iniquitous as the sacrifice of the innocent, to atone for the crimes of the guilty, we cannot wonder at the horrid depravity of society.

Having already shown that Christianism is merely a compound emanating from the Egyptian, Brahmin, and Zoroastrian systems, or a new version of the fables of Prometheus, Christna, Mithras, Adonis, Bacchus,** etc., engrafted with some variations upon the Jewish scriptures; and that the above names, with hundreds of others, are so many personified emblems of the Sun, which, together with the planetary system and the fixed stars (in Bible phrase, "the host of heaven") formed the occult basis of all the religions of Paganism,*** the important question will be asked—has "may penetrate into the signification of all oriental mysteries; but the Vulgar can only see the exterior symbol, or the bark which covers them." Again, he says, "It is allowed by all who have any knowledge of the scriptures, that everything is mentioned enigmatically."

* That man should be redeemed from the sin of eating an
apple, by the murder of an innocent person called Jesus, is
certainly by far the strangest system of religion that ever
was palmed upon the world. Never was there so great an
outrage on common-sense!
** Even the word Divine, pluralised in Dii Vini, deities
of wine, or priests of Bacchus, is taken from heathenism,
and pressed into the service of a very different order of
priests, save that wine-loving has ever been common to both.
*** Origen tells Celsus that the Egyptian philosophers
veiled their knowledge of things in fables and allegories.
"The learned," he adds,

Christianity has no tangible or anthentic historical foundation, to be understood according to the literal sense of the New Testament? If such events or incidents in any way similar to those detailed in the New Testament, had in reality taken place at the times and places stated, they could not possibly have failed to excite the intense attention of the public authorities amongst the Romans, even if denuded of their miraculous accompaniments the infant butchery of Herod would alone have caused this attention. But as no one of all the historians or noted writers, Roman, Jewish, or Greek, who lived in the period of the alleged prodigies, nor those who came upon the public stage immediately after them, though there were upwards of twenty such distinguished authors, who wrote between the years 20 and 140 A.D., have taken the slightest notice of the life or crucifixion of a person called Christ—(the passage in Josephus is universally given up as forgery)—the inadmissible violations of Nature's laws, said to have accompanied that event, as narrated in the Gospels, which contradict each other in almost every important circumstance, we are forced to the conclusion that independently of everything miraculous, the story is totally unsupported by any concurrent testimony;* but when the miracles are taken into consideration in the literal sense, reason and all experience at once decide the whole to be grossly fabulous; and seems to be a circumstantial imitation of the crucifixion of Prometheus, as we have it in the tragedy of Æschylus, which is a dramatic allegory of the sun, and the planetary system.

* Bishop Talleyrand, in a letter which, he is said to have
written to the Pope, after their quarrel, states that after
Christianity had made some noise in the Empire, the entire
absence of all testimony in regard to its pretended origin,
excited the curiosity of the Roman Senate, to know what
really was the foundation of the story; so they "ordered
affidavits to be procured in the very centre of Palestine,
in places fixed by them, which affidavits were sent to Rome,
with the most conclusive evidence of the correctness of the
report. These proved that Mary, who was of the tribe of
Levi, and wife of the carpenter Joseph, who was of the tribe
of Juda, had had an illicit intercourse with a Roman
soldier, named Panther, who served in the 14th legion,
stationed in Egypt, whence he was detached into Palestine.
From this criminal intercourse a child was born, whom they
called Arenias; and who was adopted by Joseph, according to
the Roman practice, though it was contrary to the Jewish
customs. With Joseph he learned the carpenter's trade; but
after the death of his putative father, he abandoned his
home and mother, and became a vagrant. Having met a few
vagrants like himself, they all took the road to Galilee,
where they lived for some time by begging. Having at last
become the leader of a band of freebooters, he was arrested
by the police of Jerusalem, and finally condemned to death
by the general acclamation of the people." By thus
instituting inquiries in the country in which he was born,
the Roman Senate became acquainted with the origin of Mary's
son, which, in regard to paternity, differs from the
apocryphal gospel of the nativity of Mary.

This new version of the old mythology was gradually constructed by priestcraft during the second, third, and fourth centuries, of materials taken from all the oriental polytheisms; and is a similar sort of fraudful quackery upon these allegorical religions, that astrology is upon legitimate astronomy. Thus, (let us repeat the melancholy truth) out of the comparatively harmless astro-fables of antiquity hath sprung a foul collusion of religious and political tyranny, that has been dreadful in its effects; and every successive invention to strengthen this accursed coalition of an aristocracy of nobles and priests, linked together with royalty,* has tended more and more to depress the interests of the laboring population, or wealth producers of Europe, and served to crush them under the most merciless of all despotisms. And as it is utterly hopeless that our English hereditary lawgivers, who are virtually our feudal rulers, and whose interests are entirely exclusive, will ever pass any laws but such as support and perpetuate these interests, it is much to be feared that, as in France before the revolution, nothing but a sanguinary reaction on the part of the people, will reestablish their right to just representation in Parliament, equal laws, and a dissolution of that baneful state-confederacy between our aristocratic rulers and the reigning superstition; the support of which, we are tempted to conclude, is more the object of government than the interests of the common weal.

* In 1822, the clergy of Austria persuaded the monarch of
over forty millions of people to declare, "I want no men of
science; I want only obedient subjects. I want no education
among my subjects, but what is given by the priesthood."

END OF LECTURE THIRD. [ [!-- H2 anchor --] ]