"I will beget a son, and he shall bear
The sins of all the world; he shall arise
In an unnoticed corner of the earth,
And he shall die upon a cross, and purge
The universal crime; so that the few
On whom my grace descends, those who are marked
As vessels to the honor of their God,
May credit this strange sacrifice, and save
Their souls alive. Millions shall live and die,
Who ne'er shall call upon their Saviour's name,
But unredeem'd go to the gaping grave;
Thousands shall deem it an old woman's tale,
Such as the nurses frighten babes withal;
These, in a gulf of anguish an I of flame,
Shall curse their reprobation endlessly,
Yet tenfold pangs shall force them to avow,
Even on their beds of torment, where they howl,
My honor and the justice of their doom.
What then avail their virtuous deeds, their thoughts
Of purity, with radiant genius bright,
Or lit with human reason's earthly ray?
Many are call'd but few will I elect."
The popular faith of Europe and America, which experience demonstrates to this age has, even as a means of reforming humanity, been a complete failure, Shelley correctly believed, had the same human foundation and origin as that of other revealed theologies—he sums up the proofs on which Christianity rests, miracles, prophecies, and martyrdoms, with great clearness; proves the absurdity of the doctrine of miracles, as taught by Christian writers, shows the falseness of the so-called prophecies, even granting the utmost warping of the real meaning of the Old Testament texts for Christian purposes, which he asserted were to be compared unfavorably with the oracles of Delphos, and points out that the Mohammedan dying for his prophet, or the Hindoo immolating himself under the wheels of Juggernaut could be cited equally as a proof of the divine origin of their faiths, as the reputed martyrdoms of Christians could of theirs.
The development of Christianity, which was really founded by Paul, was a subject to which Shelley devoted much attention—he tells us that
"The same means that have supported every other belief, have supported Christianity. War, imprisonment, assassination, and falsehood; deeds of unexampled and incomparable atrocity, have made it what it is. The blood shed by the votaries of the God of mercy and peace, since the establishment of his religion, would probably suffice to drown all other sectaries now on the habitable globe. We derive from our ancestors a faith thus fostered and supported; we quarrel, persecute, and hate, for its maintenance. Even under a government which, while it infringes the very right of thought and speech, boasts of permitting the liberty of the press, a man is pilloried and imprisoned because he is a deist, and no one raises his voice in the indignation of outraged humanity."
The numerical majority of Christians—the Greek and Roman Catholic—are as much pagans as their ancestors, the ancient Greeks and Romans were exoterically. And why? Simply because on the break-up of the Roman empire—like Mohammedanism afterwards, which was the natural reformation and revolution from Christian image-worship—Christianity, in a natural succession, and by fortuitous circumstances, took possession of the executive, and placed on the seat of power a Christian Byzantine emperor in lieu of a pagan. Basilicas, dedicated to Jupiter, Mercury, Adonis, Venus and the deities of High Olympus, were re-dedicated to God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, the Virgin Mary, and the other saints (or gods) of the Christian Pantheon. Statues therein were rechristened, and the sacrificial altars were simply transferred for the use of the eucharistical sacrifice. The vestal virgins became nuns of the church; the Sacerdotes, her priests; the mysteries of Isis, her Agapæ. Her incense, her pictures, her image-worship, her holy water, her processions, and her prodigies, too, all came from the same source. Thus were the socialistic and communistic teachings, based on the Philoic-Essenism of the Reformer of Nazareth, paganized, prostituted, and entirely misrepresented. His life and labors were transformed from the natural into what was considered by the vulgar the supernatural, and all those who dared—like Hypatia, with thousands of other pious and noble ancients—to deny his divinity, were sacrificed to this new Moloch, set up by parricide Constantines, or adulterers of the Theodosius caste. Thus through the ages, has the race suffered under such murder, rapine, and lust, as never disgraced tolerant ancient heathendom in the interests of paganism, even as recently happened in Central America,[C] and would happen everywhere else, if priestcraft had the power to act without restraint, so that, as Shelley says,
"Earth groans beneath religion's iron age,
And priests dare babble of a God of Peace—
Even whilst their hands are red with guiltless blood,
Murdering the while, uprooting every germ
Of truth, exterminating, spoiling all,
Making the earth a slaughter-house."
[C] I refer to the abominable outrages perpetrated a few months ago at San Miguel, Panama, where popular preachers were forced by the ecclesiastical powers to foment rebellion by violently denouncing the State authorities, who had refused to allow a pastoral of the Christian Bishop of San Salvador, hostile to the laws, to be read in the churches. Having been put into a state of frenzy by one Palacios, a canon of the cathedral, a fanatic mob revolted, liberated prisoners, murdered generals in command, massacred numbers of the best citizens, set fire to the city with kerosene, and destroyed over one million dollars' worth of property. After this theological revolt had been put down, passports, couched in the following terms, and sealed with the seal of the bishopric, were found on the bodies of some of these holy murderers;
"Peter.—Open to the bearer the gates of heaven, who has died for religion.
(Signed), George, Bishop of San Salvador."
Similar attempts were made by the Christian hierarchy in Brazil against the Masonic body; but, fortunately, the emperor, a liberal and an enlightened savant, crushed the attempt under foot, and unmistakably proved, to the satisfaction of humanity, that he was not to be transformed into a nineteenth century Charles the Ninth or Philip the Second, and act the cat's paw for Pio Nono, ex-carbonari and recusant mason, to wreak his vengeance on the brethren whom he had betrayed.