The Christian Mythology

by E. B. Leatherbee

One of the many weak points in the doctrine of the trinity, and one that must be noticeable even to Christians, is that, according to the New Testament, the apostles themselves never seem to have recognized the divinity of Jesus, but always treated him as a human Jew like themselves. This attitude of the early Christian disciples is noted by Priestley, who remarks in his “Corruptions of Christianity” (page 136): “It can never be thought that Peter and the others would have made so free with our Lord, as they sometimes did, if they had considered him as their maker, and the being who supported the whole universe; and therefore must have been present in every part of creation, giving his attention to everything, and exerting his power upon everything, at the same time that he was familiarly conversing with them. Moreover, the history of the temptation must be altogether improbable in such a supposition. For what could be the offer of the kingdoms of this world to him who made the world, and was already in possession of it?”

Numerous texts which tend to affirm the humanity of Jesus have been stumbling blocks in the paths of the trinitarians, and they have taken great pains to explain away these embarrassing texts, even at the cost of much ingenuity and absurdity. Paul, the real founder of the faith, in his first epistle to Timothy, says: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” ([1 Tim. ii, 5]); and again in his first epistle to John he remarks: “No man hath seen God” ([1 John iv, 12]). Such phrases as “Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is God” ([Matt. xix, 17]), and “But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God” ([John viii, 40]), do not appear to be fitting remarks for the second person of the trinity. Again, the words, “My Father is greater than I” ([John xiv, 28]), were likewise difficult of explanation by those who held that every member of the trinity is coequal, but Austin got around this by declaring that “Christ having emptied himself of his former glory, and being in form of a servant, was then less, not only than his Father, but even than himself”!

The same writer asserts that the words, “that the Son knew not the time of the day of judgment, but only the Father” ([Mark xiii, 32]), means that while Jesus did know something of the trinity, he would not make it known to others—thus making a downright liar of his God.

The whole of trinitarianism is epitomized in the phrase of Peter Lombard, who, having made the impossible arithmetical assertion that no one person of the trinity is less than the other two, says: “He that can receive this, let him receive it; but he that cannot, let him, however, believe it; and let him pray that what he believes he may understand.”

Jesus having been ordained one of the godhead, the only begotten son of the most high god, the worship of his mother naturally followed; for who could reasonably refuse to bend the knee to the one virgin of all humanity, considered worthy of the honor of bearing the incarnate deity? It was all the easier for the Christian church to adopt this practice, that it had been one of the principal features of the ancient theologies. All nations have worshiped a pure, chaste queen of heaven, a personification of that beautiful celestial body that smiles so benignly down on earth every month. In every land the moon was worshiped as a mother goddess, pure, beautiful, and loving; for there is not the slightest doubt that the virgin queen of heaven, so commonly worshiped by all nations, was merely a personification of the moon.

Isis, mother of the Egyptian savior Horus, was worshiped as a virgin and was styled “Our Lady,” “Queen of Heaven,” “Mother of God,” “Intercessor,” and “Immaculate Virgin.” She was commonly represented with the divine infant seated on her lap, or standing on a crescent moon, and having a glory of twelve stars about her head.

ISIS AND HORUS.

The Egyptians frankly surmounted the effigies of their Virgin Mother with the figure of a fish, the form of which suggests the reason. The fish was associated with Isis, representing the female element in creation. It is associated with the dies Veneris (day of Venus). Friday is fish day, and Friday is named after Friga, a goddess of the ancient Scandinavians, Anglo-Saxons, and Germans, corresponding to the Roman Venus. That Roman Catholics profess to eat fish on Friday by way of abstinence in commemoration of the crucifixion does not mislead those acquainted with the antiquity of the symbol.

With the adoption of the worship of Isis to Christianity, the crescent moon became a sacred symbol of Mary, who was often portrayed standing upon one. It was held peculiarly sacred by the Greek church and a large crescent moon of gold adorned the dome of St. Sophia at Constantinople. When the city fell in 1453 before the Turkish arms, the Sultan adopted the crescent as a symbol of his victorious power and as a humiliation to his Christian enemies, and thus again the religious significance of the crescent changed, and as an emblem of a Mohammedan power soon came to be regarded by the forgetful Christians with horror and a deadly hatred.