BACCHUS.
The first miracle attributed to Jesus, that of changing water into wine, was in imitation of this Roman deity—Dionysus in Greek mythology. Because as the god of wine his disciples drank to his memory, Christians celebrate their savior in the wine of the sacrificial ceremony of mass and communion.
Can any rational mind believe that these numerous, varied and even antagonistic petitions will be answered? Some are praying for rain, some for a cessation of it, some for health, some for happiness, some for material blessings, and some for spiritual welfare. Vain repetitions! The material universe is governed by immutable laws which all the breath in creation wasted in prayer cannot in any way affect; while such spiritual benefits as morality, character and virtue “are equally dependent on the invariable laws of cause and effect.” Prayers for forgiveness of sins are perhaps the most common, as well as the most absurd, that are daily offered. Sin is the breaking of a material or moral law, and no law can be broken without the transgressor’s incurring the penalty. Is it not absurd of the church to preach the immutable justice of God, and at the same time declare that sinners may escape punishment by prayer?
KRISHNA.
Otherwise Christna, this Hindu savior, at a date earlier than 900 B. C., anticipated in his life much of the history of the Christ.
Communion, or union with the deity, is an idea of great antiquity and has been common to all religions; although the methods practiced are numerous and varied. The more common mode, however, is by the consumption of consecrated foods and drinks, with the idea that these have acquired (by the act of consecration) a divine character of which the communicant becomes a partaker through their reception. The dogma of the eucharist was instituted many centuries before the Christian era and was believed in by the ancient Egyptians (from whom the Christians probably received it through the Alexandrian school), who, at the time of the celebration of the resurrection of Osiris, ate a sacred wafer, which, after consecration by a priest, was declared the flesh of the god. In ancient Greece, bread was worshiped as Ceres and wine as Bacchus; and, when the devout ate the bread and drank the wine, they claimed they were eating the flesh and drinking the blood of their deities. The ancient Mexicans used bread of corn meal mixed with blood, which, after, having been consecrated by the priests, was given to the people to eat as the flesh of Quetzalcoatl, much to the surprise and horror of the first Spanish missionaries, who ascribed it to mockery of their holy eucharist due to Satan.
XII—The Eucharist.
The primal origin of the eucharist probably occurred far back in the period of universal anthropophagy. Most savage and semi-savage peoples have practiced cannibalism because they believed that by eating the flesh of the dead they gained the qualities of the deceased. Just as some Africans eat tiger to become brave, savages ate their courageous foes to attain their virtues. Following this same idea further, the belief was established that by consuming the flesh of a god, supernatural powers might be acquired. Thus the early Christian missionaries to the New World found such customs in Peru and Mexico.