“This is a sketch of the life of the sun, who, finishing his career at the winter solstice, when Typhon and the rebel angels gain the dominion, seems to be put to death by them; but who soon after is born again, and rises into the vault of heaven, where he reigns.”
Count Volney’s portraiture of the second member of the Christian godhead is, for the most part, accurate. Numerous other analogies between him and the ancient sun gods might be named.
It is the belief of many, however, that these solar attributes of Christ are later accretions borrowed by the Roman Catholic church from the Pagan religions which it supplanted.
While all Freethinkers are agreed that the Christ of the New Testament is a myth they are not, as we have seen, and perhaps never will be, fully agreed as to the nature of this myth. Some believe that he is a historical myth; others that he is a pure myth. Some believe that Jesus, a real person, was the germ of this Christ whom subsequent generations gradually evolved; others contend that the man Jesus, as well as the Christ, is wholly a creation of the human imagination. After carefully weighing the evidence and arguments in support of each hypothesis the writer, while refraining from expressing a dogmatic affirmation regarding either, is compelled to accept the former as the more probable.
CHAPTER X.
Sources of the Christ Myth—Ancient Religions.
Christ and the religion he is said to have founded are composite products, made up, to a great extent, of the attributes, the doctrines, and the customs of the gods and the religions which preceded them and existed around them. The Christian believes that Christ is coexistent with his father, Jehovah—that he has existed from the foundations of the world. This is in a measure true. The years that have elapsed since his alleged incarnation are few compared with the years of his gestation in the intellectual womb of humanity.
To understand the origin and nature of Christ and Christianity it is necessary to know something of the religious systems and doctrines from which they were evolved. The following, some in a large and others in but a small degree, contributed to mold this supposed divine incarnation and inspire this supposed revelation: 1. Nature or Sex Worship. 2. Solar Worship. 3. Astral Worship. 4. Worship of the Elements and Forces of Nature. 5. Worship of Animals and Plants. 6. Fetichism. 7. Polytheism. 8. Monotheism. 9. The Mediatorial Idea. 10. The Messianic Idea. 11. The Logos. 12. The Perfect Man.