The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors; Or, Christianity Before Christ

by Kersey Graves

"If we addressed a Mogul or Thibetan this question, Who is Chrishna? the reply was, instantly, 'The Savior of men.'" (Hue's Journey through China.)

"Chrishna, the incarnate Deity of the Sanscrit romance continues to this hour the darling God of the women of India.... Chrishna was the person of Vishnu (God) himself in the human form." (Asiat. Researches, 260).

"Respectable natives told me that some of the missionaries had told them that they were even now almost Christians" (owing to the two religions being so nearly alike). (Ibid).

"All that converting the Hindoos to Christianity does for them is to change the object of their worship from Chrishna to Christ." (Robert Cheyne.)

"Brahminism or Budhism in some of its forms is said to constitute the religion of considerably more than half the human race. It teaches the existence of one supreme eternal, and uncreated God, called Brahma, who created the world through Chrishna, the second member of the Trinity." Paul says, God created the world through Jesus Christ, the second member of the Christian Trinity. (Eph. iii. 9.) How striking the resemblance! "The doctrine of the incarnation, the descent of the Deity upon earth, and his manifestation in a human form for the redemption of mankind, seems to have existed in the shape of prophecy or fact in all ages of the world. Hindooism teaches nine of these incarnations. Furthermore, it teaches the doctrine of the Trinity, the fall and redemption of man, and a state of future rewards and punishments in a future life.... This religion in chief of Asia is traceable to remote ages. The doctrine of the Trinity is represented in the Elephantine cavern, and taught in the Mahabarat, which goes back for its origin nearly two thousand years before Christ." (New York Sunday Despatch, 1855.)

"In the year 3600, Chrishna descended to the earth for the purpose of defeating the evil machinations of Chivan (the devil), as Christ 'came to destroy the devil and his works.' (See John iii. 8.) After a fierce combat with the devil, or serpent, he defeated him by bruising his head—he receiving, during the contest, a wound in the heel. ('It [the serpent] shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.'—Gen. iii. 15.) He died at last between two thieves.... He lead a pure and holy life, and was a meek, tender, and benevolent being, and enjoined charity, hospitality, and mercy, and forbade lying, prevarication, hypocrisy, and overreaching in dealing, and pilfering, and theft, and violence toward any being." (Lecture before the Free Press Association in 1827.)

"The birthplace of the Hindoo hero (Chrishna) is called Mathura, which is easily changed, and by correct translation becomes Maturea, the place where Christ is said to have stopped, between Nazareth and Egypt... To show his humility he washed the feet of the Brahmins (as Christ is said to have washed the feet of the Jews—see John xiii. 14). One day a woman came to him and anointed his hair with oil, in return for which he healed her maladies. One of his first miracles was that of healing a leper, like Christ (See Mark i. 4). Finally, he was crucified, then descended to Hades. (It is said of Christ, 'his soul was not left in hell.'—Acts ii. 31.) He (Chrishna) rose from the dead and ascended to Voicontha (heaven.)" (Higgin's Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 239).

Now, we ask, is it any wonder, in view of the foregoing historical exposition, that Eusebius should exclaim, "The religion of Jesus Christ is neither new nor strange?" (Eccl. Hist. ch. iv.) Truly did St. Augustine say, "This, in our day, is the Christian religion, not as having been unknown in former times, but as having recently received that name."

Here, then, we pause to ask our good Christian reader, Where is your original Christianity now? or what constitutes the revealed religion of Jesus Christ? or where is the evidence that any new religion was revealed by him or preached by him, seeing we have all his religion, as shown by the foregoing historical citations, included in an old heathen system more than a thousand years old when Jesus Christ was born? We find it all here in this old oriental system of Budhism—every essential part, particle and principle of it. We find Christianity all here—its Alpha and Omega, its beginning and end. We find it here in all its details,—its root, essence, and entity,—all its "revealed doctrines," religious ideas, beautiful truths, senseless dogmas and oriental phantoms. Not, a doctrine, principle, or precept of the Christian system, but that is here proclaimed to the world ages before "the angels announced the birth of a divine babe in Bethlehem." Will you, then, persist in claiming that "truth, life, and immortality came by Jesus Christ," and that "Christ came to preach a new gospel to the world, and to set forth a new religion never before heard amongst men" (to use the language of Archbishop Tillotson), when the historical facts cited in this work demonstrate a hundred times over that such a position is palpably erroneous? Will you still persist, with all those undeniable facts staring you in the face (proving and reproving, with overwhelming demonstration, that the statement is untrue), in declaring that "the religion of Jesus Christ is the only true and soul-saving religion, and all other systems are mere straw, stubble, tradition, and superstition" (as asserted by a popular Christian writer), when no mathematician ever demonstrated a scientific problem more clearly than we have proved in these pages that all the principle systems of the past, by no means excepting Christianity, are essentially alike in every important particular—all of their cardinal doctrines being the same, differing only in unimportant details?

Seeing, then, that all systems of religion have been found to be essentially alike in spirit and in practice, the all-important question arises here, What is the true cause assignable for this striking resemblance? How is it to be accounted for? Perhaps some of our good Christian readers, unacquainted with history, may cherish the thought that all the oriental systems brought to notice are but imitations of Christianity; that they were reconstructed out of materials obtained from that source; that Christianity is the parent, and they the off-spring. But, alas for their long-cherished idol, those who entertain such forlorn hopes are "sowing to the wind, and are doomed to disappointment." With the exception of Mahomedanism alone, Christianity is the youngest system in the whole catalogue. The historical facts to prove this statement are voluminous. But as it needs no proof to those who have read religious history, but little space will be occupied with citations for this purpose. With respect to the antiquity of the principal oriental system, we need only to quote the testimony of Sir William Jones, a devout Christian writer, who spent years in India, and whose testimony will be accepted by any person acquainted with his history. He makes the emphatic declaration, "That the name of Chrishna, and the general outline of his history, were long anterior to the birth of our Savior, and probably to the time of Homer (900 b. C.) we know very certainly." (Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 254.) No guess-work about it. "We know very certainly."