CHAPTER XXXIII. APOLLONIUS, OSIRIS, MAGUS, ETC.—GODS
MIRACULOUS ACHIEVEMENTS OF OTHER GODS AND DEMI-GODS OF ANTIQUITY.
THE age in which Christ flourished, as before remarked, was pre-eminently an age of miracle. The practice of thaumaturgy, and the legends invested with the display of the miracle-working power, both preceding and subsequent to that era, rose to a great height. "All nations of that time," says a writer, "were mightily bent on working miracles." And the disciples who acted the part of biographers for the various crucified Gods and sin-atoning Saviors, throughout the East, seemed to vie with each other in setting off the lives and histories of their favorite objects of worship respectively, with marvelous exploits and the pageantry of the most astounding prodigies. And the miracles in each case were pretty much of the same character, thus indicating a common course for their origin,—all probably having been cast in the same mold—in the theological schools of the once famous, world-renowned city of Alexandria, the capital of Egypt. Having, in the preceding chapters, presented the miraculous achievements of the Hindoo Gods, Chrishna and Saki, we will here bring to notice those of other Gods.
THE MIRACLES RECORDED OF ALCIDES, OSIRIS, AND OTHER GODS OF EGYPT.
1. We have the miraculous birth by a virgin in the case of Alcides.
2. Osiris, while a sucking infant in his cradle, killed two serpents which came to destroy him.
3. Alcides performed many miraculous cures.
4. According to Ovid he cured by a miracle the daughter of Archiades.
5. Also the wife of Theogenes, after the doctors had given her up.
6. And both these Gods converted water into wine.