Hence, when the victim was reported to have submitted with such fortitude that no murmur was heard to issue from his lips, this circumstance of itself was deemed sufficient evidence of his Godship. The story of the crucifixion, therefore, whether true or false, deified or helped deify many great men and exalt them to the rank of Gods. Though some of the disciples of Budhism, and some of the primitive professors of Christianity also (including, according to Christian history, Peter and his brother Andrew), voluntarily chose this mode of dying in imitation of their crucified Lord, without experiencing, however, the desired promotion to divine honors. They failed of an exaltation to the deityship, and hence are not now worshiped as Gods.
Christian reader, what can you now make of the story of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ but a borrowed legend—at least the story of his being crucified as a God!
Note.—The author desires it to be understood with respect to the cases of crucifixion here briefly narrated, that they are not vouched foras actual occurrences, of which there is much ground to doubt. It has neither been his aim or desire to prove them to be real historical events, nor to establish any certain number of cases. Indeed, he deems it unimportant to know, if it could be determined, whether they are fact or fiction, or whether one God was crucified, or many. The moral lesson designed to be taught by this chapter is, simply, that the belief in the crucifixion of Gods was prevalent in various oriental or heathen countries long prior to the reported crucifixion of Christ. If this point is established—which he feels certain no reader will dispute—then he is not concerned to know whether he has made out sixteen cases of crucifixion or not. Six will prove it as well as sixteen. In fact, one case is sufficient to establish the important proposition in view. The reader is, therefore, left to decide each case for himself, according as he may value the evidence presented. More authorities could have been adduced, and a more extended history presented of each God brought to notice. But this would have operated to exclude other matter, which the author considers of more importance.
CHAPTER XVII. THE APHANASIA, OR DARKNESS AT THE CRUCIFIXION.
MATTHEW tells us (xxvii. 31) that when Christ was crucified, there was darkness all over the land for three hours, and "the earth did quake, and the rocks were rent, and many of the saints came out of their graves."
Here we have a series of events spoken of so strange, so unusual and so extraordinary that, had they occurred, they must have attracted the attention of the whole world—especially the amazing scene of the sun's withdrawing his light and ceasing to shine, and thereby causing an almost total darkness near the middle of the day. And yet no writer of that age or country, or any other age or country, mentions the circumstance but Matthew. A phenomenon so terrible and so serious in its effects as literally to unhinge the planets and partially disorganize the universe must have excited the alarm and amazement of the whole world, and caused a serious disturbance in the affairs of nations. And yet strange, superlatively strange, not one of the numerous historians of that age makes the slightest allusion to such an astounding event.
Even Seneca and the elder Pliny, who so particularly and minutely chronicle the events of those times, are as silent as the grave relative to this greatest event in the history of the world. Nor do Mark, Luke or John, who all furnish us with a history of the crucifixion, make the slightest hint at any of these wonder-exciting events, except Mark's incidental allusion to the darkness.
Gibbon says, "It happened during the life of Seneca and the elder Pliny, who must have experienced its immediate effects, or received the earliest intelligence of the prodigy. Each of these philosophers, in a labored work, has recorded all the phenomena of Nature's earthquakes, meteors and eclipses, which his indefatigable curiosity could collect. Both the one and the other have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon, to which the mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the world." (Gibbon, p. 451.)
2. With reference to the "bodies" of the dead saints coming out of their tombs (for it is declared their "bodies arose," see Matt, xxvii. 52), many rather curious and puzzling questions might be started, which would at once disclose its utter absurdity.