Religion in the Heavens; Or, Mythology Unveiled in a Series of Lectures

by Logan Mitchell

All these fragments of crack-brained opiniatry and silly
solaces, played off, in the sweetness of song, by deceitful
poets, have, by you too credulous creatures, been shamefully
reformed and made over to your own God. MINUTIUS FELIX.

DOES not the New Testament speak very distinctly of two crucifixions, viz., one as having taken place upon Mount Calvary, and another at, or in a Garden? There is even a third mentioned, as having occurred in Egypt, "where also our Lord was crucified," Rev. xi., 8; which is a plain recognition of the astro-religion, and solar worship of the Egyptian priests. The crucifixion upon Mount* Calvary was allegorical of the sun's passing over, or crossing the equator in March; of which month the Ram, or Lamb of God, was the zodiacal emblem, God, the sun, being in that sign at the spring equinox. This was also the origin of the Pascal Lamb, and the Passover of the Jews, which they borrowed of their masters, the Egyptians.

* The word mount, as here used, is figurative of the sun's
being in the state of elevation in the horizon, at the
spring equinox.

This crossing of the sun, while in the Ram of March, was likewise metonymised into the phrase about "The Lamb that was slain from the beginning of the world," that is, the Lamb that was figuratively crucified at every vernal equinox, while the sun was in the sign Aries or the Lamb. The Evangelist John, in describing God, declares that the hair of his head was like wool; (O, John, you are too apt to tell tales ont of school!) which setting aside the ludicrous simile, is a sublime symbol of God, the sun, in the sign of the Bam, in March. Why is the second crucifixion, as narrated by this tell-tale, John, said to have happened, not upon a mount, but in or near a garden? Because this crucifixion has allusion to the autumnal equinox, when the sun crosses the line of the equator, in September; and nothing can be a prettier, or more appropriate emblem of that month than a fruit garden, or vineyard. Why is the mother of Jesus said to be standing by, or near him, at the garden crucifixion, as stated by John, though her presence is not at all acknowledged by any of the other evangelists? His mother could no more be near him at his Calvary crucifixion, than August can be near March; but as she, as the sign Virgo, or the Virgin, is also the genius of August, she was, of course, near, or standing "by the cross," when her son Jesus Christ, that is, the sun, was crossified, or crossed the equator in September, that month being next door neighbor to August. The Christ, or Savior of the vernal equinox ascends into the Heaven of summer, and saves, or recreates the organised existences of this globe, by his genial and animative power; whereas the Christ of the autumnal Cross descends gradually to the winter solstice, and is said, therefore, to descend into Hell, that is, to enter the signs and constellations of winter, which, being antagonistic to those of summer, are emblematical of evil. In the September crucifixion, Christ, as the sun, is called "the Just One," because he is then in the zodiacal sign, Libra, or the Balance.

The Egyptian deity, Bacchus, or the wine-producing god, being also a personification of the sun, is the same as Christ, and of course, like him, visited the "lowest regions" after being unjustly put to death. These being only the Egyptian and Indian names for the same divinity, it was quite in analogy to preserve a symbolical allusion to the vine and blood of the grape, in the crucifixion of Christ. But it requires little penetration to perceive that all we find there said about the "agony,"* in the garden, and sweating "great drops of blood," has a very plain allusion to the wine-press and the compression of the grapes;** and here the secret meaning is as near the surface as it possibly can be in allegory. The rich, sweet juice is at first expressed in "great drops," or copiously, and is called "the blood of the grape;" by a second pressure, the thin lees, or "vinegar," is compressed, which they are allegorically said to have given him to drink; and after this last process the business is truly said to be "finished." After this manner, and in every age and country of the world, down to the present day, have the allegories invented by priests, and cunningly drawn from the astronomical phænomena of nature, passed for religion amongst the unthinking million.*** If the cruel usage given to John Barleycorn, in the process of turning him into beer, had been allegorised to us in our present ignorance, and priest-nursed stupidity, it would have answered equally as well as the fable of Christ and the "blood of the wine-press."

* "An Agony literally is a wine-press."—Taylor.
** "And the wine-press was trodden without the city, and
blood came out of the wine-press" (Rey. xiv., 20).
*** The Crucifixion of Christ is so manifestly a new version
of that of Prometheus (another name of the sun), that in our
translations of that tragedy of Æschylus, the crucifixion of
the original is never, acknowledged; but he is always
fraudulently said to be bound. "The object of this impudent
fraud," says Mr. Higgins, "need not be pointed out."

The name of Chrishna, Christna, or Christ, was common to Egypt as well as to India, in the remotest known antiquity. In the Sanscrit Dictionary, the name of the Nile is Christna; which is further proof of what Sir William Jones says about the exceedingly ancient intercourse which subsisted between India and Egypt "before the time of Homer." And although this pious author, and several other writers on eastern affairs, seem carefully to have avoided saying a word about the crucifixion of the Hindu Savior, and many Christians have exulted in the similarity of the legends being entirely broken off by this pretended discrepancy, yet the fact is incontrovertible, that not only was Christ, or Christna, crucified in India, but in Egypt "also," as we have already shown on Scripture authority. Mr. Higgins asserts that the Brahmin "crucifixion was well known in the time of St. Jerome," who, like the Evangelist John, was rather apt to tell astronomical secrets.

Mons. Guigniant says—"The death of Chrishna is variously related: one averred tradition very remarkably represents him to have perished on a fatal tree, or cross where he was pinned, or nailed with an arrow." Mr. Moor, in the "Hindu Pantheon," states, that many of the plates and pictures of India, of undoubted antiquity, represent the god Christna, with cicatrix, or scars in his hands and feet, the very points of the nails by which he was suspended on that fatal tree. Plate 98, in the "Hindu Pantheon," shows the figure of a man suspended on a cross; and it appears, that when the Romish artists imitated this Indian crucifixion, in their carvings and paintings, they omitted the cross itself; their reason for this is very obvious. The figure appears hanging in the sky, with arms distended, and the feet overlapping each other, so that one nail might perforate both at once. Now it is not a little extraordinary, that some of the earlier Christian sects maintained, that Christ was crucified in the sky. Here is a direct demonstration, that the Brahmin crucifixion is, wholly and radically, an astronomical allegory of the equatorial crossings of the sun at the Equinoxes; and that the Christian fable is identically the same, but the scientific meaning is lost, through the fraud of priestcraft, and the ignorance it fosters.

Mr. Moor further observes, that having some apprehension of giving offence to the bigoted and prejudiced on these points, he showed the plates and paintings above-mentioned to a friend, who suggested the propriety of omitting plate 98.

"I very much suspect," says Mr. Higgins, in his Anacalypsis, "that it is from some story, now unknown, or kept out of sight, relating to this Avata, that the ancient heretics alluded to, obtained their tradition of Jesus being crucified in the clouds." He says again, "That nothing more is known respecting this Avata, I cannot help suspecting, may be attributed to the same kind of feeling, which induced Mr. Moor's friend to wish him to remove print 98 from his book. The innumerable pious frauds of which Christian priests stand convicted, and the principle of the expediency of fraud, admitted to have existed by Mosheim, are a perfect justification of my suspicions respecting the concealment of the history of this Avata. I repeat, I cannot help suspecting that it is from this Avata," (incarnation) "of Chrishna, that the sect of Christian heretics got their Christ crucified in the clouds."