"There is scarcely an old church in Italy where some remains of the black virgin and black child are not to be met with. Very often the black figures have given way to white ones, and in these cases, the black ones, as being held sacred, were put into retired place» in the churches; they were not destroyed, but are yet to be found there. In many instances, these images are painted all over, and look like bronze, often with colored aprons or napkins round the loins and other parts. No doubt, in many places, when the priests have new painted the images, they have colored the eyes and teeth, in order that they might not shock the feelings of devotees, by a too sudden change from black to white; and in order, at the same time, that they might furnish a devout pretence for their blackness, namely, that they are in imitation of bronze; but the number left with white teeth, let out the secret: their blackness is not to be questioned for a moment." Mr. Higgins concludes from the knowledge of the foregoing facts, that, "the Romish Chrishna is black in India, black in Europe, and black he must remain. But, after all, what was he but their Jupiter, the second person of their Trinurti, or trinity, the Logos of Parmenides and Plato, an incarnation or emanation of the solar power" (Anacalypsis).
Of these Trinities it is not requisite to say much here, as ample proof has been adduced in the course of these lectures to show that, from Japan in the east to Egypt in the west, every country had, in the remotest antiquity, a triad of gods for the vulgar, which, in the mystical or hidden sense, had allusion to physical principles. But as we have a partiality for the authority of theologians on these subjects, we beg to quote that of the Rev. Mr. Maurice, who traces the principles of Tritheism among the most ancient nations of the earth, before as well as in the times of the Greeks and Romans. He says that the Indian Temple of Elephanta, "is of exquisite workmanship and of stupendous antiquity; antiquity to which neither the page of history or human traditions can ascend. That magnificent piece of sculpture so often alluded to in the cavern of Elephanta, decidedly establishes the solemn fact, that from the remotest eras, the Indian nations have adored a triune Deity. There the traveller, with awe and astonishment, beholds, carved out of the solid rock, in the most conspicuous part of the most ancient and venerable temple of the world, a bust expanding in breadth near twenty feet, and no less than eighteen feet in altitude, by which amazing proportions, as well as by its gorgeous decorations, it is known to be the image of the grand, presiding Deity of that hallowed retreat: he beholds, I say, a bust composed of three heads united to one body, adorned with the oldest symbols of Indian theology; and thus expressly fabricated according to the unanimous confession of the sacred sacerdotal tribe of India, to indicate the Creator, the Preserver, and the Destroyer, or Regentrator, of mankind." Notwithstanding the absolute conclusiveness of the evidence adduced by Mr. Maurice, proving the infinitely higher antiquity of the Hindu Trinity, he still recollects his obligation to support the Christian priesthood, and argues that the Indians must have derived their notions of a triune Deity from the Hebrews, though that people had no known existence in the time he refers to, and their books (the Old Testament) if rightly translated, do not, even by the slightest allusion, acknowledge anything of the kind. By such subterfuges theology is not ashamed to deny the clearest light.
The sacrament of Baptism, like all the other dogmas of Christianism, is drawn from the ancient religious observances of India and Egypt; and is also one of the sacred rites of solar worship, the mysteries of which required that the neophyte should be pure in body as well as in mind. It existed among the Pythagoreans and Druids. In an Arabic work, translated by Mr. Hammer, it is stated that in ancient Egypt, when a child was born, the mother took it to a priest of the temple, and laid it down without speaking a word. The priest then came, with a golden cup full of water in his hand, accompanied by six other priests. He then said prayers, and sprinkled the water over the child. The dead were also baptised, though by proxy. St. Paul establishes this point in his first epistle to the Corinthians, chap. xv., 29; and he is so far from condemning the custom, that he adduces it as an argument in proof of the resurrection.
Mr. Higgins says: "John the Baptist was nothing but one of the followers of Mithra, with whom the deserts of Syria and the Thebais of Eyypt abounded, under the name of Essenes. He was a Nazarite; and it is a striking circumstance that the fountain (Enon, or Enon), where he baptised, was sacred to the sun." Even the name signifies the sun, or Mithra. If this was the (Enon of Locris, in ancient Greece (we know of no other), John must have taken wide excursions in his baptism. In the New Testament allegories there are many coincidents which point out that John (the Janus of the Latins) is the personified genius of January, the zodiacal sign of which month is Aquarius with his pitcher, the water of which is generally poured out plentifully. Aquarius being the mansion of the sun in John's month, or January, his pitcher is figuratively the fountain of OEnon, that was sacred to the sun, and where, as the Evangelist tells us there was "much water." During this month and February the "kingdom of heaven," or Christ (the sun), was said to be coming, or at hand; but he was not considered as come until after the vernal equinox, in March, when, by entering the sign Aries, or the Ram, he became the Lamb, at which time John exclaims—"Behold the Lamb of God; he cometh after me, but is preferred before me." "I baptise with water—he with the Holy Ghost." That is to say, March comes after January, and the genial sun of spring and summer will always be preferred to that of January. The wilderness in which John was said to sojourn was metaphorical of the sterile and bleak face of nature during that month. In Matthew it is said—"He shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost and with fire."* The Holy Ghost was metaphoric of the salubrious summer winds in May, as the fire was of the scorching heat of the dog-days.
It has often been observed that the learned, or the initiated in religious mysteries, had language peculiar to themselves, and unknown to the rabble, whereby they concealed science under tropes and allegories; so that, aided by the vivacity of the imagination, the most ordinary phænomena of nature were embodied as mystical existences, and there was hardly anything spoken of without being personified. Philo Judæus informs us that, amongst the arts and mysteries which Moses learnt from his masters the Egyptians, was that of philosophy by symbols, hieroglyphics, and marks of animals. Clemens Alexandrinus states, that "all who have treated of divine matters, the barbarous nations as well as the Greeks, have hid the principles of things, and delivered down the truth enigmatically, by signs, and symbols, and allegories, and metaphors."** Similar confessions were made by all the learned fathers of Christianism, many of whom allowed that their own religion was veiled in exactly the same manner; and for this they might claim even St. Paul as sufficient authority.
* The priests of ancient Egypt baptised with air as well as
with water and fire. This was done by one "whose fan is in
his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor." The use
of the fan was an artificial way of creating the Holy Wind,
or Ghost.
** Yet, upon a system which is thus admitted to be fabulous,
or false, Are founded doctrines which are said to be true.
But in the present day, amongst an ignorant and interested clergy, although their superstition is directly derived from, and is only a varied version of the solar adoration of Paganism, the "principles of things" are lost and unknown, or if known to a very few of the learned, the little lamp of truth is extinguished by the roguery of self-interest, which will ever be sufficient to secure its suppression. Thus, from ignorance or interest, or both together, the allegories and metaphors of speech which we find in the Bible, are monstrously inculcated and palmed upon simplicity as matters of fact and history. Whilst committing these outrages upon the highest branches of science, the theologians have absurdly attempted to blend the eternal religion of Nature* with the evanescent revelations which man has, in successive ages, invented to be the greatest curse of his brother.
* The "Religion of Nature" may be defined thus:—The
admiration, the love, and the veneration which we feel for
that incomprehensible power which produces the beauties and
bounties of the world. Beyond, this, all pretended
revelation is foul imposture.
Having, in this and the foregoing lectures, noticed most of the leading dogmas of Christianity, and the Pagan astro-fables, from which they are derived, that exposure alone renders it unnecessary to enter upon the endless task of commenting on the unsightly mass of heterogeneous doctrines, to which the ignorant abuse of these fables has given rise. Where the foundation is fallacious, the superstructure cannot stand.
The overwhelming master-curse, springing out of these mythological fictions, in past and present times, is their perversion from a scientific purport, that was radically and wholly physical and sub-natural, to a sense that is chimerically called spiritual and super-natural. In thus fraudulently putting the latter of these words in place of the former, (which we maintain is contrary to the original meaning of the Bible itself,) does the whole science and essence of priestcraft consist. By this departure from everything tangible—from all that is to the human mind conceivable, the theologians have cunningly decoyed their dupes into imaginary regions, peopled, as in the old mythology, with existences of fabled creation, where phantasy takes all the hues of the chamelion; and where the intangibility of their whole apparatus eludes the grasp of reason, and secures their wild assertions against demonstration. When the minds of men are thus lured into the fictitious empire of theology, the good things of this world are over with them, and fall to the share of the priests, who live in luxury, while they preach to their deluded votaries the unspeakable blessings of poverty; and that through the unsearchable mysteries of God's love to man, want and misery in this world are by far the best preparatives for "their exceeding great reward," in kingdom come. This is what is called "religious instruction," which, being interpreted, signifies the diffusion of that abject ignorance which shuts out the light of experience and reason—puts blind faith* in its place, and thereby fits both mind and body for slavery. In this element of ignorance, so congenial to the profession, from its being of their own creation, the priesthoods of Europe, aided by the corruption of civil rulers, have been allowed to embody themselves into vast and well organised phalanxes, regularly trained to wage perpetual war against the light of nature and common sense.