The Christian apologists of the second and third centuries evinced no lack of knowledge on this point. Justin Martyr, as already cited, in addressing a Roman emperor, says that the Christians, by declaring Jesus to be the Son of God, born of a virgin, said no more than the Romans said of those whom they styled the 24 sons of Jupiter, such as Mercury, Bacchus, Hercules, Pollux, and Castor; and as to Jesus, he repeats, having been born of a virgin, the pagans had their Perseus, son of Jove and the virgin Danaë, to balance this feature. Creusa, daughter of Erectheus, was visited by the god Apollo, and in consequence became the mother of the god Janus. A Chinese virgin by means of the rays of the sun—regarded as a deity—became the mother of the god Fo, who acted as a mediator between his followers and another superior god. The Hindoo virgin Rohini in like miraculous manner gave birth to a god, one of the Brahman trinity. Another Hindoo virgin, Devaci, as already observed, having had an intercourse with the deity Yasudeva, became the mother of an incarnate god whose name was Chrishna; whose birth was announced by the appearance of a new star; whose life, when an infant, was sought in vain by the reigning tyrant of the country; whose principal exploits were killing a terrible serpent, holding a mountain on the tip of his finger, washing the feet of the Brahmans, saving multitudes by his miraculous power, raising many from the dead, dying to save the world from sin and darkness, rising from the dead, and then ascending to his heavenly seat in Vaicontha (Sir Wm. Jones’s Asiatic Researches, vol. i. pp. 259-273). Somonocodom, who, according to the sacred books of the Talapoins of Siam, was destined to save the world, was another personage who had a virgin mother. The followers of Plato about two hundred years after his death, but more than a century before the Christian era, reported that he had been born of a virgin.
The most ancient Alexandrian chronicles, which furnish ample proofs of the universal prevalence of our gospel religion in Egypt for ages before the Christian era, testify as follows: “To this day Egypt has consecrated the pregnancy of a virgin and the nativity of her son, whom they annually present in a cradle to the adoration of the people; and when King Ptolemy, three hundred and fifty years before our Christian era, demanded of the priests the significancy of this religious ceremony, they told him it was a mystery.” (See Christian Mythology Unveiled, p. 94.)
Indeed, the fabulous lore of ancient times is teeming with the amours of gods with virgins and the results thereof. Some writers have intimated that such births were the consequences of the artful intrigues of the pagan priests with holy virgins; but Dupuis, Albert, Alphonso, Boulanger, and others have clearly shown “that these and similar tales, which are revolting to common sense if taken literally, were originally, in Oriental learning, astronomical and other allegories, conveying the most sublime truths then known touching the revolutions of the heavenly bodies and other physical and moral facts, while their meaning in after ages was gradually perverted to answer other ends.”
THE EPISTLES SILENT CONCERNING THE WORDS AND WORKS OF JESUS.
It is a most remarkable fact that in none of the Epistles is there any mention made of the various wonderful things narrated in the Gospels as having been said and done by Christ. Indeed, there is scarcely an allusion made in them to those astounding details with which every page of the Gospels is replete. No mention is made in them of what the Gospels state that Christ declared regarding the day of judgment—nothing about Christ’s preternatural birth, his baptism, his temptation by Satan, his denunciations of the different existing sects, his precepts, his parables, his intimate acquaintance with publicans, with Magdalene, with Mary and other women. Not one of his miracles is detailed, and nothing is said of the marvellous circumstances which attended his crucifixion and death, such as the sun darkening, the earth quaking, the temple rending, rocks cleaving asunder, graves opening, the dead rising and walking the streets of Jerusalem. These are matters which, one would imagine, should occupy a very prominent position in all the Epistles—should be relied upon by the writers respectively as facts with which to attest and establish the truth of their doctrines, and which would, of themselves, suffice to convince and convert the most incredulous and obdurate mind. In the Epistles ascribed to Peter, James, and John, who are said to have been eye- and ear-witnesses of what Christ did and said, one would expect, certainly, to find frequent details of the marvellous things said of Jesus in the Gospels. But Peter does not so much as allude to the keys of heaven and hell which the Gospels say were given him to keep, nor even to the fact that Jesus, walking on the sea, enabled him also to do so and saved him from drowning. Neither does he tell those to whom he writes that Jesus conferred his blessing upon him when he pronounced him “the Christ, the Son of the living God;” nor that Jesus, after he had suspiciously asked him three times whether he loved him, and had as often received affirmative answers, charged him to feed his flock. Of course we cannot expect him to have recorded in his Epistles that Jesus graced him with the epithet “Satan,” or that he denied the same Jesus thrice. If it was the son of Zebedee who wrote “the General Epistle of James” (about the authorship of which Christians have not as yet agreed), it would not seem too great a tribute to his divine Master for him to refer to some of his mighty words and deeds which he must have witnessed. Or if the author is the brother of Jesus (which is not very likely, since all his relatives except his mother shunned him), he could deplore the fact that he and his brothers—Joses, Simon, and Judas—did not believe in the pretensions of their divine brother, Jesus. But the very name of Jesus is mentioned, and that casually, only thrice in the whole Epistle. John, “the beloved disciple,” could in one of his Epistles, or at least in that which it is agreed he wrote—to the confirmation of the genuineness of Matthew, Mark, and Luke's Gospels—have adverted to that curious incident of his mother asking Jesus to allow him and his brother James to sit on each side of him in his kingdom; or could, with a mixture of joy and sorrow, ruminate on the pleasure he had felt in accompanying Peter to prepare the last Passover which they had eaten with their divine Master, and bemoan the fatal disaster which shortly after overtook his Lord. But he writes not one word about these remarkable events, or about anything that occurred personally between him and Jesus. Indeed, the writers of the Epistles totally ignore the contents of the Gospels. How, then, is this fact to be accounted for? Did the writers of the Epistles—whoever they were—know anything at all about the contents of the present Gospels? Are we not entitled to infer that either the churches, etc. to which these Epistles were addressed were much older than the date of the Gospels, and even than the time at which the Christ of the Gospels was born, or that, if the present Gospels then existed, the authors of the Epistles knew nothing of them?
CONCLUSION.
We have seen that, so limited was the knowledge of Jesus of futurity, he falsely prophesied the end of the world, the time of his own resurrection, the perpetual praise of a woman who poured upon him a box of ointment, and the signs which believers in Christianity would manifest. We have also seen that a vast number of his precepts and doctrines were obscure, contradictory, bigoted, absurd, and untrue, and that much of his conduct was open to criticism. We have further seen that he was deficient in knowledge of natural philosophy; that he borrowed the best part of his doctrine from heathen mythology; that his life, his teaching, and his practices were identical with those of heathen monks who had preceded him; that, like many other human beings, he feared death; that neither his own neighbors, nor kinsmen, nor even his disciples, believed that he was, either in nature or power, superior to other mortals; and that he himself avowed that the purpose for which he had been ushered into the world was to send strife, division, fire, and sword on earth, and to make “brother deliver up brother to death, and the father the child, and incite children to rise up against their parents and cause them to be put to death” (Matt. 10: 21).
Such has been the result of our inquiry. But let it not be supposed that there was nothing to admire in the alleged character and teachings of the ideal Jesus. There are many exceedingly tender things mingled with the arrogant and severe. His character, made up from many models, could not be otherwise than inconsistent and contradictory. It is a perfect mosaic, but such has been the reverence for Jesus, in view of the extraordinary claims made for him, that men have closed their eyes to his imperfections and faults, while they have greatly magnified his virtues. We have known many persons in our day who as far excelled Jesus in every noble and manly quality as the civilization and morality of the nineteenth century are superior to those of the first. It has been well said that Jesus, whether a person or an impersonation, will continue to be the leader just so long as he leads; but he no longer leads. It is found (assuming his personality) that he taught nothing but what had been taught with equal distinctness before him, and that he taught much not suited to this commercial age and to the wants of this nineteenth century. While many persons profess to be disciples of Jesus, yet nobody even pretends to conform their lives to his alleged teachings. Properly speaking, there is not now a real Christian upon the face of the earth, as no one attempts to practise the extreme precepts Christ is said to have laid down in the so-called Sermon on the Mount. What is called Christianity is proved and admitted to be an evolution from various religions which were before it. The good in every religion is the same, and men will go on weeding out the impure and imperfect, the fittest only surviving. Christianity claims to be an infallible divine revelation, and that it is complete in itself, and of course admits of no progress. This is the difficulty between the old orthodoxy and the new orthodoxy of the creeds. The Church carries no flag of truce. It says, You must believe! True men answer, We cannot believe the impossible and the absurd. There can be no doubt as to who will survive in this struggle for existence. The “spirit of truth” is coming, and it will “teach in all things.”
[CHAPTER XV. BLOOD-SALVATION]
“And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without the shedding of blood there is no remission.”—Heb. 9: 22. “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”—! John 1: 5.