[460] Transactions of Victoria Institute, vol. xii., p. 52.
But still the position of Horus, as a mediator between God and man, undoubtedly resembles that of Christ. But what is the cause of this similarity? Not surely that the Christian doctrine was founded on that of Horus. As in the previous case, there is another and far better solution. For what was the origin of the Egyptian doctrine itself? It was simply this. The ancient Egyptians firmly believed in the justice of God; the immortality of man; his responsibility, involving a future judgment; and his sinfulness, which naturally made him long for some mediator with the just Judge he would have to face hereafter. Given these four ideas—and they all belong to Natural Religion—and Horus was merely an imaginary being, who was thought to satisfy them. Hence, if these ideas are true, and if Christianity is the true religion, which really does satisfy them, that Horus should to some extent resemble Christ seems inevitable. Thus the Horus myth only proves how deeply rooted in the human mind is the idea of a mediator between God and man.
Lastly, as to the doctrine of the Resurrection, more especially that of Christ. Numerous analogies have been suggested for this, but none of them are at all satisfactory. Thus the Egyptian god Osiris is recorded as doing a great deal after his death; but he is only supposed to have done this by living on in the spirit, and there is no hint that his body was restored to life, in the sense in which Christ's was; and the same may be said in other cases.[461] While the way in which the educated Athenians (who must have known a good deal about heathen religions) treated St. Paul, when he proclaimed the Resurrection of Christ, shows how absolutely novel they considered the doctrine.[462]
[461] Tisdall, Christianity and Other Faiths, 1912, p. 153.
[462] Acts 17. 19, 32; 26. 8.
We must also remember that the Christian doctrines of the Incarnation, the Atonement, and the Resurrection, were not slowly evolved, but were essential features in Christianity from the very first. They are all strongly insisted on by St. Paul. And this alone seems fatal to the idea of their having been derived from the myths of India, Egypt, and elsewhere.
On the whole, then, it is evident that the comparative study of religions, instead of being against Christianity, is distinctly in its favour; for it shows, as nothing but a comparative study could show, its striking superiority. Human nature is always the same, and in so far as other religions have satisfied human nature, they have resembled Christianity. On the other hand, Christianity differs from them in being free from their various absurdities and contradictions, as well as from their tendency to degenerate; and having instead a moral character of admitted excellence, and powerful evidence by which to establish its actual truth. In short, other religions are human; and therefore, as man is a mixture of good and evil, they contain some good (what we now call Natural Religion) and some evil. But Christianity is superhuman; and therefore contains all the good they do, with much more besides, and with none of their evil. This completes a brief examination of the more important additional arguments for and against Christianity.