mirror of
https://github.com/nhammer514/textfiles-politics.git
synced 2024-10-01 01:15:38 -04:00
1882 lines
116 KiB
HTML
1882 lines
116 KiB
HTML
|
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
|
||
|
|
<head>
|
||
|
|
<title>forg1</title>
|
||
|
|
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../CSSstyle.css"/>
|
||
|
|
<!--Fill in your link line for CSS and JS in the XSLT here! -->
|
||
|
|
</head>
|
||
|
|
<body>
|
||
|
|
<h1 id="title-index">forg1</h1>
|
||
|
|
<div id="conspiracy">
|
||
|
|
<p> 32 page printout, pages 24 to 55 of 322
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "Being crafty, I caught you with guile" ...
|
||
|
|
For if the truth of God hath more abounded
|
||
|
|
through my LIE unto his glory; why yet am
|
||
|
|
I also adjudged a sinner?"
|
||
|
|
St. Paul.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "What profit has not that fable of Christ
|
||
|
|
brought us!"
|
||
|
|
Pope Leo X.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> CHAPTER I</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> PAGAN FRAUDS -- <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIAN</span> PRECEDENTS</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "Neither in the confusion of paganism, nor in the
|
||
|
|
defilement of heresy, nor yet in the blindness of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Judaism</span>, is
|
||
|
|
religion to be sought, but among those alone who are called
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Christians." (St. Augustine, De Vera Religions, v.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> EVERY RELIGION, PRIESTCRAFT, and Sacred Book, other than the
|
||
|
|
Roman <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Christian, is thus branded as false in fact and
|
||
|
|
fraudulent in practice. The <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jews</span>, however, excluded by those who
|
||
|
|
have expropriated their ancient faith, make the same imputations of
|
||
|
|
falsity and fraud against the Christian religion, based on their
|
||
|
|
own ancient sacred Scriptures, and founded, as the Christians
|
||
|
|
claim, by a <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jewish</span> Incarnation of the Hebrew God, -- which, say the
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jews</span>, is a horrid blasphemy; and they brand the Sacred Books of
|
||
|
|
Christian origin as false and forged.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The Christians, all their hundreds of warring Sects, in their
|
||
|
|
turn impute to the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jews</span> the blasphemous repudiation and monstrous
|
||
|
|
murder of the Son of the ancient Hebrew God, Yahweh; and with ample
|
||
|
|
usury of blood and torture have visited that fabulous iniquity upon
|
||
|
|
the hapless sons and daughters of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jewry</span> unto half a hundred
|
||
|
|
generations of "God's Chosen People."</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> But, of the countless Sects of Christians, one alone, it
|
||
|
|
avers, is of the True Faith; all the others are false and beyond
|
||
|
|
the hope of heaven: "Whoever will be saved, it is necessary above
|
||
|
|
all else that he hold to the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Faith," -- so reads the
|
||
|
|
venerable forged Athanasian Creed. (CE. ii, 33, 34.) The Protestant
|
||
|
|
Sects, however, though they all admit the same origin and accept in
|
||
|
|
full fatuity of faith most of the same forged sacred writings for
|
||
|
|
their rule of faith as the One True Church, yet apply the scornful
|
||
|
|
epithet "Antichrist" to their venerable Mother in Christ; freely
|
||
|
|
dub a dozen of her canonical sacred Books of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jewish</span> origin, and
|
||
|
|
most of her thousands of canonized Saints, forgeries and frauds;
|
||
|
|
and assert many of her most holy dogmas and sacraments to be
|
||
|
|
blasphemous and degrading superstitions. The while their own scores
|
||
|
|
of hostile factions mutually recriminate each the other as blind
|
||
|
|
leaders of the blind and perverters of the sacred Truth.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
24
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> It will serve a useful purpose to take a look behind all this
|
||
|
|
dust-and-smoke screen of "Odium Theologicum" and make a brief
|
||
|
|
survey of the origins of religious superstitions and priestcraft,
|
||
|
|
and of the known and admitted falsities and frauds of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Paganism</span>, and
|
||
|
|
some venerable other religious 'isms.' This will demonstrate that
|
||
|
|
these same things are now part and parcel of Christianity. This
|
||
|
|
induces the inquiry, Wherein the data of Christianity as a whole
|
||
|
|
may haply differ from the admitted frauds of the false religions
|
||
|
|
and priestcrafts of the Past. We shall learn whether and to what
|
||
|
|
degree truth may be found in any of the confused and confusing
|
||
|
|
Christian claims of Truth.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> THE DAWN-MAN AND THE SHAMAN</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "There is no origin for the idea of an after-life save
|
||
|
|
the conclusion which the savage draws from the notion
|
||
|
|
suggested by dreams." -- Herbert Spencer.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Lo, the poor <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Indian</span>, with his untutored mind, saw his god in
|
||
|
|
clouds and heard him in the wind. Ages before him, the Dawn-man,
|
||
|
|
the earliest Cave-man, saw his shadow in the sun, his reflection in
|
||
|
|
the water, and crudely thought that he had a sort of shadowy
|
||
|
|
double, which accompanied him and at times showed itself visible to
|
||
|
|
him. At night, when the Dawn-man, gorged with raw and often putrid
|
||
|
|
flesh, in a night-mare dream saw terrible monsters assailing him,
|
||
|
|
or in more normal sleep wandered forth and visited distant scenes
|
||
|
|
of his previous roamings, or saw, as in the flesh living and acting
|
||
|
|
before his eyes, his dead father or friend, thus he got further
|
||
|
|
immature notions of a double, "ka," or detachable spirit of man,
|
||
|
|
dwelling within him, which could leave the body and return at will,
|
||
|
|
or which survived the death of the body and lived on in spirit
|
||
|
|
form, and could revisit the old habitation and hold converse with,
|
||
|
|
do good or harm to, the frightened living. Thus came the belief in
|
||
|
|
the existence and survival after death of this double or spirit-ghost, thus the notion of the immortality of the soul, it primitive
|
||
|
|
belief held by every people of antiquity, and surviving yet by
|
||
|
|
inheritance among the priest-taught of modern times.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> These strange phantoms of the night naturally worked further
|
||
|
|
upon the fear-filled mind of the early child-men, terrified by the
|
||
|
|
frightful vicissitudes of life, the violent deaths by wild animals,
|
||
|
|
the storms and floods that killed and maimed them, the lightnings
|
||
|
|
and thunders that terrified them. All these things were to them
|
||
|
|
clearly the manifestations of the anger and revenge of the departed
|
||
|
|
spirits, especially of the Old Man of the clan who had bossed it
|
||
|
|
in life and had grudges against all who had not been sufficiently
|
||
|
|
obedient to him. Awaking from these dread visions of the night, the
|
||
|
|
frightened Down-man would relate the uncanny visitations to his
|
||
|
|
fellows, who would have like ghostly dream-stuff to exchange;
|
||
|
|
together they would wonder whether something could be done to
|
||
|
|
propitiate or pileate the wandering ghost-men and to win their
|
||
|
|
favor for benefits to be had from their superior other-worldly
|
||
|
|
status and powers.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> It could not be long before some old and crafty member of the
|
||
|
|
nomadic clan would hint that he had known the Old Man well during
|
||
|
|
life, had been very friendly with him living and had a powerful </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
25
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>influence with him; that he was wise to the ways and whims of
|
||
|
|
ghosts or gods; and no doubt he could get in touch with his spirit
|
||
|
|
and cajole him into reasonableness and favor. This suggestion
|
||
|
|
meeting with awed acquiescence, it would quickly be followed by the
|
||
|
|
forthright bold claim to super-ghostly powers, and by sundry weird
|
||
|
|
mumblings and mystic rites and incantations the old faker would
|
||
|
|
further awe the clan into credulous faith in the claim. The new
|
||
|
|
spiritualist would pretend to get into communion with the Old Man's
|
||
|
|
spirit, and to receive from him "revelations" of his will and
|
||
|
|
commands for the obedience of the clan. Thus began spirit-worship
|
||
|
|
or religion -- the fancied relations between man and the spirits of
|
||
|
|
the dead or gods. Here, too, we have the first shaman, medicine-man, magician, witch-doctor, or what-not; in a word, the first
|
||
|
|
priest; and the priestly game was on. The pretended ghost-cajoler
|
||
|
|
would naturally be held in dread awe and reverence by his credulous
|
||
|
|
dupes, and would gain enormous respect and prestige: he could quit
|
||
|
|
the drudgery of hunting and fishing for his precarious living, and
|
||
|
|
let the awed and believing members of the clan keep him in food and
|
||
|
|
idle ease; here the first social parasite. This is priestcraft --
|
||
|
|
by whatever name and in whatever age and guise pursued.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> A very modern instance comes to hand and is added for
|
||
|
|
confirmation. Fortunately, or lamentably for Christian pretensions,
|
||
|
|
there yet exist in the world races of very primitive descendants of
|
||
|
|
Adam, who yet preserve their primeval forms of superstition and
|
||
|
|
priestcraft, wherein may be seen their origins in yet active
|
||
|
|
reality of operation. In no more remote a region of these our
|
||
|
|
United States than the Diomede Islands of the Aleutian archipelago
|
||
|
|
of Alaska, tribal superstition and primitive priestcraft may be
|
||
|
|
seen in all their ridiculous crudity today. In the Report of the
|
||
|
|
Stoll-McCracken Expedition of the American Museum of Natural
|
||
|
|
History, 1928, primitive religious superstition and the power of
|
||
|
|
the priest are graphically described; with simple change of form
|
||
|
|
and ritual it is Religion through the Ages, the war-blessers and
|
||
|
|
rain-makers in action to cajole and control the deity through his
|
||
|
|
priests. As one reads the following extracts from the Report, let
|
||
|
|
him see what differences he may discover, other than of technique,
|
||
|
|
between the Diomeder and the Dupe of any other Cult. "For the
|
||
|
|
Diomeder humbles himself before the imaginary forces of his spirit
|
||
|
|
world, often disregarding the realities of life with typical
|
||
|
|
primitive inconsistency. ... The only powers really worthy of his
|
||
|
|
respect are the supernatural ones. This is why the Eskimo medicine
|
||
|
|
man, or angutkok, as he is called, holds a position of such
|
||
|
|
influence. He is the middleman between the natural and supernatural
|
||
|
|
world. The Diomeders have no real chiefs or any system of
|
||
|
|
government. Each family is able to manage its own affairs. The
|
||
|
|
common events of life take care of themselves. But whatever is
|
||
|
|
unusual, whatever cannot be readily understood, engages the
|
||
|
|
attention of every Diomeder. Such things as sickness and weather,
|
||
|
|
good or bad luck and the complicated workings of nature fascinate
|
||
|
|
him because they are utterly beyond his comprehension. Indeed,
|
||
|
|
superstition is the basis of the angutkok's hold over his people.
|
||
|
|
It is chiefly for his supposed alliance with the forces of the
|
||
|
|
supernatural that he is venerated. ... He is supposed to have
|
||
|
|
marvelous powers over bodily ailments. ... The power of
|
||
|
|
conversation with the ancestral spirits is one of the angutkok's
|
||
|
|
strongest holds upon his public. For the ancestral spirits are said</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
26
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>to exert a tremendous influence over the lives of the natives. The
|
||
|
|
Diomeder's attitude toward them is more than one of wholesome
|
||
|
|
respect. It is made up of a definite and deep-sated fear. This is
|
||
|
|
because the spirits, if they choose, can send down either good luck
|
||
|
|
or bad -- and usually elect the latter. And clever must be the
|
||
|
|
ruses whereby they may be tricked into benignity. For a departed
|
||
|
|
soul, no matter how kindly has been its earthly owner, is a
|
||
|
|
potential agent of misfortune and must be treated accordingly" (New
|
||
|
|
York Times Magazine, Dee. 16, 1928, p. 9.) The methods of
|
||
|
|
incantation, of placating the spirits and gods, the charms and
|
||
|
|
amulets used for these conjurations, differ only in material from
|
||
|
|
those in holy vogue today in some very Christian countries.
|
||
|
|
Angutkok, shaman, medicine-man, exorciser, priest, <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Pennsylvania</span>
|
||
|
|
Witch-doctors, nature-fakers and superstition-mongers, parasites
|
||
|
|
preying on ignorance and fear -- the whole genealogy of dupe-craft,
|
||
|
|
of priest-craft, -- what difference in kind and craft is
|
||
|
|
discernible between the one and the others of the god-placating,
|
||
|
|
devil-chasing Genus Shamanensis? Bombarding the irate god with
|
||
|
|
eggs, as with the Diomedes, or by the prayer of faith as with more
|
||
|
|
up-to-date God-compellers, the cause is the same, and the effect is
|
||
|
|
equally ineffective and desultory.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Encyclopedia, describing the Doctors of Divinity
|
||
|
|
as in vogue among sundry <span class="NORP" title="NORP">African</span> tribes, well describes the entire
|
||
|
|
confraternity in all religions: "Certain specialists, however,
|
||
|
|
exist, known to us as sorcerers, witch-doctors, etc. who are
|
||
|
|
familiar with the mysterious secrets of things, who make use of
|
||
|
|
them on behalf of those interested, and hand them down to chosen
|
||
|
|
disciples." (CE. i, 183.) One of the highest and most potent
|
||
|
|
functions of all these primitive shamans and devil-doctors is the
|
||
|
|
conjuring of the infinitude of devils which afflict the inner-works
|
||
|
|
of the superstitious, and work havoc in weather, crops, herds,
|
||
|
|
etc.; the practice and its ceremonial of incantation are very
|
||
|
|
elaborate in some modern schemes: "This ceremony takes up over
|
||
|
|
thirty pages of the Roman Ritual. It is, however, but rarely used
|
||
|
|
-- [in these more enlightened and skeptical days], and never
|
||
|
|
without the express permission of the Bishop, for there is room for
|
||
|
|
no end of deception and hallucination when it is a question of
|
||
|
|
dealing with the unseen powers"! (CE. i, 142). Thus the System is
|
||
|
|
yet in vogue; and its priestcraft has waxed very powerful and very
|
||
|
|
wealthy. Artificial Fear and Credulity are its sole source and
|
||
|
|
sustenance. As the Roman poet Lucretius said: "Fear was the first
|
||
|
|
thing on earth to make gods."</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Reinach, after a critique of many varied definitions of
|
||
|
|
Religion, thus formulates his own -- which a moment's reflection
|
||
|
|
upon the infinite sacred "Thou Shalt Not's" of Faith will fully
|
||
|
|
justify: "A sum of scruples (Taboos) which impede the, free
|
||
|
|
exercise of our faculties." (Orpheus, 1930 ed. p. 3.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> As primitive society progressed towards organization, the
|
||
|
|
Headman of the clan or tribe would find advantage in a close and
|
||
|
|
not disinterested association with the Shaman, whose intimations of
|
||
|
|
good from the spirits or dreadful evil would assist powerfully in
|
||
|
|
the subordination and control of maybe otherwise ambitious or
|
||
|
|
unruly subjects: thus began the cooperation of ruler and priest for
|
||
|
|
the subjection of the ruled. Later yet, as government and </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
27
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>priestcraft developed, the ruler was also priest or the priest
|
||
|
|
ruler, as in early Egypt and Assyria, and as in ancient theocratic
|
||
|
|
Israel before the Kings and after the return from Captivity. So
|
||
|
|
too, later, in Greece and Rome. In Egypt and under the Empire in
|
||
|
|
Rome the King was God, in Egypt by divine descent, in Rome by
|
||
|
|
apotheosis. Even Alexander of Macedon was a god by divine
|
||
|
|
generation, as declared by the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> Oracle of Jupiter Ammon, to
|
||
|
|
the great scandal of Alexander's mother Olympias, who was wont to
|
||
|
|
complain, "I wish that Alexander would cease from incessantly
|
||
|
|
embroiling me with the wife of Jupiter!" Thus priestcraft thrived
|
||
|
|
and gained immense dominion over the superstitious minds of men, to
|
||
|
|
say nothing of powers and prestige unlimited, privileges,
|
||
|
|
immunities, wealth and aggrandizement beyond rivalry -- in ancient
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> times.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The temples of the ancient gods throughout <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>dom were
|
||
|
|
marvels of sumptuous wealth and beauty, thanks to the lavish
|
||
|
|
munificence of rulers and the offerings of the votaries of the
|
||
|
|
respective false gods. The Temple of Diana at Ephesus, the
|
||
|
|
Parthenon or Temple of the Virgin-goddess at Athens, were wonders
|
||
|
|
of the ancient world. The greatest ruins of antiquity yet standing
|
||
|
|
in splendid ruin or unearthed by the excavations of the
|
||
|
|
archaeologists, are the temples of the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> gods, testifying in
|
||
|
|
their decayed grandeur to their pristine magnificence and wealth.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Through the priests and the fear of the gods the rulers ruled:
|
||
|
|
"Thus saith our god" was the awful sanction of their commands and
|
||
|
|
of their legal enactments. The Hebrews had no word for religion";
|
||
|
|
their nearest approximation to the idea is the oft-repeated Bible
|
||
|
|
phrase, "The fear of Yahweh [the Lord]." The ancient Code of
|
||
|
|
Hammurabi, graven on the stela discovered by De Morgan in the ruins
|
||
|
|
of Susa at the beginning of this century and now preserved in the
|
||
|
|
Louvre at Paris, represents the King humbly receiving the Code of
|
||
|
|
Laws from the great god Bel through the <span class="LOC" title="LOC">Sun</span>-god Shamash; this for
|
||
|
|
its greater sanction to obedience by the superstitious people, who
|
||
|
|
knew no better than to believe the pious fraud of the priests and
|
||
|
|
King. A thousand years more or less later, the Hebrew God Yahweh,
|
||
|
|
along with many divine laws, delivered to Moses his Code of
|
||
|
|
Commandments neatly scratched with his own finger on two stone
|
||
|
|
slabs; of these, like the grave of Moses, no man knoweth the
|
||
|
|
whereabouts unto this day. It was plain but pious fraud for
|
||
|
|
Hammurabi to issue his laws under the name of his god. Common sense
|
||
|
|
and common honesty make us disbelieve and condemn the Hammurabi
|
||
|
|
fraud, and no one chides us for disbelieving it. Perforce we must
|
||
|
|
believe the Moses-tale of identical import, or be dubbed atheists,
|
||
|
|
reviled and ostracized, and be damned in the Christian Hell
|
||
|
|
forever, to boot. Both fables of Divine enactment were invented for
|
||
|
|
and served the same purpose to dupe the credulous to believe and
|
||
|
|
obey King and Priest. Is it honest?</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> This principle, involved in the pretense of divine Sanctions,
|
||
|
|
and effective through the cooperation of King and Priest for
|
||
|
|
dominion over the ruled, was frankly recognized by many ancient
|
||
|
|
writers, and even by some lauded as salutary for the ignorant.
|
||
|
|
Critics, friend of Socrates, saw the State "with false reason
|
||
|
|
covering truth," which by this device "quenched lawlessness,; with
|
||
|
|
laws." Diodorus Siculus admitted it to be the duty of the State "to</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
28
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>establish effective gods to do the work of police," and laid it
|
||
|
|
down, that "It is to the interest of States to be deceived in
|
||
|
|
religion." Livy admires the wisdom of Numa, who "introduced the
|
||
|
|
fear of the gods as a most efficacious means of controlling an
|
||
|
|
ignorant and barbarous populace." Polybius, the celebrated Greet
|
||
|
|
historian, gives his philosophic admiration to the religious system
|
||
|
|
of the Romans as an effective means of government of the populace:</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "In my opinion their object is to use it as a cheek upon the
|
||
|
|
common people. If it were possible to form a State wholly of
|
||
|
|
philosophers, such a custom would perhaps be unnecessary. But
|
||
|
|
seeing that every multitude is fickle and full of lawless desires,
|
||
|
|
unreasoning anger and violent passions, the only recourse is to
|
||
|
|
keep them in check by mysterious terrors and scenic effects of this
|
||
|
|
sort. Wherefore, to my mind the ancients were not acting without
|
||
|
|
purpose or it random, when they brought in among the Vulgar those
|
||
|
|
opinions about the gods and the belief in the punishments in
|
||
|
|
Hades." (Historiae, quoted by Grover, The Conflict of Religions in
|
||
|
|
the Early Roman Empire, pp. 3-4.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> This pious notion of God and religion as the Big Policeman of
|
||
|
|
the common herd, is not yet extinct. the Attorney General of
|
||
|
|
England, in a celebrated State trial for the sale of it copy of
|
||
|
|
Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason, urged to the jury the necessity
|
||
|
|
"to prevent its circulation among the industrious poor"; for, he
|
||
|
|
declaimed, "Of all human beings they stand most in need of the
|
||
|
|
consolations of religion; ... because no man can be expected to be
|
||
|
|
faithful to the authority of man who revolts against the government
|
||
|
|
of God"! (Williams' Case, 26 Howard's State Trials, p. 719;
|
||
|
|
1798-99.) But times and creeds change; this is the Twentieth
|
||
|
|
century. The professional religionists of today, however, forever
|
||
|
|
dingdong the old "Morality Lie," that without the God-given Ten
|
||
|
|
Commandments and like divine laws, ministered by them and reenacted
|
||
|
|
and enforced by the State there can be no morality, no human
|
||
|
|
virtues, no decent government. The "True Church" makes mighty boast
|
||
|
|
of its "saving civilization" after the Fall of Rome by the
|
||
|
|
industrious preachment -- as we shall amply see -- of pious lies
|
||
|
|
and practice of most unholy frauds among the semi-pagan Christian
|
||
|
|
peoples who rose -- despite the Church -- on the ruins of Rome, --</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> . . . Whilst human kind
|
||
|
|
Throughout the lands lay miserably crushed
|
||
|
|
Before all eyes beneath Religion -- who
|
||
|
|
Would show her head along the region skies,
|
||
|
|
Glowering on mortals with her hideous face."
|
||
|
|
(Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, I.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">PAGANISM</span> AT THE CROSS-ROADS WITH <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> At the time of the advent of "that newer form of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Paganism</span>
|
||
|
|
later called Christianity," the Greeco-Roman world seethed with
|
||
|
|
religions in a great state of flux and re-formation. Wonder-workers, miracle-mongers, impostors in the guise of gods and
|
||
|
|
Christs abounded. Simon Magus, Apollonius of Tyana, Apuleius,
|
||
|
|
Alexander, Porphyry, Iamblichus, -- performed prodigies of divine
|
||
|
|
power and were hailed as genuine gods, -- just as were Paul and
|
||
|
|
Barnabas (Acts xiv, 11-12), and, later, Jesus the Christ. Of these </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
29
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> and <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jewish</span> "Christs" two will be briefly noted, for their
|
||
|
|
very important Christian contacts and analogies. But first, some
|
||
|
|
analogies of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> priestly fakeries.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The petty frauds of the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> priests to dupe their credulous
|
||
|
|
votaries would fill a large book; the ancient poets and
|
||
|
|
philosophers, and modern histories of Gentilic religions, abound in
|
||
|
|
instances. Simply for examples of a few of the more common frauds
|
||
|
|
of the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> priests, outdone a thousand-fold by the Christian
|
||
|
|
priests and church, as -- (out of the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Encyclopedia) we
|
||
|
|
shall see, -- we may mention some well-known pious frauds of the
|
||
|
|
Greeks and Romans prevalent around the beginning of the Christian
|
||
|
|
era and forming the religious atmosphere of the times in which the
|
||
|
|
new faith was born and propagated.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> False prophecies and miracles and fraudulent relics were the
|
||
|
|
chief reliance among the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>s, as among the Christians, for
|
||
|
|
stimulating the faith, or credulity, of the ignorant and
|
||
|
|
superstitious masses. The images of the gods were believed to be
|
||
|
|
endowed with supernatural power. Of some, the wounds could bleed;
|
||
|
|
of others, the eyes could wink, of others, the heads could nod, the
|
||
|
|
limbs could be raised; the statues of Minerva could brandish
|
||
|
|
spears, those of Venus could weep; others could sweat; paintings
|
||
|
|
there were which could blush. The Holy Crucifix of Boxley, in Kent,
|
||
|
|
moved, lifted its head, moved its lips and eyes; it was broken up
|
||
|
|
in London, and the springs exposed, and shown to the deriding
|
||
|
|
public;, but this relation is out of place, -- this was a pious
|
||
|
|
Christian, not <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>, fake. One of the marvels of many centuries
|
||
|
|
was the vocal statue of Memnon, whose divine voice was heard at the
|
||
|
|
first dawn of day, "the sweet voice of Memnon" which greeted the
|
||
|
|
sun, as sung by poets and attested by inscriptions on the statue
|
||
|
|
made by noted visitors, who credited the assertion of the priests
|
||
|
|
that the voice was that of the god Ammon; the secret was discovered
|
||
|
|
by Wilkinson: a cavity in which a priest was concealed, who struck
|
||
|
|
a stone at sunrise when the worshippers were assembled, thus giving
|
||
|
|
out a melodious ringing sound. Very famous was the Palladium or
|
||
|
|
statute of Minerva, thrown down from heaven by Zeus into Troy, and
|
||
|
|
guarded sacredly in the citadel as protection of the city, which
|
||
|
|
was believed to be impregnable so long as the statue was in the
|
||
|
|
city; Ulysses and Diomede entered the city in disguise and stole
|
||
|
|
out the sacred statue to the Greek camp; thence AEneas is said to
|
||
|
|
have taken it to Italy, where it was preserved in the Temple of
|
||
|
|
Vesta. Many cities of Greece and Rome claimed to have the genuine
|
||
|
|
original. Another miraculous statue of like divine origin was that
|
||
|
|
of "the great goddess, Diana" at Ephesus, which the Town-clerk (in
|
||
|
|
Acts 3 xix, 35) declared that all men knew "fell down from
|
||
|
|
Jupiter." Other holy relics galore were preserved and shown to the
|
||
|
|
pious: The AEgis of Jove, forged by Vulcan and ornamented with the
|
||
|
|
head of the Gorgon; the very tools with which the Trojan horse was
|
||
|
|
made, at Metapontum; the scepter of Pelops, at Chaeronea; the spear
|
||
|
|
of Achilles, at <span class="LOC" title="LOC">Pharselis</span>; the sword of Memnon, at Nicomedia; the
|
||
|
|
hide of the Chalcydonian boar, among the Tegeates; the stone
|
||
|
|
bearing the authentic marks of the trident of Neptune, at Athens;
|
||
|
|
the Cretans exhibited the tomb of Zeus, which earned for them their
|
||
|
|
reputation as Liars. But Mohammedans show the tomb of Adam and
|
||
|
|
Christians that of Peter! There were endless shrines and
|
||
|
|
sanctuaries at which miracle-cures could be performed: oracular </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
30
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>temples full of caverns, and secret passages, -- that of the
|
||
|
|
Cumaean Sibyl has recently been explored, and its fraudulent
|
||
|
|
devices exposed. The gods themselves came down regularly and ate
|
||
|
|
the fine feasts spread before their statues. In the apocryphal
|
||
|
|
History of Bel and the Dragon, interpolated in the True Church's
|
||
|
|
Book of Daniel (Chapter xiv), the Holy Ghost tells how this hero
|
||
|
|
trapped the priests who stole at night through secret passages into
|
||
|
|
the throne-room of the god and ate the good things furnished by the
|
||
|
|
pious King and people. The gods came frequently to earth, too, and
|
||
|
|
with the connivance of the priests kept amorous tryst in the
|
||
|
|
temples with unsuspecting pious ladies, edifying instances of which
|
||
|
|
are related by Herodotus and Josephus, among other chroniclers of
|
||
|
|
the wiles of priestcraft.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> prodigies of every conceivable kind were articles of
|
||
|
|
popular credulity, affectitig the commonalty as well as many of the
|
||
|
|
highest category. The great Emperor Augustus, obedient to dreams,
|
||
|
|
went begging money through the streets of Rome, and used to wear
|
||
|
|
the skin of a sea-calf to protect himself against lightning.
|
||
|
|
Tiberius placed greater faith in the efficacy of laurel leaves;
|
||
|
|
both remedies are highly praised by Pliny. Caligula would crawl
|
||
|
|
under the bed in thunder storms; the augurs had listed eleven kinds
|
||
|
|
of lightning with different significations. Comets and dreanis
|
||
|
|
portended the gravest crises. Cicero and Valerius Alaximus cite
|
||
|
|
numerous instances of dreams being verified by the event. Livy
|
||
|
|
relates with perfect faith innumerable prodigies, though he acutely
|
||
|
|
observed, that "the more prodigies are believed, the more they are
|
||
|
|
announced." The Emperors made numerous enactments against sorcery,
|
||
|
|
divination, and all kinds of magic; the "Christian" Emperor,
|
||
|
|
<span class="PERSON" title="PERSON">Constantine</span>, prohibited all forms of magic, but specially excepted
|
||
|
|
and authorized "that which was intended to avert hail and
|
||
|
|
lightning," one of the specialties of the Christian priests. Such
|
||
|
|
puerilities of the prevalent superstitions might be multiplied to
|
||
|
|
fill volumes. (See case, Experiences with the Supernatural, etc.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> APOLLONIUS OF TYANA</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Apollonius of Tyana was one of the most notable of these
|
||
|
|
wonder-working Christs. So extremely moral and pure were his
|
||
|
|
doctrines and his conduct, and so mighty the works he wrought, that
|
||
|
|
the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>s insisted that Apollonius was the actual personage whom
|
||
|
|
the Christians called Jesus Christ. By all reports, implicitly
|
||
|
|
credited, Apollonius had raised the dead, healed the sick, cast out
|
||
|
|
devils, freed a young man from a lamia or vampire with whom he was
|
||
|
|
enamored, prophesied, seen in one country events which were
|
||
|
|
occurring in another, as from Ephesus the assassination of Domitian
|
||
|
|
at Rome, and had filled the world with the fame of his miracles and
|
||
|
|
of his sanctity, just as did Jesus Christ. Apollonius was born
|
||
|
|
about the same time as Jesus of <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Nazareth</span>; the legends of their
|
||
|
|
lives and deeds were very similar; the former, at least, has been
|
||
|
|
justly described as "among that least obnoxious class of impostors,
|
||
|
|
who pretend to be divinely gifted, with a view to secure attention
|
||
|
|
and obedience to precepts, which, delivered in the usual way, would
|
||
|
|
be generally neglected." (Anthon, Clairsical Dictintiary, p. 165;
|
||
|
|
see generally, Lecky, Hist. of European Morals, i, 372, passim; any
|
||
|
|
good Encyclopedia.) Recall the current histories of Mohammed, the
|
||
|
|
Mormon Joseph Smith, Mother Eddy -- Jesus Christ -- for instances
|
||
|
|
of analogous pretensions.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
31
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> This customary pretense of wonder-workers is confirmed by the
|
||
|
|
great Church Fathers Lactantius, in his Divine Institutes,
|
||
|
|
dedicated to the "Christian" Emperor <span class="PERSON" title="PERSON">Constantine</span>, in which he
|
||
|
|
combated the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> imputation that Jesus was a magician, like
|
||
|
|
Apollonius and Aputeius, whose wonder-workings he admits. Like all
|
||
|
|
the Fathers, as we shall see, Lactantius, an ex-<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>, had firm
|
||
|
|
faith in magic, and believed all the magical wonders of the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>
|
||
|
|
magicians as veritable miracles wrought by the divine power of
|
||
|
|
demons or devils. He says that the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>s "endeavored to overthrow
|
||
|
|
his [Jesus'] wonderful deeds [by showing] that Appllonius performed
|
||
|
|
equal or even greater deeds." But, "It is strange," he argues,
|
||
|
|
"that he omitted to mention Apuleius, of whom many and wonderful
|
||
|
|
things are accustomed to be related. ... If Christ is a magician
|
||
|
|
because He performed wonderful deeds, it is plain that Apollonius,
|
||
|
|
who, according to your description, when Domitian wished to punish
|
||
|
|
him, suddenly disappeared on his trial, was more skilful than He
|
||
|
|
who was both arrested and crucified. ... It was evident, therefore,
|
||
|
|
that he [Apollonius] was both a man and a magician; and for this
|
||
|
|
reason he affected divinity under the title of a name belonging to
|
||
|
|
another [Hercules], for in his own name he was unable to attain
|
||
|
|
it." (Lact. Div. Inst. Bk. V, ch. iii; ANP. vii, 138, 139,)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> SIMON MAGUS</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Most notorious and important, from the viewpoint of the rising
|
||
|
|
Christianity, was the Samaritan impostor, Simon Magus, the "great
|
||
|
|
power of God," vouched for by divine inspiration as having "used
|
||
|
|
sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria," he having "of a long
|
||
|
|
time bewitched them with sorceries," as the Holy Ghost of God
|
||
|
|
ridiculously assures us in Acts viii. Not content with his own
|
||
|
|
"great power of God," Simon, heaving seen some of the apostles at
|
||
|
|
work bestowing the holy Ghost on the peasants, offered money for
|
||
|
|
the gift of like power to himself, but was curtly rebuked and
|
||
|
|
refused by Peter. The especial importance of Simon Magus is his
|
||
|
|
legendary Scriptural contact with the fisherman Peter, which
|
||
|
|
developed, under the early Christian propensity for expansive
|
||
|
|
mendacity, into a veritable literature of pious lies and prodigies
|
||
|
|
associated with Simon and Peter, which was the chiefest if not sole
|
||
|
|
basis, be it remembered for the false pretense, later developed, as
|
||
|
|
we shall duly see, of the "sojourn" of Peter at Rome as Bishop and
|
||
|
|
Pope. As legends of the Samaritan impostor are wholly Christian
|
||
|
|
impostures, the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Encyclopedia will be called upon for an
|
||
|
|
account of the Patristic canards. "By his magic arts," says our
|
||
|
|
exponent of "<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Truth," Simon was called Magus, or the
|
||
|
|
Magician, the account just given from Acts is "the sole
|
||
|
|
authoritative [?] report that we have about him": and it confesses
|
||
|
|
the chronic mendadacity of the Fathers by the remark, "The
|
||
|
|
statements of the [clerical] writers of the second century
|
||
|
|
concerning him are largely legendary, and it is difficult or rather
|
||
|
|
impossible to extract from them any historical fact the details of
|
||
|
|
which are established with certainty." Let us remember this
|
||
|
|
characterization of these same Fatherly writers, who, lying about
|
||
|
|
Simon and Peter together, in Rome, yet tell unvarnished truth about
|
||
|
|
Peter alone, or Peter and Paul together, in Rome.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
32
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> I may remark, that serious argument is made, that Paul himself
|
||
|
|
is maliciously intended by some of the Fathers under the name of
|
||
|
|
Simon, the constant conflict between Paul and Peter being disguised
|
||
|
|
under the accounts of the inveterate struggles of Simon and Peter,
|
||
|
|
(See Ency. Bib. vol. iv, Art, Simon Magus.) The childish and
|
||
|
|
fabulous histories of the Fathers regarding Simon and Peter and
|
||
|
|
Paul in Rome and their contests of magic powers, are thus related:</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "St. Justin of Rome ('First Apolog.' xxvi, lvi; 'Dialog. c.
|
||
|
|
Tryphonem, cxx), describes Simon as a man who, at the instigation
|
||
|
|
of demons, claimed to be a god. Justin says further that Simon came
|
||
|
|
to Rome during the reign of the Emperor Claudius and by his magic
|
||
|
|
arts won many followers so that these erected on an island in the
|
||
|
|
Tiber a statue to him as a divinity with the inscription 'Simon the
|
||
|
|
Holy God.' The statue, however, that Justin took for one dedicated
|
||
|
|
to Simon was undoubtedly one to the old Sabine divinity Semo Sancus
|
||
|
|
(797) ... The later anti-heretical writers who report Simon's
|
||
|
|
residence at Rome, take Justin and the apocryphal Acts of Peter as
|
||
|
|
their authority, so that their testimony is of no value. [p. 798.]</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "Simon plays an important part in the 'Pseudo-Clementines.' He appears here as the chief antagonist of the
|
||
|
|
Apostle Peter, by whom he is everywhere followed and opposed.
|
||
|
|
The alleged magical arts of the magician and Peter's efforts
|
||
|
|
against him are described in a way that is absolutely
|
||
|
|
imaginary. The entire account lacks all historical basis
|
||
|
|
[citing several WORKS] ... The apocryphal Acts of St. Peter
|
||
|
|
give an entirely different account of Simon's condition at
|
||
|
|
Rome and of his death. In this work also great stress is laid
|
||
|
|
upon the straggle between Simon and the Apostles Peter and
|
||
|
|
Paul at Rome. By his magic arts Simon had also sought to win
|
||
|
|
the Emperor Nero for himself, an attempt in which he had been
|
||
|
|
thwarted by the apostles. As proof of the truth of his
|
||
|
|
doctrines Simon offered to ascend into the heavens before the
|
||
|
|
eyes of Nero and the Roman populace; by magic did he rise in
|
||
|
|
the air in the Roman Forum, but the prayers of the Apostles
|
||
|
|
Peter and Paul caused him to fall, so that he was severely
|
||
|
|
injured and shortly afterwards died miserably. ... This legend
|
||
|
|
led later to the erection of a church dedicated to the
|
||
|
|
apostles on the alleged spot of Simon's fall near the Via
|
||
|
|
Sacra above the Forum. The stones of the pavement on which the
|
||
|
|
apostles knelt in prayer and which are said to contain the
|
||
|
|
impression of their knees, are now in the wall of the Church
|
||
|
|
of Santa Francesca Romana." (CE. xiii, 797, 798.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> With respect to that statue erected in the Tiber to "Simon the
|
||
|
|
Holy Hod," the account, above mentioned, does not do justice to
|
||
|
|
Father Justin's invention; it is thus explicit: he says that Simon
|
||
|
|
"performed feats of magic by demonic arts in Rome during the reign
|
||
|
|
of Claudius, was held to be a god, and was honored by Senate and
|
||
|
|
people with a statue in the middle of the Tiber, between the two
|
||
|
|
bridges, bearing the inscription in Latin: 'Simoni, Deo sancto ...
|
||
|
|
To Simon the holy God.' The base of the pillar refereed to was dug
|
||
|
|
up on the island in the Tiber, at the place indicated by Justin, in
|
||
|
|
1574; the inscription, which was deciphered, runs: 'Semoni Sanco
|
||
|
|
deo fidio sacrum ... Sex. Pompeius ... donum dedit.' Thus the
|
||
|
|
pillar was dedicated to the Sabine god Semo Sancus, and not by the
|
||
|
|
Senate and people, but by the piety of a private individual." (EB. </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
33
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>iv, 4538-9; cf. CE. xiii, 797-8.) The same authority, referring to
|
||
|
|
the clerical fabrications above mentioned, says: "The Pseudo-Clementine Homilies and Recognitions contain yet another element of
|
||
|
|
the very greatest importance. In them Simon displays features which
|
||
|
|
are unquestionably derived from Paul, and plainly show him to be a
|
||
|
|
caricature of that apostle drawn by an unfriendly hand." (EB. iv,
|
||
|
|
4540, with citations in proof.) Simon proclaimed as his doctrine --
|
||
|
|
"asserting that none could possibly have salvation without being
|
||
|
|
baptized in his name" (Tert., adv. Haereyes, c.i; ANF. iii, 649);
|
||
|
|
which group plagiarized the sentiment from the other, Christians,
|
||
|
|
or Simoneans, I cannot verify.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> SUPERSTITIONS AND REVELATIONS</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>s would appear almost to have been good Christians:
|
||
|
|
they had their gods, (whom they fondly called Savior and Messiah)
|
||
|
|
the death and resurrections of gods; devils, angels, and spirits
|
||
|
|
good, bad and indifferent; their heavens, hells and purgatories;
|
||
|
|
they believed in immortality of the soul, -- witness the Pyramids
|
||
|
|
and the tombs of the Kings, as of Tut-ankh-Amen in Egypt, and of
|
||
|
|
the Queen Shub-Ad, just unearthed in Ur of the Chaldees; their
|
||
|
|
elaborate sacrifices, animal and human, even of their dear little
|
||
|
|
children to appease their gods, as in Carthage and Canaan, -- a
|
||
|
|
chronic Hebrew practice. Virgin-births of demigods by the
|
||
|
|
intervention of gods and human maids were common-places of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>
|
||
|
|
faith, as were Virgin-mothers and god-child: the Christians
|
||
|
|
imported theirs from Egypt -- the Madonna statues of Isis and the
|
||
|
|
Child Horus -- of universal vogue at the beginning of this era of
|
||
|
|
the Christ -- may be seen in almost any first-class Museum, as the
|
||
|
|
Metropolitan in <span class="GPE" title="GPE">New York</span> and the University in Philadelphia. This
|
||
|
|
popular <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> device, the "Mother of God" and her God-baby-in-arms,
|
||
|
|
was taken over as a Christian sop to the crowds of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>s who were
|
||
|
|
being enticed and forced into the Church; it was violently opposed
|
||
|
|
by many of the more intelligent Churchmen: "Nestorius [Bishop of
|
||
|
|
Constantinople about 404] had declared against the new and, as he
|
||
|
|
asserted, idolatrous expression 'Mother of God' (Theotokos),
|
||
|
|
thereby opposing the sentiments and wishes of the humbler people"
|
||
|
|
(CE. iii, 101); and in protest Nestorius left the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Church
|
||
|
|
and founded one of the most wide-spread and powerful "heresies,"
|
||
|
|
which exists in the East to the present time. The <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>s had their
|
||
|
|
holy mysteries and sacraments, baptisms of water and of blood,
|
||
|
|
communions with the gods at their sacred altars, partaking of
|
||
|
|
sacred meals to ingest the divine spirit and become godlike. they
|
||
|
|
believed in the resurrection of the dead, and in final judgments
|
||
|
|
meting rewards and punishments according to the deeds done in the
|
||
|
|
flesh, -- the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Egyptian</span> Book of the Dead, 3000 years B.C., giving
|
||
|
|
priestly prescriptions for use before the judgment seat of Osiris,
|
||
|
|
is found in almost every tomb of those able to pay for the
|
||
|
|
hieroglyphic papyrus rolls. The <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>s had their holy days (from
|
||
|
|
which the Christians plagiarized their Christmas, Easter, Rogation
|
||
|
|
Days, etc.); their monks, nuns, religious processions carrying
|
||
|
|
images of idols (like those of saints today); incense, holy water,
|
||
|
|
holy oil, chants, hymns, liturgies, confessions of sins to priests,
|
||
|
|
forgiveness of sins by priests, revelations by gods to priests,
|
||
|
|
prophecies, sacred writings of "holy bibles," Pontiffs, Holy
|
||
|
|
Fathers, holy crafty priesthood. All these sacrosanct things of
|
||
|
|
Christian "Revealed Religion," were age-old pre-Christian <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>
|
||
|
|
myths and superstitions.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
34
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> I puzzle myself to understand how there could be "divine
|
||
|
|
revelations," to <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jews</span> and Christians, of things which for ages had
|
||
|
|
been identically ancient <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> delusions and the inventions and
|
||
|
|
common holy stock in trade of all <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> priestcrafts. Indeed and in
|
||
|
|
truth, there can be no divine revelation of miraculous "facts" and
|
||
|
|
"heavenly dogmas" which for centuries had been, and in the early
|
||
|
|
Christian ages were, the current mythology of credulous <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>dom.
|
||
|
|
this I shall make exceeding clear.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIAN</span> "REVELATION" DEFINED AND DISPROVED</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> This paragraph is one of the most important in this book, and
|
||
|
|
to it I invite Specially serious attention and thought. It will
|
||
|
|
disclose the substantial identity of Christianity with the most
|
||
|
|
popular and wide-spread "<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>" religion of the times, Mithraism,
|
||
|
|
or the Persian Zoroastrian religion, the closest and all but
|
||
|
|
successful rival of Christianity in the Roman world, and which
|
||
|
|
might indeed have been successful, but that, soon after <span class="PERSON" title="PERSON">Constantine</span>
|
||
|
|
prostituted the Empire to the Church, -- "with the triumph of
|
||
|
|
Christianity Mythraism came to a sudden end. The laws of Theodosius
|
||
|
|
signed its death warrant." (CE. x, 402.) That there may be no
|
||
|
|
suspicion that the recital of these remarkable identities of
|
||
|
|
Christian "revelation" with <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> inventions is fanciful or
|
||
|
|
exaggerated, the tale shall be told in the quoted words of the
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Encyclopedia, which naively makes so many extraordinary
|
||
|
|
admissions without seeming to be aware of their fatal Implications.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "The essence of Revelation lies in the fact that it is the
|
||
|
|
direct speech of God to man," says the Holy Ghost speaking through
|
||
|
|
the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> Council (1870), thus confirming what I have above said,
|
||
|
|
that "divine revelation" cannot be of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> myths already current
|
||
|
|
and long known to everyone. The same Heavenly Instructor tells us
|
||
|
|
what Revelation is: "Revelation may be defined as the communication
|
||
|
|
of some truth by God to a rational creature through means which are
|
||
|
|
beyond the ordinary course of nature. The truths thus revealed may
|
||
|
|
be such as are otherwise inaccessible to the human mind --
|
||
|
|
mysteries, which even when revealed, the intellect of man is
|
||
|
|
incapable of fully penetrating. ... The Decree 'Lamentabili' (3
|
||
|
|
July, 1907) declares that the dogmas which the Church proposes as
|
||
|
|
revealed are 'truths which have come down to us from heaven' and
|
||
|
|
not 'an interpretation of religious facts which the human mind has
|
||
|
|
acquired by its own strenuous efforts.'" (<span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> Decrees, 1870;
|
||
|
|
CE. xiii, 1.) And, asserts CE.: "The existence of revelation is as
|
||
|
|
reasonably established as any historical fact"! (CE. xiii, 607.)
|
||
|
|
Isn't CE. funny!</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Divine Revelation is thus of things not previously known and
|
||
|
|
which the revelationless mind of man is incapable of acquiring or
|
||
|
|
inventing by its own efforts. Divine Revelation rests thus upon the
|
||
|
|
same principle as the Law of Patents and Copyright, A book
|
||
|
|
published, that is made known and given to the world cannot be the
|
||
|
|
subject of subsequent copyright even by its author. When an
|
||
|
|
application for a patent is presented, the first act is to search
|
||
|
|
the records to ascertain whether a similar art or article has ever
|
||
|
|
previously been known and in use: if so, no patent can be obtained:
|
||
|
|
the thing lacks novelty. So exactly with "revelation": if some
|
||
|
|
impostor or deluded person (e.g. Mohammed or Joseph Smith) claims </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
35
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>that hie has received a personal -- and therefore necessarily
|
||
|
|
private -- "revelation" from some god, the only way whereby he can
|
||
|
|
get a valid patent of authenticity and credibility for his
|
||
|
|
"revelation," is to prove that its subject-matter has never before
|
||
|
|
been known and in credulous circulation, the moment that from the
|
||
|
|
search of the records -- of other, or comparative religions, -- it
|
||
|
|
is shown that the same proposition has been previously known and
|
||
|
|
current, in use and practice among some other priestcraft and its
|
||
|
|
votaries -- the thing is no revelation: the claim is a fraud. Let
|
||
|
|
us see how this indisputable rule works to the destruction and
|
||
|
|
proof of fraudulence of the "divine revelations" of Christian
|
||
|
|
credulity.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> MITHRAISM -- AND <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIAN</span> MYTH</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The religion of Zoroaster, known as Mithraism, is confessed by
|
||
|
|
CE. to be a divinely revealed Monotheism, or worship of a One God,
|
||
|
|
and having a divinely revealed Moral Code comparable to the
|
||
|
|
Christian, -- a sacred system claimed by Christians to be a
|
||
|
|
monopoly of the Hebrew-Christian religion to the exclusion of all
|
||
|
|
heathen systems. This notable confession reads: "The Avesta system
|
||
|
|
may be best defined as MONOTHEISM, modified by a physical and moral
|
||
|
|
dualism, with an ethical system based on a Divinely revealed moral
|
||
|
|
code and human free will." (CE. ii, 156.) Though it quotes a Jesuit
|
||
|
|
as saying: "Mithraism is the highest religious result to which
|
||
|
|
human reason unaided by Revelation, can attain." (Id.) Revealed or
|
||
|
|
invented, it is virtually identical with Christianity; but as the
|
||
|
|
mythic Mithraic god could not "reveal" anything, the human reason
|
||
|
|
which devised Mithraism was quite equal to the Christian God so far
|
||
|
|
as devising mythology and ethics is an attribute of godhead.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Mithraism is one of the oldest religious systems on earth, as
|
||
|
|
it dates from the dawn of history before the primitive Iranian race
|
||
|
|
divided into the sections which became Persian and <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Indian</span>, as this
|
||
|
|
same religion is contained both in the Persian Avesta and <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Indian</span>
|
||
|
|
Vedas. This its "revealed" or invented Monotheism by ages outdates
|
||
|
|
the "revelation" of Yahweh to Moses; and it is yet a living faith
|
||
|
|
to some thousands of surviving Parsees: "The religious cult is
|
||
|
|
[yet] scrupulously maintained as of old. The ancient traditional
|
||
|
|
and nationally characteristic national virtues of truth and
|
||
|
|
open-handed generosity flourish exceedingly in the small, but
|
||
|
|
highly intelligent community" of Parsees in India. (CE. ii, 156.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The religion of Mithra anciently dominated Persia and the vast
|
||
|
|
regions of the Orient; it entered Europe following the conquests of
|
||
|
|
Alexander the Great. When in 65-63 B.C. the conquering armies of
|
||
|
|
Pompey were largely converted by its high precepts, they brought it
|
||
|
|
with them into the Roman Empire. Mithraism spread with great
|
||
|
|
rapidity throughout the Empire, and was adopted patronized and
|
||
|
|
protected by a number of the Emperors up to the time of
|
||
|
|
<span class="PERSON" title="PERSON">Constantine</span>; it was only overthrown by the prescriptive laws and
|
||
|
|
sword of <span class="PERSON" title="PERSON">Constantine</span> and Theodosius, who "signed its death warrant"
|
||
|
|
at the behest of the triumphant and intolerant Christians, who
|
||
|
|
absorbed virtually the entire system of Mithraism. But let CE,
|
||
|
|
proceed with the story. The reader is asked to cheek mentally each
|
||
|
|
of the uninspired details of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> invention with the "divinely
|
||
|
|
revealed" identities of the Christian Faith.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
36
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "MITHRAISM" -- PRE-<span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIAN</span>
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "Mithraism is a pagan religion consisting mainly of the cult
|
||
|
|
of the ancient Indo-Iranian <span class="LOC" title="LOC">Sun</span>-God Mithra. It entered Europe from
|
||
|
|
Asia Minor after Alexander's conquest, spread rapidly over the
|
||
|
|
whole Roman Empire at the beginning of our era, reached its zenith
|
||
|
|
during the third century, and vanished under the repressive
|
||
|
|
regulations of Theodosius at the end of the fourth, [Of late it has
|
||
|
|
been] brought into prominence mainly because of its supposed [?]
|
||
|
|
similarity to Christianity.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "The origin of the cult of Mithra dates from the time that
|
||
|
|
Hindus and Persians still formed one people, for the god Mithra
|
||
|
|
occurs in the religion and sacred books of both races, i.e. in the
|
||
|
|
Vedas and in the Avesta. ... After the conquest of <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Babylon</span> (538
|
||
|
|
B.C.) this Persian cult came into contact with Chaldean astrology
|
||
|
|
and with the national worship of Marduk. For a time the two
|
||
|
|
priesthood of Mithra and Marduk coexisted in the capital and
|
||
|
|
Mithraism borrowed much from this intercourse. ... This religion,
|
||
|
|
in which the Iranian element remained predominant, came, after
|
||
|
|
Alexander's conquest, in touch with the Western world. When finally
|
||
|
|
the Romans took possession of the Kingdom of Pergamum (in 133
|
||
|
|
B.C.), occupied Asia Minor, and stationed two legions of soldiers
|
||
|
|
on the Euphrates, the success of Mithraism was secured. It spread
|
||
|
|
rapidly from the Bosphorus to the Atlantic, from Illyria to
|
||
|
|
Britain. Its foremost apostles were the legionaries; hence it
|
||
|
|
spread first to the frontier stations of the Roman army.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "Mithraism was emphatically a soldier religion; Mithra, its
|
||
|
|
hero, was especially a divinity of fidelity, manliness, and
|
||
|
|
bravery; the stress it laid on good-fellowship and brotherliness,
|
||
|
|
its exclusion of women, and the secret bond among its members have
|
||
|
|
suggested the idea that Mithraism was Masonry among the Roman
|
||
|
|
soldiery." Several of the Roman Emperors, down to Licinius,
|
||
|
|
colleague of <span class="PERSON" title="PERSON">Constantine</span>, built temples to Mithra, and issued coins
|
||
|
|
with his symbols. "But with the triumph of Christianity [after
|
||
|
|
<span class="PERSON" title="PERSON">Constantine</span>] Mithraism came to a sudden end. The laws of Theodosius
|
||
|
|
[proscribing it under penalty of death, to please the Christians]
|
||
|
|
signed its death warrant. Though he was still worshiped a thousand
|
||
|
|
years later by the Manichees (p. 402). ...</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "Ahura Mazda and Ahriman. -- This incarnate evil (Ahriman)
|
||
|
|
rose; with the army of darkness to attack and depose Oromasdes
|
||
|
|
(Ahura Mazda) They were however thrown back into hell, whence they
|
||
|
|
escape, wander over the face of the earth and afflict man. ... As
|
||
|
|
evil spirits ever lie in wait for hapless man, he needs a friend
|
||
|
|
and savior, who is Mithra. ... Mithra is the Mediator between God
|
||
|
|
and Man. The Mithraists... battled on Mithra's side against all
|
||
|
|
impurity, against all evil within and without. They believed in the
|
||
|
|
immortality of the soul; sinners after death were dragged down to
|
||
|
|
hell; the just passed through the seven spheres of the planets,
|
||
|
|
leaving at each planet a part of their lower humanity until, as
|
||
|
|
pure spirits, they stood before God. At the end of the world Mithra
|
||
|
|
will desectid to earth, ... and will make all drink the beverage of
|
||
|
|
immortality. He will thus have proved himself Nabarses, 'the never
|
||
|
|
conquered.' ...</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
37
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "The fathers conducted the worship. The chief of the fathers,
|
||
|
|
a sort of pope, who always lived at Rome, was called 'Pater
|
||
|
|
Patratus' ... The members below the grade of pater called one
|
||
|
|
another 'brother,' and social distinctions were forgotten in
|
||
|
|
Mithraic unity. ... A sacred meal was celebrated of bread and haoma
|
||
|
|
juce for which in the West wine was substituted. This meal was
|
||
|
|
supposed to give the participants supernatural virtue. ...</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "Three times a day prayer was offered the sun towards east,
|
||
|
|
south, or west according to the hour. SUNDAY was kept holy in honor
|
||
|
|
of Mithra, and the sixteenth of each month was sacred to him as
|
||
|
|
Mediator. The 25 December was observed as his birthday, the Natalis
|
||
|
|
Invictis, the rebirth of the winter-sun, unconquered by the rigors
|
||
|
|
of the season." (pp. 403-104.) It may be noted that <span class="LOC" title="LOC">Sun</span>day was made
|
||
|
|
a <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> holiday by edict of <span class="PERSON" title="PERSON">Constantine</span>, In the fifth Tablet of the
|
||
|
|
<span class="GPE" title="GPE">Babylon</span>ian (Chaldean) Epic of Creation, by the great God Marduk, we
|
||
|
|
read, lines 17 and 18: "On the seventh day he appointed a holy day,
|
||
|
|
And to cease from all work he commanded." (Records of the Past,
|
||
|
|
vol. ix; quoted, Clarke, Ten Great Religions, ii, p. 383.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> To resume with CE.: "No proof of immorality or obscene
|
||
|
|
practices has ever been established against Mithraism; and as far
|
||
|
|
as can be ascertained, or rixther conjectured, it had an elevating
|
||
|
|
and invigorating effect on its followers. [So different from
|
||
|
|
Christianity!] ...</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "Relation to Christianity. -- A similarity between Mithra and
|
||
|
|
Christ struck even early observers, such as Justin, Tertullian, and
|
||
|
|
other Fathers, and in recent times has been urged to prove that
|
||
|
|
Christianity is but an adaptation of Mithraism, or at least the
|
||
|
|
outcome of the same religious ideas and aspirations. Some apparent
|
||
|
|
[they are very apparent] similarities exist; but in a number of
|
||
|
|
details -- [it is substance that is identical] -- it is quite as
|
||
|
|
probable that Mithraism was the borrower from Christianity. -- [But
|
||
|
|
these essential identities are found in the Vedas and Avesta, of
|
||
|
|
maybe two thousand years before Christianity; Zoroaster, who, gave
|
||
|
|
final form to the creed, lived some 600 years before the Christ!]
|
||
|
|
-- It is not unnatural to suppose that a religion which swept the
|
||
|
|
whole world, should have been copied at least in some details by
|
||
|
|
another religion which was quite popular daring the third century
|
||
|
|
-- [and for nine, Or twenty centuries before!] Similarity in words
|
||
|
|
and names means nothing; it is the sense that matters. [To be sure;
|
||
|
|
we proceed to see more of the sense, -- the essence -- to be
|
||
|
|
identical] ...</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "Mithra is called a mediator; and so is Christ ... And so in
|
||
|
|
similar instances. Mithraism had a Eucharist, but the idea of the
|
||
|
|
sacred banquet is as old as the human race and existed at all ages
|
||
|
|
and amongst all peoples. -- [Not much "divine revelation" in this
|
||
|
|
greatest of Christian mysteries!]. Mithra saved the world by
|
||
|
|
sacrificing a bull -- [just as the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jews</span> saved themselves] Christ by
|
||
|
|
sacrificing himself. ... Mithraism was all comprehensive and
|
||
|
|
tolerant of every other cult; Christianity was essentially
|
||
|
|
exclusive, condemning every other religion in the world, alone and
|
||
|
|
unique in its majesty." (CE. x, 402-404.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
38
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> But this "unique majesty" was hidden away in the catacombs of
|
||
|
|
Rome for quite three centuries; coming out, it condemned and
|
||
|
|
persecuted to death every other religion because rivals for the
|
||
|
|
rich perquisites of priestcraft and dominion.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The above striking analogies, or identities, between the ages-old Mithraism and the "newer <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Paganism</span> called Christianity,"
|
||
|
|
compelling as they are of the certainty of "borrowing" by
|
||
|
|
Christianity, are dwarfed by the evidences now to be presented in
|
||
|
|
the confessions of CE., that the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jews</span> first, then the Christians,
|
||
|
|
took over bodily from the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Babylon</span>ians and the Persians, not only
|
||
|
|
the entire celestial and infernal systems of those two closely
|
||
|
|
related religions, but virtually that high ethic, or moral code --
|
||
|
|
"the highest religious result to which human reason, unaided by
|
||
|
|
revelation, can attain'" -- which Christians so loudly pretend is,
|
||
|
|
by "divine revelation" of their God -- theirs alone, while all
|
||
|
|
other peoples "sat in darkness and in the shadow of death" without
|
||
|
|
its saving light. Christianity looks with disdain on the Mithraic
|
||
|
|
religion because it is a "dualism"; that is, the Evil Spirit was
|
||
|
|
separately created apart from the Good God; while it is a
|
||
|
|
fundamental tenet of the Christian Faith, that its God himself
|
||
|
|
created the Christian Devil and all evil -- and is therefore
|
||
|
|
morally responsible for all his deviltry,</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Speaking particularly of Angiology, -- though the admission
|
||
|
|
will be found to apply to all the other features to be noticed, --
|
||
|
|
CE. shows that all this is an importation into <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Judaism</span> from the
|
||
|
|
Persians and <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Babylon</span>ians: "That the Persian domination and the
|
||
|
|
<span class="GPE" title="GPE">Babylon</span>ian Captivity exercised a large influence upon the Hebrew
|
||
|
|
conception -- [not, therefore, a revelation] -- of the angels is
|
||
|
|
acknowledge in the Talmud of Jerusalem (Rosh Haschanna, 56) where
|
||
|
|
it is said that [even] the names of the angels were introduced from
|
||
|
|
<span class="GPE" title="GPE">Babylon</span>. ... Stress has been laid upon the similarity of the 'seven
|
||
|
|
who stand before God' and the seven Amesha-Spentas of the Zend-Avesta. ... it is easy for the student to trace the influence of
|
||
|
|
surrounding nations and of other religions in the Biblical account
|
||
|
|
of angels" (CE. i, 481); -- which seriously cripples the notion of
|
||
|
|
divine revelation regarding these celestial messengers of God.
|
||
|
|
Again it indicates the "connection between the angels of the Bible,
|
||
|
|
and the greatt archangels' or 'Amesha-Spentas' of the Zend-Avesta";
|
||
|
|
also "we find an interesting parallel to the 'angel of the Lord' in
|
||
|
|
Nebo, 'the minister of Merodach.' ... The <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Babylon</span>ian sukalli
|
||
|
|
corresponded to the spirit-messengers of the Bible; they declared
|
||
|
|
their Lord's will and executed his behests." ... "The belief in
|
||
|
|
guardian angels ... was also the belief of the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Babylon</span>ians and
|
||
|
|
Assyrians"; the origin of the Bible "cherubim" was the same, as
|
||
|
|
also of guardian angels, "as their monuments testify, for a figure
|
||
|
|
now in the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">British</span> Museum might well serv for a modern
|
||
|
|
representation." For detailed accounts, see the articles "Angels"
|
||
|
|
and Guardian Angels." in CE. And so of Demons and Demonology, and
|
||
|
|
Demoniac possession: "In many ways one of the most remarkable
|
||
|
|
demonologies is that presented in the Avesta"; Ahriman being their
|
||
|
|
chief devil, or Daeva; "the original meaning of the word is
|
||
|
|
'shinning one,' and it comes from a primitive Aryan root 'div,'
|
||
|
|
which is likewise the source of the Greek Zeus and the Latin Deus.
|
||
|
|
But while these words, like the Sanskrit 'deva,' retain the good
|
||
|
|
meaning, 'daeva' has come to mean 'an evil spirit.' There is at </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
39
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>least a coincidence, if no deeper significance, in the fact that,
|
||
|
|
while the word in its original sense was synonymous with 'Lucifer,'
|
||
|
|
it has now come to mean much the same as devil" (CE iv, 714-15,
|
||
|
|
pasism; 764). Lucifer, in the Bible, having also been originally "a
|
||
|
|
shinning one" in Heaven, was cast out into Hell and is now the
|
||
|
|
Devil.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> With these preliminaries of identity between the invention of
|
||
|
|
angels and devils of Mathraic <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Paganism</span> and Hebrew-Christian
|
||
|
|
"revelation," we will now let CE. confess further identities, both
|
||
|
|
of "revelation" and of the "divinely revealed moral codes," --
|
||
|
|
summarized from the Mithraic Zend-Avesta. We seem to be reading the
|
||
|
|
Catechism or a tract on "Christian Evidences."</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "The name of the Supreme God of the Avestic system is Ahura
|
||
|
|
Mazda, which probably signifies the All-Wise Lord. ... Ahura Mazda
|
||
|
|
is a pure Spirit; his chief attributes are eternity, wisdom, truth,
|
||
|
|
goodness, majesty, power. He is the creator of all good creatures
|
||
|
|
-- not, however, of Evil, of evil being, -- [as is the Christian
|
||
|
|
God]. He is the supreme Lawgiver, the Rewarder of moral good, and
|
||
|
|
the Punisher of moral evil. He dwells in Eternal Light, ... a kind
|
||
|
|
of manifestation of His presence, like the Old Testament Shekinah.
|
||
|
|
... We find frequent enumerations of the attributes of Ahura Mazda;
|
||
|
|
thus these are said to be 'omniscience, all-sovereignty, all
|
||
|
|
goodness.' Again He is styled 'Supreme Sovereign, Wise Creator,
|
||
|
|
Supporter, Protector, Giver of good things, Virtuous in acts,
|
||
|
|
Merciful, Pure Lawgiver, Lord of the Good Creations.' ...</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "Opposed to Ahura Mazda, or Ormuzd, is His rival, Anro
|
||
|
|
Mainyus, (later Ahriman), the Evil Spirit. He is conceived as
|
||
|
|
existing quite independently of Ahura Mazda, apparently from
|
||
|
|
eternity, but destined to destruction at the end of time. Evil by
|
||
|
|
nature and in every detail the exact opposite of Ahura Mazda, he is
|
||
|
|
the creator of all both moral and physical. -- [But of the
|
||
|
|
Christian God: "I Jehovah create evil"; Isa. xlv, 7]. ...</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "The specific name of Ahura Mazda in opposition to the Evil
|
||
|
|
Spirit is Spento Mainyus, THE HOLY SPIRIT: and Ahura Mazda and
|
||
|
|
Spento Mainyus are synonymous throughout the Avesta. [p. 154] ...</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "Around Ahura Mazda is a whole hierarchy of spirits,
|
||
|
|
corresponding very closely to our 'angels.' ... Of the good spirits
|
||
|
|
who surround Ahura, the most important are the Amesha Spentas
|
||
|
|
('Holy Immortals' or 'Holy Saints'), generally reckoned as six in
|
||
|
|
number (but seven when Ahura Mazda is included). ... Most of all
|
||
|
|
Vohu Manah rises to a position of unique importance. ... Vohu Manah
|
||
|
|
is conceived as the 'SON OF THE CREATOR,' and identified with the
|
||
|
|
Alexandrian LOGOS [of John i, 1]. Asha, also, is the Divine Law,
|
||
|
|
Right, Sanctity (cf. Psalm 118), and occupies a most conspicuous
|
||
|
|
place throughout the Avesta. ... With him are associated in a trio
|
||
|
|
[TRINITY], Rashnu (Right, Justice), and MITHRA. -- [These Aryan
|
||
|
|
names sound unfamiliar; but as CE. has assured, "names mean
|
||
|
|
nothing; it is the sense that matters"; -- and here we have the
|
||
|
|
whole <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jewish</span>-Christian hierarchies of Heaven and Hell a thousand
|
||
|
|
years before <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jewish</span>-Christian "revelation" identities!l ...</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
40
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "Face to face with the hierarchy of celestial spirits is a
|
||
|
|
diabolical one, that of the daevas (Pers. div or dev) and druj's of
|
||
|
|
the Evil Spirit. They fill exactly the places of the devils in
|
||
|
|
Christian and <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jewish</span> theology. ... perhaps the most frequently
|
||
|
|
mentioned of all is Aesmma, the Demon of Wrath or Violence, whose
|
||
|
|
name has come down to us in the Asmodeus (Aeshmo daeva) of the Book
|
||
|
|
of Tobias [Tobit]...</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "In the midst of the secular warfare that has gone on from the
|
||
|
|
beginning between the two hosts of good and Evil stands Man. Man is
|
||
|
|
the creature of the Good Spirit, but endowed with a free will and
|
||
|
|
power of choice, able to place himself on the side of Ahura Mazda
|
||
|
|
or on that of Anro Mainyus. The former has given him, through His
|
||
|
|
Prophet Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) His Divine Revelation and law.
|
||
|
|
According as man obeys or disobeys this Divine Law his future lot
|
||
|
|
will be decided; by it he will be judged at his death. The whole
|
||
|
|
ethical system is built upon this great principle, as in the
|
||
|
|
Christian theology -- ["revelation"?]. Moral good, righteousness,
|
||
|
|
sanctity (asha) is according to the Divine will and decrees; Man by
|
||
|
|
his free will conforms to, or transgresses, these. The Evil Spirit
|
||
|
|
and his innumerable hosts tempt Man to deny or transgress the
|
||
|
|
Divine Law, as he tempted Zoroaster himself, promising him as a
|
||
|
|
reward the sovereignty of the whole world. -- [Exactly Jesus and
|
||
|
|
the Devil.] -- 'No,' replied the Prophet, 'I will not renounce it,
|
||
|
|
even if body and soul and life should be severed!' (Vendidad, xix,
|
||
|
|
25, 26). -- ["Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God, for it is
|
||
|
|
written," -- way sound more Godlike but maybe little more heroic.]
|
||
|
|
...</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "The moral teaching is closely akin to our own. Stress is
|
||
|
|
constantly laid on the necessity of goodness in thought, word, and
|
||
|
|
deed. -- ["Through the Three Steps, the good thought, the good
|
||
|
|
word, and the good deed, I enter Paradise."] -- Note the emphatic
|
||
|
|
recognition of sin in thought. Virtues and vices are enumerated and
|
||
|
|
estimated much as in Christian ethics. Special value is attributed
|
||
|
|
to the virtues of religion, truthfulness, purity, and generosity to
|
||
|
|
the poor (p. 155). Heresy, untruthfulness perjury, sexual sins,
|
||
|
|
violence, tyranny, are especially reprobated. ...</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "The soul of the just passes over the bridge into a happy
|
||
|
|
eternity, into heaven, the abode of Ahura and His blessed angels.
|
||
|
|
The wicked soul falls from the fatal bridge and is precipitated
|
||
|
|
into hell. Of this abode of misery a lively description occurs in
|
||
|
|
the later Pahlavi 'Vision of Arda Viraf,' whose visit to the
|
||
|
|
Inferno, with realistic description of the torments, vividly
|
||
|
|
recalls that of Dante. ...</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "At the end of time, the approach of which is described in the
|
||
|
|
Pahlavi literature in terms strikingly like those of our
|
||
|
|
Apocalypse, will come Saoshyant (SAVIOR) under whom will occur the
|
||
|
|
Resurrection of the dead, the General Judgment, the renewal of the
|
||
|
|
whole world -- ["a new heaven and a new earth"] -- by a general
|
||
|
|
conflagration and terrible flood of burning matter ["the heavens
|
||
|
|
being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with
|
||
|
|
fervent heat"]. This terrible flood will purify all creatures; even
|
||
|
|
the wicked will be purified from all stains, and even hell will be
|
||
|
|
cleansed and added to the 'new heavens and new earth.' Meanwhile a </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
41
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>mighty combat takes place between Soashyant [the "Savior"] and his
|
||
|
|
followers and the demon hosts of the Evil Spirit, who are utterly
|
||
|
|
routed and destroyed forever. ...</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "The highest religious result to which human reason unaided by
|
||
|
|
Revelation can attain"! (CE. ii, 154-156, passim.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Thus "human reason unaided by revelation" had attained, ages
|
||
|
|
before Moses, the Prophets, and Jesus Christ, a system of religious
|
||
|
|
beliefs and a moral code in substantial identity with the "divine
|
||
|
|
revelations" of God to Moses, the Prophets, and his Son Jesus
|
||
|
|
Christ. At the time of the Advent of the Latter, and for three
|
||
|
|
hundred years later, throughout the Roman Empire, that is,
|
||
|
|
throughout the then known world, this wonderful <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> invention,
|
||
|
|
with its "Pope" and Scat in Imperial Rome, and patronized by the
|
||
|
|
Emperors, lived along side with and mightily rivalled the
|
||
|
|
struggling Faith hid in the catacombs, -- until its rival
|
||
|
|
Christians got hold of the sword under <span class="PERSON" title="PERSON">Constantine</span>, and
|
||
|
|
"triumphed," its "death warrant was signed" in blood by the laws of
|
||
|
|
the persecuting Christians. Did any God wondrously "reveal" to the
|
||
|
|
Christians these holy <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> dreams and myths? What a waste of while
|
||
|
|
for a God to mysteriously "reveal" these "heathen deceits"
|
||
|
|
thousands of years old, and that everybody in the world already
|
||
|
|
knew!</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> BUDDHISM IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The account given by CE. of the Lord Buddha and of Buddhism,
|
||
|
|
by the simple substitution of the names Christ -- [the Savior of
|
||
|
|
Buddhism is Crishna, the 'incarnation" of the supreme god Vishnu]
|
||
|
|
-- and Christianity, might well be mistaken for a homily on our own
|
||
|
|
holy faith and its Founder -- who would no more recognize present day Christianity than would Buddha the crass superstition which is
|
||
|
|
today tagged with his holy name. Says CE.:</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "It is note worthy that Buddha was a contemporary of two other
|
||
|
|
famous religious philosophers, Pythagoras and Confucius. In the
|
||
|
|
sacred books of later times Buddha is depicted as a character
|
||
|
|
without a flaw, adorned with every grace of mind and heart. There
|
||
|
|
may be some hesitation in taking the highly colored portrait of
|
||
|
|
Buddhist tradition as an exact representation of the original, but
|
||
|
|
Buddha may be credited with the qualities of a great and good man.
|
||
|
|
... In all pagan antiquity no character has been depicted as so
|
||
|
|
noble and attractive. ...</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "Buddha's order was composed only of those who renounced the
|
||
|
|
world to live a life of contemplation as monks and nuns. ... [In
|
||
|
|
the time of King Asoka, 3rd century B.C.) Buddhism was in a most
|
||
|
|
flourishing condition; it had become a formidable rival of the
|
||
|
|
older religion [Brahmanism), while a tolerant and kindly spirit --
|
||
|
|
[unknown to Christianity] -- was displayed towards other forms of
|
||
|
|
religion. ... [By the seventh century A.D. -- here it parallels
|
||
|
|
Christianity again] an excessive devotion to statues and relies,
|
||
|
|
the employment of magic arts to keep off evil spirits, and the
|
||
|
|
observance of many gross superstitions, complete the picture of
|
||
|
|
Buddhism, a sorry representation of what Buddha made known to men.
|
||
|
|
... The vast majority of the adherents of Buddhism cling to forms </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
42
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>of creed and worship that Buddha, if alive, would reprobate -- [as
|
||
|
|
would Christ in the case of Christianity]. <span class="PERSON" title="PERSON">Northern</span> Buddhism became
|
||
|
|
the very opposite of what Buddha taught to men, and in spreading to
|
||
|
|
foreign lands accommodated itself to the degrading superstition of
|
||
|
|
the people it Sought to win -- [precisely as we shall see that
|
||
|
|
Christianity did to inveigle the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>s). ...</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "Between Buddhism and Christianity there are a number of
|
||
|
|
resemblances, at first sight striking. The Buddhist order of monks
|
||
|
|
and nuns offers points of similarity with Christian monastic
|
||
|
|
systems, particularly the mendicant orders. There are moral
|
||
|
|
aphorisms ascribed to Buddha that are not unlike some of the
|
||
|
|
sayings of Christ. Most of all, in the legendary life of Buddha ...
|
||
|
|
there are many parallelisms, some more, some less striking, to the
|
||
|
|
Gospel stories of Christ. A few third rate scholars [contend that
|
||
|
|
these are borrowings from Buddhism. Why not, as everything else is
|
||
|
|
"borrowed" or filched?]. ...</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "One of its most attractive features was its practice of
|
||
|
|
benevolence towards the sick and needy. Between Buddhists and
|
||
|
|
Brahmins there was a commendable rivalry in maintaining
|
||
|
|
dispensaries of food and medicine" -- long claimed as a holy
|
||
|
|
monopoly of "Christian charity." (CE. iii, 28-34, passim.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> As elsewhere recounted, the Holy Ghost made a curious mistake
|
||
|
|
in inspiring the certification of sundry Saints, and the lord
|
||
|
|
Buddha was himself canonized by Holy Church, as St. Josaphat, and
|
||
|
|
the "Life" of this holy Saint was highly edifying to the Faithful
|
||
|
|
as well as effective in spreading the Christian truth: "During the
|
||
|
|
Middle Ages the 'life of Barlaam and Josaphat' had been translated
|
||
|
|
into some twenty languages, English included, so that in reality
|
||
|
|
the story of Buddha became the vehicle of Christian truth in many
|
||
|
|
nations"' (CE. i, 713.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> It is now evident, and will further so appear, that there is
|
||
|
|
no single novel feature nor "revealed truth" in all the Christian
|
||
|
|
religion: our Holy Faith is all a hodgepodge or pot pourri of the
|
||
|
|
credulitles of every superstition from Afric Voodooism to the
|
||
|
|
latest one anywhere in holy vogue among the credulous. Even our
|
||
|
|
"idea" of God with its superlatives of "revealed" high attributes
|
||
|
|
is very primitive: "The idea of a Being higher than man, invisible,
|
||
|
|
inaccessible, master of life and death, orderer of all things,
|
||
|
|
seems to exist everywhere, among the Negritos, the Hottentots, the
|
||
|
|
Bantu, the Nigritians, the Hamites; for everywhere this Being has
|
||
|
|
a name. He is the 'Great,' the 'Ancient One,' the 'Heavenly One,'
|
||
|
|
the 'Bright one,' the 'Master,' sometimes the 'Author' or
|
||
|
|
'Creator'. ... Nowhere is He represented under any image, for He is
|
||
|
|
incapable of representation." (CE. i, 183, 184.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Cardinal Newman, commenting on Dean Milman's "History of the
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jews</span>," groups a number of these <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Paganism</span>s in Christianity, and says
|
||
|
|
that Milman arrays facts "admitted on all hands," to wit: "that the
|
||
|
|
doctrine of the Logos is Platonic; that of the Incarnation <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Indian</span>;
|
||
|
|
that of a divine Kingdom <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Judaic</span>; that of angels and demons (and a
|
||
|
|
Mediator) Persian; that, the connection of sin with the body is
|
||
|
|
Gnostic; the idea of a new birth Chinese and Eleusinian; that of
|
||
|
|
sacramental virtue Pythagorian; that of Trinity common to East and </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
43
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>West; and that of the rites of baptism and sacrifice equally
|
||
|
|
ubiquitous"! (Newman, Essays, Critical and Historical, 7th ed., p.
|
||
|
|
231; as summarized by the Rt. Hon. J.M. Robertson in A History of
|
||
|
|
Freethought in the XIXth Century, p. 145-6. London, 1929.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Such is our holy Christian "Faith which was once delivered
|
||
|
|
unto the saints," which "superstition, drunk in with their mother's
|
||
|
|
milk," yet persists with the ignorant and those who do not or will
|
||
|
|
not know the truth.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> That Christianity is indeed but a "new form of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Paganism</span>," and
|
||
|
|
especially after it became the official or State religion,
|
||
|
|
consciously and purposely, in furtherance of the Imperial policy of
|
||
|
|
"One State, one Religion," perfected the amalgamation of the
|
||
|
|
salient features of all the fluxing religions of the Empire so as
|
||
|
|
to bring all <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>s within the one State-Church, is accredited by
|
||
|
|
secular and Church history; and is quite ingenuously revealed by
|
||
|
|
CE., treating of the influence of <span class="PERSON" title="PERSON">Constantine</span> on Christianity:</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "Long before this, belief in the old polytheism had been
|
||
|
|
shaken. The world was fully ripe for monotheism or its
|
||
|
|
modified form, henotheism; but this monotheism offered itself
|
||
|
|
in varied guises, under the forms of Oriental religions; in
|
||
|
|
the worship of the <span class="LOC" title="LOC">Sun</span>, in the veneration of Mithras, in
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Judaism</span>, and in Christianity. Whoever wished to make a violent
|
||
|
|
break with the past and his surroundings sought out some,
|
||
|
|
Oriental form of worship which did not demand from him too
|
||
|
|
great a sacrifice. Some ... believed that they could
|
||
|
|
appropriate [the truth contained in <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Judaism</span> and Christianity]
|
||
|
|
without being obliged on that account to renounce the beauty
|
||
|
|
of other worships. Such a man was the Emperor Alexander
|
||
|
|
Severus (222-235); another so minded was Aurelian (270-275),
|
||
|
|
whose opinions were confirmed by Christians like Paul of
|
||
|
|
Samosata. Not only Gnostics and other heretics, but Christians
|
||
|
|
who considered themselves faithful, held in a measure to the
|
||
|
|
worship of the <span class="LOC" title="LOC">Sun</span>. Leo the Great in his day (440-461) says
|
||
|
|
that it was the custom of many Christians to stand on the
|
||
|
|
steps of the Church of St. Peter and pay homage to the <span class="LOC" title="LOC">Sun</span> by
|
||
|
|
obeisance and prayers.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "When such conditions prevailed it is easy to understand
|
||
|
|
that many of the emperors yielded to the delusion that they
|
||
|
|
could unite all their subjects in the adoration of the one
|
||
|
|
San-god who combined in himself the Father-God of the
|
||
|
|
Christians and the much-worshipped Mithras; thus the empire
|
||
|
|
could be founded anew on the unity of religion. It looks
|
||
|
|
almost as though the last persecution of the Christians were
|
||
|
|
directed more against all irreconcilable and extremists than
|
||
|
|
against the great body of Christians. ...</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "It was especially in the West that the veneration of
|
||
|
|
Mithras predominated -- [after centuries of Christianity!].
|
||
|
|
Would it not be possible to gather all the different
|
||
|
|
nationalities around his altars? Could not Sol Deus Invictus,
|
||
|
|
to whom even <span class="PERSON" title="PERSON">Constantine</span> dedicated his coins for a long time,
|
||
|
|
or Sol Mithras Deus Invictus, venerated by Diocletian and
|
||
|
|
Galerius, become the supreme god of the empire? <span class="PERSON" title="PERSON">Constantine</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
44
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>... had not absolutely rejected the thought even after a miraculous
|
||
|
|
event [!] had strongly influenced him in favor of the God of the
|
||
|
|
Christians, -- (who, however, worshipped the <span class="LOC" title="LOC">Sun</span>!).</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "For a time it seemed as if merely tolerance and equality
|
||
|
|
were to prevail. Constaintine showed equal favor to both
|
||
|
|
religions. As pontifex maximus he watched over the heathen
|
||
|
|
worship and protected its rights. ... In the dedication of
|
||
|
|
Constantinople in 330 a ceremonial half pagan, half Christian
|
||
|
|
was used, The chariot of the <span class="LOC" title="LOC">Sun</span>-god was set in the market-place, and over its head was placed the Cross of Christ --
|
||
|
|
[not the original, which his mother had not yet been reputed
|
||
|
|
by the priests to have discovered -- i.e. "invented," -- of
|
||
|
|
which more anon], while the Kyrie Eleison was sung. Shortly
|
||
|
|
before his death <span class="PERSON" title="PERSON">Constantine</span> confirmed the privileges of the
|
||
|
|
priests of the ancient gods. ...</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "In the same way religious freedom and tolerance could
|
||
|
|
not continue as a form of equality; the age was not ready for
|
||
|
|
such a conception; [with more of the like, p. 299; -- which is
|
||
|
|
untrue, as <span class="PERSON" title="PERSON">Constantine</span> himself had proclaimed religious
|
||
|
|
freedom in the Edict of Milan of 313 and we have just seen it
|
||
|
|
admitted in Buddhism, and it prevailed at all tunes in the
|
||
|
|
Roman Empire, until the "Christian Emperors" gave the Church
|
||
|
|
the sword, as in Chapter VII exemplified]. ... Without
|
||
|
|
realizing the full import of his actions, <span class="PERSON" title="PERSON">Constantine</span> granted
|
||
|
|
the Church one privilege, after another. As early as 313 the
|
||
|
|
Church obtained immunity for its ecclesiastics, including
|
||
|
|
freedom from taxation. ... <span class="PERSON" title="PERSON">Constantine</span> moreover placed <span class="LOC" title="LOC">Sun</span>day
|
||
|
|
under the protection of the State [as a <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> holiday, as
|
||
|
|
cited. post]. It is true that the believers in Mithras also
|
||
|
|
observed <span class="LOC" title="LOC">Sun</span>day as well as Christmas. Consequently <span class="PERSON" title="PERSON">Constantine</span>
|
||
|
|
speaks not of the day of the lord, but of the everlasting day
|
||
|
|
of the <span class="LOC" title="LOC">Sun</span>. ...</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "Of <span class="PERSON" title="PERSON">Constantine</span>'s sons the eldest, <span class="PERSON" title="PERSON">Constantine</span> II, showed
|
||
|
|
decided leanings to heathenism, and his coins bear many pagan
|
||
|
|
emblems; the second and favorite son, Constantius, was a more
|
||
|
|
pronounced Christian, but it was Arian -- [anti-Divinity of
|
||
|
|
Christ] -- Christianity to which he adhered. Constantius was
|
||
|
|
an unwavering opponent of paganism; he closed all the temples
|
||
|
|
and forbade, sacrifices under pain of death. His maxim was:
|
||
|
|
'Cesset superstitio; sacrificiorum aboleatur insania' -- ('Let
|
||
|
|
superstition cease; let the folly of sacrifices be
|
||
|
|
abolished'). Their successors had recourse to persecution
|
||
|
|
against heretics and pagans. Their laws (Cod. Theod. XVI v;
|
||
|
|
[post, Chapter VII]) had an unfavorable influence on the
|
||
|
|
Middle Ages and were the basis of the much-abused[!]
|
||
|
|
Inquisition." (CE. iv, 297-301, passim.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Thus was the ultimate merger and total identity of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Paganism</span>
|
||
|
|
with "the new <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Paganism</span> called Christianity" finally established by
|
||
|
|
law and by Imperial policy of "One State and One Religion," to
|
||
|
|
which conformity was enforced by laws of confiscation and death;
|
||
|
|
all the other religions of the Empire were fused by fire and sword
|
||
|
|
into a bastard Christianity; and the mental and moral benightedness
|
||
|
|
known as the Dark Ages of Faith fell as a pall over Christendom for
|
||
|
|
a thousand years until the renaissance of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> culture and freedom</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
45
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>of thought darkly dawned over the world, and has fearfully
|
||
|
|
struggled into a brightening day, whose motto of Hope is again
|
||
|
|
"Cesset Superstitio"! when <span class="PERSON" title="PERSON">Constantine</span>'s funest "League with Death
|
||
|
|
and Covenant with Hell" of State and Church will soon in reality be
|
||
|
|
a forgotten Scrap of Paper!</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> ALL DEVILISH IMITATIONS!</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The pious Christian Fathers were themselves sorely puzzled and
|
||
|
|
scandalized by these same things; their books are replete with
|
||
|
|
naive attempts to explain the mystery of it, -- which they
|
||
|
|
attributed to the blasphemous wiles of the Devil, -- that "the
|
||
|
|
Devil had blasphemously imitated the Christian rites and
|
||
|
|
doctrines"; -- "always seeing in pagan analogies the trickery of
|
||
|
|
devils." (CE. 393.) "It having reached the Devil's ears," says the
|
||
|
|
devout Father Justin Martyr, "that the prophets had foretold the
|
||
|
|
coming of Christ, the Son of God, he set the heathen Poets to bring
|
||
|
|
forward a great many who should be called the sons of Jove. The
|
||
|
|
Devil laying his scheme in this, to get men to imagine that, the
|
||
|
|
true history of Christ was of the same character as the prodigious
|
||
|
|
fables related of the sons of Jove." (I Apology, ch. 54; INF. i,
|
||
|
|
181-182.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Not only the Fathers, but the Bible, Hebrew and Christian,
|
||
|
|
recognized and affirmed the actuality and ever-living reality of
|
||
|
|
the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> gods, though the late post-exilic writer of the 95th
|
||
|
|
Psalm maliciously dubs them devils: "All the gods [Heb. elohim] of
|
||
|
|
the nations are devils" (Heb. elilim -- not much difference between
|
||
|
|
them -- in Hebrew; Ps. xevi, 5); and this view the Christian forger
|
||
|
|
of the Epistle under the name of Paul to the Corinthians confirms:
|
||
|
|
"The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils"
|
||
|
|
(I Cor. x, 20). Though these malevolent flings at the venerable
|
||
|
|
divinities of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>dom are in direct violation of the Siniatic Law
|
||
|
|
of God -- "Thou shalt not revile the gods" (Ex. xxii, 28); -- the
|
||
|
|
Hebrew Yahvah being, according to divine revelation, simply one of
|
||
|
|
many gods -- "a God above all gods," even "God of gods and Lord of
|
||
|
|
lords," who "judgeth among the [other] gods."</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Father Justin, Tertullian, and many another, says the CE.,
|
||
|
|
could "see in all the gods, Moses"; the error and folly of which
|
||
|
|
notions argues our authority, is demonstrated by reference to
|
||
|
|
Middleton's letter from Rome, in which he, with Calvin, "saw an
|
||
|
|
exact conformity between popery and paganism." (CE. xii, 393.)
|
||
|
|
Whether Middleton and Calvin were so far in error and folly in this
|
||
|
|
opinion, our researches will reveal. Collins, too, in his
|
||
|
|
Discourse, supports with good authorities the opinions of Middleton
|
||
|
|
and Calvin. He cites Father Origen as "so far from disowning an
|
||
|
|
agreement between [<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>] Plutonism and Christianity, that a great
|
||
|
|
part of his book Contra Celsum consists in showing the conformity
|
||
|
|
between them." Likewise, he says, Amelius, a heathen Platonist, who
|
||
|
|
flourished in the third century, upon reading the first verses of
|
||
|
|
St. John the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Evangelist</span>, exclaimed: "Per Jovem, barbarous iste cum
|
||
|
|
nostro Platone sentit -- By Jove, this barbarian agrees with
|
||
|
|
Plato"; and he quotes the celebrated saying of Cardinal Palavicino
|
||
|
|
-- "Senza Aristotele noi mancavamo di molti Articoli di Fede --
|
||
|
|
Without, Aristotle we should be without many Articles of Faith"
|
||
|
|
(Colins, Discourse of Free Thinking, p. 127.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
46
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Not only did the Fathers and the Church admit with implicit
|
||
|
|
faith the living reality of the gods of heathendom, their powers,
|
||
|
|
oracles, miracles and other "analogies" to the Christian faith,
|
||
|
|
they even made of such anthologies their strongest apologies, or
|
||
|
|
arguments, in defense of the truth of the Christian tenets. In his
|
||
|
|
Apologia addressed to the Emperor Hadrian, Father Justin reasons
|
||
|
|
from analogy thus:</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "By declaring the Logos, the first-begotten of God, our
|
||
|
|
Master, Jesus Christ, to be born of a Virgin, without any human
|
||
|
|
mixture, we [Christians] may no more in this than what you [<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>s]
|
||
|
|
say of those whom you style the Sons of Jove. For you need not be
|
||
|
|
told what a parcel of sons the writers most in vogue among you
|
||
|
|
assign to Jove. ...</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "As to the Son of God, called Jesus, should we allow him to be
|
||
|
|
nothing more than man, yet the title of 'the Son of God' is very
|
||
|
|
justifiable, upon the account of his wisdom, considering that you
|
||
|
|
[<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>s] have your Mercury in worship under the title of The Word,
|
||
|
|
a messenger of God. ...</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "As to his [Jesus] being born of a Virgin, you have your
|
||
|
|
Perseus to balance that." (Justin, Apologia, I. ch. xxii; ANF. i,
|
||
|
|
170.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The good Fathers carried their argument by analogy into proof
|
||
|
|
of all sorts of holy Christian mysteries; the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> Oracles and
|
||
|
|
miracles were undeniably valid and true, why not therefore their
|
||
|
|
new Christian counterparts? "Without a single exception," says the
|
||
|
|
historian of European Mortals, "the Fathers maintained the reality
|
||
|
|
of the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> miracles as fully as their own. The oracles had been
|
||
|
|
ridiculed and rejected by numbers of the philosophers, but the
|
||
|
|
Christians unanimously admitted their reality. They appealed to a
|
||
|
|
long series of Oracles as predictions of their faith; not until
|
||
|
|
1696 was there a denial of their supernatural character, when a
|
||
|
|
Dutch Anabaptist minister, Van Dale, in a remarkable book, De
|
||
|
|
Origine Progressu Idolatriae, asserted in opposition to the
|
||
|
|
unanimous voice of ecclesiastical authority, that they were simple
|
||
|
|
impostures." (Lecky, History of European Morals, i, 374-375, et
|
||
|
|
seq.; see pp. 378-381, et seq.) The Christian Fathers and their
|
||
|
|
followers made themselves so ridiculous by their fatuous faith in
|
||
|
|
the Sibyls that they were derisively called "Sibyllists" by the
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>s.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> THE SIBYLLINE ORACLES</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The most curious in all respects, and for our purposes the
|
||
|
|
most instructive of the ancient <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> religious frauds, are the
|
||
|
|
Sibtlline Oracles, which, extensively reinforced by <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jewish</span> and
|
||
|
|
Christian forgeries, were perhaps the most potent and popular
|
||
|
|
"proofs" of the early Church for the divinity of Jesus Christ and
|
||
|
|
the truth of the Christian religion; thus they derive special
|
||
|
|
notice here. All will remember, from their school histories of
|
||
|
|
ancient Rome, the well-known legend of one of the Sibyls who came
|
||
|
|
to King Tarquin the Second with nine volumes of Oracles, which she
|
||
|
|
offered to sell to him for a very high price; being refused, she
|
||
|
|
went away and burned three of the books, and returning offered the </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
47
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>remaining six at the same price; again the King refused to buy, and
|
||
|
|
she departed, burned three more of the books, and returned with the
|
||
|
|
last three for which she demanded the original price. Astonished at
|
||
|
|
this conduct and greatly impressed, the King consulted his augurs
|
||
|
|
and was advised to secure the remaining treasures of prophecy
|
||
|
|
before it was too late; he did So, and immediately the Seeress
|
||
|
|
disappeared and was never seen again. The precious tomes were
|
||
|
|
deposited with great care and jealously guarded in the Temple of
|
||
|
|
Jupiter Capitolinus; a college of priests was instituted to have
|
||
|
|
charge of them; and the divine Oracles were consulted with great
|
||
|
|
solemnity only in times of the greatest crises of the State. The
|
||
|
|
books were finally destroyed when the Capitol was burned during the
|
||
|
|
wars of Sylla, but many ethers continued in existence.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The oracles were composed in Alexandrine verse, and claimed to
|
||
|
|
be the work of inspired <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> prophetesses called Sibyls; they
|
||
|
|
enjoyed the greatest vogue and were believed with the most implicit
|
||
|
|
faith by <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>s and Christians alike. There were a number of these
|
||
|
|
Sibyls, and the number of the volumes of oracles is differently
|
||
|
|
estimated as a dozen or more; those with which we are chiefly
|
||
|
|
concerned are the Roman Cumaean and Greek Erythraean Sibyls and the
|
||
|
|
Oracles going under their names. The inveterate bent of the
|
||
|
|
priestly mind for forgery in furtherance of its holy mission of
|
||
|
|
imposture, led to the prompt adoption and corruption of these <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>
|
||
|
|
frauds, for the propagation first of the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jewish</span>, then of the
|
||
|
|
Christian Faith. "Because of the vogue enjoyed by these heathen
|
||
|
|
oracles," says the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Encyclopedia, "and because of the
|
||
|
|
influence they had in, shaping the religious views of the period,
|
||
|
|
the Hellenistic <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jews</span> in Alexandria, during the second century b.c,.
|
||
|
|
composed [i.e. forged] verses in the same form, and circulated them
|
||
|
|
among the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>s as a means of diffusing <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Judaistic</span> doctrines and
|
||
|
|
teaching. This custom was continued down into Christian times, and
|
||
|
|
was borrowed by some Christians, so that in the second or third
|
||
|
|
century, a new class of Oracles emanating from Christian sources
|
||
|
|
came into being, Hence the Sibylline Oracles can be classed as
|
||
|
|
Paggan, <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jewish</span>, or Christian. In many cases, however, the
|
||
|
|
Christians merely revised or interpolated the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jewish</span> documents, and
|
||
|
|
thus we have two classes of Christian oracles, those adopted from
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jewish</span> sources and those entirely written by Christians. ... It
|
||
|
|
seems clear, however, that the Christian Oracles and those revised
|
||
|
|
from <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jewish</span> sources all emanated from the same circle [or band of
|
||
|
|
Christian forgers] and were intended to aid in the diffusion of
|
||
|
|
Christianity.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "The Sibyls are quoted frequently by the early Fathers and
|
||
|
|
Christian writers, Justin, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of
|
||
|
|
Alexandria, etc. ... They were known and used during the Middle
|
||
|
|
Ages in both the East and the West. ... They all purport to be the
|
||
|
|
work of the Sibyls." (CE. v. xiii, p. 770.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Most notable of these forged Christian addenda to the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>-<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jewish</span> forged Oracles, 'Is found in Book VIII, a lengthy composite
|
||
|
|
of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jewish</span> and Christian fraud, consisting of some 500 hexameter
|
||
|
|
verses. The first 216 verses, says the CE., "are most likely the
|
||
|
|
work of a second century <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jew</span>, while the latter part (verses 217-500), beginning with an acrostic on the symbolical Christian word
|
||
|
|
Ichthus is undoubtedly Christian, and dates most probably from the </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
48
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>third century." (CE. xiii, 770.) Ichthus is the Greek word for
|
||
|
|
fish, and the fish was the fitting and universal symbol of the
|
||
|
|
early Christians as typical of the "catch" of the Apostolic fishers
|
||
|
|
of men. This cabalistic word Ichthus, worked into the professedly
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> Oracle in the form of an acrostic, is composed of the initial
|
||
|
|
letters of the popular name and title of the Son of the Christian
|
||
|
|
God, in the Greek: "Iesous Christos Theou Uios Soter -- Jesus
|
||
|
|
Christ, Son of God, Savior" This fish anagram was an ancient <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>
|
||
|
|
symbol of fecundity, of great vogue and veneration throughout
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>dom, and was adopted by Christendom for the double reason that
|
||
|
|
the initials acrostically formed the name and title of its new
|
||
|
|
deity, and that in the ancient science fish were supposed to be
|
||
|
|
generated in the water without carnal copulation, and were thus
|
||
|
|
peculiarly symbolic of the Virgin-born Christ. Says Tertuilian:
|
||
|
|
"We, little fishes, after the example of our Ichthus, are born in
|
||
|
|
water." (On Baptism, ch. i; ANP. iii, 669.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The Church historian, Bishop Eusebius, preserves the Acrostic,
|
||
|
|
taken from the Erythraean Sibyl, but says: "Many people, though
|
||
|
|
they allowed the Erythrian Sibyl to have been a prophetess, yet
|
||
|
|
reject this Acrostic, suspecting it to have been forged by the
|
||
|
|
Christians"; which suspicion the good Bishop refutes by an appeal
|
||
|
|
to Cicero, who, he assures, had read and translated it into Latin.
|
||
|
|
(Eusebius, Oration on Const., chs. 18-19; I, 274-5.) Father St.
|
||
|
|
Augustine quotes the verses and says: "The Erythraean Sibyl has
|
||
|
|
indeed written some things clearly and manifestly relating to
|
||
|
|
Christ. ... There are some, who suspected all these prophecies
|
||
|
|
which relate to Christ and passed under the name of the Sibyl, to
|
||
|
|
have been forged by the Christians." (Aug., De Civ. Dei, xviii, 23;
|
||
|
|
N,&PNF. ii, 3723.) Father Clement of Alexandria attributes to the
|
||
|
|
Sibyls the same inspiration as the Old Testament, and cites Peter
|
||
|
|
and Paul as appealing to them for a prediction of the life and
|
||
|
|
character of Jesus Christ, Peter and Paul speaking thus: "Take the
|
||
|
|
Greek books in your hand, and look into the Sibyl. How clearly she
|
||
|
|
speaks of one God, and of the things to come; then take Hystaspes
|
||
|
|
also and read, and you will find the Son of God much more clearly
|
||
|
|
and evidently described." (Strom. I, 6, p. 761, Ed. Oxon.; also
|
||
|
|
Lact., De ver. sap., I, 4, 15; Free Inquiry, p. 34.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The importance of the Sibylline Oracles, speaking through
|
||
|
|
countless "interpolations" forged by Christian pens, for not only
|
||
|
|
the propagation of the faith among the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>s, but as actual proofs
|
||
|
|
of the truth of the fictitious "facts" of Christianity, cannot be
|
||
|
|
overestimated; this justifies the following extracts from the
|
||
|
|
Divine Institutes of Lactantius. The greater part, I dare say, of
|
||
|
|
the seven Books of that notable work, addressed to the "mighty
|
||
|
|
Emperor <span class="PERSON" title="PERSON">Constantine</span>," is devoted to arguments and proofs of Jesus
|
||
|
|
Christ and the principal events of his recorded life and acts,
|
||
|
|
drawn copiously from the heathen gods and the forged Oracles of the
|
||
|
|
Sibyls. These proofs, to the minds of Father Lactantius and of all
|
||
|
|
the Fathers, as to the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>s generally, were "more strong than
|
||
|
|
proofs of Holy Writ"; for, he says, "perhaps the sacred writings
|
||
|
|
[in the Old Testament] speak falsely when they teach [such and so
|
||
|
|
about Jesus); ... the Sibyls before taught the same things in their
|
||
|
|
verses." Citing scores of Sibylline "prophecies" forged by the
|
||
|
|
Christians for the belief and persuasion of the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>s, who were
|
||
|
|
effectively "refuted by these testimonies" and thus "brought to </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
49
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>Christ," some of them, says Lactantius, urge that these prophetic
|
||
|
|
verses "were not by the Sibyls, but made up and composed by our own
|
||
|
|
writers," as the fact is above confessed by CE.; but not so, argues
|
||
|
|
the great Apologist; "do not Cicero and other <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> authors, dead
|
||
|
|
long before Jesus, testify to the Sibyls?" -- Yes, to the Sibyls
|
||
|
|
and their utterances then extant; not to the later Christian
|
||
|
|
forgeries in their names. Moreover, these Christian
|
||
|
|
"interpolations" imputed to the Sibyls, exactly as the muddled,
|
||
|
|
ambiguous, meaningless "prophecies" of the Old Testament writings,
|
||
|
|
meant nothing and were not understood to mean anything, until Jesus
|
||
|
|
Christ came along, and these <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jewish</span> and <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> mummeries were seized
|
||
|
|
upon by the avid forging Christians to make up and pad out the
|
||
|
|
pretended life and wondrous acts of the Christ. Even a cursory
|
||
|
|
examination and the marginal cross-references will demonstrate,
|
||
|
|
that virtually every act imputed in the New Testament Gospels to
|
||
|
|
the Nazarene, was cut to fit of some scrap of mummery or pretended
|
||
|
|
"prophecy" of Hebrew Scriptures and Sibylline Oracles. Of
|
||
|
|
numberless instances of the latter quoted in the, Divine
|
||
|
|
Institutes, a few typical ones only can be here cited, but they are
|
||
|
|
illuminating of the Christ-tales.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> In Book I, chapter vi is entitled, "Of Divine Testimonies, and
|
||
|
|
of the Sibyls and their Predictions." Appealing for faith to
|
||
|
|
<span class="PERSON" title="PERSON">Constantine</span>, the chapter begins: "Now let us pass to divine
|
||
|
|
testimonies?; and he cites and quotes, in numerous chapters, the
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> gods Mercury, Hermes Trismegistus, Apollo, and other mystic
|
||
|
|
deities and personages, all testifying to the One Christian God and
|
||
|
|
to his Son Jesus. After infinite such appeals for proofs, we come
|
||
|
|
to Book IV, a veritable arsenal of manufactured "divine
|
||
|
|
testimonies"; and we pause to con with wonder chapter xv, "Of the
|
||
|
|
life and Miracles of Jesus, and Testimonies concerning Him." Jesus,
|
||
|
|
after his baptism, says Lactantius, "began to perform the greatest
|
||
|
|
miracles, not by magical powers, but by heavenly strength and
|
||
|
|
power. ... His powers were those which Apollo called wonderful. ...
|
||
|
|
And he performed all these things not by His hands, or the
|
||
|
|
application of any remedy, but by His word and command, as the
|
||
|
|
Sibyl had foretold: 'Doing all things by His word, and healing
|
||
|
|
every disease.'"</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Many chapters are replete with instances of the miracles of
|
||
|
|
Jesus, alleged each of them to have been foretold by one or another
|
||
|
|
of the Sibyls, and quoting the Christian-forged prophetic verses in
|
||
|
|
proof. The Christ came to fulfill the Law; "and the Sibyl shows
|
||
|
|
that it would come to pass that this law would be destroyed by the
|
||
|
|
Son of God: 'But when all these things which I told you shall be
|
||
|
|
accomplished, then all the law is fulfilled with respect to Him.'"
|
||
|
|
(c. xvii.) Of a few others, and the arguments above sketched, I
|
||
|
|
quote the text:</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "What can be more wonderful, either in narration or in
|
||
|
|
action? But the Sibyl had before foretold that it would take
|
||
|
|
place, whose verses are related to this effect.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "With five loaves at the same time, and with two fishes,
|
||
|
|
He shall satisfy five thousand men in the wilderness;
|
||
|
|
And Afterwards taking all the fragments that remain,
|
||
|
|
He shall fill twelve baskets to the hope of many.'</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
50
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "But perhaps the sacred writings speak falsely when they teach
|
||
|
|
that there was such power in Him, that by His command He compelled
|
||
|
|
the winds to obey Him, the seas to serve Him, disease to depart,
|
||
|
|
the dead to be submissive. Why should I say that the Sibyls before
|
||
|
|
had taught the same things in their one verses? One of whom,
|
||
|
|
already mentioned, thus speaks:</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "But shall still the winds by His word, and calm the sea
|
||
|
|
As it rages, treading with feet of peace and in faith.'</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "And again another which says:</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> 'He shall walk on the waves, He shall release men from
|
||
|
|
disease.
|
||
|
|
He shall raise the dead, and drive away many pains;
|
||
|
|
And from the bread of one wallet there shall be a satisfying
|
||
|
|
[of men].'</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "Some, refuted by these testimonies, are accustomed to
|
||
|
|
have recourse to the assertion that these poems were not by
|
||
|
|
the Sibyls, but made up and composed by our own writers. But
|
||
|
|
he, will assuredly not think this who has read Cicero [De
|
||
|
|
Natura Deorum, ii], and Varro, and other ancient writers, who
|
||
|
|
make mention of the Erythraean and other Sibyls from whose
|
||
|
|
books we bring forth these examples; And these authors died
|
||
|
|
before the birth of Christ according to the flesh. But I do
|
||
|
|
not doubt that these poems were in former times regarded as
|
||
|
|
ravings, since no one understood them. For they announced some
|
||
|
|
marvelous wonders, of which neither the manner, nor the time,
|
||
|
|
nor the author was signified. Lastly the Erythraean Sibyl says
|
||
|
|
that it would come to pass that she would be called mad and
|
||
|
|
deceitful. But assuredly</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> 'They will say that the Sibyl
|
||
|
|
is mad, and deceitful: but when all things shall come to pass,
|
||
|
|
Then ye will remember me; and no one will any longer
|
||
|
|
Say that I, the prophetess of the great God, am mad.'</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "Therefore they were neglected for many ages; but they
|
||
|
|
received attention after the nativity and passion of Christ
|
||
|
|
had revealed secret things. Thus it was also with the
|
||
|
|
utterances of the prophets, which were read by the people of
|
||
|
|
the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jews</span> for fifteen hundred [!] years and more, but yet were
|
||
|
|
not understood until after Christ had explained them by His
|
||
|
|
word and by His works. For the prophets spoke of Him; nor
|
||
|
|
could the things which they said have been in any way
|
||
|
|
understood, unless they had been altogether fulfilled."
|
||
|
|
(Lact., Div. Inst., Bk. IV, chap. xv; ANF. vii, 115, 116.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> In view of these "divine testimonies" of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> Oracles forged
|
||
|
|
by pious Christians in proof of their Christ, need one wonder that
|
||
|
|
the like testimonies in the Gospels themselves may be under
|
||
|
|
suspicion of like forgery? We shall have the proofs in their due
|
||
|
|
order. Father Justin Martyr treats these <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> books of Christian
|
||
|
|
evidences, as prophetic Scriptures and divine, and speaking of
|
||
|
|
their prohibition by the Roman Emperors, says: "By the contrivance </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
51
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>of Demons it was made a capital crime to read them, in order to
|
||
|
|
deter men from coming to a knowledge of what is good." (Apologia,
|
||
|
|
I, ch. 77; ANF. i, 178.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> That heathens and even devils may be specially endued with the
|
||
|
|
gift of prophecy by God for his glory, and God may make use of the
|
||
|
|
Devil-in-Chief for this purpose, is expressly asserted by Pope
|
||
|
|
Benedict XIV" (Heroic Virtue, III, 144, 150). And "the Angelic
|
||
|
|
Doctor," St. Thomas Aquinas, "in order to prove that the heathens
|
||
|
|
were capable of prophecy, refers to the instance of the Sibyls, who
|
||
|
|
make clear mention of the mysteries of the Trinity, of the
|
||
|
|
Incarnation of the Word, of the Life, Passion, and Resurrection of
|
||
|
|
Christ. It is true that the Sibylline poems now extant became in
|
||
|
|
course of time interpolated; but as Benedict XIV (1740-1758)
|
||
|
|
remarks, this does not hinder much of them, especially what the
|
||
|
|
early Fathers referred to, from being genuine and in no wise
|
||
|
|
apocryphal"! (CE. xii, 474.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Thus the Holy Ghost of God, speaking through its official
|
||
|
|
mouthpiece, its Vive-God on earth, infallibly guarded by the Spirit
|
||
|
|
against the possibility of error, in the year 1742 of our Era of
|
||
|
|
Christ, sings the Doxology of these admitted frauds of paganish and
|
||
|
|
forging Christianity, and canonizes them as the God-inspired origin
|
||
|
|
of the holiest mysteries of Christian revelation. The inference is
|
||
|
|
inevitable, that <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> Sibyls, Christian Church Fathers, and Vicars
|
||
|
|
of God, are strongly characterized by Ignorance and Imposture.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> A noted classical and critical authority, Anthon,
|
||
|
|
contemplating the shifts of the new Christianity rising from the
|
||
|
|
debacle of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Paganism</span>, falls into a philosophical reflection,
|
||
|
|
pertinent alike to the old and the new systems of priestcraft:</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "When a religion has fallen and been succeeded by
|
||
|
|
another, the more zealous advocates of the new belief
|
||
|
|
sometimes find themselves in a curious state of embarrassment.
|
||
|
|
So it is with regard to the heathen system and the Christian
|
||
|
|
code. Among the numerous oracles given to the world in former
|
||
|
|
days, some have chanced to find a remarkable accomplishment;
|
||
|
|
and the pious but ill-judging Christian, unable to ascribe
|
||
|
|
them to deities in whom men no longer believes, is driven to
|
||
|
|
create for them a different origin. 'God,' says Rollin, 'in
|
||
|
|
order to punish the blindness of the heathen, sometimes
|
||
|
|
permits evil spirits to give responses conformable to the
|
||
|
|
truth.' (Rollin, Histoire Ancienne, I, 887.) The only evil
|
||
|
|
spirit which had an agency in the oracular responses of
|
||
|
|
antiquity was that spirit of craft imposture which finds so
|
||
|
|
congenial a home among an artful and cunning priesthood."
|
||
|
|
(Anthon, Classical Dictionary, 4th ed., p. 929; Art. Orv
|
||
|
|
alum.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The historian of European Morals, in his amazing review of the
|
||
|
|
infinite variety and number of superstitions, frauds, forgeries,
|
||
|
|
false miracles and lying oracles of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>dom, which were taken over
|
||
|
|
almost 'in masse' by the Christians, and implicitly and with
|
||
|
|
childlike credulity accepted and believed, taught and preached by
|
||
|
|
every Christian Father of the Church, by the infallible popes, and
|
||
|
|
the millions of their ignorant and superstitious ex-<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> lay </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
52
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>dupes, makes this very pertinent and just remark apropos the value
|
||
|
|
of their pious opinions, testimonies and "traditions" of the
|
||
|
|
origins of the Christian faith:</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "To suppose that men who held these opinions were
|
||
|
|
capable, in the second and third centuries, of ascertaining
|
||
|
|
with any degree of just confidence whether miracles had taken
|
||
|
|
place in <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Judaea</span> in the first century, is grossly absurd; nor
|
||
|
|
would the conviction of their reality have made any great
|
||
|
|
impression on their minds at a time when miracles were
|
||
|
|
supposed to be so abundantly diffused." (Lecky, Hist. Europ.
|
||
|
|
Morals, i, 375.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The confession that the vast mass of Christian miracles were
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> frauds and lies taken 'en bloc' over into Christianity to
|
||
|
|
make a good showing as against the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>s and to dupe the
|
||
|
|
superstitious new converts, is made by CE., with the notable
|
||
|
|
further admission that the only alteration made was that the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>
|
||
|
|
gods were made over into Christian saints: "This transference was
|
||
|
|
promoted by the numerous cases in which Christian saints became the
|
||
|
|
successors of local deities, and Christian worship supplanted the
|
||
|
|
ancient local worship. This explains the great number of
|
||
|
|
similarities between gods and saints. For the often maintained
|
||
|
|
metamorphosis of gods into saints no proof is to be found." This
|
||
|
|
immense confession of Christian fraudulence and imposture, in
|
||
|
|
conjuring fictitious <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> gods -- which according to Christian
|
||
|
|
faith were all actual devils -- into canonized Saints of God and
|
||
|
|
Holy Church, is several times reported by CE., of which this
|
||
|
|
instance is before me: "It has indeed been said that the 'Saints
|
||
|
|
are the successors to the Gods.' Instances have been cited ... of
|
||
|
|
statues of pagan Gods baptized and transformed into Christian
|
||
|
|
Saints"! (CE. xv. 710; cf. Is It God's Word? 5, 7-9.) This truly
|
||
|
|
wonderful psycho-religious miracle is thereupon wrought: The
|
||
|
|
idolatrous <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> who just before the "baptism" actually worshipped
|
||
|
|
these "statues of the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> gods," immediately afterwards simply
|
||
|
|
venerated or adored the same gods "baptized and transformed into
|
||
|
|
Christian saints" -- fully comprehending the non-understandable
|
||
|
|
hair-splitting theological distinction between pious "dulia" and
|
||
|
|
idolatrous "latria," as defined by Holy Church and droned by CE. in
|
||
|
|
its article on Idolatry. And vast hoards of utterly illiterate and
|
||
|
|
stupid Faithful go into the True Churches every day, kneel before
|
||
|
|
and pray to these same <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> gods conjured into Christian saints --
|
||
|
|
with countless other counterfeit near-divinities of their near-Idolatry -- and appreciate the difference to a split-second of
|
||
|
|
devotion and true faith. Tis passing strange.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> A very remarkable confession of purposeful fraud, with the
|
||
|
|
mechanics of the fraud, and the vast extent of it in faking <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span>
|
||
|
|
miracle-lies into Christian truth of the most driveling nonsense,
|
||
|
|
reads:</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "Manifold as the varieties of [miracle] legends now seem
|
||
|
|
to be, there are fundamentally not so very many different
|
||
|
|
notions utilized. The legend considers the saint as a kind of
|
||
|
|
lord of the elements, who commands the water, rain, fire,
|
||
|
|
mountain, and rock; he changes, enlarges, or diminishes
|
||
|
|
objects; flies through the air; delivers from dungeons --
|
||
|
|
(examples, Peter, Paul) -- and gallows; takes part in battles,
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
53
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> and even in martyrdom is invulnerable; animals, the wildest
|
||
|
|
and the most timid, serve him (e.g., the stories of the bear
|
||
|
|
as a beast of burden; the ring in the fish; the frogs becoming
|
||
|
|
silent, etc.); his birth is glorified by a miracle; a voice,
|
||
|
|
or letters, from Heaven proclaim his identity -- [all these
|
||
|
|
score for Jesus the Christ]; bells ring of themselves; the
|
||
|
|
heavenly ones enter into personal intercourse with him
|
||
|
|
(betrothal of Mary); he speaks with the dead and beholds
|
||
|
|
heaven, hell, and purgatory; forces the devil to release
|
||
|
|
people from compacts; he is victorious over dragons; etc. Of
|
||
|
|
all this the authentic [?] Christian narratives know nothing
|
||
|
|
-- [a confession that every saint-tale of Bible and Church is
|
||
|
|
a lie].</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "But whence does this world of fantastic concepts arise? A
|
||
|
|
glance at the pre-christian religious narratives will dispel every
|
||
|
|
doubt. All these stories are anticipated by the Greek chroniclers,
|
||
|
|
writers of myths, collectors of strange tales, neo-Plutonism, and
|
||
|
|
neo-Pythagorism. One need only refer to the 'Ellados Periegesis' of
|
||
|
|
Pausanius, or glance through the codices collected by Photius in
|
||
|
|
his 'Bibliotheca,' to recognize what great importance was attached
|
||
|
|
to the reports of miracles in antiquity by both the educated and
|
||
|
|
uneducated." ...</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Reversing only the order of the sentences, and CE. reversing
|
||
|
|
the truth of the answer it gives to its own question, the
|
||
|
|
confession of shame continues:</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> "But how was the transference of [these miracle] legends
|
||
|
|
to Christianity consummated? ... Hellenism had already
|
||
|
|
recognized this [fraudulent] characteristic of the religious
|
||
|
|
fable, and would thus have been obliged to free itself from it
|
||
|
|
in the coarse of time, had not the competition with
|
||
|
|
Christianity forced the champions of the ancient polytheism to
|
||
|
|
seek again in the ancient fables incidents to set against the
|
||
|
|
miraculous power of Christ. [!] In this way popular illusions
|
||
|
|
found their way from Hellenism to Christianity." (CE. ix,
|
||
|
|
129-30.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> And in 1900 years no priest, bishop, pope, depositaries and
|
||
|
|
guardians of divine truth, has ever said a word to prevent or put
|
||
|
|
end to this shameful prostitution of mind of their poor grovelling
|
||
|
|
dupes, but to this day perpetuate them in it. Far from ending the
|
||
|
|
shameful thing, many bishops and popes have won the title Mendax
|
||
|
|
Maximus by peddling these <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> lies as God's truth; as witness
|
||
|
|
this one instance from the article we are quoting: "St. Augustine
|
||
|
|
(De Cura, xii) and also [Pope] St. Gregory the Great (Dialogues,
|
||
|
|
IV, xxxvi) -- [the greatest book of Lies outside the Bible] --
|
||
|
|
relate of a man, who died by an error of the Angel of Death and was
|
||
|
|
again restored to life, the same story which is already given by
|
||
|
|
Lucian in his 'Philopseudes.'" (Ib. p. 130.) Such, verily for
|
||
|
|
shame, is "that new <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Paganism</span> later called Christianity."</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Mythology has well been called the Theology of dead religions.
|
||
|
|
The world is a vast cemetery of deceased gods and teeming scrap-heap of decayed and discarded priest-imposed religious beliefs --
|
||
|
|
superstitions. All the dead gods and religions of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Paganism</span>, all the</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
54
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>yet surviving but fast moribund deities and faiths of the XXth
|
||
|
|
Century world, all -- (except -- the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jews</span> and Christians say, their
|
||
|
|
own), -- all were admittedly the fraudulent handiwork of priests
|
||
|
|
and professional god-and-myth makers. In a word, short and ugly,
|
||
|
|
but true -- every priest of every god and religion (saving, for the
|
||
|
|
nonce, the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jewish</span>-Christian ones) -- was a conscious and
|
||
|
|
unconscionable falsifier and impostor, -- a common liar for his
|
||
|
|
god. All plied their artful, unholy priestcraft in the name of
|
||
|
|
gods; for power and pelf, those grafting <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> priests. No
|
||
|
|
Christian will, or truthfully can, deny their portentous fact, The
|
||
|
|
verdict of lying guilt of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Pagan</span> Priestcraft is unanimous.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> No one can now doubt that Lecky, after voluminous review of
|
||
|
|
pre-Christian frauds and impostures, spoke the precise historical
|
||
|
|
truth: "Christianity floated into the Roman Empire on the wave of
|
||
|
|
credulity that brought with it this long train of Oriental
|
||
|
|
superstitions and legends." (Hist. of European Morals, i, 373-4.)</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The mainstream of Oriental superstition and priestly imposture
|
||
|
|
will now be seen to swell with the turgid flood of Hebrew fables
|
||
|
|
and forgery, before pouring the mingled flood of myth and fraud
|
||
|
|
into the pure tide of Christian Truth; -- where, Presto! change! it
|
||
|
|
is beheld transformed -- "baptized" -- into the "revealed
|
||
|
|
mysteries" and "<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Truth" of God!</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> FORGERY IN <span class="NORP" title="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Abbreviations for most often used sources:</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The libraries of the Union Theological Seminary and of
|
||
|
|
<span class="GPE" title="GPE">Columbia</span> University, in <span class="GPE" title="GPE">New York City</span>, were the places of the finds
|
||
|
|
here recorded. Cited so often, space will be saved for more
|
||
|
|
valuable uses by citing by their initials, -- which will become
|
||
|
|
very familiar -- my chief ecclesiastical authorities, towit:</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The Ante-Nicene Fathers, cited as ANF.; A Collection of the
|
||
|
|
extant Writings of all the Founders of Christianity down to the
|
||
|
|
Council of Nicaea, or Nice, in 325 A.D. American Reprint, eight
|
||
|
|
volumes. The Christian Literature Publishing Co., <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Buffalo</span>, N.Y.,
|
||
|
|
1885. [xxx]</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, cited as N&PNF.; First and
|
||
|
|
Second Series; many volumes; same publishers.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Encyclopedia, cited as CE.; fifteen volumes and
|
||
|
|
index, published under the Imprimatur of Archbishop Farley; New
|
||
|
|
York, Robert Appleton Co., 1907-9.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The Encyclopedia Biblica, cited as EB., four volumes; Adam &
|
||
|
|
Charles Black, London, 1899; American Reprint, The Macmillan Co.,
|
||
|
|
New York, 1914.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
55
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
</div>
|
||
|
|
</body>
|
||
|
|
</html>
|