Chapter III: Part 3

In many cases, women swearing to have had intercourse with incubi were merely suffering from erotic and nymphomaniac hallucinations, while others may have found it a convenient excuse for explaining illicit impregnations. Men, falling under the charms of women, found it a convenient method for disposing of their loves, after the infatuation had passed, by declaring them succubæ; and monks, who had contracted venereal diseases, laid their sufferings to these same fair demons. In the case of the monks, however, the succubæ were often of purely hallucinary origin, due to excessive asceticism together with the suppression of natural desires and a too faithful conformity to the ordinance of celibacy. Nymphomania is also prevalent in convents, owing to the unnatural sexual lives led by the nuns, who either remain truly chaste or abandon themselves to all sorts of debauchery and perverted lubricities. In former times these rages of demented women were supposed to have been caused by possession of demons, which tormented them at the orders of magicians, and advantage was often taken by the unscrupulous to accuse their enemies of the crime of sorcery, and thus cause their execution.

One of the most famous of these horrible affairs was that of Loudin in Poitiers, where the nuns of the Ursuline convent, becoming hysterical and demented, swore themselves afflicted by Urbain Grandier, a priest of the local church, and despite the attempts of the rational bailiff and sensible civil lieutenants, some enemies of the curé among the exorcists managed to secure the arrest, torture, and final burning of the unfortunate man in 1632. Later, it was discovered that, being personally attractive, handsome and gallant, Grandier, who never denied his numerous amours, had incurred the enmity of the Loudin nuns by entirely ignoring their advances; and hell hath no fury like a woman scorned! These libidinous women, constantly brooding over disappointment to their fond hopes, gave such a character of demonic possession to their neurosis that advantage could be taken of it by rival priests to rid themselves of an envied enemy. The writhings, gesticulations, convulsions, etc., of these unfortunate women, combined with the indecency of their actions on the approach of the exorcists (caused merely by the approach of a male), were believed by the vulgar to be demonstrations of demonic possession. Other nuns, seeing the attention and notoriety thus gained by these sisters, although themselves free from dementia, could not resist the temptation to simulate its forms and thus acquire renown for themselves.

Thus arose those horrible demonical scenes which occupied the attention of all Europe during the seventeenth century and seemed to point to the possession of all convents by devils. And not convents alone, for other hysterical women, without the walls, possessed of the same rage for notoriety, took up the character of demonic possessed and spread the vulgar superstition until it seems that every woman in Europe who was so unfortunate as to be in any way afflicted with tendencies to hysteria, neurosis, idiocy, or dementia of any character whatever, came to be regarded as in the power of a demon, which in turn was the slave of some magician. And thus, through the influence of an ignorant and unscrupulous priesthood, a powerful engine was placed at its disposal for the removal of enemies. Executions for sorcery continued until their very number and barbarity palled, and the wearied people were ready for their abolition, when the Reformation opened and with the accession of power, Protestantism, in this matter, at least, swayed the masses to reason once more.

Dr. Figuier, in his "Histoire du Merveilleux," explains these demonical possessions as entirely due to hypnotism, and, ignoring the nymphomaniac theory, asserts that the exorcists themselves hypnotized the nuns for their own glory and for purposes of vengeance. One page 234 of volume I he says: "L'appareil deployé par les exorcistes, leurs adjurations, leurs gestes imposants et forcenés, tenaient lieu des manipulations que nos magnetiseurs emploient pour endormir leurs sujets. Operant sur des jeunes filles nerveuses, malades, melancoliques, les exorcistes produisaient chez elles une partie des phenomènes auxquels donné lieu le somnambulisme artificiel."

The universal belief in evil spirits became a powerful engine for the advancement of the church. By its use all those who were inimical to the church could be put out of the way as comrades of devils, and, furthermore, the theory was advanced that only by the exorcisms of the church could man be protected from malevolent powers. Holy water, signs of the cross, repetitions of the name of Mary had full power to annul all the machinations of the demons, but only in the hands of the true believers was this efficacious. To preserve one from the dangers of demonic spite, absolute orthodoxy was essential, and thus a great premium was imposed upon strict adherence to the church. Thus was gross superstition a most powerful factor in the growth and spread of Christianity. According to Lecky: "There was scarcely a village or a church that had not, at some time, been the scene of supernatural interposition. The powers of light and the powers of darkness were regarded as visibly struggling for the mastery. Saintly miracles, supernatural cures, startling judgments, visions, prophecies, and prodigies of every order, attested the activity of the one, while witchcraft and magic, with all their attendant horrors, were the visible manifestations of the other.... Tens of thousands of victims perished by the most agonizing and protracted torments, without exciting the slightest compassion.... Nations that were separated by position, by interests, and by character, on this question were united." And the germ of all this evil lay in the very foundation of Christianity--the faith held in supernatural agencies.

The belief in the supernatural agency in the temptation of Eve, the temptations of Jesus, the possibility of the miraculous conception, and the miracles of Christ, were but stepping-stones to faith in innumerable invisible but potent powers. One who can conscientiously believe in the supernatural as found between the covers of the Bible can, by but a slight stretch of the imagination, believe any preposterous tale that is woven about a supernatural agency. If one can believe a woman can conceive without contact with semen, one can believe some old woman can dry up his cow. If one can believe that Jesus actually raised Lazarus from the dead, one can believe that a man can kill him by sticking pins in a wax effigy. If one can believe that Elijah ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot, one can believe that Goody Jones rode a broomstick through the air. If one can believe that the Christ was actually tempted by the devil, one can believe in succubæ and incubi. It is all a matter of logical reasoning. As soon as a Christian's intellectual powers develop to a point where he can find no place for the miraculous in the world about him, he begins to doubt that which was in the world before him; but, regarding theological tales, he either places them in another category or ignores them, unless faced with them, when he crawls and calls them "sacred mysteries." That an old woman can sour his milk or kill his child by the evil eye he does not believe, for reason has taught him otherwise. And for the same reason he would not believe his daughter if she told him she was pregnant with a miraculous child. He did not believe Josephine Woodbury when she made a similar statement in Boston a few years ago. But he does believe it of Mary, because it is a "holy mystery," and is in another category. He has inherited his faith from a long line of orthodox ancestors, and he has never stopped to consider it by the light of pure reason. It is fortunate for the dogma of the virgin birth that it took root when people believed such things, otherwise Mary would have been adorned with the scarlet letter.

Feasts, fasts and elaborate ceremonials were important features of the most ancient worships, and it is not, therefore, strange to find somewhat modified adaptations of them in the Christian church. For, wherever Christianity wandered and found firmly implanted religious theories and customs, it immediately gave them new significations and accepted them, until finally the greater part of paganism was gathered from all parts of the civilized world and amalgamated into one strong theological organization. Finding in almost every nation a festival at the winter solstice, in commemoration of the accouchement of the celestial, virgin queen of heaven, and the birth of the sun-god, the Christian fathers decided to adopt the 25th of December as the natal day of their Christ.

Mithras, Osiris, Horus, Bacchus, Adonis and Buddha were all said to have been born on this day, and it is the date of one of the greatest religious festivals of India, during which the people decorate their houses with garlands and make presents to relatives and friends; a custom adopted by the Christians in much the same manner as was that of the ancient German yule-log, burned in honor of the sun-god.

XI.--RELIGIOUS HOLIDAYS AND RITES.

The winter solstice was also the time of the great Scandinavian festival in honor of Frey, son of Odin and Frigga, who was supposed to have been born at this time. The Jews, likewise, have a feast beginning on the 25th of December, which lasts eight days, and is in memory of the victory of the Maccabees over the Greeks. It is called the feast of Hanuca.

A great annual festival, called the "feast of lamps," was held by the Egyptians in the early part of the year in honor of the goddess Neith, during which lamps of oil were burned all night before the houses. This festival was renamed Candlemas or the "purification of the virgin," and was adopted by the Christian church.

The ancient pagan inhabitants of Europe annually celebrated a spring festival which began with a week's indulgence in all kinds of sports and was called the carne-vale, or taking farewell of meat, because a fast of forty days immediately followed. In Germany this was held in honor of the Saxon goddess Hertha, or Ostara, or Eostre--as you may prefer to call her--whose name was adopted as Easter by the Christians as the name to be applied to the end of their lenten period. Among the Syrians it was the custom to celebrate an elaborate festival at the time of the spring equinox in honor of the glorious Adonis, beloved of the great goddess Astarte. This worship was later introduced into Greece, whence it traveled to Rome with the majority of Grecian mythological theories. It was later introduced into Egypt, where it was annually celebrated at Alexandria, the cradle of Christianity, until the latter part of the fourth century, when a Christian significance was given it.

The myth of Adonis is too well known to need repetition here, and its parallel to that of the Christ is readily seen. The ceremonies now held in Rome at Easter are but slightly different from those held there at the same time of year centuries ago. This similarity was explained away by the assertion of the Christian fathers "that a long time before there were Christians in existence, the devil had taken pleasure to have their future mysteries and ceremonies copied by his worshipers"--a very simple and satisfactory explanation!

That Easter is in reality an astronomical festival in honor of the sun-god seems conclusive from the fact that it occurs on no settled date, but takes place on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the passing of the vernal equinox, which, for convenience, is fixed at March 21.

Among the many Christian fasts of pagan origin none is more familiar to all than the weekly Friday abstinence from meat. Under the old mythology, Friday, the dies veneris, was sacred to Venus, and on that day the devout worshipers of this charming goddess ate nothing but fish, as all the "finny tribe" were sacred to her, and considered proper diet for those that worshiped at her shrine.

When the Bishop of Rome assumed the power and dignity of head of the western church, he also assumed all the prerogatives of the ancient pontifex maximus (who was supposed to be the direct physical communication between the people and the deities), and many of the attributes of the emperors. He adopted the gorgeous vestments of the ancient high priest and even stretched forth a foot to be kissed, as Heliogabalus had done. He considered himself capable of raising such as he saw fit to semi-divine honors by canonization, just as the emperors had raised altars to their favorites, and he claimed precedence over every monarch of the earth, just as they also had done. But the Roman pontiff is not unique in his position of viceroy of the deity. The grand lama of Thibet is considered as the representative of Buddha and has the power of dispensing divine blessings on whomsoever he will. Taoism also has a pope who resides on the Lung-hû mountain, in the department of Kwang-hsi, who bears the surname Chang and is called "Heavenly Master."

The best known rites of the Christian church are probably those of baptism, confession and communion, with which are associated the ideas of purification, prayer and transubstantiation.

The rite of baptism, like all ideas which refer to the purification of sin by water, is a most ancient one. Rivers, as sources of purification, were at an early date invested with a sacred character, and every great river was supposed to be permeated with a divine essence and its waters were believed to cleanse from all mortal guilt and contamination. The Ganges and the Jordan are well known examples of this faith, and vases of Ganges water are to be found in almost every dwelling in India for religious purposes. In Mongolia and Thibet children are named by the priests, who immerse them in holy water while reading a prescribed prayer, after which the name is bestowed. Baptism preceded initiation into the mysteries of both the Egyptian Isis and the Persian Mithras, and was held to be the means of regeneration and of remission of sins.

Tertullian, noticing the great similarity between the Christian and pagan baptisms, naïvely remarked that the devil "baptizes some, of course, such as believe in him and are faithful to him; he promises expiation of sins from the bath, and, if my memory of Mithras serves me still, in this rite he signs his soldiers on their foreheads."

Much akin to baptism is the general use by the Christian church of so-called holy water, which is ascribed to Pope Alexander the First, who ruled during the first century. This pontiff probably did little more than officially to condone, by his papal sanction, the very general use of lustral water, which the Romans had inherited from their pagan ancestors; for lustral water was always kept in vases at the entrance of the Roman temples, that those passing in and out might sprinkle themselves with it; and the priests used a sprinkling brush called the aspersorium with which they threw the purifying water over their congregations, in the same manner as modern priests use the hyssop. The druids gave, or sprinkled upon, the worshipers water in which mistletoe had been immersed or steeped.

Similar to the idea of purification by baptism is that of purification by confession and prayer. The idea involved in confession is that the declaration of the crime relieves the conscience of its criminality. In Iceland and among the Scandinavian and Teutonic peoples in general, murder ceased to be a crime when the slayer had declared himself guilty. Among the Jews confession was practiced, the purpose of its institution being that the priest might judge of the sacrifice required for the expiation of the sin committed, and, also, that every crime might be rehearsed over the scapegoat. The Peruvians confessed their sins to their priests with the exception of the Incas, who confessed to the sun. At the famous Samothracian mysteries a priest was especially charged with hearing the confessions of great criminals and with granting them absolution.

Among Protestant Christians confession is often made directly to the supreme deity in the form of prayer, which, like most other religious practices, is an eminently pagan custom. The Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Persians, and most other ancient peoples offered sacrifices on the altars of their gods to propitiate them, and accompanied these offerings with prayers. Today, instead of presenting wines and viands to his god, the devout Christian offers verbal expressions of a contrite spirit or, more often, asks a favor. He demands, begs, or advises through this method, according to his own nature and disposition.

The expression used in modern orthodox Protestant prayers, "through our Lord, Jesus Christ," is merely the concrete expression of the idea of mediation. The great supreme God was looked upon by most nations of antiquity as being too great, too sublime, too holy, to be addressed directly; and, in this lofty conception of the deity, they prayed for favors to mediators whom they created to request boons from the real ruler of heaven and earth.

Among the Hindus, supplications were addressed to the various apotheosized incarnations of Vishnu, rather than to the great Brahma; the Greeks made supplication to numerous lesser gods, rather than to Zeus; Persians addressed Mithras instead of Ormuzd; and the modern Romanist kneels to saints and martyrs, or Jesus or his mother, at whose shrines they place offerings which are bribes for favors; but almost never do they immediately supplicate the supreme God. In this they are certainly less blasphemous than their Protestant fellows, who do not hesitate to talk familiarly to God of the most trivial affairs.

Belief in the efficacy of prayer is an absurdity which owes its origin to a hereditary trait of humanity, descended through a long line of superstitious ancestors. Primitive man prayed to his dead fathers for their good will, believing them more powerful in their post mortem state than during life. The ancients offered prayers at the shrines of their various gods and, among all nations, from time immemorial, deities have been supplicated to bestow gifts and avert misfortunes. The overcharged mind of the superstitious has ever found relief in expressing its troubles to the imaginary beings on whom it has bestowed superhuman attributes. All over the world, in all languages, have arisen various petitions to the deities, and still do they continue to arise. Savages pray to their idols, Moslems crouch facing Mecca to pray to Allah, Hindus pray to the avatars of Vishnu, and all Christendom besieges the throne of God in constant supplication.

Can any rational mind believe that these numerous, varied and even antagonistic petitions will be answered? Some are praying for rain, some for a cessation of it, some for health, some for happiness, some for material blessings, and some for spiritual welfare. Vain repetitions! The material universe is governed by immutable laws which all the breath in creation wasted in prayer cannot in any way affect; while such spiritual benefits as morality, character and virtue "are equally dependent on the invariable laws of cause and effect." Prayers for forgiveness of sins are perhaps the most common, as well as the most absurd, that are daily offered. Sin is the breaking of a material or moral law, and no law can be broken without the transgressor's incurring the penalty. Is it not absurd of the church to preach the immutable justice of God, and at the same time declare that sinners may escape punishment by prayer?

Communion, or union with the deity, is an idea of great antiquity and has been common to all religions; although the methods practiced are numerous and varied. The more common mode, however, is by the consumption of consecrated foods and drinks, with the idea that these have acquired (by the act of consecration) a divine character of which the communicant becomes a partaker through their reception. The dogma of the eucharist was instituted many centuries before the Christian era and was believed in by the ancient Egyptians (from whom the Christians probably received it through the Alexandrian school), who, at the time of the celebration of the resurrection of Osiris, ate a sacred wafer, which, after consecration by a priest, was declared the flesh of the god. In ancient Greece, bread was worshiped as Ceres and wine as Bacchus; and, when the devout ate the bread and drank the wine, they claimed they were eating the flesh and drinking the blood of their deities. The ancient Mexicans used bread of corn meal mixed with blood, which, after, having been consecrated by the priests, was given to the people to eat as the flesh of Quetzalcoatl, much to the surprise and horror of the first Spanish missionaries, who ascribed it to mockery of their holy eucharist due to Satan.

XII--THE EUCHARIST.

The primal origin of the eucharist probably occurred far back in the period of universal anthropophagy. Most savage and semi-savage peoples have practiced cannibalism because they believed that by eating the flesh of the dead they gained the qualities of the deceased. Just as some Africans eat tiger to become brave, savages ate their courageous foes to attain their virtues. Following this same idea further, the belief was established that by consuming the flesh of a god, supernatural powers might be acquired. Thus the early Christian missionaries to the New World found such customs in Peru and Mexico.

Father Acosta described one of these festivals which occurred annually each May in Mexico, wherein the statue of a god was made of dough, and "killed" by an arrow in the hand of a priest. The god was then broken in pieces which by means of "certain ceremonies ... were blessed and consecrated for the flesh and bones of this idoll." These pieces the priest gave "to the people in manner of a communion who received it with such feare, and reverence, as it was an admirable thing, saying that they did eate the flesh and bones of God."

Likewise came the idea that sacrifices to the gods in some way attained godlike characteristics, and so the Guatemalan priests ate the bodies of the sacrificed.

The words of the modern Roman priest, "hoc est corpus meum," which are supposed, by some magical influence, to cause the actual transubstantiation in the celebration of the eucharist, remind one forcibly of the dotting of the memorial Chinese tablet by a mandarin, by which official act the spirit of the departed, to whom it is dedicated, is presumed to take up residence in the new abode.

As a logical deduction from a given hypothesis, any Roman priest is greater than the virgin. She conceived God but once, while the priest may through his mass create the body of the Christ whenever he so desires. Every time a priest performs this function he is the father of God.

However, in spite of the absurdity of the practice, to deprive the communion of the real presence is to make it a senseless and useless ceremony. While the communicants believe in the efficacy of the wafer as the actual body, there is reason for absorbing it, as they thus unite themselves with the actual spirit of the Christ. But the moment this dogma is rejected, the rite becomes futile, and nothing is more ridiculous than its perpetuation in the Protestant churches. The quibble that it is performed in memory of Jesus is a fallacy. In Unitarian churches it is an arrant absurdity (one that is retained in many cases simply because the old historical churches of that denomination have inherited fine old communion plate which is proudly displayed), and one can only respect and admire Ralph Waldo Emerson's stand in the matter, when he preferred to relinquish his remunerative and honorable pastorate in the Second Church of Boston (the only pulpit he ever filled) rather than celebrate this anachronistic and indefensible rite.

Jerome carried his reverence for the Eucharistic bread [1] so far that he considered that the table on which it was consecrated, together with the cloth in which it was wrapped, and the other utensils connected with its service, were to be worshiped with equal respect as that given the body and blood of the Savior. This theory led to the consecration of altars, which by a decree of the Council of Epaone, in 517, in imitation of the Jewish and pagan sacrificial altars, were ordered to be of stone, which material had been originally chosen as the most suitable material for the execution of the sacrifices, whose blood should flow over it, without danger of absorption.

Another of the ancient pagan ideas which took a strong hold upon Christianity and rose to an abnormal power during the middle ages was that of monasticism with its accompanying asceticism. There is scarcely a religion of ancient and modern times that does not recognize asceticism as an element of its system. Buddha taught his disciples a religion of abstinence, and, among the Buddhists, there are ordained and tonsured priests, living in monasteries under vows of celibacy, while there are similar asylums for women. Brahmanism also has its orders of ascetics and Hinduism has its fakirs. Fasting and self-denial were observances required by the Greeks of those who desired initiation into the mysteries; the Jews observed many fasts; and the Egyptian priests passed their novitiate in the deserts engaged in prayer and living in caves. Like many other Christian customs, the monastic habit probably came from Egypt, and it was considered by Gibbon to have had a potent influence on the fall of the western empire, in that it removed from active and useful life so many able-bodied men and women.

XIII.--SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY.

Having now shown that there is nothing new in Christianity; nothing in which it differs essentially from the older faiths; having shown that it brought no new ideas in its dogmas, practices, or morality, but a few words are necessary to explain its marvelous growth and rapid acceptance. Christianity grew so rapidly, and was adopted so readily in many parts of the world simply because it was so cosmopolitan and elastic. It went forth to proselyte in a very conciliatory manner, embracing and absorbing every deeply rooted theological idea and custom which obstructed its path, and, in every way, exerting itself to propitiate its converts. And it was not until it became strong and powerful and was well supported by fanatical adherents that it dared to assume the rôle of conqueror. Then, when the period of its strength was full, its tone changed and, strong in self-confidence, Christianity became militant and strode forth in armor to vanquish with the sword and fill the world with blood.

One of the reasons for the rapid acceptance of Christianity among the Romans and its remarkable growth in their dependencies was that for centuries the people had ceased to take their religion seriously. The vulgar masses, undoubtedly then as now, and at all times, unthinkingly swallowed all that was taught them of their deities, but the writings of cultivated men show clearly that for centuries the worship and reverence of their ancestral gods had but slight influence upon their ethical ideas.

Lucretius (95-52 B. C.), the exponent of the Epicurean doctrines, regarded the gods as the creations of human fear. Ennius (239-169 B. C.) translated and expounded the writings of Euhemerus (316 B. C.), wherein it was claimed that all the ancient myths were historical events, that the gods were originally kings who were accorded post mortem worship by their grateful subjects. The Stoics regarded the gods as personifications of the different attributes of nature. Cicero adopted the Platonic conception of the deity as mind freed from all taint of matter, while Ovid made the gods ridiculous in his mocking "Metamorphoses," and, in his lascivious descriptions of their amours, degraded them forever as ethical models. Horace likewise mocked them.

The glorious military conquests of the Roman arms in Asia and Africa brought the soldiers into contact with alien religions, and the germs instilled in the minds of the armies spread among all the peoples of Rome's domains, upon their return. Likewise the ever-increasing influx of foreigners, bringing with them their native gods and theological systems, had more or less influence, while the apotheoses of the emperors gave a powerful impetus to the degradation of the ancient faith.

The vulgar clung to their ancient shrines and the cultured sneered at them for so doing. They bent the knee in public and they laughed mockingly in private. In such a state was the religion of Rome when the first Christians began to proselyte; and on such fertile ground, amid the ruins of an ancient faith, the seed readily took root and rapidly spread out. Any other faith, supported by sturdy, conscientious and indomitable missionaries, would have done the same. The old faith was dead and the time was ripe for something new and vigorous.

As the civilized world was then under one powerful government, which allowed no political discord within its borders and which granted absolute religious freedom, the Christian missionaries could travel in safety from one province to another and, without fear of molestation, could propagate their doctrines among the people through the media of the Greek and Latin tongues, which were universal throughout the empire. Early Christianity was merely a sect of Judaism, and as the Jews were scattered all through the Roman provinces, every Jewish settlement having its synagogue which the Christian missionaries visited in order to preach their message, "the new religion, which was undertaken in the name of the God of Abraham, and Moses, found a sphere already prepared for itself." The new sect was naturally welcomed by the Roman Jews, as it was a purely national religion, founded upon the teachings of a Jewish peasant for the Jewish people. There is nothing in the gospels which portrays Jesus as anything other than a prophet to his own nation. While his moral doctrines, like all ethical principles, are applicable to all races, he was ignorant of all peoples save his own, and it was to them alone that he preached, proclaiming his messiahship for them only. He was content to remain within the boundaries of his own country and expressed no wish nor desire to visit other lands. Had it remained as Jesus desired, Christianity would never have been separated from Judaism. It was owing to the direct disobedience of Peter and Paul in this particular, that Christianity spread among the gentiles (Acts xiv, 46). In sending forth his apostles to preach his mission, Jesus commanded, "Go not into the way of the gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matt. x, 5-6). When appealed to by the Canaanite woman, he said, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matt. xv, 24). It was to the Jews that he spoke when he said, "Ye are the salt of the earth" (Matt. v. 13). "Ye are the light of the world" (Matt. v, 14). It was in reference to the twelve tribes of Israel that he so numbered his apostles (Matt. xix, 28). And it was of his compatriots that he thought when prophesying his resurrection, "Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of Man be come" (Matt. x, 23). There is no thought of a universal mission in all this. His mission and sacrifice were for his own nation, and, as Paul writes to Titus, he "gave himself that he might purify unto himself a peculiar people" (Tit. ii, 14).

Thinking probably of the political strife which his messiahship would cause, Jesus said, "I came not to bring peace, but a sword" (Matt. x, 34), in which remark he was a truer prophet than the heavenly host that sang at his birth "on earth peace, good will toward men" (Luke ii, 14). "The Church of Rome has shed more innocent blood than any other institution that ever existed among mankind," says Lecky in his "Rationalism in Europe" (vol. ii, p. 40). The Holy Office in Spain burned over 31,000 persons and condemned to punishment hardly less severe 290,000. During the reign of Charles the Fifth 50,000 heretics were executed in the Netherlands and on February 16, 1508, the Holy Office condemned all the inhabitants, numbering 3,000,000 of people, to death as heretics, and Philip the Second confirmed the decree and ordered its instant execution.

The whole history of Christianity, in all its forms, reeks with blood and smells to heaven with carrion. In the first centuries Christians persecuted pagans or, divided among themselves, persecuted each other as heretics. Later arose the feuds of orthodox and Arian, then came a united Christendom against Islam, followed by Protestant wars. In these Catholics murdered, pillaged, and devastated Protestants and burned and tortured them as heretics by ecclesiastical tribunals; Protestants persecuted and executed Catholics and, divided among themselves, persecuted one another. In the sixteenth century Anglican Episcopalians persecuted Catholics and Nonconformists. In the seventeenth century Puritans persecuted Catholics, Episcopalians, and Quakers, and so on. The whole history of this religion is a long narration of blasphemous and degrading theories propagated by violence, hypocrisy and crime. Christian charity is a delusion which is found only among the persecuted, who, the instant the scale turns, become the ruling faction, forget its meaning, and hasten to avenge their sufferings in persecutions. No other religion has so bloody a history as Christianity. The old heathen religions went calmly on their way, indifferent to one another and showing the most perfect toleration. Rival gods of rival nations were worshiped in temples side by side, without conflict or ill feeling. Buddhists and Brahmins mildly flourish in proximity. But Christians who believe that the Christ was sacrificed for love of humanity, that their gospel is one of love, peace, and good will, vie with one another to outstrip the ferocity of wild beasts.

While many students believe that Jesus was a purely mythical being, without actual existence save in the brains of religious Christians, I see no reason to doubt that a certain Jewish rabbi may have come out of the rebellious province of Galilee about the time of Herod. Such messiahs had come before him and such have succeeded him. Some of the messiahs subsequent to Jesus were: one who appeared in Persia in 1138, another in Arabia in 1167, and one in Moravia at the close of the twelfth century. Eldavid proclaimed himself messiah in Persia in 1199, Sabathai Tzevi assumed the title of "King of Kings" in 1666 and was executed at Constantinople by the Sultan. So late as 1829 there appeared in India the eight-year-old son of a peasant who was a wonderful serpent charmer and was called Marayum Powar. It was an ancient belief that the ability to handle serpents unharmed was a proof that one had become perfectly holy--absorbed in God! Therefore, numerous people came to believe Powar a god and in ten months ten thousand followers were about him, baptizing and performing miraculous cures--and his cult seemed well on the road to establishment when, over-confident of his power, he was bitten by a serpent and died. His followers, after vainly awaiting his resurrection, dispersed.

That Jesus' whole career is lost in encircling myth is no proof that the original figure never existed. There is plenty of historical evidence to show that the central portion of Europe was once ruled by a king named Karl, and we do not doubt this simply because a great cloud of myths has been gathered about the name of St. Charlemagne, any more than we feel bound to believe that because he once lived he must now necessarily exist, sleeping in a mountain, until it shall be necessary for him to spring forth and save the German fatherland.

One set of students assert that the Christ was merely the personification of vegetable life, claiming that his death and resurrection typify the death and revivification of vegetation. Others hold that he is the modern phase of the eternal sun-god. To sustain this hypothesis the following allegorical interpretation of his supposed career is offered as an explanation. He was born on the early dawn of the twenty-fifth day of December, the day on which commences the sun's apparent revolution around the earth; his birth was announced by the brilliant morning star; his virgin mother was the pure and beautiful dawn; his temptation was his struggle with the adverse clouds which he dispersed; his trial, execution, and death were emblematic of the solar decline and crucifixion at the beginning of winter; his descent into hell was typical of the three days of the winter solstice; and his resurrection and ascension refer to the return of the sun after its seeming extinction.

I have now shown that among the great majority of the nations of antiquity, no matter as to how they may have differed in the details, all held one general idea of faith in a savior-mediator between man and the supreme deity. Some such medium seemed necessary to them, for they had not reached that intellectual plane on which one feels able to hold direct communication with the creator. Modern Christianity, in all its forms, still panders to this ancient superstition that man must needs have an agent between himself and his God. He must have an intercessor between his weakness and God's power--and vengeance.

But when the human mind is freed from superstition and men learn that right living and a clean ethical code is all that is required, then they will cease to bow, either physically or mentally, to any humanly invented mediator, and their enlarged ideas of the justice of the supreme deity will prohibit any belief in impossible demi-gods. However, for the majority, that happy time of emancipation is still in the distant future, and, until its dawn lightens the general intelligence, men will continue to adore and supplicate the mediator whom inheritance and environment have taught them to revere, as Krishna, Buddha, Mithras, or the Christ, as the case may be.

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NOTE

[1] The use of unleavened bread by the Greek church caused great disputes between it and the Latin in the eleventh century, but the latter finally accepted it on the argument that as the Christ instituted the supper during the passover, he must have used it, as there was no leaven procurable at that time.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Christian Mythology, by Brigham Leatherbee