Gee Christine I have so many little tid bits:
researches into oriental history reveal the remarkable fact that stories
of incarnate Gods answering to and resembling the miraculous character
of Jesus Christ have been prevalent in most if not all the principal religions
heathen nations of antiquity; and the accounts and narrations of some of
these deific incarnations bear such a striking resemblance to that of the
Christian Savior -- not only in their general features, but in some cases in
the most minute details, from the legend of the immaculate conception to
that of the crucifixion, and subsequent ascension into heaven -- that one
might almost be mistaken for the other.
More than twenty claims of this kind -- claims of beings invested with
divine honor (deified) -- have come forward and presented themselves at
the bar of the world with their credentials, to contest the verdict of
Christendom, in having proclaimed Jesus Christ, "the only son, and sent
of God:" twenty Messiahs, Saviors, and Sons of God, according to
history or tradition, have, in past times, descended from heaven, and
taken upon themselves the form of men, clothing themselves with human
flesh, and furnishing incontestable evidence of a divine origin, by various
miracles, marvelous works, and superlative virtues; and finally these
twenty Jesus Christs (accepting their character for the name) laid the
foundation for the salvation of the world, and ascended back to heaven.
1.Chrishna of Hindostan.
2.Budha Sakia of India.
3.Salivahana of Bermuda.
4.Zulis, or Zhule, also Osiris and Orus, of Egypt.
5.Odin of the Scaudinavians.
6.Crite of Chaldea.
7.Zoroaster and Mithra of Persia.
8.Baal and Taut, "the only Begotten of God," of Phenicia.
9.Indra of Thibet.
10.Bali of Afghanistan.
11.Jao of Nepaul.
12.Wittoba of the Bilingonese.
13.Thammuz of Syria.
14.Atys of Phrygia.
15.Xaniolxis of Thrace.
16.Zoar of the Bonzes.
17.Adad of Assyria.
18.Deva Tat, and Sammonocadam of Siam.
19.Alcides of Thebes.
20.Mikado of the Sintoos.
21.Beddru of Japan.
22.Hesus or Eros, and Bremrillah, of the Druids.
23.Thor, son of Odin, of the Gauls.
24.Cadmus of Greece.
25.Hil and Feta of the Mandaites.
26.Gentaut and Quexalcote of Mexico.
27.Universal Monarch of the Sibyls.
28.Ischy of the Island of Formosa.
29.Divine Teacher of Plato.
30.Holy One of Xaca.
31.Fohi and Tien of China.
32.Adonis, son of the virgin Io of Greece.
33.IxiOn and Quirinus of Rome.
34.Prometheus of Caucasus.
35.Mohamud, or Mahomet, of Arabia.
These have all received divine honors, have nearly all been worshiped as
Gods, or sons of God; were mostly incarnated as Christs, Saviors,
Messiahs, or Mediators; not a few of them were reputedly born of
virgins; some of them filling a character almost identical with that ascribed
by the Christian's bible to Jesus Christ; many of them, like him, are
reported to have been crucified; and all of them, taken together, furnish a
prototype and parallel for nearly every important incident and
wonder-inciting miracle, doctrine and precept recorded in the New
Testament, of the Christian's Savior. Surely, with so many Saviors the
world cannot, or should not, be lost.
We have now presented before us a two-fold ground for doubting and
disputing the claims put forth by the Christian world in behalf of "Our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." In the first place, allowing the question to
be answered in the affirmative as to whether he was really a Savior, or
supernatural being, or more than a mere man, a negative answer to which
seems to have been sprung (as previously intimated) at the very hour of
his birth, and that by his kindred, his own nearest relatives; as it is
declared, "his own brethren did not believe on him" -- a skepticism which
has been growing deeper and broader from that day to this.
And now, upon the heel of this question, we find another formidable
query to be met and answered, viz.: Was he (Christ) the only Savior,
seeing that a multitude of similar claims are now upon our council-board
to be disposed of?
We shall, however, leave the theologians of the various religious schools
to adjust and settle this difficulty among themselves. We shall leave them
to settle the question as best they can as to whether Jesus Christ was the
only son and sent of God -- "the only begotten of the Father," as John
declares him to be (John i. 14) -- in view of the fact that long prior to his
time various personages, in different nations, were invested with the title
"Son of God," and have left behind them similar proofs and credentials of
the justness of their claims to such a title, if being essentially alike -- as we
shall prove and demonstrate them to be -- can make their claims similar.
We shall present an array of facts and historical proofs, drawn from
numerous histories and the Holy Scriptures and bibles appertaining to
these various Saviors, and which include a history of their lives and
doctrines, that will go to show that in nearly all their leading features, and
mostly even in their details, they are strikingly similar.
A comparison, or parallel view, extended through their sacred histories,
so as to include an exhibition presented in parallels of the teachings of
their respective bibles, would make it clearly manifest that, with respect to
nearly every important thought, deed, word, action, doctrine, principle,
receipt, tenet, ritual, ordinance or ceremony, and even the various
important characters or personages, who figure in their religious dramas
as Saviors, prophets, apostles, angels, devils, demons, exalted or fallen
genii -- in a word, nearly every miraculous or marvelous story, moral
precept, or tenet of religious faith, noticed in either the Old or New
Testament Scriptures of Christendom -- from the Jewish cosmogony, or
story of creation in Genesis, to the last legendary tale in St. John's
"Arabian Nights" (alias the Apocalypse) -- there is to be found an
antitype for, or outline of, somewhere in the sacred records or bibles of
the oriental heathen nations, making equal if not higher pretention to a
divine emanation and divine inspiration, and admitted by all historians,
even the most orthodox, to be of much more ancient date; for while
Christians only claim, for the earthly advent of their Savior and the birth of
their religion, a period less than nineteen hundred years in the past, on the
contrary, most of the deific or divine incarnations of the heathen and their
respective religions are, by the concurrent and united verdict of all history,
assigned a date several hundred or several thousand years earlier, thus
leaving the inference patent that so far as there has been any borrowing or
transfer of materials from one system to another, Christianity has been the
borrower.
And as nearly the whole outline and constituent parts of the Christian
system are found scattered through these older systems, the query is at
once sprung as to whether Christianity did not derive its materials from
these sources -- that is from heathenism, instead of from high heaven --
as it claims. |
