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brity, and gravely says, that " It can produce no pleasing impression on a Christian's mind to be told, that an admired painting of the crucifixion was made chiefly from the body of an executed murderer (!), or that, for a praised representation of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the painter had deemed his own physiognomy the most befitting for the principal figure, while he copied the portrait of a noted modern sceptic as a specimen of the bad men-of an equally noted believer as a specimen of the good,-while wives, cousins, acquaintances, and old clothes men, served to make up the remaining groups," What a pity the apostles did not look to this, and, as they had the gift of tongues and the power of the holyghost upon them, have taken care to leave us a correct portrait, and thereby rendered it unnecessary for orthodox artists to look out for an executed murderer (as the above Christian writer asserts) in order to find a set of features to convey his idea of Christ nailed upon the cross !!

Again, Hercules is represented as strong and nervous, with an aquiline nose, dark, glossy hair, and showing signs of the most robust health. He was styled the universal benefactor of the world— so was Christ; the one was invested with the skin of the lion, the emblem of the solstitial lion, or lion of the constellations, and Christ took that of the equinoxial lamb, or the lamb of spring, which repairs the evil of the world; but the god Sun will not escape us under this flimsy disguise, and the lion of the tribe of Judah will be no less the Sun, which has its domicile at the sign of the celestial lion, and its exaltation in that of the lamb or ram of spring. This, no Christian will have the rashness to deny, after having read the account of ancient festivals published in the two following Letters, where the truth is established that the god of the Christian sect is the star which regenerates nature every year at the moment of the celebration of Easter.

Who after having compared the ancient calendar with the fabled works of Hercules, will care one straw what is said by historians about the existence of a valiant hero called Hercules; in vain will people shew in Italy, in Greece, in Egypt, or in Phenecia, towns that he had founded, canals that he formed, rocks that he had separated, columns that he had raised, or the stones which Jupiter is said to have thrown from heaven to assist him in his conflict against the Liguriens,-in vain will the temples, the statues, the

*In his "Elements of Physics," part 1, page 218, vol. 2.

1833

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altars, the fêtes, the solemn sports, the hymns, the sacred traditions spread over half the world, be referred to as proofs that he really existed; the comparison of the reputed actions of a man called Hercules, with the ancient calender, will scatter such flimsy evidence to the wind. We have in our possession a copy of this curious calendar, and shall publish it in a future number, when every reader will be enabled to judge for himself, and see to what point it harmonises with the poetic fiction. There is not, we feel assured, a single Christian reader who, after comparing the calendar with the fictional history, will not exclaim-"Well, it is clear, all that has been written about the wonderful Greek prince, called Hereules, is mere fiction, and relates to the Sun;" but how will those same Christian readers be startled, but we hope not dismayed, to find, that what is written about Christ is equally a poetic fiction-that Christ no more existed than did Hercules,-that, in fact, Christ has been worshipped ever since men worshipped the Sun-that himself and his twelve apostles, the chief of whom has all the attributes of Janus, bear a relation, or rather, owe their existence to the Sun and the signs of the zodiac through which it annually passes. It will be idle for Christians to declare that the tomb of Christ is to be seen even now at Jerusalem; so may that of Hercules be seen at Cadiz; and those of Bacchus and Jupiter in Greece; and if, as historians tell us, Christ was born at Jerusalem, they with equal plausibility inform us that Hercules was born at Thebes, as well as Bacchus, son of Semele, an ancient hero, who, on account of his glorious conquests, was placed in the rank of the gods. Again we repeat that in former times it was customary to write the history of nature and its phenomena, as we now write that of men; and that the Sun was everywhere the hero of these marvellous romances. If the reader admit this truth, he will also, without difficulty, admit our explanation of the solar legend, known among the Christians under the name of the life of Christ,-which is but one of a thousand names for the Sun, whatever may be the opinion of his worshippers.

In every nation the credulous and the knowing shew the tombs of their great and little gods to the generally incredulous traveller; everywhere are fêtes celebrated, and doleful lamentations uttered, the end of which seemed to be the renewal, every year, of the sorrow the loss of their gods had occasioned.

London: H. Hetherington; A. Heywood, Manchester; and all Booksellers. J. Taylor, Printer, 29, Smallbrook Street, Birmingham.

EXISTENCE OF CHRIST

AS A HUMAN BEING,

DISPROVED!

BY IRRESISTIBLE EVIDENCE, IN A SERIES OF LETTERS,

FROM A GERMAN JEW,

ADDRESSED TO CHRISTIANS OF ALL DENOMINATIONS.

LETTER 11.

WEEKLY.

ONE PENNY.

"I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel. Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the Lord, and besides me there is no Saviour."-ISAIAH XLIII. 3, 10, 11.

CHRISTIANS,

Herodotus, the celebrated Greek historian, who had travelled long in Egypt, carefully collecting the sacred traditions of that ancient nation, and made himself familiar with the rites, ceremonies, manners, and customs of that learned people, assures us that not merely was Osiris (or the Sun honoured under that name) worshipped by the Egyptians as a living God (the same Deity as that to which temples and alters were raised in Greece under the name of Bacchus), but that they likewise appropriated to themselves all the other gods worshipped upon the soil of Egypt, and faithfully copied their forms, ceremonies, fêtes, and mysteries; in short, the superstitions of Egypt were transplanted to Greece, from Greece to Rome, and are now spread over all Europe. The spirit of imitation is national, as well as individual; and we find in Herodotus that if Egypt had its initiations, known under the name of mysteries of Osiris and of Isis, the Greeks had also theirs under the name of Bacchus; a short account of which mysteries may be useful and instructive-useful as shewing the causes why certain days were set apart as festivals (for the mysteries were festivals of a splendid character)—and instructive as proving that in the early ages of the world all festivals owed their existence to the appearance of some remarkable natural phenomena.

The mysteries of Eleusis were celebrated with much magnificence by the Roman people; and the great orator Cicero, one of the noblest of men, speaks of them as fêtes most useful to humanity, for, observes he, "their effect has been to civilize societies, soften men's hearts, and humanize their manners, making men who would else be savage and ferocious, civilized-penetrates them with a love of their fellow-creatures, and leads them to a knowledge of the true moral principles, which can alone lead men to those practices which are worthy of them." So thought Cicero; and such was the opinion of the greatest philosophers of his time, who gave currency to the fable that Orpheus, whose delicious music subdued the cruel rage of lions and tigers, and touched the sensibilities of trees and rocks by the harmonious accents of his lyre, was the god who first carried into Greece the mysteries of Bacchus,-and as the mysteries had for their end the support of social order, justice, and religion, in the system of those who only hoped to support the one by the other, Orpheus received much of honour. This double end is enclosed in the verse of Virgil,

"Learn of me to respect justice and the gods."

7

And such was the grand lesson given by the priest to those who were initiated and allowed the privilege of taking part in the mysteries. Modern festivals and rejoicings are all of a meagre character. Our Christmas and our Easter fêtes, and our May-day sports are fast sinking into oblivion, and people are travelling towards the conviction that no one day is more holy or preferable to another; but it was not so with the ancients, who imprinted a supernatural character upon their legislation; and in their religious temples the people were taught the duty they owed to each other, and their duty to the gods. Mythological poetry furnished to the legislators of those times the subject of scenes as astonishing as varied-as interesting as magnificent, which dazzled the eyes of all beholders. In the temples of Egypt, of Asia, and of Greece, all that illusion could effect-all the resources of mechanism and of magic (which is nothing more than the knowledge of the secret effects of nature, and the mastery of that art which enables us to imitate them), the brilliant pomp of the fêtes, the variety and splendour of the decorations, the rich vestments, the majesty of the ceremonial, the grace of those who took part, the enchanting force of the music, the chorus, the songs, the dances, all imitative of the motions of the planets, the sound of the symbols, so well calculated to excite en

thusiasm, and even delirium, always more favourable to such religions than the calmness and placidity of reason,-all these were employed to draw and attach the people to the celebration of the mysteries under the mask of a not-to-be resisted pleasure; the joy and the dance concealed the design that the honest priests had to give useful lessons, they treating the people as children that we never instruct half so well as when we seem to have no other object in view than to amuse them. Upon these grand occasions not only was the universe exposed to the view of the initiated, under the form of an egg, but the principal divisions of nature were traced thereupon, and an explanation given of the cause active and the cause passive, into which they divided all causation,-likewise explaining the two principles of light and of darkness, of good and of evil. In some of their mysteries they exposed the generative organs of the two sexes. It was the same with the Indians, who had their Lingam ; but space forbids us to pursue this truly interesting subject further at present, than to say that Herodotus writes at some length respecting the similitude between the ceremonial of the Phallepore, or the Festival of Generation, which was formerly celebrated with much pomp in Egypt in honour of Osiris, and that in Greece in honour of Bacchus. That the people called Phoenecians, Indians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, and others, had at stated seasons ceremonies, fêtes, sometimes joyful, sometimes full of lamentations, in honour of their gods, is now matter of common knowledge; but that all modern fêtes, rejoicings, feastings, and lamentations, were borrowed from the ancients, and had one only source, is not so generally known. The April fooleries are fast going out of fashion. The ancients had many rites and ceremonies in honour of their gods. The Romans kept their Saturnalia in honour of Saturn, beginning on the 17th of December, which lasted during five days. Bocharius is of opinion, that they took their origin from Noah's drunkenness. These were times when all business ceased, except cooking; when servants might command their masters, and slaves become unruly without fear of punishment. The Bacchanalia, or feats in honour of Bacchus, lasted three days, and commenced after the vine harvests, and then drunkenness was the privilege of all. The Stultinaria were confined to one day, the 1st of April, when the idiots had their annual holiday, and when children were encouraged to make derision of them, and send them on needless errands, &c. Some writers are of opinion that the Romans had much policy in allow

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