Bismika Alllahuma

Des auteurs suppose unwarrantably le de Christian que les dieux incarnés et les sauveurs crucifiés des religions païennes étaient tous les ou seuls caractères fabuleux, ou les êtres humains ordinaires ont investi avec des titres divins, et devinent des attributs ; tandis que, d'une part, la prétention est mise en avant avec la hardiesse égale que Jésus le Christ était une vraie personnalité divine, « vu et cru dessus en monde, et finalement crucifié sur le calvaire de bâti. »

Mais nous ne trouvons pas les faits dans l'histoire pour justifier des telles prétentions ou des telles distinctions. Ils tout le stand à ces égards sur la même terre et sur la pose égale.

Et leurs disciples respectifs se dirigent au même genre d'évidence pour prouver leur vraie existence et leur caractère divin, et pour montrer qu'ils ont par le passé marché et ont parlé parmi les hommes, comme se reposent maintenant sur le trône éternel dans le ciel « à la main droite du père. » Et nous trouvons même les auteurs chrétiens admettre l'existence une fois véritable ou personnelle sur terre de la plupart des sauveurs païens.¹

Quant au chef deux les dieux incarnés de l'Inde - du Chrishna et du Sakia - là n'est à peine « une cheville est partie pour accrocher un doute sur » quant au fait du leur étant descendu à la terre, pris sur lui-même la forme des hommes, et ayant été adoré en tant que véritables dieux.

En effet, nous croyons mais peu des missionnaires qui ont visité cette question de pays le rapport et la croyance générale répandus là de leur réalité une fois personnelle. Colonne Todd, dans le sien Histoire du Rajahs (P. 44), indique :

« Nous devons jeter l'idée que le Mahabaret, l'histoire de Rama, de Chrishna, et les cinq frères de Padoue sont de seules allégories ; les figures colossales, les temples antiques, et les cavernes inscrites avec des caractères pourtant inconnu, confirment la réalité, et leur course, leurs villes, et leurs pièces de monnaie pourtant existent. »

Discuter en outre la réalité personnelle de ce Dieu crucifié serait un gaspillage de mots, comme il est généralement admis, par les auteurs et les missionnaires historiques.

M. Higgins déclare, « Chrishna a vécu à la conclusion de l'âge d'airain, qui est calculé pour avoir été onze cent ou douze cent ans avant le Christ. » Voici une déclaration très positive et spécifique quant à sa réalité réelle. Colonne Dow, Mr, Robinson, and others use similar language.

Relative to Bacchus, of whose history many writers have spoken as being wholly fabulous or fictitious, Diodorus Siculus says (lib. iii. p. 137), “the Libyans claim Bacchus, and say that he was the son of Ammon, a king of Libya; that he built a temple to his father, Amraon.” And that world-wide famous historian (Mr. Goodrich) is still more explicit, if possible, as to his material entity. After giving it directly as his opinion that there was such a being, he says, “He planted vine-yards and fig-trees, and erected many noble cities.” He moreover tells us, “His skill in legislation and agriculture is much praised” (p. 499).

With respect to Osiris of Egypt, another God-Savior, Mr. Hittle declares unqualifiedly that “Herodotus saw the tomb of Osiris, at Sais nearly five centuries before Christ” (vol. i.p. 246). Rather a strong evidence of his previous personality certainly, but not more so than that furnished by the New York, Journal of Commerce a few years since, relative to the Egyptian Apis or Thulis, whose theophany was annually celebrated, at the rising of the Nile, with great festivities and devotion, several thousand years ago. The Paris correspondent of that journal, after speaking of Mr. Auguste Marietta’s travels, “a distinguished scientific gentleman who for four years past had been employed by the French Government in making Egyptian researches,” having returned home, says, “The most important of Mr. Marietta’s discoveries was the tomb of Apis (Thulis), a monument excavated entirely in lime-rock. “There are (he says in conclusion) epitaphs, forming a chronological record of each of the Apis buried in the common tomb. The sculpture is of the date of the Pyramids, and the statues are in the best state of preservation; the colors are perfectly bright. The execution is admirable, and they convey an exact idea of the physical character of the primitive population.”

The New American Cyclopedia (art. Apis) in speaking of this Egyptian God, tells us his lifetime was twenty-five years; in harmony with one of the theologics-astronomical cycles of the Egyptians. The same work and volume (p. 132), in speaking of the real existence of Adonis of Greece, tells us, upon the authority of the poet Panyasis, that he was a veritable son of Theias, king of Syria.

But of all the characters who figured in the mythological works or lawless rhapsodies of the ancients, and worshiped by them as crucified Gods and sin-atoning Saviors, none has, perhaps, been so indubitably, so positively, and so universally set down as mythological or fabulous as that of Prometheus of Caucasus.

And yet Mr. Lempriere, D.D., tells us in his Classical Dictionary that he was the son of Japetus. Sir Isaac Newton say he was a descendant of the famous African Sesostris; while that erudite and masterly historian (Mr. Higgins) seems to have entertained no doubt of his personal esse; nor, indeed, of many, if any, of the pagan Saviors, as the following declaration will show. He says,

“Finding men in India and other countries of the same name of the inferior Gods (as it is quite common to name men for them) has led some to conclude that those deified men never existed, but are merely mythological names of the sun. True, the first supreme God of every nation (not excepting the Jews) was the sun. But more modernly the names were transferred to men.”

Again, he says,

“Inasmuch as some of them are found to have been real bona fide human beings, there is nothing unreasonable in concluding that all were.”

And if we take into consideration the true and indisputable fact that the priests had everything at their disposal, and the strongest motives for concealing and suppressing, not to say garbling and destroying evidence, it is not to be wondered at that the histories of some of these Gods should be somewhat obscure and ambiguous. Further on he declares,

“In every case the Savior was incarnate, and in nearly every case the place in which he was actually born was exhibited to the people.”

And upon the authority of the Hierophant, we will add, the memories of many of them have been consecrated and perpetuated by tombs placed beside their temples, which is perhaps the most convincing species of evidence that could be offered.

The evidence, then, is precisely of the same character as that offered in the case of Jesus Christ to prove that the pagan Saviors did really possess a substantial, earthly and bodily existence. Though it is true that it never has been universally conceded or believed by Christian themselves that Jesus Christ ever had a personal or corporeal existence on earth.

Cotilenius, in a note on Ignatius, Epistle to the Trallians, written in the third century of the Christian era, declares that “it is as absurd to deny the doctrine which taught that Jesus Christ’s body was a phantom as to deny that the sun shone at midday.” His physical body of course was meant, for it appears he believed in his eternal existence as a spirit in heaven.

And we find whole sects advocating similar views in the early ages of the Christian church. “One of the most primitive and learned sects,” says a writer, “were the Manicheans, who denied that Jesus Christ ever existed in flesh and blood, but believed him to be a God in spirit only; others denied him to be a God, but believed him to have been a prophet, or inspired character, like the Unitarians of the present day. Some denied his crucifixion, others asserted it.

It is more than probable that this was the cause of dispute between Paul and Barnabas, mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, seeing that Paul had laid such peculiar emphasis on “Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

And this conclusion is corroborated by its being expressly stated in the Gospel of Barnabas that “Jesus Christ was not crucified, but was carried to heaven by four angels.” “There was a long list,” says the same writer, “from the earliest times, of sincere Christians who denied that Jesus Christ rose from the dead;” while, as we may remark here, there could not have been at that early date any grounds for denying these things, had he really figured in the world in the miraculous and extraordinary and public manner as that related in the Gospels.

1. Kersey Graves, The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviors, Chapter 15, “The Saviors Were Real Personages” [back]