Eliminator; 
 
 OR, 
 
 SKELETON KEYS 
 
 SACERDOTAL SECRETS. 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD B. WESTBROOK, D.D., LL.D., 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "THE BIBLE WHENCK AND WHAT?" " MAN WHENCE AND WHITHER?" 
 
 "GlRARD'S WILL AND GlRARD COLLEGE THEOLOGY," ETC. ETC. 
 
 Write me no more fables, lest I be a fool and read 
 the riddles awry. 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR 
 
 BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 1894.
 
 COPYKIGHT, 1892, BY RICHARD BRODHEAD WESTBROOK.
 
 \VW 
 
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 THE ELIMINATOR has now been before the public 
 nearly two years. I have seen nothing worthy of the 
 name of criticism respecting it. A few Unitarian 
 ministers have said that Christ must have been a per- 
 son instead of a personification, for the reason that men 
 could not have conceived of such a perfect character 
 without a living example, and that the great influence 
 exercised by him for so long a time, over so many 
 people, proves him to have been an historic character. 
 These arguments are anticipated and fully answered. 
 (See pp. 283, 284, 306.) 
 
 Our Unitarian friends are the greatest idealists upon 
 the globe ! They only accept the Gospel biography of 
 Jesus (and we have no other) just so far as the story 
 accords with what they think it ought to be. They 
 deny the immaculate conception and miraculous birth 
 of the Christ, and have very great doubts about his 
 crucifixion and resurrection. Their Christ is purely 
 ideal. The fact is that Christendom has worshipped 
 the literal Jesus for the ideal Christ for nearly twenty 
 centuries, though their conceptions of him have been 
 manifold and contradictory. No wonder that so many 
 intelligent Christian sects in the early ages of the 
 
 iii
 
 IV PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 church utterly denied the existence of Jesus as an his- 
 toric person. (See pp. 266, 267, 357.) But there is 
 indubitable evidence that this Christ character (called 
 by many Unitarians the "Universal Christ") was 
 mainly mythical, drawn from the astrological riddles of 
 the older Pagan mythologies. 
 
 In fact, almost everything in Christianity seems to 
 have been an afterthought. It is the least original of 
 any of the ten great religions of the world, and the 
 great mistake has been in making almost everything 
 literal which the wise men of ancient times regarded 
 as allegorical. This comes from the priestly attempt 
 to identify the Jewish Jesus with the Oriental Christ. 
 Tradition is, in fact, the main foundation of the Chris- 
 tian scheme, and cunning sacerdotal ists have done by 
 artifice what history, in fact, has failed to do. But for 
 its moral precepts and its "enthusiasm of humanity," 
 Christianity would not survive for a single century. 
 The so-called "Apostles' Creed". (which was not for- 
 mulated until centuries after the last Apostle slept in 
 the grave), and which is repeated in so many churches 
 every Sunday, has a greater number of historical and 
 theological misstatements than any other writing of 
 the same length now extant ! 
 
 There is in our day a general disposition to magnify 
 the virtues of the Christ of the New Testment, con- 
 nected with a proposition to unite all Christians in 
 his leadership. This device will not succeed, because 
 it is as impossible to found a perfect religion upon an 
 imperfect man as it is upon a fallible Book. Lovers
 
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. V 
 
 of the truth will show that the traditional Christ is not 
 a perfect model. (See Chapter xiii.) There is a most 
 significant sense in which it may be truthfully said : 
 " Never man spake like this man," as no great moral 
 teacher ever uttered so many things that needed to be 
 revised and explained ! 
 
 May it not be the fact that both Catholic and Prot- 
 estant Christians are under a great delusion as to the 
 facts of religion ? I think so. I believe so. I well 
 know how difficult it is to explode a delusion that is 
 nearly twenty centuries old, and that is supported by 
 a sacerdotalism of vast wealth and learning, and whose 
 votaries by " this craft have their wealth." 
 
 I nail these Theses to the church doors of all the 
 Catholics and Protestants in Christendom, and with 
 Martin Luther, at the Diet of Worms, I exclaim, 
 " Here I stand. I cannot move ! God help me !" 
 If I am mistaken, then my reason is at fault and all 
 history is a lie ! It is said that when Renan died, the 
 Pope inquired whether he had confessed before his de- 
 cease, and upon being told that he had not, replied, 
 " Well, then God will have to save him for his sin- 
 cerity !" I am ready to be judged on this ground. I 
 sum up my latest conclusions thus : The Jesus of the 
 Gospels is traditional, the Christ of the New Testa- 
 ment is mythical. 
 
 K. B. WESTBROOK. 
 
 1707 OXFORD STREET, 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 October 1, 1894.
 
 PEEFACE. 
 
 MANY things in this book will greatly shock, and 
 even give heartfelt pain to, numerous persons whom I 
 greatly respect. I have a large share of the love of 
 approbation, and naturally desire the good opinion of 
 those with whom I have been associated in a long life. 
 There is no pleasure in the fact that I have to stand 
 quite alone in the eyes of nearly all Christendom. 
 There is no satisfaction in being deemed a disturber 
 of the peace of the great majority of those " professing 
 and calling themselves Christians." But, at the same 
 time, I must not be indifferent in matters where I be- 
 lieve truth is concerned. 
 
 Before I withdrew from the orthodox ministry I used 
 to wonder why God in his gracious providence had not 
 seen fit to so order events as to give us a credible and 
 undoubted history of the incarnation and birth of his 
 Son Jesus Christ, and why that Saviour, who had come 
 to repair the great evils inflicted upon our race by 
 Adam, had never once mentioned that unfortunate fall. 
 
 I do not deny that there was a person named Jesus 
 nearly nineteen hundred years ago. I think there were 
 several persons bearing this name and who were con- 
 temporaneous, and that several of them were very good 
 
 3
 
 4 PREFACE. 
 
 men ; but that any one of them was such a person as is 
 described in the Gospels I cannot believe. I lay special 
 emphasis on the word SUCH. Admitting for the sake 
 of the argument the real, historical personality of Jesus 
 of Nazareth, he has by the process of idealization become 
 an impersonation, and I have so attempted to make it 
 appear ; and I cannot but think that this view is not 
 inconsistent with the most enlightened piety and re- 
 ligious devotion, while this explanation relieves us of 
 many things which are absurd and contradictory. 
 
 I desire to explain more fully than appears in the 
 Table of Contents the plan of this book. I first com- 
 bat the policy of suppression and deception, and insist 
 that the whole truth shall be published, and have 
 shown that sacerdotalism is responsible for the fact 
 that it has not been done. As so-called Christianity 
 is based upon Judaism, I undertake to show the fab- 
 ulous character of many of the claims of the Jews, 
 disclaiming all intention to asperse the character of 
 Israelites of the present generation. 
 
 I thought it proper in this connection to give the 
 substance of an open letter to the Chief-Justice of the 
 Supreme Court of Pennsylvania on Moses and the 
 Pentateuch to which His Honor never responded 
 showing that the " law of Sinai was not the first of 
 which we have any knowledge," and that Moses was 
 not "the greatest statesman and lawgiver the world 
 had ever produced," as the Chief-Justice had affirmed 
 in a lecture before the Law School of the University 
 of Pennsylvania.
 
 PREFACE. 5 
 
 Presenting brief views of the symbolic character of 
 the Old Testament, and showing how " Astral Keys " 
 unlock many Bible stories, I undertake to show that 
 the so-called fall of Adam is a fable, nothing more ; 
 and then, as the first Adam is shown to be a myth, I 
 go in search for the " last Adam" Finding no know- 
 ledge of such a person except in the New Testament, 
 I deem it necessary to briefly show the character of 
 this book, that it may be determined how far it should 
 be received as evidence in a matter of so much import- 
 ance. Then in five chapters, more or less connected, 
 I combat the idea of the historical, or rather tradi- 
 tional, Jesus, and follow with an examination of the 
 evangelical dogma of Blood-Salvation, and close with 
 a very brief summary of the Things that Remain as 
 the foundation of faith. 
 
 I do not expect caste clergymen to read this book 
 any farther than is necessary to denounce it. It is 
 their way of meeting questions like those herein dis- 
 cussed. I am prepared to have certain dilettanti sneer- 
 ingly say, " This book is of no critical value." They 
 are so accustomed to " scholarly essays " which " are 
 poetically sentimental and floridly vague" that they 
 have little respect for anything else. The book is 
 intended for the COMMON PEOPLE, and not for the 
 professional critics. 
 
 I do not expect everybody to agree with me, espe- 
 cially at first. Truth can afford to wait, and in years 
 to corne many points that I have made, which are now 
 so startling, will be calmly and intelligently accepted.
 
 6 PREFACE. 
 
 There are probably mistakes in the book mistakes in 
 names, in dates, and perhaps in facts ; but these will 
 not affect the main argument. No man knows every- 
 thing. Until recently it was never suspected by the 
 learned world that The Contemplative Life was not 
 written by Philo nearly nineteen centuries ago, instead 
 of being written by a monk in the third century of the 
 Christian era. Even Macatilay and Bancroft have 
 made mistakes, and so have many other authors of 
 good repute. 
 
 I have always tried to preserve a reverent spirit a 
 genuine respect for true religion and morality. I have 
 always been profoundly religious, and cannot remember 
 the time when I was not devout. But I do not believe 
 that it is ever proper " to do evil that good may come." 
 In this work I have sought only the truth, in the firm 
 conviction that superstition and falsehood cannot pro- 
 mote a course of right living, which is the object and 
 aim of all true religion. 
 
 I have a supreme disregard for literary fame. I 
 do not shrink from being called a compiler or even 
 a plagiarist. There is absolutely very little of real 
 originality in the world. I could have followed the 
 course of many writers and absorbed or assimilated, 
 and thus seemingly made my own what they had 
 written; but I have chosen to quote freely, and so 
 have substantially given the words of many authors of 
 repute, and at the same time saved myself the labor of 
 a re-coining, which does not, after all, deceive the 
 intelligent reader. The books from which I largely
 
 PREFACE. 7 
 
 quote are mainly voluminous and very expensive, and 
 some of them are out of print. I am indebted to the 
 learned foot-notes of Evan Powell Meredith in his prize 
 essay on The Prophet of Nazareth for several things, 
 and must not fail to acknowledge my obligations to 
 certain living authors for valuable assistance, and 
 especially to my friend Dr. Alexander Wilder, who 
 prepared at my request the substance of Chapter X., 
 The Drama of the Gospels, and who, in my judgment, 
 has few superiors in classical and Oriental literature. 
 
 I sympathize with those persons who will complain- 
 ingly exclaim, "You have taken away my Saviour, 
 and I know not where you have laid him." But sup- 
 pose that we do not need a Saviour in the evangelical 
 sense ? Suppose that man has not fallen, but that the 
 race has been rising these many centuries; and that 
 while we have mainly to save ourselves, all the good 
 and great men of all ages have aided us in the work of 
 salvation by what they have said and done and suffered, 
 so that instead of one savior we really have had many 
 saviors. I think that this view is more reasonable 
 and consoling than the commercial device of what 
 is called the " scheme of redemption," besides having 
 scientific facts to sustain it. 
 
 I have preserved on the title-page some of my 
 college degrees, to indicate my professional studies of 
 theology and law, and not from motives of pedantry. 
 
 E. B. WESTBKOOK. 
 1707 OXFORD STREET, 
 PHILADELPHIA.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE WHOLE TRUTH 9 
 
 II. SACERDOTALISM IMPEACHED 26 
 
 III. THE FABULOUS CLAIMS OF JUDAISM 51 
 
 IV. MOSES AND THE PENTATEUCH 95 
 
 V. ANCIENT SYMBOLISM AND MODERN LITERALISM . 122 
 
 VI. ASTRAL KEYS TO BIBLE STORIES 146 
 
 VII. THE FABLE OF THE FALL 165 
 
 VIII. SEARCH FOR THE "LAST ADAM" 190 
 
 IX. WHAT is KNOWN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT . . . 209 
 
 X. THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS 227 
 
 XI. THE IDEAL CHRIST 285 
 
 XII. JESUS AND OTHER CHRISTS 307 
 
 XIII. A KEVERENT CRITIQUE ON JESUS 327 
 
 XIV. A FEW FRAGMENTS 355 
 
 XV. BLOOD-SALVATION 377 
 
 XVI. THE THINGS THAT EEMAIN 414 
 
 8
 
 SKELETON KEYS 
 
 TO 
 
 SACERDOTAL SECRETS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 " For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither 
 hid that shall not be known. Therefore, whatsoever ye have spoken 
 in darkness, shall be heard in the light, and that which ye have 
 spoken in the ear, in closets, shall be proclaimed upon the house- 
 tops." LUKE 12 : 2, 3. 
 
 THE assumption is general that if the faith of the 
 common people should be unsettled as to some things 
 which they have heretofore been taught regarding re- 
 ligion, they would immediately reject all truth, and 
 fall into a most deplorable state of skepticism and in- 
 fidelity, and that the existing institutions of religion 
 would be destroyed, and public virtue so undermined 
 as to endanger the very foundations of morality and 
 civil government. This is not only the fear of con- 
 servative and timid clergymen, but many of our prom- 
 inent statesmen seem anxious lest the enlightenment 
 of the people in matters in which they have been 
 cruelly deceived should so weaken the restraints of 
 police and governmental authority as to result in uni-
 
 10 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 versal anarchy and a general disregard of the rights 
 of property, and even of the sacredness of human life. 
 
 These foolish fears show a great want of confidence 
 in human nature, and falsely assume that moral cha- 
 racter depends mainly upon an unquestioning faith in 
 certain dogmas which, in point of fact, have no neces- 
 sary connection with it. 
 
 The statistics of crime show that a very large major- 
 ity of those who have been seized by the strong arm 
 of the law as dangerous members of society are those 
 who most heartily believe in those very dogmas of 
 theology which we are warned not to criticise, though 
 we may know them to be accretions of ignorance and 
 superstition, and that some of them have a natural 
 tendency to fetter the essential principles of true re- 
 ligion and that higher code of morality which alone 
 can stand strong under all circumstances. It is safe 
 to affirm that ninety-nine hundredths of the criminal 
 class believe, or profess to believe, in the dogmas of 
 the dominant theology, Romish and Protestant ; which 
 are essentially the same. 
 
 It is too often forgotten that the very first condition 
 of good government is faith in human nature, con- 
 fidence in the people. You always excite dishonor and 
 dishonesty by treating men as if you think them all 
 rogues, and as if you expect nothing good from them, 
 but every conceivable evil, only as they may be re- 
 strained by the fear of pains and penalties in this life 
 and after death.
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 11 
 
 One great fundamental mistake of theologians and 
 dogmatic pietists is the baseless assumption that relig- 
 ion is something supernatural, not to say anti-natural ; 
 something external to human nature and of foreign 
 origin ; something to be received by transfusion as the 
 result or consequence of faith in certain dogmas or the 
 observance of external rites ; something bottled up by 
 the Church, like rare and precious medicines in an 
 apothecary-shop, to be dealt out to those who are will- 
 ing to follow priestly prescriptions and pay the re- 
 quired price. 
 
 The fact is, churches and scriptures and dogmas 
 are the outcome of that religious element which is in- 
 herent in human nature. It cannot be too often or too 
 strongly urged that the religious principle is innate and 
 ineradicable in mankind, and that you might as well 
 try to destroy man's love of the beautiful, his desire 
 for knowledge, his love of home and kindred, or even 
 his appetite for food, as to try to destroy it. It is as 
 natural to feel the want of religion as it is to be hun- 
 gry. You cannot destroy the foundations of religion. 
 They rest in nature and antedate all creeds and churches, 
 and will survive them. 
 
 Even Professor Tyndall says : " The facts of relig- 
 ious feeling are to me as certain as the facts of physics." 
 ..." The world will have religion of some kind.". . . 
 " You who have escaped from these religions into the 
 high and dry light of intellect may deride them, but in 
 doing so you deride accidents of form merely, and fail 
 to touch the immovable basis of the religious sentiment
 
 12 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 in the nature of man. To yield this sentiment reason- 
 able satisfaction is the problem of problems at this 
 hour." 
 
 Renan also writes thus : " All the symbols which 
 serve to give shape to the religious sentiment are im- 
 perfect, and their fate is to be one after another rejected. 
 But nothing is more remote from the truth than the 
 dream of those who seek to imagine a perfected human- 
 ity without religion." ..." Devotion is as natural as 
 egoism to a true-born man. The organization of de- 
 votion is religion. Let 110 one hope, therefore, to dis- 
 pense with religion or religious associations. Each 
 progression of modern society will render this want 
 more imperious." 
 
 We use the word religion as it was used by Cicero, 
 in the sense of scruple, implying the consciousness of a 
 natural obligation wholly irrespective of what one may 
 believe concerning the gods. Religion in its true mean- 
 ing is the great fact of duty, of oughtness, consisting in 
 an honest and persistent effort to realize ideal excellence 
 and to transform it into actual character and practical 
 life. Religion as a spirit and a life is objected to by 
 none, but is admired and commended by all. It is 
 superstition, bigotry, credulity, and dogma that are 
 detestable. The religious instinct has been perverted, 
 turned into wrong channels, made subservient to priest- 
 craft and kingcraft, but its basic principle remains for 
 ever firm. If it could have been destroyed, the machi- 
 nations of priests would have annihilated it long ago. 
 Give yourselves no anxiety about the corner-stone of
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 13 
 
 religion, but look well to the rotten superstructures 
 that have been reared upon it. Its professed friends 
 are often its real enemies. It is the false prophet 
 who is afraid to have his oracles subjected to tests 
 of reason and history. It is the evil-doer who is 
 afraid of the light, the conscious thief who objects to 
 being searched. An honest man would say, " Let the 
 truth be published, though the heavens fall." 
 
 The whole truth should be published, as a matter 
 of common honesty, if nothing more. We have no 
 moral right to conceal the truth, any more than we 
 have to proclaim falsehood. He who deliberately does 
 the on,e will not hesitate long about doing the other. 
 And this is one of the most serious aspects of this sub- 
 ject. He who can bring himself to practise deceit re- 
 garding religion will soon be a villain at heart, even 
 if worldly prudence is strong enough to keep him out 
 of the penitentiary. 
 
 As a rule, the unfaithful teacher inflicts a greater 
 evil upon his own soul than upon his unsuspecting 
 dupe. The deceiver is sure to be overtaken by his 
 own deceit. Mean men become more mean, and liars 
 come to believe their own oft-repeated falsehoods. 
 This principle may in part account for the fact that 
 in all ages dishonest, mercenary, designing priests have 
 been most corrupt citizens and ready tools in the hands 
 of tyrants to oppress and enslave the people. 
 
 Every deceptive act blunts the moral sense, defiles 
 and sears the conscience, until at last the hypocrite
 
 14 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 degenerates into a slimy, subtle human serpent that 
 always crawls upon its belly and eats dust. Secretive- 
 ness and deceitfulness become a second nature, and 
 show themselves continually even in the ordinary 
 affairs of life. The reflex influence of deception upon 
 the deceiver himself is its most bitter condemnation. 
 
 But modern preachers have a way of justifying their 
 evasions and prevarications by saying that even Jesus 
 himself withheld from his own disciples some things, 
 for the reason that they were " not able to bear them," 
 quite overlooking the fact that he is also reported to 
 have said, " When the Spirit of truth has come, he 
 will teach you all things," and that other passage 
 (Luke 12 : 2), where Jesus is represented as saying, 
 " For there is nothing covered that shall not be re- 
 vealed, neither hid that shall not be known. There- 
 fore, whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness, shall be 
 heard in the light, and that which ye have spoken in 
 the ear, in closets, shall be proclaimed upon the house- 
 tops." 
 
 If after eighteen hundred years of Christian teach- 
 ing the time has not yet come to proclaim the whole 
 truth, it is not likely to come for many ages in the 
 future. If religion is a mystery too great to be com- 
 prehended, too sacred for reverent but untrammelled 
 investigation, something that can only exist with a 
 blind, unreasoning credulity and the utter stultification 
 of the natural faculties of a true manhood, then relig- 
 ion is not worth what it costs and should be exposed 
 as a delusion and a snare.
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 15 
 
 The time for the religious Kabala has passed, and 
 ambiguities, concealments, and evasions are no longer 
 to be tolerated. Martin Luther builded better than 
 he knew when he proclaimed the right of private 
 judgment in matters of religion. It has taken two 
 hundred years for this fundamental principle to be- 
 come thoroughly accepted by the people ; but so firmly 
 is it now established that bigoted ecclesiastics might 
 as well attempt to resist the trend of an earthquake, 
 stop the rising of the sun, and turn the light of 
 noonday into the darkness of midnight as to attempt 
 to arrest the progress of a true religious rationalism. 
 The mad ravings of fanatics will have no more influ- 
 ence than the pope's bull had on the comet. Learn- 
 ing is no longer monopolized by a few monks and 
 ministers. For every five clergymen who are abreast 
 with the times, the progress of modern thought, and 
 the conclusions of science, there are fifty laymen who 
 are familiar with the writings of Humboldt, Dar- 
 win, Huxley, Spencer, Tyndall, and scores of other 
 scientists, to whom the world is more indebted for true 
 progress than to all the lazy monks and muttering 
 priests who have lived since the world began. The 
 fact is, the old delusion that men must look to the 
 sacerdotal class exclusively, or even mainly, for relig- 
 ious truth, has been for ever banished from the minds 
 of intelligent men. The literature of the day is full 
 of free thought and downright rationalism, and even 
 the secular newspaper is a missionary of religious 
 progress and reform, and brings stirring messages of
 
 16 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 
 
 intellectual progress every day to our breakfast-tables. 
 The world moves, and those who attempt to stop it are 
 sure to be crushed. 
 
 The pretence that anything is too sacred for investi- 
 gation and publication will not stand the light of this 
 wide-awake nineteenth century. 
 
 It is often said that the common people are not 
 ready for the whole truth. In 1873, Dr. J. G. Hol- 
 land, then editor of Scribner'a Monthly, wrote to Dr. 
 Augustus Blauvelt declining to publish an article on 
 " The Divine and Infallible Inspiration of the Bible," 
 and added, " I believe you are right. I should like to 
 speak your words to the world ; but if I do speak 
 them it will pretty certainly cost me my connection 
 with the magazine. This sacrifice I am willing to 
 make if duty requires it. I am afraid of nothing but 
 doing injury to the cause I love. ... In short, you 
 see that I sincerely doubt whether the Christian world 
 is ready for this article. . . . Instead of the theologians 
 the people would howl. ... I cannot yet carry my 
 audience in such a revolution. Perhaps I shall be able 
 to do so by and by, but as I look at it to-day it seems 
 impossible. . . . My dear friend, I believe in you. 
 You are in advance of your time. You have great 
 benefits in your hands for your time. You are free 
 and true. And I mourn sadly and in genuine distress 
 that I cannot speak your words with a tongue which 
 all my fellow-Christians can hear. They will not hear 
 them yet. They will some time. . . ." 
 
 Dr. Holland has passed away and cannot reply to
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 17 
 
 criticism. Let us be kind and charitable. He in- 
 tended to be right, but he was mistaken. The people 
 do not howl when the truth is published, even though 
 their prejudices may be aroused ; and no tedious prep- 
 aration is now necessary to be able to hear the whole 
 truth. The masses of the people are hungry for know- 
 ledge, and it is high time that they be honestly 
 fed. They now more than half suspect that they have 
 been deceived by those some of whom they have edu- 
 cated by their charities and liberally paid to teach them 
 the truth. When, in 1875, Scribner's Monthly did 
 publish Dr. Blauvelt's articles on "Modern Skepti- 
 cism," it was not the people that " howled." It was 
 the clergy. Some of them demanded a new editor ; 
 others warned the people from the pulpit not to pat- 
 ronize Scribner ; and one distinguished man declared 
 that the magazine must be " stamped out," and at once 
 organized a most powerful ecclesiastical combination 
 against the freedom of the press ; and yet the North 
 American Review and other similar magazines are to- 
 day doing more to settle long-mooted religious ques- 
 tions than all the pulpits in Christendom ; and the 
 people do not howl. No respectable enterprising pub- 
 lisher now hesitates to publish a book of real merit, 
 however much its doctrines may differ from the domi- 
 nant faiths. The masses of the people are determined 
 to know all that can be known of the history, philoso- 
 phy, and principles of religion ; and the greater the ef- 
 fort to conceal and suppress the truth the stronger will 
 be the demand for its full and undisguised proclamation.
 
 18 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 That there is a general drifting away from the old 
 formulas of religious doctrine everybody knows, and 
 yet there is more practical religion in the world to-day 
 than in any previous age. It does not consist in fast- 
 ings and attendance upon ecclesiastical rites and ordi- 
 nances ; but it takes the form of universal education, 
 of providing homes for friendless infancy and old age, 
 of the prevention of cruelty to children and even to 
 brute animals, of the more rational and humane treat- 
 ment of lunatics, paupers, and criminals, ameliorating 
 the miseries of prisons and hospitals, in short, of 
 elevating and improving the condition of universal 
 humanity. These truly religious works do not depend 
 upon any particular statement of religious belief, for 
 all sects and persons of no sect are equally engaged in 
 them. 
 
 Charities would not cease if all creeds should be 
 abandoned or should be so revised as not to be recog- 
 nized by the disciples of Calvin and Wesley, and if 
 every priest in the land should henceforth give up the 
 mummeries and puerilities of the Dark Ages. 
 
 Religion, as the " enthusiasm of humanity," the cul- 
 tivation of all the virtues, and the practice of the high- 
 est morality growing out of the inalienable rights of 
 man in all the relations of life, is a fixed fact. It is a 
 natural endowment, coeval with humanity in its devel- 
 opment and progress, and is as absolutely indestructible 
 as manhood itself. 
 
 So far from being true is the assumption that relig- 
 ion would be imperilled by the exposure of the false
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 19 
 
 dogmas of theology and the heathenish rites and super- 
 stitious ceremonies of ecclesiasticism, it is clear to many 
 minds that the myths of dogmatic theology and the 
 absurdities of primitive ages are the chief obstacles 
 in the way of the free course of true religion ; and it 
 may safely be affirmed that the distinguishing dogmas 
 of the dominant theology, Catholic and Protestant, as 
 will hereafter be shown, are essentially demoralizing 
 and logically tend to undermine and corrupt public 
 virtue. It is not intended to affirm that churches and 
 theologians do no good and that their entire influence 
 is bad. They teach much that is humane in principle 
 and moral in practice, and so do good for society. 
 Nevertheless, it is true that much of the rotten morality 
 of the times can be philosophically traced to the influ- 
 ence of a false theology. The main dogmas of Romish 
 and orthodox Protestant creeds are false, and it is 
 absurd to suppose that a pure system of public vir- 
 tue can be founded upon ignorance, superstition, and 
 falsehood. 
 
 But, after all, we are asked, Does it make any odds 
 what one believes if he is only sincere in his faith ? 
 
 The obvious answer is, that the more sincerely you 
 believe a lie the more dangerous is your faith. The 
 more trustfully you build upon a sandy foundation the 
 sooner and greater will be the fall and ruin of the 
 superstructure. The more implicitly you confide in 
 a dishonest partner or agent the more successful will 
 be his robbery. There is no safety in error and false- 
 hood. The Westminster divines well said, " Truth is
 
 20 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 in order to righteousness." There can be no true 
 righteousness inherent in a system of superstition and 
 falsehood. The failure of the Church to reach the 
 masses and to establish a condition of public honesty 
 superior to the ancient heathen morality shows that 
 there must be some serious defect in its methods. 
 
 But the crushing objection to theological agitation 
 and free discussion is the common one that " it is un- 
 wise to unsettle and destroy the faith of the people in 
 the dominant theology unless there is something better 
 to offer them as a substitute." 
 
 There is something better. Truth is always better 
 and safer than falsehood. In the discussions which are 
 to follow an attempt will be made to show that there 
 is a natural religion which accords with enlightened 
 reason, and which cannot fail to furnish a firm scientific 
 foundation for the highest morality. The common say- 
 ing, that " it is better to have a false religion than no 
 religion," contains two groundless assumptions viz. 
 that it is possible for a man to have no religion, and 
 that that which is false may be dignified with the name 
 religion. It is about time that things should be called 
 by their right names, and that superstition and false- 
 hood should not be deemed necessary to public morality. 
 
 For a religion (so called) of superstition and false- 
 hood there must be a religion of natural science that 
 cannot be overthrown, and which cannot fail to make 
 its way among men as knowledge shall increase and 
 the principles of true religious philosophy shall be
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 21 
 
 better understood. We should not be frightened at the 
 cowardly cry of "destructive criticism." We must 
 pull down before we can reconstruct. 
 
 CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 (1) To imitate the example of the early Christian 
 Fathers in fraud, falsehood, and forgery for the pro- 
 motion of religion is a policy that is too shocking to 
 the moral sense of civilized men everywhere to be 
 tolerated. To withhold or suppress the truth is a 
 crime against humanity and contrary to the spirit of 
 this age ; and those who do it are the enemies of prog- 
 ress and unworthy to be recognized as the authoritative 
 teachers of the world. 
 
 (2) Those who publish that which is false or suppress 
 what is true not only do a great wrong to the people, 
 but, if possible, do a greater wrong to their own souls, 
 and must suffer the consequences. They must have an 
 awful reckoning with eternal, retributive justice. 
 
 (3) It is a most egregious mistake to suppose that the 
 people cannot be trusted with the whole truth that 
 their sense of right is so dull and flimsy that on the 
 slightest discovery of the errors in which they have 
 been instructed from infancy they would lose confidence 
 in all truth and rightfulness and rush riotously to ruin. 
 If the people must be hoodwinked for ever, then the 
 distinguishing principle of the Protestant Reformation 
 and the basic principles of our American Declaration 
 of Independence and republican government are false 
 and delusive, and we should return to mediaeval times
 
 22 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 and to feudal and autocratic government in Church and 
 State. 
 
 (4) It is high time that men should see that dogma 
 is not religion ; that blind faith is more to be feared 
 than rational skepticism and scientific investigation ; 
 that whatever is opposed to reason and science in the- 
 ology can be spared, not only without any loss, but 
 greatly to the advantage of true religion and sound 
 morality. All the religion that is worth having is 
 natural and rational, and corresponds with the facts of 
 the universe as they are demonstrated by the crucibles 
 of science and the inductions of a sound philosophy. 
 The principal moral obligations of men grow out of 
 their relations to each other in life, and nothing can be 
 more complete than the Golden Rule, emphasized in 
 the Sermon on the Mount, but as clearly taught in the 
 Jewish Babylonian Talmud, and in the twenty-fourth 
 Maxim of the Chinese philosopher Confucius, and 
 many others centuries before the Christian era. 
 
 (5) Instead of loading down religion with Oriental 
 myths and fables, instead of a gorgeous ritualism and 
 surpliced priests, borrowed literally from the ancient 
 paganism, instead of dogmas and creeds and unques- 
 tioning faith and blind submission to ecclesiastical 
 dictation and rule, we want sound moral instruction in 
 the great fundamental truths of nature and of science, 
 which will always be found to strengthen and confirm 
 the principles of true religion. These are the sources 
 from which to gain light. We want less creed 
 and more ethical culture, less profession and parapher-
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 23 
 
 nalia in religious worship and more practical philosophy 
 and common sense. 
 
 (6) The man who in scientific matters would make 
 false representations and conceal _the real truth would 
 be deemed an impostor, and the time has come when 
 hypocrites and cowards in theology should be made to 
 feel their degradation and be forced into an open aban- 
 donment of " ways that are dark and tricks that are 
 vain." If we would scorn delusions in natural phil- 
 osophy, if we would correct errors in oceanic charts, 
 astronomical diagrams, and geographical maps, why 
 should we hesitate to correct the most egregious blun- 
 ders regarding those things which are infinitely more 
 important? Can we with any proper sense of pro- 
 priety and right connive at falsehood and uphold and 
 strengthen it by our silence and cowardly negligence in 
 failing to expose it ? Are not all delusions debasing 
 and opposed to the progress of truth and the elevation 
 of mankind ? In all the departments of human know- 
 ledge religion and morality are most imperative in their 
 demands for pure and unadulterated truth ; and he who 
 does not recognize this fact sins grievously against his 
 own soul, against the human family, and against the 
 truth and its eternal Author, the God of all truth. 
 
 (7) Finally, let it not be overlooked that it will not, 
 for many reasons, be possible much longer to keep the 
 people in ignorance, and to palm off upon them myths 
 for veritable history and a system of theology plainly 
 at variance with the conclusions of science, the facts of 
 history, and the spiritual and moral consciousness of
 
 24 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 every true and well-developed man. The schoolmaster 
 is abroad, and the spirit of fearless investigation is in 
 the air, and men will, sooner or later, find out what is 
 true; and when they come to understand how they 
 have been imposed upon by their cowardly teachers, a 
 fearful reaction will be the result ; and woe to the 
 hypocrite and time-server when that time comes ! It 
 is therefore not only good principle, but good policy, to 
 tell the whole truth now. The following copy of a 
 book-notice well describes the prevalent policy regard- 
 ing matters of faith : 
 
 " A theory of religious philosophy which is much 
 commoner among us than most of us think, but which 
 has never been expressed so fully or so attractively as 
 in the story of Marius. 
 
 " ' Submit/ it seems to say, ' to the religious order 
 about you, accept the common beliefs, or at least behave 
 as if you accepted them, and live habitually in the 
 atmosphere of feeling and sensation which they have 
 engendered and still engender ; surrender your feeling 
 while still maintaining the intellectual citadel intact ; 
 pray, weep, dream with the majority while you think 
 with the elect ; only so will you obtain from life all it 
 has to give, its most delicate flavor, its subtlest aroma.' " 
 
 O * ' 
 
 Against such a sham the writer heartily protests, as 
 against the villainous maxim, quoted from memory, 
 accredited to Aristotle : " Think with the sages and 
 philosophers, but talk like the common people." Come 
 what may, let us cease to profess what we have ceased 
 to believe.
 
 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 25 
 
 " The two learned people of the village," says Dr. 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes, telling of his fanciful Arrow- 
 head Village, " were the rector and the doctor. These 
 two worthies kept up the old controversy between the 
 professions which grows out of the fact that one studies 
 nature from below upward, and the other from above 
 downward. The rector maintained that physicians 
 contracted a squint which turns their eyes inwardly, 
 while the muscles which roll their eyes upward be- 
 come palsied. The doctor retorted that theological 
 students developed a third eyelid the nictitating 
 membrane, which is so well known in birds, and which 
 serves" to shut out, not all light, but all the light they 
 do not want" 
 
 The Presbyterians have provided for a revision of 
 their creed, though they have stultified themselves by 
 certain restrictions, shutting out the light they do not 
 want ! Let us hope that the time will soon come when 
 men will be honest enough and brave enough to follow 
 the truth wherever it may lead. Let there be perfect 
 veracity above all things, more especially in matters of 
 religion. It is not a question of courtesies which deceive 
 no one. To profess what is not believed is immoral. 
 Immorality and untruth can never lead to morality and 
 virtue ; all language which conveys untruth, either in 
 substance or appearance, should be amended so that 
 words can be understood in their recognized meanings, 
 without equivocal explanations or affirmations. Let 
 historic facts have their true explanation.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SACERDOTALISM IMPEACHED. 
 
 " The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof 
 teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money." 
 MICAH 3 : 11. " Put me, I pray thee, into one of the priests' offices, 
 that I may eat a piece of bread." 1 SAM. 2 : 36. 
 
 THE cognomens priest, prophet, presbyter, preacher, 
 parson, and pastor have certain things in common, and 
 these titles may therefore be used interchangeably. 
 
 As far back as history extends, the office or order 
 now represented by the clerical profession existed. It 
 was as common among pagan tribes in the remotest 
 periods as among Jews and Christians in more modern 
 times. Service done to the gods by the few in behalf 
 of the many is the primary idea of the priestly func- 
 tion. It has always and everywhere been the profes- 
 sion and prerogative of the priests to pretend to ap- 
 proach nearest to the gods and to propitiate them ; on 
 account of which they have always been supposed to 
 have special influence with the reigning deity and to 
 be the authorized expounders and interpreters of the 
 divine oracles. The priesthood has always been a 
 caste, a " holy order ;" and it was no less so among 
 ancient Jews than among modern Christians. In all 
 churches clergymen ex-ojficio exercise certain sacred 
 
 26
 
 SACERDOTALISM IMPEACHED. 27 
 
 prerogatives. They occupy select seats in every sanc- 
 tuary. They lead in every act of worship. They pre- 
 side over every sacred ceremony. They exclusively 
 administer the ordinances of religion. They baptize 
 the children and give or withhold the " Holy Com- 
 munion." They celebrate our marriages, visit pur sick, 
 and conduct our funerals. In Romish churches and 
 in some of our Protestant churches they pretend to 
 pronounce " absolution " and to seal the postulant for 
 the heavenly rest. It is not necessary, now and here, 
 to speak of the evil influence that these pretensions 
 exert upon the common people, nor of the light in 
 which intelligent, thinking women and men commonly 
 regard them ; but it is appropriate to note the reflex 
 influence which such assumptions have upon the clergy 
 themselves, disqualifying them for such rational pres- 
 entation of doctrinal truth as their hearers have a 
 right to expect. 
 
 The pride of his order makes it humiliating for the 
 priest to admit that what he does not know is worth 
 knowing. Claiming to be the authorized expounder 
 of God's will, how can he admit that he can possibly 
 be in error in any matter relating to religion? In 
 view of the high pretensions of his order, founded, 
 as he claims, upon a plenarily-inspired and infallible 
 book-revelation, and he professing to be specially called 
 and sanctified by God himself as his representative, it 
 would be ecclesiastical treason to admit, even by impli- 
 cation, that he is not in possession of all truth. Re- 
 garding his creed as a finality, his mind becomes nar-
 
 28 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 row, circumscribed, and unprogressive. He was taught 
 from childhood that " to doubt is to be damned," and 
 through all his novitiate he was warned against being 
 unsettled by the delusions of reason and the wiles of 
 infidelity. His professional education has been narrow, 
 one-sided, sectarian. He has seldom, if ever, read any- 
 thing outside of his own denominational literature, and 
 has heard little from anybody but his own theological 
 professors and associates. He suspects that Humboldt, 
 Spencer, Huxley, and Tyndall are all infidels, and that 
 the sum and substance of Evolution, as taught by 
 Darwin, is that man is the lineal descendant of the 
 monkey. 
 
 Some persons think that ministers are often selected 
 from among weaklings in the family fold. However, 
 this may be, the absorption of the " holy-orders " idea, 
 and the natural self-assurance and self-satisfaction that 
 belong to a caste profession, render delusive the hope 
 that anything original can ever come from such a source. 
 Whether weak at first or not, the habits of thought 
 and the peculiar training of young ecclesiastics are 
 almost sure to dwarf them intellectually for life. The 
 theological student has become the butt in wide-awake 
 society everywhere, and his appearance in public is the 
 occasion for jests and ridicule over his sanctimonious 
 vanity and silly pride. The extreme clerical costume 
 which he is sure to assume excites the disgust of sen- 
 sible people, though he may march through the street 
 and up the aisle with the regulation step of the " order," 
 and suppose himself to be the object of reverent ad-
 
 SACERDOTALISM IMPEACHED. 29 
 
 miration on the part of all beholders. No wonder that 
 the churches complain that few young men of ability 
 enter the ministry in these modern times. 
 
 The priestly office has always been deemed one of 
 great influence, so that ancient kings were accustomed 
 to assume it. This was true of the kings of ancient 
 Egypt, and the practice was kept up among the Greeks 
 and Romans. Even Constantine, the first Christian 
 emperor (so called), continued to exercise the function 
 of a pagan priest after his professed conversion to 
 Christianity, and he was not initiated into the Chris- 
 tian Church by baptism until just before his death. 
 One excommunicated king lay for three days and nights 
 in the snow in the courtyard before the Pope would 
 grant him an audience ! The " Pontifex-Maximus " 
 idea of the Roman emperors was the real foundation 
 of the " temporal power " claimed by the bishops of 
 Rome. Kingcraft and priestcraft have always been 
 in close alliance. When the king was not a priest he 
 always used the priest; and the priest has generally 
 been willing to be used on the side of the king as 
 against the people when liberally subsidized by the 
 reigning potentate. Moreover, priestcraft has always 
 been ambitious for power, and sometimes has been so 
 influential as to make the monarch subservient to the 
 monk. More than one proud crown has been humbly 
 removed in token of submission to priestly authority, 
 and powerful sovereigns have been obliged to submit to 
 the most menial exactions and humiliations at ecclesias- 
 tical mandates. The priestly r61e has always been to
 
 30 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 utilize the religious sentiment for the subjection of the 
 credulous to the arbitrary influence of the caste or 
 order. 
 
 Priestcraft never could afford to have a conscience, 
 so admitted, and therefore it has not shrunk from the 
 commission of any crime that could augment its do- 
 minion. Its greatest success has been in the work of 
 demoralization. It has always been the corrupter of 
 religion. The ignorance and superstition of the peo- 
 ple and the perversions of the religious sentiment, in- 
 nate in man, have been the stock in trade of the craft 
 in all ages, and are to-day. 
 
 It will be shown later how the whole system of dog- 
 matic theology, Romish and Protestant (for the system 
 is the same), has been formed so as to aggrandize the 
 priest, perpetuate his power, and hold the masses in 
 strict subjection. This is a simple matter of fact. 
 History is philosophy teaching by example, and often 
 repeats itself, and it seldom gives an example of a 
 priestly caste or " holy " order of men leading in a 
 great practical reform. The dominant priestly idea is 
 to protect the interests of the order, not to promote the 
 welfare of the people. 
 
 In view of these principles and facts, and others 
 which might be presented, it is reasonable to conclude 
 that we cannot expect the whole living, unadulterated 
 truth, even if they had it, from the professional clergy. 
 The caste idea renders it essentially unnatural and 
 philosophically impossible. 
 
 But there are other potent reasons why such expec-
 
 SACERDOTALISM IMPEACHED. 31 
 
 tation is vain. All Christendom is covered with numer- 
 ous sects in the form of ecclesiastical judicatories, each 
 claiming to be the true exponent of all religious truth. 
 The Romish Church is pre-eminently priestly and au- 
 tocratic. The priesthood is the Church, and the people 
 only belong to the Church ; that is, belong to the 
 priesthood, and that, too, in a stronger sense than at 
 first seems to attach to the word belong. Then the 
 priesthood itself is subdivided into castes. 
 
 " Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, 
 And little fleas have lesser fleas ; and so ad infinitum" 
 
 When Patrick J. Ryan was installed Archbishop in 
 Philadelphia, an office conferred by a foreign potentate, 
 our own city newspapers in flaming headlines called it 
 " The Enthronement of a Priest !" And so it was. He 
 sat upon a throne and received the honors of a prince. 
 He is called " His Grace," and wears the royal purple 
 in the public streets. Bishops are higher than the " in- 
 ferior clergy," and the priest, presbyter, or elder is of a 
 higher caste than the deacon, and all are higher and 
 more holy than the people. All ministers exercise 
 functions which would be deemed sacrilege in a lay- 
 man. The same odious spirit of caste prevails in fact, 
 if not so prominently in form, in all orthodox denomi- 
 nations, especially as to the distinction between the 
 clergy and the laity. Even Quakers have higher seats 
 for " recommended ministers." 
 
 Moreover, priests have laid down creeds containing 
 certain affirmations and denials which are called " Ar-
 
 32 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 tides of Religion," to which all students of divinity 
 and candidates for holy orders must subscribe before 
 they can be initiated into the sacred arcana. 
 
 The professor in the theological seminary, who per- 
 haps was selected for the chair quite as much for his 
 conservatism as for his learning, has taken a pledge, 
 if not an oath, that he will teach the young aspirant 
 for ecclesiastical honors nothing at variance with the 
 standards of his denomination ; which covenant he is 
 very sure to keep (having other professors and aspi- 
 rants for professorships to watch him) in full view of 
 the penalty of dismission from his chair and consequent 
 ecclesiastical degradation. The very last place on this 
 earth where one might expect original research, thorough 
 investigation, and fearless proclamation of the whole 
 truth is in a theological school. A horse in a bark-mill 
 becomes blind in consequence of going round and round 
 in the same circular path ; and the theological profes- 
 sor in his treadmill cannot fail to become purblind as 
 regards all new truth. 
 
 What can be expected from the graduates of such 
 seminaries ? 
 
 The theological novitiate sits with trembling rever- 
 ence at the feet of the venerable theological Gamaliel. 
 From his sanctified lips he is to learn all wisdom. 
 Without his approbation he cannot receive the coveted 
 diploma. Without his recommendation he will not be 
 likely to receive an early call to a desirable parish. 
 
 The student is obliged to find in the Bible just what 
 his Church requires, and nothing more and nothing
 
 SACERDOTALISM IMPEACHED. 33 
 
 less. In order to be admitted into the clerical caste 
 and have holy hands laid upon his youthful head he 
 must believe or profess to believe, ipsissima verba, just 
 what the " Confession " and " Catechism " contain. 
 The Rev. Dr. Samuel Miller once said in a sort of con- 
 fidential undertone, " What is the use of examining 
 candidates for the ministry at all as to what they be- 
 lieve ? The fact that they apply for admission shows 
 that they intend to answer all questions as we expect 
 them to answer ; else, they very well know, we would 
 not admit them." 
 
 The ecclesiastical system is emphatically an iron- 
 bedstead system. If a candidate is too long, it cuts 
 him shorter ; and if too short, it stretches him. He 
 must be made to fit. Then, after " ordination " or 
 " consecration," the new-fledged theologian enters upon 
 his public work so pressed by the cares of his charge 
 and the social and professional demands upon his time 
 that he finds it impossible to prepare a lecture and two 
 original sermons a week ; so he falls back upon the 
 " notes " he took from the lips of his " old professor " 
 in the divinity school, or upon some of those numer- 
 ous " skeletons " and " sketches " of sermons expressly 
 published for the " aid " of busy young ministers ; and 
 he gives to " his people " a dish of theological hash, 
 if not of re-hash, instead of pouring out his own 
 living words that should breathe and thoughts that 
 should burn. 
 
 Hence it is easy to see why one scarcely ever gets 
 a fresh, living truth from the pulpit. It is almost
 
 34 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 always the same old, old story of commonplace fossils 
 that the wide-awake world has outgrown long ago, and 
 that modern science has fearlessly consigned to the 
 " bats and the moles " of the Dark Ages. No wonder 
 the pulpit platitudes fail to attract the masses of earnest 
 men, especially in our great cities. 
 
 Then if a clergyman should discover, after years of 
 thought and study, that he has been in error in some 
 matters, and that a pure rational interpretation of the 
 Bible is possible, and he really feels that the creeds, 
 as well as the Scriptures, need revising, what can he 
 do? If he lets his new light shine, he will share the 
 fate of Colenso, Robertson Smith, Augustus Blauvelt, 
 Professor Woodrow, and scores of others. He knows 
 that heresy-hunters are on the scent of his track. The 
 mad-dog cry of Heretic would be as fatal as a sharp 
 shot from the ecclesiastical rifle. Proscription, deg- 
 radation, ostracism, stare him in the face. Few men 
 who have the esprit de corps of ecclesiasticism and a 
 reasonable regard for personal comfort and preferment 
 are heroic enough to face the social exclusion, financial 
 ruin, and beggary for themselves and families which 
 are almost sure to follow a trial and condemnation for 
 heresy. If the newly-enlightened minister escapes the 
 inquisition of a heresy trial by declaring himself in- 
 dependent, he has a gauntlet to run in which many 
 poisoned arrows will be sure to pierce his quivering 
 spirit. It is true that some sects have no written creed 
 and no trials for heresy ; but even among them there 
 is an implied standard of what is " regular," and more
 
 SACERDOTALISM IMPEACHED. 35 
 
 than one grand soul knows by a sorrowful experience, 
 what it is to belong to the " left wing " of the Liberal 
 army, and to follow the " spirit of truth " outside of 
 the implied creed. 
 
 Another reason why the whole truth cannot be ex- 
 pected from the regular clergy is, the influence of their 
 pecuniary dependence upon those to whom they minis- 
 ter. The Jews have always been great borrowers and 
 imitators. It was quite natural that they should adopt 
 the " price-current list " of the ancient Phoanicians, 
 whose priests not only exacted the tribute of " first- 
 fruits," but a fee in kind of each sacrifice. Then the 
 judicial functions exercised by Jewish priests became 
 a fruitful source of revenue, as the fines for certain 
 offences were paid to the priests (2 Kings 12:16; 
 Hosea 4:8; Amos 2 : 8). According to 2 Sam. 8:18 
 and 2 Kings 10 : 11, also 12:2, the priests of the 
 royal sanctuaries became the grandees of the realm, 
 while the petty priests were generally poor enough 
 just as is well known to be the case among the Chris- 
 tian clergy of to-day, some receiving a salary of twenty- 
 five thousand dollars and more per annum, while many 
 of the " inferior clergy " hardly average two hundred 
 and fifty dollars a year. 
 
 That the Christian clerical profession was borrowed 
 from the Jews, just as the latter copied it from the 
 heathen, is evident from the fact that Paul, while re- 
 fusing for himself pecuniary support, preferring to 
 "work with his own hands" (weaving tent-cloth), 
 " living in his own hired house," nevertheless defended
 
 36* SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 the principle of ministerial support, mainly on the 
 ground of the Mosaic law (Deut. 25 : 4), " Thou shalt 
 not muzzle the ox when he treadeth "out the corn" 
 (1 Cor. 9:9; 1 Tim. 5 : 18). It is a striking illus- 
 tration of the inconsistency of the modern clergy that 
 they quote, in reference to a salaried ministry, the words 
 ascribed to Jesus (Matt. 10 : 10), " The workman is 
 worthy of his meat," or, as it is rendered in Luke 
 10 : 7, " The laborer is worthy of his hire," very con- 
 veniently forgetting to quote the connecting words 
 requiring them to " provide neither gold nor silver nor 
 brass in their purse, nor scrip for their journey, neither 
 two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves," but to enter 
 unceremoniously into any house, accepting any proifered 
 hospitality, " eating such things as might be set before 
 them." The fact is, the first disciples of Jesus, accord- 
 ing to our Gospels, were mendicant monks, leading lives 
 of asceticism and poverty. There is no evidence that 
 one of them ever received a salary ; they made them- 
 selves entirely dependent on public charity and hospi- 
 tality. The idea of a "church living" or "beneficed 
 clergy" or a salaried ministry never entered into the 
 mind of Him of whom it is said he " had not where to 
 lay his head." 
 
 It is enough for the present argument to emphasize 
 the point that, in the very nature of things, it is not 
 reasonable to expect the whole truth from a salaried 
 ministry. Those who have a large salary naturally 
 desire to retain it ; those who have small and insuf- 
 ficient salaries naturally desire to have them increased.
 
 SACERDOTALISM IMPEACHED. 37 
 
 This can only be done by carefully preserving a good 
 orthodox standing according to the sectarian shibboleth, 
 and in pleasing the people who rent the pews or who 
 dole out their penurious subscriptions for " the support 
 of the gospel." High-salaried ministers are most 
 likely to be proud, arrogant, bigoted, sectarian. Starve- 
 ling ministers become broken in spirit, fawning, and 
 crouching, and they generally have an unconscious ex- 
 pression of appeal for help, of importunity and ex- 
 pectancy, stamped upon their faces. The millstone of 
 pecuniary dependence hangs so heavily about their 
 necks that they seldom hold up their heads like men, 
 and they can never utter a new truth or a startling 
 sentiment without pausing to consider what effect it 
 may have on the bread and butter of a dependent and 
 generally numerous family. Ministers with high sal- 
 aries are almost sure to be spoiled, and those with low 
 ones are sure to be stultified and dwarfed intellectually 
 and morally ; so that we cannot depend upon either class 
 for the highest and latest truths. Those who have a 
 " living," provided in a State Church, and those who 
 depend upon voluntary contributions from the people, 
 are alike manacled and handicapped. We must look 
 elsewhere than to the modern pulpit for that truth 
 which alone can give freedom and true manliness. 
 Perfect indifference as to ecclesiastical standing, backed 
 by pecuniary independence, is an essential condition for 
 untrammelled investigation and the fearless proclama- 
 tion of the whole truth. 
 
 It was noticed in the recent convention of scientists
 
 38 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 in this city (the American Association) that it was the 
 salaried professors in Churc'n colleges who professed to 
 find no conflict between Geology and Genesis. It will 
 always be so until the ecclesiastical tyranny is greatly 
 weakened or destroyed, and men can utter their boldest 
 thoughts without fear or favor, and when teachers can 
 afford to have a conscience by making themselves free 
 from Church control and menial dependence upon those 
 to whom they minister for the necessaries of a mere 
 livelihood. Science itself has made progress only as 
 it has been fearless of priestly maledictions ; and when 
 it shall throw off the incubus of Church patronage it 
 will astonish the world in showing the eternal antag- 
 onisms between the dogmas of the dominant theol- 
 ogy and the essential truths of natural religion and 
 morality. 
 
 CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 The following conclusions follow from what has 
 been said : 
 
 (1) The clerical fraternity claims to be more than a 
 mere profession. It is essentially a caste, a "holy 
 order," borrowed from the ancient paganism, but some- 
 what modified by Judaism and a perverted Christianity. 
 
 (2) From such a caste or order the whole truth is 
 not to be expected, especially when the truth would 
 show the order to be an imposture. The assumptions 
 of peculiar sanctity, official pre-eminence, functional 
 prerogatives, and special spiritual authority make such 
 a hope unnatural and quite impossible.
 
 SACERDOTALISM IMPEACHED. 39 
 
 (3) The church system, with its tests of orthodoxy, 
 its ecclesiastical handcuffs, and its worse than physical 
 thumb-screws, puts an end to all independent thinking, 
 and results in an enforced conformity inconsistent with 
 intellectual progress and the discovery and full publi- 
 cation of the whole truth. 
 
 (4) The pecuniary stipend upon which professional 
 preachers are dependent has a demoralizing and de- 
 grading influence, so that the doctrinal teaching of the 
 pulpit should not be received without hesitation and 
 distrust. The common law excludes the testimony of 
 interested witnesses, and, though modern statutes admit 
 such testimony, the courts take it for what it is worth, 
 but always with many grains of allowance. " A gift 
 perverteth judgment," and self-interest may sway the 
 convictions of a man who intends and desires to be 
 fairly honest. 
 
 (5) The existing systems of ministerial education 
 and support deter many superior men from entering 
 the profession, and have placed preaching upon a com- 
 mercial or mercantile basis, which has manacled and 
 crippled the pulpit, and must sooner or later result in 
 the consideration of the question whether the services 
 of the clergy are worth what they cost, and whether 
 the truth must not be sought for in some other direc- 
 tion. More than two hundred and fifty thousand 
 priests and ministers (of whom about one hundred 
 thousand are in the United States) are maintain- 
 ed at an annual expense of more than five hundred 
 millions of dollars ; and, as a rule, where priests are
 
 40 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 most numerous, people are poorest and public morality 
 lowest. 
 
 A member of the Canadian Parliament (Hon. James 
 Beatty) has recently published a book in which he 
 opposes the whole system of a salaried clergy on 
 scriptural and other grounds ; and many other thought- 
 ful men are beginning to inquire how it is that the 
 Society of Friends get along so well without a " hire- 
 ling ministry." 
 
 (6) It is a great mistake to suppose that we must 
 look mainly to professional clergymen for instruction 
 in divine things. It is a significant fact that the most 
 able and important books that have been published 
 within the last decade have been written by laymen 
 or by persons, like Emerson, who have outgrown the 
 narrow garments of a caste profession and have laid 
 them off. How to get along without professional minis- 
 ters has been well answered by Capt. Robert C. Adams 
 (quoted in the writer's book, Man Wlience and 
 Whither? pp. 218, 219). 
 
 If ministers would give up the holy-orders idea, 
 cast into the sea the millstone incumbrance of pecuniary 
 dependence, engage earnestly in some legitimate work 
 to support themselves, they would then for the first 
 time begin to realize w r hat soul-freedom is, and they 
 could then preach with an intelligence and power and 
 with a satisfaction to themselves of which they now 
 know nothing. Let them try it for themselves and 
 learu a lesson. Whether the clerical order is so divine 
 an institution that we have no right to call it into
 
 SACERDOTALISM IMPEACHED. 41 
 
 question or to abolish it altogether, is a question that 
 must be practically considered soon. 
 
 (7) There is a deep impression widely prevailing 
 among thoughtful and sincerely religious persons that 
 the infidelity of the pulpit is largely responsible for 
 the prevailing skepticism of the age. The word " in- 
 fidelity " is here specially used in a strict philological 
 sense infidele, not faithful, unfaithfulness to a trust 
 but it is also used in its more general sense of disbelief 
 in certain religious dogmas. 
 
 THE CLERGY AKEAIGNED. 
 
 We impeach and arraign the clergy (admitting a 
 few honorable exceptions) on the general charge of 
 infidelity, in the strictest and broadest sense of the 
 word 
 
 1st. In that they fail to qualify themselves to be the 
 leaders of thought in the great, living questions aifect- 
 ing religion and morality. We have elsewhere said : 
 " Not one minister in a thousand * discerns the signs 
 of the times ' or is prepared for the crisis. Few pas- 
 tors ever read anything beyond their own denomina- 
 tional literature. Their education is partial, one-sided, 
 professional. They cling to mediaeval superstitions 
 with the desperate grasp of drowning men. The great 
 majority of the clergy are not men of broad minds and 
 wide and deep research, and have not the ability to 
 meet the vexed questions of to-day." 
 
 It is an admitted policy, especially among the ortho- 
 dox clergy (so called), not to read or to listen to any-
 
 42 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 thing that might unsettle their faith in what they have 
 accepted as a finality ; whereas no man can intelli- 
 gently believe anything until he has candidly considered 
 the reasons assigned by other men for not believing what 
 he does. " He that is first in his own cause seemeth 
 just ; but his neighbor cometh and searcheth him." 
 
 Professor Fisher, the champion of Yale-College 
 orthodoxy, has recently admitted in the North Ameri- 
 can Review that at least one of the causes of the de- 
 cline of clerical authority and influence is the increased 
 intelligence of the laity. If the people cannot get 
 what they desire from the pulpit, they will seek it 
 from the platform and the press. Truth is no longer to 
 be concealed in cloisters and smothered in theological 
 seminaries, but it is to be proclaimed from housetops 
 and in language understood in every-day life. 
 
 It was once said that " the lips of the priest give 
 knowledge ;" but it may now be truly said that mod- 
 ern scientists and philosophers among the laity are the 
 principal teachers of mankind, and that publications 
 like the North American Review and The Forum, and 
 last, but not least, the secular daily newspapers, are 
 doing more to instruct the people in living truths than 
 the whole brood of ecclesiastical parrots. 
 
 2d. We charge that many professional clergymen 
 suppress things which they do believe to be true, and 
 not unfrequently suggest things, at least by implica- 
 tion, which they do know to be false. 
 
 Dr. Edward Everett Hale recently published an article 
 in the North American Review entitled " Insincerity in
 
 SACERDOTALISM IMPEACHED. 43 
 
 the Pulpit ;" and the Rev. Dr. Phillips Brooks of Bos- 
 ton, who recently received episcopal honors in Massa- 
 chussetts, has confirmed in the Princeton Review what 
 Dr. Hale charged in the North American Review regard- 
 ing clerical disingenuousness. Dr. Brooks wrote thus : 
 
 " A large acquaintance with clerical life has led me 
 to think that almost any company of clergymen, talk- 
 ing freely to each other, will express opinions which 
 would greatly surprise, and at the same time greatly 
 relieve, the congregations who ordinarily listen to these 
 ministers. . . . How many men in the ministry to-day 
 believe in the doctrine of verbal inspiration which our 
 fathers held ? and how many of us have frankly told 
 the people that we do not believe it ? . . . How many 
 of us hold that the everlasting punishment- of the 
 wicked is a clear and certain truth of revelation? But 
 how many of us who do not have ever said a word ?" 
 
 The same principle of prevarication and deceit was 
 practised by the early Fathers of the Christian Church, 
 who not only concealed the truth from the masses of 
 the people, but did not hesitate to deceive and mislead 
 them. 
 
 Mosheim, an ecclesiastical historian of high authority, 
 testifies that " in the fourth century it was an almost 
 universally adopted maxim that it was an act of virtue 
 to deceive and lie when by such means the interests 
 of the Church might be promoted." He further says 
 of the fifth century, " Fraud and impudent imposture 
 were artfully proportioned to the credulity of the 
 vulgar."
 
 44 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 Milman, in his History of Christianity, says : " It 
 was admitted and avowed that to deceive into Chris- 
 tianity was so valuable a service as to hallow deceit 
 itself." He further says in the same historical work, 
 " That some of the Christian legends were deliberate 
 forgeries can scarcely be questioned." There is not a 
 Bible manuscript or version that has not been manipu- 
 lated by ecclesiastics for century after century. Many 
 of these priests were both ignorant and vicious. From 
 the fifth to the fifteenth century crimes not fit to be 
 mentioned prevailed among the clergy. 
 
 Dr. Lardner says that Christians of all sorts were 
 guilty of fraud, and quotes Cassaubon as saying, " In 
 the earliest times of the Church it was considered a 
 capital -exploit to lend to heavenly truth the help of 
 their own inventions." Dr. Thomas Burnet, in a 
 Latin treatise intended for the clergy only, said, " Too 
 much light is hurtful to weak eyes ;" and he recom- 
 mended the practice of deceiving the common people 
 for their own good. I know that this same policy is 
 in vogue in our day. This same nefarious doctrine of 
 the exoteric and esoteric, one thing for the priest and 
 another for the people, is far from being dead in this 
 nineteenth century. It has always been, and now is, 
 the real priestly policy to keep the common people in 
 ignorance of many things ; and if all do not accept 
 the maxim of Gregory, that " Ignorance is the mother 
 of Devotion," many ministers privately hold in our day 
 that " where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise." 
 
 3d. The third article of impeachment, under the
 
 SACERDOTALISM IMPEACHED. 45 
 
 general charge of infidelity is, that sacerdotalists teach 
 dogmas which they do not believe themselves. They 
 do not all believe, ex animo, the distinctive dogmas of 
 the orthodox creeds that God is angry with the great 
 body of mankind, that his wrath is a burning flame, 
 and that there is, as to a majority of men, but. a mo- 
 ment's time and a point of space between them and 
 eternal torture more terrible than imagination can con- 
 ceive or language describe. It is well said that " Actions 
 speak louder than words ;" and we need only ask the 
 question, " Do ministers who profess to believe these 
 horrible dogmas preach as if they really believed 
 them ?" Notice the general deportment of the clergy 
 at the summer resort, at the seaside, or on the mountain- 
 top, and say whether they can possibly believe what 
 for eight or nine months they have been preaching in 
 their now closed churches. Listen to the private con- 
 versation of our evangelists at the camp-meeting or at 
 the meetings of ecclesiastical bodies, and then conclude, 
 if you can, that they believe what they teach. 
 
 Take, if you please, the case of one of our best- 
 known evangelical ministers, a member of the strictest 
 of our orthodox sects, who spends a large propor- 
 tion of his time in studying the ways of insects, and 
 who would chase a pismire across the continent to 
 find out its habits. Can a pastor believe in his heart 
 the dogmas of the Westminster Confession, and yet 
 devote so much time to ants ? It is impossible. He 
 may deceive himself; he cannot deceive others. 
 
 4th. Our fourth article ,of impeachment under the
 
 46 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 general charge is, that the pulpit is the great promoter 
 of skepticism called infidelity, in that it insists upon 
 the belief of dogmas which are absurd upon their 
 face, such as the miraculous conception of Jesus, the 
 dogma of the Trinity, the origin and fall of man, 
 vicarious atonement, predestination, election and repro- 
 bation, eternal torture for the majority, and many other 
 absurdities which no rational mind can now consist- 
 ently accept. 
 
 True, these dogmas may be found in the Bible ; 
 and when men are told with weekly reiterations that 
 the Bible is purely divine, supernatural, and infallible, 
 and they find that it is purely human, natural, and 
 very fallible, they cannot believe the Bible, though 
 they find many inspiring and helpful things in it. 
 When ministers tell thinking men that they must be- 
 lieve all or reject all, they accept the foolish alternative 
 and reject all. And so it might be further shown 
 how, in very many ways, the pulpit is the great pro- 
 moter of skepticism and infidelity, and that the pro- 
 fessed teachers of religion are its greatest enemies, its 
 most effective clogs and successful antagonists. No 
 wonder that the most thoughtful and intelligent men 
 and women in every community have drifted away 
 from the popular faith, and are anxiously inquiring, 
 What next? 
 
 President Thomas Jefferson, in writing to Timothy 
 Pickering, well said : 
 
 "The religion-builders have so distorted and de- 
 formed the doctrines of Jesus, so muffled them in
 
 SACERDOTALISM IMPEACHED. 47 
 
 mysticisms, fancies and falsehoods, have caricatured 
 them into forms so monstrous and inconceivable, as to 
 shock reasonable thinkers to revolt them against the 
 whole, and drive them rashly to pronounce its founder 
 an impostor." Writing to Dr. Cooper, he said : " My 
 opinion is that there would never have been an infidel if 
 there had never been a priest." 
 
 We would not abolish the office, or, if you please, the 
 profession, of public moral teacher, but we would banish 
 from the world the caste idea, the holy-order pretence. 
 When simple-minded young men and grave and sur- 
 pliced bishops talk about taking " holy orders," sensi- 
 ble and thoughtful men know that they are talking 
 holy nonsense. No man has a right to assume that he 
 is more holy than other men, or that he has authority 
 to exercise religious functions that other men have not. 
 
 Nor have we any objection that moral teachers should 
 be paid for their services as other teachers are paid ; 
 but when educated men can afford to teach without 
 pecuniary compensation, we think it would be well for 
 them to do so ; and when the teacher of morals adopts 
 the example of St. Paul, "working with his own 
 hands " and " living in his own hired house," we think 
 the world will be the better for it. Let us hope that 
 the day will soon dawn when clergymen will consider 
 themselves moral teachers only, and for ever repudiate 
 the false pretence of special authority and priestly 
 sanctimoniousness, and clearly understand that medi- 
 ocrity and stupidity will not much longer be tolerated 
 because of the so-called sacredness of a profession.
 
 48 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 That the estimate here made of sacerdotal ists may 
 not seem extreme and unjustifiable, I add the testi- 
 mony of one of the most honored ecclesiastics of the 
 Established Church of England, Canon Farrar, who 
 in a recent sermon on priestcraft said : " In all ages 
 the exclusive predominance of priests has meant the 
 indifference of the majority and the subjection of the 
 few. It has meant the slavery of men who will not 
 act, and the indolence of men who will not think, and 
 the timidity of men who will not resist, and the indif- 
 ference of men who do not care." Alas that " holy 
 hands " should so often be laid " upon skulls that can- 
 not teach and will not learn " ! 
 
 Let me here quote from Professor Huxley an ad- 
 mirable statement of the facts in the case: 
 
 " Everywhere have they (sacerdotalists) broken the 
 spirit of wisdom and tried to stop human progress by 
 quotations from their Bibles' or books of their saints. 
 In this nineteenth century, as at the dawn of modern 
 physical science, the cosmogony of the semi-barbarous 
 Hebrew is the incubus of the philosopher and the 
 opprobrium of the orthodox. Who shall number the 
 patient and earnest seekers after truth, from the days 
 of Galileo until now, whose lives have been embittered 
 and their good name blasted by the mistaken zeal of 
 bibliolaters? Who shall count the host of weaker 
 men whose sense of truth has been destroyed in the 
 effort to harmonize impossibilities ; whose life has been 
 wasted in the attempt to force the generous new wine 
 of science into the old bottles of Judaism, compelled
 
 SACERDOTALISM IMPEACHED. 49 
 
 by the outcry of the same strong party ? It is true 
 that if philosophers have suifered, their cause has been 
 amply avenged. Extinguished theologies lie about the 
 cradle of every science as the strangled snakes beside 
 that of Hercules ; and history records that whenever 
 science and orthodoxy have been fairly opposed, the 
 latter has been forced to retire from the lists, bleeding 
 and crushed if not annihilated, scotched if not slain. 
 But orthodoxy learns not, neither can it forget; and 
 though at present bewildered and afraid to move, it is 
 as willing as ever to insist that the first chapter of 
 Genesis contains the beginning and the end of sound 
 sciencej and to visit with such petty thunderbolts as its 
 half-paralyzed hands can hurl those who refuse to 
 degrade nature to the level of primitive Judaism." 
 " Religion," he also elsewhere writes, " arising like all 
 other knowledge out of the action and interaction of 
 man's mind, has taken the intellectual coverings of 
 Fetishism, Polytheism, of Theism or Atheism, of Su- 
 perstition or Rationalism ; and if the religion of the 
 present differs from that of the past, it is because the 
 theology of the present has become more scientific than 
 that of the past ; not because it has renounced idols of 
 wood and idols of stone, but it begins to see the necess- 
 ity of breaking in pieces the idols built up of books and 
 traditions and fine-spun ecclesiastical cobwebs, and of 
 cherishing the noblest and most human of man's emo- 
 tions by worship, ' for the most part of the silent sort,' 
 at the altar of the unknown and unknoivable" . . . "If 
 a man asks me what the politics of the inhabitants of 
 
 4
 
 50 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 the moon are, .and I reply that I know not, that neither 
 I nor any one else have any means of knowing, and 
 that under these circumstances I decline to trouble my- 
 self about the subject at all, I do not think he has any 
 right to call me a skeptic." Again : " What are among 
 the moral convictions most fondly held by barbarous 
 and semi-barbarous people? They are the convictions 
 that authority is the soundest basis of belief; that 
 merit attaches to a readiness to believe ; that the doubt- 
 ing disposition is a bad one, and skepticism a sin ; and 
 there are many excellent persons who still hold by 
 these principles." . . . " Yet we have no reason to 
 believe that it is the improvement of our faith nor that 
 of our morals which keeps the plague from our city ; 
 but it is the improvement of our natural knowledge. 
 We have learned that pestilences will only take up 
 their abode among those who have prepared unswept 
 and ungarnished residences for them. Their cities 
 must have narrow, unwatered streets full of accumu- 
 lated garbage; their houses must be ill-drained, ill- 
 ventilated ; their subjects must be ill-lighted, ill-washed, 
 ill-fed, ill-clothed; the London of 1665 was such a 
 city ; the cities of the East, where plague has an endur- 
 ing dwelling, are such cities ; we in later times have 
 learned somewhat of Nature, and partly obey her. 
 Because of this partial improvement of our natural 
 knowledge, and that of fractional obedience, we have 
 no plague ; but because that knowledge is very imper- 
 fect and that obedience yet incomplete, typhus is our 
 companion and cholera our visitor."
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE FABULOUS CLAIMS OF JUDAISM. 
 
 " Not giving heed to Jewish fables." TIT. 1 : 14. 
 
 " Neither give heed to fables."! TIM. 1 : 4. 
 
 " But refuse profane and old wives' fables." 1 TIM. 4 : 7. 
 
 IT is impossible to understand modern Christian 
 ecclesiasticism without a careful study of ancient Juda- 
 ism. It is reported that Jesus himself said, " Salvation 
 is of the Jews." The gospel was to be preached " to the 
 Jews first." The common belief to-day is, that the 
 Christian Church represents the substance of what 
 Judaism was the promise, and that the New Testament 
 contains the fulfilment and realization of what was 
 foreshadowed in the Old Testament. 
 
 All well-informed theologians understand that the 
 Christian Church is held to have had its origin in 
 what is denominated the " call of Abraham," and that 
 what is known in orthodox parlance as the " Abrahamic 
 covenant " lies at the foundation of the orthodox theory 
 of grace and of all other systems of doctrine falsely 
 designated as evangelical. It is a suggestive fact that 
 while Christians hold that their religion is the very 
 quintessence and outcome of Judaism, they most cor- 
 dially hate the Jews, and the Jews in return, have a 
 supreme contempt for Christians and stoutly deny the 
 relationship of parent and child. 
 
 51
 
 52 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 Now that the descent of the Jews from the Chaldean 
 Abram, whom they affect to call their father, is dis- 
 credited by all scholars who reject the inspirational and 
 infallible theory of the Old Testament, it is very dif- 
 ficult to find out the real origin of this strange people. 
 All modern writers on Jews and Judaism admit that 
 outside of the Old Testament there is little or no his- 
 tory of the Jews down to the time of Alexander, and 
 that there is very little reliable history even in the 
 collection of books known as the Hebrew Scriptures. 
 It cannot be doubted now that the Pentateuch, im- 
 properly called the five books of Moses, was mostly 
 written after the return of the Jews from their captivity 
 in Babylon, about 538 B. c., and what is found in these 
 books mainly corresponds with the religion and liter- 
 ature of the Assyrians, and was learned during their 
 sojourn in that country, and not, as has ignorantly 
 been supposed, from the mythical Abram, the reputed 
 immigrant from Ur of the Chaldees. What is recorded 
 in the Pentateuch, not being mentioned in other Old- 
 Testament writings, shows that such records had no 
 existence when those books were written, and therefore 
 could have no recognition. It will be shown hereafter 
 that there is little or nothing in the Pentateuch that is 
 strictly original, much less strictly historical. Indeed, 
 the tales of the Old Testament generally were written 
 for a religious or patriotic purpose, with little regard 
 for time, place, or historical accuracy. Persons, real or 
 mythical, are often used to represent different tribes, 
 while allegory is the rule rather than the exception in
 
 THE FABULOUS CLAIMS OF JUDAISM. 53 
 
 what is ignorantly accepted as history. This is ad- 
 mitted by many eminent Christian writers. 
 
 The word "Jew" first occurs in 2 Kings 16 : 6 to 
 denote the inhabitants of Judea, but they should 
 properly have been called " Judeans." The very 
 name Jew is probably mythological, derived from 
 Jeoud, the name of the only son of Saturn, though, 
 like Abraham, he had several other sons. It cannot 
 be doubted that the stories of Saturn and Abraham 
 are slightly varied versions of the same fable. 
 
 The Jews never deserved to be called a nation, at 
 least not until in comparatively modern times. They 
 were inclined from the first to mingle with and inter- 
 marry with other peoples, and so became mongrels at 
 an early period. 
 
 There was no race distinction, we are told, between 
 the Canaanites, Idurneans, and Israelites. Ishmael 
 married an Egyptian woman, and so did Joseph, the 
 son of Jacob. Esau married a daughter of Ishmael, 
 also two other women, called daughters of Canaan, one 
 a Hittite and the other a Hivite. Judah and Simeon 
 each married Canaanites. We read in Judges 3 : 5, 6, 
 " The children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, 
 Hittites, and Amorites, and Perizzites, and Hivites, 
 and Jebusites; and they took their daughters to be 
 their wives, and gave their [own] daughters to their 
 sons, and served their gods." 
 
 In Ezekiel 16th it is written : " Thus saith the Lord 
 God unto Jerusalem, Thy birth and thy nativity was 
 in the land of Canaan ; thy father was an Amorite and
 
 54 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 thy mother an Hittite ;" " Your mother was an Hittite 
 and your father an Amorite thine elder sister, Samaria, 
 and thy youngest sister, Sodom." 
 
 In Deut, 7 : 7 the Jews are told, " The Lord did not 
 set his love upon you because ye were more in number 
 than any other people, for ye were fewest of all people." 
 In Josh. 12: 24 they are reminded that it was neces- 
 sary to "send them hornets which drove them (the 
 Canaanites) out before you, even the two kings of the 
 Amorites;" and in Ex. 23 : 28, 29 it is said, " I will 
 send hornets before thee which shall drive out the 
 Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before 
 thee. I will not drive them out from before thee in 
 one year, lest the land become desolate and the beasts 
 of the field multiply against thee." This does not 
 look as if the Jews were very numerous or valorous 
 in the little territory not much larger than the State 
 of Connecticut. 
 
 Josephus makes certain notes to show that the Lace- 
 demonians claimed original kinship with the Jews, and 
 some writers make the same claim for the Afghans and 
 several other peoples. Nothing is more certain, in my 
 judgment, than that the Jews are the most thoroughly 
 mongrel race upon the face of the earth. That they 
 have certain idiosyncrasies in common, and even cer- 
 tain distinguishing facial and other physical marks, 
 can easily be accounted for on other grounds than the 
 assumption of unity of race. 
 
 The common story of the origin of the Jews is cer- 
 tainly fabulous. Major-General Forlong, of the Brit-
 
 THE FABULOUS CLAIMS OF JUDAISM. 55 
 
 tish Army, says : " They were probably in the begin- 
 ning a wandering tribe of Bedouin Arabs who ''got 
 possession of the rocky parts of Palestine, which were 
 never made better by their presence. They are a com- 
 paratively modern people. The first notice of Jews is 
 possibly that of certain Shemitic rulers in the Aram 
 paying tribute about 850 B. c. to Vul-Nirari, the 
 successor of Shalmaneser of Syria ; regarding which, 
 however, much more is made by biblicists than the 
 simple record warrants. This is the case also where 
 Champollion affirms that mention is made on the 
 Theban temples of the capture of certain towns of the 
 land we call Judaea, this being thought to prove the 
 existence of Jews. Similar assumption takes place in 
 regard to the hieratic papyri of the Leyden Museum, 
 held to belong to the time of Rameses II., an inscrip- 
 tion read on the rocks of El-Hamamat, and the dis- 
 covery of some names like Chedorlaomer in the records 
 of Babylonia ; but this is all the (so-called) evidence 
 as to the existence of ancient Jews which has been 
 advanced ; and the most is made of it in Dr. Birch's 
 opening address on the Progress of Biblical Archaeology 
 at the inauguration of the Archaeological Society. Of 
 Jews we hear nothing during all the Thothmik wars, 
 unless they be included among the phallic-worshipping 
 Hermonites who were mentioned as inhabiting the 
 highlands of Syria. We have no real historical 
 evidence of the persons or kingdoms of David or 
 Solomon, though we may grant the Jewish stories cum 
 grano sali<t, seeing how outrageously they have always
 
 56 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 exaggerated in everything pertaining to their own 
 glorification. 
 
 " The only logical conclusion justifiable when we give 
 up the inspiration theory is, that Arabs and Syro- 
 Phcenicians were known to Assyrians and Egyptians, 
 and this none would deny. Indeed, we readily grant, 
 with Dr. Birch, that under the nineteenth and twen- 
 tieth Egyptian dynasties the influence of the Aramaean 
 nations is distinctly marked ; that not only by blood 
 and alliances had the Pharaohs been closely united 
 with the princes of Palestine and Syria, but that the 
 language of the period abounds in Semitic words quite 
 different from the Egyptian, with which they were 
 embroidered and intermingled. Could it possibly be 
 otherwise ? Is it not so to this day ? Is a vast and 
 rapidly-spawning Shemitic continent like Arabia not 
 to influence the narrow delta of a river adjoining it or 
 the wild highlands of Syria to the north ? Of course 
 Arabs or Shemites were everywhere spread over Egypt, 
 Syria, and Phoenicia, as well as in their ancient seats 
 of empire in Arabia, Irak (Kaldia), and on the im- 
 perial mounds of Kalneh and Koyunjik ; but not 
 necessarily as Jews. I cannot find that these last were 
 anything more than a peculiar religious sect of Arabs 
 who settled down from their pristine nomadic habits 
 and obtained a quasi government under petty princes 
 or sheiks, such as we have seen take place in the case 
 of numerous Arabian and Indian sects. 
 
 " Only about two hundred years or so after their re- 
 turn from Babylon did the Jews seem to consolidate
 
 THE FABULOUS CLAIMS OF JUDAISM. 57 
 
 into a nation, and the collection and translation of 
 their old mythic records deciphered with much dif- 
 ficulty by the diligent librarians of Ptolemy Philadel- 
 phus from " old shreds and scraps of leather " no 
 doubt materially aided in consolidating the people and 
 in welding them into what they became clans proud 
 of a sort of a mythic history built up by Ezra and 
 other men acquainted with Babylonian records and 
 popular cosmogonies." 
 
 No efforts, say the leaders of the Biblical Archaeo- 
 logical Society, have been able to find either amidst 
 the numerous engravings on the rocks of Arabia Petrea 
 or Palestine, any save Phoenician inscriptions', not 
 even a record of the Syro-Hebrew character, which 
 was once thought to be the peculiar property of He- 
 brews. Most of those inscriptions hitherto discovered 
 do not date anterior to the Roman empire. Few, if 
 any, monuments (of Jews) have been found in Palestine 
 or the neighboring countries of any useful antiquity 
 save the Moabite Stone, and the value of this last is 
 all in favor of my previous arguments on these points. 
 At the pool of Siloam we have an " inscription in the 
 Phoenician character as old as the time of the Kings ; 
 ... it is incised upon the walls of a rock-chamber 
 apparently dedicated to Baal, who is mentioned on it. 
 So that here, in a most holy place of this peculiar 
 people, we find only Phranicians, and these worshipping 
 the Sun-god of Fertility, as was customary on every 
 coast of Europe from unknown times down to the rise 
 of Christianity."
 
 58 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 The Biblical Archaeological Society and British 
 Museum authorities tell us frankly and clearly that no 
 Hebrew square character can be proved to exist till 
 after the Babylonian captivity, and that, at all events, 
 this inscription of Siloam shows " that the curved or 
 Phoenician character was in use in Jerusalem itself 
 under the Hebrew monarchy, as well as the conter- 
 minous Phoenicia, Moabitis, and the more distant 
 Assyria. No monument, indeed," continues Dr. Birch, 
 " of greater antiquity inscribed in the square character 
 (Hebrew) has been found as yet OLDER THAN THE 
 FIFTH CENTURY A. D. [the small capitals are mine], 
 and the coins of the Maccabean princes, as well as 
 those of the revolter Barcochab, are impressed with 
 Samaritan characters. So that here we have the most 
 complete confirmation of all that I assert as to the 
 mythical history of a Judean people prior to a century 
 or so B. c., and even then only under such a govern- 
 ment as Babylonian administrators had taught them to 
 form and the lax rule of the Seleukidse, followed by in- 
 termittent Roman government, permitted of." 
 
 Another modern writer says : " Soon after the death 
 of Alexander the Jews first came into notice under 
 Ptolemy I. of Egypt, and some of their books were 
 collected at the new-built city of Alexandria." 
 
 Such was the insignificance of the Jews as a people 
 that the historical monuments preceding the time of 
 Alexander the Great, who died 323 years B. c., make 
 not the slightest mention of any Jewish transaction. 
 The writings of Thales, Solon, Pythagoras, Democritus,
 
 THE FABULOUS CLAIMS OF JUDAISM. 59 
 
 Plato, Herodotus, and Xenophon, all of whom visited 
 remote countries, contain no mention of the Jews what- 
 ever. Neither Homer nor Aristotle, the preceptor of 
 Alexander, makes any mention of them. The story 
 of Josephus, that Alexander visited Jerusalem, has 
 been proved to be a fabrication. Alexander's histo- 
 rians say nothing about it. He did pass through the 
 coast of Palestine, and the only resistance he encoun- 
 tered was at Gaza, which was garrisoned by Persians 
 (Wyttenbach's Opuscula, vol. ii. pp. 416, 421). 
 
 For half a century after its destruction, says Dr. 
 Robinson, there is no mention of Jerusalem in history ; 
 and even until the time of Constantine its history 
 presents little more than a blank (vol. i. pp. 367, 371). 
 
 General Forlong says : " The area of Judea and Sa- 
 maria is, according to the above authority, 140 X 40 = 
 5600 square miles, which I think is certainly one-fourth 
 too much, my own triangulation of it giving only 4500, 
 or a figure of about 130 X 35. I will, however, con- 
 cede the allotment of 5600, but we must remember 
 that, as a rule, the whole is a dismal, rocky, arid region, 
 with only intersecting valleys, watered by springs and 
 heavy rain from November to February inclusive, and 
 having scorching heats from April to September. 
 Even the inhabitable portions of the country could 
 only support the very sparsest population, and I speak 
 after having marched over it and also a considerable 
 portion of the rest of the world. In India we should 
 look upon it as a very poor province ; in some respects 
 very like the hilly tracts of Mewar or Odeypoor in
 
 60 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 Rajpootana, but in extent, population, and wealth it is 
 less than that small principality. 
 
 " The chief importance of Palestine in ancient his- 
 tory was due to its lying on the high-road between the 
 great kingdoms of Egypt, Babylon, and Assyria, and 
 as giving the Arabs a hiding- and abiding-place which 
 they Jews included could not obtain if they ven- 
 tured out on the plains south and east. The holes and 
 fastnesses of the hills were their safeguards, and, as 
 they assure us, very much used indeed. The Jewish 
 strip is divided into Samaria as a centre, with Galilee 
 north and Judea south, giving to the two former eight- 
 tenths, and the latter two-tenths ; that is, two tribes ; 
 
 5600 X 2 
 so that the Judean area would be about r~ 
 
 5600 X 8 
 1120 square miles, against the - TTT = 4480 to 
 
 the latter ; and the population would be somewhat in 
 this proportion, for the extreme barrenness of all the 
 country south and east of Jerusalem would be in some 
 degree made up for by this town being perhaps a little 
 larger than those in the north. 
 
 " We are thus prepared to state the population of 
 the entire land in terms of its area, as was done for 
 the Judean capital, and with equally startling results. 
 The whole Turkish empire yields at present less than 
 twenty-four persons to the square mile, and in the wild 
 and warring ages we are here concerned with we may 
 safely say that there were less than twenty per square 
 mile, of which half were females and one-third of the
 
 THE FABULOUS CLAIMS OF JUDAISM. 61 
 
 other half children and feeble persons, unable to take 
 the field whether for war or agriculture. The result 
 is disastrous to much biblical matter, and far-reaching ; 
 upsetting the mighty armies of Joshua and the Judges, 
 no less than those of David and Solomon, who are 
 thought for a few short years to have united the tribes : 
 nay, the stern facts of figures destroy all the subsequently 
 divided kings or petty chiefs who lasted down to the 
 sixth century or so B. c., and show us that Jews have 
 ever been insignificant in the extreme, especially when 
 compared with the great peoples who generally ruled 
 them, and far and wide around them. 
 
 The total population was probably about 5600 x 20 = 112,000 
 Deduct one-half as females, 56,000 
 
 Deduct one third as males under 
 
 fifteen and over fifty (see Kaw- 
 
 linson's estimate of the available 
 
 56,000 
 male strength of Persia) ^ =18,670 74,670 
 
 O ~~ - - - 
 
 Balance of males available from 
 all the tribes for the purposes of 
 government, 37,330 
 
 So that this paltry thirty thousand to forty thousand 
 is the very most which the twelve tribes could, and 
 only for these few years, bring to the front. In gen- 
 eral, the tribes warred with one another and with their 
 neighbors, so that, for the purposes of foreign war, the 
 Jewish race represented only two or three tribes at a 
 time, or, say, ten thousand able men. Thus one tribe 
 as, for example, Judah would have only from three
 
 62 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 thousand to four thousand men in all, supposing every 
 man left his fields and home to fight, while Assyrian 
 armies not unusually numbered one hundred thousand 
 to two hundred thousand men." 
 
 In the above statistics also we have taken a greater 
 area than I think the tribes occupied. There is not a 
 sign of a Jewish people till about what is called their 
 " Eastern Captivity," and the Rev. Mr. Rodwell writes 
 in the Trans, of the Biblical Archaeological Society that 
 " the Hebrew of the Bible is no other than a dialectic 
 variety of the Canaanitish or Phoenician tongue ex- 
 pressed in the Chaldean character, not brought, as has 
 been taught, by Abram himself from Ur of the 
 Chaldees, but adopted by the Israelites during their 
 long captivities." " Could it possibly be otherwise when 
 we look at the facts ? The Jews were a poor, ignorant, 
 weak Arab tribe, living on the outskirts of a land 
 occupied for long ages previously by the most famous 
 race of all antiquity a people from whom Greece, 
 Rome, and Carthage alike borrowed the ideas of their 
 earliest art and architecture. Homer called this race 
 Phens, Poludaidaloi ' artists of varied skill/ and later 
 Romans prized them above all others for their con- 
 structive talent. Pliny, Seneca, and Varro praise them 
 in words which will never die ; Jews said that David 
 solicited their skilled labor, and that Solomon's temple, 
 small and simple though it was, could not be raised 
 without their help ; nay, though Ezra says he had 
 these ensamples before him, and had seen all the fine 
 buildings of Babylon, yet he too had to solicit their
 
 THE FABULOUS CLAIMS OF JUDAISM. 63 
 
 aid, else the walls of the city of Jehovah and Zerub- 
 babel's second shrine could never have been constructed. 
 In all arts, trades, and manufactures this extraordinary- 
 people excelled every ancient race, and from the very 
 earliest times down and into the Roman period. Is it 
 surprising, then, that their language and customs pre- 
 vailed wherever their skilled aid was required ? that 
 Africa in its writing was no less Punic that is, 
 Phoenician than Libyan, guided by these wondrous 
 Pheni or " Tyrii bilingues " ? The history of Britain 
 during some past generations as the first great manufac- 
 turing country of modern times shows how civilization, 
 power, and progress must ever follow industry and 
 usefulness, and Phoenicians to a great extent in early 
 days controlled 'the sinews of war' where this was 
 their interest ; but it too often proved more profitable 
 to deal in swords and helmets than in ' Tyrian purple ' 
 and costly brocade stuffs. Manufacturers are not much 
 given to writing, and these Pheni have been so parsi- 
 monious in their vowels and lavish and indifferent in 
 the use of 6's, d's, /s, and s's that few philological 
 students have attempted the translation of Phoenician 
 writings, though Phoenician, and not Hebrew, is what 
 alone we find traces of in Syria and Palestine." 
 
 It has been substantially said by William Henry 
 Burr, in a work not now in the market, that " very 
 erroneous ideas prevail in regard to the magnitude of 
 the nation and country of the Jews and their import- 
 ance in history. Most maps of ancient Palestine assign 
 far too much territory to that nation. They make the
 
 64 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 greatest length of the country from 160 to 175 miles, 
 and its greatest breadth from 70 to 90, inclosing an 
 area of from 10,000 to 12,000 square miles a little 
 larger than the State of Vermont. They not only in- 
 clude the entire Mediterranean coast for 160 miles, but 
 a considerable mountain-tract on the north, above Dan, 
 and a portion of the desert on the south, below Beer- 
 sheba, besides running the eastern boundary out too 
 far. Moreover, they lengthen the distances in every 
 direction. From Dan to Beersheba, the extreme north- 
 ern and southern towns, the distance on Mitchell's map 
 is 165 miles, and on Colton's, 150; but on a map ac- 
 companying Biblical Researches in Palestine, by Edward 
 Robinson, D. D., which is one of the most recent and 
 elaborate, and will doubtless be accepted as the best 
 authority, the distance is only 128 miles. 
 
 " Now, the Israelites were never able to drive out 
 the Canaanites from the choicest portion of the country 
 the Mediterranean coast nor even from most parts 
 of the interior (Judges 1 : 16-31 ; 1 Kings 9 : 20, 21). 
 The Phoanicians, a powerful maritime people, occupied 
 the northern portion of the coast, and the Philistines 
 the southern ; between these the Jebusites or some other 
 people held control, so that the Israelites were excluded 
 from any part of the Mediterranean shore. The map 
 of their country must therefore undergo a reduction 
 of a strip on the west at least 10 miles wide by 160 
 long, or 1600 square miles. A further reduction must 
 be made of about 400 square miles for the Dead Sea 
 and Lake of Tiberias. This leaves at most 9000
 
 THE FABULOUS CLAIMS OF JUDAISM. 65 
 
 square miles by Colton's map. But on this map the 
 extreme length of the country is 175 miles, which is 
 47 miles too great : for the whole dominion of the Jews 
 extended only from Dan to Beersheba, which Dr. Rob- 
 inson places only 128 miles apart. We must therefore 
 make a further reduction of an area about 47 by 60 
 miles, or 2800 square miles. Then we must take off 
 a slice on the east, at least 10 miles broad by 60 long, 
 or 600 square miles. Thus we reduce the area of Col- 
 ton's map from 11,000 square miles to 5600 a little 
 less than the State of Connecticut. 
 
 " But now, if we subtract from this what was wil- 
 derness and desert, and also what was at no time in- 
 habited and controlled by the Israelites, we further 
 reduce their habitable territory about one-half. The 
 land of Canaan being nearly all mountainous and 
 bounded on the south and east by a vast desert which 
 encroached upon the borders of the country, a great 
 part of it was barren wilderness. Nor did but one- 
 fifth of the Israelites (two and a half tribes) occupy 
 the country east of the Jordan, which was almost equal 
 in extent to that on the west, the proper Land of 
 Promise. The eastern half, therefore, must have been 
 but thinly populated by the two and a half tribes, who 
 were only able to maintain a precarious foothold against 
 the bordering enemies. So, then, it is not probable 
 that the Israelites actually inhabited and governed at 
 any time a territory of more than 3000 square miles, 
 or not much if any larger than the little State of Dela- 
 ware. At all events, it can hardly be doubted that 
 
 5
 
 66 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 Delaware contains more good land than the whole coun- 
 try of the Jews ever did. 
 
 "The promise to Abraham in Gen. 15 : 18 is 'from 
 the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates.' But the 
 Jewish possessions never reached the Nile by 200 miles. 
 In Ex. 33 : 31 the promise is renewed, but the river of 
 Egypt is not named. The boundaries are ' from the 
 Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines (the Mediter- 
 ranean), and from the desert to the river/ By ( the 
 river ' was doubtless meant the Euphrates ; and as- 
 suming that by 'the desert ' was meant the eastern 
 boundary (though Canaan was bounded on the south 
 also by the same great desert which reached to the 
 Red Sea), we have in this promise a territory 600 miles 
 long by an average of about 180 broad, making an 
 area of about 100,000 square miles, or ten times as 
 much as the Jews ever could claim, and nearly one- 
 half of it uninhabitable. So, then, the promise was 
 never fulfilled, for the Israelites were confined to a very 
 small central portion of their land of promise, and 
 whether they occupied 3000 or 12,000 square miles in 
 the period of their greatest power, the fact is not to be 
 disputed that their country was a very small one. 
 
 " Lamartine describes the journey from Bethany to 
 Jericho as singularly toilsome and melancholy neither 
 houses nor cultivation, mountains without a shrub, im- 
 mense rocks split by time, pinnacles tinged with colors 
 like those of an extinct volcano. ' From the summit 
 of these hills, as far as the eye can reach, we see only 
 black chains, conical or broken peaks, a boundless
 
 THE FABULOUS CLAIMS OF JUDAISM. 67 
 
 labyrinth of passes rent through the mountains, and 
 those ravines lying in perfect and perpetual stillness, 
 without a stream, without a wild animal, without even 
 a flower, the relics of a convulsed land, with waves of 
 stone ' (vol. ii., p. 146)." 
 
 But lest it may be thought that these dismal feat- 
 ures are due to modern degeneracy, let us take the 
 testimony of an early Christian Father, St. Jerome, 
 who lived a long time in Bethlehem, four miles south of 
 Jerusalem. In the year 414 he wrote to Dardanus thus : 
 
 " I beg of those who assert that the Jewish people 
 after coming out of Egypt took possession of this 
 country (which to us, by the passion and resurrection 
 of our Saviour, has become truly the land of promise), 
 to show us what this people possessed. Their whole 
 dominions extended only from Dan to Beersheba, 
 hardly 160 Roman miles in length (147 geographical 
 miles). The Scriptures give no more to David and 
 Solomon, except what they acquired by alliance after 
 conquest. ... I am ashamed to say what is the 
 breadth of the land of promise, lest I should thereby 
 give the pagans occasion to blaspheme. It is but 47 
 miles (42 geographical miles) from Joppa to our little 
 town of Bethlehem, beyond which all is a frightful 
 desert " (vol. ii., p. 605). 
 
 Elsewhere he describes the country as the "refuse 
 and rubbish of nature." He says that " from Jerusalem 
 to Bethlehem there is nothing but stones, and in the 
 summer the inhabitants can scarcely get water to 
 drink."
 
 68 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 " In the year 1847, Lieut. Lynch of the U. S. Navy 
 was sent to explore the river Jordan and the Dead Sea. 
 He and his party with great difficulty crossed the 
 country from Acre to the Lake of Tiberias, with 
 trucks drawn by camels. The only roads from time 
 immemorial were mule-paths. Frequent devours had 
 to be made, and they were compelled actually to make 
 some portions of their road. Even then the last de- 
 clivity could not be overcome until all hands turned 
 out and hauled the boats and baggage down the steep 
 places ; and many times it seemed as if, like the ancient 
 herd of swine, they would all rush precipitately into 
 the sea. Over three days were required to make the 
 journey, which in a straight line would be only twenty- 
 seven miles. For the first few miles they passed over 
 a pretty fertile plain, but this was the ancient Phrenician 
 country, which the Jews never conquered. The rest 
 of the route was mountainous and rocky, with not a 
 tree visible nor a house outside the little walled villages 
 (pp. 135 to 152). 
 
 " The ancient Sea of Galilee has a prominent place 
 in Jewish geography and commerce, yet on this insig- 
 nificant body of water, twelve miles long by seven 
 wide, all the commerce of the Jews was carried on, 
 except when they had the use of a port on the Red 
 Sea. 
 
 " In a book entitled The Holy Land, Syria, etc., by 
 David Roberts, R. A. (London, 1855), the valley of 
 the Jordan is thus described : 
 
 " ' A large portion of the valley of the Jordan has
 
 THE FABULOUS CLAIMS OF JUDAISM. 69 
 
 been from the earliest time almost a desert. But in the 
 northern part the great number of rivulets which de- 
 scend from the mountains on both sides produce in many 
 places a luxuriant growth of wild herbage. So too in 
 the southern part, where similar rivulets exist, as around 
 Jericho, there is even an exuberant fertility ; but those 
 rivulets seldom reach the Jordan and have no effect on 
 the middle of the Ghor. The mountains on each side 
 are rugged and desolate, the western cliffs overhang- 
 ing the valley at an elevation of 1000 or 1200 feet, 
 while the eastern mountains fall back in ranges of from 
 2000 to 2500 feet.' " 
 
 What was the size of ancient Jerusalem ? We know 
 pretty nearly what it is now and how many inhabitants 
 it contains. It is three-quarters of a mile long by 
 half a mile wide, and its population is not more than 
 11,500 (Biblical Researches, vol i., p. 421), a large 
 proportion of whom are drawn thither by the renown- 
 ed sanctity of the place. Dr. Robinson measured the 
 wall of the city, and found it to be only 12,978 feet in 
 circumference, or nearly two and a half miles (vol. i., 
 p. 268). 
 
 " In a book entitled An Essay on the Ancient To- 
 pography of Jerusalem, by James Fergusson (London, 
 1847), a diagram is given of the walls of ancient and 
 modern Jerusalem, from which it appears that the 
 greatest length of the city was at no time more than 
 6000 feet, or a little more than a mile, and its greatest 
 width about three-quarters of a mile; while the real 
 Jerusalem of old was but a little more than a quarter
 
 70 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 that size. The author gives the area of the different 
 walled enclosures as follows (p. 52) : 
 
 Area of the old city 513,000 yards. 
 
 That of the city of David 243,000 
 
 Partial total 756,000 
 
 That enclosed by the wall of Agrippa . . . 1,456,000 
 
 Grand total 2,212,000 
 
 " With these measurements Mr. Fergusson under- 
 takes to estimate the probable population of the ancient 
 city, as follows : 
 
 " ' If we allow the inhabitants of the first-named 
 cities fifty yards to each individual, and that one-half 
 of the new city was inhabited at the rate of one person 
 to each one hundred yards, this will give a permanent 
 population of 23,000 souls. If, on the other hand, we 
 allow only thirty-three yards to each of the old cities, 
 and admit that the whole of the new was as densely 
 populated as London, or allowing one hundred yards 
 to each inhabitant, we obtain 37,000 souls for the whole ; 
 which I do not think it at all probable that Jerusalem 
 ever could have contained as a permanent population.' 
 
 " ' In another part of the book (p. 47) he says : 
 " If we were to trust Josephus, he would have us 
 believe that Jerusalem contained at one time, or could 
 contam, two and a half or three millions of souls, and 
 that at the siege of Titus 1,100,000 perished by famine 
 and the sword, 97,000 were taken captive, and 40,000 
 allowed by Titus to go free.' 
 
 " In order to show the gross exaggeration of these 
 numbers, he cites the fact that the army of Titus did
 
 THE FABULOUS CLAIMS OF JUDAISM. 71 
 
 not exceed, altogether, 30,000, and that Josephus him- 
 self enumerates the fighting-men of the city at 23,400, 
 which would give a population something under 
 100,000. But even this he believes to be an exaggera- 
 tion. For, says he, 
 
 " ' In all the sallies it cannot be discovered that at 
 any time the Jews could bring into the field 10,000 
 men, if so many. . . . Titus enclosed the city with a 
 line four and a half miles in extent, which, with his 
 small army, was so weak a disposition that a small body 
 of the Jews could easily have broken through it ; but 
 they never seem to have had numbers sufficient to be 
 able to attempt it.' 
 
 " The author guesses that the Jews might have 
 mustered at the beginning of the siege about 10,000 
 men, and that the city might have contained altogether 
 about 40,000 inhabitants, permanent and transient, in 
 a space which in no other city in the world could 
 accommodate 30,000 souls. But the wall of Agrippa 
 was built, as the same author states, twelve or thirteen 
 years after the Crucifixion ; hence prior to that time 
 the area of Jerusalem was only 756,000 yards, and it 
 was capable of containing only 23,000 inhabitants at 
 most, but probably never did contain more than 15,000. 
 
 " Allowing to Jerusalem, in the period of the great- 
 est prosperity of the Jews, a population of even 
 20,000, is it at all probable that the whole country 
 could have contained anything like even the lowest 
 estimate to be gathered from the Scripture record ? In 
 1 Chron. 21 : 5, 6 we read that the number of ' men
 
 72 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 that drew the sword ' of Israel and Judah amounted 
 to 1,570,000, not counting the tribes of Levi and Ben- 
 jamin. In 2 Sam. 24 : 9, the number given at the 
 same census is 1,300,000, and no omission is men- 
 tioned. Assuming the larger number to be correct, 
 and adding only one-eighth for the two tribes of Levi 
 and Benjamin, which may have been the smallest, we 
 have 1,766,000 fighting-men. This would give, at the 
 rate of one fighting-man to four inhabitants, a total 
 population of over 7,000,000 souls. But if we adopt 
 a more reasonable ratio, of one to six, we have a pop- 
 ulation of over 10,500,000 souls. And then we omit 
 the aliens. These numbered 153,600 working-men 
 only two years later (2 Chron. 2 : 17), and the total 
 alien population, therefore, must have been about 
 500,000, which, added to the census, would make the 
 total population from 7,500,000 to 11,000,000, or 
 more. Can any intelligent man believe that a mount- 
 ainous, barren country, no larger than Connecticut, 
 without commerce, without manufactures, without the 
 mechanical arts, without civilization, ever did or could 
 subsist even two millions of people ? Much less can it 
 be believed that it subsisted l seven nations greater and 
 mightier than the Israelitish nation itself (Deut. 7 : 1) 
 i. e. not less than 14,000,000. 
 
 " That the Jews were a very barbarous people is un- 
 deniable. Slavery necessarily makes a people barbarous. 
 Not only were the Israelites a nation of slaves, accord- 
 ing to their own record, but after their entry into 
 Canaan they were six times reduced to bondage in their
 
 THE FABULOUS CLAIMS OF JUDAISM. 73 
 
 own land of promise. During a period of 281 years 
 they were in slavery 111 years, viz. : 
 
 Under the king of Mesopotamia ... 8 years, Judg. 3 : 8. 
 
 Under the king of Moab 18 " ' 3 : 14. 
 
 Under the king of Canaan 20 " ' 4:3. 
 
 Under the Midianites 7 " ' 6:1. 
 
 InGilead 18 " ' 10 : 8. 
 
 Under the Philistines 40 " ' 13 : 1. 
 
 " That the Jews were far behind their surrounding 
 neighbors in civilization is shown by the fact that in 
 the first battle they fought under their first king, Saul, 
 they had in the whole army ' neither sword nor spear 
 in the hand of any of the people,' except Saul and 
 Jonathan (1 Sam. 13 : 22). Nor was any l smith 
 found throughout all the land of Israel' (ver. 19), but 
 'all the Israelites went down to the Philistines to 
 sharpen every man his share, and his coulter, and his 
 axe, and his mattock ' (ver. 20.) This was 404 years 
 after the Exodus and only 75 years prior to the build- 
 ing of Solomon's temple. Their weapons of war were 
 those of the rudest savage. 
 
 " As another evidence of the barbarism of the Jews, 
 when David resolved to build a house for himself he 
 had 110 native artisans, but had to send to Hiram, king 
 of Tyre, for masons and carpenters (2 Sam. 5: 11). 
 Even the wood itself had to be brought from Tyre. 
 It would seem that even in those days, as now, the 
 mountains of Canaan were destitute of trees a sure 
 sign of a sterile country. The wood of course had to be 
 carried overland. Wheel-carriages were unknown to
 
 74 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 the Israelites, except in the form of chariots of iron 
 used by their enemies, which prevented Judah, even 
 with the help of the Lord, from driving out the inhab- 
 itants of the valleys (Judg. 1 : 19). David captured 
 1000 chariots in about the sixteenth year of his reign, 
 of which he preserved only 100, disabling all the 
 horses (1 Chron. 18 : 3.) Prior to this event neither 
 chariots nor horses had been used by the Israelites, nor 
 was much use made of them by the subsequent kings. 
 Oxen and asses were their beasts of burden ; camels 
 were rare even long after Solomon's reign. How, then, 
 was the wood brought from Tyre over the mountains, 
 unless it was carried on the backs of oxen or asses or 
 dragged along the ground?" 
 
 That a considerable number of Jews at one time 
 sojourned in Egypt is highly probable. How they 
 got there, and how they came to leave, is not so certain. 
 An eminent Egyptologist writes in a leading London 
 journal : 
 
 "The presence of large numbers of Semites in 
 ancient Egypt has always been a puzzle to historians, 
 and what first led to their migrating from Mesopotamia 
 to the land of the Pharaohs has never hitherto been 
 made clear. Quite recently, however, the British 
 Museum has become possessed of a number of cunei- 
 form tablets which throw considerable light on the 
 subject. Early in the present year a number of these 
 tablets were offered for sale in Cairo. They had been 
 dug up from the grave of a royal scribe of Amenophis 
 III. and IV. of the eighteenth dynasty, which had
 
 THE FABULOUS CLAIMS OF JUDAISM. 75 
 
 given up its records, and not only records, but seals 
 and papyri of great historical and artistic value. Some 
 went to the Boulak Museum, some to Berlin, others to 
 private persons, and eighty-one have found their way 
 to the British Museum. These last have now been 
 arranged and catalogued by Mr. Budge, the well- 
 known Egyptologist, whose investigations have brought 
 to light a most interesting chapter in the history of 
 ancient Egypt. Not only do the tablets explain the 
 historical crux mentioned above, but they introduce us 
 to the family life of the early kings. They picture to 
 us the splendors of the royal palaces ; they enable us 
 to assist at the betrothal of the kings' daughters and 
 to follow the kings to their hunting-grounds. Most 
 of the tablets are letters addressed to Amenophis III., 
 and some are from Tushratta, king of Mesopotamia. 
 
 " Amenophis III. was a mighty hunter, and once 
 on a shooting-trip into Mesopotamia after big game 
 he, like a king in a fairy-tale, met and loved Ti, the 
 daughter of Tushratta. They were married in due 
 time, and Ti went, down into Egypt with three hun- 
 dred and seventeen of her principal ladies. This 
 brought a host of their Semitic countrymen along, who 
 found in Egypt a good field for their business capaci- 
 ties, and gradually, like the modern Jews in Russia, 
 got possession of the lands and goods of their hosts. 
 The influence of the Semitic queen is attested by the 
 very fact that this library of cuneiform tablets was 
 preserved. And under the feeble sovereigns who fol- 
 lowed, her countrymen doubtless held their own. But
 
 76 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 at last came the nineteenth dynasty and the Pharaoh 
 ' who knew not Joseph.' Then they were set to brick- 
 making and pyramid-building, till the outbreak which 
 led to the Red Sea triumph. 
 
 " Mr. Budge, of the British Museum, has translated 
 three of the letters. One is from Tushratta to Ameno- 
 phis. After many complimentary salutations, he pro- 
 poses to his son-in-law that they should continue the 
 arrangement made by their fathers for pasturing double- 
 humped camels, and in this way he leads up to the 
 main purport of his epistle. He says that Manie, his 
 great-nephew, is ambitious to marry the daughter of 
 the king of Egypt, and he pleads that Manie might be 
 allowed to go down to Egypt to woo in person. The 
 alliance would, he considers, be a bond of union be- 
 tween the two countries, and he adds, as though by an 
 after-thought, that the gold which Amenophis appears 
 to have asked for should be sent for at once, together 
 with Marge gold jars, large gold plates, and other 
 articles made of gold.' After this meaning interpola- 
 tion he returns to the marriage question, and proposes 
 to act in the matter of the dowry in the same way in 
 which his grandfather acted, presumably on a like 
 occasion. He then enlarges on the wealth of his king- 
 dom, where l gold is like dust which cannot be counted/ 
 and he adds an inventory of presents which he is send- 
 ing, articles of gold, inlay, and harness, and thirty 
 eunuchs." 
 
 In speaking of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, 
 Dr. Knappert says : " According to the tradition pre-
 
 THE FABULOUS CLAIMS OF JUDAISM. 77 
 
 served in Genesis, it was the promotion of Jacob's son, 
 Joseph, to be viceroy of Egypt that brought about the 
 migration of the sons of Israel from Canaan to Goshen. 
 The story goes that this Joseph was sold as a slave by 
 his brothers, and after many changes of fortune re- 
 ceived the viceregal office at Pharaoh's hands through 
 his skill in interpreting dreams. Famine drives his 
 brothers, and afterward his father, to him, and the 
 Egyptian prince gives them the land of Goshen to live 
 in. It is by imagining all this that the legend tries to 
 account for the fact that Israel passed some time in 
 Egypt. But we must look for the real explanation in 
 a migration of certain tribes which could not establish 
 or maintain themselves in Canaan, and were forced to 
 move farther on." 
 
 The author of the Religion of Israel says : " The 
 history of the religion of Israel must start from the 
 sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt. Formerly it was 
 usual to take a much earlier starting-point, and to be- 
 gin with a discussion of the religious ideas of the 
 patriarchs. And this was perfectly right so long as 
 the accounts of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were con- 
 sidered historical. But now that a strict investigation 
 has shown us that these stories are entirely unhistor- 
 ical, of course we have to begin the history later on." 
 
 The author of The Spirit History of Man says : 
 " The Hebrews came out of Egypt and settled among 
 the Canaanites. They need not be traced beyond the 
 Exodus ; that is their historical beginning. It was 
 very easy to cover up this remote event by the recital
 
 78 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 of mythical traditions, and to prefix to it an account 
 of their origin in which the gods (patriarchs) should 
 figure as their ancestors." 
 
 But how about the Jewish exodus from Egypt? 
 What was the real cause? Whom shall we credit, 
 the writer of the book called Exodus or other writers ? 
 What follows differs very much from the Hebrew 
 story. 
 
 Lysimachus relates that " a filthy disease broke out 
 in Egypt, and the oracle of Ammon, being consulted 
 on the occasion, commanded the king to purify the 
 land by driving out the Jews (who were infected with 
 leprosy, etc.), who were hateful to the gods. The whole 
 multitude of the people were accordingly collected and 
 driven out into the wilderness." 
 
 Diodorus Siculus says : " In ancient times Egypt was 
 afflicted with a great plague, which was attributed to 
 the anger of God on account of the multitude of for- 
 eigners in Egypt, by whom the rites of the native 
 religion were neglected. The Egyptians accordingly 
 drove them out. The most notable of them went 
 under Cadmus and Danaus to Greece, but the greater 
 number followed Moses, a wise and valiant leader, to 
 Palestine." 
 
 Tacitus, the Roman historian, says : tc In this clash of 
 opinions one point seems to be universally admitted 
 a pestilential disease, disfiguring the race of man and 
 making the body an object of loathsome deformity, 
 spreading all over Egypt. Bocchoris, at that time the 
 reigning monarch, consulted the oracle of Jupiter
 
 THE FABULOUS CLAIMS OF JUDAISM. 79 
 
 Harnmon, and received for answer that the kingdom 
 must be purified by exterminating the infected mul- 
 titude, as a race of men detested by the gods. After 
 diligent search the wretched sufferers were collected to- 
 gether, and in a wild and barren desert abandoned to 
 their misery. In that distress, while the vulgar herd 
 was sunk in deep despair, Moses, one of their number, 
 reminded them that by the wisdom of his counsels 
 they had been already rescued out of impending dan- 
 ger. Deserted as they were by men and gods, he told 
 them that if they did not repose their confidence in 
 him as their chief by divine commission they had no 
 resource left. His offer was accepted. Their march 
 began, they knew not whither. Want of water was 
 their chief distress. "Worn out with fatigue, they lay 
 stretched on the bare earth, heartbroken, ready to ex- 
 pire, when a troop of wild asses, returning from pasture, 
 went up the steep ascent of a rock covered with a grove 
 of trees. The verdure of the herbage round the place 
 suggested the idea of springs near at hand. Moses 
 traced the steps of the animals, and discovered a plen- 
 tiful vein of water. By this relief the fainting multi- 
 tude was raised from despair." 
 
 In a learned work on Egypt by Mr. William Oxley 
 of England, published in 1884, the author writes : 
 " Taking the records as we find them, if they are real 
 history, and as Palestine is contiguous to Egypt, we 
 should naturally expect to find some reference to the 
 Israelites in the Egyptian annals, but what does appear 
 in regard to Palestine is certainly not favorable to the
 
 80 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 assumption that it was the home of the Israelites as a 
 nation. I cull the following from such materials as are 
 at present within reach, partly taken from the Records 
 of the Past : 
 
 " It has been generally acknowledged by Egyptian 
 biblicists that 'the cruel bondage of the Israelites' 
 culminated under the reign of Rameses II., nineteenth 
 dynasty, and that the Exodus took place under his suc- 
 cessor, Menephtah I., 1326 B. c., who was drowned in 
 the Red Sea with all his host in his attempt to bring 
 the wanderers back again. But, as I have already 
 said, the tomb of this very king at Thebes contains an 
 inscription to the effect that he had lived to a good old 
 age, and was a child of good-fortune from his cradle 
 to the grave. In the annals of Rameses III., who 
 reigned some fifty or sixty years after the Israelites 
 ought to have been settled in their own land, many ref- 
 erences are made to the country in which they were 
 located (according to biblical accounts). The king 
 goes to what is known to us as Palestine, Phoenicia, 
 and Syria to ' receive the annual tribute from the chiefs/ 
 whom he calls Khetas. In the enumeration of his con- 
 quests, extending from Egypt east and northward, he 
 enumerates thirty-eight tribes and peoples, and says : 
 ' I have smitten every land, and have taken every land 
 in its extent.' In his reminder to the God Ptah of the 
 benefits he had conferred on the god, the king says : 
 ' I gave to thy temple from the store-houses of Egypt, 
 Tar-neter, and Kharu (i. e. Palestine and Syria) more 
 numerous offerings than the sand of the sea, as well as
 
 THE FABULOUS CLAIMS OF JUDAISM. 81 
 
 cattle and slaves ' (Syrians). He also built a temple 
 to Ammon in the same country, to which ' the nations 
 of the Rutenna came and brought their tribute.' 
 Making full allowance for the usual Egyptian flattery, 
 the fact is clear that in the time of this king the Israel- 
 ites could not have been a settled and distinct people; 
 and the incident of their Exodus would have been too 
 fresh and recent to be passed over without some comment 
 by this vainglorious monarch. 
 
 " From a papyrus translated in the Records of the 
 Past (ii. 107), entitled Travels of an Egyptian, who 
 gives a full account of Palestine, etc., it appears there 
 was a fortress there which had been built by Rameses 
 II., and which was still belonging to Egypt. This 
 would be about 1350 B. c. ; but not the slightest hint 
 of any such people as Israelites, although he tells us 
 ' he visited the country to get information respecting 
 the country, with the manners and customs of its 
 inhabitants/ 
 
 "The next is Rameses XII., some two hundred 
 years after the Exodus, who is the hero of the story 
 of the possessed princess. He was in Mesopotamia at 
 the time when the chief of the Bakhten brought his 
 daughter, who afterward became queen of Egypt. ' His 
 Majesty was there registering the annual tributes of all 
 the princes of the countries/ among whom he enume- 
 rates Tar-neter (Palestine), but no mention of Israel- 
 ites. 
 
 " I find no further trace until the time of Herodotus 
 (about 420 B. c.) ; and here we come on historical 
 
 6
 
 82 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 ground. This great historian travelled through Egypt 
 and Palestine in the reign of one of the kings of the 
 Persian dynasty, about forty or fifty years after the 
 alleged return of the Jews from their captivity in 
 Babylon, and when the temple had been built and the 
 city fortified. He repeatedly alludes to the Phoenicians 
 and Syrians, whose country extended from the coast of 
 the Levant down to the Egyptian frontier, including 
 the isthmus and Sinaitic Peninsula. He says that 
 Necho (about 670 B. c.) fought with the Syrians, and 
 took a large city, Cadytis ; but he makes no mention 
 of Jews nor yet of Jerusalem. If they had been 
 there, it is incredible that such a careful and grasping 
 historian should have explored the land without noti- 
 cing them in some way or other. 
 
 " The next is from a tablet erected to Alexander II. 
 by Ptolemy, at that time viceroy under the Persian 
 king, but who soon after himself became king of Egypt, 
 305 B. c. The inscription states that ' Alexander 
 marched with an army of lonians to the Syrians' land, 
 who were at war with him. He penetrated its interior 
 and took it at one stroke, and led their princes, cavalry, 
 ships, and works of art to Egypt/ 
 
 " Next follows the third Ptolemy, 238 B. c. (see the 
 Decree of Canopus, Records of the Past, viii., 81), who 
 invaded the two lands of Asia, and brought back to 
 Egypt all the treasures which had been carried away 
 by Cambyses and his successors. He ' imported corn 
 from East Rutenna and Kafatha' i. e. from Syria 
 and Phoenicia. It was the father of this king who is
 
 THE FABULOUS CLAIMS OF JUDAISM. 83 
 
 credited with sending to Judea for the seventy-two men 
 who translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek ; and 
 yet neitKer of these Ptolemaic kings makes mention 
 of Judea, Jerusalem, or the Jews ! The inference is 
 obvious : they were not there. 
 
 "Many historiographers, when writing of Jewish 
 annals, use the Ptolemaic and other monumental and 
 papyrian accounts as applying to the Jews, and conse- 
 quently use the term ' Jews ;' but this is unwarrantable, 
 inasmuch as the accounts themselves speak of ' Syrians, 
 Phoenicians/ etc., but not of 'Jews.' According to 
 the best cyclopsedists, l there is little or nothing known 
 of the Jews or Jerusalem until the time of Christ ;' 
 and even then it is taken chiefly from Josephus, who, 
 to my view, is scarcely admissible as a chronographer 
 of actual history. No mention is made by the Ptole- 
 mies say 250 or even less years B. c. of the Jews of 
 Jerusalem, and as the Roman emperor Hadrian (from 
 117 to 138 A. D.) is credited with changing the name of 
 the city to JElia Capitolina, it could only have been 
 known as Jerusalem for a few centuries at most. The 
 Arch of Titus in Rome is taken as conclusive proof 
 that it was erected to commemorate his victories over 
 the rebellious Jews and the successful siege of Jeru- 
 salem. But even this, I apprehend, is taken chiefly 
 from Josephus. When in Rome last year I closely 
 inspected this arch, expecting to find an inscription to 
 this effect, but I was disappointed at seeing only a 
 Latin one over the arch, which reads (in English) : 
 ' The Senate and Roman People to the Divine Titus,
 
 84 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 (Son) of the divine Vespasian/ and another, by Pius 
 VII., recording its restoration. It is true, I saw the 
 alto-reliefs on the inside of the arch, showing a table, 
 trumpets, and a seven-branched lamp ; but these were 
 used in many temples, and would as well refer to the 
 Syrian or Phoenician temples, which undoubtedly ex- 
 isted at that time, and in the absence of direct Roman 
 testimony to the name of the city and people (of which 
 I am unaware), it cannot be accepted as indubitable 
 evidence of its reference to a city called and known to 
 them as Jerusalem, and to a people known to them as 
 Jews. Unless this can be established, it only amounts 
 to an inference resting on Josephus. 
 
 "As the result of my researches, I place Jewish 
 historians, so called, upon the same footing as the 
 Christian ecclesiastical ones, whose works, while con- 
 taining a base of more or less historical reference and 
 truth, are yet too much overweighted with unhistorical 
 myths to be regarded as genuine, sober history. To 
 my view, the Jews were, at the period I am referring 
 to, in a not dissimilar position to the Druses of Lebanon 
 of the present day. As is well known to a certain 
 class of writers who have come in contact with them, 
 they form a community held together not so much by 
 national ties as by semi-religious ones, which are based 
 upon Cabalistic and theurgic rites and ceremonies. 
 Like what I conceive the Jews to have been in the 
 centuries preceding the Christian era, they are an order 
 rather than a nation, the remains of systems which 
 have continued and survived from ancient times. In
 
 THE FASULOVS CLAIMS OF JUDAISM. 85 
 
 this light the Jewish records are intelligible as writings 
 veiled in allegory, treating of their mystic lore, albeit 
 expressed in verbiage that bears a literal meaning 
 upon its surface. I give this as the only solution that 
 presents itself of the mysterious problem under review." 
 
 I now propose to state a few points from the Jewish 
 writings themselves (collated from Bishop Colenso) to 
 show the fabulous character of the history of this pre- 
 tentious people. 
 
 The number of fighting-men who marched out of 
 Egypt is nowhere estimated at less than 600,000, and 
 if this represented only one-fourth of the population, the 
 latter must have reached 3,000,000. If we cut this 
 down one-third, so as to be sure of our figures, we 
 make it 2,000,000 souls. 
 
 The number of the children of Israel who went into 
 Egypt was 70 (Ex. 1 : 5). They sojourned in Egypt 
 215 years. It could not have been 430 years, as would 
 appear from Ex.11 : 40. The marginal chronology 
 makes the period 215 years, and there were only four 
 generations to the Exodus namely, Levi, Kohath, 
 Amram, and Moses (Ex. 6 : 16, 18, 20). How could 
 these people have increased in 215 years from 70 souls 
 so as to number 600,000 warriors ? It would have 
 required an average number of 46 children to each 
 father. The 12 sons of Jacob had between them only 
 53 sons. At this rate of increase, in the fourth gen- 
 eration there would have been only 6311 males (pro- 
 vided they were all living at the time of the Exodus), 
 instead of 1,000,000. If we add the fifth generation,
 
 86 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 who would be mostly children, the total number of 
 males would not have exceeded 28,465. 
 
 All the first-born males from a month old and up- 
 ward, of those that were numbered, were 22,273 
 (Num. 3 : 43). The lowest computation of the whole 
 number of the people at that time is 2,000,000. The 
 number of males would be 1,000,000. Dividing the 
 latter number by the number of first-born, gives 44, 
 which would be the average number of boys in each 
 family, or about 88 children by each mother; Or, if 
 where the first-born were females, the males were not 
 counted, the number of children by each mother would 
 be reduced to 44. 
 
 Dan in the first generation had but one son (Gen. 
 46 : 23), and yet in the fourth generation his descend- 
 ants had increased to 62,700 warriors (Num. 2 : 26), or 
 64,400 (Num. 26 : 43). Each of his sons and grand- 
 sons must have had about 80 children of both sexes. 
 On the other hand, the Levites increased the number 
 of " males from a month old and upward " during the 
 38 years in the wilderness only from 22,000 to 23,000 
 (Num. 3 : 39 ; 26 : 62), and the tribe of Manasseh dur- 
 ing the same time increased from 32,200 (Num. 1 : 35) 
 to 52,700 (26 : 34). 
 
 The whole population of Israel were instructed in 
 one single day to keep the passover, and actually did 
 keep it (Ex. 12). At the first notice of any such feast 
 Jehovah said, " I will pass through the land of Egypt 
 this night." The passover was to be killed " at even " 
 on the same day that Moses received the command.
 
 THE FABULOUS CLAIMS OF JUDAISM. 87 
 
 The women were at the same time ordered to borrow 
 jewels of their neighbors, the Egyptians. After mid- 
 night of the same day the Israelites received notice to 
 start for the wilderness. No one was to go out of his 
 house till morning, when they were to take their hur- 
 ried flight with their cattle and herds. How could 
 2,000,000 people, scattered about over a wide district, 
 as they must have been with their cattle and herds, 
 have gotten ready and taken a simultaneous hurried 
 flight at twelve hours' notice? 
 
 The Israelites, with their flocks and herds, reached 
 the Red Sea, a distance of from fifty to sixty miles 
 over a sandy desert, in three days ! Marching fifty 
 abreast, the able-bodied warriors alone would have 
 filled up the road for seven miles, and the whole multi- 
 tude would have made a column twenty-two miles long, 
 so that the last of the body could not have been started 
 until the front had advanced that distance more than 
 two days' journey for such a mixed company. Then 
 the sheep and cattle must have formed another vast 
 column, covering a much greater tract of ground in 
 proportion to their number. Upon what did these two 
 millions of sheep and oxen feed in the journey to the 
 Red Sea over a desert region, sandy, gravelly, and 
 stony alternately ? How did the people manage with 
 the sick and infirm, and especially with the seven hun- 
 dred and fifty births that must have taken place in the 
 three days' march ? 
 
 Judah was forty-two years old when he went down 
 with Jacob into Egypt, being three years older than
 
 88 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 his brother Joseph, who was then thirty-nine. For 
 " Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before 
 Pharaoh " (Gen. 41 : 46) ; and from that time nine 
 years elapsed (seven of plenty and two of famine) 
 before Jacob came down into Egypt. Judah was born 
 in the fourth year of Jacob's double marriage (Gen. 
 29 : 35), being the fourth of the seven children of Leah 
 born in seven years ; and Joseph was born of Rachel 
 in the seventh year (Gen. 30 : 24, 26 ; 21 : 41). In 
 these forty-two years of Judah's life the following 
 events are recorded in Gen. 38 : 
 
 He grows up, marries, and has three sons. His 
 eldest son grows up, marries, and dies. The second 
 son marries his brother's widow and dies. The third 
 son, after waiting to grow to maturity, declines to 
 marry the widow. The widow then deceives Judah 
 himself, and bears him twins Pharez and Zarah. 
 One of these twins grows up and has two sons Hez- 
 ron and Hamul born to him before Jacob goes down 
 into Egypt. 
 
 In Ex. 30 : 11-13, Jehovah commanded Moses to 
 take a census of the children of Israel, and in doing it 
 to collect half a shekel of the sanctuary as atonement- 
 money. This expression "shekel of the sanctuary" 
 is put into the mouth of Jehovah six or seven months 
 before the tabernacle was made. In Ex. 38 : 26 we 
 read of such a tribute being paid, but nothing is there 
 said of any census being taken, only that the number 
 of those who paid, from twenty years old and upward, 
 was 603,550 men. In Num. 1 : 1-46, more than six
 
 THE FABULOUS CLAIMS OF JUDAISM. 89 
 
 months after this occasion, an account of an actual 
 census is given, but no atonement-money is mentioned. 
 If in the first instance a census was taken, but acci- 
 dentally omitted to be mentioned, and in the second in- 
 stance the tribute was paid, but accidentally omitted like- 
 wise, it was nevertheless surprising that the number 
 of adult males should have been identically the same 
 (603,550) 011 both occasions, six months apart. 
 
 Aaron and his two sons were the only priests during 
 Aaron's lifetime. They had to make all the burnt- 
 offerings on a single altar nine feet square (Ex. 37 : 1), 
 besides attending to other priestly duties for 2,000,000 
 people. At the birth of every child both a burnt- 
 offering and a sin-offering had to be made. The num- 
 ber of births must be reckoned as at least two hundred 
 and fifty a day, for which consequently five hundred 
 sacrifices would have to be offered daily an impossible 
 duty to be performed by three priests. For poor 
 women pigeons were accepted instead of lambs. If 
 half of them offered pigeons, and only one instead of 
 two, it would have required 90,000 pigeons annually 
 for this purpose alone. Where did they get the pigeons ? 
 How could they have had them at all under Sinai ? 
 There were thirteen cities where the presence of these 
 three priests was required (Josh. 21 : 19). The three 
 priests had to eat a large portion of the burnt-offerings 
 (Num. 18 : 10) and all the sin-offerings two hundred 
 and fifty pigeons a day more than eighty for each 
 priest. 
 
 In keeping the second passover under Sinai, 150,000
 
 90 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 lambs must have been killed i. e. one for each family 
 (Ex. 12:3, 4). The Levites slew them, and the three 
 priests had to sprinkle the blood from their hands 
 (1 Chron. 30 : 16 ; 35 : 11). The killing had to be 
 done " between two evenings " (Ex. 12 : 6), and the 
 sprinkling had to be done in about two hours. The 
 killing must have been done in the court of the taber- 
 nacle (Lev. 1 : 3, 5 ; 17 : 2-6). The area of the court 
 could have held but 5000 people at most. Here the 
 lambs had to be sacrificed- at the rate of 1250 a minute, 
 and each of the three priests had to sprinkle the blood 
 of more than 400 lambs every minute for two hours. 
 
 The number of warriors of the Israelites, as recorded 
 at the Exodus, was 600,000 (Ex. 7 : 37) ; subsequently 
 it was 603,550 (Ex. 38 : 25-28), and at the end of 
 their wanderings it was 601,730 (Num. 26 : 51). But 
 in 2 Chron. 13 : 3, Abijah, king of Judah, brings 
 400,000 men against Jeroboam, king of Israel, with 
 800,000, and " there fell down slain of Israel 500,000 
 chosen men" (ver. 17). On another occasion, Pekah, 
 king of Israel, slew of Judah in one day, 120,000 
 valiant men (2 Chron. 28 : 6.) 
 
 The Israelites at their Exodus were provided with 
 tents (Ex. 16 : 16), in which they undoubtedly en- 
 camped and dwelt. They did not dwell in tents in 
 Egypt, but in "houses" with "doors," "sideposts," 
 and " lintels." These tents must have been made 
 either of hair or of skin (Ex. 26 : 7, 14 ; 36 : 14, 19) 
 most probably of the latter and were therefore 
 much heavier than the modern canvas tents. At least
 
 THE FABULOUS CLAIMS OF JUDAISM. 91 
 
 200,000 were required to accommodate 2,000,000 peo- 
 ple. Supposing they took these tents from Egypt, how 
 did they carry them in their hurried march to the Red 
 Sea ? The people had burdens enough without them. 
 They had to carry their kneadiug-troughs with the 
 dough unleavened, their clothes, their cooking utensils, 
 couches, infants, aged and infirm persons, and food 
 enough for at least a month's use, or until manna was 
 provided for them in the wilderness, which was " on 
 the fifteenth day of the second month after their de- 
 parture out of the land of Egypt " (Ex. 16:1). 
 One of these tents, with its poles, pegs, etc., would be 
 a load for a single ox, so that they would have needed 
 200,000 oxen to carry the tents. But oxen are not 
 usually trained to carry goods on their backs, anH will 
 not do so without training. Then it is written : 
 
 " These be the words which Moses spake unto all 
 Israel" (Deut. 1: 1). 
 
 " And Moses called all Israel and said unto them " 
 (Deut. 5 : 1). 
 
 "There was not a word of all that Moses com- 
 manded, which Joshua read not before all the congre- 
 gation of Israel, with the women, and the little ones, 
 and the strangers that were conversant among them " 
 (Josh. 8 : 35). 
 
 How was it possible to do this before at least 
 2,000,000 people ? Could Moses or Joshua, as actual 
 eye-witnesses, have expressed themselves in such ex- 
 travagant language? Surely not. 
 
 The camp of the Israelites must have been at least
 
 92 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 a mile and a half in diameter. This would be allow- 
 ing to each person on the average a space three times 
 the size of a coffin for a full-grown man. The ashes, 
 offal, and refuse of the sacrifices would therefore have 
 to be carried by the priest in person a distance of three- 
 quarters of a mile " without the camp, unto a clean 
 place " (Lev. 4 : 11, 12.) There were only three priests 
 namely, Aaron, Eleazar, and Ithamar to do all this 
 work for 2,000,000 people. All the wood and water 
 would have to be brought into this immense camp from 
 the outside. Where could the supplies have been got 
 while the camp was under Sinai, in a desert, for nearly 
 twelve months together ? How could so great a camp 
 have been kept clean ? 
 
 But how huge does the difficulty become if we take 
 the more reasonable dimensions of twelve miles square 
 for this camp ; that is, about the size of London ! 
 Imagine at least half a million of men having to go 
 out daily a distance of six miles and back to the sub- 
 urbs for the common necessities of nature, as the law 
 directed. 
 
 The Israelites undoubtedly had flocks and herds of 
 cattle (Ex. 34 : 3). They sojourned nearly a year be- 
 fore Sinai, where there was no food for cattle ; and the 
 wilderness in which they sojourned nearly forty years 
 is now and was then a desert (Deut. 32 : 10 ; 8:15). 
 The cattle surely did not subsist on manna ! 
 
 Among other prodigies of valor, 12,000 Israelites 
 are recorded in Num. 31 as slaying all the male Mid- 
 ianites, taking captive all the females and children, seiz-
 
 THE FABULOUS CLAIMS OF JUDAISM. 93 
 
 ing all their cattle and flocks, numbering 808,000 head, 
 taking all their goods and burning all their cities, with- 
 out the loss of a single man. Then they killed all the 
 women and children except 32,000 virgins, whom they 
 kept for themselves. There would seem to have been 
 at least 80,000 females in the aggregate, of whom 
 48,000 were killed, besides (say) 20,000 boys. The 
 number of men slaughtered must have been about 
 48,000. Each Israelite therefore must have killed 4 
 men in battle, carried off 8 captive women and chil- 
 dren, and driven home 67 head of cattle. And then 
 after reaching home, as a pastime, by command of 
 Moses, he had to murder 6 of his captive women and 
 children in cold blood. 
 
 Now, I respectfully submit that, judging from the 
 account of the Exodus of the Jews, which they have 
 written themselves, we cannot credit it. The narrative 
 is full of contradictions, and is so absurd and incred- 
 ible, and even impossible, that we must regard it as a 
 huge myth. There may have been an Exodus from 
 Egypt, of which this account is an exaggeration, but 
 it bears so many evidences of the fabulous that we cast 
 it aside and are led to doubt whether the Jews were 
 ever in Egypt except as tramps and vagabonds, and to 
 suspect that the whole story is an adapted history of 
 some great exodus of some ancient tribes written for a 
 purpose. 
 
 I think it has been shown that the Jews were not 
 the people that they have been supposed to be. They 
 are a modern people in the world's history, antedated
 
 94 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 by many highly-civilized and powerful nations. They 
 are not descendants of Abram, as will be shown more 
 fully hereafter, and their population never reached the 
 fabulous numbers that are given in what is called their 
 sacred history. Indeed, there is so much of the/o6w- 
 lous about them, so much of false pretence that upon 
 the very face is impossible and incredible, that the won- 
 der is that Christians should ever have seriously thought 
 of regarding them and their institutions as the source 
 and substance of what Christianity is. We have no 
 prejudice against the Jews. We cast no reflection upon 
 the so-called Hebrews of the present day. They are 
 not responsible for their ancestors, any more than 
 Gladstone, Huxley, Tyndall, Spencer, and other brainy 
 Englishmen are responsible for the savagery and bar- 
 barism of their forefathers. 
 
 It has been our object in this chapter to show the 
 Munchausenish character of Jewish history, upon 
 which the whole superstructure of modern theology 
 rests. If anybody is proud of his descent from such 
 a people, he is welcome to the glory.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MOSES AND THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 " But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon 
 their heart." 2 COR. 3 : 15. 
 
 THE first five books of the Old Testament, supposed 
 by many to have been written by Moses, are called the 
 Pentateuch. In the early chapters of Genesis, in the 
 " Authorized Version," there is placed at the head of 
 the page in the margin, " A. M. 1," which mean Anno 
 Mundi the year of the world one, and immediately 
 below it are the letters " B. c." which mean Before 
 Christ " 4004." This is the system of chronology 
 established by Archbishop Ussher, and means that 
 4004 years before Christ the world was one year old. 
 It is claimed that Moses promulgated the law about 
 1451 B. c., and this must have been about two thou- 
 sand five hundred and fifty-three years after the Crea- 
 tion, which added to 1890, the present date, would 
 make the world just five thousand eight hundred and 
 ninety-four years old. Lyell, a most judicious geologist 
 estimated the delta of the Mississippi at one hundred 
 thousand years, and some persons think these figures 
 should have been doubled. Professor John Fiske 
 thinks the glacial period began two hundred and forty 
 
 95
 
 96 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 thousand years ago, and that human beings inhabited 
 Europe at least one hundred and sixty thousand years 
 earlier, thus giving an antiquity to our race of not less 
 than four hundred thousand years. Other scientists 
 talk of hundreds of thousands, and even millions, of 
 years, but we attach no importance to specific figures. 
 We simply insist upon an antiquity which very far 
 exceeds six thousand years. 
 
 Learned Egyptologists place Rameses II., the Pha- 
 raoh of the Jewish captivity, whose mummy is now to 
 be seen in the museum at Cairo, at 1390 years B. c. It 
 seems strange that his mummy should be on exhibition 
 in a museum when "he and all his hosts were swal- 
 lowed up in the Red Sea." If we are told that Ra- 
 meses II. was succeeded by Sethi II., we find from 
 Egyptian records that both of these kings lived to a 
 good old age, and the mummy of each has been pre- 
 served, and not even a hint is given that either of 
 them was drowned. But we have, according to the 
 tables of Abydos and Bunsen, which are generally 
 accepted, three thousand six hundred and twenty years 
 before Christ as the time in which Menes, the first 
 monarch of Egypt, reigned, making two thousand two 
 hundred and thirty years as the period of the Egyptian 
 monarchy before the reign of Rameses II. 
 
 But I contend that Egyptian civilization extends 
 back at least seven thousand years, and Miss Amelia 
 B. Edwards, the Egyptologist, who has recently lec- 
 tured in our Pennsylvania University course, thinks 
 ten thousand years not too high an estimate. In sup-
 
 MOSES AND THE PENTATEUCH. 97 
 
 port of this hypothesis, the great antiquity of man, 
 which no scholar now disputes, carries us back many 
 thousands of years beyond Menes, and there are many 
 facts which favor the assumption that the valley of the 
 Nile was one of the places inhabited for an indefinite 
 period. The works of art monuments, architecture, 
 paintings, etc. show an antiquity that cannot be esti- 
 mated. Manetho, an Egyptian priest, who wrote a 
 history of Egypt, by request of Ptolemy II., two 
 hundred and eighty-six years before Christ, carries us 
 back more than seven thousand years. 
 
 The Pentateuch is a compilation by several authors, 
 and hence its patchwork character. Professors Ewald 
 and Kuenen and others have proved this, and Dean 
 Stanley, of the English Establishment, has admitted 
 it. Some portions may have been compiled eight 
 hundred or nine hundred years before Christ, but not 
 the two contradictory accounts of the creation and fall 
 of man. The Assyrian cuneiform tablets, which wgre 
 discovered in 1873 and 1874 A. D., and which are now 
 in the British Museum, show that this ancient people 
 had this story about two thousand years before the 
 time of Moses. The Jews learned it in Babylon, and 
 none of the other Old-Testament writings contain any 
 notice of it, because it was not known until after the 
 return of the Jews from their captivity in Babylon, 
 five hundred and eighteen years before Christ. Is it 
 not reasonable to suppose that the various Old-Testa- 
 ment writers would have made some reference to the 
 Pentateuch had they known of its existence? Pro- 
 7
 
 98 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 fessor Francis Lenormant of the National Library of 
 France, a most learned archaeologist and paleontologist, 
 and a most devout Christian, in his Beginnings of His- 
 tory admits that the Jews borrowed substantially the 
 story of the creation and the fall from more ancient 
 nations, and furnishes the original copies. The le- 
 gends recorded in Genesis are found among many an- 
 cient peoples who lived many centuries before Moses ; 
 and Berosus, a priest of the temple of Belus, who 
 wrote two hundred and seventy-six years before Christ, 
 affirms that fragments of Chaldean history can be traced 
 back 15 Sadi or 1 50,000 years. I have mentioned these 
 things because they are germane to what is to follow. 
 
 There is good reason for thinking that the book of 
 Deuteronomy was written about six hundred and 
 twenty-one years before Christ, and the remaining 
 books of the Pentateuch were of later date, coming 
 down to four hundred and fifty years before Christ. 
 This Professor Kuenen has demonstrated beyond con- 
 troversy in his Religion of Israel, to which I must 
 refer for his arguments in detail. The best scholarship 
 of the world does not believe that what is called the 
 Law of Moses was written prior to the fifth or sixth 
 century before Christ, and learned men in Holland, 
 Germany, and England, as well as the most advanced 
 thinkers in America, now accept this opinion. Pro- 
 fessor Robertson Smith, in the Encyclopaedia Briian- 
 nica, adopts this view, and Dean Stanley, in his Jewish 
 Church, does not leave us in doubt as to his opinion. 
 
 Take the following as an example of what I mean
 
 MOSES AND THE PENTATEUCH. 99 
 
 (Gen. 12:6): "And the Canaanite was then in the 
 land ;" whereas the expulsion of the Canaanites did 
 not occur until several centuries after the death of 
 Moses, when this must have been written. In Gen. 
 (36 : 31) we read, " Before there reigned any king over 
 Israel." This must have been two hundred years after 
 the death of Moses. " The nations that were before 
 you " (Lev. 13 : 8) of course presupposes that the 
 Canaanites had already been subdued. "Now the 
 man Moses was very meek, above all the men that 
 were upon the face of the earth" (Num. 12:13), 
 could hardly have been written by Moses himself. 
 The expression "unto this day" frequently occurs, 
 and shows that the time was long after the events took 
 place. It is also implied in various places that the 
 writer resided in Palestine, and so it could not have 
 been Moses. In Deuteronomy (19 : 14) we read, 
 " Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmark 
 which they of old time have set in thine inheritance." 
 They had no landmark to remove, unless this was writ- 
 ten concerning the land of Canaan long after the death 
 of Moses. They are reproached for not keeping the 
 Sabbath in the past for a long time, and this is given 
 as a reason for the Captivity; and hence Leviticus 
 26 : 34, 35, 43 was written after the Captivity, which 
 began in 597 B. c. In Gen. 14 : 14, Lot is taken pris- 
 oner and rescued from his captors, whom they " pur- 
 sued unto Dan." Now, there was no such place as 
 Dan until after the entrance into Canaan. We read 
 in Judg. 18 : 27, 29 that this city was called Laish,
 
 100 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 which was burned by the Israelites, and then they 
 built a city, and they called it " Dan, after the name 
 of their father: howbeit the name of the city was 
 Laish at first." This " trout in the milk " is as strik- 
 ing as if some one should write of Chicago when the 
 Declaration of Independence was signed. In Gen. 
 36 : 31 we read, " And these are the kings that reigned 
 in the land of Edom before there reigned any king 
 over the children of Israel." This passage shows that 
 it was written after there had been kings in Israel, and 
 could not have been written by Moses. I could show 
 similar incongruities concerning the manna in Gen. 16 : 
 35, compared with Josh. 5 : 12. So Deut. 24: 14 
 must have been written after the entrance into Canaan, 
 as until then they had no lands, and there were no 
 gates and no " strangers within their gates." The same 
 might be said of the fourth commandment of the Dec- 
 alogue : the Israelites had no gates until after they 
 entered Canaan. It could not have been written by 
 Moses in the wilderness of Arabia. 
 
 These illustrations might be produced indefinitely, 
 but enough have been given to show that the Penta- 
 teuch was written several hundred years after the death 
 of Moses, and that we are justifiable in fixing the date 
 for most of it in the fourth, fifth, or sixth century 
 before the Christian era. The Pentateuch abounds in 
 duplicate traditions of the same transactions, and also 
 in diversity and contradictions. These numerous repe- 
 titions are fatal to the supposition that it was written 
 by Moses. If Moses was the author of the Pentateuch,
 
 MOSES AND THE PENTATEUCH. 101 
 
 we should expect to find a good many hints of this in 
 other parts of the Bible ; whereas we have no reference 
 to Sinai and its awful thunders, and, although Moses 
 is mentioned in the New Testament, it only shows the 
 existence of traditions to that effect at that time. Not 
 until the time that Christianity arose, about thirteen 
 hundred years after the death of Moses, did the tra- 
 dition obtain currency that he was the author of the 
 Pentateuch. 
 
 The fact is, the Jews are a comparatively modern 
 people, and were not known as a nation until the time 
 of Alexander the Great (356-325 B. c.), and Herod- 
 otus, by never mentioning them, so indicates. While 
 the Hindoos, Egyptians, Grecians, Romans, Chaldeans, 
 and Babylonians had their men of science, literature, 
 and law, whose fame only brightens with the flight of 
 time, the Jews have no history except what was written 
 by themselves, and that is so absurd, impossible, and 
 contradictory that nobody can believe it. 
 
 Everybody knows that the ancient Jews were the 
 constitutional imitators of other peoples. They have 
 always been the second-hand clothes-dealers of the 
 world. As a race they never have been noted for orig- 
 inality, but have always been ready to borrow what 
 belonged to other people, and then, with characteristic 
 self-complacency, have claimed to be the " original 
 Jacobs" of everything good and great. We intend 
 this as no reflection upon the Jews of the present day. 
 
 C. Staniland Wake, an English writer, in his great 
 work on the Evolution of Morality, vol. ii., page 59,
 
 102 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 thus expresses his views : " Judging from this fact, 
 many persons imagine or at least, from the supersti- 
 tious reverence that they have for the Decalogue, appear 
 to do so that until the time of the Hebrew lawgiver 
 the most ordinary rules of morality were unknown. 
 The mere fact of Egypt being the starting-point of 
 the Exodus ought to be sufficient to disabuse the mind 
 of this idea, without reference to the contents of the 
 code itself. But the moral laws given in the Deca- 
 logue are of so primitive a character that it is absurd 
 to suppose, except on the assumption that the Hebrews 
 were at that period in a condition of pure savagery, that 
 God would personally appear to give his immediate 
 sanction to them. The commands, Honor thy father 
 and thy mother, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not 
 commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not 
 bear false witness against thy neighbor, Thou shalt 
 not covet, were simply reiterations of laws to which 
 the Hebrews had been subject during their whole so- 
 journ in Egypt, and which must, in fact, have been 
 familiar to them before their ancestors left their tra- 
 ditional Chaldean home." 
 
 Then we must bear in mind that Moses himself was 
 an Egyptian by birth, and that he was brought up at 
 the court of Pharaoh until he was forty years of age, 
 and in Acts 7 : 22 we are told that " Moses was learned 
 in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty 
 in words and in deeds." 
 
 The whole matter relating to the Pentateuch is thus 
 summed up by the late Prof. John Win. Draper, M. D.,
 
 MOSES AND THE PENTATEUCH. 102 
 
 LL.D., late of the University of New York, in his 
 Conflict between Religion and Science : " No man may 
 dare to impute them (the books of the Pentateuch) to 
 the inspiration of Almighty God, their inconsistencies, 
 incongruities, and impossibilities, as exposed by many 
 learned and pious modern scholars, both German and 
 English, are so great. It is the decision of these 
 critics that Genesis is a narrative based upon legends ; 
 that Exodus is not historically true ; that the whole 
 Pentateuch is unhistoric and un-Mosaic: it contains the 
 most extraordinary contradictions and impossibilities, 
 sufficient to involve the credibility of the whole im- 
 perfections so conspicuous that they would destroy the 
 authenticity of any modern historical work." ..." To 
 the critical eye they all present peculiarities which 
 demonstrate that they were written on the banks of 
 the Euphrates, and not in the desert of Arabia. They 
 contain many Chaldaisms." . . . "From such Assyrian 
 sources the legends of the creation of the earth and 
 heavens, the Garden of Eden, the making of man from 
 clay and the woman from one of his ribs, the tempta- 
 tion of the serpent, etc., . . . were obtained by Ezra." 
 " I agree in the opinion of Hupfeld, that the discovery 
 that the Pentateuch is put together out of the various 
 sources of original documents is beyond all doubt, is 
 not only one of the most important and most preg- 
 nant with consequences for the interpretation of the 
 historical books of the Old Testament or rather 
 for the whole of theology and history but it is also 
 one of the most certain discoveries which have been
 
 104 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 made in the domain of criticism and the history of 
 literature." 
 
 But not only do the laws of Egypt antedate the laws 
 accredited to Moses, but the Hindoos had laws which 
 were yet more ancient. The writings of Buddha, who 
 died in 477 B. c., refer to older books and quote from 
 them, and these again refer to still older books, until 
 we reach laws which existed many thousands of years 
 before the Law of Moses, as the laws of Manu were 
 drawn from the " immemorial customs " of the nation 
 and constitute a kind of common law. " The most ac- 
 curate scholars point to India as the origin of Egyptian 
 civilization," says Le Renouf, the learned Egyptologist. 
 
 If Egyptian literature was derived in a remote period 
 from India, what must be the date of old India's laws 
 as compared with the laws of the Hebrews ? It is no 
 wonder that Max Muller, professor in the orthodox 
 University of Oxford, says (in Chips, vol. i., p. 11): 
 "After carefully examining every possible objection 
 that can be made against the date of the Vedic hymns, 
 their claim to that high antiquity which is ascribed 
 to them has not, as far as I can judge, been shaken." 
 The same learned Sanskrit scholar says, " The opinion 
 that the pagan religions were mere corruptions of the 
 religion of the Old Testament, once supported by men 
 of high authority and great learning, is now as com- 
 pletely surrendered as the attempt at explaining Greek 
 and Latin as corruptions of Hebrew " (Science of Re- 
 ligion, p. 24). This great Sanskrit scholar admits in
 
 MOSES AND THE PENTATEUCH. 105 
 
 many places in his voluminous writings the greater 
 antiquity of the pagan scriptures, and gives many 
 weighty reasons to show how impossible and absurd 
 it is to suppose that they have been changed and inter- 
 polated to adapt them to more modern times. 
 
 The Vedas, the sacred writings of the Hindoos, ac- 
 cording to Sir William Jones the Orientalist, " cannot 
 be denied to have an antiquity the most distant." 
 According to the Brahmans, they are coeval with the 
 creation, and the Sama-Veda says, " They were formed 
 of the soul of Him who exists by, or of, himself." 
 The Hindoo laws were codified by Manu and copied 
 by all antiquity, notably by Rome in the compilation 
 or digest of the laws of all nations called the Code of 
 Justinian, which has been adopted as the foundation 
 of all modern legislation. I could, did time permit, 
 furnish the laws of Manu, the Justinian Code, and the 
 Civil Code of Napoleon in parallel columns, in a way 
 to show their common origin beyond a doubt. Laws 
 of betrothal and marriage, paternal authority, tutelage, 
 and adoption ; property, contract, deposit, loan, sale, 
 partnership, donation, and testamentary bequest, all 
 were elaborately promulgated by the Code of Manu 
 in 2680 slocas. 
 
 Laws were arranged under eighteen principal heads, 
 concerning as many different causes for which laws are 
 enacted : Debts, deposits and loans for use, sale without 
 ownership, gifts, non-payment of wages, agreements, 
 sale and purchase, disputes, boundaries, assaults, slan- 
 der, robbery and violence, adultery, altercation between
 
 106 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 man and wife, inheritance, and gaming. " The court 
 of Brahma with four faces" is where four learned 
 Brahmans sat in judgment, one of whom was the 
 king's chief counsellor. 
 
 One of their trite sayings was, " When justice, hav- 
 ing been wounded by iniquity, approaches the court, 
 and the judges extract not the arrow or dart, they also 
 shall be wounded by it." 
 
 The mode of conducting lawsuits was, in a great 
 degree, similar to that used in all civilized countries of 
 the present day. The oath taken by witnesses was as 
 follows : " What ye know to have been transacted in 
 the matter before us, between the parties reciprocally, 
 declare at large and with truth, for your evidence in 
 the cause is required." 
 
 " The witness who speaks falsely shall be fast bound 
 under water in the snaky cords of Varuua, and be 
 wholly deprived of power to escape torment during a 
 hundred transmigrations." 
 
 Brahmaus were banished forgiving false evidence, 
 but all others were punished by blows on the abdomen, 
 the tongue, feet, eyes, nose, and ears, and in capital 
 cases blows were inflicted upon the whole body. 
 
 Some of the moral sayings of the Hindoos run thus : 
 "He who bestows gifts for worldly fame, while he 
 suffers his family to live in distress, touches his lips 
 with honey, but swallows poison. Such virtue is coun- 
 terfeit. Even what he does for his spiritual body, to 
 the injury of those he is bound to maintain, shall bring 
 him ultimate misery, both in this world and the next.
 
 MOSES AND THE PENTATEUCH. 107 
 
 " Content, returning good for evil, resistance to sen- 
 sual appetite, abstinence from illicit gains, knowledge 
 of the Vedas, knowledge" of the Supreme Spirit, ve- 
 racity, and freedom from wrath, form the tenfold system 
 of duties. 
 
 " Honor thy father and thy mother. Forget not 
 the favors thou hast received. Learn whilst thou 
 art young. Seek the society of the good. Live 
 in harmony with others. Remain in thine own 
 place. 
 
 " Speak ill of none. Ridicule not bodily infirmities. 
 Pursue not a vanquished foe. Deceive even not thy 
 enemies. Forgiveness is sweeter than revenge. The 
 sweetest bread is that earned by labor. Knowledge is 
 riches. 
 
 " What one learns in his youth is as lasting as graven 
 on stone. The wise is he who knows himself. Speak 
 kindly to the poor. Discord and gaming lead to mis- 
 ery. He misconceives his interest who violates his 
 promise. 
 
 "There is no tranquil sleep without a good con- 
 science, nor any virtue without religion. To honor 
 thy mother is the most acceptable worship. Of women 
 the fairest ornament is modesty." 
 
 The following, from the laws of Manu (lib. iii. Sloca 
 55), will contrast strangely with the law of Moses re- 
 garding the treatment of women and the esteem in 
 which they should be held : 
 
 " Women should be nurtured with every tenderness 
 and attention by their fathers, their brothers, their
 
 108 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 husbands, and their brothers-in-law, if they desire great 
 prosperity." 
 
 " Where women live in affliction the family soon be- 
 comes extinct ; but when they are loved and respected, 
 and cherished with tenderness, the family grows and 
 prospers in all circumstances." 
 
 " When women are honored the divinities are con- 
 tent ; but when we honor them not all acts of piety 
 are sterile." 
 
 "The households cursed by the women to whom 
 they have not rendered due homage find ruin weigh 
 them down and destroy them as if smitten by some 
 secret power." 
 
 " In the family where the husband is content with 
 his wife, and the wife with her husband, happiness is 
 assured for ever." 
 
 That there were many trivial things in the ancient 
 pagan laws, and many practices prevailed among a 
 portion of the people which seem idolatrous, we freely 
 admit ; but the same is true of many of the Hebrew 
 laws, which are too obscene for quotation here. We also 
 find among the Hebrews all forms of nature-worship, 
 such as sun-worship, tree-worship, fire-worship, ser- 
 pent-worship, and phallic-worship. Of this more 
 later on. 
 
 Besides the Hindoos and the Egyptians, there were 
 many nations more ancient than the Hebrews. The 
 Grecian Argos was founded 1807 B. c. Athens and 
 Sparta existed 1550 B. c. Then there were the Phoe-
 
 MOSES AND THE PENTATEUCH. 109 
 
 nicians, a maritime people who flourished more than 
 five thousand years ago, whose monuments and inscrip- 
 tions are found in Palestine to-day, while the Hebrews 
 have left us neither monument nor inscription. The 
 Chaldeans established a monarchy four thousand or 
 five thousand years ago, and three thousand five hun- 
 dred or four thousand years back the Assyrians became 
 masters of the valley of the Euphrates and the Tigris, 
 and from these people the Jews got all they ever knew 
 about things subsequently recorded in the Pentateuch. 
 
 The Jewish and Christian religions (for they are 
 claimed to be one) are next to being the youngest, or 
 most modern, of any of the great religions of the 
 world, the Mohammedan being the last. Each claimed 
 divine authority ; all had their lawgivers, priests, and 
 prophets, who wrote, as they claimed, their bibles by 
 divine inspiration. The error of Judaism is in claim- 
 ing the greatest antiquity, as well as claiming to be the 
 only religion having the divine sanction. 
 
 I cannot refrain from mentioning some things which 
 cannot be regarded as wholly irrelevant. Moses had 
 a very remarkable experience in his infancy. At his 
 birth he was placed in an ark and set afloat on the 
 Nile, and was rescued by Pharaoh's daughter, who 
 called a nurse for him who proved to be his mother. 
 We have many counterparts of this in Grecian and 
 Egyptian mythology. Perseus was shut up in a chest 
 and cast into the sea by the king of Argos, and was 
 found by Dictys, who educated him. Bacchus was 
 confined in a chest by order of the king of Thebes,
 
 110 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 and was cast upon the Nile. He had two mothers 
 natural and adopted. Osiris, the Egyptian divinity, 
 was confined in a coffer and thrown into the river. 
 He floated to Phrenicia. His mother wandered in 
 silence and grief to By bios, and was selected by the 
 king's servants and taken to the palace, and was made 
 the nurse of the young prince. We could give several 
 other parallel cases, but we pause and wonder whether 
 the reported experience of Moses was not another ver- 
 sion of the same myth. 
 
 We next find this " greatest of statesmen and law- 
 givers" a fugitive from justice (Ex. 2: 11-15). He 
 had killed a man and buried him in the sand, and when 
 he learned that the murder was known by the Hebrews, 
 and Pharaoh sought to slay him, he fled to the land of 
 Midian and tended the flocks of Jethro, a priest, until 
 he was eighty years old. He knew then that it was 
 wrong to kill just as well as he did after receiving the 
 Ten Commandments ; for he " looked this way and 
 that" to find out whether any one saw him, and "he 
 feared, and said, Surely this is known." He showed 
 a sense of guilt. He always seemed afraid of Pharaoh 
 on account of this murder. 
 
 He was next commissioned to deliver his brethren 
 from their bondage in Egypt, and was instructed to 
 say that " I Am that I Am" had sent him (Ex. 3 : 14). 
 Now, it seems to me very strange that Nuk-Pa-Nuk 
 was the Egyptian name for God, and means, " / Am 
 that I Am !" (Bon wick, Egyptian Belief, p. 395). This 
 name was found upon an Egyptian temple, according
 
 MOSES AND THE PENTATEUCH. Ill 
 
 to Higgins (Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 17), who says, "I 
 Am was a divine name understood by all the initiated 
 among the Egyptians ;" and Buusen affirms, in his 
 Keys of St. Peter, that the " J Am of the Hebrews 
 was the same as the / Am of the Egyptians." 
 
 There is another peculiarity about Moses that seems 
 strange to me. In his statue in Fairmount Park he is 
 represented as having horns, and he is so portrayed in 
 the statue by Michael Angelo. Now the sun-god 
 Bacchus had horns, and so had Zeus, the Grecian su- 
 preme deity. Bacchus was called "the Lawgiver," 
 and it is said that his laws were written upon two tables 
 of stone. It is also said that he and his army enjoyed 
 the light of the sun (pillar of fire) during the night-time, 
 and he, like Moses, had a rod with which divers mira- 
 cles were wrought. The Persian legend relates that 
 Zoroaster received from Ormuzd the Book of the Law 
 upon a high mountain. Minos received on Mount 
 Dicta, from Zeus, the supreme god, the law. There 
 are many such cases. Even Mohammed, it is said, so 
 received the Koran. 
 
 Then the crossing of the Red Sea by Moses and his 
 three millions of absconding slaves " dry-shod," and 
 the " rock in the wilderness giving forth water when 
 struck by the rod of Moses," both have several par- 
 allels. Orpheus, the earliest poet of Greece, relates 
 how Bacchus had crossed the Red Sea dry-shod at the 
 head of his army, and how he " divided the waters " 
 of the rivers Orontes and Hydaspis and passed through 
 them "dry-shod," and how he drew water from the rock
 
 112 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 with his wonderful rod. Professor Steinthal notes the 
 fact " that almost all the acts of Moses correspond to 
 those of the sun-gods." It may seem strange that the 
 Hebrews were acquainted with Grecian mythology, yet 
 we know this was the fact. Rev. Dr. Isaac M. Wise 
 says, " The Hebrews adopted forms, terms, ideas, and 
 myths of all nations with whom they came in contact, 
 and, like the Greeks, in their way cast them all in a 
 peculiar Jewish religious mould." 
 
 Moreover, there are strange inconsistencies and con- 
 tradictions connected with the alleged giving of the 
 Law to Moses. In both Exodus and Deuteronomy 
 God is represented as speaking the words, and in Deut. 
 5 : 22 it is said God " wrote them on two tables of 
 stone " after speaking them, and in Ex. 24 : 28 Moses 
 is represented as doing the writing: "And he wrote 
 upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten 
 commandments." We here find a hundred command- 
 ments, more or less, of a ceremonial character, and 
 only one of the original ten, the one relating to the 
 Sabbath, and we here find " earing-time and harvest " 
 made a season of rest just as much as the Sabbath. 
 Then there are different reasons given for the observ- 
 ance of the Sabbath in Ex. 20 and Deut. 5 the one 
 that God " rested on the seventh day " after creating 
 all things in six days (of course this was in six days 
 of twenty-four hours each, else there was no perti- 
 nency in the reason) ; and the other, that it was in com- 
 memoration of the deliverance of the Hebrews from 
 the bondage in Egypt.
 
 MOSES AND THE PENTATEUCH. 113 
 
 It has been claimed that at least the Sabbath is an 
 institution first established in the Decalogue of Exodus, 
 and yet even this must be denied. Evidences of the 
 observance of the seventh day as sacred are found in 
 the calendars of the ancient Egyptians and Assyrians, 
 and the Records of the Past assert that Sabbath observ- 
 ance was in existence at least eleven hundred years be- 
 fore Moses or Exodus among the Accadians, Chaldeans, 
 and Assyrians. 
 
 There are also great variances in the language 
 of the two accounts in Exodus and Deuteronomy, 
 which could not have existed if copied from what God 
 had written in stone. The second table of stone was 
 an exact copy of the first (Deut. 10 : 2). When 
 Moses got excited at Aaron's golden calf and broke 
 the two tables of stone containing the Law, and God 
 was going to destroy the people, Moses dissuaded him 
 from doing so by telling him what the Egyptians 
 would then say about him ! (Num. 14 ; 13-16.) 
 
 It is worthy of note that the first commandment is 
 of doubtful monotheism : Thou shalt have no " other 
 gods before me," implying that there were other gods. 
 Then there is something not pleasant in the idea of a 
 "jealous God," as used in this commandment and fre- 
 quently in other places. Contrast this with the Hindoo 
 Geeta, where God is represented as saying, " They who 
 serve even other gods, with a firm belief in doing so, 
 involuntarily worship Me. I am He who partaketh 
 of all worship, and I am their reward." God is de- 
 fined in the Hindoo Vedas as, "He who exists by 
 
 8
 
 114 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 himself, and who is in all because all is in him ; whom 
 the spirit can alone perceive ; who is imperceptible to 
 the organs of sense ; who is without visible parts, 
 Eternal, the Soul of all being, and whom none can 
 comprehend." " God is one, immutable, without form 
 or parts, infinite, omnipresent, and omnipotent." No 
 need to prohibit the making of a " graven image " to 
 represent such a god. 
 
 Now take Moses' description of God. He only saw 
 his " back parts " (Ex. 33 : 22, 23), and God held his 
 hand over him when in the cleft of the rocks while he 
 passed by, that he might not see his glory. And, while 
 it is said, " Thou canst not see my face ; for there shall 
 no man see me and live " (Ex. 33 : 20), yet " the Lord 
 spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto 
 his friend" (Ex. 33 : 11). He was with him in the 
 mountain forty days and nights, and saw him and 
 talked to him, and so did at least seventy-three other 
 persons (Ex. 24 : 9). Yet we are told in John 1:18, 
 " No man hath seen God at any time." 
 
 Then there are many other " commandments " in the 
 Bible which cannot be reconciled with the " Ten Com- 
 mandments," and very many acts regarded as criminal 
 in this nineteenth century which are not forbidden, but 
 indirectly or tacitly sanctioned. One of the "Ten 
 Commandments " is, " Thou shalt not kill," but hus- 
 bands are directed to kill their wives if they propose to 
 them a change of religion, and killing is commanded 
 in numerous instances and for trivial offences, such as 
 picking up sticks to make a fire on the Sabbath.
 
 MOSES AND THE PENTATEUCH. 115 
 
 Take the following as specimens of the cruelty of 
 Moses : 
 
 " But of the cities of these people, which the Lord 
 thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt 
 save nothing alive that breatheth" (Deut. 20 : 16). 
 
 Here is another of his injunctions : " Thus saith the 
 Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his 
 side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout 
 the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every 
 man his companion, and every man his neighbor" 
 (Ex. 32 : 27). 
 
 Here is another : " Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I 
 remember that which Amalek did to Israel [some four 
 hundred years before], how he laid wait for him," etc. 
 " Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all 
 that they have ; slay both man and woman, infant and 
 suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass" (1 Sam. 15 : 2, 
 3). This was sweeping, merciless revenge on the in- 
 nocent. 
 
 He commands the Jews to swindle the Egyptians 
 by false pretence, "spoiling" them of their jewelry 
 (Ex. 3 : 19-22). He authorized them to take usury 
 of strangers, but not of one another ; and to sell the 
 "flesh of animals that had died of themselves" to 
 strangers and aliens, but not to run the risk of pois- 
 oning themselves (Deut. 14 : 21). 
 
 In the affair with the Midianites Moses was more 
 cruel than the officers and common soldiery. He was 
 "wroth with them" because they had saved all the
 
 116 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 women alive, and required that they should go back 
 and finish the brutal butchery. I cannot do this sub- 
 ject justice without transcribing a large portion of 
 Num. 31 : 
 
 "And they warred against the Midianites, as the 
 Lord commanded Moses; and they slew all the 
 males. 
 
 " And they slew the kings of Midian, beside the 
 rest of them that were slain ; namely, Evi, and Rekem, 
 and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five kings of Midian ; 
 Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword. 
 
 " And the children of Israel took all the women of 
 Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the 
 spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all 
 their goods. 
 
 " And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, 
 and all their goodly castles, with fire. 
 
 " And they took all the spoil, and all the prey, both 
 of men and of beasts. 
 
 " And they brought the captives, and the prey, and 
 the spoil, unto Moses and Eleazar the priest, and unto 
 the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the 
 camp at the plains of Moab, which are by Jordan near 
 Jericho. 
 
 " And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the 
 princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them 
 without the camp. 
 
 " And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, 
 with the captains over thousands, and captains over 
 hundreds, which came from the battle.
 
 MOSES AND THE PENTATEUCH. 117 
 
 " And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the 
 women alive? 
 
 " Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through 
 the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the 
 Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague 
 among the congregation of the Lord. 
 
 "Now therefore kill every male among the little 
 ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by 
 lying with him. 
 
 " But all the women children, that have not known 
 a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves." 
 
 What shall we say when we remember that Moses 
 found a refuge with the Midianites for forty years when 
 he was a fugitive from justice for the murder of the 
 Egyptian, and the Midianites were the first to show the 
 Jews hospitality when they escaped from the bondage 
 of Egypt? Moreover, Moses had married a woman 
 of Midian, and might have been supposed to have some 
 regard for her kinswomen. It cannot be claimed that 
 Moses was compelled by the low condition of the people 
 to treat the Midianites thus, for he was the sole author 
 of this extreme butchery of women and children, and 
 was " wroth " with his officers for not committing the 
 atrocity in the first place. True, he charges the women 
 with having " caused the children of Israel, through the 
 counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord 
 in the matter of Peor ;" but this could not justify the 
 butchery of some forty-eight thousand women and 
 twenty thousand boys, besides the old men. And then
 
 118 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 the thirty-two thousand virgins had a fate worse than 
 death, though called the " Lord's tribute," and the 
 priests got their full share of the spoil. For those 
 who would justify such cruelty and wholesale butchery, 
 as they would justify famine and pestilence the effect 
 of natural laws, I can have no very great respect. 
 
 It has been said, " Cruel as many of the Mosaic 
 punishments undoubtedly were, it is well to remember 
 that two hundred years ago the criminal code of Eng- 
 land was almost, if not equally, bloody. If Moses 
 stoned adulteresses to death, it is not very long since 
 we put witches and Quakers to death, while in many 
 other countries the stake and the fagot were the chief 
 arguments in aid of orthodoxy. It would not be just 
 to judge of the punishments inflicted over three thou- 
 sand years ago from the standpoint of the present 
 century, when the Mosaic dispensation has passed 
 away and that of the law of love substituted. There 
 was no mercy in the smoking rocks of Sinai. There 
 was nothing but the law in all its sternness." 
 
 This is all very well, but we should remember that 
 the cruel criminal codes of modern times got their 
 cruelty from the Mosaic code. " Thou shalt not 
 suffer a witch to live" (Ex. 22: 18) was one of the 
 laws of Moses, and from first to last thirty thousand 
 witches were executed in Great Britain and two hundred 
 thousand in Germany. Sir Matthew Hale pronounced 
 the death-sentence on a " witch," and Blackstone, the 
 great commentator, thought that witchcraft must be 
 real because the Bible said there were witches ! Scotland
 
 MOSES AND THE PENTATEUCH. 119 
 
 continued to burn witches until 1722, and Germany 
 until 1780, while in 1515 there were five thousand 
 witches burned at Geneva. I am ashamed to speak of 
 our own hanging of witches in Massachusetts, but it 
 is very well known that it was done by authority of 
 the law of Moses : " A man also or woman that hath 
 a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be 
 put to death : they shall stone them with stones : their 
 blood shall be upon them " (Lev. 20 : 27).* 
 
 Rev. Rabbi Hirsch sums up his conclusions as the 
 result of his study of the Pentateuch : 
 
 " The non-authenticity of the Pentateuch is shown 
 by the work itself. It is indicated by (1) The im- 
 possible occurrences in the desert ; (2) The various con- 
 tradictions and repetitions, as in the descriptions of the 
 festivals ; the provision of the officiators for the sacri- 
 fices ; the appropriations of the tithes ; the rules for 
 sacrificing the first-born children to Deity the law 
 regulating these matters varying in Deuteronomy and 
 Numbers ; (3) Certain phrases used, as " up to the pres- 
 ent day," which lose all significance if applied to Moses. 
 Thus the book itself shows not one author, but many. 
 
 " The non-authenticity of the Pentateuch is shown 
 also by lack of reference to it in the prophetical and 
 historical books. Jeremiah, when denouncing in un- 
 measured terms the very sins prohibited by the Deca- 
 logue, never uses the language of those cardinal rules 
 of morality ; the prophecies show no trace of the 
 priestly ordinances; and, though most of the laws 
 
 * In 1865 the witch-laws were yet in force in South Carolina!
 
 120 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 refer to Sinai, the name occurs in none of the pro- 
 phetical books. 
 
 " It contains old songs ; embodies the written law 
 or judicial decisions of the Israelites in the Book of 
 the Covenant ; springs from two currents of history, 
 the Elohist and Jehovist, the former composed of the 
 younger Elohist of the South and the older Elohist 
 of the North ; shows Deuteronomy very much altered 
 from its original form by emendations and additions, 
 being formerly without the first four and the closing 
 chapters, and the Levitical Law or Priestly Codex 
 having been later incorporated with Joshua and the 
 books of Moses ; and lastly it is marred by changes 
 made in accordance with the new religious spirit." 
 
 We know very little about Moses. If there ever 
 was such a man which is very doubtful, taking the 
 writings accredited to him for authority he is not 
 shown to have been " the greatest statesman and law- 
 giver the world has ever produced." Neither have 
 the Jews ever developed, in ancient or modern times, 
 such a moral character as a people as to justify the 
 supposition that they had a great and inspired leader 
 among them, and that he taught them anything not 
 well known for many centuries before to more ancient 
 and more intelligent nations. 
 
 The assumption that Moses was the author, under 
 divine guidance, of what is commonly called the Ten 
 Commandments, about one thousand four hundred and 
 fifty-one years before the Christian era, is assumption 
 only, without a particle of proof to sustain it. What
 
 MOSES AND THE PENTATEUCH. 121 
 
 are commonly called the laws of Moses were written 
 by some person or persons unknown in the fifth or 
 sixth centuries before the beginning of Christianity. 
 Most of the matter of what is called the Pentateuch 
 was borrowed from older and wiser nations the 
 Egyptians, the Hindoos, the Greeks, etc. But for the 
 unbounded credulity on this subject it would seem 
 like an insult seriously to discuss the question, Which 
 are the older writings? and, Which the substantial 
 copies? Unless a man is ready to take assumptions 
 for demonstrated facts, to ignore the museums and 
 libraries, to question the conclusions of the profound- 
 est antiquarians, and to make the stream of history 
 flow backward, he must admit that the Hebrews were 
 the borrowers.* 
 
 *The-substance of this chapter was published in March, 1890, 
 in An Open Letter to Hon. Edward M. Paxson, Chief-Justice of 
 Pennsylvania, who had affirmed in a lecture before the Law 
 School of the University of Pennsylvania that the " law of Sinai 
 was the first of which we have any knowledge," and that " Moses 
 was the greatest statesman and lawgiver the world has ever pro- 
 duced."
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ANCIENT SYMBOLISM AND MODERN LITERALISM. 
 " Which things are an allegory." GAL. 4 : 24. 
 
 WORSHIP is natural to man, and all systems of 
 religion, many think, received their cult from Nature- 
 worship. Typology, mythology, theology followed each 
 other as the links of a well-forged chain. 
 
 Cicero well suggested : " Do you not see how, from 
 the beginning, from the productions of nature and the 
 useful inventions of men have arisen fictitious and 
 imaginary deities, which have been the foundations of 
 false opinions, pernicious errors, and miserable supersti- 
 tions ?" He asserts that " if the sacred mysteries cele- 
 brated by the most ancient peoples were properly un- 
 derstood, they would rather explicate the nature of 
 things than portray the knowledge of the gods." 
 Plato said he " would exclude from his ideal republic 
 the poems of Homer, because the young would not be 
 able to distinguish between what was allegorical and 
 what was actual." Proclus alleges that even Plato 
 himself drew many of his peculiar dogmas from the 
 symbolisms of the ancients. It is also said that he 
 was curious to find out what was the secret meaning 
 of the allegories of the more ancient sages and philoso- 
 122
 
 SYMBOLISM AND LITERALISM. 123 
 
 phers, while at the same time he affirmed that what he 
 should successfully find out he would keep to himself. 
 It is well known that the real offence of Socrates was 
 in publishing to the common people the wisdom 
 secreted by other teachers. Heyne has truly said 
 that " from myths all the history and all the philoso- 
 phy of the ancients proceed." Gerald Massey, in his 
 great work The Natural Genesis, claims that it is only 
 in the symbolic stage of expression that we can expect 
 to recover the lost meanings of priestly dogmas. These 
 are preserved in the gesture-signs, ideographic types, 
 images, and myths scattered over the world. The 
 symbolic extends beyond the written or spoken lan- 
 guage of any people now extant. 
 
 He well says that "^ancient symbolism was a mode of 
 expression which has bequeathed a mould of thought 
 that imprisons the minds of myriads as effectually as 
 the toad shut up in the rock in which it dwells is con- 
 fined." Myths and allegories, anciently unfolded to 
 initiates in the mysteries, have been ignorautly adopted 
 by modern priests and published to the world as the 
 literal truth. The main dogmas of modern theology 
 are based on distorted myths, " under the shadow of 
 which we have been cowering as timorously as birds 
 in a stubble when an artificial kite in the shape of a 
 hawk is hovering overhead." Modern dogmatic the- 
 ology is largely what Mr. Massey has tersely called 
 "fossilized symbolism." It was the habit of the 
 Oriental mind to personify almost everything. An- 
 cient mystics veiled all their thoughts in allegory and
 
 124 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 draped their sacred lessons in symbols. They invented 
 many poetic riddles and fantastic stories, which the 
 initiated knew to be fanciful, but which in time came 
 to be regarded by the masses as substantial historic 
 facts. It is well known that this method was not con- 
 fined to the ancients, but played a conspicuous part in 
 the Middle Ages, and that its baneful influence is not 
 yet exhausted. It will hereafter be shown that in no 
 writings extant can be found so many illustrations of 
 the symbolic method of teaching as in the Jewish and 
 Christian Scriptures. Even in our day the common 
 people have not outgrown this habit of personification, 
 and are wont to tell their children of Santa Glaus and 
 Kriss Kringle who bring them presents at Christmas- 
 time, and of Jack Frost who will bite them if they go 
 out in the cold. Modern folk-lore is full of symbol- 
 isms and personifications, as real to multitudes as are 
 the mythical stories found in writings supposed to con- 
 tain an infallible divine revelation. 
 
 A large number of learned authors favor the theory 
 that all systems of dogmatic theology are mythic sug- 
 gestions of the phenomena of physical nature, postu- 
 lated by philosophers and poets in the most ancient 
 periods of the world. They maintain this hypothesis, 
 in part from the well-known fact that many of the 
 most widely-separated peoples, who never could have 
 had any intercourse, directly or indirectly, have used 
 the same imagery and substantially adopted the same 
 systems of religion. This suggestion regarding 
 Nature-worship is worthy of careful and reverent
 
 SYMBOLISM ANb LITERALISM. 125 
 
 examination. Primitive peoples, living mostly in the 
 open air, were brought in close contact with external 
 natural objects and phenomena. One of the most prev- 
 alent forms of religion in ancient times was tree-wor- 
 ship, and it entered largely into the religious thought 
 of the ancient Jews. The tree furnished the food, 
 mainly, upon which our race in its infancy depended 
 for subsistence. The grove was called " the retreat be- 
 loved by gods and men." It furnished shelter from 
 storm, and shade from the tropical sun. It was a place 
 of rest and a thing of beauty. Mr. Barlow, in his ex- 
 cellent book on Symbolism, says the most generally- 
 received symbol of life was a tree. It was insepara- 
 ble from the ancient conception of a garden. It was 
 the "tree of life" in the mythic paradise. It was 
 suggestive of passion and offspring in connection with 
 the serpent, which was an emblem of male virility. 
 The tree has many suggestions, not only in it leaves, 
 but in its fruit and mode of propagation. The sap of 
 certain trees has an exhilarating, and even an intoxi- 
 cating, quality. The sacred soma was taken before 
 reading the Vedic hymns " to quicken the memory." 
 It was supposed to promote spirituality and inspi- 
 ration. Various trees and plants are suggestive of 
 fertility and fecundity in man. The lotus is the 
 flower of Venus. There is a " language of trees " as 
 well as " language of flowers." There are poetic and 
 symbolic reasons in the form of the stems and shape 
 of the leaves for the display of orange-blossoms as 
 bridal decorations, as thoughtful botanists can readily
 
 126 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 see. Much of the symbolism of the Old Testament 
 is identical with the Eastern tree-worship ; and with- 
 out some knowledge of this form of imagery much of 
 the Hebrew Scriptures must remain a dead letter. 
 The frequent references to palms, cedars, oaks, vines, 
 mandrakes, etc. etc., are vastly significant to the adept 
 in symbolism. 
 
 The Jewish Bible is full of Nature- worship to all 
 whose eyes are not veiled by sacerdotalism. The fact 
 that God is said to have appeared to Moses in the 
 burning bush is suggestive of both tree- and fire-wor- 
 ship (Ex. 3 : 2). Josephus says, " The bush was holy 
 before the flame appeared in it ;" and because it was 
 holy it became the vehicle of the burning, fiery, jeal- 
 ous God of the Jews. Even our Christmas evergreens 
 contain a recognition of the gods of the trees. The 
 fact is, many of the religious rites of both Jews and 
 Christians are but slight modifications of the ancient 
 Nature-worship, as all well-read men know, but to 
 which truth our modern theologians are as blind as 
 bats. Abraham, the alleged progenitor of the Jewish 
 nation (so called), is represented as a dissenter from 
 the religion of his native country ; yet he, and his 
 descendants and followers after him for hundreds of 
 years, employed the same religious symbols and forms 
 of worship used by the people of Chaldea and other 
 so-called idolatrous nations. Read the solemn arraign- 
 ment of the " chosen people " by the prophet, recorded 
 in Ezek. 16 : 15 to the end of that chapter, if you 
 would have proof of this charge. The fact is, if we
 
 SYMBOLISM AND LITERALISM. 127 
 
 treat the story of Abraham and other so-called Old- 
 Testament patriarchs as we do the traditions of other 
 nations, we shall be forced to give it an esoteric inter- 
 pretation rather than a literal or an historic one. But 
 more of this farther on. 
 
 Serpent-worship is another form of sacred symbol- 
 ism, and has an intimate connection with phallic rites. 
 The serpent was not at first a personification of evil, 
 but of wisdom, and is so used in our New Testament, 
 "... wise (shrewd) as serpents, harmless as doves." 
 It also denotes the art or gift of healing, and was not 
 only so used by Esculapius, but also by Moses, and is 
 recognized as a type by Jesus himself: "... And as 
 Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so 
 must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever be- 
 lieveth on him should not perish, but have eternal 
 life" (Num. 21:9; John 3:14, 15). Indeed, the 
 serpent has almost universally been regarded as a sym- 
 bol of immortal life, and especially, as frequently pre- 
 sented in ancient sculptures, with its tail in its mouth, 
 thus forming an endless circle. This idea may have 
 been suggested at first by its tenacity of life, and its 
 being so thoroughly alive in all its parts, its body and 
 tail moving and living after its head has been crushed ; 
 and, further, from the periodic renewal of its skin, 
 suggesting a new and continuous life. Then there are 
 other significant qualities in the serpent viz. its power 
 of voluntary enlargement and self-erection, combined 
 with its intense gaze and wonderful secret of fascina- 
 tion and its noiseless and mysterious movement all
 
 128 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 suggestive of the spirituel. It is also a symbol of 
 power and divinity, and as such was embroidered upon 
 ancient robes and flags of royalty. Upon a decorative 
 banner recently displayed upon the walls of an edifice 
 in Philadelphia wherein recently met the General 
 Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of the United 
 States, the symbolic serpent was prominent ; and those 
 who criticised it were silenced by a member's pointing 
 to the fact that the serpent is engraved upon the seal 
 of the General Assembly itself. Think of Presby- 
 terians perpetuating serpent-symbolism ! 
 
 It was doubtless the emblematic snakes which had 
 been used in Ireland in the Druidic worship, before 
 the introduction of Christianity, that the somewhat 
 mythical St. Patrick drove out of the " Emerald Isle " 
 all the snakes according to Romish tradition, now 
 believed by millions of devout worshippers to be 
 strictly historical, though known by priests to be 
 mythical. He destroyed the emblematic serpents. It 
 was not until after the invention of the talking sub- 
 tle serpent that tempted Eve in Eden that the serpent 
 became a symbol of evil. The Jews never heard of 
 that " old serpent the devil " until after their captivity 
 in Babylon. We must not fail, however, according to 
 the Old Testament, to give King Hezekiah credit for 
 having been a sort of Hebrew St. Patrick, in attempt- 
 ing to drive serpent-worship from among the Israelites 
 after it had prevailed among them for about seven hun- 
 dred years. 
 
 In a line or two we sum up the symbolism of the
 
 SYMBOLISM AND LITERALISM. 129 
 
 serpent, as has been suggested, in that it is thoroughly 
 alive, has a fiery nature, is swift in motion, and moves 
 without hands or feet. It assumes a variety of forms, 
 is long-lived, and renews its youth by shedding its 
 external covering, and at pleasure stands erect, en- 
 larges its size, is strong, and is said to have the mar- 
 vellous secret of fascination. 
 
 Initiates worshipped only the qualities or principles 
 symbolized by outward forms, while the ignorant may 
 have really worshipped the external or literal object. 
 Every quality in the objects of the ancient Nature- 
 worship has suggested a religious dogma, which was 
 first incorporated into ancient systems of sacerdotalism, 
 and can now be traced in an occult and esoteric sense 
 in all bodies of modern dogmatic theology. Ninety- 
 nine out of every one hundred of professional ecclesi- 
 astics are as ignorant of these things as unborn babes, 
 while the select few know, but conceal, the truth. The 
 larger class are honest dupes and dunces, while the 
 others are hypocrites and impostors. 
 
 Phallicism, the worship of the genital organs, was 
 another form of natural symbolism. Men saw that 
 in some mysterious way the race was propagated by 
 the congress of the generative organs, male and fe- 
 male, and soon naturally worshipped them as at least 
 the symbols of the unknown fecundating power of 
 the universe. 
 
 This form of symbolism prevailed in the most dis- 
 tant ages, and has continued in many countries unto 
 the present time. Richard Payne Knight, an honor-
 
 130 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 able English gentleman, in 1 865 wrote a quarto book, 
 of which only two hundred copies were printed, en- 
 titled A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus, and its 
 Connection with the Theology of the Ancients, in which 
 this whole subject is boldly discussed, and phallicism 
 illustrated by one hundred and thirty-eight engravings, 
 many of them copied from actual emblems now pre- 
 served in the British Museum and in the Secret 
 Museum in Naples. Major-General Forlong, of the 
 British army, has also fully presented this subject in 
 his recent quarto in two volumes, entitled Rivers of 
 Life ; or, Sources and Streams of the FaitJis of Man in 
 all Lands. 
 
 It would doubtless astound many modern theolo- 
 gians to be told that even the Jews did not escape the 
 influence of this form of Nature-worship, and that 
 our Bible, especially the Old Testament, contains 
 many evidences of it ; and yet it is a fact. Circum- 
 cision was no doubt an offshoot of phallicism. It did 
 not originate with Abraham. It was known by the 
 Egyptians, Abyssinians, and African tribes long before 
 the time he is said to have lived. It was practised, 
 according to Herodotus, at least twenty-four hundred 
 years before our era, and was even then an ancient 
 custom. When Jacob entered into a covenant with 
 Laban, a pillar was set up, surrounded by a heap of 
 stones (Gen. 31 : 45-53), which was a phallic emblem, 
 and frequently used in the Old Testament. Hebrew 
 patriarchs desired numerous descendants, and hence the 
 symbolic pillar was well suited to their religious cult.
 
 SYMBOLISM AND LITERALISM. 131 
 
 The name of the reputed father of Abraham, Terah, 
 signifies " a maker of images." In Amos 5 : 26 it is 
 said that the Hebrews in the wilderness worshipped a 
 deity known by a name signifying " God of the Pillar," 
 as is shown by the name Baal Tamar, which means 
 the " fructifying god." The Semitic custom of giving 
 sanction to an oath or sacred pledge by what the He- 
 brews called the " putting of the hand under the 
 thigh " is explained by the Talmudists to be the 
 touching of that part of the body which is sealed 
 and made holy by circumcision. The translations of 
 the Jewish Scriptures through motives of delicacy are 
 full of these euphemisms. Professor Joseph P. Les- 
 ley, in his Man's Origin and Destiny, suggests that 
 phallicism converted all the older Arkite symbols into 
 illustrations of its own philosophical conceptions of 
 the mystery of generation, and thus gave to the vari- 
 ous parts of the human body those names which con- 
 stitute the special vocabulary of obscenity of the pres- 
 ent day. Every scholar knows it to be a fact that 
 certain words and names now never spoken except by 
 the vulgar abound in the original Jewish writings, 
 and are partly concealed by the convenient methods 
 of euphemism. When Abraham called his servant to 
 take a solemn oath, he required him to lay his hands 
 upon his parts of generation as the most sacred and 
 revered parts of his body (Gen. 24 : 2), and Jacob, 
 when dying, made his son Joseph take the same form 
 of oath (Gen. 47 : 29). This was but little more than 
 the equivalent of the modern custom of laying the
 
 132 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 hand upon the heart as a token of sincerity. The 
 proper translation of what the servant of Abraham 
 was required to do is given in the margin of Bagster's 
 Comprehensive Bible thus : " In sectione circumcisionis 
 mese." We have in this form of phallic oath an im- 
 portant suggestion as to the origin, or at least the use, 
 of the words testimony, testament, testify, and their cog- 
 nates (testis, a witness), which cannot fail to occur to 
 the learned reader, but which cannot here be fully ex- 
 plained. " Oaute lege " (read carefully) was a warning 
 of a secret or concealed meaning which esoteric writers 
 anciently put in the margin of their books when they 
 would call the special attention of the initiated to what 
 is now called " reading between the lines." Until our 
 readers comprehend this hint they will not be able to 
 understand what is really meant by the " testimony " 
 mentioned in connection with the "ark of the cove- 
 nant," as it occurs in Ex. 16 : 34, before any laws, or 
 even altars, were known in Sinai or its thunders heard 
 of. In this hint may also be found the true explana- 
 tion of David's nude dance before the ark, and of the 
 attending circumstances. Scores and scores of proofs 
 could here be furnished from the Old-Testament Scrip- 
 tures, showing that the use of phallic emblems was 
 the rule rather than the exception for centuries among 
 the Jews ; and the idols stolen by Rachel (teraphim) 
 need no longer be misunderstood, nor the meaning of 
 the wedges upon which she sat and refused to rise when 
 the " custom of women was upon her " (Gen. 31 : 35). 
 She was engaged in an act of devotion. General For-
 
 SYMBOLISM AND LITERALISM. 133 
 
 long asserts that at this present day Queen Victoria 
 of Christian England rules over more than one hun- 
 dred millions of phallic worshippers ! Indeed, more 
 than half of the population of our globe still wor- 
 ship, as symbols of fertility and fecundity, the gen- 
 ital organs. 
 
 A correspondent of the London Times, of April 
 8, 1875, says: "The Roman Catholic Church still 
 keeps up certain suggestions of phallicism. As the 
 ancient temple or dagoba was the womb or feminine 
 principle of the god Siva or Bod and others, so the 
 new cardinal, Archbishop Manning, was after his ele- 
 vation conducted to his church, which is here entitled, 
 in its relation to him, bride or spouse, he calling it 
 sponsa mea. The cardinal was called the bridegroom, 
 and the actual building (the shrine of St. Gregory) his 
 spouse, and not the spiritual Church, which is called 
 Christ's." The Times' correspondent further writes of 
 this " sacerdos magnus," as he is termed, going to meet 
 his spouse, the Church : " He stood reverently at the 
 door, when holy water was presented to him and clouds 
 of incense spread around him, to symbolize that, inas- 
 much as before the bridegroom enters the bride-cham- 
 ber he washes and is perfumed, so the cardinal, having 
 been espoused to the Church with the putting on of a 
 ring, of his title, holy water and incense were offered 
 to him, when the choir burst forth with the antiphon, 
 ' Ecce sacerdos magnus ' f Behold the great sacer- 
 dotal !' " We are thus assured, as far as this is possi- 
 ble, that the phallic idea and a phallic faith lie at the
 
 134 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 base of this creed ; and we are reminded of Apis of 
 the Nile entering his palace for his works of sacrifice 
 and mercy terms applied to the Great Generator or 
 Great Creator. The ancients all taught that their 
 Great One, Manu,- Man, or Noli, was in the great 
 ark which floats in the midst of the waters, and that 
 the whole was a mystery incomprehensible to the un- 
 initiated. He who is lord of the Christian ark is the 
 lord of all nations, which the great sacerdos or pope 
 claims to be. He was till very lately a temporal as 
 well as a spiritual head of kings and nations. So no 
 wonder that the holder of the rod, baton, or banner, 
 who occupies the place also of Moses to lead his flocks 
 through this wilderness, is always examined as to his 
 phallic completeness before being confirmed in the 
 pontificate. This, we read in the life of Leo X. by 
 Roscoe, is required in the case of popes, just as the 
 laws of Moses required that all who came to worship 
 their very phallic JHVH should first prove their 
 completeness as men. From this we may conclude 
 that eunuchs or incompetent men were children of the 
 devil, or at least, not of this phallic god a fact 
 which the writer of Matt. 19 : 12, and the Fathers 
 Origen and Valentine, and a host of other saints who 
 acted on this text, must have overlooked. Wm. Ros- 
 coe, the historian, thus writes: "On the llth of 
 August, 1492, after old Roderigo (Borgia) had as- 
 sumed the name of Alexander VI., and made his 
 entrance as supreme pontiff into the church of St. 
 Peter, after the procession and pageants had all been
 
 SYMBOLISM AND LITERALISM. 135 
 
 gone through, Alexander was taken aside to undergo 
 the final test of his qualifications, which in his partic- 
 ular case might have been dispensed with." The his- 
 torian of course alludes to his numerous progeny. 
 
 The author expects to be criticised, and perhaps 
 charged with obscenity, for introducing this subject. 
 But it has been well said : " Prudery and pruriency 
 are frequently companions, equally impure and cow- 
 ardly ; and in all scientific investigations they should 
 be disregarded rather than conciliated." The ancients 
 saw no impurity in the symbolism of parentage to in- 
 dicate the work of creation. What is divine and 
 natural to be and to do cannot be immodest and ob- 
 scene. No person can with decency and propriety im- 
 pugn the operation of Nature's laws to which he owes 
 his existence ; and he is degraded and corrupt above 
 all others who regards that law as essentially sensual. 
 Phallicism meant no wrong until sensuality and im- 
 purity of life suggested that to mention it was indec- 
 orous. No clean and chaste mind can be shocked by 
 the most obvious laws of nature. Lydia Maria Child 
 and other grand women have written brave words on 
 this subject which silly prudes would do well to study, 
 if, indeed, they ever read anything beyond a lascivious 
 French novel. Women only expose their ignorance 
 when they are reddened with blushes at the mention 
 of phallic worship, and at the same time wear the 
 mystic horse-shoe or the crescent upon their immacu- 
 late bosoms, eat hot cross-buns, dance around the May- 
 pole, and worship beneath the church steeple. Even
 
 136 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 the vestments of priests are ornamented with phallic 
 emblems ; and one can hardly go abroad without be- 
 holding things which show how innocently and uncon- 
 sciously "the records of the past" are preserved in 
 church architecture, ecclesiastical rites, and many other 
 things daily before our eyes well understood by 
 really learned men, but to the true origin and signif- 
 icance of which the masses are totally blind. There 
 are churches in Philadelphia, and elsewhere, even 
 among those who call themselves liberal, which are 
 ornamented with all the emblems of the ancient Nature- 
 worship, especially sun-worship and phallus-worship. 
 The Women's Christian Temperance Union held a 
 great meeting recently at Ocean Grove, N. J., and in- 
 nocently used a programme decorated with the horseshoe 
 and many other phallic emblems. They had the cat 
 seated on the crescent, which, according to Egyptian 
 mythology, said, " We are virgins, but nevertheless 
 desire that commerce which eventuates in offspring." 
 They had the emblematic hare also, which always 
 denotes fecundity, and many other emblems not to be 
 mentioned in polite society. Even our ordinary play- 
 ing-cards, over which so much precious time is wasted, 
 are distinguished by phallic symbols ! 
 
 Passing by the symbolism of fire-worship prev- 
 alent in nearly all ancient lands, and omitting to 
 notice ancestor-worship, the warship of the sun, 
 which embraces nearly all the forms of Nature- 
 worship, now claims our attention. It should be kept 
 in mind what has already been intimated, that the
 
 SYMBOLISM AND LITERALISM. 137 
 
 use of natural objects in worship is not necessarily 
 idolatrous. 
 
 The priests of Chaldea, Babylonia, Hindostan, and 
 Egypt disclaimed the actual worship of the material 
 objects prominent in their rituals, and held that these 
 visible signs were necessary for the vulgar to contem- 
 plate, while intelligent worshippers fixed their spirit- 
 ual eyes upon the thing or principle signified by the 
 sign. The Roman Catholic Church well understands 
 this principle, and by its appeal to the ear and eye of 
 uneducated people attracts them to its gorgeous temples 
 and holds them in loyal subjection to the priests. 
 Take the following as an illustration of the ancient 
 customs referred to : 
 
 " Mr. F. Buckland tells us, in Land and Water, 
 that on the first of May all the choristers of Magdalen 
 College, Oxford, still meet on the summit of their 
 tower, one hundred and fifty feet high, and sing a 
 Latin hymn as the sun rises, whilst the final peal 
 of ten bells simultaneously welcomes the gracious 
 Apollo. In former days high mass was held here, 
 and the rector of Slymbridge, in Gloucestershire, it 
 appears, still has to pay ten pounds yearly for the one 
 performance of sundry pieces of choir-music at 5 A. M. 
 on the top of this tower. This May music, Christian 
 priests explain, is for the repose of the souls of kings 
 and others, which, of course, is quite an after-thought. 
 Early mass for Sol used also to be held in the college 
 chapel, but it is now explained that, owing to this 
 having been forbidden at the Reformation, it has since
 
 138 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 been performed at the top of the tower. After the 
 present hymn is sung by the choristers boys dressed 
 in womanly raiment the lads throw down eggs upon 
 the crowd beneath, and blow long loud blasts to Sol 
 through bright new tin horns showing us that the 
 Bacchic and Jewish trumpet fetes are not yet forgotten 
 by Christians. Long before daybreak the youths of 
 both sexes used to rise and go to a great distance to 
 gather boughs and flowers, and reach home at sunrise 
 to deck all doors, windows, and loved spots. . . . Long 
 before man was able to appreciate ploughing and har- 
 vesting, he keenly felt the force of the winter and of 
 the vernal equinox, and was ready to appreciate the 
 joyous warmth of the sun and its energizing power on 
 himself,, as well as on fruits and flowers." 
 
 While the Jewish and Christian Bibles contain 
 traces of all forms of the ancient Nature- worship, 
 there is one form that is specially conspicuous from 
 the first chapter of Genesis to the last of Revelation 
 to wit, the worship of the sun. 
 
 This form of worship was more general among 
 pagan nations than any other. It was natural for 
 those primitive people, leading pastoral lives in the 
 open air, to fix their attention upon the sun and to 
 notice his relations to other celestial orbs. It was 
 natural for the contemplative and devout to come to 
 regard the sun as the best emblem of the creating, 
 animating, fecundating spirit of the universe, while 
 the ignorant multitude may never have looked beyond 
 the material object. Those who have read the history
 
 SYMBOLISM AND LITERALISM. 139 
 
 of the sun-worshippers of Mexico and Peru, detailed 
 in the great works of Prescott, must have been im- 
 pressed by the fact that these nations enjoyed a higher 
 prosperity and a purer public morality when they were 
 worshippers of the sun than they have ever enjoyed 
 since under the Roman Catholic religion called 
 Christian. 
 
 To fully understand how the astronomical element 
 came to be extensively incorporated into the Jewish 
 and Christian religions, it is absolutely necessary to 
 familiarize ourselves with that ancient pictorial device 
 known as the solar zodiac. 
 
 This is nothing more than an imaginary belt cover- 
 ing that region of the starry heavens within the bounds 
 of which the apparent motions of the sun, moon, and 
 many other large planets are observed. It is divided 
 into twelve equal parts of thirty degrees each, called 
 " signs," known as " constellations " and designated as 
 follows : 
 
 Aries, the Ram or Lamb ; Taurus, the Bull ; Ge- 
 mini, the Twins ; Cancer, the Crab ; Leo, the Lion ; 
 Virgo, the Virgin ; Libra, the Balance ; Scorpio, the 
 Scorpion ; Sagittarius, the Archer ; Capricornus, the 
 Goat; Aquarius, the Water-carrier; Pisces, the 
 Fishes. 
 
 These constellations are filled up with imaginary 
 forms of men, women, animals, monsters, and many 
 fantastic figures, each including a group of stars. In 
 the ancient astronomy these groups numbered thirty- 
 six, to which many modern additions have been
 
 THE ZODIAC.
 
 142 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 made. Through these constellations passes a wavy 
 line called the Ecliptic, apparently marking the path 
 of the sun, but really indicating the path of our own 
 earth around the sun. The sun seems to move thirty 
 degrees a month, and at the end of the year appears at 
 the point from which he started. We thus have a 
 natural belt or way about sixteen degrees wide extend- 
 ing around the entire heavens, one half the year north, 
 and the other half south, of the equator. But the 
 sun does not cross the equator at the same point each 
 year, so that in crossing he is not always in the same 
 sign. The sun seems to recede, and as the apparent 
 recession of the sun is caused by the real movement 
 of the earth, the phenomenal result is the precession 
 of the equinoxes ; and as the equinoctial point recedes 
 in a fixed ratio, this point will go back through the 
 whole circle of the constellations in about twenty-five 
 thousand years, requiring about twenty-one hundred 
 and sixty years to pass through each sign. According 
 to the ancient astrology, the sun assumed at different 
 times the character of the particular sign through 
 which it passed, and as such was symbolically wor- 
 shipped. Four thousand years ago the sign Taurus 
 gave rise to the worship of the Bull (the Egyptian 
 Apis) ; and when the sun passed into the sign of 
 Aries the Lamb, this emblem dominated the wor- 
 ship of Persians and other sun-worshippers, and so 
 became the paschal or passover lamb of the ancient 
 Hebrews. 
 
 You will now begin to see what this zodiacal device
 
 SYMBOLISM AND LITERALISM. 143 
 
 has to do with our interpretations of the Bible. The 
 Jewish Scriptures also contain it, and, as will soon be 
 made to appear, it is impossible to make sense of large 
 portions of the Bible without it. 
 
 Many superficial persons imagine this peculiar map- 
 ping of the celestial heavens to be a modern fancy, be- 
 cause it is found in modern almanacs and in the maps 
 and charts of modern school-books; but the fact is 
 that it is so old and so universal that it is impossible 
 to ascertain with historical accuracy when and where 
 and how it did originate. There are two ancient 
 zodiacs one at Esne on the Nile, and one in 
 India besides two more modern ones at Denderah 
 in Egypt. Sir William Drummond, who wrote in 
 1811, estimated the age of the one at Esue at about 
 6500 years ; Dupuis made it 1000 years older ; while 
 other calculations date the Indian zodiac back 22,875 
 years, and the Egyptian one 30,100 years. These cal- 
 culations are based upon the assumption that the signs 
 were in a certain position at certain known times, so 
 that the computation is one of simple mathematical 
 astronomy. The credibility of these calculations is 
 strengthened by the following fact : Upon the coffin 
 of an Egyptian mummy, now in the British Museum, 
 is found a zodiac with the precise indication of the 
 position of the constellations in the year 1 722 B. c. 
 Our own Professor Mitchell calculated the exact posi- 
 tion of the celestial bodies belonging to our solar sys- 
 tem at the time indicated, and found that on October 
 7, 1722 B. c., the planets had actually occupied the
 
 144 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 position in the heavens marked upon the mummy 
 coffin ! 
 
 But further proofs are superfluous, as the zodiacal 
 designs must be much older than the Bible or they 
 could not have been so frequently used in it. 
 
 The Chaldean drama called the book of Job is 
 supposed by some persons to be very ancient, and its 
 author showed his familiarity with the zodiacal con- 
 stellations when he so sublimely challenged his oppo- 
 nent : " Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the 
 Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion ?" " Canst thou 
 bring forth Mazzaroth ?" etc. etc. But can there be any 
 doubt as to the antiquity of the zodiac when there is 
 an honored Protestant doctor of divinity, now living, 
 who holds to the opinion that Enoch, or even Adam 
 himself, invented the zodiac to foreshadow the redemp- 
 tion of fallen man through the birth, death, resurrec- 
 tion, and ascension of a veritable God? Martin 
 Luther is said to have thrown his inkstand at the 
 head of the devil. If the lusty old Reformer could 
 now visit this world, he would denounce in unmeasured 
 terms of righteous wrath a man who under the garb of a 
 Lutheran minister could utter such consummate non- 
 sense. And yet we must not forget that Dr. Martin 
 Luther himself denounced Copernicus as an atheist 
 and a fool. 
 
 It is the misfortune of the prevalent dogmatic the- 
 ology that it was formed by people who held the geo- 
 centric theory that is, that this little globe is 
 the centre of the universe. Even now our profes-
 
 SYMBOLISM AND LITERALISM. 145 
 
 sional priests seldom extend their thoughts beyond the 
 narrow limits of the planet upon which we dwell. 
 They do not realize that, while the earth travels at 
 the rate of 68,000 miles an hour, Mercury makes 
 110,000 miles an hour, and that the sun has 1,380,000 
 times our earth's bulk, and has a diameter of 822,000 
 miles to our earth's 8000 ; and that astronomers have 
 some knowledge of a fixed star in the constellation of 
 the Swan which is 62,481,500,000,000 (62 trillions 
 481 billions 500 millions) of miles from this planet, 
 and that light, which travels from the sun to the earth 
 in eight minutes, would require ten years to reach us 
 from that star. Yet the author of the Gospel in the 
 Stars thinks the whole celestial universe was so con- 
 structed as to shadow forth the dogmas of petty 
 preachers of modern times! One can only laugh at 
 such fanciful follies. 
 
 10
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ASTRAL KEYS TO BIBLE STORIES. 
 " Therefore they took a key and opened them." JUDO. 3 : 25. 
 
 IT is the carefully-formed conclusion of many inde- 
 pendent thinkers that there is very little real history or 
 biography in the Old-Testament Scriptures. It is a 
 monstrous mistake in modern ministers to take as lit- 
 eral what is, in fact, strictly allegorical. The figura- 
 tive character of most of the Bible narratives was well 
 known and freely admitted by many ancient writers, 
 Jewish and Christian, as will be shown hereafter. 
 
 It would be natural to commence our studies of 
 Hebrew symbolism with the account of the creation 
 and alleged fall of man ; but as this dogma is so 
 directly connected with the dogmas of modern sacer- 
 dotalism, we reserve the examination of the so-called 
 Mosaic account of Eden and the fall until we are 
 ready to enter upon what is called, in theological par- 
 lance, " the redemptive scheme " of Christianity. We 
 say so-called Mosaic account, for there are many rea- 
 sons for doubting, as I have shown, that he wrote the 
 Pentateuch, should his existence be admitted for the 
 sake of argument. Archbishop Burnet, in speaking 
 of the story of creation, says : " We receive this his- 
 
 146
 
 THE KEYS APPLIED. 147 
 
 tory without examination, because it was written by 
 Moses ; but if we had found it in the work of a 
 Greek philosopher, a rabbi, or Mohammedan, our 
 minds would be arrested at every step by doubts and 
 objections. This difference in our judgment does not 
 come from the nature of the facts ; it comes from the 
 opinion we have of Moses, whom we believe to be 
 inspired." Here are three assumptions not supported 
 by a particle of evidence, to wit : that such a man as 
 Moses existed, that he was supernaturally inspired, 
 and that he wrote Genesis and other books of the 
 Pentateuch under divine inspiration. Now, we have 
 no account of the real existence of Moses, and no 
 account of what he did and said except from writings 
 accredited to him and the incidental mention of him 
 in the New Testament. His alleged wonderful ex- 
 ploits in Egypt are not mentioned in Egyptian annals 
 nor in any other contemporaneous writings, while many 
 things said of him in the Old Testament are substan- 
 tially recorded of many other persons, as already shown. 
 There are many reasons for believing that Moses 
 was a personification of the sun and his whole history 
 a myth. Observing persons cannot fail to notice that 
 all ancient paintings and statues of Moses represent 
 him with horns, probably originally denoting the rays 
 of the sun when in the constellation Taurus the Bull. 
 The fact is well known that what is called the history 
 of the Jews is mainly fiction, and that, too, borrowed 
 from other peoples and modified to suit circumstances ; 
 and very bungling work have they made of it ! The
 
 148 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 sacerdotalists of the world may be safely challenged to 
 produce anything strictly original from the Old Testa- 
 ment, especially relating to morals. The historian 
 Josephus admits that the Jews " never invented any- 
 thing useful." Even the writings of Josephus should 
 be received with many grains of allowance. He was 
 himself superstitious and credulous, as shown in his 
 story of a heifer giving birth to a lamb when being led 
 from the temple stable to the altar. Moreover, we have 
 no ancient certified copies of what he did actually write, 
 and there is abundant evidence of alterations and in- 
 terpolations in his alleged writings by sacerdotalists in 
 modern times. There is no greater imposition palmed 
 off upon the ignorant than the commonly-believed false- 
 hoods that the Jews were a very ancient people and 
 that their Scriptures are the oldest book extant. 
 
 We now take up a few Bible stories, and give to 
 them a symbolic instead of an historic interpretation ; 
 and for obvious reasons we begin with the alleged pro- 
 genitor of the Jewish nation, Abraham. 
 
 It may or may not be a mere coincidence that by 
 transposing the letters of the name Abraham we have 
 the name Brahma just as in the old legend of 
 the sacrifice of the daughter of Agamemnon, Iphthi- 
 genia, if we divide the syllables into words, Iphthi-geni, 
 we have literally Jephthah's daughter ; so, after all, 
 it may be greatly to the credit of Jephthah that the 
 story is fabulous. These curious coincidences are not 
 here offered as evidence. It is acknowledged, at least
 
 THE KEYS APPLIED. 149 
 
 by implication, in the Bible itself that the story of 
 Abraham is of Chaldean origin, as his father Terah 
 was a native of Ur of the Chaldees and the alleged 
 patriarch was a Chaldean. Now, these people were 
 great astronomers in very ancient times, and were ac- 
 customed to veil their occult science under just such 
 allegorical personifications and fabulous tales as this 
 of Abraham. Paul, or whoever wrote the Epistle 
 credited to him, lets out the whole secret (Gal. 4 : 22 
 26) : " For it is written Abraham had two sons, one 
 by a bondmaid, the other by a free woman. But he 
 who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh, 
 but he of the free woman was by promise; which 
 things are an allegory" etc. Now, if you carefully 
 read the apostolic explanation in these verses, you will 
 notice that the two sons of Abraham are two covenants, 
 and the bondmaid Hagar represents an Arabian moun- 
 tain, which by a magical change becomes the same as 
 the city of Jerusalem. The name Abram signifies 
 the " Father of Elevation," which is the astronomical 
 distinction of the planet Saturn, the exaltation of which, 
 with its devious ways, well represents the alleged his- 
 tory of its prototype. The word Chasdim, translated 
 Chaldees, literally means light, and is a professional 
 not a geographical name, and probably refers to the 
 art of magic and the work of astrologers ; so that it 
 is more than probable that Abram was not a person, 
 any more than Chasdim was a place. There are many 
 references in the Scriptures which favor this interpre- 
 tation, but which cannot here be mentioned. Even in
 
 150 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 the Lord's Prayer, found in Jewish rituals long before 
 the Christian era, there are evidences that it was first 
 addressed to Saturn. There never was any form of 
 religious worship which did not contain an expression 
 equivalent to Our Father who art in heaven. Even 
 Jupiter means Our Father in the sky. 
 
 The name of Abram has many variations, and there 
 is an important sense in which he may be called " the 
 father of many nations." He was the Esrael of the 
 Chaldeans, the Israel of the Phoenicians, as the histor- 
 ian Sanchoniathon distinctly alleges that their name 
 for Saturn was Israel : the names Abraham and Israel 
 are used interchangeably in both the Old and New 
 Testaments, and among the Hindoos, the Greeks, the 
 Persians, and other nations he was the god Saturnus of 
 the whole pagan world. Even upon the dials of our 
 " grandfathers' clocks," cherished in many families as 
 heirlooms in our day, his memory is kept green by the 
 figure of the god of Time. Scores of other similitudes 
 between Saturn and Abraham could here be introduced 
 did space permit. Suffice it to say, Saturn in fable 
 married his own sister, who was a star ; and so did 
 Abraham, and the name of his wife signifies a star. 
 Both had many sons, but each had a favorite son, and 
 Saturn called his Jeoud, which implies an only son, 
 as Abraham so regarded Isaac. A learned English 
 scholar has suggested that the name " Jeoud " is the 
 real origin of the name " Jew," and he assigns several 
 philological and historical reasons for his theory. It 
 is certain in the minds of many profound and inde-
 
 THE KEYS APPLIED. 151 
 
 pendent investigators that the Jewish tribes originated 
 in Arabia, and were originally a mere religious order, 
 and that their so-called history is largely fabulous, and 
 that their exodus is a comparatively modern novel with 
 an ancient date, as has been shown. 
 
 Let us now take the best -remembered incident in the 
 life of Abraham, the attempted murder and the rescue 
 of his son Isaac, and see what will come of applying 
 the symbolic instead of the literal interpretation to it. 
 
 Let it be noted that this is not an original story. 
 The ancient Hindoos have one like it. King Haris- 
 candra had no son. He prayed for one, and promised 
 that if one should be born to him he would sacrifice 
 him to the gods. One was born, and he named him 
 Rohita. One day his father told him of his promise 
 to Varuna to offer him in sacrifice. The son bought 
 a substitute, and when he was about to be immolated 
 he was marvellously rescued. Then there is the well- 
 known similar story written by the Phoenician San- 
 choniathon thirteen hundred years before our era. 
 Then there is the Grecian story of Agamemnon, to 
 whom, when about to sacrifice his daughter, a stag 
 was furnished by a goddess as a substitute. There 
 is another Grecian fable in which a maiden was about 
 to be sacrificed, and as the priest uplifted his knife to 
 shed her blood the victim suddenly disappeared, and a 
 goat of uncommon beauty stood in her place as a sub- 
 stitute. Another story runs thus : In Sparta the 
 maiden Helena was about to be immolated on the 
 altar of the gods, when an eagle carried off the knife
 
 152 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 of the priest and laid it upon the neck of a heifer, 
 which was sacrificed in her stead. Similar stories 
 might be produced from among many nations in the 
 most ancient times, long before the Jews picked this up 
 in Babylon and rewrote it, with modifications, so as to 
 apply it to their mythical progenitor ; for this fable of 
 Abraham's offering was not written until after their 
 return from their Babylonish captivity much nearer 
 our own time than is generally suspected. 
 
 Regarded as an historic account of a real transac- 
 tion, this story of the attempted sacrifice of a beloved 
 son by a venerable father is shocking in the extreme, 
 dishonoring alike to God and to Abraham. A good 
 God could not have done such an unnatural and cruel 
 thing. He had no occasion to try Abraham to find 
 out how much faith he had. He knew that already. 
 Regarded as an astrological allegory, it is ingenious 
 and contains a moral lesson, to wit : obedience to the 
 voice of God and the hope of deliverance in the hour 
 of extreme emergency. The defect in the story is, 
 that God could trifle with a loving child, and pretend 
 to require him to break one of his own commandments, 
 " Thou shalt not kill," and subject him to its own pen- 
 alty, " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his 
 blood be shed." It would not have availed Abraham 
 to plead that God told him to murder his son, any 
 more than it availed the Pocasset crank when he 
 pleaded that God had directed him to murder his 
 little daughter. The State of Massachusetts sent the 
 semi-lunatic to a safe place of confinement. This
 
 THE KEYS APPLIED. 153 
 
 story of Abraham and Isaac has led to scores and 
 scores of murders of children by their fathers, just 
 as the passage in the Old Testament, " Thou shalt not 
 suffer a witch to live," has been pleaded in justification 
 of the cool, deliberate murder of multitudes of men, 
 women, and children on the charge of witchcraft. 
 The literal interpretation of what is called infallible 
 Scripture has been the most bitter curse to deluded, 
 priest-ridden humanity. It is the " stock in trade " 
 of ignorant and selfish ecclesiastics to-day. 
 
 Let us look a little more closely at this Abraham- 
 and-Isaac myth. Abraham was the personification 
 of Saturn, the god of Time, while Isaac was the per- 
 sonification of the Sun. Abraham took Isaac up to 
 Hebron which means union or alliance, and clearly 
 indicates a union of the ecliptic and equinoctial line 
 the very point at which the Ram of the vernal equi- 
 nox passed by, or, as might be poetically said, was 
 caught in a cloud or bush ; so that the whole story 
 was written long ages before in the celestial heavens, 
 and emblazoned in the skies at the return of each 
 vernal equinox. Writers on astro-theology point out 
 details at great length to support the symbolic inter- 
 pretation, but it is enough for our purpose to merely 
 give the keynote. Let the fact be specially noted that 
 the names of the patriarchs have an astrological mean- 
 ing, and that the twelve sons of Jacob, the grandson 
 of Abraham, who became the heads of the twelve 
 tribes of Israel, have distinctly astrological characters, 
 fully indicated in Jacob's dying blessing on his sons
 
 154 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 (Gen. 49) and in the corresponding " Song of Moses " 
 (Deut. 33), on the banner carried by the different 
 tribes in their mythical march from Egypt to Ca- 
 naan ; and that on the breastplate of the officiating 
 high priest the jewels correspond to the celestial signs 
 of the solar zodiac ; and although Jacob had children 
 by several different women and was a first-class Mor- 
 mon, his twelve sons are made to correspond with the 
 twelve months of the year and the twelve signs of 
 the zodiac. This fact is admitted by the orthodox 
 author of The Gospel in the Stars. His daughters 
 are not considered worthy of notice, as that would 
 have spoiled the riddle. The philology and ety- 
 mology of the name Jacob has suggestions of the 
 serpent ; and from his history he must have been 
 a snaky fellow from the first to the last. He was 
 born with his hand upon his brother's "heel," and 
 he managed to cheat him out of his share of his 
 mother's affections, and lied to his father, and con- 
 spired with his mother to rob Esau, his brother, of his 
 " blessing." The stories of Laban and Leah and Rachel 
 all conform to the symbolic rather than the literal hy- 
 pothesis, as well as Jacob's vision of the ladder, and 
 his wrestling-match with the angel, when he openly ob- 
 tained the astrological name of the children of Saturn 
 Israel. It must be admitted that the allegorical 
 hypothesis relieves the patriarchs of the charge of 
 many mean things, such as the heartless manner in 
 which Abram treated Hagar when Sarah got jealous, 
 and the manner in which he treated Sarah herself
 
 THE KEYS APPLIED. 155 
 
 when he lied to the king through a selfish cowardice 
 and gave his wife over to the lusts of the monarch 
 Abimelech, who was (or one bearing his name) deceived 
 by Isaac in regard to Rebekah by a similar trick (Gen. 
 26 : 1). Lot, the nephew of Abraham, was guilty of a 
 meaner and more unmanly act when he himself pro- 
 posed to give over his two virgin daughters to the 
 worse than beastly lusts of a howling mob, to protect 
 two angels who were guests at his tent (Gen. 19 : 11 1). 
 But theologians will never willingly admit that 
 the Abraham of Genesis was a myth. They well 
 know the logical conclusion. They would have 
 to give up the " Abrahamic covenant," which is the 
 basis of sacerdotalism. When Professor Driver, of 
 the orthodox University of Oxford, recently admitted 
 only by implication that Abraham may have had no 
 real personal existence, and claimed that such hypoth- 
 esis would not be injurious to religion, his article was 
 rejected and suppressed by the editor of an orthodox 
 paper in Philadelphia as dangerous. But to assume 
 that all the principal actors of Genesis and some other 
 books were impersonations, not persons, would not 
 destroy the good things they are alleged to have said 
 and done. It is no more necessary to insist upon the 
 real personality of Abraham than to insist upon the 
 literal existence of Faithful and Great-Heart and 
 other impersonations in Pilgrim's Progress. Nobody 
 insists that the characters in the parables accredited 
 to Jesus must be taken in a literal sense. And yet it 
 may be admitted that the fictions of Scripture may
 
 156 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 have been suggested by some persons and facts, just as 
 in modern novels there generally is some person who 
 stands for the original of the story. This is eminently 
 so in the novels of Dickens and D'Israeli. Neverthe- 
 less, it is difficult to doubt that the principal characters 
 of the Old Testament are mythical, pure and simple, 
 as we find the originals in the older scriptures of dif- 
 ferent nations, confessedly founded upon the solar and 
 other forms of Nature-worship. The fact is, that the 
 only rational way to explain the marvellous stories of 
 the Hebrew Scriptures is by the well-known methods 
 of ancient symbolism. 
 
 Let us now merely glance at some other Old-Testa- 
 ment fables. 
 
 Noah and his Deluge are mainly mythical, as this 
 story is almost a literal copy of the Chaldean, though 
 found substantially in the writings of many other 
 nations. It readily fits the allegorical method of 
 interpretation in almost every particular. The Chal- 
 dean account as written by Berosus, and found recently 
 by the late George Smith of the British Museum on 
 the clay tablets, is so much like the story in Genesis 
 that the latter must have been copied from the former ; 
 and the slight variations in the two narratives are no 
 greater than might have been expected as between 
 Chaldea and Palestine. The Jews obtained it from 
 Babylon, as there is no mention made of this miracle 
 in any book of the Bible written before the Captivity. 
 The books of Psalms, Proverbs, Chronicles, Judges, 
 Kings, etc. are silent on this subject. Josephus de-
 
 THE KEYS APPLIED. 157 
 
 fended the Noachian Deluge on the sole ground that 
 an account of it was held by the Chaldeans, never 
 pretending that the Chaldean account was taken from 
 the Jewish record. 
 
 But it is useless to dwell on the story of a univer- 
 sal deluge of water. It. is in the light of modern 
 science physically impossible and absurd ; and such 
 men as Buckland, Pye Smith, Hugh Miller, and 
 Hitchcock, with many other distinguished Christian 
 scientists, give up the doctrine of a universal deluge 
 while claiming a partial one. And here, again, the 
 ancient astronomy comes in with an explanation of 
 partial floods of waters by the natural results of the 
 " precession of the equinoxes," in which, at certain 
 periods during the change of the polar axis of the 
 earth, great physical convulsions must follow, with 
 wide eruptions of water, making a partial overflow and 
 suggesting the idea of a universal deluge. Four such 
 cataclysms must have occurred while the sun was mak- 
 ing one journey through the twelve zodiacal constella- 
 tions. Prof. Huxley has recently well said : " But 
 the voice of archeology and historical criticism still 
 has to be heard, and it gives forth no uncertain sound. 
 The marvellous recovery of the records of an antiquity 
 far superior to any that can be ascribed to the Penta- 
 teuch, which has been effected by the decipherers of 
 cuneiform characters, has put us in possession of a 
 series once more, not of speculations, but of facts, 
 which has a most remarkable bearing upon the ques- 
 tion of the trustworthiness of the narrative of the
 
 158 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 Flood. It is established that for centuries before the 
 asserted migration of Terah from Ur of the Chaldees 
 (which, according to the orthodox interpreters of the 
 Pentateuch, took place after the year 2000 B. c.) Low- 
 er Mesopotamia was the seat of a civilization in which 
 art and science and literature had attained a devel- 
 opment formerly unsuspected, or, if there were faint 
 reports of it, treated as fabulous. And it is also no 
 matter of speculation, but a fact, that the libraries of 
 this people contain versions of a long epic poem, one 
 of the twelve books of which tells the story of a del- 
 uge which in a number of its leading features corre- 
 sponds to the story attributed to Berosus, no less than 
 with the story given in Genesis, with curious ex- 
 actnesss. 
 
 " Looking at the convergence of all these lines of 
 evidence leads to the one conclusion that the story of 
 the Flood in Genesis is merely a version of one of the 
 oldest pieces of purely fictitious literature extant ; that 
 whether this is or is not its origin, the events asserted 
 in it to have taken place assuredly never did take place ; 
 further, that in point of fact the story in the plain and 
 logically necessary sense of its words has long since 
 been given up by orthodox and conservative com- 
 mentators of the Established Church." 
 
 The only rational interpretation of the extraordi- 
 nary stories of the Pentateuch and other scriptures is 
 to regard them as mythical and allegorical, borrowed 
 from the astrological systems of more ancient peoples. 
 It is very difficult to present within the limits here
 
 THE KEYS APPLIED. 159 
 
 allowed what has grown into ponderous volumes in 
 elucidating the matter in hand. 
 
 The story of Jonah and the Fish, taken as a literal 
 story, is incredible, though the notorious Brooklyn 
 preacher thinks that it must be literally true, as that 
 God might have so diluted the gastric juice in the 
 stomach of the fish as to make Jonah quite indigesti- 
 ble ! This whole story is found in earlier pagan writ- 
 ings, and is fully explained by the astronomical phe- 
 nomena. The earth is a huge fish in the ancient 
 mythology, and on December the 21st the sun (Jonah, 
 the type) sinks into its dark belly, and after three days 
 to wit, December 25th it comes forth. The Sun- 
 god is on dry land again. 
 
 There is a Hindoo fable much like this. In Grecian 
 fable Hercules was swallowed by a whale at Joppa, 
 and is said to have lain three days in his entrails. 
 The Sun was called Jona, as can be shown from many 
 authorities. The nursery-tale of " Little Red Riding- 
 Hood " was also a sun-myth, mutilated in the Eng- 
 lish story, showing how the Sun was devoured by the 
 Slack Wolf (Night), and came out unhurt. Scores 
 of similar sun-myths could be narrated. 
 
 But there are geographical inaccuracies which show 
 its mythical character. Instead of Nineveh being " three 
 days' journey " from the coast where Jonah was vomited 
 out, it is distant some four hundred miles of hill and 
 plain, and the size of the city was not twenty by twelve 
 miles, but more nearly eight by three miles. Moreover, 
 the city showed no signs of decay till about two hundred
 
 160 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 and fifty years after the alleged warning of Jonah. It 
 is truly astounding that intelligent men can be so blind. 
 It was recently admitted by high Christian authority 
 that there is not a particle of proof for this story ex- 
 cept that Jesus had referred to Jonah as being " three 
 days and nights in the whale's belly." If Jesus did 
 say this, he used it as an illustration. He probably 
 stated a current tradition, if he said it at all. 
 
 Let us now try our key in the closet-door of the 
 Samson story. 
 
 According to the Bible account, Samson performed 
 twelve principal exploits ; and if you will turn to any 
 good dictionary of mythology you will find a wonder- 
 ful likeness to the twelve labors of Hercules in the 
 Greek myth of the Sun. Time can be taken to ex- 
 amine only one the cutting off of Samson's hair 
 while reposing in the lap of Delilah, and the conse- 
 quent loss of his strength. Professor Goldhizer says : 
 " Long locks of hair and a long beard are mythologi- 
 cal attributes of the sun." ..." When the power- 
 ful summer's sun is succeeded by the weak rays of the 
 winter's sun, its strength departs." But as the sun 
 becomes ascendant again he renews his strength, just 
 as Samson's strength returned when his hair grew out 
 again. The seven locks represent the seven planetary 
 worlds. The constellation Virgo represents Samson's 
 wife ; and Delilah, in whose lap he dallied and lost his 
 strength, represents the months of autumn, before the 
 winter came to hand him over to the Philistines, the 
 dreary time of the winter months. The story of Sam-
 
 THE KEYS APPLIED. 161 
 
 son is found in the sun-myths of all the Sun-worship- 
 ping nations, and the story of Hercules was known in 
 an island colony of the Phoenicians five hundred years 
 before it was known in Greece ; and the story is almost 
 as old as humanity itself. The very name Samson (or 
 Samp-shon) in some languages means the sun; and 
 there is not an exploit recorded of him that does not 
 yield to the solar interpretation ; and when modern 
 ministers undertake to explain how Samson caught 
 three hundred foxes and set fire to their tails, they 
 never think to mention (if they happen to know it) 
 that in the ancient festival of Ceres a fox-hunt was 
 enacted in the theatres of Rome in which burning 
 torches were bound to the foxes' tails. We have an 
 explanation of this from Prof. Steinthal : " This was a 
 symbolical reminder of the damage done to the fields 
 by mildew, called the ' red fox/ in the last of April. 
 It was at the time of the Dog Star at which the mil- 
 dew was most to be feared ; and if at that time great 
 solar heat followed too close upon the hoar-frost or dew 
 of the cold nights, the mischief raged like a burning 
 fox through the corn-fields. Like the lion, the fox is 
 an animal that indicates the solar heat, being well 
 suited both by its color and long-haired tail." Bou- 
 chart gives a similar explanation and application, and 
 so do many other writers. It remains for ministers 
 of this nineteenth century to dole out the ancient 
 fables of the past as literal history to the grown-up 
 children of to-day. The story of Samson in all its 
 details yields to the key of ancient symbolism. Why 
 11
 
 162 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 not admit the fact that this is a solar myth, and thus 
 get clear of all the blasphemy and absurdities of a lit- 
 eral interpretation? 
 
 The incredibly absurd story of Joshua's command- 
 ing the sun to stand still for several hours has a 
 rational explanation, regarded as a myth, well known 
 to initiates to set forth the correction of the calendar, 
 so as to make different periods correspond, as one stops 
 a clock to make it agree with the ringing of the stand- 
 ard time by the town bell. There are scores of paral- 
 lels in ancient history. 
 
 Regard Solomon as a sun-myth, and you have no 
 difficulty about the size of his family. The seven 
 hundred wives and the three hundred concubines 
 represented so many stars. Even the narratives of 
 David's exploits with the five kings, his " unpleasant- 
 ness " with Saul, and his dalliance and intrigue with 
 Bathsheba yield to the astro-mythological key. 
 
 The same is true of the story of the two she-bears that 
 ate up the forty-two children who called shorn Elisha 
 " bald-head." The prophet was the Sun, denuded of 
 his curls at a certain astronomical period; the two 
 bears were the constellations Ursa Major and Ursa 
 Minor, the great bear and the little bear ; and the 
 forty-two children were a group of stars covered by 
 the two bears, so that, figuratively, it might be said 
 they were " eaten up." And yet the late Dr. Nehe- 
 miah A,dams of Boston once exclaimed : " I believe that 
 the forty-two children who made fun of the bald head 
 of the prophet of God are now in hell." He once
 
 THE KEYS APPLIED. 163 
 
 wrote an admirable book entitled Agnes ; or, The Little 
 Key, but he failed to find the skeleton key to unlock 
 the solar fable of the prophet, the saucy little children, 
 and the voracious bears. 
 
 Within the last few months Philadelphia has been 
 the scene of a most imposing ecclesiastical ceremony 
 the investiture of the Roman Catholic archbishop with 
 the pallium, a narrow band or sash made from wool 
 grown upon white lambs that had been blessed by the 
 Pope on St. Agnes' Day. We heard the eloquent ser- 
 mon of the archbishop of New York, and he com- 
 menced his plausible discourse by tracing the pallium 
 to the mantle that fell from Elijah upon Elisha, the 
 summer and winter sun, and was worn by him after 
 the translation of Elijah. But we try our skeleton 
 key, and find that Elijah represented the ascending 
 summer sun, and Elisha the sun of autumn ; and 
 when Elijah gained the greatest height, of course his 
 lessened rays, well called a " mantle," fell upon the 
 bald-headed man representing the autumn. This is 
 the whole story in plain language, and this is the kind 
 of stuff that ecclesiastical man-millinery is made of. 
 The crowd stared with admiration and wonder, just as 
 children are amused with their doll-babies, who are 
 " sick " or " well," " naughty " or " good," according 
 to the whims of the " little women " who dress and 
 nurse them. There is a doll-baby period in every 
 child's history, and it may be necessary to have a 
 doll-baby period in religion ; but it does seem to some 
 of us that it is about time for full-grown women and
 
 164 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 men to doff their bibs and aprons, lay aside their doll- 
 babies and other ecclesiastical toys, and act as becomes 
 men and women of full growth. Even Paul said, 
 " When I was a child, I spake as a child, I under- 
 stood as a child ; but when I became a man, I put away 
 childish things." It has been well said by a judicious 
 writer : " Intelligent readers, except revelationists, well 
 know that the Hebrew fables are myths which teem 
 with history of a kind, if we can only separate the 
 wheat from the chaff. So also is the story of the 
 Creation in Genesis. We have a very valuable myth, 
 though a purely phallic tale, such as East Indians 
 and perhaps they only can thoroughly comprehend. 
 " We would not seek to detract from the great value 
 of myths, for, besides their own intrinsic worth, these 
 stories also exhibit to us many phases of ancient life 
 and thought. Myths may be regarded as history which 
 we have not yet been able to read. We should not dis- 
 card as untrue or unhistorical any tale, biblical or 
 other, as implying that it is false and unworthy of 
 consideration. On the contrary, we cannot too ear- 
 nestly and patiently ponder over every ancient tale, 
 legend, or myth, as they all have some foundation and 
 instructive lesson. Whenever an important myth has 
 existed an important fact has doubtless been its basis."
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE FABLE OF THE FALL. 
 
 " And calleth those things which be not as though they were." 
 ROM. 4 : 17. 
 
 THE prevailing belief of Christendom to-day is, 
 that about six thousand years ago, somewhere in Asia, 
 the Supreme Creator took common clay and moulded 
 it into the form of a man, somewhat as a sculptor 
 forms the model from which the marble statue is to 
 be constructed, and when shaped to his liking he 
 breathed into the clay model the breath of life, and 
 it became a living soul. This miraculous work is 
 believed to have been begun and completed on a par- 
 ticular day ; so that in the morning the earth con- 
 tained not a man, but in the afternoon the full-grown, 
 bearded man stood up in his majesty and assumed 
 supremacy over all living things. This godlike man 
 finding himself lonely, the Creator put him to sleep, 
 and opened his side and took therefrom a rib, out of 
 which he formed a woman, who was to be a compan- 
 ion, a wife, to the man ; and from this particular 
 couple have come, by ordinary generation, all the 
 people dwelling upon the face of the earth. They 
 are said to have been perfect, but, unfortunately for 
 
 165
 
 166 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 their progeny, this perfection did not long continue. 
 Before they were blest with offspring they lost their 
 Creator's favor by eating fruit from a forbidden tree, 
 and became fearfully demoralized, and, instead of be- 
 getting children endowed with their own angelic qual- 
 ities, they became the unhappy parents of a race of 
 moral monsters, of which we are all degraded and 
 degenerate descendants. 
 
 The sacerdotal story of the fall of Adam and Eve 
 is based upon the assumption that it is to be received 
 as literal history, revealed by the Creator and written 
 down in a book by a man specially chosen and plena- 
 rily inspired ; so that there can be no error or mistake 
 in the record. To question this narrative in its literal 
 sense is most impious, and subjects the doubter to the 
 charge of favoring infidelity. 
 
 While persons "professing and calling themselves 
 Christians" cannot agree regarding many things 
 deemed by them matters of vital importance, the fall 
 of man is a matter in which they are fully agreed. The 
 great basic dogma which underlies all modern systems 
 of theology, Romish and Protestant, is the utter deprav- 
 ity of the human race through the fall of Adam, 
 dooming a large majority of the human family to 
 eternal punishment. 
 
 How evil came into the world has been the most 
 perplexing problem of the ages. Before it the most 
 gigantic minds have been covered with confusion and 
 paralyzed with doubt. Why sin and suffering should 
 have been permitted, not to say created, has never been
 
 THE FABULOUS FALL. 167 
 
 made clear to the human reason by any system of 
 theology; Romish or Protestant. A few years ago Dr. 
 Edward Beecher published a book entitled The Con- 
 flict of Ages. When reviewed by Dr. Charles Hodge 
 in the Princeton Review he entitled his paper " Beecher's 
 Conflict;" but it was rightly called The Conflict of 
 Ages : it was not " Beecher's Conflict," and the expla- 
 nation given by theology only involves the question 
 in greater doubt and difficulty. 
 
 From the first dawning of human reason, even in 
 the mind of inquisitive childhood, questions like these 
 have been revolved, if not formulated : Did not God 
 know, Avhen he made Adam and Eve, that they would 
 fall ? Why, then, did he create them ? Why did he 
 create a subtle serpent to tempt them ? Why did he 
 create a tree the fruit of which was forbidden ? Why 
 did he make the possible everlasting ruin of innumer- 
 able unborn mortals depend on such a trivial act as 
 the eating of a certain apple? Why did he not de- 
 stroy Adam and Eve after their first act of disobedi- 
 ence, and thus prevent them from propagating a faith- 
 less progeny, which should increase in geometrical 
 progression until the number should be so great as 
 to exhaust calculation with weariness, stagger reason 
 itself, and transcend even the powers of the loftiest 
 imagination to conceive? Why are the teeming mil- 
 lions of the children of Adam held virtually respon- 
 sible for this single trivial act of disobedience by an 
 unknown remote ancestor myriads of ages ago ? How 
 could all men sin in him and fall with him in the first
 
 168 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 transgression? How could the guilt of Adam's sin 
 be imputed to his children? 
 
 The circumstances connected with the degradation 
 of man are so extraordinary that it is not unreason- 
 able to inquire whether the narrative of the fall is 
 a matter of supernatural revelation based upon an 
 historic occurrence, or whether it is purely mythical, 
 portraying the conceptions of the human mind as to 
 the origin of evil at some remote period of the world's 
 childhood. For the support of the dogma of total 
 depravity through the fall of Adam theologians rely 
 primarily upon the account in the book of Genesis. 
 It is a notable fact that Adam and Eve are not his- 
 torically recognized in any other portion of the Old 
 Testament, and their very existence was totally ignored 
 by the Teacher of Nazareth, if the Gospels said to con- 
 tain the only report of his teachings are to be credited. 
 Nobody pretends that Moses, the doubtful author of 
 the Pentateuch, wrote from personal knowledge ; but 
 it is claimed that he wrote under inspiration of God, 
 though there is not a single intimation in Genesis or 
 any other book that he was so inspired, or that God 
 had anything more to do with his writings than he 
 had with the writings of Homer, Herodotus, or John 
 Milton. But the assumption that the dogma of the 
 fall through the sin of Adam was first revealed to 
 Moses at most not more then eight or nine hun- 
 dred years before the Christian era is plainly explo- 
 ded by the fact that this story existed among many 
 nations centuries and centuries before Moses is said
 
 THE FABULOUS FALL. 169 
 
 to have been born or the writing called Genesis 
 existed. 
 
 It is not within the lines of our general purpose to 
 here give in detail the numerous legends substan- 
 tially the same, though differing in particulars regard- 
 ing the introduction of sin into this world, found in the 
 writings of Hindoos, Persians, Etruscans, Phoenicians, 
 Babylonians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Thibetans, and 
 others. Any man who would now dare to deny 
 this statement regarding the prevalence of the story 
 of the fall centuries before the writing of Genesis 
 existed would justly subject himself to the charge of 
 ignorance or dishonesty. 
 
 Dr. Inman states that Adam is the Phallus and Eve 
 the Yoni in other words, that Adam and Eve signify 
 the same idea as Abraham and Sara, Jacob and Leah, 
 man and woman ; thus embodying in the Hebrew the 
 Hindoo notion that all things sprang from Mahadeva 
 and his Sacti, my lady Sara. This deduction enables 
 us at once to recognize, as did the early Christians, 
 the mythical character of the account of the fall ; and 
 we must conclude that the story means that the male 
 and female lived happily together so long as each was 
 without . passion for the other, but that when a union 
 took place between them the woman suffered all the 
 miseries inseparable from pregnancy, and the man had 
 to toil for a family, whereas he had previously only 
 thought of himself. The serpent is the emblem of 
 "desire," indicated by the man and recognized by 
 the woman. "There is a striking resemblance be-
 
 170 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 tween the Hindoo and Hebrew myths. The first 
 tells us that Mahadeva was the primary Being, and 
 from him arose the 'Sacti.' The second makes 
 Adam the original, and Eve the product of his right 
 side an idea which is readily recognizable in the word 
 Benjamin. After the creation, the Egyptian, Vedic, 
 and Jewish stories all place the woman beside a citron 
 or pomegranate tree, or one bearing both fruits ; near 
 this is a cobra or asp, the emblem of male desire, 
 because these serpents can inflate or erect themselves 
 at will." 
 
 General Forlong thus discourses upon this subject : 
 " Most cosmogonies relate a phallic tale of two in- 
 dividuals Adam and Eve, meeting in a garden of 
 delight (Gan-Eden), and then being seduced by a ser- 
 pent Ar (Ar-i-man), Hoa, Op, or Orus, to perform the 
 generative act, which it is taught led to sin and trouble, 
 and this long before we hear of a spiritual god or of 
 solar deities. These cosmogonies narrate a contest be- 
 tween man and Nature, in which the former ' fell/ and 
 must ever fall, for the laws of Sol and his seasons none 
 can resist." . . . "The Jews learned most of their faith 
 and fables from the great peoples of the East ; especially 
 did they get the two cosmogonies, and that solar fable, 
 mixed with truth, of a serpent tempting a woman with 
 the fruit of a tree, of course in the fading or autumnal 
 equinox, when only fruit exists and all creation tries 
 to save itself by shielding all the stores of nature from 
 the fierce onslaughts of angry Typhon when entering 
 on his dreary winter. The Gan-Edeu fable was clearly
 
 THE FABULOUS FALL. 171 
 
 an attempt by Zoroastrians to explain to outsiders the 
 difficult philosophical problem of the origin of man 
 and of good and evil. Mithras, they said and the 
 Jews followed suit is the good God, the incarnation 
 of God, who dwells in the beauteous orb of day ; to 
 which Christian Jews added that he was born of a 
 virgin in a cave which he illuminated." 
 
 " The * tree of life ' mentioned in Gen. 3 : 22 cer- 
 tainly appears," says Mr. Smith (Chal. Acct., p. 88), 
 " to correspond to the sacred grove of Ann, which a 
 later fragment of the creation-tablets states was guarded 
 by a sword turning to all the four points of the com- 
 pass ; and there too we have allusions to ' a thirst for 
 knowledge ' having been the cause of man's fall ; the 
 gods curse the dragon and Adam for the transgression. 
 This Adam was one of the Zalmat-qaqadi, or dark 
 men, created by Hea or Nin-Si-ku, a name pointing 
 to Hea being a Nin or Creator, while Adam is called 
 Adami or Admi, the present Eastern term for man and 
 the lingam, and no proper name." The impression 
 that I get from the legends of Izdubar, or the Flood, 
 or even the creation-tablets, is simply that these were 
 religious revivals. Nearly every illustration of Mr. 
 Smith's last volume shows the serpent as an evil in- 
 fluence. Now, if I am right and all I have read 
 elsewhere tends to the same conclusion then all the 
 tales as to a temptation by a serpent, a fall, are phallo-' 
 pythic transmutations of faith, and have no more con- 
 nection with the first creation of man upon earth than 
 have the flood, the ark, or mountain-worship of Jews
 
 172 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 in the desert, or the destruction of Pytho by Apollo 
 in the early days of Delphi, etc. 
 
 " The tree and serpent," says Fergusson, " are sym- 
 bolized in every religious system which the world has 
 known, not excepting the Hebrew and Christian. The 
 two together are typical of the reproductive powers of 
 vegetable and animal life. It is uncertain whether the 
 Jewish tree of life was borrowed from the Egyptians 
 or Chaldeans ; but the meaning was in both cases the 
 same, and we know that the Assyrian tree was a life- 
 giving divinity. And Moses, or the writer of Genesis, 
 has represented very much the same in his coiled ser- 
 pent and love-apples, or citrons, of the tree of life. 
 
 " The writer of Genesis probably drew his idea of 
 the two trees, that of life and that of knowledge, from 
 Egyptian and Zoroastrian story ; for criticism now as- 
 signs a comparatively late date to the writing of the 
 first Pentateuchal book. After Genesis no further 
 notice is taken in the Bible of the tree of knowledge. 
 But that of life, or the tree which gives life, seems 
 several times alluded to, especially in Rev. 2 : 7. The 
 lingam or pillar is the Eastern name for the tree which 
 gives life. But when this tree became covered with 
 the inscriptions of all the past ages, as in Egypt, then 
 Toth, the Pillar, came to be called the tree of know- 
 ledge." 
 
 ' But it must not be supposed that all Christian theo- 
 logians of the present day hold the historical and lit- 
 eral truth of the legend of the fall of Adam. In sev- 
 eral of the public libraries of Philadelphia may be
 
 THE FABULOUS FALL. 173 
 
 found a book entitled Beginnings of History, written 
 by a learned professor of Archaeology at the National 
 Library of France Professor Fra^ois Lenormant. 
 It was republished by Scribner, New York, in 1886, 
 with an introduction by Francis Brown, associate pro- 
 fessor of Biblical Philology in the Presbyterian Union 
 Theological Seminary of New York. It is written 
 from a Christian standpoint, and the writer is a firm 
 defender of the infallibility of the Hebrew Scriptures, 
 and can never be suspected of having any sympathy 
 with modern rationalism. He not only admits that 
 the Edenic story of the introduction of sin, found in 
 Genesis, is a compilation made up from the Shemitic 
 traditions of Babylonians, Phoanicians, and other 
 pagan peoples, but he has covered page after page 
 with proofs of this fact by learned and accurate quo- 
 tations from their numerous legends. He puts in 
 the common plea of lawyers, known as confession and 
 avoidance, and takes the ground that " the writer of 
 the Hebrew Genesis took these fables from floating 
 tradition as he found them, and cleansed them of their 
 impurities, altered their polytheistic tendencies, made 
 them monotheistic, and otherwise so transformed them 
 as to make them fit vehicles of spiritual instruction by 
 the Divine Spirit which inspired him." 
 
 This is an ingenious device, but it will hardly sat- 
 isfy sound thinkers. The question is, whether the 
 story of Adam is historical truth or pagan fiction. 
 The highest scholarship pronounces it fiction, while 
 certain orthodox writers admit the fact "that God
 
 174 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 used prevailing but unreal fancies to teach import- 
 ant truths." 
 
 The document in which the story of the fall is found 
 is a confused, inconsistent, and absurd compilation by 
 at least two different writers, representing each a dif- 
 ferent God, Jehovah and Elohim, the writers contra- 
 dicting each other in many particulars ; and this fact 
 is admitted by candid Christian writers, and by none 
 more frankly than the late Dean Stanley of the Eng- 
 lish Establishment. The first account of creation ends 
 at the third verse of Gen. 2, and the second account 
 begins with the fourth verse and closes with the end of 
 that chapter. In the first account the man and woman 
 are created together on the sixth and last day of crea- 
 tion (Gen. 1 : 28). In the second account the beasts 
 and birds are created after the creation of the man and 
 before the creation of the woman ; and it was not until 
 after Adam had examined and named all the beasts 
 of the fields, and had failed to find among the apes, 
 chimpanzees, and ourangs a suitable companion for 
 himself, that Eve was made from one of Adam's ribs, 
 taken from his primeval anatomy while under the in- 
 fluence of a divine anesthetic (Gen. 2 : 7, 8, 15, 22). 
 In the first account man was made on the last day, 
 and woman was made at the same time ; in the second 
 account man was made after the plants and herbs, but 
 before fruit trees, beasts, and birds. So it would seem 
 that, inasmuch as woman was made after all things, 
 she was an afterthought, a sort of necessary evil for 
 the solace and comfort of man. These contradictions
 
 THE FABULOUS FALL. 175 
 
 run through the whole of the first and second chapters 
 of Genesis, and plainly show that these narratives were 
 compiled by two different persons from vague traditions 
 or from different written documents. Had the Creator 
 undertaken to write or dictate an account of his own 
 work, he certainly would not have contradicted him- 
 self six times within the limit of a few lines. 
 
 The credibility of the document in which is found 
 the account of the fall is further impaired by the fact 
 that it contains statements openly at variance with the 
 demonstrations of science. It teaches not only that 
 the world was made in six days of twenty-four hours 
 each, but that the whole planetary system was made 
 in a single day. " He made the stars also." The dis- 
 coveries of modern science have lately driven our sa- 
 cerdotalists to a new and absurd interpretation of the 
 story of creation by alleging that the six days spoken 
 of were not periods of twenty-four hours each, but six 
 indefinite periods of very long duration. But it would 
 be easy to furnish numerous admissions of orthodox 
 scholars that the six days of the creative week were 
 intended by the writers to describe ordinary days, of 
 twenty-four hours each, and not indefinite periods. 
 Any other interpretation Professor Hitchcock has 
 pronounced " forced and unnatural, and therefore not 
 to be adopted without a very urgent necessity." The 
 venerable Moses Stuart, long professor of Biblical Lit- 
 erature in the Andover Theological Seminary, says : 
 " When the sacred writer in Gen. 1 says the first day, 
 the second day, etc., there can be no possible doubt
 
 176 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 none, I mean, for a philologist, let a geologist think as 
 he may that a definite day of the vfeek is meant. 
 What puts this beyond all question," the learned 
 theologian adds, "is that the writer says specifically 
 ' the evening and the morning were the first day/ ' the 
 second day,' etc. Now, is an evening and a morning 
 a period of some thousands of years ? ... If Moses 
 has given us an erroneous account of the creation, so 
 be it. Let it come out and let us have the whole 
 truth." The fact is, that the indefinite-period hypoth- 
 esis does not, after all the quirks and special pleadings, 
 overcome the difficulty. The question arises, Why 
 six indefinite periods? One indefinite period is as 
 long as six or sixty. There is nothing in geology to 
 indicate six periods. One need only consider the at- 
 tempt to reconcile Genesis and geology to plainly see 
 that the Mosaic record was intended to be taken in 
 its obvious sense. The forced interpretations put upon 
 the Hebrew story to make it appear to be historical 
 and literal truth make it more absurd than it would 
 otherwise appear. Think of Adam created (according 
 to one account) on the second day, and Eve on the 
 sixth day, and then accept the hypothesis that these 
 creative days represent indefinite periods of thousands, 
 if not millions, of years to each day, so that four in- 
 definite periods of thousands of years passed away be- 
 fore Adam had his Eve to be his helpmeet, and what 
 a long, lonely time he must have had ! Then how 
 small the human census must have been for unnum- 
 bered ages, and how strange the fact that the same
 
 THE FABULOUS FALL. 177 
 
 writer says that Adam " lived nine hundred and 
 thirty years, and he died;" that is to say, he died 
 several hundred thousand years before the rib was 
 taken from his side to make him a wife ! 
 
 But the fact must be emphasized that it is quite use- 
 less to criticise the so-called Mosaic narrative of the 
 fall, because it is acknowledged to be a huge myth or 
 allegory by the best scholarship of modern times. 
 The Christian author of the Beginnings of History 
 has with profound research actually produced and 
 printed the stories of many ancient peoples in con- 
 trast with the narrative in Genesis. He says in the 
 preface to his book : " This is the problem which I 
 have been led to examine in comparing the narrations 
 of the Sacred Book with those current long ages be- 
 fore the time of Moses among nations whose civiliza- 
 tion dated back into the remote past, with whom Israel 
 was surrounded, from among whom it came out. As 
 far as I myself am concerned, the conclusion from this 
 study is not doubtful. That which we read in the 
 first chapter of Genesis is not an account dictated by 
 God himself, the possession of which was the exclu- 
 sive privilege of the chosen people. It is a tradition 
 whose origin is lost in the night of the remotest ages, 
 and which all the great nations of Western Asia pos- 
 sessed in common, with some variations. The very 
 form given it in the Bible is so closely related to that 
 which has been lately discovered in Babylon and 
 Chaldea, it follows so exactly the same course, that 
 it is quite impossible for me to doubt any longer. 
 12
 
 178 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 The school of Alexandria in general, and Origen in 
 particular, in the first centuries of the Church inter- 
 preted the first chapters of Genesis in the allegorical 
 sense ; in the sixteenth century the great Cardinal 
 Cajetan revived this system, and, bold as it may ap- 
 pear, it has never been the object of any ecclesiastical 
 censure." 
 
 It is well understood among men of learning that 
 the whole story of Eden, the talking serpent, and the 
 sinning woman is a myth, and that all nations of sun- 
 worshippers have had substantially the same legend, 
 and their priests, poets, and philosophers have not 
 hesitated to acknowledge among themselves its fabu- 
 lous character. That early Jewish and Christian 
 writers freely admitted the allegorical character of 
 the narrative ascribed to Moses is well known. 
 Maimonides, a learned Jewish rabbi, said : " One 
 ought not to understand nor take according to the 
 letter that which is written in the Book of the Crea- 
 tion, nor have the ideas concerning it that most men 
 have, otherwise our ancient sages would not have 
 recommended us to carefully conceal the sense of it, 
 and on no account to raise the allegorical veil which 
 conceals the truth it contains. Taken according to the 
 letter, this work gives the most absurd and extrava- 
 gant idea of divinity. Whoever shall discover the 
 true sense of it ought to be careful not to divulge 
 it." Philo, the great Jewish authority, took the same 
 ground, and wrote mainly to show the allegorical cha- 
 racter of all the sacred books. Josephus held similar
 
 THE FABULOUS FALL. 179 
 
 views, and so did Papias and many of the early Chris- 
 tian Fathers. Origen said : " What man of good 
 sense will ever persuade himself that there was a 
 first, second, and a third day, and that these days had 
 each their morning and evening without the not-yet- 
 existing sun, moon, and stars ? What man sufficiently 
 simple to believe that God, acting the part of a gar- 
 dener, planted a garden in the East that the ' tree of 
 life ' was a real tree, evident to the senses, whose fruit 
 had the virtue of preserving life?" etc. St. Augus- 
 tine held the same views as to the allegorical character 
 of the so-called Mosaic account of the creation and 
 fall, and so did Tertullian, Clement, and Ambrose. 
 Some of the early Christian authorities carried this 
 idea of the allegorical character of the Scriptures so 
 far as to apply it to the Gospels themselves. " There 
 are things therein " (said Origen) " which, taken in 
 their literal sense, are mere falsities and lies;" and 
 St. Gregory asserted of the letter of Scripture that " it 
 is not only dead, but deadly ;" while Athanasius ad- 
 monished us that " should we understand Sacred Writ 
 according to the letter we should fall into the most 
 enormous blasphemies." It seems to have been fully 
 realized in early times that there was no rational way 
 to interpret Moses and his writings but upon the alle- 
 gorical hypothesis. As the Mosaic account of the 
 creation and the fall of man is so evidently the same 
 story that was suggested to the Persians and other 
 nations by the astronomical phenomena, we are forced 
 to the conclusion that this is the only key to unlock
 
 180 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 the mysteries of the first three chapters of Genesis. 
 If the original story is known to have been founded 
 upon the ancient astrological religion, the substantial 
 copy in our Jewish Scriptures must have the same 
 basis. All the ancient religions had their Cabala 
 secret words and initiations and the Jewish and 
 Christian Scriptures are no exceptions, as is seen 
 upon their very surface. We may not have all their 
 secrets some of them may not be proper things to 
 write about in our day but no fair man of intelli- 
 gence can successfully deny that many of those things 
 which are absurd if taken for historical truth are at 
 once explained by reference to the solar cults of the 
 ancients. 
 
 Many theologians have virtually admitted that there 
 is nothing injurious to the interests of true religion in 
 the hypothesis here presented, but, on the contrary, 
 there is much that is truly beautiful and calculated to 
 elevate and inspire the devout mind. Even the dis- 
 tinguished Albertus, of the twelfth Christian century, 
 surnamed the Great for his attainments as a scholastic 
 ecclesiastic, did not hesitate to write : " All the mys- 
 teries of the incarnation of our Saviour Christ, and all 
 the circumstances of his marvellous life from his con- 
 ception to his ascension, are to be traced out in the 
 constellations and are figured in the stars." "The 
 Gospel in the Stars" was the significant advertise- 
 ment of a course of sermons recently delivered in a 
 prominent Lutheran church in Philadelphia by a 
 learned doctor of divinity, and, though many of his
 
 THE FABULOUS FALL. 181 
 
 hearers thought that the title should have been " The 
 Stars in the Gospel," it was certainly an evidence of 
 progress and increasing light to have a frank admis- 
 sion from such a source that all the truths of the gos- 
 pel and the doctrines of the Reformation were pre- 
 figured in the celestial heavens and illustrated in the 
 constellations of the solar zodiac. 
 
 This author admits the identity between the tenets 
 of the astro-theology of ancient sun-worshippers and 
 the present dominant theology of Christendom, but 
 assumes that the original construction of the celestial 
 heavens and its fanciful division into constellations 
 had reference to, and in fact prefigured, what was 
 literally fulfilled in Christianity. He finds in the 
 solar zodiac of Esne in Egypt as clear predictions of 
 the coming of Christ as he finds in Isaiah or any 
 other Jewish prophet. Thus, he "gives away" the 
 whole argument, and unwittingly admits the natural 
 origin of all the distinctive tenets of modern dog- 
 matic theology. This last craze may well be re- 
 garded as a compound of scientific trifling and the- 
 ological moonshine. 
 
 But it is said by theologians that man is depraved, 
 and that the present moral status of humanity confirms 
 the dogma of total depravity by descent through fallen 
 and depraved ancestors. This involves the question, 
 What is depravity? 
 
 That man is not perfect in morality is as true as 
 that he is not perfect in body nor in mentality. But 
 does not every one know by his own experience and
 
 182 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 observation that human shortcomings mainly arise 
 from a want of perfect development and the influence 
 of environment, rather than from essential, innate 
 viciousness ? What is called " sin " should be known 
 as " undevelopment," and, as real as is the law of 
 heredity, it is no more real than the law of environ- 
 ment. Where there is evidence of hereditary evil 
 tendencies it is not necessary to go back more than 
 two or three generations to find the source. 
 
 But the fact must here be emphasized and continual- 
 ly kept in mind that the story of Eden and the fall is 
 substantially found in the annals of many nations an- 
 terior to the existence of the Jewish tribes, varied only 
 in trivial matters. The story of the serpent in Eden 
 is probably of Aryan source, to which the conception 
 of the satanic origin of evil was attached after the 
 Jews came into close contact with Persian dualistic 
 ideas. To doubt which was the original and which 
 the copy, shows, regarding the well-established facts 
 of history, a want of information so great as to make 
 argument on this matter quite useless. 
 
 The conclusion is inevitable that if the fall of Adam 
 is a fiction, then the entire system of evangelical theology 
 is based upon a fiction ; and the fruit must be natural to 
 the tree a fictitious tree can only bear fictitious fruit. 
 Orthodox theologians, especially of the logical Pres- 
 byterian stamp, realize that if they give up Adam and 
 Eve as progenitors of the entire human race, they give 
 up the very foundation-stones of the "redemptive 
 scheme." This accounts for Presbyterian opposition
 
 THE FABULOUS FALL. 183 
 
 to the doctrine of evolution. They are logical enough 
 to see that the second Adam as a Saviour in the evan- 
 gelical sense must share the fate of the first Adam ; 
 and so Professor Woodrow of South Carolina has 
 recently been degraded on account of his theory of 
 evolution. 
 
 The world moves, and, as Professor Marsh of Yale 
 College has well said, " The doctrine of evolution is 
 as thoroughly demonstrated as the Copernican system 
 of astronomy." 
 
 THE INEVITABLE CONCLUSION. 
 In the Popular Science Monthly for October, 1890, 
 we have a very able article from Andrew D. White, 
 LL.D., ex-president of Cornell University, showing 
 how completely science contradicts theology in regard 
 to the Edenic story. He shows that the tendency of 
 the race has always been upward from low beginnings. 
 He further shows that Archbishop Whately and the 
 Duke of Argyll championed the Bible story, but were 
 so conclusively answered by Sir John Lubbock and 
 Tylor that the views of the archbishop were seen to 
 be untenable, while the duke, as an honest man and a 
 sound thinker, was obliged to give up his former views 
 and adopt the scientific theory. The light thrown upon 
 this subject by Herbert Spencer, Buckle, Max Muller, 
 and scores of other great scholars is among the glories 
 of the century now ending. The public declaration 
 of the celebrated Von Martius, of his conversion to 
 the scientific view of the story of the Fall, ought to
 
 184 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 make smaller men less confident of their views on a 
 subject they have never studied. 
 
 In 1875, Commodore Vanderbilt endowed a uni- 
 versity in Tennessee, and it was put in charge of the 
 Methodists. Dr. Alexander Winchell was called to 
 the chair of Geology. He was distinguished in his 
 specialty by his successful labors in another uni- 
 versity. He openly taught " that man existed before 
 the period assigned to Adam, and that all the human 
 race could not have descended from Adam." The 
 Methodist bishop told him "that such views were 
 contrary to the plan of redemption." The Method- 
 ist Conference resolved "that they would have no 
 more of this," and Professor Winchell was summarily 
 dismissed from the chair, and the position, with its 
 salary, assigned to another. The State University of 
 Michigan recalled him to his former chair in that in- 
 stitution, where he could teach science regardless of the 
 impotent thunders of theology. 
 
 The fall of Adam is really the pivotal principle in 
 dogmatic theology of the orthodox variety. If the 
 entire human race are not descendants of a real, gen- 
 uine, historical pair miraculously created (a pair almost 
 divine in perfections), and who by disobedience fell 
 from their high estate, and by their federal or repre- 
 sentative character involved all their countless descend- 
 ants by natural generation and descent in the same 
 ruin, if these things are not true, then what is called 
 the evangelical scheme is based upon a fiction, and is 
 to be so treated, regardless of the effect upon other
 
 THE FABULOUS FALL. 185 
 
 theological doctrines. The dogma of a sudden, special 
 creation of a perfect man is not sustained by the facts 
 of history nor the science of palaeontology. Scientific 
 investigators find man, so far as the evidence of his 
 remote existence can be traced, very nearly allied to 
 apes ; and there is abundant evidence to show that 
 man has been improving in every respect as years and 
 cycles of years have rolled away. It is thus absolutely 
 demonstrated that the history of our race shows the 
 rise or ascent of man from a very low estate, instead 
 of his " fall " from a condition of high perfection. 
 
 But it does not follow, because man as we first find 
 him was very much like the anthropoid ape, that he 
 is a lineal descendant of the ape. The more rational 
 hypothesis is, that both apes and man were evolved 
 from still lower animal forms by divergent lines, so 
 that there is a relation of a very distant cousinship 
 existing between them. There is many a fool-born 
 jest about man and the monkey, oft repeated by ad~ 
 captandum theologians who have never read Darwin's 
 Origin of Species nor his Descent of Man, and who 
 therefore do not know that there is nothing in these 
 writings to justify such caricatures. 
 
 The fact is, the evolution of man by slow and long- 
 continued processes, instead of his sudden miraculous 
 creation on a certain day, is now as well established as 
 the law of gravitation, in the judgment of scientists 
 who are not hampered and blinded by preconceived 
 theological dogmas. It cannot be denied that the 
 weight of scientific testimony is very largely in favor
 
 186 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 of the development of man, instead of a miraculous 
 and complete creation at a particular period of time. 
 The true ground will be found to be creation by evo- 
 lution; and if our purblind sacerdotalists had accepted 
 this doctrine, as the brightest of them have privately 
 done, they would have saved themselves the disgrace 
 of becoming the laughing-stock of the scientific world. 
 If man was brought to his present high estate by a 
 system of evolution, it is no less the work of the 
 Supreme Creator of the universe than if he had been 
 made from clay in an instant of time ; and if the 
 character of man, mentally and morally, is admitted 
 to be based on the degree of his development, it would 
 solve many a knotty question in theology and morals. 
 At any rate, the evolution hypothesis has many ad- 
 vantages over the Church dogma, manifestly founded 
 on a pagan fable. The fact is, sacerdotalists have 
 always been their own worst enemies, and have always 
 been defeated in. their battles with science and a true 
 philosophy. 
 
 It is not intended to ignore the fact that legends of 
 a paradisiacal period, a real " golden age," are found 
 among all ancient peoples, also of periods of general 
 demoralization; but these legends can easily be ac- 
 counted for. It is a natural instinct in man to praise 
 the past, and to think that " the former times were 
 better than the present." We see this among aged 
 men and women to-day. Then it is well known that 
 the stream of human history has never run in an un- 
 broken channel. Our race has ever had its " ups and
 
 THE FABULOUS FALL, 187 
 
 downs," and, comparatively speaking, mankind has 
 had many falls and ascents, while the general or ulti- 
 mate tendency and result have been ascending higher 
 and higher. Moreover, the golden age of Adam in 
 Eden must have been very short, according to the 
 fable of Genesis, as the fall occurred before he had any 
 children. What a pity that Adam and Eve could not 
 have maintained their innocence by blind obedience 
 until at least a son and daughter could have been born 
 to them ! This may be considered irreverent, but every- 
 body knows that, outside of the pulpit and the Sun- 
 day-school, the story of Adam and Eve is hardly 
 ever mentioned except as a huge joke, and that witty 
 preachers often take part in laughing at it. It is dif- 
 ficult to write about a fiction otherwise than facetiously. 
 
 I cannot refrain from again quoting Professor Hux- 
 ley in summing up my own conclusions in regard to 
 this matter : 
 
 " I am fairly at a loss to comprehend how any one 
 for a moment can doubt that Christian theology must 
 stand or fall with the historical trustworthiness of the 
 Jewish Scriptures. The very conception of the Mes- 
 siah, or Christ, is inextricably interwoven with Jewish 
 history. The identification of Jesus of Nazareth with 
 that Messiah rests upon the interpretation of passages 
 of the Hebrew Scriptures which have no evidential 
 value unless they possess the historical character as- 
 signed to them. If the covenant with Abraham was 
 not made ; if circumcision and sacrifices were not or- 
 dained by Jehovah; if the 'ten words' were not
 
 188 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 written by God's hand on the stone tables ; if Abra- 
 ham is more or less a mythical hero, such as Theseus ; 
 the story of the deluge a fiction ; that of the fall a 
 legend ; that of the creation the dream of a seer, if 
 all these definite and detailed narratives of apparently 
 real events have no more value as history than the 
 stories of the regal period of Rome, what is to be said 
 of the Messianic doctrine which is so much less clearly 
 enunciated? And what about the authority of the 
 writers of the books of the New Testament, who on 
 this theory have not merely accepted flimsy fictions 
 for solid truths, but have built the very foundations 
 of Christian dogma upon legends and quicksands? 
 
 " The antagonism between natural knowledge and 
 the Pentateuch would be as great if the speculations 
 of our time had never been heard of. It arises out of 
 contradictions upon matters of fact. The books of 
 ecclesiastical authority declare that certain events hap- 
 pened in a certain fashion ; the books of scientific au- 
 thority say they did not." 
 
 " What we are pleased to call religion now-a-days is 
 for the most part Hellenized Judaism ; and, not im- 
 frequently, the Hellenic element carries with it a 
 mighty remnant of old-world paganism and a great 
 infusion of the worst and weakest products of Greek 
 scientific speculation ; while fragments of Persian and 
 Babylonian or rather Accadian mythology burden 
 the Judaic contribution to the common stock. The 
 antagonism of Science is not to Religion, but to the 
 heathen survivals and the bad philosophy under which
 
 THE FABULOUS FALL. 189 
 
 Religion herself is wellnigh crushed. Now, for my 
 part, I trust this antagonism will never cease, but 
 that to the end of time true Science will continue to 
 fulfil one of her most beneficent functions, that of 
 relieving men from the burden of false Science which 
 is imposed upon them in the name of Religion." 
 
 The fact that well-dressed congregations do not 
 laugh sacerdotalists to scorn shows how safe it is to 
 rely upon the credulity and indifference of those who 
 have been taught mere myths as real history from early 
 childhood. The day will come when even children 
 will laugh in the faces of priests when they seriously 
 speak of the fall of Adam and Eve as a matter of 
 actual occurrence. The great curse of true religion 
 to-day is literalism, enforced by priestcraft, in regard 
 to what relates to our most sacred concerns. 
 
 It is no part of our design to here explain the devel- 
 opment theory as to how man did originate from the 
 lower forms of animal existence, but must refer those 
 who are willing to learn to such works as Darwin's 
 Origin of Species and Descent of Man, Huxley's Man's 
 Place in Nature, and to scores of other books accessible 
 to all. Perhaps ninety-nine-hundredths of living work- 
 ing scientists repudiate the Adam-and-Eve story, and 
 regard it as a fable intended to illustrate what man's 
 attainments at the time would not enable him to ac- 
 count for on natural principles.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SEARCH FOR THE "LAST ADAM." 
 
 " For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made 
 alive." . . . "And so it is written, the first Adam was made a 
 living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit." 
 1 COR. 15 : 22-45. 
 
 THE claim of sacerdotalism is substantially as fol- 
 lows : Adam was the first man and the sole progenitor 
 of the entire human race. When he fell, all his prog- 
 eny "sinned in him and fell with him in the first 
 transgression." Death was first introduced in the 
 world by Adam's sin, and life is restored by Christ. 
 Adam and Christ are the two great representatives of 
 death and life, of the fall and the restoration. The 
 Creator permitted this great calamity to happen, hav- 
 ing purposed from all eternity to redeem this degen- 
 erate race, or at least a portion of it, from the terrible 
 curse caused by Adam's sin. In due time he did in- 
 carnate himself, became man, human flesh and blood, 
 by impregnating, or " overshadowing," a Jewish vir- 
 gin, and so was born, by ordinary generation, a human 
 babe in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, who was 
 called the Christ. After about thirty years this hu- 
 man-born God died to make it possible to restore our 
 race to its original moral status. This is called the 
 "redemptive scheme," and is the sum and substance 
 
 190
 
 SEARCH FOR THE "LAST ADAM" 191 
 
 of Christianity, and is fully set forth in what is very 
 improperly called the "Apostles' Creed," which is 
 publicly recited in thousands of churches every Sun- 
 day as an epitome of their belief. 
 
 The story of this one first man, who sinned by eat- 
 ing an apple from a certain forbidden tree, has been 
 proved to be a fable, a myth, an allegory. The legend 
 may shadow forth certain natural truths, but it is nev- 
 ertheless a myth. The thing never occurred. The 
 alleged facts are not facts. There was no first Adam. 
 There may have been some one whom certain persons 
 called the last Adam, but it is nevertheless true that 
 what is said of him was founded upon an unreality 
 a thing which never happened. According to 
 biblical chronology, the last Adam did not make 
 his advent until about four thousand years after the 
 first Adam fell. Even this seems to have been a long 
 period to wait, but if we accept the interpretation of 
 certain modern writers, that which is called " the be- 
 ginning " in Genesis may have been forty thousand or 
 four hundred thousand years before the advent of 
 Jesus. True, this would show certain events to have 
 been a very long way apart (for instance, the creation 
 of Eve after that of Adam) and would make the work 
 of Christ in the "redemptive act" occur ages and ages 
 after the mischief was done. 
 
 DOES THE OLD TESTAMENT REFER TO JESUS? 
 
 It is contended that the promise of the sending of 
 a Saviour was made the very day that the first
 
 192 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 Adam sinned, and that the salvation of the sinner was 
 conditioned upon man's faith in, and acceptance of, the 
 promise that in due time, not mentioned, the last Adam 
 should come and repair all the mischief which the first 
 Adam had caused. It is claimed by sacerdotalists that 
 the saying in Genesis 3 : 15 is the first promise of a 
 Redeemer : " And I will put enmity between thee [the 
 serpent] and the woman, and between thy seed and 
 her seed ; it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise 
 his heel." But these very words occur in the pagan 
 fables that were written long before the time that 
 Genesis was written, and in some of these fables, much 
 more consistently with the passage above quoted, the 
 woman is represented as standing with her heel on the 
 serpent's head. Then it is claimed that the Creator 
 accepted the sacrifice of Abel because it was a bloody 
 sacrifice, prefiguring the shedding of, the blood of 
 Christ, and that he rejected the offering of Cain be- 
 cause there was no blood in it. We have looked in vain 
 through the Old-Testament Scriptures for a promise of 
 the last Adam who was to come and redeem man, but 
 have failed to find it. A system of " redemption " that 
 is based on expressions so enigmatical must have a very 
 flimsy foundation upon which to stand. It is like the 
 assumption that women generally have an aversion to 
 reptiles because a serpent tempted Eve and brought so 
 many curses on the sex. To such miserable subterfuges 
 will sacerdotalists resort to maintain a theory. 
 
 One of the first points emphasized in connection 
 with the advent of Jesus is the claim that it was in
 
 SEARCH FOR THE "LAST ADAM" 193 
 
 exact fulfilment of Hebrew prophecy. Certain orthodox 
 Christian writers claim that there are two hundred 
 prophecies in the Old Testament relating to Jesus, 
 while certain other eminent German and English Chris- 
 tian scholars deny that there is even one prophecy which 
 does not admit of another and a more rational explana- 
 tion. The quotations from Old-Testament prophecies 
 in the Gospels are, to say the least, unfortunate, and 
 rather suggest the hypothesis that certain things, if 
 done at all, were done to make the history fit the 
 prediction. 
 
 Learned Bible critics contend that there is not to be 
 found a single example of such redemptive proph- 
 ecy, even though the theory of the double sense of 
 prophecy be admitted. These predictions or hopes 
 were intended to apply to eminent characters in He- 
 brew history as deliverers, and can only be applied to 
 Jesus by a forced and unnatural construction ; and, 
 though Cyrus and others appeared, the expectations 
 of the Jews have not yet been realized, and some of 
 them are still awaiting their Messiah, spurning the idea 
 that the predictions of their prophets were fulfilled in 
 the humble Man of Nazareth. 
 
 One or two examples of so-called Messianic proph- 
 ecies must suffice. Matthew (27 : 9) says the prophecy 
 of " Jeremy the prophet " regarding the thirty pieces 
 of silver was fulfilled in the betrayal of Jesus ; whereas 
 no such prophecy is found in Jeremiah, and, though 
 similar words occur in Zechariah, they have another 
 obvious application. Then in Matthew (chap. 2) 
 
 13
 
 194 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 Hosea is quoted to prove that Jesus dwelt in Egypt to 
 fulfil a prophecy, whereas it is evident (Hos. 11:1) 
 that it was of Israel, not Jesus, that those words were 
 spoken. Again, in Matt. 22 : 41 the quotation from 
 the Psalms is obviously misapplied " The Lord said 
 unto my lord," etc. as it was not written by David, 
 but Nathan addressed it to David. It was the poet 
 that called David lord, which spoils the prophecy and 
 ruins the argument of the evangelist. Many things 
 recorded in the New Testament are unwittingly ad- 
 mitted to have been done to fulfil a supposed prophecy 
 "that it might be fulfilled." There is one very 
 amusing example of an attempt to fulfil an alleged 
 prophecy that of Jesus dwelling in Nazareth, because 
 it had been prophesied that he should be called a Naz- 
 arene, no such prophecy ever having been uttered. 
 
 The Indian Vedas are full of alleged prophecies re- 
 lating to coming incarnations, and so are the Chinese 
 sacred books. Even Zoroaster, who lived 570 years 
 B. c., prophesied : " A virgin shall conceive and bear a 
 son, and a star shall appear blazing at midday to an- 
 nounce his appearance. When you behold the star 
 (said he), follow it whithersoever it leads you. Adore 
 the mysterious child, offering him gifts with profound 
 humility. He is indeed the Almighty Word which 
 created the heavens. He is indeed your Lord and 
 everlasting King" (History of Idolatry, Faber, vol. 
 ii. p. 92). It was believed that this prophecy was ful- 
 filled by the advent of the Persian god Sosia. It was 
 common among the ancients to presage the birth of a
 
 SEARCH FOE THE "LAST ADAM." 195 
 
 god by the appearance of a mysterious star, and for 
 astronomers to hasten to adore the new-born deity and 
 present him gifts. Greece, Rome, Arabia, and even 
 Mexico, were all familiar with Messianic prophecies. 
 Bishop Hawes says that " the idea that God should in 
 some extraordinary manner visit and dwell with men 
 is found in a thousand forms among ancient heathens." 
 
 The fact is, there is no promise or prophecy of a 
 " last Adam " in the Hebrew Scriptures. The Jews 
 give a very different interpretation to those utterances 
 alleged to be Messianic, and the alleged types of Jesus 
 in the Old Testament are purely fanciful, and many 
 of them are exceedingly childish. The idea that Solo- 
 mon and Moses and the scapegoat were types of Jesus 
 is simply absurd, and not creditable to the alleged 
 antetype. There is no Jesus of Nazareth in the He- 
 brew oracles. 
 
 The bloody sacrifices of the Old Testament were 
 antedated by heathen nations centuries before the Jews. 
 The sacrificing of brute beasts was heathenism pure 
 and simple, to conciliate an imaginary anthropomorphic 
 god. Twenty generations of innocent animals slaugh- 
 tered by divine command in order to notify the world 
 beforehand of the coming of the last Adam, yet never 
 saying so, seem to have failed to prepare the people 
 for the alleged spiritual sacrifice of Jesus. It was a 
 signal failure. If these bloody offerings were types of 
 Jesus, there must have been some resemblance. Where- 
 in did it lie ? A bullock was forced to the altar ; he 
 died like any beast at the shambles. It made the
 
 196 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 sanctuary a slaughter-house. The involuntary offering 
 of an innocent lamb or pigeon cannot be a type of a 
 willing offering of a human being. The whole scheme 
 of bloody animal sacrifices is a type of nothing but the 
 cruelty of barbarism, and meant a good dinner and fat 
 priests ! It is generally condemned by the Hebrew 
 prophets as useless, and was entirely rejected by those 
 who " professed and called themselves Christians." 
 
 Since we can learn absolutely nothing that is ration- 
 ally reliable concerning the "last Adam" from the 
 Old Testament, it becomes necessary for us to consult 
 comparatively modern history. The advent of Jesus 
 was made, if made at all within the historic period, 
 scarcely nineteen hundred years ago. If such a per- 
 son appeared among men at that time, there must be 
 some written record of so wonderful an event by 
 contemporary parties. 
 
 ALLEGED JEWISH TESTIMONY REGARDING JESUS. 
 
 In the Jewish Talmud, a perfect wilderness of re- 
 ligious and secular speculations, we find many spiteful 
 and distorted allusions to one Jesus who went into 
 Egypt and learned sorcery and magic, and by such in- 
 fluence raised a tumult among the people and led away 
 a party of deluded followers. Whether this was Jesus 
 of Nazareth it is impossible to say. There were many 
 persons bearing similar names. 
 
 There is at the present day much ignorance or at 
 least indifference even among intelligent Christians, to 
 the fact that the very name of Jesus is not of Hebrew,
 
 SEARCH FOR THE "LAST ADAM." 197 
 
 but of Greek origin, as indeed is the whole history of 
 his life as related in the four Gospels ; and no one but 
 those who have a previous theory to uphold can believe 
 that the people of Jerusalem during the time of Christ 
 spoke any other language than that spoken by their 
 forefathers. From this we will pass to other instances 
 where the name of Jesus is applied to others not named 
 in the Gospels ; and it will be a matter of surprise to 
 many to know that no less than fifteen, most of them 
 living at the time of the Christian era, are named by 
 the Jewish historian Josephus as bearing the name of 
 Jesus: 
 
 1. Jesus, son of Josedek (Ant., xi. iii. 10, iv. 1). 
 
 2. Jesus, surnamed Jason, son of Simon (Ant., xi. 
 iii. 10, iv. 1). 
 
 3. Jesus, son of Phabet (Ant., xv. ix. 3). 
 
 4. Jesus, son of Sie (Ant, xvii. xiii. 1). 
 
 5. Jesus, son of Damneus (Ant., xx. ix. 1). 
 
 6. Jesus, son of Gamaliel (Ant., xx. ix. 4). 
 
 7. Jesus, son of Sapphias ( Wars, ii. xx. 4). 
 
 8. Jesus, son of Shaphat ( Wars, iii. ix. 7). 
 
 9. Jesus, son of Ananus ( Wars, iv. iv. 9). 
 
 10. Jesus, son of Ananus, a plebeian ( Wars, vi. v. 3). 
 
 11. Jesus, son of Gamala (Life, 38, 41). 
 
 12. Jesus, a high priest (Wars, vi. ii. 2). 
 
 13. Jesus, son of Thebuthi ( Wars, vi. viii. 3). 
 
 14. Jesus, father of Ely mas. 
 
 15. Jesus, surnamed Barabbas. 
 
 Josephus also refers to one Judas, a Gaulonite, who 
 was a leader of the people, and whose character and
 
 198 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 career answer in so many respects to qualities credited 
 to Jesus of Nazareth that it is supposed by many that 
 the name Jesus had been changed to Judas ; and he 
 also refers to other Jesuses who are too much like 
 the traditional Jesus of the Gospels in many things to 
 be mere coincidences. Then there was the meek Jesus, 
 mentioned by Josephus, who lived during the reign of 
 Albinus, who prophesied such evil things, and who 
 was scourged until his bones were laid bare, and who 
 uttered no reply, and in so many ways was like the 
 Jesus of tradition ( Wars of the Jews, book vi., chap. 5). 
 Then we have the mention of the Jesus, as is well 
 known, who was the friend of Simon and John and the 
 " son of Sapphias," who was the leader of a seditious 
 tumult, who was betrayed by one of his followers, and 
 defeated by Josephus himself when he was governor 
 of Galilee, and put to shame and confusion (Life of 
 Josephus, sec. 12-14). 
 
 This undoubtedly shows that nearly all that is 
 claimed for Jesus of Nazareth might have been said 
 as the substance of what was written by Josephus 
 concerning real historical persons called Jesus. This 
 may account for the conglomerate character and the 
 many inconsistencies ascribed to this Jesus of tradition. 
 
 The failure of Jewish writers of the first century to 
 recognize Jesus of Nazareth, even in the most casual 
 way, is a significant fact. Philo, the celebrated writer 
 of his day, was born about twenty years before the 
 Christian era, and spent his time in philosophical
 
 
 SEARCH FOR THE "LAST ADAM." 199 
 
 studies at that centre of learning, Alexandria in 
 Egypt. He labored diligently and wrote volumi- 
 nously to reconcile the teachings of Plato with the 
 writings of the Old Testament, and, though in the 
 prime and vigor of manhood when Jesus is said to 
 have lived, and dwelling in the immediate vicinity of 
 Judea, and in the very city where Christianity was 
 early introduced, yet this learned, devout, and honest 
 Jew makes no mention of Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 Even more strange is the silence of Josephus, the 
 Jewish historian, who was born about A. D. 35, and 
 lived and wrote extensively until after the destruction 
 of Jerusalem, and yet he never mentioned the name 
 of Jesus. The celebrated passage regarding Christ is 
 known to be a forgery, and the one respecting " James 
 the brother of Jesus, called the Christ," is by no means 
 worthy of confidence. It must be certain that in the 
 first century of our era Jesus of Nazareth did not 
 attract the attention of these fair and distinguished 
 Jewish writers, if he in fact existed. 
 
 In early times the name Jesus, as has been shown, 
 was as common as the names John or James, and when 
 the name is mentioned it is impossible to say who is 
 referred to. The passage in Josephus referring to Jesus 
 thus, " About this time appeared Jesus, a wise man, if 
 indeed it be right to call him a man," etc., is acknow- 
 ledged by celebrated Christian writers to be a fraud. 
 Its authenticity was given up as long ago as the time 
 of Dr. Nathaniel Larduer, author of the Credibility of 
 the Gospel History, and one of the most highly regarded
 
 200 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 of Christian writers. Gibbon, too, decided it to be a 
 forgery. Bishop Warburton, the distinguished defender 
 of Pope's Essay on Man against the charge of atheism, 
 and one of the most distinguished of Christian defend- 
 ers, agreed with Lardner. The Rev. Robert Taylor 
 quotes many other Christian writers as coinciding. 
 The biographer of Josephus in the Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica says the passage is unanimously regarded 
 as spurious. Drs. Oort, Hookyaas, and Kuenen, 
 German Christian writers of great repute, in the 
 Bible for Learners declare the passage to be " certainly 
 spurious" and "inserted by a later and a Christian 
 hand." 
 
 Gibbon says it was forged between the time of 
 Origen (A. D. 230) and Eusebius (A. D. 315). The 
 credit of the forgery, however, is generally given to 
 Eusebius, who first quoted it. The distinguished 
 authors of the Bible for Learners distinctly state that 
 Josephus never mentioned Jesus, and cite Josephus's 
 close following of the atrocious career of Herod up to 
 the very last moments of his life, without mentioning 
 the slaughter of the innocents, as indubitable proof 
 that Josephus knew nothing of Jesus. Dr. Lardner 
 gives these reasons why he regards the passage as a 
 forgery : 
 
 " I do not perceive that we at all want the suspected 
 testimony to Jesus, which was never quoted by any of 
 our Christian ancestors before Eusebius. 
 
 "Nor do I recollect that Josephus has anywhere 
 mentioned the name or word Christ in any of his works,
 
 SEARCH FOR THE "LAST ADAM." 201 
 
 except the testimony above mentioned and the passage 
 concerning James, the Lord's brother. 
 
 " It interrupts the narrative. 
 
 " The language is quite Christian. 
 
 " It is not quoted by Chrysostom, though he often 
 refers to Josephus, and could not have omitted quoting 
 it had it been in the text. 
 
 "It is not quoted by Photius, though he has three 
 articles concerning Josephus. 
 
 " Under the article ' Justus of Tiberias ' this author 
 (Photius) expressly states that the historian (Josephus ), 
 being a Jew, has not taken the least notice of Christ. 
 
 "Neither Justin in his dialogue with Trypho the 
 Jew, nor Clemens Alexandrinus, who made so many 
 extracts from Christian authors, nor Origen against 
 Celsus, have ever mentioned this testimony. 
 
 " But, on the contrary, in chapter xxxv. of the first 
 book of that work, Origen openly affirms that Jose- 
 phus, who had mentioned John the Baptist, did not 
 acknowledge Christ." 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Giles, author of the Cfiristian Records, 
 adds to the reasons for rejecting the passage, as follows : 
 
 " Those who are best acquainted with the character 
 of Josephus and the style of his writings have no hes- 
 itation in condemning this passage as a forgery inter- 
 polated in the text during the third century by some 
 pious Christian, who was scandalized that so famous a 
 writer as Josephus should have taken no notice of the 
 Gospels or of Christ their subject. But the zeal of 
 the interpolator has outrun his discretion, for we might
 
 202 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 as well expect to gather grapes from thorns or figs from 
 thistles as to find this notice of Christ among the Ju- 
 daizing writings of Josephus. It is well known that 
 this author was a zealous Jew, devoted to the laws of 
 Moses and the traditions of his countrymen. How, 
 then, could he have written that Jesus was the Christ f 
 Such an admission would have proved him to be a 
 Christian himself, in which case the passage under 
 consideration, too long for a Jew, would have been far 
 too short for a believer in the new religion ; and thus 
 the passage stands forth, like an ill-set jewel, contrast- 
 ing most inharmoniously with everything around it. 
 If it had been genuine, we might be sure that Justin 
 Martyr, Tertullian, and Chrysostom would have quoted 
 it in their controversies with the Jews, and that Origen 
 or Photius would have mentioned it. But Eusebius, 
 the ecclesiastical historian (i. 11), is the first who quotes 
 it, and our reliance on the judgment, or even honesty, 
 of this writer is not so great as to allow our consider- 
 ing everything found in his works as undoubtedly 
 genuine." 
 
 Oxley in his great work on Egypt says : " However, 
 I have found in some papers that this discourse was 
 not written by Josephus, but by one Caius, a presbyter" 
 
 Here, according to their own showing, what had 
 passed for centuries as the work of Josephus was 
 a fraud perpetrated by a dignitary of the Church. 
 This is in perfect keeping with ancient custom. In 
 addition to all this, there is not an original manuscript 
 of Josephus in existence, nor one (that I have heard of)
 
 SEARCH FOR THE "LAST ADAM." 203 
 
 that dates farther back than the tenth or eleventh cen- 
 tury A. D. 
 
 Another forged reference to Christ is found in the 
 Antiquities, book xx. chapter ix. section 1, where Jo- 
 sephus is made to speak of James, "the brother of 
 Jesus, who was called Christ." Some theologians 
 who reject the longer reference to Jesus accept this as 
 genuine. But they do it without reconciling the dis- 
 crepancies between the stories regarding the end of 
 this same James. According to this passage, James 
 was put to death under the order of the high priest. 
 But according to Hegesippus, a converted Jew who 
 wrote a history of the Christian Church about A. D. 
 170, James was killed in a tumult, not by sentence of 
 a court. Clement of Alexandria confirms this, and is 
 quoted by Eusebius accordingly. Eusebius also quotes 
 the line from Joseph us without noticing that the two 
 do not agree. The statement is quoted in various 
 ways in the early writers, and the conclusion is irre- 
 sistible that the copies of Josephus were tampered with 
 by copyists. Even had Jesus lived and taught as de- 
 scribed in the Gospels, Josephus, an orthodox Jew, 
 a priest, and conservative government official, would 
 never have given him the title of Christ, or Messiah, 
 a party leader for whom the Jews were looking to free 
 them from their Roman bondage. 
 
 PAGAN EVIDENCE. 
 
 Among the great pagan writers of the first century 
 of our era we find absolutely nothing relating to Jesus
 
 204 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 of Nazareth. There was Seneca, living not far from 
 these times, and then the Elder and the Younger Pliny, 
 Tacitus, Plutarch, Galen, Epictetus, Marcus Antoni- 
 nus some of the noblest men of the world. Let us 
 look at some few fragments of testimony that we 
 have. One historian writes that " under a ringleader 
 named Chrestus the Jews raised a tumult." In an- 
 other place he refers to the Christians as a class of 
 men devoted to a " new and mischievous superstition." 
 And Tacitus speaks of Judea as " the source of this 
 evil." Another speaks of the Christians as "a sect 
 hated for their crimes," and Suetonius gives Nero spe- 
 cial praise for having done the most that he could to 
 wipe them off the face of the earth. In a Life of 
 Claudius, another Roman emperor, Christ is spoken 
 of as "a restless, seditious Jewish agitator." Pliny 
 the Younger, writing to the emperor about A. D. 104, 
 when he was governor of Bithynia, says the Christians 
 do not worship the gods nor the emperors as most 
 of the people then did nor could they be induced to 
 curse Christ. He says they met mornings for vir- 
 tuous vows, and chanted a hymn to Christ as to a god, 
 and in the evening they ate together a common meal. 
 And after he had put them to torture he said all he could 
 find against them was " a perverse and immoderate su- 
 perstition." Lucian, about the middle of the second 
 century, sneaks of Jesus as the crucified Sophist. We 
 do not know certainly whether these references to Christ 
 allude to Jesus of Nazareth at all. Chrestians and 
 Chrestus were designations in common use all over the
 
 SEARCH FOR THE "LAST ADAM." 205 
 
 world, and the writers merely mentioned them as a 
 sect well known as creating some noise in the world. 
 Certainly the language used in describing them is not 
 very complimentary. They may have referred to the 
 Essenes, who had their ideal Chrest. 
 
 A modern writer has shown that the story of the 
 persecution of Christians by the emperor Nero (A. D. 
 54-68) is a modern fabrication. Robert Taylor, in 
 his Diegesis, published in 1829, proved that Cornelius 
 Tacitus never could have written the passage describing 
 such persecution. It has been demonstrated that the 
 whole of the so-called Annals of Tacitus, containing 
 the celebrated passage, was forged by a Papal secretary 
 named Poggio Bracciolini. In 1422, while in the re- 
 ceipt of a small salary under Martin V., he was tempt- 
 ed by an offer of five hundred sequins (which would 
 now be equal to fifty thousand dollars) to engage in 
 some mysterious literary work. Seven years later, six 
 books of what are now called the Annals of Tacitus 
 were brought to him by a monk from Saxony. Then 
 all Christendom rejoiced to learn that the heathen Ta- 
 citus had mentioned Christ crucified under Pontius 
 Pilate. Poggio, though a father both spiritually and 
 carnally, was not a husband till the age of fifty-four. 
 At seventy-two he accepted the office of secretary to 
 the republic of Florence, and at seventy-nine he died, 
 leaving five sons of his old age. Up to the last he was 
 a busy student and writer. Fifty-six years after his 
 death his fourth son was secretary to Pope Leo X., at 
 which time the pope's steward, stimulated by a niunif-
 
 206 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 icent reward, discovered the first six incomplete books 
 of the Annals, being the unfinished work of Poggio in 
 his old age. 
 
 The finding of ancient MSS. was a very lucrative 
 business for scholars in those days. It began with 
 Petrarch, who died in 1374, and did not end with 
 Poggio, who died in 1459. Poggio discovered several 
 orations of Cicero, a history by Ammianus Marcel- 
 linus, and several other classic works, besides the 
 unclassic writings of Tertullian, the first Latin Father. 
 
 The modern fabrication of many of the ancient Latin 
 and Greek MSS. is now becoming apparent. Jean 
 Hardouin, a French Jesuit, died in 1729, aged eighty- 
 three years. He was deeply versed in history, lan- 
 guage, and numismatology. At the age of forty-four 
 he began to suspect that certain writings of the Chris- 
 tian Fathers were spurious, and soon became convinced 
 that none of them were genuine. Then turning his 
 attention to the Greek and Latin classics, he found 
 evidence sufficient to convince him that most of those 
 also were forgeries, being fabricated by the Benedictine 
 monks after the middle of the fourteenth century. 
 
 Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History, first found in Latin 
 in the fifteenth century and then in Greek in the six- 
 teenth century, we have no doubt is a probable forgery. 
 And if so we have really no history of the primitive 
 Church except what may be found in the New Testa- 
 ment and a few uncertain fragments of apocryphal 
 literature, all much corrupted. 
 
 The use of the word Christus and Christianus by the
 
 SEARCH FOR THE "LAST ADAM." 207 
 
 Latin writers is sufficient evidence of modern fabrica- 
 tion. Ains worth's Latin Dictionary has not the word 
 Christus nor Christianus in the Latin part, but in the 
 part which gives the Latin equivalents of English 
 words we find this : 
 
 A CHRISTIAN, * || Christianus. 
 
 CHRISTIANISM or Christianity, * || Christianismus. 
 CHRISTMAS, * || Christianatalium festum. 
 
 What do these asterisks mean? Let Ainsworth 
 answer : 
 
 * Before a word shows it to be of Greek extraction. 
 || Before a word denotes that it is bad, or used only by 
 writers of an inferior class. 
 
 Now, the words Christus and Christianus are used 
 by Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny (the younger), Tertullian, 
 and all the succeeding Latin Fathers. 
 
 Christos in Greek is a very proper word, being a 
 translation of the Hebrew mashiach, meaning " anoint- 
 ed." Therefore, the Latins would have rendered it 
 unctus. 
 
 But the Benedictine monks who forged the literature 
 of the pretended Fathers, instead of translating christos, 
 audaciously transferred the word, and thus the new 
 word Christus, with a capital C, became an additional 
 name for the man-god of the Catholic Church. 
 
 Now, we respectfully raise the queiy whether it is 
 rational to suppose that such wonderful things occurred 
 in the little province of Palestine, surrounded by learn- 
 ed sages and philosophers of the most enlightened na-
 
 208 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 tions of the world, and not one direct and intelligent 
 reference should have been made to them ? Is it not 
 strange that we have no account of the birth, sayings, 
 and doings of this " last Adam," who is said to have 
 come into this world on the most important mission, 
 and yet we hear nothing of him except in four or five 
 little anonymous and dateless pamphlets written a long 
 while after the events are said to have transpired? 
 Since the New Testament contains all that has been 
 written on this subject, is it not our highest duty to 
 subject this book to the most thorough examination ? 
 This we shall now proceed to do in the most fearless 
 manner, however startling the conclusions which may 
 be reached.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 WHAT IS KNOWN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 " Search the scriptures ; for in them ye think ye have eternal 
 life ; and they are they which testify of me." JOHN 5 : 39. 
 
 WE of course use the above passage as a motto, as 
 the writer must have referred to the Old-Testament 
 Scriptures, as the New Testament was not yet in exist- 
 ence. As this book is the sole dependence in finding 
 evidence regarding Jesus, we naturally first inquire as 
 to what is known of it. We find this volume to be 
 made up of twenty-seven small tracts or pamphlets, fas- 
 tened together for the sake of convenience. 
 
 (1) We have four sketches, purporting to be brief 
 biographies of Jesus. 
 
 (2) Next we have a condensed history, called the 
 Acts of the Apostles. 
 
 (3) Then we have twenty-one writings or letters ad- 
 dressed to different churches or individuals in the epis- 
 tolary form of communication. 
 
 (4) And finally we have a highly-wrought allegory, 
 partaking somewhat of the form of both history and 
 prophecy. 
 
 We find that this volume of little pamphlets is call- 
 ed the " Authorized Version " of the New Testament. 
 
 14 209
 
 210 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 We inquire who authorized this version, and find that 
 it was gotten up by certain men, mainly Englishmen, 
 in the year 1603 by the " special command " of James, 
 who is called " king of Great Britain, France, and 
 Ireland," and who was addressed by these gentlemen, 
 mostly clergymen, as "the Most High and Mighty 
 Prince, Defender of the Faith," etc. 
 
 It now becomes a matter of superlative importance 
 to determine the basis upon which this version of the 
 New Testament was made. It is well known that in 
 1881 a New Version was published, and Rev. Alex- 
 ander Eoberts, D. D., a member of the committee of 
 revisers, issued a little book entitled Companion to 
 the Revised Version, to be circulated with it. This 
 is the latest and highest authority by which to settle 
 the question of the basis or standard of our " Author- 
 ized Version" of the New Testament. It is stated 
 on its title-page that it is "Translated out of the 
 Original Greek ;" and it is safe and fair to let Dr. 
 Roberts, the mouthpiece of the New Version Com- 
 mittee, tell us upon what Greek manuscripts this 
 version of King James was based. After giving a 
 history of the different Greek editions of the New 
 Testament (the^rs^ of which was completed in 1514, 
 and its publication formally sanctioned by Pope Leo 
 X. in 1520), he inquires, " Which of the foregoing 
 Greek texts formed the original from which our com- 
 mon English translation was derived ?" " To this 
 question the answer is, that Beza's edition of 1589 was 
 the one usually followed." Beza's edition was based
 
 WHA T IS KNO WN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 21 1 
 
 on Stevens' edition of 1550, and that was derived from 
 the fourth edition of Erasmus, published in 1527. 
 Beza, Stevens, Erasmus ! In reference to the edition 
 of Erasmus he said himself, " It was rather tumbled 
 headlong into the world than edited." But the ques- 
 tion now comes up, What was the basis of the edition 
 of Erasmus? Dr. Roberts shall answer: "In the 
 Gospels he principally used a cursive MS. of the fif- 
 teenth or sixteenth century," . . . "admitted by all 
 to be of a very inferior character" ..." He procured 
 another MS. of the twelfth century or earlier, but 
 Erasmus was ignorant of its value and made little use 
 of it." ..." In the Acts and Epistles he chiefly fol- 
 lowed a cursive MS. of the thirteenth or fourteenth 
 century, with occasional reference to another of the 
 fifteenth century." ..." For the Apocalypse he had 
 only one mutilated MS." Dr. Roberts adds : " He 
 had no documentary materials for publishing a com- 
 plete edition of the Greek Testament." 
 
 The point we here raise is, that it is an admission 
 made by the best orthodox authority that our "Au- 
 thorized New Testament" was formed out of MSS. 
 dating no farther back than the twelfth, thirteenth, 
 fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, and that 
 even these were hastily and unskilfully used or not 
 used at all. 
 
 But the question naturally arises, Have not earlier 
 MSS. come to light, substantially confirming what we 
 have in King James' Version ? The answer is, that 
 there are now in existence about two thousand MSS.
 
 212 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 containing parts of the New Testament, with about one 
 hundred and fifty thousand variations, mostly trivial, 
 but some very important ; but no scholar, orthodox or 
 liberal, will dare to pretend that any of these date any 
 farther back than the fourth or fifth century ; and he 
 would be a reckless man, feeling bound to lie for what 
 he might regard as the truth, who would contradict the 
 admission of Dr. Roberts, that there are only five copies 
 of the New Testament, at all complete, of a greater 
 antiquity than the tenth century, nor who would dare 
 to question the statement of the Rev. George E. Mer- 
 rell in his recent Story of the Manuscripts, that " there 
 is a wide gap of almost three centuries between the orig- 
 inal manuscripts of the evangelists and apostles and the 
 earliest copies of their writings which have yet been 
 discovered." Whether there ever were original man- 
 uscripts or accurate copies are questions which it would 
 be prudent to hold for consideration until we have 
 made further investigations. When we reverently listen 
 to our ministers as they expound the Word, and learn- 
 edly tell us how certain sentences should have been 
 translated from the " original Greek," let us not laugh 
 in their faces, but respectfully ask them whether they 
 do not know that there is no original Greek Testament 
 or any certified copy, and that all we know upon these 
 matters is highly conjectural and wholly unauthenti- 
 cated. 
 
 The principal MSS. of the New Testament were un- 
 known for a thousand years after the Christian era 
 to wit, those from which our "Authorized" New
 
 WHAT IS KNO WN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 213 
 
 Testament Was compiled and their real origin cannot 
 be traced, and even their accepted date is purely a 
 matter of conjecture. The Alexandrian, Vatican, and 
 Sinai tic MSS., supposed to date from the fourth and 
 fifth centuries, are of uncertain and suspicious origin, 
 and their date is a matter of simple guess by parties 
 whose prepossessions would incline them to make them 
 as ancient as possible. How easy it is for the best 
 scholars to be imposed upon is shown from the fact 
 that the experts of the British Museum would prob- 
 ably have been swindled by the recent Syrian forgery 
 of the very ancient book of Deuteronomy but for the 
 discovery of the fact by a French scholar that the 
 " ancient document " was in fact only a year or two 
 old, the product of a skilled copyist ! The fact is, 
 little or nothing is actually known by historical and 
 documentary verification of the origin or dates of the 
 MSS. upon which our New Testament is based. 
 
 The next question that arises in a rational mind in this 
 connection is this : Have we in these twenty-seven little 
 pamphlets all that has been written upon the subjects 
 to which they relate ? The answer to this question is 
 very embarrassing. It is an undoubted fact that the 
 ecclesiastical council that selected the books composing 
 the New Testament had at least fifty Gospels, from 
 which they selected four, and more than one hundred 
 Epistles, from which they selected seventeen, and that 
 from nearly a score of books professing to be records 
 of the " Acts of the Apostles " they selected one, which 
 Chrysostom in the fifth century says " was not so much
 
 214 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 as known to many." Then there are forty-one New- 
 Testament books now extant, called apocryphal, re- 
 lating to the teachings of Jesus and the apostles, and 
 besides the canonical and apocryphal books extant 
 there are sixty-eight New-Testament books mentioned 
 by the Christian Fathers of the first four centuries 
 which are not now known to be in existence. Besides 
 these, more than fifty books, written in the second cen- 
 tury by more than twenty distinguished persons, have 
 mysteriously disappeared. The fact should also be 
 emphasized that the adoption of the New-Testament 
 books in the early part of the fourth century, as we 
 now substantially have them, was followed by the 
 disappearance and probable destruction of all books 
 that could throw light upon the books received, and 
 all the supposed copies of our Gospels to that period 
 have been lost or destroyed. The fact to be kept in 
 mind is this, that the New-Testament books which we 
 now have were selected from scores and hundreds of 
 writings claiming equal authority by a few self-appoint- 
 ed men, who had very few qualifications and many 
 disqualifications for the work they undertook for all 
 coming generations. We have but a trifling proportion 
 in number of the ancient records regarding Jesus. 
 
 But we now take up the little pamphlets as we have 
 them, and try to arrange them in order of time. The 
 oldest writings of the New Testament are the Epistles 
 of Paul. And here we find ourselves embarrassed by 
 the fact that biblical criticism shows that not more than 
 Jive some say/owr of the Epistles ascribed to Paul
 
 WHAT IS KNOWN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 215 
 
 were written by him viz. First Thessalonians, Gala- 
 tians, First Corinthians, Second Corinthians, and Ro- 
 mans. The other nine ascribed to Paul were doubtless 
 written by unknown second-century authors. The 
 same uncertainty prevails in regard to the authorship 
 of several, if not all, of what are called the General or 
 Catholic Epistles, as well as of the Acts of the Apostles 
 and the book of Revelation. 
 
 It is impossible to fix the dates of the New-Testa- 
 ment books except approximately. There is a great 
 diversity of opinion. The earliest were probably writ- 
 ten in the last half of the first century, and the latest 
 certainly in the last quarter of the second century. 
 Certain it is that no evidence can be found of the ex- 
 istence of our four Gospels until the latter part of the 
 second century, about one hundred and fifty years after 
 the alleged death of Jesus. It is therefore true what 
 Prof. Robertson Smith, D. D., the learned Scotch Pres- 
 byterian minister, asserts, that our four Gospels are 
 " unapostolic digests of the second century." From 
 the Apostolic Epistles we learn nothing of the life and 
 teachings of Jesus. With Paul, Christ was an idea 
 rather than a person. Not a syllable do we find in his 
 writings of the miraculous birth of Jesus, no reference 
 to the Sermon on the Mount, much less to the miracles 
 ascribed to him. He rather boasted that he had learn- 
 ed nothing of him from his disciples, but what he 
 knew he had received at the time of his own mirac- 
 ulous conversion. He dwells upon the death and 
 spiritual resurrection of Jesus, not upon his life ; and
 
 216 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 the only words of Jesus quoted by Paul, " it is more 
 blessed to give than to receive," are not found at all 
 in the Gospels. All that Paul ever claimed to know 
 about Jesus as a person he learned in a vision, and it 
 is to be taken for what it is worth. 
 
 We are absolutely driven to the Gospels for informa- 
 tion regarding the alleged founder of Christianity, his 
 birth, his life, his teachings, and his death. And here 
 the fact should be faced that Jesus never wrote any- 
 thing about himself, his mission, or his doctrines. We 
 should not even know that he had learned the art of 
 writing but for the incident mentioned in one of the 
 Gospels (John 8 : 6) that on a certain occasion he 
 stooped down and wrote in the sand ; and now our 
 learned New Versionists come along and snatch this 
 from us by declaring that the beautiful story about the 
 kind treatment of the woman taken in adultery is an 
 interpolation not found in the best early MSS., so that 
 we are not even sure that Jesus wrote anything even 
 with his finger in the sand, or that he even knew how 
 to write ! Nobody pretends that Jesus ever directed 
 his disciples or any one else to write down what he 
 said and did, but, on the other hand, he often forbade 
 his disciples to tell what he said and did ; and much 
 of what he is reported to have said was so obscure that 
 the disciples themselves continually misunderstood 
 him. Two reasons have been assigned for this omis- 
 sion of Jesus to write himself or to commission others 
 to write down his sayings. The first is, that he said 
 nothing which could not be found in then existing
 
 WHAT IS KNO WN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 21 7 
 
 writings (as can easily be shown), and the second is, 
 that he was so sure that the world was about to be 
 destroyed, and that his own kingdom would so soon 
 be set up and established upon the general ruin, that it 
 was useless to write down what was said and done in 
 the short remaining period of mundane history. 
 
 We have four brief sketches claiming to be biog- 
 raphies of Jesus, which the Church claims as authen- 
 tic, from which we must draw all our information 
 regarding Jesus. 
 
 It is not necessary here to assign the reasons of 
 learned critics for their conclusion that the Gospel 
 " according to " Mark is the older of the four. But 
 it is worthy of note that there is not in it one word of 
 the miraculous conception story, and not a hint of the 
 bodily resurrection and ascension of Jesus, as the critics 
 have a way of proving that the last chapter of Mark 
 was added by a later hand. 
 
 Then we are embarrassed by the testimony of Irenseus, 
 Origen, Jerome, and other Christian Fathers that the 
 Gospel of Matthew was written in Hebrew, while there 
 are indubitable internal evidences that this Gospel, as 
 we have it, was written in Greek and by a Greek, and 
 not a Jew, and that it is really a theological treatise 
 written by some partisan for ecclesiastical reasons, and 
 that if Matthew ever wrote a Gospel, it has been un- 
 fortunately lost or purposely destroyed. An early 
 Christian sect, called in derision Ebionites, are sup- 
 posed to have had the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, 
 and they were persecuted and stamped out for denying
 
 218 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 the miraculous conception and divinity of Christ, and 
 with them, some critics suppose, perished the only 
 genuine Gospel of Matthew. There is little if any 
 doubt that the first and second chapters of our Matthew, 
 giving an account of the miraculous birth and genealogy 
 of Jesus, were added when this fiction was incorporated 
 into Christianity as necessary to a divine Church estab- 
 lishment which should almost deify a hierarchy and 
 bring the common people into subjection. In read- 
 ing Matthew's Gospel we should undoubtedly begin 
 at chapter 3, and especially as the first two chapters 
 are absurd, contradictory, and inconsistent. If Jesus 
 was begotten by the Holy Ghost, it was not consistent 
 or necessary to notice the genealogy of Joseph, and 
 there is nothing more bungling than the genealogies 
 of Mary and Joseph as given in Matthew and Luke. 
 Indeed, the name Matthew is not Jewish, and there 
 are those who doubt if there ever was such a man. It 
 is a suggestive fact that the Egyptians had a Matthu, 
 and that he was the registrar, or keeper of their records. 
 The Gospel ascribed to Luke he himself admits to 
 be a resume' or compilation of what had been written by 
 others and was the prevalent belief (Luke, chapter 1). 
 In making a close analysis of this little tract a learned 
 German critic Schleiermacher, shows that it was prob- 
 ably compiled from thirty-three different manuscripts. 
 But since Luke himself claims nothing more than the 
 office of a collector, his work is a mere digest of what 
 others had written and a summary of what was then 
 believed by some persons.
 
 WHAT IS KNO WN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 21 9 
 
 The Gospel according to John deserves a more care- 
 ful and extended notice, from the fact that it differs in 
 so many particulars from the other three Gospels. 
 There is no evidence of the existence of this writing 
 until A. D. 175, when it was mentioned in the Clem- 
 entine Homilies,* and in 176, Theophilus of Antioch 
 ascribed its authorship to John. But nothing is more 
 certain than that John the Evangelist did not write 
 this little book, as it contains internal evidence of its 
 Grecian origin, and that it could not have been written 
 by one familiar with Judaism and the geography of 
 Palestine. Many of the best biblical scholars, ortho- 
 dox and rationalistic, admit this fact, and our Meth- 
 odist friends may amuse themselves at their leisure in 
 reading a learned note from the pen of their great com- 
 mentator, Dr. Adam Clarke, at the close of his exposi- 
 tion of the first chapter of John, in which he points 
 out thirty-five parallels between the writings of Philo 
 the learned Platonist and the Gospel of John, unwit- 
 tingly showing that it must have been written by an 
 Alexandrian Greek. 
 
 And right here it is proper to expose an ancient 
 fraud perpetuated in the Church to the present day to 
 wit, that Papius and Polycarp, early Christian writers, 
 were personally acquainted with and instructed by John, 
 and that therefore a succession was established with the 
 teachings of Jesus himself, whose personal disciple John 
 was. This story was originated by Irenseus, and the 
 fraud consists in confounding John the son or Zebedee 
 and Salome with one John who was said to be a pres- 
 * These were spurious.
 
 220 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 byter in Asia Minor. This ingenious device is clearly 
 exposed by Reber in his work The Enigmas of Chris- 
 tianity. Irenseus, bishop of Lyons, may be called one 
 of the founders of the papal hierarchy, as he in the 
 second century attempted, but miserably failed, to 
 furnish a catalogue of bishops in orderly succession 
 from the apostles ; and soon after he was followed in 
 the same vain attempt by Tertullian, who first claimed 
 supremacy for the bishop of Rome, calling him " epis- 
 copus episeoporum" a bishop of bishops. The fact is, 
 it is not known who wrote the fourth Gospel, but it is 
 certain that it was not written by the humble, amiable 
 Galilean fisherman, but by a learned neo-Platonist, 
 who was familiar with the dialectics of the learned Gnos- 
 tic philosophers, and who desired most earnestly their 
 complete suppression as essential to the success of the 
 fixed purpose of priests to establish a Church, under 
 an alleged divine commission, in which they were to 
 be the kings and princes. Priests have always' been 
 the corrupters and perverters of truth for their own 
 aggrandizement, and the Grecian treatise palmed upon 
 the Church as the Gospel of St. John is one of the 
 most illustrious examples. But for this so-called 
 " Gospel " the existence of the papal hierarchy, and the 
 consequent priestly pretensions in Protestant churches, 
 would have been impossible. Enough has been pre- 
 sented to show that we have no alternative but to 
 depend upon the synoptical Gospels, credited to Mat- 
 thew, Mark, and Luke, in our inquiry as to Jesus. 
 Now let us see just where we stand as to the sources
 
 WHA T IS KNO WN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 221 
 
 of information to which we are to look in learning 
 whom Jesus was. 
 
 1. We are restricted to four, if not three, short biog- 
 raphies, accredited to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 
 only two of whom, Matthew and John, were mentioned 
 among the disciples of Jesus. 
 
 2. That these sketches were written by those whose 
 names they bear is not supported by a particle of proof, 
 but, on the other hand, there is strong evidence that 
 they were not written by the persons to whom they are 
 credited ; and this is especially true in regard to Mat- 
 thew and John. Strictly speaking, our Gospels are 
 anonymous. 
 
 3. These documents are without date, both as to the 
 time in which they are written and the place of writing, 
 and there is no proof of their existence until more 
 than one hundred and fifty years after the alleged 
 occurrence of the things recorded. 
 
 4. That these four Gospels were selected from many 
 other writings most of which have been lost or de- 
 stroyed. 
 
 5. That the men who made our four Gospels canon- 
 ical, and rejected all the rest, were for the most part 
 narrow, bigoted partisans, and had good reasons of a 
 selfish nature to reject whatever did not favor their 
 ambitious designs. 
 
 6. We have no proof that the four Gospels made 
 canonical by the early ecclesiastical councils were the 
 original writings of the evangelists, even if we were 
 sure that they wrote anything, nor have we any proof
 
 222 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 that the copies adopted were genuine and authentic and 
 the best then extant. 
 
 7. We have no proof that the copies we have are 
 accurate copies of the ones adopted by the councils, but 
 we have proof positive, admitted by the New Version- 
 ists of 1881, that they contain many interpolations and 
 additions and many evidences of forgeries and alterations 
 by the ignorant, designing, and selfish ecclesiastics of 
 the mediaeval centuries known as the Dark Ages. 
 
 8. That the Authorized Version read in the churches 
 and in our families is based upon MSS. dating from 
 the twelfth to the sixteenth century, and that only 
 fragmentary MSS. and unauthenticated copies are now 
 in existence, dating from the fourth, fifth, and sixth 
 centuries. 
 
 9. That the copies we have bound up in our New 
 Testament contradict themselves and one another in a 
 great many particulars, and contain many statements 
 which are geographically, historically, and philosoph- 
 ically absurd and incredible. 
 
 10. That, therefore, our Gospels are of uncertain 
 authority and of undoubted human origin, and are to 
 be so regarded without a doubt. 
 
 Now, it will be said that this is an infidel attack 
 upon the New Testament, and that it tends to the 
 overthrow of the only religion that can do the world 
 any good. And yet, strange as it may appear, these 
 facts are presented in the best interests of true religion 
 presented because they are true, and therefore best
 
 WHAT IS KNO WN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 223 
 
 adapted, nay absolutely essential, to the successful 
 defense and propagation of virtue and morality. 
 
 The real infidels of the day are the theological liars 
 and pretenders who are wilfully ignorant, or too dishon- 
 est and cowardly to publish what they know. Infidelity 
 is breach of trust, disloyalty to truth. He who would 
 do the most good must tell the whole truth. If we 
 regard the Gospels as simple compilations from earlier 
 documents and traditions, with occasional additions 
 and alterations to meet occasions and times, we shall 
 find in them very many things to admire and to adopt 
 into our problems of life and systems of morals, many 
 things worthy of imitation, many things to give courage 
 and comfort in the struggle for existence, many things 
 which would be just as true and just as useful if they 
 had only been written yesterday by some one whom we 
 have known from our childhood. 
 
 .Regarding the Gospels as human, we can excuse 
 their absurdities and errors, and while we cast these 
 errors aside we joyfully accept what is true and good 
 and beautiful ; but by claiming for them what they 
 are not we bring even what is true into disrepute. 
 
 It was a master-stroke of worldly wisdom and policy 
 when Irenaeus in the second century (who first mention- 
 ed our four Gospels) sanctioned the monstrous assump- 
 tion of all ecclesiastical authority by divine right by 
 the bishops and priests, which power soon became 
 centralized at Rome ; but it was the greatest misfor- 
 tune of the ages for the cause of true religion and 
 sound morality. It not only made the Church of
 
 224 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 Rome with its immense machinery a necessary result, 
 but it made the not less false systems of Protestant 
 dogmatic theology possible. There is no use in at- 
 tempting to disguise the fact that the so-called scheme 
 of redemption is in principle and substance the same in 
 the Catholic and orthodox Protestant Churches. Many 
 intelligent persons feel that they would as soon belong 
 to one as the other, while they secretly regard the Ro- 
 manists as logically the more consistent. 
 
 The Romanists are strong in that they place the 
 Church first (jure divino) and make the scriptures the 
 product of the Church, and of course subject to its in- 
 terpretation. Protestants are weak in that they make 
 the Church subject to written scriptures, which were 
 selected by the founders of Catholicism, and then for 
 centuries altered, forged, interpolated, and manipulated 
 by popes and priests to strengthen their authority and 
 secure the absolute submission of the people. 
 
 The one fatal blunder of the Protestant Reformers 
 was to found their system of theology upon a written 
 book of the origin of which so little is known, and yet 
 regarding which so much is known that it is impossible 
 for persons of a rational, judicial mind to accept it as 
 an infallible supernatural revelation. 
 
 The conclusion is inevitable that in the absence of 
 everything that, by even a strain of language, can be 
 called evidence as to the genuineness and authenticity 
 of our Gospels we cannot safely accept them as an in- 
 fallible authority in religious matters. We have a 
 right to examine them critically, just as we would read
 
 WHAT IS KNOWN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 225 
 
 and study any other ancient writings of uncertain au- 
 thorship and date. 
 
 The Reformation was in part the substitution of a 
 book which was pronounced infallible, but which has 
 proved to be very fallible, for a Church which claimed 
 infallibility, but which had shown itself not only very 
 fallible, but exceedingly corrupt and dangerous. In- 
 fallibility belongs to neither men nor books. Infal- 
 libility in books is an absurdity. A religion founded 
 upon a printed book must submit to examination of 
 both the origin and character of that book, and must 
 shoulder the imperfections and errors which the dis- 
 coveries of modern research have fully exposed. The 
 principles of true religion inherent in human nature, an 
 ineradicable constituent of the constitution of man, as 
 has been shown, are to-day obscured and shackled by 
 the false position in which its professed friends have 
 placed it. It will be shown before these papers are 
 concluded that a religion manacled by a printed book 
 claiming infallibility, and made to depend solely upon 
 an historical character who, if admitted to be historical, 
 wrote nothing himself and commissioned no one to 
 write anything for him, and of whose verbal teachings 
 and actual mode of life we can never be sure, a re- 
 ligion thus encumbered must suffer great loss, if not 
 total failure, as men shall progress in knowledge and 
 science shall uncover the past and demonstrate the 
 absurdities of the superstitious dogmas of the ancient 
 faiths. It is impossible to compress the largest brains 
 of the nineteenth century into the smallest skulls of the 
 
 15
 
 226 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 twelfth century. The true friend of religion is the 
 fearless man who dares attempt to rescue it from the 
 accretions and perversions of the Dark Ages, and to 
 establish its eternal principles of truth and righteousness 
 in the very nature of man, in the elevation of moral 
 character, in strict agreement with the demonstrated 
 facts of the present, as opposed to the bigoted and 
 degrading fancies of the past. To defend religion from 
 the follies of its mistaken champions, and show that its 
 foundations are secure and its ultimate triumph certain, 
 may now be denounced as treason to the Church, but 
 in coming years it will be seen to have been the work 
 of men of whom the Church of to-day is not worthy. 
 
 The fact is, very little is known of the New Testament, 
 but too much is well known to receive it in evidence in 
 a matter of so much importance. The narratives it 
 contains would be ruled out of court in any civilized 
 country on the globe. It is evidently a huge compila- 
 tion of what was at best only traditions among the 
 nations of the earth, and even these traditions, mixed 
 and mangled as they are, must have another and a 
 more rational explanation than an historical or a literal 
 one. This book cannot be an infallible divine revela- 
 tion. Let us see whether we cannot find out what was 
 really intended to be taught by the different writers.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 
 
 "Great is the mystery of godliness."! TIM. 3:16. "We 
 speak the wisdom of God in a mystery." 1 COB. 2:7. "I speak 
 as to wise men ; judge ye what I say." 1 COR. 10 : 15. 
 
 IN early times every prominent religious teacher had 
 his own gospel, as Paul asserts that he had his. The 
 books that were canonized did not by any means shape 
 the belief of the early Christians, but, on the contrary, 
 their beliefs shaped the character of the books. " The 
 question of a ' Catholic canon/ " says Professor David- 
 son, " was realized about the same time as the idea of 
 a Catholic Church." The partisanship, low trickery, 
 and mob violence by which votes of councils were ob- 
 tained to establish ecclesiastical dogmas, the canonicity 
 of Scriptures, etc., were such as now-a-days character- 
 ize a political meeting in the slums of an American 
 city. 
 
 While, therefore, we quote the statements of the 
 Gospels to prepare the way for the presentation of our 
 points of argument, we do so only for convenience. 
 They cannot, by any rule of sound criticism, testimony 
 of contemporary writers, or even of spiritual discern- 
 ment, be accepted as historical. 
 
 The composition of the four Gospels indicates in 
 
 227
 
 228 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 many ways that they were originally collections of 
 religious stories, each of which has a moral of its own, 
 like the fables of JEsop, or, more properly, the narra- 
 tives concerning Buddha given in the Dhammapada. 
 This was a common mode of writing in early times. 
 History and biography were hardly considered. Hence 
 contradictions of verbal statement were not counted as 
 of any importance. This is probably the reason why 
 the transcribers neglected to remove the conflicts of 
 statement and other inaccuracies that abound in the 
 Gospels. 
 
 It is also more than probable that many parts of these 
 works which have a narrative form were later interpo- 
 lations. The first two chapters of Matthew and the 
 first two in the Gospel according to Luke are unequiv- 
 ocally of this character. The style and diction are 
 conspicuously unlike the language of the other parts 
 of those works, as will appear on the slightest notice. 
 
 The oldest parts of the New Testament are the Epis- 
 tles of Paul to the Galatians, Corinthians, Romans, and 
 Thessalonians. We will do well, therefore, to study 
 them a little while by themselves, without reference to 
 the Gospels and other documents, which were of later 
 date. Paul asserts that he possessed and promulgated 
 a gospel distinct and different from others, and he pro- 
 nounced an anathema on the man or angel that should 
 teach any different one. The way that he became pos- 
 sessed of it he sets forth as follows : He had no con- 
 ference with any human being whatsoever about the 
 matter, nor had he anything to do with those who were
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 229 
 
 apostles before him, but he went into Arabia and after- 
 ward to Damascus. A hint is furnished by Josephus 
 in his history of his own life which throws some light 
 upon the purpose of this sojourn in Arabia. There 
 were members of the Essenean brotherhood living there 
 who were resorted to by individuals desiring instruction 
 and discipline. Josephus himself went thither for that 
 purpose. Paul evidently had a similar errand. He 
 had been a Pharisee, but had embraced another faith. 
 
 Why did he choose the Esseneans in preference to 
 the Judean apostles? The answer must be that he 
 was more certain of learning their tenets without adul- 
 teration. They were famous for their devotion to 
 religious study, their cultivation of sacred literature 
 and the art of prophecy, for their austerity, industry, 
 and peculiar social organization. We shall find upon 
 comparison that this was very closely resembling what 
 is represented of the first believers at Jerusalem. They 
 had their episcopacy, their deacons or stewards, their 
 Holy Scriptures, and apostles or missionaries. These 
 were numerous in Syria, Asia Minor, and Egypt. As 
 the Therapeutse of the latter country resembled them, 
 even to the signification of their name (healers, min- 
 isters), the probability is that the two were nearly iden- 
 tical. Eusebius, quoting the account of the Egyptian 
 communes as given by Philo the Jew, has remarked 
 the close similarity of their doctrines and customs with 
 those of the apostolic congregations, and declared that 
 they were Christians and their writings the Gospels. 
 
 This, however, is not tenable, at least not tenable in
 
 230 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 the way that he suggests. Unfortunately for his state- 
 ment, the Essenean brothers existed, with all the pecu- 
 liarities described, long before the Christian era. Jo- 
 seph us treats of them as flourishing as early as the time 
 of Jonathan, the first of the Maccabeans who held the 
 office of high priest. About that period the canon of 
 the Old Testament was finally collected. "Judas 
 gathered together all those things that were lost by 
 reason of the war we had (with Antiochos Epiphanes 
 and his successors), and they remain with us" (2 
 Mace. 2 : 14). The Maccabees or Asmoneans were 
 partisans of the sect known as Asideans (Chaldeans), 
 and afterward as Pharisees or Parsees. At this very 
 period we first learn of the Sadducees or Zadokites, 
 who chiefly belonged to the hereditary lineage of 
 Aaron, and likewise of the Essenean fraternity. These 
 last had their own sacred books, and took no part in 
 the worship and sacrifices of the temple. In short, 
 they were regarded as a people apart. Their books, 
 we have good reason to suppose, were different in tenor 
 from those of the Old Testament, and it is by no means 
 improbable that they included the scriptures written 
 in Greek by the Alexandrians and now called the 
 Apocrypha. 
 
 The designation Minim may mean " observers of the 
 heavens," and the Essenes appear to have been such. 
 " Before sunrising," says Josephus, " they speak not a 
 word about profane matters, but put up certain prayers 
 which they have received from their forefathers, as if 
 they made a supplication for its rising." This illtis-
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 231 
 
 trates the taunt to the Pharisees, that they could dis- 
 cern the face of the sky in regard to the weather, but 
 could not read there the signs or symbols of the times, 
 which were also written there. 
 
 The Saddukim were doubtless the disciples and par- 
 tisans of Judas of Galilee, or Gaulonitis beyond Jor- 
 dan. This man and his colleague Sadduk began their 
 career at the time of the census or enrolment by Cyre- 
 nius, which took place after the displacing of Arche- 
 laus, the son of Herod I., from the throne of Judea. 
 There are many plausible reasons for identifying them 
 with the apostolic congregation. They established a 
 new religious or philosophical sect, which Josephus 
 declares had a great many followers, and laid the foun- 
 dations of the subsequent miseries of the Jews. Their 
 tenets agreed with those of the Pharisees ; but, says 
 the historian, " they have an inviolable attachment to 
 liberty, and say that God is to be their only Ruler and 
 Lord. They do not value any kinds of death, nor 
 indeed do they heed the deaths of their relations and 
 friends, nor can any such fear make them call any man 
 lord." The Jewish nation, Josephus declares, was 
 infected with this doctrine to an incredible degree. It 
 is plain that the books interdicted in the Talmud per- 
 tained to the sect which followed these teachers, and 
 perhaps also to the Essenes. 
 
 The Gospels show evidence of having been compiled 
 from previous works. The one ascribed to Mark is 
 apparently the more original, being shorter, more con- 
 cise, and exhibiting fewer traces of having been tarn-
 
 232 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 pered with. The Gospel according to Matthew is from 
 the same original, having whole sentences in exactly 
 the same words, but it is amplified and more diffuse. 
 Neither of these Gospels was recognized by Paul, and 
 indeed there is much reason to doubt whether he had ever 
 seen them. If he recognized any evangelic compilation 
 as genuine, it was the one ascribed to Luke ; and even 
 then the treatise must have been rewritten after his 
 period. 
 
 There exists abundant reason for regarding the Es- 
 senean worship as more or less identical with that of 
 Mithras, the Persian " god of heaven." This appears 
 to be sustained by a comparison of the cults. Thus, 
 as has been remarked, they permitted no discourse on 
 secular concerns before sunrise, but chanted prayers 
 like the Gathas, as in supplication to the divinity pre- 
 siding over the sky. Their personal habits exhibited 
 a profound awe for the Sun. Their name itself was 
 not peculiar to the fraternity of Palestine and Arabia, 
 but was borne by the ascetic priests at Ephesus, whose 
 manner of life was similar ; and Plutarch informs us 
 that certain osioi (another form of the name) performed 
 mystic rites in the temple of Apollo at Delphi in com- 
 memoration of Zagreus, the sun-god of the Orphic 
 religion, who was slain and resuscitated. 
 
 The Persian theology is evidently the basis and 
 source of Judaism. The symbolism of the universe 
 afforded a model for their religion. After the conquest 
 of Pontus and the pirate empire by Pompey, about 
 70 B. c., the worship was introduced into the Roman
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 233 
 
 empire. The verdict of Salamis was thus reversed. 
 The defeat of Xerxes, who was a zealous propagandist, 
 had assured the ascendency of Apollo at Delphi and 
 Demeter at Eleusis over the religion of Ahura Mazda ; 
 but the conquest of the Mithras-worshippers by Pom- 
 pey resulted in the introduction of their rites into every 
 part of the Roman world. From the river Euphrates 
 to the Wall of Antoninus in Britain, and into the for- 
 ests of Germany, Mithraism everywhere prevailed. 
 For four centuries it disputed the supremacy with 
 Christianity ; and even when it was proscribed and 
 forbidden by imperial authority, it still retained its 
 hold upon the pagani or inhabitants of the rural dis- 
 tricts. The Templars and other secret fraternities of 
 the Middle Ages were more or less similar in character 
 to those of the Parsee sun-god, and the rites which we 
 have heard denounced as magic and witchcraft were 
 Mithraic ceremonies mingled with aboriginal customs. 
 Although the divinity is essentially Persian, we cannot 
 but regard the secret worship as an Assyrian institution. 
 M. Lajard has given an account of this cultus, which so 
 generally supplanted the mystic worship of the West. 
 
 The story of the temptation of Jesus, if read intel- 
 ligently " between the lines," will be seen to indicate 
 the characteristics of the Mithraic initiation. " Jesus 
 came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by 
 John. And straightway coming up out of the water 
 he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove 
 descending upon him ; and there came a voice from 
 heaven saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I
 
 234 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 am well pleased. And immediately the Spirit driveth 
 him into the wilderness, and he was there in the wil- 
 derness forty days tempted of Satan [Anra-mainyas], 
 and was with the wild beasts ; and the angels minis- 
 tered to him." These different clauses relate to differ- 
 ent parts of the mystic ceremony. 
 
 The sojourn of the apostle Paul in Arabia, it is ap- 
 parent, was for a purpose in close analogy with that 
 of Jesus in the wilderness, as already described. " It 
 had pleased God," he says, " to reveal [or unveil] his 
 Son in me ;" so, without conferring with anybody, he 
 set forth on his holy errand, and upon his return began 
 to preach a gospel which he declares was not according 
 to man nor taught in lessons, but was received by the 
 revelation. He was instructed at the fountain intu- 
 itively, and so was " not a whit behind the chiefest apos- 
 tles." Henca in the utmost intensity of feeling he 
 proclaimed, " If we, or even an angel from heaven, 
 preach any other gospel to you, let him be accursed." 
 He goes on to recite the history of his career to show 
 his entire independence of Judaism and the other apos- 
 tles, and dwells upon his absolute rupture with Peter 
 at Antioch on the ground of the adherence of the latter 
 to the discarded restrictions of that religion. 
 
 The question now becomes pertinent, What is the 
 purport of this "faith " ? In the fifteenth chapter of 
 the First Corinthian Epistle he sets forth the chief 
 points as follows : " I delivered unto you first of all 
 that which I also received : how that Christ died for 
 our sins, according to the Scriptures ; also that he was
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 235 
 
 buried, and that he rose again the third day, according 
 to the Scriptures ; and that he was seen of Cephas, and 
 after that of above five hundred brethren at once ; after 
 that he was seen of James, and then of all the apostles ; 
 and, last of all, he was seen of me also, as of one born 
 out of due time." 
 
 It may appear strange to the common reader to be 
 told that these matters, which the apostle sets forth with 
 so much apparent confidence, are mystic and arcane, 
 the transcript of older theologies and constituted through- 
 out of astrologic symbolism. The ancient faiths of the 
 different peoples contain doctrines and dramatic narra- 
 tive closely analogous with the evangelic story of Jesus. 
 The later Persians had the legend of Saoshyas (the 
 savior), the son of the virgin Eredatferi, who conceives 
 him in a miraculous manner. "He will appear and 
 restore all things, after which he will himself become 
 subordinate, that the Creator may be supreme and all 
 in all." 
 
 In the Orphic drama, as it was performed by the 
 Osians at the temple of Apollo at Delphi, the birth of 
 Zagreus of the holy maid Persephoneia as the sou of 
 the Supreme Being, Zeus, is duly represented ; then 
 his proposed heirship of the universe, his passion and 
 death ; and finally his restoration again into life through 
 a reincarnation as son of the virgin Semele 1 under the 
 new name of Dionysos. The myth was Assyrian, 
 Semele" being the same as Mylitta, the mystic mother, 
 and her child, Shamas Dian-nisi, or the personified 
 Sun, the Judge or Lord of mankind. The death, res-
 
 236 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 urreetion, and glorification of this Son of God were 
 celebrated in the mystic dramas of several countries. 
 
 The legends of Atys in Asia Minor, of Adonis or 
 Tammuz in Syria, of Osiris in Egypt, were derived 
 from the same source. They cover the same field and 
 have the same occult meaning. The apocalypse, or 
 unveiling of the mystic purport of the sacred dramas 
 to those considered worthy and competent to under- 
 stand them, was the great object of initiation. The 
 Gospels were regarded formerly as accounts of a trag- 
 edy of analogous character. The higher functionaries 
 of the Roman Catholic Church, we have reason to be- 
 lieve, have this same view, which is more than hinted 
 in several places. Paul speaks unequivocally in this 
 way of his gospel and the preaching or heralding of 
 Jesus Christ, " according to the revelation or unfolding 
 of the mystery now made known to all nations for the 
 obedience of faith." When the disciples asked of Jesus 
 why he spoke to the common multitude in parables he 
 makes this reply : " Unto you it is given to know the 
 mystery of the reign of God ; but unto them that are 
 without all these things are done in parables : that see- 
 ing they may see, and not perceive, and hearing they 
 may hear, and not understand." 
 
 In these religious stories there is a very similar gen- 
 eral outline. There is a divine parentage and a career 
 given ; then the Holy One is put to death, the corpse is 
 brought in for burial, the tragic occurrence is mourned 
 by women, and the ceremonial is concluded by his re- 
 suscitation and ascension. There were varied phases
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 237 
 
 of the representation, but they always had an intimate 
 relation to the seasons of the year and the analogous 
 occurrences in the world of nature. Thus the supposed 
 death more frequently occurred at the beginning of 
 spring, and was mourned for a lenten period of forty 
 days, which the vernal equinox brought to a close. 
 Then funeral rites were performed, and after three days, 
 in the case of Adonis, it was fabled that the god arose 
 and ascended into the higher sky. In the Dionysia or 
 Bacchic rite the god descended into hell, the world of 
 death, and brought thence his virgin mother, that they 
 might be glorified together. 
 
 The Neo-Platonists taught that these occult rites were 
 a form of representing philosophic and religious dog- 
 mas as if in scenes of common life by living persons, 
 and of shadowing them by ceremonies and processions. 
 This is more than hinted by Plato himself, and is un- 
 doubtedly true. The candidates were prepared for par- 
 ticipation by long periods of fasting and various puri- 
 fications, moral and physical. The Eleusinia consisted 
 of a drama of several days in duration, in which the 
 abduction, or rather death, of Persephone" and the wan- 
 derings of her mother Demeter served as the veil or 
 myesis to the doctrine of resurrection and life of eter- 
 nity. The author of The Great Dionysiak Myth has 
 ably presented the various forms of the Bacchic rites 
 with the same basis and denouement. Even the He- 
 brew Scriptures allude to the matter. The " mourning 
 for the only one " is mentioned by Jeremiah, Amos, 
 and Zechariah.
 
 238 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 That the story of Jesus was in like manner a drama 
 for religious ends, consisting of a miraculous parentage, 
 a career of goodness, a passion, death, resurrection, and 
 ascension, is, to say the least, no improbable solution 
 of the question. 
 
 It has also been noticed that the events of the sea- 
 sons were denoted by the mystic symbolism. The sun, 
 stars, constellations, and earth are commemorated in 
 regard to their annual careers by these observances ; 
 whether because they were essential to the physical 
 well-being of man or were especially appropriate for 
 symbology different writers have conjectured different- 
 ly, according to their own mental peculiarities. Prob- 
 ably both are right, so far as their views extend. 
 
 It becomes us now to investigate the drama of the 
 Gospels more carefully. The mythologic story of 
 Mithras was probably Assyrian in detail, though Per- 
 sian in first conception. It embraced the same notions 
 as were denoted by the mysteries of the Western peo- 
 ples, and hence the Mithraic worship in a very great 
 degree superseded the arcane religions of Asia Minor 
 and Europe. Very naturally, as may easily be per- 
 ceived, the framework of the Gospel narrative is on the 
 basis of these rites. The influence of the other ancient 
 faiths is also conspicuously manifest. The physical, 
 and particularly the astronomic, features are every- 
 where present in the external structure of Christianity. 
 Sir Isaac Newton was quick to perceive that the festi- 
 vals of the Church had been fixed and arranged upon 
 the observed phenomena of the heavens, and gave a
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 239 
 
 detailed list of correspondences. It was not prudent, 
 however, even in his time, for a man to say all he 
 knew, and he carefully avoided the drawing of any 
 conclusions which might encourage further inquiry 
 in that direction. 
 
 It has already been suggested that the gospel of 
 Paul was at the bottom Essenean and Mithraic ; and 
 in accordance with that hypothesis the crucifixion, 
 death, burial, resurrection, and ascension would be 
 solar and astrologic events. The Essenes, as well as 
 the other Mithras- worshippers, adored the sun and 
 greeted his rising with invocations and sacred chants. 
 The death and resurrection were "according to the 
 Scriptures." In other words, they were duly set forth 
 after the manner of literal occurrences in the sacred 
 books of the Essenes long before Paul was born. The 
 adepts of that fraternity understood the matter, and 
 the hostility which they and the other disciples always 
 exhibited toward the great apostle was because he di- 
 vulged too much. His writings contained many dys- 
 noetie matters, Peter declared many matters of higher 
 knowledge improperly expressed, which they that are 
 unlearned and unstable might wrest to their own hurt. 
 According to the scriptures of the brotherhood, the 
 drama of the Gospel had its denouement in the passion 
 and tragedy of Jesus. Paul, like a genuine adept, has 
 accepted this narrative as the basis of his gospel ; nev- 
 ertheless, as though aware that it is a figurative rather 
 than a literal occurrence, he nowhere speaks of the 
 crucifixion as a crime.
 
 240 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 We use the term drama, in this connection from a 
 deliberate purpose, because we believe it correct. It 
 was the designation of the matters represented in the 
 Eleusinian, Dionysiac, and other arcane rites. The 
 theatre of the Greeks consisted of such tragic and other 
 representations, which were performed at the temples 
 of Bacchus and ^Esculapius. Our modern theatre 
 originated in like manner from the mysteries and mir- 
 acle-plays of the Middle Ages, in which monks and 
 priests acted the parts of the different persons of the 
 Gospel drama. The " Passion Play," which excites 
 so much interest in these modern times, is very sug- 
 gestive, but little understood by sacerdotal ists. 
 
 The Christian worship in the earlier centuries was 
 not so unlike or incongruous with the pagan customs 
 as may have been supposed. The emperor Hadrian, 
 when in Egypt, was forcibly impressed with the ap- 
 parent identity of the worshippers of Serapis with 
 those of Christ. "Those who worship Serapis are 
 Christians," he declared, " and those who call them- 
 selves Christian bishops are devotees of Serapis. The 
 very patriarch himself when he came into Egypt was 
 said by some to worship Serapis and by others to wor- 
 ship Christ." 
 
 The same ambiguity prevailed in the case of Chris- 
 tianity where it had been in contact with the arcane 
 worship of Mithras. Seel endeavors to explain the 
 matter as one of policy. He states that the early 
 Christians in Germany for the most part ostensibly 
 paid worship to the Roman gods in order to escape
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 241 
 
 persecution. He makes a supposition as regards the 
 adoption of the secret religion. " It is by no means 
 improbable," says he, " that under the permitted sym- 
 bols of Mithras they worshipped the Son of God and 
 the mysteries of Christianity. In this point of view," 
 he adds, "the Mithraic monuments so frequent in 
 Germany are evidences of the secret faith of the early 
 Christian Romans." We are not ready to accept this 
 notion that the Christians paid homage to one God, 
 meaning another at the same time, except on the hy- 
 pothesis that they regarded Mithras and Jesus as vir- 
 tually the same personification. This conclusion seems 
 to be countenanced by Augustine, the celebrated bishop 
 of Hippo. " I know," says he, " that the worshippers 
 of the divinity in the cap [the statues of Mithras were 
 decorated with the red Phrygian or cardinal's cap] 
 used to say, l Our god in the cap is Christian.' )] 
 
 That the crucifixion of Christ was not a literal his- 
 toric occurrence seems to require no argument. Be- 
 sides, the first day of the Passover was never a Friday, 
 nor can it be according to the established principles of 
 the Jewish calendar. The account in the three syn- 
 optic Gospels is therefore manifestly not correct as a 
 literal occurrence ; and the unknown writer of the 
 Gospel of John has lamely attempted to evade the 
 difficulty by placing, the crucifixion on the day before 
 the Passover. 
 
 There was a mystic reason, however, for this state- 
 ment of the synoptic Gospels. The story of the cru- 
 cifixion had the same occult meaning as that of the 
 
 16
 
 242 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 departure of the Israelites from Egypt. . The forty 
 days in which Jesus " showed himself alive after his 
 passion " corresponded with the forty years of wander- 
 ing in the wilderness. Hence, as the Israelites left 
 Egypt on the first day of the Passover, so Jesus was 
 also crucified on that day. Not being an historical 
 event, one actually occurring, the statement was per- 
 mitted in order to preserve the harmony and identity 
 of the myths. 
 
 As, however, the story is astrological, we need only 
 explain that the sun crossing the equinoctial line at the 
 21st of March is thus crucified, the ecliptic and the 
 equator constituting the real cross in the form of the 
 letter X. On the third day he appears ascending in the 
 northern hemisphere, and so is " raised again accord- 
 ing to the Scriptures." 
 
 Paul, while referring to these matters as apparently 
 historical, never departs from their symbolic import, 
 In fact, he dwells upon this so emphatically that the 
 events are only mentioned for the purpose of indicating 
 his meaning more definitely. " I am crucified with 
 Christ," says he ; " they that are of Christ have cru- 
 cified the flesh with its aifections and lusts." Nobody 
 will for a moment imagine that this crucifixion meant 
 any physical violence, but only a casting off of those 
 dispositions which are essentially unspiritual. " Our 
 old man is crucified," Paul explains again, " in order 
 that the body of sin might be destroyed ; . . . likewise 
 reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, 
 but alive unto God." This is the real meaning of the
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 243 
 
 death and resurrection as a spiritual matter. The ex- 
 ternal history which is so much insisted upon by the 
 partisans of the letter vanishes utterly away before the 
 eyes of him who perceives as well as sees, and under- 
 stands through intelligence rather than by scientific 
 and logical reasoning. 
 
 The early Fathers of the Church never scrupled to' 
 employ rites, symbols, and other agencies which had 
 been previously used by the various priesthoods of the' 
 pagan worships. The entire biography of Jesus, as it 
 is set forth in the Gospels, exhibits unequivocally as- 
 trological features, and a resemblance to the narratives 
 of the gods so close as to be equivalent almost to actual 
 identity. The miraculous conception was but a coun- 
 terpart of many others : Atys, Adonis, Hercules, Bac- 
 chus, and ^Esculapius were fabled to have been sons of 
 gods by human mothers. The 25th of December was 
 also the birthday of Mithras ; and Chrysostom, with 
 characteristic sophistry and equivocation, explains the 
 matter and justifies it as follows : " On this day also 
 the birthday of Christ was lately fixed at Rome, in 
 order that while the heathen were busied with their 
 profane ceremonies the Christians might perform their 
 holy rites undisturbed." He adds : " They call this 
 the birthday of the Invincible One : who so invinci- 
 ble as the Lord that overthrew and conquered death ? 
 They style it the birthday of the sun ; he is the Sun 
 of righteousness of whom Malachi speaks : ' Upon you 
 who fear my name the Sun of righteousness shall arise 
 with healing in his wings.' "
 
 244 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 At the very outset a serious difficulty is encountered. 
 When the Roman emperor Theodosius, fifteen centuries 
 ago, decreed the universal authority of the Christian 
 Church, he commanded also that all books of the phi- 
 losophers and others not according to the new faith 
 should be destroyed. This leaves only the collection 
 known as the New Testament and the writings of cer- 
 tain theologians, together with certain Gospels, Epistles, 
 and Apocalypses denominated apocryphal which were 
 extant during the earlier centuries of our era. In 
 addition to this, there is internal evidence in the writ- 
 ings now regarded as canonical that they have been 
 abridged, added to, and changed, so that the sense is 
 more or less obscured and doctrines are affirmed which 
 were not in the original documents. 
 
 With the exception, perhaps, of some of the Epistles 
 of Paul, James, and First Peter there is no evidence, 
 or even probability, that any other book of the New 
 Testament, whether Gospel, Epistle, or Apocalypse, 
 was written, or even known, by the individual whose 
 name it bears. Indeed, it is well known among stu- 
 dents that the practice was formerly common to append 
 the name of some distinguished personage to a letter or 
 treatise and put it forth with this to commend it. 
 " Our ancestors," says the philosopher Jamblichus, 
 "used to inscribe their own writings with the name 
 of Hermes, he being as common property to all the 
 priests." Very significant, therefore, is the clause 
 " according to " which occurs in the title of every one 
 of the four Gospels. Each of them has been in exist-
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 245 
 
 ence some fifteen or sixteen centuries " without father, 
 without mother," or any other voucher or guarantee as 
 evidence of the truth of the statements which it contains. 
 We have no obligation to hesitate in our avowal 
 that not one of the four reputed evangelists had any- 
 thing to do with the production to which his name is 
 affixed. The works must stand upon their intrinsic 
 merits, and receive consideration accordingly. 
 
 Two centuries had passed away after the beginning 
 of the present era before the designation of New Testa- 
 ment was used in connection with any collection of 
 writings, and before any special authority was claimed 
 for them. The men who first suggested their canonicity 
 were Irenseus of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, and 
 Tertullian of Carthage. Neither of these men, so far 
 as is known, made any attempt to demonstrate that any 
 book of the collection was genuine or authentic. Pro- 
 fessor Davidson has declared in regard to the scribes 
 who made the copies of the books of the Old Testament 
 that they did not refrain from changing what had been 
 written or inserting fresh matter. The same course 
 has been taken likewise with the text of the New Tes- 
 tament. Heretics and orthodox alike added to its 
 matter in order to establish their peculiar dogmas. 
 The text is nowhere pure. The doctrines of the Trin- 
 ity, the Nativity of Jesus, his Godhead and equality 
 with the Father, the story of Mary, were all introduced 
 from Egypt and engrafted into the Gospels. 
 
 Jesus is represented as having been born in a cave 
 or stable at the moment of midnight. At that period
 
 246 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 the constellation Virgo is cut exactly in half by the 
 eastern horizon, the sun itself being beneath in the 
 zodiacal sign of Capricorn, which was also called " the 
 Stable of Augeas" that Hercules was set to cleanse. 
 Justin Martyr corroborates this by stating that Christ 
 was born when the sun (Mithras) takes his birth in 
 the stable of Augeas, coming as a second Hercules to 
 cleanse a foul world. Hence the rosary of the Roman 
 Catholic Church has this service : " Let us contemplate 
 how the Blessed Virgin Mary, when the time of her 
 delivery was come, brought forth our Redeemer at 
 midnight and laid him in a manger." 
 
 By the cave, or petra, we may understand the cave 
 of initiation, which was always employed in ancient 
 mystic rites. There was such a cave at Bethlehem, 
 and Jerome affirms that the mysteries of Adonis were 
 celebrated there in his time. Justin has preserved the 
 tradition that Mithras was born in a cave or petra, and 
 Porphyry asserts that his rites were observed in caves 
 representing the vault of the heavens. The famous 
 declaration to Peter owes all its significance to this 
 fact : " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock (petra) I 
 will build my Church ; and the gates of hell shall not 
 prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys 
 of the kingdom of heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt 
 bind on earth shall be bound in heaven : and whatso- 
 ever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heav- 
 en." Undoubtedly, this passage is an interpolation ; 
 nevertheless, it is susceptible of explanation. Jesus 
 having asked the twelve apostles who he was said to
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 247 
 
 be, they reply : the " reincarnation " of this or that 
 prophet, as it was believed that such rebirth was usual 
 among men. Peter then avows that he is the Son of 
 God. 
 
 Significantly, Peter is not a Jewish proper name, 
 but relates to function. It is a Semitic word denoting 
 an interpreter of oracles. The priests of Apollo among 
 the Gauls were denominated paterce, as having the gift 
 of prophecy. The residence of Balaam the prophet 
 was called Petur, and there were oracles of Apollo at 
 Patrai in Achaia and Patara in Asia Minor. When, 
 therefore, it is announced that the Church would be 
 built " upon this rock," we may understand it to be 
 the apostle's oracular utterance that Jesus was the Son 
 of God. The Church that was thus established con- 
 sisted solely of adepts and initiates, the clergy only, 
 and the higher functionaries at that. The laity only 
 belong to the Church : the others are the Church. 
 
 The Roman Catholic hierarchy have for centuries 
 caused the fiction to be promulgated that the apostle 
 Peter founded the universal see of Rome. This is like 
 the mystic utterances of Jesus in speaking to the mul- 
 titude in parables. The pope, cardinals, and prelates 
 know the real truth. There never took place, so far 
 as any historical evidence exists, any visit, and much 
 less the martyrdom, of the apostle Peter at Rome. 
 The pope is not the successor of any Christian apostle 
 whatever, but only of the pagan high priest. Under 
 the republic and emperors the pontifex maximus was 
 the supreme religious dignitary. Julius Caesar held
 
 248 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 that office. He presided over the worship and inter- 
 preted the sacred oracles. It was a direction in the 
 secret religion never to change the foreign names. The 
 Chaldaic designation of the supreme pontiff and hiero- 
 phant was peter. When the ancient worship was sup- 
 pressed the Roman bishop succeeded to the pontificate ; 
 and by this exaltation became vicar of the Lord and 
 successor of the peter or pagan pontiff of Rome. 
 
 The tradition of the Magi or wise men coming from 
 the east to worship the infant Jesus, which was pre- 
 fixed to the Gospel of Matthew, is pretty well set forth 
 by the names given them : Kaspar, the white one ; 
 Melchior, the king of light ; and Balthasar, the lord 
 of treasures. The additional legend that they travelled 
 to Germany and were buried at Cologne grew out of 
 the fact that the Mithraic worship was prevalent in 
 that region. 
 
 It should be borne in mind, while considering the 
 astrologic character of the story of Jesus, that the divis- 
 ion of the apparent path of the sun among the stars 
 into the constellations which form the zodiac was made 
 and known throughout the Oriental world and em- 
 ployed in its religious myths at an antiquity so remote 
 as not to be known when the plan was devised. 
 
 Astrological correspondences are carefully maintain- 
 ed all through the gospel narrative. The apostles rep- 
 resent the twelve months, each of them being sent or 
 commissioned to announce him (the sun) to the people. 
 The special events and their dates are commemorated 
 by the Church so as to be coincident with astrological
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 249 
 
 data. The designation " Lamb of God " comes direct- 
 ly from the fact that the crucifixion was placed at the 
 time the sun crosses the equinoctial line in March, and 
 so entered the zodiacal sign of Aries, the Lamb. He 
 was thus " slain before the foundation of the world," 
 or year, and takes away the sins or evils of winter. 
 Having descended into hell, or the winter period, he 
 rises from the dead. He is now enthroned ; the four 
 beasts, denoting the four chief constellations in each 
 quarter of the zodiacal circle Taurus, Leo, Aquila, 
 and Aquarius adore him, and the twenty-four elders 
 (or hours) fall down and worship him. The miracle 
 of turning water into wine is done every year, as Ad- 
 
 dison has sung : 
 
 " May the sun refine 
 The grape's soft juice and mellow it to wine." 
 
 The curse of the fig tree is visited on every plant 
 that is feeble and poorly rooted when the sun's heat 
 comes upon it. John the Baptist says of Jesus : " He 
 must increase, but I must decrease." The 24th of 
 June, St. John's Day, is the last of the summer sol- 
 stice, from which period the days shorten, as, on the 
 contrary, from the 25th of December, the natal day of 
 Jesus, they lengthen. " This is the sixth month with 
 her that was called barren," said the angel Gabriel to 
 Mary on the 25th of March, the Annunciation, nine 
 months before Christmas. On the 15th of August the 
 Church celebrates the Assumption of the Blessed Vir- 
 gin into the heavenly chamber of the King of kings, 
 and accordingly the constellation Virgo (or Astrsea)
 
 250 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 also disappears, being eclipsed by the light and glory 
 of the sun. This disappearance continues seven days. 
 Miriam, the virgin sister of Moses and Aaron, doubt- 
 less also an astral character, was secluded seven days 
 while leprous. Three weeks later the sun has moved 
 on in the sky, permitting the constellation again to 
 appear ; and accordingly the Church celebrates the 8th 
 of September as the anniversary of the nativity of the 
 Blessed Virgin. 
 
 The prominent pagan symbols which are now adopt- 
 ed by the Christian prelacy are generally astronomical. 
 Astrology and religion always went hand in hand, and 
 have not been legally divorced. At an earlier period 
 the sun entered the zodiacal sign of Taurus at the ver- 
 nal equinox. This fact led to the adoption of the bull 
 or calf as a symbol of the Deity. We notice this fact 
 all over the ancient world, and in some modern peo- 
 ples that have not had a learned caste of priests. Ev- 
 ery 2152 years the zodiac shifts backward one sign 
 i. e. one-twelfth of its whole extent. Hence, eventu- 
 ally, Aries, the Ram or Lamb, took the place of the 
 Bull to represent the god of spring. The paschal 
 lamb, the ram-headed god Amen of Egypt, and the 
 lamb of Christian symbolism thus came into existence. 
 Since that the constellation Pisces has become the equi- 
 noctial sign, and the Fish is the symbol of the Church. 
 Hence the bishop of Rome employs the seal of the fisher- 
 man, and the Gospel narrative has made St. Peter a 
 "fisher." In this way the entire passion of Jesus 
 from the crucifixion to the ascension is astronomic.
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 251 
 
 The Roman Catholic Church, having the superior 
 understanding of the matter, holds Protestants in de- 
 rision for making a fetish of the Bible and worshipping 
 the sun, while not comprehending the matter intelli- 
 gently. Indeed, it is known by every intelligent priest 
 that the sun and phallic symbols characterize every 
 world-religion. No matter what attempts are made 
 to disguise the matter, such is the fact. That the sun 
 is the light of the world needs but a mention ; and so 
 is Jesus as the avatar or personification. The cross 
 on which he is impaled was a symbol of the phallic 
 worship thousands of years ago. The form may be 
 an X, f, or f , but it means the same. He is buried in 
 winter and resuscitated in the spring. 
 
 Thus, to recapitulate : The Christian religion consists 
 of the worship of a divine being incarnated in human 
 form in order to redeem fallen man, born of a virgin, 
 teaching immortality, working wonders, dying through 
 the machinations of the evil one, rising from death, re- 
 ascending into heaven, and to be the judge of the living 
 and dead. The Mithraic worship, its great rival 
 and counterpart, was constituted with similar imagery. 
 The festivals appointed in honor of Mithras were fixed 
 in accordance with the seasons of the year, his birth 
 being at the end of the solstice in December, his death 
 directly after the equinox in March. Christ, being 
 like Mithras, the personification of the sun and lord of 
 the cosmos, enacts a career on earth corresponding in 
 its principal parts to that of the sun in the heavens. 
 The Holy Spirit as a wind or atmosphere is the herald
 
 252 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 of his advent. The Virgin is the moon, the mother 
 of the sun and queen of heaven, just as she was in the 
 pagan world under different names. 
 
 Often also at evening we witness the sun undergoing a 
 bloody passion and dying amid the reddened sky, leav- 
 ing to the one whom he loves the moon as his mother. 
 
 So conscious is the Church of its descent in direct 
 line from the former paganism that it has adopted the 
 symbols of its predecessor and placed many of the old 
 gods in its catalogue of saints along with the Assyrian 
 archangels. Bacchus appears there as St. Bacchus, St. 
 Denis or Dionysius, St. Liber, St. Eleutherius, St. 
 Lyacus. Priapus is there as St. Foutin, St. Cosmo, 
 and St. Darnian. The nymph Aura Placida is St. 
 Aura and St. Placida. There is also St. Bibiana, 
 whose anniversary occurs on the day of the Grecian 
 festival of tapping the wine-casks. The star Marga- 
 rita has become St. Margaret, and Hippolytus the son 
 of Theseus, the hero-founder of the Athenian polity, 
 has also been canonized. The true image, or veraicon, 
 has become St. Veronica, as the supreme hierophant 
 of Roman paganism is St. Peter. Then, too, there are 
 sainted dogmas personified, as St. Perpetua, St. Feli- 
 citas, St. Rogatian, St. Donatian, etc. There are also 
 St. Abraham, St. Michael, St. Gabriel, St. David, and 
 St. Patrick, whose anniversary falls on that of his well- 
 known predeceasor, Pater Liber, the Roman Bacchus. 
 The keys of the Italian Janus and the Phrygian Kybele 
 are now held by the pope as the keys of the kingdom 
 of heaven.
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 253 
 
 There is not a feature, symbol, ceremony, or dogma 
 in the Church which did not have a pagan prototype. 
 Another fact is equally curious. While the worship 
 of Mithras is the evident origin of the Christian cultus, 
 the Lamas of Thibet in the heart of Asia also have 
 ecclesiastical orders, ceremonies, and other institutions 
 which are the almost literal counterpart of those of 
 Rome. 
 
 Whether there ever was really such an individual 
 living on the earth as Jesus of Nazareth becomes, in 
 view of these facts, a minor question. Myth, legend, 
 tradition, and fancy have so transformed him that there 
 is no nucleus of original humanity left in sight. He is 
 almost absolutely without an historical mention. He 
 has become a myth, a personification, whether he was 
 really a man or not. He is therefore an ideal, and not 
 real. The passages in Josephus are unquestionable for- 
 geries. Tacitus speaks of him as having been crucified 
 under Pilate, but in no way as an occurrence to be 
 vouched for. Suetonius in his life of Claudius Caesar 
 states that the emperor banished the Jews from Rome 
 because they raised sedition under the instigation of 
 one Chrestos. If this is to be considered as meaning 
 the reputed founder of the Christian religion, the or- 
 thography of the name is very suggestive. Godfrey 
 Higgins declares in his Anacalypsis that it was the 
 original term used, and was changed to Chreistos and 
 Christ for ecclesiastical reasons. He was of opinion 
 also that transcribers had made these alterations in the 
 books of the New Testament. Chrestos was a title of
 
 254 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 Apollo and other divinities, and was conferred upon 
 the better class of citizens in certain Grecian states. 
 Once the term is applied to Jesus in the first Epistle 
 of Peter : " The Lord is Chrestos." The probabilities 
 favor the supposition, the terra Messiah, which is the 
 Hebrew equivalent for Christ, being nowhere used 
 except in the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John 
 to designate Jesus, and that being a doubtful passage. 
 
 There are few data remaining that indicate the cha- 
 racter of Jesus. So far as these are definitive they 
 exhibit a close relationship to the Esseneau brother- 
 hood. 
 
 During the reign of Herod I., Hillel, a Babylonian, 
 became president of the Sanhedrim. He was thus the 
 recognized head of the school, his opponents being 
 known as Shammaites. Both parties professed to be 
 the custodians of the Kabala or traditions of the an- 
 cients. These comprised the arcane literature of the 
 Jews, which was to be kept carefully away from the 
 laity. The Hillelites appear to have been more tena- 
 cious of principles, but the Shammaites were very 
 captious in regard to the minutiae. The Logia, or 
 aphorisms, imputed to Jesus accord with the utterances 
 of Hillel, and in a degree justify the opinion of the 
 Rabbis. 
 
 The relations of the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem 
 and his early abode at Nazareth are of the character 
 of myth, and serve to indicate his association with the 
 Essenes. Bethlehem was the reputed birthplace of 
 King David, and afterward the prophet Micah, de-
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 255 
 
 picting the rise of Hezekiah as the messiah and libera- 
 tor of Judea from the Assyrian yoke, assigns his origin 
 to the same place. This latter prince could not have 
 been the son of Ahaz, whom he is said to have suc- 
 ceeded, having been born when that king was but ten 
 or eleven years old. That the dynasty of Ahaz was 
 overthrown is intimated in the declaration of Isaiah 
 (7 : 9), and by his announcement of the accession of a 
 new prince (9 : 6, 7 ; 11:1, etc.). The town of Beth- 
 lehem and the places about are enumerated in the sec- 
 ond chapter of First Chronicles as containing "the 
 families of the scribes," "the Kenites," from whom 
 proceeded the Rechabites of later times. These Kenites 
 appear to have been a sacerdotal and literary tribe, 
 like the Magians of Media. They are said to have 
 lived near the city of palm trees (Judges 1 : 16), and 
 to have removed into the southern part of the Judean 
 territory. Moses was described as having intermarried 
 and been adopted among them, and the kings Saul and 
 David were more or less familiar with them. Saul 
 found them when he marched against the Amalekites, 
 and David sent them presents, as being accustomed in 
 his career as an outlaw to " haunt " their region. 
 Elijah the prophet is said to have gone into their 
 country when he was driven out of the kingdom of 
 Samaria. 
 
 The birth of Jesus at Bethlehem would seem, therefore, 
 to have some mystic reference to this people, as well as to 
 the notion of a lineal descent from David. His abode 
 in the earlier years of life at Nazareth was evidently a
 
 256 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 myth of kindred nature. Curiously enough, the writer 
 of the first chapter of Luke has represented Mary as a 
 resident of Nazareth, while the second chapter of Mat- 
 thew describes Joseph as taking up his abode there in- 
 cidentally, fulfilling the word of the Essenean proph- 
 ets : " He will be called a Nazarene," or Nazarite. 
 The Esseneans were also denominated Nazarim, and 
 we may perceive the idea suggested by the name that 
 Jesus belonged to their body. It was a common mode 
 of writing, to describe an every-day occurrence in a 
 form conveying a mystic or occult meaning beneath 
 the apparent statement. The character of Jesus as a 
 prophet and representative personage is thus actually 
 signified. His birth in the country of the Kenites and 
 adepts betokened his consecration and separation, while 
 the residence at Nazareth typified his Essenean rela- 
 tions. 
 
 The congregation of disciples at Jerusalem and their 
 sympathizers in Palestine were designated as Nazore- 
 ans and Ebionim. It is no great stretch of imagination 
 to presume them to have been an offshoot of the Es- 
 senean brotherhood. These were zealous propagand- 
 ists, and their modes of life and action coincide very 
 closely with those of the early Church. The writers 
 of the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles describe the 
 apostles and their converts as living after the manner 
 of an Essenean commune. Jesus "ordained twelve 
 that they should be with him; . . . and they went 
 into a house," or became as one family. This was 
 precisely like the Essenes and Therapeutae. " In the
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 257 
 
 first place," says Philo, " not one of them has a house 
 of his own which does not belong to all of them." 
 For besides their living together in large societies, each 
 house is also open to every visiting brother of the order. 
 " Furthermore, all of them have one store of provisions 
 and equal expenses ; they have their garments in com- 
 mon, as they do with their provisions. They reside 
 together, eat together, and have everything in common 
 to an extent as it is carried out nowhere else." Hence 
 we read without surprise that the multitude came about 
 them, so that they could not so much as eat bread. 
 The apostolic congregation is also described as imitating 
 the same form of living : " All that believed were to- 
 gether and had all things common ; and sold their pos- 
 sessions and goods, and parted them to all of them as 
 every one had need. . . . Neither said any of them 
 that aught of the things which he possessed was his 
 own ; but they had all things common. Neither was 
 there any among them that lacked ; for as many as 
 were possessors of lauds or houses sold them, and 
 brought the price of the things that were sold and laid 
 them down at the apostles' feet ; and distribution was 
 made unto every man as he had need." For a time 
 the apostles, it is stated, were stewards of the whole 
 body, teaching them and supplying them with food, 
 till finally seven Hellenistic Jews were selected and set 
 apart for that purpose. 
 
 Eusebius comments upon the account given by Philo 
 of the Therapeutae, as follows : " These facts appear to 
 have been stated by a man (Philo), who at least has 
 
 17
 
 258 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 paid attention to those that have expounded the sacred 
 writings. But it is highly probable that the ancient 
 commentaries which he says they have are the very 
 Gospels and writings of the apostles, and probably 
 some expositions of the ancient prophets, such as are 
 contained in the Epistle to the Hebrews and many 
 others of St. Paul's Epistles. . . . Why need we add 
 an account of their meetings, and the separate abodes 
 of men and women in these meetings, and the exercises 
 performed by them, which are still in vogue among us 
 at the present day ; and which, especially at the festival 
 of our Saviour's passion, we are accustomed to use in 
 our fastings and watchings and in the study of the 
 divine word ! All these the above-mentioned author 
 has accurately described and stated in his writings; 
 and they are the same customs that are observed by us 
 alone at the present day, particularly the vigils of the 
 great festivals, and the exercises in them and the hymns 
 that are commonly recited among us. He states that 
 whilst one sings gracefully with a certain measure, the 
 others, listening in silence, join in singing the final 
 clauses of the hymns ; also that on the above-mention- 
 ed days' they lie on straw spread on the ground, and, 
 to use his own words, they abstain altogether from 
 wine and taste no flesh. Water is their only drink, 
 and the relish of their bread, salt, and hyssop. Be- 
 sides this, he describes the grades of dignity among 
 those who administer the ecclesiastical services com- 
 mitted to them those of the deacons and president of 
 the episcopate as the highest. But whosoever desires
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 259 
 
 to have a more accurate knowledge of these things may 
 learn them from the history already cited ; but that 
 Philo, when he wrote those statements, had in view 
 the first heralds of the gospel and the original practices 
 handed down from the apostles must be obvious to 
 all." 
 
 As if to afford further foundation for this conjecture 
 of identity of the early disciples with the Ebionites, 
 the Greek word for this designation, " ptochos," usu- 
 ally translated "poor" and "beggar," occurs in the 
 New Testament in a manner which often suggests that 
 the Ebionites are meant by the designation. 
 
 " Happy the poor in spirit," says the Sermon on the 
 Mount j " for the kingdom of the heavens is theirs." 
 " The gospel is preached to them " was the message sent 
 to John the Baptist in his prison at Macheras. " If thou 
 wilt be perfect," says Jesus to the young man, " go, sell 
 that thou hast, and give to the poor." In the Gospel 
 according to St. Luke (6 : 20) Jesus actually addresses 
 his disciples as "ye poor," or Ebionim. Lazarus is 
 called Ptochos, or Ebioni, in the sixteenth chapter. 
 Paul sternly rebukes the Galatian Christians for their 
 conversion to Ebionism : " But then, not having seen 
 God, you were servants to those that are not gods ; but 
 now having known God, or rather having been known 
 by God, why do you turn about again to the weak and 
 beggarly elements ?" 
 
 Nevertheless, the conclusion of Eusebius, that the 
 Essenes or Therapeutae were only Christians of the 
 apostolic age, is impossible. They were of greater
 
 260 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 antiquity, and flourished when Christians or Chres- 
 tians, whichever they may be had never been heard 
 of. The converse is more probable by far that the 
 apostles and their Ebionite followers were religionists 
 after the form of the Essenes. 
 
 We have indicated the evident similarity of these 
 sectaries with the Mithraic initiates, and the fact has 
 also been shown that many of the Christians of the first 
 centuries also observed the rites of that worship. That 
 the astrological features of each were identical and are 
 manifest in the story of Jesus has also been illustrated. 
 We may now treat the final question, that of the per- 
 son of Jesus himself. 
 
 It is the easiest way just now to concede his physical 
 existence, and reject the marvels, exaggerations, and 
 other incredibilities of the Gospel narratives. A Ko- 
 man Catholic writer of great acuteness has marked out 
 that very course. He explains his position so aptly 
 that we will reproduce the principal features, which 
 certainly seem in a great degree to sustain our propo- 
 sition. " Where intellect sees an idea, an abstraction," 
 says he, " religion sees a person. This involves a su- 
 perior development of the consciousness; inasmuch 
 while intellect of itself, having neither motive nor 
 force, could not have created, personality includes 
 intellect and all else that is indispensable to action 
 namely, feeling and energy." 
 
 He sets forth Christianity as a religion in Palestine 
 " which consisted in the worship of a Divine Being in- 
 carnated in human form in order to redeem fallen man,
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 261 
 
 born of a virgin, teaching immortality, working won- 
 ders of benevolence, dying through the hostile machina- 
 tions of the spirit of evil, rising from death, reascend- 
 ing into heaven, and becoming judge of the dead. As 
 representative of the sun the festivals appointed in his 
 honor were fixed in accordance with the seasons, his 
 birth being at the end of the winter solstice ; his death 
 at the spring equinox ; his rising soon afterward, and 
 then his ascension into heaven, whence he showers 
 down benefits on man." 
 
 The same author indicates the Essenes as cherishing 
 these beliefs : " Deriving their tenets from the East, 
 they believed in the Persian dualism, regarded the sun 
 as the impersonation of the Supreme Light, and wor- 
 shipped it in a modified way." He adds : " To the 
 sect of the Esseues the originals of John the Baptist 
 and Jesus must have belonged." 
 
 " We may possess a trustworthy account of the spirit 
 that was in Jesus," he says again, " and yet be alto- 
 gether in the dark respecting his precise sayings and 
 doings. The condition of the world at this period 
 being such as I have described, it was inevitable that 
 any impressive personality whose career enabled such 
 things, with however small a modicum of truth, to be 
 predicated of it as were predicated of Jesus, should be 
 seized upon and appropriated to the purposes of a new 
 religion. . . . 
 
 " For the masses the spectacle of an heroic crusade 
 against the authority, respectability, and pharisaism of 
 an established ecclesiasticism, combined with complete
 
 262 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 self-devotion, with teaching of the most absolute per- 
 fection in morals a perfection readily recognizable by 
 the intuitive perceptions of all and with a confident 
 mysticism that seemed to imply unbounded supernat- 
 ural knowledge all characteristics of the sect of Es- 
 senes to which he and the Baptist manifestly belonged, 
 these were amply sufficient to win belief in Jesus as a 
 divine personage. And especially so when they found 
 him persistently reported not only as having performed 
 miracles in his life, but as having shown that tradi- 
 tional superiority to all the limitation of humanity 
 which was ascribed to their previous divinities by 
 rising from the dead and ascending into heaven. Fa- 
 miliar as they were with the notion of incarnations in 
 which the sun played a principal part, and accustomed 
 to associate such events with virgin mothers impreg- 
 nated by deities, births in stables or caves, hazardous 
 careers in the exercise of benevolence, violent deaths, 
 and descents into the kingdom of darkness, resurrec- 
 tions and ascensions into heaven, to be followed by the 
 descent of blessings upon mankind, it required but 
 the suggestion that Jesus of Nazareth was a new and 
 nobler incarnation of the Deity, who had so often before 
 been incarnate and put to death for man's salvation, to 
 transfer to him the whole paraphernalia of doctrine and 
 rite deemed appropriate to the office." 
 
 There appears no reasonable doubt of the relation- 
 ship of Jesus to the Essenean brothers. Not only does 
 the name itself imply a personification of that peculiar 
 people, but he is represented as uttering their distinct-
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 263 
 
 ive doctrines. In the Sermon on the Mount he re- 
 quired from his disciples, as did the Essenean teachers, 
 a righteousness exceeding that of the Scribes and Phar- 
 isees ; and the Beatitudes are distinctly of the same 
 character. He prohibits the oath, as the Esseneans 
 also did, enjoined non-resistance to violent assault and 
 forgiveness of injuries, and exhorted to take no thought 
 for the morrow, which he described as serving Mam- 
 mon. He also charged against divulging the interior 
 doctrines, comparing it to giving the holy bread to 
 dogs and casting pearls to the swine, the latter treading 
 the precious jewels under foot and the dogs turning to 
 rend the giver. Indeed, the whole discourse is one 
 which a teacher of the fraternity would deliver to can- 
 didates. " These things," he declares, " are hid from 
 the wise and prudent, but are revealed to babes." 
 When his disciples demur at his rigid tenets in regard 
 to marriage, permitting divorce only for lewdness or 
 false religion, he sanctions their inference that it is not 
 good to marry. " He that is able to receive this doc- 
 trine," added he, " let him receive it." To the young 
 man who desired to know the way to perfection he first 
 gave a reproof for calling him good when there was no 
 one so but the one God, and then commanded him to 
 sell all his possessions and give to the poor, probably 
 meaning the Ebionim. In the parable in Luke the 
 rich man after death is tormented, while the other, the 
 ptochos or Ebionite Lazarus, is compensated in the lap 
 of Abraham. Yet except the few cases when the terms 
 " brethren " and " disciple " are used there are few
 
 264 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 direct references to the Essenes. But he is continually 
 exhorting against the doctrine of the Pharisees and 
 Sadducees, and denouncing the former. Meanwhile, 
 he nowhere fills a page in history. He has left no 
 mark of his individual existence. 
 
 We have observed that Judaism was chiefly the 
 counterpart of Persian Mazdaism, the Supreme Being, 
 the seven Amesha-spentas, Yazatas, Evil Spirit and 
 devas, being reproduced in Jehovah with his angels 
 and seven archangels, Satan and his wicked crew. 
 Essenism, in turn, appears to have been a form of the 
 Persian religion, including the worship of the sun, 
 astral and prophetic doctrines, occult science, a culttis 
 and sacraments; and as the Persian doctrines were 
 ascribed to the unknown Zarathustra, so those of the 
 Essenean brotherhood are personified in the character 
 of a gifted teacher, born on the natal day of Mithras, 
 inculcating truth and right action, and in every way 
 representing and personifying the religious system. 
 This was, as has been observed, a common practice in 
 former times. As soon as we consider Jesus as Essen- 
 ism personified we find the difficulties vanish which 
 every other theory presents. But Essenism was much 
 older than the Christian era, despite the pretense of 
 Eusebius of the absolute identity of Essenes and the 
 early Christians. We may also remark that there are 
 fragments of books in existenoe which treat of a Jew, 
 the son of a soldier and temple-woman, who exhibits 
 characteristics of the Jesus of the Gospels sufficient to 
 intimate the identity of the two. They place his career
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 265 
 
 in the time of the earlier Asmonean kings, about the 
 period when the Essenes are first mentioned by that 
 name. We do not attach great importance to these 
 works, except for the fact that they would not have 
 appeared, unless there had existed a comprehensive 
 account of some kind, parabolic or historic, to sug- 
 gest their preparation. The To'ldoth Jeshu, or Genera- 
 tions of Jesus, to which we refer, has several charac- 
 teristics which are worth noting. The father of Jesus, 
 being a soldier, probably denoted a " soldier of Mith- 
 ras," and the alma or Blessed Virgin, a Hebrew maiden 
 set apart for a time, as was the practice for young maids 
 in Athens, to work and be initiated at the temple. It 
 is also asserted that Jesus spent a season in Egypt, 
 where he learned magic. The TherapeutaB had com- 
 munes in that country as well as in Arabia and Pales- 
 tine, and were addicted to the study of medical know- 
 ledge, astrology, and other arts, which, being derived 
 from the Magi or priest-caste of the East, were denom- 
 inated magic. This term originally carried with it no 
 reproachful meaning, but meant all learning of a liberal 
 character, and occult science was only such knowledge 
 as was considered too sacred for profane individuals. 
 " He who pours water into a muddy well," says Jam- 
 blichus, u does but disturb the mud." Doubtless the 
 primitive Essenean gospel described Jesus as a young 
 man of rare qualities, the son of a Mithraic or Esse- 
 nean adept, who was instructed at the school of Alex- 
 andria or in the priest-colleges of ancient Egypt, and 
 became expert in the technic of religious and scientific
 
 266 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 wisdom. Thus, the great Siddartha was taught by the 
 Jaina sage Mahavira before he became himself a teacher 
 and a sage. As the sacraments of the Church are like 
 the observances of the Essenes and those which are 
 also celebrated at the Mithraic initiations, this is abun- 
 dantly plausible. The departure made by Paul and 
 others from the methods of the order afford the reason 
 for the assigned origin of Christianity at the period 
 known as the "year of our Lord," Anno Domini. 
 
 The original books from which the Gospels were 
 compiled have perished. There was a Gospel in the 
 possession of the Ebionites carefully guarded as a sa- 
 cred or arcane book, a copy of which Jerome procured 
 with great difficulty, but which has since been lost and 
 forgotten. The sect disappeared, melting away into the 
 church or the synagogue, and we now read of them 
 loaded with the opprobrious slanders of Irenaeus and 
 Epiphanius. They were the original disciples in Juclea, 
 and were subjected, in common with other Jews, to the 
 hardships and persecutions which followed upon the 
 destruction of the national polity. This Hebrew Gos- 
 pel and such writings as the Catholic Epistles of James 
 and Peter contained their peculiar doctrines. They 
 regarded Jesus as a teacher or exemplar, but not as a 
 superhuman being in any sense of the term. That 
 notion came from the pagans. 
 
 Indeed, it was not their belief that such a man had 
 literally existed. The Doketse (or Illusionists) held that 
 he was a symbolic being, an ideality. The Gnostics gen- 
 erally, whom Gibbon describes as " the most polite, the
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 267 
 
 most learned, and most wealthy of the Christian name," 
 described him as an aion or spiritual principle ; and 
 considered the crucifixion as metaphorical and not a 
 literal event. The real Christ, Chrestos or divine 
 principle, they regarded as still in heaven, intact. 
 
 The apostle Paul was the great innovator upon the 
 Ebionite and Essenean doctrines. He was too broad 
 and far-seeing to overlook the fact that the exclusive- 
 ness of Judaism would arrest any universal dissemi- 
 nation of the faith in the world. Hence he struck out 
 boldly on his own account. He had a gospel, he de- 
 clares to the Galatians, which he had received from no 
 man ; it was not " according to any man," but a dis- 
 tinct, differentiated matter, the apocalypse of Jesus 
 Christ. " Let the man, or even angel, that preaches 
 any other gospel be anathema," he declares. He did 
 not hesitate to denounce the Ebionist apostles, nor they 
 in turn to set him forth as an impostor, holding the 
 doctrine of Balaam and teaching faith without works 
 or rites. At Antioch he withstood Peter to the face, 
 and declares him condemned. Writing to the Cor- 
 inthians, he denounces the schisms and deprecates the 
 influence of Apollos, a Jew from Alexandria. "I, 
 the wise architect, have laid the foundation," says he, 
 " but another has built upon it. That foundation is 
 Christ." It is very plain, however, that the Christ 
 that he taught was rather an ideal than a literal per- 
 sonage. "I have seen the Lord," he declares, and 
 again avows that he preached " Jesus Christ and the 
 Crucified One." Yet when he refers to the death and
 
 268 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 resurrection he always treats of them as figurative mat- 
 ters, pertaining to the spiritual and not to the corporeal 
 nature. A Christ that he had seen could but be a 
 spiritual entity. " Flesh and blood cannot inherit the 
 kingdom of God," he declares, " neither doth corrup- 
 tion inherit incorruptiou." This is a complete setting 
 aside of any gross, literal sense to be given to his lan- 
 guage. Others who received the gospel were crucified 
 as Christ was, and rose again to a new life while yet 
 embodied in mortal flesh. He was the type, the model, 
 the exemplar, and they who believed were walking in 
 his footsteps. "Know ye not," he asks the Roman 
 believers, " that so many of us as were baptized into 
 Jesus Christ were baptized into his death ? We then 
 are buried with him by this baptism into his death ; so 
 that as Christ was raised up from the dead, even so we 
 should walk in a new life. For if we have become 
 planted together in the likeness of his death, we are 
 also, on the other hand, in that of his resurrection : 
 knowing this, that our old man was crucified together, 
 that the body of sin might be made inert, that we may 
 no longer be enslaved to sin. If we died with Christ, 
 we believe that we will also live to him ; being aware 
 that Christ having risen from the dead is no longer 
 dying, death no longer rules him. For wherein he 
 died, he died to sin once for all ; but wherein he 
 lives, he lives to God. So likewise reckon ye 
 yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ 
 Jesus." 
 
 A spiritual crucifixion, death, and resurrection, in
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 269 
 
 strict analogy with the equinoctial crucifixion, death, 
 and resurrection of the mystic rites, is the foremost 
 idea of this passage. The baptism of Jesus in the 
 river Jordan and his forty days' temptation in the 
 wilderness were of the same character. There was no 
 literal dying signified in the case. Indeed, nobody 
 knew better than Paul that the Jewish Sanhedrim did 
 not sit and that capital punishments were not inflicted 
 at the period of the Passover, the day of the crucifix- 
 ion, being, according to the law, " a day of holy convo- 
 cation." The crucifixion being figurative and suggested 
 by an astrological period, we are fully warranted in the 
 hypothesis that the victim likewise was a symbolic per- 
 sonage of an astral character. 
 
 This ideal Jesus, with the emphatic but ambiguous 
 phrase of Paul " Him crucified " was not sufficient 
 for the exigencies of the Christian leaders of the subse- 
 quent century. The Gnostics and other cultured men 
 were satisfied, but the lower classes wanted a more 
 tangible character, a physical corporeity. The great 
 want, therefore, was some proof of the literal existence 
 of the individual by the evidence of men that had seen 
 him and been familiar with him. This was now fur- 
 nished by the production of the three synoptic Gospels 
 and their adoption in the place of other evangelical 
 literature. Afterward, IrenaBus or some one with his 
 approval added the Gospel according to John. The 
 fiction of an apostolic succession was then originated, 
 and forgery for religious purposes was a general prac- 
 tice. The quarrels of Christians with Christians were
 
 270 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 for centuries more scandalous than all the atrocities of 
 actual martyrdom. 
 
 Previous to this the Church had labored indefati- 
 gably and successfully to destroy the influence and rep- 
 utation of Paul. He was now taken into favor ; his 
 Epistles were revised, interpolated, toned down, and 
 accepted as canonical. The Acts of the Apostles was 
 next produced. It is a work in two parts one set 
 apart to the story of the apostle Peter, and the other 
 to the achievements of Paul. The purpose evidently 
 was to indicate that the two were not at variance, but 
 were laborers in the same field. The work of harmon- 
 izing must have been difficult. In our day it would 
 not have been possible. Books cannot be got out of 
 the way as in former centuries, and inconsistencies of 
 writers are sure to be exposed. 
 
 Justin Martyr lived at Rome in the reign of the 
 Antonines and wrote a Defence of the Christians. Yet 
 he makes no mention of " St. Peter the first bishop." 
 He had never heard of him. Irenseus, however, did 
 not hesitate to say anything to advance the gospel, and 
 accordingly boldly asserts that Peter and Paul founded 
 the church at Rome ; overlooking their reciprocal ani- 
 mosity, and the fact that the Epistle of Paul to the 
 Romans adresses the " saints," but makes no mention 
 of a church. Claudius had banished the Jews from 
 Rome for their turbulent conduct under the instigations 
 of Chrestos, and the emperors Trajan and Adrian seem 
 to have known of Christians only from information 
 which they had derived solely from the provinces in
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 271 
 
 the East. But all this made no difficulty for Irenseus. 
 This French prelate also declared that the ministry of 
 Jesus lasted upward of ten years ; also that he lived to 
 be an elderly man. The anachronisms and bad geog- 
 raphy of the Gospels are notorious, but they do not 
 compare with the absurdities of Irenseus. He invented 
 the name Antichrist, and hurled it with ferocious rage 
 whenever he had been assailed and hard pushed in 
 controversy. He was never so much in his element 
 as when quarrelling ; and his designation of Irenseus 
 (a man of peace) is one of the most stupendous mis- 
 nomers ever heard of. 
 
 We have alluded to the fact that passages had been 
 interpolated into the Epistles of Paul. The object was 
 to harmonize the Logos of Philo and his school with the 
 Christ or Chrestos of the apostle. It would have been 
 a futile attempt if it had been made when Paul was 
 castigating the Corinthian Christians in regard to 
 Apollos. A dead man's words, however, can be mu- 
 tilated and perverted without his resistance. We 
 accordingly find the sturdy Hebrew diction of the 
 apostle interlarded with Gnostic utterances, and new 
 epistles purporting to have been written by him which 
 give a different complexion to his doctrines. The 
 pleroma or fulness which is treated of in the Epistle 
 to the Ephesians was taken bodily from the Gnostics. 
 The pre-existence of Christ as the Creator of the world 
 was asserted in a spurious document purporting to be 
 a letter from him to the Colossians, and interpolations 
 of a corresponding nature were made in the genuine
 
 272 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 Corinthian Epistles. Thus in the famous chapter on 
 the resurrection we find the following sentiment of 
 Philo in an amplified form : " Man, being freed by the 
 Logos (or Word) from all corruption, shall be entitled 
 to immortality." 
 
 Gibbon has shown us that the first regular church 
 government was instituted at Alexandria. This is in 
 keeping with the other facts. The dogmas of an incar- 
 nate God, of the Trinity, and the sacred character of 
 the Blessed Virgin were all introduced into the creed 
 by the influence of the Alexandrians, and it would 
 therefore seem to be legitimately their right to institute 
 the government. We have noticed already that the 
 Therapeutse of that country had offices with similar 
 titles and functions as those now possessed by officers 
 of the Church, and as they and the Christians were 
 closely allied, we have good reason for the belief that 
 they had united with the new organization in such 
 numbers as to outvote the original members. Cer- 
 tain it is, that thenceforth the names of Essenes and 
 Therapeutae occurred no more. But the sect which 
 gave shape to the concept had thus, to a certain 
 degree at least, resumed control over the whole 
 matter. 
 
 That such an individual as Jesus Christ ever lived is 
 entirely without proof from history. We find Josephus 
 making mention of one and another who acquired no- 
 toriety. He describes Judas of Galilee as the founder 
 of a fourth philosophic sect, and tells of Jesus the son 
 of Hauan who predicted the destruction of Jerusalem
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 273 
 
 and its temple years before it occurred. We observe 
 similarity enough in his utterances to those of the 
 twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, and in his deport- 
 ment when brought before the Roman governor to that 
 described in the Gospels, to warrant some little sur- 
 mise of identity with the Jesus of the Gospels. But 
 of Jesus as the founder of the Christian religion, or 
 more properly the Ebionite sect, we have no such de- 
 lineation. Of him we have only an utterance which 
 is a palpable forgery. 
 
 This preaching of Jesus as a veritable individual of 
 like passions with other men, having a will not always 
 consonant with the divine will, and yet divine in qual- 
 ities and attributes, has been very justly " to the Jews 
 a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness." 
 Intelligent men, however reverent and impartial, have 
 been compelled to dissent. The fanatic Tertullian in 
 declaring his own position gave utterance to what many 
 felt to be the substance of the whole matter : " I rev- 
 erence it because it is contemptible ; I adore it because 
 it is absurd ; I believe it because it is impossible." 
 We are outgrowing a faith and veneration so utterly 
 childlike as to be fatuity itself. 
 
 If we search for Jesus at Nazareth in Galilee, we 
 shall not find a footprint. If, however, we look for 
 him in the testimonies of the Nazarim and Essenes as 
 the personification of their school of philosophic thought, 
 thus representing in concept the emanation of God and 
 the evolution of man as a spiritual being, we shall see 
 him as he is. Hence to surrender the popular notion 
 
 18
 
 274 SKELETON KEYS, 
 
 of a literal man as an infallible teacher and exemplar 
 is not to renounce anything that is vital in truth. We 
 will only dispense with the paganism and man-wor- 
 ship. We eliminate the sensuous imagery, but preserve 
 intact the life, the power, and the energy. The par- 
 ables and aphorisms which are in the Gospels are as 
 true, as wholesome, and inspiring as ever. Jesus the 
 ideal represents, and will continue to represent, all that 
 was implied in the arcane religions in the East. Upon 
 this ground, therefore, it is well that Christianity in its 
 external forms as well as in its esoteric principles should 
 supplant the other worships. It repeats what there is 
 of value in them, and at the same time it comes more 
 closely home to the higher consciousness. In the per- 
 sonification of Jesus the true ideal of our humanity is 
 suggested. We are born of our earthly father and 
 mother, whose image and name we accordingly inherit, 
 and we have to pass through the pains and throes of a 
 second birth as children of the celestial parent. This 
 was outlined distinctly by symbols in the initiations, 
 and the successful candidate, having overcome in the 
 trial, was enthroned and acknowledged as the son of 
 the Most High. Hence Jesus sets forth in the Gospel 
 the last disclosure of the Essenean rite : " Call no man 
 father on the earth, for one is your Father ; he is in the 
 heavens; and you are brothers." Paul repeats the 
 sentiment in other words : " As many as are led by the 
 Spirit of God, they are the sons of God ; heirs of God 
 and joint-heirs with Christ." This idea, often too 
 much lost sight of, lies at the core of all real know-
 
 THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS. 275 
 
 ledge. The end of all worship, all philosophic dis- 
 cipline, and all religious teaching is to open the way 
 in every mind to a higher perception and a profounder 
 conscientiousness. 
 
 Yet the suggestion of the angel at the sepulchre is 
 pertinent that we forbear to seek for the living among 
 the dead. The real enlightenment of mankind comes 
 not from teachers, but only from the fountains of inte- 
 rior illumination. We have no call or occasion to go 
 to this man or to that man as a leader. It may be the 
 province of individuals to stand out conspicuously in 
 order to indicate the next advance to be made. But 
 when each has thus performed his service, his glory is 
 outshone by the refulgent light which he has induced 
 others to seek and obtain. 
 
 We require no display of spiritual pyrotechnics. 
 Enough for us that there is truth, and that we have 
 the intellect to perceive it that there is right, and we 
 have the will to obey it. Neither a human God nor a 
 divine man can enlighten us further than this. There 
 are freedom and impulse for us to attain the highest 
 degree of illumination of which we are capable. The 
 human aspiration soars beyond the path of the light- 
 ning. In every noble idea, every worthy desire, we 
 have a mediator with God. The more silent the work, 
 the more certain that the principle of all life is per- 
 forming it. In this is our eternity, and there is 
 nothing beyond.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE IDEAL CHRIST. 
 
 "What think ye of Christ? Whose son was he?" MATT. 
 22 : 42. 
 
 NEARLY a quarter of a century ago (1868) a very 
 remarkable pamphlet was published by request of the 
 Free Religious Association, written by that remarkable 
 man, the Rev. Samuel Johnson, a Unitarian minister 
 and an author of no little repute. The subject was 
 TJie Worship of Jesus. It had a very limited circula- 
 tion, and the stereotype plates were destroyed in the 
 great Boston fire, and it is now very difficult to find a 
 copy. 
 
 Mr. Johnson takes the ground that " Christianity is 
 a temporary step in the divine growth of man through 
 the worship of the ideal ; and this hope lies, not in 
 pausing on this step as final, nor in proving the names 
 and personalities associated with it to be as valid for 
 ever as they have been in the past, but in that which 
 underlies and governs the whole process the law of 
 religious idealization. 
 
 " This is no speculation ; it is the positive law of 
 progress, as history presents it. To worship ideals is 
 the condition of spiritual life. To lose belief that there 
 
 276
 
 THE IDEAL CHRIST. 277 
 
 is somewhere a better than ourselves is to gravitate 
 downward to what is worse than ourselves. We grow 
 better by definite homage to a best. And this worship 
 of ideals is a process of idealization. . . . Man's power 
 of growth, therefore, resides in the ability to shift his 
 veneration. . . . 
 
 "Ideals prove themselves to be idealizations, that 
 they may point him on to higher levels. This is re- 
 ligious progress. . . . 
 
 " So a time comes when every religion that centres 
 in an individual's prerogative of divinity falls under 
 criticism, and is, so far, referred to temporary causes. 
 Christianity cannot escape this law. As a distinct re- 
 ligion it is but Christism, and passes away, like Jeho- 
 vism, before a broader faith. Whether what succeeds 
 it be called Theism or Pantheism, this terminology of 
 systems fails to express its scope. It is free worship 
 of the one infinite and eternal life of the spiritual, 
 moral, and physical universe. . . . 
 
 " How, then, did the concentration of the religious 
 sentiment upon Jesus originate? Not, as the Church 
 insists, in the undeniable rights of a perfect Being to 
 the everlasting allegiance of mankind, for there is no 
 evidence of his perfection, intellectual or spiritual, but 
 in the fact that the religious sentiment, at a certain 
 stage of its historical progress, demanded a single hu- 
 man centre, and knew how to satisfy its own demand 
 by its own process of idealization. 
 
 " The ideal itself was sent in the soul of the age. It 
 was bound to do what it would with its materials by
 
 278 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 its own divine gift. It was the creative force of the 
 time. It is not the whole truth to say with Merivale, 
 then, that ' the religion of Christ seized and developed, 
 with a divine energy, the latent yearnings of mankind 
 for social combination, having for its essence, in a hu- 
 man point of view, the doctrine of the equality of man.' 
 Rather did that religion catch a spirit of universality 
 already abroad in the age not latent, but mighty to 
 transform society, to inspire both Hebrew Messiah and 
 Gentile philosopher, to make its god in its own image, 
 and to transform the little Jewish sect at last into a 
 Church of civilization. . . . 
 
 " And this, at least, is sure ; always there is a man 
 for the hour. Somehow or other, a great demand will 
 find satisfaction. But the man is not what the hour 
 reports him when it has crowned him with all that 
 faith and fancy can bestow, and set up, through him, 
 its own special demand as valid for all time. Future 
 ages will revise, from a freer standpoint, the image it 
 transmits for their adoration. . . . 
 
 " The earliest types and emblems of Christ-worship 
 betray this powerful element in its origination. Jesus 
 is represented in the form of the old deities and in con- 
 junction with them. Between the images of Mercury 
 Criophorus and Apollo Nomius, and that of the ' Good 
 Shepherd/ the transition is so gradual that it is hard 
 to decide whether the picture is pagan or Christian. 
 In the Catacombs Jesus sits as Pluto on the judgment- 
 seat, with Mary as Proserpine, while Mercury leads in 
 souls. Still earlier emblems of Jesus, the Lamb, the
 
 THE IDEAL CHRIST. 279 
 
 Fish, the Ship, the Cross, the Dove, are all associated 
 with older heathen mysteries or mythological beliefs, 
 as are also the Christian festivals and rites. 
 
 " And so the idealization of Jesus went on steadily 
 and consistently till it reached deification. The early 
 Christian ' apologists ' ridiculed the human gods of the 
 old polytheism, yet they did but concentrate the same 
 principle more perfectly in the form of their Christ. 
 Hebrew monotheism was indeed too strong in Paul to 
 allow of his finding in Jesus more than a man in whom 
 the fulness of the Godhead dwelt. But this hovers 
 very close upon the larger desire of the nations. And 
 later, in the Gospel of John, the Gentile current has 
 absorbed the Hebrew and the call for a God-man is 
 boldly met. A life of Jesus is here dramatically con- 
 structed, not out of historical facts, nor even traditions, 
 but out of that preconceived ideal of an incarnate word 
 attaching itself, in its longing for actual and living sub- 
 stance, to the growing prestige of his name. . . . 
 
 " The records of Jesus' life have had to be idealized 
 also ; and these are not, like his person, so dim and 
 veiled as to leave the religious imagination a certain 
 margin of freedom, however inadequate, but a definite 
 statement of doctrines, doings, and claims ; so that 
 science, philosophy, art, and morality have been taught 
 to bow in his name to the limitations of half-developed 
 times and men. 
 
 " It is not denied that by leaving out what we dis- 
 like we can find in the New-Testament Jesus as noble 
 an ideal as we will, though it can be only of a purely
 
 280 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 interior individualism, unrelated to practical and po- 
 litical functions. But we cannot ignore the many 
 sources, apart from the real life of Jesus, from which 
 this feast of good things has been derived. The New 
 Testament is, in fact, not so much the record of a life 
 as the fruit of two ancient civilizations, the Oriental 
 and Greek, of whose confluence Christianity itself was 
 the product. . . . 
 
 " It is urged that we destroy the basis of religious 
 unity when we take away this historical and personal 
 centre of faith. Men absolutely need, it is said, that 
 concrete form, that individuality, under which the 
 divine is represented to them in the Christ. There 
 would be more cause for this anxiety if it could be 
 shown that they have ever possessed such a centre. 
 But what have they had, after all, but a common name 
 for ever-changing ideals? The belief that all eyes 
 were turned to a common authoritative centre was an 
 illusion, which had its uses, indeed, but becomes a 
 breeder of strife in proportion as men learn the rights 
 of free inquiry. ' Worship the Christ ! follow Jesus P 
 cry the ages. But who is Jesus? and what is the 
 Christ? The Jesus of Matthew is one, the Christ of 
 John is another, the l second Adam ' of Paul is a third. 
 The moral as well as the theological contents of the 
 name vary with the ages and the sects that appeal to 
 it. As the Christ of Luther was not the Christ of 
 Augustine, nor his the Christ of James, so the Christ 
 of the Unitarian is one, of the Calvinist another. 
 Whom the one will save, the other will destroy ; what
 
 THE IDEAL CHRIST. 281 
 
 to the one is moral wrong, to the other is divine right ; 
 what love would require in the one, justice would fore- 
 close in the other. What common centre can the lib- 
 eral Bible scholars and the panic-stricken, text-ridden 
 Revivalists find in the name of Christ ? All the warring 
 sects have been ' standing up for Jesus ;' and which of 
 them knows what Jesus was? The farther you get 
 back toward the original, the less sure do you feel of 
 your own knowledge, and the less right should you 
 feel from what you know in part to assume that you 
 have found the appointed centre of religious thought. 
 It would be easy to show that unity is impossible so 
 long as it is sought to found it on the claims of a per- 
 son to that position, since the mysterious irrationality 
 of such an office must keep the speculative faculties of 
 mankind in ceaseless self-contradiction and strife. It 
 would be easy to show that this claim of Jesus has been 
 the perpetual root of dogmatic warfare that all barbar- 
 ism of the Christian Church in past ages has come of 
 jealousy about the honor due the person of the Christ." 
 We offer no appology for these long extracts from 
 Mr. Johnson's inimitable little book of ninety pages. 
 " He being dead yet speaketh," and his words give no 
 uncertain sound. He was in advance of the times, 
 and if his brethren in the Unitarian ministry would 
 regard Jesus, whom they almost deify, as an ideal 
 (quite imperfect) that has come down to us from pagan 
 peoples, and cease to court the favor of the orthodox, 
 they would have more self-respect and more real regard 
 from the thinking men of the age.
 
 282 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 We might as well now come directly to the question 
 whether the Jesus of the Gospels was an ideal rather 
 than a historical individual an impersonation rather 
 than a person. And here we take the broad ground 
 that whether there was a real man or not makes no 
 difference whatever, because the writings themselves 
 are largely ideal, and so make the man what he was 
 not. No two persons worship the same God, the 
 "personified Infinite." 'The conception of God must 
 itself be limited and incomplete, and therefore inad- 
 equate and largely ideal. No two persons believe in 
 the same Jesus, so there must be as many ideals as there 
 are believers. The habit of exaggerating, of deifying 
 those whom we have been taught to regard as the 
 greatest and best, is a well-known disposition of the 
 human mind. Indeed, "the function of the Church 
 is the cultivation of the ideal." This is so palpable 
 that the legends of all religions recognize this principle 
 to such an extent that most of them represent their 
 "saviors" as having been born of virgin mothers. 
 Catholics flock to their temples and in parrot-like 
 utterances worship an ideal Jesus and an equally ideal 
 Virgin, and thus cultivate only the ideal side of their 
 nature. It is very much easier to excite the imagina- 
 tion than to convince the understanding ; and this is 
 the real secret of the strength of Catholicism and of 
 the weakness of Protestantism. Catholic worship is 
 mainly spectacular, an appeal to the senses, and is 
 therefore attractive alike to the uneducated and the 
 educated. They believe the Gospels literally, because
 
 THE IDEAL CHRIST. 283 
 
 they have had the principal incidents recorded in them 
 set forth before their eyes from their very birth, and 
 they cannot be reasoned out of what they have never 
 been reasoned into. 
 
 But we are told that Jesus must have been a real 
 person or he never could have exerted the influence 
 that he has for the last eighteen hundred years upon so 
 many millions of people. Let us see : If Jesus ever 
 dwelt upon this earth, it must have been several hun- 
 dred years ago. Not one of the many millions who have 
 worshipped him since his few years of sojourn here 
 but have done so in view of what they have heard of him 
 or read of him. They never saw him and never heard 
 his voice. He wrote nothing, and never authorized 
 any one else to write anything. After the lapse of 
 nearly two centuries the four Gospels appeared. 
 Very little is told of him there. If you take out 
 what is repeated concerning him therein, you would 
 not have, in length, what would make a modern ser- 
 mon ; and that would be found full of contradictions, 
 absurdities, and impossibilities. Those who have be- 
 lieved on him have believed on what they called testi- 
 mony concerning him ; and that testimony would have 
 produced the same eifect whether true or false if they 
 really believed it. The real existence of an alleged person 
 is not essential to excite admiration if it is really believed 
 that he existed. The Swiss loved and honored William 
 Tell just as much as if he had not in these latter years 
 been proved a myth. The world's history teems with 
 the heroic deeds of many noble persons (impersonations)
 
 284 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 who never had an existence, and the literature of the 
 race would greatly suffer by striking out all that is 
 fictitious. The reason that the ideal Christ has exerted 
 so much greater influence than any other impersonation 
 is because so many skilful artists have bestowed their 
 best labor upon it, and because the figure is so ancient 
 and contains so many features that commend themselves 
 to the human mind and heart. 
 
 We find in Natural Genesis, by the English poet 
 Gerald Massey, a passage which so beautifully portrays 
 our own view of this subject that we cannot forbear 
 copying it : 
 
 " It has often been said that if there were no his- 
 toric Christ then the writers who represented such a 
 conception of the divine man must have included 
 amongst them one who was equal to the Christ. But 
 the mythical Christ was not the outcome of any such 
 conception. It was not a work of the individual mind 
 at all, but of the human race a crowning result of 
 evolution versus any private conception of a hero. 
 This was the hero of all men, who never was and was 
 never meant to be human, but from the beginning was 
 divine; a mythical hero without mortal model, and 
 equally without fault or flaw. This was the star-god 
 who dawned through the outermost darkness ; this was 
 the moon-god who brought the message of renewal and 
 immortality ; this was the sun-god who came with the 
 morning to all men ; this in the Krouian stage was the 
 announcer of new life and endless continuity at the 
 opening of every cycle, and in the psychotheistic phase
 
 THE IDEAL CHRIST. 285 
 
 the typical son of the Eternal as manifester and repre- 
 sentative in time. 
 
 " As a mental model the Christ was elaborated by 
 whole races of men, and worked at continually, like the 
 Apollo of Greek sculpture. Various nations wrought 
 at this ideal, which long-continued repetition evoked 
 from the human mind at last as it did the Greek god 
 from the marble. 
 
 " Egypt labored at the portrait for thousands of years 
 before the Greeks added their finishing touches to the 
 type of the ever-youthful solar god. It was Egypt 
 that first made the statue live'with her own life, and 
 humanized her ideal of the divine. Hers was the 
 legend of supreme pity and self-sacrifice so often told 
 of the canonical Christ. She related how the very god 
 did leave the courts of heaven and come down as a 
 little child, the infant Horus born of the Virgin, 
 through whom he took flesh or descended into matter, 
 ( crossed the earth as a substitute,' descended into 
 Hades as the vivifier of the dead, their vicarious jus- 
 tifier and redeemer, the first-fruits and leader of the 
 resurrection into eternal life. The Christian legends 
 were first related of Horus, or Osiris, who was the em- 
 bodiment of divine goodness, wisdom, truth, and puri- 
 ty who personated ideal perfection in each sphere of 
 manifestation and every phase of power. This was the 
 greatest hero that ever lived in the mind of man not 
 in the flesh to influence with transforming force ; the 
 only hero to whom the miracles were natural because 
 he was not human. The canonical Christ only needed
 
 286 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 a translator, not a creator, a transcriber of the ' sayings ' 
 and a collector of the ( doings ' already ascribed to the 
 mythical Christ. 
 
 " The humanized history is but the mythical drama 
 made mundane. The sayings and marvellous doings 
 of Christ being pre-extant, the 'spirit of Christ,' the 
 1 secret of Christ, the t sweet reasonableness of Christ ' 
 were all pre-Cliristian, and consequently could not be 
 derived from any * personal founder ' of Christianity. 
 They were extant before the great delusion had turned 
 the minds of men and the figure-head of Peter's bark 
 had been mistaken for a portrait of the builder. 
 
 " The Christ of the Gospels is in no sense an histor- 
 ical personage or a supreme model of humanity a hero 
 who strove, and suffered, and failed to save the world 
 by his death. It is impossible to establish the exist- 
 ence of an historical character even as an impostor. 
 For such an one the two witnesses, astronomical myth- 
 ology and Gnosticism, completely prove an alibi. The 
 Christ is a popular lay figure that never lived, and a 
 lay figure of pagan origin a lay figure that was once 
 the Ram and afterward the Fish ; a lay figure that in 
 human form was the portrait and image of a dozen 
 different gods. 
 
 "The imagery of the Catacombs shows that the 
 types there represented are not the ideal figures of the 
 human reality. They are the sole reality of the centu- 
 ries after the Christian era, because they had been in the 
 centuries long before. The symbolism, the allegories, 
 the figures, and types remained there just what they
 
 THE IDEAL CHRIST. 287 
 
 were to the Romans, Greeks, Persians, and Egyptians. 
 The iconography of the Catacombs absolutely proves 
 that the lay figure, as Christ, must have sat for the 
 portraits of Osiris, Horus the child, Mithras, Bacchus, 
 Aristseus, Apollo, Pan, the Good Shepherd. The lay 
 figure or type is one all through. The portraits are 
 manifold, yet they all mean the mythical Christ under 
 whatsoever name. 
 
 " The typical Christ, so far from being derived from 
 the model man, has been made up from the features 
 of many gods, after a fashion somewhat similar to 
 those ' pictorial averages ' portrayed by Mr. Galton, 
 in which the characteristics of various persons are 
 photographed and fused in a portrait a composite 
 likeness of twenty different persons merged in one 
 that is not anybody. 
 
 " It is pitiful to track the poor faithful gleaners who 
 picked up every fallen fragment or scattered waif and 
 stray of the mythos, and to watch how they treasured 
 every trait and tint of the ideal Christ to make up the 
 personal portrait of their own supposed real one. His 
 mother, like the other forms of the queen of heaven, 
 had the color of the mater frugum, the complexion of 
 the golden corn ; and a Greek Father of the eighth 
 century cites an early tradition of the Christians con- 
 cerning the personnel of the Christ to the effect that in 
 taking the form of Adam he assumed features exactly 
 like those of the Virgin, and his face was of a wheaten 
 color, like that of his mother. That is, he (the seed) 
 was eorn-complexioned, as was the mother of corn, like
 
 288 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 Flava Keres, Aurea Venus, the Golden Lakshmi, the 
 Yellow Neith ; and the son was her seed, which in 
 Egypt was the corn brought forth at the vernal equi- 
 nox, and which was continued in the cult of Rome as 
 the ' bread-corn of the elect.' 
 
 " In the chapter of ' knowing the spirits of the East ' 
 the Osirified assumes the type of the virile and hairy 
 Horus, the divine hawk of the resurrection. This is 
 called the type under which he desires to appear before 
 all men ; and it is said, ' his hair is on his shoulder 
 when he proceeds to the heaven.' This long hair of 
 the adult Horus reaching down to the shoulders is a 
 typical feature in the portraits of the Messiah, the copy 
 of the Kamite Christ made permanent by the art of the 
 Gnostics. The halo of Christ is the glory of the sun- 
 god seen in his phantom phase when the more physical 
 type had become psychotheistic. Hence it is worn by 
 the child-Christ as the karast mummy. It is the same 
 halo that illumined Horus and lu-em-hept, Krishna 
 and Buddha, and others of whom the same old tales 
 of deliverance and redemption were told and believed. 
 Yet the dummy ideal of paganism is supposed to have 
 become doubly real as the man-god standing with one 
 foot in two worlds one resting on the ground of the 
 fall from heaven, and the other on the physical resur- 
 rection from the earth." 
 
 It is a well-known fact that many early Christian 
 sects absolutely denied the existence of Christ in the 
 flesh, regarding him as a phantom. It is very difficult 
 to decide whether the apostle Paul believed in a real or
 
 THE IDEAL CHRIST. 289 
 
 an ideal Christ. He wrote his Epistles before the 
 Gospels were written, and therefore could have learned 
 nothing from that source. Concerning the various 
 appearances of Jesus after the resurrection, he says : 
 " Last of all, he was seen of me, as by one born out 
 of due time ;" and this seems to bear out the conjecture 
 that Jesus was an ideal, inasmuch as it was not in the 
 flesh that he saw him, and his refusal to know him 
 after the flesh indicates his strong preference for him as 
 an idea, and not as a person. Paul makes no mention 
 of any miracle but that of the resurrection, and that 
 was manifestly a spiritual rather than a physical fact. 
 Moreover, he was a Pharisee, and it is difficult to see 
 how he could have " gloried in the cross " had he taken 
 the cross in a literal sense. He casts no reproach on 
 the Jews for causing Jesus to suffer, and never speaks 
 of the crucifixion as a crime, nor shows a particle of 
 sympathy or compassion with the sufferer. He seems 
 to have been the real founder of Christianity, and might 
 have had in view the direct action of the solar divinity 
 with whom Christ had become associated. 
 
 A careful analysis of the Pauline Epistles will show, 
 we think, that the Christ of Paul was an idea. And 
 here it is important to bear in mind that those who 
 attributed to him at least ten Epistles he never wrote 
 would not scruple to alter, amend, interpolate, and 
 change portions of the Epistles he actually did write. 
 Those who formed the system of Christian ecclesiasti- 
 cism never could afford to have a conscience. Those 
 Fathers of the second century who formed the founda- 
 
 19
 
 290 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 tions of the Catholic hierarchy were most unscrupulous 
 men. 
 
 Of the Gnostics, Mr. Gerald Massey speaks as 
 follows : 
 
 " The ancient wisdom of Egypt and Chaldea lived 
 on with the men who knew, called the Gnostics. They 
 had directly inherited the gnosis that remained oral, 
 the sayings uttered from mouth to ear that were to be 
 unwritten, the mysteries performed in secret, the science 
 kept concealed. The continuity of the astronomical 
 mythos of Equinoctial Christolatry and of the total 
 typology is proved by the persistence of the type the 
 ancient genitrix, the two sisters, the hebdomad of in- 
 ferior and superior powers, the trinity in unity repre- 
 sented by Jao, the tetrads, male and female, the double 
 Horus, or Horns and Stauros, the system of JEons, the 
 Karaite divinities, Harpocrates and Sut-Anubis, Isis 
 and Hathor. Theirs was the Christ not made flesh, 
 but the mauifester of the seven powers and perfect star 
 of the pleroma. The figure of eight, which is a sign 
 of the Nim or associate gods in Egypt, who were the 
 primary Ogdoad, is reproduced as a gnostic symbol, a 
 figure of the pleroma and fellow-type of the eight-rayed 
 star. The ' Lamb of God ' was a gnostic sign. ' Lord, 
 thou art the Lamb' (and 'our Light') was a gnostic 
 formula. The ' Immaculate Virgin ' was a gnostic 
 type. On one of the sard stones Isis stands before 
 Serapis holding the sistrum in one hand, in the other 
 a wheatsheaf, the legend being 'Immaculate is our 
 Lady Isis/ which proves the continuity from Kam.
 
 THE IDEAL CHRIST. 291 
 
 "It was gnostic art that reproduced the Hathor- 
 Meri and Horus of Egypt as the Virgin and child- 
 Christ of Home, and the icons of characters entirely 
 ideal which served as the sole portraits of the historical 
 Madonna and Jesus the Christ. The report of Irenseus 
 sufficed to show the survival of the true tradition. He 
 complains of the oral wisdom of the Gnostics, and says 
 rightly they read from things unwritten i. e. from 
 sources unknown to him and the Fathers in general. 
 Chief of these sources was the science of astronomy. 
 He testifies that Marcus was skilled in this form of the 
 gnosis, and enables us to follow the line of unbroken 
 continuity, and to confute his own assertion that Gnos- 
 ticism had no existence prior to Marcion and Valen- 
 tinus ; which shows he did not know, or else he denied 
 the fact, that the Suttites, the Mandaites, the Essenes, 
 and Nazarenes were all Gnostics ; all of which sects 
 preceded the cult of the carnalized Christ. Hippolytus 
 informs us that Elkesai said the Christ born of a Vir- 
 gin was ceonian. The Elkesites maintained that Jesus 
 the Christ had continually transformed and manifested 
 in various bodies at many different times. This shows 
 they also were in possession of the gnosis, and that the 
 Christ and his repeated incarnations were Kronian. 
 Hence we are told that they occupied themselves ' with 
 a bustling activity in regard to astronomical science/ 
 Epiphanius also bears witness that the head and front 
 of the gnostic boast was astronomy, and that Manes 
 wrote a work on astronomy, astronomy being the root 
 of the whole matter concerning Equinoctial Christolatry.
 
 292 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 " Nothing is more astounding, on their own showing, 
 than the ignorance of the Fathers about the nature, the 
 significance, the descent of Gnosticism, and its rootage 
 in the remotest past. They knew nothing of evolution 
 or the survival of types, and for them the new begin- 
 ning with Christ carnalized obliterated all that pre- 
 ceded. Such a thing as priority, natural genesis, or the 
 doctrine of development did not trouble those who 
 considered that the more the myth the greater was 
 the miracle which proved the divinity. 
 
 " Also, it has been asserted from the time of Irenseus 
 down to that of Mansel that the Gnostic heretics of the 
 second century invented a number of spurious Gospels 
 in imitation of or in opposition to the true gospel of 
 Christ, which has descended to us as canonical, authen- 
 tic, and historic. This is a popular delusion, false 
 enough to damn all belief in it from the beginning 
 until now. The ignorance of the past manifested by 
 men like Irenaeus is the measure of the value of their 
 testimony to the origines of Equinoctial Christolatry. 
 They who pretend to know all concerning the founding 
 and the founder know nothing of the foundations. . . . 
 
 " Gnosticism, according to those who are ignorant of 
 its origin and relationships, was supposed and assumed 
 to have originated in the second century ; the first being 
 carefully avoided, only proves that the A-Gnostics, 
 who had literally adopted the pre-Christian types, and 
 believed they had been historically fulfilled, were then 
 for the first time becoming conscious of the cult that 
 preceded theirs and face to face with those who held
 
 THE IDEAL CHRIST. 293 
 
 them to be the heretics. Gnosticism was no birth or 
 new thing in the second century, it was no perverter 
 or corrupter of Christian doctrines divinely revealed, 
 but the voice of an older cult growing more audible in 
 its protest against a superstition as degrading and de- 
 basing now as when it was denounced by men like 
 Tacitus, Pliny, Julian, Marcus Aurelius, and Porphyry. 
 For what could be more shocking to any sense really 
 religious than the belief that the very God himself had 
 descended on earth as an embryo in a virgin's womb, 
 to run the risk of abortion and universal miscarriage 
 during nine months in utero, and then dying on a cross 
 to save his own created world or a portion of its peo- 
 ple from eternal perdition? The opponents of the 
 latest superstition were too intelligent to accept a 
 dying deity. . . . 
 
 "Never were men more perplexed and bewildered 
 than the A-Gnostic Christians of the third and fourth 
 centuries who had started from a new beginning alto- 
 gether, which they had been taught to consider solely 
 historic when they turned to look back for the first 
 time to find that an apparition of their faith was follow- 
 ing them one way and confronting them in another ; a 
 shadow that threatened to steal away their substance, 
 mocking them with its aerial unreality ; the ghost of 
 the body of truth which they had embraced as a solid 
 and eternal reality claiming to be the rightful owner 
 of their possessions ; a phantom Christ without flesh or 
 bone ; a crucifixion that only occurred in cloudland ; a 
 parody of the drama of salvation performed in the air,
 
 294 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 with never a cross to cling to, not a nail-wound to 
 thrust the fingers into and hold on by, not one drop 
 of blood to wash away their sins. It was horrible. 
 It was devilish. It was the devil, they said, and thus 
 they sought to account for Gnosticism and fight down 
 their fears. ' You poor ignorant idiotai !' said the 
 Gnostics, ' you have mistaken the mysteries of old for 
 modern history, and accepted literally all that was only 
 meant mystically.' ' You spawn of Satan !' responded 
 the Christians, ' you are making the mystery by con- 
 verting our accomplished facts into your miserable 
 fables; you are dissipating and dispersing into thin 
 air our only bit of solid foothold in the world, stained 
 with the red drops of Calvary. You are giving a 
 Satanic interpretation to the word of revelation and 
 falsifying the oracles of God. You are converting the 
 solid facts of our history into your new-fangled alle- 
 gories/ 'Nay/ replied the Gnostics, 'it is you who 
 have taken the allegories of mythology for historic 
 facts.' And they were right. It was in consequence 
 of their taking the allegorical tradition of the fall for 
 reality that the Christian Fathers considered woman to 
 be accursed, and called her a serpent, a scorpion, the 
 devil in feminine form." 
 
 The Gnostics are said by Gibbon to have been " the 
 most polite, the most learned, and the most wealthy of 
 the Christian name." They were finally forbidden by 
 Theodosias I. to assemble at their places of meeting or 
 to teach their doctrines. Their books, too, were burned, 
 so that we have now no full account of them. Onlv
 
 THE IDEAL CHRIST. 295 
 
 those who lied about them have been permitted a 
 hearing. 
 
 The very fact that all the apparently historic events 
 in the life of Jesus have an astrological and metaphoric 
 character lifts him out of the category of physical hu- 
 manity into that of the ideal. We may relegate him 
 thither, and yet leave no vacant place in the arena of 
 common life. This would be in perfect keeping with 
 ancient usage. Among the reputed founders of philo- 
 sophic systems we have no evidence of the existence of 
 such great teachers as Manu, Kapila, Vyasa, Kanada, 
 or Gotama, and the founding of the principal common- 
 wealths was ascribed to demigods and fictitious epon- 
 ymous heroes. Rome, Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and 
 indeed every ancient city of note, was said to be estab- 
 lished after that manner. Even leaders and teachers 
 actually existing have been disguised by myth or the 
 characteristics of the doctrine which they taught. 
 Confucius and Zoroaster are hidden from view by the 
 character assigned to them by later writers. Even 
 Sokrates as he appears and speaks in the Platonic 
 Dialogues is little else than a personification of the 
 Akademic philosophy. When we consider that he is 
 closely assimilated to the sages and hero-gods of the 
 other worships, and that every significant point in his 
 history conforms to astrological periods and to similar 
 characteristics in the pagan religions, we cannot well 
 avoid the conclusion that he too is an ideal. 
 
 Mr. William Oxley of England, in his great work 
 on Egypt, takes the ground that the account we have
 
 296 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 of Jesus in the Gospels is substantially drawn from 
 Egyptian sources. 
 
 Amenoph III. was one of the greatest of the old 
 Egyptian kings. Amongst other gigantic works, he 
 built the temple at Luxor, much of which is buried in 
 sand and covered over by native houses. It is on the 
 walls of this temple that very remarkable sculptures 
 are portrayed relating to the birth, etc. of Amenoph 
 III. ; they are on the inner wall of the sacred shrine, 
 the holy of holies, and the sculptured scenes represent 
 the annunciation, the conception, the incarnation, birth, 
 and adoration of the divine man-child (Amenoph III.) 
 born from Mut-em-Sa. The two latter syllables mean 
 " the Alone," or Only One, and the whole title means 
 " the mother who gave birth to the Only One." 
 
 One fact is established beyond all cavil, and that is 
 that the New Testament is the product of an order of 
 men well versed in astronomy, and who by the aid of 
 that science produced, on lines laid down by the an- 
 cient Egyptian hierophants, a new version of the old 
 myths and allegories. We have as a fact the actual 
 names and dates plagiarized from an Egypto-Arabic 
 source, which undoubtedly betrays its origin, and the 
 interpretation of this, and numberless instances besides, 
 in strict accordance with the astrological formula and 
 system, with its Graeco-Egyptian zodiacal pictorial 
 representation s. 
 
 Oxley says : "Apropos to this doctrine, I have in 
 my possession two statuettes one dating from the 
 twenty-second dynasty, 900 B. c. of Isis, crowned
 
 THE IDEAL CHRIST. 297 
 
 and nursing the babe Horus. On my return from 
 Egypt through Italy, I obtained a statuette of Mary, 
 crowned and nursing the babe Jesus, which is an exact 
 copy of the Virgin and Child in the church of St. Au- 
 gustine in Rome. The figures are identical." 
 
 Face to face with such a fact, who dare assert that 
 the Egyptian Isis and Horus are a myth, and that the 
 Christian Mary and Jesus are really historical ? Some 
 simple-minded ones beguile themselves with the delu- 
 sion that these Egyptian and other heathen beliefs are 
 prophecies of the real Jesus who in the fulness of time 
 came down from heaven and was born of a virgin. 
 But against this we have not only the actual claim of 
 several Egyptian kings to be the " son of God accord- 
 ing to promise or prophecy" (sixteen hundred years 
 before Christ was born), but we have the fact of a 
 whole nation for thousands of years resting their hopes 
 of eternal salvation upon a belief that " the son of God, 
 Osiris, came down from heaven, took upon himself the 
 mortal form, was slain by wicked hands, rose again 
 from the dead, and ascended into heaven, where he be- 
 came the great judge of all mankind." 
 
 What adds to the difficulty is that no dates are given 
 in the writings of the early Christian authors, and, 
 what is more, many of their names are evidently noms 
 de plume ; for instance, the arch-heretic Arius and the 
 great Nicene Council seem to resolve themselves sim- 
 
 O 
 
 ply into a controversy relating to the sun-god under 
 the form of Aries (the Ram or Lamb) ; and as to dates 
 in connection therewith, they are simply Masonic points
 
 298 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 with an astronomical reference and symbolical mean- 
 ing. In plain terms, nearly the whole of both the Old 
 and New Testaments is an allegorical record of astral, 
 solar, and planetary phenomena, with personages sub- 
 stituted for zodiacal signs ; and with this key in hand 
 the Hermetic student can unravel the allegories which 
 are presented in such a form as to read like literal 
 history. 
 
 Our English name for the zodiacal sign referred 
 to is the Ram, but in Latin it is Aries, and Nisan 
 (which is the month of March). The "sacred year" 
 of all systems commences with this month and sign ; 
 hence the Arian heresy and the Council of Nice which 
 resolves itself into a descriptive personified account of 
 a conjunction of planets about the definite fixing of the 
 first point of Aries as a basic point in time in history, 
 and which point is used in astronomical science to this 
 day. But the appearance of the Cross, with the letters 
 I H S on the planispherical chart, gives the key to the 
 solution of the mystery. The Church interprets these 
 letters to stand for Jesus Salvator Hominum i. e. Jesus 
 the Saviour of Men. The initiates read them as nu- 
 merals, which stand for 608 ; which is the exact period 
 of a solar-lunar cycle i. e. the number of years which 
 pass before the sun and moon occupy the same relative 
 positions in the heavens. 
 
 According to the astral theology of ancient religious 
 systems, this cycle of 608 (or 600) years represented a 
 Messianic period, at the completion of which a new 
 messiah or avatar or savior was born upon the earth.
 
 THE IDEAL CHRIST. 299 
 
 The one prior to Jesus was Cyrus, who gave orders for 
 the building of the temple at Jerusalem just six hun- 
 dred years before Christ. Manatheo speaks of a 
 " Cyrus," son of Cambyses, first king of the twenty- 
 second dynasty, but no Cyrus appears in the Egyptian 
 annals. The biblical Cyrus is only another form of 
 Osiris, and is in reality a sun-savior. The Arabs 
 used the same system, for their Mohammed comes in 
 just about six hundred years after Christ, and their era 
 commences with their commencement of a new year, 
 which dates from 622 A. D. Even our latest era 
 Anno Domini did not come into general use until 
 about one thousand years after the event it is said to 
 commemorate had passed. This epoch was introduced 
 into Italy in the sixth century by Dionysius the Little, 
 a Roman abbot, and it began to be used in Gaul in the 
 eighth, but was not generally followed until the ninth 
 century. From extant charters in England it is known 
 to have been used a little before the ninth century, but 
 it did not come into common use for a century later. 
 Time was, for centuries after the alleged birth of Christ, 
 calculated from January 1 in the 4th of the 194th 
 Olympiad, the 753d A. u. c. of the foundation of Rome, 
 and 4714th of the Julian period. 
 
 The astro-theological foundation of the New Testa- 
 ment being demonstrated, the actual date of the com- 
 pilation of the matter becomes of secondary import- 
 ance, inasmuch as celestial phenomena are as true to- 
 day as they were when first used to symbolize the 
 intellectual and spiritual nature of man. As all
 
 300 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 nations that have any pretensions to be considered 
 civilized have had the same phenomena for their re- 
 ligious systems, and as the path of the solar orb has 
 been utilized for the history of its various personifica- 
 tions, the question arises, Which out of the many mes- 
 siahs or sun-saviors are true, and which are false? 
 As has been already noted, the leading incidents in the 
 memoirs of Osiris, Buddha, Chrishna, and Jesus are 
 identical in conception, but more or less varied in ex- 
 pression according to the idiosyncrasies of the writers. 
 The logical and true method is to regard one and all 
 as allegorical symbols, clothed not merely with an 
 eclectic intellectuality, but vested with a moral power 
 that can affect the heart and conscience of men for 
 good. 
 
 The parentage of Christianism is in Egyptian Osir- 
 ianism, while that of what we understand as Judaism 
 is attributable to Chaldean sources, both converging to 
 a common centre and finding a new expression through 
 two diverse orders, yet both equally versed in Cabal- 
 istic science, modified by the eclectic influences which 
 were active at the period of their production. 
 
 The ecclesiastical party, for reasons which are well 
 understood, never allowed the laity to be taught other 
 than the literal and surface meaning, while the mystic 
 brotherhoods were forbidden by the rules of their orders 
 to make public the real meaning of the symbols, of 
 which only the highest degree of initiates were allowed 
 to know. 
 
 Mr. William Oxley further thinks that if it were pos-
 
 THE IDEAL CHRIST. 301 
 
 sible to raise the veil that obscures the historic past it 
 would be found that the divine-human ideal figure of 
 Jesus Christ is the combination of the Western Hesus 
 and Eastern Christus. This accounts for the title, while 
 the incidents in the life of the historic Apollonius of 
 Tyana would supply material for the personal narra- 
 tive. In fact, the nervous desire of ecclesiastical re- 
 viewers to suppress or explain away the too patent 
 similarity between his and the Gospel life of Jesus is a 
 half admission of there being a substratum of truth in 
 the allegation. 
 
 Oxley says: "Against the claim for a very high 
 antiquity in regard to even the Old Testament, we are 
 confronted with the fact that all the Hebrew words 
 used in its compilation have their roots in the Arabic 
 language (or Aramaic, which closely borders upon the 
 Arabic) ; and what is not less strange is, that many of 
 the so-called apocryphal writings of the Christians are 
 still extant in the same language. As Christian pro- 
 ductions this fact is inexplicable, but considered as 
 Chrestonian tales or legends, it is easy to understand, 
 seeing that they relate to the humanized deity of that 
 geographical district. 
 
 He concludes that Christianity, considered as a living 
 spiritual truth, is the gradual development of a system 
 of thought, and is the resultant of the highest and best 
 conception of the human mind as an ideal of purity 
 and every virtue that it is capable of expressing ; and, 
 further, that this ideal was presented to different nations 
 long before the Christian one was known, and that it
 
 302 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 was the literalizing or personification of this written 
 ideal that afforded conditions for the superstructure of 
 ecclesiastical systems, dependent on a separate caste of 
 men set apart for the purpose of its support and propa- 
 ganda. As these men were able to grasp and wield 
 power over the intellect, and even persons, of their 
 votaries, so in exact ratio the spiritual and intellectual 
 ideal (which is not a monad, but universal) was lost, 
 and the assumed historical personage is exalted at the 
 expense of spiritual liberty and the birthright prerog- 
 ative of humanity. In short, the supposed Founder 
 of Christianity is not an historical personage, but an 
 old ideal presented in a newer and better and higher 
 form than its predecessors ; and, further, this ideal is 
 not dependent upon a past historical, but is held up as 
 the standard of attainment by humanity ; and as each 
 realizes the truth within him or herself, then they will 
 find that the real " Christ " is not and was not an his- 
 torical person, but a spiritual life-giving principle 
 within themselves. 
 
 The records of history show that a dramatic Christ 
 has come down the stream of time from the earliest 
 periods ; from India through Egypt, China, Assyria, 
 Babylon, Persia, Arabia, Asia Minor, and Palestine, 
 until the present time from the Buddha of the Tauric 
 constellations to the Aries and Pisces of the modern 
 Christ ; and all his manifestations possess the essential 
 characteristics of the one sun-god. Midway between 
 Buddhists and the Christians appears the sublimely 
 idealistic mythology of Greece, shining all over with
 
 THE IDEAL CHRIST. 303 
 
 the glory of the solar legend. Very prominent in this 
 system is the god-man Prometheus. The name is 
 synonymous with Logos, which is used in the fourth 
 Gospel in reference to Jesus, and signifies a demi-deity ; 
 and Prometheus means Providence, and is represent- 
 ed by the all-seeing Eye. We select him rather than 
 other notable impersonations, for the purpose of refer- 
 ring to the wonderful Greek drama written by -ZEschy- 
 lus (Prometheus Sound), which was acted in the theatre 
 of Athens at least five hundred years before the Chris- 
 tian era. The plot was derived from material even 
 then of great antiquity, and contains all the essential 
 features of the modern " Passion Play," so beautifully 
 portrayed upon canvas in our churches and eloquently 
 described by our ministers of the present day. No 
 author ever displayed greater powers of poetry in sup- 
 porting through this Promethean play the august cha- 
 racter of this divine sufferer. We give a few lines 
 from Potter's translation : 
 
 " I will speak, 
 
 Not as upbraiding them, but my own gifts 
 Commending. 'Twas I who brought sweet hope 
 To inhabit in their hearts ; I brought 
 The fire of heaven to animate their clay, 
 And through the clouds of barbarous ignorance 
 Diffused the beams of knowledge. In a word, 
 Prometheus taught each useful art to man." 
 
 He was called upon to explain how his goodness could 
 have brought upon him such extreme suffering, and 
 he says :
 
 304 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 " See what, a god, I suffer from the gods 1 
 For mercy to mankind I am not deemed 
 Worthy of mercy ; but in this uncouth 
 Appointment am fixed here, 
 A spectacle dishonorable to Jove ! 
 On the throne of heaven scarce was he seated, 
 On the powers of heaven 
 He showered his various benefits, thereby 
 Confirming his sovereignty ; but for unhappy mortals 
 Had no regard, but all the present race 
 Willed to extirpate and to form anew. 
 None save myself opposed his will. 1 dared, 
 And, boldly pleading, saved them from destruction 
 Saved them from sinking to the realm of night ; 
 For which ofience I bow beneath these pains, 
 Dreadful to suffer, piteous to behold !" 
 
 None remained to be witnesses of his dying agony 
 but the chorus of ever-faithful women, who bewailed 
 and lamented him. The earth trembled and the whole 
 frame of nature was convulsed, and the curtain fell on 
 the sublimest scene ever presented to human sight a 
 dying god ! The preternatural darkness was exhibited 
 on the stage, and the most agonizing and heartfelt sor- 
 row manifested by the weeping audience. It was the 
 " Passion Play." 
 
 Let it be kept in mind that all of the incidents of the 
 Gospels have been acted in the theatres or illustrated 
 in the sacred rites and religious ceremonies of pagan 
 peoples from time immemorial. Are not the Gospels 
 a plagiarized and adapted drama? 
 
 We close this chapter with a further quotation from 
 Mr. Johnson :
 
 THE IDEAL CHRIST. 305 
 
 " I am not asserting that all this was pure fiction 
 that no one stood where men imagined they saw a God 
 on earth. But I do recognize the extreme difficulty 
 of satisfying a free and sincere mind as to how much 
 or how little did ' happen,' and the extreme hardihood 
 of asserting at this day that there was anything in the 
 person or life of Jesus to vest in him the claim to be 
 the enduring definitive centre of religious thought and 
 association under any name or title whatsoever. Nei- 
 ther the character of the records nor the manner of 
 their origination authorizes that postulate of perfection 
 through which alone such claim could vest in any be- 
 ing. The veneration of ages for his name deserves 
 respect as the satisfaction of a natural demand during 
 a certain stage of human progress. But it does not 
 prove him an exception to the law that the worship 
 of personages must give way to the worship of prin- 
 ciples the centrality of an individual to the centrality 
 of ideas the divinity or ' lordship ' of a man to the 
 deity of the infinitely wise and good. It illustrates 
 that law. Christism in due time passes, like polythe- 
 ism, and a larger faith succeeds. Thus the theory 
 refutes itself. 
 
 " The Christian idealization demands that all imper- 
 fections in the New-Testament Jesus shall be ascribed 
 to the misapprehensions of the disciples and the igno- 
 rance of the biographers. It is confident that Jesus 
 must have been greater than the record shows. But 
 we do not know that he was even so great as the record 
 shows. We are confidently told that such an ideal as 
 20
 
 306 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 can be there discerned presupposes its actual that no 
 man could have drawn such a character except from 
 life. ( Such a grand figure is not hewn out of air.' 
 But it is quite possible to carry this kind of divination 
 too far. 
 
 " If a man could be that, why could not a man or an 
 age conceive that it ought to be ? All that can fairly 
 be assumed is, that there must have been an impressive 
 life (or lives) behind all the construction ; and this is 
 not denied. But the necessities of the religious life in 
 that time produced Jesus. Why could they not mag- 
 nify their own product and improve upon it ideally as 
 they developed into new and larger demands? If we 
 are to insist that the idealizing faculty cannot go be- 
 yond actuality, no meaning will be left to the word 
 ideal, and no such faculty will remain. This is the 
 irony to which the old belief comes. . . . 
 
 " A pure and simple worship of the Infinite and 
 Eternal is the necessity of philosophy ; it is the goal 
 of science ; it is the true ground of trust and prayer 
 and love, of philosophic Theism and spiritual Panthe- 
 ism alike ; it is the parent of prophets, of mystics, of 
 reformers, of all true builders of man's social unity 
 and religious communion." 
 
 No reasonable man can doubt that the Christ of Paul 
 and the Gospels is largely, if not altogether, ideal ; and 
 in the succeeding chapter we proceed to give more 
 specifically our reasons for thinking so.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 JESUS AND OTHER CHRISTS. 
 
 " Come now, let us reason together." ISA. 1 : 18. 
 " Let me reason the case with thee." JER. 12 : 1. 
 
 THAT there should be held so many different views 
 concerning the character and work of Christ is itself a 
 very suggestive circumstance. It implies that the evi- 
 dence in the case is not direct and clear, and that there 
 are grounds for doubt and uncertainty. That honest, 
 well-meaning men should be left in doubt regarding 
 the most wonderful event in history, involving their 
 salvation, is still more astounding. One would sup- 
 pose that if so wonderful an event as the incarnation 
 of God had taken place it would have been made so 
 manifest that the most skeptical could not doubt it. 
 There seems to have been great neglect or indifference 
 regarding the matter. Contemporaneous history takes 
 no notice of Jesus, and the biographies that we have 
 of him cannot be shown to have had an existence until 
 nearly two centuries after he is said to have made his 
 advent ; and Paul, who had written concerning him 
 before these Gospels were compiled, was so ambiguous 
 that the most learned theologians differ as to whether 
 he regarded the Christ as an actual person or mere- 
 ly an impersonation. The early records of the life 
 
 307
 
 308 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 of Christ, if any existed, seem to have been destroyed 
 or lost, and there are no original documents nor authen- 
 ticated copies of such records. There can be no true 
 faith, no genuine intelligent belief, without evidence ; 
 and where is the evidence? To believe without some 
 reason for believing is blind credulity. The most in- 
 telligent Christian writers do not even pretend to have 
 any documents relating to the existence of Jesus that 
 by any strain of language can be called evidence. 
 
 Neander, an eminent Christian writer, author of a 
 Life of Christ, acknowledges in so many words his 
 painful consciousness of the utter lack of historic evi- 
 dence in regard to him, his acts, and wonderful per- 
 formances. He demands, as an imperative necessity, 
 to be permitted at the beginning to take the most im- 
 portant matters for granted. He asks : " What, then, 
 is the special presupposition with which we must ap- 
 proach the life of Christ ? It is, in a word, the belief 
 that Jesus Christ is the Son of God in a sense that can- 
 not be predicated of any human being, the truth that 
 Christ is God-man being presupposed." Neander, by 
 making this confession, surrenders the whole question. 
 There is no direct evidence of the existence of such a 
 person as Jesus of Nazareth, and all fair-minded, intel- 
 ligent Christian writers admit it. What is called evi- 
 dence is found only in the short sketches of the New 
 Testament, which have been shown to be no evidence 
 at all. 
 
 We might rest the case here. It is admitted that it 
 cannot be proved that Jesus existed, and when we un-
 
 JESUS AND OTHER CHEISTS. 309 
 
 dertake to show to the contrary we undertake to prove 
 a negative a thing which is never required in a court 
 of justice. Yet we do undertake it, and reverently 
 invite the reader to impartially consider the points in 
 our case. 
 
 There is in the biography of Jesus an utter want of 
 originality. It is a copy of other lives. It is a sig- 
 nificant fact that all the principal claims made for Jesus 
 of Nazareth had been made for others long before him. 
 We can only mention a few. 
 
 The birth of Buddha, like the birth of Jesus, was an- 
 nounced in the heavens by an asterism on the horizon 
 which is singularly called the " Messianic star." When 
 Chrishna was born his star was pointed out by Nared, 
 a great astronomer. 
 
 The birth of every East Indian avatar was announced 
 by celestial signs. Even the Jews have similar tradi- 
 tions regarding Moses and Abraham. Canon Farrar 
 admits in his Life of Christ that the Greeks and Ro- 
 mans always held this idea of the birth and death of 
 great men being presaged by mysterious stars, and 
 Tacitus affirms this regarding the dethronement of 
 Nero. All candid theologians admit that this doctrine 
 of the announcement of the birth of extraordinary per- 
 sons by the appearance of stars was a universal belief 
 among ancient peoples. 
 
 Luke is the only evangelist who records the fact 
 that the birth of Jesus was attended with the songs 
 of angels from the heavenly world, and there is good 
 reason for believing that this professed compiler drew
 
 310 SKELETON KEYS, 
 
 his information from the apocryphal Gospel called 
 " Protevangelion." But there is nothing novel in this 
 idea, for the same thing had long before been recorded 
 of Chrishna at his birth, that "the quarters of the 
 horizon were irradiate with joy," . . . that " the spirits 
 and nymphs of heaven danced and sang, and at mid- 
 night the clouds emitted low pleasing sounds and pour- 
 ed down rain of flowers." It is only necessary here to 
 state that similar demonstrations are alleged to have 
 attended the advent of other Hindoo saviors, and also 
 of Confucius, of Osiris, of Apollonius, of Apollo, of 
 Hercules, and of Esculapius. 
 
 It is certainly very singular that all the circumstances 
 connected with the birth of Jesus are recorded of sev- 
 eral other persons long before. Chrishna was cradled 
 among shepherds, to whom his birth was first announced, 
 and the prophet Nared visited his father and mother 
 and declared the child to be of divine descent. An 
 aged hermit named Asita, like Simeon of our Gospels, 
 visited the infant Buddha and predicted wonderful 
 things of his life and mission, and wept because he 
 was too old to see the day. Not only was the infant 
 Chrishna adored by the shepherds and magi, but was 
 presented with "gifts of sandal-wood and perfume," 
 very like- " frankincense and myrrh ;" and he was also 
 presented with gifts of " costly jewels and precious sub- 
 stances," very like "gold." Substantially the same 
 things are recorded of Mithras, the Persian savior, of 
 
 O W . 9 
 
 Socrates, and many of the Grecian and Roman demi- 
 gods.
 
 JESUS AND OTHER CHEISTS. 311 
 
 It must suffice it to say that these incidents are too 
 numerous and circumstantial to be mere coincidences. 
 King Kansa was jealous of the infant Chrishna, and 
 ordered a general slaughter of the infants under a cer- 
 tain age and in a certain district, just as Herod is false- 
 ly charged with having done when Jesus was born; 
 and as Joseph and Mary were warned in a dream to 
 flee into Egypt to save the young child's life, so the 
 foster-father of Christina was warned of danger by a 
 " heavenly voice," and he was taken to Mathura ; and 
 Canon Farrar, speaking of the sojourn of Joseph, 
 Mary, and the infant Jesus in Egypt, writes : " Ancient 
 legends say that they remained two years absent from 
 Palestine, and lived at Matarieh, a few miles north- 
 east of Cairo." This seems to be the same legend, but 
 the one regarding Chrishna is sculptured upon the 
 rocks and temples of India, while contemporary history 
 makes no mention of the slaughter of the innocents by 
 Herod ; and further embarrassment arises from the fact 
 that Herod was not king at that time, as the taxing 
 under Quirinus did not take place under the reign of 
 Herod, he having been dead for several years. 
 
 It would be easy to present more than a score of in- 
 stances in which persons who came to be regarded as 
 demigods and heroes had been obliged to flee from the 
 wrath of the reigning monarch at their birth, as is re- 
 corded of the infant Jesus. In all centuries of olden 
 times the reigning monarch has generally been jealous 
 of some mysterious child, whose parents or caretakers 
 were obliged to hide him away in some safe resort.
 
 312 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 The long fast and temptation of Jesus in the wilder- 
 ness, found in the Gospel "according" to Matthew, 
 have numerous parallels in the experience of other 
 Messiahs, even in minor details. The last generally, 
 as in the case of Moses, the Ninevites, and Jesus, last- 
 ed forty days, but that of Buddha continued forty- 
 seven days, and in his weakness and attenuation of 
 body he was tempted by Mara, the prince of evil, who 
 promised him all the kingdoms of the earth, " univer- 
 sal empire," on certain conditions ; but, like Jesus, he 
 said, " Avaunt ! get thee away from me !" After the 
 temptation and triumph both Buddha and Jesus were 
 ministered unto by visiting angels ! Zoroaster, the 
 founder of the Persian religion, had a similar expe- 
 rience with the devil, of which there are fully detailed 
 reports. 
 
 Both Chrishna and Jesus were precocious boys, dis- 
 puting with doctors and astonishing their teachers with 
 their learning, which had not been acquired in the 
 usual way; and both wandered away from their 
 parents and became objects of anxiety and search to 
 anxious mothers. Both preached a celebrated sermon, 
 wrought numerous and very similar miracles, were 
 hated and opposed by the priests of their day, and 
 both suffered premature violent deaths at about the 
 same age, and then arose from the dead. 
 
 These parallels might be given to an indefinite 
 extent, as they appear in Asiatic Researches, by Sir 
 William Jones ; Upham's History and Doctrine of 
 Buddhism; Hardy's Manual of Buddhism; and nu-
 
 JESUS AND OTHER CHRISTS. 313 
 
 merotis other ancient and modern writings on this 
 subject ; and the parallel facts presented by these au- 
 thorities are admitted by the most distinguished Chris- 
 tian writers not a few. 
 
 In regard to miracles it is thought best to say only 
 a passing word. 
 
 It is admitted by the ablest theologians of the ortho- 
 dox schools that miracles are indispensable to establish 
 the claim of a special supernatural revelation, and great 
 reliance is made upon the miracles accredited to the 
 Christian Christ; and yet we find other saviors and 
 heroes credited not only with the same miracles sub- 
 stantially, but with a larger number of even more 
 wonderful miracles. It would be easy to fill a large 
 volume with the alleged miracles of Buddha and 
 Chrishna, and Prof. Max Miiller affirms that the 
 Buddhistic miracles "surpass in wonderfuluess the 
 miracles of all other religions." Zoroaster, Buddha, 
 Osiris, Isis, and Horus all wrought miracles, even the 
 raising of the dead ; Serapis, Marduk, Bacchus, Escu- 
 lapius, and Apollonius did the same ; and the early 
 Christian Fathers admitted the reality of heathen mir- 
 acles, but very conveniently attributed them to the 
 devil. In short, it may safely be affirmed that more 
 wonderful and better-authenticated accounts of miracles 
 are given of numerous other persons, both before and 
 after the advent of the Christian Christ, than are given 
 of his miracles in the Gospels. 
 
 The Greeks were accustomed to say, " Miracles for 
 fools," and the Romans shrewdly said, " The common
 
 314 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 people like to be deceived deceived let them be;" 
 and even the Christian Father St. Chrysostom declared 
 that " miracles are proper only to excite sluggish and 
 vulgar minds ; men of sense have no occasion for them." 
 The modern theological idea of proving the record by 
 the miracle, and the miracle by the record, has become 
 too transparent for even the most credulous. 
 
 There is also great confusion about the time of the birth 
 of Jesus, though the Church in a sort of perfunctory 
 manner settled this by saying he was born December 
 25, A. D. One. But the Church adopted this date for 
 reasons of an astronomical character. More than one 
 hundred different dates, some extending back nearly a 
 century, have been fixed as to his birth, showing that 
 no one knew anything about it. A blundering notice 
 of his birth assigns its date to the period when Cyrenius 
 was governor of Syria, and makes the enrolment or- 
 dered by that official the occasion of Joseph's temporary 
 sojourn at Bethlehem when that event took place. This 
 enrolment, however, was not made till after the dis- 
 placement of Archelaus from the kingdom of Judea 
 and some ten years or more after the death of Herod, 
 and the story is accordingly in direct contradiction with 
 the account of the flight of Joseph into Egypt, while 
 Herod was still alive, to preserve the life of his son 
 from that monarch's jealousy. But what is very sig- 
 nificant is the fact that when Cyrenius commanded the 
 enrolment Judas of Galilee arose and denounced it. 
 He established a distinct sect which continued till the 
 overthrow of the Jewish people.
 
 JESUS AND OTHER CHRISTS. 315 
 
 Josephus says : " When Cyrenius had now disposed 
 of Archelaus's money, and when the taxings were come 
 to a conclusion, which were made in the thirty-seventh 
 year of Caesar's victory over Antony at Actium," Antiq. 
 xviii. 2. The battle of Actium, in which Octavianus 
 gained his final victory over Antony, occurred in 
 B. c. 31. Counting thirty-seven years, would bring 
 the date of the taxings down to A. D. 6. Archelaus 
 after reigning ten years was deposed for misconduct, 
 and banished into Gaul. Cyrenius, a Roman senator, 
 had been sent by the government to settle up his 
 finances and take an account of the substance of the 
 Jews, or, in other words, to assess their property in 
 order to apportion their taxes. These things were 
 done in the thirty-seventh year after the battle of 
 Actium, or in 6 A. D. Counting ten years back, we 
 would be at the year 4 B. c., or the year Archelaus 
 began to reign. As Herod of course was dead be- 
 fore Archelaus ascended the throne, he consequently 
 died before Christ was born, and hence the entire 
 story of the slaying of the infants, the journey of 
 the wise men, and the flight into Egypt falls help- 
 lessly to the ground. 
 
 " But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in 
 Judea, in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid 
 to go thither : notwithstanding, being warned of God 
 in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee." 
 Matt. 2 : 22. 
 
 Here we have a strange state of affairs. Joseph and 
 the young child turned from Judea to Galilee when
 
 316 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 Archelaus was as powerful in the one country as in the 
 other, for his ethnarchy included both ! 
 
 In reading the first chapter of Matthew's Gospel we 
 find an inexplicable mystery. The very first verse 
 reads : " The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, 
 the son of David, the son of Abraham." Then in the 
 sixteenth verse it is said, " And Jacob begat Joseph, 
 the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is 
 called Christ." In the eighteenth, nineteenth, and 
 twentieth verses the Holy Ghost is represented as the 
 real Father of Jesus by a virgin ; and his miraculous 
 divine descent is elsewhere specifically taught in the 
 Gospels, and the divine Sonship of Jesus has been 
 accepted as a fact by the general Church Roman 
 Catholic, Greek, and Protestant. 
 
 On the other hand, there is proof positive, if the 
 record is accepted, that Jesus claimed for himself sim- 
 ple humanity, and consequent inferiority and subjection 
 to God ; and Roman Catholics and orthodox Protestants 
 very conveniently settle these contradictions by affirm- 
 ing that he was both God and man ; while Unitarians 
 reject the divinity of Jesus, and by way of apology for 
 so doing magnify his manhood so as to make him quite 
 divine, a human god. 
 
 It would be easy to fill volumes with accounts, with 
 very slight variations, of the miraculous conception 
 and birth of divine personages born of virgin mothers, 
 who, after laboring and suffering for the good of men, 
 came to a tragic death, which was generally followed 
 by a triumphant resurrection and subsequent deifica-
 
 JESUS AND OTHER CHRISTS. 317 
 
 tion. The cases are so numerous that one hardly 
 knows where to begin to enumerate them. It would 
 be easy to furnish a roll containing the names of scores 
 of incarnate deities, and it would be tedious to describe 
 the many things in which they substantially agree. 
 
 According to some modern writers, supported by 
 abundant sculptures in temples, caves, and rocks, 
 Vishnu, the second person of the Hindoo trinity, has 
 been incarnated eight or nine times, Buddha being the 
 first, Chrishna the eighth, and Gautama, also called 
 Sakya-Muni, the ninth. The fact that these alleged 
 incarnations took place at uniform intervals show their 
 astronomical origin. 
 
 Equally suggestive is the fact that there are so many 
 peculiarities connected with the birth of these gods, and 
 also so many incidents in their lives and deaths abso- 
 lutely identical. 
 
 The name of the mother of Buddha was Maia, and 
 the same name was given to the mother of the Greek 
 Mercury and even to later divinities ; which, like the 
 name Mary, typifies the sea and sometimes the month 
 of May. 
 
 Buddha had no earthly father, but was an immac- 
 ulate conception of a ray of celestial light through a 
 virgin mother. Chrishna, the eighth Indian incarna- 
 tion, was born of the left intercostal rib of a virgin. 
 His birth was concealed through fear of the tyrant 
 Kansa. He raised the dead and wrought marvellous 
 miracles, and washed the feet of the Brahmans. It 
 would be tedious to give details, as almost every in-
 
 318 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 cident recorded in the Gospels of the life of the alleged 
 Christian incarnation is recorded in circumstantial de- 
 tail of some ancient pagan deity. 
 
 The fact is, that all the great nations of antiquity, 
 and many of the smaller tribes, have had very similar 
 views as to divine manifestations in human flesh ; and 
 you need only turn to the pages of any good dictionary 
 of mythology to verify the truth of this allegation. 
 
 We might extend these analogies to an indefinite 
 extent. The author of Bible Myths has specified about 
 fifty particulars in which Jesus is said to have resem- 
 bled Buddha, and as many more particulars in the case 
 of Chrishna. Nobody having any knowledge of the 
 world's history will doubt that these Indian divinities 
 preceded the Judean Christ by several centuries, as 
 many distinguished writers, like Prof. Max Miiller, 
 have admitted. 
 
 We challenge the theologians to present one single 
 prominent feature or characteristic said to have been 
 shown in the career of Jesus which did not appear in 
 several other alleged incarnations hundreds of years 
 before. The fact is, that the Christ of modern times 
 is a perfect copy of other Christs who preceded him. 
 Not only are all ancient Oriental scriptures full of 
 incarnated divine saviors, but the same symbols and 
 ceremonies abound in their worship. Take the cross, 
 for an example. In ancient India the cross was as 
 common as in modern Rome, and heathen temples 
 were built in the form of a cross centuries before 
 papists and Puseyites and their liberal imitators ever
 
 JESUS AND OTHER CHRISTS. 319 
 
 thought of such a thing. It was a common symbol in 
 the ancient worship of Egypt. It was a Druidic em- 
 blem in Britain five hundred years before the introduc- 
 tion of Christianity. Plato, the Grecian philosopher, 
 four hundred or five hundred years before Christ pro- 
 claimed the cross to be the best symbol of the divinity 
 next to the supreme. The worshippers of Serapis used 
 it, and Hadrian, the Roman emperor, as late as A. D. 130 
 mistook them for Christians. The standard portrait 
 of Jesus, so honored by modern Christians, is a copy 
 of the head of Serapis, the well-known sun-god, ac- 
 cording to the testimony of Mr. King in his able 
 work, Gnostics and their Remains (p. 68). 
 
 The same is true of baptism and the Eucharist, as 
 ceremonies identical with these, in their main aspects, 
 existed among the ancient pagans. The " Lord's Sup- 
 per " virtually was in use more than two hundred and 
 fifty years before Christ. Wherever Christian mis- 
 sionaries have gone they have found substantially the 
 same dogmas and religious observances, and Tertullian, 
 a Christian Father of the second century, conveniently 
 explained this fact by saying that the devil had taught 
 the heathen these same things to forestall the preaching 
 of the missionaries. 
 
 And yet Justin Martyr in the second century (A. D. 
 140), in defending the Christian religion against the 
 assaults of pagans, said : " For declaring that the 
 Logos, the first-begotten Son of God, our Master Jesus 
 Christ, to be born of a virgin without any human mix- 
 ture, and to be crucified and dead and to have arisen
 
 320 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 again into heaven, we say no more in this than what 
 you say of those whom you style the sons of Jove." 
 Here is a distinct admission in the second century, 
 from one in high authority, that the doctrine of the 
 death and resurrection of miraculously-incarnated 
 deities born of virgin mothers was well known among 
 pagans before the Christian era. 
 
 But we are not done with Justin Martyr yet. In his 
 Apology to the emperor Hadrian he makes this most 
 astonishing admission : " In saying that all things were 
 made in this beautiful order by God, what do we seem 
 to say more than Plato ? When we teach a general 
 conflagration, what do we teach more than the Stoics ? 
 By opposing the worship of the works of men's hands 
 we concur with Menander the comedian. . . . For you 
 need not be told what a parcel of sons the writers most 
 in vogue among you assign to Jove ; there's Mercury, 
 Jove's interpreter, in imitation of the Logos, in wor- 
 ship among you. There's ^Esculapius, the physician, 
 smitten by a thunderbolt, and after that ascending into 
 heaven. There's Bacchus, torn to pieces ; and Hercules, 
 burnt to get rid of his pains. There's Pollux and Cas- 
 tor, the sons of Jove by Leda, and Perseus by Danae ; 
 and, not to mention others, I would fain know why 
 you always deify the departed emperors, and have a 
 fellow at hand to make affidavit that he saw Csar 
 mount to heaven from the funeral pile? 
 
 "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
 
 JESUS AND OTHER CHBISTS. 321 
 
 of his wisdom, considering that you have your Mercury 
 in worship under the title of the Word and Messenger 
 of God. 
 
 " As to the objection of our Jesus being crucified, I 
 say that suffering was common to all the foremention- 
 ed sons of Jove, but only they suffered another kind 
 of death. As to his being born of a virgin, you have 
 your Perseus to balance that. As to his curing the 
 lame and the paralytic and such as were cripples 
 from birth, this is little more than what you say of 
 your ^Esculapius." 
 
 St. Augustine says : " For the thing itself which is 
 now called the Christian religion really was known to 
 the ancients, nor was not wanting at any time from the 
 beginning of the human race until the time when Christ 
 came in the flesh, from whence the true religion which 
 had previously existed began to be called Christian ; 
 and this in our day is the Christian religion, not as 
 having been wanting in former times, but as having 
 in later times received this name." 
 
 A fellow and tutor in Trinity College and lecturer 
 on ancient history in the University of Dublin (Mr. 
 Mahaffy) closes one of his lectures in the following 
 manner : " There is, indeed, hardly a great or fruitful 
 idea in the Jewish or Christian system which has not 
 its analogy in the (ancient) Egyptian faith. The devel- 
 opment of the one God into a trinity ; the incarnation 
 of the mediating deity in a virgin, and without a 
 father ; his conflict and his momentary defeat by the 
 powers of darkness ; his partial victory (for the enemy 
 21
 
 322 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 is not destroyed) ; his resurrection and reign over an 
 eternal kingdom with his justified saints ; his distinc- 
 tion from, and yet identity with, the uncreate incom- 
 prehensible Father, whose form is unknown and who 
 dwelleth not in temples made with hands, all these 
 theological conceptions pervade the oldest religion of 
 Egypt. So, too, the contrast and even the apparent 
 inconsistencies between our moral and theological be- 
 liefs the vacillating attribution of sin and guilt partly 
 to moral weakness, partly to the interference of evil 
 spirits, and likewise of righteousness to moral worth, 
 and again to help of good genii or angels ; the immor- 
 tality of the soul and its final judgment, all these things 
 have met us in the Egyptian ritual and moral treatises. 
 So, too, the purely human side of morals and the cata- 
 logue of virtues and vices are by natural consequences as 
 like as are the theological systems. But I recoil from 
 opening this great subject noio ; it is enough to have lifted 
 the veil and shown the scene of many a future contest." 
 
 Indeed, the ablest of the Christian Fathers never 
 claimed that Christianity was a new religion recently 
 and specially revealed by Jesus, but made many ad- 
 missions quite to the contrary. Clarke in his Evidences 
 says that the most ancient writers of the Church did 
 not scruple to acknowledge the Athenian Socrates a 
 Christian. 
 
 Clemens Alexandrinus, of the second century (A. D. 
 194), wrote: "And those who lived according to the 
 Logos were really Christians;" that is to say, those 
 who practically accepted the Greek conception of a
 
 JESUS AND OTHER CHRISTS. 323 
 
 divine incarnation were really Christians. And why 
 not, for is not John's Gospel an elaboration of the 
 Neo-Platonisra of the Greeks? and is not the whole 
 Christian scheme an ingenious combination of Judaism 
 and Oriental philosophy ? 
 
 Lactantius well said : " If there had been one to 
 have collected the truth that was scattered and diffused 
 among the sects into one, and to have reduced it into 
 a system, there would indeed have been no difference 
 between him and us." Could anything be more em- 
 phatic than this admission of a Christian Father of the 
 fourth century that Christianity is made up of frag- 
 ments of other religions? 
 
 A volume might be filled with similar admissions 
 from the highest Christian authority, for it would be 
 easy to show that it was the main argument of Justin 
 Martyr (A. D. 141) that the Christian religion contained 
 nothing that might not be found in all earlier religions, 
 and that therefore its votaries deserved toleration and 
 protection rather than persecution. 
 
 Compare the following, furnished by Mr. Johnson, 
 with the teachings of Jesus : 
 
 " When you have shut your doors and darkened your 
 room, beware of saying that you are alone, for you are 
 not alone, for God is within, and your genius is within, 
 and what need have they of light to see what you are 
 doing?" (Epictet., i. 14); "Dare look up to God, and 
 say, ' Use me as thou wilt. I am one with thee. I 
 refuse nothing that seems good to thee. Lead me 
 whither thou wilt'" (ii. 16); "Be not angry with
 
 324 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 the erring, but pity them rather" (i. 18); "Be pa- 
 tient, mild, ready to forgive, severe to none, knowing 
 that the soul is never willingly deprived of truth " 
 (ii. 22) ; " No need to lift up the hands or get close to 
 the ears of an image, so as to be heard. God is near 
 thee, with thee, in thee. I tell thee, Lucilius, a holy 
 spirit dwells within us, beholder of our conduct" 
 (Seneca, Ep., xli.) ; " Between God and good men is 
 friendship, yea, necessary intimacy " (De Prow., i. 5) ; 
 "What use in concealment from men? Nothing is 
 hid from God" (Ep., Ixxxiii. 1); "God escapes the 
 eyes ; he is seen by thought only " (Nat. Qucest., vii. 
 30) ; " No temples are to be built to him. He must 
 be hallowed by each in his own breast " (Seneca, quoted 
 by Lactantius, Inst., vi. 25) ; " Man's primal union is 
 with God " (Cicero, De Leg., i. 7) ; " Virtue is the 
 same in God and man ; man therefore is in the like- 
 ness of God " (ibid.). 
 
 We could multiply these quotations indefinitely, but 
 we forbear. The fact cannot be denied that Chris- 
 tianity is but the continuation and modification of the 
 old pagan religions, and that Egypt has to be largely 
 credited with supplying a great portion of the subject- 
 matter of our so-called "special revelation." We 
 could take up the sun-gods of Egypt and show that 
 all the titles and offices ascribed to them are given to 
 Jesus, and that often the very language is used. " Out 
 of Egypt have I called my Son " is emphatically true, 
 but in a broader and wider sense than is generally sup- 
 posed. This will be more clearly shown hereafter.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A REVERENT CRITIQUE ON JESUS. 
 
 WE say " reverent " out of pure regard to the feel- 
 ings of multitudes of devout persons who verily believe 
 that Jesus was and is God, and so any criticism of him 
 is simply blasphemous. This subject is not to be treat- 
 ed in a light or frivolous manner. 
 
 We say " reverent " also out of respect to a smaller 
 number of so-called liberals who deny the divinity of 
 Christ, but who nevertheless believe that Jesus was the 
 one pre-eminently good and wise man, and that no man 
 equal to him ever existed or ever will exist upon the 
 face of this earth ; that he was the special Son of God, 
 the model man, worthy of worship as the man who 
 possessed so much of the divine spirit as to entitle him 
 to the place of honor and grateful remembrance among 
 men for all time and in all countries. 
 
 We think it more honest and respectful to reverently 
 inquire into the evidences of his divine character, and 
 not to accept with blind credulity what other men say. 
 We are endowed with reason, and it seems to us proper 
 that we should exercise our rational faculties, and not 
 ignore them altogether. Honest doubt must be more 
 acceptable to him, if he is God, than unreasoning faith. 
 
 Now, we propose to look at him in the light of the 
 
 325
 
 326 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 New Testament, and especially of the Gospels, assuming 
 them to be authentic. We shall here pass by his in- 
 fancy and childhood (utterly ignoring the doubtful and 
 controverted passages concerning his immaculate con- 
 ception and miraculous birth), and take the first direct 
 account we have of his life. This commences when he 
 was about twelve years of age. We are told that he 
 accompanied his mother and putative father to Jeru- 
 salem, whither they went to attend the feast of the 
 Passover. Luke states that he strayed away from his 
 parents, who were greatly concerned for his safety, but 
 he was at length found in the temple among the doc- 
 tors asking and answering wonderful questions, so as 
 to astonish all who heard him with his wonderful 
 knowledge. His mother gently reproved him for giv- 
 ing them so much anxiety, and he answered back, 
 rather impatiently, "How is it that ye sought me? 
 Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's busi- 
 ness ?" But he went home with his parents and was 
 subject to them, and for at least eighteen years dwelt 
 with them and his brothers James, Joses, Judas, and 
 Simon. The names of his several sisters are not given. 
 During these eighteen years he is supposed to have 
 learned the trade of a carpenter and worked with his 
 reputed father, who was a carpenter, spending the most 
 vigorous portion of his life in manual labor, only de- 
 voting about three years to his mission as the Messiah. 
 Now, Jesus is held up as an " example," and we are 
 " to follow his steps," and it does not appear that there 
 was anything in his example specially worthy of imi-
 
 A REVERENT CRITIQUE ON JESUS. 327 
 
 tation for about thirty years. We must find it in the 
 last years of his earthly career if we find it at all. 
 
 The first instance in which the evangelists bring 
 Jesus forward as a moral teacher is in the Sermon on 
 the Mount. This discourse is supposed by Christians 
 to be the masterpiece of wisdom and deep spiritual in- 
 sight. While Matthew gives it as a complete discourse, 
 Mark and Luke intersperse the substance of the sermon 
 throughout their Gospels ; which is strong presumptive 
 proof that it was not delivered as a connected discourse. 
 Like the book of Proverbs, it seems to be a collection 
 of the moral sayings of former times, many of which 
 can be pointed out, with slight verbal alterations, in 
 the writings of pagan authors and of more modern 
 Jews of the Hillel school. In fact, there is nothing in 
 the sermon which had not been taught by many others 
 a long time before, while there is much that is absurd 
 and impracticable, not to say untrue and unjust. Even 
 the deep spirituality involved in recognizing the spirit 
 and intent of the law can be paralleled by several pas- 
 sages in Buddhistic scriptures. The so-called " Golden 
 Rule " was announced by Confucius as an axiom nearly 
 five centuries before the Christian era, both in its posi- 
 tive and its negative form, while the same maxim is 
 laid down in most choice and beautiful language by 
 Isocrates, Aristotle, Sextus, Pittacus, Thales, and many 
 others from three to six centuries before Christ. 
 
 The same is true of the Lord's Prayer, though it is 
 often asserted that Jesus first taught the " Fatherhood 
 of God and the brotherhood of man." This is not
 
 328 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 true. The " Lord's Prayer " is found in the ancient 
 Jewish rituals, and is entitled a " Prayer to the Father," 
 and the expression " Our Father who art in heaven " 
 is common to many, if not all, nations and religions. 
 
 While there are several things in the Sermon on the 
 Mount truly beautiful, there is nothing that is strictly 
 original ; there are many sayings which show a great 
 lack of knowledge, and that are positively impracticable 
 and immoral in their tendency. No Christian tries to 
 keep these sayings. It would lead to vagabondism 
 and would convert a nation into a crowd of tramps. 
 It would be positively immoral to obey them. If 
 Jesus did not intend that his teachings should be taken 
 according to the common sense of the words used, why 
 did he not say so ? What is language for but to ex- 
 press one's meaning ? So far from teaching the non- 
 resistance of evil, in other places he runs into the 
 extreme of teaching revenge. (See Luke 10 : 10-12 ; 
 Matt. 10 : 14, 15 ; Mark 6 : 11.) He also sanctions 
 the most gross injustice. He commends the unjust 
 steward (Luke 16:5-8), saying that he had "done 
 wisely " in cheating his employer by compounding with 
 his creditors, and advises his hearers to make " friends " 
 of the " mammon of unrighteousness." 
 
 Moreover, whoever is familiar with the teachings 
 ascribed to Jesus must know that his first condition 
 of discipleship is the total surrender of all worldly pos- 
 sessions and the non-accumulation of earthly treasures 
 thereafter (Matt. 16 : 24 ; Luke 14 : 26, 27 ; Matt. 19, 
 etc.). Can words be more emphatic than the utter-
 
 A EEVERENT CRITIQUE ON JESUS. 329 
 
 ances of Jesus reported in Matt. 6 : 19-34 ? " Lay not 
 up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth 
 and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through 
 and steal." . . . "For where your treasure is, there 
 will your heart be also." ..." Ye cannot serve God 
 and mammon." ..." Therefore I say unto you, Take 
 no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye 
 shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put 
 on." This absolute unconcern about food and raiment 
 is emphasized by repeating the injunction twice : 
 "Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we 
 eat ? or, What shall we drink ? or, Wherewithal shall 
 we be clothed ?" . . . " Take therefore no thought for 
 the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the 
 things of itself." 
 
 The attempts of theologians to modify these precepts 
 are most preposterous. They tell us that Jesus meant 
 to discourage anxious thought about worldly possessions 
 and wants that he intended to condemn undue anxiety 
 and worriment of mind ; and they even assert that the 
 original word implies and justifies this rendering. To 
 this it may be replied, We cannot be certain as to what 
 particular words Jesus used, as we have no manuscripts 
 of the Gospels dating back to within four hundred 
 years of his time, and the alleged copies that we have 
 are not authenticated ; so that an argument, even if 
 justified by learned criticism, based upon the implied 
 meaning of particular words is useless, unless we are 
 sure, as we cannot be, that Jesus used those very words, 
 and that he intended that his disciples and other un-
 
 330 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 learned and uncritical hearers should accept the implied 
 rather than the obvious meaning. 
 
 But, taking the words in the Greek manuscripts of 
 the Gospels now most approved by scholars, we deny 
 that there is anything in them to justify the interpola- 
 tion of the word " anxious " between the words " no " 
 aud " thought." There is the highest classical author- 
 ity for the assertion that the verb employed here simply 
 means to " care," " to be careful," " to heed," and is so 
 translated in other portions of the New Testament, as, 
 for examples, in 1 Cor. 7 : 32, 33, 34 ; Phil. 4:6; 
 1 Pet. 5:7; and in many other passages. When Paul 
 exhorted the Philippians to be " careful for nothing," 
 because the Lord was about to appear in judgment, he 
 obviously meant that it was not worth while to make 
 any provision for future bodily wants. 
 
 It is a universally-admitted principle of critical inter- 
 pretation that the meaning of words in any given text 
 must be determined from the context, the connection in 
 which the word occurs. It so happens that Jesus has 
 illustrated his doctrine in this connection so as to make 
 it impossible to doubt as to the meaning of the words 
 employed : " Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow 
 not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns ; yet 
 your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye much 
 better than they ?" . . . " And why take ye thought 
 for raiment ? Consider the lilies of the field, how they 
 grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin, and I say 
 unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed 
 like one of these."
 
 A REVERENT CRITIQUE ON JESUS. 331 
 
 The use of the illative word, " wherefore, if God so 
 clothe the grass," and the word " therefore take no 
 thought," show beyond doubt that Jesus intended to 
 teach, and did teach, that his disciples were to be as in- 
 different to matters of food and clothing as are the birds 
 of the air and the flowers of the field. Not only did 
 he use words that sanction the utmost improvidence in 
 regard to future bodily wants, but he gave the sense in 
 which his words were to be received by referring them 
 to the well-known unconcern of the birds and lilies. 
 
 But it may be further shown what Jesus meant to 
 teach by reference to his own life and the lives of his 
 first followers. There is little or no evidence in the 
 Gospels or elsewhere that Jesus or his first disciples 
 ever possessed any earthly goods whatever, or that 
 they ever engaged in any of the useful or wealth- 
 producing avocations of the country in which they 
 lived. Matthew speaks of Jesus as the son of a car- 
 penter, and Mark calls him " the carpenter, the son 
 of Mary." The fervid imaginations of modern writers 
 have depicted Jesus as an apprentice to his father and 
 laboring at the carpenter's trade, but there is no evi- 
 dence that he ever pushed a plane or drove a nail. 
 There is no reason to believe that he ever erected a 
 house for others, and it is certain that he never built a 
 house for himself, for he has told us that " the foxes 
 have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the 
 Son of man has not where to lay his head." There is 
 not in any of the Gospels one single word accredited to 
 Jesus in favor of industrial pursuits, not one syllable
 
 332 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 to justify the accumulation of property, or any fore- 
 thought whatever for sickness, for helpless infancy, or 
 tottering age. 
 
 When Jesus sent out his disciples he expressly for- 
 bade them to make any provision for food or raiment. 
 He said, " Provide neither gold or silver nor brass in 
 your purses, nor scrip for your journey, neither two 
 coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves, for the workman is 
 worthy of his meat." They were to throw themselves 
 upon the charities of the world, accept such things as 
 were given them, and to manifest the utmost indiffer- 
 ence to worldly comforts. There is no evidence that 
 any of the followers of Jesus who listened to his per- 
 sonal instructions ever engaged in any worldly avoca- 
 tion, except to catch a mess of fish when driven by 
 hunger to do so. They lived from " hand to mouth," 
 and if they had lived in our day they would, every 
 one of them, have been denominated " tramps," and 
 would have been amenable to our modern laws of 
 vagrancy. 'Tis true, there seems to have been some 
 sort of care about future possible wants, but only on 
 the communistic principle. They had a treasurer in 
 the person of Judas Iscariot, but no individual posses- 
 sions were allowed. We are told (Acts 4 : 26) regard- 
 ing early Christians, " Neither was there any among 
 them that lacked ; for as many as were possessors of 
 lands or houses sold them and brought the prices of 
 the things that were sold, and laid them down at the 
 apostles' feet, and distribution was made unto every 
 man according as he had need." In Acts 2 : 44, 45
 
 A REVERENT CRITIQUE ON JESUS. 333 
 
 the facts are also fully set forth : " And all that be- 
 lieved were together and had all things common, and 
 sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to 
 all men as every man had need." Whatever was 
 allowed as a community, it is certain that no individ- 
 ual was allowed to accumulate or retain property on 
 his own personal account. 
 
 In perfect consistency with the view here presented 
 Jesus taught that the possession of riches was almost 
 sure to debar one from heaven that while it might be 
 possible for a rich man to be saved, because all things 
 are possible with God, nevertheless it is " easier for a 
 camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich 
 man to enter into heaven." Riches were always de- 
 nounced by Jesus, and poverty eulogized as if it were 
 a virtue in itself, commending one to the favor of God 
 and greatly increasing his prospects for the heavenly 
 inheritance. If the triple testimony of the synoptical 
 Gospels amounts to anything, it shows beyond a doubt 
 that Jesus would accept no man as a disciple who con- 
 tinued in the possession of worldly property, or who 
 accumulated earthly riches, or who allowed himself to 
 think of the future necessaries of life, even food and 
 clothing. At the same time, the most promiscuous and 
 profuse almsgiving was enjoined : " Sell all that thou 
 hast and give unto the poor," was the literal injunction. 
 "Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that 
 would borrow of thee turn not thou away." 
 
 Besides this, he required absolute non-resistance : 
 " But I say unto you that ye resist not evil, but who-
 
 334 SKELETON KEYS. ' 
 
 soever shall smite thee on thy right cheek turn to him 
 the other also ;" " And whosoever shall compel thee to 
 go a mile, go with him twain ;" " And if any man will 
 sue thee at the law and take away thy coat, let him have 
 thy cloak also." This is even more than non-resist- 
 ance ; it is a reward for unprincipled men to impose 
 upon you. It would be impossible to state the prin- 
 ciple of absolute non-resistance in stronger language. 
 But modern commentators tell us that Jesus did not 
 intend to be so understood that he merely intended 
 to condemn the spirit of strife and retaliation. Why, 
 then, did he not say so? Which shall we accept 
 what Jesus plainly and repeatedly said, or what com- 
 mentators say he meant? 
 
 What are we to say about the doctrine of bodily mu- 
 tilation taught in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5 : 
 29, 30)? Theologians of to-day tell us that these 
 words are to be taken in a metaphorical sense that to 
 secure salvation we must sacrifice every passion that 
 would lead us into sin, though it might be as dear as a 
 right hand, foot, or eye. The reason assigned by Jesus 
 for enforcing this precept cannot be reconciled with the 
 assumption that it was intended to be figurative : " For 
 it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should 
 perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into 
 hell." If by members of the body Jesus meant prin- 
 ciples or passions that might tempt and entrap one into 
 evil, we must charge upon the precept the absurdity 
 that it would be better to enter into heaven with one 
 evil principle or passion than to be cast into hell with
 
 A REVERENT CRITIQUE ON JESUS. 335 
 
 many evil principles and passions ! The literal interpre- 
 tation is favored by the fact that in ancient times bod- 
 ily mutilation was recognized in religious matters. In 
 Matt. 19 : 12, Jesus is reported to have said, "And 
 there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs 
 for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to 
 receive it, let him receive it." If this is not a sanc- 
 tion of bodily mutilation, what can it mean ? That it 
 was understood literally by many early Christians cannot 
 be denied. The ascetics of the second century practised 
 the most extreme literal mortification of the flesh, and 
 even in the middle of the third century Origen, one of 
 the most learned of the Christian Fathers, destroyed 
 his own manhood by bodily mutilation as an act of 
 piety. Much curious matter upon this subject may be 
 found in Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, page 310, 
 and also Gibbon's Decline and Fall, chap. xv. and 
 notes. 
 
 The fairest and most reasonable way to ascertain what 
 Jesus taught is to study his own life, and then to fol- 
 low his example. It will be somewhat startling to 
 many when we announce the proposition that the re- 
 ligion of the Christian Gospels is monastic and ascetic 
 in the extreme, and that Jesus himself was an ascetic, 
 and that he required his disciples to become such. 
 One thing is certain : No man can study the character 
 of Jesus and his teachings, his own life and the career 
 of his immediate disciples, without admitting the 
 monkish character of their religion. It was emphat- 
 ically the religion of sorrow, the religion not only of
 
 336 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 a?ifo'-naturalism, but of tmnaturalism. It virtually said : 
 " Whatever is natural is wrong ; whatever you desire 
 is wrong. To do what is painful is right, while to do 
 what you want to do is certain ruin. Life must be 
 one incessant wail of suffering if it is to be followed 
 with eternal blessedness. The body is the enemy of 
 the soul, and the world the enemy of God. Worldly 
 prosperity is a curse in disguise, while poverty and 
 want and persecution and suffering of all kinds are 
 indications of the divine favor." (See Secret of the 
 East, by Dr. Felix L. Oswald.) 
 
 At the very commencement of his public career 
 Jesus formed an alliance with that hardiest of anchor- 
 ites known as John the Baptist, and in all the Gospels 
 the close relationship between the missions of John and 
 Jesus is constantly recognized. It is a tradition of the 
 early Church that Jesus was never known to smile, and 
 there is an implication in the Gospels that his face was 
 prematurely old. He recommended a life of religious 
 mendicancy and voluntary poverty as absolutely neces- 
 sary for admission to his kingdom. 
 
 But there was scarce anything in the teachings of 
 Jesus that had not been insisted upon for hundreds of 
 years before by the monks of India, Egypt, and other 
 countries. It is impossible to go into details, but no 
 man of reading will deny this allegation. Like the 
 ancient monks, Jesus practised long fastings and ab- 
 stained from flesh meats, though he ate fish and vege- 
 tables. He neither possessed nor sought to acquire 
 any worldly property. While going about the streets
 
 A REVERENT CRITIQUE ON JESUS. 337 
 
 and the seashore teaching by day, he generally resorted, 
 like ancient monks, to the mountains and wilderness at 
 night, and his principal religious devotions were per- 
 formed in the darkness of midnight. He abstained 
 from marriage, and had but little regard for the do- 
 mestic relations. Asceticism was the distinguishing 
 characteristic of the early Church, and the doctrine of 
 the community of goods was practically received by 
 the Church for two hundred years, and is so received 
 by many to-day. 
 
 So far from practically condemning the literal teach- 
 ings of Jesus as we find them in the Gospels, we take 
 the ground that they were just what might have been 
 expected from one holding the doctrine that the world 
 was about to be destroyed and a new kingdom estab- 
 lished upon the regenerated earth, of which he was to 
 be the king and his disciples the princes. If there was 
 anything definite in the teachings of Jesus, it was the 
 speedy coming of the end of the world. Carefully 
 study the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, the thir- 
 teenth of Mark, and the twenty-first of Luke if you 
 have any doubts upon this subject. 
 
 The attempt of theologians to make it appear that 
 Jesus only referred to the destruction of Jerusalem is 
 most absurd. It virtually charges Jesus with the in- 
 consistency of giving information upon one subject 
 when his disciples desired information upon another. 
 They asked him for signs that should precede the de- 
 struction of the world, and he distinctly affirmed, 
 "This generation shall not pass away till all these 
 22
 
 338 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 things are fulfilled;" "There be some standing here 
 that shall not taste death till they see the Son of man 
 coming in his kingdom" (Matt. 16:28). The doc- 
 trine of the almost immediate end of all mundane 
 things as they then existed is the only key to unlock 
 what seems so absurd in the teachings of Jesus. If he 
 believed what he taught as to the speedy end of the 
 world, it was perfectly consistent for him to condemn 
 the holding or accumulating of property, and to com- 
 mend the most indiscriminate almsgiving, the most 
 absolute non-resistance, with bodily mortification and 
 mutilation, and a life of unworldliness and practical 
 mendicancy and poverty. Jesus and his disciples 
 taught and acted just as men would teach and act if 
 they believed that the end of the world was at hand. 
 His disciples so understood him. 
 
 In the year 960 A. D. there was in the Christian 
 Church a revival of this doctrine, and the speedy end 
 of the world and the second coming of Jesus were pro- 
 claimed with great earnestness. The clergy as a class 
 adopted it, and encouraged people to give away their 
 possessions. A universal panic prevailed ; all business 
 was suspended ; men abandoned their families, and 
 multitudes undertook a pilgrimage to Palestine to 
 meet their returning Lord. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to mention the craze of " Mil- 
 lerism" in 1843 in this country, when many, in per- 
 fect consistency with their belief, gave up their posses- 
 sions and prepared their " ascension robes," and waited 
 anxiously for the end. If the clergy of all denomina-
 
 A REVERENT CRITIQUE ON JESUS. 339 
 
 tions should now unite in proclaiming just what Jesus 
 predicted concerning the end of the world, just in pro- 
 portion as people sincerely believed the message they 
 would at once literally accept the teachings of the Ser- 
 mon on the Mount, and act accordingly. 
 
 This leads us to the inevitable conclusion that much 
 of what Jesus taught can only be understood and jus- 
 tified by his particular view and representation of the 
 almost immediate end of all earthly things ; and this 
 understanding of the subject is much more creditable 
 to Jesus as a teacher than the assumption that he failed 
 to make himself understood, and that he did not mean 
 what he said, though both he and his disciples prac- 
 tically in their lives exemplified the unworldliness and 
 asceticism that he preached. 
 
 We submit as a key to the enigmas of the Sermon 
 on the Mount and other hard sayings attributed to 
 Jesus that he and his disciples believed and taught that 
 this world was about to be made new, that the then 
 present order was about to terminate, and that therefore 
 earthly possessions and pursuits were of no consequence, 
 and even the domestic relations were of little account. 
 
 That the teachings and examples of Jesus (in many 
 respects) cannot be accepted by the people of the nine- 
 teenth century without a complete overthrow of existing 
 institutions .and forms of civilization is a self-evident 
 fact. We must abandon all industrial pursuits, change 
 all our views of the rights of property, adopt the com- 
 munistic principle and policy, and lead lowly lives of 
 self-denial and bodily mortification and discomfort.
 
 340 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 We repeat that the teachings and example of Jesus 
 were natural and rational from his conviction of the ap- 
 proaching end of all things. 
 
 It would be easy to point out many other things in 
 the Sermon on the Mount equally defective and offen- 
 sive to reason and common sense, but we forbear. We 
 have dwelt upon this celebrated sermon at such length 
 because it is held up as a model of moral teaching. 
 We pronounce it a very inferior compilation of things 
 good and bad, not at all corresponding with proper 
 ideas of practical morality, and not adapted to the 
 present necessities of civilization. 
 
 What is said of the Sermon on the Mount may be 
 said of many portions of the alleged teachings of Jesus. 
 We mention only a few instances. The parable of the 
 Unjust Steward justifies a worldly cunning and a de- 
 cidedly dishonest act (Luke 16 : 58). Jesus com- 
 mends him, saying that " he had done wisely " in 
 cheating his principal, and advises his disciples to 
 " make to them friends of the mammon of unright- 
 eousness." A more grossly dishonest act could not 
 have been committed by a person acting in a fiduciary 
 capacity. To follow his example would overthrow all 
 business integrity and lead to universal knavery. 
 
 In the parable of the Unjust Judge he gives a very 
 low and anthropomorphic view of God and the efficacy 
 of prayer. It is this : A certain woman went to a 
 judge for a certain favor, and he would not grant her 
 request. She persisted, and finally he said, " Though 
 I fear not God nor regard man, yet because this widow
 
 A REVERENT CRITIQUE ON JESUS. 341 
 
 troubleth me I will avenge her, lest by her continual 
 coming she weary me." Then the lesson taught : 
 " And shall not God avenge his own elect which cry 
 unto him day and night, though he bear long with 
 them ?" This certainly teaches that if one teases and 
 worries God long enough, he will answer the prayer 
 without regard to the rightfulness of the petition. Dr. 
 Adam Clark says in his Commentary that the expres- 
 sion " she weary me " is a metaphor taken from box- 
 ers, " who bruise each other about the face, blacken the 
 eyes!" We forbear to remark on this blasphemous 
 doctrine. 
 
 We pass on without specifying the manifestly unjust 
 principles laid down in the parables of the Laborers in 
 the Vineyard, the Ten Talents, the Great Feast, and 
 other parables, the manner in which he treated the 
 woman of Canaan, the mystification and evasions he 
 used, leaving her in doubt with regard to his real 
 meaning, and the many instances in which he gave 
 irrelevant answers and unfair and illogical conclusions. 
 His teachings were notable for their obscurity and am- 
 biguity ; he tells us he did not desire to be understood ; 
 and no wonder that his most trusted disciples wrangled 
 about his true meaning and came to opposite conclu- 
 sions. His own family did not believe in him, and 
 some persons thought him insane. Indeed, his mys- 
 terious and enigmatical style is so marked that it sug- 
 gests whether, after all, what is said to have been 
 spoken by Jesus was not the utterances and traditions 
 of initiates in the second Christian century?
 
 342 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 The claim of autocratic official authority to forgive 
 and punish, to deny before God those who should deny 
 him before men, to denounce whole cities for want of 
 faith in him, to come in God's name to judge all man- 
 kind, to proclaim everlasting punishment and declare 
 that some should never be forgiven, mars the beauty 
 of Jesus' character. A real deficiency in his teaching 
 was the absence of any explicit declaration of human 
 brotherhood. It is a remarkable fact that no clear 
 statement of this idea is recorded of Jesus. But the 
 lack was supplied in a certain form by Paul, whose 
 broader ethnic experience and more liberal culture 
 made him recognize the demand more fully, and who 
 was therefore bound to have it satisfied in his religious 
 ideal. This was easy, since be had never seen Jesus, 
 and could construct his personality as his own rever- 
 ence and sense of human need might prompt. 
 
 The clearest statement of human brotherhood in the 
 New Testament is that ascribed to Paul : " God hath 
 made of one blood all the nations of the earth." Yet 
 even in Paul's mind it seems to have been conditioned 
 on faith in. his Master. All were " members of one an- 
 other, whether Jew or Gentile, bond or free ;" but it 
 was only in so far as they were, or were fit to be, " in 
 the body of Christ." Cicero and Seneca rest human 
 brotherhood on broader and deeper foundations. " All 
 are members of one great body," says Seneca also ; but 
 in what sense ? " By the constitution of nature, which 
 makes us kindred, and more miserable in doing than in 
 receiving an injury ; and by whose sway our hands are
 
 A REVERENT CRITIQUE ON JESUS. 343 
 
 prepared for mutual help." Paul says, " In Christ is 
 neither bond nor free." But Seneca says more broad- 
 ly, " Virtue invites all, free-born, slaves, kings, exiles. 
 It asks no questions about rank or wealth. It is con- 
 tent with the bare man." Again, exhorting Nero, he 
 says : " Do not ask how much of manumission is en- 
 durable, but how much the nature of justice and good 
 will allows you which bids you spare even captives 
 and persons bought with a price. Let slaves find ref- 
 uge before the statute; if all things are permitted you 
 (by custom and "power) against a slave, there is that 
 which the common law of life forbids to be done to a 
 man ; for the slave is of the same nature as yourself." 
 So Cicero says : " No other things are so alike as we 
 are to each other ;" " There is no one of any nation 
 who cannot reach virtue by following the light of 
 nature ;" " The foundation of law is that nature has 
 made us for the love of mankind." 
 
 Other testimonies to like effect might easily be ad- 
 duced from " heathen " writers of that age. And the 
 later Stoics do but echo the thought of their predeces- 
 sors from the days of Zeno and Cleanthes when they 
 reiterate in the broadest terms the belief that men are 
 created for the very purpose of mutual good. And 
 Philo says : " We all are brothers by the highest kind 
 of kindredship, as children of reason ;" " Slavery is 
 impious, as destroying the ordinances of nature, which 
 generated all equally and brought them up as if breth- 
 ren, not in name only, but in reality and truth." But 
 with the apostles of Christianity, as probably with
 
 344 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 Jesus himself, brotherhood was inseparable from be- 
 lief in " the Christ." 
 
 But let us not overlook the facts that the Gospels 
 attribute to Jesus certain beliefs which our present 
 knowledge positively contradicts, and even sentiments 
 and claims which the highest morality cannot approve. 
 For example, take his belief in diabolic possession ; his 
 claim of power to forgive sins and to judge mankind 
 with his disciples on twelve thrones ; his denunciation 
 of cities that should not receive his messengers; his 
 official retaliation (Matt. 10 : 33) ; ftie unpardonable 
 sin; his giving Peter the keys of the kingdom of 
 heaven, and to his apostles the same powers ; the sec- 
 ond coming of the Son of man, with destruction of the 
 world and the coming judgment day within that gen- 
 eration ; condemning to endless punishment those who 
 have not succored believers ; no salvation to those found 
 unrepentant at his coming; the sinning brother who 
 will not hear the Church to be treated as a heathen ; 
 his sweeping denunciation of Pharisees and Scribes; 
 a personal devil and an everlasting hell ; power over 
 deadly serpents and the taking of poisons without 
 injury ; the working of miracles by faith, even to the 
 removing of mountains and tearing up trees, raising 
 the dead, etc. etc. etc. 
 
 But not only are the teachings of Jesus subject to 
 criticism, but his acts are equally so. Take for an ex- 
 ample the manner in which he addressed his mother 
 when found disputing with the doctors in the temple, 
 but more particularly hear his words to his mother at
 
 A REVERENT CRITIQUE ON JESUS. 345 
 
 the wedding in Cana. She told him that the wine had 
 run out, and he answered in the most uncouth manner, 
 " Woman, what have I to do with thee ?" That is to 
 say, of what concern was his mother to him, and what 
 had he to do with her trouble about the wine being 
 out ? Then the making of the wine, upon which the 
 people got drunk, was by no means worthy of imita- 
 tion. The quantity, according to some divines, was 
 not less than two or three hogsheads of intoxicating 
 drink, enough to last the balance of the week. The 
 guests were already drunk, and, though the wine was 
 made out of water, it was nevertheless highly intox- 
 icating. We might also mention his rude answer when 
 his mother desired to speak to him (Mark 3 : 2135). 
 At the time of his triumphal entrance into Jerusalem 
 he took an " ass and colt," the private property of some 
 person, without permission, and the bystanders so un- 
 derstood it. He went immediately to the temple and 
 beat out with a whip all the merchants (whom he calls 
 thieves), all legitimate dealers in animals and doves for 
 religious sacrifice, and violently overthrew the tables 
 of the money-changers, whose business seems also to 
 have been legitimate. This act was a " breach of the 
 peace," and in any civilized country would have been 
 followed by arrest and imprisonment. It was not right 
 that he should assert his authority by such disorderly 
 conduct, and that too upon the eve of the celebration 
 of a religious ceremony. When waited on by a most 
 respectable deputation of public men who served of- 
 ficially (Matt. 23 : 21) and inquired of him " by what
 
 346 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 authority he did such things," instead of answering 
 them frankly and making known to them his mission, 
 he raised an irrelevant question, and because they could 
 not tell whether " John's baptism was from earth or 
 heaven," he refused to give any apology or explanation 
 of his most treasonable and violent actions. He ad- 
 dressed the Scribes and Pharisees in the most extreme 
 language, calling them " vipers," " blind guides," 
 "hypocrites," "serpents," etc., and used fulminations 
 that were calculated to excite the worst passions and 
 the most atrocious acts. He told them that they were 
 " whited sepulchres " and " fools." When he was ac- 
 cepting the hospitalities of a Pharisee (Luke 11 : 37 
 54) he abused and denounced both the host and his 
 guests. He is said to have looked on the Pharisees 
 "with anger," thus violating what he taught. His 
 unjustifiable conduct toward the " barren fig tree " will 
 not be overlooked. It was not the season for figs ; he 
 had no right to expect to find fruit on that tree, yet he 
 " cursed " it, and here again destroyed private property 
 without rendering an equivalent. So with the swine of 
 the Gadarenes. This story is childish and wicked, and 
 his action resulted in the destruction of animals which 
 must have been valued at about four thousand pounds 
 sterling. He was also chargeable with dissimulation 
 greatly at variance with moral rectitude. When his 
 brothers would have him go to Jerusalem to attend the 
 feast of tabernacles he declined, and advised them to go 
 without him. But when they had gone, " then went he 
 up also to the feast, as it were in secret " (John 7 : 2-10).
 
 A REVERENT CRITIQUE ON JESUS. 347 
 
 He certainly here practised deceit. When walking 
 with the two disciples to Emmaus he pretended to 
 be another person, and when they arrived there he 
 " made as though he would go farther ;" that is, he 
 pretended what he did not intend (Luke 24 : 13). He 
 practised the utmost dissimulation in several particulars 
 in the affair of Judas, and carried it even farther than 
 the traitor. (Read and study Matt. 26 : 46-50 and 
 context.) 
 
 We might pursue this subject indefinitely. It is 
 enough for our present purpose to affirm that many of 
 the errors in natural philosophy, physiology, astron- 
 omy, and other sciences that prevailed in that day are 
 implied or incorporated in the Gospels, with many 
 prevailing superstitions, and that there are more mis- 
 takes and a greater number of contradictions in the 
 four Gospels than in any other writings of the same 
 length now extant in any language. 
 
 There is no one subject upon which so many books 
 have been written as what are called " harmonies of the 
 Gospels." There are now more than one hundred such 
 books extant, besides thousands that have gone out of 
 print. Long ago as the seventeenth century Thomas 
 Munn of London published such a book, on the title- 
 page of which he states that he has reconciled three 
 thousand contradictions. What does all this imply? 
 Has it ever been found necessary to so reconcile the writ- 
 ings of Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Newton, or Bacon ? 
 Could not God make himself understood ? It is an 
 acknowledged fact among jurists that the discrepancies
 
 348 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 in the four Gospels would destroy the credibility of 
 any four witnesses in any intelligent court of law. 
 
 We must here express our conviction that the Gos- 
 pels, which profess to give the life of Jesus, are not 
 original, genuine productions, and it is time to show 
 how they came into existence and were palmed off by 
 ecclesiastics as the productions of those whose names 
 they bear. 
 
 About the time of the birth of Christianity almost 
 every system of philosophy and religion centred at 
 Alexandria in Egypt. The Essenes, though scattered 
 throughout all the provinces of the Roman empire, had 
 their head-quarters at Alexandria, where existed a 
 flourishing university. To this centre of learning 
 seekers after truth from all countries of the globe 
 found their way, and, comparing their various systems, 
 the result was the evolution of the Eclectic philosophy, 
 made up of what was regarded as the best of every 
 known faith. 
 
 Palestine and Egypt were geographically contiguous, 
 and the commerce between them was general and con- 
 stant through Alexandria. Here the various sects of 
 Judaism came into direct contact with Greek and Ori- 
 ental thought and philosophy, with which they had 
 been made quite familiar during their captivity in Bab- 
 ylon. Pythagorean, Platonic, and even Zoroastrian 
 and Buddhistic speculations were rife were in the 
 very air of Alexandria. It is notorious that in that 
 city Christian theology assumed a systematic form. 
 The first and best Christian manuscripts were Alexan-
 
 A REVERENT CRITIQUE ON JESUS. 349 
 
 drian, and so were the first bishops ; so says Prof. Cal- 
 vin E. Stowe. 
 
 - It is impossible for any party to escape entirely from 
 the influence of its surroundings. How could a new 
 sect eighteen hundred years ago escape the influences 
 that dominated the very atmosphere of Alexandria? 
 Christianity, so called, did not escape this influence, but 
 in a short time took an eclectic form made up of the 
 then existing systems of faith and philosophy, so that 
 we now find in it ingredients taken from every known 
 system of religion and philosophy, including Judaism, 
 Platonism, Zoroastrianism, and Buddhism. 
 
 Mosheim says this Eclectic philosophy, which " chose 
 the good and rejected the evil out of every system that 
 had been propounded to mankind," was taught in the 
 university of Alexandria when Christianity came into 
 existence. A very interesting question arises in this 
 connection, which few have paused to ponder viz. 
 What became of the sects of the Essenes and Thera- 
 peutists after the commencement of the Christian era ? 
 That they suddenly disappeared as sects is an historical 
 fact. But what became of them ? Is there anything 
 more natural than to assume that they became the 
 pioneers of the Christian Church, and, in fact, that it 
 was these people to whom the name " Christian " was 
 first given at Antioch? The entire New-Testament 
 Scriptures are full of phrases and allusions which clearly 
 show the Essenean admixture, of which many examples 
 might be quoted. Even Eusebius, styled the " Father 
 of ecclesiastical history," without whose writings little
 
 350 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 or nothing is known of the early Christian Church, 
 not only admits the close resemblance between this sect 
 and Christianity, but he even claims that they were 
 Christians. 
 
 A thorough investigation of this matter drives one 
 to the conclusion that our Catholic Christianity came 
 from Alexandria virtually from the Essenean monks 
 who flourished before the Augustan age, and that their 
 writings are the foundation of our Gospels, re-edited, 
 changed, and interpolated to suit times and occasions. 
 Catholicism is the undoubted offshoot of Egyptian 
 monkery, as Protestantism is an offshoot of Catholi- 
 cism, and improperly called a Reformation. Paul 
 probably became a sort of Martin Luther, and led the 
 great schism from the Essenean Church, and it was 
 then from a certain time called Christian. The four 
 Greek Gospels of our New Testament were made up 
 at Alexandria from Egyptian asceticism, and consist 
 largely of a union of Neo-Platonism with Judaism, 
 and is full of the occult and mystical so common in 
 that period. They were not written by Matthew, 
 Mark, Luke, and John, as can be proved, and he who 
 is called Jesus of Nazareth was nothing more than an 
 Essenean impersonation. This view is honestly held 
 by the writer, and did space permit he could give 
 many pertinent reasons for it. Investigation in this 
 direction would meet a rich reward. 
 
 Many pious persons here confront us, and inquire 
 reproachfully, " What is the use of destroying the faith 
 of the people in the Christian religion ?" This question
 
 A EEVEEENT CRITIQUE ON JESUS. 351 
 
 implies what is not true, as it is farthest possible from 
 the object of these papers to ridicule or in any way to 
 bring religion into disrepute. It is not only good 
 principle, but it is also good policy, to always tell the 
 truth. Why should we say, either directly or by im- 
 plication, that Christianity is a supernatural religion 
 when we know it to be of human origin, and can show 
 just how, and when, and where it grew out of then 
 existing creeds and systems of philosophy? 
 
 Is religion such a sham that it can best be subserved 
 by falsehood and imposture ? We think not. And if 
 we should adopt the Jesuistic maxims, that " the end 
 justifies the means " and that " pious intent hallows 
 deceit," it is simply impossible in this inquisitive scien- 
 tific age to keep up a deception, however venerable for 
 age and sacred from association. Knowledge is on the 
 increase, and the people will not for ever wear bandages 
 over their eyes, and, thus hoodwinked, swallow without 
 question whatever is put into their mouths by the dis- 
 pensers of theologic twaddle and priestly pap. Regarding 
 Christianity as a special divine revelation recently made, 
 it will not stand scientific and historic examination ; but 
 regarding it as of human origin, an evolution, a product 
 of that age of pessimism which resulted from the disap- 
 pointment of the Jews as to their national Messiah, and 
 the disintegration and coming decadence and downfall 
 of the Roman empire, coupled with the proclamation 
 of the speedy destruction of the world itself, it is just 
 what might have been expected a religion of pessim- 
 ism, of sorrow, of unworldliness, of evil forebodings.
 
 352 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 " When the devil got sick, the devil a monk would 
 be." When Charles IV. of Spain was discomfited by 
 the misfortunes of war, he sought solace in embroider- 
 ing a petticoat for the Virgin Mary. Ranee had a 
 domestic tragedy, and he founded the order of Trappist 
 monks. Loyola would never have founded Jesuitism 
 if he had not first been disfigured and crippled in a 
 military siege. Dante was an exile when he wrote his 
 Inferno, and John Calvin was a dyspeptic and suffered 
 from rheumatism, gout, and stone when he wrote his 
 Institutes. The most distinguished devotees to the 
 religion of self-reproach have always been sufferers 
 from headache and neuralgia, as " crippled foxes decry 
 the vintage," and grapes are always sour that are be- 
 yond reach. 
 
 The germs of Christianity grew out of the decaying 
 carcasses of the Jewish commonwealth and the Roman 
 empire, and as the worship of sorrow and unnaturalness 
 it is not promotive of the highest virtue and the best in- 
 terests of human society. It is only when the distinct- 
 ive asceticism is eliminated and its extreme pessimism 
 is destroyed by a rational optimism that it becomes a 
 real blessing to humanity. 
 
 Every religion reflects the characteristics of the place 
 and time of its birth, and the gloomy and melancholic 
 temperaments of the dwellers by the Jordan, the Nile, 
 and the Euphrates thoroughly permeated and impreg- 
 nated the sects of those countries. 
 
 Regarding Christianity as of human origin, we are 
 at liberty to cast aside its lugubrious spirit, its imprac-
 
 A EEVERENT CRITIQUE ON JESUS. 353 
 
 ticable unworldliness and unnaturalness, and with high- 
 er esteem, and a more genuine heartfelt appreiation, 
 and a sincere acceptance and approval we are free to 
 adopt and glorify its general humane spirit under the 
 divine impulse of the universal Fatherhood of God. 
 
 The real religious basis is that he serves God best 
 who serves man best, and the coming of the kingdom 
 of God is concomitant with the coming of the kingdom 
 of man. 
 
 The claim of infallibility is always suspicious, and 
 there is no finality in religious truth and progress ; and 
 it cannot be doubted that the religion of the nineteenth 
 century is as great an improvement upon the religion 
 of the first as our civilization, science, commerce, and 
 the mechanic arts are superior. Prof. Max Miiller, of 
 the orthodox University of Oxford, well says : " The 
 elements and roots of religion were there as far back as 
 we can trace the history of man, and the history of 
 religion, like the history of language, shows us through- 
 out a succession of new combinations of the same radical 
 elements." In no system of religion is the principle of 
 combination, of previously existing forms of creed and 
 conduct, so apparent as in the Christian religion. It is 
 the best because it is the latest of the great religions, 
 and contains the best selections and combinations of all 
 previously existing ones, Jewish and pagan. 
 
 Our faith in the sublime moral precepts of Christian- 
 ity is increased and strengthened as we realize that they 
 are thousands of years old, that they are the accumulated 
 products of the ages an evolution from the consum- 
 
 23
 
 354 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 mated wisdom of all previously existing religionists of 
 all times and countries. God's real revelations to man 
 are from within, and they would not be any more divine 
 if they were from without. Of nothing can we be so 
 sure as that God will take care of his own eternal truth, 
 and cause it to shine forth with more radiant splendor 
 as knowledge shall increase and true science shall learn 
 to read more intelligently the records of the divine cha- 
 racter and will in the infallible book of nature. 
 
 Ecclesiastical tomtits may twitter and flutter, and 
 theological owls may look solemn and wise and hoot 
 out their gloomy forebodings, but the true ark of 
 Nature's covenant is safe. 
 
 " Ever the truth comes uppermost, 
 And ever is justice done." 
 
 The only safe position, because it is the only true one, 
 is that there is a God in the universe, and that it is the 
 divine order to make known his will by slow and uni- 
 form processes, and not by sudden and miraculous 
 revelations. 
 
 The principle of evolution is just as true in its appli- 
 cation to moral and spiritual things as it is in regard 
 to the material world, and another Darwin will some 
 day arise who will demonstrate the fact. Indeed, this 
 field is " ripe for the harvest," as several new sciences, 
 not dreamed of until within a half century past, are 
 revealing facts and establishing principles which are 
 sure to consign the old supernaturalism to regions of 
 superstition and priestcraft.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A FEW FRAGMENTS. 
 
 " Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost." 
 JOHN 6 : 12. 
 
 GNOSTICISM. 
 
 SINCE preparing Chapter XI., on The Ideal Christ, 
 and quoting freely from Mr. Gerald Massey regarding 
 the Gnostics, some doubts have been suggested as to 
 the soundness of his views. We have therefore care- 
 fully reviewed this matter, and can find no reason to 
 abate one tittle from the conclusions presented by this 
 painstaking and able writer. 
 
 The word gnosis, meaning knowledge, does not apply 
 exclusively to a party or sect. The Gnostics were not 
 distinguished from Christians at first by sectarian lines. 
 The Epistles of Paul, both genuine and spurious, rec- 
 ognize the gnosis, and there were Gnostic sects, as well 
 as individual Gnostics, both before and after the Chris- 
 tian era. The gnosis consisted in knowing, and mainly 
 in not accepting as historical and iiteral what was really 
 only allegorical. The chief Gnostic sects held as secret 
 their essential doctrines, and at the same time they had an 
 exoteric statement which they gave to the common peo- 
 ple. Even Paul, who seems to have been a first-class 
 
 355
 
 356 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 Gnostic, preached one gospel publicly to the Gentiles, 
 and another which he gave "privately to them that 
 were of reputation " (Gal. 2 : 2). His teachings were 
 highly Cabalistic, and he seems to have delighted in 
 " mysteries." He had no conference with any of the 
 other apostles as to what he should teach, but went to 
 Arabia, where he doubtless met the Essenean brother- 
 hood, and probably learned from them instead of the 
 Judean teachers. The Essenes were famous for the 
 cultivation of sacred literature, and had their personified 
 Christ, as we have reason to believe. Mr. C. Staniland 
 Wake thinks, with good reason, that the Essenes were 
 Mithrasts, and that they worshipped the sun, and 
 Mithras, the Persian savior, was a personification of 
 the sun. The Essenes, according to Josephus, treated 
 the sun with great veneration, and offered certain pray- 
 ers early in the morning, as if they made supplication 
 for its rising. The Essenes and Mithrasts were Gnos- 
 tics in that they held to a personified savior, and not a 
 literal man of flesh and blood. The symbolism of the 
 universe afforded models for the secrets of their relig- 
 ion, and their rites were introduced into every part of 
 the Roman empire of course including Palestine 
 and for nearly four centuries the Mithraic religion 
 wellnigh overshadowed Christianity. Much that was 
 written of Jesus indicates the characteristics of the 
 secret initiations. It may appear strange to the super- 
 ficially informed when we affirm, as heretofore, that 
 many of those matters which Paul set forth with such 
 seeming literal ness were in fact mystic and arcane, the
 
 A FEW FRAGMENTS. 357 
 
 transcript of older doctrines, and were made up through- 
 out of astrological symbolism. 
 
 The systems of many ancient peoples centuries be- 
 fore Christianity contain doctrines and dramatic stories 
 closely analogous to the gospel story of Jesus. The 
 Neo-Platonists held that these occult rites were merely 
 a form of representing philosophic thought as if in 
 scenes of daily life. "While Paul refers to certain mat- 
 ters as apparently historical, he never overlooks their 
 symbolic import. The interpolators of his writings 
 misrepresented his real views, as is evinced by in- 
 ternal evidence in the writings themselves. 
 
 The fourth Gospel, falsely credited to John, was 
 written for the evident purpose of opposing the Gnos- 
 tic doctrine of Jesus not made flesh by presenting the 
 Neo-Platonic dogma of " the Word made flesh." In 
 many places throughout the New Testament there is 
 an implication that there were those who denied that 
 Jesus came in the flesh : " And every spirit that con- 
 fesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not 
 of God " (1 John 1 : 3). In 2 John, 7th verse, it is 
 said : " For many deceivers are entered into the world, 
 who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. 
 This is a deceiver and an antichrist." How does this 
 comport with the assumption that the existence of the 
 human Jesus was never doubted in the apostolic age ? 
 The ignorant and disingenuous ecclesiastics who wrote on 
 Gnosticism in early ages always observed one rule, and 
 that was to represent it as a mere ofishoot and corrup- 
 tion of Christianity, invented because of disappointed
 
 358 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 ambition by apostates from the religion established by 
 the apostles. The Rev. Mr. King, in his Gnostics, and 
 their Remains, affirms that such representations "are 
 entirely false." The truth is, that Gnosticism did not 
 purport to be a Christian system, except by a kind of 
 syncretism to reconcile different faiths. The Neo- 
 Platonists attempted this, and Gnostics did the same 
 on an analogous plan. The historical existence of Jesus 
 was little else than a concession made to the unreason- 
 ing multitude, while the esoteric doctrine was so much 
 older as to make such an existence of no possible ac- 
 count except as a piece of folk-lore to hang illustrations 
 of doctrines upon. This is the central idea of every 
 branch of Gnosticism. The forms set forth by differ- 
 ent expositors are secondary and incidental, liable 
 to mislead those who attempt to place them in the 
 front and draw deductions from them ; and hence 
 Saturninus taught that all that was considered physi- 
 cal in Jesus was only a phantasy, and that what 
 was from God was spiritual only, and not at all cor- 
 poreal. As for the writings of Tatian, they are " lost " 
 that is, destroyed and we are under no obligations 
 to accept what his enemies have said of them. The 
 period was one in which calumny, slander, and forgery 
 were the rule, as well as the main dependence for re- 
 futing an adversary. We know nothing of Cerinthus 
 except through Epiphanius, whose reputation for truth 
 and veracity is so bad that he would make falsehood 
 appear like truth by his manner of telling it. Our 
 evidence respecting Cerinthus comes chiefly from
 
 A FEW FRAGMENTS. 359 
 
 Epiphanius, who once professed to be a Gnostic (Ma- 
 cosian), and afterward turned Catholic, and, Judas-like, 
 betrayed some scores of his former associates, including 
 seventy women, to the persecuting civil authorities. 
 
 The Ophites were certainly mystics, and read every- 
 thing concerning Jesus as a sacred allegory. Many 
 think that Christos was with them Chrestos, the good, 
 the incarnation and associate of Sophia, " the wisdom 
 from on high." The " wisdom religion " was exten- 
 sively symbolized. Pythagoras named his esoteric 
 doctrine the gnosis or " knowledge," and Plato used a 
 similar expression to indicate the " interior knowledge." 
 Marcion was evidently Persian and used Mithraic 
 symbolism. The ceremonials of Mithraism (red-cap 
 Christians) and astral rites were adopted by the Cath- 
 olic Church, besides many other rites of paganism. 
 The Jewish Cabala and the Gnostics had much in 
 common. The Sethites were of Jewish origin, and 
 they held that Seth was the son of Sophia, who had 
 filled him with the divine gnosis, and that his de- 
 scendants were a spiritual race. 
 
 The Mandaites were Gnostics, as their name indi- 
 cates, and they found in the system the older type of 
 doctrine which obtained in Mesopotamia and in the 
 old and elaborate Babylonian religion. This is seen 
 from the fact that the names of the old pantheon were 
 adopted. 
 
 The variety of legends regarding Jesus show that 
 he was not an historical character. Deriving the bulk 
 of their theosophy from beyond the Euphrates, and
 
 360 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 even much from beyond the Indus, the early ecclesias- 
 tics changed names, but retained their original ideas. 
 Nearly all Christian festivals are the equivalents of 
 pagan observances, as is well known. Prof. F. "W. 
 Newman denounces the assertions of Tischendorf and 
 Canon Westcott concerning the Gnostics as " unwor- 
 thy of scholars, and only calculated to mislead readers, 
 who most generally are ignorant of the actual facts in 
 in the case." " The uncritical and inaccurate charac- 
 ter of the Fathers rendered them peculiarly liable to 
 be misled by forgone conclusions." 
 
 Oriental Christianity and Parseeism furnish a strik- 
 ing example of religious syncretism. In the Gnostic 
 basis itself it is not difficult to recognize the general 
 features of the religion of ancient Babylon, and thus 
 we are brought nearer to a solution of the problem as 
 to the real origin of Gnosticism in general. 
 
 Dr. John Tulloch, principal of St. Andrew's Uni- 
 versity and the writer of the article on the Gnostics 
 in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (ninth edition), truly 
 says : " The sources of Gnosticism are to be found in 
 diverse forms of religion and speculative culture ante- 
 cedent to Christianity, especially in the theology of the 
 Alexandrian Jews as represented in the writings of 
 Philo, and again in the influences flowing from the old 
 Persian or Zarathustrian religion and the Buddhistic 
 faiths of the East." He also says it is " the fact that 
 the spirit of Gnosticism and the language which it 
 afterward developed were in the air of the apostolic 
 age, and that the last thing to seek in the early Fathers
 
 A FEW FRAGMENTS. 361 
 
 is either accuracy of chronology or a clear sequence of 
 thought." 
 
 In Appletons' New American Cyclopedia, under 
 the title " Gnostics," it is said : " The Gnostics num- 
 bered two classes the select few who were admitted to 
 the divine secrets, and the large class of common be- 
 lievers who were not able to rise above the physical 
 condition." The point is that the Gnostics had a secret 
 doctrine which their adversaries did not know. The 
 recognition of Jesus as an actual person was only ap- 
 parent, and hence different people differed in that 
 respect. The doctrine came from the far East, and 
 teachers only sought to harmonize it with the new 
 worship, as they also did with Mithraism. The real 
 Gnostics were the spiritual men of the times, and mere 
 externalists could not understand them. It would be 
 amusing if it were not so serious to see men often 
 affecting great learning, themselves not professing 
 orthodoxy, yet vehement for what can only be called 
 Roman ecclesiasticism. " The letter killeth," and 
 " the wise shall understand." 
 
 Many writers on Gnosticism seem to know no more 
 than the cock on the dunghill knows of the jewels that 
 lie before him. The fact is, that the writings of the 
 so-called Fathers, and of the New Testament itself, 
 have come down to us percolated through Roman 
 sacerdotalism, and must be taken with many grains 
 of allowance. There were many men named Jesus at 
 the commencement of the Christian era, but that a 
 Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead is not
 
 362 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 supported by a particle of evidence. The anonymous 
 author of the great English book, Supernatural Relig- 
 ion, has shown how utterly valueless the Gospels are as 
 sources of evidence ; and where else shall we look for 
 an historical Jesus ? We can have no faith in historical 
 " phantoms," " aions," and " illusions." Neither pagan 
 nor Jewish contemporaneous history gives any counte- 
 nance to the orthodox claim of a personal, crucified, 
 and risen Jesus. 
 
 OKIGIN OF THE CHRIST STORY. 
 
 The Gospels were doubtless compiled nearly two hun- 
 dred years after the beginning of the Christian era from 
 the mythological and superstitious lore that was then 
 circulating in great abundance ; and Christ himself is 
 only a mythological personage who, if such a person 
 ever had any existence at all, existed many centuries be- 
 fore the Christian era, and was very different from the 
 Christ of the Gospels, being originally ^Esculapius or 
 some other character of the like fame, and serving only 
 as the basis of the Christian fable. It is certain that 
 the primitive teachers of Christianity converted to their 
 own purposes the writings of ancient poets and philos- 
 ophers, mixing together the Oriental Gnosticism and 
 Greek philosophy, and palming them on the world in 
 a new form as things especially revealed to themselves. 
 
 It may further be remarked that at a most early 
 period of the Christian era there appears to have been 
 great doubts as to the real existeuce of Christ. The 
 Manichees, as Augustine informs us, denied that he
 
 A FEW FRAGMENTS. 363 
 
 was a man, while others maintained that he was a 
 man, but denied that he was a God (August. Serm. 
 xxxvii. c. 12). There is, therefore, considerable force 
 in the expressions of a modern writer that the being 
 of no other individual mentioned in history ever labor- 
 ed under such a deficiency of evidence as to its reality, 
 or ever was overset by a thousandth part of the weight 
 of positive proof that it was a creation of imagination 
 only, as that of Jesus Christ. His existence as a man 
 has, from the earliest day on which it can be shown to 
 have been asserted, been earnestly and strenuously de- 
 nied ; and that not by the enemies of the Christian 
 faith, but by the most intelligent, most learned, and 
 most sincere of the Christian name who have left to the 
 world proofs of their intelligence and learning in their 
 writings and of their sincerity in their sufferings. The 
 existence of no individual of the human race that was 
 real and positive was ever by a like conflict of jarring 
 evidence rendered equivocal and uncertain. Nothing, 
 however, is more common than for some persons to as- 
 sume an air of contempt, and to cry out that those who 
 deny that such a person as Jesus of Nazareth ever ex- 
 isted are utterly unworthy of being answered. It is, 
 truly, very convenient for them thus to shelter them- 
 selves by assuming his existence as incontrovertible, 
 instead of fairly meeting historical facts which, to say 
 the least, render his existence very problemetical. It 
 is to no purpose to urge that it might as well be denied 
 that no such a person as Alexander the Great or Napo- 
 leon Bonaparte ever existed as to set at defiance the
 
 364 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 evidence of the existence of Jesus. For the existence 
 of neither Alexander nor Napoleon was miraculous, 
 and there never was on earth one other real personage 
 whose existence, as a real personage, was denied and 
 disclaimed even as soon as ever it was asserted, as was 
 the case with respect to the assumed personality of 
 Christ. But the only common character that runs 
 through the whole body of the evidence of heretics is, 
 that they, one and all, from first to last, deny the ex- 
 istence of Jesus Christ as a man, and, professing their 
 faith in him as a God and Saviour, yet uniformly and 
 consistently hold the whole story of his life and actions 
 to be allegorical. The very earliest Christian writings 
 that have come down to us are of a controversial cha- 
 racter and written in attempted refutation of heresies. 
 These heresies must therefore have been of so much 
 earlier date and prior prevalence ; they could not have 
 been considered of sufficient consequence to have called 
 (as they seem to have done) for the entire devotion and 
 enthusiastic zeal of the orthodox party to extirpate or 
 keep them under, if they had not acquired deep root 
 and become of serious notoriety an inference which 
 leads directly to the conclusion that they were of an- 
 terior origination to any date that has hitherto been 
 ascribed to the Gospel history. 
 
 In accordance with the notion that Christ was a 
 phantom, the writer of the Commentaries which are 
 attributed to Clement of Alexandria, apparently quoting 
 from the Gospel of Nicodemus, tells us that the apostle 
 John attempted to touch the body of Christ, but in so
 
 A FEW FRAGMENTS. 365 
 
 doing found no hardness of flesh and met with no re- 
 sistance from it, although he thrust his hand into the 
 inner part of it. A similar idea is conveyed by Luke 
 where he says that Christ vanished out of the sight of 
 his disciples, but yet shortly after stood in the midst 
 of them a notion consistent only with that of an ap- 
 parition (Luke 24 : 31, 36). Similar remarks may be 
 made on the words of Christ to Thomas and Mary ; 
 to the latter he says, " Touch me not, for I have not 
 yet ascended to my Father ;" that is, I am not to be 
 felt ; and to the former he says, " Reach hither thy 
 hand, and thrust it into my side" (John 20 : 17, 27). 
 Both these expressions, contradictory as they are with 
 regard to Jesus, still show that the writer knew some- 
 thing of the notion entertained that Christ was a phan- 
 tom. Luke (24 : 37, 39) also has words proving the 
 same point, where he says that the disciples, when they 
 saw Christ after his resurrection, thought they had 
 seen a spirit and that he told them to handle him. 
 Marcion of Pontus, who flourished about A. D. 127, 
 believed Christ not to have been born of a virgin and 
 to have grown up gradually, but that he took the form 
 of a man and appeared as a man without being born, 
 and at once showed himself in Galilee in full maturity. 
 Manes also, according to the testimony of Socrates and 
 others, "denied that Christ was ever really born or 
 had real human flesh, but asserted that he was a mere 
 phantom." (See Lardner's Credibility, vol. ii. p. 141.) 
 For men who entertained this notion of " the person 
 of Christ," his suiferings, death, and resurrection were
 
 366 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 of course a delusion were only in appearance. Thus, 
 according to Father Apelles, who wrote about A. D. 
 160, Christ was not born, nor was his body like ours, 
 but consisted of aerial and ethereal particles. Very 
 probably, Apelles did not think it unlikely that a 
 body composed of such subtile matter as this should 
 rise from the grave and be capable of passing not only 
 through the smallest aperture, but even through solid 
 matter. Barnabas, the companion of Paul, in his Gos- 
 pel had another way of disposing of the question of the 
 resurrection namely, by denying that Christ was cru- 
 cified at all, but was taken up into the third heaven by 
 four angels ; that it was Judas Iscariot who was cru- 
 cified in his stead ; and that Christ will not die till the 
 very end of the world (Toland's Nazarenus, Letter i. 
 chap. v. p. 17.) The Basilidians, about the com- 
 mencement of the second century, disposed in a sim- 
 ilar manner of the miracle of the resurrection by 
 asserting that it was not Christ, but Simon of Cyrene, 
 who was crucified instead of Jesus. 
 
 Such are some of the various opinions of the origin 
 of the story of Christ's resurrection. They are placed 
 before the reader that he may have a choice of theories. 
 After matured reflection, however, he will, most prob- 
 ably, come to the conclusion that this tale originated 
 in the same manner as " The Gospel of the Birth of 
 Mary," " The Gospels of the Infancy of Christ," " The 
 Gospel of Nicodemus," the epistolary correspondence 
 of Christ and Abgarus, of the Virgin Mary and Igna- 
 tius, together with hundreds of other similar produc-
 
 A FEW FRAGMENTS. 367 
 
 tions of the ages when facts were not so much appre- 
 ciated as fables in the form of books. If he arrive at 
 this conclusion, he will see no reason to believe that 
 such a personage as the Christ of the Gospels was ever 
 crucified, much less raised from the dead. 
 
 ANCIENT ENIGMAS. 
 
 It is amusing to observe how, in ancient times, the 
 dark, enigmatical, and allegorical style was practised, 
 particularly in the East, by all public teachers, both 
 Jews and Gentiles. By this means they explained 
 away the fabulous tales current regarding their gods, 
 and discoursed on every branch of knowledge known 
 to them. They deemed religion a mystery not to be 
 publicly explained, and always delivered its dogmas 
 clothed in dark allegories (do. de Nat. Deor., lib. ii. 
 iii. ; Spencer de Legibus Heb., p. 182 ; Clerici Hist. 
 Eccles., p. 23). The Egyptians and Chaldeans were 
 noted for their dark sayings (Simon Hist. crit. des Com- 
 ment., p. 4). Gale (Opuscula Mythological) gives an 
 account of several ancient books expressly written as 
 instructions to interpret allegories. The Greek poets, 
 Homer not excepted, are by their scholiasts regarded 
 as treating of their gods in a mystical style. The Stoic 
 philosophers dressed the whole heathen theology in 
 allegorical language (Cic. de Nat. Deor., lib. ii.). The 
 Pythagorean philosophy was taught in enigmatical ex- 
 pressions, the meaning of which was studiously con- 
 cealed from the vulgar mind, and revealed even to the 
 initiated only gradually as their years of maturity were
 
 368 SKELETON KEYS.' 
 
 thought to qualify them for its reception. Plato and 
 his followers in the groves of Academia practised the 
 same mode of teaching religion, especially theogony. 
 The writings attributed to Paul the apostle, as has been 
 shown, are replete with mystical and enigmatical expres- 
 sions. This he confesses, saying that he spoke " the wis- 
 dom of God in a mystery," "comparing spiritual things 
 with spiritual" (1 Cor. 2 : 7, 13). Accordingly, he re- 
 gards the history of Isaac and Ishmael as an allegory 
 (Gal. 4 : 22-25), which he condescends to explain. The 
 primitive Fathers of Christianity pursued the same mode 
 of communicating instruction and of defending their re- 
 ligion against the pagans. Justin Martyr, Clement of 
 Alexandria, Irenseus, Tertullian, Origen, all of them, 
 were very expert in this occult system, in imitation of the 
 heathen philosophers, by whom most of them had been 
 educated. Eusebius (Hist. Eccles., lib. vi. c. 19), citing 
 what he is pleased to call the assertions of Porphyry, 
 writes that Origen, having been educated in Greek lit- 
 erature, intermingled it with the fictions of Christian- 
 ity, that he dealt in the works of Plato, Numenius, 
 Cranius, Apollophanes, Longinus Moderatus, Nico- 
 machus, Chseremon, and Cornutus, and that he derived 
 from these pagan authors the allegorical mode of inter- 
 pretation usual in the mysteries of the Greeks, and 
 applied it to the Jewish Scriptures. Thus, Origen's 
 mode of teaching was identical with that of the pagans 
 a mode commended even by the learned Dodwell 
 (Lettws of -Advice, etc., p. 208), who says that the pagan 
 mystical arts of concealment are of use toward under-
 
 A FEW FRAGMENTS. 369 
 
 standing the Scriptures. The Jewish rabbis also deliv- 
 ered their doctrines in the same obscure and mystical 
 manner, as their Talmud, Cabala, Gemara, and other 
 books, besides what we call the Hebrew Scriptures, am- 
 ply show. The religious teachers of all the nations of 
 antiquity thus delighting in dark sayings, it is there- 
 fore by no means wonderful that the writers of the 
 Gospels, whoever they were, attribute similar enigmas 
 to Jesus. This accounts, in a measure, for the obscu- 
 rity of the Gospels, while, however, it traces their 
 origin to a pagan source. 
 
 GODS OF VIRGIN BIETH. 
 
 It is in perfect harmony with what has long ago 
 been demonstrated by some of the most critical writers, 
 not only in English, but also in other languages 
 namely, that the New Testament has been collected by 
 Eclectic monks particularly Egyptian monks of Jew- 
 ish extraction connected with the Alexandrian college 
 from various legendary tales and other documents 
 then afloat, which they modified to answer their own 
 purposes, and which since their time have been con- 
 siderably altered to suit the requirements of different 
 religious communities. 
 
 The Christian apologists of the second and third 
 centuries evinced no lack of knowledge on this point. 
 Justin Martyr, as already cited, in addressing a Roman 
 emperor, says that the Christians, by declaring Jesus 
 to be the Son of God, born of a virgin, said no more 
 than the Romans said of those whom they styled the 
 
 24
 
 370 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 sons of Jupiter, such as Mercury, Bacchus, Hercules, 
 Pollux, and Castor ; and as to Jesus, he repeats, hav- 
 ing been born of a virgin, the pagans had their Per- 
 seus, son of Jove and the virgin Danae, to balance this 
 feature. Creusa, daughter of Erectheus, was visited by 
 the god Apollo, and in consequence became the mother 
 of the god Janus. A Chinese virgin by means of the 
 rays of the sun regarded as a deity became the 
 mother of the god Fo, who acted as a mediator be- 
 tween his followers and another superior god. The 
 Hindoo virgin Rohini in like miraculous manner gave 
 birth to a god, one of the Brahman trinity. Another 
 Hindoo virgin, Devaci, as already observed, having 
 had an intercourse with the deity Vasudeva, became 
 the mother of an incarnate god whose name was 
 Chrishna ; whose birth was announced by the appear- 
 ance of a new star ; whose life, when an infant, \vas 
 sought in vain by the reigning tyrant of the country ; 
 whose principal exploits were killing a terrible serpent, 
 holding a mountain on the tip of his finger, washing 
 the feet of the Brahmans, saving multitudes by his 
 miraculous power, raising many from the dead, dying 
 to save the world from sin and darkness, rising from 
 the dead, and then ascending to his heavenly seat in 
 Vaicontha (Sir \Vm. Jones's Asiatic Researches, vol. i. 
 pp. 259-273). Somonocodom, who, according to the 
 sacred books of the Talapoins of Siam, was destined 
 to save the world, was another personage who had a 
 virgin mother. The followers of Plato about two hun- 
 dred years after his death, but more than a century
 
 A FEW FRAGMENTS. 371 
 
 before the Christian era, reported that he had been 
 born of a virgin. 
 
 The most ancient Alexandrian chronicles, which 
 furnish ample proofs of the universal prevalence of 
 our gospel religion in Egypt for ages before the 
 Christian era, testify as follows : " To this day 
 Egypt has consecrated the pregnancy of a virgin 
 and the nativity of her son, whom they annually 
 present in a cradle to the adoration of the people; 
 and when King Ptolemy, three hundred and fifty 
 years before our Christian era, demanded of the 
 priests the significancy of this religions ceremony, 
 they told him it was a mystery." (See Christian 
 Mythology Unveiled, p. 94.) 
 
 Indeed, the fabulous lore of ancient times is teeming 
 with the amours of gods with virgins and the results 
 thereof. Some writers have intimated that such births 
 were the consequences of the artful intrigues of the 
 pagan priests with holy virgins ; but Dupuis, Albert, 
 Alphonso, Boulanger, and others have clearly shown 
 " that these and similar tales, which are revolting 
 to common sense if taken literally, were originally, 
 in Oriental learning, astronomical and other alle- 
 gories, conveying the most sublime truths then known 
 touching the revolutions of the heavenly bodies and 
 other physical and moral facts, while their meaning 
 in after ages was gradually perverted to answer other 
 ends."
 
 372 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 THE EPISTLES SILENT CONCERNING THE WORDS 
 AND WORKS OF JESUS. 
 
 It is a most remarkable fact that in none of the 
 Epistles is there any mention made of the various 
 wonderful things narrated in the Gospels as having 
 been said and done by Christ. Indeed, there is scarce- 
 ly an allusion made in them to those astounding details 
 with which every page of the Gospels is replete. No 
 mention is made in them of what the Gospels state that 
 Christ declared regarding the day of judgment nothing 
 about Christ's preternatural birth, his baptism, his 
 temptation by Satan, his denunciations of the different 
 existing sects, his precepts, his parables, his intimate 
 acquaintance with publicans, with Magdalene, with 
 Mary and other women. Not one of his miracles is 
 detailed, and nothing is said of the marvellous circum- 
 stances which attended his crucifixion and death, such 
 as the sun darkening, the earth quaking, the temple 
 rending, rocks cleaving asunder, graves opening, the 
 dead rising and walking the streets of Jerusalem. 
 These are matters which, one would imagine, should 
 occupy a very prominent position in all the Epistles 
 should be relied upon by the writers respectively as 
 facts with which to attest and establish the truth of 
 their doctrines, and which would, of themselves, suffice 
 to convince and convert the most incredulous and ob- 
 durate mind. In the Epistles ascribed to Peter, James, 
 and John, who are said to have been eye- and ear- 
 witnesses of what Christ did and said, one would ex-
 
 A FEW FRAGMENTS. 373 
 
 pect, certainly, to find frequent details of the marvel- 
 lous things said of Jesus in the Gospels. But Peter 
 does not so much as allude to the keys of heaven and 
 hell which the Gospels say were given him to keep, 
 nor even to the fact that Jesus, walking on the sea, 
 enabled him also to do so and saved him from drown- 
 ing. Neither does he tell those to whom he writes that 
 Jesus conferred his blessing upon him when he pro- 
 nounced him " the Christ, the Son of the living God ;" 
 nor .that Jesus, after he had suspiciously asked him 
 three times whether he loved him, and had as often 
 received affirmative answers, charged him to feed his 
 flock. Of course we cannot expect him to have re- 
 corded in his Epistles that Jesus graced him with the 
 epithet "Satan," or that he denied the same Jesus 
 thrice. If it was the son of Zebedee who wrote " the 
 General Epistle of James " (about the authorship of 
 which Christians have not as yet agreed), it would not 
 seem too great a tribute to his divine Master for him to 
 refer to some of his mighty words and deeds which he 
 must have witnessed. Or if the author is the brother 
 of Jesus (which is not very likely, since all his relatives 
 except his mother shunned him), he could deplore the 
 fact that he and his brothers Joses, Simon, and Judas 
 did not believe in the pretensions of their divine brother, 
 Jesus. But the very name of Jesus is mentioned, and 
 that casually, only thrice in the whole Epistle. John, 
 " the beloved disciple," could in one of his Epistles, or 
 at least in that which it is agreed he wrote to the 
 confirmation of the genuineness of Matthew, Mark,
 
 374 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 and Luke's Gospels have adverted to that curious 
 incident of his mother asking Jesus to allow him and 
 his brother James to sit on each side of him in his 
 kingdom ; or could, with a mixture of joy and sorrow, 
 ruminate on the pleasure he had felt in accompanying 
 Peter to prepare the last Passover which they had eaten 
 with their divine Master, and bemoan the fatal disaster 
 which shortly after overtook his Lord. But he writes 
 not one word about these remarkable events, or about 
 anything that occurred personally between him and 
 Jesus. Indeed, the writers of the Epistles totally ig- 
 nore the contents of the Gospels. How, then, is this 
 fact to be accounted for? Did the writers of the 
 Epistles whoever they were know anything at all 
 about the contents of the present Gospels? Are we 
 not entitled to infer that either the churches, etc. to 
 which these Epistles were addressed were much older 
 than the date of the Gospels, and even than the time 
 at which the Christ of the Gospels was born, or that, 
 if the present Gospels then existed, the authors of the 
 Epistles knew nothing of them ? 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 We have seen that, so limited was the knowledge of 
 Jesus of futurity, he falsely prophesied the end of the 
 world, the time of his own resurrection, the perpetual 
 praise of a woman who poured upon him a box of 
 ointment, and the signs which believers in Christianity 
 would manifest. We have also seen that a vast num- 
 ber of his precepts and doctrines were obscure, contra-
 
 A FEW FRAGMENTS. 375 
 
 dictory, bigoted, absurd, and untrue, and that much 
 of his conduct was open to criticism. We have further 
 seen that he was deficient in knowledge of natural 
 philosophy ; that he borrowed the best part of his doc- 
 trine from heathen mythology ; that his life, his teach- 
 ing, and his practices were identical with those of 
 heathen monks who had preceded him ; that, like 
 many other human beings, he feared death ; that nei- 
 ther his own neighbors, nor kinsmen, nor even his 
 disciples, believed that he was, either in nature or 
 power, superior to other mortals; and that he him- 
 self avowed that the purpose for which he had been 
 ushered into the world was to send strife, division, 
 fire, and sword on earth, and to make " brother deliver 
 up brother to death, and the father the child, and in- 
 cite children to rise up against their parents and cause 
 them to be put to death " (Matt. 10 : 21). 
 
 Such has been the result of our inquiry. But let it 
 not be supposed that there was nothing to admire in 
 the alleged character and teachings of the ideal Jesus. 
 There are many exceedingly tender things mingled 
 with the arrogant and severe. His character, made 
 up from many models, could not be otherwise than 
 inconsistent and contradictory. It is a perfect mosaic, 
 but such has been the reverence for Jesus, in view of 
 the extraordinary claims made for him, that men have 
 closed their eyes to his imperfections and faults, while 
 they have greatly magnified his virtues. We have 
 known many persons in our day who as far excelled 
 Jesus in every noble and manly quality as the civ^
 
 376 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 ilization and morality of the nineteenth century are 
 superior to those of the first. It has been well said 
 that Jesus, whether a person or an impersonation, will 
 continue to be the leader just so long as he leads; but 
 he no longer leads. It is found (assuming his person- 
 ality) that he taught nothing but what had been taught 
 with equal distinctness before him, and that he taught 
 much not suited to this commercial age and to the 
 wants of this nineteenth century. While many per- 
 sons profess to be disciples of Jesus, yet nobody even 
 pretends to conform their lives to his alleged teachings. 
 Properly speaking, there is not now a real Christian 
 upon the face of the earth, as no one attempts to prac- 
 tise the extreme precepts Christ is said to have laid 
 down in the so-called Sermon on the Mount. What 
 is called Christianity is proved and admitted to be an 
 evolution from various religions which were before it. 
 The good in every religion is the same, and men will 
 go on weeding out the impure and imperfect, the fittest 
 only surviving. Christianity claims to be an infallible 
 divine revelation, and that it is complete in itself, and 
 of course admits of no progress. This is the difficulty 
 between the old orthodoxy and the new orthodoxy of 
 the creeds. The Church carries no flag of truce. It 
 says, You must believe ! True men answer, We can- 
 not believe the impossible and the absurd. There can 
 be no doubt as to who will survive in this struggle 
 for existence. The " spirit of truth " is coming, and 
 it will "teach in all things."
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 BL OD-SA L VA TION. 
 
 " And almost all things are by the law purged with blood ; and 
 without the shedding of blood there is no remission." HEB. 9 : 
 22. " The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all 
 sin." 1 JOHN 1 : 5. 
 
 IT would be tedious to quote even one-tenth of the 
 passages from the New Testament in which salvation 
 is ascribed to the blood of Jesus. Indeed, from Gen- 
 esis to Revelation sacrificial blood seems to be the one 
 prominent theme. The salvation of Christ is emphati- 
 cally the salvation by blood, and this idea runs through 
 the whole system of what is called evangelical theology. 
 Jeremy Taylor wrote about " lapping with the tongue 
 the blood from the Saviour's open wounds," suggesting 
 the well-known habit of the bloodthirsty dog. But 
 Mr. Taylor was outdone by the late Rev. Bishop Jesse 
 T. Peck, when he frantically exclaimed, in the presence 
 of thousands of people at a religious mass-meeting, 
 " We have not enough blood in our religion. I want 
 to wade in the blood of Calvary up to my armpits, and 
 wallow in it," suggesting the well-known habits of the 
 filthy sow. But the Rev. T. D. Talmage, D. D., 
 capped the climax when, in his usual rhapsodical 
 style, he exclaimed in a recent sermon : " It seems to 
 
 377
 
 378 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 me as if all Heaven were trying to bid in your soul. 
 The first bid it makes is the tears of Christ at the tomb 
 of Lazarus ; but that is not a high-enough price. The 
 next bid Heaven makes is the sweat of Gethsemane ; but 
 it is too cheap a price. The next bid Heaven makes 
 seems to be the whipped back of Pilate's Hall ; but it 
 is not a high-enough price. Can it be possible that 
 Heaven cannot buy you in ? Heaven tries once more. 
 It says : ' I bid this time for that man's soul the torture of 
 Christ's martyrdom, the blood on his temple, the blood 
 on his cheek, the blood on his chin, the blood on his 
 hand, the blood on his side, the blood on his knee, the 
 blood on his foot the blood in drops, the blood in 
 rills, the blood in pools coagulated beneath the cross ; 
 the blood that wet the tips of the soldier's spear, the 
 blood that plashed warm in the faces of his enemies/ 
 Glory to God ! that bid wins it ! The highest price 
 that was ever paid for anything was paid for your soul. 
 Nothing could buy it but blood ! The estranged prop- 
 erty is bought back. Take it. l You have sold your- 
 selves for naught ; and ye shall be redeemed without 
 money/ O atoning blood, cleansing blood, life-giving 
 blood, sanctifying blood, glorifying blood of Jesus ! 
 "Why not burst into tears at the thought that for thee 
 he shed it for thee the hard-hearted, for thee the 
 lost?" 
 
 Henry III. of England was presented with a small 
 portion of the blood of Jesus, said to have been shed 
 upon the cross, and to have been preserved in a phial, 
 duly attested by the Patriarch of Jerusalem and other
 
 BLOOD-SALVATION. 379 
 
 distinguished functionaries as genuine. It was carried 
 in triumph through the streets of London with raptur- 
 ous shoutings by a large procession, from St. Paul's to 
 Westminster Abbey, and the historian testifies that it 
 made all England radiant with glory. Indeed, there 
 has been enough of the so-called genuine blood that 
 was shed on Calvary given to the faithful to float the 
 largest ship in the navy of Great Britain. A sufficient 
 quantity of the real cross upon which Jesus is said to 
 have been crucified has been preserved to erect the 
 largest temple the world ever contained. There is no 
 end to the superstition on this subject, all going to 
 show how deep-seated is the credulity which exists in 
 the popular belief in regard to this matter. 
 
 There are many illustrations which might be given 
 of " blood-evocation " among ancient pagans who re- 
 garded blood as the great arcanum of nature. 
 
 But what was the origin of the idea that blood is 
 purifying, cleansing, purging? There is nothing in 
 the thing itself that suggests this idea. Take a basin- 
 ful of newly-drawn blood and set it upon the table be- 
 fore you. It soon coagulates, and emits an offensive 
 odor, so that you are forced to hurry it from your 
 presence. It is the very opposite of cleansing. If you 
 get a drop upon your finger, you immediately wash 
 it off. Indeed, some persons cannot stand the sight of 
 blood, and shrink from its touch as from a deadly 
 poison. There must be some reason for the idea that in 
 some way blood is suggestive of cleansing or purifying. 
 Now, we go to nature in search of knowledge. There is
 
 380 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 only one phenomenon in which the shedding of blood 
 is a natural process, and that is when the young girl 
 arrives at the stage of pubescence, and in this case, and 
 in this case only, does it suggest the idea of purification. 
 Before the period approaches nothing can be more sug- 
 gestive of the untidy than the unpubescent girl. She 
 is generally awkward, slouchy, and unattractive. But 
 let the sanguineous evidence of approaching woman- 
 hood appear, and how changed ! Her complexion be- 
 comes then most beautiful and bewitching. Her eyes 
 sparkle with a fire which cannot be described. Her 
 once ungraceful form becomes lithe, and her whole 
 person changes in such a manner as to indicate that 
 some great thing has happened. She has been purified 
 or cleansed. She is a new creature. Old things have 
 passed away. Each succeeding month she has a sim- 
 ilar experience until the full bloom of womanhood has 
 passed away. 
 
 Indeed, we find among the primitive customs of 
 ancient Africans a special observance of the commence- 
 ment of the catamenial period. Before the arrival of 
 the time of periodicity the young girl is of very little 
 account, and is not numbered as a member of the tribe. 
 It is not considered indecent for her to run around in 
 a state of nudity until she is fourteen years of age or 
 until the evidence of pubescence appears. Stanley says 
 of certain African girls : " They wait with impatience 
 the day when they can be married and have a cloth to 
 fold around their bodies." There was in use among 
 certain ancient people, now worn by Catholic priests,
 
 BLOOD-SALVATION. 381 
 
 an apron known as the peplum, which was worn after 
 puberty. 
 
 The tribal mark and totemic name were conferred in 
 the baptism of blood. A covenant was entered into 
 which was written with menstruous blood, because 
 blood was the announcer of the female period of pu- 
 bescence. From time immemorial the Kaffirs have 
 preserved the custom of celebrating the first appear- 
 ance of the menstrual flow. All the young girls in the 
 neighborhood meet together and make merry on the 
 happy occasion. We are told by Irenseus how the 
 feminine Logos was represented in the mysteries of 
 Marcus, and the wine was supposed to be miraculously 
 turned into blood, and Charis, who was superior to all 
 things, was thought to infuse her own blood into the 
 cup. The cup was handed to the women, who also 
 consecrated it with an effusion of blood proceeding 
 from themselves. 
 
 It would seem that the blood of Charis preceded the 
 blood of Christ, and it is doubtful whether there would 
 have been any cleansing by the blood of Christ if there 
 had been no purification by the blood of Charis. Thus 
 Nature's rubrics are written in red. The Eucharist is 
 derived by Clement of Alexandria from the mixture of 
 the water and the Word, and he identifies the Word 
 with the blood of the grape. We give these delicate 
 hints for what they are worth. 
 
 We have a deep conviction that the conception of 
 the idea of purification by blood had at first some con- 
 nection with the natural issue of blood at the commence-
 
 382 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 ment of periodicity in the female. In the Eleusinian 
 Mysteries, celebrated by pagans centuries before the 
 paschal supper of the Jews or the Lord's Supper 
 of Christians, the element of blood was very con- 
 spicuously set forth, and Higgins has shown in his 
 Anaoalypsis that the sacrifice of bread and wine in re- 
 ligious ceremonies was common among many ancient 
 peoples, the wine representing the blood. 
 
 In 1885 a very remarkable book appeared, entitled 
 The Blood Covenant, by Rev. H. Clay Trumbull, D. D., 
 and we have obtained the consent of this author (whom 
 we have the honor to recognize as an old and very dear 
 personal friend) " to use anything we please, in any 
 way we please, without giving any credit." For this 
 permission we are truly thankful, though we only a\ r ail 
 ourself of a few of the facts bearing upon the point 
 concerning which we write. 
 
 Our author says : " One of these primitive rites, 
 which is deserving of more attention than it has yet 
 received, as throwing light on many important phases 
 of Bible-teaching, is the rite of blood-covenanting a 
 form of mutual covenanting by which two persons en- 
 ter into the closest, the most enduring, and the most 
 sacred of compacts as friends and brothers, or as more 
 than brothers, through the intercommingling of their 
 blood by means of its mutual tasting or of its transfu- 
 sion. This rite is still observed in the unchanging 
 East; and there are historic traces of it from time 
 immemorial in every quarter of the globe, yet it 
 has been strangely overlooked by biblical critics
 
 BLOOD-SALVATION. 383 
 
 and biblical commentators generally in these later 
 centuries. 
 
 " Although now comparatively rare, in view of its 
 responsibilities and of its indissolubleness, this covenant 
 is sometimes entered into by confidential partners in 
 business or by fellow-travelers ; again, by robbers on 
 the road, who would themselves rest fearlessly on its 
 obligations, and who could be rested on within its lim- 
 its, however untrustworthy they or their fellows might 
 be to any other compact. Yet, again, it is the chosen 
 compact of loving friends of those who are drawn to 
 it only by mutual love and trust. 
 
 " There are, indeed, various evidences that the tie 
 of blood-covenanting is reckoned in the East even a 
 closer tie than that of natural descent that a ' friend ' 
 by this tie is nearer and is dearer, .' sticketh closer,' 
 than a ' brother ' by birth. We in the West are ac- 
 customed to say that * blood is thicker than water,' but 
 the Arabs have the idea that blood is thicker than a 
 mother's milk. With them, any two children nour- 
 ished at the same breast are called ' milk-brothers ' or 
 ' sucking brothers '; and the tie between such is very 
 strong. 
 
 " Lucian, the bright Greek thinker, writing in the 
 middle of the second century of our era, is explicit 
 as to the nature and method of this covenant as then 
 practised in the East : t And this is the manner of it : 
 Thereupon, cutting our fingers, all simultaneously, we 
 let the blood drop into a vessel, and, having dipped the 
 points of our swords into it, both of us holding them
 
 384 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 together, we drink it, There is nothing which can 
 loose us from one another after that.' 
 
 "Yet, a little while earlier than Lucian, Tacitus 
 gives record of this rite of blood-brotherhood as prac- 
 tised in the East. He makes an explanation : ' It is 
 the custom of Oriental kings, as often as they come 
 together to make covenant, to join right hands, to tie 
 the thumbs together, and to tighten them with a knot. 
 Then, when the blood is thus pressed to the finger-tips, 
 they draw blood by a light stroke and lick it in turn. 
 This they regard as a divine covenant, made sacred, as 
 it were, by mutual blood or blended lives.' 
 
 " Sallust,the historian of Catiline's conspiracy against 
 Rome, says : i There were those who said at that time 
 that Catiline at this conference, when he inducted them 
 into the oath of partnership in crime, carried round in 
 goblets human blood mixed with wine, and that, after 
 all had tasted of it with an imprecatory oath, as is 
 men's wont in solemn rites, he opened to them his 
 plans.' Florus, a later Latin historian, describing 
 this conspiracy, says : ' There was added the pledge 
 of the league human blood which they drank as it 
 was borne round to them in goblets.' And yet later 
 Tertullian suggests that it was their own blood, min- 
 gled with wine, of which the fellow-conspirators drank 
 together. ' Concerning the eating of blood and other 
 such tragic dishes,' he says, ( you read that blood drawn 
 from the arms and tasted by one another was the meth- 
 od of making covenant among certain nations.' 
 
 "As. far back even as the fifth century before Christ
 
 BLOOD-SALVATION. 385 
 
 we find an explicit description of this Oriental rite of 
 blood-covenanting. ' Now, the Scythians/ says Herod- 
 otus, ' make covenants in the following manner, with 
 whomsoever they make them : Having poured out 
 wine into a great earthen drinking-bowl, they mingle 
 with it the blood of those making covenant, striking 
 the body with a small knife or cutting it slightly with 
 a sword. Thereafter they dip into the bowl sword, 
 arrows, axe, and javelin. But while they are doing 
 this they utter many invokings, and afterward not only 
 those who make the covenant, but those of their fol- 
 lowers who are of the highest rank, drink off the wine 
 mingled with blood.' 
 
 " Again, Herodotus says of this custom in his day : 
 'Now, the Arabians reverence in a very high degree 
 pledges between man and man. They make these 
 pledges in the following way : When they wish to 
 make pledges to one another, a third man, standing in 
 the midst of the two, cuts with a sharp stone the inside 
 of the hands along the thumbs of the two making the 
 pledges. After that, plucking some woollen from the 
 garments of each of the two, he anoints with the blood 
 seven stones as the " heap of witness " which are set in 
 the midst. While he is doing this he invokes Dionysus 
 and Urania. When this rite is completed, he that has 
 made the pledges introduces the stranger to his friends, 
 or the fellow-citizen to his fellows if the rite was per- 
 formed with a fellow-citizen.' 
 
 " Going back, now, to the world's most ancient rec- 
 ords in the monuments of Egypt, we find evidence of 
 
 25
 
 386 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 the existence of the covenant of blood in those early 
 days. So far was this symbolic thought carried that 
 the ancient Egyptians spoke of the departed spirit as 
 having entered into the nature, and, indeed, into the 
 very being, of the gods by the rite of tasting blood 
 from the divine arm. 
 
 " ' The Book of the Dead/ as it is commonly called, 
 is a group, or series, of ancient Egyptian writings rep- 
 resenting the state and the needs and the progress of 
 the soul after death. A copy of this funereal ritual, 
 1 more or less complete according to the fortune of the 
 deceased, was deposited in the case of every mummy.' 
 ' As the Book of the Dead is the most ancient, so it is 
 undoubtedly the most important of the sacred books 
 of the Egyptians / it is, in fact, ' according to Egyptian 
 notions, essentially an inspired work ;' hence its con- 
 tents have an exceptional dogmatic value. In this 
 book there are several obvious references to the rite of 
 blood-covenanting. Some of these are in a chapter of 
 the ritual which was found transcribed in a coffin of 
 the eleventh dynasty, thus carrying it back to a period 
 prior to the days of the patriarchs. 
 
 " ' Give me your arm ; I am made as ye/ says the 
 departed soul, speaking to the gods. Then, in explana- 
 tion of this statement, the pre-historic gloss of the ritual 
 goes on to say : ' The blood is that which proceeds 
 from the member of the Sun after he goes along cut- 
 ting himself/ the covenant blood which unites the 
 soul and the god is drawn from the flesh of Ra when 
 he has cut himself in the rite of that covenant. By
 
 BLOOD-SALVATION. 387 
 
 this covenant-cutting the deceased becomes one with 
 the covenanting gods. Again, the departing soul, 
 speaking as Osiris or as the Osirian, which every 
 mummy represents says : ' I am the soul in his two 
 halves.' This was at least two thousand years before 
 the days of the Greek philosopher. How much earlier 
 it was recognized does not appear. 
 
 " Moreover, a ' red talisman/ or red amulet, stained 
 with ' the blood of Isis/ and containing a record of the 
 covenant, was placed at the neck of the mummy as an 
 assurance of safety to his soul. ' When this book [this 
 amulet-record] has been made,' says the ritual, 'it 
 causes Isis to protect him.' ' If this book is known,' 
 says Horus, 'he [the deceased] is in the service of 
 Osiris. . . . His name is like that of the gods.' " 
 
 Dr. Trumbull properly remarks : 
 
 " Thus in ancient Egypt, in ancient Canaan, in an- 
 cient Mexico, in modern Turkey, in modern Russia, 
 in modern India, and in modern Otaheite, in Africa, 
 in Asia, in America, in Europe, and in Oceanica, 
 blood-giving was life-giving. Life-giving was love- 
 showing. Love-showing was a heart-yearning after 
 union in love and in life and in blood and in very 
 being. That was the primitive thought in the prim- 
 itive religions of all the world. 
 
 " An ancient Chaldean legend, as recorded by Bero- 
 sus, ascribes a new creation of mankind to the mixture 
 by the gods of the dust of the earth with the blood 
 that flowed from the severed head of the god Bel us. 
 ' On this account it is that men are rational and par-
 
 388 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 take of divine knowledge,' says Berosus. The blood 
 of the god gives them the life and nature of a god. 
 Yet, again, the early Phoenician and the early Greek 
 theogonies, as recorded by Sanchoniathon and by He- 
 siod, ascribe the vivifying of mankind to the outpoured 
 blood of the gods. It was from the blood of Ouranos, 
 or of Saturn, dripping into the sea and mingling with 
 its foam, that Venus was formed, to become the mother 
 of her heroic posterity. 'The Orphics, which have 
 borrowed so largely from the East,' says Lenormant, 
 1 said that the immaterial part of man, his soul, his 
 life, sprang from the blood of Dionysus Zagreus, whom 
 . . . Titans had torn to pieces, partly devouring his 
 members.' 
 
 " Homer explicitly recognizes this universal belief 
 in the power of blood to convey life and to be a means 
 of revivifying the dead. 
 
 " Indeed, it is claimed, with a show of reason, that 
 the very word (surquinu) which was used for ' altar ' in 
 the Assyrian was primarily the word for ' table ' that, 
 in fact, what was known as the ' altar ' to the gods was 
 originally the table of communion between the gods 
 and their worshippers." 
 
 From the writings of Livingstone, the African ex- 
 plorer, as well as from the reports of Stanley, it appears 
 that the custom of blood-covenanting is kept up in 
 Africa in these modern times. 
 
 Describing the ceremony, Livingstone says : " It is 
 accomplished thus : The hands of the parties are join- 
 ed (in this case Pitsane and Sambanza were the parties
 
 BLOOD-SALVATION. 389 
 
 engaged). Small incisions are made on the clasped 
 hands, on the pits of the stomach of each, and on the 
 right cheeks and foreheads. A small quantity of blood 
 is taken from these points, in both parties, by means of 
 a stalk of grass. The blood from one person is put 
 into a pot of beer, and that of the second into another ; 
 each then drinks the other's blood, and they are sup- 
 posed to become perpetual friends or relations. During 
 the drinking of the beer some of the party continue 
 beating the ground with short clubs and utter sentences 
 by way of ratifying the treaty." 
 
 The primitive character of these customs is the more 
 probable from the fact that Livingstone first found them 
 existing in a region where, in his opinion, the dress and 
 household utensils of the people are identical with those 
 represented on the monuments of ancient Egypt. 
 
 Concerning the origin of this rite in this region, 
 Cameron says : " This custom of ' making brothers ' I 
 believe to be really of Semitic origin." 
 
 Henry M. Stanley, who was sent to rescue Living- 
 stone, gives many interesting accounts of his experience 
 with the blood-covenanters. In 1871, Stanley encoun- 
 tered the forces of Mirambo, the greatest of African 
 warriors. They agreed to make " strong friendship " 
 with each other. The ceremony is thus described : 
 
 " Manwa Sera, Stanley's ' chief captain,' was request- 
 ed to seal our friendship by performing the ceremony 
 of blood-brotherhood between Mirambo and myself. 
 Having caused us to sit fronting each other on a straw 
 carpet, he made an incision in each of our right legs,
 
 390 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 from which he extracted blood, and, interchanging it, he 
 exclaimed aloud, ' If either of you break this brother- 
 hood now established between you, may the lion devour 
 him, the serpent poison him, bitterness be in his food, his 
 friends desert him, his gun burst in his hands and wound 
 him, and everything that is bad do wrong to him until 
 death.' " The same blood now flowed in the veins of 
 both Stanley and Mirambo. They were friends and 
 brothers in a sacred covenant life for life. At the con- 
 clusion of the covenant they exchanged gifts, as the cus- 
 tomary ratification or accompaniment of the compact. 
 They even vied with each other in proofs of their un- 
 selfish fidelity in this new covenant of friendship. 
 
 Again and again, before and after this incident, 
 Stanley entered into the covenant of blood-brotherhood 
 with representative Africans more than fifty times, in 
 some instances by the opening of his own veins ; at 
 other times by allowing one of his personal escort to 
 bleed for him. 
 
 Thus we see that in ancient and modern times, 
 among all people and in all portions of the earth, this 
 idea of blood-friendship prevailed. In the primitive 
 East, in the wild West, in the cold North, and in the 
 torrid South this rite shows itself. " It will be ob- 
 served," says Dr. Trumbull, "that we have already 
 noted proofs of. the independent existence of this rite 
 of blood-brotherhood or blood-friendship among the 
 three great primitive divisions of the race the Semitic, 
 the Hamitic, and the Japhetic ; and this in Asia, Afri- 
 ca, Europe, America, and the islands of the sea ; again,
 
 BLOOD-SALVATION. 391 
 
 among the five modern and more popular divisions of 
 the human family Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, 
 Malay, and American. This fact in itself would seem 
 to point to a common origin of its various manifestations 
 in the early Oriental home of the now scattered peoples 
 of the world. 
 
 " The Egyptian amulet of blood-friendship was red, 
 as representing the blood of the gods. The Egyptian 
 word for ' red ' sometimes stood for ' blood.' The sa- 
 cred directions in the Book of the Dead were written 
 in red ; hence follows our word ' rubric.' The Rabbis 
 say that when persecution forbade the wearing of the 
 phylacteries with safety, a red thread might be substi- 
 tuted for this token of the covenant with the Lord. 
 It was a red thread which Joshua gave to Rahab as a 
 token of her covenant relations with the people of the 
 Lord. The red thread in China to-day binds the double 
 cup from which the bride and bridegroom drink their 
 covenant draught of ' wedding wine/ as if in symbolism 
 of the covenant of blood. And it is a red thread which 
 in India to-day is used to bind a sacred amulet around 
 the arm or the neck. Among the American Indians 
 scarlet, or red, is the color which stands for sacrifices 
 or for sacrificial blood in all their picture-painting; 
 and the shrine, or tunkan, which continues to have its 
 devotees, ' is painted red, as a sign 'of active or living 
 worship.' The same is true of the shrines in India ; 
 the color red shows that worship is still living there ; 
 red continues to stand for blood." 
 
 When a Jewish child is circumcised, it is commonly
 
 392 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 said of him that he is caused " to enter into the covenant 
 of Abraham ;" and his godfather or sponsor is called 
 Baal-beerith, " master of the covenant." Moreover, 
 even down to modern times the rite of circumcision has 
 included a recognition, however unconscious, of the 
 primitive blood-friendship rite, by the custom of the 
 rabbi, as God's representative, receiving into his mouth 
 the prepuce or foreskin that is cut from the boy, and 
 thereby being made a partaker of the blood mingled 
 with wine, according to the method described among 
 the Orientals, in the rite of blood-friendship, from the 
 earliest days of history. We make this statement on 
 the testimony of Buxtorf, who is a recognized authority 
 in matters of Jewish customs, though he gives it in 
 Latin, with a view of limiting a knowledge of the 
 facts. 
 
 All that we have stated concerning the blood-cove- 
 nant brings us nearer and nearer to the disgusting and 
 beastly habit of cannibalism. Dr. Trumbull says : " It 
 would even seem to be indicated, by all the trend of 
 historic facts, that cannibalism gross, repulsive, inhu- 
 man cannibalism had its basis in man's perversion of 
 this outreaching of his nature (whether that outreach- 
 ing were first directed by revelation or by divinely- 
 given innate promptings) after inter-union and inter- 
 communion with God, after life in God's life, and after 
 growth through the partaking of God's food or of that 
 food which represents God. The studies of many ob- 
 servers in widely-different fields have led both the 
 rationalistic and the faith-filled student to conclude
 
 BLOOD-SALVATION. 393 
 
 that in their sphere of observation it was a religious 
 sentiment, and not a mere animal craving either 
 through a scarcity of food or from a spirit of malig- 
 nity that was at the bottom of cannibalistic practices 
 there, even if that field were an exception to the world's 
 fields generally. And now we have a glimpse of the 
 nature and workings of that religious sentiment which 
 prompted cannibalism wherever it has been practised. 
 In misdirected pursuance of this thought men have 
 given the blood of a consecrated human victim to bring 
 themselves into union with God ; and then they have 
 eaten the flesh of that victim which had supplied the 
 blood which made them one with God. This seems to 
 be the basis of fact in the premises, whatever may be 
 the understood philosophy of the facts. Why men 
 reasoned thus may indeed be in question. That they 
 reasoned thus seems evident. Certain it is, that where 
 cannibalism has been studied in modern times it has 
 commonly been found to have had originally a relig- 
 ious basis ; and the inference is a fair one that it must 
 have been the same wherever cannibalism existed in 
 earlier times. Even in some regions where cannibal- 
 ism has long since been prohibited there are traditions 
 and traces of its former existence as a purely religious 
 rite. Thus, in India little images of flour paste or clay 
 are now made for decapitation or other mutilation in 
 the temples, in avowed imitation of human beings who 
 were once offered and eaten there." 
 
 ReVille, treating of the native religions of Mexico 
 and Peru, comes to a similar conclusion with Dorman,
 
 394 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 and he argues that the state of things which was there 
 was the same the world over, so far as it related to 
 cannibalism. " Cannibalism," he says, " which is now 
 restricted to a few of the savage tribes who have re- 
 mained closest to the animal life, was once universal 
 to our race. For no one would ever have conceived 
 the idea of offering to the gods a kind of food which 
 excited nothing but disgust and horror." In this sug- 
 gestion ReViUe indicates his conviction that the primal 
 idea of an altar was a table of blood-bought communion. 
 
 There is something that looks very much like can- 
 nibalism in the sixth chapter of John's Gospel. The 
 Jews murmured that Jesus spoke of himself as the 
 bread which came down from heaven, and inquired, 
 " How can this man give us of his flesh to eat ? Jesus 
 therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto 
 you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and 
 drink his blood ye have not life in yourselves. He 
 that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal 
 life ; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my 
 flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. 
 He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth 
 in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, 
 and I live because of the Father ; so he that eateth 
 me, he also shall live because of me. This is the bread 
 which came down out of heaven ; not as the fathers 
 did eat, and died ; he that eateth this bread shall live 
 for ever. These things said he in the synagogue, as 
 he taught in Capernaum." 
 
 This was spoken nearly two years before he is said
 
 BLOOD-SAL VA TION. 395 
 
 to have instituted the memorial Supper, and has always 
 been a mystery to commentators, though they allege 
 that the whole mystery is explained in John 6 : 63 : 
 " It is the spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth 
 nothing : the words that I speak unto you, they are 
 spirit and they are life." This seems to be very far- 
 fetched indeed an afterthought. It did not satisfy 
 some of his disciples, for " from that time many of his 
 disciples went back, and walked no more with him." 
 
 From this simple idea of securing faithfulness by the 
 transfusion of the blood of two persons seems to have 
 come the idea of propitiating the gods by offering them 
 bloody sacrifices. In primitive times, among barbar- 
 ous and uncivilized peoples, the conception was univer- 
 sal that the gods were very much like themselves, and 
 that therefore they would be pleased with presents. 
 When offended they could be conciliated, and when 
 some crime had been committed they could be induced 
 to forgive the transgressor by some valuable offering, 
 such as the first-fruits of the soil or the most immac- 
 ulate animals of the flock. This idea of obtaining 
 favors from the invisible powers was carried to such 
 extremes that for the honor of humanity we should 
 feel inclined to doubt the monstrous stories were they 
 not so well attested. The offering of these sacrifices 
 became so degraded and disgusting by superstition that 
 it ended in the belief that the deity's anger could be 
 appeased, his revenge satisfied, his vanity flattered, and 
 that he could be made generally pleased, by holocausts 
 of human beings ; so that the more costly the sacrifice,
 
 396 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 the more certain was the deity to smile upon the donor. 
 The Moloch-worship, the mother placing the babe in 
 the arms of the monstrous idol and seeing it burned 
 before her own eyes, seems to exhaust the horrors of 
 human ingenuity. We have only space to state that 
 these abominations prevailed over most of the heathen 
 world when the Old- Testament rites and ceremonies 
 came into use among the Jews. We find the custom 
 of offering sacrifices in the early pages of Genesis, when 
 it led to the first murder. Cain's sacrifice, sacerdotal- 
 ists tell us, was not accepted by Jehovah because there 
 was no blood in it, as there was in the offering of Abel. 
 Abraham was about to slay his own son when the blood 
 of a ram was provided instead ; and, in fact, all the 
 Bible patriarchs sacrificed, and the exodus from Egypt 
 itself was brought about under the pretence that the 
 people had to go to the desert to offer their accustomed 
 sacrifice. 
 
 The Jews borrowed their idea of sacrifice from the 
 heathen, and sometimes were more heathenish than the 
 heathens themselves. Thousands and thousands of inno- 
 cent animals were cruelly butchered for sacrifice, as the 
 Jews were full of Egyptian reminiscences on one hand 
 and of Canaanitish modes of worship on the other. It 
 is said that Jehovah allowed these abominations because 
 of the ignorance of these people and their hardness of 
 heart, lest they might despise a naked religion and be 
 dazzled by the imposing ceremonies by which they 
 were surrounded. The whole system of bloody sacri- 
 fices was based upon anthropomorphic conceptions of
 
 BLOOD-SALVATION. 397 
 
 their Jehovah, to whom the " agreeable smell " of the 
 blood was a sweet satisfaction. The Jews adopted the 
 very worst features of paganism in regard to these 
 bloody sacrifices, which they oifered on all occasions 
 so much so that their prophets cried out against them 
 and Jehovah himself denounced them. 
 
 The life or blood of the animal was distinctly said 
 to make " the atonement for the soul." This notion 
 of a representative victim is one that belonged to the 
 whole ancient world, as can be seen by reference to any 
 of the great cyclopedias. It was adopted by the Jews, 
 not revealed to them by Jehovah. The scape-goat 
 (Lev. 16) and many other cases of seemingly expiatory 
 sacrifices are embodiments of this idea, which was 
 adopted by Christianity directly from Judaism, whose 
 priests had adopted it from other people. 
 
 The practice of bloody offerings was common to 
 Hindoos, Assyrians, Phoanicians, Greeks, and North- 
 men. There is a Hindoo ritual for human as well as 
 for brute animals set forth in Asiatic Researches. In 
 Fragments of Sanchoniathon, Kronos sacrifices his 
 " only son " to his father Ouranos, his " father in 
 heaven." Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter, Iphi- 
 geneia, before going to Troy, and Polyxena, daughter 
 of Priam, was immolated on the tomb of Achilles to 
 his manes. Repeatedly in the Punic wars children of 
 noble families were burned alive to .ZEsculapius, god of 
 medicine. Burning at the stake and hanging upon a 
 gibbet were sacrifices to appease the divine justice. In 
 short, all bloody sacrifices were propitiatory, to appease
 
 398 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 the rage of hunger in a famished god. Blood was ex- 
 cellent, because its aroma was the vehicle of life, and 
 so afforded support to life. 
 
 In Homer's Odyssey, Ulysses slays animals before the 
 ghosts of Hades, and these run up to be nourished by 
 the blood. He draws his sword, rushes upon them, 
 and drives them away. Then, selecting one with 
 whom he wishes to talk, he feeds him with the invigor- 
 ating vapor, and the ghost is then made strong enough 
 to talk. 
 
 But none of these sacrifices were strictly vicarious. 
 The old gods were angry at neglect, but never had the 
 kind of justice that a sheep or goat or cow could not 
 appease. The Jews were not unfamiliar with human 
 sacrifices (Lev. 27 : 28, 29 ; Judg. 11 : 30-39), and even 
 the early Christians are said to have offered bloody 
 sacrifices of human beings. The deification of Jesus 
 to correspond with the apotheosis of other personages 
 required a divine parentage. This idea was not gotten 
 up until the second Christian century. Justin made 
 Jesus a second god. But the earlier Fathers did not 
 connect the notion of the vicarious atonement with that 
 of original sin and total depravity. Basilides main- 
 tained that penal suffering or suffering for purposes of 
 justice of necessity implies personal criminality in the 
 sufferer, and therefore cannot be endured by an inno- 
 cent person as a substitute. 
 
 Prof. Robertson Smith, LL.D., in the Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica, in his learned article on " Sacrifice," says 
 in part : " Where we find a practice of sacrificing hon-
 
 BLOOD-SALVATION. 399 
 
 orific gifts to the gods, we usually find also certain other 
 sacrifices which resemble those already characterized, 
 inasmuch as something is given up by the worshippers 
 to be consumed in sacred ceremony, but differ from 
 them, inasmuch as the sacrifice usually a living vic- 
 tim is not regarded as a tribute of honor to the god, 
 but has a special or mystic significance. The most fa- 
 miliar case of this second species of sacrifice is that 
 which the Romans distinguished from the hostia hono- 
 raria by the name of hostia piacularis. In the former 
 case the deity accepts a gift ; in the latter, he demands 
 a life. The former kind of sacrifice is offered by the 
 worshipper on the basis of an established relation of 
 friendly dependence on his divine lord ; the latter is 
 directed to appease the divine anger or to conciliate the 
 favor of a deity on whom the worshipper has no right 
 to count" (vol. xxi. p. 132). 
 
 Piacular Sacrifices. " The idea of substitution is 
 widespread among all early religions, and is found in 
 honorific as well as piacular rites. In all such cases 
 the idea is that the substitute shall imitate as closely 
 as is possible or convenient the victim whose place it 
 supplies ; and so in piacular ceremonies the god may 
 indeed accept one life for another, or certain select lives 
 to atone for the guilt of a whole community ; but these 
 lives ought to be of the guilty kin, just as in blood- 
 revenge the death of any kinsman of the manslayer 
 satisfies justice. Hence such rites as the Semitic sac- 
 rifices of children by their fathers [Moloch], the sac- 
 rifice of Iphigeneia and similar cases among the Greeks,
 
 400 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 or the offering up of boys to the goddess Mania at 
 Rome. . . . 
 
 " In advanced societies the tendency is to modify the 
 horrors of the ritual, either by accepting an effusion of 
 blood without actually slaying the victim e. g. in the 
 flagellation of the Spartan lads or by a further exten- 
 sion of the doctrine of substitution : the Romans, for 
 example, substituted puppets for the human sacrifices to 
 Mania, and cast rush dolls into the Tiber, at the yearly 
 atoning sacrifice on the Sublician Bridge. More usu- 
 ally, however, the life of an animal is accepted by the 
 god in place of a human life. . . . Among the Egyp- 
 tians the victim was marked with a seal bearing the 
 image of a man bound and kneeling with a sword at 
 his throat. And often we find a ceremonial laying of 
 the sin to be expiated on the head of the victim (Herod, 
 ii. 39 ; Lev. 4 : 4, compared with 14 : 21). 
 
 " In such piacular rites the god demands only the 
 life of the victim, which is sometimes indicated by a 
 special ritual with the blood (as among the Hebrews 
 the blood of the sin-offering was applied to the horns 
 of the altar or to the mercy-seat within the veil), and 
 there is no sacrificial meal. Thus, among the Greeks 
 the carcase of the victim was buried or cast into the sea 
 [comp. with most important Hebrew sin-offerings and 
 sacrifice of children to Moloch outside the camp or 
 city]. 
 
 " When the flesh of the sacrifice is consumed by the 
 priests, as with certain Roman piacula and Hebrew 
 sin-offerings, the sacrificial flesh is seemingly a gift ac-
 
 BLOOD-SALVATION. 401 
 
 cepted by the deity and assigned by him to the priests, 
 so that the distinction between a honorific and a piac- 
 ular sacrifice is partly obliterated. But this is not 
 hard to understand; for just as a blood -rite takes the 
 place of blood-revenge in human justice, so an offence 
 against the gods may in certain cases be redeemed by a 
 fine (e. g. Herod, ii. 65) or a sacrificial gift. This 
 seems to have been the origin of the Hebrew trespass- 
 offering (p. 136). 
 
 " The most curious developments of piacular sacrifice 
 take place in the worship of deities of the totem type. 
 Here the natural substitute for the death of a criminal 
 of the tribe is an animal of the kind with which the 
 worshippers and their god alike count kindred an 
 animal, that is, which must not be offered in a sacri- 
 ficial feast, and which indeed it is impious to kill. 
 Thus, HecatS was invoked as a dog, and dogs were 
 her piacular sacrifices. And in like manner in Egypt 
 the piacular sacrifice of the cow-goddess Isis-Hathor 
 was a bull, and the sacrifice was accompanied by lam- 
 entations as at the funeral of a kinsman." 
 
 Under the head of Mystical or Sacramental Sacrifices 
 i. e. sacrifices at initiations and in the Mysteries: 
 " According to Julian, the mystical sacrifices of the 
 cities of the Roman empire were . . . offered once or 
 twice a year, and consisted of such victims as the dog 
 of Hecat4, which might not ordinarily be eaten or used 
 to furnish forth the tables of the gods. . . . The mystic 
 sacrifices seem always to have had an atoning efficacy ; 
 their special feature is that the victim is not simply 
 
 26
 
 402 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 slain and burned or cast away, but that the worship- 
 pers partake of the body and blood of the sacred ani- 
 mal, and that so his life passes, as it were, into their 
 lives and knits them to the deity in living communion. 
 
 " In the Old Testament the heathen mysteries seem 
 to appear as ceremonies of initiation by which a man 
 was introduced into a new worship. . . . But originally 
 the initiation must have been introduction into a par- 
 ticular social community. . . . From this point of 
 view the sacramental rites of mystical sacrifice are a 
 form of blood-covenant. ... In all the forms of 
 blood-covenant, whether a sacrifice is offered or the 
 veins of the parties opened and their own blood used, 
 the idea is the same : the bond created is a bond of 
 kindred, because one blood is now in the veins of all 
 who have shared the ceremony." 
 
 A learned friend writes me : " I doubt whether a 
 real distinction can be made between propitiatory and 
 expiatory sacrifices. Propitiation is by expiation. The 
 basic idea in all sacrifices of that nature appears to be 
 substitution; that is, something taking the place of the 
 offender. ... It seems that the basis of all sacrifice 
 is to be found in a relationship, or kinship (through 
 blood), between the deity who is only the represen- 
 tative of the tribal head regarded as still living in the 
 spirit-world and the worshipper. 
 
 " I may add that the idea of pollution by wrong- 
 doing i. e. offending the tribal deity to be got rid of 
 only by the shedding of blood, is not unknown to so- 
 called savages. This applies especially to offences
 
 BLOOD-SALVATION. 403 
 
 against chastity, as with the Malers of Rajmahal, In- 
 dia, and the Dyaks of Borneo. The pig is the animal 
 usually sacrificed probably because it is the most val- 
 uable animal food. The Padam Abors of Assam look 
 upon all crimes as public pollutions which require to 
 be washed away by a public sacrifice. Here we have 
 the idea of cleansing by the application of blood, and 
 this appears to be the idea also with the Malers, and 
 probably among the aboriginal hill-tribes of India 
 generally." 
 
 Mommsen, the Roman historian, says : " At the very 
 core of the Latin religion there lay that profound moral 
 impulse which leads men to bring earthly guilt and 
 earthly punishment into relation with the world of the 
 gods, and to view the former as a crime against the 
 gods, and the latter as its expiation. The execution 
 of the criminal condemned to death was as much an 
 expiatory sacrifice offered to the divinity as was the 
 killing of an enemy in just war; the thief who by 
 night stole the fruits of the field paid the penalty to 
 Ceres on the gallows, just as the enemy paid it to 
 mother earth and the good spirits on the field of battle. 
 The fearful idea of substitution also meets us here : 
 when the gods of the community were angry, and no- 
 body could be laid hold of as definitely guilty, they 
 might be appeased by one who voluntarily gave him- 
 self up (devovere se)" 
 
 But it was left for Anselm of Canterbury, late in 
 the eleventh century, to first formulate the doctrine of 
 vicarious atonement. Before this there seemed to be
 
 404 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 among the theologians the idea that in some way Christ 
 came to restore, at least in part, all that was lost in 
 Adam. During the first four centuries of the Chris- 
 tian era there seems to have been no fixed opinion as 
 to whether there was a ransom-price paid to God or 
 the devil. Under the article " Devil " in the Encyclo- 
 paedia Bntannica it is said : 
 
 "He [the devil] was, according to Cyprian (De 
 Unitate Ecd.}, the author of all heresies and delusions : 
 he held man by reason of his sin in rightful possession, 
 and man could only be rescued from his power by the 
 ransom of Christ's blood. This extraordinary idea of 
 a payment or satisfaction to the devil being made by 
 Christ as the price of man's salvation is found both in 
 Irenseus (Adv. Hcer., v. 1. 1.) and in Origen, and may 
 be said to have held its sway in the Church for a thou- 
 sand years. And yet Origen is credited with the opin- 
 ion that, bad as the devil was, he was not altogether 
 beyond hope of pardon." 
 
 It would be tedious to note the various views that 
 have prevailed among theologians to the present day. 
 Some hold that the offering was made to God to satisfy 
 divine justice; others hold that it was a commercial 
 transaction so much blood for so many souls; and 
 still others regard the whole as a governmental display 
 to impress the world with a sense of the hatefulness of 
 sin. Calvinists seem to think that the atonement was 
 only made for the elect, but that the blood of Christ 
 had sufficient merit to save the whole world. Roman 
 Catholics hold that it is the literal, material blood of
 
 BLOOD-SALVATION. 405 
 
 Christ that saves the sinner, and hence their extreme 
 belief in the dogma of transubstantiation, the real body 
 and blood of Jesus being offered in the sacrifice of the 
 Mass, and taken by the penitent in the Holy Commu- 
 nion. Protestants generally hold to a sort of consub- 
 stantiation a sort of real presence in the sacrament ; 
 while persons of intelligence profess to believe that this 
 whole theory of blood-salvation is only to be accepted 
 in a figurative sense. The fact is, that the whole 
 scheme of vicarious atonement is an ancient supersti- 
 tion, though taught in the New Testament, and is 
 absurd and unphilosophical, and false in principle 
 and in practice, as we shall hereafter show. 
 
 We leave altogether out of view the logical conclu- 
 sion that if the blood shed by Jesus was the blood of a 
 man, it could have had no more efficacy than the blood 
 of any other human being, and that if the blood shed 
 was the blood of a God, the very mention of the thought 
 is absurd and blasphemous in the extreme. It is non- 
 sense to say that it was the union of the divine with 
 the human nature that gave the blood of Christ its pe- 
 culiar efficacy that " the altar sanctifies the gift " for 
 if the blood was changed by the man being united with 
 the God, it was not human blood, but the blood of a 
 divine man. 
 
 Now, there is no evidence that the blood of Jesus 
 (supposing that he was crucified) differed in its essen- 
 tial qualities from other human blood. If analyzed 
 by the chemist, it would have been found to contain 
 only the constituent particles which belong to human
 
 406 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 blood. The white and red corpuscles and other chem- 
 ical properties would have been found in it. 
 
 The dogma of blood-salvation as held by Romanists 
 is cannibalism, pure, and simple, and as held by Prot- 
 estants it is sheer superstition, without one grain of 
 reason to support it. It has no analogy in nature, nor 
 in the philosophy of legal jurisprudence as held and 
 practised by the most enlightened nations of the world. 
 
 It seems to us that the doctrine of vicarious atone- 
 ment is not only immoral, but demoralizing. It repre- 
 sents God as punishing the innocent for the guilty to 
 make it possible to forgive the guilty. This is incon- 
 sistent with the eternal principles of justice and right- 
 fulness. It must have a demoralizing influence upon 
 the mind and conscience of the sinner, to be told that 
 his sins are already atoned for, and he only need to be 
 cleansed by the blood of Christ ; and this is to be ob- 
 tained by simple faith and trust ! Believe that Jesus 
 shed his blood for you, and that he is waiting and 
 anxious to apply it in washing away your guilt, and 
 it is done ! Then as often as you sin afterward you 
 need only go through the same process to secure par- 
 don ! The easiness with which sins may be blotted 
 out and washed away must have a demoralizing in- 
 fluence upon uneducated minds, though truly intelli- 
 gent persons may not reason in this way. The low 
 state of morals among those who really believe in 
 this device for the forgiveness of sins may thus be ac- 
 counted for. The numerous defalcations and down- 
 right thefts among the higher classes of Christians,
 
 BLOOD-SALVATION. 407 
 
 and the petty lying and stealing among the great mass 
 of Catholics and Protestants, are notorious, and can be 
 traced, we think, to the easy methods of getting rid of 
 the consequencees of wrong-doing. Our prison-statistics 
 are truly suggestive, and should be carefully studied. 
 Freethinkers are far in advance of Christians in the 
 matter of practical morality. Many of those whom 
 the courts exclude as witnesses, because they do not 
 accept certain religious dogmas, are pre-eminently 
 truthful, and would sooner die than tell a falsehood. 
 They do not rely upon the blood of Jesus to wash 
 away the vilest sins and make them white as snow. 
 
 Our statesmen are beginning to find out that our 
 system of pardon is most pernicious. To relieve from 
 the consequences of wrong-doing through a divine con- 
 trivance of the vicarious sufferings of an innocent per- 
 son, and that human disobedience is made all right as 
 to consequences by this obedience of a divine-human 
 person, does not commend itself to the intelligence of 
 this nineteenth century. The answer of theologians to 
 this charge is familiar and specious enough, but it is 
 not practically accepted by the common people. When 
 a child enters the Sunday-school room, and his eyes 
 rest upon the conspicuous placard, "Jesus Paid it 
 All" the natural inference is there is nothing more 
 to pay, nothing to do but to accept the free gift. 
 
 Thousands of ignorant persons, Catholics and Prot- 
 estants, no doubt secretly accept and rely upon this 
 easy device to cover up their numerous shortcomings 
 and misdoings. This doctrine is a welcome one in the
 
 408 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 murderer's cell and upon the platform of the gallows. 
 In thousands of uncultivated minds the thought is no 
 doubt deeply hidden that about the surest way to get 
 to heaven is to commit a murder and have the " ben- 
 efit of clergy/' and in due time to be "jerked to Jesus " 
 (as described by a Western journal) by the hangman's 
 rope. Why should it not be so ? The vicarious atone- 
 ment has been made, and is being made in the Mass, 
 and they have only to accept it. Two priests or min- 
 isters actually opposed the postponement of the execu- 
 tion of a certain murderer on the ground that he then 
 believed in Jesus, but that if execution was postponed 
 they did not know that he would continue to " believe," 
 and that his soul might thus be lost ! 
 
 Suppose that our State authorities should proclaim 
 in advance free pardon and a princely palace to all law- 
 breakers on the simple condition of trusting in the 
 mediatorial interposition and substitution of another, 
 already made and accepted ; what would be the effect 
 on public morals? The system of redemption and 
 pardon set forth in the New Testament is infinitely 
 more than this, and must be demoralizing. All pub- 
 lic officers know the evil effects of the pardon system, 
 and how even the faintest hope of pardon encourages 
 crime, and how certainly a free pardon is almost sure 
 to be followed by a life of increased criminality. 
 
 There should be no such thing as pardon in our 
 State jurisprudence no "board of pardons " and no 
 "exercise of the executive clemency." If a convict is 
 believed to have been wrongly imprisoned, or by after-
 
 BLOOD-SALVATION. 409 
 
 discovered evidence is found to be innocent, let no 
 " pardon board " or " executive " interfere, but let the 
 case go back to the court that convicted him or to one 
 of like jurisdiction, and let the case be judicially re- 
 viewed in the light of evidence ; and if the accused is 
 found innocent, let him be honorably acquitted, or if 
 guilty remanded to prison. 
 
 There is nothing in reason, philosophy, or science 
 that approves the theologic method of dealing with 
 offenders. It violates every principle of justice, and 
 has not one single quality of rightfulness in it. It is 
 a fiction pure and simple, in form and in fact. Ma- 
 caulay well said of this redemptive scheme, " It resem- 
 bles nothing so much as a forged bond, with a forged 
 release endorsed upon its back." Gregg pungently put 
 it thus : " It looks very much like an impossible debt 
 paid in inconceivable coin ; or a legal fiction purely 
 gratuitous got rid of by what looks like a legal chi- 
 canery purely fanciful. It gives unworthy conceptions 
 of God as one delighting in the blood of human beings, 
 and even suggests the disgusting practices of cannibal- 
 ism. It is a relic of the ancient barbaric fetichism 
 borrowed from savages by sacerdotalists for purposes 
 of priestcraft, and should be scouted by all honest and 
 intelligent men." 
 
 The severely orthodox Rev. Professor Shedd, as 
 well as Dr. Priestley, admits that there was no scien- 
 tific construction of the doctrine of the atonement in 
 the writings of the apostolic Fathers (Hist, of Doc., 
 vol. ii., p. 208). The doctrine was evidently manufac-
 
 410 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 tured when the Romish Church was evolved out of the 
 innumerable sects of early Christendom, and was en- 
 forced by wholesale excommunication of dissenters and 
 the death penalty. Christianity was planted in Ger- 
 many, Prussia, and Sweden by military power. The 
 Saxons were " converted " by Charlemagne. All the 
 secret religions have a god or demi-god put to death. 
 Even the Freemasons have Hiram Abiff. The death 
 of Osiris was the central point in the Egyptian system. 
 He was killed by Seth or Typhon, and returned to life 
 as Rat-Amenti, the judge. In Egypt, Christianity 
 moulded its doctrines of the Trinity, atonement, and 
 " mother of God." The Osirian theology was grafted 
 on the Christian stock, if indeed the Christian system 
 was not an evolution of Osirianism ; and of this the 
 monstrous concoction known as vicarious atonement 
 was made, and thrust down men's throats by threats 
 of hell and the visits of the executioner. 
 
 We might extend our remarks upon this subject in- 
 definitely, but we have not space. We have seen that 
 blood-salvation did not originate with either Jews or 
 Christians. Dr. Trumbull has proved this over and 
 over again, and Kurtz, an orthodox writer, has ad- 
 mitted this fact. He says : " A comparison of the 
 religious symbols of the Old Testament with those of 
 ancient heathendom shows that the ground and the 
 starting-point of those forms of religion which found 
 their appropriate expressions in symbols was the same 
 in all cases ; while the history of civilization proves 
 that on this point priority cannot be claimed by the
 
 BLOOD-SALVATION. 411 
 
 Israelites. But when instituting such an inquiry we 
 shall also find that the symbols which were transferred 
 from the religions of nature to that of the spirit first 
 passed through the fire of divine purification, from 
 which they issued as the distinctive theology of the 
 Jews, the dross of a pantheistic deification of nature 
 having been consumed." All this is very frank, but 
 we should not overlook the fact, so clearly established, 
 that this doctrine of cleansing blood, so constantly 
 taught in the New Testament and proclaimed from 
 every orthodox pulpit in the land, was- not a divine 
 revelation specially made to Jews or Christians, but 
 has been adopted and modi/led from the religions of 
 nature, celebrated in all parts of the world by the 
 most barbarous peoples in the remotest periods of time. 
 Indeed, the more gross and savage the people, the more 
 disgusting has been this doctrine of blood-salvation. 
 
 Dr. Trumbull could only think of two possible ways 
 of explaining these marvellous things : " How it came 
 to pass that men everywhere were so generally agreed 
 on the main symbols of their religious yearnings, and 
 their religious hopes in this realm of their aspirations, 
 is a question which obviously admits of two possible 
 answers. A common revelation from God may have 
 been given to primitive man, and all these varying 
 yet related indications of religious strivings and aim 
 may be but the perverted remains of the lessons of that 
 misused or slighted revelation. On the other hand, 
 God may originally have implanted the germs of a 
 common religious thought in the mind of man, and
 
 412 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 then have adapted his successive revelations to the 
 outworking of those germs. Whichever view of the 
 probable origin of these common symbolisms, all the 
 world over, be adopted by any Christian student, the 
 importance of the symbolisms themselves, in their re- 
 lation to the truths of revelation, is manifestly the 
 same." ..." Because the primitive rite of blood- 
 covenanting was well known in the lands of the Bible 
 at the time of the writing of the Bible, for that very 
 reason we are not to look to the Bible for a specific 
 explanation of the rite itself, even where there are in- 
 cidental references in the Bible to the rite and its ob- 
 servances ; but, on the other hand, we are to find an 
 explanation of the biblical illustrations of the primitive 
 rite in the understanding of that rite which we gain 
 from outside sources." 
 
 These assumptions are very flimsy stuff upon which 
 to found the most prominent and mysterious doctrine 
 of the orthodox Christian religion, making it the Alpha 
 and Omega of .the whole "scheme of redemption." To 
 witness the mummeries of Roman Catholic priests and 
 the manipulations of Protestant ministers in the cele- 
 bration of the " Eucharistic Feast " or " Holy Com- 
 munion " is enough to lead a truly intelligent man to 
 wonder why these celebrants do not laugh each other 
 in the face. Even our Universalist and Unitarian 
 ministers sometimes indulge in this heathen diversion, 
 though some of them deeply feel the absurdity of the 
 rite, and the consequent humiliation to which they are 
 subjected. Nevertheless, some of our most profound
 
 BLOOD-SALVATION. 413 
 
 statesmen, when about to die, call in a priest, Catholic 
 or Protestant, to administer the heathen ordinance. 
 When will the world open its blind eyes, and learn 
 that all that God requires of men is to " walk humbly, 
 love mercy, and deal justly"? 
 
 There is no difficulty in accepting the words of a 
 God who is said to have uttered the burning reproof 
 to ritualists and hypocrites as follows : " To what pur- 
 pose is the multitude of your sacrifices ? I delight not 
 in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. 
 Bring no more vain oblations ; incense is an abomina- 
 tion unto me ; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling 
 of assemblies, I cannot away with ; it is iniquity even 
 the solemn meeting. And when you spread your 
 hands I will hide mine eyes from you, yea, you make 
 many prayers I will not hear, your hands are full of 
 blood. Wash ye, make you clean, put away the evil 
 of your doings from before mine eyes ; cease to do evil ; 
 learn to do well, seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, 
 judge the fatherless, plead for the widows." 
 
 This doctrine of blood-salvation is, in our judgment, 
 most unphilosophical and even absurd. It originated, 
 as we have shown, in the most gross and anthropomor- 
 phic conceptions of God, and its solemn celebration in 
 orthodox churches is inseparable from the most igno- 
 rant and superstitious rites of the most savage peoples. 
 Its tendency must be demoralizing.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THINOS THAT REMAIN. 
 
 "That those things which cannot be shaken may remain." 
 HEB. 12 : 27. 
 
 IN the preceding chapters we have shown that in 
 our judgment the time has fully come for the fearless 
 proclamation of the whole truth, regardless of tempo- 
 rary consequences. 
 
 We think that we have also shown that for many 
 important reasons we cannot expect the whole truth 
 from the professional clergy. 
 
 We have shown that the Jews are not the very an- 
 cient and numerous people that they have been sup- 
 posed to have been, and that many of their claims are 
 purely fabulous ; and that this is specially true of their 
 Pentateuch, which Moses, supposing such a man to 
 have lived, could not have written. 
 
 We have shown how extensively symbolism ancient- 
 ly prevailed in sacred writings, how modern sacerdo- 
 talists have accepted as literal history and matters of 
 fact what was at first a romance or an allegory intend- 
 ed to illustrate certain principles, and how the intro- 
 duction of astral keys can only explain many of the 
 Old-Testament stories, which, taken literally, are ex- 
 tremely absurd and foolish. 
 
 414
 
 THINGS THAT REMAIN. 415 
 
 We think we have shown that the " fall " of the 
 mythical Adam and Eve is an allegory, and not an 
 historical fact, and that it is extremely unfortunate that 
 the whole system of dogmatic theology is made to de- 
 pend upon a mythus. 
 
 We have gone in search of the " second Adam," and 
 have not found him, except in the New Testament, 
 and we have shown how utterly incomplete and unsat- 
 isfactory that account is, not rising in any degree to 
 the character of evidence. 
 
 We have shown that the Gospels are highly dra- 
 matic ; that the Christ is largely ideal ; that many 
 other persons before the Christian era claimed all that 
 was claimed for Jesus ; and that he, his conduct, and 
 alleged sayings (he wrote nothing) are widely open to 
 criticism. 
 
 We have shown that the distinguishing feature of 
 the New Testament blood-salvation is not a special 
 revelation, but that it has been borrowed and modified 
 and adapted from savages and from the most ignorant 
 and superstitious tribes ; and that what is called the 
 "redemptive scheme" is full of absurdities and contra- 
 dictions, and that it is philosophically and naturally 
 demoralizing in its tendency and influence if its logical 
 consequences are accepted. 
 
 We now come to the practical question, What have 
 we left ? Is there anything in religion worth preserv- 
 ing? Indeed, is there anything condemned in this 
 book that is essential to the purest religion and the 
 highest morality ? After doubting and throwing dis-
 
 416 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 credit on so much, have we anything left worth pre- 
 serving ? Having cast so much of the cargo overboard 
 to lighten the ship, is the vessel worth saving? Hav- 
 ing cast away the accretions and superstitions of relig- 
 ion, we are only now just prepared to defend its essen- 
 tial and sublime principlas. Let us see what remains. 
 I. Our Faith in God remains. Not a God. The 
 passage in the New Testament (John 4 : 24) admits 
 that " a " is an interpolation. There is no personality 
 in God in a sense which implies limitation. God is 
 spirit, and so spirit is God. Even Professor Haeckel, 
 the German materialist, says : " This monistic idea of 
 God, which belongs to the future, has already been 
 expressed by Bruno in the following words : l A spirit 
 exists in all things, and no body is so small but con- 
 tains a part of the divine substance within itself by 
 which it is animated.' " The words God and religion 
 have been so long associated with superstition and 
 priestcraft that many liberal thinkers have a repug- 
 nance to both. But we must not let these perversions 
 of sacerdotalism rob us of good words. We can con- 
 ceive of God as the Over-all and In-all Spirit of the 
 Universe. That spirit is causation, and matter, its 
 palpable form, is one of its manifestations. We know 
 that Nature's method of making worlds and brutes 
 and men is by a uniform system of evolution, taking 
 millions and billions of years to carry on the work to 
 the present time, and that it is likely that it will take 
 millions more to perfect it. When asked what spirit 
 is, we answer, We do not know ; neither do we know
 
 THINGS THAT REMAIN. 417 
 
 what electricity is, nor can we answer one of a thou- 
 sand questions that come up regarding the subtle and 
 occult qualities of matter. We see no difference be- 
 tween the Unknowable of Herbert Spencer and the 
 Unsearchable of Zophar in the book of Job. The 
 Unknown Power is the Noumenon, the absolute Being 
 in itself, the inner nature of force, motion, and even of 
 conscience. 
 
 We have said, in substance, elsewhere : It is a great 
 mistake to think of God as outside of and distinct from 
 the universe. If there be a God at all, he is in the 
 universe and in every part of it. We cannot properly 
 localize him, and say that he is present in one place 
 and not in another, or that he is in one place more than 
 another. He must be everywhere and in everything. 
 Anthropomorphic (man-like) views of God are what 
 make atheists and agnostics. 
 
 Men constantly talk of the laws of Nature, forgetting 
 that law itself is a product and cannot be a cause. The 
 law of gravitation is not the cause of gravitation. A 
 self-originating and self-executing law is unthinkable. 
 The prevalence of law supposes the existence of a law- 
 maker and a law-executor. We accept the law of evo- 
 lution, but cannot conceive of evolution independent 
 of involution and an Evolver. 
 
 It may be said that this is " begging the question " 
 by assuming the existence of an infinite God. But we 
 deny that it is an assumption in its last analysis. What 
 is known as the scientific method leads logically to the 
 conclusion that there must be something that theists 
 
 27
 
 418 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 generally name God. You may call it " protoplasm," 
 "molecular force," the "potentiality of matter," or 
 even matter itself; and when you tell us what these 
 words mean we will tell you what we mean by " God." 
 Possibly we all mean the same thing. We know of 
 the existence of God, as we know other things, by 
 palpable manifestations. 
 
 Astronomers assumed the existence of Neptune from 
 certain phenomena long before its existence could be 
 demonstrated; and if the discovery had never been 
 made the phenomena so long observed would have 
 nevertheless justified the conclusion that there must be 
 some stupendous cause for such unmistakable and mar- 
 vellous perturbations. 
 
 When men talk of the eternity of matter we do not 
 even profess to understand them. The most advanced 
 scientists do not attempt to explain one of a thousand 
 mysteries in which the phenomena of the material 
 world is enshrouded. Why, then, should we be ex- 
 pected to explain where and how and when God came 
 into existence, or how he could have had an eternal 
 existence or be self-existent ? We affirm no more of 
 God than materialists imply of matter, and we endow 
 him with no attributes that they do not virtually 
 ascribe to matter. So far as assumption is concerned, 
 both stand on the same ground. They, indeed, call 
 things by different names, but mean about the same 
 thing. What theists prefer to call " the works of God " 
 materialists call "Nature," "cosmic laws," "spon- 
 taneous generation," " the potency of matter," " con-
 
 THINGS THAT REMAIN. 419 
 
 servation of energy," " correlation of force/' and " nat- 
 ural selection." 
 
 The fundamental error of modern scientists is that 
 they limit their investigations to the physical and pal- 
 pable, while we have demonstrable evidence of the 
 existence of the spiritual and invisible. We know 
 nothing of matter but from its properties and manifes- 
 tations, and we have the same kind of evidence in re- 
 gard to spirit, and know that it is superior to gross 
 matter, and therefore cannot be tested by the same 
 crucibles. In the very nature of things a great cause 
 must ever be imponderable and invisible. It cannot 
 be weighed and measured, but must ever remain in- 
 tangible and incomprehensible. The spirit in physical 
 man in its relation to the Supreme Spirit is as the drop 
 of water to the ocean or the single glimmering ray to 
 the full-orbed, refulgent sun. Men may talk of " force 
 correlation," and trace its progress and products, but 
 they must remain dumb as to the beginning or origin 
 of force unless they accept the doctrine of an intelligent 
 First Force. There is no way of accounting for the 
 existence of spirit, of life, of intelligence, but by pre- 
 mising the prior existence of spirit, life, and intelli- 
 gence. Like only causes like. An egg does not come 
 from a stone, and the ascidian did not come from a life- 
 less rock. 
 
 The logical conclusion from the facts and principles 
 herein suggested is that there must be an intelligent 
 First Cause of all things an all-pervading, fecunda- 
 ting, animating Spirit of the universe ; and we prefer
 
 420 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 to call this God. Science has taught us the processes 
 of his work, and denominates them the " laws of Na- 
 ture." In point of fact, as little is known of the origin 
 and essence of matter as of spirit, and there is as good 
 ground for agnosticism in the former as in the latter. 
 There is therefore no necessary conflict between true 
 science and a rational theism or monism. 
 
 It is a rational proposition that something must have 
 been before what is called creation. There must have 
 been an intelligent potency, and that power theists call 
 God. Materialism in its last analysis ascribes to mat- 
 ter all that theists ascribe to God. It gives matter an 
 eternal self-existence endows it with an inherent in- 
 finite intelligence and an omnipotent potency. It 
 spells " God " with six letters instead of three. It 
 makes a God of matter, and then denies his existence ! 
 
 We now submit that it is more rational to postulate 
 the existence of an eternal Supreme Intelligence and 
 Power, the Creator and Ruler of all things visible and 
 invisible, who is the Author and Executor of the laws 
 by which both mind and matter are governed. This 
 Supreme Being is alone the Self-existent One, and what 
 are called the properties and modes of inert matter are 
 but the proofs and manifestations of his eternal power 
 and Godhead. There cannot be a poem without a 
 poet, nor a picture without an artist. There cannot 
 be a watch or other complex machine without an in- 
 ventor and artisan. The universe is the sublimest of 
 all poems, and Cicero well said that it would be easier 
 to conceive that Homer's Iliad came from the chance
 
 THINGS THAT REMAIN. 421 
 
 shaking together of the letters of the alphabet than 
 that the atoms should have produced the cosmos with- 
 out a marshalling agency. The visible and palpable 
 compel us to acknowledge their counterpart in the in- 
 visible and intangible, and we cannot rationally account 
 for the origin of man without postulating the existence 
 of an Intelligence and Power greater than humanity. 
 
 We are reproached for the inconsistency of believing 
 in a Power we cannot comprehend, and endowing him 
 with attributes of which we can form no just concep- 
 tions. Atheists do not seem to realize that they are 
 guilty of a greater inconsistency. They tell us that 
 we believe in a Being of whom we can form no con- 
 ception, but they themselves must form some concep- 
 tion of such a Being, else how could they deny his 
 existence ? 
 
 There is no difficulty in admitting the existence of 
 a Supreme Power if we do not attempt to comprehend 
 and describe it. Matthew Arnold says : " We too 
 would say ' God ' if the moment we said ' God ' you 
 would not pretend that you know all about him." His 
 definition of God is indeed vague, but vastly suggestive : 
 " An enduring Power not ourselves that makes for right- 
 eousness." This suggests the moral element in the 
 unknown Power. There is not only a spiritual sense 
 in man which recognizes the supersensuous, but there 
 is an indwelling witness to the eternal principle of 
 rightfulness. The sentiment of oughtness is inherent 
 and ineradicable. Every man who is not a moral 
 idiot has a feeling that certain things ought and ought
 
 422 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 not to be that there is an essential right and wrong. 
 Human intuition sees and feels this mysterious Power 
 that answers to our Ego, and from which it proceeds ; 
 and this inward conviction cannot be eradicated from 
 the average mind by the pretensions of science. The 
 patient watcher in the dark room at the terminus of 
 the ocean cable sees in his suspended mirror the reflec- 
 tion of an electric spark, and he at once recognizes it 
 as a message from the operator three thousand miles 
 away. So God is seen by the aspiring and contem- 
 plative in the concave mirror of man's own spirit, and, 
 though it is a mere reflection, a spark, a flash, it clear- 
 ly proves the existence of the Central Magnet. It is 
 this recognition of the moral element that forms the 
 basis of moral government and of that worshipfulness 
 which has manifested itself among all nations, bar- 
 barian and civilized. 
 
 It is safe to assume that the average Atheism is dis- 
 belief in the God of the dominant theology, and not in 
 the Ultimate Power that makes for righteousness. Vul- 
 gar, anthropomorphic conceptions of God, which endow 
 him with certain speculative attributes, are condemned 
 by reason and science ; but nevertheless phenomena 
 have something behind them, and energy has something 
 beneath it, and all things have something in them which 
 is the source of all phenomena and energy ; and this 
 enduring, all-pervading Power is our sure guarantee 
 of the order of the universe. And this Power theists 
 persist in calling God. Theologians may call this 
 Pantheism, but it is only seeminglv so. There is a
 
 THINGS THAT REMAIN. 423 
 
 vast difference between saying that everything is God, 
 and that God is in everything. The old watchmaker- 
 mechanician idea, a God separate and outside of the 
 universe, has become obsolete, and science and reason 
 and the law of progressive development now compel 
 men to reshape their conceptions of God as identical 
 with the Cosmos, plus the Eternal Power. 
 
 Herbert Spencer has beautifully said : " But amid 
 the mysteries, which become the more mysterious the 
 more they are thought about, there will remain the 
 one absolute certainty that man is ever in presence of 
 an Infinite and Eternal Energy, from which all things 
 proceed." The felt and the seen have their fulness in 
 the unseen and intangible, and the visible impels us to 
 seek its counterpart and complement in the invisible. 
 
 II. Our Faith in Religion remains. And here the 
 question comes up, What is religion f The commonly- 
 accepted meaning of the word is as derived from the 
 Latin religare, which means " to bind back or to bind 
 fast." We do not accept the definition, because it is 
 suggestive of bondage. It implies a previous harmo- 
 nious relation with God which had been lost. It favors 
 the dogmas of the fall of Adam and man's alleged rein- 
 statement and " binding back " to the divine allegiance, 
 through what is called, in theological parlance, a " re- 
 demptive scheme." It is a significant fact that Lac- 
 tantius, a theologian of the early part of the fourth cen- 
 tury, was the first to apply the word religion to " the 
 bond of piety by which we are bound to God." Au- 
 gustine of the fifth century followed his example, and so
 
 424 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 did Servius about the same time ; and their example has 
 been followed by theologians ever since, presumably 
 because it favors the dogmas of the fall of Adam and 
 the redemption by Christ. But the highest classical 
 authorities derive the word religion from relegere or 
 religere, signifying " to go through or over and over 
 again in reading, speech, or thought to review care- 
 fully and faithfully to ponder and reflect with con- 
 scientious fidelity." 
 
 Cicero must have understood the original meaning 
 and origin of the Latin word, and he took this view 
 of the subject. He lived more than three hundred 
 years before Lactantius, and he said : " But they who 
 carefully meditated, and as it were considered and re- 
 considered all those things which pertained to the wor- 
 ship of the gods, were called religious, from religere" 
 The word religio was in common use in ancient Rome 
 in the sense of scruple, implying the consciousness of 
 a natural obligation wholly irrespective of the gods. 
 The oldest popular meanings of the word religion were 
 faithfulness, sincerity, veracity, honor, punctiliousness, 
 and conscientiousness.* Eeligion, then, in its true 
 meaning, is the great fact of duty, of oughtness or right- 
 fulness, of conscience and moral sense. Its great busi- 
 ness is to seek conformity to one's highest ideal. It 
 consists in an honest and persistent effort by all appro- 
 priate means to realize ideal excellence and to trans- 
 form into actual character and practical life. 
 
 Religion in this sense is universally approved. It 
 * See A Study of Religion, by Francis E. Abbot.
 
 THINGS THAT REMAIN. 425 
 
 is false religion which is condemned. It is what some 
 men would require you to believe in spite of history, 
 science, and self-consciousness. It is superstition, big- 
 otry, credulity, creed, sectarianism, that men detest. 
 Religion is innate and ineradicable in man, and there 
 is a natural religion concerning which man cannot be 
 skeptical if he would. Bishop Butler has well said 
 that the morality of the gospel is " the republication 
 of natural religion ;" and it would be easy to show the 
 evolution of religion from very small beginnings and 
 how this work is going on to-day. 
 
 Regarding religion as an evolution, a development, 
 and not as something as inflexible as a demonstrated 
 proposition in mathematics, we are all the while ex- 
 pecting an improvement. "We have a right to expect 
 that Christianity should be better than more ancient 
 religions, because it is the latest ; and so it is in many 
 respects. But we have a right to expect that this im- 
 provement will go on with the lapse of time. The 
 religion of the nineteenth century is an improvement 
 on the religion of the first century, but we are reach- 
 ing forward to greater perfection. Even the system 
 of morals taught in the New Testament is defective. 
 We want something purer and better, and it is rapidly 
 coming. All true religion is natural, and its morality 
 relates to the mutual and reciprocal claims of men 
 arising from organized society. If we are right in our 
 dealings with our fellow-men, we cannot be out of har- 
 monious relations with God. All happiness here and 
 hereafter depends upon our knowledge of the order of
 
 426 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 the universe and the conformation of our lives to it. It 
 is impossible to divorce true religion from real science, 
 and the more we know of the latter the more we shall 
 have of the former. Whatever tends to promote pure 
 religion ought to be encouraged, and no man has any 
 more reason to be ashamed of his religion than he has 
 to be ashamed of his appetite. We sum up our ideas 
 of religion by saying : Do all the good you can to all 
 the persons you can by all the means you can, and as 
 long as you can. 
 
 III. The Scriptures remain for just What they are. 
 Portions of the Bible command our most profound 
 reverence and our most unqualified admiration. We 
 respond heartily to some of the truly excellent moral 
 maxims of the Bible, and read with rapture some of 
 the selections of poetry from the Hebrew prophets. 
 But right in close connection we often find stories 
 of uncleanness, fornications, adulteries, and incests that 
 the vilest newspaper of to-day would not dare publish. 
 Jael meanly murders Sisera, and is praised for it, while 
 the deceit and treachery of Rahab are commended in 
 the New Testament. The story of Boaz and Ruth is 
 only fit for a dime novel. Solomon's Song is full of 
 lasciviousness. Abram lies. Moses gets mad. David 
 commits adultery and murders Uriah. Jacob is de- 
 ceitful and a trickster ; and so on to the end. Polyg- 
 amy is shown to have been the rule, and not the ex- 
 ception, among Jehovah's favorites. War is everywhere 
 tacitly justified, and slavery is practised and not an 
 abolitionist opens his mouth. We go to the New Tes-
 
 THINGS THAT REMAIN. 427 
 
 tament, and He who is called the " Perfect One " curses 
 a fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season, drives out 
 with small cords men engaged in legitimate business, 
 upsets their tables, and uses the most violent and re- 
 proachful language toward them. He shows want of 
 respect for his mother, and is ambiguous and evasive 
 in his conversation with the woman of Canaan says 
 he does not know whether he is going to the feast at 
 Jerusalem or not, and then straightway sets out for the 
 Holy City, and makes believe by his actions that he 
 is going to one place, when he is actually going to 
 another. 
 
 We want a higher morality than is taught in the 
 Bible. We want higher and more noble conceptions 
 than are given in the parable of the " Unjust Judge," 
 and more just and equitable principles than are taught 
 in the parable of the "Unjust Steward" or the "La- 
 borers in the Vineyard " or the " Ten Talents." We 
 want a morality that relates to this life rather than to 
 the next. We do not want the possession of property 
 held up as a crime, and poverty represented as a virtue 
 entitling one to a seat in the future kingdom. We 
 want good homes to live in now, rather than " man- 
 sions in the skies." We do not want a morality that 
 appeals to selfishness only, that discriminates in favor 
 of celibacy, and that only tolerates marriage as a rem- 
 edy for lust, as taught in the seventh chapter of First 
 Corinthians. We want a higher morality than the 
 morality of even the New Testament. 
 
 It is difficult to speak to ears polite of the obscenity
 
 428 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 of the Bible. There are more than one hundred pas- 
 sages of the most coarse and vulgar description. To 
 print these in a book and send it through the United 
 States mails, if law were impartially administered, would 
 put a man in the penitentiary. There are entire chap- 
 ters that reek with obscenity from beginning to end. 
 We cannot tell you about Onan, and Tamar, and Lot 
 and his two daughters, and scores of other obscene 
 matters. There are passages even in the New Testa- 
 ment that cannot be mentioned in the presence of a vir- 
 tuous woman. When we enter a lady's parlor and see 
 the richly-gilded Bible upon the centre-table, we shud- 
 der as we remember the obscenity that is contained 
 between its costly lids. When we see a young girl 
 tripping along our streets, Bible in hand, we wonder 
 if she knows that she carries more obscenity than By- 
 ron ever wrote, than Shelley ever dreamed of, than the 
 vilest French novelist ever dared to print. 
 
 We have very grave doubts about putting the Bible 
 into the hands of children. They are, through it, made 
 familiar with much that is demoralizing. We have 
 many reasons for rejecting the dogma of the plenary 
 inspiration of the Scriptures and of their infallibility. 
 These fragmentary writings must be judged by their 
 merits by what they are. It has been shown by the 
 author of Supernatural Religion that we gain more 
 than we lose by taking this rational view of the Bible. 
 An illusion is lost, but a reality is gained which is full 
 of hope and peace. The unknown men who mostly 
 wrote the little pamphlets which make up the Bible
 
 THINGS THAT REMAIN. 429 
 
 probably did the best they knew that is, they wrote 
 according to the degree of their development but some 
 of the writers were on a very low plane. We should 
 read these books and all other sacred writings of all 
 nations just as we study geology as showing what 
 was in the mind of man when the books were written, 
 just as we learn from the earth's strata the history and 
 order of the various periodic formations. The bibles 
 of the ages are accessible to every man who can read. 
 All of them contain much that is valuable, with much 
 that is frivolous, superstitious, and false. But these 
 books belong to our race, and happy is the man who 
 knows how to use them wisely. He who rejects all 
 makes as great a mistake as he who accepts all. The 
 true position is that the Bible contains the best thoughts 
 of many of the best men that have lived in the ages of 
 the past, expressed according to their light ; and, while 
 their obvious errors should be rejected, whatever com- 
 mends itself to our reason, according to the best light 
 of to-day, and to which each man's own inspiration 
 and spiritual discernment responds, should be rever- 
 ently studied and highly esteemed. Religion is not a 
 product of the Bible, but the Bible is a product of re- 
 ligion natural religion though often misunderstood 
 and perverted. We do not throw aside the bibles, but 
 accept them for just what we find them to be worth. 
 We eat the kernel and throw away the shell. 
 
 IV. Our most Implicit Faith in the Continuity of 
 Life remains. We have no more confidence in Mate- 
 rialism than we have in Atheism. We believe that
 
 430 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 some men at least are immortal that the intellectual 
 and moral giants should be blotted out at death is un- 
 thinkable. We find in this doctrine of a future state 
 much that has a moral tendency. It inspires self- 
 respect and esteem. It leads to a proper appreciation 
 of humanity. It inspires hope for the future. It 
 affords comfort in bereavement. It furnishes a proper 
 motive for aspiration and progress. 
 
 When we consider the millions of years that have 
 been employed in bringing man to his present high 
 estate, it is rational to assume that a capacity for such 
 immense progress is good ground for faith in still 
 greater progress, so that there shall be no end to the 
 advancement and attainments of humanity. If prim- 
 itive man was not immortal, there may have been a 
 time when he became immortal, just as there is a time 
 when the embryo becomes a conscious, breathing babe, 
 and when the undeveloped child begins to exercise the 
 functions of rationality and becomes an accountable 
 being. It is not true that even the extreme Darwinian 
 doctrine is necessarily opposed to the doctrine of a 
 future life for man. On the contrary, its fundamental 
 principles suggest the hypothesis of immortality. 
 
 If the " conservation of energy " is a true principle 
 of science, it favors the faith of man in the doctrine of 
 a future life. Greatness and goodness developed in 
 man must be " conserved," and how can it be done if 
 death is a destroyer ? The " persistency of force " in 
 the human personality must at least be equal to the 
 primary elements which environ that personality. Is
 
 THINGS THAT REMAIN. 431 
 
 it rational to suppose that the sweep of evolution which 
 has brought man from such unfathomable depths will 
 not carry him up to still more illimitable heights? 
 Are these vast achievements of Nature to be so un- 
 thriftily wasted ? Do not the products of a past eter- 
 nity point unmistakably to still greater things in an 
 eternity to come? 
 
 And, then, does not the scientific doctrine of the 
 " indestructibility of matter " favor the belief in life 
 after death? 
 
 The theory of " natural selection " also favors the 
 doctrine of a future life, and never appears so real and 
 so beautiful as when we realize that as man progresses 
 in everything that is grand and good he voluntarily 
 falls in with this natural law, and of choice not only 
 selects that which is most to be desired, but by self- 
 denial and almost superhuman exertions strives to 
 attain the highest ideal of his heavenly aspirations. 
 The unwearied effort of the most highly-developed 
 men to reach a higher perfection and a more exalted 
 excellence is evidence that Nature is true to herself, 
 and that man will not be blotted out of conscious ex- 
 istence just as he first clearly perceives the essential 
 difference between good and evil. Having tasted the 
 fruit of the tree of life, he is destined to live for ever. 
 
 It is certainly a significant fact that the faith of man 
 in, and a desire for, a future life are strongest in his 
 moments of greatest mental and spiritual exaltation. 
 If this is an illusion, it is strange that it should be 
 particularly vivid when he is in his most god-like
 
 432 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 moods and when he is most in love with the beautiful, 
 the true, and the good. Is it possible for Nature to 
 thus trifle with and deceive and disappoint man when 
 he is most serious and truthful, and when all the 
 elements of his better nature are in the ascendant and 
 predominate over everything that is gross and perish- 
 able? 
 
 A future life and an immortal one must exist to 
 enable man to reach that perfection to which he aspires, 
 and feels himself bound to attain as the only end wor- 
 thy of his being, and which, during the brief span of 
 mortal life, is never reached even by the most virtu- 
 ous. Nature cannot be so blind, so stupidly improv- 
 ident, as to throw away her most precious treasures, 
 gathered by so much labor and suffering, and not per- 
 mit man to carry forward the great work, in which he 
 has just began to succeed, to that perfection to which 
 all his aspirations unmistakably converge. 
 
 Then every cultivated man realizes as age increases 
 that his attainments and successes in this ephemeral 
 life fall far short of, and are absolutely inadequate 
 and disproportionate to, his inherent powers; and it 
 is irrational to conclude that his very existence is to be 
 blotted out and life itself become utterly extinct just as 
 he has learned how to live, and what life is, and what 
 is his " being's end and aim." We do not desire to 
 argue this question here : we only make a profession 
 of our faith. 
 
 V. Our Faith in the Doctrine of Present and Fu- 
 ture Rewards and Punishments remains. While it is
 
 THINGS THAT REMAIN. 433 
 
 irrational to accept the horrible dogmas of sacerdotal- 
 ism as to the eternal torments of the wicked, it is 
 equally unreasonable to believe that all men enter 
 upon a state of perfect happiness without regard to 
 moral character. 
 
 The doctrine of rewards and punishments after death 
 is clearly suggested by the principles of natural relig- 
 ion which have been recognized by all men, pagan and 
 Christian. That virtue brings its own reward and 
 vice its own punishment is a fact in the experience of 
 men in this life. It must be so in the life to come, as 
 the order of the universe cannot be changed by time or 
 place. No valid objection can be made to the prin- 
 ciple of future punishment. But its nature and object 
 must be taken into the account. True punishment is 
 never arbitrary nor vindictive. It is remedial, reform- 
 atory, disciplinary, and has respect to the constitution 
 of moral government and the best interests and welfare 
 of its subjects. Suffering is a consequence of sin, not a 
 judicial penalty, and happiness is not a favor conferred 
 by grace, but a legitimate product of right being rather 
 than of right doing. Men are rewarded or punished, 
 both in this life and the life to come, not so much for 
 what they have done or not done as for what they are. 
 Suffering is intended to put an end to that which causes 
 suffering, and is for the good of the sufferer. In this 
 world and in all possible worlds sin must be a source 
 of suffering, and goodness a fountain of happiness. 
 The degree of happiness or misery of man after death 
 must be in proportion to the degree of his perfection or
 
 434 SKELETON KEYS. 
 
 imperfection in character evolved during life that will 
 constitute his " ineetness." 
 
 The same penal code must prevail in the next life 
 that prevails here, and it may be thus summarized : 
 (1) Suffering is a consequence of imperfection and 
 wrong-doing. (2) Imperfection and wrong-doing will 
 meet their appropriate punishment in the future life as 
 in this world. (3) The effect will only continue so 
 long as the cause exists. (4) Men will for ever make 
 their own heaven or hell, and there is good reason for 
 believing that the sufferings of many persons after 
 death will be, beyond all conception, awful in the ex- 
 treme. (5) But the "immortal hope" justifies the 
 conclusion that all men will, sooner or later, be es- 
 tablished in holiness and happiness. 
 
 In response to the question, After death what ? the 
 proper answer to the interrogative is, In life what? 
 Death is transition, not transmutation. It is emigra- 
 tion, not Pythagorean transmigration. Change of 
 place does not make change of character. It is there- 
 fore reasonable to conclude that a man after death is 
 just what he was before death. Every man will 
 gravitate to his own place. There will be as many 
 grades of moral character after death as in this life, 
 and therefore as many heavens and hells. Misers and 
 drunkards and libertines will still be such. Those 
 who love the pure and beautiful, the true, the right, 
 the unselfish, and the humane will still have the same 
 desires and tastes after death as before death, and will 
 naturally gravitate to kindred spirits.
 
 THINGS THAT REMAIN. 435 
 
 After mature reflection the conclusion must be reach- 
 ed that the greatest happiness of which man is capable 
 arises from three sources : (1) The perception of new 
 truth ; (2) Its impartation to others ; (3) Doing good 
 to others. A more rational conception of future bless- 
 edness than this is impossible. 
 
 If these views are correct, it is the highest wisdom 
 to cherish and cultivate on earth and during life the 
 tastes, the desires, the affections, the principles which 
 in themselves constitute the highest bliss of saints and 
 angels in all possible worlds. And as to hell after 
 death, we have nothing to fear but the hell we may 
 carry with us the hell of unholy lust, the hell of un- 
 sanctified passion, the hell of selfishness, the hell which 
 follows wrong living and wrong doing. 
 
 But we must bring this book to a close. The writer 
 is a firm believer in God, in religion, and in morality ; 
 he accepts the Bible for just what it is. He believes 
 in the continuity of life after death and in future re- 
 wards and punishments. If he believed that he had 
 written anything in this book to weaken faith in these 
 doctrines, he would commit the manuscript to the 
 flames instead of to the printer.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 A. 
 
 Abraham a myth, 149. 
 and bis servant, 131. 
 and phallic emblems, 131. 
 and Saturn, 150. 
 offering Isaac Parallels, 151- 
 
 154. 
 
 Abrahamic Covenant, 155. 
 Abydos and Bunsen's Egyptian 
 
 tables, 96. 
 Adams, Dr., on forty-two children 
 
 and the she-bears, 162. 
 Capt. R. C., how to dispense 
 
 with ministers, 40. 
 Admission of Albertus, 180. 
 of Ambrose, 179. 
 of Augustine, 321. 
 of Clemens Alexandrinus, 364. 
 of Tertullian, 179. 
 Alexandria, systems of religion 
 
 prevalent in, 347. 
 Anno Domini, invented in the sixth 
 century, generally adopt- 
 ed in the tenth, 299. 
 Aristotle, maxims of, disapproved, 
 
 24. 
 Arnold, Matthew, his definition of 
 
 God, 421. 
 
 Assyrian cuneiform tablets, discov- 
 ery 1873-74, 97. 
 Athens and Sparta, date 1550 B.C., 
 
 108. 
 
 Avatars, all announced by celestial 
 signs, 309-312. 
 
 B. 
 
 Bagster's Comprehensive Bible on 
 the phallic oath, 132. 
 
 Barlow on tree-worship, 125. 
 Beatty, Hon. James, his opposition 
 
 to salaried ministers, 40. 
 Berosus on Chaldean history, 98. 
 Blackstone on witches, 118. 
 Blauvelt, Dr. A., 16, 17. 
 British Museum, manuscripts, 74. 
 Brooks, Bishop, on insincerity in 
 
 the pulpit, 43. 
 
 Brotherhood of man, 342, 343. 
 Buckland on May music in Mag- 
 dalen Church, 137. 
 Buddha, died 477 years before 
 
 Christ, 104. 
 Budge, Dr., manuscripts classified 
 
 by, 75. 
 Burnet, Bishop, on the story of the 
 
 creation, 146. 
 
 Dr., on concealingthe truth, 44. 
 Burr, W. H., on area of Palestine 
 
 and its population, 63-70. 
 
 C. 
 
 Cardinal Cajetan's admission, 178. 
 
 Chaldean history, date of, 109. 
 
 Child, Lydia Maria, and women at 
 Ocean Grove, 136. 
 
 Christ, doubts as to his existence, 
 367-369. 
 
 Christus and Christianus, evidence 
 of modern fabrication, 207. 
 
 Chrysostom on the 25th of Decem- 
 ber, 243. 
 
 Cicero on symbolism, 122. 
 
 Cicero's definition of religion, 12, 
 424. 
 
 Circumcision originated in phallic- 
 ism, more ancient than 
 Judaism, 130. 
 
 437
 
 438 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Clark, Dr. Adam, points out thirty- 
 five parallels to Philo in 
 John's Gospels, 219. 
 
 Clement, admission of, 179. 
 
 Colenso, Bishop, collates from Pen- 
 tateuch, 85. 
 
 Confucius's Golden Kule, 22. 
 
 Constantino a pagan priest, 29. 
 
 Cross very ancient, 318. 
 
 D. 
 
 David's nude dance, 132. 
 
 Davidson, Prof., on " Catholic 
 canon," 227. 
 
 Deluge, The, Jews obtained the ac- 
 count from Babylon, 156. 
 
 Doketse, 266. 
 
 Draper on Pentateuch, 103. 
 
 Driver, Prof., and Philadelphia 
 editor, 155. 
 
 E. 
 
 Edwards, Miss Amelia B., on date 
 of Egyptian monarchy, 96. 
 
 Elisha and she-bears explained, 
 162. 
 
 Epistles, silence of, concerning the 
 Gospels, 372. 
 
 Essenes existed before Christian- 
 ity, 230. 
 
 identical with Mithraism, 232. 
 profound regard for the sun, 
 239. 
 
 Eusebius regarded the Essenes as 
 Christians, 229. 
 
 Eusebius's History a probable for- 
 gery, 206. 
 
 F. 
 
 Farrar, Canon, on priestcraft, 48. 
 Fisher, Prof., on decline of clerical 
 
 authority, 42. 
 
 Fisk, John, on glacial period, 95. 
 Forlong, Gen., on Jews, 55. 
 
 on area of Judea and Samaria, 
 
 69. 
 
 Forlong, Gen., on prevalence of 
 
 phallicism, 130, 133. 
 on the fall, 170. 
 
 G. 
 
 Gnosticism, 355-362. 
 
 Gnostics, what they held, 267. 
 Gerald Massey on, 280-294. 
 Gibbon on, 294. 
 
 Golden Rule used by Confucius, 
 Isocrates, Aristotle, Six- 
 tus, Pittacus, Thales, from 
 three to six centuries be- 
 fore Christ, 327. 
 
 Gospel in the Stars, 144, 145. 
 
 Grecian Argos, date of, 108. 
 
 Gregory on ignorance and devo- 
 tion, 44. 
 
 H. 
 
 Hale, Dr., on insincerity in the 
 
 pulpit, 42. 
 Sir Matthew, condemns a 
 
 witch to death, 118. 
 Harmonies of the Gospels, 347. 
 Herod died before Jesus was born, 
 
 315. 
 Heyne on myths and philosophy, 
 
 123. 
 
 Hindoo laws quoted, 105-108. 
 Hirsch, Rabbi, on Pentateuch, 119, 
 
 120. 
 Holmes, 0. W., Rector and Doctor, 
 
 25. 
 Huxley on clerical opposition to 
 
 progress, 48. 
 on the deluge, 157, 158. 
 on the fall, 187, 188. 
 
 I. 
 
 I H S, numerals which stand for 
 608, explained, 298. 
 
 Tnman, Dr., on Adam and Eve, 169. 
 
 Irenseus the real founder of the 
 Roman hierarchy, 220.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 439 
 
 J. 
 
 Jacob and Joseph, 121. 
 
 Jefferson to Pickering, 46. 
 to Dr. Cooper, 47. 
 
 Jeoud, son of Saturn, origin of the 
 name of Jew, 150. 
 
 Jesus, Essenism personified, 264. 
 
 Jesuses, many, 197. 
 
 Jews, mongrels, 54. 
 origin of, 55. 
 real cause of exodus, 78. 
 
 John's Gospel first mentioned by 
 Theophilus of Antioch in 
 A. D. 176, 219. 
 
 Johnson, Rev. Samuel, on the ideal 
 Christ, 276-281 ; also 305, 
 306, 323, 324. 
 
 Jonah and the fish, with its paral- 
 lel myths, 159. 
 
 Jones, Sir William, on antiquity 
 of the Vedas, 105. 
 
 Josephus, forgery of passages re- 
 lating to Jesus, numerous 
 authorities quoted, 200- 
 203. 
 
 joins the Essenes, 229. 
 on the " burning bush," 126. 
 
 Joshua, and the sun standing still, 
 162. 
 
 Justinian Code, origin of, 105. 
 
 K. 
 
 Kaffirs celebrate the catamenial 
 
 period, 381. 
 Keys of Peter, an interpolation, 
 
 246. 
 Knight, Richard Payne, on the 
 
 " Worship of Priapus," 
 
 130. 
 
 L. 
 
 Lactantius, admissions of, 323. 
 Lardner, Dr., on deceit, 44. 
 
 admissions of, 177. 
 
 concerning fall, 173. 
 Lenormant's admission, 98. 
 
 Le Renouf on origin of Egyptian 
 
 civilization, 104. 
 Lesley, Prof., on phallicism, 131. 
 Lord's Prayer very ancient, 327. 
 Luther on Copernicus, 144. 
 Lyell on delta of Mississippi, 95. 
 
 M. 
 
 Mahaffy, Prof., on the identity of 
 the Egyptian and Chris- 
 tian religions, 321, 322. 
 
 Manetheo on date of Egyptian 
 monarchy, 97. 
 
 Manning, Archbishop, consecration 
 of, suggestive, 133. 
 
 Manu, laws of 2680 alocas, 104, 
 105. 
 
 Maomonides, admission as to the 
 fall being allegorical, 178. 
 
 Marius, story of, 24. 
 
 Martyr's, Justin, comparison of 
 Christianity and other re- 
 ligions, 319-321. 
 
 Massey on the ideal Christ, 284, 
 
 288. 
 on symbolism, 123. 
 
 Matthew, Gospel of, written in He- 
 brew according to Irenae- 
 us, Origen, and Jerome, 
 217. 
 
 Menes, date of reign, 96. 
 
 Merrell, Rev. Geo. E., gap of three 
 centuries in MSS., 212. 
 
 Miller, Dr., on examination of min- 
 isters, 33. 
 
 Milman on deceit, 44. 
 
 Mitchell, Prof., on mummy coffin, 
 143. 
 
 Mithraism, its prevalence, 233, 
 238. 
 
 Moses, strange coincidences in the 
 
 life of, 109-112. 
 a myth ; horns, 147. 
 and the Midianites and witches, 
 115, 118. 
 
 Mosheim on deceit, 43. 
 
 MSS., date of, 213. 
 
 Miiller, Max, on dates, 104. 
 
 Mutilation, bodily, 335.
 
 440 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 N. 
 
 Neander's concession, 308. 
 
 Neo-Platonists, what they taught, 
 237. 
 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, what he per- 
 ceived, 238. 
 
 Nineveh not three days' journey 
 from the coast, 159. 
 
 Noah and the deluge ; Chaldean 
 and other nations, 156. 
 
 O. 
 
 Origen on the fall, 178. 
 Orphic and other dramas, 235. 
 Oswald, Dr. Felix L., quoted, 336. 
 Oxley, William, accounts of Jesus 
 from Egyptian sources, 
 296. 
 
 concerning Egyptian statu- 
 ettes, 296, 301. 
 on the Jews, 79. 
 
 P. 
 
 Pagan contemporaneous with Je- 
 sus ; authorities quoted, 
 204. 
 
 Papius and Polycarp, not instruct- 
 ed by John the son of 
 Zebedee, but probably by 
 John, a Presbyter of Asia 
 Minor, 219. 
 
 Paul's genuine Epistles, 214, 215. 
 
 Paxson, Chief-Justice, open letter 
 to, 121. 
 
 Peck, Bishop, on blood, 277. 
 
 Pentateuch, date of, 97, 98, 100, 
 101. 
 
 Peter's name of Chaldaic origin, 
 248. 
 
 Phallicism not necessarily obscene, 
 129, 135. 
 
 Philo, admission of, 178. 
 
 Phoenicians, date of, 109. 
 
 Plato on Homer's poems, 122. 
 
 Presbyterian serpent symbolism, 
 128. 
 
 Proclus on Plato, 122. 
 
 Prometheus, the god-man, 303. 
 
 R. 
 
 Rachel sitting on the wedges, 132. 
 
 Rameses II., Pharaoh of the cap- 
 tivity, 96. 
 
 Reber exposes a fraud, 220. 
 
 Religion, definition of, 12. 
 
 Renan on religion, 12. 
 
 Roberts, Dr. Alexander, Version 
 1881, 210. 
 
 Roscoe, William, description of the 
 consecration of Pope Alex- 
 ander VI., 134. 
 
 Ryan, Bishop, installed, 31, 163. 
 
 S. 
 
 Sabbath observed 1100 years before 
 the Hebrews existed, 113. 
 
 Sacrifices, human, beasts, 397, 398. 
 
 Samson story and the twelve la- 
 bors of Hercules; the 
 foxes, 160, 161. 
 
 Sethi II., Egyptian king, his good 
 old age, 96. 
 
 Shedd, Prof., admission, 409. 
 
 Smith, Dr. Robertson, on the Gos- 
 pels, 215. 
 on sacrifice, 398, etc. 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, on infinite and 
 eternal energy, 423. 
 
 St. Patrick and the snakes, 128. 
 
 Stanley on blood-friendship, 389. 
 
 Stuart, Moses, on the " indefinite- 
 period " theory, 175. 
 
 T. 
 
 Tacitus, Annals of, forged, 205. 
 Talmage on blood, 377. 
 Talmud, Babylonian, 22. 
 
 " wilderness of speculations," 
 
 196. 
 
 Taylor, Jeremy, on blood, 377. 
 Tertullian, fanatical expression of, 
 
 273. 
 " Testimony," hint as to the origin 
 
 of the word, 132. 
 Theodosius, Emperor, ordered 
 
 books burned, 244, 294.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 441 
 
 Toldoth JeaTiu, 265. 
 
 Trumbull on blood covenant, 382- 
 
 389. 
 Tyndall on religion, 11. 
 
 U. 
 
 Ussher, Archbishop, his chronol- 
 ogy, 95. 
 
 V. 
 
 Vedic prophecies, 194. 
 Virgin-born gods, 369, 371. 
 Von Martius, conversion of, 183. 
 
 W. 
 
 Wake. C. Staniland, on Pentateuch, 
 101. 
 
 Whately, Archbishop, converted by 
 Sir John Lubbock and 
 Taylor, 183. 
 
 White, Andrew D., shows how sci- 
 ence contradicts theology, 
 183. 
 
 Winchell, Dr. Alexander, and the 
 Methodists, 184. 
 
 Witches executed, modern exam- 
 ples, 118. 
 
 Z. 
 
 Zodiac, 140, 141. 
 
 age estimated, 143. 
 Zoroaster prophesied of virgins, 
 194. 
 
 THE END,
 
 Advertisement. 
 
 THE BIBLE-WHENCE AND WHAT? 
 
 BY BICHABD B. WESTBBOOK, D.D., LL.B. 
 
 One Volume. Cloth. Price, $1.00. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY J. B. LIPPINCCfTT COMPANY, 
 Nos. 715 and 717 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. Foundation of the " Authorized " Version of the New Testa* 
 
 ment. 
 
 II. The New Tension Basis (1881). 
 III. Canoiiicity of the Scriptures. 
 IT. Custody of the Scriptures. 
 
 T. Miracle, Prophecy, Martyrdom, and Church Infallibility. 
 TI. Internal Evidence. 
 TIL Probable Origin of the Old Testament. 
 Till. Probable Origin of the New-Testament Books. 
 IX. Probable Origin of Certain Dogmas found in all Religion*. 
 X. Is the Bible strictly Historical, or mainly Allegorical } 
 XI. Were the Jewish and Christian Scriptures written Before 
 
 or After the Pagan Bibles! 
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 pects to find in the little volume something to warrant the continuation of 
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 entertaining in style, strong in logic, and a remarkable specimen of the 
 condensation into a little of an amount of research that implies years of 
 conscientious labor." Daily Register, Newburgh, N. Y. 
 
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 that a defence of the Bible on old grounds is undertaken, will be very much 
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 discussing ceremonials is that of the late Dean Stanley, who traced ' the 
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 man.' The historical method is employed with no irreverent spirit by Dr. 
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 Ledger, Philadelphia.
 
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 tllties is past, and that broad common-sense must be umpire. The author 
 declares his purpose to be to enlarge and strengthen the foundations of true 
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 must be condemned only by those who fear to let the light of truth in upon 
 the dark places of their understandings. . . . The book is clearly, forcibly, 
 and ably written. The style is lively and calculated to interest all who 
 have any taste for the subjects therein discussed. It is scarcely necessary 
 to say that it is logical. This work aims only to expose the fallacy of the 
 idea that the Bible must be accepted as of absolute authority, simply be- 
 cause men have said that it must be so received ; it is an authority because 
 and in so far as it is true, not true because it has been declared to be an 
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 ers." Chronicle-Herald, Philadelphia. 
 
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 still clinging to the Christian religious belief, takes the anxious reader by 
 the hand and leads him up to the facts so far as they have been ascer- 
 tained. . . . This volume casts a flood of light upon things not generally 
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 thinks that the people have a right to know all that can be known. . . ." 
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 read and carefully study this book. Much of bigotry that now obtains 
 would then be dissipated, and a broader, truer view of Christianity would 
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 ship and authority. . . . Besides the historical information there are intel- 
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 ing the authenticity of the books and the dogmas of the Bible, and very 
 interesting comparisons of the texts of the Christian religion with those of 
 other religions. . . . The work is a valuable contribution to the history of 
 the Bible." Boston Post. 
 
 " It is a condensed presentation of views with regard to the origin of the 
 Bible, its teachings, and its claims to a supernatural character, presented 
 from a rationalistic standpoint. Its style is particularly direct and forci- 
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 its tone, and as an epitome of the views which its author holds is much to 
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 inf Gazette.
 
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 BY R. B. WESTBROOK, D.D., LL.B. 
 One Volume. Clotli. Price, $1.00. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, 
 
 Nos, 715 and 717 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM PRESS NOTICES. 
 
 " It is easy enough to see why Dr. Westbrook finds that he can 
 better say his say ' outside of the church and the conventional 
 ministry.' He is a believer in the doctrine of evolution, and he looks 
 upon the Old Testament without the spectacles with which theolo- 
 gians have been in the habit of covering their eyes. He declares 
 that as ' threescore thousand pulpiteers in these United States' 
 and ' thousands and tens of thousands of Sunday-schools' teach 
 ' hundreds of thousands of credulous and confiding children' the 
 biblical account of the creation of man and his fall to be abso- 
 lutely true, the theologians themselves are responsible for the 
 1 increasing materialism and scepticism of the day.' His examina- 
 tion of the biblical stories is conducted in the interest of truth, 
 but, by the very nature of it, is Ingersollian. When he reaches 
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 is not destructive without giving some equivalent, and his prog- 
 nostication of what men in the future will believe is in many 
 minds already accomplishing." The Press, Philadelphia. 
 
 " This work comprises a series of essays recently delivered in 
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 gain credit for originality and ingenuity." Chronicle- Herald, 
 Philadelphia. 
 
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 nected with that debatable land which borders on science and 
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 self familiar with the leading speculations on both sides of the 
 general controversy. Dr. Westbrook is a clear-headed, unpreju- 
 diced lover of the truth, neither afraid to know nor afraid to speak ; 
 and he has the twofold faculty of seeing clearly and of expressing 
 himself in lucid and intelligible language." New York Herald.
 
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 " He takes a bold stand against things taught by rigid preachers 
 and teachers ; objects to the literal interpretation of many passages 
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 ... . The book is carefully written, and shows extensive study 
 of the writings of eminent men in all ages." Evening Bulletin, 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 "The doctrines of Dr. Westbrook's book on ' Man Whence 
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 " The author is an independent investigator, relying upon 
 reason to test the discoveries of his researches, but is directed by 
 the pure spirit of a seeker after truth. He has broad culture to 
 draw upon for facts and principles, skill in applying them, and 
 logical acuteness in drawing his deductions. While during his 
 investigation there are points established which at first may pro- 
 voke opposition, as his rejection of certain accepted beliefs re- 
 garding the book of Genesis, and his criticisms of theism and of 
 prevailing religions, etc., the results of his inquiries testify to as 
 deep a religious nature and as high a spiritual aspiration as are 
 attained in the prescribed ways e.f the sects. The book presents 
 its themes in an original and interesting way, and should be read." 
 Boston Globe. 
 
 " Richard B. Westbrook, D.D., of Philadelphia, a strong and 
 independent thinker, and the author of several books which the 
 more rigid denounce as unorthodox, has added to his list of pub- 
 lications a volume entitled ' Man Whence and Whither? in 
 which he takes a stand against a literal translation of many 
 passages of scripture, and to certain dogmas, such as eternal 
 punishment of the wicked by fire and torture ; criticises the insin- 
 cerity of many preachers ; accepts the fundamental ideas of Darwin 
 and other modern men of science, and discusses theism, atheism, 
 and agnosticism with unqualified boldness." Boston Transcript. 
 
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 is, to say the least, like a sign-post which will point out the direc- 
 tion of truth, even if it does not go after it and overtake it." 
 Evening Journal, Chicago. 
 
 " The chapters handle in a thoroughly consistent, thoughtful, 
 attractive, yet reverent manner, inquiries suggested by the ' intense 
 mental curiosity' of the age as to the nature, constitution, personal 
 identity, etc., of man, and briefly analyze freeing them from 
 professional technicalities of expression and illustration processes 
 of evolution connected with the vast considerations. ' whence' came 
 and 'whither' tend\\\& existing races of men." -New Orleans Times.
 
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