ANTICIPATIONS OF CHRISTIANITY IN SOLAR MYTHS.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Phelips, Vivian
The advanced theologians, who are presenting us with this theory, have to explain, among other things, how it was that Christ himself took the “Jonah and whale” story seriously, treating it as sober history. He spoke of no mere allegory when He said: “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”40 Neither Christ himself nor the Apostles spoke of any revelation embodied in heathen beliefs. Very much the reverse. Yet the Bishop of Birmingham (late of Worcester), speaking to the adversaries of Christianity, informs them: “You say that we find in Christianity the relics of paganism. On the contrary, we find in paganism, intermingled with much that is false, superstitious, and horrible, the anticipations of Christianity.” Is that why we have paid them the compliment of adopting their dates for the birth and death of their Saviours?41 Canon P. H. Robinson goes so far as to say that Christianity has benefited by the addition of heathen thought [N.B. He owns there has been this addition], and that it is yet to benefit by further contact with heathen thought! His actual words are: “If Greek and Roman thought were needed for a full appreciation of the meaning of the Incarnation, why may we not say the same of Indian and Chinese thought? Surely we are justified in believing that every country and every people have something to contribute to Christianity and that the completion of the Christian revelation awaits the contribution of each.
We believe that there are many important aspects of the Christian truth which have never been understood, simply because Christianity has not yet been reflected in the experience of those nations of the world which are still heathen.”42