FOOTNOTES: (continued 10)
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Doane, T. W. (Thomas William)
The fate of Hypatia was a warning to all who would cultivate profane knowledge. Henceforth there was to be no freedom for human thought. Every one must think as ecclesiastical authority ordered him; A. D. 414. In Athens itself philosophy awaited its doom. Justinian at length prohibited its teaching and caused all its schools in that city to be closed.[441:1]
After this followed the long and dreary dark ages, but the sun of science, that bright and glorious luminary, was destined to rise again.
The history of this great Alexandrian library is one of the keys which unlock the door, and exposes to our view the manner in which the Hindoo incarnate god Crishna, and the meek and benevolent Buddha, came to be worshiped under the name of Christ Jesus. For instance, we have just seen:
1. That, "orders were given to the chief librarian to buy at the king's expense whatever books he could."
2. That, "one of the chief objects of the museum was that of serving as the home of a body of men who devoted themselves to study."
3. That, "any books brought by foreigners into Egypt were taken at once to the museum and correct copies made."
4. That, "there flocked to this great intellectual centre students from all countries."
5. That, "the Christian church received from it some of the most eminent of its Fathers."
And also:
6. That, the chief doctrines of the Gnostic Christians "had been held for centuries before their time in many of the cities in Asia Minor. There, it is probable, they first came into existence as 'Mystæ,' upon the establishment of a direct intercourse with India under the Seleucidæ and the Ptolemies."
7. That, "the College of Essenes at Ephesus, the Orphics of Thrace, the Curetes of Crete, are all merely branches of one antique and common religion, and that originally Asiatic."
8. That, "the introduction of Buddhism into Egypt and Palestine affords the only true solution of innumerable difficulties in the history of religion."
9. That, "Buddhism had actually been planted in the dominions of the Seleucidæ and Ptolemies (Palestine belonging to the former) before the beginning of the third century B. C. and is proved to demonstration by a passage in the edicts of Asoka."
10. That, "it is very likely that the commentaries (Scriptures) which were among them (the Essenes) were the Gospels."
11. That, "the principal doctrines and rites of the Essenes can be connected with the East, with Parsism, and especially with Buddhism."
12. That, "among the doctrines which the Essenes and Buddhists had in common was that of the Angel-Messiah."
13. That, "they (the Essenes) had a flourishing university or corporate body, established at Alexandria, in Egypt, long before the period assigned for the birth of Christ."
14. That, "the very ancient and Eastern doctrine of the Angel-Messiah had been applied to Gautama Buddha, and so it was applied to Jesus Christ by the Essenes of Egypt and Palestine, who introduced this new Messianic doctrine into Essenic Judaism and Essenic Christianity."
15. That, "we hear very little of them (the Essenes) after A. D. 40; and there can hardly be any doubt that the Essenes as a body must have embraced Christianity."
Here is the solution of the problem. The sacred books of Hindoos and Buddhists were among the Essenes, and in the library at Alexandria. The Essenes, who were afterwards called Christians, applied the legend of the Angel-Messiah—"the very ancient Eastern doctrine," which we have shown throughout this work—to Christ Jesus. It was simply a transformation of names, a transformation which had previously occurred in many cases.[442:1] After this came additions to the legend from other sources. Portions of the legends related of the Persian, Greek and Roman Saviours and Redeemers of mankind, were, from time to time, added to the already legendary history of the Christian Saviour. Thus history was repeating itself. Thus the virgin-born God and Saviour, worshiped by all nations of the earth, though called by different names, was but one and the same.
In a subsequent chapter we shall see who this One God was, and how the myth originated.
Albert Revillé says:
"Alexandria, the home of Philonism, and Neo-Platonism (and we might add Essenism), was naturally the centre whence spread the dogma of the deity of Jesus Christ. In that city, through the third century, flourished a school of transcendental theology, afterwards looked upon with suspicion by the conservators of ecclesiastical doctrine, but not the less the real cradle of orthodoxy. It was still the Platonic tendency which influenced the speculations of Clement, Origen and Dionysius, and the theory of the Logos was at the foundation of their theology."[443:1]
Among the numerous gospels in circulation among the Christians of the first three centuries, there was one entitled "The Gospel of the Egyptians." Epiphanius (A. D. 385), speaking of it, says:
"Many things are proposed (in this Gospel of the Egyptians) in a hidden, mysterious manner, as by our Saviour, as though he had said to his disciples, that the Father was the same person, the Son the same person, and the Holy Ghost the same person."
That this was one of the "Scriptures" of the Essenes, becomes very evident when we find it admitted by the most learned of Christian theologians that it was in existence "before either of the canonical Gospels," and that it contained the doctrine of the Trinity, a doctrine not established in the Christian church until A. D. 327, but which was taught by this Buddhist sect in Alexandria, in Egypt, which has been well called, "Egypt, the land of Trinities."
The learned Dr. Grabe thought it was composed by some Christians in Egypt, and that it was published before either of the canonical Gospels. Dr. Mill also believed that it was composed before either of the canonical Gospels, and, what is more important than all, that the authors of it were Essenes.
These "Scriptures" of the Essenes were undoubtedly amalgamated with the "Gospels" of the Christians, the result being the canonical Gospels as we now have them. The "Gospel of the Hebrews," and such like, on the one hand, and the "Gospel of the Egyptians," or Essenes, and such like, on the other. That the "Gospel of the Hebrews" spoke of Jesus of Nazareth as the son of Joseph and Mary, according to the flesh, and that it taught nothing about his miracles, his resurrection from the dead, and other such prodigies, is admitted on all hands. That the "Scriptures" of the Essenes contained the whole legend of the Angel-Messiah, which was afterwards added to the history of Jesus, making him a Christ, or an Anointed Angel, is a probability almost to a certainty. Do we now understand how all the traditions and legends, originally Indian, escaping from the great focus through Egypt, were able to reach Judea, Greece and Rome?
To continue with our subject, "why Christianity prospered," we must now speak of another great support to the cause, i. e., Persecution. Ernest de Bunsen, speaking of Buddha, says:
"His religion has never been propagated by the sword. It has been effected entirely by the influence of peaceable and persevering devotees."
Can we say as much for what is termed "the religion of Christ?" No! this religion has had the aid of the sword and firebrand, the rack and the thumb-screw. "Persecution," is to be seen written on the pages of ecclesiastical history, from the time of Constantine even to the present day.[444:1] This Christian emperor and saint was the first to check free-thought.
"We search in vain," (says M. Renan), "in the collection of Roman laws before Constantine, for any enactment aimed at free thought, or in the history of the emperors, for a persecution of abstract doctrine. Not a single savant was disturbed. Men whom the Middle Ages would have burned—such as Galen, Lucian, Plotinus—lived in peace, protected by the law."[444:2]
Born and educated a pagan, Constantine embraced the Christian faith from the following motives. Having committed horrid crimes, in fact, having committed murders,[444:3] and,
"When he would have had his (Pagan) priests purge him by sacrifice, of these horrible murders, and could not have his purpose (for they answered plainly, it lay not in their power to cleanse him)[444:4] he lighted at last upon an Egyptian who came out of Iberia, and being persuaded by him that the Christian faith was of force to wipe away every sin, were it ever so heinous, he embraced willingly at whatever the Egyptian told him."[444:5]
Mons. Dupuis, speaking of this conversion, says:
"Constantine, soiled with all sorts of crimes, and stained with the blood of his wife, after repeated perjuries and assassinations, presented himself before the heathen priests in order to be absolved of so many outrages he had committed. He was answered, that amongst the various kinds of expiations, there was none which could expiate so many crimes, and that no religion whatever could offer efficient protection against the justice of the gods; and Constantine was emperor. One of the courtiers of the palace, who witnessed the trouble and agitation of his mind, torn by remorse, which nothing could appease, informed him, that the evil he was suffering was not without a remedy; that there existed in the religion of the Christians certain purifications, which expiated every kind of misdeeds, of whatever nature, and in whatsoever number they were: that one of the promises of the religion was, that whoever was converted to it, as impious and as great a villain as he might be, could hope that his crimes were immediately forgotten.[445:1] From that moment, Constantine declared himself the protector of a sect which treats great criminals with so much lenity.[445:2] He was a great villain, who tried to lull himself with illusions to smother his remorse."[445:3]
By the delay of baptism, a person who had accepted the true faith could venture freely to indulge their passions in the enjoyment of this world, while they still retained in their own hands the means of salvation; therefore, we find that Constantine, although he accepted the faith, did not get baptized until he was on his death-bed, as he wished to continue, as long as possible, the wicked life he was leading. Mr. Gibbon, speaking of him, says:
"The example and reputation of Constantine seemed to countenance the delay of baptism. Future tyrants were encouraged to believe, that the innocent blood which they might shed in a long reign would instantly be washed away in the waters of regeneration; and the abuse of religion dangerously undermined the foundations of moral virtue."[445:4]
Eusebius, in his "Life of Constantine," tells us that:
"When he thought that he was near his death, he confessed his sins, desiring pardon for them of God, and was baptized.