Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions Being...

[368:1] The celebrated passage (I. John, v. 7) "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one," is now admitted on all hands to be an interpolation into the epistle many centuries after the time of Christ Jesus. (See Giles' Hebrew and Christian Records, vol. ii. p. 12. Gibbon's Rome, vol. iii. p. 556. Inman's Ancient Faiths, vol. ii. p. 886. Taylor's Diegesis and Reber's Christ of Paul.)

[368:2] That is, the true faith.

[368:3] Dogma Deity Jesus Christ, p. 95.

[369:1] "The notion of a Triad of Supreme Powers is indeed common to most ancient religions." (Prichard's Egyptian Mytho., p. 285.)

"Nearly all the Pagan nations of antiquity, in their various theological systems, acknowledged a trinity in the divine nature." (Maurice: Indian Antiquities, vol. vi. p. 35.)

"The ancients imagined that their triad of gods or persons, only constituted one god." (Celtic Druids, p. 197.)

[369:2] The three attributes called Brahmā, Vishnu and Siva, are indicated by letters corresponding to our A. U. M., generally pronounced OM. This mystic word is never uttered except in prayer, and the sign which represents it in their temples is an object of profound adoration.

[369:3] Monier Williams' Indian Wisdom, p. 324.

[369:4] That is, the Lord and Saviour Crishna. The Supreme Spirit, in order to preserve the world, produced Vishnu. Vishnu came upon earth for this purpose, in the form of Crishna. He was believed to be an incarnation of the Supreme Being, one of the persons of their holy and mysterious trinity, to use their language, "The Lord and Savior—three persons and one god." In the Geita, Crishna is made to say: "I am the Lord of all created beings." "I am the mystic figure O. M." "I am Brahmā Vishnu, and Siva, three gods in one."

[369:5] See The Heathen Religion, p. 124.

[370:1] Allen's India, pp. 382, 383.

[370:2] Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 272.

[371:1] Indian Antiquities, vol. iv. p. 372.

[371:2] Taken from Moore's "Hindoo Pantheon," plate 81.

[371:3] Asiatic Researches, vol. iii. pp. 285, 286. See also, King's Gnostics, 167.

[372:1] Davis' China, vol. ii. p. 104.

[372:2] Ibid. pp. 103 and 81.

[372:3] Ibid. pp. 105, 106.

[372:4] Ibid. pp. 103, 81.

[372:5] Ibid. 110, 111. Bell's Pantheon, vol. ii. p. 36. Dunlap's Spirit Hist., 150.

[372:6] Indian Antiquities, vol. v. p. 41. Dupuis, p. 285. Dunlap's Spirit Hist., 150.

[372:7] Indian Antiquities, vol. v. p. 41.

This Taou sect, according to John Francis Davis, and the Rev. Charles Gutzlaff, both of whom have resided in China—call their trinity "the three pure ones," or "the three precious ones in heaven." (See Davis' China, vol. ii. p. 110, and Gutzlaff's Voyages, p. 307.)

[372:8] See Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. p. 210.

[372:9] Ibid.

[373:1] Indian Antiquities, vol. i. p. 127.

[373:2] Higgins: Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 14.

The following answer is stated by Manetho, an Egyptian priest, to have been given by an Oracle to Sesostris: "On his return through Africa he entered the sanctuary of the Oracle, saying: 'Tell me, O thou strong in fire, who before me could subjugate all things? and who shall after me?' But the Oracle rebuked him, saying, 'First, God; then the Word; and with them, the Spirit.'" (Nimrod, vol. i. p. 119, in Ibid. vol. i. p. 805.)

Here we have distinctly enumerated God, the Logos, and the Spirit or Holy Ghost, in a very early period, long previous to the Christian era.

[373:3] I. John, v. 7. John, i. 1.

[373:4] The Alexandrian theology, of which the celebrated Plato was the chief representative, taught that the Logos was "the second God;" a being of divine essence, but distinguished from the Supreme God. It is also called "the first-born Son of God."

"The Platonists furnished brilliant recruits to the Christian churches of Asia Minor and Greece, and brought with them their love for system and their idealism." "It is in the Platonizing or Alexandrian, branch of Judaism that we must seek for the antecedents of the Christian doctrine of the Logos." (A. Revillé: Dogma Deity Jesus, p. 29.)

[373:5] Higgins: Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 102. Mithras, the Mediator, and Saviour of the Persians, was called the Logos. (See Dunlap's Son of the Man, p. 20. Bunsen's Angel-Messiah, p. 75.) Hermes was called the Logos. (See Dunlap's Son of the Man, p. 39, marginal note.)

[373:6] Bonwick's Egyptian Belief, p. 402.

[374:1] Bonwick's Egyptian Belief, p. 404.

[374:2] Ibid.

[374:3] Ibid.

[374:4] Ibid. p. 28.

[374:5] Frothingham's Cradle of the Christ, p. 112.

[374:6] See Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. p. 307.