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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43630 ***
+
+Note: Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive. See
+      http://archive.org/details/paganoriginofp00pitr
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
+
+      Greek characters have been transliterated to English
+      characters. The transliterations are denoted by [Greek:
+
+
+
+
+
+PAGAN ORIGIN OF PARTIALIST DOCTRINES.
+
+by
+
+REV. JOHN CLAUDIUS PITRAT,
+
+A Member of the University of France; Author of "Jesuits
+Unveiled," of "Paul and Julia," etc., and
+Formerly a Romish Priest.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Published by the Author.
+
+Cincinnati:
+Longley Brothers, Printers,
+168 Vine St., Above Fourth.
+1857.
+
+Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1857, by
+John Claudius Pitrat,
+In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District
+of Ohio.
+
+
+
+
+TO BROTHER JOHN A. GURLEY.
+
+
+_Dear Friend Gurley_,--To you, who have fed me when I was starving,
+sheltered me when I was a homeless exile, and befriended me when I was
+forlorn, and my life was sought by my persecutors, this volume I
+inscribe, as a feeble token of my lasting gratitude and friendship.
+
+     J. C. PITRAT.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+Two arguments can be brought forth to prove that the Partialist
+doctrines are not taught in the Scriptures: the one is drawn from the
+Scriptures themselves, and the other is drawn from history.
+
+The first argument, drawn from the Scriptures, is this:
+
+The Partialist doctrines are not taught in the Scriptures, if it can be
+proved by the Scriptures themselves that the Partialist doctrines are
+not contained therein. But it can be proved by the Scriptures themselves
+that the Partialist doctrines are not contained therein. Then the
+Partialist doctrines are not taught in the Scriptures.
+
+The second argument, drawn from history, is this:
+
+The Partialist doctrines are not taught in the Scriptures, if it can be
+proved by history, that the origin of the Partialist doctrines is Pagan.
+But it can be proved by history that the origin of the Partialist
+doctrines is Pagan. Then the Partialist doctrines are not taught in the
+Scriptures.
+
+These two arguments, as he who reflects can easily perceive, not only
+corroborate each other, but their respective proving force is such,
+that, if considered separately, each one is sufficient to peremptorily
+prove that the Partialist doctrines are not taught in the Scriptures.
+The former, till now, we Universalists have exclusively used, and it
+has been efficacious in causing the scales of early and strong
+prejudices to fall from the eyes of thousands. However, it is
+unfortunately a fact, confirmed by daily experience, that the
+conclusions arrived at through scriptural controversies are striking
+only to minds of a particular bent and culture. On the contrary, the
+conclusions arrived at through historical facts present themselves to
+the mind of _all_, clear, vivid and irresistible. It is for this reason
+that the author, in this book, presents to the consideration of the
+Universalist denomination, and of the public in general, the second
+argument, drawn from history. The vast number of historical facts, of
+quotations, extracts, etc., contained in this volume, have been
+translated from many languages, with as much accuracy as possible.
+
+May God bless this work, intended to confirm the Universalists in their
+beloved faith; and also to break the chain of prejudice which keeps
+millions of men in ignorance, in superstition, in perpetual fear, and
+thereby in spiritual bondage: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth
+shall make you free."
+
+     THE AUTHOR.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+  DEDICATION.                                                      iii
+
+  PREFACE.                                                           v
+
+  CHAPTER I.
+
+  TRUE SPIRIT OF PAGAN RELIGIONS.                                    9
+
+  CHAPTER II.
+
+  PAGAN ORIGIN OF MYSTERIES.                                        28
+
+  CHAPTER III.
+
+  PAGAN ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF A PERSONAL DEVIL.                 58
+
+  CHAPTER IV.
+
+  PAGAN ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.                     68
+
+  CHAPTER V.
+
+  PAGAN ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF TRINITY.                          80
+
+  CHAPTER VI.
+
+  PAGAN ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE SUPREME DIVINITY OF
+  JESUS CHRIST.                                                     87
+
+  CHAPTER VII.
+
+  PAGAN ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF ENDLESS HELL.                    111
+
+  ARTICLE I.--Metempsychosis or Transmigration of the Souls.       111
+
+  ARTICLE II.--Tartarus.                                           129
+
+  ARTICLE III.--Did the Christians of the First Centuries
+  believe in Endless Hell.                                         136
+
+  ARTICLE IV.--How the Church of Rome borrowed the doctrine
+  of Endless Hell from the Pagans; and how, afterwards, the
+  self-called Orthodox Protestant Churches borrowed it from
+  the Church of Rome.                                              170
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.
+
+  PAGAN ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF A FIRST JUDGMENT, BY JESUS
+  CHRIST, IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE SEPARATION OF THE SOUL FROM
+  THE BODY.                                                        182
+
+  CHAPTER IX.
+
+  PAGAN ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE RESURRECTION OF THE
+  BODY.                                                            190
+
+  CHAPTER X.
+
+  PAGAN ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF A GENERAL JUDGMENT AT
+  THE END OF THE WORLD.                                            205
+
+  CHAPTER XI.
+
+  PAGAN ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF VICARIOUS ATONEMENT.             229
+
+  VALEDICTORY.                                                     246
+
+
+
+
+  PAGAN ORIGIN
+  OF
+  PARTIALIST DOCTRINES.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+TRUE SPIRIT OF PAGAN RELIGIONS.
+
+
+IT seems to be an undeniable fact, that, before the coming of Jesus
+Christ, nations had immemorially and universally believed, that the
+universe, or nature, was an uncreated but animated being, whose vast
+body comprised the earth, the sun, the planets and the stars, to which
+one great soul impressed motion and life. Also they believed that all
+those principal parts, or, in other words, principal members of the body
+of the universe, were animated by emanations or irradiations of the
+great soul of the universe, or nature. This Pantheistic doctrine we find
+recorded by the Chaldean Zoroaster, in his Zend-Avesta; by the
+Phoenician Sanchoniaton in his Mythological History; by the author of
+the Indian Vedam; and by the Chinese Confucius, in his Theology. Weighty
+is the testimony of those authors, who lived, Confucius perhaps
+excepted, at about the time of Moses. Also, the above doctrine they
+themselves believed and taught. More, we find the same testimony, the
+same doctrine, and the same teaching, in nearly all the works of the
+celebrated poets, orators and philosophers of posterior ages.
+
+Pliny, the historian and naturalist, writes: "The world, or what we call
+the heaven, which, in its vast embrace, encircles all beings, is a God
+eternal, immense, uncreated and immortal. To seek any thing beyond it is
+beyond man's reach, and is vain labor. Behold, the universe is the Being
+truly sacred, the Being eternal, immense, comprising all in himself: he
+is all in all, or rather he is himself all. He is the work of nature,
+and nature itself."
+
+We read in the sixth book of Eneida, by Virgil: "Know, O my son! that
+the heavens and the earth, the deep, the bright globe of the moon, and
+all stars are moved by a principle of inly life, which perpetuates its
+existence; that it is a great intelligent soul, extending to all the
+parts of the vast body of the universe; and which, connected with all,
+impresses to all an eternal movement. This soul is the source of the
+life of man, of that of flocks, birds, and of all the monsters of the
+deep. The bright force that animates them emanates from that eternal
+fire that shines in the sky, and which, a captive in the gross matter of
+bodies, develops itself only as permitted by the divers mortal
+organizations that blunt its force and activity. At the death of each
+animal those germs of particular life return to their source, and to the
+principle of life that circulates in the starry sphere."
+
+This belief led men to the worship of the universe, or nature, and
+became the basis of their mythology. They adored the vast body of
+nature, and its great soul, under the name of Supreme Being, of Jupiter,
+of Vichnou, of Pan, etc. They adored the earth, the sun, the planets and
+the stars under other names. They erected temples, altars, statues and
+chapels to those deities, and worshiped them--not the wood, stone, or
+marble, as they are unjustly accused of, but the emanations of the great
+soul of the universe, which animated all those principal members of the
+vast body of nature, whose might and influence impressed them with
+wonder, terror or gratitude, and thus attracted their adoration.
+
+The Chinese adored the heavens under the name of great Tien. The Supreme
+Being in the Chou-King is designated by the name of Tien, which means
+from heaven, and of Chang-Tien, supreme heaven. They had reared temples
+to the sun, to the moon, and to the stars; and also one to the great
+being formed of the sky, of the earth and of the elements,--being which
+is the universe named by them Tay-ki. They worshiped the heavens at the
+time of the two solstices. The Japanese adored the stars and planets
+which they supposed to be animated by geniuses or gods. They had a
+temple dedicated to the splendor of the sun. They celebrated the feast
+of the moon on the 7th of September, and spent the whole night in
+rejoicing by her light. The Chinese and the Japanese practice the same
+worship even in our days.
+
+The Egyptians adored the sun under the name of Osiris, and the moon
+under the name of Iris. To them both they ascribed the government of the
+world. They built, to honor Osiris, the City of the Sun, or Heliopolis,
+and also a splendid temple in which they placed his statue. They
+worshiped all the stars and planets which compose the Zodiac. The
+animals consecrated in the Egyptian temples, and religiously revered,
+represented the various functions of the supreme cause; and they
+referred to the sky, to the sun, to the moon, and to the constellations.
+
+The Phoenicians worshiped the moon and the stars. They adored the sun
+under the name of Hercules. The Ethiopians adored the sun and the moon;
+and Diodorus informs us, that those of their tribes who inhabited the
+country above Meroe adored the sun, the moon, and the universe. They
+called themselves the sons of the sun: Persina was the priestess of the
+moon, and the king, her husband, was the priest of the sun. All the
+Africans who were settled along the coast of Angola, and of Congo,
+worshiped the sun and the moon; so the inhabitants of the island of
+Teneriffe did. The oldest worship of the Arabs was Sabism, the religion
+universally spread in the Orient: the heaven and the stars were objects
+of veneration. The moon was more especially adored. The Saracens called
+her Cabar, which means great: even now-a-days her crescent adorns the
+religious monuments of the Turks. Among the Arabs each tribe was under
+the invocation or patronage of a star.
+
+The Sabism was also the religion of the ancient Chaldeans. Even now
+there is at Helle, on the ruins of Babylon, a mosque named Meshed
+Eschams, or Mosque of the Sun. In this city was the temple of Belus, or
+of the sun, the great deity of the Babylonians. To this same god the
+Persians reared temples and consecrated images, under the name of
+Mithra. They also honored the heaven under the name of Jupiter, the moon
+and Venus, the fire, the earth, the air or wind, and water. The fire
+ether that circulates in the whole universe, and of which the sun is the
+main force, was represented in the Pyrees by the sacred fire kept
+incessantly burning by the wizards, or priests. At Tymbree, in Troades,
+the sun was adored under the name of Apollo. The island of Rhodes was
+consecrated to the sun, to whom the colossal statue, known under the
+name of the Colossus of Rhodes, was erected. The Massagetes, the
+Abasges, the Derbises, the Tartars, the Moscanians, the Tchouvaches, the
+Toungouses, the Huns, all the Scytic nations, the Iberians, the
+Albanians, the Colchidians, the Phrygians, and the Laodiceans, worshiped
+the earth, the sun, the moon, and the stars, under various emblems.
+
+Plato informs us that the ancient Greeks had no other gods than the sun,
+the moon, the earth, the stars, water, and fire. Orpheus considered the
+sun as the greatest of the gods, and adored him upon mounts at his
+rise. Epicharmis, disciple of Pythagoras, called gods the sun, the moon,
+the stars, the earth, water and fire. Agamemnon, in Homer, sacrificed to
+the sun and to the earth. The choir, in the Oedipus of Sophocles,
+invokes the sun as being the first among the gods, and their chief. The
+earth was worshiped in the island of Cos. Also the earth had a temple at
+Athens and at Sparta; and an altar and oracle at Olympia.
+
+When we read Pausanias, who has described Greece and her religious
+monuments, we find everywhere traces of the worship of nature. We see
+temples, altars, and statues, consecrated to the sun, to the moon, to
+the earth, to the Pleiades, to the celestial auriga, to the goat, to the
+bear, or Calisto, to the night, to rivers, etc. The inhabitants of
+Megalopolis sacrificed to the wind Boreas, and had planted a grove in
+his honor. The Macedonians adored Estia, or fire, and prayed to Bedy, or
+water. Alexander, king of Macedonia, sacrificed to the sun, to the moon,
+and to the earth. The oracle of Dodone, in all its answers, ordered
+sacrifices to the Achelous river. Homer gave the epithet of sacred to
+the waters of the Alpheus. Nestor and the Pylians sacrificed a bull to
+the same river. Achilles let his hair grow in honor of Sphercius; he
+also invoked the wind Boreas and the Zephyrus.
+
+Rivers were reputed as being sacred and divine, because of their utility
+to vegetation, to animals, and to commerce; and because nations
+considered water as one of the first principles of nature, and one of
+the most efficacious agents of the universal life of the Great-Being in
+which they believed. In Thessalia a sacred crow was fed in honor of the
+sun. This bird is seen yet on the monuments of Mithra, in Persia. The
+temples of old Byzantium were consecrated to the sun, to the moon, and
+to Venus. Their idols represented them; also the star Arcture, and the
+twelve signs of the Zodiac. Rome and Italy had also a vast number of
+monuments of worship addressed to nature, and to its principal agents.
+Tatius, coming to Rome to share the sceptre of Romulus, erected altars
+and temples to the sun, to the moon, to Saturn, to light, and to fire.
+The undying fire, or Vesta, was the most ancient object of worship of
+the Romans; virgins had the care to perpetuate it in the temple of this
+Goddess, as the wizards did in their Pyrees. "It was," Jornandes said,
+"an image of the eternal lights which shine in the heavens."
+
+In Rome there was a famous temple called Tellus, or of the earth, in
+which the senate often met. The earth was called mother, because it was
+considered as a deity as well as the manes. There was in the Latium a
+fountain of the sun, and, near it, two altars upon which Æneas, when
+landing in Italy, sacrificed. Romulus established the games of the
+circus to honor both the sun, who in his course measures the year, and
+the four elements which he modifies by his mighty influence. Aurelian
+built at Rome the temple of the sun, and decked it with gold and
+precious stones. Augustus, before Aurelian, had ordered the images of
+the sun and of the moon to be brought from Egypt, in order to adorn his
+triumph over Anthony and Cleopatra. The moon had a temple on the mount
+Aventine.
+
+In Sicily oxen were consecrated to the sun; and the island itself was
+called the Island of the Sun. The oxen which the companions of Ulysse
+ate when they landed, were consecrated to this god. The citizens of
+Assora adored the Chrysas river, that bathed their walls. At Enguyum the
+people revered the mother-goddesses, the same deities honored in Crete;
+namely, the major and minor Ursas. In Spain the people of Betic had
+built a temple to the morning star. The Accitans had erected to the god
+Sun, under the name of Mars, a statue whose head imitated the rays of
+the sun. At Cadix the sun was also adored, under the name of Hercules.
+All the nations of northern Europe, called Celtes, worshiped fire,
+water, the air, the sun, the moon, the stars, the trees, and the
+springs. The conqueror of Gaul, Cæsar, writes that the Germans
+immemorially adored the visible cause, and its principal agents, the
+sun, the moon, fire or Vulcain, and the earth, under the name of Herta.
+Near Narbonne, a city of Gaul, a temple was dedicated to the wind
+Circius which purified the atmosphere. At Toulouse there was a temple
+of the sun. The Franks professed the same religion.
+
+In America the Incas of Peru called themselves the sons of the sun: they
+dedicated temples and altars to this god, and had instituted feasts in
+his honor. The moon was associated to his worship, and was considered as
+the mother of all the sublunar productions; and as the spouse and sister
+of the sun. In Peru, the star Venus was adored, and also the meteors,
+the thunder, and Iris, or rainbow. Virgins had the care of keeping alive
+the perpetual fire. In Mexico the same religion existed. The inhabitants
+of the Isthmus of Panama, of Brazil, of Florida; the Indians of the
+coast of Cumana, the Floridians, Virginians, and the Canadians believed
+that there was a god in the heavens, and that this god was the sun, the
+spouse of the moon. They worshiped them as the two supreme causes which
+ruled the world.
+
+The above historical facts lead us to the conclusion that the adoration
+of the vast body of nature, together with the great soul which was
+supposed to animate it; and of its principal parts or members, together
+with the multifarious emanations of the great soul, which was supposed
+to animate them, was the former and universal religion of mankind,
+before the coming of Jesus Christ. Therefore the heathens did not
+worship the idols themselves, to which they had given such and such
+forms to represent the objects of their adorations; but they worshiped
+what in their mind they represented, the universe taken collectively,
+as in the idol of Pan; and the universe taken separately; namely, the
+important parts of the universe, as in their innumerable idols of the
+planets, stars, rivers, etc.
+
+As we wish to leave no doubt in the minds of the reader in regard to the
+certainty of these two great facts, which are a key to the origin of the
+dogma of endless misery, and of others which we are to trace out, we
+will bring forth other proofs from the religious and political monuments
+of ancient peoples; from their celebrations, and from the opinions of
+their philosophers.
+
+The famous labyrinth of Egypt was dedicated to the sun. It formed twelve
+palaces, representing the twelve signs of the Zodiac. There were in
+Heliopolis, or City of the Sun, twelve columns adorned with symbols
+relating to the elements, and to the twelve signs. These gigantic piles
+had a pyramidal shape to better represent the rays of the sun, and the
+form of his rising blaze. The statue of Apollo Agyeus was pyramidal. In
+Egypt, artists were not entrusted with determining the form of the
+images and statues of the gods. It was one of the prerogatives of the
+Hierophants, or priests, who were more familiar with astronomy. This
+fact explains why the number seven, which represented the number of
+planets, and the number twelve, which represented the number of the
+signs, were sacred numbers, and were reproduced under all kinds of
+forms. So the twelve altars of Janus; the twelve works of Hercules or
+sun; the twelve shields of Mars; the twelve brothers Arvaux; the twelve
+gods Consentes; the twelve rays of light; the twelve governors in the
+Manichean system; the twelve adeetyas of the Indians; the twelve azes of
+the Scandinaves; the twelve wards of the city planned by Plato; the four
+tribes of Athens subdivided into three _frateries_ according to Cecrops'
+division; the twelve cushions on which the creator sits, in the theogony
+of the Japanese; the twelve cantons of the Etruse league, and their
+twelve Lucumons, or chiefs of cantons; the confederation of the twelve
+cities of Ionia, and that of the twelve cities of Eolia; the twelve
+Tcheou into which Chun divided China; the twelve countries into which
+the Coreans divided the world; the twelve officers chosen to draw the
+coffin at the funeral of the King of Tunquin; the twelve horses; the
+twelve elephants, etc., used in that ceremony.
+
+It was the same with the number seven representing the planets. So the
+seven divisions of the city of Ecbatane; the seven gates of the cavern
+of Mithra, or sun; the seven floors of the tower of Babylon, with
+another representing the heaven, and also the temple of Jupiter; the
+seven gates of the city of Thebes, called each one by the name of a
+planet; the seven piped flute placed in the hands of the god Pan who
+represented the universe; the seven stringed lyre of Apollo, or sun;
+the book of fate composed of seven memorandums; the seven prophetic
+rings of the Brachmanes, on which the name of a planet was engraved; the
+seven stones dedicated to planets in Laconia; the immemorial division
+into seven tribes adopted by the Egyptians and the Indians; the seven
+idols pompously carried every year by the Bonzes into seven different
+temples; the seven mystical vowels which formed the sacred formula in
+the temples of the planets; the seven Pyrees or altars of the monument
+of Mithra; the seven Amshaspands, or great geniuses, invoked by the
+Persians; the seven Archangels of the Chaldeans; the seven sounding
+towers of old Byzantium; the week in all nations, or the period of seven
+days consecrated each one to a planet, as can be illustrated. For
+instance, in French, Monday is called Lundi, which is derived from the
+latin Luna, meaning moon. Tuesday is called Mardi, meaning Mars.
+Wednesday is called Mercredi, meaning Mercury. Thursday is called Jeudi,
+meaning Jupiter. Friday is called Vendredi, meaning Venus. Saturday is
+called Samedi, meaning Saturn. It could also be illustrated by other
+languages derived from the Latin.
+
+The number three hundred and sixty, which is that of the days of the
+year, not comprising, however, the epagomenes or complementary days, was
+also retraced by the three hundred and sixty days comprised in the
+theology of Orpheus; by the three hundred and sixty cups of the water of
+the Nile, of which one was poured every day, by the Egyptian priests,
+in a sacred cask, in the city of Achante; by the three hundred and sixty
+Eons, or geniuses of the Gnostics; by the three hundred and sixty idols
+placed in the palace of the Daïri in Japan; by the three hundred and
+sixty saints, or geniuses, who, the Papists believe, preside to each day
+of the year, (as seen in their almanacs,) dogma borrowed from the
+heathens; by the three hundred and sixty minor statues which surrounded
+that of Hebal, or the god sun, Belus, adored by the ancient Arabs; by
+the three hundred and sixty chapels built around the mosque of Balk,
+erected by the care of the chief of the family of the Barmecides; by the
+three hundred and sixty temples built on the mountain Louham, in China;
+by the wall of three hundred and sixty stadiums with which Semiramis
+encompassed the city of Belus, or of the sun, the famous Babylon. In
+fine, the division of the Zodiac into twenty-seven parts, which express
+the stations of the moon, and into thirty-six which is that of the
+_decans_, was also the object of the political and religious
+distributions.
+
+Not only the divisions of the heaven, but the constellations themselves
+were represented in the temples, and their images consecrated among the
+religious monuments, and on the medals of the cities. The bright star
+Capella, in the constellation Auriga, had a statue of brass gilt in the
+city of the Phliassians. To the constellation Auriga statues and other
+monuments had been erected in Greece under the names of Myrtile, of
+Hippolyte, of Spheroeus, of Cillas, of Erectee, etc. There were seen,
+also, the statues and tombs of the Atlantides. Near Argos was seen a
+mound, which was said to cover the head of the famous Medusa, whose type
+is in the heaven, under the feet of Perseus. The moon, or Diana of
+Ephesus, was adorned with the figure of the Cancer, which is one of the
+twelve signs, and the mansion of this planet. The Ursa, adored under the
+name of Calisto, and the Bootes, under that of Arcas, had their tombs on
+Arcadia, near the altars of the sun. To the same Bootes a statue was
+erected at Byzantium, and also to Orion, the famous Nembrod of the
+Assyrians.
+
+The Syrians had consecrated in their temples the images of Pisces,
+(fishes,) one of the signs. The constellations Nesra, or Eagle, Aiyuk,
+or Goat, Yagutho, or Pleiades, and Suwaha, or Alhouwoa, and the
+Serpentarius were objects of idolatry among the ancient Sabians. These
+names are found even now in Hyde's commentary on Ulug-Beigh. Lucian
+writes that the whole religious system of the Egyptians was taken from
+the heaven. The most of the cities were founded and built under the
+inspection and protection of one of the signs of the Zodiac. Their
+horoscope was drawn; hence the images of stars on their medals. The
+medals of Antioch represent the Ram, (Aries) with the crescent of the
+moon; those of the Mamertines the image of the Bull, (Taurus); those of
+the kings of Comargene, the image of the Scorpion; and those of Zeugma
+and of Anazarba, the image of the Goat, (Capricornus). Nearly all the
+signs are found on the medals of the Antonines. The star Hesperus was on
+the national seal of the Locrians, of the Ozoles, and of the Opuntians.
+
+Likewise we shall remark that the ancient feasts, or celebrations, were
+connected with the principal epochs of nature, and with the heavenly
+system. Everywhere the solsticial and equinoxial celebrations are found;
+even in our days the Catholics celebrate the beginning of each season of
+the year by fasting and abstaining from meat. Fohi, one of the most
+ancient emperors of China, ordered sacrifices to be offered to the gods
+at the commencement of each season. Four pavilions were erected to the
+moons of the four seasons. The ancient Chinese, Confucius says,
+established a sacrifice in honor of Chang-Ty, at the winter solstice,
+and one in the spring. The emperor alone has the privilege to preside at
+these two ceremonies, as being the son of heaven. The Greeks and the
+Romans did the same for like reasons.
+
+The Persians have their Neurouz, or feast of the sun, when this king of
+the day passes under the Ram, or under the sign of the equinox of the
+spring. It is even now one of the greatest festivities in Persia. At the
+winter's solstice the ancient Egyptians led the sacred cow seven times
+around the temple; and at the equinox of the spring they solemnly
+celebrated the coming of the sun to once more vivify nature. The
+celebration of the triumph of fire and light took place in the city of
+the sun, in Assyria, and was called the celebration of wood-piles. The
+Catholic Church has borrowed this celebration from the heathen, and has
+fixed it on the Saturday before Easter.
+
+The feasts celebrated by the Sabians to honor the planets, were fixed
+under the sign of their exaltation; sometimes under that of their
+mansion; so the feast of Saturn was celebrated by the Romans in
+December, under the Capricornus (Goat), mansion of this planet. All the
+celebrations of the old calendar of the Pontiffs were connected with the
+rise or setting of some constellation or star, as can be ascertained by
+reading the _Fastes_ of Ovide. The religious genius of the Romans, and
+the relations of their celebrations with nature, are more especially
+seen in the games of the circus. The sun, the moon, the planets, the
+elements, the universe and its principal parts, were represented with
+emblems analagous to their nature. In the Hippodrome the sun was seen
+with steeds which imitated its course in the heavens.
+
+The fields of Olympia were represented by a vast arena consecrated to
+the sun. In the middle there was a temple of this god, crowned with his
+image. The limits of the course of the sun, the Orient and the Occident,
+were traced, and marked by limits placed at the extremities of the
+circus. The races took place from the east to the west seven times,
+because of the seven planets. The sun, the moon, Jupiter and Venus, had
+each one a chariot. The Aurigæ or drivers, wore garments representing
+the colors of the elements. The chariot of the sun was drawn by four
+steeds, and that of the moon by two. The Zodiac was represented in the
+circus by twelve gates; and also the revolution of the major and minor
+Ursas. The sea, or Neptune, the earth, or Ceres, and the other elements,
+were personified in actors who contended for the prize.
+
+The phases of the moon were also celebrated, and particularly the
+neomeny or new-moon; for temples images and mysteries had been dedicated
+to the god Month, or Mensis. All the ceremonial of the procession of
+Isis, described in Apuleo, refers to nature and its parts. The sacred
+hymns of the ancients had the same object, if we may judge of them by
+those of Orpheus. Chun, one of the most ancient emperors of China,
+ordered many hymns to be composed to honor the sun, the moon, the stars,
+etc. All the prayers contained in the books Zends had the same objects.
+The poetical chants of ancient authors, who have transmitted to us the
+theogonies of Orpheus, of Linus, of Hesiod, etc., relate to nature and
+its agents. Hesiod thus addresses the Muses: "Sing the gods immortal,
+sons of the earth and of the starry sky; gods born from the bosom of
+night, and nursed by the Ocean; the bright stars, the immense vault of
+the firmament, and the gods sprung from them; the sea, the rivers, etc."
+
+The songs of Iopas, in the banquet offered by Dido to the Trojans,
+contain the lessons of the learned Atlas about the course of the sun and
+of the moon; about the origin of men, of animals, etc. In the Pastorals
+of Virgil, the old Silene sings the chaos and the organization of the
+world. Orpheus does the same in the Argonautics of Apollonius. The
+cosmogony of Sanchoniaton, or of the Phoenicians, conceals under the
+veil of allegories the great secrets of nature which were taught to
+those initiated. The philosophers who succeeded to the poets called all
+the parts of the universe divine. In the opinion of Pythagoras the
+celestial bodies were immortal and divine. The sun, the moon, and all
+the stars superabundantly contained heat, or principle of life. He
+placed the substance of the deity in the ethereal fire, of which the
+sun, he said, was the main focus.
+
+Parmenides imagined a halo around the world, and called it the substance
+of the deity; the stars partook of the nature thereof. Alimeon of
+Crotona taught that the sun, the moon, and the stars were the gods.
+Antisthenes acknowledged but one deity, nature. Plato attributed
+divinity to the world, to the sky, to the stars, and to the earth.
+Xenocrates and Heraclides admitted eight great gods, the seven planets
+and the heaven of the fixed stars. Theophrastes called the stars and the
+celestial signs first causes. Zenon said that the ether, the stars, time
+and its parts were gods. Cleanthes admitted the dogma of the divinity of
+the universe, and more especially of the ethereal fire that envelops
+the spheres, and penetrates them. Diogene, the Babylonian, related the
+whole mythology to nature. Chrysippus held that the world was God. He
+placed the divine substance in the ethereal fire, in the sun, in the
+moon, in the stars, in one word, in nature and its principal parts.
+Anaximandre, Anaximenes and Zenon had the same belief.
+
+From this exposition of the religious and political monuments of ancient
+peoples, of their celebrations, and of the opinions of their
+philosophers; and also of the historical facts brought forth before, we
+draw these two logical and vital conclusions:--
+
+1st. Therefore the adoration of the vast body of nature, together with
+the great soul which was supposed to animate it; and of its principal
+parts and members, together with the multifarious emanations of the
+great soul which was supposed to animate them, was the former and
+universal religion of mankind (excepting the Hebrews) before the coming
+of Jesus Christ.
+
+2d. Therefore the heathens did not worship the idols themselves, to
+which they had given such and such forms to represent the objects of
+their adorations, but they worshiped what in their mind they
+represented, the universe taken collectively, as in the idol of Pan; and
+the universe taken separately, namely, the important parts of the
+universe, as in their innumerable idols of the planets, stars, rivers,
+etc.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+PAGAN ORIGIN OF MYSTERIES.
+
+
+WHETHER the word mystery is derived from the Greek _muo_, I close, or
+from _mueo_, I teach, is not an important question, for the word mystery
+has always implied the double idea of secrecy and of instruction. Kings,
+emperors, and even the most liberal of the legislators, seem to have
+believed, from the very cradle of nations, that people ought to be
+governed with fables, because they are too weak minded, and too ignorant
+to understand and bear the truth. Of all the errors which have
+enshrouded the human race, none has been more injurious to progress,
+virtue, and happiness among men. Even in our days, of all the existing
+governments, there is but one, if any at all, which does not place its
+strength upon the erroneous basis that the people, being not able to
+understand and bear the truth, are more easily ruled by being kept in
+their ignorance and superstition. This great error gave birth to
+mysteries.
+
+When men constituted themselves into national bodies, they chose men,
+and vested them with the power of administering their interests. Those
+men forfeited their mandate, and became the tyrants of their
+constituents. In order to secure and perpetuate their sway, they
+associated to their personal interests hierophants, priests of all
+kinds, astronomers, philosophers, and poets, who composed fables,
+intended to have a moral bearing upon the people, and to make their
+masses believe them as being the truth. Those fables they called
+mysteries.
+
+Egypt had her initiations, known under the name of mysteries of Osiris
+and Isis; from which those of Bacchus and Ceres were mostly copied. When
+we compare the courses and adventures of the Ceres of the Greek, with
+those of the Egyptian Isis, we can not but see the filiation of these
+two fables. The poems whose Bacchus is the hero, and the history of the
+Osiris, the ceremonies practiced to honor these two deities, and the
+identity of both acknowledged by the ancients, evidently prove that the
+mysteries of the latter have given birth to the former. Cybele and Atys
+had their initiations, and the Cabires also.
+
+The Chinese had and still have mysteries on Foë, and Pousa; the Japanese
+upon Xaca and Amida; the Siamois on Sommonacodom; the Indians on Brama
+and Rudra; the Parsis upon Ormuzd and Ahriman. The Selles studied the
+mysterious words of the doves of Dodone; Persia, Ethiopia, Scythia,
+Gaul, and Scandinavia, had their caverns, their holy mounts, their
+sacred oaks, where the brahmanes, the astrologers, the gymnosophists
+and the druids, pronounced the inexplicable oracle of the immortals. The
+Mahomedans have mysteries on the miracles of Mahomet.
+
+We hope to interest and instruct the reader in translating the following
+extract from the Voyage of Anacharsis, a reliable work. Anacharsis is
+supposed to have traveled in Greece, in the fourth century before the
+Christian era. He thus relates the mysteries of Eleusis:
+
+"I shall speak of the most important point of the religion of the
+Athenians, of those mysteries whose origin is lost in the night of ages;
+whose ceremonies inspire no less terror than veneration; and whose
+secret has never been revealed, except by a few persons who were
+immediately devoted to death, and to public execration; for the law not
+only pronounces against them the confiscation of their property and the
+loss of their life, but it orders that a column be erected, to
+perpetuate the rememberance of their crime and of their punishment.
+
+"Of all the mysteries established in honor of the gods, none were more
+celebrated than those of Ceres. This goddess herself, it is said,
+regulated them, while she was wandering on the earth for the purpose of
+finding Proserpine, ravished by Pluto, she arrived in the plain of
+Eleusis. Pleased with the welcome extended to her by the inhabitants,
+she presented them with two signaled blessings, agriculture, and
+initiation to a sacred doctrine. It is added, that the minor mysteries
+which are preparatory to the major, were instituted to the honor of
+Hercules.
+
+"People believe, that, wherever the Athenians established the mysteries
+of Eleusis, the spirit of union and humanity became more general;
+because they free the soul from ignorance and stains; procure the
+particular assistance of the gods; the means of arriving at the
+perfection of virtue; the sweets of a holy life; the hope of a peaceable
+death, and of an endless bliss. Those initiated will occupy a
+distinguished place in the Elysian fields; they will enjoy a pure light,
+and they will dwell in the bosom of the Deity; whereas, those who are
+profane will dwell hereafter in abodes of darkness and of horror.
+
+"In order to avoid such an alternative the Greeks flocked from
+everywhere to Eleusis to find the promised bliss. Though young, the
+Athenians are admitted to the ceremonies of the initiation; and those
+who never participated to them ask this favor before they die; the
+menaces and the pictures of the sufferings of another life, before
+considered as a subject of derision, cause a more vivid impression on
+the mind; and then terror generates weakness. However, there are
+enlightened men who do not believe that there is any need for them to be
+initiated in order to be virtuous. Socrates constantly declined joining
+the mysteries; and, one day, Diogenes being solicited, in my presence,
+to ask for initiation, answered: 'Patæcion, a famous thief, was
+initiated; Epaminondas and Agesilas never asked for it. Can I believe
+that the former will go to the Elysian fields and the latter to the
+Tartarus.'
+
+"All the Greeks can aspire to participate to the mysteries: an ancient
+law excludes the foreigners. The major mysteries are celebrated every
+year on the fifteenth of the month of Boedromion. The celebration of the
+minor mysteries is also annual, and takes place six months before.
+During the celebration of the major mysteries the tribunals are closed.
+The day following, the senate pronounces the penalty of death against
+those who have willfully disturbed the ceremonies. This severity is
+required to maintain order among the immense multitude of people. In
+time of war the Athenians send to their foes safe conducts to induce
+them to assist at the celebration.
+
+"On the fourteenth of Boedromion, in the second year of the one hundred
+and ninth Olympiad, I left Athens with several of my friends. The gate
+through which the Athenians pass to go to Eleusis is called sacred. The
+space between these two cities is of about one hundred stadiums. After
+crossing a high hill decked with rosy laurels, we entered the territory
+of Eleusis; and we arrived on the banks of two small brooks consecrated,
+the one to Ceres, and the other to Proserpine. I mention them because
+the priests of the temple are the only ones who are permitted to fish in
+them; and because their waters are salted, and are used in the
+ceremonies of initiation. Farther, on the bridge of a river named
+Cephize, we had to bear the mockeries of a numerous populace, who stand
+there to criticize the comers, and more especially the most
+distinguished men of the Republic. It is an old tradition that Ceres had
+been welcomed on this very spot by an old woman, called Yambe.
+
+"At a short distance from the sea there is a high and long hill, at the
+eastern end of which the famous temple of Ceres and Proserpine has been
+reared. Further down is the small city of Eleusis. In the vicinity, and
+on the hill itself, there are chapels and altars, and rich
+country-seats. The temple, built under the care of Pericles, on the bare
+rock, is of pantelic marble; and is turned towards the Orient. It is so
+vast as magnificent; its enclosure at the south is of about three
+hundred and eighty-four feet, and at the east of three hundred and
+twenty-five. The most celebrated artists have adorned this temple with
+master-pieces of art.
+
+"Among the numerous priests who officiate in the temple, there are four
+principal. The first is the Hierophant; his name designates the one who
+reveals the sacred things, and his main office is to initiate the
+postulants to the mysteries. He appears with a distinguished tunic; his
+forehead is decked with a diadem, and his hair is floating on his
+shoulders. His age must be mature enough to correspond with the gravity
+of his ministry, and his voice fine enough to be pleasing to the ears.
+His priesthood is for life; and he is obliged to keep celibacy. The
+second priest carries the sacred flambeau in the ceremonies, and
+purifies the candidates; he has also the privilege of wearing a diadem.
+The two others are the sacred herald, and the assistant at the altar.
+
+"The holiness of their ministry is rendered even more respectable by
+their noble birth. The Hierophant is chosen in the family of the
+Eumolpides, one of the most ancient of Athens; the sacred herald in that
+of the Ceryces, which is a collateral branch of the other; the two other
+priests belong also to illustrious families. These four priests have
+under their command other ministers, such as the interpreters, the
+singers, and other officers, who have the direction of the processions
+and other ceremonies. Also there are at Eleusis priestesses consecrated
+to Ceres and to Proserpine. They have the privilege of initiating
+certain persons on particular days, and to offer sacrifices.
+
+"The celebrations are presided by the second of the Archontes, whose
+duty is to keep order, and to prevent any change or alteration in the
+worship. They last several days. Sometimes those initiated interrupt
+their sleep to continue their pious exercises: we saw them during the
+night crossing the enclosure, walking in silence two by two, and holding
+each one a lighted torch. When they reentered the sacred asylum they
+hastened their march; and I learned that they were going to figure the
+courses of Ceres and of Proserpine; and that, in their rapid evolutions,
+they shook their torches, and handed them to each other. The light which
+springs out, it is said, has the virtue of purifying the souls, and
+becomes the symbol of the light which ought to instruct them.
+
+"One day games were celebrated in the honor of the two goddesses. Famous
+champions had come from various parts of Greece, and the prize was a
+measure of barley, raised in the neighboring plain, whose inhabitants
+hold from Ceres the art of cultivating this sort of wheat. On the sixth
+day, the most brilliant of all, the priests of the temple, and those
+initiated, carried from Athens to Eleusis, the statue of Iacchus, said
+to be the son of Ceres or of Proserpine. The god, crowned with myrtle,
+held a flambeau. About thirty thousand people followed, making the air
+resound with the name of Iacchus. The march, led by the sound of
+instruments and the singing of hymns, was sometimes suspended to perform
+dances and sacrifices. The statue was introduced in the temple of
+Eleusis, and then taken back in his own, with the same splendors, and
+the same ceremonies.
+
+"Many of those who composed the procession had been initiated only to
+the minor mysteries, annually celebrated in a small temple, situated
+near the Illissus. There a priest examines and prepares the candidates;
+he excludes them if they are guilty of enormous crimes, and particularly
+if they have committed murder, even without purpose. He imposes upon
+the others frequent expiations, and teaches them the first rudiments of
+the sacred doctrine. This noviciate sometimes lasts several years, but
+generally one only. During the time of probation, the candidates assist
+at the celebration of the major mysteries; but they remain at the door
+of the temple.
+
+"The initiation to the great mysteries had been appointed for the night
+following. One of the preparatory ceremonies was the offering of
+sacrifices, for the prosperity of the state, presided by the second of
+the Archontes. The novices were crowned with myrtle. Their robes seem to
+contract such a holiness that many of them wear them until they are worn
+out; others make of them swaddling-clothes for their children, or hang
+them in the temple. We saw them enter in the sacred hall; and, on the
+next morning, one of my friends, who had been newly initiated, related
+to me many of the ceremonies which he had witnessed.
+
+"He told me, 'We found the ministers of the temple dressed in their
+pontifical robes. The Hierophant, who, in that moment, represents the
+author of the universe, had symbols which designated the power supreme.
+The flambeau-bearer and the assistant to the altar appeared with the
+attributes of the sun and of the moon; and the sacred herald with those
+of Mercury. We had just taken our seats when the herald exclaimed: 'Away
+from here ye profane and impious men, and all those whose souls are
+contaminated with crimes!' The penalty of death was decreed against
+those who had the temerity of remaining in the temple without being
+entitled to it, after this admonition. The second of the priests ordered
+that the skins of the victims be spread beneath our feet; and he
+purified us anew. The rituals of initiation were loudly read, and hymns
+in the honor of Ceres were sung.
+
+"Soon after a roar was heard. The earth seemed to shake. Amid lightning
+and thunder phantoms and spectres were seen roaming in darkness. They
+filled the holy hall with soul-rending groans and howlings. Sufferings,
+cares, diseases, poverty, and death, under hideous forms, struck our
+gaze. The Hierophant explained these various emblems, and his vivid
+pictures added to our terror. However, guided by a feeble light, we were
+advancing towards the regions of the Tartarus, where the souls get
+purified before they reach the abode of bliss. Amidst sorrowful voices
+we heard the bitter regrets of those who had committed suicide. They are
+punished, the Hierophant said, because they have deserted the posts
+assigned to them by the gods.
+
+"He had scarcely pronounced these words, when brass gates were thrown
+open before us with a frightful roar, and then we saw the horrors of the
+Tartarus. It resounded with the rattle of chains, and the yells of its
+unfortunate inmates. Learn from us, did they say, to respect the gods,
+and to be just and grateful. We saw the furies, armed with whips,
+unmercifully torturing the criminals. These frightening pictures, made
+more so by the sonorous and imposing voice of the Hierophant, who seemed
+to exercise the ministry of divine vengeance, filled our soul with
+terror. In fine, we were introduced in delightful thickets; in enameled
+meadows; fortunate abodes, image of the Elysean fields, where a pure
+light shone, where charming voices were heard. We passed into the
+sanctuary, where we saw the statue of the goddess resplendent with
+brightness, and dressed in the richest attire. In this sanctuary our
+trials ended; there our eyes saw, and our ears heard, what we are
+forbidden to reveal. I will simply confess that in the delirium of a
+holy joy we sung hymns of joy.'
+
+"Such was the recital of the newly-initiated. Another told me a
+circumstance which the other omitted. One day, during the celebrations,
+the Hierophant uncovered the mysterious baskets, which are carried in
+the procession, and which are the object of the public veneration. They
+contained the sacred symbols, whose sight is prohibited to those
+uninitiated, and which are but cakes of various forms, grains of salt,
+and other objects, which relate to the history of Ceres, and to the
+dogmas taught in the mysteries. When those initiated have taken them
+from a basket, and put them in another, they say that they have fasted
+and drank the Ciceon.
+
+"I often met with men who were not initiated, and who freely expressed
+their opinions about the secret doctrines taught in the mysteries. One
+of the disciples of Plato said: 'It seems to be certain that the
+Hierophant teaches the necessity of pains and rewards beyond the grave;
+and that he represents to the postulants the various destinies of men
+here below and hereafter. Also it seems to be certain that he teaches
+them, that, among the great number of deities adored by the multitude,
+the ones are pure spirits, who, ministers of the will of the god
+supreme, regulate under his command the motion of the universe; and the
+others have been simple mortals, whose tombs are kept yet in several
+parts of Greece. Is it not natural to think, that, in order to give a
+more accurate idea of the Deity, the institutors of mysteries endeavored
+to maintain, and to thus perpetuate a dogma, whose vestiges are more or
+less visible in the opinions, and ceremonies, of nearly all
+nations--that of a God, who is the principal and end of all things? Such
+is, in my opinion, the august secret revealed to those initiated.'
+
+"No doubt political ends encouraged the institution of this religious
+association. Polytheism was generally spread, and was pleasing the
+people, but on account of the multiplicity of the gods it was dangerous
+to society. It was thought wiser not to destroy this belief, but to
+counterbalance it by a purer religion. As the people are more restrained
+by the laws than by abstract principles of morals, the legislators
+contrived to harmonize the superstition of the people with purer
+religious and moral principles, which they should simultaneously teach.
+'Thus,' the disciple of Plato added, 'you understand why the gods are
+represented on the theatre of Athens: the magistrates who do not believe
+the false doctrines of Polytheism are very careful not to repress a
+superstition and a license, which amuse the people, and whose repression
+would indispose them.
+
+"'Also you understand how two religions, though opposed in their dogmas,
+conjointly exist in peace and harmony in the same cities. The reason of
+it is, that, though their dogmas are different, these religions use the
+same language, and that the truth has for the error the same tolerance,
+and courtesy, which the truth should obtain from the error. Externally
+the mysteries present but the worship adopted by the people. The hymns
+sung in public, and the most of the ceremonies retrace to the masses
+many circumstances of the rape of Proserpine, of the courses of Ceres,
+of her arrival and sojourn at Eleusis. The vicinity of this city is full
+of monuments reared in the honor of the goddess, and the priests show,
+as yet, the stone upon which, tradition relates, she rested when
+exhausted with fatigue. Thus, on one hand, the ignorant people believe
+appearances as if they were realities; and on another hand, those who
+have been initiated, having a clear sight of the spirit of the
+mysteries, think they are right on account of the purity of their
+intentions.'
+
+"Whatever it may be of the supposition I have related, the initiation is
+now but a vain ceremony. Those who have been initiated are not more
+virtuous than the others; every day they violate their pledge of
+abstaining from fowl, from fish, from pomegranates, from beans, and
+several other kinds of fruits, and of vegetables. Several have
+contracted this sacred engagement through unworthy means; for, not long
+ago, we have seen the government permitting the sale of the privilege of
+participating to the mysteries; and, for a long while, women of ill fame
+have been admitted to initiation."
+
+As it would require volumes to describe the ceremonies of all these
+Pagan mysteries, we shall only examine their general character; show
+forth their end; group together their common features, and glance at the
+means used by political and religious leaders, to give a full scope to
+this powerful governmental engine.
+
+The mysteries of Eleusis, and in general of all mysteries, aimed at the
+amelioration of mankind, at the reformation of morals, and at taking
+hold of the souls of men with more power than through the means of the
+laws. If the means used was not lawful, we must however confess that the
+aim was laudable, not in the minds of kings, emperors, hierophants and
+other priests, but in itself. Cicero, the illustrious Roman orator,
+said, that the institution of mysteries was one of the most useful to
+humanity; at least the mysteries of Eleusis, whose effects, he added,
+have been to civilize nations; to soften the barbarous and ferocious
+habits and morals of the first societies of men; and to make known the
+most important principles of morals, which initiate man to a sort of
+life that is worthy of his nature.
+
+The same was said of Orpheus, who introduced in Greece the mysteries of
+Bacchus. Poets wrote of him, that he had tamed tigers and lions; and
+that he attracted even trees and rocks with the melodious strains of his
+lyre. Mysteries aimed at the establishment of the reign of justice and
+of religion, in the system of the rulers, who, from policy, maintained
+the one by the other. This double end is contained in this verse of
+Virgil:--"Learn from me to respect justice and the gods;" this was the
+great lesson given by the Hierophant when the postulants were initiated.
+
+Those initiated learned in those profound sanctuaries, under the dark
+and deep veil of fables, their duties towards their fellow men;
+pretended duties which they were taught to the gods, and, more
+unfortunately yet, pretended duties towards their political and
+religious leaders, or rather tyrants.
+
+Rulers used all imaginable means to give a supernatural character to
+their laws, and to make the people believe that they had this character.
+The imposing picture of the universe, and the poetry of mythological
+conceptions, gave to the legislators the subject of the varied and
+wonderful scenes which were represented in the temples of Egypt, of
+Asia, and of Greece. All that can produce illusion, all the resources of
+witchcraft and of theatrical exhibitions, which were but the secret
+knowledge of the effects of nature, and the art of imitating them; the
+brilliant pomp of festivities; the variety and riches of decorations and
+costumes; the majesty of the ceremonial; the captivating power of music;
+the choirs; the chants; the dances; the electrifying sounds of cymbals,
+calculated to produce enthusiasm and delirium, and more favorable to
+religious exaltation than the calm of reason, all was brought to action
+to attract the people to the celebration of the mysteries; and to create
+in their souls a want, a desire for them.
+
+Under the charms of pleasure, of rejoicings and of celebrations,
+legislators and other rulers oftentimes concealed a salutary aim; and
+they treated the people like a child, which can never be more
+efficaciously instructed, than when he thinks that his preceptor intends
+only to amuse him. They resorted to great institutions to shape society;
+to form habits; and to direct public opinion and morals.
+
+How magnificent was the procession of those initiated advancing to the
+temple of Eleusis! The banners, the sacred chants, the music, the
+costumes, and the dances, had a rapturous effect on the masses. They
+thronged an immense temple; we say immense, for if we judge the number
+of those initiated by the number of those who assembled in the plains
+of Thriase, when Xerxes went to Attic, they were more than thirty
+thousand. The costly and glowing ornaments which decked the vast hall,
+the symbolic statues, which were master-pieces of sculpture, and the
+mysterious pictures which were symmetrically arranged in the rotunda of
+the sanctuary, filled the soul with amazement, and with a religious
+respect.
+
+All that was seen in the temple, the decorations, costumes, ceremonies,
+splendor; and all that was heard, the sacred chants, the melody of
+instruments, the mythological teaching, the elevating poetry and the
+eloquence of orators, struck the spectators with wonder, produced and
+left in their souls the most profound impressions. Not only the universe
+was presented to their gaze under the emblem of an egg divided into
+twelve parts, representing the months of the year, but also the division
+of the universe into cause active and cause passive, and its division
+into the Principle of light, or good god, and the Principle of darkness,
+or bad god.
+
+Varron informs us that the great gods adored at Samothrace were the
+heaven and the earth, considered, the first as the cause active, and the
+second as the cause passive of generation. In other mysteries the same
+idea was retraced by the exposition of the Phallus and of the Cteis. It
+is the Lingham of the Indians.
+
+The same was done in regard to the division of the world into two
+Principles, the one of light, or good god, and the other of darkness,
+or bad god. Plutarch writes, that this religious dogma had been
+consecrated in the initiations, and in the mysteries of all nations; and
+the example which he puts forth, extracted from both the theology of the
+Chaldeans, and from the dogma of the symbolic egg produced by these two
+Principles, is a proof of it. In the temple of Eleusis there were scenes
+of darkness and of light, which were successively presented to the eyes
+of the candidates to initiation: those scenes retraced the combats of
+the Principle of light, or good god, and of the Principle of darkness,
+or bad god.
+
+In the cavern of the god Sun, or Mithra, the priests had represented,
+among the mysterious pictures of the initiation, the descent of the
+souls to the earth, and their return to the heavens through the seven
+planetary spheres. Also were exhibited the phantoms of invisible powers,
+which chained them to bodies, or freed them from their bonds. Several
+millions of men witnessed those various spectacles, of which they were
+most severely forbidden to speak before the public. However the poets,
+the orators, and the historians give us in their writings some idea of
+what were those scenes, formulas, ceremonies, fables, and morals,--as,
+for instance, in what they have written about the adventures of Ceres,
+and of her daughter. There was seen the chariot of this goddess drawn by
+dragons; it seemed to hover above the earth and the seas. It was a true
+theatrical exhibition. The variety of the scenes was pleasing, and the
+play of machines was attractive. Grave were the actors, majestic the
+ceremonial, and passion-stirring the fables and representations.
+
+The hierophants, or priests, profoundly versed in the knowledge of the
+genius of the people, and in the art of leading them, availed of the
+minutest circumstances to create in them the desire to be initiated to
+their mysteries. Night seems to be the mother of secrecy and the emblem
+of mystery; it is favorable to prestige and illusion; in consequence
+they celebrated their mysteries in the night. The fifth day of the
+celebration of the mysteries of Eleusis was renowned by the superb
+torchlight procession, in which those initiated, holding each one a
+bright torch, walked two by two wearing enigmatic emblems.
+
+It was during the night, that the Egyptians solemnly and processionally
+went to the shore of a lake; they embarked, and landed in an island
+beautifully situated in the middle of the lake; and there they
+celebrated the mysteries of the passion of Osiris. At other times those
+celebrations took place in vast and dark grottos, or in retired and
+shady thickets. Even now, in France, are seen caverns where the Druids
+celebrated their mysteries; and forests where the Gauls assembled at
+midnight; hung the heads of their vanquished enemies; immolated a young
+virgin on the altar of Teutates; and celebrated their mysteries under
+the leadership of the Druids.
+
+The ceremonial of the mysteries was ordained, particularly among the
+civilized and populous nations, in such a manner that it could not fail
+to excite the curiosity of the people, who naturally eagerly desire and
+seek to know what is held in secrecy. Legislators and hierophants
+rendered this curiosity more intense by the extremely stringent law of
+secrecy imposed upon those initiated. Thus the profane, namely, those
+uninitiated, were the more desirous to be acquainted with the mysteries,
+and thus they joined them in large numbers. Legislators gave to this
+spirit of secrecy the most specious pretext. It was proper, they said,
+to imitate the gods who concealed themselves from man's gaze, for the
+purpose of creating in his soul the desire to find them; and who have
+made the phenomena of nature a profound secret to them, in order to
+stimulate them to the study of the universe. Those initiated were not
+permitted to speak of the mysteries except among themselves. The penalty
+of death had been decreed against the one who would have revealed them,
+even without purpose; and also against any one who would have entered
+the sacred temple before having been previously initiated.
+
+Aristoteles was accused of impiety by the hierophant Eurymedon, for
+having sacrificed to the manes of his wife, according to the rite
+practiced in the worship of Ceres. He had to flee, and to retire at
+Chalcis to save his life; and in order to clear his name from this stain
+he ordered his heirs to erect a statue to Ceres. Eschyles, having been
+charged with having written about mysterious subjects, saved his life
+only by proving that he had never been initiated. The entry of the
+temple of Ceres, and the participation to her mysteries, were prohibited
+to the slaves, and to those whose birth was not legal; to women of ill
+fame, to the philosophers who denied a Providence, such as the
+Epicureans, etc. This interdiction was considered as a great
+deprivation, for it was generally believed among the people that
+initiation was the greatest blessing.
+
+In fact, those initiated were taught that they belonged to a class of
+privileged beings, and were the favorites of the gods. The priests of
+Samothrace credited their initiation by promising favorable winds, a
+speedy and safe navigation to travelers who were candidates to their
+mysteries. Those initiated to the mysteries of Orpheus believed that
+they were no longer under the rule of the evil principle; that
+initiation made them holy, and secured to them future happiness. After
+the ceremonies of the initiation the candidate thus answered to the
+priest: "I have rejected the evil and found the good." After that he
+considered himself, and was considered by his fellows, wholly purified.
+
+Those who were initiated to the mysteries of Eleusis believed that the
+sun shone brighter and purer to their eyes than to the sight of other
+men; also that the goddesses inspired and gave them counsels from the
+heaven, as seen by the example of Pericles. Initiation was considered as
+freeing the soul from the darkness of error; as preventing misfortunes;
+and as securing happiness on earth.
+
+One of the greatest blessings and privileges of the initiation, the
+hierophant and other priests taught, was to secure here below a direct
+communion with the gods, and more especially beyond the grave. According
+to Cicero, Isocrates, and the rhetor Aristides, when he who had been
+initiated departed from this earthly life he inhabited meadows enameled
+with flowers of a celestial beauty, and lighted with a sun brighter and
+purer than the one we see. In that charming abode he was to live
+centuries, and long preserve his youth. When arrived at an old age, he
+was to become young again. There was no labor, no sorrow, but all was
+rapture and delight.
+
+In the Greek and Roman mysteries the unity and also the trinity of God
+were consecrated dogmas. Jupiter was adored as the father of the gods
+and of men, and as filling the whole universe with his power. He was the
+supreme monarch of nature: the names of gods ascribed to the other
+deities were more of an association in the title than in the nature of
+their power, for each one of them had a particular work to perform under
+the command of the supreme God. In the mysteries of the religion of the
+Greeks, a hymn expressing the unity of God or Jupiter was sung; and the
+High Priest, turning towards the worshipers, said: "Admire the master
+of the universe; he is one; he is everywhere." It was acknowledged by
+Eusebius, St. Augustine, Lactance, Justin, Athenagoras, and many other
+Fathers of the Church, that the dogma of the unity of God was admitted
+by ancient philosophers, and was the basis of the religion of Orpheus,
+and of all the mysteries of the Greeks.
+
+The Platonicians believed in the unity of the archetype, or model on
+which God formed the world; also they believed in the unity of
+demiourgos, or god-forming, by a consequence of the same philosophical
+principles, namely, from the unity itself of the universe, as can be
+seen in Proclus, and in the writings of the Platonician authors.
+
+Trinity also, (see chapter fifth) was taught in the mysteries.
+Pythagoras, and many other philosophers, explained the unity and trinity
+of God by the theory of numbers. They called the monade cause, or
+principle. They expressed by the number one, or unit, the first cause,
+and they concluded to the unity of God from mathematical abstractions.
+Next to this unity they placed triades, which expressed faculties or
+powers emanated from them, and also intelligences of a second order. The
+triple incarnation of the god Wichnou into the body of a virgin was one
+of the doctrines taught in the mysteries of Mithra.
+
+So much for the mysteries of Paganism; however, we shall, in the course
+of this work, refer to them several times. Let us now examine the
+origin of the mysteries, which, the Partialists say, Jesus Christ has
+taught. Mysteries suppose secrecy; but Jesus Christ preached his Gospel
+in the open air to his apostles, to his disciples, to crowds of people,
+and to all who were willing to hear his doctrines. He urged upon his
+disciples to preach above the roofs what he taught them. When, after his
+death, his apostles spread his gospel, they spoke in open air,
+everywhere, to masses of people; Paul to the Areopagus, to thousands in
+Jerusalem, etc. How then can it be supposed that Jesus Christ taught
+mysteries? Indeed, he did not, but afterwards several Christian churches
+did.
+
+The Protestant historian, Mosheim, cites in his History of the Church,
+several authors, who state, that, in the second century, several
+Christian churches imitated the mysteries of Paganism. The profound
+respect, they say, that the people entertained for those mysteries, and
+the extraordinary sacredness ascribed to them were for the Christians a
+motive sufficient to give a mysterious appearance to their religion, so
+as to command as much respect to the public as the religion of the
+Pagans. To this effect they called mysteries the institutions of the
+Gospel, particularly the Eucharist. They used in this ceremony, and in
+that of baptism, several words and rites consecrated in the mysteries of
+the Pagans. This abuse commenced in Orient, chiefly in Egypt; Clement of
+Alexandria, in the beginning of the third century, was one of those who
+contributed the most to this innovation, which then spread in Occident
+when Adrian had introduced the mysteries in that portion of the Empire.
+Hence, a large portion of the service of the Church hardly differed from
+that of Paganism.
+
+That the Church of Rome copied many of the ceremonies, rites, customs,
+and fables of Pagan mysteries is certain, for they have been perpetuated
+in that Church down to our days. From the Pagan mysteries the Roman
+Church borrowed the following:
+
+In the initiation to the Pagan mysteries there were degrees; so in the
+Roman Church there are the degrees of porter or door-keeper, of acolyte,
+of reader and of exorcist; the latter degree confers the power of
+expelling the devil. The ecclesiastical ornaments in the Church of Rome,
+with the difference of the cross represented on them and of some
+trimming, are like those used in the mysteries of the Pagans, at least
+in Rome, and in Greece. The long floating gown, the girdle, the casula,
+the stola, the dalmatica, the round and pyramidal cap, the capa, and
+several other garments and ornaments, are alike to those used in the
+temples, where the mysteries of the Pagans were celebrated.
+
+In those temples there was an altar richly decorated; so it is in the
+Church of Rome. In those temples there were twelve flambeaux,
+representing the twelve months of the year: so there are in Catholic
+churches, upon the first degree above the altar, six chandeliers with
+six tapers burning during the celebration of the mysteries or mass; six
+others are on the second degree. The vestals kept a light constantly
+burning in the Pagan temples: so a lamp is kept burning, day and night,
+near the altar, in the Catholic churches. In the Pagan temples the disc
+of the sun and his beams were represented: so they are in the Catholic
+churches. Upon the altar, in the Pagan temples, there was an image of
+the god Osiris or Bacchus, and the emblems of an aries or lamb: so upon
+the altar, in Catholic churches, there is a tabernacle in which God is
+said to dwell, and the door of the tabernacle represents a bleeding
+lamb.
+
+The Pagans solemnly and processionally carried the image of Osiris, or
+Bacchus, around the head of which there was a halo representing the rays
+of the sun: so in the Romish church the priests processionally and with
+great pomp, carry, both in the aisles of the churches and on the
+streets, a wafer which they call God. It is encased in a silver or gold
+ostenserium, whose circular centre, in which their pretended God is seen
+between two crystals, is shaped like the disc of the sun; and the
+outside, of which called halo or glory, is shaped like his rays. In the
+Pagan temples there was a sanctuary exclusively reserved to the
+high-pontiff, and to the priests: so it is in the Catholic churches. In
+the Pagan temples the sanctuary was turned towards the Orient: so it is
+in the Catholic churches.
+
+The Pagans did not permit their candidates to initiation to assist at
+the celebration of the mysteries, which was always preceded by this
+formula, solemnly and loudly spoken by an officer, "Away from here ye
+profane and impious men, and all those whose soul is contaminated with
+crimes!" So in Catholic churches, not now, but from the first centuries
+down to the middle age, the deacon arose after the homily, turned toward
+the assistant, and ordered the catechumens to leave the church, because
+the celebration of the mysteries was to commence. Those mysteries are
+the mass, during which the priest who officiates commands Jesus Christ
+to descend from heaven into a wafer, which he, (priest,) holds in his
+hands, and to change it into his own blood, flesh, soul, and divinity.
+The Pagans initiated the candidates near the front door of their
+temples: so in the Catholic churches, the baptismal fonts where the
+catechumens are initiated, namely, baptized, are placed near the portal.
+Here we shall remark, that, for many centuries, children are baptized,
+(even now parents are obliged under the pain of mortal sin to have their
+children taken to the church to be baptized) three days after they are
+born. The Pagans initiated candidates chiefly on the eve of great
+celebrations: so, in the Romish church, catechumens are baptized chiefly
+on the eve of Easter, and of Pentecost.
+
+The Pagans believed that initiation made them holy; so the Romish church
+holds that baptism remits the original and all other sins, and makes
+holy. The Pagans revered in their temples the statue of Pan, in whose
+hands was a seven-pipe flute; also, they revered other emblems of the
+seven planets: so in the Romish Church holds the doctrine of the seven
+gifts of the Holy Spirit, and of the doctrine of the seven sacraments.
+In the month of February the Pagans celebrated the Lupercales, and the
+feast of Proserpine: so the Church of Rome celebrates the Candlemas-day.
+We cite the very words of Bergier, a Catholic priest, and an ultra
+Papist, who writes thus in his Theological Dictionary; article
+Candlemas:
+
+"Several authors ascribe the institution of Candlemas-day to the pope
+Gelase, for the purpose of opposing it to the Lupercales of the Pagans,
+who went processionally out in the fields making exorcisms. It is the
+opinion of the venerable Bede. 'The Church,' he says, 'has happily
+changed the lustrations of the Pagans, which took place in February
+around the fields. She has substituted to them processions, in which the
+people carry in their hands burning tapers.' Others ascribe this
+institution to the pope Vigil, and say that it has been substituted to
+the feast of Proserpine, which the Pagans celebrated in the first days
+of February with torches.'
+
+The Pagans worshiped Juno as the wife of the god Jupiter: so the Church
+of Rome worships the virgin Mary as the wife of God. The Pagans
+celebrated the exaltation of the virgo or virgin, the sixth sign and
+seventh constellation in the ecliptic; so the Romish Church has
+established the feast of Assumption, namely, of the ascension of the
+virgin Mary to heaven. The Pagans made solemn processions to honor the
+goddess Ceres; so the Romish Church has instituted pompous processions
+in the honor of the virgin Mary.
+
+REMARK.--All the above institutions and doctrines of the Romish Church,
+and also those which we shall examine in the following chapters, date
+from the first centuries. All the Catholic doctors, theologians, and
+historians, confess it.
+
+From the numerous and undeniable historical facts summed up in this
+chapter we legitimately draw the conclusions, 1st. That, in the first
+centuries of the Christian era, the Church of Rome established
+mysteries; 2d. That the Church of Rome borrowed her mysteries from the
+mysteries of the Pagans; and, 3d. That a law of secrecy was binding the
+catechumens after their initiation, though this law was not so stringent
+as it was among the Pagans.
+
+When, in the sixteenth century, the Protestants shook the yoke of the
+Pope, they rejected many of the mysteries of the Church of Rome;
+however, they kept several of them, such as the mystery of Trinity,
+namely, of three Gods composing but one God; the mystery of incarnation,
+namely of God himself descending from the heavens, vesting our mortal
+clay in the womb of a woman for the purpose of being persecuted and
+slain on a cross by men, thus pay to himself the debt owed to him by
+men who had disobeyed him, (though they did not live yet,) in the person
+of Adam. These, we say, and other mysteries of the Romish Church, the
+Protestants or Heterodox in the opinion of the Catholics, preserved and
+transmitted them to their sons, or Partialists, who now call the Roman
+Catholics heathens; call the liberal Christian Churches heterodox, and
+call themselves most emphatically Evangelical Churches, Orthodox
+Churches.
+
+The final and strictly logical conclusion of this chapter is this:
+
+_Therefore the mysteries of the Romish Church, and those of the
+self-called Orthodox Protestant Churches, are of Pagan origin._
+
+_Corollary._ Since mysteries are of Pagan origin, and since Jesus Christ
+and his apostles did not establish mysteries, there ought not to be
+mysteries in Christianity. Since Jesus Christ and his apostles preached
+the Gospel in open air to all, everywhere, there cannot be any mysteries
+in their teaching, and there cannot be any mysteries in their writings,
+we mean in the New Testament.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+PAGAN ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF A PERSONAL DEVIL.
+
+
+THE celebrated Plutarch, historian, philosopher, and priest of Apollo,
+in the first century of the Christian era, thus writes: "We ought not to
+believe that the Principles of the universe are not animated, as
+Democrite and Epicure thought; nor that an inert matter be organized,
+and ordained by a Providence that disposes of all, as the Stoicians
+taught. It is impossible that one sole being, either good or bad, be the
+author of all, for God can cause no evil. The harmony of the world is a
+combination of contraries like the strings of a lyre, or like the string
+of a bow capable of being bent and unbent. In no case, the poet
+Euripedes says, good is separated from evil: there must be a mixture of
+the one and of the other. This opinion is of immemorial antiquity, and
+has been held by theologians, legislators, poets, and philosophers. Its
+inventor is unknown, but it is verified by the traditions of mankind; it
+is consecrated by mysteries and sacrifices among the Barbarians, as well
+as among the Greeks. They all acknowledge the dogma of two opposite
+Principles in nature, who, by their opposition, produce the mixture of
+good and evil.
+
+"Therefore it may not be said, that a single dispenser draws events like
+a liquor from two casks to mix them together; for this mixture is found
+in all the phenomena of nature. We must admit two opposite causes, two
+contrary powers, bearing the one to the right, and the other to the
+left; and who thus govern our life and the whole sublunar world, which
+for this reason is subject to all the irregularities and vicissitudes we
+witness, for nothing is done without a cause. As the good cannot produce
+evil, then there is a principle causing evil, as one causing good."
+
+We see by this passage of Plutarch, that the true origin of two
+Principles proceeds from the difficulty which men, in all times, found
+in explaining, by one sole cause, good and evil in nature, and in making
+flow from one sole spring, virtue and crime, light and darkness. "This
+dogma," Plutarch adds, "has been admitted by nearly all nations, and
+more especially by those renowned by their wisdom. They believed in two
+gods of different trade, if I may say so, who caused, the one good, and
+the other evil. They called the first God by excellence, and the second
+Demon."
+
+In fact the Persians, disciples of Zoroaster admitted, and even in our
+days, the Parsis, their successors, admit two principles, the one called
+Oromaze, and the other Ahriman. Plutarch says: "The Persians believed
+that the first was of the nature of light, and the second of that of
+darkness. Among the Egyptians the first was called Osiris, and the
+second Typhon, eternal foe to the first."
+
+All the sacred books of the Persians, and of the Egyptians, contain the
+marvellous and allegorical recital of the various combats given by
+Ahriman and his angels to Oromaze, and by Typhon to Osiris. These fables
+have been rehearsed by the Greeks in the war of the Titans against the
+Giants, against Jupiter, or Principle of good and light; for Jupiter,
+Plutarch remarks, was the Oromaze of the Persians, and the Osiris of the
+Egyptians.
+
+To these examples quoted by Plutarch, and which he extracted from the
+Theogony of the Persians, of the Egyptians, of the Greeks, and of the
+Chaldeans, we shall add others, which are living yet, at least the most
+of them. The inhabitants of the kingdom of Pegu admit two Principles;
+the one author of good, and the other of evil. They particularly
+endeavor to obtain the favor of the latter. The Indians of Java
+acknowledge a chief supreme of the universe, and address offerings and
+prayers to the evil genius lest he harm them. The Indians of the Moluc
+and Philippine islands do the same. The natives of the island of Formose
+worshiped a good god, Ishy, and demons, Chouy; they sacrifice to the
+latter, but seldom to the former.
+
+The negroes of the Cote-d'or admit two Gods, the one good, and the
+other bad; the one white, and the other black and evil. They do not
+adore the former often, whereas they try to appease the latter with
+prayers and sacrifices; the Portuguese have named him Demon. The
+Hottentots call the good Principle the Captain of above, and the bad
+principle the Captain of below. The ancients believed that the source of
+evil was in the underneath matter of the earth. The Giants and Typhon
+were sons of the Earth. The Hottentots say, that, whether the good
+Principle is prayed to or not he does good; whereas it is necessary to
+pray to the evil Principle, lest he might do harm. They call the bad god
+Touquoa, and represent him small, crooked, irritable, a foe to them; and
+they say that from him all evils flow to this world.
+
+The natives of Madagascar believe in two Principles. They ascribe to the
+bad one the form and badness of a serpent, they call him Angat: they
+name the good one Jadhar, which means great, omnipotent God. They rear
+no temple to the latter because he is good. The Mingrelians more
+particularly honor the one of their idols, which they think to be the
+most cruel. The Indians of the island of Teneriffe believe in a supreme
+God, whom they call Achguaya-Xerax, which means the greatest, the most
+sublime, the preserver of all things. Also they admit an evil genius
+named Guyotta.
+
+The Scandinaves have their god Locke, who wars against the gods, and
+particularly against Thor. He is the slanderer of the gods, Edda says,
+the great forger of deceit. His spirit is evil; he engendered three
+monsters; the wolf Feuris, the serpent Midgard, and Hela, or death. He
+causes the earthquakes. The Tsouvaches and the Morduans recognize a
+supreme being, who gave men all the blessings they enjoy. They also
+admit evil spirits whose occupation is to injure mankind.
+
+The Tartars of Katzchinzi adore a benevolent god, in kneeling towards
+the Orient; but they fear another god, Toüs, to whom they pray to disarm
+his wrath; and to whom, in the spring, they sacrifice a stallion. The
+Ostiaks and the Vogouls name that evil god Koul; the Samoyedes name him
+Sjoudibe; the Motores, Huala; the Kargasses, Sedkyr. The Thibetans admit
+evil spirits which they place in the regions above. The religion of the
+Bonzes supposes two Principles. The Siamoeses sacrifice to an evil
+spirit, whom they consider as being the cause of all the misfortunes of
+mankind.
+
+The Indians have their Ganga and their Gournatha, spirits whom they try
+to appease with prayer, sacrifices, and processions. The inhabitants of
+Tolgony, India, believe that two Principles govern the universe; the one
+good, he is light; and the other bad, he is darkness. The ancient
+Assyrians, as well as the Persians, admitted two Principles; and they
+honored, Augustine says, two gods, the one good, and the other bad. The
+Chaldeans also had their good and bad stars, animated by geniuses or
+intelligences also good and bad.
+
+In America the dogma of two Principles, and of good and bad spirits, is
+also found. The Peruvians revered Pacha-Camac as being a good god, and
+Cupaï as being a bad god. The Caraïbs admitted two sorts of spirits; the
+one benevolent, who dwell in the heaven; and the other evil, who hover
+over us to lead us to temptation. The former, on the contrary, invite us
+to do good, and each of us is guarded by one of them. Those of
+Terra-Firma think that there is a god in the heaven, namely, the sun.
+Besides they admit a bad Principle, who is the author of all evils; they
+present him with flowers, fruits, corn, and perfumes. The Tapayas,
+situated in America by about the same latitude as the Madegasses in
+Africa, believe also in two Principles.
+
+The natives of Brazil believe in a bad genius: they call him Aguyan; and
+they have conjurors who can, they say, divert his wrath. The Indians of
+Florida and of Louisiana adored the sun, the moon, and the stars. They
+also believed in an evil spirit named Toïa. The Canadians, and the
+savage tribes of the Bay of Hudson, revered the sun, the moon, the
+stars, and the thunder; but they more particularly prayed to the evil
+spirits. The Esquimaux believe in a god supremely good, whom they call
+Ukouma, and in another, Ouikan, who is the author of all evils; who
+causes the tempests, and who capsizes the boats. The savages of the
+strait of Davis believe in beneficent and malignant spirits.
+
+This distinction of two Principles, of a god, and of geniuses or
+spirits, authors of good and light; and of a god and geniuses, authors
+of evil and darkness, is immemorial. This opinion has been so
+universally adopted for the only reason, that those who observed the
+opposite phenomena of nature could not account for them, and could not
+reconcile them with the existence of a single cause. As there are good
+and bad men, they believed that there were good and bad gods, the ones
+dispensers of good, and the others authors of evil.
+
+Such was the universal belief when Jesus Christ came to the world. The
+Jews themselves, since the captivity of Babylon, generally believed in
+those two Principles. They went so far as to immolate their own children
+on the altars of evil deities, in order to appease them. Jesus preached
+his Gospel, died, and left on earth his apostles with the trust of
+continuing, among men, his saving mission. As in the writings of the
+Evangelists the word demon, or devil, was used figuratively, meaning
+lust, wrong desire, etc., some of the first Christians understood the
+true sense of these figurative words, and others did not. In the third
+century the Church of Rome, which had been tending to supremacy over
+other churches, and which, from policy, to gain more adepts, was
+compromising with Paganism, understood the word demon, or devil,
+literally, and preserved the heathen doctrine, which, as she grew,
+became widely spread, and afterwards an article of faith.
+
+The Fathers of the Church, of that age, believed that the demons, or
+devils, were innumerable; that their chief, Lucifer, had entrusted a
+demon to accompany each man through life, to tempt him to sin; that
+Lucifer had as many bad angels, or demons, under his command, as God had
+good angels; that all those demons were corporeal, and that those male
+committed fornication and adultery with the daughters of men; and those
+female with the sons of men; that they had generated the giants; and
+that they had incited the oppressors of the Christians to persecute
+them. Thus thought Justin, Tatian, Minutius-Felix, Athenagoras,
+Tertullian, Julius-Firmicus, Origen, Synesius, Arnobe, St. Gregory of
+Nazianze, Lactance, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, etc., as seen in their
+works in either edition of the Benedictines, or of the canon Caillot, of
+Migne, a priest, now editor in Paris. Even in our days the most of the
+superstitious practices of the Pagans, in regard to evil spirits, are
+preserved in the Papal Church,--conjurations, exorcisms, Agnus Dei, holy
+water, etc., and others which they have added, such as the sign of the
+cross, the expulsion of the devil from houses, barns, wells, wagons,
+beasts, fields, etc. These ceremonies are oftentimes performed, as a
+matter of course, for money.
+
+The same took place in the Church of Rome in reference to the heathen
+dogma of good angels being under the command of the good spirit, or God;
+this dogma was generally believed even by the Jews, at least since the
+captivity of Babylon. We say _generally_, because the Sadduceans did not
+believe it; and perhaps, also, the Samaritans and the Caraïtes, for we
+have but two testimonies that prove they partook of the opinion of the
+Samaritans on this point, namely, the testimony of Abusaïd, author of an
+Arabic version of the Pentateuch, and that of Aaron, in his commentaries
+of the same. The Papal Church holds still that the angels form three
+hierarchies, or choirs. The first is that of the Seraphims, Cherubims,
+and thrones; the second comprises the dominations, the virtues, and the
+powers; and the third is composed of the principalities, of the
+archangels, and of the angels. One of these angels, called guardian, is
+obliged to stand by each one of us all the days of our life. Temples,
+altars, prayers and sacrifices are offered to them.
+
+Tertullian, Origen, Clement of Alexandria, etc., thought that the bodies
+of the good angels were formed of a very thin, subtle matter. Other
+Fathers, Basile, Athanase, Cyrille, Gregory of Nysse, John-Chrysostomus,
+etc., considered them as spiritual beings; however, they believed that
+they may take a body when they please. The Church of Rome holds, as an
+article of faith, that the good angels ought to be adored.
+
+As seen above, the Church of Rome has preserved, with a very slight
+modification, if any, the heathen dogma of two Principles, the one good,
+God; and the other bad, Lucifer, or the devil; also the nomenclature of
+geniuses, or spirits, or angels, which are, the ones under the command
+of God, and the others under the command of Lucifer. When, in the
+sixteenth century, the Protestants parted with the Church of Rome, they
+cut off many branches of this dogma; but they kept its body, namely,
+instead of understanding the words demon, or devil, as meaning lust,
+abuse of free agency, wrong desire, etc., they understood them of
+personal beings, either material or immaterial, but existing, tempting
+each man to sin; and relentlessly seeking the ruin of mankind.
+
+_Therefore the doctrine of a Personal Devil is of Pagan origin._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+PAGAN ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.
+
+
+THE Roman Catholic writers are unanimous in the opinion that it was the
+belief of a large number of Pagans that man had fallen from a higher
+state of existence. St. Augustine, more especially, lengthily and
+emphatically insists upon the general belief of the Pagans in original
+sin, when he writes against Pelage. However, we shall bring forth other
+testimonies, which will not leave, in the mind of the reader, any doubt
+that the Pagans generally believed in original sin.
+
+Cicero, in his work De Republica, book third, after painting the
+grandeur of the human nature, and then contrasting its subjection to
+miseries, to diseases, to sorrow, to fear, and to the most degrading
+passions, was at a loss to define man. He called him _a soul in ruins_.
+It was for the same reason that, in Plato, Socrates reminds to his
+disciples that those who had established mysteries, and who, he said,
+were not to be despised, taught that according to their ancestors, any
+one who dies without having been purified is plunged into the mire of
+the Tartarus; whereas, he who has been purified dwells with the gods.
+Clement of Alexandria, in his Stromata, book third, writes, that,
+according to the testimony of Philolaüs, the Pythagorician, all the
+ancient theologians and poets said that the soul was buried in the body,
+as in a grave, as a punishment for some sin. It was also the doctrine of
+the Orphics, as can be seen in Plat., Cratyl., Opera, tome third.
+
+In the pages 48, 50, and 51, of the treatise of Plutarch, on the Delays
+of Divine Justice, we read: "A State, for instance, is one same thing
+continued, a whole, alike to an animal which is ever the same, and the
+age thereof does not change the identity. The State then being one, as
+long as the association maintains the unity, the merit and the demerit,
+the reward and the punishment for all that is done in common are justly
+ascribed to it, as they are to a single individual. But if a State is to
+be considered in this point of view, it ought to be the same with a
+family proceeding from the same stock, from which it holds I do not know
+what sort of hidden strength; I do not know what sort of communication
+of essence and qualities, which extend to all the individuals of the
+race. Beings produced through the medium of generation are not similar
+to the productions of arts. In regard to the latter, when the work is
+completed it is immediately separated from the hand of the workman, and
+it no longer belongs to him: true it is done by him, but not from him.
+On the contrary, what is engendered proceeds from the substance itself
+of the generating being; so that it holds from him something which is
+justly rewarded or punished in his stead, for that something is
+himself."
+
+According to the doctrine of the Persians, Meshia and Meshiane, or the
+first man and first woman, were first pure, and submitted to Ormuzd,
+their maker. Ahriman saw them and envied their happiness. He approached
+them under the form of a serpent, presented fruits to them, and
+persuaded them that he was the maker of man, of animals, of plants, and
+of the beautiful universe in which they dwelled. They believed it; and
+since that Ahriman was their master. Their nature became corrupt, and
+this corruption infected their whole posterity. This we find in
+Vendidat-Sade, pages 305, and 428.
+
+Thus sin does not originate from Ormuzd; but, Zoroaster says, from the
+being hidden in crime. This testimony is found in the Exposition of the
+Theological System of the Persians, extracted from the books Zends,
+Pehlvis, and Parsis, by Anquetil du Perron. The following passage,
+"There are stains brought by man when he comes to life," is found in the
+69th tome of the Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions.
+
+We read in the Ezour-Vedam, book 1, chapter 4, tome 1, pages 201 and
+202: "God never created vice. He cannot be its author; and God, who is
+holiness and wisdom, can be the author but of virtue. He gave us his law
+in which he prescribes what we ought to do. Sin is a transgression of
+this law by which it is prohibited. If sin reigns on the earth, we
+ourselves are its authors. Our perverse inclinations have induced us to
+transgress the law of God; hence, the first sin which has induced us to
+commit others." The same author in book 5, chapter 5, tome 2,
+acknowledges that the first man was created in a state of innocence; and
+that he was happy because he controlled his passions and desires.
+
+Maurice in his Indiæ Antiquitates, vol. 6, page 53, proves that the
+Indians had a knowledge of the fall of the first man and of the first
+woman; he proves also that the dogma of original sin was taught by the
+Druids. Voltaire, on the seventeenth page of his work, Additions to
+General History, confesses that the Bramas believed that man was fallen
+and degenerated: "this idea," he adds, "is found among all the ancient
+peoples."
+
+The Father Jesuit Bouchet, in a letter to the Bishop of Avranches,
+writes: "The gods," our Indians say, "tried by all means to obtain
+immortality. After many inquiries and trials, they conceived the idea
+that they could find it in the tree of life, which was in the Chorcan.
+In fact they succeeded; and in eating once in a while of the fruits of
+that tree, they kept the precious treasure they so much valued. A famous
+snake, named Cheiden, saw that the tree of life had been found by the
+gods of the second order. As probably he had been entrusted with
+guarding that tree, he became so angry because his vigilance had been
+deceived, that he immediately poured out an enormous quantity of poison,
+which spread over the whole earth."
+
+In the Ta-Hio, or Moral of Confucius, page 50, Confucius, after saying
+that reason is a gift from heaven, adds, "Concupiscence has corrupted
+it, and it is now mixed with many impurities. Therefore take off those
+impurities so that it resume its first luster, and all its former
+perfection." The philosopher Tchouangse taught, in conformity with the
+doctrine of King or sacred books of the Chinese, "that in the former
+state of heaven, man was inly united to the supreme reason; and that he
+practiced all the works of justice. The heart relished the truth. There
+was in man no alloy of falsity. Then the four seasons of the year were
+regular. Nothing was injurious to man, and man was injurious to nothing.
+Universal harmony reigned in all nature. But the columns of the
+firmament having been broken, the earth was shaken in its very
+foundations. Man having rebelled against the heavens the system of the
+universe was deranged; evils and crimes flooded the earth." This
+testimony is extracted from the Discourse of Ramsey on Mythology, pages
+146, and 148.
+
+M. de Humboldt, in the tome 1, pages 237 and 274, and also in the tome
+2, page 198 of his Views of the Cordilleras and of the monuments of
+America, says, "That the mother of our flesh; the serpent Cihuacohuati,
+and her are famous in the Mexican traditions. Those traditions
+represent the mother of our flesh fallen from her first state of
+innocence and happiness." Voltaire, in Questions on Encyclopedia, says;
+"The fall of man degenerated is the basis of the theology of all the
+ancient nations."
+
+There were nearly among all nations expiatory rites, to purify infants
+when they were born. Usually this ceremony was done in the day when the
+child was named. Macrob informs us, in his Saturn, book 1, that "that
+day, among the Romans, was the ninth for the boys and the eighth for the
+girls. That day was called lustricus, because of the lustral water used
+to purify the new born child." In the Analysis of the Insc. of Rosette,
+page 145, we read that the Egyptians, the Persians, and the Greeks had a
+similar practice. In Yucatan the new born child was brought in the
+temple, where the priest poured on his head the waters destined to this
+use; and then he gave him a name. In the Canary islands the women
+performed this priestly function. Caril, in his American Letters, tome
+1, pages 146, and 147, speaks of these ceremonies. A law prescribed
+these expiatory rites among the Mexicans.
+
+M. de Humboldt, Views of the Cordilleras, and of the Monuments of
+America, tome 1, page 223, writes: "The midwife, in invoking the god
+Ometeuctly, (the god of celestial paradise,) and the goddess Omecihuatl,
+who live in the abode of the blessed, poured water on the forehead and
+on the breast of the new-born child. After pronouncing several prayers,
+in which water was considered as the symbol of the purification of the
+soul, the midwife called near her the children who had been invited to
+give a name to the new-born child. In some provinces a fire was kindled
+at the same time, and they did as if really the child was passed through
+the flame to purify him both with water and fire. This ceremony reminds
+the practices whose origin, in Asia, seems to be immemorial."
+
+Likewise, the Thibetans have similar expiatory rites: this we find in
+the thirty-first page of the preface of the Thibetan Alphabet. We
+extract the following from the Works of the Society of Calcutta: "In
+India, when a name is given to a child, his name is written on his
+forehead, and he is plunged three times into the water of the river.
+Then the Brama exclaims, 'O God, pure, one, invisible and perfect! to
+thee we offer this offspring of a holy tribe, anointed with an
+incorruptible oil, and purified with water.'"
+
+In the mysteries, the Hierophant taught the doctrine that our nature had
+been corrupted by a first sin. The sixth book of the poem Eneida is
+nothing but a brilliant exposition of this doctrine; and perhaps
+antiquity offers nothing that proves more the power of tradition on the
+human mind, than the passage in which the poet, following Eneas in the
+abode of the dead, describes in magnificent verses the dismal spectacle
+which first strikes his gaze. If there is any thing in the world that
+wakes up in our mind the idea of innocence, assuredly it is a child who
+has been unable neither to know nor to commit sin; and the supposition
+that he is subject to punishment and to suffering, is a thought which
+our soul abhors. However, Virgil, in the 6th book, verses 426, and 429,
+places the children dead when yet nursing, at the entry of the sad
+kingdoms, where he represents them in a state of pain, weeping and
+moaning--vagitus ingens. Why those tears, those cries of sufferings?
+Which faults do those children, to whom their mothers had not smiled,
+expiate? (Virgil, Ecloga 4, verse 62.) What has inspired the poet with
+this surprising fiction? On what does it rest? Whence does it originate,
+if not from the ancient belief that man was born in sin?
+
+Therefore, the doctrine of original sin was generally believed by the
+Pagans.
+
+We stated, at the commencement of this chapter, that the Roman Catholic
+writers are unanimous in the opinion that it was the belief of a large
+number of Pagans, that man had fallen from a higher state of existence.
+However, a small number only of the same writers are of the opinion that
+the Jews believed in the doctrine of original sin; and they find no
+other proof of the assertion than the ceremony of circumcision, which,
+as is familiar to all, was a mere legal and national observance, and had
+not the virtue of remitting sin. In the first centuries of the
+Christian era, baptism was considered as a mere ceremony for initiating
+catechumens to the Christian profession.
+
+It was only towards the end of the third century, that the belief of the
+transmission of Adam's sin to all his descendants was introduced in the
+Church of Rome, which already considered herself the mistress of the
+other churches. Soon afterwards the dogma that baptism had the virtue of
+remitting original sin was established. As proof of these two facts, we
+have the testimony of more than twenty-three Christian sects of the
+first centuries, which did not admit the dogma of original sin; and did
+not believe that baptism had the virtue of remitting sin. We quote a few
+of those sects: the Simonians, the Nicolaïtes, the Valentinians, the
+Basilidians, the Carpocratians, the Ophites, the Sethians, the
+Pelagians, all the Gnostic sects, etc.
+
+Therefore, the Church of Rome borrowed the dogma of original sin from
+the Pagans. To this many Roman Catholic writers say: true the Pagans
+held this doctrine, but we did not borrow it from them; we found it in
+the first chapters of Genesis. We rejoin that even the fathers of the
+fourth century did not understand those chapters literally, and thereby
+as teaching the dogma of original sin. St. Augustine, in his work, City
+of God, avers that it was a general opinion among Christians, that the
+first three chapters of Genesis are allegorical, and that he himself is
+inclined to think so. He confesses that it is impossible to take them
+literally without hurting piety, and ascribing to God unworthy actions.
+Origen says: "Where is the man of good sense, who can ever believe that
+there have been a first, a second, and a third days, and that those days
+had each an evening and morning, though there were not yet neither sun,
+nor moon, nor stars? Where is the man credulous enough to believe, that
+God was working like a gardener, and that he planted a garden in Orient;
+that the tree of life was a real tree, whose fruit would preserve life?"
+
+Origen compared the temptation of Adam to that of the birth of Love,
+whose father was Porus, or Abundance, and whose mother was Poverty. He
+adds that there are in the Old Testament facts, which, if understood
+literally, are absurd, and which, if understood allegorically, contain
+valuable truths. We refer the reader for the above to the following
+works: See St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, liber xi, cap. 6, et liber 2,
+cap. xi, No. 24.--De Genesi ad Litteram, liber 4, No. 44.--De Catechis
+Rudibus, cap. 13. The opinion of St. Athanase can be found in his Oratio
+Contra Arium, No. 60.--That of Origen, in his work De Principiis, liber
+iv, No. 16, contra Celsum, liber 6, No. 50, 51. That of St. Ambrosius,
+in his Hexam, liber one, cap. 7, et Sequentia. That of Theodoret, in his
+Quest. in Genes. interpr. cap. v. et Sequentia, and that of St. Gregory
+in his Moral, in Job, liber 32, cap. 9.
+
+The Fathers and the Christian sects named above, did not take the first
+three chapters of Genesis literally, because it would imply absurdity
+and blasphemy. The idea of God, namely, of the supreme and eternal
+cause, who clothes our clay for the pleasure of walking in a garden; the
+idea of a woman conversing with a serpent; listening to its counsels and
+heeding them; that of a man and a woman organized for reproduction, and
+yet destined to be immortal on earth, and to procreate a mathematical
+infinity of beings, immortal like themselves, who also will infinitely
+multiply, and will all find their food in the fruits of the trees of a
+garden where they will all dwell; a fruit culled that is to kill Adam
+and Eve, and to be transmitted as a hereditary crime to all their
+descendants, who did not participate to their disobedience, crime which
+will be forgiven only in as much as men will commit another crime,
+infinitely greater, a deicide--if such a crime might exist; the woman
+who since that time is condemned to bring forth with pain, as if the
+pains of childbirth were not natural to her organization, and were not
+common to her, as well as to the other animals which have not tasted the
+forbidden fruit; the serpent forced to crawl, as if a footless reptile
+could move any other way: so many absurdities and follies, heaped in
+those first three chapters, they could not believe and ascribe them to
+God.
+
+Maimonide, one of the most learned Rabbins of the Jews, thus wrote in
+the twelfth century: "We ought not to understand literally what is
+written in the books of the creation; nor entertain about the creation
+the opinions generally agreed. It is for this reason that our wise men
+urged upon us to keep their true teaching secret, and not to lift up the
+veil of allegory which conceals the truths they contain. If taken
+literally the relation of the creation gives us the most absurd and
+extravagant ideas of the Deity. Whoever will find out their true
+teaching, ought to keep it to himself; this is the earnest
+recommendation of our wise men, and more especially in regard to the
+first six days. Those who know ought to speak about it but obscurely, as
+I do myself, so as to let their hearers guess if they can."
+
+The above facts and proofs lead us to the conclusion that the Church of
+Rome borrowed the dogma of original sin from the Pagans.
+
+As the Protestants, who call themselves Orthodox, borrowed it in the
+sixteenth century from the Church of Rome, it follows that they also
+hold it from the Pagans.
+
+_Therefore, the doctrine of Original Sin is of Pagan origin._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+PAGAN ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF TRINITY.
+
+
+THE Roman Catholic writers themselves confess that the Pagans believed
+in Trinity; also the most of the self-called Protestant Orthodox
+historians and authors. The neutral authors are unanimous on this point.
+The following facts and proofs we shall impartially extract from those
+three classes of writers:
+
+The Egyptians believed in Trinity; the Greek inscription of the great
+Obelisk of the major circus, at Rome, reads thus: Megas Theos, the great
+god, Theogentos, the begotten of god; and Pamphegges, the all-bright,
+(Apollo, the Spirit.) Heraclide, of Pont, and Porphyre relate a famous
+oracle of Serapis: Prota Theos, metepeita logos, kai pneuma soun autois.
+Sumphuta de tria panta, kai eis en eonta. [Translation:] All is God in
+the beginning; then the word and the spirit; three Gods coengendered
+together and united in one.
+
+The Chaldeans had a sort of Trinity in their Metris, Oromasis, and
+Araminis, or Mithra, Oromase and Aramine. The Chinese had also, and
+still have, a mysterious Trinity. The first god generates the second
+one, and both generate the third one. The Chinese say that the great
+term, or great unity, contains three, one is three, and three are one.
+In India Trinity was immemorially known. The Father Jesuit Calmet
+writes: "What I have seen mostly surprising is a text extracted from
+Lamaastambam, one of the books of the Indians.... It begins thus: The
+Lord, the good, the great God, in his mouth is the word. (The term which
+they use personifies the word.) Then it speaks of the Holy Spirit in
+these words: Ventus seu spiritus perfectus; [translation] breath or
+perfect spirit,--and it ends by the creation, ascribing it to God
+alone."
+
+The Jesuit Calmet says, writing about the Thibetans: "I learned the
+following about their religion. They call God Konciosa, and they seem to
+have some idea of the adorable Trinity; for they call God sometimes
+Konsikosick, God-one, and at other times Kocioksum, God-three. They use
+a kind of bead on which they pronounce these words: _om_, _ha_, _hum_.
+When they are asked the explanation, they answer that _om_ signifies the
+intelligence, or arm, namely power; that _ha_ is the word; that _hum_ is
+the heart or love, and that these three words signify God."
+
+The Father Bouchet, a Roman Catholic missionary in India, wrote the
+following to the bishop of Avranches: "I commence by the confused idea
+which the Indians preserve about the adorable Trinity. My Lord, I have
+spoken to you of the three principal deities of the Indians, Bruma,
+Wishnou, and Routren. The greater portion of the people say, it is true,
+that they are three different gods, and really separate. But several
+Nianigneuls, or spiritual men, assure that these three gods, apparently
+distinct, compose in reality but one god: that this god is called Bruma,
+when he creates and exercises his all-power; that he is called Wishnou,
+when he preserves the created beings, and does them good; and that,
+finally, he takes the name of Routren, when he destroys the cities,
+chastises the wicked, and makes men feel his just anger."
+
+English missionaries have found at Otaïti some traces of the Trinity
+among the religious dogmas of the natives.
+
+Plato refers to this doctrine in several passages of his works. "Not
+only," says Dacier in his translation, "it is believed that he knew
+about the Word, eternal Son of God; but also that he knew about the Holy
+Spirit, for he thus writes to the young Denis:
+
+"'I must declare to Archedemus what is much more precious and more
+divine, and which you so eagerly desire to know; for you sent him to me
+for this express purpose. According to what he told me, you think that I
+have not sufficiently explained to you my opinion about the first
+Principle, therefore I shall write it to you, enigmatically, however, in
+order that, if my epistle is intercepted at sea or on land, he who will
+read it will be unable to understand it. All things are around their
+king; they exist through him, and he is the only cause of good things,
+second for the second things, and third for the third things.'
+
+"In the Epinomis," continues Dacier, "Plato establishes as Principle,
+the first good, the Word, or intelligence and the soul. The first good
+is God;... the Word, or intelligence, is the son of this first good, who
+begets him similar to himself; and the soul, which is the term between
+the Father and the Son, is the Holy Spirit."
+
+Plato had borrowed this doctrine about Trinity from Timee of Locre, who
+held it from the Italian philosophical school. Marsile Ficin, in one of
+his remarks on Plato, shows from the testimonies of Jamblic, Porphyre,
+Plato and Maxim of Tyr, that the Pythagoricians knew also the excellence
+of the Ternary; Pythagoras himself indicated it in this symbol: Protima
+to Schema, kai Bema, kai Triobolon. The Jesuit Kirker, dissenting about
+the unity and trinity of the first Principle, traces vestiges of the
+doctrine of Trinity up to Pythagoras, and to the Egyptians.
+
+St. Augustine himself, though the staunchest defender of the dogma of
+Trinity, confessed that, among all the nations of the world, a Trinity,
+nearly similar to the one he believed in, had been held. He added that
+the Pythagoricians, the Platonicians, and that a great number of
+Atlantes, Lybian, Egyptian, Persian, Chaldean, Scythian, Gallenses, and
+Hibernian philosophers, held several dogmas about the unity of the God,
+Light, and Good, in common with the Church of Rome.
+
+Macrobe gives us a summary of ancient or Platonician theology, which
+contains a true Trinity, of which that of the Papists and of the
+self-called Protestant Orthodox is but a copy. According to this
+summary, the world has been formed by the universal soul: this soul is
+the same as their spiritus, or spirit. They also call the Holy Spirit
+Creator: "Veni Creator spiritus," etc., [translation,] Come Spirit
+Creator, etc., (Catholic hymn.) Macrobe adds, that from this spirit or
+soul the intelligence, which he calls _men's_ proceeds. Is this not the
+Father, the Son, or wisdom, and the Spirit that creates and vivifies
+all? Even is not the expression _to proceed_ common to the ancient and
+to the Papist and Protestant Orthodox Churches in the filiation of the
+first three beings?
+
+Macrobe goes farther. He recalls the three Principles to a primitive
+unit, who is the sovereign God. After resting his theory on this Trinity
+he adds: "You see how this unit, or original monade of the first cause,
+is preserved entire and indivisible up to the soul, or spirit, which
+animates the world." This testimony of Macrobe has so much more bearing,
+that he wrote in the beginning of the fifth century; that he was the
+first Chamberlain of the emperor Theodose, and was the most learned
+antiquarian of that age.
+
+Another most important fact we shall record. It is beyond any doubt
+that before the coming of Jesus Christ the Jews did not hold the dogma
+of Trinity, nor do they now. Their Rabbins, and all the Roman Catholic
+theologians, agree on this point.
+
+During the first three centuries of the Christian era the dogma of
+Trinity was not generally believed. The Simonians, the Nicholaïtes, the
+Valentinians, the Basilidians, the Carpocratians, the Ophites, the
+Sethians, all the Gnostics, and many other Christian sects rejected it.
+It was only in the fourth century, that Arius and the above sects were
+condemned in the council of Nice, because they denied the divinity of
+Jesus Christ. This council was assembled by the order of the emperor
+Constantine I., who was urged to it by the Bishop of Rome, (or Pope,)
+whose Church held the dogma of Trinity. As a matter of course the
+bishops of the council had to decide according to the will of those two
+leaders; for Constantine threatened them with deposition and exile: in
+fact he banished Arius, and deposed seventeen bishops, who did not
+subscribe to the decision of the council.
+
+The doctrine that Jesus Christ was not God himself was so generally
+spread, and so deeply rooted in the minds, that several successors of
+Constantine I. embraced Arianism; and it was only after centuries that
+Arianism, which was spread nearly all over the East, was crushed by the
+papal and the imperial power.
+
+Now let us draw our conclusions. Since the Jews had no knowledge of the
+dogma of Trinity, the Church of Rome could not borrow it from them;
+since the generality of the Christian sects during the first three
+centuries did not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, the Church of
+Rome did not find the dogma of Trinity in the Gospel; (besides, the
+Catholic theologians never pretended that the Scriptures teach it--they
+simply pretended, and still pretend, that it was a tradition.) Since the
+dogma of Trinity was believed by many Pagan sects, then the Roman Church
+borrowed it from them.
+
+In turns, the self-called Orthodox Protestant Churches borrowed this
+doctrine from the Church of Rome, in the sixteenth century.
+
+_Therefore the doctrine of Trinity is of Pagan origin._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+PAGAN ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE SUPREME DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST.
+
+
+IT will be demonstrated that the doctrine of the supreme divinity of
+Jesus Christ is of Pagan origin, if it can be proved, 1st, That the
+Church of Rome, from which the self-called Orthodox Protestant Churches
+borrowed this doctrine, in the sixteenth century, did not hold it from
+the apostles of Jesus Christ; and, 2d, That the Church of Rome uses, in
+her adoration to Jesus Christ, rites and ceremonies of a striking
+similarity with those used by the Pagans, in their adoration to the sun,
+under the names of Bacchus, Hercules, Osiris, Mithra, Atys, etc.
+
+But it can be proved, 1st, That the Church of Rome, from which the
+self-called Orthodox Protestant Churches, in the sixteenth century,
+borrowed the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ, did not
+hold it from the apostles of Jesus Christ; and, 2d, That the Church of
+Rome uses, in her adoration to Jesus Christ, rites and ceremonies of a
+striking similarity with those used by the Pagans in their adoration to
+the sun, under the names of Bacchus, Hercules, Osiris, Mithra, Atys,
+etc.
+
+1st. We prove that the Church of Rome, from which the self-called
+Orthodox Protestant Churches, in the sixteenth century, borrowed the
+doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ, did not hold it from
+the apostles of Jesus Christ.
+
+It will be evident that the Church of Rome, from which the self-called
+Orthodox Protestant Churches, in the sixteenth century, borrowed the
+doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ, did not hold it from
+the apostles of Jesus Christ, if, until nearly the end of the third
+century, the various Christian denominations, or sects, did not believe
+the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ. But, until nearly
+the end of the third century, the various Christian denominations, or
+sects, did not believe the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus
+Christ.
+
+This we prove:--
+
+We request the readers to bear in mind, in reading this chapter, that
+we have extracted all the proofs and statements brought forth therein,
+from the works of the Roman Catholic priest Bergier, which we have
+studied in our Catholic theological school; from the works of
+the Rev. Father Jesuit Feller; from the History of the Church,
+by Berrault-Ber-Castel, a Roman Catholic priest; and from the
+Ecclesiastical History, by the Roman Catholic clergyman Fleury. Those
+proofs and statements can be verified, in the first two writers, at the
+articles of the sects, and of their authors, arranged in alphabetical
+order; and in the other authors at the dates of the centuries and years.
+
+Bergier says: "The Cerinthians pretended that Jesus Christ was born from
+Joseph and Mary like other men; but that he was endowed with a superior
+wisdom and holiness; that when he was baptized, Christ, or the Son of
+God, had descended on him under the form of a dove, and had revealed to
+him God the Father, till then unknown, in order that he might make him
+known to men." The Cerinthians sprung up, according to St. Epiphane, in
+the middle of the first century, but according to St. Ireneus, at about
+the year 88.
+
+Therefore the Cerinthians did not believe the doctrine of the supreme
+divinity of Jesus Christ.
+
+Bergier says: "The Carpocratians supposed the pre-existence of the
+souls; pretended that they had sinned in an anterior life; that as a
+punishment of their crimes they had been condemned to be shut up in
+bodies.... In their belief, the soul of Jesus Christ, before her
+incarnation, had been more faithful to God than the others. It is for
+this reason that God had endowed her with more knowledge than the souls
+of other men; also with more strength both to defeat the geniuses
+opposed to humanity, and to return to heaven against their will. God,
+they said, grants the same favor to those who love Jesus Christ; and
+who, like him, know the dignity of their souls. Thus the Carpocratians
+considered Jesus Christ as being simply a man, though more perfect than
+the others; they believed that he was the son of Joseph and Mary, and
+confessed his miracles and sufferings. They are not accused of denying
+the resurrection, but of denying the general resurrection; and of
+holding that the soul only (not the body) of Jesus Christ, had ascended
+to the heavens." The sect of the Carpocratians commenced towards the end
+of the first century.
+
+Therefore the Carpocratians did not believe the doctrine of the supreme
+divinity of Jesus Christ.
+
+Bergier writes thus about the Ebionites: "It is very probable that
+(although some authors say that they date from the year 72 of the first
+century) they commenced to be known only in the year 103, or even later,
+under the reign of Adrian, after the total ruin of Jerusalem, in the
+year 119; that the Ebionites and the Nazarenes are two different sects;
+it is the opinion of Mosheim, Hist. Christ., soec. 1, par. 58, soec. 2,
+par. 39.... The Ebionites considered Jesus Christ as being simply a man
+born from Joseph and Mary."
+
+Consequently the Ebionites did not believe the doctrine of the supreme
+divinity of Jesus Christ.
+
+The Christian sect of the Basilidians was founded in the beginning of
+the second century by Basilide of Alexandria, Feller says; he had been
+converted from the philosophy of Pythagoras and Plato to Christianism.
+Bergier writes about the Basilidians: "They believed that God had sent
+his Son, or intelligence, under the name of Jesus Christ, to liberate
+those who would believe in him; that Jesus Christ had really performed
+the miracles ascribed to him by the Christians; but that he had only a
+fantastical body and the appearances of a man."
+
+Therefore the Basilidians did not believe the doctrine of the supreme
+divinity of Jesus Christ.
+
+The sect of the Marcionites was established, in the middle of the second
+century, by Marcio, the son of a bishop of Pontus. The Marcionites held
+that God, principle of the spirits, had given to one of them, Jesus
+Christ, the appearances of humanity; and had sent him to the earth to
+abolish the law and the prophets; to teach to men that their souls come
+from heaven, and that they cannot be restored to happiness except in
+reuniting to God.
+
+Therefore the Marcionites did not believe the doctrine of the supreme
+divinity of Jesus Christ.
+
+Valentin founded the sect of Valentinians in 140. He was an Egyptian,
+and had been converted from philosophy to Christianism. Bergier, after
+lengthily exposing the doctrines of his sect, says, "Consequently the
+Valentinians neither admitted the eternal generation of the Word, nor
+his incarnation, nor the divinity of Jesus Christ, nor the redemption of
+mankind, in the proper sense. In their opinion, the redemption of
+mankind by Jesus Christ did not extend farther than this--Jesus Christ
+had come to the world to liberate men from the tyranny of the Eons, and
+had given them examples and lessons of virtue, and had taught them the
+true means of obtaining eternal happiness."
+
+Therefore the Valentinians did not believe the doctrine of the supreme
+divinity of Jesus Christ.
+
+The Ptolemaïtes did not believe the doctrine of Jesus Christ, and held
+that he was but the Son of God.
+
+St. Epiphane in his work Hære. 36, and Bergier, inform us that the
+Heracleonites, whose chief was Heracleon, and who were widely spread,
+particularly in Sicily, believed that the Word divine did not create the
+world, but that it had been created by one of the Eons, or spirits. In
+their opinion, there were two worlds, the one corporeal and visible, and
+the other spiritual and invisible, and they only ascribed the formation
+of the latter to Jesus Christ, who was one of the greatest Eons, or
+spirits. The Heracleonites were organized as a sect in the year 140.
+
+The Colarbasians did not believe the doctrine of the supreme divinity of
+Jesus Christ.
+
+Sanderus and Bergier say, that the Barules professed to believe that the
+Son of God had but a fantastical body; that there was no original sin;
+that all our souls had been created before the world, and all had sinned
+in that former state of existence; and that Jesus Christ was not God.
+
+The Bardesanists, thus named from their founder, Bardesanes, a Syrian,
+who lived in the second century, became a large sect. Beausobre in his
+History of Manicheanism, tome 2, book 4, chap. 9, writes, that they
+believed in two Principles, originators of all things, the one good and
+the other bad. They denied that the eternal Word, or Son of God, had
+taken a human flesh; they said that he had taken only a celestial and
+aerial body. They denied the future resurrection of the body. Bergier,
+Feller, etc., say the same.
+
+Then the Bardesanists did not believe the doctrine of the supreme
+divinity of Jesus Christ.
+
+The Marcosians rejected the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus
+Christ, and held only that he was one of the principal Eons, or spirits.
+The Marcosians were founded by Marc in the second century.
+
+The Theodotians, Bergier says, believed that Jesus Christ was not God
+but a man; that he was above the other men only by his miraculous birth,
+and by his extraordinary virtues. Theodote, a native of Bysance, founded
+them in the second century.
+
+The Artemonians also denied the doctrine of the supreme divinity of
+Jesus Christ.
+
+The Docetes held that Jesus Christ was only the Son of God, and that he
+had but apparently suffered humiliations, torments, and death.
+
+The Tatianists did not believe the doctrine of the supreme divinity of
+Jesus Christ. Tatian gave them his name when he organized them as a
+Christian denomination, in the second century. Bergier pretends that
+some passages of the writings of this learned author can be understood
+of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ, but Fauste Socin, and others,
+in the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum, in ten volumes, in folio, proves
+the contrary; and at the same time they prove that Clement of Alexandria
+and other Fathers of the second century disbelieved the doctrine of the
+supreme divinity of Jesus Christ. Bergier confesses, however, that it is
+doubtful that Tatian had been Orthodox about the generation of the Word.
+
+The Apellites denied the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus
+Christ. In their belief there was but one God, who sent to the world his
+Son, who took a body not in the womb of the virgin Mary, but from the
+four elements. Their sect widely spread in the East during the second
+century.
+
+Bergier says, writing about the doctrines of the Ophites, a Christian
+sect of the second century: "In their belief, matter was eternal; the
+world was created against the will of God, and was governed by a
+multitude of spirits who govern the world. Christ united to the man
+Jesus to destroy the empire of the Demiourge, or creator of the world."
+
+Therefore the Ophites did not believe the doctrine of the supreme
+divinity of Jesus Christ.
+
+One of the doctrines of the Cainites was, that Jesus Christ was a spirit
+sent by God to save the world.
+
+The Hermogenians, or followers of Hermogene, a Stoician philosopher,
+converted to Christianism at the end of the second century, believed
+that matter was eternal; that there was but one God, who had sent a
+spirit, Jesus Christ, to correct the evil that was among men.
+
+"The Hermians, or disciples of Hermias," Bergier says, "taught that
+matter is eternal; that God is the soul of the world; that Jesus Christ,
+ascending to the heavens left his body in the Sun, from whom he had
+taken it; that the soul of man is composed of fire and of subtle air;
+that the birth of children is the resurrection, and that the world is
+hell." Bergier adds, in another article, that they believed that there
+was but one God, who had sent to the world a spirit, Jesus Christ.
+
+Therefore the Hermians did not believe the doctrine of the supreme
+divinity of Jesus Christ.
+
+Bergier, writing about the Sethians, says: "They said that the soul of
+Seth had passed to the body of Jesus Christ, and that Seth and Jesus
+Christ were the same person."
+
+St. Augustine informs us that the Severians did not believe the doctrine
+of the resurrection of the flesh, and rejected the Old Testament. They
+did not believe that Jesus Christ was God himself.
+
+The Encratites never held that Jesus Christ was God. Bergier says, "They
+did not believe that the Son of God was truly born from the virgin
+Mary."
+
+The Valesians rejected the doctrine that Jesus Christ was God himself.
+
+Bergier writes: "The Hieracites, heretics of the third century, were
+established by Hierax, or Hieracas, a physician by profession, born at
+Leontium, or Leontople, in Egypt. St. Epiphane, who relates and refutes
+the errors of this Sectarian, confesses that the austerity of his morals
+was exemplary; that he was familiar with the Greek and Egyptian
+sciences; that he had thoroughly studied the Scriptures, and that he was
+gifted with a persuasive eloquence. He denied the resurrection of the
+body, and admitted but a spiritual resurrection of the souls. He
+confessed that Jesus Christ had been generated by the Father; that the
+Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father as well as the Son; but he had
+dreamed that the Holy Ghost had taken a human body under the form of
+Melchisedek. He denied that Jesus Christ had a true human body."
+
+Therefore the Hieracites denied the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ.
+
+Bergier thus writes about the Samosatians: "They were disciples and
+followers of Paul of Samosate, bishop of Antioch, at or about the year
+262. This heretic taught that there is in God one sole person, namely,
+the Father; that the Son and the Holy Spirit are only two attributes of
+God, under which he manifested himself to men: that Jesus Christ is not
+God, but a man to whom God has communicated his wisdom in an
+extraordinary manner."
+
+Therefore the Samosatians did not believe the doctrine of the supreme
+divinity of Jesus Christ.
+
+The Manicheans denied the divinity of Jesus Christ, and believed that
+Jesus Christ had not a real body while on earth. His soul, they said,
+was of a nature similar to the nature of the souls of other men, though
+more perfect. He was the Son of God.
+
+Therefore the Manicheans denied the doctrine of the supreme divinity of
+Jesus Christ.
+
+All the above sects composed nearly the whole Christian body, during the
+first three centuries; and, as shown to the reader, every one either
+ignored or denied the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ.
+
+Then it remains evident that the Church of Rome, from which the
+self-called Orthodox Protestant Churches, in the sixteenth century,
+borrowed the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ, did not
+hold it from the apostles of Jesus Christ.
+
+_Confirmatur._--As a confirmation of this last and very important
+consequence, we are to prove,
+
+1st. That in the Church of Rome, herself, the doctrine of the supreme
+divinity of Jesus Christ was established only at about the year 180.
+
+_Remark._--By the Church of Rome, we mean only the church whose bishop
+(who after centuries assumed the title of Pope,) was at Rome, and which,
+then, did not extend farther than the province of Rome, and a few other
+occidental places.
+
+2d. That in the council of Nice, held in 325, despite the efforts of
+the Bishop of Rome; and despite the tyranny of the emperor Constantine
+I., who invoked the council at his own expense, attended, surrounded,
+and enforced it with military force, it was with the greatest difficulty
+that the Church of Rome obtained, from the bishops who composed it, a
+decision in favor of the doctrine she held, that Jesus Christ was God
+himself.
+
+3d. That it was only long after the council of Nice that its decision,
+in favor of the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ,
+prevailed among the churches which depended on the Emperor of
+Constantinople, and on the Bishop of Rome.
+
+4th. We will also present a succinct view of the large number of
+Christians, who, without the pale of the communion of Rome, preserved
+the former belief that Jesus Christ was not God.
+
+1st. We prove that in the Church of Rome herself, the doctrine of the
+supreme divinity of Jesus Christ was established only at about the year
+180.
+
+Bergier himself makes the following confession: "An ancient author, who
+is believed to be Caïus, bishop of Rome, who had written against
+Artemon, and of whom Eusebe has related the words, Ecclesiastical
+History, book 5, chap. 22, seems to confound together the Theodotians
+and the Artemonians.... They maintain, he says, that their doctrine is
+not new; that it has been taught by the apostles, and that it has been
+followed in the church until the pontificates of Victor and of Zephyrine
+his successor, but that since that time the truth has been altered."
+
+Bergier adds, "The Theodotians believed that Jesus Christ was a man, and
+not God, that Jesus Christ was above the other men only by his
+miraculous birth, and by his extraordinary virtues." Also, Bergier says,
+that, although Theodote was a native of Bysance, he resided in Rome,
+where he preached the same doctrine as Theodote, at least in regard to
+Jesus Christ being a man and not God.
+
+Therefore in the Church of Rome herself, the doctrine of the supreme
+divinity of Jesus Christ was established only at about the year 180.
+
+2d. We prove that in the council of Nice, held in 325, despite the
+efforts of the Bishop of Rome; and despite the tyranny of the emperor
+Constantine I., who convoked the council at his own expense, attended,
+surrounded, and enforced it with military force, it was with the
+greatest difficulty that the Church of Rome obtained, from the bishops
+who composed it, a decision in favor of the doctrine she held, that
+Jesus Christ was God.
+
+Arius, a priest of Alexandria, surprised at hearing Alexander, his
+bishop, teaching in an assembly of priests, that Jesus Christ was God,
+protested against this new doctrine. An animated controversy between him
+and Alexander, and then between the friends of the Church of Rome,
+which held this doctrine, and other churches which did not, ensued. The
+council of Nice assembled, and there seventeen bishops boldly faced the
+legate of Sylvestre, the emperor Constantine and his military force; and
+they sided with Arius. Eusebe, bishop of Cesarea, the most learned of
+the bishops who composed the council, sided with Arius. He is the same
+Eusebe who wrote the Evangelical Preparation and Demonstration, in two
+volumes in folio; who wrote an Ecclesiastical History, the Life of
+Constantine, a Chronic and a Commentary on the Psalms and on Isaiah.
+Constantine forced them either to yield and to acquiesce to the doctrine
+of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ, or to be expelled from their
+episcopal sees; and Arius, exiled, had to retire in Palestine.
+
+Consequently, in the council of Nice, held in 325, despite the efforts
+of the Bishop of Rome; and despite the tyranny of the emperor
+Constantine I., who convoked the council at his own expense, attended,
+surrounded, and enforced it with military force, it was with the
+greatest difficulty that the Church of Rome obtained, from the bishops
+who composed it, a decision in favor of the doctrine she held, that
+Jesus Christ was God himself.
+
+3d. We prove that it was only long after the council of Nice, that its
+decision in favor of the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus
+Christ, prevailed among the churches which depended on the Emperor of
+Constantinople, and on the Bishop of Rome.
+
+Bergier, despite his partiality in favor of the Church of Rome, is
+obliged to make the following avowal:
+
+"The anathema pronounced against Arianism did not destroy it; _the
+larger portion of those_ (bishops) _who had signed the decision of the
+council, only for fear of being exiled, remained attached to the party
+of Arius_. Constantine himself, influenced by an Arian priest,
+recommended to him by his sister Constantia, at her death bed, and who
+had gained his confidence, consented to the repeal of Arius from his
+exile, in 328. This heretic reunited to his partisans, and commenced
+spreading his errors with even more earnestness than before. But St.
+Athanase, who had succeeded to Alexander in the episcopal see of
+Alexandria, constantly refused to commune with him, and by this firmness
+displeased Constantine I.
+
+"Since that time the Arians became a redoubtable party. They held
+several councils where they obtained the majority.... Arius died in a
+tragic manner, in the year 337. After the death of Constantine I., in
+337, the party of the Arians was alternatively the stronger, in ratio of
+the less or greater protection extended to them or to the Orthodox by
+the Emperors. Under Constance, who favored them, they filled the Orient
+with seditions and troubles; but Constantine Junior and Constant, who
+reigned in Occident, prevented Arianism from spreading. In 351,
+Constance, who had become the master of the whole empire by the death of
+his two brothers, protected Arianism more openly than before. Several
+councils were held in Italy, in which the Arians had the majority; and
+others, in which the Catholics had the superiority.... Julian, who was
+emperor in 362, sided neither with one party nor with the other. Valens,
+emperor of the Orient, in 364, favored and embraced Arianism; whereas
+Valentinian, his brother, did all in his power to extirpate it from the
+Occident.
+
+"Gratian, and afterwards Theodose, proscribed Arianism from the whole
+empire.... In the beginning of the fifth century, the Goths, the
+Burgundians, and the Vandals, spread it in Gaul and in Africa. The
+Visigoths introduced it in Spain, where it subsisted as long as the
+kings of that country were Arians themselves, until the year 660.
+
+"Arianism was to be revived in the sixteenth century. It is probable
+that Arianism would have invaded the whole Orient if the Arians had been
+united."
+
+Therefore, it was only long after the Council of Nice, that its
+decision, in favor of the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus
+Christ, prevailed among the churches which depended on the Emperor of
+Constantinople, and on the Bishop of Rome.
+
+4th. We will also present a succinct view of the large number of
+Christians, who, without the pale of the communion of Rome, preserved
+the former belief that Jesus Christ was not God.
+
+We have proved, in the course of this chapter, that the following
+Christian sects, or denominations, did not believe the doctrine of the
+divinity of Jesus Christ: the Corinthians, the Carpocratians, the
+Ebionites, the Basilidians, the Marcionites, the Valentinians, the
+Ptolemaïtes, the Heracleonites, the Colarbasians, the Barules, the
+Bardesanists, the Marcosians, the Theodotians, the Artemonians, the
+Docetes, the Tatianists, the Apellites, the Ophites, the Cainites, the
+Hermogenians, the Hermians, the Sethians, the Severians, the Encratites,
+the Valesians, the Hieracites, the Samosatians, and the Manicheans. But
+nearly all these Christian sects of the first three centuries outlived
+the Council of Nice, and preserved through centuries the doctrine that
+Jesus Christ was not God himself: this is the unanimous testimony of
+historians.
+
+From the four heads of convincing historical proofs brought forth in
+this _confirmatur_, we draw once more the conclusion:
+
+1st. Then the Church of Rome, from which the self-called Orthodox
+Protestant Churches, in the sixteenth century, borrowed the doctrine of
+the divinity of Jesus Christ, did not hold it from the apostles of Jesus
+Christ.
+
+2d. We prove the second proposition of the argument of this chapter,
+namely, that the Church of Rome uses, in her adoration to Jesus Christ,
+rites and ceremonies of a striking similarity with those used by the
+Pagans in their adoration to the sun, under the names of Bacchus,
+Hercules, Osiris, Mithra, Atys, etc.
+
+Every year the Pagans celebrated with pomp the death of Bacchus. Those
+celebrations were called Titanical, and celebrations of the perfect
+night. They supposed that this god had been slain by the Giants; but
+that his mother, or Ceres, had reunited his bones. To retrace his death
+they killed a bull, whose raw flesh they ate, because Bacchus,
+represented with the horns of an ox, had been thus torn by the Titans.
+Julius-Firmicus, an orthodox author of the fourth century, who wrote
+about the legend of Bacchus, says that the Pagans considered those
+fictions as solar fables. He adds that the sun was irritated at being
+thus worshiped: here, in being immersed into the Nile river, under the
+names of Osiris and of Horus; there, in being mutilated under the names
+of Atys and of Adonis; and in other places, in being boiled or roasted,
+like Bacchus. The Bacchanals, or disorderly, noisy, tumultuous, and
+frantic scenes took place.
+
+St. Athanase, St. Augustine, Theophile, Athenagoras, Minutius-Felix,
+Lactance, Firmicus, and other Christian writers of the first centuries,
+as well as more ancient authors, describe the general mourning of the
+Egyptians in the anniversary day of the death of Osiris. They describe
+the ceremonies practiced on his tomb, and the tears shed thereon during
+several days. The mysteries in which the representation of his death was
+exhibited, and which took place during the night, were called mysteries
+of night.
+
+Likewise the death of Mithra was celebrated. To the usual magnificence
+of his temples succeeded a gloomy sight. The priests, during the night,
+carried his image in a tomb, and laid it on a litter, in the same manner
+as the Phoenicians laid the image of Adonis. This ceremony was
+accompanied with dismal songs, and with groans. The priests, after this
+feigned expression of grief, kindled a flambeau, called sacred; anointed
+the image of Mithra with chrisma, or with perfumes; and then one of
+them, in a solemn and loud voice, pronounced these words: "Cheer up,
+holy mourners, your god is come again to life; his sorrows and his
+sufferings will save you."
+
+Julius Firmicus, who relates this, exclaims: "Why do you exhort those
+unfortunate to rejoice? Why do you deceive them with false promises? The
+death of your god is known; but his new life is not proved. There is no
+oracle that ascertains his resurrection; he has not appeared to men
+after his resurrection to prove his divinity. An idol you bury; upon an
+idol you mourn; an idol you lift up from the tomb, and having expressed
+your grief you rejoice," etc.
+
+The Church of Rome practices alike ceremonies in celebrating the
+anniversary day of the death of Jesus Christ. All the ornaments of each
+church, the statues and images of saints, etc., are clothed in black. In
+one of the chapels of the church a tomb is prepared, in which, on the
+Holy Thursday morning, Jesus Christ--namely, a wafer which has been
+consecrated--is laid, shut up, not in the ostensorium, but in a
+ciborium, as a sign of mourning. The priests perform this ceremony.
+During the whole day the church is thronged with people, who come to
+express to Jesus Christ their sympathy in his sufferings. At about eight
+o'clock in the evening, a gloomy procession, composed of the priests and
+the people, march along the streets in the dark (this procession takes
+place only in Catholic countries,) now and then reciting in a low and
+dismal tone a verse of the psalm, _Miserere mei Deus_, [translation,]
+Lord have mercy on me. When this procession has taken place, hymns of
+suffering and of death are sung in the church, around the tomb in which
+Jesus Christ lays. At eleven o'clock a priest goes to the pulpit, and in
+an affecting manner relates to the sobbing and weeping multitude the
+sufferings and death of Jesus Christ. This address is called Passion's
+sermon.
+
+The people spend the whole night in the church to keep company to Jesus
+Christ in his sufferings, they say, and to relieve him by their
+sympathy. In the morning of the Holy Friday the church is yet filled
+with mourners. The priests, processionally, but in silence, go to the
+tomb where Jesus Christ lays, take him out, and carry him into the
+tabernacle, where they shut him up, but without leaving any taper
+burning in the whole church. In the evening, after the recitation of the
+_Officium Tenebrarum_, [translation,] Office of Darkness, boys, men,
+women and all, fill the church with their yells, with the sharp sound of
+rattles, with the blows they strike on boards with small and large
+sticks, and with sounding, sonorous instruments, such as horns, etc. A
+few days after they eat the wafer, which they pretend to be the raw
+flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.
+
+The Pagans, in celebrating the resurrection of Bacchus, Osiris, etc.,
+who represented the sun, lighted the lamps of their temples with a fire,
+which the priests obtained by striking a piece of steel with silex, and
+was called new fire. That day the priests were clothed in white
+ornaments; the lustral waters were renewed, and also the decorations of
+the temples: so in every church the Romish priests strike a piece of
+steel with silex, and obtain a fire called new fire; with it they light
+the lamps, and the taper called Paschal taper. They renew the holy
+water, which the people piously carry to their homes, and keep for
+protection during the storms, etc. The priests change their priestly
+garments, and clothe in white.
+
+The Pagans worshiped the sun under the name of Aries, because the Aries
+was one of the celestial signs: so the Church of Rome worships Jesus
+Christ under the form of a lamb. Formerly, the Roman Catholic parents
+suspended on the necks of their children the symbolic image of a lamb;
+and the women, instead of wearing a cross, as they do now, wore a lamb.
+This practice had been introduced by the Romish priests, who sold, as
+they sell now, Agnus Dei, which have been consecrated with prayers and
+sprinkled with holy water, as being the emblems of Jesus Christ.
+
+A lamb was represented bleeding, and under it was a vessel in which the
+blood dropped. This practice was in use till the year 680, under the
+pontificate of the pope Agathon, and under the reign of the emperor
+Constantine III., surnamed Pogonat. Then it was ordered by the sixth
+council of Constantinople, canon 82, that a man nailed to a cross should
+be substituted to the ancient symbol of a lamb. However, this symbol was
+partly preserved in the church, as seen above. The symbol of a lamb is
+yet seen on the tabernacle, or small box of marble, or of wood, richly
+wrought upon, placed on the altar; also on the ostensorium, and on the
+forepart of the altars.
+
+The Pagans placed a sunlike halo around the heads of the statues of
+Osiris, Bacchus, and other gods, who, in their opinion, represented the
+sun: likewise in the Church of Rome the priests place the wafer, which,
+they think, is Jesus Christ himself, in an ostensorium, which is shaped
+like the disc of the sun; and which represents his beams; the wafer
+itself is circular. This ostensorium is of silver, or of gold, and
+adorned with diamonds, or gems. Above the altar a large sun is
+generally either painted, or carved, or formed with draperies. The
+Pagans kept in their temples a lamp burning, in the honor of the sun:
+so, in the Roman Catholic churches a lamp is kept burning, day and
+night, near the altar, in the honor of Jesus Christ.
+
+The Pagans built their temples so that the sanctuary was turned towards
+the rising sun: likewise, the Roman Catholic churches are built so that
+the sanctuary be turned towards the rising sun.
+
+The Pagans carried in triumph, processionally, and with the most
+brilliant pomp, the statues of Bacchus, Osiris, and other gods,
+representing the sun: likewise, on the feast day of the body of Jesus
+Christ, the consecrated wafer is carried in triumph, processionally, and
+with the most brilliant pomp. The priestly and other ornaments are of a
+tissue of silver, or of gold. A multitude of people follow: the various
+confraternities of Penitents, the ones grey, the others blue, the others
+white, etc., and the many confraternities of virgins, of married women,
+all in variegated costumes, march before the consecrated wafer. The
+civil, judiciary, and military authorities, regiments of soldiers with
+brass bands, with drums beating, with banners and flags unfurled, escort
+the consecrated wafer, which is carried by the first priest of the
+parish, under a canopy of the most costly and magnificent tissue.
+
+The Pagans burnt flambeaux before the statues of Osiris, Bacchus, etc.,
+to represent the planets; and sometimes to represent the signs of the
+Zodiac: so, in the Roman Catholic churches, upon the altar, there are
+six chandeliers, with candles burning around the consecrated wafer,
+namely, Jesus Christ, who is in the middle.
+
+From all the above facts we may legitimately draw the conclusion, that
+the Church of Rome uses, in her adoration to Jesus Christ, rites and
+ceremonies of a striking similarity with those used by the Pagans in
+their adoration to the sun, under the names of Bacchus, Hercules,
+Osiris, Mithra, Atys, etc.
+
+We now come to the general conclusions of the present chapter.
+
+It has been proved, 1st, That the Church of Rome, from which the
+self-called Orthodox Protestant Churches, in the sixteenth century,
+borrowed the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus Christ, did not hold it
+from the apostles of Jesus Christ.
+
+2d. It has been proved that the Church of Rome uses, in her adoration to
+Jesus Christ, rites and ceremonies of a striking similarity with those
+used by the Pagans in their adoration to the sun, under the names of
+Bacchus, Hercules, Osiris, Mithra, Atys, etc.
+
+Then the Church of Rome, from which, in the sixteenth century, the
+self-called Orthodox Protestant Churches borrowed the doctrine of the
+supreme divinity of Jesus Christ had borrowed it from the Pagans.
+
+_Therefore the doctrine of the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ is of
+Pagan origin._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+PAGAN ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF ENDLESS HELL.
+
+
+ARTICLE I.
+
+_Metempsychosis, or Transmigration of the Souls._
+
+THE rulers of nations, and the authors of the initiations, had a
+profound knowledge of the human nature, and of the genius of the people.
+From the fact that an ox, unaware of his strength, yields to the leading
+hand of a child, so they knew that would they let the masses ignore
+their power, they could easily control them, mould their opinions,
+habits, and morals. Also aware of the terror that death impressed upon
+their minds, and knowing that it is an infirmity of man's nature, when
+uncultivated by philosophy, to fear more a distant and indefinite, but
+unavoidable misery beyond the grave, than the most excruciating tortures
+on earth, they found in those prejudices of the people a sure means to
+lead and rule them. Therefore they endeavored to make them believe that
+those who would transgress the laws, or would commit some other crimes,
+should be punished by the gods immortal in the future life.
+
+They had to invent the nature of that punishment, and as there were many
+degrees of wickedness, they had to admit, also, various degrees in the
+punishment. To more easily and more surely make the people believe their
+invention, they thought it was wise to make the punishment, and its
+degrees, coincide with the then universally established religion, which
+was but one, though there were many systems of theology. That religion
+was the one we have examined in the first chapter of this work, and
+which consisted in the belief that nature was an uncreated but animated
+being, whose vast body comprised the earth, the sun, the planets, and
+the stars, to which one great soul impressed motion and life; and that
+those principal parts, or members, of the body of the universe were
+animated by emanations or irradiations of the great soul of the
+universe, or nature.
+
+This pantheistic doctrine was materialist; for it supposed that the
+great soul of the universe was the purest substance of the fire ether,
+and thereby man's soul was of the same nature. It was the belief even of
+the famous philosopher Pythagoras, and of his disciples. All animals,
+according to Servius, the commentator of Virgil, draw their flesh from
+the earth, their humors from water, their breath from the air, and their
+soul from the breath of the Deity. Thus the bees have a small portion of
+the Deity. Our soul is like a drop of water which is not annihilated,
+whether it evaporates in the air, or condenses and falls again in rain,
+or rolls into the sea to add its littleness to the massy waters. When we
+die our life melts, reenters into the great soul of the universe, and
+the remains of our body mix again with the elements of the air.
+
+Virgil believed that our death is not annihilation, but that it is a
+separation of two sorts of matters, the one thereof remains here below,
+and the other reunites to the sacred fire of the stars, as soon as the
+matter of which our soul is composed has reacquired all the purity of
+the subtle matter, from which it had emanated, _auræ simplicis ignem_.
+Nothing, Servius says, is lost in the great whole, and in the pure fire
+which constitutes the substance of the soul. Virgil says of the souls:
+_igneus est ollis vigor, et coelestis origo_; that they are formed of
+the active fire that shines in the heaven, and that they return thither
+when they are separated from the body by death.
+
+The same doctrine we find in the dream of Scipio: "It is from there," he
+says, speaking of the regions of the fixed stars, "that the souls
+descended, thereto they shall return; they were emanated from those
+eternal fires we name stars. What ye call death is but a return to true
+life; the body is but a prison, in which the soul is momentarily
+chained. Death breaks her ties, and restores her to liberty, and to her
+true state of existence."
+
+From this pantheistic doctrine, it followed that man's soul is immortal
+though material.
+
+Upon this sort of immortality of our soul, the rulers built a system of
+punishment, called Metempsychosis, or transmigration of the souls. This
+system was so much the better adapted to the then received religion,
+that all the souls being simply different emanations from the same fire
+ether, the consequence was that all the souls were homogeneous, and
+differed only in appearance, and by the nature of the bodies to which
+the fire-principle, which composed their substance, united. Virgil said
+that the souls of all animals are an emanation of the fire ether, and
+that the difference of their operations on earth is to be ascribed only
+to the difference of vases, or organized bodies, which receive this
+substance; or, according to the words of Servius, the lesser or greater
+perfection of their operations is in ratio of the nature of the bodies.
+
+The Indians, among whom, even in our days, the system of Metempsychosis
+prevails, think that man's soul is absolutely of the same nature as that
+of other animals. They say that man is superior to them, not in his soul
+but in his body, whose organization is more perfect and more apt to
+receive the action of the great Being, viz., of the universe, than
+theirs are. They ground their opinion on the example of children and of
+old men, whose organs being too weak yet, or having been weakened, do
+not permit their senses to have the same activity which is displayed in
+a mature age.
+
+The soul, in the exercise of her operations, being necessarily in
+submission to the body which she animates; and all souls flowing from
+the immense reservoir called universal soul, it follows that the portion
+of the fire ether which animates a man, might as well animate an ox, a
+lion, an eagle, a whale, or any other beast. Fate caused that she would
+animate a man, and such a man; but when the soul will be disengaged from
+this first body, and will return to her source, she will be able to pass
+into the body of another animal; and her activity will be lesser or
+greater, in ratio of the organization of the new body into which she
+will pass.
+
+All the great work of nature being reduced to successive organizations
+and destructions, in which the same matter is ten thousand times used
+under ten thousand forms, the subtle matter of the soul, carried in that
+current, brings life to all the moulds which open to receive her. Thus
+the same water flown from a same reservoir, enters the various pipes
+which are opened, rolls on and empties either as a fountain, or as a
+cascade, according to the forms of the orifices of the pipes; then it
+congregates, evaporates, and forms clouds which brings it back down to
+the earth, to experience again an infinity of modifications. It is the
+same of the fluid of the soul spread in the various canals of the animal
+organization, flowing from the bright mass of which the ethereal
+substance is composed; thence being carried to the earth by the
+generating force distributed among the animals, continually ascending
+and descending in the universe, and circulating within new bodies
+diversely organized.
+
+Such was the basis of Metempsychosis, which became one of the most
+powerful political engines in the hands of the ancient rulers,
+legislators and mystagogues. Pythagoras brought this doctrine from the
+Orient to Greece, and to Italy. This philosopher, and Empedocles after
+him, taught that the souls of the criminals, when death separated them
+from the bodies they animated, passed into the bodies of beasts in order
+to suffer, under those divers forms the punishment of their wickedness,
+until they might recover, by expiation, their native purity. So this
+transmigration of the souls was a punishment of the gods. The Stoicians
+held this doctrine; and the emperor Marcus-Aurelius, in the ninth book
+of his Works, said: "The spiritus, or breath, which animates us, passes
+from one body into another."
+
+To give the reader a general idea of what was the belief of the
+ancients, and of their philosophers, in regard to Metempsychosis, we
+take from the tenth and last book of the Republic of Plato the following
+lengthy but instructive extract:--
+
+"It is not the narration of Alcinoüs (namely, a false story, such as the
+one of Ulysse to the Pheacians,) that I will tell you; but that of a
+noble man, of Her, the Armenian, a native of Pamphily. He had been
+killed in a battle; but when, ten days after, the dead bodies were taken
+away for inhumation, his, instead of being in putrefaction like the
+others, was found natural and entire. It was carried to his house, and,
+on the twelfth day, when laid on the wood-pile, he came again to life;
+and he related to the assistants what he had seen in the other world.
+
+"'As soon,' he says, 'as my soul left my body, I arrived, in company
+with a great number of souls, at a mysterious place, where were seen two
+openings near each other, and two others corresponding in the sky.
+Between these two regions were judges sitting: when they had pronounced
+their sentence they ordered the righteous to take the right hand side
+route through one of the openings of the sky, after having previously
+placed on their breast a mark containing the judgment rendered in their
+favor; also they ordered the wicked to take the left hand side route
+through one of the openings of the earth, carrying on their back a mark
+containing all their evil actions. When I was presented to the judges,
+they decided that I should return to the earth to inform men of what was
+done in the other world; and they bade me listen and observe all I was
+to witness.
+
+"'First I saw the souls of those who had been judged, the ones ascending
+to the heavens, and the others descending below the earth through the
+two corresponding openings. Withal I saw, through the other opening of
+the earth, many souls coming out, covered with filthiness and dust; and
+also, through the other opening in the sky, I saw souls pure and
+spotless descending: they seemed to return from a long voyage, and to
+stop with pleasure in the meadow, as if in a place of reunion. Those who
+knew each other mutually inquired what they had seen in the heaven, and
+in the earth. The ones related their adventures with groans and tears,
+caused by the recollection of the sufferings they had endured, or seen
+others endure, during their voyage below the earth, whose duration was
+of a thousand years. The others, who returned from the heaven, related
+the rapturous pleasures they had enjoyed, and the marvellous things they
+had seen.'
+
+"It would be too long, my dear Glaucon, to relate the whole discourse of
+Her on this subject. It might be summed up in saying that the souls were
+punished ten times for each injustice they had committed while on earth;
+that the duration of each punishment was of one hundred years, natural
+length of man's life, in order that the punishment be ever tenfold for
+each crime. Thus those who had contaminated themselves with murder; who
+had betrayed States and armies, and reduced them to servitude; or who
+had committed similar crimes, were punished tenfold for each one of
+those crimes. Whereas those who had done good to their fellow men, who
+had been holy and virtuous, received in the same proportion the reward
+of their good deeds. In regard to children who die immediately, or a
+short time after they are born, Her gave details which it is useless to
+relate. According to his narration there were great recompenses for
+those who had honored the gods, and had respected their parents; and
+also there were extraordinary tortures for the parricides, and for
+impious men.
+
+"'I was present,' said he, 'when a soul asked another where was the
+great Ardiee. This Ardiee had tyrannized over a city of Pamphily a
+thousand years before; he had killed his father, who was an old man, and
+he was guilty, it was said, of many other atrocious crimes. He does not
+come, the soul answered, and he will never come here. We all have
+witnessed, in relation to him, the most dreadful spectacle. When we were
+about leaving the subterraneous abyss after our pains ended, we saw
+Ardiee, and a great number of others, the most of whom had been tyrants
+like himself; there were also others, who, though in a private
+condition, had been great criminals.
+
+"'When those souls were about going out, the opening was closed; and
+whenever one of those wretched souls, whose crimes were irremissible,
+tried to get out of the abyss, she howled. Thereupon hideous and
+firelike beings came. They violently wrested away several of those
+criminals; then they seized Ardiee and others, tied their feet, their
+hands and their heads; and after throwing them on the ground and
+torturing them with lashes, they dragged them through bleeding thorns,
+telling the shadows which they met on their route the reason why they
+treated so those souls, and adding that they were going to throw them
+into the Tartarus. Those souls added, that of the various fears they
+had on the route none was so horrible as that of hearing that howl; and
+that it had been an inexpressible pleasure for them not to have heard it
+when they were released from the abyss.
+
+"'Behold what took place in regard to the judgments, tortures, and
+rewards. After each one of those souls had spent seven days in the
+meadow they left on the eighth, and arrived, after a march of four days,
+at a designated spot, wherefrom was seen a light crossing the heaven and
+the earth, as straight as a column, and similar to the rainbow, but
+brighter and purer. They reached this light in one day's march. There
+they saw that the extremities of the heaven meet at the middle of this
+light, which united them fast, and which embraced all the circumference
+of the heaven, in nearly the same manner as the beams which girdle the
+sides of galleys, and which bear their frame. At the extremities the
+spindle of Necessity hung, and determined the revolutions of the
+celestial spheres.'"
+
+Here Her describes the spindle. This description we omit, for it does
+not relate to our subject.
+
+Her continues:--
+
+"'Near the spindle, and at equal distances, sat on thrones the three
+Parques, daughters of Necessity, Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos, dressed
+in white, and their heads crowned with a bandelet. They united their
+chant to that of the Sirenes; Lachesis sung the past, Clotho the
+present, and Atropos the future. Clotho, now and then, touched the
+spindle with her right hand, and made it revolve externally. Atropos,
+with her left hand, impressed motion to each one of the interior whirls,
+and Lachesis, with both hands, touched now the spindle, and then the
+interior whirls. When the souls arrived they appeared before Lachesis.
+First a Hierophant assigned a rank to each one; then taking from the lap
+of Lachesis the fates and the various conditions of human life, he
+mounted on a high stand, and spake thus:--
+
+"'This is what the virgin Lachesis, daughter of Necessity, says:
+Voyaging souls you are to commence another career, and return into a
+mortal body. The genius will not choose for you: each one of you shall
+choose hers. The first one that fate will designate shall choose first,
+and her choice shall be irrevocable. Virtue has no master; she clings to
+him who honors her, and flies from him who despises her. The error of
+the choice shall fall on you. God is innocent.
+
+"'Thereupon the Hierophant casting the fates, each soul picked up the
+one that fell before her, except myself who had been forbidden it. Each
+one knew then in which rank she had to choose. Then the same Hierophant
+placed before them callings of all kinds, whose number was greater than
+that of the souls who were to choose; for all the conditions of men and
+beasts were assembled therein. There were tyrannies, the ones were to
+last till death; and the others were to be suddenly interrupted, and
+were to end by exile, poverty and indigence. Also there were seen
+conditions of illustrious men, the ones for beauty, for strength, for
+fame in the combats; and the others by their nobleness, and the great
+qualities of their ancestors; there were seen also obscure conditions.
+There were destinies of women of the same variety. But there was no
+regulation for the rank of the souls, because each one was necessarily
+to change of nature according to her choice. Besides, wealth, poverty,
+and diseases, were found in all conditions: here without any mixture,
+there in a just proportion of advantages and disadvantages.'
+
+"But this is evidently, my dear Glaucon, the redoubtable trial for
+mankind.... The Hierophant added: he who chooses the last, provided he
+be judicious, and then be consistent in his conduct, may hope to be
+blessed in life. Therefore let him who is to have the first choice, be
+not presumptuous; and let him who has the last choice, despair not. When
+the Hierophant had thus spoken, he to whom the first fate had been
+devolved, hastily advanced, and took, without any deliberation, the
+greatest tyranny; but when he had considered it, and seen that his
+destiny was to eat his own children, and to commit other enormous
+crimes, he lamented; and, forgetting the recommendation of the
+Hierophant, charged upon the fortune and the gods, with the wretchedness
+of his fate. This soul was one of those who came from heaven; she had
+previously lived in a well governed state, and had been virtuous more
+from temper and habit, than from philosophy.
+
+"On the contrary, the souls who had sojourned in the subterranean
+region, and who had both the experience of their own sufferings, and the
+knowledge of the misfortunes of others, were cautious in their choice.
+This experience on one side, and that inexperience on the other,
+together with the fate which decided the rank for the choice, were the
+cause that the most of the souls exchanged a good condition for a bad
+one, and a bad one for a good one. He also said, that it was a strange
+spectacle to see in what manner each soul made her choice, nothing was
+more extraordinary, nor more pitiful; the most of them were guided in
+their choice by the habits they had contracted in their previous life.
+He had seen the soul of Orpheus choosing the condition of a swan, from
+hatred to women who had killed him, and from whom he did not wish to
+receive birth. He saw the soul of Thamyris choosing the condition of
+nightingale; likewise he saw a swan and several other birds choosing the
+human condition.
+
+"Another soul had chosen the condition of a lion; it was that of Ajax,
+son of Telamon, who, remembering the offense she had received in the
+judgments rendered about the arms of Achilles, refused to take again a
+human body. Then came the soul of Agamemnon, who, from antipathy against
+mankind on account of her past sufferings, chose the condition of an
+eagle. The soul of Atalante, desirous of the athletic honors, chose to
+be a champion. The soul of Epee, son of Panope, preferred the condition
+of a woman skillful in handiworks. The soul of the buffoon Thersite came
+one of the last, and entered the body of a monkey. There were, Her
+added, souls of animals which exchanged their condition against ours,
+and human souls which passed into bodies of beasts. The souls
+indistinctly passed from the bodies of animals into human bodies, and
+from human bodies into bodies of animals; those of the righteous into
+species of a higher order.
+
+"When all the souls had chosen their new condition of existence,
+according to the rank determined by fate, they came to Lachesis in the
+same order. She gave to each one the genius of her choice, and this
+genius was to be her guardian during her mortal life, and was to aid her
+in the accomplishment of her destiny. This genius first led her to
+Clotho, who, with her hand, and with a revolution of the spindle
+confirmed the chosen destiny. When the soul had touched the spindle, the
+genius took her to Atropos, who rolled the thread in her fingers, to
+render irrevocable what had been already spun by Clotho. After that, the
+soul proceeded to the throne of Necessity, under which the soul and her
+genius, or demon, passed together. When all had passed, they went to the
+plain of the Lethe river, where they were oppressed by an intense heat;
+for there was in this plain, neither tree nor shrub. The evening came
+and they spent the night near the river Ameles, whose water can be
+contained in no vessel. Every soul was obliged to drink some of its
+water. They fell asleep; but at about midnight the thunder roared, and
+all the souls suddenly waking up were dispersed, like shooting stars,
+towards the various places where they were to commence their new life.
+
+"As to Her, he had been forbidden to drink of the water of the Lethe
+river; nevertheless, he knew not in what manner his soul had returned
+into his body, but having opened his eyes in the morning, he had seen
+that he was laying on a wood-pile.
+
+"This tradition, my dear Glaucon, has been handed down to us; and if we
+believe it, it is very apt to save us; we will safely cross the Lethe
+river, and we will preserve our soul free from stain."
+
+The reader has undoubtedly remarked the last sentence of this extract,
+which proves the antiquity of the doctrine of the transmigration of the
+souls. Burnet wrote, that it was so ancient and so universally spread in
+Egypt, Persia, India, and other countries of the Orient, that it seemed
+it had descended from heaven, and been believed by the first inhabitants
+of the earth. Herodote found it established in Egypt in the remotest
+ages. It was the basis of the theology of the Indians, and the subject
+of the celebrated Metamorphosis and incarnations of their legends.
+Metempsychosis has been immemorially believed in Japan, where the
+people, even in our days, according to Koempsfer, abstain from meat, and
+live exclusively upon fruits and vegetables. In Siam, where the
+Talapoins or monks hold it as a sacred dogma; in China by the Tao-See;
+also among the Kalbouls and the Mongols, and among the Thibetans, who
+admit that the souls pass even into the plants, into the trees, and even
+into the roots. However, the Thibetans believe that it is only by
+uniting to human bodies, that the souls can, after successive changes,
+be restored to their former purity.
+
+The aim of the doctrine of Metempsychosis was to accustom man to detach
+himself from the gross matter, to which he is tied here below, and to
+excite in him the desire of promptly returning there, wherefrom he had
+formerly descended. The rulers of the people frightened them with the
+pictures of humiliating transformations of their souls, as the Catholic
+priests and the Partialist preachers do among us, with their teaching of
+an endless hell. The people, amazed and terrified, for the masses were
+ignorant, believed all those politico-religious fables. They firmly
+believed that the souls of the wicked passed into vile bodies; that they
+were punished with cruel and loathesome diseases; that those who did not
+reform after a certain number of transmigrations were delivered up to
+the Furies and to the evil spirits (or devils) to be tortured; and that,
+after that, they were sent again to the earth, as in a new school, and
+were obliged to run a new race. Thus we see that the whole system of
+Metempsychosis rested on the false supposition, that it was necessary,
+in order to govern the people here below, to frighten them with absurd
+and visionary tales of atrocious tortures beyond the grave, which were
+the more terrifying for the very reason of their absurdity and
+atrociousness.
+
+Timee of Locre, one of the disciples of Socrates, wrote, that among the
+various means of governing those who are not able to reach the truth of
+the principles, on which nature has established justice and morals,
+Metempsychosis is an efficacious one. He said: "Let them be taught those
+dogmas which inform us that the souls of effeminate and pusillanimous
+men transmigrate into female bodies; those of murderers into bodies of
+wild beasts; those of licentious men into bodies of wild boars and hogs;
+those of fickle and inconstant men into bodies of birds; those of idle,
+ignorant and silly men into bodies of fishes. The just Nemesis regulates
+those pains in the future life conjointly with the gods of the earth,
+avengers of the crimes they have witnessed. The supreme God has
+entrusted them with the government of this inferior world. Let them be
+frightened, even, by the religious terrors conveyed to the soul by those
+discourses which describe the vengeance of the celestial gods, and the
+unavoidable torments reserved to the criminals in the Tartarus; and also
+by the other fictions which Homer has found in the ancient sacred
+opinions. Sometimes the body is cured by poisonous substances; so the
+souls can be ruled by fables when they cannot be governed by truth."
+
+This philosopher plainly gives us his secret, which has been, and still
+is, the secret of all legislators and priests. True, the belief of these
+fables has restrained many from vice and crime; nevertheless we firmly
+believe that men ought to be led to justice by the bright light of the
+truth, and not by the dismal light of error, and of superstition: the
+one elevates man, but the other keeps him in an eternal infancy and
+ignorance. How sad it is to see, even now-a-days, in free and
+enlightened America, priests, and Protestant ministers themselves,
+keeping down in intellectual, moral and religious bondage, millions of
+Christians, who, from fear of endless curse, kiss the very chains which
+heavily they drag through life; who believe that God will endlessly
+roast men--his children--in an undying fire! More surely, and more
+easily, could those purely minded, but unfortunate Christians, be guided
+to love God, if they knew that he is not worse than a tiger; that, on
+the contrary, he is truly good and loving; more virtuous they would be
+if they were taught that virtue is the source, and the only true source,
+of happiness. Truer fraternity would reign in our communities, if
+priests and pretended Protestants, who tyrannize over the souls of their
+misled victims, and, like the Pharisees of old, lay upon their shoulders
+a burden they would not be willing to touch with their own
+fingers--yea, they lay upon their mind and heart the leaden weight of
+the dogma of endless misery, which they, at least the leaders of the
+leaders, reject--truer fraternity would exist, we say, for there would
+not be in our communities, a class of Christians, believing that they
+are the elect of God for righteousness and eternal bliss, while all the
+others shall be endlessly damned. Hence their indifference, or rather
+aversion for them; hence a spirit of Pharisaism: hence a spirit of
+religious aristocracy, which unfortunately ramifies into a social
+aristocracy!
+
+
+ARTICLE II.
+
+_Tartarus._
+
+When legislators, priests and philosophers had invented the doctrine of
+Metempsychosis, the mystagogues and the poets took hold of it, and
+endeavored to spread it among the people, in consecrating it, the ones
+in their chants, and the others in the celebration of their mysteries.
+They clothed it with the charms of poetry, and presented it with magical
+illusions. All united to deceive the people, under the specious pretext
+of bettering and governing them with a surer hand. The widest field was
+opened to fictions; and the genius of the poets, as well as the cunning
+of the priests, were inexhaustible in portraying the bliss of the
+righteous hereafter, and the horror of the horrible prisons wherein
+crime was to be punished.
+
+Each one portrayed them according to his own fancy, and added new scenes
+and views to the descriptions of those unknown lands; of that world of
+new creation, which the imagination of poets peopled with shadows,
+chimeras and phantoms, for the purpose of frightening the people: for
+rulers wrongly thought that their minds could not rise up to the
+abstract notions of metaphysics and morals. The Elysium and the Tartarus
+were more pleasing and more vividly striking to the imagination of the
+people: therefore darkness and light were successively presented to the
+gaze of those initiated to the mysteries. To the darkest night, and to
+frightful spectres, succeeded a bright day, whose light shone around the
+statue of the Deity: one could not help feeling a mysterious terror,
+when entering that sanctuary, where all was disposed to represent the
+Tartarus and the Elysium. It was in this sanctuary that the one
+initiated, being finally introduced, saw the picture of charming
+meadows, lighted by a pure sky: there he heard harmonious voices, and
+the majestic chants of sacred choirs. It was then that, entirely free,
+and rid of all evils, he joined the multitude of those initiated; and
+that, a crown of flowers on his head, he celebrated the holy orgies.
+
+Thus the ancients represented here below, in their initiations, what
+was, they said, to happen hereafter to the souls, when they would be
+disengaged from their bodies; and would be liberated from the obscure
+prison, wherein fate had chained them by uniting them to terrestrial
+matter. In the mysteries of Isis, of which we hold the details from
+Apuleo, the candidate passed through the dark region of the empire of
+the dead; thence into a vast enclosure, which represented the elements;
+and then he was admitted into the bright region, where the brightest sun
+succeeded to the darkness of the night, namely, in the three worlds, the
+terrestrial, the elementary, and the celestial. He who had been
+initiated said: "I have approached the boundaries of death in treading
+the thresh hold of Proserpine; therefrom I have returned through the
+elements. Then I saw a bright light, and I found myself in the presence
+of the gods." This was the autopsy.
+
+What mystagogy exhibited in the sanctuaries, poets, and even
+philosophers, in their fictions, publicly taught to the people: hence
+the descriptions of the Elysium and of the Tartarus found in Homer,
+Virgil and Plato, and all those given us by many systems of theology. We
+never had a description of the earth and of its inhabitants, a
+description as complete as that transmitted to us, by the ancients,
+about those countries of new creation, known under the names of Hell,
+Tartarus, and Elysium. Those men, whose geographical knowledge was so
+limited, have given us the minutest details of the abode of the souls
+beyond the grave; of the government of each one of the two empires,
+which form the domain of the shadows; of their habits; of their diet; of
+their pains and pleasures; and even of the costume of the inhabitants
+of these two regions. The same poetical imagination which had invented
+that new world, arbitrarily traced out its plan and distribution.
+
+Socrates, in the Phædo of Plato, a work intended to prove the
+immortality of our soul, and the necessity of practicing virtue, speaks
+of the place where the souls go after death. He imagines a sort of
+ethereal land, superior to the one we inhabit, and situated in a sunnier
+region. There is nothing on our earth that can compare to the beauties
+of this wonderful abode. There colors are brighter, the vegetation
+richer; the trees, flowers and fruits are infinitely superior to those
+of our earth. There precious stones are so bright that those of our
+earth are but their shadow. This ethereal land is strewed with pearls of
+the purest crystal; everywhere gold and silver are dazzling. There
+beasts are more beautiful, and more perfectly organized than ours. There
+the air is the sea, and ether is the air. There seasons are so
+harmoniously combined, that the fortunate inhabitants are not subject to
+infirmities and to diseases. There the temples are inhabited by the gods
+themselves, who familiarly converse with men. The inmates of this
+delightful mansion are the only ones who see the sun, the moon, and the
+stars, as they truly are.
+
+To this Socrates adds, that men, who, here below, distinguish themselves
+for their piety and exactitude in discharging their social duties, will
+be admitted in this abode of happiness when death destroys their mortal
+form. There all those whom philosophy has led to wisdom will dwell.
+Socrates concludes thus:
+
+Then it is for us a strong inducement to study wisdom, and to practice
+virtue, while we are on earth. These expectations are high enough for us
+to risk the chances of this opinion, and not to break its charms.
+
+This is a plain avowal of the motive of the fiction: such is the secret
+of nearly all legislators, and the deceitfulness of the most renowned
+philosophers.
+
+The second part of the land of the dead, called Tartarus, the leaders of
+the people also minutely described. According to their description, this
+abode of the wicked presents the horrid view of precipices, caverns, and
+abysses, more frightful than those we see on earth. Those caverns
+communicate to each other in the profundities of the earth, through the
+medium of sinuosities vast and dark, and of subterraneous canals, in
+which waters flow; the ones cold, and the others warm: also in several
+of those canals flow torrents of fire, and in others the filthiest mire.
+The vastest of those caverns is in the center; and into it four main
+rivers ebb, to spring out again. The first is the Acheron, which forms
+beneath the earth a shoreless marsh, wherein the souls assemble. The
+second is the Pyriphlegeton, which rolls torrents of burning sulphur.
+The third is the Cocyte; and the fourth is the Styx.
+
+In this horrible abode divine justice tortures the criminals. At the
+gate of the Tartarus the frightful Tisiphon, whose gown is reeking with
+blood, watches day and night. The gate is also defended by a strong
+tower, backed by three walls, which are surrounded by the burning waves
+of the Phlegeton river, that rolls huge stones on fire. There are
+incessantly heard the rattle of chains dragged by wretched victims;
+their groans; and the strokes of lashes that tear their flesh. There is
+seen an hydra with a hundred heads, whose mouths are ever gaping for new
+victims to be devoured. There a vulture is constantly feeding on the
+ever re-growing entrails of a criminal. Other victims carry a heavy rock
+to the summit of a mountain, where they must set it; but, vain are their
+efforts, it rolls down to the bottom of the valley. Other criminals,
+tied to a wheel, relentlessly revolving, are not permitted the slightest
+rest in their torture. Others, placed near refreshing waters, and near
+trees loaded with fruit, are ever devoured with unquenchable thirst and
+hunger. If they stoop to drink the water flies from their mouth, and a
+stinking mire sticks to their lips. If they lower a limb to cull a
+fruit, the limb slips from their hand.
+
+Farther, fifty female victims are forced to fill up with water a cask,
+whose bottom is riddled. Indeed, there is no sort of torment that was
+not invented by legislators, mystagogues, poets, and philosophers, to
+frighten the people, under the false assumption of making them better;
+but the truth is that it was rather to keep them down in subjection.
+Those terrifying pictures were painted on the walls of the temple of
+Delphos. Those fables were repeated to infants by nurses and mothers.
+Thus their souls grew weak and pusillanimous, for strong and durable are
+the first impressions, and more especially, when the general opinion,
+the example of the credulity of others, the authority of philosophers,
+of poets, of learned Hierophants, and the sight of pompous rites, and
+ceremonies in the overpowering sacredness of sanctuaries; when the
+monuments of arts, music, statues, and pictures, in short, when all
+tends to insinuate in the soul, through the senses stricken with hope
+and terror, a great error presented as a sacred truth revealed by the
+gods themselves for man's bliss.
+
+Such was the general teaching and belief of the Pagans in regard to
+future punishment, before the coming of Jesus Christ, and the preaching
+of his Gospel.
+
+As to the Jewish nation, not the slightest vestiges of any kind of
+belief regarding future punishment, can be traced out, neither in the
+Old Testament, nor in Josephus, nor in the writings of other historians,
+at least before the captivity of Babylon, which took place in the year
+598 before the Christian era. Afterwards the Jews divided into four
+sects, the Essenes, the Sadducees, the Samaritans, who denied the
+existence of any future punishment, and the Pharisees, who, according to
+the testimony of Josephus, adopted the belief of Metempsychosis, or
+transmigration of the souls.
+
+
+ARTICLE III.
+
+_Did the Christians of the First Centuries believe in Endless Hell?_
+
+We emphatically answer, no. If the Christian Fathers of the first
+centuries, have neither taught the dogma of endless hell, nor mentioned,
+in their writings, that their fellow-Christians knew or believed it, and
+if the same is proved by the testimony of the then existing Christian
+sects or denominations, it is evident that the first Christians did not
+believe in endless hell. But the Christian Fathers of the first
+centuries have neither taught the dogma of endless hell, nor mentioned,
+in their writings, that their fellow-Christians knew or believed it; and
+the same is proved by the testimony of the then existing Christian
+sects. These two members of the proposition we are to successively
+prove: 1st _member_: In the first century the four Gospels, and other
+books of the New Testament were written by the apostles, but history
+does not inform us of any other Christian writing, or author, in that
+age, except perhaps Clement, bishop of Rome, who, it is said, has left a
+letter to the Corinthians: critics call it Apocryphal. We have not read
+it. Therefore in order to know whether the first Christians believed in
+endless hell or not, we must recur to the works of the Christian Fathers
+who lived and wrote in the following centuries, and particularly to
+those who lived and wrote during the second.
+
+St. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, who suffered martyrdom at Rome, in the
+year 107, was the first apostolic Father of the second century. There
+are in the collection of the works of the holy Fathers, six letters
+ascribed to him by some authors; some others, Saumaise, Blondel, Daillé,
+etc., say that they are apocryphal. Mosheim, in his Histor. Christ.,
+says, that it is doubtful whether they are of Ignatius or not. We have
+read those six letters, of which five are addressed to different
+Churches, and one to Polycarpus. Although they treat of the most
+important points of the Christian faith and duties, they are silent upon
+the question of endless hell. In the year 131, St. Quadratus presented
+to the emperor Adrian an apology of the Christian religion, which
+contained the principal Christian doctrines. Adrian was so pleased with
+this apology, that, if we must believe what Lampride says in his Life of
+Alexander Severus, he designed to rear a temple to Jesus Christ, and to
+place him among the gods of the empire. A fragment of this apology can
+be found in the works of Eusebe; but not a word is said about the dogma
+of endless hell.
+
+St. Justin, a Platonician philosopher, was born at Naplouse, Palestine,
+in 103. He was converted to Christianity in 133. He wrote the following
+works: Exhortation to Gentiles; two Apologies of the Christian religion,
+the one to the emperor Antonine, and the other to the emperor
+Marcus-Aurelius; a Dialogue with the Jew Triphon; a treatise on
+Monarchy, or Unity of God; and an Epistle to Diognet, in which he states
+the reasons why Christians left the worship of the gods, and did not
+adopt that of the Jews. He composed other works, but they exist no more.
+The main editions of his works are those of Robert Etienne in 1551 and
+1771, in Greek and Latin; that of Commelin in 1593, in Greek and Latin;
+that of Morel in 1656, and that of Don Marand in 1742, in folio. All
+these editions, and afterwards that of Migne, we have compared in the
+voluminous library of the theological seminary of Brou, France, where we
+have been ordained a priest. Although there were alterations of the
+text, we did not find any passage referring to the dogma of endless
+hell. True, addressing the Romans, he says: "Come, O Romans, to find
+instruction! Formerly I was like you, now be what I am. The power of the
+Christian religion has enlightened me, and freed me from servitude to my
+senses and passions: it has afforded me peace and serenity. The soul
+thus free is sure to reunite to her Creator, because it is right that
+she return to him from whom she emanated." But this passage neither
+explicitly nor implicitly supposes that he believed, or that the first
+Christians believed, in endless hell; it is simply a Platonician and
+Christian doctrine, in regard to the purity of our soul which is worthy
+of God only when unstained. However Bailly, a Catholic theologian, says
+that on page 74 of the first Apology there is a passage proving his
+belief in endless hell. We did not find it.
+
+Meliton, bishop of Sardes, Lybia, under the reign of Marcus-Aurelius,
+presented to this emperor an Apology of the Christian religion, in 171.
+Eusebe and several other authors praise it. Only a few fragments of it
+are found in the Bibliotheca Patrum; in none of them is a question of
+the dogma of endless hell.
+
+Athenagoras, a Platonician philosopher, was converted to the Christian
+religion, and presented, in 177, an Apology of the Christian doctrines
+to the emperors Marcus-Aurelius and Lucius-Aurelius-Commode. He
+justified the Christians, who were charged by the Pagans with atheism:
+with sacrificing and eating a child in their assemblies; and with
+indulging to impudicity. In this Apology he ascribed to God but a
+general providence; and he expressed the Platonician opinion, that
+angels, or spirits, had the government of this world. He admitted that
+there were pains and rewards in the future life. Let us not infer from
+this that he referred to the dogma of endless hell. No; he merely meant,
+by those pains and rewards, the Platonician doctrine about
+Metempsychosis.
+
+Ireneus was born in Greece, in 140. He became bishop of Lyons, Gaul. He
+wrote several theological works in the Greek language. He believed in a
+general judgment, and in the millenium, namely, in a temporal kingdom of
+Jesus Christ on earth, which was to last one thousand years immediately
+before the general judgment. During this reign of Jesus Christ, the
+Christians were to enjoy a happiness which was to be a foretaste of the
+happiness they should enjoy after the general judgment. Not only this
+Father did not teach the dogma of endless hell, but according to the
+ultramontane Bergier, he has been charged by the pretended Orthodox
+divines with having expressed himself in an heterodox manner upon the
+divinity of the Word; upon the spirituality of the angels and of the
+human soul; upon free agency and the necessity of grace; and upon the
+state of the souls after death. He seemed to be inclined to believe
+Metempsychosis--this, however, is our private opinion, resting on his
+general views on the state of the souls after death. The Catholics
+invoke but one passage of his writings against this opinion. Grabe, a
+Protestant, published at Oxford, in 1702, an edition of his works; it is
+quite different from the Catholic editions.
+
+Theophile was promoted to the episcopal see of Antioch, in 168. We have
+from his pen but three Books to Autolic; they have been edited by Don
+Prudent Marand. He is the first Father who used the word Trinity. His
+works are a refutation of Paganism, and an apology of Christianism. We
+could not find in them the dogma of endless hell; he only vaguely
+speaks of rewards and pains hereafter.
+
+We have seen that the above Fathers, who compose the complete list of
+the Fathers of the second century, neither taught the dogma of endless
+hell, nor have recorded that the first Christians held such a dogma.
+Therefore we may draw the conclusion that the first Christians did not
+believe the doctrine of endless hell.
+
+We pass to the Fathers of the third century. Titus Flavius Clement, of
+Alexandria, a Platonician philosopher, became a Christian, and succeeded
+to Pantenus, a professor of the school of Alexandria, in 190; and he
+died in 217. Alexander of Jerusalem and the celebrated Origen were his
+disciples. He wrote many works, the principal thereof are: Exhortations
+to Pagans; his Pedagogue; his Hypotyposes; and his Stromatas, which are
+divided into eight books. It is said that the best edition of his works
+is that of Potter, published at Oxford, in 1715, in two vols. folio. I
+read only the Paris edition, published in 1696. In his Exhortations to
+Pagans, he pointed out the absurdity of idolatry, and of the fables of
+Paganism. In his Stromatas he compared the doctrines of the philosophers
+with those of Jesus Christ. In the treatise headed, Which rich man will
+be saved? he shows that he who will use his riches properly will obtain
+salvation: he does not say salvation from endless hell. His Pedagogue is
+a treatise of morals in which he relates how the first Christians
+righteously lived and fervently served the Lord. In all these works it
+is not a question of the dogma of endless hell, either taught to the
+Christians or believed by them.
+
+According to Le Clerc, Beausobre, d'Argens, Barbeyrac, Scultet, Daillé,
+Mosheim, Brucker, Semler, etc., this Father did not believe the
+spirituality of God and of man's soul.... It is a fact that, in his
+Stromatas, he says that God is composed of a body and of a soul, and
+that so is our soul. He believed in the Pagan fable that the angels had
+sexual intercourse with human females, and had begotten giants; he
+refers probably to the Giants who had fought against the Titans. All the
+Catholic theologians themselves admit the above, and say, that, though a
+Christian, he was too much of a Platonician philosopher. This is the
+reason why the Pope, Benedict XIV., opposed his worship, as a saint, in
+the Romish Church. These statements show how far this Father was from
+holding the dogma of endless hell.
+
+Tertullian was one of the Fathers who wrote at the end of the second
+century; however, as he died in 216, we class him among the Fathers of
+the beginning of the third century. His works are on Prayer, on Baptism;
+also he wrote Exhortation to Patience; two Books to his Wife; Testimony
+of the Soul; treatises on Spectacles and Idolatry; treatise on
+Prescription; two books against the Gentiles; one against the Jews; one
+against Hermogenes; one against the Valentinians; one against the
+Gnostics; one on the Crown; one to Scapula; books against Praxeas; books
+on Pudicity, on Persecutions, on Fast, against the Physics, on Monogamy.
+These works we had not the advantage to read; but we have studied the
+following in our theological school: his treatise on Penance; his five
+books against Marcion; his treatise on the Flesh of Jesus Christ; his
+book on the Resurrection of the Flesh; and his Apology of the Christian
+Religion.
+
+In these works which, let this be cursorily said, were written in Latin,
+for Tertullian was the first Father who wrote in this language, we read
+several times the word _infernus_, synonimous to _Tartarus_, and the
+words _ignem eternum_, used in speaking of pains, which will be
+inflicted upon the wicked after the general judgment; but nothing
+positive in regard to the duration of the punishment, for he might have
+used the adjective _æternum_ hyperbolically; nor anything in regard to
+the belief of the first Christians in regard to it, nor even of his
+contemporaneous Christians. If the dogma of endless hell had been
+generally believed by the Christians, he would have certainly mentioned
+it in his Apology of the Christian Religion; for one of the main charges
+of the Pagans against them was that they were Atheists; and thereby
+denied the Elysium and the Tartarus. However, in no one of the fifty
+arguments which compose the Apology does he say a word about endless
+hell, even about any punishment beyond the grave. He only, in the
+forty-eighth argument, says, that there will be a resurrection of the
+flesh.
+
+Sextus Julius Africanus, a Christian historian, who wrote in the
+beginning of the third century, is altogether silent about the dogma of
+endless hell, at least in the fragments of his works which have been
+preserved by Eusebe.
+
+Origen was born at Alexandria, in 185. He has been one of the most
+talented and learned among the Fathers. He wrote the following works:
+Exhortation to Martyrdom; Commentaries on the Holy Scriptures. He
+undertook an edition of the Bible in six columns, and headed it
+Hexaples. The first column contained the Hebrew text in hebraic letters;
+the second, the same text in Greek letters; the third contained the
+version of Aquila; the fourth column, the version of Symmaque; the
+fifth, that of the Septuagint; and the sixth, that of Theodotion. He
+considered the version of the Septuagint as the most authentical. The
+Octaples contained, also, two Greek versions, which had been recently
+found, and whose authors were unknown. He wrote more than one thousand
+sermons; he wrote his celebrated work about Principles, and a treatise
+against Celse.
+
+All the above works have not been transmitted to us entire, though the
+most of them are, as can be seen in the Bibliotheca Sanctorum Patrum,
+published in Paris, in 1826. This Catholic edition, we positively know,
+is not as impartial as it ought to be. So much has been written, for
+centuries, against Origen and for his justification, that a mere
+summary of those writings would fill volumes. Besides, would we make
+this summary we might perhaps be suspected of partiality, because
+Origen's doctrines are favorable to the bearing of this work; therefore
+we shall extract from the works of Feller, a Romish priest and a Jesuit,
+what we have to write about his accusation and justification, and about
+the summary of his doctrines.
+
+Feller says, Article Origen: "In the fourth century, the Arians invoked
+his authority to prove that Jesus Christ was not God. St. Athanase, St.
+Basile, and St. Gregory of Nazianze, defended him. Hilaire, Tite de
+Bostres, Didyme, Ambrosius, Eusebe of Verceil, and Gregory of Nysse have
+laudably spoken of his works; whereas, Theodor of Mopsueste, Apollinary,
+and Cesary, have disparagingly written of them. Origen was condemned in
+the fifth general council, held at Constantinople, in 553. The pope
+Vigil condemned him anew. St. Epiphane, Anastase the Sinaïte, St. John
+Climaque, Leonce of Byzantium, Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem, and
+Antipater, bishop of Bostres, violently denounced his writings; the pope
+Pelage II. said that heretical works were not worse than Origen's
+writings. There are, in the acts of the sixth council, an edict of the
+emperor Constantine Pogonat, and a letter of the pope Leon II., in which
+he is counted with Didyme and Evagrius among the Theomaques, or enemies
+of God.
+
+"The pope St. Martin I., anathematized him in the first council of
+Latran, in 649. St. Augustine, St. John of Damas, and St. Jerome, wrote
+against the Origenists, namely, the sect of Christians who believed the
+doctrines of Origen. In the same century, when a dispute arose about the
+orthodoxy of Origen, John of Jerusalem, and Rufin made his apology, and
+St. John Chrysostomus did the same. St. Pamphyle also took his part.
+Theotime of Tomi refused to condemn him, and Didyme tried to give an
+orthodox meaning to his doctrine on Trinity; others in condemning the
+errors contained in his books pretended that they had been added by the
+heretics. Theophile of Alexandria accused the monks of Nitria of
+Origenism, and condemned them in a council held at Alexandria; the pope
+Anastasius ratified the sentence. In the seventh century, the emperor
+Justinian declared himself hostile to the memory of Origen; wrote a
+letter to Memnas against his doctrine; issued an edict against him, in
+640; and obtained his condemnation in a council held the same year at
+Constantinople, whose acts were added to those of the fifth general
+council."
+
+We read in the acts of the fifth general council of Constantinople, held
+in 553, that Origen was condemned by the council for having taught the
+following doctrines: 1st, That in the dogma of Trinity the Father is
+greater than the Son, and the Son greater than the Holy Spirit. 2d, That
+human souls have been created before the bodies, to which they have
+been chained as a punishment for sins, which they had committed in an
+anterior state of existence. 3d, That the soul of Jesus Christ had been
+united to the Word before his incarnation. 4th, That the planets and
+stars are animated, and contain a soul intelligent and endowed with
+reason. 5th, That, after the resurrection, all bodies will have a
+spheroidal shape. 6th, _That the punishment of the wicked in a future
+life will not be endless_; and that Jesus Christ, who has been crucified
+to save the world, will be crucified once more to save the devils.
+
+According to this testimony of the Romish Church--which carries
+fanaticism farther than any other sect, in regard to the dogma of
+endless hell, for it holds as an article of faith even that the
+reprobates are tortured in hell, in their bodies and in their souls,
+though their bodies are in the grave, and though a material fire cannot
+burn an immortal soul--according to the above testimony of the Romish
+Church, we say, it is an established, an undeniable fact, that Origen
+taught the doctrine of Metempsychosis, or transmigration of the souls;
+and also the doctrine that the punishment of the wicked in a future life
+would not be endless.
+
+From this testimony we draw the following argument, which we invite the
+reader to attentively examine, and to carefully weigh, for this
+argument, _alone_, would unanswerably prove that the Christians of the
+first, of the second, of the third, and even of the fourth, and of the
+fifth centuries, did not generally believe the dogma of endless hell.
+
+Argument: In the beginning of the third century, Origen (he was born in
+185) taught the doctrine of Metempsychosis, or transmigration of the
+souls, and the doctrine that the punishment of the wicked in a future
+life would not be endless; these two doctrines were condemned only in
+the sixth century by the fifth general council held at Constantinople,
+in 553, and composed of 151 bishops. But if the Christians of the first,
+of the second, of the third, and even of the fourth, and of the fifth
+centuries, had generally believed the dogma of endless hell, the above
+two doctrines would have certainly been condemned before the sixth
+century. This minor proposition we prove:
+
+By the orders of the bishop of Rome, Sylvester, and of the emperor
+Constantine I., an oecumenical council, composed of 381 bishops, was
+held at Nice, in 325, to frame a symbol of faith, and to condemn Arius.
+
+In 381, a second general council, composed of 150 bishops, was held at
+Constantinople, to condemn Macedonius, who denied the divinity of the
+Holy Spirit; and to alter the symbol of Nice, (striking inconsistency of
+the Romish Church which holds as an article of faith that a general
+council is infallible in its decisions.)
+
+In 431, the bishop of Rome, Celestine I., assembled a general council at
+Ephesus, to obtain the condemnation of Nestorius, who denied that Mary
+was, strictly speaking, the mother of God.
+
+In 451, a general council was held at Chalcedony, Asia Minor, for the
+condemnation of Eutyches, and of Dioscorus, bishop of Alexandria, who
+held the doctrine that there was in Jesus Christ but one nature.
+
+From the beginning of the second century, the time when Origen taught
+the above two doctrines, up to the year 553, several thousand synods and
+principal councils were held.
+
+Thereupon we say: The doctrine of Metempsychosis, or transmigration of
+the souls; and the doctrine that the punishment of the wicked in a
+future life will not be endless, were as important as the most of the
+doctrines discussed in those councils; and Origen had a weightier
+influence upon the Christian communities by his talents, learning,
+virtue, and fame, and by the diffusion of his works, than Arius,
+Macedonius, Nestorius, Eutiches, Dioscorus and others put together.
+Therefore, if the dogma of endless hell had been generally believed by
+the Christians of the first, of the second, of the third, of the fourth,
+and of the fifth centuries, the doctrine of Metempsychosis, and the
+doctrine that the punishment of the wicked in a future life will not be
+endless, held and taught by Origen, would have been called up,
+discussed, and condemned in the above councils. But they were called up,
+discussed, and condemned, _only_ in the fifth general council, held at
+Constantinople, in 553. Therefore, it is an irrefutable fact that the
+Christians of the first, of the second, of the third, of the fourth, and
+of the fifth centuries, did not generally believe the dogma of endless
+hell.
+
+Gregory of Neocesaree, was a disciple of Origen, and was promoted to the
+episcopal see of Neocesaree, in 240. He wrote the following works:
+Thanks to Origen, Profession of Faith on the Dogma of Trinity, Canonical
+Epistle, and Paraphrase of the Book of Ecclesiastes. In these works the
+spirit of the doctrines of Origen is seen at every page; and the dogma
+of endless hell is neither taught, nor declared to have been the belief
+of the first Christians, nor of the Christians of the third century. St.
+Cyprian, made bishop of Carthage in 248, is silent about the dogma of
+endless hell.
+
+We pass to the Fathers of the fourth century.
+
+Pamphile Eusebe obtained the bishopric of Cesarea in 313. He wrote the
+Panegyric, and the Life of Constantine; a Chronicle, viz: a compilation
+of Pagan authors, and several other works, whose fragments have
+remained. His principal work is his Ecclesiastical History, which we
+have studied in our theological school. If the dogma of endless hell had
+been the belief of the first Christians, and had been generally believed
+in his age, he would have certainly mentioned it therein: however, he
+has not. Therefore, the first Christians, and those of his age, did not
+hold the dogma of endless hell.
+
+Athanase succeeded to Alexander on the episcopal see of Alexandria, in
+326. His works are: Defense of Trinity and of Incarnation; apologies;
+letters; and treatises against the Arians, the Melecians, the
+Apollinarists, and the Macedonians. In these works there is not a word
+concerning the dogma of endless hell being believed by the first
+Christians, or by his contemporaries. The famous symbol which is headed
+symbol of Athanase, which the Romish priests read every Sunday in the
+Psalms-Breviary, is not from his composition nor from his pen; every one
+of the Catholic theologians and authors confesses it.
+
+Basile, bishop of Cesarea, was born in 329. He has left several letters,
+homilies, treatises of morals, and sermons on the six days of the
+creation. We have examined the Latin edition of his works, or rather of
+the fragments of his works, for they are not entire, by Don Gamier and
+Don Prudent; but though in many passages he speaks of salvation, of
+eternal bliss, and of the punishment of the wicked hereafter, he does
+not positively declare that the punishment will be endless; and he does
+not say that the first Christians believed it, nor that it was a dogma
+of the Church in his age. Theodor of Mopsueste, who wrote in the fifth
+century, is charged by the Catholic writers to have taught that future
+punishment will not be endless.
+
+Since that time, down to the sixth century, the question of the eternal
+duration of the punishment of the wicked in a place called hell, was
+discussed by the ecclesiastical writers, who, nevertheless, did not
+assert that it was the belief of the first Christians. Ambrosius
+supposed that it would be infinite in duration; so Augustine, his
+disciple, wrote in his work, De Civitate Dei, book 21; St. Fulgence; the
+pope Gregorius, etc. The opinion of those leading doctors was preached,
+and, little by little, it became the belief of a large number of
+Christians. They even designated the place where hell was: some thought
+it was in the profundities of the earth; Augustine opposed them; then he
+recanted himself, and agreed that it was there. Finally, in 553, a
+general council was held in Constantinople, and it was decided that the
+dogma of endless hell shall be henceforth an article of faith. It was
+only many years after that this council was considered oecumenical.
+
+We have proved by the testimony of the Fathers themselves, that the
+Christians of the first, of the second, of the third, of the fourth, and
+of the fifth centuries, did not believe the dogma of endless hell; we
+shall now prove it by the various Christian sects, which existed, and
+were organized religious denominations, in those centuries.
+
+Lest we might be suspected of partiality in the exposition of the belief
+of those Christian sects in regard to future punishment, we will
+_exclusively_ make our extracts from the works of Bergier, Feller, and
+other Catholic theologians and historians.
+
+The Cerinthians did not believe the doctrine of endless hell. The
+Basilidians believed in Metempsychosis, or transmigration of the souls.
+In consequence they did not hold the dogma of endless hell. Eusebe
+informs us, in his Ecclesiastical History, that Basilide had written on
+the four Gospels twenty-four books; and that his sect was numerous. It
+flourished till the fourth century.
+
+The Millenaries, who existed mainly in the second and third centuries,
+believed that Jesus Christ would soon come from heaven, to reign one
+thousand years over the righteous; that this reign would be temporal;
+and that it would be followed by a general judgment: but they did not
+hold that future punishment would be endless, for they were silent about
+its nature.
+
+The Marcionites believed in a good principle, God, and in a bad one, the
+Devil; the latter had created our body. Jesus Christ had but an apparent
+flesh. Our body should not come again to life; they believed like
+Pythagoras, of whom Marcion was a follower, in the doctrine of
+Metempsychosis: such was their belief. They made so many proselytes,
+that, even in the fifth century, their sect was numerous in Italy, in
+Egypt, in Palestine, in Syria, in Arabia, in Persia, and in other
+oriental countries.
+
+The Valentinians held that Jesus Christ was not God; that he had
+redeemed the world only from sin, by freeing men of the empire of evil
+Eons, or geniuses, who had the government of the universe. They believed
+in the doctrine of Metempsychosis, or transmigration of the souls. In
+consequence, they neither knew nor believed the dogma of endless hell.
+Valentin had an immense number of disciples, and his sect spread in
+Asia, and in Africa; in Europe it extended as far as Gaul, where,
+according to the testimony of Ireneus, bishop of Lyons, the Valentinians
+were very numerous.
+
+The Marcosians formed a numerous religious body towards the end of the
+second century. Their sect spread as far as Gaul. They believed the
+doctrine of Metempsychosis.
+
+The Theodotians and the Artemonians, in the second century, professed
+that Jesus Christ was not God, and believed in Metempsychosis.
+
+The Carpocratians believed in the pre-existence of the souls, and taught
+that they had sinned in an anterior state of existence; that, as a
+punishment for those crimes, they had been condemned to animate other
+bodies, and would pass into other bodies as long as they would not have
+been sufficiently purified by this expiation. They denied the divinity
+of Jesus Christ, and the belief of the resurrection of the body.
+Carpocrate, of Alexandria, founded this sect in the second century.
+
+The Docetes professed the same belief as the Carpocratians, with the
+difference that they did not admit that Jesus Christ had a natural body.
+They had exactly the same belief in regard to Metempsychosis. This sect
+existed in the second century. The Patripassians, the Noetians, the
+Praxeans, and the Sabellians have been silent on the dogma of endless
+hell.
+
+Tatian, one of the most prominent ecclesiastical writers of the second
+century, established the sect of the Tatianists, who believed that Jesus
+Christ had not really suffered, and that he had not redeemed the world
+by his blood. They also held the doctrine of Metempsychosis. Of the many
+works of Tatian we have only his Discourse against the Pagans, and his
+Diatessaron.
+
+Apelles established a sect of his name, in 145. The Apellites denied the
+resurrection of the body; believed in Metempsychosis; and also that God
+had entrusted a spirit of fire to create the world.
+
+In the second century, Montan, a native of Ardaban, in Mysia,
+established the sect of the Montanists, which split and ramified into
+the Artotyrites, the Ascites, Ascodrutes, etc. They all believed the
+doctrine of Metempsychosis.
+
+The Ophites, a sect of the second century, professed that the world had
+been created, and was governed by evil Eons or geniuses, and that God
+had sent Jesus Christ, his Son, to oppose the evil geniuses. They held
+the doctrine of Metempsychosis.
+
+In the second century the sect of the Cainites denied the resurrection
+of the body, and believed in Metempsychosis.
+
+The above sects compose the large body of Christians in the second
+century; and yet we do not find in their doctrines anything like the
+dogma of endless hell. They all, except perhaps the Millenaries,
+believed in the doctrine of Metempsychosis. And as those extracts are
+from Roman Catholic authors, who had the greatest interest in disguising
+the true doctrines of those sects, it follows that it is an undeniable
+fact, that the Christians of the second century neither did believe nor
+knew any thing about such a dogma as endless hell.
+
+_Corollary._ Since the Christians of the second century neither believed
+the dogma of endless hell, nor knew anything about it, therefore the
+Christians of the first century neither believed this dogma, nor knew
+anything about it; for had they believed it, or known any thing about
+it, the Christians of the second century would have preserved that
+belief, or at least would have mentioned it. Consequently, it is an
+undeniable fact that the Christians of the first century were not taught
+by the apostles the dogma of endless hell.
+
+Let us examine, now, the doctrines of the various Christian sects, which
+sprung up in the third century.
+
+Tertullian, one of the Fathers of whom we have spoken above, had joined
+the Montanist sect; but afterwards he disagreed with them, and he
+founded, at about the fifth year of the third century, another sect,
+called Tertullianists. This sect lived several centuries, for in the
+time of St. Augustine, towards the end of the fourth century, they had a
+denominational organization at Carthage, Africa. Probably they held the
+same belief as Tertullian, in regard to the dogma of endless hell.
+
+The Hermogenians believed that the earth and the whole universe have
+been uncreated, and are eternal. Hermogene said: "God has either taken
+evil from himself, or from nothing, or from a pre-existing matter. He
+could not take evil from himself, for he is indivisible; and, besides,
+evil could not abide in a being infinitely perfect. He could not take
+evil from nothing, for in this case it would have been in his power not
+to produce it; therefore, evil is derived from a matter pre-existing,
+co-eternal to God, and the defects of which God could not amend." The
+Hermogenians believed in Metempsychosis. Their sect spread more
+particularly in Galatia.
+
+Berylle, bishop of Ostres, in Arabia, established, in 207, the sect of
+the Arabics. They believed that the soul was born and died with the
+body, and that both would come again to life. Origen wrote against this
+belief, and converted the most of them to his opinions. As Origen
+thought and taught that the punishment of the wicked would not be
+endless, and that the souls transmigrated, we may safely conclude that
+the Arabics embraced his opinions.
+
+The Novatians were organized into a sect by Novat and Novatian, priests
+of the Church of Carthage. We have perused the treatises on Trinity and
+on the Viands, written by Novatian, whose fragments are found in the
+works of Tertullian; but we have found no opinion expressed in regard to
+the dogma of endless hell. We heard since that there is a complete
+edition of his works, published in 1728, by Jackson, at London: we have
+not been able to obtain it.
+
+According to the testimony of Epiphane, the Valesians held many of the
+doctrines of the Gnostics. From this we may safely infer that they
+believed in Metempsychosis. Tillemont, in his Memoirs for the
+Ecclesiastical History, tome 3d, says that the Valesians sprung up in
+240. St. Epiphane and Tillemont are the only authors who have referred
+to them in their writings.
+
+The Samosatians, whose chief was Paul of Samosate, Patriarch of Antioch,
+professed that the three persons of the Trinity were not three Gods, but
+three attributes, under which God has manifested himself to men; that
+Jesus Christ was not a God, but a man to whom wisdom had been
+extraordinarily given. We did not find any thing in the Ecclesiastical
+History in regard to their doctrines about future punishment. However,
+as they considered Jesus Christ only as an extraordinary man, it is most
+probable that they kept the immemorially, and, even then, generally
+believed doctrine of Metempsychosis. This sect was established in 260.
+The famous Zenobia, who then reigned in Syria, and believed the Jewish
+religion, was converted to this sect.
+
+Manes was born in Persia, in 240. He was the father of the sect of the
+Manicheans. We shall give a summary of their doctrines, and as their
+sect has been one of the most numerous, one of the most widely spread,
+and one whose denominational organization seems to have outlived nearly
+all those of the first centuries, we will add a summary of their
+history. We will find in their doctrines, and in their history, a
+weighty proof that the dogma of endless hell was not generally believed
+by the Christians of the first five centuries, to say the least.
+
+To remove the least shadow of doubt about our impartiality, we continue,
+as done before, to take our extracts from Roman Catholic authors, who
+had an interest to make it appear that the dogma of endless hell was
+co-eval to the apostles.
+
+We extract from Cotelier, a Roman Catholic author, tome 1, of the
+Apostolic Fathers, page 543, and following, these doctrines of the
+Manicheans:
+
+In their opinion, the souls, or spirits, are an emanation from the good
+spirit, whom they considered as an uncreated light; and all bodies have
+been formed by the bad principle, whom they called Satan, and the power
+of darkness. They held that there are portions of light enclosed within
+all the bodies of the universe, and that they give them motion and life,
+wherefore those souls cannot reunite to the good principle, except when
+they have been purified by the means of various transmigrations from one
+body into another. They denied the future resurrection of the body.
+
+It is therefore evident that the Manicheans either knew nothing about
+the dogma of endless hell, or did not believe it.
+
+From the year 285 to the year 491, the Manicheans were persecuted. The
+emperors of Orient confiscated their property, and decreed the penalty
+of death against them. Thousands of them died in the most cruel
+tortures, rather than to give up their faith; we read even in our days,
+in the Theodosian code, the laws enacted against them. Despite those
+persecutions they rapidly and widely spread. In the fourth century St.
+Augustine was converted to their sect, but he afterwards left them, and
+became their most powerful opponent. They formed a large body in Africa.
+In 491, the mother of the emperor Anastase, who was a Manichean,
+obtained the suspension of the laws enacted against them. They were
+allowed, during twenty-seven years, to have churches, and to freely
+worship; but during the reign of Justin, and under his successors, they
+were again forbidden it. Towards the end of the seventh century, the
+famous Gallinice, who was a Manichean, brought up her two sons, Paul and
+John, in her belief, and sent them to Armenia as missionaries. Paul made
+so many proselytes that the new converts took the name of Paulicians.
+
+In the beginning of the ninth century the Paulicians split; but soon
+after they reunited, at the persuasion of one of their most influential
+members, named Theodote. The aversion of the Manicheans for the worship
+of the virgin Mary, of the cross, of the saints, and of images, pleased
+the Saracens, who made frequent irruptions in the empire: through their
+influence they obtained more credit among their opponents.
+
+In the year 841, the empress Theodora, who had declared herself in favor
+of the worship of the virgin Mary, of the cross, of the saints, and of
+images, went so far in her fanatical zeal for this doctrine, that she
+resolved to exterminate the Manicheans, and their religion. By her
+orders more than one hundred thousand of them were arrested and put to
+death; nearly all expired in the most cruel tortures. Then the
+Manicheans sought a refuge among the Saracens; they retired in fortified
+towns, repelled the repeated assaults of the imperial armies, and
+maintained themselves during about forty years; but having been defeated
+in a great battle they were forced to disperse.
+
+Some went to Bulgaria, and since took the name of Bulgarians; others
+went to Italy, and mainly settled in Lombardy, wherefrom they sent
+missionaries to France, to Germany, and to other countries. In the year
+1022, under the king Robert, several canons of Orleans, who had joined
+the Manicheans, were burnt alive. Although the penalty of death had been
+decreed against the Manicheans, they established a large number of
+convents all over France, and particularly in the provinces of Provence,
+of Languedoc, and, more especially, in the diocese of Albi, where they
+took the name of Albigenses.
+
+Alanus, monk of Cîteaux, and Peter, monk of Vaux-Cernay, who wrote
+against them, accused them, 1st, of admitting two principles or
+creators, the one good and the other bad; the first, creator of
+invisible and spiritual things, and the second, creator of bodies. 2d,
+Of denying the resurrection of the body. 3d, Of denying the Purgatory.
+4th, Of denying the utility of prayers for the dead. 5th, Of denying the
+pains of hell. 6th, Of believing the transmigration of the souls into
+other bodies of men, or of animals, according to the degree of their
+guilt in an anterior state of existence, until by successive expiatory
+transmigrations they become purified. 7th, Of disbelieving the seven
+sacraments. 8th, Of rejecting the worship of the virgin Mary, of the
+cross, of the saints, and of images, etc.
+
+In 1176, the council of Albi, which some authors call council of Lombez,
+was held against the Manicheans, who, as said above, were called
+Albigenses. In this council they were condemned under the calling of
+Good Men. Fleury, who, in the seventy-second book of his Ecclesiastical
+History, quotes the acts of the council, ascribes to them the above
+doctrines; so does the historian Rainerius; and Bossuet, in the ninth
+book of his History of Variations, cites other authors who confirm all
+these accusations. The condemnation of the Manicheans, or Albigenses,
+was confirmed by the general council of Latran, in 1179. A crusade was
+ordered against them by the Pope, Innocent III., and a strict
+inquisition was organized. Simon, count of Montford, was appointed, by
+the Pope, general-in-chief of the crusaders; then the slaughter
+commenced. It lasted eighteen years: the Albigenses, or Manicheans, were
+exterminated, a few only secretly found their way to the Alps, where
+they concealed themselves, and afterwards united to the Valdenses.
+Several hundred thousands were either burnt alive, or tortured on racks,
+or put to the sword; all were slain: men, old men, young men, women,
+children, and infants; and during those horrible ceremonies of death,
+the soldiers of the Pope sung the Veni Creator Spiritus, etc., a hymn of
+invocation to the Holy Spirit.
+
+From the doctrines and history of the Manicheans we draw the following
+argument:
+
+According to the unanimous testimony of the Roman Catholic authors
+themselves, from about the middle of the third century to the
+thirteenth, the Manicheans composed a numerous body of Christians, and
+did not believe the dogma of endless hell. So constant were they in this
+disbelief, that they persisted in it till nearly every one of them was
+exterminated; therefore it is an undeniable historical fact that this
+large denomination of Christians did not hold the dogma of hell, in the
+third, fourth, fifth, etc., centuries.
+
+Let us examine the doctrine of the Christian sects, which sprung up in
+the fourth century, in regard to endless hell. We continue to take our
+extracts from Roman Catholic authors.
+
+Priscillian, a Spaniard, was the founder of the Christian sect of
+Priscillianists, in the year 380. This denomination of Christians
+believed in the doctrine of Metempsychosis. They held that the souls
+passed into the bodies of other men, until they were purified, by their
+transmigrations, of the sins they had committed in an anterior life.
+They denied the resurrection of human bodies. Priscillian was condemned
+to death, and the penalty of death was decreed against the
+Priscillianists. The emperor Maxime, and the pope Leon, used fire,
+racks, and swords against them; they slew thousands of them,
+nevertheless they increased so that they were numerous yet in the sixth
+century in Spain and in Italy. Tillemont, in his Ecclesiastical Memoir,
+tome 8, refers to Sulpice-Sevère, to Ambrosius, and to St. Augustine,
+for the confirmation of the above, said concerning the doctrines of the
+Priscillianists.
+
+The other principal sects of the fourth century were the Donatists, the
+Photinians, the Macedonians, the Apollinarists, the Jovinians, the
+Collyridians, and the Pelagians. The Nestorians, the Eutichians, and the
+Monothelites, sprang up in the fifth century. We have not found in their
+writings any passages referring to the dogma of endless hell. However we
+must state that we had the opportunity of perusing only about two-thirds
+of the numerous and voluminous, we would add tedious, works composed pro
+and con concerning their respective tenets.
+
+_Remark._--Let the reader bear in mind that the most of the Christian
+sects, whose disbelief of the dogma of endless hell we have traced out
+above, composed the majority of the Christian body; and also that they
+have existed, at least, till the middle of the sixth century, the epoch
+when the fifth council of Constantinople condemned the doctrine held by
+Origen--that of the transmigration of the souls, and of their temporary
+punishment.
+
+_Conclusion._ Therefore the dogma of endless hell was not generally
+believed by the Christians of the third, of the fourth, and of the fifth
+centuries.
+
+General conclusion of this third article:
+
+1. We have proved, by the testimony of the Fathers of the second
+century, and by the doctrines of the numerous Christian sects of the
+same century, that the dogma of endless hell was even unknown to the
+Christians of the first and of the second centuries. Then we must
+conclude that not only the first Christians, namely, the Christians of
+the first and of the second centuries did not believe in endless hell,
+but even that they knew nothing about such a dogma.
+
+2. We have proved, by the testimony of the Fathers of the third, of the
+fourth, and of the fifth centuries, and also by the many Christian sects
+which existed in the third, in the fourth, and in the fifth centuries,
+that the Christians did not generally believe, in the said centuries,
+the dogma of endless hell. Therefore the Christians of the third, of the
+fourth, and of the fifth centuries, did not _generally_ believe in
+endless hell.
+
+Therefore the proposition we were to prove in the present article, _that
+the first Christians did not believe in the doctrine of endless hell_,
+remains peremptorily established.
+
+_Objection._--Since the fourth century the Church of Rome obtained the
+condemnation of the above Christian sects in five general councils. But
+if the above sects had composed the majority of the body of Christians,
+the Church of Rome would not have obtained their condemnation.
+Consequently the above sects did not compose the majority of the body of
+Christians during the third, the fourth, and the fifth centuries.
+
+_Answer._--We deny the minor proposition of this syllogism, which is:
+But if the above sects had composed the majority of the body of
+Christians, the Church of Rome would not have obtained their
+condemnation--and we prove our denegation as follows:--
+
+Supposing that the United States be constituted into an empire--God
+forbid!--that the emperor would have the control of Church property,
+would side, say with the Presbyterian Church, or any other, claiming
+supremacy over the other Christian denominations; and that the emperor
+would assemble councils conjointly with that Church, would attend and
+even be vice-president of those councils, would enforce them with civil
+and military force, and also the execution of their acts condemning
+another sect arrayed before those councils, without permitting the other
+sects to vote in those councils, would it follow from this that all the
+other Christian sects do not compose the body of Christians in the
+United States? Certainly not.
+
+But the case was the same with the Church of Rome. Since the end of the
+second century the bishop of Rome (we do not say the Pope, for it was
+only centuries after that he had the boldness, or rather impudence, to
+call himself exclusively Pope,) commenced to claim a personal supremacy
+over the other bishops, and also a supremacy of his church over the
+other Christian churches. Vain were his efforts until the beginning of
+the fourth century, when Sylvestre, bishop of Rome, obtained for himself
+and for his church the favors and protection of the emperor Constantine
+I., who afterwards joined it, (we will state in the last chapter of this
+work the reasons why this tyrant took these steps.) In behalf of the
+Church of Rome, he convoked the council of Arles, and the general
+council of Nice, and defrayed the expenses of the bishops out of his own
+treasure. His protection to the Church of Rome the most of his
+successors on the imperial throne continued; and thus the power and
+supremacy of this church grew in ratio of the persecutions directed
+against the other Christian denominations, which were debarred from
+voting in the councils; whose church property was oftentimes
+confiscated; and which many of them were prohibited to publicly worship.
+In consequence, it is not true to say that, if the various Christian
+sects spoken of before had composed the majority of the body of
+Christians, the Church of Rome would not have obtained their
+condemnation. Therefore the various sects spoken of before composed the
+majority of the body of Christians during the third, the fourth and the
+fifth centuries.
+
+
+APPENDIX
+
+_To the proofs that the first Christians did not believe in endless
+hell._
+
+From the second to the fourth centuries many Apocryphal Gospels had been
+written. Some of them have been transmitted down to us, at least their
+fragments; and others have not been preserved except their titles.
+
+Among those gospels are: 1st, the Gospel according to the Hebrews; 2d,
+according to the Nazareans; 3d, according to the Twelve Apostles; 4th,
+according to St. Peter. It is supposed that these four Gospels were that
+of Matthew, altered by the Hebrews. This circumstance has led the
+critics to believe, that the Hebrew or Syriac text of Matthew had been
+abandoned, lest it might be altered; and that the Greek version had been
+preserved.
+
+5th, The Gospel according to the Egyptians; 6th, that of the birth of
+the virgin Mary: we have read it in Latin; 7th, the Protogospel of
+James, written in Greek and in Latin; 8th, the Gospel of the Infancy, in
+Greek and in Arabic; 9th, that of St. Thomas; 10th, the Gospel of
+Nicodemus, in Latin; 11th, the Gospel Eternal; 12th, that of Andrew;
+13th, that of Bartholomew; 14th, that of Apelles; 15th, that of
+Basilides; 16th, that of Cerinthus; 17th, that of the Ebionites--perhaps
+it was the same as that of the Hebrews; 18th, that of Tatian; 19th, that
+of Eve; 20th, that of the Gnostics; 21st, that of Marcion; 22d, that of
+St. Paul; 23d, the Gospel of the small and great interrogations of Mary;
+24th, that of the birth of Jesus: probably the same as the Protogospel
+of James; 25th, that of John, or of the death of the virgin Mary; 26th,
+that of Matthias; 27th, that of Perfection; 28th, that of the Simonians;
+29th, that of the Syrians; 30th, that of the Encratites: probably the
+same as that of Tatian; 31st, the Gospel of Thadeus, or of Jude; 32d,
+that of Valentine; 33d, that of Life, or of the Living God; 34th, that
+of Philip; 35th, that of Barnabeus; 36th, that of James, the major;
+37th, that of Judas; 38th, of the Truth: probably the same as that of
+Valentine; 39th, the Gospels of Leucius, of Seleucus, of Lucianus, and
+of Hesychius.
+
+For a more extensive information concerning the Apocryphal Gospels, we
+refer the reader to the Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti Collectus,
+Castigatus, published at Hamburg, in 3 vols. octavo, in 1719. The author
+was John Albert Fabricius, one of the most learned antiquarians of the
+17th century.
+
+We had the opportunity of reading, in the rich library of the
+theological school of Brou, France, several of these Apocryphal
+Gospels, that of the birth of the virgin Mary, the Protogospel of James;
+that of the death of the virgin Mary, and that of the Twelve Apostles;
+but we do not recollect to have seen in these gospels anything, in
+regard to endless hell, more positive than what is found in the Gospel
+concerning the ruin of Jerusalem.
+
+Of course this proof, drawn from the Apocryphal Gospels, has not the
+same weight as if it was drawn from authentical authors, (it is for this
+reason that we have not inserted it in the body of proofs,) however as
+it is certain that they have been written from the second to the fourth
+centuries, they at least show that their authors, and the many
+Christians who used them, did not believe in endless hell.
+
+
+ARTICLE IV.
+
+_How the Church of Rome borrowed the doctrine of Endless Hell from the
+Pagans; and how, afterwards, the self-called Orthodox Protestant
+Churches borrowed it from the Church of Rome._
+
+It has been proved in the foregoing article, and, we think, to
+demonstration, that the Christians of the first and of the second
+centuries, neither knew nor believed the dogma of endless hell;
+wherefore we may logically make this argument:
+
+The Christians of the first and of the second centuries neither knew nor
+believed the dogma of endless hell: But if the dogma of endless hell
+had been taught in the New Testament, the Christians of the first and
+of the second centuries would have known and believed it. This we prove:
+
+Those of the apostles who wrote the New Testament certainly knew
+whether, in the New Testament they wrote, they had taught the dogma of
+endless hell. If they had known that, in the New Testament they wrote,
+they had taught the dogma of endless hell, they would have certainly
+informed the Christians of the first century, in their oral
+predications, that, in the New Testament they wrote, they had taught the
+dogma of endless hell, for it was one of the most important points of
+doctrine. If they had informed the Christians of the first century, in
+their oral predications, that they had taught, in the New Testament they
+wrote, the dogma of endless hell, the Christians of the first century
+would have certainly believed that they had taught, in the New Testament
+they wrote, the dogma of endless hell. If the Christians of the first
+century had believed that they had taught, in the New Testament they
+wrote, the dogma of endless hell, they would have certainly believed in
+endless hell. If the Christians of the first century had believed in
+endless hell, those of the beginning of the second century would have
+also believed it; for the apostle and evangelist John was still living
+at the end of the year 100; (even many authors say that he died only in
+104,) and therefore if any discussion had arisen in regard to the dogma
+of endless hell, he would have declared whether it was taught in the
+New Testament or not. If the Christians of the beginning of the second
+century had also believed the dogma of endless hell, those who would
+have lived in the middle and at the end of the second century would have
+believed it also; because learning, from the lips, or from the writings,
+of those who were co-eval to some of the apostles, the dogma of endless
+hell, no traditional alteration might have taken place towards this
+dogma; so much so that it would have been generally spread and believed
+among Christians, owing to its importance.
+
+Therefore the minor proposition of our argument is true: _But if the
+dogma of endless hell had been taught in the New Testament, the
+Christians of the first and of the second centuries would have known and
+believed it._ Wherefore we draw this logical conclusion: Then the dogma
+of endless hell is not taught in the New Testament.
+
+Moreover, if the Christians of the third, of the fourth, and of the
+fifth centuries, had thought that the dogma of endless hell was taught
+in the New Testament they would have at least _generally_ believed it.
+But they did not _generally_ believe it, as it has been proved, to
+demonstration, in the foregoing Article: consequently the dogma of
+endless hell is not taught in the New Testament.
+
+From the fact that, according to the Christians of the first and of the
+second centuries themselves, the dogma of endless hell is not taught in
+the New Testament, we draw the conclusion that the Church of Rome,
+which first, and successively, introduced in the body of Christians the
+dogma of hell and of endless hell, did not originate it from the New
+Testament; because there would have been a general protestation against
+it from all the other churches.
+
+It has been proved, in the second Article of this chapter, that the Jews
+did not believe the dogma of endless hell. Therefore the Church of Rome
+did not originate the dogma of endless hell from the Jews, or from their
+Holy Writs.
+
+Wherefrom, then, did the Church of Rome originate the dogma of endless
+hell?
+
+From Paganism:--
+
+The Church of Rome established mysteries towards the beginning of the
+third century. They were an imitation of the Pagan mysteries.
+
+We refer the reader for the proofs of this proposition to the last pages
+of the second chapter of this work.
+
+Thereupon we continue. It was only successively, and to make more
+proselytes, that the Church of Rome had established those ceremonies,
+rites and doctrines, to the reading thereof we have invited the reader,
+and which were not only unspoken of in the Scriptures, but which were a
+pure imitation of those of the mysteries of the Pagans. We say, _to make
+more proselytes_; for the aim of the Church of Rome was evidently to
+diminish the abruptness of the transition between Paganism and
+Christianity; to throw a bridge, if we may thus illustrate our idea,
+over the steep, wide, and deep abyss that lies between Paganism and
+Christianity.
+
+Now let us compare the hell of the Church of Rome with the Tartarus of
+the Pagans. The Pagans called the place where the wicked were punished,
+Tartarus, or Infernus; the Church of Rome called, and still calls, the
+same place, Tartarus, or Infernus. The Pagans believed that the Tartarus
+was in the profundities of the earth; the Church of Rome held, and still
+holds, that the Tartarus, called in English, Hell, is in the
+profundities of the earth.
+
+_Remark._--Before proceeding further, let us give the native
+signification of the words Tartarus, Infernus and Hell. [Greek:
+Tartaros, ou], dark and deep place: [Greek: Tartara gains], [in
+Hesiode,] abysses of the earth. The word [Greek: Tartaros] has been
+adopted and kept in the Latin, though with the change of the final
+[Greek: os] into _us_, Tartarus, and its native meaning preserved. The
+Latin word Infernus derives from the word inferior, which signifies a
+place under, below an other, a cavity, a profundity. The words Tartarus,
+Infernus, have been kept in French, Tartare, Enfer; in Spanish, Tartaro,
+Infierno; and also in the other languages derived from the Latin. The
+English word _hell_ is the genitive case of the Anglo-Saxon word _hole_,
+[See Webster's Dictionary,] which means a cavity, a profundity. The word
+Tartarus has been kept from the Latin, with its native signification. In
+Greek [Greek: Tartaros] has a plural, as seen before. In Latin
+_Tartarus_ has a plural, _Tartari_; so _Infernus_, _Inferi_. In French
+_Tartare_ has a plural, _Tartares_; so, _Enfer_, _Enfers_. In Spanish
+_Tartaro_ has a plural, _Tartaros_; so, _Infierno_, _Infiernos_.
+
+Now we continue the comparison that we have commenced between the
+Infernus of the Pagans and the Infernus, or Hell, of the Church of Rome.
+We will use the word Hell, to express the Tartarus, or Infernus, of both
+the Pagans and the Church of Rome.
+
+The Pagans believed that there was a gate to their hell; so the Church
+of Rome believes that there is a gate to the hell of the Christians. The
+Pagans believed that the frightful Tisiphon watched day and night at the
+gate of their hell; so the Church of Rome believes that Lucifer holds
+the keys of the gate of hell, as St. Peter holds the keys of Paradise.
+
+The Pagans believed that the deepest darkness reigned in their hell; so
+the Church of Rome believes that the deepest darkness reigns in the hell
+of the Christians.
+
+The Pagans believed that, in their hell, the Phlegeton river rolled huge
+stones on fire, burning the wicked without consuming them; so the Church
+of Rome believed, and still believes, [even now it is an article of
+faith which must be believed under the penalty of excommunication, of
+being a heretic, and thereby of infallibly going to hell,] that, in the
+hell of the Christians, the wicked are plunged into a corporeal, or
+material, fire of sulphur, and of brimstone. St. Augustine, in his work
+De Civitate Dei, Liber 21, Capitulum 10, writes: "_Gehenna illa, quod
+etiam stagnum ignis et sulphuris dictum est, corporeus ignis erit._"
+[Translation.--"That Gehenna, which is said to be a marsh of fire and of
+sulphur, will be a corporeal fire."]
+
+The Pagans believed that, in their hell, the wicked were tortured in
+their bodies and in their souls, although their bodies were in the
+grave; so the Church of Rome believed, and still believes that, in the
+hell of the Christians, the wicked are tortured in their bodies and in
+their souls, although their bodies are in the grave.
+
+The Pagans believed that, in their hell, hideous furies were armed with
+whips and other instruments of torture; so the Church of Rome believed,
+and still believes, that, in the hell of the Christians, the devils are
+hideous and armed with whips, tridents, harpoons, and other instruments
+of torture. We invite the reader to go to Catholic stores of images, and
+to see the representation of devils with tails, horns, and armed with
+instruments of torture.
+
+The Pagans believed that, in their hell, the wicked were whipped and
+tortured in various cruel manners by the furies, though their bodies
+were in the grave; so the Church of Rome believed, and still believes,
+that, in the hell of the Christians, the wicked are whipped and
+tortured in various cruel manners by the devils, though their bodies
+are in the grave. The Pagans believed that, in their hell, the wicked
+dragged heavy chains; so the Church of Rome believed, and still
+believes, that, in the hell of the Christians, the wicked drag heavy
+chains. The Pagans believed that, in their hell, there were two
+principal abodes, the one expiatory, in which the common wicked were
+detained and tortured, until they had expiated their faults, and been
+purified enough to be admitted in the Elysium; and the other, the
+vastest, the darkest, and the deepest cavern, where great criminals were
+burnt and excruciated endlessly, and without any hope of cessation or
+relief in their torments; so the Church of Rome believed, and still
+believes, that in the hell of the Christians, there are two principal
+abodes, the one, Purgatory, where the common wicked, namely, those
+guilty of venial sins, are tortured and burnt in a material fire, until
+they have expiated their faults, and been purified enough to be
+permitted to crave St. Peter to open to them the gate of Paradise, and
+the other the vastest, the darkest, and the deepest profundity, where
+the heretics, the schismatics, those who eat meat on Friday, do not pay
+the tithe to the priests, or who disobey kindred laws of the Church, are
+plunged, bodies and souls, (though their bodies are in the grave,) into
+a devouring fire, and where they are excruciated endlessly, without any
+hope of cessation or relief in their torments.
+
+The Pagans believed that, in the expiatory abode of their hell, there
+were many different degrees of tortures; so the Church of Rome believed,
+and still believes, that, in the Purgatory of the hell of the
+Christians, there are many different degrees of tortures. The Pagans
+believed that supplications could relieve and free from their tortures,
+the common wicked detained in the expiatory abode of their hell; so the
+Church of Rome believed, and still believes, that, in the Purgatory of
+the hell of the Christians, the common wicked, namely, those guilty of
+venial sins, can be relieved in their torments, and be freed from them
+by supplications; hence the incalculable sums of money paid to the
+priests, to say masses for the deliverance of those wicked; hence the
+countless splendid churches, the vast number of monasteries, convents,
+nunneries, abbeys, and other costly edifices, founded in behalf of those
+wicked.
+
+The Pagans believed that there were an innumerable quantity of different
+degrees of tortures in the second principal abode of their hell; so the
+Church of Rome believed, and still believes, that, in the second
+principal abode of the hell of the Christians, there is an innumerable
+quantity of different degrees of tortures. The Pagans believed that, in
+their hell, the wicked condemned to endless misery, would, mingle with
+their yells of anguish, torment, and despair, vociferations,
+maledictions, and curses, against the gods, and against themselves; so
+the Church of Rome believed, and still believes, that, in the hell of
+the Christians, the wicked, condemned to endless misery, will mingle
+with their yells of anguish, torment, and despair, vociferations,
+maledictions, and curses against God, and against themselves; that they
+will exclaim, _Montes cadite super nos!_--Mountains fall upon us! The
+Pagans believed that, in their hell, the wicked condemned to endless
+misery will vainly endeavor to kill and annihilate themselves; so the
+Church of Rome believed, and still believes, that the wicked condemned
+to endless misery, will vainly attempt to put an end to their miserable
+existence.
+
+Therefore there is a most striking similarity, or rather identity,
+between the hell of the Pagans, and the hell of the Church of Rome.
+
+Therefore, since as proved above,
+
+1st, The Church of Rome was the first Church which introduced the dogma
+of endless hell in the body of Christians;
+
+2d, Since, as proved above, the Church of Rome did not originate the
+dogma of endless hell from the New Testament;
+
+3d, Since, as proved above, the Church of Rome did not borrow from the
+Jews, or from their Holy Writs, the dogma of endless hell;
+
+4th, Since, as proved above, the Church of Rome, at the imitation of the
+Pagans, established, towards the beginning of the third century,
+mysteries, many of the ceremonies, rites and doctrines thereof were
+alike to those ceremonies, rites and doctrines, of the mysteries of the
+Pagans;
+
+5th, Since, as proved above, there is a most striking similarity, or
+rather identity, between the hell of the Pagans, and the hell of the
+Church of Rome,
+
+We legitimately draw this important conclusion:
+
+Therefore the Church of Rome borrowed from the Pagans the dogma of
+endless hell.
+
+When the Protestants, now self-called Orthodox Churches, left the Church
+of Rome, in the sixteenth century, they cut off many of the appendices
+and concomitant particularities of the dogma of endless hell; but they
+preserved, and even in our days profess to believe, the main features of
+this dogma, namely, that in hell there is sulphur, brimstone, and fire;
+that in hell there are devils; that in hell there are many degrees of
+torments; that in hell the wicked are constantly burning in fire without
+consuming, and are constantly tortured by the devils without any relief;
+that hell shall exist forever and evermore, as long as endless eternity
+shall endure; and that the torments of the wicked in hell shall no more
+end than hell itself.
+
+That the Protestants, now self-called Orthodox Christian Churches,
+borrowed from the Church of Rome, in the sixteenth century, the dogma of
+endless hell; and that they preserved the above belief in regard to
+endless hell, is proved by the unanimous testimony of modern historians
+and of chroniclers. That they, now-a-days, profess the above belief in
+regard to endless hell, is a fact which we can daily, and particularly
+every Sunday, in all cities, towns, and villages of this country, and of
+all Protestant countries, verify with our own eyes in their writings,
+and with our own ears in their temples.
+
+Now we draw our general conclusions:
+
+1st, Therefore the Church of Rome borrowed from the Pagans the dogma of
+endless hell.
+
+2d, Therefore the now self-called Orthodox Protestant, or Christian
+Churches, borrowed from the Church of Rome the dogma of endless hell.
+
+Conclusion of the chapter:
+
+_Therefore the Partialist doctrine of endless hell is of Pagan origin._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+PAGAN ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF A FIRST JUDGMENT, BY JESUS CHRIST,
+IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE SEPARATION OF THE SOUL FROM THE BODY.
+
+
+IT will be evident that the origin of the doctrine of a first judgment,
+by Jesus Christ, immediately after the separation of the soul from the
+body, is Pagan, if it can be proved, 1st, That the Pagans believed in a
+first judgment, by a god, immediately after the separation of the soul
+from the body; 2d, That the particulars of this first judgment, believed
+in by the Partialist Christian Churches, present a striking similarity
+with the particulars of the first judgment, believed in by the Pagans;
+and 3d, That the Church of Rome, which, in the sixteenth century,
+transmitted to the now self-called Orthodox Christian Churches this
+doctrine of a first judgment, which they accepted full and entire, did
+not hold it from the apostles of Jesus Christ nor from the Jews.
+
+But it can be proved, 1st, That the Pagans believed in a first judgment,
+by a god, immediately after the separation of the soul from the body;
+2d, That the particulars of this first judgment, believed in by the
+Partialist Christian Churches, present a striking similarity with the
+particulars of the first judgment, believed in by the Pagans; and 3d,
+that the Church of Rome, which, in the sixteenth century transmitted to
+the now self-called Orthodox Christian Churches this doctrine of a first
+judgment, which they accepted full and entire, did not hold it from the
+Apostles of Jesus Christ nor from the Jews.
+
+1st, It can be proved that the Pagans believed in a first judgment, by a
+god, immediately after the separation of the soul from the body.
+
+We extract the following from the History of the Egyptians, by Rollin.
+Article--Funerals: "Before the dead were admitted in the sacred asylum
+of the tomb, they underwent a solemn judgment. And this circumstance of
+the funerals among the Egyptians, is one of the most remarkable things
+in the ancient history. It is a consolation to us to leave behind us,
+when we die, a name honored among men; and of all blessings it is the
+only one of which we cannot be deprived by death. But in Egypt, it was
+not permitted to indistinctly praise the dead; this honor was conferred
+only after a favorable public judgment. The assembly of the judges was
+held on the other side of a lake, which they crossed on a bark. He who
+conducted the bark was called, in the Egyptian tongue, _Charon_; and it
+is from this name that the Greeks, instructed by Orpheus, who had been
+in Egypt, had invented the fable of the bark of _Charon_.
+
+"When a man died he was brought to judgment. The public accuser was
+heard. If he proved that the conduct of the dead had been wicked, his
+memory was stigmatized, and he was deprived of the honor of funerals.
+The people admired the power of the laws, which extended even beyond
+death; and everybody, influenced by the example of others, was afraid to
+dishonor his family, and his own memory. If the dead was not convicted
+of any crime, he was honorably buried. What was the most astonishing in
+this judgment of the dead was that royalty itself was not spared. The
+kings were not judged during their life, the public good demanded it;
+but they were not exempted from the after death's judgment, and several
+of them were deprived of honorable funerals. This custom passed among
+the Israelites. We read in the Old Testament that wicked kings were not
+buried in the tombs of their fathers. Thus kings learned, that, if their
+majesty places them above the judgments of men, it is so no longer when
+death has placed them on the same level with their fellow-men.
+
+"When the judgment, which had been pronounced, was favorable to the
+dead, they proceeded to the ceremony of the burial. A panegyric was
+delivered in which nothing was said of his birth, because every Egyptian
+was considered to be a noble man. His personal virtues only were
+praised. Then the whole assembly supplicated the gods to welcome him in
+the assembly of the virtuous dead, and to associate him to their
+eternal bliss."
+
+This judgment gave birth to the fable of a judgment rendered by the
+gods, immediately after the separation of the soul from the body. Charon
+was represented carrying the souls of the dead on board his bark, across
+the Styx river, to be judged by the great judge, Minos. This became a
+general belief among the Pagans, not only in Egypt, but in Greece, in
+Italy, and in nearly all the Oriental countries; as proved by the
+unanimous consent of the mythological authors. This belief has been
+perpetuated among the Pagans of those countries. Even in our days, the
+Indians believe in this judgment, and call the great judge, Zomo, or
+according to others, Jamen. The Japanese, followers of Buda, also
+believe in this judgment; and they call the great judge, Zomo. Likewise
+the Lamas believe in this judgment, and call the great judge Erlik-kan.
+
+Therefore the Pagans believed in a first judgment, by a god, immediately
+after the separation of the soul from the body.
+
+2d. It can be proved that the particulars of this first judgment,
+believed in by the Partialist Christian Churches, present a striking
+similarity with the particulars of the first judgment, believed in by
+the Pagans:
+
+The Pagans believed that their great judge, Minos, sat on a throne, to
+judge the souls immediately after their separation from the bodies that
+they animated; so the Partialist Christian Churches believe that Jesus
+Christ sits on a throne, to judge the souls, immediately after their
+separation from the bodies that they animated. The Pagans believed that,
+near to Minos' throne, and at his right hand, good geniuses, or spirits,
+stood; so the Partialist Christian Churches believe that, near to Jesus
+Christ's throne, and at his right hand, good angels stand. The Pagans
+believed that, near to Minos' throne, and at his left hand, furies
+stood; so the Partialist Christian Churches believe that, near to Jesus
+Christ's throne, and at his left hand, devils stand.
+
+The Pagans believed that the souls were driven to the redoubtable
+tribunal of Minos by their respective guardian angel, who had
+accompanied them during their whole life on earth; had watched day and
+night over their conduct; and had kept a record of all they had done,
+right or wrong; so the Church of Rome, and some other Partialist
+Christian Churches, believe that the souls are driven to the redoubtable
+tribunal of Jesus Christ by their respective guardian angel, who has
+accompanied them during their whole life on earth; has watched day and
+night over their conduct, and has kept a record of all they have done,
+right or wrong. The Pagans believed that Minos based his judgments on
+the contents of two books, the one called book of life, and the other
+book of death; so the Partialist Christian Churches believe that Jesus
+Christ bases his judgments on the contents of two books; the one called
+book of life, and the other book of death. The Pagans believed that the
+souls who had obtained from Minos a favorable sentence, were led to the
+Elysium by their respective guardian angel; and that those who had been
+condemned to the Tartarus, were apprehended by the furies, and hurled
+into it; so the Partialist Christian Churches believe that the souls who
+obtain from Jesus Christ a favorable sentence, are led to Paradise by
+their respective guardian angel; or, [in the opinion of those of the
+Partialist Christian Churches, which do not believe in a guardian angel]
+by other angels.
+
+Consequently the particulars of the first judgment, believed in by the
+Partialist Christian Churches, present a striking similarity with the
+particulars of the first judgment, believed in by the Pagans.
+
+3d. It can be proved that the Church of Rome, which, in the sixteenth
+century, transmitted to the now self-called Orthodox Christian Churches
+the doctrine of a first judgment, which they accepted full and entire,
+did not hold it from the apostles of Jesus Christ, nor from the Jews:--
+
+The Church of Rome does not hold the doctrine of a first judgment from
+the apostles of Jesus Christ, for this doctrine implies a
+blasphemy--whether Jesus Christ be considered as being God himself--and
+all the Partialist Christian Churches hold that he is God himself--and
+whether Jesus Christ be considered as being only the Son of God. But
+the doctrine of a first judgment implies a blasphemy, whether Jesus
+Christ be considered as being God himself, and whether he be considered
+as being only the Son of God.
+
+First, it implies a blasphemy, if Jesus Christ is considered as being
+God himself. Jesus Christ, being God himself, would necessarily know all
+the good and bad actions done by the souls, while they animate their
+respective bodies on earth, in consequence it is an insult to his
+attribute of wisdom, and thereby a blasphemy, to say that the guardian
+angels of the souls, as they bring them to his tribunal, inform him of
+their good and bad actions, which they have recorded. Even in the case
+of those of the Partialist Christian Churches, which reject the
+circumstance of the guardian angels, the doctrine of a first judgment
+implies an insult to the wisdom of Jesus Christ, (in their opinion God
+himself), and thereby a blasphemy; for a judgment supposes a trial; a
+trial supposes an investigation; an investigation supposes the ignorance
+of the deeds to be pronounced upon, and the supposition that God has not
+a perfect knowledge of those deeds, is an insult to his wisdom, and
+thereby is a blasphemy.
+
+Second, The doctrine of a first judgment implies a blasphemy, if Jesus
+Christ is considered as being only the Son of God. If God had vested
+Jesus Christ with the power of discerning rewards and punishments to the
+souls after death, he would have given him a knowledge of the good and
+bad actions of the souls. But the doctrine of a first judgment supposes
+that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, would come to this knowledge only
+through the means of a trial, which supposition is an insult to the
+wisdom of God, and thereby a blasphemy.
+
+Then the doctrine of a first judgment implies a blasphemy, whether Jesus
+Christ be considered as being God himself, and whether Jesus Christ be
+considered as being only the Son of God.
+
+Therefore the Church of Rome does not hold the doctrine of a first
+judgment from the apostles of Jesus Christ.
+
+General conclusions:--
+
+It has been proved in this chapter, 1st, That the Pagans believed in a
+first judgment, by a god, immediately after the separation of the soul
+from the body; 2d, That the particulars of this first judgment, believed
+in by the Partialist Christian Churches, present a striking similarity
+with the particulars of the first judgment, believed in by the Pagans;
+and, 3d, That the Church of Rome, which, in the sixteenth century,
+transmitted to the now self-called Orthodox Christian Churches this
+doctrine of a first judgment, which they accepted full and entire, did
+not hold it from the apostles of Jesus Christ; neither did she hold it
+from the Jews; for not a single passage can be traced out in the Old
+Testament, or in Josephus, referring to a first judgment.
+
+_Therefore the origin of the doctrine of a first judgment, by Jesus
+Christ, immediately after the separation of the soul from the body, is
+Pagan._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+PAGAN ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY.
+
+
+IF it is proved, 1st, That in the first centuries of the Christian era,
+and before the coming of Jesus Christ, the doctrine of the resurrection
+of the body was held by a large number of Pagans; 2d, That the Church of
+Rome which, in the sixteenth century, transmitted it to the now
+self-called Orthodox Christian Churches, did not hold it either from the
+apostles of Jesus Christ, or from the Jews, it will remain evident that
+the Church of Rome borrowed it from the Pagans, and consequently that
+its origin is Pagan.
+
+But it can be proved, 1st, That in the first centuries of the Christian
+era, and before the coming of Jesus Christ, the doctrine of the
+resurrection of the body was held by a large number of Pagans; 2d, That
+the Church of Rome, which, in the sixteenth century, transmitted it to
+the now self-called Orthodox Christian Churches, did not hold it from
+the apostles of Jesus Christ; and, 3d, That she did not hold it from the
+Jews.
+
+1st. It can be proved that in the first centuries of the Christian era,
+and before the coming of Jesus Christ, the doctrine of the resurrection
+of the body was held by a large number of Pagans:
+
+The doctrine of the resurrection of the body had been taught by
+Zoroaster. All the Persians believed it; and even now the Parsis, or
+followers of the religion of Zoroaster, who live in Turkey and in
+Persia, hold it. It was also one of the dogmas of the Chaldeans, and of
+many other oriental countries. In India the Pagans, now-a-days, believe
+that their bodies will come again to life, and it is owing to this
+belief, the Roman Catholic priest Bergier says, that the wives throw
+themselves on the same wood piles on which lay the dead bodies of their
+husbands, to be burnt alive, and to come again to life with them. This
+belief and practice are immemorial in India. Interesting particulars in
+regard to the doctrine of the resurrection believed by ancient nations,
+can be read in the French work, Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions,
+tome 69, pages 270, and following; in the work of Hyde, on the Religion
+of the Persians; and also in the writings of Plutarch, article Isis and
+Osiris.
+
+According to the testimony of Diodore, and of Herodote, the Egyptians
+believed in Metempsychosis; and it was an immemorial doctrine among
+them. Also, many of them believed that their bodies would come again to
+life, after a sojourn of one thousand years in the grave. The Sybilline
+verses treat of the resurrection of the body. Much has been written
+about it by Bocchus, in Solin, chap. 8; and by Lactance, book 7, chap.
+29, book 4, chap. 15, 18, and 19. The Stoicians, who were the most
+learned philosophers of antiquity, and in the three centuries which
+preceded the coming of Jesus Christ, and also in the three that
+followed, believed in Metempsychosis; however, a portion of their school
+believed in the resurrection of the body. Of this we are informed by
+Seneca, Epist. 40; by Laerta, book 7; and by Plutarch, writing on the
+Resignation of the Stoicians.
+
+Pliny, deriding Democrite, informs us that this philosopher believed in
+the resurrection of the body; see book 7, chap. 45, where he says: "Vain
+is the promise made by Democrite that we will live again." The doctrine
+of the resurrection of the body is taught in these verses of Phocylides
+about the remains of the dead:
+
+  "[Greek: Ou kalon harmoniên analyemen anthrôpoio;
+           Kai tacha d' ek gaiês elpizomen es phaos elthein
+           Leipsan' apoichomenôn opiso te theoi telethontai.]"
+
+Translation:--"It is impious to disperse the remains of man; for the
+ashes and the bones of the dead will come again to light, and will
+become similar to the gods."
+
+Virgil speaks of the resurrection of the body, though in an obscure
+manner, in the sixth book of his poem Eneida.
+
+Therefore in the first centuries of the Christian era, and before the
+coming of Jesus Christ, the doctrine of the resurrection of the body was
+held by a large number of Pagans.
+
+2d. It can be proved that the Church of Rome, which, in the sixteenth
+century, transmitted the doctrine of the resurrection of the body to the
+now self-called Orthodox Christian Churches, did not hold it from the
+apostles of Jesus Christ:--
+
+It will be evident that the Church of Rome did not hold the doctrine of
+the resurrection of the body from the apostles of Jesus Christ, if it
+can be proved, 1st, That the Fathers of the first centuries did not
+agree on this doctrine; 2d, That nearly all the Christian denominations
+of the first two centuries, and the majority, to say the least, of those
+of the century following, disbelieved it; and, 3d, That this doctrine is
+irrational.
+
+But it can be proved, 1st, That the Fathers of the first centuries did
+not agree about the doctrine of the resurrection of the body; 2d, That
+nearly all the Christian denominations of the first two centuries, and
+the majority, to say the least, of the century following, disbelieved
+it; and, 3d, That this doctrine is irrational.
+
+1st. It can be proved that the Fathers of the first centuries did not
+agree about the doctrine of the resurrection of the body.
+
+Tatian believed in Metempsychosis, but not in the resurrection of the
+body. St. Gregory of Nysse denied that there was anything corporeal in
+the person of Jesus Christ, since the time he ascended to the heavens.
+Origen admitted the resurrection of the bodies, but not that of the
+flesh. Synesius, bishop of Ptolemaïda, in his Series of Epistles,
+declares that the doctrine of the resurrection of the body is a mystery,
+whose solution ought to be kept secret, and considered as sacred: that
+it is well to teach it to the people; and that he, the bishop, would
+publicly profess and preach this doctrine, though it is not his personal
+belief. If the reader desires to find lengthier particulars, about the
+divergency of the opinions of the Fathers concerning the doctrine of the
+resurrection of the body, we refer him to the work of Beausobre, headed,
+History of Manicheanism, tome 2, book 8, chap. 5, No. 3, and following.
+
+Therefore the Fathers of the first centuries did not agree about the
+doctrine of the resurrection of the body.
+
+2d. It can be proved that nearly all the Christian sects, or
+denominations, of the first two centuries, and the majority, to say the
+least, of those of the century following, disbelieved the doctrine of
+the resurrection of the body:----
+
+According to the unanimous testimony of the Roman Catholic authors
+themselves, Bergier, Feller, Fleury, etc., etc., the following Christian
+sects of the first three centuries held the dogma of Metempsychosis: The
+Basilidians, the Bardesanists, the Barules, the Barborians, the
+Valentinians, the Marcionites, the Marcosians, the Theodotians, the
+Artemonians, the Carpocratians, the Docetes, the Tatianists, the
+Apellites, the Montanists, the Artotyrites, the Severians, the Ascites,
+the Ascodrutes, the Ophites, the Cainites, the Sethians, the
+Hermogenians, the Hermians, the Valesians, the Hieracites, the
+Samosatians, and the Manicheans: this latter sect, Catholic authors say,
+were subdivided into more than sixty sects, which professed, each one of
+them, to believe in Metempsychosis. The same authors add, that many of
+the other sects named above denied the resurrection of the body. Though
+they do not say so of all, we may safely affirm that every one of the
+above named Christian sects disbelieved the doctrine of the resurrection
+of the body. This we demonstrate thus:--
+
+According to the doctrine of Metempsychosis, when, at death, a soul
+separates from the body, she passes into another body to animate it; and
+to thus expiate, by many and successive transmigrations, the faults she
+has committed in an anterior existence, and so continually. But the
+doctrine of the resurrection of the body teaches that the same soul
+which animated it in its prior existence, shall animate it anew when it
+will come again to life. How can then this same soul animate this same
+body, and at the same time the thousands of other human bodies, which
+she had also animated in her various transmigrations? Therefore the
+belief of the doctrine of Metempsychosis necessarily implies a disbelief
+of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. Consequently, although
+the Roman Catholic authors do not positively state that all the above
+named Christian sects disbelieved the doctrine of the resurrection of
+the body, we may safely affirm, from the fact that they held the
+doctrine of Metempsychosis, that they disbelieved the doctrine of the
+resurrection of the body.
+
+Therefore nearly all the Christian sects, or denominations, of the first
+two centuries, and the majority, to say the least, of those of the
+century following, disbelieved the doctrine of the resurrection of the
+body.
+
+3d. It can be proved that the doctrine of the resurrection of the body
+is irrational.
+
+All the reasons which have been brought forth by St. Cyrille, bishop of
+Jerusalem, in his Catechism, page 18; by St. Gregory of Nysse, in his
+oratio on the Resurrection of the Flesh; by St. Augustine, in his City
+of God, book 20; by St. Chrysostome, in his homily on the Resurrection
+of the Flesh; by Tertullian, in his treatise on the Resurrection of the
+Flesh; by St. Gregory, the Pope, in his Fourth Dialogue; by St.
+Ambrosius, in his sermon on the Faith of the Resurrection of the Flesh;
+and by St. Epiphane, Ancyrot, page 38, can be summed up as follows:--
+
+God himself has formed with his own hands man's body; he has animated it
+with the breath of his own mouth, and has placed within it a soul made
+to his likeness. The flesh of the Christian is, in some manner,
+associated to all the functions of its soul, and is the instrument of
+all the graces of God. It is the body that is washed by baptism to
+purify the soul, it is the body that in order to feed the soul receives
+the Eucharist; it is the body that is immolated to God by
+mortifications, by fasts, by vigils, by virginity, and by martyrdom.
+Thus St. Paul reminds that our bodies are the members of Jesus Christ,
+and the temples of the Holy Spirit. Would God leave in the grave forever
+the work of his own hands, the master-piece of his might, the depository
+of his breath, the king of the other bodies, the canal of his graces,
+and the victim of his worship?
+
+If God has condemned the body to death as a punishment for sin, Jesus
+Christ came to save all that was lost. Without this complete reparation,
+we would not know how far the goodness, the mercy, and the parental
+tenderness of our God, extend. The flesh of man, restored by incarnation
+to its former dignity, ought to come again to life, as well as that of
+Jesus Christ. Is not he who created the flesh mighty enough to bring it
+again to life? Nothing entirely perishes in nature: forms change, but
+all renews itself, and seems to grow young again; God has stamped
+immortality upon all his works. Night follows the day, eclipsed stars
+appear anew; the spring makes us forget the winter; plants grow again,
+and resume their hues and perfumes; and several animals which seem to
+die receive a new life. Thus, by the lessons of nature, God has prepared
+the lessons of the revelation; and he has shown us the image of the
+resurrection, before showing us its reality.
+
+God's justice demands the resurrection of our body. God ought to judge,
+to reward, or to punish the whole man. The body is the instrument of
+the soul for good or for evil; even the thoughts of the soul are
+reflected on man's face. The soul cannot experience pleasure or pain
+without the co-participation of the body, and the principal exercise of
+virtue consists in the repression of the desires of the flesh. Then it
+is just that the soul of the wicked be tormented, by being reunited to
+the same body which has been the instrument of her crimes; and that the
+soul of the saints be rewarded, by her eternal reunion to a body which
+has been the instrument of her merits.
+
+All these reasons can be generalized thus:
+
+Man's body has been the instrument of our soul to do good or evil. Then
+the justice of God requires that man's body come again to life, to
+share, with its soul, eternal reward, or eternal punishment.
+
+We answer: Since man's body is but the instrument of our soul to do good
+or evil, his body is capable neither of merit nor of demerit. But, since
+man's body is capable neither of merit nor of demerit, it is capable
+neither of reward nor of punishment. Therefore the justice of God does
+not require that man's body come again to life, to share, with its soul,
+eternal reward or eternal punishment.
+
+More, it is irrational that the same particles of matter be, at the same
+time, in many places. But the doctrine of the resurrection of the body
+supposes that the same particles of matter will be, at the same time,
+in many places. This we prove:
+
+The cannibals live upon man's flesh; and they assimilate to their own
+bodies the particles of flesh which compose the bodies of the men they
+devour. Consequently, at the resurrection of the bodies, these particles
+of flesh will compose the bodies of the cannibals, and, at the same
+time, the bodies of the men they have devoured. Therefore, the doctrine
+of the resurrection of the body supposes, that the same particles of
+matter will be, at the same time, in many places.
+
+Besides, when, after death, man's body putrefies, the particles of
+flesh, of which it is composed, dissolve into gases, which the plants
+convert to their own nature. Those vegetables and fruits, thousands of
+men eat; and thus they assimilate to themselves those same particles,
+which formerly composed the bodies of other men. Consequently, at the
+resurrection of the bodies, those particles will compose a multitude of
+bodies. Therefore, the doctrine of the resurrection of the body
+supposes, that the same particles of matter will be, at the same time,
+in many places.
+
+Then the doctrine of the resurrection of the body is irrational.
+
+_Objection._--Jesus Christ came again to life with a spiritual body.
+Then these proofs do not demonstrate that the doctrine of the
+resurrection of the body is irrational.
+
+_Answer._--Jesus Christ came again to life with a spiritual body; this
+we concede. Then these proofs do not demonstrate that the doctrine of
+the resurrection of the body is irrational. This we deny; for it is an
+article of faith in the Church of Rome; and it is nearly unanimously
+believed by all the other Partialist Churches, that the bodies of the
+righteous _alone_ will be spiritual bodies; and that the bodies of the
+wicked will be after the resurrection, as they were while on earth.
+Consequently, it does not follow, from the fact that Jesus Christ came
+again to life with a spiritual body, that the above proofs do not
+demonstrate that the doctrine of the resurrection of the body is
+irrational.
+
+_Remark._--The Partialists quote passages of the Scriptures to prove the
+doctrine of the resurrection of the body. We shall not discuss the true
+meaning of those passages; for such a discussion does not enter in the
+plan of this work, which is exclusively intended to prove historically
+the true origin of the Partialist doctrines. However, in regard to those
+texts we say:
+
+It would be a blasphemy against God to suppose that the Scriptures teach
+us an irrational doctrine. But, as demonstrated above, the doctrine of
+the resurrection of the body is irrational. Then the Scriptures do not
+teach it. Then those texts ought not to be understood of the
+resurrection of the body.
+
+3d. It can be proved that the Church of Rome did not hold the doctrine
+of the resurrection of the body from the Jews.
+
+The Church of Rome did not hold from the Jews the doctrine of the
+resurrection of the body, if, 1st, the Roman Catholic theologians do not
+hold that this doctrine is taught in the Old Testament; 2d, If this
+doctrine was traditional only among the illiterate portion of the Jewish
+nation; and, 3d, If this tradition was not of an ancient and national
+origin.
+
+But, 1st, The Roman Catholic theologians do not hold that the doctrine
+of the resurrection of the body is taught in the Old Testament; 2d, This
+doctrine was traditional only among the illiterate portion of the Jewish
+nation; and, 3d, This tradition was not of an ancient and national
+origin.
+
+1st, The Roman Catholic theologians do not hold that the doctrine of the
+resurrection of the body is taught in the Old Testament.
+
+The Roman Catholic theologians do not pretend that the doctrine of the
+resurrection of the body is taught in the Old Testament; they only
+assert that it may be that it is taught therein. Bergier, who is their
+organ, and whose works, written in the last century, were, and still now
+are, classical among the priests, writes--Article, Resurrection of the
+Body, page 159:--"We presume that Job, Daniel, and the seven Maccabean
+brothers, had some knowledge of this essential dogma." Consequently the
+Roman Catholic theologians do not hold that the doctrine of the
+resurrection of the body is taught in the Old Testament.
+
+2d, The doctrine of the resurrection of the body was traditional only
+among the illiterate portion of the Jewish nation.
+
+Josephus states, in his Antiq. Jud., book 18, ch. 2; and in his De Bello
+Judaico, book 2, ch. 7, al. ch. 12, that the Sadducees were the literate
+portion of the Jewish people; that they held nearly all the public
+offices; that they were well educated, courteous, and that they avoided
+public discussions and controversies on the subject of religion. He
+states also that they disbelieved the doctrine of the resurrection of
+the body. Therefore the doctrine of the resurrection of the body was
+traditional only among the illiterate portion of the Jewish nation.
+
+3d, The tradition of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body was
+not of an ancient and national origin.
+
+In the year 587 before the Christian era, in the second year of the
+reign of Sedecias, Jerusalem was besieged, taken, destroyed; Sedecias
+and the whole nation were led captives to Babylon. There they were
+detained seventy years, until Cyrus permitted them to return to their
+own country. During those seventy years of captivity, the Jewish people
+borrowed from the Pagans many religious practices, ceremonies, rites,
+and doctrines--this is the testimony of Josephus--and among them the
+doctrine of the resurrection of the body, which, as has been proved
+before, was believed by a large number of Pagans. When the people
+returned from Babylon to Jerusalem a portion of them preserved some of
+those religious practices, ceremonies, rites, and doctrines, and
+rejected the others. Those which they preserved they transmitted to
+their posterity, and among them was the doctrine of the resurrection of
+the body. Therefore the tradition of the doctrine of the resurrection of
+the body was not of an ancient and national origin.
+
+We have proved, 1st, That the Roman Catholic theologians do not hold
+that the doctrine of the resurrection of the body is taught in the Old
+Testament; 2d, That this doctrine was traditional only among the
+illiterate portion of the Jewish nation; and, 3d, That this tradition
+was not of an ancient and national origin.
+
+Therefore, 3d, The Church of Rome did not hold from the Jews the
+doctrine of the resurrection of the body.
+
+We come now to the general conclusions of this chapter.
+
+It has been proved, 1st, that in the first centuries of the Christian
+era, and before the coming of Jesus Christ, the doctrine of the
+resurrection of the body was held by a large number of Pagans; 2d, That
+the Church of Rome, which, in the sixteenth century, transmitted it to
+the now self-called Orthodox Christian Churches, did not hold it either
+from the Apostles of Jesus Christ or from the Jews.
+
+Therefore the Church of Rome borrowed from the Pagans the doctrine of
+the resurrection of the body.
+
+_Therefore the origin of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body is
+Pagan._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+PAGAN ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF A GENERAL JUDGMENT AT THE END OF THE
+WORLD.
+
+
+THE Church of Rome and the other Partialist Christian Churches profess
+to believe that, at the end of the world, a general judgment of all the
+then living, and of all the dead, shall take place. When, in the
+sixteenth century, the great Protestant scission took place, the new
+Churches formed preserved this doctrine of the Church of Rome, with only
+accessory modifications; and since that time they have professed it;
+even now-a-days they cling to it. We shall prove in this chapter that
+the origin of this doctrine is Pagan.
+
+The origin of the doctrine of a general judgment of all the then living
+and of all the dead, which shall take place at the end of the world, is
+Pagan, 1st, If the Pagans held the doctrine of a general judgment of all
+the then living and of all the dead, which shall take place at the end
+of the world; 2d, If there is a striking similarity between the
+particulars of the doctrine of a general judgment, as held by the
+Pagans, and the doctrine of a general judgment, as held by the Church
+of Rome, and by the other Partialist Christian Churches; 3d, If the
+Church of Rome did not hold the doctrine of a general judgment from the
+apostles of Jesus Christ; and, 4th, If the Church of Rome did not hold
+this doctrine from the Jews.
+
+But, 1st, The Pagans held the doctrine of a general judgment of all the
+then living and of all the dead, which shall take place at the end of
+the world; 2d, There is a striking similarity between the
+particularities of the doctrine of a general judgment, as held by the
+Pagans, and the doctrine of a general judgment, as held by the Church of
+Rome; 3d, The Church of Rome did not hold the doctrine of a general
+judgment from the apostles of Jesus Christ; and, 4th, The Church of Rome
+did not hold this doctrine from the Jews.
+
+These four heads of questions we are to successively prove.
+
+1st, We prove that the Pagans held the doctrine of a general judgment of
+all the then living and of all the dead, which shall take place at the
+end of the world.
+
+Plato, and other philosophers and writers of the Pagans, taught that a
+solemn general judgment of the dead was to decide their fate. Minos sat
+on a throne, and shook the fatal urn. By his side were the avenging
+furies, and a host of evil spirits, executioners of the sentences of
+Minos. Eacus, Rhadamante, and Triptolem, were his assistant judges.
+
+Even now the Indians believe that Zomo will judge the world; so the
+Japanese. The Lamas ascribe this power to Erlik-kan.
+
+At the sound of a trumpet the earth was to deliver up her dead to be
+judged. It was to be destroyed by fire after a great commotion of the
+celestial spheres, and fears of the then living mortals.
+
+The souls, at the sound of a trumpet, assembled in a vast meadow,
+adorned with asphodels, where Minos sat on his throne. The dead were led
+to his redoubtable tribunal by their respective guardian angels, who had
+accompanied them during their whole life; watched over their conduct;
+and had kept a record of all they had done, right or wrong. This meadow,
+where the dead were to be judged, was called the field of truth, because
+there the whole truth about the past doings of the dead was made known,
+and no crime could escape the knowledge and justice of the great judge.
+The dead, once assembled, were divided into three classes. The first
+class was composed of those who had been virtuous on earth: they were
+the smallest number. The second class was composed of those who were
+guilty of great crimes; and the third class, of those who had been
+neither virtuous nor great criminals.
+
+This triple division, which we naturally find in society, was taught by
+Plato in his Phædo, a work in which, writing about the judgment of the
+dead, he divides them as said before. This same division we also find
+in Plutarch, treating the same subject, and disserting, in his answer to
+the Epicureans, about the state of the dead to be judged. Minos used
+three books in judging the dead; the first was called book of life, it
+was used for the righteous: the second was called book of death; it was
+used for the great criminals: the third book was used for those who had
+been neither righteous nor great criminals. The judge pronounced the
+sentence only after the severest examination of the virtues and crimes
+of every one of the dead; and he affixed a seal on their forehead as he
+judged them.
+
+Social laws and duties were the particular subjects of his judgments. He
+amply rewarded social virtues, and severely punished social vices. Among
+the Greeks and the Romans, this great priestly fiction was intended for
+the maintenance of laws; for stimulating patriotism, national and social
+virtues by the hope of the rewards of the Elysium; and also to check
+crime and vice in society, by the fear of terrible sufferings in the
+Tartarus. Were sentenced to the Tartarus all those who had conspired
+against the State, or fostered a conspiration; those who had been
+bribed; those who had delivered up a city to the enemy; those who had
+provided the foes of the country with weapons, vessels, provisions,
+etc.; those who had contrived to enslave their fellow-citizens, or had
+tyrannized over them, etc. This last dogma had been added to the others
+by the free States.
+
+Afterwards, philosophy turned these fictions against despotism itself,
+which had invented them. Plato placed in the Tartarus ferocious tyrants,
+such as Ardiee of Pamphylia, who had murdered his brother, his father,
+and had committed many other crimes. The soul preserved after death all
+her stains, and was sentenced accordingly. Plato represented the souls
+of the kings, and of other rulers, as being the most stained. Tantalus,
+Tityus, and Sisiphus, who had been kings, were the greatest criminals,
+and endured in the Tartarus the most excruciating pains. However, kings
+did not believe those fictions, and were not restrained from oppressing
+the people.
+
+Virgil enumerates the principal crimes which divine justice punished in
+the Tartarus. He represents, here, a brother who from hatred has slain
+his brother; a son who has ill-treated his father; a man who has
+deceived his patrons; an avaricious man, an egotist, and a selfish man;
+there, are seen an adulterer, an unfaithful servant, and a citizen who
+either waged war against his fellow citizens, or sold his country for
+gold, or was bribed for the enactment of unjust laws. Farther are seen
+an incestuous father, and wives who have murdered their husbands.
+
+It is to be remarked that the authors, or originators of these fictions,
+pronounced pains only against crimes which might have injured society,
+whose progress and happiness was one of the great ends of the initiation
+to the mysteries of Eleusis and others.
+
+In the Tartarus Minos punished the same crimes which he would have
+punished on earth according to the wise laws of the Cretenses, supposing
+that he had in reality reigned over them. If crimes against religion
+were to be punished in the Tartarus, it was because religion, being
+considered as a duty, and as the principal bond of society, it
+necessarily followed that irreligion was to be one of the greatest
+crimes, which was to be avenged by the gods. Hence the people were
+taught that the great crime of many of the famous criminals, tortured in
+the Tartarus, was their disrespect for the mysteries of Eleusis; that
+the great crime of Salmone was to have tried to imitate Jove's thunder;
+and that the great crime of Ixion, of Orion, and of Tityus, was to have
+violated goddesses.
+
+The fiction of the Elysium was directed to the same moral and political
+aim. Virgil places in the Elysium the heroes who laid down their lives
+for the defense of their country; also the inventors of arts, and all
+those who have been useful to their fellow men, and have a title to
+their gratitude. It was to strengthen this idea that apotheosis was
+instituted; hence it was taught in the mysteries that Hercules, Bacchus,
+and the Dioscores were but men, who, by their virtues and their services
+had obtained immortality. Afterwards the Romans placed Scipio in the
+Elysium. Cicero ascribed a high station in the Elysium to the true
+patriots; to the friends of justice; to good sons; to good parents; and
+to good citizens.
+
+In the Elysium, as Plato described it, kindness and justice were
+rewarded: there the true patriot, the modest and just Aristides, had
+been admitted. To this divine recompense piety, eagerness in seeking for
+truth, and love to it, were the surest titles. When the dead had been
+judged those who had been pronounced worthy of the Elysium passed to the
+right hand side, and were led to the Elysium, every one by his guardian
+angel. Those who had been sentenced to the Tartarus passed to the left
+hand side, and were dragged thereto, each one by the evil genius that
+beguiled him while on earth. Onward they were driven, carrying on their
+back their sentence of condemnation, and the enumeration of all their
+crimes. Those whose vices were curable were to be released after due
+expiation and reform.
+
+According to Plato, the dead who have been guilty of murder, sacrilege,
+and other enormous crimes, shall be endlessly miserable in the Tartarus.
+Those whose crimes have not been so great shall be detained therein for
+a year; and, at the expiration of this time they will be brought out,
+near the marsh of Acheron, by the waters of the Cocyte, and of the
+Pyriphlegeton rivers. Then they shall humbly beg pardon from those they
+have wronged; and, if they obtain it, they shall be released; if not
+they shall be taken back to the Tartarus on the rivers. Virgil also
+speaks of that state of expiation and purification of the souls of the
+dead.
+
+Therefore the Pagans held the doctrine of a general judgment of all the
+then living, and of all the dead, which shall take place at the end of
+the world.
+
+2d. We prove that there is a striking similarity between the
+particularities of the doctrine of a general judgment, as held by the
+Pagans, and the doctrine of a general judgment, as held by the Church of
+Rome.
+
+The Pagans believed that, immediately before the end of the world, there
+would be mighty and frightful signs in the heavens; and that the then
+living mortals would be struck with terror: likewise the Church of Rome
+believes that, at the end of the world, the columns of the heavens will
+be shaken; that the signs on high will be so frightful that the then
+living men will be appalled: also there will be famine, pestilence, war
+and murders over the whole earth. The Pagans believed that, at the sound
+of a trumpet, the earth would deliver up her dead to be judged: likewise
+the Church of Rome believes that four angels will sound a trumpet; and
+that, when the four trumpets will resound over the earth, all the dead,
+who had been buried either in the sea or in the earth, will come again
+to life to be judged.
+
+The Pagans believed that geniuses would force men to the place of
+judgment: likewise the Church of Rome believes that angels will gather,
+from the four cardinal points of the earth, the multitude of men to the
+place of judgment. The Pagans believed that men would be judged in a
+meadow covered with astophels: likewise the Church of Rome believes that
+the general judgment will take place in the valley of Josaphat. The
+Pagans believed that, in the meadow, a throne would be erected, on which
+Minos, the great judge, would sit: likewise the Church of Rome believes
+that Jesus Christ, the great judge, will descend from heaven on clouds,
+and will sit on a throne erected in the valley of Josaphat. The Pagans
+believed that, near to the throne of Minos, Eacus, Rhadamante and
+Triptolem, his assistant judges, and good geniuses, or spirits, would
+stand: likewise the Church of Rome believes, that, near to the throne of
+Jesus Christ, good angels will stand.
+
+The Pagans believed that, near to the throne of Minos, would stand
+avenging furies, and a host of evil spirits, executioners of the
+sentences of Minos against the wicked: likewise the Church of Rome
+believes that there will be, at some distance from the throne of Jesus
+Christ, a host of devils, executioners of the sentences of Jesus Christ
+against the wicked. The Pagans believed that each man was led to the
+redoubtable tribunal of Minos by the guardian spirit, who had
+accompanied him during his whole life on earth: likewise the Church of
+Rome believes that each man will be led to the redoubtable tribunal of
+Jesus Christ by the guardian angel who has accompanied him during his
+whole life on earth.
+
+The Pagans believed that Minos used three books in his judgments: the
+first called book of life, for the righteous; the second called book of
+death, for the great criminals; and the third for those who had been
+neither righteous nor great criminals: likewise the Church of Rome
+believes that Jesus Christ will use two books: the one called book of
+life, for the righteous; and the other called book of death, for the
+wicked.
+
+_Remark._--The Church of Rome does not hold that, at the general
+judgment, Jesus Christ will use the third book; but holds that, in the
+first judgment, he uses it for those of the dead who have been neither
+righteous nor great criminals, and who thereby shall be sentenced to
+Purgatory, which shall finish at the end of the world. Apropos of this
+limitation of the duration of Purgatory, we might cursorily say that
+this restriction has been wisely made by the far-sighted ministers of
+the Church; for as, after the general judgment, they would be no longer
+on earth, they could not say masses and other prayers, for the
+deliverance of the souls detained in Purgatory; and thus it would be
+quite useless to make the torments of Purgatory last any longer.
+
+The Pagans believed that the guardian spirit of each man, who had
+accompanied him through life, and had kept a record of all his good and
+bad actions, would testify to Minos in his favor, or against him:
+likewise the Church of Rome believes that the guardian angel of each
+man, who has accompanied him through life, and has kept a record of all
+his good and bad actions, will testify to Jesus Christ in his favor, or
+against him. The Pagans called the meadow of the general judgment, the
+field of the truth: likewise the Church of Rome calls the valley of
+Josaphat, the valley of the truth. The Pagans believed that the crimes
+for which Minos was to inflict the severest punishment were those
+against religion, against its hierophants, and against other ministers:
+likewise the Church of Rome believes that the crimes for which Jesus
+Christ is to inflict the severest punishment, are those against the
+Church, against its Pope, against its bishops and its priests. The
+Pagans believed that the neglect or omission of lustrations, and other
+practices and teachings of the priests, would be severely punished by
+Minos: likewise the Church of Rome believes that the neglect or omission
+of the practices, ceremonies, and other prescriptions of the priests,
+will be severely punished by Jesus Christ.
+
+The Pagans believed that those found righteous would be placed at the
+right hand side of Minos, but the wicked at his left hand side: likewise
+the Church of Rome believes that the righteous will be placed at the
+right hand side of Jesus Christ, but the wicked at his left hand side.
+The Pagans believed that the righteous would be destined, by Minos, to
+eternal bliss in the Elysium; but that the wicked would be sentenced, by
+Minos, to endless misery in the Tartarus: likewise the Church of Rome
+believes that the righteous will be destined, by Jesus Christ, to
+eternal bliss in Paradise; but that the wicked will be sentenced, by
+Jesus Christ, to endless misery. The Pagans believed that the wicked
+would carry on their back their sentence of condemnation, and the
+enumeration of all their crimes: likewise the Church of Rome believes
+that the wicked will carry on their back their sentence of condemnation,
+and the enumeration of all their crimes.
+
+The Pagans believed that the guardian spirits of the righteous would
+lead them to the Elysium: likewise the Church of Rome believes that the
+angels of the Lord will lead them to heaven, in a procession preceded by
+Jesus Christ. The Pagans believed that Furies, and other evil spirits,
+would drag the wicked to the Tartarus: likewise the Church of Rome
+believes that the devils will drive, with whips, the wicked to hell. The
+Pagans believed that, after the general judgment, the earth would be
+destroyed by fire: likewise the Church of Rome believes that the earth
+will be destroyed by fire, and that then will the world end.
+
+Therefore there is a striking similarity between the particularities of
+the doctrine of a general judgment, as held by the Pagans, and the
+doctrine of a general judgment as held by the Church of Rome.
+
+3d. We prove that the Church of Rome did not hold the doctrine of a
+general judgment from the apostles of Jesus Christ.
+
+The Church of Rome did not hold the doctrine of a general judgment from
+the apostles of Jesus Christ, 1st, If the Roman Catholic theologians did
+not understand the 24th chapter of Matthew, and the last sixteen verses
+of the 25th; the 24th, 25th, 26th, and 27th verses of the 13th chapter
+in Mark, and also the 25th, 26th, 27th, and 28th verses of the 21st
+chapter in Luke, as meaning a general judgment; 2d, If nearly all the
+Christian sects, or denominations, of the first and of the second
+centuries, did not believe the doctrine of a general judgment; and, 3d,
+If the doctrine of a general judgment is irrational.
+
+But, 1st, The Roman Catholic theologians did not understand the 24th
+chapter of Matthew, and the last sixteen verses of the 25th; the 24th,
+25th, 26th, and 27th verses of the 13th chapter in Mark; and also the
+25th, 26th, 27th, and 28th verses of the 21st chapter in Luke, as
+meaning a general judgment; 2d, Nearly all the Christian sects, or
+denominations, of the first and of the second centuries, did not believe
+the doctrine of a general judgment; and, 3d, The doctrine of a general
+judgment is irrational.
+
+1st. We prove that the Roman Catholic theologians did not understand the
+24th chapter of Matthew, and the last sixteen verses of the 25th; the
+24th, 25th, 26th, and 27th verses of the 13th chapter in Mark; and also
+the 25th, 26th, 27th, and 28th verses of the 21st chapter in Luke, as
+meaning a general judgment.
+
+_Remark._--To save the reader the trouble of referring to his Bible, we
+insert here the above passages of the Gospel, which the Partialists
+suppose to teach the doctrine of a general judgment.
+
+Matthew, chap. 24.-1. "And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple:
+and his disciples came to _him_ for to show him the buildings of the
+temple. 2. And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily
+I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another,
+that shall not be thrown down.
+
+3. And as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him
+privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what _shall
+be_ the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? 4. And Jesus
+answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. 5. For
+many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.
+6. And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not
+troubled; for all _these things_ must come to pass, but the end is not
+yet. 7. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against
+kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes,
+in divers places. 8. All these _are_ the beginning of sorrows. 9. Then
+shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye
+shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. 10. And then shall
+many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one
+another. 11. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
+12. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.
+13. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. 14.
+And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a
+witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. 15. When ye,
+therefore, shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel
+the prophet, stand in the holy place; (whoso readeth, let him
+understand;) 16. Then let them which be in Judea flee into the
+mountains: 17. Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take
+any thing out of his house: 18. Neither let him which is in the field
+return back to take his clothes. 19. And wo unto them that are with
+child, and to them that give suck in those days! 20. But pray ye that
+your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day: 21. For
+then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of
+the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. 22. And except those days
+should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's
+sake those days shall be shortened. 23. Then if any man shall say unto
+you, Lo, here _is_ Christ, or there; believe _it_ not. 24. For there
+shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great
+signs and wonders; insomuch that, if _it were_ possible, they shall
+deceive the very elect. 25. Behold, I have told you before. 26.
+Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go
+not forth: behold, _he is_ in the secret chambers; believe _it_ not. 27.
+For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the
+west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. 28. For wheresoever
+the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together. 29.
+Immediately after the tribulation of those days, shall the sun be
+darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall
+fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: 80. And
+then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall
+all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man
+coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31. And he
+shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall
+gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to
+the other.
+
+32. Now learn a parable of the fig-tree; When his branch is yet tender,
+and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: 33. So likewise
+ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, _even_ at
+the doors. 34. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass,
+till all these things be fulfilled. 35. Heaven and earth shall pass
+away, but my words shall not pass away. 36. But of that day and hour
+knoweth no _man_, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. 37.
+But as the days of Noah _were_, so shall also the coming of the Son of
+man be. 38. For as in the days that were before the flood, they were
+eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that
+Noah entered into the ark, 39. And knew not until the flood came, and
+took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. 40.
+Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken and the other
+left. 41. Two _women shall be_ grinding at the mill; the one shall be
+taken, and the other left.
+
+42. Watch therefore; for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. 43.
+But know this, that if the good man of the house had known in what watch
+the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered
+his house to be broken up. 44. Therefore be ye also ready; for in such
+an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh. 45. Who then is a
+faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his
+household, to give them meat in due season? 46. Blessed _is_ that
+servant, whom his lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing. 47. Verily
+I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods. 48. But
+and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his
+coming; 49. And shall begin to smite _his_ fellow-servants, and to eat
+and drink with the drunken; 50. The lord of that servant shall come in a
+day when he looketh not for _him_, and in an hour that he is not aware
+of, 51. And shall cut him asunder, and appoint _him_ his portion with
+the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
+
+Matthew, chapter 25.-31. "When the Son of man shall come in his glory,
+and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of
+his glory: 32. And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he
+shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth _his_ sheep
+from the goats: 33. And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but
+the goats on the left. 34. Then shall the King say unto them on his
+right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared
+for you from the foundation of the world: 35. For I was a hungered, and
+ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger,
+and ye took me in: 36. Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye
+visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. 37. Then shall the
+righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee a hungered, and fed
+_thee_? or thirsty, and gave _thee_ drink? 38. When saw we thee a
+stranger, and took _thee_ in? or naked, and clothed _thee_? 39. Or when
+saw we thee sick, or in prison, and come unto thee? 40. And the King
+shall answer and say unto them. Verily I say unto you. Inasmuch as ye
+have done _it_ unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done
+_it_ unto me. 41. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand.
+Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil
+and his angels: 42. For I was a hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was
+thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: 43. I was a stranger, and ye took me
+not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye
+visited me not. 44. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when
+saw we thee a hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick,
+or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? 45. Then shall he answer
+them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did _it_ not to one
+of the least of these, ye did _it_ not to me. 46. And these shall go
+away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal."
+
+Luke, chapter 21.-25. "And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the
+moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with
+perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; 26. Men's hearts failing them
+for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the
+earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. 27. And then shall they
+see the Son of man coming in a cloud, with power and great glory. 28.
+And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up
+your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh."
+
+Mark, chapter 13.-24. "But in those days, after that tribulation, the
+sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light. 25. And
+the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall
+be shaken. 26. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the
+clouds with great power and glory. 27. And then shall he send his
+angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from
+the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost parts of heaven."
+
+Bergier, one of the most classical of the Roman Catholic theologians,
+says, in the first volume of his works, article Agnoetes, that, in the
+sixth century, the theologians answered the Agnoetes as follows: "In
+these texts, it is not a question of the day of the general judgment,
+but of the day when Jesus Christ was to come to punish the Jewish nation
+by the sword of the Romans." Then the Roman Catholic theologians did not
+understand these texts as meaning a general judgment.
+
+Moreover, Bergier, writing against the Millenaries, says, article
+World:--"The disciples of Christ, sometime before his resurrection,
+spake to him of the structure of the temple of Jerusalem, Matthew, ch.
+24, Mark, ch. 13, Luke, ch. 21. Jesus Christ told them that it shall be
+destroyed; and that not one of the stones will be left upon the other.
+The disciples, surprised, asked him when this shall take place; what
+will be the signs of his coming, and of the end of the century. Then
+there will be, he said, wars and seditions, earthquakes, pests, and
+famines; ye yourselves will be persecuted and put to death; Jerusalem
+will be surrounded with an army; the temple will be polluted; false
+prophets will appear; there will be signs in the heaven; the sun and the
+moon will be darkened, and the stars will fall from the firmament. Then
+the Son of man will be seen coming in the clouds with great power and
+majesty; his angels will gather the elect from one end of the world to
+the other, etc. He announces all this as events to be witnessed by his
+apostles; and he adds: 'Verily I say unto you, this generation shall
+not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.'
+
+"Is it a question of the end of the world in all this? Opinions are
+divided on this point. Some commentators think that, in these texts,
+Jesus Christ simply prophesied the ruin of the religion, republic, and
+nation of the Jews; and that all the circumstances were verified when
+the Romans took and destroyed the nation; that, however, a few
+expressions ought not to be taken literally, such as the fall of the
+stars, etc.; that Jesus Christ has used the same style, and the same
+images used by prophets, when they prophesied other events. Consequently
+these commentators say that these words of Jesus Christ, 'This
+generation shall not pass,' etc., signify, the Jews who now live will
+not all be dead when these events will take place. In fact, Jerusalem
+was taken and ruined less than forty years after. In this opinion it is
+not a question in these texts of the end of the world.
+
+"Other commentators believe that Jesus Christ has joined the signs,
+which were to precede the devastation of Judea, to those which will
+appear at the end of the world, and before the general judgment; that
+when he says: 'This generation shall not pass,' etc., he means that the
+Jewish nation will not be entirely destroyed, but will subsist till the
+end of the world. It cannot be denied that the word generation is used
+several times in this sense in the Gospel."
+
+From this passage of Bergier we draw the following argument:
+
+Since the Roman Catholic theologians were, and are, divided in regard to
+the meaning of the above texts, it follows that the Church of Rome did
+not rest her doctrine of a general judgment on the above text. Therefore
+the Church of Rome did not understand the above texts, namely, the 24th
+chapter of Matthew, and the last sixteen verses of the 25th:--the 24th,
+25th, 26th, and 27th verses of the 13th chapter in Mark; and also the
+25th, 26th, 27th, and 28th verses of the 21st chapter in Luke, as
+meaning a general judgment.
+
+2d. We prove that nearly all the Christian sects, or denominations, of
+the first and of the second centuries, did not believe the doctrine of a
+general judgment.
+
+The Basilidians, the Valentinians, the Marcionites, the Marcosians, the
+Theodotians, the Carpocratians, the Docetes, the Tatianists, the
+Apellites, the Montanists, the Artotyrites, the Ascites, the Ascodrutes,
+the Ophites, the Cainites, and the Hermogenians believed in
+Metempsychosis, and denied the resurrection of the body. From the fact
+that these sects believed in Metempsychosis, and denied the resurrection
+of the body, we argue:
+
+The doctrine of a general judgment supposes the resurrection of all the
+dead; but the above sects denied the resurrection of the dead. Therefore
+they denied also the doctrine of a general judgment. Therefore nearly
+all the Christian sects, or denominations, of the first and of the
+second centuries, did not believe the doctrine of a general judgment.
+
+More, we might say all the Christian sects of the first two centuries;
+for, it was only at the end of the second century, that the sect of the
+Millenaries, who believed in a general judgment, sprung up; and,
+besides, history is silent about the belief of the Church of Rome (which
+then was confined within the boundaries of the Province of Rome,) in
+regard to the doctrine of a general judgment.
+
+3d. The doctrine of a general judgment is irrational, because a first
+judgment, by Jesus Christ, having taken place, a second one would be
+useless.
+
+4th. We prove that the Church of Rome did not hold the doctrine of a
+general judgment from the Jews.
+
+The Roman Catholic authors never pretended, and still now do not
+pretend, that the Jews believed the doctrine of a general judgment.
+
+Then the Church of Rome did not hold the doctrine of a general judgment
+from the Jews.
+
+We draw the general conclusions of this chapter:
+
+It has been proved, 1st, That the Pagans held the doctrine of a general
+judgment of all the then living, and of all the dead, which shall take
+place at the end of the world; 2d, That there is a striking similarity
+between the particularities of the doctrine of a general judgment, as
+held by the Pagans, and the doctrine of a general judgment, as held by
+the Church of Rome; 3d, That the Church of Rome did not hold the
+doctrine of a general judgment from the apostles of Jesus Christ; and,
+4th, That the Church of Rome did not hold this doctrine from the Jews.
+
+Therefore the Church of Rome borrowed the doctrine of a general judgment
+from the Pagans.
+
+_Therefore the doctrine of a general judgment of all the then living,
+and of all the dead, which shall take place at the end of the world, is
+of Pagan origin._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+PAGAN ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF VICARIOUS ATONEMENT.
+
+
+THE doctrine of Vicarious Atonement supposes the dogma of a Personal
+Devil, the dogma of Original Sin, the dogma of Trinity, and the dogma of
+the Supreme Divinity of Jesus Christ. As in four chapters of this work
+we have proved that these four dogmas are of Pagan origin, we shall
+examine, in this chapter, the true origin of the body itself of the
+doctrine of Vicarious Atonement, which consists in the belief that a
+small number of privileged Christians obtain the forgiveness of their
+sins, and are exempted from the punishment of those sins through the
+medium of a substitute. Our historical researches will also lead us to
+the conclusion that it is of Pagan origin.
+
+In the sixteenth century the Church of Rome held, and still now holds,
+the doctrine that Jesus Christ had washed away with his blood all the
+past, present and future sins of the men who would be within the pale of
+his only true Church, which was herself, and also that he had exempted
+them from the punishment of their sins. However, they were to enjoy
+these two privileges only on the condition that they would obey her
+prescriptions. The Partialist Protestant Churches rejected nearly all
+the prescriptions of the Church of Rome; rejected the doctrine that she
+was the only true Church of Jesus Christ; but they preserved the
+substance of the doctrine, namely, that Jesus Christ had washed away all
+the sins of those who would feel the descent of the Holy Spirit in their
+souls; who would experience a supernatural change of heart, or, as they
+commonly term it, would get religion; and also that through his
+atonement they are exempted from the punishment of their sins.
+
+Consequently, the Partialist Protestant Churches, as well as the Church
+of Rome, hold the doctrine that a small number of privileged Christians
+obtain the forgiveness of their sins, and are exempted from the
+punishment of those sins through the medium of a substitute. Then if it
+is proved that the origin of the doctrine that a small number of
+privileged Christians obtain the forgiveness of their sins, and are
+exempted from the punishment of those sins, through the medium of a
+substitute--as held by the Church of Rome--is Pagan, it will thereby be
+proved that the doctrine that a small number of privileged Christians
+obtain the forgiveness of their sins, and are exempted from the
+punishment of those sins, through the medium of a substitute--as held by
+the Partialist Protestant Churches--is also of Pagan origin.
+
+In this chapter we shall prove that the origin of the doctrine that a
+small number of privileged Christians obtain the forgiveness of their
+sins, and are exempted from the punishment of those sins through the
+medium of a substitute--as held by the Church of Rome--is Pagan.
+
+It will be evident that the origin of the doctrine that a small number
+of privileged Christians obtain the forgiveness of their sins, and are
+exempted from the punishment of their sins, through the medium of a
+substitute--as held by the Church of Rome--is Pagan, if it is proved,
+1st, That there is a striking similarity between the practices required
+by the Church of Rome to obtain the forgiveness of sins, and to be
+exempted from the punishment of those sins, and those which were, and
+still now are, required in the Pagan religion for the same purpose; and,
+2d, That those practices were not instituted among Christians in the
+first two centuries. But it can be proved, 1st, That there is a striking
+similarity between the practices required by the Church of Rome to
+obtain the forgiveness of sins, and to be exempted from the punishment
+of those sins, through the medium of a substitute, and those which were,
+and still now are, required in the Pagan religion for the same purpose;
+and, 2d, That those practices were not instituted among Christians in
+the first two centuries.
+
+1st. We prove that there is a striking similarity between the practices
+required by the Church of Rome to obtain the forgiveness of sins, and
+to be exempted from the punishment of those sins, through the medium of
+a substitute, and those which were, and still now are, required in the
+Pagan religion for the same purpose.
+
+The Pagans, publicly and privately, used lustral water, which, they
+thought, had the virtue of purifying the soul, and of remitting the
+punishment of certain impurities and sins. The Priests, in solemn
+religious ceremonies, aspersed the assistants with it; and the people
+kept and used it in their families. In the same manner, the Church of
+Rome believes that holy water has the virtue of purifying the soul, and
+of remitting the punishment of certain impurities and sins. The Roman
+Catholics use it publicly and privately. Every Sunday, before the
+celebration of the high mass, the priests asperse the people with holy
+water for the aforesaid end; and also pour it on the coffins of the dead
+at the funerals. The laymen keep and use it in their families for the
+same end.
+
+These lustrations are practiced, even in our days, by many of the
+Pagans. The Madegasses believe that they can obtain the forgiveness of
+the punishment of their sins in dipping a piece of gold in a vessel full
+of water, and in drinking that water. The Father Jesuit Bouchet, a
+missionary in India, writes: "The Indians say that in bathing in certain
+rivers sins are _entirely_ remitted; and that their mysterious waters
+wash not only the bodies, but also purify the souls in an admirable
+manner."
+
+This testimony, Chateaubriand adds, is confirmed by the Memoirs of the
+English Society of Calcutta. The waters of the Ganges are reputed as
+having the greatest expiatory virtue: so the Church of Rome holds that
+the baptismal waters remit the original and all other sins, and exempt
+those baptized from punishment.
+
+The Pagans believed that certain ceremonies, and their medals
+representing the gods, had an expiatory virtue: so the Church of Rome
+holds that genuflexions, the Agnus Dei, the beads, the medals of the
+saints, and of the virgin Mary, have an expiatory virtue. The Pagans
+believed that certain prayers remitted certain sins and their
+punishment; so the Church of Rome believes that Novenas, indulgences,
+the recitation of the first chapter of the Gospel of John, etc., remit
+venial sins, and their punishment. The Pagans went in pilgrimage to
+chapels, where the prayers of the priests, they thought, had an
+expiatory virtue greater than in other temples; this practice and this
+belief have been preserved even by the Mahomedans. Now there are at the
+door of the Mosque of Ali, at Mesched-Aly, dervishes, who, for money,
+expiate with their prayers the sins of the pilgrims: so the Church of
+Rome believes that the expiatory virtue of the prayers made by priests,
+in certain chapels of saints and of Mary, where multitudes of pilgrims
+resort, is greater than that of the prayers made in other temples.
+
+In China, the invocation of Omyto is sufficient to remit the punishment
+of the greatest crimes. It is on account of it that the followers of the
+sect of Fo repeat oftentimes, every day, the words, O-myto-Fo! The
+Indians believed, and still believe, that when a man expires in
+pronouncing the name of God, and in holding, at the same time, the tail
+of a cow, he immediately ascends to Paradise. The Bramas never failed,
+and even do not now, to read every morning the mysterious legend of
+Gosgendre-Mootsjam; because it is a dogma of the Indian religion that
+any one who reads this legend every morning, obtains the forgiveness of
+the punishment of all his sins; so the Church of Rome holds that any one
+who recites the Angelus when the bell rings, in the morning, at noon,
+and at sun down, or recites the acts of faith, of hope, and of charity,
+obtains the remittance of the punishment of several of his venial sins;
+and, also, that any one who regularly recites the prayers of Saint
+Brigitte, or who, when he dies, recites with great devotion the prayer
+Memorare o piissima, etc., will go to Paradise.
+
+Greece was flooded with rituals, ascribed to Orpheus and to Museus,
+prescribing ceremonies, rites, and practices, which had the virtue of
+purifying the soul, and of exempting the sinners from the punishment of
+their sins. The priests of the Pagans persuaded entire towns, cities,
+and nations, that they could be purified of their crimes, and be
+exempted from the punishment, which the Deity would inflict upon them,
+through the means of expiatory rites, of feasts, and of initiations.
+They made the people believe that this purification, and this exemption,
+could extend to the living and to the dead, in what they called Teletes,
+or mysteries; and it was as a consequence of this belief that the
+priests of Cybel, those of Isis, the Orpheotelestes and others, went
+among the people to initiate them; but on the condition that they would
+pay to them large sums of money. This traffic was practiced even by
+priestesses, and bad women. Demosthenes informs us that the mother of
+Eschine made a living by it, and also in prostituting her body.
+
+Likewise, the Church of Rome is flooded with rituals prescribing
+ceremonies, rites, and practices, which have the virtue of purifying the
+soul, and of exempting the sinners from the punishment of their sins.
+The priests make towns, cities, and nations believe that they can be
+purified of their crimes, and be exempted of the punishment they
+deserve, by fasting, by going processionally to churches, or to chapels
+of saints and of the virgin Mary. The priests, the monks, the
+begging-friars, and even the nuns, go among the people; they pledge
+themselves to obtain the forgiveness of their sins, and the exemption
+from divine punishment, if they give them sums of money.
+
+The priests of the Pagans offered expiatory sacrifices for the living
+and for the dead for money; so, in the Church of Rome, the priests offer
+the sacrifice of Mass for the expiation of the sins of the living and
+of the dead, if they are well paid. The Pagans believed that the
+foundation of temples, their endowment, and other gifts presented to the
+gods and to their priests, had an expiatory virtue. Socrates portrayed
+the unjust man in saying, that initiation to mysteries caused them to
+despise the Tartarus with all its torments. He made the following
+remark: "The apologist of injustice says, they frighten us with the
+threat of the pains of the Tartarus; but who ignores that we find in the
+initiations a remedy to that fear? They are a great resource to us; and
+they inform us that there are gods who exempt us from the punishment
+deserved by crime. True, we have committed injustice, but injustice has
+been pecuniarily profitable to us. We are told that the gods are
+appeased by prayers, sacrifices, and offerings." Biache, one of the
+interlocutors in the Ezourvedam, said, that there is in the country
+called Magouodechan, a sacred spot, where, through some offerings,
+ancestors can be freed from the tortures of hell.
+
+Likewise, the Church of Rome holds that the foundation of churches, of
+priest's houses, of monasteries, of convents, and of nunneries, and
+their endowment; or any other gift, presented to the saints, bishops,
+priests, monks, and nuns have a virtue so much the more expiatory for
+sins, as they are greater and more valuable. It is owing to this
+horrible doctrine, that the Church of Rome has acquired so much church
+property that its valuation is beyond any approximate calculation. The
+French poet, Boileau, spoke the truth when, in his ninth satire, he
+said:
+
+       "Si l'on vient à chercher pour quel secret mystère,
+       Alidor, à ses frais, bâtit un monastère....
+       C'est un homme d'honneur, de piété profonde,
+       Et qui veut rendre à Dieu ce qu'il a pris au monde."
+
+_Translation_: "If we wish to inquire for what secret mystery Alidor, at
+his own expense, built a monastery.... He is a man of honor, of profound
+piety, and who wishes to restore to God what he stole from the world."
+
+The Pagans believed that in piously gazing upon certain statues of the
+gods their souls were purified; and that the punishment of their sins
+was remitted; so, even now, the Indians believe that in simply gazing
+upon the shrub Toulouschi they obtain the forgiveness of their sins, and
+obtain the exemption from their punishment. Likewise the Church of Rome
+holds, that, in gazing piously upon the cross, the Catholics obtain the
+forgiveness of their venial sins, and the exemption from their
+punishment. The ancient initiations of the Pagans had tribunals of
+penance, where a priest, under the name of Koës, heard from the mouth of
+the sinners themselves the avowal of their sins, of which their souls
+were to be purified, and from the punishment of which they wished to be
+exempted. One day the famous Lysandre, confessing his sins to one of
+those Koës, was asked by him impudent questions. Lysandre answered him
+with this question, "Do you address me those questions in your own name,
+or in the name of the Deity?" The Koës answered: "In the name of the
+Deity." "Well," Lysandre rejoined, "let me be; if God questions me, I
+will answer him." Likewise the Church of Rome has tribunals of penance,
+where priests hear from the mouth of the sinners themselves the avowal
+of their sins, of which their souls are to be purified, and from the
+punishment of which they wish to be exempted. Through the absolution of
+the priests the greatest sins, without any exemption, are remitted
+entirely, so that they not only are forgiven, but even their punishment.
+
+Even the Church of Rome goes farther in regard to the pretended virtue
+of her expiatory practices, than the Pagans ever went. Indeed, it was a
+common thing among the Pagans to stigmatize certain crimes, and to call
+them irremissible--unexpiable. They excluded from the sanctuaries of
+Eleusis, the murderers, the traitors to their country, in a word, all
+those who were guilty of atrocious crimes; they were to be excluded from
+the Elysium forever, and to be endlessly tortured in the Tartarus. There
+were purifications for murder, it is true, but only for involuntary or
+necessary murder. When the ancient heroes had committed a murder, they
+resorted to expiation; after the sacrifices which were required,
+lustral water was poured on the murderous hand; from that moment they
+were readmitted in society; and they prepared themselves to new deeds of
+bravery. Hercules resorted to expiation when he had slain the Centaurs.
+But those sorts of expiations did not purify the soul from all
+impurities and crimes.
+
+The great criminals had to dread all their lifetime the horrors of the
+Tartarus, or could not expiate their crimes, except by constantly
+practicing virtue, and constantly doing good to their fellow men. The
+legal purifications were not considered as having the virtue of securing
+to all criminals the hope of bliss, to which the righteous were
+entitled. Nero did not dare present himself to the temple of Eleusis;
+because he was debarred from entering its sanctuary on account of his
+atrocious crimes.
+
+The famous Constantine I., to whom the Church of Rome is indebted for
+all her past and present aggrandizement, wealth, and power; and whose
+name has been, is, and shall always be, accursed by nations, because of
+the rivers of blood, of the deluge of ignorance, of superstition, in one
+word, of the ocean of crimes against God, against Christ, and against
+mankind, which the Church of Rome, enabled by his protection, poured
+over the world: Constantine, we say, guilty of all sorts of crimes; his
+hands reeking with the blood of his own mother, whom he had slain; and
+with the blood of the many, whom he had murdered; and guilty of many
+perjuries, presented himself to the Pagan priests to obtain the
+absolution of those atrocious crimes, and the exemption from their
+punishment.
+
+Constantine was answered, that, among the various sorts of expiations,
+there was not one which had the virtue of purifying his soul from so
+many and so atrocious crimes, and of exempting him from the punishment
+they deserved; and that no religion had resources enough to appease the
+justice of the irritated gods; and, let us mark: Constantine was a
+mighty emperor. One of his courtiers, seeing the trouble and agitation
+of his soul, devoured by the restless and undying remorse, told him that
+his sufferings were not hopeless; that there were in the Church of Rome,
+purifications which had the virtue of expiating all crimes, without any
+exception, that this Church held, that whoever joined it, whatever may
+be his crimes, might hope that all his crimes will be forgiven by the
+Deity, and that the exemption from their punishment will be obtained.
+
+From that time Constantine took the Church of Rome under his protection.
+He was a wicked man who tried to deceive himself, and to appease the
+remorse of his conscience. He gave then full scope to his
+flagitiousness; and he postponed being baptized until the hour of his
+death, because it was, as it is now, a dogma of the Church of Rome, that
+baptism purifies the soul from the original and all other sins and
+crimes, and that it has also the virtue of exempting those baptized
+from the punishment of all their sins. Thus the entry of the temple of
+Eleusis was interdicted to Nero; and yet the Church of Rome would have
+admitted him within her pale; would have purified his soul; and would
+have exempted him from the punishment of all his monstrous crimes, if he
+had taken her under his protection. How abominable a Church must be,
+when she deals so with tyrants and monsters with a human face! What! if
+Nero had been a Roman Catholic and had protected the Church of Rome, she
+would have canonized him! Why not? Constantine, as great a criminal as
+he was, has been canonized. In the ninth century his name was invoked at
+Rome in the ceremonies of the Church, and even now he is considered as a
+saint.
+
+In England several churches have been built under the invocation of this
+pretended Saint Constantine, who founded at Constantinople a vast and
+costly establishment of ill fame. Such are the saints worshiped by the
+Church of Rome when she obtains their protection. Christ, reason, and
+nature, would never have absolved Nero from his crimes, and from the
+punishment they deserved; and yet the Church of Rome would have done it.
+Sophocles, in his Ædipe, says, that all the waters of the Danube, and of
+the Phase, would have been insufficient to purify, from their crimes,
+the souls of the family of Laïus; and yet the Church of Rome would have
+done it. How truly the Arab poet Abu-Naovas exclaimed: "Lord, we have
+indulged to sin and to crime, because we saw that forgiveness soon
+followed them."
+
+Therefore there is a striking similarity between the practices required
+by the Church of Rome, to obtain the forgiveness of sins, and to be
+exempted from the punishment of those sins, through the medium of a
+substitute, and those which were required in the Pagan religion for the
+same purpose.
+
+2. We prove that the practices required by the Church of Rome to obtain
+the forgiveness of sins, and to be exempted from the punishment of those
+sins, through the medium of a substitute, were not instituted among
+Christians in the first two centuries.
+
+The Roman Catholic theologians do not pretend that the Christians of the
+first two centuries held those practices, nor that the Church of Rome
+herself held them; but they say that the Church of Rome established them
+successively, as the good of Christians required it, according to the
+power of government and infallibility granted to her, and to her alone,
+by Jesus Christ.
+
+Consequently, the practices required by the Church of Rome, to obtain
+the forgiveness of sins, and to be exempted from the punishment of those
+sins, were not instituted among Christians in the first two centuries.
+
+We draw the general conclusions of this chapter:
+
+It has been proved that there is a striking similarity between the
+practices required by the Church of Rome to obtain the forgiveness of
+sins, and to be exempted from the punishment of those sins, and those
+which were, and still now are, required in the Pagan religion for the
+same purpose; and that those practices were not instituted among
+Christians in the first two centuries.
+
+Therefore the Church of Rome borrowed from the Pagans the doctrine of
+Vicarious Atonement, namely, that a small number of privileged
+Christians obtain the forgiveness of their sins, and are exempted from
+the punishment of their sins, through the medium of a substitute.
+
+Since, though the other Partialist Christian Churches rejected the most
+of the practices used by the Church of Rome to obtain the forgiveness of
+sins, and the exemption from the punishment of those sins, they
+preserved the substance of the doctrine, namely, that Jesus Christ had
+washed away, or, in other words, atoned for all the sins of those who
+would feel the descent of the Holy Spirit in their souls; who would
+experience a supernatural change of heart, or, as they commonly term it,
+would get religion; and also that through his atonement they were
+exempted from the punishment of their sins--the doctrine which they hold
+is nothing but the very doctrine, though modified in its circumstances,
+of the Church of Rome. Therefore its origin is the same. But it has been
+proved that the Church of Rome borrowed from the Pagans, the doctrine
+that a small number of privileged Christians obtain the forgiveness of
+their sins, and are exempted from the punishment of those sins, through
+the medium of a substitute--as she holds it. Therefore it is thereby
+proved, that the other Partialist Christian Churches truly borrowed,
+from the Pagans, though through the medium of the Church of Rome, the
+doctrine that a small number of privileged Christians obtain the
+forgiveness of their sins, and are exempted from the punishment of those
+sins, through the medium of a substitute--as she holds it.
+
+Therefore the doctrine that a small number of privileged Christians
+obtain the forgiveness of their sins, and are exempted from the
+punishment of those sins, through the medium of a substitute, is of
+Pagan origin. And as, on another hand, it has been proved, in four other
+chapters of this work, that the doctrine of a Personal Devil, the
+doctrine of Original Sin, the doctrine of Trinity, and the doctrine of
+the Supreme Divinity of Jesus Christ, are of Pagan origin--then we
+logically draw the conclusion that all the characteristics of the
+doctrine of Vicarious Atonement are of Pagan origin. Since all the
+characteristics of the doctrine of Vicarious Atonement are of Pagan
+origin, then the body itself of the doctrine of Vicarious Atonement is
+of Pagan origin.
+
+_Therefore the doctrine of Vicarious Atonement is of Pagan origin._
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION OF ALL THE CHAPTERS.
+
+THEREFORE PARTIALIST DOCTRINES ARE OF PAGAN ORIGIN.
+
+
+_Corollary._--Since the Partialist doctrines are of Pagan origin they
+are not taught in the Scriptures, for the Scriptures do not reveal
+Paganism. Consequently they ought to be rejected from Christian
+Churches, as being Heathen doctrines.
+
+
+
+
+VALEDICTORY.
+
+
+_Dear Reader_,--Before I drop the pen permit me to address to you a few
+valedictory words. If you believe the _Impartialist_, namely,
+Universalist doctrines, you are now in possession of an irrefutable
+historical proof corroborating your beloved faith, which is satisfactory
+to your mind, and sweet to your heart. If from your infancy up to this
+day you have been taught, and have believed, the Partialist doctrines,
+perhaps you say to yourself: My religious creed is now shaken to its
+very foundation; what then will my religious belief be, for the want of
+religious principles is the most earnest longing of my soul? Friend,
+study the _Impartialist_, namely, Universalist doctrines; compare them
+with the teaching of the Scriptures, and you will find them recorded
+therein. They truly are the embodiment of the teaching of the
+Scriptures, which are themselves embodied in these two vital maxims of
+Jesus Christ, written in golden letters on the Universalist banner:
+"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy
+soul, and with all thy mind.--This is the first and great commandment.
+And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
+thyself.--On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
+
+
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+  Blank pages have been eliminated.
+
+  Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the
+  original.
+
+  A few typographical errors have been corrected.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43630 ***