Chapter xiii. begins with the narrative given by the two resuscitated

ghosts of Charinus and Lenthius, the sons of that Simeon who, in the Gospel according to Luke {}\, 25-32), takes the infant Jesus in his arras and blesses God, saying : " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace ... for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." ^f These two ghosts
♦ "iEneid,"viii., 274, ff.
f •* Frogs ; *' see fragments given in " Sod, the Mystery of Adonis."
X See pages 180-187, 327.
g Aristophanes : "Frogs."
I See Preface to " Hermas" in the Apocryphal New Testament.
\ In the ' the episode given in the Gospel according to Luke. An old and holy ascetic, Rishi Asita, comes from afar to see the infant Buddlia, instructed as he is of his birth and mission by supernatural visions. Having worshipped the liiile Gautama, the old saini bursi» into
WHAT TWO GHOSTS WITNESSED IN HELL. 519
have arisen from their cold tombs on purpose to declare " the mysteries** which they saw after death in hell. They are enabled to do so only at the importunate prayer of Annas and Caiaphas, Nicodemus (the author), Joseph (of Arimathaea), and Gamaliel, who beseech them to reveal to them the great secrets. Annas and Caiaphas, however, who bring the ghosts to the synagogue at Jerusalem, take the precaution to make the two resus- citated men, who had been dead and buried for years, to swear on the Book of the Law "by God Adonai, and the God of Israel,*' to tell them only the truth. Therefore, after making tlie sign of the cross on their tongues,* they ask for some paper to write their confessions (xii. 21-25). They state how, when " in the de[)th of hell, in the blackness of darkness," they suddenly saw **a substantial, purple-colored light illuminating the place." Adam, with the patriarchs and prophets, began thereupon to re- joice, and Isaiah also immediately boasted that he had predicted all that. While this was going on, Simeon, their father, arrived, declaring that '* the infant he took in his arms in the temple was now coming to liberate them."
After Simeon had delivered his message to the distinguished company in hell, " there came forth one like a little hermit (?), who proved to be John the Baptist." The idea is suggestive and shows that even the ** Precursor '* and "the Prophet of the Most High," had not been ex- empted from drying up in hell to the most diminutive proportions, and that to the extent of affecting his brains and memory. Forgetting that {^Matthew xi.) he had manifested the most evident doubts as to tlie Mes- siahship of Jesus, the Baptist also claims his right to be recognized as a prophet. ** .And I, John," he says, " when I saw Jesus coming to me, being moved by the Holy Ghost, I said : * Behold the Lamb of God,
tears, and upon 1>cing questioned upon the cause of his grief, answers: * 'After becoming Buddha, he will help hundreds of thousands uf millions of creatures to pass to the other shore of the ocean of life, and will lead them on forever to immortality. And I — I shall not behold this pearl of Buddhas ! Cured of my illness, I shall not be freed by him from human passion ! Great King ! I am too old — that is why I weep, and why, in my sadness, I heave long sighs I "
It does not prevent the holy man, however, from delivering prophecies about the young Buddiia, which, with a very slight difference, are of the same substance as those of Simeon about Jesus. While the latter calls the young Jesus '*a light for the revelation of the Gentiles and the glory of the people of Israel," the BuddhUt prophet promises that the young prince will find himself clothed with the perfect and complete enlightenment or •* light " of Buddha, and will turn the wheel of law as no one ever did before htm, ** Kgysi Tcher Rol Pa;" translated from the Thil^etan text and revised on the origi- nal Sanscrit. Lalitavistara, by P. E. Foncaux. 1847. Vol. ii., pp. 106, 107.
* The sign of the cross — only a few days after the resurrection, and before the cross was ever thought of as a symbol !
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who takes away the sins of the world' . . . And I baptized him . . .and I saw the Holy Ghost descending upon him, and saying, * This is my Be- loved Son,' etc." And to think, that his descendants and followers, like the Mandeans of Basra, utterly reject these words !
Then Adam, who acts as though his own veracity might be questioned in this '* impious company,*' calls his son Seth, and desires him to de- clare to his sons, the patriarchs and prophets, what the Archangel Michael had told hiui at the gate of Paradise, when he, Adam, sent Seth " to entreat God that he would anoint '* his head when Adam was sick (xiv. 2). And Seth tells them that when he was praying at the gates of Paradise, Michael advised him not to entreat God for ** the oil of the tree of mercy wherewith to anoint father Adam for his kccuiache ; because thou canst not by any means obtain it till the last day and times, namely till 5,500 years be past.'*
This little bit of private gossip between Michael and Seth was evi- dently introduced in the interests of Patristic Chronology ; and for the purpose of connecting Messiahship still closer with Jesus, on the au- thority of a recognized and divinely-inspired Gospel. The Fathers of the early centuries committed an inextricable mistake in destroying fragile images and mortal Pagans, in preference to the monuments of Egyptian antiquity. These have become the more precious to archaeology and modem science since it is found they prove that King Menes and his architects flourished between four and five thousand years before " Father Adam " and the universe, according to the biblical chronology, were created •* out of nothing." *
" While all the saints were rejoicing, behold Satan, the prince and captain of death," says to the Prince of Hell : ** Prepare to receive Jesus of Nazareth himself, who boasted that he was the Son of God, and yet was a man afraid of death> and said : ' My soul is sorrowful even to death ' " (xv. 1,2).
There is a tradition among the Greek ecclesiastical writers that the " Hicretics " (perhaps Celsus) had sorely twitted the Christians on this delicate point. They held that if Jesus were not a simple mortal, who was often forsaken by the Spirit of Christos, he could not have complain- ed in such expressions as are attributed to him ; neither would he have cried out with a loud voice: *^ \ly god, My god / why hast thou for-
* Payne Knight sliows that *' from the time of the first King Menes, under whom all the country below Lake Moeris was a bog (Herod., ii., 4), to that of the Persian invasion, when it was the garden of the world'' — between 11,000 and 12,000 years must have elapsed. (See *' Ancient Art and Mytholc^ ;" clL, K. Payne Kni^rht, pi 108. Edit, by A. Wilder.)
DEBATE BETWEEN SATAN AND " THE PRINCE OF HELL." $21
saken nie ?'* This objection is very cleverly answered in the Gospel of AUcodemus^ and it is the *• Prince of Hell" who settles the difticulty.
He begins by arguing with Satan like a true metaphysician. " Who is that so powerful prince," he sneeringly inquires, " who is he so power- ful, and yet a man who is afraid of death ? . . . I affirm to thee that when, therefore, he said he was afraid of death, he designed to ensnare thee, and unhappy it will be to thee for everlasting ages ! "
It is quite refreshing to see how closely the author of this Gospel sticks to his Ntia Testament text, and especially to the fourth evangelist. How cleverly he prepares the way for seemingly " innocent " questions and answers, corroborating the most dubious passages of the four gospels, passages more questioned and cross-examined in those days of subtile sophistr}' of the learned Gnostics than they are now ; a weighty reason why the Fathers should have been even more anxious to burn the docu- ments of their antagonists than to destroy their heresy. The following is a good instance. The dialogue is still proceeding between Satan and the metaphysical half-converted Prince of the under world.
" Who, then, is that Jesus of Nazareth," naively inquires the prince, ** that by his word hath taken away the dead from me, without prayers to God?" (XV. i6).
" Perhaps," replies Satan, with the innocence of a Jesuit, " it is the same who took away from me I^azarus, after he had been four days dead, and did both stink and was rotten ? ... It is the very same person, Jesus of Nazareth. ... I adjure thee, by the powers which belong to thee and me, that thou bring him not to me ! " exclaims the prince. ** For when I heard of the power of his word, I trembled for fear, and all my impious company were disturbed. And we were not able to detain Lazarus, but he gave himself a shake^ and with all the signs of 9nalice, he immediately went away from us ; and the very earth, in which the dead body of Lazarus was lodged, presently turned him alive." " Yes," thought- fully adds the Prince of Hell, " I know now that he is Almighty God, who is mighty in his dominion, and mighty in his human nature^ who is the Saviour of mankind. .Bring not therefore this person hither, for he will set at liberty all those I held in prison under unbelief, and . . . will conduct them to everlasting life " (xv. 20).
Here ends the post-mortem evidence of the two ghosts. Charinus (ghost No. i) gives what he wrote to Annas, Caiaphas, and Gamaliel, and I^nthius (ghost No. 2) his to Joseph and Nicodemus, having done which, both change into " exceedingly white forms and were seen no more."
To show furthermore that the "ghosts" had been all the time under the strictest " test conditions," as the modern spiritualists would express it, the author of the Gospel adds : '* But what they had wrote was found
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perfectly to agree^ the one not containing one letter more or less than the other."
This news spread in all the synagogues, the Gospel goes on to state, that Pilate went to the temple as advised by Nicodemus, and assembled the Jews together. At this historical interview, Caiaphas and Annas are made to declare that their Scriptures testify '*///tf/ He (Jesus) is the Son of God and the Lord and King of Israel " ( ! ) and close the confession with the following memorable words :
"And so it appears that Jesus, wliom 7ve crucified, is Jesus Christ, thv Son of God, and true and Almighty God. Amen." ( ! )
Notwithstanding such a crushing confession for themselves, and the recognition of Jesus as the Almighty God himself, the " Lord God of Israel," neither the high priest, nor his father-in-law, nor any of the elders, nor Pilate, who wrote those accounts, nor any of the Jews of Jerusalem, who were at sill prominent, became Christians.
Comments are unnecessary. This Gospel closes with the words : ** In the name of the Holy Trinity [of which Nicodemus could know nothing yet] thus ends the Acts of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which the emperor Thco- dosius the Great found at Jerusalem, in the hall of Pontius Pilate among the public records ;^^ and which history purports to have been written in Hebrew by Nicodemus, " the things being acted in the nineteenth year of Tiberius Ccesar^ emperor of the Romans, and in the seventeenth year of the government of Herod, the son of Herod, king of Galilee, on the eighth before the calends of April, etc., etc." It is the most barefaced imposture that was perpetrated after the era of pious forgeries opened with the first bishop of Rome, whoever he may have been. The clumsy forger seems to have neither known nor heard that the dogma of the Trinity was not pro- pounded until 325 years later than this pretended date. Neither the Old nor the Ntiif Testament contains the word Trinity, nor anything that affords the slightest pretext for this doctrine (see page 177 of this volume, "Christ's descent into Hell"). No explanation can palliate the putting forth of this spurious gospel as a divine revelation, for it was known from the first as a premeditated imposture. If the gospel itself has been de- clared apocryphal, nevertheless every one of the dogmas contained in it was and is still enforced upon the Christian world. And even the fact that itself is now repudiated, is no merit, for the Church was shamed and forced into it.
And so we are perfectly warranted in repeating the amended Credo of Robert Taylor, which is substantially that 0/ the Christians.
I believe hi Zeus, the Father Almighty, And in his son, Insius Christ our Lord, Who was conceived of the Holy Ghost,
ROBERT TAYLOR'S CREDO. * S23
Bom of the Virgin Elektra,
Smitten with a thunderbolt,
Dead and buried,
He descended into Hell,
Rose again and ascende
And will retuni to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Nous,
In the Holy circle of Great Gods,
In the Community of Divinities,
In the expiation of sins.
The immortality of the Soul
And the Life Everlasting.
The Israelites have been proved to have worshipped Baal, the Syrian Bacchus, offered incense to the Sabazian or ^sculapian serpent, and per- foniied the Dionysian Mysteries. And how could it be otherwise if Typhon was called Typhon Set,* and Seth, the son of Adam, is identical with Satan or Sat-an ; and Seth was worshipped by the Hittites ? Less than two centuries B.C., we find the Jews either reverencing or simply worshipping the " golden head of an ass " in their temple ; according to Apion, Antiochus Epiphanes carried it off with him. And Zacharias is struck dumb by the apparition of the deity under the shape of an ass in the temple ! f
^ — — - ■ ■ _ - _,
* Seth or Sutech, " Kawlinson's History of Herodotus," book ii., appendix viii., 23.
f The fact is vouchsafed for by Epiphanius. See Hone : " Apocryphal New Tes- tament ; " '* The Gospel of the Birth of Mary."
In his able article ** Bacchus, the Prophet -God," Profe-wor A. Wilder remarks that *^ Tacitus was misled into thinking that the Jews worshipped an ass, the .symlx)l of Typhon or Seth, the liyk-sos God. The Egyptian name of the ass was fo, the phone- tic of lao ; " and heuce, probably, he adds, "a symbol from that mere circumstance." We can hardly agree with this learned archaeologist, for the idea that the Jews revcr- enced, for some mysterious reason, Ty])hon under his symbolical rei)re!>entation rests on more proof than one. And for one we find a passage in the " Gospel of Mary," is cited from Epiphanius, which corroborates the fact. It relates to the death of ** Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, murdered by Herod," says the Protevangelion. Epi- phanius writes that the cause of the death of Zacharias was that upon seeing a vision in the temple he, through surprisse, was willing to disclose it, but his mouth was stoppeil. That which he saw was at the time of his offering incense, and it was a man STANDING IN THE FORM OF AN ASS. When he was gone out, and had a mind to speak thus to the people, fVoe unto you^ whom do ye worship ? he who had appeared unto him in tlie temple took away the use of his speech. Afterward when he recoveretl it, and was able to speak, he declared this to the Jews, and they slew him. They (the Gnostics) add in this book, that on this very account the high priest was commanded by the law-giver (Moses) to carry little bells, that whensoever he went into the temple to sacrifice, he whom they worshipped^ hearing the noise of the bells, might have time enough to hide himself, and not be caught in that ugly shape and figure " (Epiph.).
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El, the Sun-God of the Syrians, the Egyptians, and the Semites, is de- clared by Pleyte to be no other than Set or Seth, and El is the primeval Saturn — Israel.* Siva is an Ethiopian God, the same as the Chaldean Baal — Bel; thus he is also Saturn. Saturn, El, Seth and Kiyun, or the biblical Chiun of Amos, are all one and the same deity, and may be all regarded in their worst aspect as Typhon the Destroyer. When the relig- ious Pantheon assumed a more definite expression, Typhon was separated from his androgyne — the good deity, and fell into degradation as a brutal uninidlectual power.
Such reactions in the religious feelings of a nation were not unfrequent The Jews had worshipped Baal or Moloch, the Sun-God Hercules,f in their early days — if they had any days at all earlier than the Persians or Maccabees — and then made their prophets denounce them. On the other hand, the characteristics of the Mosaic Jehovah exhibit more of the moral disposition of Siva than of a benevolent, '* long-suffering " God. Besides, to be identified with Siva is no small compliment, for the latter is God of wisdom. Wilkinson depicts him as the most intellectual of the Hindu gods. He is three-eyed^ and, like Jehovah, terrible in his resistless revenge and wrath. And, although the Destroyer, ** yet he is the re-creator of all things in perfect wisdom." J He is the type of St Augustine's God who '* prepares hell for pryers into his mysteries," and insists on trying human reason as well as common sense by forcing mankind to view with equal reverence his good and evil acts.
Notwithstanding the numerous proofs that the Israelites worshipi)ed a variety of gods, and even offered human sacrifices until a far later period than their Pagan neighbors, they have contrived to blind posterity in regard to truth. They sacrificed human life as late as 169 b.c.,§ and the Bible contains a number of such records. At a time when the Pagans had long abandoned the abominable practice, and had replaced the sacri- ficial man by the animal, U Jephthah is represented sacrificing his own daughter to the ** Lord " for a burnt-offering.
The denunciations of their own prophets are the best proofs against them. Their worship in high places is the same as that of the " idolaters." Their prophetesses are counterparts of the Pythiae and Bacchantes. Pausanias speaks of women-colleges which superintend the worship of
* '* PhalUsm in Ancient Religions," by Staniland Wake and Westropp, p. 74. f Hercules is also a god- fighter as well as Jacob-Israel } ** Phallism in Ancient Religions,'* p. 75.
g Antiochus Epiphaiiius found in 169 B.C. in the Jewish temple, a man kept there to be sacrificed. Apion : *^ Joseph, contra Apion/* ii., 8.
I The ox of Dionysus was sacrificed at the Bacchic Mysteries. See '^Aiithon,**p. 365.
HUMAN SACRIFICES AMONG THE JEWS. $25
Bacchus, and of the sixteen matrons of Elis. * The Bible says that ** Deborah, a prophetess . . . judged Israel at that time ; " f and speaks of Huldah, another prophetess, who "dwelt in Jerusalem, in the college /" J and 2 Samuel mentions "7^/V^ women" several times,§ notwithstanding the injunction of Moses not to use either divination or augury. As to the final and conclusive identification of the "Lord God" of Israel with Moloch, we find a very suspicious evidence of the case in the last chapter of Leviticus^ concerning things devoted not to he redeemed, ... A man shall devote unto the Lord of all that he hath, both of man and beast. . . . None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be redeemed, but shall surely be put to death ... for it is most holy unto the Lord.'' \
The duality, if not the plurality of the gods of Israel may be inferred from the very fact of such bitter denunciations. Their prophets never approved of sacrificial worship, Samuel denied that the Lord had any delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices (i Samuel, xv. 22). Jeremiah as- serted, unequivocally, that the Lord, Yava Sabaoth Elohe Israel, never commanded anything of the sort, but contrariwise (vii. 21-24).
But these prophets who opposed themselves to human sacrifices were all nazars and initiates. These prophets led a party in the nation against the priests, as later the Gnostics contended against the Christian Fathers. Hence, when the monarchy was divided, we find the priests at Jerusalem and the prophets in the country of Israel. Even Ahab and his sons, who introduced the Tyrian worship of Baal- Hercules and the Syrian goddess into Israel, were aided and encouraged by Elijah and Elisha. Few prophets api>eared in Judea till Isaiah, after the northern monarchy had been overthrown. Elisha anointed Jehu on purpose that he should de- stroy the royal families of both countries, and so unite the peoj)le into one civil polity. For the Temple of Solomon, desecrated by the priests, no Hebrew prophet or initiate cared a straw. Elijah never went to it, nor Elisha, Jonah, Nahum, Amos, or any other Israelite. While the initiates were holding to the " secret doctrine " of Moses, the people, led by their priests, were steeped in idolatry exactly the same as that of the Pagans, It is the popular views and interpretations of Jehovah that the Christians have adopted.
The question is likely to be asked : " In the view of so much evi- dence to show that Christian theology is only a potpourri of Pagan mythologies, how can it be connected with the religion of Moses?" The early Christians, Paul and his disciples, the Gnostics and their successors generally, regarded Christianity and Judaism as essentially distinct. The
♦ " Paus.," 5, 16. f Judges Iv. 4, { 2 Kings, xzili4.
^ xiv. 2 ; zx. 16, 17. I xxviL 28, 29.
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latter, in their view, was an antagonistic system, and from a lower origin. ** Ye received the law," said Stephen, " from the ministration of angels," or aeons, and not from the Most High Himself. The Gnostics, as we have seen, taught that Jehovah, the Deity of the Jews, was Ilda-Haoth, the son of the ancient Bohu^ or Chaos, the adversary of Divine Wisdom.
The question may be more than easily answered. The la^ of Moses y and the so-called monotheism of the Jeivs, can hardly be said to have been more than two or three centuries older than Christianity, The Pentateuch itself, we are able to show, was written and revised upon this "new departure," at a period subsequent to the colonization of Judea under the authority of the kings of Persia. The Christian Fathers, in their eagerness to make their new system dovetail with Judaism, and so avoid Paganism, unconsciously shunned Scylla only to be caught in the whirlpool of Charybdis. Under the monotheistic stucco of Judaism was unearthed the same familiar mythology of Paganism. But we should not regard the Israelites with less favor for having had a Moloch and being like the natives. Nor should we compel the Jews to do penance for their fathers. They had their prophets and their law, and were satisfied with them. How faithfully and nobly they have stood by their ancestral faith under the most diabolical persecutions, the present remains of a once-glorious people bear witness. The Christian world has been in a state of convulsion from the first to the present century ; it has been cleft into thousands of sects ; but the Jews remain substantially united. Even their differences of opinion do not destroy their unity.
The Christian virtues inculcated by Jesus in the sermon on the mount are nowhere exemplified in the Christian world. The Buddhist ascetics and Indian fakirs seem almost the only ones that inculcate and practice them. Meanwhile the vices which coarse-mouthed slanderers have attri- buted to Paganism, are current everywhere among Christian Fathers and Christian Churches.
The boasted wide gap between Christianity and Judaism, that is claimed on the authority of Paul, exists but in the imagination of the pious. We are nought but the inheritors of the intolerant Israelites of ancient days ; not the Hebrews of the time of Herod and the Roman dominion, who, with all their faults, kept strictly orthodox and monothe- istic, but the Jews who, under the name of Jehovah-Nissi, worshipped Bacchus-Osiris, Dio-Nysos, the multiform Jove of Nyssa, the Sinai of Moses. The kabalistic demons — allegories of the profoundest meaning — were adopted as objective entities, and a Satanic hierarchy carefully drawn by the orthodox demonologists.
Th( Rosicrucian motto, ^^ Igne natura renovatur integra^" which the alchemists interpret as nature renovated by fire, or matter by spirit, is
REAL MEANING OF THE LETTERS L H. S. $2/
made to be accepted to this day as lesus Nazarenus rex ludaorum. The mocking satire of Pilate is accepted literally, and the Jews made to unwittingly confess thereby the royalty of Christ ; whereas, if the inscrip- tion is not a forgery of the Constantinian period, it yet is the action of Pilate, against which the Jews were first to violently protest. L H. S. is interpreted lesus Hominum Salvator^ and /// hoc signo, whereas 1H2 is one of the most ancient names of Bacchus. And more than ever do we begin to find out, by the bright light of comparative theology, that the great object of Jesus, the initiate of the inner sanctuary, was to open the eyes of the fanatical multitude to the difference between the highest Divinity— the mysterious and never-mentioned lAO of the ancient Chaldean and later Neo-platonic initiates — and the Hebrew Yahuh, or Yaho (Jehovah). The modern Rosicrucians, so violently denounced by the Catholics, now find brought against then), as the most important charge, the fact that they accuse Christ of having destroyed the worship of Jehovah. Would to Heaven he could have been allowed the time to do so, for the world would not have found itself still bewildered, after nineteen centuries of mutual massacres, among 300 quarrelling sects, and with a personal Devil reigning over a terrorized Christendom !
True to the exclamation of David, paraphrased in King /am es^ Version as "all the gods of the nations are idols," i.e.j devils, Bacchus or the ** first-born" or the Orphic theogony, the Monogenes, or *' only begot- ten " of Father Zeus and Kor^, was transformed, with the rest of the ancient myths, into a devil. By such a degradation, the Fathers, whose pious zeal could only be surpassed by their ignorance, have unwittingly furnished evidence against themselves. They have, with their own hands, paved the way for many a future solution, and greatly helped modem students of the science of religions.
It was in the Bacchus-myth that lay concealed for long and dreary centuries both the future vindication of the reviled "gods of the nations," and the last clew to the enigma of Jehovah. The strange duality of Divine and mortal characteristics, so conspicuous in the Sinaitic Deity, begins to yield its mystery before the untiring inquiry of the age. One of the latest contributions we find in a short but highly-important paper ill the Evolution, a periodical of New York, the closing ])aragraph of which throws a flood of light on Bacchus, the Jove of Nysa, who was worshipped by the Israelites as Jehovah of Sinai.
" Such was the Jove of Nysa to his worshippers," concludes the author. ** He represented to them alike the world of nature and the world of thought. He was the * Sun of righteousness, with healing on his wings,* and he not only brought joy to mortals, but oi>ened to them hope l)eyond mortality of immortal life. Born of a human mother, he raised her from
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the world of death to the supernal air, to be revered and worshipped. At once lord of all worlds, he was in them all alike the Saviour.
" Such was Bacchus, the prophet-god. A change of cultus, decreed by the Murderer- Imperial, the Emperor Theodosius, at the instance of Ghostly- Father Ambrosius, of Milan, has changed his title to Father of Lies. His worship, before universal, was denominated Pagan or local^ and his rites stigmatized as witchcraft. His orgies received the name of Witches' Sabbath^ and his favorite symbolical form with the bovine foot became the modern representative of the Devil with the cloven hoof. The master of the house having been called Beelzebub, they of his house- hold were alike denounced as having commerce with the powers of dark- ness. Crusades were undertaken ; whole peoples massacred. Knowledge and the higher learning were denounced as magic and sorcery. Ignorance became the mother of devotion — such as was then cherished. Galileo languished long years in prison for teaching that the sun was in the centre of the solar universe. Bruno was burned alive at Rome in 1600 for reviving the ancient philosophy ; yet, queerly enough, the Liberalia have become a festival of the Church,* Bacchus is a saint in the calendar four times repeated, and at many a shrine he may be seen reposing in the arms of his deified mother. The names are changed ; the ideas remain as before." f
And now that we have shown that we must indeed '* bid an eternal farewell to all the rebellious angels," we naturally pass to an examination of the God Jesus, who was manufactured out of the man Jesus to redeem us from these very mythical devils, as Father Ventura shows us. This labor will of course necessitate once more a comparative inquiry into the history of Gautama-Buddha, his doctrines and his " miracles," and those of Jesus and the predecessor of both — Christna,
* The festival denominated Liberalia occurred on the seventeenth of March, now St. Patrick^s Day. Thus Bacchus was also the patron saint of the Irish.
f Prof. A. Wilder: "Bacchus, the Prophet-God,** in the June number (1877) of the ** Evolution, a Review of Polities, Religion, Science, Literature, and Art.**