The Secret Vault presents: The Christian and Pagan Creeds Collated. Rev. Robert Taylor, A. B. & M. R. C. S.
[LN., It has seemed very odd to me, that considering all the dreadful acts religion has been responsible for throughout history, a great many people seem accept belief without carefully examining its credentials, many Christians are against Islam, but in essence, its precepts seem remarkably similar. Why are there so many different Christian sects? Surely if there are so many variations in understanding, it begs us to question why? And for us to consider and search out these things with greater care?]
[contents. - Definitions ...Time, Place, Circumstances, Identity of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, necessary to be established.... Geography of Palestine.]
By the Christian religion, is to be understood the whole system of theology found in the Bible, as consisting of the two volumes of the Old and New Testament; and as that system now is, and generally has been understood, by the many, or general body of that large community of persons professing and calling themselves Christians. That this system of theology might not be confounded with previously existing pretences to divine revelation or held to be a mere enthusiasm or conceit of imagination, its best and ablest advocates challenge for it, historical data, and affect to trace it up to its origination in time, place, and circumstance, as all other historical facts may be traced.
Upon this ground, the doctrines become facts, and we are no longer called on to believe, but to investigate and examine. We are permitted, fearlessly to apply the rules of criticism and evidence, by which we measure the credibility of all other facts.
The Time assigned as that of the historical origination of Christianity, is, the three or four first centuries of the prevalence and notoriety of a system of theology under that name; reckoning from the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus, to its ultimate and complete establishment under Constantine the Great.
Any continuance of its history after this time, is unnecessary to the purpose of an investigation of its evidences; as any proof of its existence before this time, would certainly be fatal to the origination challenged for it.
The place assigned as that of the historical origination of this religion, is, the obscure and remote province of Judea, which is about equal in extent of territory to the principality of Wales, being one hundred and sixty miles in length, from Dan to Beersheba., and forty-six miles in breadth, from Joppa to Bethlehem, between 35 and 36 degrees east longitude from Greenwich, and between 31 and 33 degrees north latitude, in nearest coasting upon the eastern extremity of the Mediterranean sea, and in the neighbourhood of Egypt, Arabia, Phoenicia, and Syria. [a]
[a] "The geography of Palestine lies in a narrow compass. It comprises? a tract of country of nearly 200 miles in length, in its full extent, from the river of Egypt south of Gaza to the furthest bounds towards Damascus, and perhaps of more than 100 in breadth, including Perea, from the Mediterranean eastward to the desert Arabia." - Elsley.]
The circumstances assigned as those of the historical basis of this religion, are, that in the reigns of the Roman Emperors Augustus and Tiberius, and in the province of Judea, a Jew, of the lower order of that lowest and most barbarous of all subjects of the Roman empire, arose into notoriety among his countrymen, from the circumstance of leaving his ordinary avocation as a labouring mechanic, and travelling on foot from village to village in that little province, affecting to cure diseases; that he preached the doctrines, or some such, as are ascribed to him in the New Testament ; and that he gave himself out to be some extraordinary personage: but failing in his attempt to gain popularity, he was convicted as a malefactor, and publicly executed, under the presidency and authority of the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate. This extraordinary person was called Jesus or Joshua, a name of ordinary occurrence among the Jewish clan; and from the place of his nativity, or of his more general residence, he is designated as Jesus of Nazareth: the obscurity of his parentage, or his equivocal legitimacy having left him without any name or designation of his family or descent. [b]
[b]Being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph, Luke iv. 23. It was no matter of supposition that his mother had yielded to the embraces of [HB] Arc Angel Gabriel; that is, literally, the man of God, Luke 1. 38.]
These are circumstances which fall entirely within the scale of rational probability and draw for no more than an ordinary and indifferent testimony of history, to command the mind's assent. The mere relation of any historian, living near enough to the time supposed, to guarantee the probability of his competent information on the subject, would have been entitled to our acquiescence. We could have had no reason to deny or to doubt, what such an historian could have had no motive to feign or to exaggerate. The proof oven to demonstration, of these circumstances, would constitute no step or advance towards the proof of the truth of the Christian religion; while the absence of a sufficient degree of evidence to render even these circumstances unquestionable, must, a fortiori, be fatal to the credibility of the still less credible circumstances founded upon them.
[LN. A fortiori. Definition. A Latin term meaning literally 'from stronger'. Translated into English and used in the particular context of legal writing, the term often means 'from stronger.' If a particular fact is true, then one can infer that a second fact is also true.]
If there be no absolute certainty that such a man existed, still less can there be any proof that such and such were his actions, as have been ascribed to him. Those who might have reasons or prejudices to induce them to deny that such and such were the actions ascribed to such a person, could have none to deny or to conceal the mere fact of his existence as a man. To this effect, the testimony of enemies is as good as that of friends. One competent historian, (if such can be adduced), speaking of Jesus of Nazareth as an impostor, would be as unexceptionable a witness to the fact of his existence, as one who should assert everything that hath ever been asserted of him.
The authentic and unsophisticated testimony of Celsus, [c] that Jesus of Nazareth wrought miracles by the power of magic, though there be no proof that Jesus of Nazareth wrought miracles by the power of magic, and no proof that Jesus of Nazareth wrought miracles, yet as far as it avails, it avails to the proof of the conviction of Celsus, that such a person as Jesus of Nazareth really existed. [d]
[c] Celsus was a 2nd century Greek philosopher, opposed to Christianity, and wrote 'on the true doctrine.' Which was banned in 448, by Valentinian the 3rd and Theodosius the 2nd.]
[d] It must never be forgotten, that we have no testimony of Celsus, but only the testimony which Origen has fathered on him: which is a very different thing. [LN., Origen Admantius, or 'of Alexandria, around 184-250AD. Hellenistic scholar and early Christian theologian.]
We emphatically say such a person as Jesus of Nazareth; because the name Jesus being as common among the Jews, as John or Thomas among Christians ; nothing hinders but there might have been some dozen, score, or hundred Jesus's of Nazareth; so that proof (if it could be adduced) of the existence of any one of these, unless coupled with an accompanying proof that that one was the Jesus of Nazareth distinguished from all others of that designation, by the circumstance of having been "crucified under Pontius Pilate," would be no proof of the existence of the Jesus of the Gospel, of whose identity the essential predicates are, not alone the name Jesus, and the place Nazareth, but the characteristic distinction of crucifixion.
A slight attention will satisfy any reader that Moses was then regulating an order brought from Egypt, not instituting a new one. They were called Nazarites. Jesus Christ was called a Nazante, not a Nazarene. It is odd enough that our learned Grecians should not see, that [ GK ] does not mean Nazarene but Nazarite: had it meant Nazarene it would have been [ GK ] He was a Nazarite of the city of Nazareth or of the city of the Nazarites. At that place was the monastery of Nazarites or Carmelites, where Pythagoras and Elias both dwelt, under Carmel the vineyard or Garden of God.
[LN. these Nazarites, Carmelites and Essene's were all of the same sect.]
Christs connection to Jesus, necessary to be established
Still less, and further off than ever from any absolute identification with the Jesus of the Gospel, is the regal title Christ, [d] or the Anointed, which was not only held by all the kings of Israel, but so commonly assumed by all sorts of impostors, conjurors, and pretenders to supernatural communications, that the very claim to it, is in the gospel itself, considered as an indication of imposture, and a reason and rule for withholding our credence there being no rule in that gospel more distinct, than, that
"if any man shall say to you, lo, here is Christ, or lo, he is there, believe him not," Mark 14. 21. "No reason more explicit, than, that many false Christs should arise," Matt., 24. 24, Luke 21. 8; and no statement more definitive., than that, when one of his immediate disciples applied that title to the Jesus of the gospel, he himself disclaimed it, and strictly charged and commanded them to tell no man that he was Christ-king, Luke 9. 21, [e] Matt. 16. 20.
[d] Even the heathen Prince Cyrus, is called, by Isaiah, the Christ of God. - Isaiah 45. 1.]
[e] This is not the usual sense given to these words, but it is borne out by his questions to the Pharisees, "What think ye of Christ? whose son is he?" Matt. 22. 42. A mode of speaking that no man could use with reference to himself.]
So that should authentic and probable history present us with a record of the existence of a Christ, pretending to a supernatural commission: we should have but that one chance for, against the many chances against the identity of such a Christ with the person of the Jesus of Nazareth.
Should authentic history present us even with a Christ who was crucified, though such a record would certainly come within the list of very striking coincidences, in relation to the evangelical story ; yet as we certainly know that Christ was one of the most ordinary titles that religious impostors were wont to assume, and Crucifixion, an ordinary punishment consequent on detected imposture, a Christ crucified, would by no means identify the "Jesus Christ, and Him crucified," of the New Testament.
The testimony of Tacitus [f] however, which we shall consider in its chronological order, purports to be more specific than this, and to come up nearly to the full amount of the predications necessary to establish the identification required "Christ, who was put to death under the Procurator Pontius Pilate. [g] This is either genuine, authentic, and valid evidence to the full extent to which it purports to extend; or it is the forgery of a wonderfully adroit and well-practised sophisticator.
[f] Tacitus, Publius/Gaius, Cornelius, circa 56 to 120AD, a Roman Senator and Historian,]
[g] It wants only the addition of the name, Jesus. It is however hardly likely that two claimants of the name Christ, should have been crucified under the same governor.]
The extent of its purport will be matter of subsequent investigation. Our respect for it, in the present stage of our process, stands in guarantee of our willingness and desire to receive and admit whatever bears the character of that sort of rational evidence, which is admitted on all other questions; while we lay to the line and the plummet, that irremeable and everlasting border of distinction that separates the bright focus of truth and certainty, from the misty indistinctness and confusion of fallacy and fable.
But further off, even to an infinite remoteness from any designation or reference to the person of the crucified Jesus, are the complimentary and idolatrous epithets of honour or of worship, which the heathen nations, from the remotest antiquity, were in the habit of applying to their gods, demigods, and heroes, who from the various services which they were believed to have rendered to mankind, were called saviours of the world, redeemers of mankind, physicians of souls, &c, and addressed by every one of the doxologies, even, not excepting one of those which Christian piety has since confined and appropriated to the Jewish Jesus.
Nor are any of the supernatural, or extraordinary circumstances, which either with truth or without it, are asserted or believed of the man of Nazareth, at all characteristic or distinctive of that person, from any of the innumerable host of heaven-descended, virgin-born, wonder-working sons of God, of whom the like supernatural and extraordinary circumstances were asserted and believed, with as great faith, and with as little reason.
To have been the whole world's desideratum, to have been foretold by a long series of undoubted prophecies, to have been attested by a glorious display of indisputable miracles, to have revealed the most mystical doctrines, to have acted as never man acted, and to have suffered as never man suffered, were among the most ordinary credentials of the gods and goddesses with which Olympus groaned.
As our business in this treatise is, with stubborn fact and absolute evidence, I shall subjoin so much of the Christian creed as is absolutely and unquestionably of Pagan origin, and which, though not found as put together in this precise formulary, is certainly to be deduced from previously existing Pagan writings. That only, which could not, or would not, have expressed the fair sense of any form of Pagan faith, can be peculiarly Christian. That only which the Christian finds that he has to say, of which a worshipper of the gods could not have said the same or the like before him, is Christianity.
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Next; CHAP. 2. - The Christian and Pagan Creeds collated ...The Apostle's Creed, a Forgery ...Inference that it is a Pagan document applied to Christian purposes ...Necessity of examining the pretences of all writings that lay claim to Canonical authority.