The Secret Vault presents: The Christian and Pagan Creeds Collated. Rev. Robert Taylor, A. B. & M. R. C. S.
By the Rev. Robert Taylor, A. B. & M. R. C. S.
Was the god of good-cheer, wine, and hilarity; and as such, the poets have been eloquent in his praises. On all occasions of mirth and jollity, they constantly invoked his presence [a] and as constantly thanked him for the blessings he bestowed. To him they ascribed the greatest happiness of which humanity is capable, - the forgetfulness of cares, and the delights of social intercourse. It has been usual for Christians invariably to represent this God as a sensual encourager of inebriation and excess; and reason enough it must be admitted that they have, for giving such a colouring to the matter; since, only by so doing, could they conceal the resemblance which an impartial observance would immediately discover between the Phoenician Yesus, [Volney has shown that Yes was one of the names of Bacchus which, with the Latin termination, is nothing else than Jesus, or Jesus] who taught mankind the culture of the vine, and so without a miracle changed their drink from mere water into wine, "which cheereth God and man," (Judges, 9-13), and the Egyptian Jesus, who, by a manoeuvre upon half a dozen water-pots, was believed to have persuaded a company of intoxicated guests, that he had turned water into wine; of which the narrator of the story, with a striking tone of sarcasm, remarks, "This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him," (John 2-11). As much as to say, that his disciples only would be the advocates of so egregious an imposture. "He manifested forth his glory;" that is, his peculiar mythological character, as the God of Wine, which was in like manner the peculiar characteristic of Bacchus. [LN., the turning of water into wine by Jesus is very interesting, firstly one would have thought supplying strong alcohol to already intoxicated people, was surely going against his moral teachings, secondly are the words he says to his mother Mary, questioning her why she asks such a thing when she knows it is not his time yet? In reality it is the Sun that produces grapes, but the grapes taken early, first vintage, are taken before the natural fermentation of the grapes begins, the grapes left on the vine begin to ferment naturally, these are the true vintage, but this does not occur until the Sun is passed its period of promoting growth, only in the dying stages of the year, when the Sun brings Autumn, in other words what Jesus says is, it is not yet time for me to die?] [LN., I have never been adverse, to a drink, and one night a publican who I knew well, set three drinks before me, bearing in mind I had already drunk well, one is lager, one is bitter, one is water, tell me which one is water, drink a sip of each in any order? But close your eyes, and drink, I did and lo and behold pure water tasted like alcohol, more than the others, such is the incredulous nature of an intoxicated man, whether by alcohol, superstition or religion, none can tell the difference between the truth and lies.]
[a] "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." - Matt, 18-20.]
The real origin of the mystical three letters I H S, surrounded with rays of glory, to this day retained even in our Protestant churches, and falsely supposed to stand for Jesus Hominum Salvator, is none other than the identical name of Bacchus - Yes, exhibited in Greek letters, YHZ. - See Hesychius on the word YHZ, i.e. Yes, Bacchus, Sol, the Sun.
The well-paid apologists of this and all other absurdities that have obtained their translation from Pagan into Christian legends, in vain endeavour to blink the obscenity betrayed in their Greek text. This miracle was not performed till all the witnesses of it were in the last stage of intoxication. "Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine, and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse; but thou hast kept the good wine until now," is the remark of the Architriclinus, or ruler of the feast, the only individual, perhaps, except those who contributed to the juggle, who could speak at all. "Hast kept the good wine until now;" that is to say, "Till now, that it is all over with them, and you see them sprawling under the table, or scarce knowing whether their heads or heels are uppermost." The original text supports this sense, as the same will be found in the drunken odes of Anacreon: "To arms! But I shall drink. Boy, bring me the goblet! for I had rather lie dead drunk, than dead." [LN., Anacreon, around 582 to 485BC, he was a Greek Lyric poet.]
Nothing short of a debility of intellect produced by religious enthusiasm, similar to the sedative effects of frequently-repeated intoxication, could have hindered Christians from seeing the deep and pungent sarcasm on their religion involved in this drunken miracle, which a moment's rational reflection would expose. In any sense but that of an imposition practised upon men's senses, the miracle involves a physical impossibility, and a moral contradiction. In no idea that a rational mind can form of the power of God himself, can we conceive that he could make a thing to be and not to be, and at the same time; or so operate on the past, as to cause that to have been, which really had not been. That fluid, therefore, whatever it was, which had not been pressed out of the grape, - which had not been generated, concocted, matured and exuded through the secretory ducts of the vine, drawn up by its roots out of the earth, circulated through its capillary tubes, and effunded into its fruit, could not be wine, nor could God himself make it to be so.
"That were to make Strange contradiction, which to God himself impossible is held." Milton. [LN., This is only true if you believe the sun is part of the Words creation, but if you believe as they did that the Sun was god, then it is true.]
The more shrewd and political among those who profess and call themselves Christians, have avowed themselves not a little ashamed of this miracle, have seen and recognized its palpably Pagan character, and sighed, and wished that it were peacefully apocryphized out of its place in the sacred volume.
Our only moral use of these Christian admissions shall be to remind our readers, for the advantage of some further stage of our argument, that we have here, in the very volume which has so long been pretended to contain "truth without any mixture of error," an affair not only decidedly and unequivocally fabulous, but physically impossible; and this re-edited under an apparatus of Christian names, and told with circumstances of time, place and character - stet exempli gratia!
The Egyptian Bacchus was brought up at Nysa and is famous as having been the conqueror of India. In Egypt he was called Osiris, in India Dionysius, and not improbably Chrishna, as he was called Adoneus, which signifies the Lord of Heaven, or the Lord and Giver of light, in Arabia; and Liber, throughout the Roman dominions, from whence is derived our term liberal, for everything that is generous, frank, and amiable.
Though egregiously scandalized by the moderns, as all the Pagan divinities are, where Christians are the carvers, he was far otherwise understood by the ancients. The intention of his imagined presence at the festive board was to restrain and prevent, and not to authorize excess. His discipline prescribed the most-strict sobriety, and the most rational and guarded temperance in the use of his best gift to man, which wisely used, exalts as much our moral as it does our physical energies, endears man to man, gives vigour to his understanding, life to his wit, and inspiration to his discourse. Bacchus was, in the strictest and fairest sense of the word, a pure and holy god; he was deity rendered amiable. He is called by Horace in general the modest God, the decent God. The finest moral of his allegorical existence is, that he was never to be seen in company with Mars; so that he, had justifiable claims than any other to be designated "the Prince of Peace." Orpheus, [a] however, directly states that Bacchus was a lawgiver, calls him Moses, and attributes to him the two tables of the law. [b] It is well known, however, that his characteristic attribute was immortal boyhood; and since it is admitted that no real Bacchus ever existed, but that he was only a mask or figure of some concealed truth, (see Horace's inimitable ode to this deity,) there can be no danger of our dropping the clue of his allegorical identification, in winding it through all the mazes of his vocabulary of names, and all the multifarious personifications of the same primordial idea.
[a] Orpheus, who for the most part is followed by Homer, was the great introducer of the rites of the heathen worship among the Greeks, being charged with having invented the very names of the gods. He wrote, that all things were made by One Godhead with three names, and that this God is all things. - Hebrew Lexicon, 347.]
[b] Bacchum, Orpheus vocat [GK] hoe est Moses et [GK] - Legislatorem, et eidem tribuit [GK] quasi duplicos legis tabulas. - Porney Panth. Mythicum, p. 57.]
But the most striking circumstance of this particular emblem of the Sun is, that in all the ancient forms of invocation to the Supreme Being, we find the very identical expressions appropriated to the worship of Bacchus; such as, Io Terombe! - Let us cry unto the Lord! Io! or Io Baccoth! - God, see our tears! Jehovah Evan! Hevoe! and Eloah! - The author of our existence, the mighty God! Hu Esh! - Thou art the fire! and Elta Esh! - Thou art the life! and Io Nissi! - Lord, direct us! which last is the literal English of the Latin motto in the arms of the City of London retained to this day, "Domine dirige nos." The Romans, out of all these terms, preferred the name of Baccoth, of which they composed Bacchus. The more delicate ear of the Greeks was better pleased with the words Io Nissi, out of which they formed Dionysius.
That it was none other than the Sun which the Jews themselves understood to be meant, and actually worshipped, under his characteristic epithet of The Lord, see "confirmation strong as proof of holy writ" in the Jewish general's address to the Sun: -
"Then spoke Joshua to the Lord, and said, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon! So, the Sun stood still in the midst of heaven. And there was no day like that, before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man." - Joshua x. 12, 13, 14. [LN. See SV books, Astronomy of the bible, by E. W. Maunders, book four, sections 1 to 5, Joshua's long day, (three astronomical marvels.]
The Bacchanalia, or religious feasts in honour of Bacchus, were celebrated with much solemnity, and with a fervent and impassioned piety, among the ancients, particularly the Athenians, who, till the commencement of the Olympiads, even computed their years from them, dating all transactions and events, as Christians have since done, with an Anno Domini, in the year of our Lord.
The Bacchanalia are sometimes called Orgies, from the transport and enthusiasm with which they were celebrated. The form and disposition of the solemnity depended at Athens on the appointment of the supreme magistrate, and was at first extremely simple; but by degrees, it became encumbered with abundance of ceremonies, and attended with a world of dissoluteness and excess, probably competing in enormity and indecency with a Christian carnival: so that the Pagan Romans, who had adopted the orgies, were afterwards ashamed of the exhibition, and suppressed them throughout Italy, by a decree of the Senate.
The orgies celebrated originally to the honour of Bacchus, are still continued in honour of the same deity, under another epithet; as may be observed by any person who should choose to waste an hour in attending the revival meetings of the wilder orders of Christian Methodists - the Dunkers, Jumpers, &c. and all who pretend to a more spiritual and primitive Christianity. The hysterical young women, sighing, moaning,
"Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possessed beyond the muse's painting,"
under the impressions which our evangelical fanatics endeavour to produce on their imaginations, are the very antitypes of the frantic priestesses of Bacchus. Nor can any man doubt, that if the advance of civilization, and the improved reason of mankind, did not stand in bar of such excesses, the state of mind called sanctification, which our clergy aim to render as general as they can, would continue as evangelized Bacchanalia to this day. [LN., see SV, Cotgrave book 10, Bacchus, and in Encyclopaedic Dictionary under Dionysus, for more insight]
In the ancient Orphic verses sung in the orgies of Bacchus, as celebrated throughout Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria, Arabia, Asia Minor, Greece, and ultimately in Italy, it was related how that God, who had been born in Arabia, was picked up in a box that floated on the water, and look his name Mises, in signification of his having been "saved from the waters," and Bimater, from his having had two mothers; [c] that is, one by nature, and another who had adopted him. He had a rod with which he performed miracles, and which he could change into a serpent at pleasure. He passed the Red Sea dry-shod, at the head of his army. He divided the waters of the rivers Orontes and Hydaspus, by the touch of his rod, and passed through them dry-shod. By the same mighty wand, he drew water from the rock; and wherever he marched, the land flowed with wine, milk, and honey."
[c] From [HB] to draw out or forth. - "Because she said," [HB] - I drew him out. -Exod. 2-10]
The Indian nations were believed to have been entirely involved in darkness till the light of Bacchus shone on them.
Homer relates, how in a wrestling match with Pallas, Bacchus yielded the victory [Iliad. 48.] and Pausanias, that when the Greeks had taken Troy, they found a box which contained an image of this god, which Eurypilus having presumptuously ventured to look into, was immediately smitten with madness. [In Achais.] Why should we further prosecute this laborious idleness? Demonstration can call for no more. Every part of the Old Testament, from first to last, is Pagan: not so much as one single line, containing or conveying the vestige of any idea or conceit whatever, find we in God's temple, but what will fit back again and dove-tail into its original niche in the walls of the Pantheon. - Compare the Chapter on the State of the Jews, in this Diegesis.
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Next Chapter 28. Prometheus Jesus Christ.