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.
As all ideas of man are derived from his senses, and Consequently, may be traced to their origination from that their only source, the gods and goddesses, or any god that conceit could form to itself, would still admit of being referred to its primordial type in something the like of which experience had first been impressed on the senses. Having found innumerable pre-existent models of the imaginary supernatural character of Christ, we discover in the Samian sage everything that could have furnished forth the calmer and more philosophic personification of Unitarian Christianity, the mere man Jesus.
[LN., Pythagoras of Samos, around 570 to 495BC. Apparent founder of Pythagoreanism, although better remembered by most of us from our school days for the triangle formula used in maths and physics.]
Pythagoras, as his name signifies, had been born under precisely the circumstances ascribed to Jesus Christ; having been the object of a splendid dispensation of prophecy, and had his birth foretold by Apollo Pythus; his soul having descended from its primeval state of companionship with the divine Apollo, "the glory which he had with the father before the world was." - John 7-5.
Divesting his story, however, of the supernatural superstructure that could be as easily pretended for any one extraordinary character as for any other; it remains historically certain, that this first of philosophers, and most distinguished individual of the human race, was a real character, and was born at Samos, in Greece, (from whence his epithet, the Samian sage,) in the third year of the 48th Olympiad - that is, 586 years before the epoch of the pretended birth of his Galilean rival. He was educated under Pherecydes, of Syros, [LN., Pherecydes 6th century BC. He was a Greek thinker, philosopher who presented a cosmogony, derived from three entities, Zeus, the Sun, Cthonie, the earth and Chronos, time, a fairly simply formula, of pagan origin.] of whom Cicero speaks, as the first who inculcated the doctrine of the distinct existence and immortality of the soul; and afterwards became the distinguished pupil of the priests of Egypt. - The limits of this work admit not of our dwelling on any further particulars of his history, than those in which he presents the most clear and unquestionable type of the character afterwards set forth to the world under the prosopopeia generally designated as Jesus Christ. [LN., it would totally appropriate that would pretend the serpent-snake, Apollo Pythus, would seek to initiate a mathematical Pythagoras system, upon the world, as by that time he had given up on trying to explain to the Eves of this world, how they could deceive mankind by opening their minds to science; it would seem snakes were as gullible as Adam.]
Pythagoras is most characteristically associated with the doctrine which he taught, and which takes its name from him, - the Pythagorean Metempsychosis [A] After his master had broached the notion of the existence and immortality of souls, it was but a second and a necessary step, to find some employment for them; and that of their eternal migration from one body to another, after every effort that imagination can make, will be found at least as consistent with reason as that of their existence at all, and that in which the mind, after all its plunges into the vast unknown, must ultimately acquiesce. [b]
" Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought
Through what variety of untried being,
Through what new scenes and changes must we pass!
The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before us;
But shadows, clouds, and darkness, rest upon it!
Addison's Cato.
[a] [GK] the transmigration of the soul out of one body into another, from [GK] and [GK] the life, the breath, the wit, the soul, the je-ne-sais-quoi.]
[b] The Metempsychosis overthrows the doctrine of the everlasting torments of hell-fire; and, on that account, is less congenial to Christian dispositions. [LN., but we must remember the old saying, better a living dog than a dead lion.]
Pythagoras, however, left behind him more substantial evidence of real wisdom, and of actual benefits conferred upon mankind, than were ever challenged for the imaginary successor of his honours. He is generally and indisputably held to be the discoverer of the celebrated forty-ninth theorem of the first book of Euclid; which demonstrates that the square of the hypothenuse of the right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of its sides; and to have first laid down that theory of the planetary system which, after having been laid aside, or forgotten through all the intervening ages of Christian ignorance, has been revived, and shown to be the true and real system, by the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, and subsequent demonstrations of all succeeding astronomers. Had anything like evidence of this nature been adducible for the pretensions of Jesus of Nazareth, there would not have been an infidel in Christendom. [LN., but all such knowledge was perfectly known to those who built the Great Pyramid.]
Pythagoras was a teacher of the purest system of morals ever propounded to man. He has the merit (let grateful women apportion his praise) of having first claimed and achieved for the fair sex, their distinction of dress from that of men, and their title to that more tender respect and exalted courtesy which none worthy the name of men will ever withhold from them. [LN., I beg to differ the Sumerians, and those that came after and those prior too held women in high regard, there were Queens long before kings. See SV, in various Sumerian, Akkadian, Canaanite, Babylonian books and Encyclo' on this site, or consult the Bee, the Ant, or spider?] He abated the ferocity of war and taught and induced mankind to extend feelings of humanity and tenderness to the whole brute creation. His personal beauty surpassed whatever else had been seen in humanity; his voice was the richest music that ever sounded on the human ear, and his powers of suasion were absolutely irresistible. The Christian Fathers taunt his vanity and ridicule his claims to supernatural memory; but it is certain that Pythagoras has himself ascribed his memory to the especial favour of heaven, and held the happiest endowments ever possessed by man with the utmost meekness in himself, and to the greatest possible profit to mankind. His notions of the Deity will challenge comparison with any that enrich the pages of Christian Scripture. The principle of self-examination, which he inculcated on his disciples, as we see in the golden verses ascribed to him, is far from being compatible with so proud a spirit, as his mighty reason to be proud might tempt our envy to ascribe to him; or if the genuineness of those verses, which at any rate are from no Christian mint, be disputable, the short and pithy axiom which Clemens Alexandrinus acknowledges to have been characteristically his, must for ever number him among those who have thought of the Deity so as none of the human race, whether without the aid of revelation or with it, have ever thought more worthily - "None but God is wise," said Pythagoras. [LN., And Jesus said exactly the same, so why do we pay more attention to them than him?]
Pythagoras himself was certainly not the inventor of the doctrine of the Metempsychosis, but learned it of the Egyptian monks, in whose college he was long a resident, and of whose ecclesiastical fraternity he was unquestionably a member; he only inculcated this doctrine more earnestly, and endeavoured to weld it, as he did other superstitions which he found too deeply rooted to be eradicated, to useful, or at least innocent and inoffensive applications.
Words are but wind, as a puff of smoke is but a cloud
The Christian doctrines of original sin, and of the necessity of being born again, are evident misunderstandings of the doctrine of the Pythagorean Metempsychosis, which constituted the inward spiritual grace, or essential significance of the Eleusinian mysteries; as the classical reader will find those mysteries sublimely treated of in the 6th book of Virgil's Eneid. The term of migration during which the soul of man was believed to expiate in other forms the deeds done in its days of humanity, was exactly a thousand years; after which, drinking of the waters of Lethe, which caused a forgetfulness of all that had passed, it was ferried down the river, or sailed under the conduct of Mercury, the Logos, or Word of God, and "wind and tide serving," was so borne or carried, and born of water and wind, [a] and launched again into humanity, for a fresh experiment of moral probation. Hence souls that had acquitted themselves but ill in their previous existence, were believed to be born in sin, and to have brought with them the remains of a corrupt nature derived from their former state, for which they were still further punished by the calamitous circumstances in which they were born, or the difficulties with which they should still have to contend, till they should ultimately recover themselves to virtue and happiness. This was the doctrine, and nothing but this, which Christ is represented as endeavouring to inculcate upon Nicodemus the ruler of the Jews; and for his ignorance and gross apprehensions of which, he so tartly rallies that Jewish rabbi - "Art thou a master of Israel, and know not these things?" - John 3-10. It must be stupidity itself that could dream of any reason or propriety in rebuking "the Jewish ruler for not knowing" these things, if they were matters then first revealed, or not so common as that no well-educated person had any excuse for being ignorant of them.
[note. [a] Our English of the words [ GK ] - "Except a man be born of water and of the spirit," (John 3-5,) and of the words [ GK ] - "So is every one that is born of the spirit," (John 3-8,) is a Jesuitical imposition upon the simplicity of the mere English reader. The real rendering is, "born of the Wind, or Puff." So, the Holy Ghost should be rendered the Holy Puff. [Note, nothing makes man so spiritually-minded as wind at the stomach.]
In John 9-2, the disciples are represented as propounding to Jesus a question which would never have occurred but to minds entirely possessed of the Pythagorean doctrine - "Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" which the Master (the characteristic epithet of Pythagoras) answers precisely as Pythagoras might have done - "Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents," [A] &c. While the Jews imagine themselves to launch the severest invective against the blind man, in holding his being born blind as a proof that he must have been a very wicked wretch in some pre-existent state:
"Thou, was altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us?" - John 9-34.
[LN., [A] unfortunately we have but one life in this sphere, evil parents can bring forth healthy children, and good parents unhealthy, that is kismet, fate, while there are lessons to be learned from this, we are as yet incapable of such understandings, for we have yet to realise there is no such thing as sinless man or woman, life does not cater for such, for all who eat from the table dirties their hands.]
In Matthew 17-14, we find the Pharisees represented, according to the Pythagorean doctrines, as saying that Jesus was Elias; and in Matthew 18-13, Jesus himself, so far from discountenancing that doctrine, confirms it, by giving his disciples to understand that John the Baptist was the soul of Elias come again in the person of that prophet.
But the ninetieth Psalm, selected to be read as a part of our Burial Service, is entirely Pythagorean, and delivers the doctrine of the Metempsychosis too particularly to be mistaken, or to admit of any other possible understanding:
"Lord, thou hast been our refuge from one generation to another;" that is, in every state of existence through which we have already passed.
"Thou turn man to destruction: again, thou say, Come again, ye children of men." [b]
[note [b] Observe how evidently this is the language of quotation. Some word of God, or from some sacred scripture which had reported his word, before either the New or Old Testament had been imposed upon human credulity.] [Rev Taylor is spot on, and neither Elias or John the Baptist ever existed, so how can '0' produce anything but '0', an empty bag can produce nothing.]
"For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday; seeing that is passed as a watch in the night."
"Comfort us again now, after the time that thou hast plagued us, and for the years wherein we have suffered adversity" &c.
Be it remembered, that the exact length of the Pythagorean term of migration was a thousand years; and surely no argument could seem so well calculated to console and comfort the mind under the fear of death, or for the loss of friends, as the persuasion thus inculcated, that the period of separation would pass but as a watch in the night, and that, upon their next return into humanity, they should be comforted in proportion to all the adversity that they had gone through in their present condition.
That Pythagoras should have adopted this whimsical but sublime theory, as the basis of a purer system of morality, or rather, perhaps, made the best of a system which he found too deeply-rooted in men's minds to admit of being safely disturbed; that he should have followed that allegorical and senigtnatical mode of conveying metaphysical speculations [d] and moral truths which characterized his age and country, thereby subjecting himself and his theories to the ridicule that must necessarily attach to all allegories and figurations, whose significance can no longer be traced; that he should have descended to the juggling tricks of pretended communications with the Deity; that he should have deceived mankind in so many particulars in which it cannot be denied that he was a deceiver, and have degraded his great wisdom by a conjunction with as great folly; has its full apology in the simple statement, Pythagoras was a man; and with all his imperfections on his head, we shall look among the race of men, for his better, in vain, yea, for his equal, or his second, but in vain.
[note. [d] His religious respect or antipathy to beans, were the circumstance divested of Christian exaggeration, or we were possessed of the clue, might admit of as rational an unravelling as the Egyptian worship of onions. See this Diegesis, p. 23. Aristoxenus assures us that Pythagoras would often eat beans, his religious conceits notwithstanding.]
Pythagoras was entirely a Deist, a steady maintainer of the unity of God, and of the eternal obligations of moral virtue. No Christian writings, even to this day, can compete in sublimity and grandeur with what this illustrious philosopher has laid down concerning God, and the end of all our actions; and it is likely, says Bayle, that he would have carried his orthodoxy much farther, had he had the courage to expose himself to martyrdom.
The circumstances. of the death of Pythagoras are variously reported. He lived at Crotona, in Milo's" house, with his disciples, and was burnt in it. A man whom he refused to admit into his society, set the house on fire. According to Dica Barchus, he fled to the temple of the muses at Metapontum and died there of hunger. See upon this subject the learned collections of Menagius. Arnobius affirms that he was burned alive in a temple; others state that he was slain in attempting to make his escape.
It can hardly be doubted that his death was violent, notwithstanding- the divine honours- paid to him afterwards, and that, with all that he did to deceive mankind, or rather perhaps to preserve himself, he fell at last a martyr to his generous efforts to undeceive them.
The strongest type of resemblance or coincidence with the apostolic story, which the history of the Samian sage presents is, that the Egyptian Therapeuts boasted of his name as a member of their monastic institution; and that Pythagoras certainly made his disciples live in common, and that they renounced their property in their patrimony, and that "as many as were possessors of lands or houses, sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostle's feet; and distribution was made to everyman according as he had need." - Acts 4-35.
An ill construction was put upon their union, and it proved very fatal to them. That society of students being looked upon as a faction which conspired against the state, sixty of them were destroyed, and the rest ran away.
"Three hundred young men," says Justin, "formed into a society by a kind of oath, lived together by themselves, and were looked upon as a private faction by the state, who intended to burn them as they were assembled in one house. Almost sixty of them perished in the tumult, and the rest went into banishment." This event, however, appears not to have occurred till sometime after the death of their divine master.
Let the reader compare these historical facts with the story of the Holy Ghost descending in the shape of fire upon the heads of the apostles, when they were all with one accord in one place, and their subsequent dispersion, as detailed in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, so grossly fabulous, and so monstrously absurd, that there is not in the present day a Christian minister, who dare bring the subject before the contemplation of his hearers; and then let him give to Christianity the benefit of all the doubt he shall entertain that these facts are not the basis of that fiction. - See his Creed, and Golden Verses, in our chapter Specimens of Pagan Piety.
So conscious are the Christian Fathers of the superiority of Pythagoras in every respect, that they endeavour to show that he was a Jew; [Imo fuere qui Nazaratum Pythagorae praceptorem idem hic est cum Zabrato, ipsum esse Ezechelem prophetam tradiderunt. Ex populo Judaeorum genus duxisse Pythagoram, plerosque arbitrare scribit Ambrosius - Kortholli Pagan. Obtrect. P. 48. [ GK ] Theodoritus Therapeut. Lib 3.] that he had been an immediate disciple of the Jewish prophet Ezekiel; that be, as well as Pherecydes, Thales, Solon, and Plato, had learned the doctrine of the true God, not only among the Egyptians, but from the Hebrews themselves.
In the account which the emperor Constantine gives of the matter, in his oration to the holy congregation of the clergy, Pythagoras, to be sure, is an impostor, inasmuch as that "those things which the prophets had foretold, he delivered to the Italians as if God had particularly revealed them to him." [Constantine's Oration, c. 9.]
Lactantius, however, admits, and expresses his wonder, that when Pythagoras, and afterwards Plato, incited by the love of seeking truth, had travelled as far as to the Egyptians, the Magi, and the Persians, to learn the rites and ceremonies of those nations, they should never have consulted the Jews, with whom alone the true wisdom was to be found, and to whom they might have gone more readily." [e] The Jews! - Paugh!
[note. [e] Soleo admirari quod cum Pythagoras et postea Plato amore indagandae veritatis accensi, ad AEgyptios et Magos, et Persas usque penetrassent, at earum gentium ritun et sacra cognoscerent - ad Judaeos tantum non accesserint, penes quos tunc solos erat, et quo faeilius ire potuissent - Divin. Inst. lib. 4, cap. 2.]
"Of the vast variety of religions which have prevailed at different times in the world, perhaps there was no one that has been more general than that of the Metempsychosis. It continued to be believed by the early Christian Fathers, and by several sects of Christians.
"As much as this doctrine is now scouted, it was held not only by almost all the great men of antiquity, but a late very ingenious writer, philosopher, and Christian apologist, avowed his belief in it, and published a defence of it; namely, the late Soame Jenyns." - Higgins' Celtic Druids, pp. 283, 284. [LN., Soame Jenyns, 1704 to 1787, he was an English writer and member of Parliament.]
It is not, indeed, rational; but what metaphysical speculation of any sort is so? Had it been more frightful, it would have been more orthodox.
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next Chapter 34 Archbishop Tillotson's Confession of the Identity of Christianity and Paganism.