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.
"The first of the Orphic [Orpheus, or rather Onomacritus, lived 560 BC.] Hymns is addressed to the goddess [GK] or the Door-keeper, and as it is perhaps the most ancient monument extant of the adoration paid to the deity who was supposed to preside over child-births, and whom the Romans afterwards called Juno Lucina, or Diana Lucina," I present the reader with a literal translation of it, which I find readymade to my hand, in Parkhurst's Hebrew Lexicon: -
"To Prothyraea, the Incense, Storax.
"Hear me, venerable goddess, demon with many names, [ And what was to hinder the blessed Virgin Mary from being one of the names of this demon? Godfrey Higgins, Esq in his most instructive and interesting History of the Celtic Druids, published AD. 1827, states that he counted upwards of forty different names under the image of the Virgin at Loretto. - p. 109.] aid in travail, sweet hope of child-bed women, Saviour of females, kind friend to infants, speedy deliverer, propitious to youthful nymphs, Prothyraea! Key-bearer, gracious nourisher, gentle to all, who dwellest in the houses of all, delights in banquets! Zone-looser, secret, but in thy works to all apparent! Thou, sympathises with throes, but rejoices in easy labours; Ilithyria, in dire extremities, putting an end to pangs; thee alone parturient women invoke, rest of their souls, for in thy power are those throes that end their anguish, Artemis, Ilithyria, reverend Prothyraea. Hear, immortal dame, and grant us offspring by thy aid, and save us, as thou hast always been the Saviour of all!" - Lexicon, under the word [HB] - to bring forth or be delivered. [The reader will observe, that as the distinguishing attributes of the Pagan divinities were represented in their statues, it was absolutely impossible that this Divine Virgin, kind friend to infants, could be symbolized otherwise than as with a child in her arms. But such a representation could not possibly symbolize or distinguish the mother of Jesus from any other mother?]
A free poetical version of a hymn to Diana, expressive of her attributes, as generally believed and worshipped about the time of St. Paul, to the measure of the Sicilian Mariner's Hymn: -
"Great is Diana of the Ephesians." - Acts 19-34.
"Great Diana! huntress queen!
Goddess bright, august, serene!
In thy countenance divine
Heaven's eternal glories shine.
Thou art holy! thou alone,
Next to Juno, fill'st the throne!
Thou for us on earth was seen -
Thou, of earth and heaven the queen!
They to thee who worship pay,
From thy precepts never stray;
Chaste they are, and just and pure,
And from fatal sins secure;
Peace of mind it is theirs to know,
To thy blessed sway who bow;
Chaste in body, pure in mind -
Will, to will of God resigned;
Conquest over griefs and cares;
Peace - for ever peace, is theirs.
bright goddess! once again
Fix on earth thy heavenly reign;
Be thy sacred name adored,
Altars raised, and rites restored
But if long contempt of thee
Move thy sacred deity
This so fond request to slight,
Beam on me, on me, thy light.
Thy adoring votry, I
In thy faith will live and die;
And when Jove's supreme command
Calls me to the Stygian strand,
I no fear of death shall know,
But with thee contented go:
Thou my goddess, thou my guide,
Bear me through the fatal tide;
Land me on the Elysian shore,
Where nor sin, nor grief is more -
Life's eternal blest abode,
Where is virtue, where is God."
First published in the Author's Clerical Revieio, in Ireland.
The Prayer of Simplicius.
There is a most beautiful prayer of the Pagan Simplicius, generally given at the end of Epictetus's Enchiridion, and almost the model of that used in our Communion Service, "0 Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known" &c. The ideas are precisely the same; the words and the machinery alone are a little varied. I find a ready-made poetical version of this, in Johnson's Rambler.
"thou, whose power over moving worlds presides,
Whose voice created, and whose wisdom guides!
On darkling man in pure effulgence shine,
And cheer the clouded mind with light divine.
'Tis thine alone, to calm the pious breast
With silent confidence and holy rest.
From thee, great Jove! we spring, to thee we tend,
Path, Motive, Guide, Original, and End!"
THE CREED OF PYTHAGORAS.
"There is one God, and there is none other but he." - Mark 12-32.
"God is neither the object of sense, nor subject to passion, but invisible, only intelligible, and supremely intelligent. In his body he is like the light, and in his soul, he resembles truth. He is the universal spirit that pervades and diffuses itself over all nature. All beings receive their life from him. There is but One only God! who is not, as some are apt to imagine, seated above the world beyond the orb of the universe; [This sentiment of Pythagoras, so many years before the Christian era, is evidently the correction of some grosser form of demonolatry, which had prevailed in the heathen world before the time of Pythagoras, and which had been expressed in such words as "Our Father, which art in heaven, &c.] but being himself all in all, he sees all the beings that fill his immensity, the only principle, the light of heaven, the Father of all. He produces everything, he orders and disposes everything; he is the reason, the life, and the motion of all beings." - Dr Collyer's Lectures, quoted by G. Higgins, Esq, Celtic Druids, 4to. p. 126. [LN., Higgins, Godfrey, 1772 to 1833, He was an English magistrate and landowner, historian and Antiquarian.]
Mr. Higgins, adducing this bit of Paganism, exclaims, "How beautiful!" But surely, he would not think of putting these unsanctified notions of the deity on a footing with the sublime description of the evangelical poet Dr Watts, who, knowing so much more about God than Pythagoras did, tells us,
"His nostrils breathe out fiery streams,
He's a consuming fire;
His jealous eyes his wrath inflame,
And raise his vengeance higher!"
Watt's Hymns, book 1, hymn 42.
The consolations and advantages which the Christian derives from the blessed light of the Gospel, may be best appreciated by thus comparing them with the darkness of Paganism:
"So, lies the snow upon a raven's back!"
The Golden Verses of Pythagoras.
Of these, I supply a free poetical version, by the father of the late Mr. John Adams, of Edmonton, to whom I owe my prima elementa of literature. The Greek text is omitted.
"Let not soft slumber close thine eyes,
Before thou, recollects thrice
Thy train of actions through the day:
Where have my feet found out their way?
What have I learned, wherever I've been,
From all I've heard, from all I've seen?
What know I more that's worth the knowing?
What have I done that's worth the doing?
What have I sought that I should shun?
What duty have I left undone?
Or into what new follies run?'
These self-inquiries are the road
That leads to virtue and to God."
The Morals of Confucius.
The result of the learned researches of the pious Sir William Jones was, his established conviction "that a connection existed between the old idolatrous nations of Egypt, India, Greece, and Italy, long before the birth of Moses." - Asiatic Researches, vol; 1, p. 271. [LN., Confucius, 551 to 479BC, he was a Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher.] [LN., Jones, William Sir, 1746 to 1794, he was an Anglo-Welsh philologist, a puisne judge, scholar of ancient India, especially interest in the relationship between European and Indian languages.]
"The philosophic Baillie has remarked, that everything in China, India, and Persia, tends to prove that these countries have been the depositaries of science, not its inventors." [Mr. Higgins on the Celtic Druids, p. 52. On p. 45 of which, see "a lamentable example in the case of Sir William Jones himself, of the power of religious bigotry to corrupt the mind of even the best of men." The moral sensibilities of this great man could better abide the consciousness of the most wilful and scandalous misrepresentation than, to be just to the character of an adversary. Such are the triumphs of the Gospel!] [LN., Baillie-y, Jean Sylvain, 1736 to 1793, French astronomer, mathematician and Freemason.]
Dr Mosheim has proved the establishment of Therapeutan monks at Alexandria before the time when Christ is said to have been on earth; and that these Therapeutan monks were professors of the Eclectic Philosophy, avowedly collecting and bringing together the best tenets of moral philosophy which could be gathered from all the various systems of the world. They were, for this purpose, as well as to extend their power and influence, mighty travellers, and could not have failed of visiting China. Among the maxims which Kon-futz-see, or Confucius, the great Chinese philosopher, who had flourished about 500years before the birth of Christ, had left to that people, was the Golden Rule of doing unto others as
"you would they should do unto you."
This, Therapeuts, adopted into their Moral Gnomologue, or put into the mouth of the Demon of the Diegesis, from whence it passed into the copies or epitomes of the Diegesis, which have been falsely taken for the original compositions of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
Depending, as we necessarily must, on a translation, (for who that had to learn anything else, could learn the language of the Chinese?) I follow the edition by Josephus Tela, reprinted from the edition of 1691; and collating this by the text of the New Testament, the reader will see that not only the idea is precisely the same, but the rhythmic, manner, and manner of connection, are precisely the same, beyond the solution of any hypothesis, but that the latter is a plagiarism.
Confucius, Maxim 24th. St. Matthew Chapter 7-verse 12.
Do to another what you would he should do unto you; and do not unto another what you would not should be done unto you. Thou only need this law alone; It is the foundation and
principle of all the rest. Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to
them; for this is the law and the prophets.
The abridged form and more smoothly constructed sentence, according to canons of criticism already laid down, demonstrates the later composition, consequently the plagiarism.
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next Chapter 38. Charges Brought against Christianity by its Early Adversaries, and the Christian Manner of answering those Charges.