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THE FROPHET OF NAZARETH.

from them, but because they, from the discourses of the divine prophets, have copied the shadow of truth by interpolating. Thus have the most celebrated of their sages, such as Pythagoras and particularly Plato, with a corrupted and partial faith, handed down the doctrine of regeneration." But there is not a shadow of proof that the Greek philosophers knew any thing at all about the Hebrew prophets. They are not even once mentioned by them; and they knew utterly nothing of their Scriptures, which are not pretended to have been translated into Greek until long after the death of Plato. Besides, there is very little, if any, similarity between the Hebrew Scriptures and the contents of Plato's writings, or those of any other Greek philosopher. Arnobius, a heathen philosopher, who had become a convert to Christianity, and wrote in its defence about the commencement of the fourth century, by no means seems to recognise this affinity, or even to know of its existence, when he says-as cited by Tindal (Christianity as old as the Creation, p. 397.)- that if Cicero's works had been duly read by the heathens, there would have been no need of the Christian Scriptures. In answer to the formidable attack which Celsus, an Epicurean philosopher, in the beginning of the second century, made upon Christianity, Origen, who had been nursed in the cradle of Egyptian superstition,' was a convert from heathenism to Christianity, and wrote about a hundred . years after Celsus, says "Now let us see how Celsus reproaches the practical part of our religion, as containing nothing but what we have in common with the heathens,-nothing that is new or truly great. To this I answer that, they who incur the righteous judgment of God by their heinous sins would be punished by divine and unerring justice, if all men had not been endued with a sufficient degree of knowledge of moral virtue and vice." Hence it is clear that one of Celsus's principal charges against the Christians was, that they had borrowed the religious notions of the heathens, that they had no religious doctrines, or religious discipline, but what they had in common with the heathens, and consequently that Christianity and heathenism were identically the same. Origen, who was a monk, who had mutilated himself in that inhuman and execrable manner peculiar to monks, and who had studied under that renowned EclecticAmmonius Saccas.—a man who taught that Christianity and Paganism, when rightly understood, were one and the same religion, and had one common origin, so that, as a true Eclectic, he collected all that was good in Paganism and added it to Christianity-does not deny Celsus's charge. Indeed, he tacitly admits it, when evasively he replies that all mankind had sufficient knowledge of good and evil, and especially when, in another part of his reply, he says that God had revealed to the pagans whatever things they had in common with the Christians, and whatever things had been well spoken. Still stronger is his admission of the same charge in the following passage." Celsus, himself, in speaking of idolatry, adduces an argument which goes to justify, and even commend our practice. For-in attempting to prove, in the subsequent part of his work, that our views regarding image-worship were not obtained by means of the Scriptures, but that we have them in common with the heathens-he cites a passage for this purpose from Heraclitus. My answer to this is that-according to my previous admission touching the common knowledge of good and evil, which is innate in the minds of men-it is not wonderful that Heraclitus

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and others, whether Greeks or barbarians, have proclaimed to the world the very same opinions as we hold." (Vid. Orig. adv. Cels. lib. ii. v. vi.) Thus, Origen does not attempt to deny that-as Celsus asserted in his book which he designated by the significant title of The True Logos, in contradistinction to what he would deem the false Logos of the Christians-the Christian doctrines were the same as, five hundred years before Christ, that renowned moral philosopher, Heraclitus, and others, had taught. This was a fact too patent to be ignored. His grand effort is, plausibly to account for this sameness, without at once admitting that the Christians had taken these doctrines from the pagans. This, as we have seen, he attempts to do by urging that, as all mankind are endowed with a common power of distinguishing between good and evil, Christians might, of themselves, have formed their religious doctrines, without having recourse to the theology and morals of the heathens. We now shift onwards ten years, and come to the testimony of that zealous Christian writer, Lactantius, who wrote about A.D. 316, and whose words show that he esteemed Paganism as highly as Christianity. For he says, that if any one had collected and systematized the truth diffused among the various sects of philosophers, there would be no difference between such a collection and Christianity. He accounts for this identity, however, like his predecessors, by supposing that the poets collected, from fables and obscure opinions, the predictions of the Hebrew prophets, having themselves not so much as a letter of the divine truth communicated to them. He consequently wonders that, when Pythagoras, and afterwards. Plato went so far as the Egyptians, the Magi, and the Persians, in quest of truth, they did not consult the Jews, with whom alone the true philosophy was to be found. (Lact. Inst. lib. iv. c. 2; iii. 4; vi.) The pointed testimony of Eusebius, who wrote about the same time as Lactantius, has already been given, to the effect that the ancient commentaries of the Therapeuts are the very Gospels and writings of the Apostles. If we advance about seventyfour years, till we come to Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis, who wrote on heresy, we shall find him confessing that all forms of Christianity, except his own, were based on heathen mythology. (Epiph. Hier. 26.) Theodoret (lib. ii. de Platone) writing about the year 420, and seeing the identity of the Christian Scriptures with the writings of Plato, charges the heathen moralist with having drawn his theological arguments from Jewish sources. The great Father Augustin, again, in the beginning of the fourth century, tells us that the Christian religion was known to the ancients, by another name, before Christ appeared, but that now it received the name of Christianity.* It is, therefore, by no means wonderful that he had nothing to say against the following conclusion of the learned Christian bishop, Fau-tus the Manichæan; namely, that "it is certain that the New Testament was not written by Christ himself, nor by his Apostles, but a long while after them. by some unknown persons who, lest they should not be credited when they wrote of affairs they were little acquainted with, affixed to their works the names of apostles, or of such as were supposed to have

* Christus veniret in carne, unde vera religio qua jam erat cæpit appellari Christiana. Hæc est nostris temporibus Christiana religio, non quia prioribus temporibus non fuit, sed quia posterioribus hoc nomen accepit.-Op. August. vol. i. p. 12. Basil Edit.

THE PROPHET OF NAZARETH.

been their companions." (Lardner's Credibility, vol. ii. p. 221.) Were it urged that Faustus, being a Manichæan bishop, was considered a heretic, the answer is, that Dr. Lardner has plainly proved that he was a Christian; and, further, that Augustin himself was a Manichæan at the same time as Faustus, until he was induced by the prospect of a bishopric, to go over to another sect; after which we find him calumniating the Manichæan presbytery, which he had left; while yet declaring that he never would have believed the Gospel, had he not been induced by the authority of the church, apparently meaning the church of which he had become a bishop. But as Augustin had been a Manichæan, let us see how this sect of Christians acquired its divine books; so that, from an acquaintance with the genius of that age, we may be the better enabled to form a correct opinion of the manner in which other sects, who boasted of their pure orthodoxy, acquired their divine books. Socrates, in his Ecclesiastical History, (lib. i. c. 22.) tells us that Manichæus, or rather his predecessors, introduced into Christianity the doctrine of Empedocles and Pythagoras, and composed sacred books, thus.-A Saracen, named Scythianus, who had married an Egyptian woman, and, on her account, resided in Egypt, where he acquired all the learning of the Egyptians, had a disciple named Buddas, who composed a book called the Gospel, together with other books. Buddas, dying from an accident, a woman with whom he lodged became possessed of his books and other property. This woman bought a captive boy, named Cubricus, to whom she gave good education and his freedom. When he had grown up, she gave him also the books and property of Buddas, with which he went to Persia; aud having changed his name into Manes or Manichæus, gave out the books of Buddas, and proclaimed their contents as Christianity. "The contents of these books," says our author, "agree with Christianity in expression, but in sentiment are thoroughly pagan." Such was the origin of the Scriptures of that vastly numerous and distinguished sect of Christians-the most distinguished of all that had dissented from the established church-called the Manichees, of which bishop Augustin aud bishop Faustus were members. Nor have we any evidence that the Christian Scriptures which have descended to us, have a more respectable origin. These Manichees, like most other Christians of their time, held that Paganism, Christianity, and Judaism, were the same, which they pretended to prove from an ancient book called the Theosophy, or the Wisdom of God. (Fabricius Com. i. p. 354.) Thus does all antiquity-all ancient religion, both orthodox and heterodox-point to the heathen origin of Christianity, and therefore, of our present Gospels. This is the charge brought against it by its earliest enemies, and the substance of the apologies made for it, by its first advocates. If, therefore, Jesus ever proclaimed the doctrines, and uttered the words attributed to him in the Gospels, he must have borrowed them from the heathens. If, on the other hand, these Gospels attribute to him doctrines which he never delivered, and words which he never uttered; even then are these Gospels equally as unworthy of being taken for divine truths as if Jesus had really borrowed their contents from pagan lore. That either Jesus or some one else has so borrowed most that they contain, is trusted to have been amply established by the mass of evidence given in this section. And inasmuch as there are in these Gospels expressions

which are clearly taken from heathen authors, who had flourished many centuries before the time assigned to his birth, the inference is quite legitimate; that he borrowed them from these heathen authors.

SECTION X.-BOTH THE LIFE AND DOCTRINES OF JESUS IDENTICAL WITH THE LIVES AND DOCTRINES OF HEATHEN ASCETICS OR MONKS, WHO LIVED HUNDREDS OF YEARS BEFORE HIS TIME.

Having, in the last section, seen seen the identity of Jesus's doctrine with those of Philo-a Therapeut or monk-and of other heathen philosophers, we need not here be much startled, if we find his life and teaching identically the same with those of the heathen Therapeuts, monks, or Essenes at large. In order to make this clear to the general reader, it will be necessary first to show that there were heathen monks before the time Jesus is said to have lived, and that these were the same, not only as the Therapeuts and the Essenes, but also the same as the Christian monks of the four or five first centuries of our era. For this purpose, a brief sketch will here be given of monachal life and habits both among heathens and Christiaus, from the earliest period that we have any account of the singular institution of monkery among different nations. Some remarks have already (pp. 220, 370, et al.) been made upon monks, particularly those called Therapeuts and Essenes, from which, added to the following description, the reader will be enabled to form an adequate notion as to what is meant by the term monk.*

The most ancient account we have of Monachism, is among the Hindoos; where there is every reason to believe it was an established institution two thousand years before the time assigned to the birth of Jesus.We have had already occasion to remark that the ancient inhabitants of Hindostan, or India-this source of almost all ancient superstition, if not also the cradle of civilization-had sacred books much older than the Jewish Scriptures. These ancient books, such as the Vedas, the Laws of Menu, the Puranas, and the Angas-are replete with the principles of monkery. For example, in the Laws of Menu we find the following injunctions to a man who would purify himself, and become a saint of the highest order. Let him seclude himself from the world, and gain the favour of the gods by fasting, subduing the lusts of the flesh, and mortifying the senses." Let him crawl backwards and forwards on his belly; or let

A very learned and remarkable work on Monkery, entitled "The Fathers of the Desert," was published in America, in 1850. in two volumes, from the pen of Henry Ruffner, President of Washington College, Virginia. The able work of this orthodox Christian we shall freely use in our outline of early Monkery. He, very properly, defines a monk to be a man who leads a solitary life,-who separates himself from human society that he may devote himself to sanctifying exercises,-who has renounced all worldly pursuits, property and pleasure, who exercises himself continually in chastity, fasting, watching, prayer, and combats with evil spirits,-who macerates his body with hunger and exposure to the elements, and mortifies to the utmost all the desires of his corporeal nature.

him stand all day long on his toes. Let him remain always sitting, or always standing.". Let him, in the heat of the summer, kindle five fires ab. ut him. When it rains, let him bure himself to the storm where it pelts the hardest. In the winter, let him wear a wet garment. So let him rise by degrees in the strength of his penances." According to these laws, there were degrees of saintship. A man might become a Yogi or ordinary saint, by retiring into solitude for a term of years; but if he devoted all his life to monachism, he attained to a higher degree of sanctity, and obtained such influence with the gods that they would grant him whatever he asked in prayer. But before he arrived at such a state of perfection, he had to go through four very long and hard degrees of religious exercises. In the first degree, he had to pray much, read the Vedas, conquer his passions, by abstaining from women, from anger, revenge, and falsehood. He had to sleep very little, and that on straw, or an animal's skin, under a tree.— He was to refrain from all pleasure, to wear the coarsest dress, and to practise ablution every night and morning, by sprinkling and dipping himself, and by repetition of prayers. The second degree increased in severity. He was to spend most of the night in contemplating the heavenly bodies, so as to cultivate a desire for mounting the skies; and he was to live on charity. In the next degree, he was to renounce all worldly care, and to retire for ever from the world into some cell or grotto, in a secluded spot. If his wife wished to follow him, she might; but all intercourse was at an end for ever. Here, he wrapped his limbs in a vestment made of bark or leaves, hung down his head in grief, meditated on his sins, or silently read the Vedas. At night, he lay on the bare ground, or sat in cold water. During summer days, he sat for weeks beneath the broiling sun, with four fires around him. His food was dry grain soaked in water, a httle of which he took only once a day. In the fourth, he entered the desert with a staff in one hand and a pitcher in the other, never to return; and here he subsisted on wild fruit and water, and wore no clothing, but merely a wrapper round his waist. This degree of severity enabled him to have power over all the demons in hell, and to be almost a pure spirit himself, able to drop the body at will, take an ethereal flight to the regions of bliss, and return at pleasure into his house of clay. (Fathers of the Desert, vol. i. pp. 21—29.) More than two thousand years ago, these monkish habits of the Hindoos arrested the attention of foreigners. When Alexander the Great-three hundred and thirty years before the Christian era -conquered a portion of India, he found there several sorts of monks; and some Greek scholars who followed his army, wrote a description of them. From the works of these writers, Strabo-about three hundred years after-compiled the following account of these monks, whom he calls philosophers, just as the Christian Fathers dignify the monks of their time with the same title. The Greek Geographer (lib. xv. c. 1.) tells us that Megasthenes had stated there were in India two sects of philosophers -the Brachmans, and the Garmans. The Brachmans lived in the woods, not far from cities. Their manner of life was simple; they slept on straw or skins, used no animal food, and abstained from women. They imparted instruction; but while they spoke, the hearers were not allowed to speak, cough, or spit. He also says that Aristobulus, another writer of the time of Alexander, saw two Brachmans, one of whom lay on his back, and