SECTION II.
The worshippers of Nimrod and his queen were looked upon as
regenerated and purged from sin by baptism, which baptism received its
virtue from the sufferings of these two great Babylonian divinities. But
yet in regard to justification, the Chaldean doctrine was that it was by
works and merits of men themselves that they must be justified and
accepted of God. The following remarks of Christie in his observations
appended to Ouvaroff's Eleusinian Mysteries, show that such was the
case: "Mr. Ouvaroff has suggested that one of the great objects
of the Mysteries was the presenting to fallen man the means of his
return to God. These means were the cathartic virtues--(i.e., the
virtues by which sin is removed), by the exercise of which a corporeal
life was to be vanquished. Accordingly the Mysteries were termed Teletae,
'perfections,' because they were supposed to induce a perfectness of
life. Those who were purified by them were styled Teloumenoi and
Tetelesmenoi, that is, 'brought ...to perfection,' which depended on the
exertions of the individual." * In the Metamorphosis of
Apuleius, who was himself initiated in the mysteries of Isis, we find
this same doctrine of human merits distinctly set forth. Thus the
goddess is herself represented as addressing the hero of his tale: "If
you shall be found to DESERVE the protection of my divinity by sedulous
obedience, religious devotion, and inviolable chastity, you shall be
sensible that it is possible for me, and me alone, to extend your life
beyond the limits that have been appointed to it by your destiny." *
When the same individual has received a proof of the supposed favour of
the divinity, thus do the onlookers express their congratulations: "Happy,
by Hercules! and thrice blessed he to have MERITED, by the innocence and
probity of his past life, such special patronage of heaven." *
Thus was it in life. At death, also, the grand passport into the unseen
world was still through the merits of men themselves, although the name
of Osiris was, as we shall by-and-by see, given to those who departed in
the faith. "When the bodies of persons of distinction" [in
Egypt], says Wilkinson, quoting Porphyry, "were embalmed, they
took out in intestines and put them into a vessel, over which (after
some other rites had been performed for the dead) one of the embalmers
pronounced an invocation to the sun in behalf of the deceased." The
formula, according to Euphantus, who translated it from the original
into Greek, was as follows: "O thou Sun, our sovereign lord!
and all ye Deities who have given life to man, receive me, and grant me
an abode with the eternal gods. During the whole course of my life I
have scrupulously worshipped the gods my father taught me to adore; I
have ever honoured my parents, who begat this body; I have killed no
one; I have not defrauded any, nor have I done any injury to any
man." * Thus the merits, the obedience, or the innocence of
man was the grand plea. The doctrine of Rome in regard to the vital
article of a sinner's justification is the very same. Of course this of
itself would prove little in regard to the affiliation of the two
systems, the Babylonian and the Roman; for, from the days of Cain
downward, the doctrine of human merit and of self-justification has
everywhere been indigenous in the heart of depraved humanity. But, what
is worthy of notice in regard to this subject is, that in the two
systems, it was symbolised in precisely the same way. In the Papal
legends it is taught that St. Michael the Archangel has committed to him
the balance of God's justice, * and that in the two opposite scales of
that balance the merits and the demerits of the departed are put that
they may be fairly weighed, the one over against the other, and that as
the scale turns to the favourable or unfavourable side they may be
justified or condemned as the case may be. Now, the Chaldean doctrine of
justification, as we get light on it from the monuments of Egypt, is
symbolised in precisely the same way, except that in the sand of Ham the
scales of justice were committed to the charge of the god Anubis instead
of St. Michael the Archangel, and that the good deeds and the bad seem
to have been weighed separately, and a distinct record made of each, so
that when both were summed up and the balance struck, judgment was
pronounced accordingly. Wilkinson states that Anubis and his scales are
often represented; and that in some cases there is some difference in
the details. But it is evident from his statements, that the principle
in all is the same. The following is the account which he gives one of
these judgment scenes, previous to the admission of the dead to
Paradise: "Cerberus is present as the guardian of the gates,
near which the scales of justice are erected; and Anubis, the director
of the weight, having placed a vase representing the good actions of the
deceased in one scale, and the figure or emblem of truth in the other,
proceeds to ascertain his claims for admission. If, on being weighed, he
is found wanting, he is rejected, and Osiris, the judge of the dead,
inclining his sceptre in token of condemnation, pronounces judgment upon
him, and condemns his soul to return to earth under the form of a pig or
some unclean animal.....But if, when the SUM of his deeds are recorded
by Thoth [who stands by to mark the results of the different weighings
of Anubis], his virtues so far PREDOMINATE as to entitle him to
admission to the mansions of the blessed, Horus, taking in his hand the
tablet of Thoth, introduces him to the presence of Osiris, who, in his
palace, attended by Isis and Nepthys, sits on his throne in the midst of
the waters, from which rises the lotus, bearing upon its expanded
flowers the four Genii of Amenti." * The same mode of
symbolising the justification by works had evidently been in use in
Babylon itself; and, therefore, there was great force in the Divine
handwriting on the wall, when the doom of Belshazzar went forth:
"Tekel," "Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found
wanting." In the Parsee system, which has largely borrowed
from Chaldea, the principle of weighing the good deeds over against the
bad deeds is fully developed. "For three days after
dissolution," says Vaux, in his Nineveh and Persepolis, giving
an account of Parsee doctrines in regard to the dead, "the soul
is supposed to flit round its tenement of clay, in hopes of reunion; on
the fourth, the Angel Seroch appears, and conducts it to the bridge of
Chinevad. On this structure, which they assert connects heaven and
earth, sits the Angel of Justice, to weigh the actions of mortals; when
the good deeds prevail, the soul is met on the bridge by a dazzling
figure, which says, 'I am thy good angel; I was pure originally, but thy
good deeds have rendered me purer;' and passing his hand over the neck
of the blessed soul, leads it to Paradise. If iniquities preponderate,
the soul is met by a hideous spectre, which howls out, 'I am thy evil
genius; I was impure from the first, but thy misdeeds have made me
fouler; through the we shall remain miserable until the resurrection;'
the sinning soul is then dragged away to hell, where Ahriman sits to
taunt it with its crimes." * Such is the doctrine of Parseeism.
The same is the case in China, where Bishop Hurd, giving an account of
the Chinese descriptions of the infernal regions, and of the figures
that refer to them, says, "One of them always represents a
sinner in a pair of scales, with his iniquities in the one, and his good
works in another." "We meet with several such
representations," he adds, "in the Grecian mythology." *
Thus does Sir J.F. Davis describe the operation of the principle in
China: "In a work of some not on morals, called Merits and
Demerits Examined, a man is directed to keep a debtor and creditor
account with himself of the acts of each day, and at the end of the year
to wind it up. If the balance is in his favour, it serves as the
foundation of a stock of merits for the ensuing year: and if against
him, it must be liquidated by future good deeds. Various lists and
comparative tables are given of both good and bad actions in the several
relations of life; and benevolence is strongly inculcated in regard
first to man, and, secondly, to the brute creation. To cause another's
death is reckoned at one hundred on the side of demerit; while a single
act of charitable relief counts as one on the other side..... To save a
person's life ranks in the above work as an exact set-off to the
opposite act of taking it away; and it is said that this deed of merit
will prolong a person's life twelve years." *
While such a mode of justification is, on the one hand, in the very
nature of the case, utterly demoralising, there never could by means of
it, on the other, be in the bosom of any man whose conscience is
aroused, any solid feeling of comfort, or assurance as to his prospects
in the eternal world. Who could ever tell, however good he might suppose
himself to be, whether the "sum of his good actions" would or
would not counterbalance the amount of sins and transgressions that his
conscience might charge against him. How very different the Scriptural,
the god-like plan of "justification by faith," and "faith
alone, without the deeds of the law," absolutely irrespective
of human merits, simply and solely through the "righteousness
of Christ, that is unto all and upon all them that believe," that
delivers at once and for ever "from all condemnation,"
those who accept of the offered Saviour, and by faith are vitally united
to Him. It is not the will of our Father in heaven, that His children in
this world should be ever in doubt and darkness as to the vital point of
their eternal salvation. Even a genuine saint, no doubt, may for a
season, if need be, be in heaviness through manifold temptations, but
such is not the natural, the normal state of a healthful Christian, of
one who knows the fulness and the freeness of the blessings of the
Gospel of peace. God has laid the most solid foundation for all His
people to say, with John, "We have KNOWN and believed the love
which God hath to us" (1 John iv. 16); or with Paul,
"I am PERSUADED that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor
height, not depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus" (Rom. viii.
38, 39). But this no man can ever say, who "goes about to
establish his own righteousness" (Rome. x. 3), who seeks, in
any shape, to be justified by works. Such assurance, such comfort, can
come only from a simple and believing reliance on the free, unmerited
grace of God, given in and along with Christ, the unspeakable gift of
the Father's love. It was this that made Luther's spirit to be, as he
himself declared, "as free as a flower of the field," *
when, single and alone, he went up to the Diet of Worms, to confront all
the prelates and potentates there convened to condemn the doctrine which
he held. It was this that in every age made the martyrs go with such
sublime heroism not only to prison but to death. It is this that
emancipates the soul, restores the true dignity of humanity, and cuts up
b the roots all the imposing pretensions of priestcraft. It is this only
that can produce a life of loving, filial, hearty obedience to the law
and commandments of God; and that, when nature fails, and when the king
of terrors is at hand, can enable poor, guilty sons of men, with the
deepest sense of unworthiness, yet to say, "O death, where is
thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be unto God, who giveth
us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord" (1 Cor. xv. 55,
57).
Now, to all such confidence in God, such assurance of salvation,
spiritual despotism in every age, both Pagan and Papal, has ever shown
itself unfriendly. Its grand object has always been to keep the souls of
its votaries away from direct and immediate intercourse with a living
and merciful Saviour, and consequently from assurance of His favour, to
inspire a sense of the necessity of human mediation, and so to establish
itself on the ruins of the hopes and the happiness of the world.
Considering the pretensions which the Papacy makes to absolute
infallibility, and the supernatural powers which it attributes to the
functions of its priests, in regard to regeneration and the forgiveness
of sins, it might have been supposed, as a matter of course, that all
its adherents would have been encouraged to rejoice in the continual
assurance of their personal salvation. But the very contrary is the
fact. After all its boastings and high pretensions, perpetual doubt on
the subject of a man's salvation, to his life's end, is inculcated as a
duty; it being peremptorily decreed as an article of faith by the
Council of Trent, "That no man can know with infallible
assurance of faith that he HAS OBTAINED the grace of God." *
This very decree of Rome, while directly opposed to the Word of God,
stamps its own lofty claims with the brand of imposture; for if no man
who has been regenerated by its baptism, and who has received its
absolution from sin, can yet have any certain assurance after all that "the
grace of God" has been conferred upon him, what can be the
worth of its opus operatum? Yet, in seeking to keep its devotees in
continual doubt and uncertainty as to their final state, it is "wise
after its generation." In the Pagan system, it was the priest
alone who could at all pretend to anticipate the operation of the scales
of Anubis; and, in the confessional, there was from time to time, after
a sort, a mimic rehearsal of the dread weighing that was to take place
at last in the judgment scene before the tribunal of Osiris. There the
priest sat in judgment on the good deeds and bad deeds of his penitents;
and, as his power and influence were found to a large extent on the mere
principle of slavish dread, he took care that the scale should generally
turn in the wrong direction, that they might be more subservient to his
will in casting in a due amount of good works into the opposite scale.
As he was the grand judge of what these works should be, it was his
interest to appoint what should be most for the selfish aggrandisement
of himself, or the glory of his order; and yet so to weigh and
counterweigh merits and demerits, that there should always be left a
large balance to be settled, not only by the man himself, but by his
heirs. If any man had been allowed to believe himself beforehand
absolutely sure of glory, the priests might have been in danger of being
robbed of their dues after death--an issue by all means to be guarded
against. Now, the priests of Rome have in every respect copied after the
priests of Anubis, the god of the scales. In the confessional, when they
have an object to gain, they make the sins and transgressions good
weight; and then, when they have a man of influence, or power, or wealth
to deal with, they will not give him the slightest hope till round sums
of money, or the founding of an abbey, or some other object on which
they have set their heart, be cast into the other scale. In the famous
letter of Pere La Chaise, the confessor of Louis XIV. of France, giving
an account of the method which he adopted to gain the consent of that
licentious monarch to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, by which
such cruelties were inflicted on his innocent Huguenot subjects, we see
how the fear of the scales of St. Michael operated in bringing about the
desired result:--"Many a time since," says the
accomplished Jesuit, referring to an atrocious sin of which the king had
been guilty, "many a time since, when I have had him at
confession, I have shook hell about his ears, and made him sigh, fear
and tremble, before I would give him absolution. By this I saw that he
had still an inclination to me, and was wiling to be under my
government; so I set the baseness of the action before him by telling
the whole story, and how wicked it was, and that it could not be
forgiven till he had done some good action to BALANCE that, and expiate
the crime. Whereupon he at last asked me what he must do. I told him
that he must root out all heretics from his kingdom." * This
was the "good action" to be cast into the scale of
St. Michael the Archangel, to "BALANCE" his crime.
The king, wicked as he was--sour against his will--consented; the "good
action" was cast in, the "heretics" were
extirpated; and the king was absolved. But yet the absolution was not
such but that, when he went the way of all the earth, there was still
much to be cast in before the scales could be fairly adjusted. Thus
Paganism and Popery alike "make merchandise of the soul of
men" (Rev. xviii.13). Thus the one with the scales of Anubis,
the other with the scales of St. Michael, exactly answer to the Divine
description of Ephraim in his apostacy: "Ephraim is a merchant,
the balances of deceit are in his hand" (Hosea xii. 7). The
Anubis of the Egyptians was precisely the same as the Mercury of the
Greeks * --the "god of thieves." St. Michael, in the
hands of Rome, answers exactly to the same character. By means of him
and his scales, and their doctrine of human merits, they have made what
they call the house of God to be nothing else than a "den of
thieves." To rob men of their money is bad, but infinitely
worse to cheat them also of their souls.
Into the scales of Anubis, the ancient Pagans, by way of securing
their justification, were required to put not merely good deeds,
properly so called, but deeds of austerity and self-mortification
inflicted on their own persons, for averting the wrath of the gods. *
The scales of St. Michael inflexibly required to be balanced in the very
same way. The priests of Rome teach that when sin is forgiven, the
punishment is not thereby fully taken away. However perfect may be the
pardon that God, through the priests, may bestow, yet punishment,
greater or less, still remains behind, which men must endure, and that
to "satisfy the justice of God." Again and again has
it been shown that man cannot do anything to satisfy the justice of God,
that to that justice he is hopelessly indebted, that he "has"
absolutely "nothing to pay;" and more than that,
that there is no need that he should attempt to pay one farthing; for
that, in behalf of all who believe, Christ has finished transgression,
made an end of sin, and made all the satisfaction to the broken law that
that law could possibly demand. Still Rome insists that every man must
be punished for his own sins, and that God cannot be satisfied * without
groans and sighs, lacerations of the flesh, tortures of the body, and
penances without number, on the part of the offender, however broken in
heart, however broken in heart, however contrite that offender may be.
Now, looking simply at the Scripture, this perverse demand for
self-torture on the part of those for whom Christ has made a complete
and perfect atonement, might seem exceedingly strange; but, looking at
the real character of the god whom the Papacy has set up for the worship
of its deluded devotees, there is nothing in the least strange about it.
That god is Moloch, the god of barbarity and blood. Moloch signifies "king";
and Nimrod was the first after the flood that violated the
patriarchal system, and set up as "king" over his
fellows. At first he was worshipped as the "revealer of
goodness and truth," but by-and-by his worship was made to
correspond with his dark and forbidding countenance and complexion. The
name Moloch originally suggested nothing of cruelty or terror; but now
the well-known rites associated with that name have made it for ages a
synonym for all that is most revolting to the heart of humanity, and
amply justify the description of Milton:--
"First Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears,
Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,
Their children's cries unheard, that passed through fire
To his grim idol." *
In almost every land the bloody worship prevailed; "horrid
cruelty," hand in hand with abject superstition, filled not
only "the dark places of the earth," but also regions
that boasted of their enlightenment. Greece, Rome, Egypt, Phenicia,
Assyria, and our own land under the savage Druids, at one period or
other in their history, worshipped the same god and in the same way.
Human victims were his most acceptable offerings; human groans and
wailings were the sweetest music in his ears; human tortures were
believed to delight his heart. His image bore, as the symbol of "majesty,"
a whip, * and with whips his worshippers, at some of his festivals, were
required unmercifully to scourge themselves. "After the
ceremonies of sacrifice," says Herodotus, speaking of the
feast of Isis at Busiris, "the whole assembly, to the amount of
many thousands, scourge themselves; but in whose honour they do this I
am not at liberty to disclose." * This reserve Herodotus
generally uses, out of respect to his oath as an initiated man; but
subsequent researches leave no doubt as to the god "in whose
honour" the scourgings took place. In Pagan Rome the
worshippers of Isis observed the same practice in honour of Osiris. In
Greece, Apollo, the Delian god, who was identical with Osiris, * was
propitiated with similar penances by the sailors who visited his shrine,
as we learn from the following lines of Callimachus in his hymn to
Delos:--
"Soon as they reach thy soundings, down at once
They drop slack sails and all the naval gear.
The ship is moored; nor do the crew presume
To quit thy sacred limits, till they've passed
A fearful penance; with the galling whip
Lashed thrice around thine altar." *
Over and above the scourgings, there were also slashings and cuttings
of the flesh required as propitiatory rites on the part of his
worshippers. "In the solemn celebration of the Mysteries."
says Julius Firmicus, "all things in order had to be done,
which the youth either did or suffered at his death." * Osiris
was cut in pieces; therefore, to imitate his fate, so far as living men
might do so, they were required to cut and wound their own bodies.
Therefore, when the priests of Baal contended with Elijah, to gain the
favour of their god, and induce him to work the desired miracle in their
behalf, "they cried aloud and cut themselves, after their
manner, with knives and with lancets, till the blood gushed out upon
them." * In Egypt, the natives in general, though liberal in
the use of the whip, seem to have been sparing of the knife; but even
there, there were men also who mimicked on their own persons the
dismemberment of Osiris. "The Carians of Egypt," says
Herodotus, in the place already quoted, "treat themselves at
this solemnity with still more severity, for they cut themselves in the
face with swords." * To this practice, there can be no doubt,
there is a direct allusion in the command in the Mosaic law,
"Ye shall make no cuttings in your flesh for the dead." *
These cuttings in the flesh are largely practised in the worship of the
Hindoo divinities, as propitiatory rites or meritorious penances. They
are well known to have been practised in the rites of Bellona, * the
"sister" or "wife of the Roman war-god
Mars," whose name, "The lamenter of Bel," clearly
proves the original of her husband to whom the Romans were so fond of
tracing back their pedigree. They were practised also in the most savage
form in the gladiatorial shows, in which the Roman people, with all
their boasted civilisation, so much delighted. The miserable men who
were doomed to engage in these bloody exhibitions did not do so
generally of their own free will. But yet, the principle on which these
shows were conducted was the very same as that which influenced the
priests of Baal. They were celebrated as propitiatory sacrifices. From
Fuss we learn that "gladiatorial shows were sacred" to
Saturn; * and in Ausonius we read that "the amphitheatre claims
its gladiators for itself, when at the end of December they PROPITIATE
with their blood the sickle-bearing Son of Heaven." * On this
passage, Justus Lipsius, who quotes it, thus comments: "Were
you will observe two things, both, that the gladiators fought on the
Saturnalia, and that they did so for the purpose of appeasing and
PROPITIATING Saturn." * "The reason of this," he
adds, "I should suppose to be, that Saturn is not among the
celestial but the infernal gods. Plutarch, in his book of 'Summaries,'
says, that 'the Romans looked upon Kronos as a subterranean and infernal
God.'" * There can be no doubt that this is so far true, for
the name of Pluto is only a synonym for Saturn, "The Hidden
One." * But yet, in the light of the real history of the
historical Saturn, we find a more satisfactory reason for the barbarous
custom that so much disgraced the escutcheon of Rome in all its glory,
when mistress of the world, when such multitudes of men were "Butchered
to make a Roman holiday."
When it is remembered that Saturn himself was cut in pieces, it is
easy to see how the idea would arise of offering a welcome sacrifice to
him by setting men to cut one another in pieces on his birthday, by way
of propitiating his favour.
The practice of such penance, then, on the part of those of the
Pagans who cut and slashed themselves, was intended to propitiate and
please their god, and so to lay up a stock of merit that might tell in
their behalf in the scales of Anubis. In the Papacy, the penances are
not only intended to answer the same end, but, to a large extent, they
are identical. I do not know, indeed, that they use the knife as the
priests of Baal did; but it is certain that they look upon the shedding
of their own blood as a most meritorious penance, that gains them high
favour with God, and wipes away many sins. Let the reader look at the
pilgrims at Lough Dergh, in Ireland, crawling on their bare knees over
the sharp rocks, and leaving the bloody tracks behind them, and say what
substantial differences there is between that and cutting themselves
with knives. In the matter of scourging themselves, however, the
adherents of the Papacy have literally borrowed the lash of Osiris.
Everyone has heard of the Flagellants, who publicly scourge themselves
on the festivals of the Roman Church, and who are regarded as saints of
the first water. In the early ages of Christianity such flagellations
were regarded as purely and entirely Pagan. Athenagoras, one of the
early Christian Apologists, holds up the Pagans to ridicule for thinking
that sin could be atoned for, or God propitiated, by any such means. *
But now, in the high places of the Papal Church, such practices are
regarded as the grand means of gaining the favour of God. On Good
Friday, at Rome and Madrid, and other chief seats of Roman idolatry,
multitudes flock together to witness the performances of the saintly
whippers, who lash themselves till the blood gushes in streams from
every part of their body. * They pretend to do this in honour of Christ,
on the festival set apart professedly to commemorate His death, just as
the worshippers of Osiris did the same on the festival when they
lamented for his loss. * But can any man of the least Christian
enlightenment believe that the exalted Saviour can look on such rites as
doing honour to Him, which pour contempt on His all-perfect atonement,
and represent His most "precious blood" as needing to
have its virtue supplemented by that of blood drawn from the backs of
wretched and misguided sinners? Such offerings were altogether fit for
the worship of Moloch; but they are the very opposite of being fit for
the service of Christ.
It is not in one point only, but in manifold respects, that the
ceremonies of "Holy Week" at Rome, as it is termed,
recall to memory the rites of the great Babylonian god. The more we look
at these rites, the more we shall be struck with the wonderful
resemblance that subsists between them and those observed at the
Egyptian festival of burning lamps and the other ceremonies of the
fire-worshippers in different countries. In Egypt the grand illumination
took place beside the sepulchre of Osiris at Sais. * In Rome in "Holy
Week," a sepulchre of Christ also figures in connection with a
brilliant illumination of burning tapers. * In Crete, where the tomb of
Jupiter was exhibited, that tomb was an object of worship to the
Cretans. * In Rome, if the devotees do not worship the so-called
sepulchre of Christ, they worship what is entombed within it. * As there
is reason to believe that the Pagan festival of burning lamps was
observed in commemoration of the ancient fire-worship, so there is a
ceremony at Rome in the Easter week, which is an unmistakable act of
fire-worship, when a cross of fire is the grand object of worship. This
ceremony is thus graphically described by the authoress of Rome in the
19th Century: "The effect of the blazing cross of fire
suspended from the dome above the confession or tomb of St. Peter's, was
strikingly brilliant at night. It is covered with innumerable lamps,
which have the effect of one blaze of fire.....The whole church was
thronged with a vast multitude of all classes and countries, from
royalty to the meanest beggar, all gazing upon this one object. In a few
minutes the Pope and all his Cardinals descended into St. Peter's, and
room being kept for them by the Swiss guards, the aged Pontiff....
prostrated himself in silent adoration before the CROSS OF FIRE. A long
train of Cardinals knelt before him, whose splendid robes and attendant
train-bearers, formed a striking contrast to the humility of their
attitude." * What could be a more clear and unequivocal act of
fire-worship than this? Now, view this in connection with the fact
stated in the following extract from the same work, and how does the one
cast light on the other:--"With Holy Thursday our miseries
began [that is, from crowding]. On this disastrous day we went before
nine to the Sistine chapel....and beheld a procession led by the
inferior orders of clergy, followed up by the Cardinals in superb
dresses, bearing long wax tapers in their hands, and ending with the
Pope himself, who walked beneath a crimson canopy, with his head
uncovered, bearing the Host in a box; and this being, as you know, the
real flesh and blood of Christ, was carried from the Sistine chapel
through the intermediate hall to the Paulina chapel, were it was
deposited in the sepulchre prepared to receive it beneath the
altar.....I never could learn why Christ was to be buried before He was
dead, for, as the crucifixion did not take place till Good Friday, it
seems odd to inter Him on Thursday. His body, however, is laid in the
sepulchre, in all the churches of Rome, where this rite is practised, on
Thursday forenoon, and it remains there till Saturday at mid-day, when,
for some reason best known to themselves, He is supposed to rise from
the grave amidst the firing of cannon, and blowing of trumpets, and
jingling of bells, which have been carefully tied up ever since the dawn
of Holy Thursday, lest the devil should get into them." * The
worship of the cross of fire on Good Friday explains at once the anomaly
otherwise so perplexing, that Christ should be buried on Thursday, and
rise from the dead on Saturday. If the festival of Holy Week be really,
as its rites declare, one of the old festivals of Saturn, the Babylonian
fire-god, who, though an infernal god, was yet Phoroneus, the great "Deliverer,"
it is altogether natural that the god of the Papal idolatry, though
called by Christ's name, should rise from the dead on his own day--the
Dies Saturni, or "Saturn's day." * On the day before
the Miserere is sung with such overwhelming pathos, that few can listen
to it unmoved, and many even swoon with the emotions that are excited.
What if this be at bottom only the old song of Linus, * of whose very
touching and melancholy character Herodotus speaks so strikingly?
Certain it is, that much of the pathos of that Miserere depends on the
part borne in singing it by the sopranos; and equally certain it is that
Semiramis, the wife of him who, historically, was the original of that
god whose tragic death was so pathetically celebrated in many countries,
enjoys the fame, such as it is, having been the inventress of the
practice from which soprano singing took its rise. *
Now, the flagellations which form an important part of the penances
that take place at Rome on the evening of Good Friday, formed an equally
important part in the rites of that fire-god, from which, as we have
seen, the Papacy has borrowed so much. These flagellations, then, of "Passion
Week," taken in connection with the other ceremonies of that
period, bear their additional testimony to the real character of that
god whose death and resurrection Rome then celebrates. Wonderful it is
to consider that, in the very high place of what is called Catholic
Christendom, the essential rites at this day are seen to be the very
rites of the old Chaldean fire-worshippers.
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