XIV.

THE JESSEANS, OR FIRST CHRISTIANS-ALEXANDER'S MILITARY EXPEDITION AGAINST DARIUS - PTOLEMY, GOVERNOR OF EGYPT-ALEXANDRIA THE CENTRE OF CIVILIZATION - THE FIRST UNIVERSITY FOUNDED· RISE OF RATIONALISM - SIEGE OF ALEXANDRIA DECLINE OF LEARNING AND THE RESTORATION OF PAGANISM THE ESSENES-A MESSIAH EXPECTED— JOSHUA-BEN-PANDIRA: HIS IDENTITY WITH IESOUS; AND WITH BACCHUS.

THE first Christians were called Jessæans (From the Greek Jessæi, a follower of Jeshua or Jesus) until the middle of the second century, when, at Antioch, they were called Christians. They were also called Pisciculi (or little fishes), from the emblem they adopted (from old zodiacal and Phallic worship) of the two fishes. The word "Christian " means a follower of a Christ" (an "anointed one," or "messiah ") and is derived from the Greek Christos-in Hebrew Avatar; but, as most of the religions of the world which existed prior to the time of Jesus had possessed "Christs," the name Christian was not new, and, as applied to the new religion, was misleading.

In order to understand the origin of Christianism, we must know something of the political conditions of the time. The civilization of the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, which had been for many centuries mixed up with the worship of the gods-of Memphis, Thebes, and Olympia -was undergoing a remarkable change by the rise of the new philosophy, and with the consequence that the old Pagan worship was declining. Ill-feeling was naturally aroused between the priests and the philosophers-the latter being branded as "Atheists," Euripides being declared a "heretic,"

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and Esculapius being accused of blasphemy, and narrowly escaping being stoned to death.

About this time (B.C. 334) Alexander the Great undertook a military expedition against Darius, King of Persia. After conquering Asia Minor and Syria, subduing Egypt, and founding the city of Alexandria, he marched towards Babylon with his huge Macedonian army, and defeated the Persians, taking possession of Babylon, before doing which, however, he undertook a pilgrimage to the Temple of Jupiter Amon in the Lybian desert, 200 miles off, where "the oracle" (i.e., the priests) declared him to be a son of that god, who, under the form of a serpent, had beguiled Olympias, his mother. He eventually died at Babylon (B.C. 323), and his empire-now enormously increased-was divided among his generals; his half-brother, Ptolemy Soter, who had been Governor of Egypt during his brother's lifetime, taking possession of that country, making Alexandria his capital.

Owing to the good government of the Ptolemies, large numbers of Arabians, Jews, and Greeks were induced to take up their residence in Alexandria, which rapidly became the centre of civilization. The celebrated museum, in the Bruchium quarter, commenced by Ptolemy Soter, and completed by his successor, Ptolemy Philadelphus, possessed a library of 400,000 volumes, besides which there was the lesser library in connection with the Temple of Serapis, called the "Serapeum," destroyed by the Christians (see page 146). Education was encouraged; a university was founded, in which were faculties of literature, mathematics, astronomy (the Macedonian army of Alexander had brought a great deal of information back with them regarding the two latter subjects from Babylon), medicine, and natural history; books were freely bought, transcribers kept, and apartments reserved at the king's expense for students (at one time about 14,000) and philosophers. They had also an anatomical theatre, an astronomical observatory, and botanical and zoological gardens. It was here that Euclid produced his "Demonstrations"; that Archimedes proclaimed his theory of specific gravity, and discovered the theory of the lever; that Eratosthenes taught that the earth was a globe, demonstrated the poles, the earth's axis, the equator, the equinoxial points, the solstices, and determined the geometric positions of the tropics and circles;.

and that Hipparchus demonstrated the precession of the equinoxes, catalogued the stars, and arranged the lines of latitude and longitude. And thus was commenced the civilization of Europe. Under the beneficent rule of the Ptolemies was rationalized the crude science of the ancient Chaldæans, Akkadians, and Assyrians.

But this happy state of things was not to last long; for, at the defeat of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt (в.C. 30), by Julius Cæsar, Alexandria was laid siege to, the museum and larger library were destroyed, and Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire. The learning and science of the philosophers declined as the worship of the gods and the old superstitions were revived. The temples of Jupiter Amon, and Apollo, in Egypt; of Adonis and Ies in Phoenicia, of Dionysios in Greece, and of Bacchus in Rome, were again filled by devotees, miracles were again performed, and priestly power and influence increased; so that, in about half a century, the civilizing influence and the intellectual progress of the Ptolemies appeared to be destroyed, and Europe was once more given over to darkness and superstition.

For many centuries there had been an order of ascetics, monks, and anchorites, called by the Egyptians "Essenes," by the Greeks "Therapeutæ," and by the Hebrews "Nazarites" (Gen. xlix. 26). These abounded in the Thebaid of Egypt, the deserts and rocky plains of Arabia Petrea, and the barren hills of Syria, having monasteries in different parts, besides mission stations in distant countries such as Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Colossi, and Thessalonica. They travelled about preaching and performing miracles by magic, in which arts they were adepts, greatly to the wonderment of the ignorant and credulous country people. The "Gnostics and Man

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daites," or 66 Baptists," were sects of these, John being the leader of the latter. Those converted from Judaism were called "Ebionites "; others obtained their name from the locality in which their monastery was situated, as the "Carmelites" of Mount Carmel. Some lived in caves and huts as "anchorites" and "hermits." They shaved their heads in the form of a "tonsure" (Jer. xxv. 23; Num. vi. 18)—a custom which eventually became law among the Egyptian and Roman priests—and used rosary beads; in

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fact, they were almost identical in their manners, customs, and rules with the Carmelite Order of the Catholic Church, and it is highly probable that they were originally one and the same, which opinion is strengthened by the admission of Catholics themselves, who, in 1682, at Beziers, maintained in public that Pythagoras-who, with Elias, dwelt at a Carmelite monastery near Nazareth, and who was called an "Essenian" by the Jews—had been a monk, and a member of their order. They were adepts, also, in the art of divination by rods; serpents and snakes were favourite subjects for performing upon, and these could be rendered. as rigid as a stick by compressing their necks, which, when properly done, causes a cataleptic stiffness. The sacred snake of India and Egypt is a viper of the sub genus "Naja," and has a loose skin under its neck, which it can swell out at will.

The monastery at Mount Carmel was known as "The Garden" and "The Fruitful Field." There was another enormous monastery at Mount Athos, in Salonica, said to have contained 6,000 monks, who were chiefly occupied in transcribing manuscripts and manufacturing legends for the credulous belief of future generations.

They were worshippers of Isis and Serapis-the god of the sacred bull Apis, and a representative of Osiris-and the Theban, Phoenician, Assyrian, and Hebrew Yahuh (Jehovah of the Bible translators). The Emperor Hadrian, in a letter to the Consul Servanus (about B.C. 130-140), wrote: "There are there [in Egypt] Christians who worship Serapis, and devoted to Serapis are those who call themselves' Bishops of Christ.'" And this so late as the middle of the second century! They had, like the Persian Mithraists, or Zoroastrians, a full hierarchy similar to that observed in the present Catholic Church, consisting of bishops, priests, deacons, exorcists, etc.; and their doctrine and belief were a mixture of ancient Buddhism, Mithraism -the Persian sun-worshippers had an ecclesiastical constitution, and a hierarchical order, baptism, confirmation, Paradise, and Hell 2,000 years before Christianism aroseOsirianism, Judaism, and the eclectic philosophy of Philo. Jesus was a member of this sect, though, like Moses (who lived in the reign of the Egyptian King Amenophis, or Amun-oth-ph), he was educated by the priests at the Temple

of Serapis, at Heliopolis, where he is supposed to have gone

as a servant.

It was at this time, when the Ptolemaic period of education and enlightenment was declining, and the old Pagan superstitions were reviving, that a Messiah was expectedan "avatar" by the Jews, and a "Buddha " by the Buddhists (the former looked for one every 600 years). Gautama the Buddha had announced that a Buddha would descend from Heaven, and would be called "The Son of Love." Historical evidence of the appearance of a Messiah called Jesus at or near the time Christians assert to be the commencement of the "Christian era" being absent, and no corroborative evidence of any of the events recorded of him being forthcoming, we are forced to the conclusion that no such person existed, and to take this-the only-view of the case that is left, which, singularly enough, fits in most remarkably with the details as given in the life of the mythical personage mentioned in the N. T. The Essene monks, seeing how the faith, the old worship, and the power of the priests had declined, and the memory of the miracles wrought by the gods had become effaced, and in order to counteract the work of the philosophers, conceived the idea of teaching the Messiahship of a man who had lived many years before, but who had, by his preaching, gathered a following from among the ignorant and credulous country people, and were called after him Jessæans. This man, according to Celsus, was a young Nazarite or Nazarean (not Nazarene, nor any connection with Nazareth), called Joshua, or Jeschua-ben-Pandira, born in Syria about B.C. 120. His mother (whose original name was Stada) was turned away from home by her husband-a carpenter-owing to her illicit connection with a Roman soldier called Pandira. She wandered about with her child, obtaining a living by spinning; and, when the child was old enough, he became a servant in Egypt, subsequently finding himself in the Temple of Serapis at Heliopolis, where he was instructed in magic and priestcraft. We find him later as a member of the sect of Essenes, eventually making himself obnoxious to the priests by preaching against them, more especially the Scribes and Pharisees, for he was a Jew by birth. He is reported in the N. T. to have said that he came "from God" their "father [Yahuh]"; that they were 66 of their father the