RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION.

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whole. He is made to sit " on the right hand of God" because this is what the writer thought he ought to do; the primitive idea of a God sitting on a throne somewhere in the heavens is here borne out. If such a miracle occurred, it must have been the most wonderful vision ever seen by man. Yet it is consigned to one little verse, and not a single person is mentioned who saw it! The twelve verses, however, which contain the account are admitted in the R. V. to be spurious. The Luke Gospel is the only one that can be said to give the story; the writer says: "He was carried up into heaven." The writer of the Acts says: "He was taken up, and a cloud received him out of sight." The John writer, being determined to push this doctrine, mentions it no less than six times, and he never once mentions the name of anyone who saw the occurrence. Paul just mentions the event in his Epistle to the Ephesians, because he was told it; but the whole story is simply derived from hearsay evidence, and from the words put into the mouth of Jesus by the John writer-not a word of which can be believed. Admitting that Jesus did ascend into the upper atmosphere, where was he going? If he left in the evening, he went exactly the opposite way to the course he would have taken had he started in the morning. What did he do with his body that was gibbeted, and in what way did he overcome the intense cold of the higher regions of the atmosphere? The nearest stopping-place would be the moon-240,000 miles away. We are told that his body was a spiritual one. But what became of the earthly body, for we are told that he had a fish supper with his disciples the night before his death?

The only passages in the O. T. that have been produced as having reference to the Resurrection are in Ezekiel xxxvii. (which is an account of the reanimation of dry bones), and to the Ascension are in Psalms xxiv. 7 and lxviii. 18, neither of which has the least reference to Jesus, both being songs about the Hebrew God Yahuh. If there were 500 brethren who are said to have seen the risen Saviour ready to give evidence, why were they not appealed to? The two stories, however, were not new. They were old legends, borrowed from previous Pagan religions.

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Krishna rose from the dead, and ascended bodily into heaven; all men saw him." Rama, an incarnation of

S

Vishnu, "ascended into heaven." The coverings of the body of Buddha "unrolled themselves, and the lid of his coffin was opened by superhuman agency, when he ascended bodily into heaven." Lao-Kiun, or Lao-Tse, "ascended bodily into heaven," since which he has been deified. Zoroaster, the Persian saviour, "ascended to heaven." Esculapius, "the son of god "-the "saviour," ""rose from the dead," after being put to death, which event (and this shows how easy it is to fulfil prophecies when they are useful to further a cause) was prophesied in Ovid's Metamorphoses :

in

"Then thou shalt die, but from the darkness above Shalt rise victorious, and be twice a god." The "saviour," Adonis, after being put to death, rose from the dead," and the Syrians celebrate the festival of the "Resurrection of Adonis" in the early spring. The festival was observed in Alexandria, the cradle of Christianism in the time of Bishop Cyril (412 C.E.); and at Antioch, the ancient capital of the Greek Kings of Syria, in the Emperor Julian's time (363 C.E.). The celebration in honour of the Resurrection of Adonis came at last to be known as a Christian festival, and the ceremonies held in Catholic countries on Good Friday and Easter Sunday are nothing more than the festival of the death and resurrection of Adonis, who is propitiated as "O Adonai one of the Greater Antiphons of the Roman Catholic Church. Osiris, after being put to death, rose from the dead," and bore the title of the "Resurrected One." The Phrygian saviour, Attys or Atyces, and the Persian saviour and mediator between god and man," Mithra, were 'put to death and rose again." Tammuz, the Babylonian saviour, son of the virgin Mylitta; Bacchus, son of the virgin Semele; Hercules, son of Zeus; Memnon, whose mother Eos wept tears at his death, like Mary is said to have done for Jesus; Baldur, the Scandinavian lord and saviour; and the Greek Amphiarius: "all rose again after death"; and all represented the sun dying at the winter solstice, rising again after the crossing, or crucifixion, at the vernal equinox, and ascending to the summer solsticial point in all his "glory" as the conqueror over the powers of evil.

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ANCIENT PAGAN SYMBOLS ADOPTED BY CHRISTIANS-THE CROSS, SACRED HEART, SACRED MONOGRAM, LAMB, FISH, TRIANGLE, AND TRIPOD-THE DOVE.

WE would naturally suppose that what in modern days is known as the Christian symbol-the cross-would be found upon every tomb in the catacombs of Rome, which was the burying-place of the early Christians, as it is now seen in Christian cemeteries. But nothing of the sort, for the simple reason that it was not a Christian symbol in the early ages of Christianism, but a Pagan emblem; and was not adopted by Christians until the latter part of the seventh century, although it was adopted in the fourth century, in the form of the Labarum, by Constantine. The cross, too, is nowhere mentioned in the N. T. writings, though the translators have, for their own purposes, inserted the word, which is an erroneous rendering of the Greek word stauros-which, literally translated, is upright beam, or gibbet. The emblem of the primitive Christians was the FISH, from which they were called Pisciculi; it was sculptured among the inscriptions on their tombstones, as a private indication that the persons there interred were Christians; and, though understood by brother Christians, it was an enigma to the heathen. The Christian Saviour was worshipped under the form of a LAMB pierced-the "Lamb of God" of ancient mythology and astronomy. The only approach to such a symbol as the cross to be found in the catacombs is the Buddhist sacred 66 swastika,” which is found in the old Buddhist zodiacs, and in the Asoka inscriptions. It was not till the Council of Constantinople (707) that symbols of a cross with a man nailed to it were ordered to be used in place (Buddhist).

THE

SWASTIKA

of the lamb, or ram, which was formerly used to denote the victorious Sun as he passed through the sign Aries, giving new life to the world, when he was worshipped as "the Lamb of God." From the decree of that Council, the identity of the worship of the astronomical " Aries," the ram or lamb, and the Christian "Saviour," is certified beyond the possibility of a doubt; and the mode by which the ancient superstitions were propagated is satisfactorily shown. The cross was, like all the other emblems of Christianism, borrowed from previously existing Pagan religions, being used by the Egyptians, Phoenicians, ancient Akkadians, Babylonians, Persians, and Romans. It was the phallic emblem of generation and life. The Tau in ancient Hebrew was like the Greek letter T ; and a tau cross, fixed erect on a circular base, was found on the breast of an Egyptian mummy. The Ethiopic tau was identical in shape with the modern popular cross of Christianism. The Egyptian cross was nearly identical with the phallic Crux Ansata, the terminals of the tau being broadened out at the ends. The astronomical cross-the oldest form of cross—was identical with the modern “St. Andrew's cross,” and originated in the four-spoked wheel on which Ixion, the god "Sol," was bound to, when crucified in the heavens; two spokes confined the arms (or, of the Dove, the wings), and two the legs. Criminals were frequently extended on this form of cross.

A cross was the symbol of the Hindu god Agni, "the Light of the World." It was worn as a charm by Egyptian women, as it was later, and is now, by Christian women. The dead Osiris was represented with a sceptre and a crozier (both now Christian emblems), and stretched on a Crux Ansata. The Egyptian saviour, Horus, is represented sitting on the lap of Isis, his virgin mother; a large cross being carved on the back of the seat. On the breast of an Egyptian mummy (London University Museum) is to be seen a cross upon "Mons Calvary," or a Veneris" (Mount of Venus). The Egyptian images generally hold a cross in their hands. In the cave of Elephanta a figure is represented as

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destroying a crowd of infants, with a Crux Ansata, a mitre, and a crozier. The Egyptian priest wore the

ANCIENT PAGAN SYMBOLS.

Crux Ansata as

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a "Pallium," the head passing through the vestment at the oval or yoni," just as the priests of the Catholic Church wear their mass vestment. By the side of one of the inscriptions in the Temple, on the Island of Philæ, are seen a Crux Ansata and a Maltese cross.

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EGYPTIAN

PRIEST.

The cross is also to be found, in some form, in the hands of Siva, Brahma, Vishnu, Krishna, Svasti, and Jama, on the figures of ancient monuments. The god Saturn was represented by a cross with a ram's horn; Venus, the goddess of love, by a circle with a cross. Krishna was also represented suspended on

a cross. On a Phoenician medal found in the ruins of Citium are inscribed the cross with a rosary attached, and a lamb-this last being the early symbol of the followers of Jesus. The priests of "Jupiter Ammon" carried in procession a cross, and a box containing a compass or magnet called "the ark of the covenant of God." "There is reason to believe that the Chinese knew something about the polaric property of the loadstone more than two thousand years before the Christian era.”

The Egyptians marked their sacred cakes with a cross, from which ancient Pagan custom comes our Good Friday custom of "hot cross buns." Many Egyptian sepulchres are cruciform in shape, and the ensigns and banners of the Persians were cruciform. Bas relief crosses have been found, of very great antiquity, at Nashi Roustain. One of these represents a combat between two horsemen, with a standard-bearer carrying the cruciform ensign. Another, belonging to the next century after Alexander (more than two centuries before our era), shows also a standard-bearer carrying a cruciform ensign. A third was found at the foot of Mount Nakshi Rajab, coeval with the first, and with a similar representation.

Ana or Anu, the chief deity among the Babylonians, and the sun-god Bel or Bal, had the cross for their sign. A cross hangs on the breast of Tiglath Pileser, in the colossal Nimrod tablet in the British Museum; another king, from the ruins of Nineveh, wears a Maltese cross on his breast. It is frequently found on ancient coins of Asia Minor, several having a ram or lamb on one side and a cross on