adversaries, so they could get their own similar pretensions recognised. Their argument was one that was well contrived to evade all possibility of being determined: the Pagan miracles were wrought by the power of dæmons, while their's were to be ascribed to the True God.

Justin Martyr, in his Apology for the Christian Religion, addressed to the emperor Hadrian, seems to seek rather an excuse for the Christian miracles, than to consider them as resting on any grounds of evidence:-" As to our Jesus curing the lame, and the paralytic, and such as were cripples from their birth, this is little more than what you say of your Esculapius."*

"In the performance of their miracles," says Dr. Convers Middleton, "the primitive Christians were always charged with fraud and imposture by their adversaries. Lucian tells us, that whenever any crafty juggler, expert in his trade, and who knew how to make a right use of things, went over to the Christians, he was sure to grow rich immediately, by making a prey of their simplicity; and Celsus represents all the Christian wonder-workers as mere vagabonds and common cheats, who rambled about to play their tricks at fairs and markets, not in the circles of the wiser and better sort, (for among such they never ventured to appear), but whenever they observed a set of raw young fellows, slaves or fools, there they took care to intrude themselves, and to display their arts."--Free Inquiry, p. 144.

The reader has only to consult the 1st and 2d chapters of the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, and he will see that this principle of playing off upon the credulity of the weakest and most ignorant of mankind, is expressly avowed by the great Apostle of the Gentiles-" Christ crucified," to the Jews, "a stumbling block," as contrary to all evidence of fact; "and to the Greeks, foolishness," as revolting to reason. The principal result, however, of this resemblance is, the evidence it affords that the terms or epithets of "OUR SAVIOUR"-the Saviour being God, were the usual designations of the god Esculapius ;† and that miracles of healing, and resurrection from the dead, * See the Chapter on Justin Martyr, in this DIEGESIS.

IOUR.

+ Both Bacchus, and Jupiter also, was distinguished by the epithet OUR SAVSir John Marsham had a coin of the Thasions on which was the inscription Hoaxes Zwrηgos, of HERCULES THE SAVIOUR.-Bryant's Annot. vol. 2, p. 406. 195. The name of Christ, as we have seen (Definitions, p. 7,) was ridiculously common, and extended even to every individual of the Jewish race:

אל חנען במשיחי ולנבאיאיל תרעז

"Touch not my Christs, and do my fortune-tellers no harm.”—Psalm cv. 14.

were the evidence of his divinity, for ages before similar pretences were advanced for Jesus of Nazareth. "Strabo informs us, that the temples of Esculapius were constantly filled with the sick, imploring the help of GOD; and that they had tables hanging around them, in which all the miraculous cures were described. There is a remarkable fragment of one of these tables still extant, and exhibited by Gruter in his collection, as it was found in the ruins of Esculapius's temple, in the island of the Tyber in Rome; which gives an account of two blind men restored to sight by Esculapius, in the open view, and with the loud acclamations of the people acknowledging the manifest power of the god."—Middleton's Free Inquiry, p. 78. Could such a document be produced to authenticate any one of the miracles ascribed to Jesus, what would become of the cause of infidelity?

CHAPTER XXI.

HERCULES-JESUS CHRIST.

ÖR Alcides, was the son of God by Alcmena, wife of Amphytrion, king of Thebes, and is said to have been born in that city, 1280 years before the Christian era. HERCULES was pointed out by the ancients as their great exemplar of virtue. It was affirmed by some, that he voluntarily engaged in his great labours. The whole of his life appears to have been devoted to the good of mankind. "The writers who treat of his adventures, and of the antiquities relating to them," says Mr. Spence, "have generally fallen into a great deal of confusion, so far, that I scarcely know any one of them that has perfectly well settled which were his twelve labours. To avoid falling into the same confusion, one may divide all his adventures into three classes. In the first class, I should place such as are previous to his twelve celebrated labours;

"In the second, those twelve labours themselves, which he was obliged to do by the fatality of his birth;

"And in the third, any supernumerary exploits.

"His first exploit was that of strangling two serpents sent to destroy him in his cradle. This he seems to have performed, according to some accounts of it, when he was not above half an hour old. But what is still more extraordinary is, that there are exploits supposed to have been performed by Hercules, even before Alcmena brought him into the world."

Thus far Spence, in his Polymetis, dial. 9, p. 116. Adding in a note, "This, perhaps, is one of the most mysterious points in all the mythology of the ancients. Though Hercules was born not long before the Trojan war, they make him assist the gods in conquering the rebel giants (Virgil's Æneid, 8, line 298); and some of them talk of an oracle or tradition in heaven, that the gods could never conquer them, without the assistance of a man.'

Upon which, the orthodox Parkhurst, in his Hebrew Lexicon,* asks, with indignation, "Can any man seriously believe, that so excellent a scholar as Mr. Spence was, could not easily have accounted for what he represents as being so very mysterious? Will not 1 Pet. i. 20,† compared with Hag. ii. 7, clear the whole difficulty, only recollecting that Hercules might be the name of several mere men, as well as the title of the future Saviour? And did not the truth here glare so strongly on our author's eyes, that he was afraid to trust his reader with it in the text, and so put it into a note for fear it should spoil his jests.

"It is well known," continues Parkhurst, "that by Hercules, in the physical mythology of the heathens, was meant the Sun, or solar light, and his twelve famous labours have been referred to the sun's passing through the twelve zodiacal signs; and this, perhaps, not without some foundation. But the labours of Hercules seem to have had a still higher view, and to have been originally designed as emblematic memorials of what the real Son of God and Saviour of the world was to do and suffer for our sakes— Noowv Gentyqia navta zoμisor—“ Bringing all lenitives of our diseases," as the Orphic Hymn speaks of Hercules."S

Thus we see that Christian divines, according to their cue or drift, either endeavour to conceal or else boast of the resemblance between the Christian and Pagan mythology. At one time, or with one set of Christian-evidence writers, the very idea of naming Christ and Hercules together is held as the most frightful impiety; heaven and hell are

* P. 520.

+ Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.

And the Desire of all nations shall come.

§ See Parkhurst's Hebrew Lexicon, under the word D

the root W, Strength, or Vigour, p. 520.

PROTECTORS, from

But what is this whole strain of argument, but the open and avowed ECLECTIC Philosophy, and a virtual admission that Christianity and Paganism are perfectly synonymous ?

not further asunder: with another set, equally, orthodox, but driving at a different tact of argument, it is Satan himself who hath blinded our eyes, to prevent the light of truth shining upon us, if we cannot see that Hercules and Jesus Christ are one and the same identical personage; that the labours of the one were the miracles of the other; and that the most mysterious and abstruse doctrines of the New Testament were but the realization of the emblematical types of the ancient Paganism. SON OF GOD, and SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD, were forms of expression with which the ear of heathenism was familiar, for ages before it was pretended that the son of Jehovah and Mary had a better claim to be addressed by those titles, than the son of Jupiter and Alcmene.

There was, however, a consistency in the conduct of the worshippers of the earlier claimant, and a conformity of their practice to their profession; which we shall look for in vain among the adorers of the later aspirant. Hercules was expressly and professedly worshipped by the ancient Latins, under the name of DIVUS FIDIUs; that is, the guarantee or protector of faith promised or sworn. They had a custom of calling this deity to witness, by a sort of oath conceived in these terms-" Me Dius Fidius!" that is, So help me the god Fidius! or Hercules. But with all due respect to the high authority I quote, rather than incur the censure of the divines of the Hutchinsonian school, of resisting the light that glares upon me, I should take the original form of the ancient oath to have been "Me Deus Filius!" the filling up of which formulary, with the words ita adjuvet, make the sense complete, So help me God the Son!" The form of oath used in our universities at this day is," Ita me Deus adjuvet et sancta ejus evangelia!"— So help me God and his holy Gospels! The turning the word filius into Fidius, and inventing a god, or an epitheton of that name, seems like a struggle to evade the evident sense, especially since we know that, in the hurried and gabbling way in which the ancient oath was administered, the whole sentence was pronounced but as two words, Medius Fidius; and certainly it would be ridiculous to make a God, or the epithet of a God, of the word Medius: and why might not Hercules be honoured with the title of God the son, to distinguish him from Jupiter, or God the Father, as by his human nature standing in a nearer relation to mankind than the paternal deity, and the fitter to be appealed to as a mediator in human transactions;

especially seeing that he was known and recognized under the exactly similar designation of the Son of God, and the Saviour of the world?

It is, indeed, one of the most curious extravagancies of all that is extravagant in Christian faith and practice, that the custom of administering oaths should be retained in Christian courts of judicature, in spite of the express and reiterated prohibitions of swearing contained by luckless oversight in the very book on which the oath is taken. Our Judge Blackstone, well aware how ill the Christian text would serve his purpose, passes over the words of Jesus Christ, "I say unto you, swear not at all," (Matt. v. 34); and those of his holy Apostle St. James, "But above all things, my brethren, swear not," (James v. 12); and quotes the text of the Pagan, Cicero:

"Who denies that these opinions are useful, when he observes how many things are certified upon oath; of what safety are the religious obligations of covenants, how many persons are restrained from crime by the fear of divine punishment, and how holy is the society of citizenship, from the belief of the presence of the immortal gods, as well with the judges as with the witnesses?"*

"It has indeed been remarked by the most eminent writers of the Roman history, that the superstition of that people had a great influence in keeping them in subordination and allegiance. It is more particularly observed, that in no other nation was the solemn obligation of an oath treated with such respect, and fulfilled with such a religious circumspection, and such an inviolable fidelity." Such is the substance of a note of a Christian translator of Mosheim, in opposition to a remark of his text, that the Roman superstition was defective in this point.--(Cent. 4, part 1.)

A note to similar effect occurs in the Christian Evanson's work on the Dissonance of the four Gospels, p. 81. "I was many years ago assured by an intimate friend, and an intelligent worthy man, who had traded largely both in the northern parts of Africa and in many different countries of Europe, that he was never once deceived in confiding in the honour and integrity of a Mahomedan; but that through the perfidy and dishonesty of some of

* Utiles esse opiniones has, quis negat, cum intelligat quam multa firmentur jurejurando; quantæ salutis sint fœderum religiones, quam multos divini supplicii metus a scelere revocarit, quamque sancta sit societas civium inter ipsos, Diis immortalibus interpositis tum judicibus tum testibus.-De Legibus, lib. 2, 7,