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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

PAGANISM SURVIVING
IN CHRISTIANITY

ABRAM HERBERT LEWIS, D.D.
AUTHOR OF " BIBLICAL TEACHINGS CONCERNING THE SABBATH AND THE SUNDAY,"
"A CRITICAL HISTORY OF THE SABBATH AND THE SUNDAY IN THE
CHRISTIAN CHURCH," "a CRITICAL HISTORY OF SUNDAY
LEGISLATION FROM 321 TO 1888, A.D.," ETC.

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK
27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET

LONDON
24 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND

Sjje futuhciborltti "$tm
1892

COPYRIGHT, 1892
BY
ABRAM HERBERT LEWIS

IKT Usss

Electrotyped, Printed, and Bound by
Ube Knickerbocker, prcs?, 1ttcw JBorfr
G. P. Putnam's Sons

TO
GEORGE H. BABCOCK
co-worker in historic research and friend
through many years, this volume
is respectfully dedicated The Author

PREFACE.

HE who judges the first century by the nine
teenth will fall into countless errors. He
who thinks that the Christianity of the fourth cen
tury was identical with that of the New-Testament
period, will go widely astray. He who does not
look carefully into the history of religions before
the time of Christ, and into the pagan influences
which surrounded infant Christianity, cannot under
stand its subsequent history. He who cannot rise
above denominational limitations and credal re
strictions cannot become a successful student of
early Church history, nor of present tendencies,
nor of future developments. History is a series of
results, not a medley of happenings. It is the
story of the struggle between right and wrong ; the
record of God's dealing with men. The " historic
argument " is invaluable, because history preserves
God's verdicts concerning human choices and
actions. Events and epochs, transitions and
culminations, are the organized causes and effects
which create the never-ceasing movement, and the
organic unity called history. Hence we learn that

vi PREFA CE.
ideas and principles, like apples, have their time
for development and ripening ; that the stains of
sin, the weakness of error, and the influence of
truth commingle and perdure through the cen
turies ; that good and evil, sin and righteousness,
persist, or are eliminated, in proportion as men
heed God's voice, and listen to His verdicts.
The scientific study of history reveals the norm
by which ideas, creeds, movements, and methods
are to be tested. Such a standard, when con
trasted with the speculations of philosophy, is
granite, compared with sand. God's universal law,
enunciated by Christ, is : " By their fruits ye shall
know them."
The efforts of partisans to manipulate early ;
history in the interest of special views and narrow
conceptions, have been a fruitful source of erro^.
Equally dangerous has been the assumption that
the Christianity of the third, fourth, and fifth cen
turies was identical with that of the New Testa
ment, or was a fair representative of it. The
constant development of new facts shows that at
the point where the average student takes up the
history of Western Christianity, it was already;
fundamentally corrupted by pagan theories and
practices. Its unfolding, from that time to the
present, must be studied in the light of this fact.
The rise, development, present status, and future

PREFACE. vii
history of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism,
cannot be justly considered, apart from this fact.
The fundamental principles, and the underlying
philosophy of these divisions of Christendom
originated in the paganizing of early Christianity.
This fact makes the re-study of the beginnings of
Christianity of supreme importance. The pagan
systems which ante-dated Christ, exercised a con
trolling influence on the development of the first
five centuries of Western Christianity, and hence,
of all subsequent times. This field has been too
nearly " an unknown land," to the average student,
and therefore correct answers have been wanting
to many questions which arise, when we leave
Semitic soil, and consider Christianity in its rela
tion to Greek and Roman thought. " Early
Christianity " cannot be understood except in the
light of these powerful, pre-Christian currents of
influence ; and present history cannot be separated
from them.
This book presents a suggestive rather than an ex
haustive treatment of these influences, and of their
effect on historic Christianity. The author has
aimed to make a volume which busy men may
read, rather than one whose bulk would relegate
it to the comparative silence of library shelves.
The following pages treat four practical points in
Christianity, without attempting to enter the field

viii PREFACE.
of speculative theology, leaving that to a future
time, or to the pen of another — viz. : The in
fluence of pagan thought upon the Bible, and its
interpretation ; upon the organized Church, through
the pagan water-worship cult ; upon the practices
and spiritual life of the Church by substituting
pagan holidayism for Christian Sabbathism, through
the sun-worship cult ; and upon the spiritual life
and subsequent character of the Church, by the
union of Church and State, and the subjugation of
Christianity to the civil power, according to the
pagan model. Facts do not cease to be facts,
though denied and ignored. They do not with
draw from the field of history, though men grow
restive under their condemnation. I have dealt
mainly with facts, giving but brief space to " con
clusions." I have written for those who are
thoughtful and earnest ; who are anxious to know
what the past has been, that they may the better
understand the duties of the present and the un
folding issues of the future. Such will not read
the following pages with languid interest nor care
less eyes.
The issues involved are larger than denomina
tional lines, or the boundaries of creeds. They are
of special interest to Protestants, since they involve
not only the reasons for the revolt against Roman
Catholicism, but the future relations of these divi-

PREFACE. IX
sions of Christendom, to each other, and to the
Bible. The supreme source of authority in re
ligion is directly at issue in the questions here
treated. That is a definite and living question
which cannot be waived aside. At this threshold,
the author extends the welcome which each searcher
after facts and fundamental truths gives to fellow
investigators. Abram Herbert Lewis.
Room ioo, Bible House,
New York City, May, 1892.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
Remains of Paganism in Christianity . . . i
Preliminary Survey — An Imaginary Past — Issue between Protestant
ism and Romanism — General Testimony Relative to Pagan Elements
in Christianity, from Dyer, Lord, Tiele, Baronius, Polydore Virgil,
Fauchet, Mussard, De Choul, Wiseman, Middleton, Max Muller,
Priestley, Thebaud, Hardwick, Maitland, Seymore, Renan, Killen,
Farrar, Merivale, Westropp and Wake, and Lechler.
CHAPTER II.
Pagan Methods of Interpreting the Scriptures .. 31
Contrast between the Christianity of the New Testament and That
of the Later Centuries — Gnosticism and Allegorical Interpretation
— Testimony of Harnack and Bauer Concerning the ' ' Heleniza-
tion of Christianity " — Hatch on " Pagan Exegesis" — The " Fath
ers " as Allegorists ; Justin, Clement of Alexandria, Barnabas, and
Others — Examples: "The Red Heifer a Type of Christ";
"Spiritual Circumcision"; "Scriptural Significance of Foods";
" The Cross in the Old Testament" ; " Why Are There One Hun
dred and Fifty Psalms?" ; " The Phcenix a Type of the Resurrec
tion"; "Gnostic Exposition of the Decalogue"; "Types of
Christ " ; Various Examples from Augustine.
CHAPTER III.
Asiatic Pagan Water-Worship  71
Fundamental Corruption of Christian Baptism through Pagan
Water-Worship — "Baptismal Regeneration," the Product of Pa-

xii CONTENTS.
ganism— Spiritual Purity Sought through Pagan Baptism — Testi
monies from Jamblicus, Virgil, Ovid, Herodotus, Juvenal, and
Others— Baptism and Serpent-Worship— Baptism and Egyptian
Sun- Worship— The Sacred Nile— The Prevalence of Water-Wor
ship in India— Sacred Wells— Sacred Rivers— Modern Buddhistic
and Modern Hindu Baptism.

CHAPTER IV.
Water- Worship in Northern Europe and in Mexico. 98
Water-Worship Prominent in Many Ways, and Associated with
Holy Seasons — Infant Baptism among the Scandinavians and
Teutons — Pagan " Christening of Children" — Sacred Water as a
Safeguard against Disease, etc. — Virtue of Water Used for Mechan
ical Purposes — Water Sprites — Similarity between Roman Catholi
cism and Paganism of Mexico — Aztec Baptism — Prayer for " Bap
tismal Regeneration " of Child by Mexican Midwife.

CHAPTER V.
Greek Water- Worship  112
Sprinkling and Immersion Both Used — Prominence of ' ' Baptismal
Regeneration" — Lustral Water at Temple Doors — Baptism of
Animals — Influence of ' ' The Greek Mysteries " on Christian Bap
tism — Initiatory Baptisms — Scenic Illustrations — Mithraic Baptism
Engrafted on Grecian — " Creed," " Symbol," Drawn from Grecian
Water-Worship Cult — Identity of Grecian and Roman Catholic
Forms — The Use of Spittle in Pagan Baptism.

CHAPTER VI.
Pagan Water- Worship Transferred to Christianity. 128
Testimony from Tertullian, Barnabas, Justin, Methodius, the
Apostolic Constitutions, etc. — Holy Water, or Repeated Baptism,
Borrowed without Change — Magical Effects of Holy Water, the
Same in Christian as in Pagan Cult — Baptism of Animals by Holy

CONTENTS. xiii
Water, to Produce Magical Results— Holy Water Prepared after
the Pagan Method — Consecration of Baptismal Waters Borrowed
from Pagan Combination of Sun- and Water-Worship — The Church
Filled with Baptized but Unconverted Pagans, and so Passed under •
Pagan Control.

CHAPTER VII.
Pagan Sun-Worship  j$6
Sun- Worship the Oldest and Most Widely Diffused Form of Pagan
ism — Gnostic Antinomianism or Lawlessness — Anti-Judaism,
Mainly of Pagan Origin — Anti-Sabbathism and Sunday Observance
Synchronous — Anti-Lawism and Anti-Sabbathism Unscriptural —
Christ's Teachings Concerning the Law of God ; Paul's Teachings
on the Same — Destructive Effect of Pagan Lawlessness on Chris
tianity.

CHAPTER VIII.
Sunday Observance Unknown to Christianity be
fore the Middle of the Second Century . 171
Mistaken Notions Concerning the Beginning of Sunday Observ
ance — No Sunday Observance in the New Testament — Sunday
Directly Referred to but Three Times — It is Never Spoken of as a
Sabbath, nor as Commemorative of Christ's Resurrection — The
Bible does Not State that Christ Rose on Sunday — Christ and His
Disciples Always Observed the Sabbath — The Change of the
Sabbath Unknown in the New Testament — The Sabbath Never
Called ' ' Jewish "in the Scriptures, nor by Any Writer until after
Paganism had Invaded the Church — Origin of Sunday Observance
Found in Paganism — First Reference to Sunday Observance about /
150 a. d. — No Writer of the Early Centuries Claimed Scriptural J
Reasons for Its Observance — Pagan Reasons and Arguments Ad
duced in Its Support ; a Day of ' ' Indulgence to the Flesh " — Pre
tended Scriptural Reasons, ex post facto.

xiv CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IX.
State Religion a Pagan Institution . . . -J
Christ's Attitude toward the State— The Roman Conception of Re
ligion as a Department of the State — Roman Civil Law Created
and Regulated All Religious Duties— Effect of the Pagan Doctrine
of Religious Syncretism on Christianity — The Emperor a Demi-
God, Entitled to Worship, and, ex officio, the Supreme Authority
in Religion — The Deep Corruption of Roman Morals and Social
Life under Pagan State Religion.

CHAPTER X.
The Control of Christianity by the State under
Constantine and his Successors . . . 203
A New Epoch in the Paganizing of Christianity — Paganism Seek
ing a New God, Strong Enough to Save the Empire — Constantine
Not a " Christian Emperor," but Superstitious, Time-Serving, and
Ambitious — Murdering His Kindred while Promoting Christianity
as a Rising Political Influence — Seeking Christianity Mainly for
Ambitious Ends — Professing Christianity Only on his Death-Bed —
Making the Most of Both Worlds — Constantine Corrupted and
Perverted Christianity More than He Aided It.

CHAPTER XI.
Constantine's Legislation Concerning the Pagan
Sunday ......... 217
All His Tolerative Legislation Essentially Pagan — Christians did
Not Seek for Sunday Laws — The First Sunday Law, 321 A.D., Pagan
in Every Particular— Essentially Identical with Existing Laws Con
cerning Other Days — Legislation against Heathen Religions Feeble
and Unenforced — Constantine Not a "Christian Prince."

CONTENTS. XV
CHAPTER XII.
Other Forms of Pagan Residuum in Christianity . 231
A Low Standard of Religious Life — Faith in Relics — The Cross an
Ancient Pagan (Phallic) Symbol— A "Charm" Borrowed from
Paganism — Constantine's Use of the Composite Symbol as a Mili
tary Standard — Prevalence of Faith in "Charms" — Sign of the
Cross in Baptism — Baptism and Holy Water as "Charms" — Stu
pendous Miracles, like Pagan Prodigies, through Baptism — Delayed
Baptism — Orientation at Baptism, etc.
chapter xiii.
Same Subject Continued  263
Lights iii Worship — Worshipping "toward the East" — Easter
Fires — Beltane or Baal Fires — Penance — Mariolatry — The Mass —
Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead — Peter's Keys — Christmas —
Easter — Lent, etc. CHAPTER XIV.
Five Conclusions. The Fundamental Principles of
Protestantism Involved in Present Issues . 282
Protestants must Accept the Bible in Fact, as well as In Theory,
or be Overthrown — The Bible must be Reinterpreted in the Light
of "Higher Criticism" and Deeper Spiritual Life — The Present
Tendencies in Bible Study Mark the Opening of the Second Stage
of the Protestant Movement — Baptism must Cease to be the Foot-
Ball of Denominational Polemics and be Raised to a Question of
Obedience to the Example of Christ — Protestants must Return to
the Sabbath, Christianized by Christ, and to True Sabbathism,
Which Is as Undenominational as Faith — Such Sabbathism, and
God's Sabbath, must be Restored to the Place from Which Pagan
No-Sabbathism and the Pagan Sunday Drove Them — " Sabbath"
Legislation Is Unchristian — All Union of Christianity with the State
must Yield before the Normal Development of True Protestantism.
Index .  301

PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.

CHAPTER I.
REMAINS OF PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
Preliminary Survey — An Imaginary Past — Issue between Protestantism and
Romanism — General Testimony Relative to Pagan Elements in Christian
ity, from Dyer, Lord, Tiele, Baronius, Polydore Virgil, Fauchet, Mus-
sard, De Choul, Wiseman, Middleton, Max Miiller, Priestley, Thebaud,
Hardwick, Maitland, Seymore, Renan, Killen, Farrar, Merivale.Wes-
tropp and Wake, and Lechler.
A PRELIMINARY survey is the more neces
sary lest the general reader fail to grant
the facts of history a competent hearing and a just
consideration. Unconsciously men think of the
earliest Christianity as being like that which they
profess. They measure the early centuries by their
own. Their Church, its doctrines, forms, creeds
and customs, stands as the representative of all
Christianity. It seems like a "rude awakening"
to ask men to believe that there is a "pagan re
siduum " in their faith, or in the customs of their
fathers. The average Christian must pass through
a broadening process, before he can justly consider

2 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
such a question. Unhappily, there are too many
who are unwilling to undergo such an enlargement
of their religious and historical horizon as will
make them competent to consider those facts which
every earnest student of history must face. But
the Christian who believes in the immortality of
truth, and in the certainty of its triumph, will wel
come all facts, even though they may modify the
creed he has hitherto accepted.
A writer in the Edinburgh Review and Critical
Journal, commenting on the revised volumes of
Bishop Lightfoot on Ignatius and Polycarp, speak
ing of the tendency to judge the early centuries by
our own, thus vitiating our conclusions, says :
" The danger of such inquiries lies in the difficulty of
resisting the temptation to frame pictures of an imaginary
past ; and the passion for transferring to the past the pecul
iarities of later times may be best corrected by keeping in
view the total unlikeness of the first, second, or third centu
ries to anything which now exists in any part of the world."
Protestants in the United States are poorly pre
pared to consider so great a question as that which
this book passes under review, because they have
not carefully considered the facts touching their
relations to Roman Catholicism. The Anglo-Rom
ish controversy, in England, in the earlier part of
the present century made the question of paganism
in Christianity prominent for a time. But the dis-

REMAINS OF PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY. 3
cussion was so strongly partisan and contro
versial that it could not produce the best results.
Truth was much obscured by the determined effort
of Protestant writers to show that the pagan re
siduum was all in the Catholic Church ; whereas
the facts show that there could have been no Roman
Catholic Church had not paganism first prepared
the way for its development by corrupting the
earliest Christianity. The facts show, with equal
vividness, that Protestantism has retained much of
paganism, by inheritance. Protestantism, theo
retically, means the entire elimination of the pagan
, residuum ; practically, that work is but fairly begun.
It must be pushed, or the inevitable backward
drift, the historical "undertow" will re-Romanize
the Protestant movement. The expectations and
purposes of Roman Catholicism all point towards
such a result.
This chapter will make a general survey of the
field, as it is seen by men of different schools, that
the reader may be the better prepared for a more
specific treatment of the subject.
Dyer says :
" The first Roman converts to Christianity appear to
have had very inadequate ideas of the sublime purity
of the gospel, and to have entertained a strange medley
of pagan idolatry and Christian truth. The emperor
Alexander Severus, who had imbibed from his mother.

4 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
Mammasa, a singular regard for the Christian religion,
is said to have placed in his domestic chapel the images
of Abraham, of Orpheus, of Apollonius, and of Christ,
as the four' chief sages who had instructed mankind
in the methods of adoring the Supreme Deity. Con
stantine himself, the first Christian emperor, was deeply
imbued with the superstitions of paganism ; he had been
Pontifex Maximus, and it was only a little while before
his death that he was formally received by baptism into
the Christian Church. He was particularly devoted to
Apollo, and he attempted to conciliate his pagan and
his Christian subjects by the respect which he appeared
to entertain for both. An edict enjoining the solemn
observance of Sunday was balanced in the same year '
by another directing that when the palace or any
other public building should be struck by lightning,
the haruspices should be regularly consulted." 5
In a similar strain Professor Lord speaks yet
more strongly:
" But the church was not only impregnated with the
errors of pagan philosophy, but it adopted many of
the ceremonials of Oriental worship, which were both
minute and magnificent. If anything marked the primi
tive church it was the simplicity of worship, and the
absence of ceremonies and festivals and gorgeous rites.
The churches became in the fourth century as imposing
as the old temples of idolatry. The festivals became
authoritative ; at first they were few in number and vol
untary. It was supposed that when Christianity super-
1 It was the next day.
8 History of Rome, by Thomas H. Dyer, LL.D., p. 295, New York and
London, 1877.

REMAINS OF PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY. 5
seded Judaism, the obligation to observe the ceremonies
of the Mosaic law was abrogated. Neither the apostles
nor evangelists imposed the yoke of servitude, but left
Easter and every other feast to be honored by the grati
tude of the recipients of grace. The change in opinion,
in the fourth century, called out the severe animadver
sion of the historian Socrates, but it was useless to stem
the current of the age. Festivals became frequent and
imposing. The people clung to them because they ob
tained a cessation from labor, and obtained excitement.
The ancient rubrics mention only those of the Passion,
of Easter, of Whitsuntide, Christmas, and the descent of
the Holy Spirit. But there followed the celebration of
the death of Stephen, the memorial of St. John, the*
commemoration of the slaughter of the Innocents,
the feasts of Epiphany, the feast of Purification, and
others, until the Catholic Church had some celebration"
for some saint and martyr for every day in the year.
They contributed to create a craving for outward religion,
which appealed to the sense and the sensibilities rather
than the heart. They led to innumerable quarrels and
controversies about unimportant points, especially in rela
tion to the celebration of Easter. They produced ay
delusive persuasion respecting pilgrimages, the sign of
the cross, and the sanctifying effects of the sacraments^
Veneration for martyrs ripened into the introduction of
images — a future source of popular idolatry. Christianity
was emblazoned in pompous ceremonies. The veneration
of saints approximated to their deification, and supersti
tion exalted the mother of our Lord into an object of
absolute worship. Communion tables became imposing
altars typical of Jewish sacrifices, and the relics of martyrs
were preserved as sacred amulets. . . .

6 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
" When Christianity itself was in such need of reform,
when Christians could scarcely be distinguished from
pagans in love of display, and in egotistical ends, how
could it reform the world ? When it was a pageant, a
ritualism, an arm of the state, a vain philosophy, a
superstition, a formula, how could it save if ever so
dominant ? The corruptions of the Church in the fourth
century are as well authenticated as the purity and moral
elevation of Christianity in the second century. Isaac
Taylor has presented a most mournful view of the state
of Christian society when the religion of the cross had
become the religion of the state, and the corruptions
kept pace with the outward triumph of the faith, espe
cially when the pagans had yielded to the supremacy of
the cross." '
Many of the corrupting elements which entered
linto early Christianity came from the Orient, by
'way of Greece and Rome. Tiele speaks of the
influx of these in the following words :
" The Greek deities were followed by the Asiatic, such
as the Great Mother of the gods, whose image, consisting
of an unhewn stone, was brought at the expense of the
state from Pessinus to Rome. On the whole, it was
not the best and loftiest features of the foreign religions
that were adopted, but rather their low and sensual ele
ments, and these too in their most corrupt form. An
accidental accusation brought to light in the year 186 B.C.
a secret worship of Bacchus which was accompanied by
1 The Old Roman World, by John Lord, LL.D., chap, xiii., p. 558 ff.,
New York, 1873.

REMAINS OF PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY. •J
all kinds of abominations, and had already made its way
among thousands. . . .
" The eyes of the multitude were always turned toward
the East, from which deliverance was expected to come
forth, and secret rites brought from there to Rome were
sure of a number of devotees. But they were only
bastard children, or at any rate the late misshapen off
spring of the lofty religions which once flourished in the
East, an un-Persian Mithra worship, an un-Egyptian
Serapis worship, an Isis worship which only flattered the
senses and was eagerly pursued by the fine ladies, to say
nothing of more loathsome practices. And yet even these
aberrations were the expression of a real and deep-seated
need of the human mind, which could find no satisfac
tion in the state religion. Men longed for a God whom
they could worship, heart and soul, and with this God
they longed to be reconciled. Their own deities they had
outgrown, and they listened eagerly therefore to the priests i
of Serapis and of Mithra, who each proclaimed their God as
the sole-existing, the almighty, and the all-good, and they
felt especially attracted by the earnestness and strictness of
the latter cultus. And in order to be secure of the eradi
cation of all guilt, men lay down in a pit where the blood
of the sacrificial animal flowed all over them, in the
conviction that they would then arise entirely new
born." '
Many Roman Catholic writers, with an honesty
which all classes might well emulate, openly recog-
1 Outlines of the History of Religions, by Prof. C. P. Tiele, translated
from the Dutch by J. E. Carpenter, pp. 242, 244. London and Boston,
1877.

8 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
nize the paganizing of the Church, which took
place before the organization of the papacy.
Baronius says :
" It was permitted the Church to transfer to pious uses
those ceremonies which the pagans had wickedly applied
in a superstitious worship, after having purified them by
consecration ; so that, to the greater contumely of the
devil, all might honor Christ with those rites which he
intended for his own worship. Thus the pagan festivals,
j laden with superstition, were changed into the praise-
[ worthy festivals of the martyrs ; and the idolatrous
Ltemples were changed to sacred churches, as Theodoret
shows." '
Polydore Virgil says :
"The Church has borrowed many customs from the
religion of the Romans and other pagans, but it has
meliorated them and applied them to a better use."3
Fauchet says :
" The bishops of this kingdom employ all means to gain
men to Christ, converting to their use some pagan cere
monies, as well as they did the stones of their temples to
the building of churches." s
Pierre Mussard says :
1 Epitome Annalium Cardinalis Baronii, a, Spondano. In Dues Partes.
P. 79, Lugduni, 1686.
a De Inventore Rerum, lib. v., cap. i., Venetus, 1490.
3 Antiquities of France, lib. 2, cap. 1.

REMAINS OF PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY. 9
" William de Choul,1 counsellor to the king and bailiff of
the mountains, composed, an age ago, a treatise of the re
ligion of the ancient Romans, wherein he shows an entire
conformity between old Rome and new. On the point of
religion he closes with these words'" : ' If we consider care
fully,' says he, ' we shall see that many institutions in our
religion have been borrowed and transferred from Egyp
tian and Pagan ceremonies, such as tunics and surplices,
priestly ornaments for the head, bowing at the altar, the
solemnity at mass, music in churches, prayers, supplications,
processions, litanies, and many other things. These our
priests make use of in our mysteries, and refer them to one
only God, Jesus Christ, which the ignorance of the heathen,
their false religion, and foolish presumption perverted to
their false gods, and to dead men deified.' " 3
During the Tractarian controversy in England,
John Poynder wrote Popery in Alliance with
Heathenism, to show that Roman Catholicism
is essentially pagan. Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman,
then a professor in the University at Rome, re
plied under the title : Letters to John Poynder,
Esq., upon his Work Entitled "Popery in Alliance
with Heathenism," London, 1836.
In Letter Second, Wiseman says :
1 Faux Visage de F Antiquite'.
s Which are to be found in the edition printed with the king's privilege, at
Lyons, by William Rouille, anno 1556.
3 Conformity between Ancient and Modern Ceremonies, Leyden, 1677,
PP- 4, 5-
For the original, see Veterum Romanorum Religio, Guilielmo du Choul,
Amstelasdami, 1685, p. 216.

IO PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
" I will, for a moment, grant you the full extent of your
assumptions and premises ; I will concede that all the
facts you have brought forward are true, and all the paral
lels you have established between our rites and those of
paganism, correct ; and I will join issue with you on your
conclusions, trying them by clearly applicable tests. . . .
The first person who argued as you have done was
Julian the Apostate, who said that the Christians had
borrowed their religion from the heathens. This proves at
once that even then the resemblance existed, of which you
complain as idolatrous. So that it is not the offspring of
modern corruption) but an inheritance of the ancient
church. It proves that the alliance between Christianity
and heathenism existed three hundred years after Christ,
and that consequently so far popery and ancient Chris
tianity are identical. The Manichees also are accused by
St. Augustine, writing against Faustus, of having made
the same charge."
Dr. Wiseman enumerates many items of resem
blance which Poynder does not, and retorts by
showing that the English Church yet retains the
paganism which it inherited from papacy. He em
phasizes the pagan characteristics which appear in
the building, adornment, and services of St. Paul's
Cathedral, London, claiming that if a Roman pagan
were to be resurrected and brought to St. Paul's he
would recognize the likeness to his ancient faith
on every hand. Dr. Wiseman's testimony is of
great value, since, as a defender of Romanism, he

REMAINS OF PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY. II
also defends the policy which corrupted early
Christianity in the West, by conforming it to the
popular paganism in order to secure a nominal
conversion of the pagans.
Conyers Middleton, whose Letter from Rome
forms one of the standard authorities concerning
the paganism of the early Church, says :
" Aringhus, in his account of Subterraneous Rome, ac
knowledges this conformity between the pagan and popish
rites, and defends the admission of the ceremonies of
heathenism into the service of the Church, by the author
ity of their wisest popes and governors, who found it neces
sary, he says, in the conversion of the Gentiles, to dis
semble and wink at many things, and yield to the times ;
and not to use force against customs which the people
were so obstinately fond of ; nor to think of extirpating
at once everything that had the appearance of profane;
but to supersede in some measure the obligation of the
sacred laws, till these converts, convinced by degrees, and
informed of the whole truth by the suggestions of the
Holy Spirit, should be content to submit in earnest to
the yoke of Christ." *
Further important testimony is found in the fol
lowing. Writing of the first three centuries after
Christ, Max Muller says :
" That age was characterized far more than all before it,
by a spirit of religious syncretism, an eager thirst for com-
1 Middletoris Works, vol. iii., pp. 117, 118, London, 1752. See also
Aringhus, Rom. Suiter., torn. 1, lib. i., c. 21.

12 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
promise. To mould together thoughts which differed fun-
damentally, to grasp, if possible, the common elements
pervading all the multifarious religions of the world, was
deemed the proper business of philosophy, both in the
East and West. It was a period, one has lately said, of
mystic incubation, when India and Egypt, Babylonia and
Greece, were sitting together and gossiping like crazy old
women, chattering with toothless gums and silly brains
about the dreams and joys of their youth, yet unable to
recall one single thought or feeling with that vigor which
once gave it light and truth.
" It was a period of religious and metaphysical delirium,
when everything became everything, when Maya and
Sophia, Mithra and Christ, Viraf and Isaiah, Belus, Zar-
van, and Kronos were mixed up in one jumbled system '
of inane speculation, from which at last the East was de
livered by the positive doctrines of Mohammed, the West
by the pure Christianity of the Teutonic nations." '
Dr. Joseph Priestley says :
" The causes of the corruptions were almost wholly
contained in the established opinions of the heathen
world, and especially the philosophical part of it ; so
that when those heathens embraced Christianity, they
mixed their former tenets and prejudices with it. . . .
The abuse of the positive institutions of Christianity,!
monstrous as they were, naturally arose from the opin
ions of the purifying and sanctifying virtue of rites and
1 Last Results of Persian Research, in Outlines of the Philosophy of His
tory, by C. C. J. Bunsen, chap. 3, sec. 1, part 1, of First Part, London, 1854.

REMAINS OF PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY. 13
ceremonies, which was the very basis of all the worship of
the heathens." '
Thebaud says :
" Therefore this same ' high civilization,' as it is called,
in the midst of which Christianity was preached, was a
real danger to the inward life of the new disciple of
Christ. " How could it be otherwise, when it is a fact, now
known to all, that, even at the beginning of the fifth cen
tury, Rome was almost entirely pagan, at least outwardly
and among her highest classes ; so that the poet Claudian,
in addressing Honorius at the beginning of his sixth con
sulship, pointed out to him the site of the Capitol, still
crowned with the temple of Jove, surrounded by numer
ous pagan edifices, supporting in air an army of gods ;
and all around, temples, chapels, statues without number;
in fact, the whole Roman and Greek mythology, standing
in the city of the catacombs and of the pope.
" The public calendars, preserved to this day, continued
to note the pagan festivals, side by side with the feasts of
the Saviour and his apostles. Within the city and beyond,
throughout Italy and the most remote provinces, idols
and their altars were still surrounded by the thronging
populace, prostrate at their feet." a
Hardwick describes the tendency to reproduce
pagan theories and customs iii the early Church as
follows :
1 History of ike Corruption of Christianity, vol. ii., pp. 441, 442, Birming
ham, 1782.
8 The Irish Race in the Past and the Present, by Rev. Aug. Thebaud,
S. J., p. 63, New York, 1876.

14 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
" Or take again the swarm of heresies that soon invaded
almost every province of the early Church. Abandoning,
as they did, the more essential of the supernatural truths
of revelation, they were virtually and in effect revivals of
paganism, and family likenesses may accordingly be traced
among the older speculations current in the schools of
heathen philosophy. In discussing, for example, the
nature of the divine Son-ship, Sabellius and his party
taught a doctrine very similar to that already noticed in
the Trimurrti of India ; while Docetism, starting from a
notion that the spiritual and the material cannot per
manently co-exist, had merely reproduced the Hindu
doctrine of Avataras. The inward correspondence in the
texture of ideas had issued in a similar deprivation of
revealed truth. Or if, penetrating below the surface, we
investigate the elementary thoughts and feelings that
hereafter found utterance in monastic institutions of the
Church, we find that on one side those ideas are alien from
the spirit of primitive Christianity, and on the other that
they had long been familiar in the East, before they
were appropriated or unconsciously reproduced among
one class of Christians in Syria and Egypt. India was
the real birthplace of monasticism, its cradle being in
the haunts of earnest yogins, and self-torturing devotees,
who were convinced that evil is inherent not in man only,
but in all the various forms of matter, and accordingly
withdrew as far as possible from contact with the outer
world. At first, indeed, the Christian hermit, like the
earliest of his Hindu prototypes, had dwelt alone on
the outskirts of his native town, supporting himself by
manual labor, and devoting all the surplus of his earnings
to religious purposes.

REMAINS OF PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY. 1 5
"But during the fourth century of the present era
many such hermits began to flock together in the forest,
or the wilderness, where regular confraternities were
organized upon a model more or less derived from the
Egyptian Therapeutse, and the old Essenes of Palestine ;
the members in their dress and habits most of all resem
bling those of the religious orders who still swarm in
Thibet and Ceylon." '
Maitland bears important testimony touching
many points in which Christianity was paganized.
He sums up the general results in the following
concerning the worship of martyrs :
" The degrees of worship and adoration, since defined
with fatal precision by the Romish Church, were not
then fixed ; and the heathen, even less willing than the
Christian laity to enter into refinements on the subject,
saw no distinction between one form and another. The
consequences were disastrous in the extreme ; the charge
of idolatry, mutually urged by the contending parties,
lost the force, or rather was effectively employed by the
pagans, after it had become powerless in Christian hands.
Thus it was that, although the pure doctrines of our faith
speedily displaced the profligate polytheism of the em
pire, the after conflict was long doubtful, being maintained
by a religion enfeebled by admixture with foreign ele
ments, against one that had profited by adversity, and
had not scrupled to borrow largely from its rival. We
read in fable of the struggle between the man and the
1 Christ and Other Masters, by Charles Hardwick, M.A., part 2, p. 183,
Cambridge, 1857.

16 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
serpent, in which at length the combatants become trans-
formed into the shapes of each other. In the last con
test between paganism and Christianity we find the
sophist contending for the unity of God, and accusing
the Christian of undisguised polytheism ; and on the
other side the Christian insisting on the tutelary powers
of glorified mortals, and the omniscience of departed
spirits." '
Similar testimony is borne by Seymore, who
says :
" The apostasy of the Church of Rome will be more
apparent when we reflect that the character of the media
tion which Romanism ascribes to its saints is precisely the
same as that which heathenism ascribes to its demi-gods.
It was believed among the heathen that when a man
became illustrious for his deeds, his conquests, his inven
tions, or aught else that distinguished him as a benefactor
of mankind, he could be canonized and enrolled among
inferior deities. He thus became a mediator whose sym
pathies with his fellow-men on the one hand, and whose
merits with the gods on the other fitted him for the
mediatorial office of bearing the prayers and wants of
mortals to the presence of the gods. The heathen phil
osophers, Hesiod, Plato, and Apuleius, all thus speak of
those persons. The last named philosopher says : ' They
are intermediate intelligences, by whom our prayers and
wants pass unto the gods. They are mediators between
the inhabitants of the earth and the inhabitants of
I heaven, carrying thither our prayers, and drawing down
1 The Church in the Catacombs, etc., by Chas. Maitland, M.D., p. 306,
London, 1846.

REMAINS OF PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY. 17
their blessings. They bear back and forwards prayers for
us, and supplies for them ; or they are those that explain
between both parties, and who carry our adorations.' This
was the creed of heathenism, and in nothing but the name
does it differ from the corresponding creed of Romanism.
When the Church of Rome finds members of her com
munion whom she regards as signally pious, or illustrious
for supposed miraculous powers, she holds that they be
canonized and enrolled among her saints ; that they can
mediate between God and man ; that they have sufficient
favor or influence with God to obtain compliance with
our prayers, and therefore they are fitting objects to whom
our confessions, invocations, and prayers may be offered ;
or, as she expresses it in her creed, ' that the saints
reigning with Christ are to be honored and invoked, and
that they offer prayers to God for us.' The principle of
heathen Romanism, and the principle of Christian Roman
ism are one and the same, the only difference is in the
details of the names. And the origin of the practice is
demonstrative of this ; for when it was found, after the
establishment of Christianity in the times of Constantine,
when the great object of the court was to promote uni
formity of religion, that many of the heathen would out
wardly conform to Christianity if allowed to retain in
private their worship of their guardian or tutelar divin
ities, they were so allowed, merely on changing the names
of Jupiter to Peter, or Juno to Mary, still worshipping theitV
old divinities under new names, and even retaining old
images that were baptized with Christian names. This is
apparent in the writings of those times, and was thought
a measure of wisdom, a stroke of profound policy, as
tending to produce a uniformity of religion among the

1 8 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
unthinking masses. The invocations of Juno have been
^transferred to Mary ; the prayers to Mercury have
been transferred to Paul. We see not how the substitu
tion of the names of Damian or Cosmo, for those of Mer
cury or Apollo, or how the substitution of the names of
Lucy or Cecelia, for those of Minerva or Diana, can alter
the idolatrous character of the practice. In some instances
they have not even changed the names, and Romulus and
Remus are still worshipped in Italy, under the more mod-
' ern names of St. Romulo and St. Remugio. The simple
people believe them to have been two holy bishops. I
have myself witnessed this near Florence, and even
Bacchus is not without his votaries, under the ecclesiastical
name of St. Bacco. The principle and practice of papal
/Rome are identical with the principle and practice of
pagan Rome. Every argument to justify one may be
equally urged to justify or extenuate the other. And
if the principle and practice of pagan Rome are to be
pronounced as idolatrous, I see not why the very same
principle and practice in papal Rome should not be
pronounced as idolatrous likewise." '
In the light of all the facts Mr. Seymore cannot
fasten the pagan residuum upon Romanism alone.
The controlling trend into paganism was estab
lished before the papacy was developed ; and if
new forms of expression appeared afterward, they
were but the fruitage of earlier tendencies.
Renan, speaking of the relation between the re
ligious cultus of the Orient and early Christianity,
says: 1 Evenings with the Romanists, pp. 221-223, London, 1854.

REMAINS OF PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY. 19
"This is the explanation of the singular attraction
which about the beginning of the Christian era drew the
population of the ancient world to the religions of the
East. These religions had something deeper in them
than those of Greece and Rome ; they addressed them
selves more fully to the religious sentiment. Almost all
of them stood in some relation to the condition of the
soul in another life, and it was believed that they held
the warrant of immortality. Hence the favor in which
the Thracian and Sabasian mysteries, the thiasi, and con
fraternities of all kinds, were held. It was not so chilly in
these little circles, where men pressed closely together, as
in the great icy world of that day. Little religions like
the worship of Psyche, whose sole object was consolation
for human mortality, had a momentary prevalence. The
beautiful Egyptian worship, which hid a real emptiness
beneath a great splendor of ritual, counted devotees in
every part of the empire. Isis and Serapis had altars
even in the ends of the world. A visitor to the ruins of
Pompeii might be tempted to believe that the principal
worship which obtained there was that of Isis. These
little Egyptian temples had their assiduous worshippers,
among whom were many of the same class as the friends
of Catullus and Tibullus. There was a morning ser
vice ; a kind of mass, celebrated by a priest, shorn and
beardless. There were sprinklings of holy water ; possibfy
benediction in the evening. All this occupied, amused,
soothed. What could any one want more ?
" But it was above all the Mithraic * worship which,
in the second and third centuries, attained an extraordi
nary prevalence. I sometimes permit myself to say thai,
if Christianity had not carried the day, Mithraicism would
1 Eastern sun-worship.

20 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
have become the religion of the world. It had its mys
terious meetings, its chapels, which bore a strong resem
blance to little churches. It forged a very lasting bond
of brotherhood between its initiates ; it had a Eucharist,
a supper so like the Christian mysteries that good Justin
Martyr the Apologist can find only one explanation of
the apparent identity, namely, that Satan, in order to de
ceive the human race, determined to imitate the Christian
ceremonies, and so stole them. A Mithraic sepulchre in
the Roman catacombs is as edifying, and presents as ele
vated a mysticism, as the Christian tombs." *
Describing the earliest Christianity, Killen
bears valuable testimony to the fact that the
features of paganism which became prominent at a
later period were wholly wanting in the earliest
Christianity. He shows that the Church was Ju-
daistic in forms and practice.
These are his words :
" A Roman citizen, when present for the first time at
the worship of the Church, might have remarked how pro
foundly it differed from the ritual of paganism. The services
in the great heathen temples were but an imposing scenic
exhibition. The holy water for lustration, the statues of
the gods with wax tapers burning before them, the offi
cials robed in white surplices, and the incense floating in
clouds and diffusing perfume all around, could only regale
the sense or light up the imagination. No stated time
was devoted to instruct the assembly ; and the liturgy—
often in a dead language — as it was mumbled over by the
1 Influence of Rome on Christianity, Hibbert Lectures for 1880, p. 33 ff.

REMAINS OF PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY. 21
priest, merely added to the superstition and the mysti
cism. But the worship of the Church was, in the highest
sense, a ' reasonable service.' It had no parade, no images,
no fragrant odors ; for the first hundred years it was com
monly celebrated in private houses or the open fields ;
and yet it addressed itself so impressively to the under
standing and the heart that the congregations of the
faithful frequently presented scenes incomparably more
spirit-stirring and sublime than anything ever witnessed
in the high places of Greek or Roman idolatry.
" No individual or church court is warranted to tamper
with symbolic ordinances of divine appointment ; for as
they are the typical embodiment of great truths, any
change essentially vitiates their testimony. But their
early administrators overlooking this grave objection, soon
ceased to respect the integrity of baptism and the Lord's"
Supper. In the third century a number of frivolous and
superstitious ceremonies — such as exorcism, unction, the
making of the sign of the cross on the forehead, and the
kiss of peace — were already tacked to baptism ; so that the?
beautiful significance of the primitive observance could
not be well seen under these strange trappings. Before
the middle of the second century the wine of the Eucha
rist was mixed with water; fifty years afterwards the
communicants participated standing ; and at length the ele
ments themselves were treated with awful reverence. The
more deeply to impress the imagination, baptism and the
Eucharist began to be surrounded with the secrecy of the^
heathen mysteries, and none save those who had received
the ordinances were suffered to be present at their dispen
sation. The ministers of the Church sadly compromised

22 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
their religion when they thus imitated the meretricious
decorations of the pagan worship. As might have been
expected, the symbols so disfigured were misunderstood
land misrepresented. Baptism was called regeneration, and
Jt-he Eucharist was designated a sacrifice. Thus a door
was opened for the admission of a whole crowd of danger
ous errors." '
The tendency to religious syncretism, during the
early centuries, was a prolific source of corruption
to New Testament Christianity. Speaking of the
results of this tendency, and of the composite char
acter of the religious cultus at Alexandria, in the
time of Hadrian (i 17-138 a.d.). Canon Farrar
says :
" There was no city in the empire in which a graver
task was assigned to the great scholars and teachers of
Christianity than the city of Alexandria. It was the cen
tre of the most energetic intellectual vitality ; and there,
like the seething of the grapes in the vine cluster, the
speculations of men of every religion and every national
ity exercised a reciprocal influence on each other.
" A single letter of Hadrian presented by Vopiscus
will show the confusion of thought and intermixture of
religions which prevailed in that cosmopolitan city, and
the aspect presented by its religious syncretism to a cool
and cynical observer. ' Those who worship Serapis,' he
says in a letter to a friend, ' are Christians, and those who
call themselves Bishops of Christ are votaries of Serapis.
1 The Old Catholic Church, etc., W. D. Killen, D.D., pp. 44-6, Edin-
burgh, 1871.

REMAINS OF PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY. 23
There is no ruler of a synagogue there, no Samaritan, no
presbyter of the Christians, who is not an astrologer, who
is not a soothsayer, who is not a gymnast. The patriarch
of the Jews himself when he comes to Egypt is forced by
one party to worship Serapis, by the other Christ. They
have but one God who is no God ; him Christians, him
Jews, him all races worship alike.' To the disdainful and
sceptical mind of the emperor, who deified his own un
happy minion, Christianity, gnosticism, Judaism, pagan
ism were all forms of one universal charlatanry and sham." *
In writing of Leo the Great (440-461) founder
of the papacy, Dean Merivale gives a graphic
picture of the state of Christianity at that time.
Space is here taken for a copious extract that the
weight of Merivale's name and words may add
force to the facts. He says :
" It will be admitted, I trust, without entering upon
disquisitions which would be inappropriate to this occa
sion, that the corruptions of Christian faith against which
our own national Church and many others rose indignantly
at the Reformation had for the most part struck their
foundations deep in the course of the fifth century ; that
though they had sprung up even from an earlier period,
and though they developed more in some directions, and
assumed more fixity in the darker times that followed,
yet the working of the true Christian leaven among the
masses was never more faint, the approximation of Chris
tian usage to the manners and customs of paganism never
really closer, than in the age of which we are now speak-
1 Lives of the Fathers, vol. i., pp. 350-1, Edinburgh, 1889.

24 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
ing. We have before us many significant examples of
the facility with which the most intelligent of the pagans
accepted the outward rite of Christian baptism, and made
a nominal profession of the faith, while they retained and
openly practised, without rebuke, without remark, with
the indulgence even of genuine believers, the rites and
usages of the paganism they pretended to have abjured.
We find abundant records of the fact that personages
high in office, such as consuls and other magistrates, while
administering the laws by which the old idolatries were
proscribed, actually performed pagan rites, and even
erected public statues to pagan divinities. Still more did
men, high in the respect of their fellow-Christians, allow
themselves to cherish sentiments utterly at variance with
the definitions of the Church. Take the instance of the
illustrious Bishop Synesius. Was he a Christian, was he
a pagan ; who shall say ? He was famous in the schools
of Alexandria as a man of letters, a teacher of the ancient
philosophies, an admirer of the pagan Hypatia. The
Christian people of Ptolemais, enchanted with his talents,
demanded him for their bishop. He protests not indeed
that he is an unbeliever— but that his life and habits are
not suitable to so high an office. He has a wife whom
he cannot abandon, as the manners of the age might re
quire of him ; whom he will not consort with secretly, as
the manners of the age would, it seems, allow. ' But fur
ther I cannot believe,' he adds, ' that the human soul has
been breathed into flesh and blood ; I will not teach that
this everlasting world of matter is destined to annihilation ;
the resurrection, as taught by the Church, seems to me a
doubtful and questionable doctrine. I am a philosopher,!-
and cannot preach to the people popularly.' In short, he "

REMAINS OF PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY. 2$
maintains to all appearance that if he is a believer in Jesus
Christ, he is a follower of Plato ; and such doubtless were
many others. The people leave him his wife and his
opinions, and insist that he shall be their bishop. He
retains his family ties, his philosophy, his Platonism, his
rationalism, and accepts the government of the Church
notwithstanding. Again we ask, was Synesius a Christian
or a pagan ? The instance of such a bishop, one probably
among many, is especially significant ; but the same ques
tion arises with regard to other men of eminence of the
period. Was Boethius, a century later, the imitator of
Cicero, Christian or pagan ? Was Simplicius, the. com
mentator on Plato ? Was Ausonius, the playful poet and
amiable friend of the Bishop Paulinus, who celebrates
Christ in one poem, and scatters his allusions to pagan
mythology indiscriminately in many others ? We know
that Libanius, the intimate friend and correspondent of
Basil, was a pagan of the pagans ; but he did not on that
account forfeit the confidence of a sainted father of the
Christian Church. So indifferent as Christians seem to>
have been at this period to their own creed, so indifferent
to the creed of their friends and associates, we cannot
wonder if it has left us few or but slight traces of a vital
belief in the principles of divine redemption.
" We must make, indeed, large allowance for the intel
lectual trials of an age of transition when it was not given
to every one to see his way between the demands urged
upon an intelligent faith by the traditions of a brilliant
past on the one hand, and the intimations of an obscure
and not a cheerful future on the other. We hardly
realize, perhaps, the pride with which the schools of
Athens and Alexandria still regarded their thousand

26 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
years of academic renown, while the Christian Church
was slowly building up the recent theological systems on
which its own foundations were to be secured for the ages
to follow. We need not complain of Leo, and other
Christian doctors, if they shrank, as I think they did,
from rushing again into polemics with the remnant of the
philosophers, whose day, they might think, was sure to
close at no distant date. But the real corruption of the
age was shown in the unstinted adoption of pagan usages
in the ceremonial of the Christian Church, with all the
baneful effects they could not fail to produce on the
spiritual training of the people. There are not wanting,
indeed, passages in the popular teachings of St. Leo, in
which he beats the air with angry denunciations of augu
ries, and sortilege, and magic, stigmatizes idolatry as the
worship of demons, and the devil as the father of pagan
lies. But neither Leo, nor, I think, the contemporary
doctors of the Church, seem to have had an adequate
sense of the process by which the whole essence of pagan-
ism was throughout their age constantly percolating the
ritual of the Church and the hearts of the Christian multi-
tude. It is not to these that we can look for a warning
that the fasts prescribed by the Church had their parallel
in the abstinence imposed by certain pagan creeds, and
required to be guarded and explained to the people in
, their true Christian significance; that the monachism
they extolled so warmly, and which spread so rapidly,
was in its origin a purely pagan institution, common to
the religions of India, Thibet, and Syria, with much, no
doubt, to excuse its extravagance in the hapless condition
of human life at the period, but with little or nothing to
justify it in the charters of our Christian belief ; that the

REMAINS OF PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY. 2J
canonizing of saints and martyrs, the honors paid them,
and the trust reposed in them, were simply a revival of
the old pagan mythologies; that the multiplication of
formal ceremonies, with processions and lights and incense
and vestments, with images and pictures and votive offer
ings, was a mere pagan appeal to the senses, such as can
never fail to enervate man's moral fibre ; that, in short,
the general aspect of Christian devotion, as it met the
eye of the observer, was a faint and rather frivolous imita
tion of the old pagan ritual, the object of which, from
first to last, was not to instruct, or elevate man's nature,
but simply to charm away the ills of life by adorning and
beautifying his present existence." *
Witness also the following from Westropp and
Wake :
" In popular customs, and even in religious institutions,
these things are as plainly perceived to-day as when
Adonis and Astarte were the Gods of the former world.
The sanctities, the powers, the symbols, and even the
utensils of the ancient faith have been assumed, if not
usurped or legitimately inherited, by its successors. The
two holies of the Gnostics and Neo-Platonists, Sophia and
Eirene — Wisdom and Peace — were adopted as saints in^
the calendar of Constantinople. Dionysius, the god of
the mysteries, reappears as St. Denys in France, St.
Liberius, St. Eleutherius, and St. Bacchus ; there is also
a St. Mithra ; and even Satan, prince of shadows, is
revered as St. Satur and St. Swithin. Their relics are in
1 Four Lectures on Some Epochs of Early Church History, by Charles
Merivale, D.D., Dean of Ely, pp. 149-155, New York, Randolph; no
date.

28 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
keeping. The holy virgin Astraea or Astarte, whose re
turn was announced by Virgil in the days of Augustus, as
introducing a new golden age, now under her old designa
tion of Blessed Virgin and Queen of Heaven, receives
homage as ' the one whose sole divinity the whole orb of
the earth venerates.' The Mother and Child, the latter
adorned with the nimbus or aureole of the ancient sun.
gods, are now the objects of veneration as much as were
Ceres and Bacchus, or Isis and Horus, in the mysteries.
Nuns abounded alike in Christian and Buddhist countries,
i as they did formerly in Isis-worshipping Egypt ; and if
' their maidenhood is not sacrificed at the shrine of Baal-
Peor, or any of his cognate divinities, yet it is done in a
figure ; they are all ' brides of the Saviour.' Galli sing
in the churches, and consecrated women are as numerous
as of old. The priestly vestments are like those formerly
lused in the worship of Saturn and Cybele ; the Phrygian
cap, the pallium, the stole, and the alb. The whole
Pantheon has been exhausted, from the Indus, Euphrates,
and the Nile, to supply symbolic adornment for the
apostles' successors. Hercules holds the distaff of Om-
phale. The Lily has superseded the Lotus, and celibacy
is exalted above the first recorded mandate of God to
mankind. " It is true, doubtless, that there is not a fast or festival,
procession or sacrament, social custom or religious symbol,
that did not come ' bodily ' from the previous paganism.
But the pope did not import them on his own account ;
they had already been transferred into the ecclesiastical
structure, and he only accepted and perhaps took advan
tage of the fact. Many of those who protest because of

REMAINS OF PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY. 29
these corruptions are prone to imitate them more or less,
displaying an engrafting from the same stock." '
A late German writer of note and authority,
Lechler, thus states the relative influence of
paganism and Judaism on early Christianity :
" Putting together all that has been said, we get the im
pression that, in respect to the Gentile Christians in the
second half of the Apostolic age, heathenism was the
vastly predominant power that partly from without
threatened the Church, and partly from within prepared
the most hazardous disputes. It was an anti-Christian
gnosis proceeding from heathen ideas ; frequently also a
moral error stained with heathen licentiousness, that be-v
came dangerous to souls. On the other hand, according
to all the documents of that later apostolic time that we
possess, Judaism, broken as a political power, was no
longer a dangerous opponent of the Church of Christ as a
spiritual power ; the time in which Judaizing errorists
possessed a powerful influence over spirits was visibly
passed." *
With such a preview, made up from writers of
such authority and ability, the fact of the existence
of an immense amount of pagan residuum in
Christianity is placed beyond question. The reader
may be surprised ; may shrink from such facts.
But shrinking from facts, or denying them, does
1 Ancient Symbol Worship, Westropp and Wake, pp. 94, 96, New York,
1874- 8 Apostolic and Post-Apostolic Times, G. V. Lechler, D.D.. pp. 262, 363.

30 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
not remove or destroy them. Facts are immortal.
He who will take the trouble to follow through the
successive chapters will see by what means, and in
what ways, Christianity was corrupted, and whence
came the pagan residuum that yet remains. Sug
gestions in outline will also be found, as to how the
remaining residuum can be removed.

CHAPTER II.
pagan methods of interpreting the scriptures.
Contrast between the Christianity of the New Testament and That of the
Later Centuries — Gnosticism and Allegorical Interpretation — Testi
mony of Harnack and Bauer Concerning the ' ' Hellenization of Chris
tianity" — Hatch on " Pagan Exegesis " — The " Fathers'' as Allegorists ;
Justin, Clement of Alexandria, Barnabas, and Others — Examples : ' ' The
Red Heifer a Type of Christ " ; " Spiritual Circumcision " ; " Scrip
tural Significance of Foods" ; " The Cross in the Old Testament" ;
" Why Are There One Hundred and Fifty Psalms ? " " The Phcenix a
Type of the Resurrection " ; " Gnostic Exposition of the Decalogue " ;
" Types of Christ " ; Various Examples from Augustine.
THE student of history cannot fail to note the
wide difference between the Christianity of
the New Testament period and that of the fourth
century. The religion which Christ taught was a
direct outgrowth of Judaism. His mission was
"not to destroy but to fulfil." This He did by
giving a higher conception and a broader view of all
which Judaism had held hitherto. He gave a new
meaning to the fatherhood of God. He explained
and enforced the moral precepts of the Old Testa
ment, developing their deeper spiritual sense, and
giving them a new application to the inner life of
men. He enlarged Judaism without destroying

32 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
it. He clarified and intensified the ten command
ments. He discarded the outward formalities of
the Jews, and "reached the heart of things" by
His interpretation of the ancient Scriptures, by
His new precepts, and by His example. He de
veloped Christianity within the Jewish Church,
making it the efflorescence of all that was best in
the ancient dispensation.
Christ presented love for God, for truth, and
for man, as the mainspring of action in all religious
living. Under His teachings Christianity arose as
a new life, springing from the law of God, written
in the hearts of men. New Testament Christian
ity was a life born of love, and finding expression
in loving obedience. It was a system of right
living, as in the divine presence, and by the help
of the divine Spirit. Men were drawn to each
other and to Christ by the power of this love.
Such was Christianity at its birth.
The earliest Christian congregations were com
munities for holy living, upon the ground of a
mutual faith in Christ. They expected still greater
revelations of Him, and through Him, in the near
future. The facts connected with His life and the
memory of His teachings formed the soil in which
Christianity had its earliest roots. A common
hope and the struggle for holy living according to
the law of God bound these communities together.

INTERPRETING THE SCRIPTURES. 33
They were made up of Jews alone, or of Jews
and those Gentiles who had been converts to
Judaism. Beyond this common hope there was
no settled doctrine, no formal ecclesiastical organi
zation. There were no written scriptures except
the Old Testament. As the history of Christianity 1
progressed, its enlarging spirit brought about a
conflict with the narrower phases of Judaism, and
hence more or less antagonism towards certain
Judaistic interpretations of the Old Testament.
The Christianity of the third and fourth cen
turies presents the strongest possible contrast
when placed alongside of that which existed
during the New Testament period. The Sermon
on the Mount was the promulgation of a new law
of conduct. " The Nicene Creed is a statement
partly of historical facts, and partly of dogmatic
inferences."1 Some adequate reason must be found
for this, difference. How did this change in the
central character of Christianity come to pass ?
By what influences was it transformed from a
system of right living to a system of metaphysical
belief ; to right thinking rather than right doing ?'
The answer is suggested by the fact that this
change in character is contemporaneous with the
transferring of Christianity from Semitic to Greek
influence. Thus we are brought to face the fact
1 Cf. Hibbert Lectures for 1888, by Edwin Hatch, D.D., Lecture i.
3

34 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
that the religion of a given people at a given time
bears certain definite relations to the mental atti
tude of that time. Religion is a part of common
life which cannot be separated from its surround
ings. While we may consider religious problems
as distinct from other questions, they can never be
understood except as a part of the complex life
with which they are interwoven.
We therefore must commence by inquiring after
the characteristics of the pagan world into which
the infant Christianity passed when the stream of
its history left the soil of Palestine and entered the
field of Greek and Roman influences.
Gnosticism.
Long before the time of Christ the Oriental
religions had developed a system of philosophy in
which were the seeds of that which in later times
was known as gnosticism. This claimed to hold
within itself " the knowledge of God and of man,
of the being and the providence of the former, and
of the creation and destiny of the latter."1 In its
journey westward this system had mingled with
Jewish thought and given rise to the Kabbalists or
Jewish Gnostics. In the Oriental religions all ex
ternal phenomena expressed a hidden meaning.
1 See The Gnostics and Their Remains, by C. W. King, M.A. p. 5, Lon
don, 1887.

INTERPRETING THE SCRIPTURES. 35
Applying this doctrine to the Scriptures, the Jew
ish Gnostics taught that a hidden meaning was to
be found in all laws, ceremonies, and rituals. They
invented the theory that a secret tradition had
been handed down from the time of Moses ; the
interpretation of the Jewish Scriptures had been
greatly perverted in this way. Gnosticism said :
" Nothing is what it seems to be ; everything tan
gible is the symbol of something invisible. By
this means the history of the Old Testament was
sublimated into a history of the emancipation of
reason from sense.1 This application of the alle
gorical method of interpretation to the Old Testa
ment enabled pagan philosophers to draw from it
whatever fancies they chose. .This method also
favored a tendency among the early Christians to
interpret the Old Testament so as to find upon every
leaf of the book some reference to Christ and the
Christian religion. Thus gnosticism had prepared
the way for the obliteration of the concrete posi-
tiveness of the Old Testament, and destroyed its
authority in a great degree.
The entire Grecian world was thoroughly perme
ated as to its literature and philosophy with the
spirit and practice of gnosticism. It formed the
bridge between Judaism on its intellectual side, and
the Oriental, Grecian, and Egyptian cults. When
1 See Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, vol. i., chap. 4.

36 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
the infant Christianity came in contact with Greek
thought, gnostic influences and tendencies assailed
it on every hand. Thus, through a gnostic ele
ment already within the Jewish Church, and the
cultured, powerful gnostic influences in the pagan
world, nascent Christianity was like the traveller
from Jerusalem to Jericho who fell among thieves.
The intellectual unrest of the age favored the pro
cess of corruption which went rapidly forward.
Biblical Exegesis.
Whatever touches the Bible and its interpreta
tion touches Christianity at a vital point. The
fundamental difference between the pagan gnosti
cism and Christianity lay in the fact that Christi
anity was a revealed religion, finding its beginning
and end in the divine love and life unfolded in
J3hrist Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. On the con
trary, gnosticism found its source in human reason
ing, human philosophy, and speculations.
Dr. Schaff describes its influence when he says :
" It exaggerates the Pauline view of the distinction of
Christianity from Judaism, sunders Christianity from its
historical basis, resolves the real humanity of the Saviour
into a doketistic illusion, and perverts the freedom of
the Gospel into Antinomian licentiousness. The author
or first representative of this baptized heathenism, ac
cording to the uniform testimony of Christian antiquity,

INTERPRETING THE SCRIPTURES. 37
is Simon Magus, who unquestionably adulterated Chris
tianity with pagan ideas and practices, and gave him
self out, in pantheistic style, for an emanation of God.
Plain traces of [of the existence of] this error appear in
the later epistles of Paul to the Colossians, to Timothy,
and to Titus, the second epistle of Peter, and the first
two epistles of John, the epistle of Jude, and the mes
sages of the Apocalypse to the seven churches." '
This rapid survey of the field shows us that
gnostic influences represent what Professor Har-
nack calls " The acute vulgarization of Christianity,
or its Hellenization." We are therefore prepared
to accept his testimony relative to the influence of
the Gnostics as formulators of Christian doctrine.
The following are his words :
" Under this view the Gnostics should be given their
place in the history of dogmas as has not been done
hitherto. They are simply the theologians of the first
century ; they were the first to transform Christianity into
a system of doctrines. They were the first to elaborate
tradition systematically ; they undertook to prove Chris
tianity to be the absolute religion, and by it to hunt
down all other religions, including Judaism ; but to them
the absolute religion, so far as its content was concerned,
was identical with the results of religious philosophy, for
which a revelation was to be sought as a foundation.
Thus they became Christians who tried by quick measures
to win Christianity for the Hellenic culture, and the Hel
lenic culture for Christianity. To this end they would
1 Church History, vol. i., p. 566, N. Y., 1882.

38 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
surrender the Old Testament that they might make it more
easy to establish the union between the two powers, and
to gain the possibility of proclaiming the absoluteness of
Christianity. " We may also consider the majority of the gnostic
efforts as efforts to transform Christianity into a theosophy,
or, so to say, into a system of revealed metaphysics, with a
complete disregard for the Jewish Old Testament founda
tion, on which it originated, and by the use of the Pauline
ideas. We can also compare later writers, such as Barna
bas and Ignatius, with the so-called Gnostics, by which
the latter will be seen to possess a well formulated theory,
and the former to be in possession of fragments which
bear a remarkable likeness to said theory." '
Bauer, a careful student of gnosticism, gives a
description of its mission and methods which shows
how it was prepared to exert such a controlling
influence on the history of early Christianity, and
how destructive that influence was in the matter of
biblical interpretation. He says :
" Gnosis and allegory are essentially allied conceptions ;
and this affords us a very marked indication of the path
which will really lead us to the origin of gnosticism ; for
we shall find that allegory plays an important part in
most of its systems, especially in those which exhibit its
original form.
" It is well known that allegory is the soul of the Alex
andrian religious philosophy. Nothing else, indeed, can
1 Dogmengeschichte, vol. i., chap. 4,

INTERPRETING THE SCRIPTURES. 39
enable us to understand the rise of the latter, so closely
is allegory interwoven with its very nature. Allegory is
in general the mediator between philosophy and the
religion which rests upon positive tradition. Wherever
it is seen on a large scale, we notice that philosophical
views have arisen side by side with, and independently of,
the existing religion ; and that the need has arisen to
bring the ideas and doctrines of philosophy into harmony
with the contents of the religious belief. In such circum-''
stances, allegory appears in the character of mediator. It
brings about the desired conformity by simply interpret
ing the belief in the sense of the philosophy. Religious
ideas and narratives are thus clothed with a figurative
sense, which is entirely different from their literal mean
ing. It was thus that allegory arose before the Christian
time among the Greeks. The desire was felt first by
Plato, and afterward still more strongly by the Stoics, to
turn the myths of the popular religion to account on be
half of their philosophical ideas, and so to bridge over the
gulf between the philosophical and the popular mind ;
and with this view they struck out the path of allegory,
of allegorical interpretation of the myths. It is well
known what extensive use the Stoics made of allegory
when they wished to trace their own ideas of the philoso
phy of nature in the gods of. popular belief, and the
narratives concerning them.
" But in Alexandria, this mode of interpretation assumed
still greater importance. Here it had to solve the weighty
problem, how the new ideas that had forced their wayi
into the mind and consciousness of the Jew, were to be
reconciled with his belief in the authority of his sacred
religious books. Allegory alone made it possible to him,

40 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
on the one hand, to admire the philosophy of the Greeks,
and in particular of Plato, and to make its ideas his owfJ
and, on the other, to reverence the Scripture of the Old
Testament as the one source of divinely revealed truth.
The sacred books needed but to be explained allegorically,
and then all that was wished for, even the boldest specu
lative ideas of the Greek mind, could be found in the
books themselves. How widely this method was prac
tised in Alexandria, may be judged from the writings of
Philo, in which we see the most extensive use made of
allegorical interpretation, and find the contents of the Old
Testament blended intimately with everything that the
systems of Greek philosophy could offer. But it would
be quite erroneous to think that it was nothing but
caprice and the unchecked play of fancy, that called forth
this allegorical explanation of the Scriptures, which came
to exercise such influence. For to the Alexandrian Jew,
at the stage of scriptural development which he had now
reached, with his consciousness divided between his an
cestral Hebraism and modern Hellenism, this allegorizing
was a necessary form of consciousness ; and so little did
he dream that the artificial link by which he bound
together such diverse elements was a thing he had
himself created, that all the truth which he accepted
in the systems of Greek philosophy seemed to him toi
be nothing but an emanation from the Old Testament
revelation. " Now the gnostic systems also, for the most part, mak^
very free use of the allegorical method of interpretation ;
and this is enough to apprise us that we must regard
them under the same aspect as the Alexandrian religious
philosophy. As far as we are acquainted with the

INTERPRETING THE SCRIPTURES. 41
writings of the Gnostics, we see them to have been full
of allegorical interpretations, not indeed referring, as
with Philo, to the books of the Old Testament (for their
attitude toward the Old Testament was entirely different
from his) ; but to those of the New, which were for
the Gnostics what the books of the Old Testament were
for Philo.
" In order to give their own ideas a Christian stamp,
they applied the allegorical method, as much as possible,
to the persons and events of the Gospel history, and
especially to the numbers that occur in it. Thus for the
Valentinians the number thirty in the New Testament,
especially in the life of Jesus, was made to signify the
number of their seons ; the lost wandering sheep was for
them their Achamoth ; and even the utterances of Jesus,
which contain a perfectly simple religious truth, received
from them a sense referring to the doctrines of their
system. "The lately discovered Philosophoumena of the pseudo-
Origen who undertook the task of refuting all the here
sies show us even more clearly than before what an
extensive use the Gnostics made of allegory.
" They applied it not merely to the books of the Old and
New Testaments, but even the products of Greek litera
ture, for instance, to the Homeric poems ; their whole
mode of view was entirely allegorical.
" The whole field of ancient mythology, astronomy, and
physics, was laid under contribution to support their
views. They thought that the ideas that were the highest
objects of their thought and knowledge were to be found
expressed everywhere." '
1 Bauer, Church Hist., vol. i., p. 191, London, 1878.

42 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
Hatch offers important testimony as to the
pagan elements in early exegesis, in these words :
" The earliest methods of Christian exegesis were con-
tinuations of the methods which were common at the
time to both Greek and Graeco-Judaean writers. They
were employed on the same subject-matter. Just as the,
Greek philosophers had found their philosophy in Home^
so Christian writers found in him Christian theology.
When he represents Odysseus as saying,1 ' The rule of
many is not good ; let there be one ruler,' he means to
indicate that there should be but one God ; and his whole
poem is designed to show the mischief that comes of
having many gods.2 When he tells us that Hephsestus
represented on the shield of Achilles ' the earth, the
heaven, the sea, the sun that rests not, and the moon full-
orbed,' 3 he is teaching the divine order of creation which
he learned in Egypt from the books of Moses.4 So
Clement of Alexandria interprets the withdrawal of
Oceanus and Tethys from each other to mean the separa
tion of land and sea.5 And he holds that Homer when
he makes Apollo ask Achilles, ' Why fruitlessly pursue
him, a god,' meant to show that the divinity cannot
be apprehended by the bodily powers." '
" Some of the philosophical schools which hung upon
the skirts of Christianity mingled such interpretations of
1 Horn., //., ii., 204.
2 Ps. Justin, (probably Apollonius, see Draseke, in the Jahrb. f.
protestant Theologic, 1885, p. 144), chap. xvii.
3 Horn., II., xviii., 483.
4 Ps. Justin., chap, xxviii.
6 Horn., II., xiv., 206 ; also Clem. Alex., Stroma., v., 14.
e //., xxii., 8 ; Clem. Alex., Stroma., v., 14.

INTERPRETING THE SCRIPTURES. 43
Greek mythology with similar interpretations of the Old^
Testament. For example, the writer to whom the name
Simon Magus is given, is said to have ' interpreted in
whatever way he wished both the writings of Moses and
also those of the Greek poets ' ] ; and the Ophite writer,
Justin, evolves an elaborate cosmogony from a story of
Herakles narrated in Herodotus," combined with the
story of the Garden of Eden.8 . . .
" A large part of such interpretation was inherited.
The coincidences of mystical interpretation between Philo
and the Epistle of Barnabas show that such interpretation
were becoming the common property of Jews and Judaeo-
Christians. But the method was soon applied to new
data. Exegesis became apologetic. Whereas Philo and
his school had dealt mainly with the Pentateuch, the
early Christian writers came to deal mainly with the
prophets and poetical books ; and whereas Philo wa^
mainly concerned to show that the writings of Moses con-l
tained Greek philosophy, the Christian writers endeavorec
to show that the writings of the Hebrew preachers and
poets contained Christianity ; and whereas Philo had'
been content to speak of the writers of the Old Testa
ment, as Dio Chrysostom spoke of the Greek poets, as
having been stirred by a divine enthusiasm, the Christian
writers soon came to construct an elaborate theory thai
the poets and preachers were but as the flutes througtt
which the breath of God flowed in divine music intp
the soul." 4
1 Hippol., Philosophoumena, vi., 14.
5 Herod., iv., 8-10.
3 Hippol., v., 21.
¦* Hibbert Lectures for 1888, Lecture iii., pp. 69, 70, 72.

44 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
The Fathers as Allegorists.
Beginning with Justin, the leaders of thought
in the Church, from the middle of the second cen
tury, were men who had been brought up as pagan
philosophers, or educated under pagan influence.
It was therefore unavoidable that this corrupting
system of exegesis should be applied to the books
of the New Testament. This was done by the
Gnostics, according to their theory that the true
meaning of all writings was hidden. Christ's life
presented many difficulties to the philosophers.
To explain its seeming contradiction, they resolved
the mission of Christ into a series of superhuman
movements, and the New Testament into a sort of
hieroglyphic record of those movements. Instance :
Simeon, taking the young Christ in his arms in the
temple, " was a type of the Demiurge, who, on the arrival of the
Saviour, learned his own change of place, and gave thanks
to Bythus. They also assert that by Anna, who is spoken
of in the Gospel as a prophetess, and who, after living
seven years with her husband, passed all the rest of her
life in widowhood until she saw the Saviour, and recog
nized Him, and spoke of Him to all, was most plainly
indicated Achamoth, who, having for a little while looked
upon the Saviour with his associates, and dwelling all the
rest of the time in the intermediate place, waited for Him
till He should come again and restore her to her proper

INTERPRETING THE SCRIPTURES. 45
consort. Her name, too, was indicated by the Saviour
when he said, 'Yet wisdom is justified by her children.'
This, too, was done by Paul in these words, ' But we
speak wisdom among them that are perfect.' They de
clare also that Paul has referred to the conjunctions
within the Pleroma, showing them forth by means of one ;
for, when writing of the conjugal union in this life, he
expressed himself thus : ' This is a great mystery, but I
speak concerning Christ and the Church.' " '
Another instance is found in the interpreta
tion which they made of the raising of Jairus'
daughter •
" They maintain further, that that girl of twelve years
old, the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, whom
the Lord approached and raised from the dead, was a
type of Achamoth, to whom their Christ, by extending/
himself, imparted shape, and whom he led anew to the
perception of that light which had forsaken her. And
that the Saviour appeared to her when she lay outside of
the Pleroma as a kind of abortion, they affirm Paul to
have declared in his Epistle to the Corinthians (in these
words) : ' And last of all, He appeared to me also, as to
one born out of due time.' Again, the coming of the
Saviour with His attendants, to Achamoth is declared in
like manner by him in the same epistle, when he says :
'A woman ought to have a veil upon her head, because of
the angels.' Now that Achamoth, when the Saviour came
to her, drew a veil over herself through modesty, Moses
rendered manifest when he put a veil upon his face. Then,
1 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, book i., chap. viii.

46 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
also, they say that the passions which she endured were
indicated by the Lord upon the cross. Thus, when He
said, ' My God,, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'
he simply showed that Sophia was deserted by the light,
and was restrained by Horos from making any advance
forward. Her anguish again was indicated when He said,
' My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death ' ; her
fear by the words, ' Father, if it be possible, let this cup
pass from me ' ; and her perplexity, too, when He said,
' And what I shall say, I know not.' " *
This Method Opposed by Some.
Some of the early Fathers, those who were least
tinctured with Greek thought, especially Tertullian,
opposed this method at the first. He declared
that it was one of the arts of Satan, against which
Christians must wrestle. But the system was too
deep-seated in all the prevailing currents of influ
ence to be displaced. Even while Tertullian was
opposing it, it was tightening its grasp upon the
Christian communities ; a grasp which is by no
means yet removed. Starting first at Alexandria
and strengthened by the union of Greek philosophy
and Hebrew theology, it gathered force like an
increasing tide, and overwhelmed all other forms
of exegesis. A pertinent example is found in
>jClement of Alexandria, in a philippic against the
Sophists :
1 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, book i., chap. viii.

INTERPRETING THE SCRIPTURES.

47

" Look to the tongue and to the words of the glozing man,
But you look on no work that has been done ;
But each one of you walks in the steps of a fox,
And in all of you is an empty mind."
Clement of Alexandria comments on this as
follows :
"This, I think, is signified by the utterance of the
Saviour, ' The foxes have holes, but the Son of man hath
not where to lay his head.' For on the believer alone,
who is separated entirely from the rest, who by the
Scripture are called wild beasts, rests the head of the
universe, the kind and gentle Word, 'Who taketh the
wise in their own craftiness. For the Lord knoweth the
thoughts of the wise, that they are vain ' ; the Scripture
calling those the wise (<Jo<povs) who are skilled in words
and arts, sophists (aocpiGtaS)." 1
In another place the story of. the feeding of the
multitude by Christ is explained in these words :
" And the Lord fed the multitude of those that reclined
on the grass opposite to Tiberias with the two fishes and
the five barley loaves, indicating the preparatory training
of the Greeks and Jews previous to the divine grain,
which is the food cultivated by the law. For barley is
sooner ripe for the harvest than wheat ; and the fishes
signified the Hellenic philosophy that was produced and
moved in the midst of the Gentile billow, given, as they
were, for copious food to those lying on the ground, in
creasing no more, like the fragments of the loaves, but
1 Stroma. . book i. , chap. iii.

48 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
having partaken of the Lord's blessing, had breathed into
them the resurrection of God-head through the power of
the Word. But if you are curious, understand one of the
fishes to mean the curriculum of study, and the other the
philosophy which supervenes. The gatherings point out
the word of the Lord." '
Christianity, according to the New Testament,
could not be developed under such exegesis.
These pagano-Christian leaders had still greater
love for the allegorical method because it enabled
them to "explain away" the difficulties which they
found in considering Christianity — as they con
ceived of it — to be the product of the old Testament.
From the first they had identified the God of the
Old Testament with the Demiurge, the creator of
the world and of matter, in which was only evil.
They claimed that Jehovah could not make a revela
tion for all time, nor one worthy of their confidence.
Hatch, speaking of the Old Testament, says :
" An important section of the Christian world rejected
its authority altogether; it was the work, not of God,
but of His rival, the god of this world ; the contrast be
tween the Old Testament and the New was part of the
larger contrast between matter and spirit, darkness and
light, evil and good. This was the contention of Marcion,
whose influence upon the Christian world was far larger
than is commonly supposed." 3
1 Strom., bk. vi., ch. xi.
5 Influence of Greek Thought, etc., p. 77.

INTERPRETING THE SCRIPTURES. 49
Further Examples.
Still further examples of the fanciful perversions
of the Scriptures, by the Fathers, are presented in
order that the reader may be left without a doubt
as to the ruinous effects which the pagan allegoriz
ing methods produced upon the infant Church.
The Epistle of Barnabas, falsely attributed to
the companion of Paul, is a notable example of
unmeaning allegories which totally pervert the
Scriptures. Take the following examples :
" THE RED HEIFER A TYPE OF CHRIST.1
" Now what do you suppose this to be a type of, that a
command was given to Israel, that men of the greatest
wickedness should offer a heifer, and slay and burn it, and
that then boys should take the ashes, and put these into
vessels, and bind round a stick purple wool along with
hyssop, and that thus the boys should sprinkle the people
one by one, in order that they might be purified from
their sins? Consider how he speaks to you with sim
plicity. The calf is Jesus ; the sinful men offering it are
those who led Him to the slaughter. But now the men
are no longer guilty, are no longer regarded as sinners.
And the boys that sprinkle are those that have proclaimed
to us the remission of sins and purification of heart. To
these He gave authority to preach the gospel, being
twelve in number, corresponding to the twelve tribes of
1 In quotations from the Fathers, words and clauses in brackets are thus
printed as " supplied words " in the Ante-Nicene Library of T. & T. Clarke,
Edinburgh.

50 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
Israel. But why are there three boys that sprinkle ? To
correspond to Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, because
these were great with God. And why was the wool
[placed] upon the wood ? Because by wood Jesus holds
His kingdom, so that [through the cross] those believing
on Him shall live forever. But why was hyssop joined
with the wool? Because in His kingdom the days will
be evil and polluted in which we shall be saved, [and]
because he who suffers in body is cured through the
cleansing efficacy of hyssop. And on this account the
things which stand thus are clear to us, but obscure to
them, because they did not hear the voice of the Lord." '
Chapter ix. discusses the spiritual meaning of
circumcision. The closing portion of the chapter
is as follows :
" Yea, the Egyptians also practise circumcision. Learn
then, my children, concerning all things richly, that Abra
ham, the first who enjoined circumcision, looking forward
in spirit to Jesus, practised that rite, having received the
mysteries of the three letters. For [the Scripture] saith,
' And Abraham circumcised ten and eight and three hun
dred men of his household.' What then was the knowl
edge given to him in this ? Learn the eighteen first, and
then the three hundred. The ten and the eight are thus
denoted — ten by I, and eight by H. You have [the
initials of] Jesus, and because the cross was to express
the grace [of our redemption] by the letter T, he says
also, 'three hundred.' He signifies, therefore, Jesus by
two letters, and the cross by one. He knows this, who
1 Epistle, ch. viii.

INTERPRETING THE SCRIPTURES. 5 1
has put within us the engrafted gift of His doctrine. No
one has been admitted by me to a more excellent piece
of knowledge than this, but I know that ye are worthy." '
The tenth chapter, which treats of the Spiritual
Significance of the Precepts of Moses Respecting Dif
ferent Kinds of Food, can be quoted only in part ;
portions of it are unfit for the public eye, and yet
these portions, gross as they are, are solemnly set
forth as an exegesis of Scripture. The chapter fol
lows here, except the grosser sentences :
" Now, wherefore did Moses say, ' Thou shalt not eat
the swine, nor the eagle, nor the hawk, nor the raven, nor
any fish which is not possessed of scales ? ' He embraced
three doctrines in his mind [in doing so]. Moreover, the
Lord saith to them in Deuteronomy, ' And I will estab
lish my ordinances among this people.' Is there then
not a command of God that they should not eat [these
things] ? There is ; but Moses spoke with a spiritual
reference. For this reason he named the swine, as much
as to say, ' Thou shalt not join thyself to men who resem
ble swine,' for when they live in pleasure they forget
their Lord ; but when they come to want -they acknowl
edge the Lord. And [in like manner] the swine, when it
has eaten, does not recognize its master ; but when hun
gry it cries out, and on receiving food is quiet again.
' Neither shalt thou eat,' says he, ' the eagle, nor the hawk,
nor the kite, nor the raven.' ' Thou shalt not join thyself,'
he means, ' to such men as know not how to procure food'
for themselves by labor and, sweat, but seize on that of
1 Epistle, ch. ix.

52 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
others in their iniquity, and, although wearing an aspect
of simplicity, are on the watch to plunder others.' So
these birds, while they sit idle, inquire how they may
devour the flesh of others, proving themselves pests [to
all] by their wickedness. ' And thou shalt not eat,' he
says, ' the lamprey, or the polypus, or the cuttle-fish.' He
means, ' Thou shalt not join thyself or be like to such men
as are ungodly to the end, and are condemned to death.'
In like manner as those fishes above accursed, float in
the deep, not swimming [on the surface] like the rest,'
but make their abode in the mud which lies at the
bottom. . . .
" Moses then issued three doctrines concerning meats
with a spiritual significance ; but they received them
according to fleshly desire as if he had merely spoken of
[literal] meats. David, however, comprehends the knowl
edge of the three doctrines, and speaks in like manner :
' Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel
of the ungodly,' even as the fishes [referred to] go in dark
ness to the depths [of the sea], ' and hath not stood in the
way of sinners,' even as those who profess to fear the
Lord, but go astray like swine ; ' and hath not sat in the
seat of the scorners ' even as those birds that lie in wait
for prey. Take a full and firm grasp of this spiritual
knowledge. But Moses says still further, ' Ye shall eat
every animal that is cloven-footed and ruminant.' What
does he mean ? [The ruminant animal denotes him] who
on receiving food recognizes Him that nourishes him, and
being satisfied by Him, is visibly made glad. Well spake
[Moses] having respect to the commandment. What then
does he mean ? That we ought to join ourselves to those
that fear the Lord, those who meditate in their heart on

INTERPRETING THE SCRIPTURES. 53
the commandment which they have received, those who
both utter the judgments of the Lord and observe them,
those who know that meditation is a work of gladness,
and who ruminate upon the word of the Lord. But what
means the cloven-footed ? That the righteous man also
walks in this world, yet looks forward to the holy state [to
come]. Behold how well Moses legislated. But how was it
possible for them to understand or comprehend these
things? We then, rightly understanding his command
ments, explain them as the Lord intended. For this
purpose He circumcised our ears and our hearts, that we
might understand these things." '
Chapter xii. is a meaningless discussion of the
cross as prefigured in the Old Testament. A
part of the chapter will suffice.
" In like manner he points to the cross of Christ in
another prophet, who saith, ' And when shall these
things be accomplished ? ' And the Lord saith, ' When a
tree shall be bent down, and again arise, and when blood
shall flow out of wood.' ! Here again you have an inti
mation concerning the cross and Him who should be
crucified. Yet again he speaks of this in Moses, when
Israel was attacked by strangers. And that He might
remind them, when assailed, that it was on account of
their sins they were delivered to death, the Spirit speaks
to the heart of Moses, that he should make a figure of
the cross, and of Him about to suffer thereon ; for unless
1 Epistle, chap.x.
* This is a real or pretended quotation from some unknown Apochryphal
book.

54 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
they put their trust in Him they shall be overcome for-
. ever. Moses, therefore, placed one weapon above another
in the midst of the hill, and standing upon it, so as to be
higher than all the people, he stretched forth his hands,
and thus again Israel acquired the mastery. But when
again he let down his hands, they were again destroyed.
For what reason ? That they might know that they
could not be saved unless they put their trust in Him.
And in another prophet he declares, ' All day long I have
stretched forth my hands to an unbelieving people, and
one that gainsays my righteous- way.' And again Moses
makes a type of Jesus [signifying] that it was necessary
for him to suffer, [and also] that He would be the author
of life [to others] whom they believed, to have destroyed
on the cross when Israel was falling." 1
Justin Martyr is an eminent example of one
who perverted the Scriptures while claiming to
explain them. Witness the following from the
account of his conversion to Christianity :
" And when I had quoted this, I added, ' Hear then
how this man, of whom the Scriptures declare that He
will come again in glory after His crucifixion, was sym
bolized both by the tree of life, which was said to have
been planted in paradise, and by those events which
should happen to all the just.' Moses was sent with a
rod to effect the redemption of the people ; and with this
in his hands, at the head of the people, he divided the
sea. By this he saw the water gushing out of the rock ;
and when he cast a tree into the waters of Marah, which
1 Epistle, chap. xii.

INTERPRETING THE SCRIPTURES. 55
were bitter, he made them sweet. Jacob, by putting rods
into the water troughs, caused the sheep of his uncle to
conceive, so that he should obtain their young. With his
rod the same Jacob boasts that he had crossed the river.
He said that he had seen a ladder, and the Scripture has
declared that God stood above it.
" But that this was not the Father we have proved from
the Scriptures. And Jacob having poured oil on a stone in
the same place is testified to by the very God who ap
peared to him, that he had anointed a pillar to the God
who appeared to him. And that the stone symbolically
proclaimed Christ, we have also proved by many Scrip
tures ; and that the unguent, whether it was of oil or of
stacte, or of any other compounded sweet balsams, had
reference to Him we have also proved, inasmuch as the
word says, ' Therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed
thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.' For in
deed all kings and anointed persons obtained from Him
their share in the names of kings and anointed ; just as
he himself received from the Father the titles of King,
and Christ, and Priest, and Angel, and such like other
titles which He bears or did bear. Aaron's rod which
blossomed, declared him to be the high priest. Isaiah
prophesied that a rod would come forth from the root of
Jesse [and this was] Christ. And David says that the
righteous man is ' like the tree that is planted by the
channels of waters,which should yield its fruit in its season,
and whose leaf should not fade.' Again, the righteous is
said to flourish like the palm tree. God appeared from a
tree to Abraham, as it is written, near the oak in Mamre.
The people found seventy willows and twelve springs
after crossing the Jordan. David affirms that God com-

56 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
forted him with a rod and staff. Elisha, by casting a stick
into the river Jordan, recovered the iron part of the axe
with which the sons of the prophets had gone to cut
down trees to build the house, in which they wished to
read and study the law and commandments of God ; even
as our Christ, by being crucified on the tree, and by puri
fying [us] with water, has redeemed us, though plunged
in the direst offences, which we have committed, and has
made [us] a house of prayer and adoration. Moreover, it
was a rod that pointed out Judah to be the father of
Tamar's sons by a great mystery." '
Still more confusing fancies, under the name of
exegesis, appear near the close of the Dialogue.
Witness the following :
" ' You know then, sirs,' I said, ' that God has said in
Isaiah to Jerusalem, " I saved thee in the deluge of
Noah." ' By this, which God said, was meant that the
mystery of saved men appeared in the deluge. For
righteous Noah, along with the other mortals at the
deluge, /. e., with his own wife, his three sons, and their
wives, being eight in number, were a symbol of the eighth
day wherein Christ appeared when He rose from the
dead, forever the first in power. For Christ being the
first-born of every creature, became again the chief of
another race regenerated by Himself through water, and
faith, and wood, containing the mystery of the cross ;
even as Noah was saved by wood when he rode over the
1 Dialogue with Trypho, chap, lxxxvi.
4 Isaiah liv., 9, may be referred to here, but there is nothing in Isaiah or
elsewhere in the Bible like what Justin here asserts.

INTERPRETING THE SCRIPTURES. 57
waters with his household. Accordingly, when the
prophet says, " I saved thee in the times of Noah," as I
have already remarked, he addresses the people who are
equally faithful to God, and possess the same signs. For
when Moses had the rod in his hands he led your nation
through the sea. And you believe that this was spoken
to your nation only, or to the land. But the whole earth,
as the Scripture says, was inundated, and the water rose in
height fifteen cubits above all the mountains ; so that it is
evident this was not spoken to the land, but to the people
who obeyed Him, for whom also He had before prepared
a resting-place in Jerusalem, as was previously demon
strated by all the symbols of the deluge ; I mean that by
water, faith, and wood, those who are afore prepared, and
who repent of the sins which they have committed, shall
escape from the impending judgment of God.' " '
Another illustration of the utterly unmeaning
and fanciful interpretations of Scripture is found in
Fragments from Commentaries on Various Books
of Scripture, by Hippolytus, Bishop of Rome.
He is explaining why there are one hundred and
fifty psalms. The main reason adduced is that
fifty is a sacred number, and the Psalms, on ac
count of the destruction of God's enemies, should
contain not only one set of fifty, but three such,
for the name of the Father, and Son, and Holy
Spirit. The sacred character of the number fifty
is explained as follows :
1 Dialogue, etc., chap, cxxxviii.

58 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
" The number fifty, moreover, contains seven sevens, or
a Sabbath of Sabbaths, and also over and above these full
Sabbaths, a new beginning in the eighth, of a really new
rest that remains above the Sabbaths. And let any one
who is able observe this [as it is carried out] in the
Psalms with more, indeed, than human accuracy, so as to
find out the reasons in each case, as we shall set them
forth. Thus, for instance, it is not without a purpose
that the eighth Psalm has the inscription, on the wine
presses, as it comprehends the perfection of fruits in the
eighth ; for the time for the enjoyment of the fruits of the
true vine could not be before the eighth. And again, the
second Psalm inscribed, on the wine presses, is the eigh
tieth, containing another eighth number, viz., in the tenth
multiple. The eighty-third again is made up by the
union of two holy numbers, viz., the eighth in the tenth
multiple, and the three in the first multiple. And the
fiftieth Psalm is a prayer for the remission of sins, and a
confession. For, as according to the Gospel, the fiftieth
obtained remission confirming thereby that understand
ing of the jubilee, so he who offers up such petitions in
full confession hopes to gain remission in no other num
ber than the fiftieth. And again there are also certain
others which are called songs of degrees, in number fifteen,
as was also the number of the steps of the temple, and
which show thereby, perhaps, that the steps (or degrees) are
comprehended within the number seven and the number
eight. And these songs of degrees begin after the one
hundred and twentieth Psalm, which is called simply a
Psalm, as the more accurate copies give it. And this is
the number of the perfection of the life of man. And the
hundredth Psalm, which begins thus, I will sing of mercy

INTERPRETING THE SCRIPTURES.

59

and judgment, O Lord, embraces the life of the saint in
fellowship with God. And the one hundred and fiftieth
ends with these words, Let everything that hath breath
praise the Lord." l
Clement of Rome, one of the earliest Fathers
from whom anything genuine has come to our time,
presents other prominent examples of myth and
allegory, as follows :
" Let us consider that wonderful sign [of the resurrec
tion] which takes place in Eastern lands, that is, in Arabia,
and the countries round about. There is a certain bird which
is called a phcenix. This is the only one of its kind, and
lives five hundred years. And when the time of its dis
solution draws near that it must die, it builds itself a nest
of frankincense, and myrrh, and other spices, into which,
when the time is fulfilled, it enters and dies. But as the
flesh decays, a certain kind of worm is produced, which,
being nourished by the juices of the dead bird, brings
forth feathers. Then when it has acquired strength, it
takes up that nest in which are the bones of its parent,
and, bearing these, it passes from the land of Arabia into
Egypt, to the city called Heliopolis. And in open day,
flying in the sight of all men, it places them on the altar
of the sun, and, having done this, hastens back to its for
mer abode. The priests then inspect the registers of the
dates, and finds that it has returned exactly as the five
hundredth year was completed."2
1 Ante-Nicene Library, T. & T. Clarke, vol. vi., p. 500.
8 Epistle of Clement, chap. xxv.

6b PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
Here is a pagan sun-myth gravely set forth as
fact, and made to illustrate a Christian truth ; an
example of what was common in the writings and
theories of those who became leaders in the Church.
The Bible, with its simple truths and plain ethi
cal teachings, was an insipid book to men whose
tastes had become abnormal and perverted through
feeding on such pagan fancies and superstitions.
One more example from Clement of Alexan
dria. It must be remembered that the " Christian "
writers who condemn gnosticism as a heresy still
claimed that there was a "true Christian gnosti
cism " ; the difference between them and those
whom they condemned was in degree more than
in kind. The following extracts are from Clem
ent's Gnostic Exposition of the Decalogue. It
needs little to show that when the law of God was
thus expounded, its power and authority were prac
tically destroyed. Such expositions were part and
parcel of the lawlessness which was the unavoid
able fruitage of gnosticism. Clement says :
" And the Decalogue, viewed as an image of heaven,
embraces sun and moon, stars, clouds, light, wind, water,
air, darkness, fire. This is the physical Decalogue of the
heaven. " And the representation of the earth contains men, cat
tle, reptiles, wild beasts ; and of the inhabitants of the
water, fishes and whales ; and again of the winged tribes,
those that are carnivorous, and those that use mild food ;

INTERPRETING THE SCRIPTURES. 6 1
and of plants likewise, both fruit-bearing and barren. This
is the physical Decalogue of the earth.
" And there is a ten in man himself : the five senses and
the power of speech, and that of reproduction ; and the
eighth is the spiritual principle communicated at his cre
ation ; and the ninth, the ruling faculty of the soul ; and
tenth, there is the distinctive characteristic of the Holy
Spirit, which comes to him through faith.
" Besides, in addition to these ten human parts, the law
appears to give its injunctions to sight and hearing, and
smell and touch and taste, and to the organs subservient
to these, which are double the hands and the feet. For
such is the formation of man. And the soul is introduced,
and previous to it the ruling faculty, by which we reason,
not produced in procreation ; so that without it there is
made up the number ten, of the faculties by which all the
activity of man is carried out. . . .
" Is not man, then rightly said ' to have been made in
the image of God ' ? — not in the form of his [corporeal]
structure ; but inasmuch as God creates all things by the
Word {koy(p) and the man who has become a Gnostic
performs good actions by the faculty of reason (rw \oyiK<£>)
properly therefore the two tables are also said to mean
the commandments that were given to the twofold spirits
— those communicated before the law to that which was
created, and to the ruling faculty ; and the movements of
the senses are both copied in the mind, and manifested in
the activity which proceeds from the body." '
Even Tertullian, who inveighed so strongly
against certain phases of gnosticism, as repre-
1 Stromata, bk. vi., ch. xvi.

62 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
sented in the Alexandrian schools, has given inter
pretations which are no less unreliable and fanciful
than those which he condemns.
Hear him on " Types."
" Types of the Death of Christ : Isaac, Joseph; Jacob
against Simeon and Levi ; Moses praying against Amalek;
the Brazen Serpent.
" On the subject of his death, I suppose you endeavor
to introduce a diversity of opinion, simply because you
deny that the suffering of the cross was predicted of the
Christ of the Creator, and because you contend, more
over, that it is not to be believed that the Creator would
expose His son to that kind of death on which He had
Himself pronounced a curse. 'Cursed,' says he, 'is
every one who hangeth on a tree.' But what is meant by
this curse, worthy as it is of the simple prediction of the
cross, of which we are now mainly inquiring, I defer to
consider, because in another passage, we have given the
reason of the thing preceded by proof. First, I shall
offer a full explanation of the types. And no doubt it
was proper that this mystery should be prophetically set
forth by types, and indeed chiefly by that method ; for
in proportion to its incredibility would it be a stumbling
block, if it were set forth in bare prophecy ; and in pro
portion, too, to its grandeur, was the need of obscuring it
in shadow, that the difficulty of understanding it might
lead to prayer for the grace of God. First, then, Isaac,
when he was given up by his father, as an offering, him
self carried the wood for his own death. By this act he
even then was setting forth the death of Christ, who was
destined by his Father as a sacrifice, and carried the cross

INTERPRETING THE SCRIPTURES. 63
whereon he suffered. Joseph, likewise, was a type of
Christ, not, indeed, on this ground (that I may not delay
my course) that he suffered persecution for the cause of
God from his brethren, as Christ did from his brethren
after the flesh, the Jews ; but when he is blessed by his
father in these words, ' His glory is that of a bullock ;
his horns are the horns of a unicorn ; with them shall
he push the nations to the very ends of the earth,' — he
was not, of course, designated as a mere unicorn with its
one horn, or a minotaur with two ; but Christ was in
dicated in him — a bullock in respect of both His charac
teristics ; to some as severe as a judge, to others gentle
as a Saviour, whose horns were the extremities of his
cross. For of the antenna, which is a part of a cross, the
ends are called horns ; while the midway stake of the
whole frame is the unicorn. By this virtue, then, of His
cross, and in this manner horned, He is both now pushing
all nations through faith, bearing them away from earth
to heaven ; and will then push them through judgment,
casting them down from heaven to earth. He will also,
according to another passage in the same Scripture, be a
bullock when he is spiritually interpreted to be Jacob
against Simeon and Levi, which means against the scribes
and the pharisees ; for it was from them that these last
derived their origin. [Like] Simeon and Levi, they con
summated their wickedness by their heresy, with which
they persecuted Christ. ' Into their counsel let not my soul
enter ; to their assembly let not my heart be united ; for in
their anger they slew men,' that is, the prophets ; ' and in
their self-will they hacked the sinews of a bullock,' that is,
of Christ. For against Him did they wreak their fury,
after they had slain His prophets, even by affixing Him

64 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
with nails to the cross. Otherwise it is an idle thing, when,
after slaying men, he inveighs against them for the torture
of a bullock. Again, in the case of Moses, wherefore did
he at that moment particularly, when Joshua was fighting
Amalek, pray in a sitting posture with outstretched hands,
when in such a conflict it would surely have been more
seemly to have bent the knee, and smitten the breast,
and to have fallen on the face to the ground, and in such
prostration to have offered prayer ? Wherefore, but be
cause in a battle fought in the name of that Lord who was
one day to fight against the devil, the shape was necessary
of that very cross through which Jesus was to win the
victory ? Why, once more, did the same Moses, after pro
hibiting the likeness of everything, set up the golden ser
pent on the pole, and, as it hung there, propose it as an
object to be looked at for a cure ? Did he not here also
intend to show the power of our Lord's cross, whereby
that old serpent, the devil, was vanquished — whereby also
to every man who was bitten by spiritual serpents, but
who yet turned with an eye of faith to it, was proclaimed
a cure from the bite of sin, and health for evermore? " '
The allegorizing method continued with great
pertinacity. Augustine, the master mind of the
fifth century, whose influence yet abounds in the
doctrines of both Catholics and Protestants, was
under its sway. With him, as with those who
preceded him, this allegorical interpretation per
verted the Scriptures and obscured truth. A single
instance must suffice :
1 Against Marcion, book iii., chapter xviii.

INTERPRETING THE SCRIPTURES. 65
" Hence, also, in the number of the large fishes which
our Lord, after His resurrection, showing this new life,
commanded to be taken on the right side of the ship,
there is found the number fifty, three times multi
plied with the addition of three more [the symbol of the
Trinity] to make the holy mystery more apparent ; and the
disciples' nets were not broken, because in that new life
there shall be no schism, caused by the disquiet of heretics.
Then [in this new life] man, made perfect and at rest,
purified in body and in soul, by the pure words of God
which are like silver purged from its dross, seven times
refined, shall receive his reward, the denarius. So that
with that reward the numbers ten and seven meet in Him.
For in this number seventeen [there is found] as in other
numbers representing a combination of symbols, a won
derful mystery. Nor is it without good reason that the
seventeenth Psalm is the only one which is given com
plete in the Book of Kings, because it signifies that king
dom in which we shall have no enemy. For its title is,
' A Psalm of David in the day that the Lord delivered
him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand
of Saul.' For of whom is David the type, but of Him
who, according to the flesh, was born of the seed of David ?
He, in His church, that is, in His body, still endures the
malice of enemies. Therefore the words which from
heaven fell upon the ear of that persecutor whom Jesus
slew by His voice, and whom He transformed into a part
of His body (as the food which we use becomes a part of
ourselves), were these : ' Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou
me?' And when shall this His body be finally delivered
from enemies ? Is it not when the last enemy, death, shall
be destroyed ? It is to that time that the number of the

66 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
one hundred and fifty-three fishes pertains. For if the
number seventeen itself be the side of an arithmetical
triangle, formed by placing above each other rows of units,
increasing in number from one to seventeen, the whole
sum of these units is one hundred and fifty-three : since
one and two make three ; three and three, six ; six and
four, ten ; ten and five, fifteen ; fifteen and six, twenty-
one ; and so on : continue this up to seventeen, the total
one hundred and fifty-three." '
The foregoing examples are neither isolated nor
peculiar. They represent fully and fairly the pre
vailing methods of exegesis, falsely so called. Such
men shaped the faith and governed the thought of
Christianity west of Palestine after the middle of
the second century. Other fruitage of their sys
tem will be found in another chapter, in the Anti-
nomian and anti-Sabbath doctrines by which the
authority of Jehovah and His word were still fur
ther undermined. A careful examination of the
entire group of " Christian writings " of the first
five centuries shows that the age was uncritical,,
and utterly wanting in the learning and habits of
thought which prepare men to interpret the Bible.
It was brought down to the level of the pagan
books with which these men were familiar, both as
to its authority and as to the methods by which
its meaning was sought. Indeed, its real meaning
1 Letter lv., chapter xvii., par. 31.

INTERPRETING THE SCRIPTURES. 67
was not sought ; the main effort was to show how
it-accorded with pagan books, and with the philo
sophical speculations which were popular. If, in
any case, it was recognized as the supreme author
ity, the prevailing methods of interpretation ob
scured and perverted its meaning, so that men were
not governed by what it really taught. Men who
did not have clear and correct views of the Bible
could not impart them to others. The masses did
not possess copies of the Bible, and could not have
interpreted it critically had it been in their
hands. Killen declares these Fathers to be un
trustworthy and incompetent interpreters of the
Bible. These are his words :
" Earlier writers, such as Origen or Clement of Alexan
dria, frequently expounded the word, of God in the way
in which Neo-Platonists explained the pagan mythology
— that is, they regard it as an allegory from which they
extract whatever meaning happens to be most agree
able to themselves — and too many continued to adopt the
" same system of interpretation. But among the Fathers
of the fourth century there were some who followed
sounder principles of exegesis, and carefully investigated
the literal sense of the holy oracles. Still, comparatively
few of the Christian writers even of this period are very
valuable as biblical interpreters. These authors occasion
ally contradict themselves, and, without acknowledgment,
copy most slavishly from each other. Jerome argues that
the great duty of an expositor is, not so much to exhibit

68 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
the mind of the Spirit, as to set before the reader the con
flicting sentiments of interpreters. . . .
" But though we ^discover in these Fathers so many
traces of human infirmity, we must make allowance for
the time in which they lived, and for the prejudices in
which they were educated. Christianity passed through
a terrible ordeal when it suddenly became the religion of
the Empire. Society was by no means prepared for so
vast a change. Already the Gospel had suffered sadly
from adulteration, and now it was more rapidly deterio
rated. Many who were quite uninstructed became pastors
of the Church ; pagan forms and ceremonies were incor
porated with its ritual ; pagan superstitions were recog
nized as principles of action ; and pagan philosophy
corrupted theological science. A dense cloud of errors
soon overspread the whole spiritual firmament." '
This chapter may well close with the follow
ing quotation from Uhlhorn, which shows how
nearly Christianity was ruined through the preva
lence of this gnostic allegorizing system, which
obscured or perverted the meaning of the Scrip
tures, and destroyed their authority. He says :
" I have already called gnosticism the antipode of
montanism. Such indeed it was. If montanism was
over-narrow, here we find an all-embracing breadth.
Gnosticism knew how to utilize every mental product of
the age. Elements, Oriental and Occidental, in a curious
medley, philosophy and popular superstition — all were
' The Old Catholic Church, by W. D. Killen, D.D., pp. 99, 100, Edin
burgh, 1 871.

INTERPRETING THE SCRIPTURES. 69
collected and used as materials for the building of gnostic
systems. The myths of the heathen may be found side by
side with the Gospel histories, which were only myths to
the gnostic. One proof text is taken from the Bible, and
the next from Homer or Hesiod, and both alike are used
by an allegorical exegesis to support the ready-made
creations of the author's fancy. Breadth enough, too, in
morality ; no trembling fear of pollution, no anxious care
to exclude the influence of heathenism. It was no fiction
inspired by the hatred of heresy, when the gnostics were
said to be very lax in their adhesion to the laws of moral
ity. Many of them expressly permitted flight from per
secution. " Gnosticism extended far and wide in the second
century. There was something very imposing in those
mighty systems which embraced heaven and earth. How
plain and meagre in comparison seemed simple Chris
tianity ! There was something remarkably attractive in
the breadth and liberality of gnosticism. It seemed com
pletely to have reconciled Christianity with culture. How
narrow the Christian Church appeared ! Even noble
souls might be captivated by the hope of winning the
world over to Christianity in this way ; while the multitude
was attracted by the dealing in mysteries with which the
gnostic sects fortified themselves by offering mighty spells
and amulets, thus pandering to the popular taste. Finally
some were no doubt drawn in by the fact that less strict
ness of life was required, and that they could thus be
Christians without suffering martyrdom.
" But the victory of gnosticism would have been the
ruin of Christianity. Christianity would have split into
a hundred sects, its line of division from heathenism

70 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
would have been erased, its inmost essence would have
been lost, and instead of producing something really new,
it would have become only an element of the melting
mass, an additional ingredient in the fermenting chaos of
religions which characterized the age." '
When the fountain of formative Christianity
was thus widely and early corrupted, what wonder
that the banks of the stream are covered with
pagan debris, and that the waters are yet turbid
from its sediment ?
1 Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism, pp. 346, 347.

CHAPTER III.
ASIATIC PAGAN WATER-WORSHIP.
Fundamental Corruption of Christian Baptism through Pagan Water- Wor
ship — " Baptismal Regeneration," the Product of Paganism — Spir
itual Purity Sought through Pagan Baptism — Testimonies from Jam-
blicus, Virgil, Ovid, Herodotus, Juvenal, and others — Baptism and
Serpent- Worship — Baptism and Egyptian Sun-Worship — The Sacred
Nile — The Prevalence of Water- Worship in India — Sacred Wells —
Sacred Rivers — Modern Buddhistic and Modern Hindu Baptism.
Corrupting Influence of Pagan Water- Worship.
THE work of corrupting Christianity went for
ward systematically, as though an enemy
planned to undermine its fundamental truths and
ruin the Church through internal errors. When
allegorical methods had shorn the Bible of author
ity, and pushed God, as represented in his word,
far away from men, the next important step was to
corrupt the developing Church by a false standard
of membership, thus planting a sure seed of decay
in its heart. In New Testament Christianity, bap^J
tism — submersion in water — was the outward sym
bol of a new spiritual life, beginning through faith
and repentance. As such it had a specific mean-
71

72 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
ing, and from the earliest times formed the door
to membership in the Christian communities. He
who accepted Christ as the Messiah, testified such
acceptance by being "buried with him in baptism."
This was the sign of an inward purity which en
titled the believer to a place in the community,
and to the fellowship of "those who believed."
It was not the agent by which purity was pro
duced, nor the source from which the new spiritual
life sprung. All this was changed by introducing
the pagan idea. The materials for such a corrupt
ing process were fully developed in the pagan
world. Various forms of baptism, and the doctrine of
baptismal regeneration, were common characteris
tics of pagan religion before the birth of Christ.
The pagan water-worship cult is secondary only
to sun-worship, in age and extent. Its native home
was in the East, but it appears in all periods and
on both hemispheres. It had two phases : water as
an object of worship, and as a means of inspira
tion ; and water used in religious ceremonies to
produce spiritual purity. These phases often min
gle with each other.
This reverence for water, and faith in its cleansing
efficacy, arose from the idea that it was permeated
by the divine essence, from which it had super
natural power to enlighten and purify the soul,

ASIATIC PAGAN WATER- WORSHIP. 73
without regard to the spiritual state of the candi
date. This doctrine of baptismal regeneration was
transferred to Christianity before the close of the
second century, and through it the Church was
filled rapidly with baptized but unconverted pagans./
Sun-worship and water-worship were closely
united in the pagan cultus, as they were in the
corrupted Christian baptism. For instance, one
fountain noted by Jamblicus is described thus, by
Bryant :
" From this history of the place we may learn the pur
port of the name by which this oracular place was called.
Colophon is Col-Oph-On, Tumulus Dei Solis Pythonis,
and corresponds with the character given. The river into
which this fountain ran was sacred, and named Halesus ;
it was called Anelon, An-El-On, Fons Dei Solis. Halesus
is composed of well known titles of the same God." '
The following are the words of Jamblicus :
" It is acknowledged then by all men that the oracle in
Colophon gives its answers through the medium of water.
For there is a fountain in a subterranean dwelling from
which the prophetess drinks ; and on certain established
nights after many sacred rites have been previously per
formed, and she has drunk of the fountain, she delivers
oracles, but is not visible to those that are present. That
this water, therefore, is prophetic is from hence manifest.
1 Analysis of Ancient Mythology, by Jacob Bryant, third edition, six
vols. London, 1807, vol. i., page 255.

74 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
But how it becomes so, this, according to the proverb, is
not for every man to know. For it appears as if a certain
prophetic spirit pervaded through the water. This is not,
however, in reality the case. For a divine nature does
not pervade through its participants in this manner, ac
cording to interval and division, but comprehends, as it
were, externally, and illuminates the fountain, and fills it
from itself with a prophetic power. For the inspiration
which the water affords is not the whole of that which
proceeds from a divine power, but the water itself only
prepares us, and purifies our luciform spirit, so that we
may be able to receive the divinity ; while in the mean
time, there is a presence of divinity prior to this, and
illuminating from on high." '
Of another oracle Jamblicus says :
" The prophet woman too, in Branchidae, whether she
holds in her hand a wand, which was at first received from
some God, and becomes filled with a divine splendor, or
whether seated on an axis, she predicts future events, or
dips her feet, or the border of her garment in the water,
or receives the God by imbibing the vapor of the water;
by all these she becomes adapted to partake externally of
the God." •
Jamblicus also states that baths were a part
of the preparation for being thus inspired. The
same combination is shown by Virgil, in the fol
lowing :
1 Jamblicus— Taylor's translation,— The Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chal
deans, and Assyrians, p. 141, Chiswick, 1821.
5 Ibid., p. 144.

ASIATIC PAGAN WA TER- WORSHIP. Jt,
" He started up, and viewing the rising beams of the
ethereal sun, in his hollow palms with pious form he raised
water from the river, and poured forth to heaven these
words : ' Ye nymphs, ye Laurentine nymphs, whence
rivers have their origin ; and Thou, O Father Tiber, with
thy sacred river, receive ^Eneas and defend him at length
from dangers. In whatever source thy lake contains thee,
compassionate to our misfortunes, from whatever soil
thou springest forth most beauteous, hornbearing river,
monarch of the Italian streams, ever shalt thou be hon
ored with my veneration, ever with my offerings. O grant
us thy present aid, and by nearer aid confirm thy divine
oracles.' " *
Ovid, describing the feast of Pales, held in May,
exhibits the same combination of sun and water-
worship :
" Often in truth have I leaped over the fires placed in
three rows, and the dripping bough of laurel has flung
the sprinkled waters. . . . Shepherd, purify the full
sheep at the beginning of twilight, let the water first
sprinkle them, and let the broom made of twigs sweep the
ground. . . . Protect thou alike the cattle, and those
who tend the cattle, and let all harm fly afar, repelled
from my stalls. Let that happen which I pray for, and
may we at the close of the year offer cakes of goodly size
to Pales, the mistress of the shepherds. With these
words must the goddess be propitiated ; turning to the
East, do you repeat these words three times, and in the
running stream thoroughly wash your hands." *
1 ALneid, book viii., lines 70-82.
8 Fasti, book iv., between lines 728 and 779.

j6 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
In another place Ovid tells us of Deucalion and
Pyrrha, resolving to seek the sacred oracles, in
prayer, at the temple of the goddess Themis ; he
says :
" There is no delay ; together they repair to the waters
of Cephissus, though not yet clear, yet now cutting their
wonted channel. Then when they had sprinkled the
waters poured on their clothes and their heads, they turn
their steps to the temple of the sacred goddess, the roof
of which was defiled with foul moss, and whose altars
were standing without fires." *
The same combination appears among the Per
sians. Herodotus, describing the crossing of the
Hellespont by Xerxes on his way to the invasion
of Greece, says :
" That day they made preparations for the passage over ;
and on the following they waited for the sun, as they
wished to see it rising, in the meantime burning all sorts
of perfumes on the bridges, and strewing the road with
myrtle branches. When the sun rose, Xerxes, pouring a
libation into the sea out of a golden cup, offered up a
prayer to the sun, that no such accident might befall him
as would prevent him from subduing Europe, until he had
reached its utmost limits. After having prayed, he threw
the cup into the Hellespont, and a golden bowl and a
Persian sword, which they call acinace. But I cannot de
termine with certainty, whether he dropped these things
into the sea as an offering to the sun, or whether he re-
1 Metamorphoses, book i., fable 10, line 651 f.

ASIATIC PAGAN WATER-WORSHIP. J-J
pented of having scourged the Hellespont and presented
these gifts to the sea as a compensation." '
Purity Sought through Baptism.
The pagan conception that water produced spirit
ual purity was expressed in many ways. Juvenal
describes the custom of Roman women who sought
to expiate their sins, committed in licentious revel
ries, as follows :
" She will break the ice and plunge into the river in the
depth of winter, or dip three times in the Tiber at early
dawn, and bathe her timid head in its very eddies, and
thence emerging, will crawl on bending knees, naked and
shivering, over the whole field of the haughty kings
[the Campus Martius]. If white Io command, she will
go to the extremity of Egypt, and bring back water
fetched from scorching Meroe, to sprinkle on the temple
of Isis, that rears itself hard by the sheep-fold. For she
believes that the warning is given her by the voice of the
goddess herself." 2
Mithraic and Gnostic Baptism.
The conception that water cleansed from sin was
a prominent feature in Mithraicism and in gnosti
cism. King, who is authority on all gnostic ques
tions, says :
¦Herodotus, book vii., section 54, page 431, N. Y., 1848.
! Satire vii., lines 520-30, page 59, Evans' translation, Bohn, London,
1852.

78 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
" In my account of Mithraicism, notice has been taken
of the very prominent part that sacraments for the remis
sion of sin play in the ceremonial of that religion ; the
following extracts from the grand Gnostic text-book
will serve to show how the same notions, (and probably
forms) were transferred to the service of Gnosticism.
"'Baptism Remitting Sins.' — (Pistis-Sophid) (298).
" ' Then came forth Mary and said : Lord, under what
form do baptisms remit sins ? I have heard thee saying
that the Ministers of Contentions (spidaioi)1 follow after
the soul, bearing witness against it of all the sins that
it hath committed, so that they may convict it in the
judgments. Now, therefore, Lord, do the mysteries of
Baptism blot out the sins that be in the hands of the
Receivers of Contention, so that they shall utterly forget
the same? Now, therefore, Lord, tell us in what form
they remit sins ; for we desire to know them thoroughly.
Then the Saviour answered and said : Thou hast well
spoken ; of truth those Ministers are they that testify
against all sins, for they abide constantly in the places of
judgment, laying hold upon the souls, convicting all the
souls of sinners who have not received the mystery, and
they keep them fast in chaos tormenting them. But these
contentious ones cannot pass over chaos so as to enter
into the courses that be above chaos ; in order to convict
the souls therefore receiving the mysteries, it is not law
ful for them to force so as to drag them down into chaos,
where the Contentious Receivers may convict them. But
the souls of such as have not received the mysteries, these
1 The Cabiri, " punishers of the ancient mythology, performing their
former duties under the new dispensation. ''

A SI A TIC PA GAN WA TER- WORSHIP. 79
do they desire and hail into chaos ; whereas the souls
that have received the mysteries, they have no means
of convicting, seeing that they cannot get out of their
own place, and even if they did come forth, they could
not stop those souls, neither shut them up in their
chaos. Hearken, therefore, I will declare to you in
truth in what form the mystery of Baptism remitteth sins.
If the souls when yet living in the world have been sin
ful, the Contentious Receivers verily do come, that they
may bear witness of all the sins they have committed, but
they can by no means come forth out of the regions of
chaos, so as to convict the soul in the places of judgment
that be beyond chaos. But the counterfeit of the spirit
testifies against all the sins of the soul, in order to con
vict it in the places of judgment that be beyond chaos.
Not only doth it testify, but also sets a seal upon all the
sins of the soul, so as to print them firmly upon the soul,
that all the Rulers of the judgment place of the sinners may
know that it is the soul of a sinner, and likewise know the
numbir of sins which it hath committed from the seals
that the counterfeit of the spirit hath imprinted upon it,
so that they may punish the soul according to the number
of its sins ; this is the manner in which they treat the
soul of a sinner. (300) Now, therefore, if any one hath re
ceived the mysteries of Baptism, those mysteries become a
great fire, exceeding strong and wise, so as to burn up all
the sins ; and the Fire entereth into the soul secretly, so
that it may consume within it all the sins which the
counterfeit of the spirit hath printed there. Likewise it
entereth into the body secretly, that it may pursue all its
pursuers, and divide them into parts — for it pursueth
within the body, the counterfeit of the spirit, and Fate —

8o PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
so that it may divide them apart from the Power and the
Soul, and place them in one part of the body — so that
the fire separates the counterfeit of the spirit, Fate, and
the Body into one portion, and the Soul and the Power
into another portion. The mystery of Baptism remain-
eth in the middle of them, so that it may perpetually
separate them, so that it may purge and cleanse them in
order that they may not be polluted by Matter. Now,
therefore, Mary, this is the manner whereby the mys
tery of Baptism remitteth sins and all transgressions.
(301) " ' And when the Saviour had thus spoken, he said
to his disciples : Do ye understand in what manner I speak
with you ? Then came forth Mary saying : Of a truth, Lord,
I perceive in reality all the things that thou hast said.
Touching this matter of the Remission of Sins, thou
speaketh aforetime to us in a parable, saying : I am come
to bring fire upon the earth, nay more ; let it burn as
much as I please. And, again thou hast set if forth openly,
saying: I have a baptism wherewith I will baptize and
how shall I endure until it be accomplished ? Ye think
that I am come to bring peace upon the earth ? By no
means so, but dissension, which I am come to bring. For
from this time forth there shall be five in one house;
three shall be divided against two, and two against three.
This, Lord, is the word that thou speakest openly. But
concerning the word that thou spakest : I am come to
bring fire upon the earth, and let it burn so much as I
please ; in this thou hast spoken of the mystery of Bap
tism in the world, and let it burn as much as thou pleas-
est for to consume all the sins of the soul, that it may
purge them away. And again thou hast shewn the same
forth openly, saying : I have a baptism wherewith I will

ASIATIC PAGAN WATER-WORSHIP. 8 1
baptize, and how shall I endure until it be accomplished ?
The which is this: Thou wilt not tarry in the world until
the baptisms be accomplished to purify all the perfect
souls. And again what thou spakest unto us aforetime :
" Do ye suppose I am come to bring peace upon earth,"
etc. (302) This signifieth the mystery of Baptism
which thou hast brought into the world, because it
hath brought about dissension in the body of the world,
because it hath divided the Counterfeit of the spirit, the
Body, and the Fate thereof, into one party, and the Soul
and the Power into the other party. The same is, " There
shall be three against two, and two against three." And
when Mary had spoken these things the Saviour said :
Well done thou spiritual one in the pure light, this is the
interpretation of my saying.' " '
The opinion of Simon Magus, a representative
Gnostic, concerning baptism is expressed by King
thus: " The Kabbalists, or Jewish Gnostics, like Simon Magus,
found a large portion of apostolic teaching in accordance
with their own, and easily grafted upon it so much as they
liked. Again the Divine power of working miracles pos
sessed by the Apostles and their successors, naturally
attracted the interest of those whose chief mystery was
the practice of magic. Simon the Magician was consid
ered by the Samaritans to be ' the great Power of God ' ;
he was attracted by the miracles wrought by the Apostles,
and no doubt he sincerely ' believed ' — that is, after his
own fashion. His notion of Holy Baptism was probably
1 The Gnostics and Their Remains, pp. 141 ff .
6

82 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
an initiation into a new mystery, with a higher Gnosis than
he possessed before, and by which he hoped to be endued
with higher powers ; and so likewise many of those who
were called Gnostic Heretics4 by the Christian Fathers,
were not Christians at all, only they adopted so much of
the Christian doctrine as accorded with their system." '
Baptism of Blood.
The importance which the sun-worship cult
ittached to baptism is further shown in the bap-
Itism of blood, which formed a prominent feature
fin the Mithraic system of atonement and spiritual
jnlightenment. This is commented upon by King
as follows :
" The ' Taurobolia,' or Baptism of Blood, during the
later ages of the Western Empire, held the foremost
place, as the means of purification from sin, however
atrocious. Prudentius has left a minute description of
this horrid rite, in which the person to be regenerated,
being stripped of his clothing, descended into a pit, which
was covered with planks pierced full of holes ; a bull was
slaughtered upon them whose hot blood, streaming down
through these apertures (after the fashion of a shower-
bath) thoroughly drenched the recipient below. The
selection of the particular victim proves this ceremony
in connection with the Mithraic, which latter, as Justin
says, had a ' baptism for the remission of Sins ' ; and the
Bull being in that religion the recognized emblem of
life, his blood necessarily constituted the most effectual
laver of regeneration. No more conclusive evidence of
1 Ibid., p. 6.

ASIA TIC PA GAN WA TER- WORSHIP. 83
the value then attached to the Taurobolia can be adduced,
than the fact mentioned by Lampridius that the priest-
emperor Heliogabalus thought it necessary to submit to
its performance ; and a pit, constructed for the purpose
as late as the fourth century, has lately been discovered
within the sacred precincts of the Temple at Eleusis, the
most holy spot in all Greece." '
Baptism at Death, and for the Dead.
The following throws light upon the pagan ori
gin of baptism as a saving act, at death, and after
death. Describing the nature of the mystic
formulae which the Gnostics used, King says:
" The motive for placing in the coffin of the defunct
illuminato these ' words of power ' graven on scrolls of
lead, plates of bronze, the gems we are considering, and
doubtless to an infinitely greater extent on more perish
able materials, derives much light from the description
Epiphanius gives of the ceremony whereby the Hera-
cleonitse prepared their dying brother for the next world.
They sprinkled his head with water, mingled with oil, and
opobalsamum, repeating at the same time the form of
words used by the Marcosians in baptism, in order that
his Inner Man, thus provided, might escape the vigilance
of the Principalities and Powers whose domains he was
about to traverse, and mount up unseen by any to the
Pleroma from which he had originally descended. Their
priests therefore instructed the dying man that as he
came before these Powers he was to address them in the
following words : ' I, the son from the Father, the Father
1 Ibid., p. 154.

84 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
pre-existing, but the son in the present time, am come to
behold all things, both of others and of my own, and
things not altogether of others, but belonging unto
Achamoth {Wisdom) who is feminine, and hath created
them for herself. But I declare my own origin from the
Pre-existing One, and I am going back unto my own from
which I have descended.' By the virtue of these words
he will elude the Powers and arrive at the Demiurgus in
the eighth sphere, whom again he must thus address:
' I am a precious vessel, superior to the female power who
made thee, inasmuch as thy mother knoweth not her own
origin, whereas I know myself, and I know whence I am ;
and I invoke the Incorruptible Wisdom who is in the
father and in the mother of your mother who hath no
father — nay, not even a male consort, but being a female
sprung from a female that created thee, though she her
self knows not her mother, but believes herself to exist
alone. But I invoke the mother.' At this address the
Demiurgus is struck with confusion (as well he might be)
and forced to acknowledge the baseness of his origin;
whereupon the inner man of the Gnostic casts off his
bondage as well as his own angel or soul, which remains
with the Demiurgus for further use, and ascends still
higher into his proper place." '
We shall find that this pagan conception became
very prominent in the early Church. The "being
baptized for the dead," of which Paul speaks, and
which was much practised after the second cen
tury, sprang from this source ; also delaying bap
tism until the moment of death.
1 Ibid., pp. 329, 330.

ASIATIC PAGAN WATER-WORSHIP. 85
Baptism and Serpent-Worship.
The serpent worshippers formed a prominent
branch of the Gnostics, if they were not the
originators of the system. Water-worship was a !
special and fundamental idea in their creed. Wit
ness the following from King.
" The well-informed and temperate Hippolytus, writing
at the most flourishing period of these transitional theoso-
phies, thus opens his actual ' Refutation of All Heresies,'
and his Fifth Book with the description ' of that sect
which hath dared to boast the Serpent as the author of
their religion, as they prove by certain arguments where
with he hath inspired them. On this account the apostles
and priests of this creed have been styled " Naaseni,"
from " Naas " the Hebrew word for serpent; but subse
quently they entitled themselves " The Gnostics," be
cause they alone understood the deep things of religion.
Out of this sect sprung many other teachers, who, by
diversifying the original doctrines through inventions of
their own, became the founders of new systems.'
Further on he has a passage bearing immediately upon
this subject. ' This Naas is the only thing they worship,
for which reason they are called " Naaseni," (i. e., Ophites,
or Serpent-worshippers). From this same word Naas, they
pretend that all the temples (vaoi) under Heaven derive
the name. And unto this Naas are dedicated every rite,
ceremony, mystery, that is ; in short, not one rite can be
found under Heaven into which this Naas does not enter.
For they say the Serpent signifies the element Wafer ;
and with Thales of Miletus contend that nothing in the

86 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
Universe can subsist without it, whether of things mortal
or immortal, animate or inanimate. All things are sub-
jecfUnto him ; and he is, good, and hath all good things
within himself as in the horn of a unicorn, so that he im
parts beauty and perfection unto all that is, inasmuch as
he pervades all things, as flowing out of Eden, and divided
into four heads. . . . This Naas is the " water above
the firmament " and likewise " the living water " spoken
of by the Saviour. Unto this Water all Nature is drawn,
and attracts out of the same whatever is analogous to its
own nature, each thing after its own kind, with more
avidity than the loadstone draws the iron, the ray of the
sea-hawk, gold, or amber straws. Then they go on to
boast : We are the Spiritual, who have drawn our own
portion out of the living water of the Euphrates that
flows through the midst of Babylon ; and who have en
tered in through the True Gate, the which is Jesus the
Blessed. And we of all men are the only Christians in
the. Third Gate, celebrating the Mystery, being anointed
with the ineffable ointment out of the horn, like David,
not out of the earthen vessel, like Saul who conversed
with the Evil Spirit of carnal concupiscence.' "
The conception of water as a life-producing
agent appears prominently in the religion of the
Egyptians. They associated it with Osiris, the
1 The Gnostics and Their Remains, p. 224.
The references to Hippolytus, made by King may be found in vol. vi.,
Ante-Nicene Library, Edinburgh, 1877, pp. 126-194, especially 1 50, 151. One
should read the fifth book of his " Refutation of All Heresies" to see how
much water, as a divine agency and power, entered into various phases of
the gnostic system. The original of the quotations from the gnostic gospel
Pistis-Sophia, may be found in the London edition — Latin — of 1856.

ASIATIC PAGAN WATER- WORSHIP. 87
life-producing god of the sun. Speaking of this
King says :
" The symbols of the same worship have been to some
extent explained by persons writing at a time when they
were still a living though fast expiring language. Of
such writers the most valuable is Plutarch, who in his
curious treatise De hide et Osiride, has given the meaning
of several of these symbols, and, as it would appear, upon
very good authority. According to him, Isis sometimes
signifies the Moon, in which sense she is denoted by a Cres
cent : sometimes the Earth as fecundated by the waters
of the Nile. For this reason water, as the seed of Osiris,
was carried in a vase in the processions in honor of this
goddess." *
James Bonwick, F.R.G.S., says :
" The baptism of Egypt is known by the hieroglyphic |
terms of ' waters of purification.' In Egypt, as in Peru, J
the water so used in immersion absolutely cleansed the
soul, and the person was said to be regenerated. The
water itself was holy, and the place was known, as after
wards by the Eastern Christians, by the name of holy bath.
The early Christians called it being ' brought anew into
the world.' The ancients always gave a new name at
baptism, which custom was afterwards followed by
moderns. The Mithraic font for the baptism of ancient
Persians is regarded as of Egyptian origin. Augustine
may, then, well say that 'in many sacrilegious rites of
idols, persons are reported to be baptized.' "
1 Ibid., p. 106.
5 Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought, p. 416, London, 1878.

88 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
The Sacred Nile.
/" Pagan water-worship everywhere was closely
'associated with sacred rivers. Hardwick speaks
of the Nile as follows :
"As the Nile, for instance, was a sacred river and as such
was invoked in the Egyptian hymns among the foremost
of the national gods, whatever bore directly on the culture
of the soil, and the succession of the crops in every dis
trict of the Nile valley, was enforced among the duties
claimed from husbandmen by that divinity. To brush
its sacred surface with the balance bucket at a forbidden
time was a crime equal in atrocity to that of reviling the
face of a king or of a father." '
Water- Worship in India.
Sir Monier-Williams describes water-worship
in India as follows :
" Rivers as sources of fertility and purification were at an
early date invested with a sacred character. Every great
river was supposed to be permeated with the divine
essence, and its waters held to cleanse from all moral guilt
and contamination, and as the Ganges was the most
majestic, so it soon became the holiest and most sacred of
all rivers. No sin was too heinous to be removed, no
character too black to be washed clean by its waters.
Hence the countless temples with flights of steps lining
its banks ; hence the array of priests, called ' Sons of the
Ganges,' sitting on the edge of its streams, ready to aid
the ablutions of conscience-stricken bathers, and stamp
1 Christ and Other Masters, part iv., p. 84.

ASIATIC PAGAN WATER-WORSHIP. 89
them as whitewashed when they emerge from its waters.
Hence also the constant traffic carried on in transporting
Ganges water in small bottles to all parts of the country." '
Sacred wells abound in India, especially in and
around the city of Benares. Mr. Williams de
scribes some of these as follows. The one first
noted is said to be sacred, because when a certain
temple was destroyed by the Mohammedans the
outraged god took refuge in this well ; thus it
became a sacred shrine. Mr. Williams says :
" Thither, therefore, a constant throng of worshippers
continually resort, bringing with them offerings of flowers,
rice and other grain, which they throw into the water
thirty or forty feet below the ground. A Brahman is
perpetually employed in drawing up the putrid liquid, the
smell or rather stench of which, from incessant admixture
of decaying flowers and vegetable matter, makes the
neighborhood almost unbearable. This he pours with a
ladle into the hands of the expectant crowds, who either
drink it with avidity, or sprinkle it reverentially over their
persons. A still more sacred well, called the Manikarnika,
situated on one of the chief Ghats leading to the Ganges,
owes its origin, in popular belief, to the fortunate circum
stance that one of Siva's earrings happened to fall on the
spot. This well is near the surface and quite exposed to
view. It forms a small quadrangular pool, not more than
three feet deep. Four flights of steps on the four sides
lead to the water, the disgusting foulness of which, in the
1 Brahmanism and Hinduism, by Sir Monier- Williams, M.A., D.C.L.,
London, 1887, p. 172.

90 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
estimation of countless pilgrims, vastly enhances its
efficacy for the removal of sin. The most abandoned
criminals journey from distant parts of India to the
margin of this sacred pool. There they secure the ser
vices of Brahmans, appointed to the duty, and descending
with them into the water are made to repeat certain texts
and mutter certain mystic formulae, the meaning of which
they are wholly unable to understand. Then, while in the
act of repeating the words put into their mouths, they
eagerly immerse their entire persons beneath the offensive
liquid. The longed-for dip over, a miraculous trans
formation is the result ; for the foul water has cleansed
the still fouler soul. Few Hindus venture to doubt that
the most depraved sinner in existence may thus be con
verted into an immaculate saint, worthy of being trans
lated at once to the highest heaven of the god of Benares.
" But to return to the temple of Visvesvara. I found
when I visited it a constant stream of worshippers
passing in and out. In fact, Siva, in his character of the
lord of the universe, is the supreme deity of Benares.
Not that the pilgrims are prohibited from worshipping at
the shrines of other gods, but that Siva is here paramount,
and claims the first homage. Yet this supreme god has
no image ; he is represented by a plain conical stone, to
wit, the Linga or symbol of male generative power. The
method of performing worship in this great central and
confessedly typical temple of Hinduism, appeared to me
very remarkable in its contrast with all Christian ideas
of the nature of worship. All that each worshipper did
was to bring Ganges water with him, in a small metal
vessel, and pour the water over the stone Linga ; at the
same time ringing one of the bells hanging from the roof,

A SIA TIC PA GAN WA TER- WORSHIP. g I
to attract the god's attention towards himself, bowing low
in obeisance and muttering a few texts, with the repeti
tion of the god's name. In this way the god's symbol
was kept perpetually deluged with water, while the
crowds who passed in and out lingered for a time close to
the shrine, talking to each other in loud tones. Nor did
any idea of irreverence seem to be attached to noisy
vociferation in the interior of the sanctuary itself.
Nor was any objection made to an unbeliever, like
myself, approaching and looking inside ; whereas in the
south of India I was strictly excluded from all the
avenues to the inner Linga sanctuaries.1 In the
courts adjacent to the Linga were other shrines dedicated
to various deities, and in a kind of cloister or gallery which
encircled the temple, were thousands of stone Lingas
crowded together carelessly, and apparently only intended
as votive off erings. I noticed the coil of a serpent carved
around one or two of the most conspicuous symbols of
male generative energy, and the combination appeared
to be very significant and instructive."2
In another work Mr. Williams says :
" Passing on to the worship of water, especially running
water, it is to be observed that river-water is everywhere
throughout India held to be instinct with divinity. It is
not merely holy, it is especially pervaded by the divine
essence. We must, however, be careful to distinguish
between the mere sacredness of either fire or water, and
their worship as mere personal deities. In Rig-Veda, X.,
30, X., 9, VII., 47, and other passages of the Veda, the
Waters are personified, deified and honored as goddesses,
1 See p. 447. s Ibid., p. 437 ff.

92 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
and called the Mothers of earth. In X., 17, 10, their puri
fying power, and in VI., 50, 7, their healing power, is
celebrated. They cleanse their worshippers from sin and
untruthfulness (I., 6, 22, 23,) . . . The river Saras-
vati — called the purifier in Rig-Veda, I., 3 10 — was to the
earlier Hindus what the Ganges was to the later. She
was instinct with divinity, and her influence permeated
the writers of the Vedic hymns. Sometimes she is iden
tified with the Vedic goddess, vac, speech, and invoked
as the patroness of Science.1
The confluence of the Ganges with the Jumna
and Sarasvati is one of the most hallowed spots in
India. Many other rivers are held as being es
pecially sacred. The river Narboda is deemed by
some to surpass all others. The mere sight of it
cleanses the soul from all guilt. It makes all other
waters sacred for thirty miles northward and eigh
teen southward. The banks of all the chief rivers
in India are considered holy ground from their
source to the sea. Pilgrimages, which continue for
six years, are undertaken, the pilgrim going down
one bank of the Ganges, and returning by another.
Many hardships are incidental to such pilgrimages,
but are counted light, and the greater the difficul
ties the greater the resultant merit.
In a still later work, Sir Williams describes the
present baptismal custom in Thibet and Mongolia,
as follows :
' Religious Thought and Life in India, -p. 346, London, 1883.

A SI A TIC PA GA N WA TER- WORSHIP. 93
" It is noticeable that a kind of baptism is practised in
Tibet and Mongolia. It is usual to sprinkle children
with consecrated water, or even to immerse them entirely
on the third or tenth day after birth. This is called
Khrus-sol (according to Jaschke). The priest consecrates
the water by reciting some formula, while candles and
incense are burning. He then dips the child three times,
blesses it, and gives it a name. After performing the
ceremony he draws up the infant's horoscope. Then, as
soon as the child can walk and talk, a second ceremony
takes place, when prayers are said for its happy life, and
an amulet or little bag is hung around its neck, filled with
spells and charms against evil spirits and diseases." '
Other writers support the foregoing, though Sir
Williams is too high an authority to need confirma
tion. Alabaster says :
" Baptism was a religious rite from very ancient times,
the Brahmins holding that if any one who had sinned
went to the banks of the Ganges and saying: ' I will not
sin again,' plunged into the stream, he would rise to the
surface free of sin, all his sins floating away with the
water; hence it is called baptism, or the rite of washing
off offences, so that they floated away. Sometimes where
any one was sick unto death, his relatives would place
him by the river, and give him water to drink, and pour
water over him till he died, believing that he would thus
die holy and go to heaven." '
1 Buddhism, etc., p. 356, 357, New York, 1889.
! The Wheel of the Law ; Buddhism, Illustrated from Siamese Sources,
by Henry Alabaster, London, 1871, pp. 30, 31.

94 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
Mr. Wilkins says :
" Dasahara : this festival commemorates the descent of
the Ganges from heaven to earth, and is called Dasahara,
because bathing at this season is said to remove all the sins
committed in ten births, i. e., during ten different lives.
This is a most interesting ceremony. Thousands upon
thousands of the people bring their offerings of flowers,
fruits and grain to the river-side, and then enter the
sacred stream. It is a thing worthy of note that although
in many places men and women bathe together, the men
having simply a cloth around their loins, and the women
often having the upper part of their bodies exposed, I
have never seen the slightest impropriety of gestures on
these occasions. In some festivals, as previously noticed,
the grossest impropriety of language and gesture are freely
indulged in : but at bathing festivals I have never noticed
anything indecent. It is proper to bathe in the Ganges,
for those who live near enough ; but other rivers may take
the place of the Ganges, and legends have been manufac
tured to show that their virtues are even greater than
those of the Ganges ; if there is no river convenient, then
a tank can be substituted." l
Modern Buddhistic Baptism.
The modern water-worship connected with
Buddhism is described by Sir Monier- Williams in
his latest book a as follows :
1 Modern Hinduism, by W. J. Wilkins, p. 219, New York, 1887. Con
sult also, Religions of India, by A. Barth, p. 278 ff., New York, 1882.
s Buddhism in its Connection with Brahmanism and Hinduism, and in
its Contrast with Christianity, second edition, London, 1890.

ASIATIC PAGAN WATER-WORSHIP. 95
" In Burmah, where a good type of southern Buddhism
is still to be found, the New Year's festival might suitably
be called a ' water festival.' It has there so little connec
tion with the increase of the New Year's light that it
often takes place as late as the early half of April.1 It is,
however, a movable feast, the date of which is regularly
fixed by the astrologers of Mandalay, who ' make intricate
calculations based on the position of various constella
tions.' The object is to determine on what precise day
the king of the Naths will descend upon the earth and
inaugurate the new year. When the day arrives all are
on the watch, and just at the right moment, which invari
ably occurs at midnight, a cannon is fired off, announcing
the descendant of the Nath king upon earth. Forthwith
(according to Mr. Scott) men and women sally out of
their houses, carrying pots full of water, consecrated by
fresh leaves and twigs of a sacred tree, repeat a formal
prayer, and pour out the water on the ground. At the
same time all who have guns of any kind discharge them,
so as to greet the new year with as much noise as possible.
" Then, ' with the first glimmer of light ' all take jars full
of fresh water and carry them off to the nearest monas
tery. First they present them to the monks, and then
proceed to bathe the images. This work is usually done
by the women of the party, ' who reverently clamber up '
and empty their goblets of water over the placid features
of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Then begins the Satur
nalia. All along the road are urchins with squirts and
syringes, with which they have been furtively practising
for the last few days. The skill thus acquired is exhibited
by the accuracy of their aim. Cold streams of water catch
1 See Mr. Scott's Burmah, ii., 48.

96 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
the ears of the passers-by. Young men and girls salute
one another with the contents of jars and goblets. Shouts
of merriment are heard in every quarter. Before breakfast
every one is soaked, but no one thinks of changing his gar
ments, for the weather is warm and ' water is everywhere.'
The girls are the most enthusiastic, as they generally go
in bands and carry copious reservoirs along with them ;
' unprotected males ' are soon routed. Then a number of
' zealous people ' go down to the river, wade into the water
knee-deep, splash about, and drench one another till they
are tired. No one escapes. For three days no one likes to
be seen with dry clothes. The wetting is a compliment." '
" In Tibet there is a water festival in the seventh or
eighth month (about our August and September). At
this festival the Lamas go in procession to rivers and lakes
and consecrate the waters by benediction or by throwing
in offerings. Huts and tents are erected on the banks,
and people bathe and drink to wash away their sins. It
concludes with dancing, buffoonery, and masquerading." '
Lydia Maria Child thus describes
Baptism among the Hindus :
" Water is supposed to cleanse the soul and guard from
evil. When a child is born priests sprinkle it, and sprinkle
the dwelling, and all the inmates of the house bathe.
They do this from an idea that it keeps off evil spirits.
People perform ablutions before they eat ; and priests
purify themselves with water, accompanied with prayers,
on innumerable occasions. When a man is dying, Brah
mins hasten to plunge him into a river, believing that the
departing soul may be thus freed from impurities before
it quits the body. Some rivers are deemed more pecul-
1 Pp. 341, 342. 2 P. 344-

ASIATIC PAGAAT WATER-WORSHIP. 97
iarly holy and efficacious than others, such as the Ganges,
the Indus, and the Chrishna ; the water of the Ganges is
used on all the most solemn occasions. Images of the
deities are washed with it, and Brahmins are sprinkled
with it, when inducted into the priestly office. Happy
above other men is he who is drowned in that sacred
stream. Once in twelve years the waters of Lake Cum-
bhacum are supposed to be gifted with power to cleanse
from all sin. As this period approaches, Brahmins send
messengers in every direction to announce when the great
day of ablution will take place. The shores are crowded
with a vast multitude of men, women, and children from
far and near. They plunge, at a signal from the officiating
Brahmin, and in the universal rush many a one is suffo
cated or has his limbs broken. Water from the Ganges is
kept in the temples, and when the people are dying they
often send from a great distance to obtain some of it.
Before devotees put their feet into a river they wash their
hands and utter a prayer." 2
These witnesses show us that water-worship and
baptism, the water being variously employed, by
immersion, sprinkling, pouring, etc., has formed a
prominent feature in Oriental paganism from the
earliest time until now. It passed from the Orient
to Greece and Rome. Perhaps the stream from
Egypt was an independent one, which came from
the south. Before considering the immediate con
tact of pagan water-worship with early Christianity,
it is necessary to note its existence outside of the
Orient and Egypt.
1 The Progress of Religious Ideas, New York, 1853, vol. i., p. 124.
7

CHAPTER IV.
WATER-WORSHIP IN NORTHERN EUROPE AND IN
MEXICO.
Water- Worship Prominent in Many Ways, and Associated with Holy Sea
sons — Infant Baptism among the Scandinavians and Teutons — Pagan
" Christening of Children " — Sacred Water as a Safeguard against Dis
ease, etc. — Virtue of Water Used for Mechanical Purposes — Water
Sprites — Similarity between Roman Catholicism and Paganism of
Mexico — Aztec Baptism — Prayer for "Baptismal Regeneration" of
Child by Mexican Midwife.
THE existence of a widespread system of water
worship in Northern Europe is attested by
the direct history of paganism, by the history of
Christianity at its first introduction, by the decrees
of councils, capitularies, and similar documents.
These sources show that the Allamanns, Franks,
and others worshipped rivers and fountains, and
used water in various ways for sacred purposes.
They prayed upon the banks of sacred rivers and at
sacred fountains. Springs which gushed from the
earth were considered especially sacred, as being
produced directly by divine agency. Lighted can
dles were used in the worship of fountains and
wells. This custom continues until the present
98

WATER-WORSHIP IN EUROPE AND MEXICO. 99
day in the semi-religious habits of the people,
who gaze into wells by the light of a candle on
Christmas and Easter nights. Sacred brooks and
rivers were believed to have been produced from
the pouring of water by the gods out of bowls and
urns. Water drawn at holy seasons, such as midnight
and sunrise, has always been known as "holy
water." Running spring-water gathered on holy
Christmas night, while the clock strikes twelve is
yet known as heilway, and is believed to be good
for certain diseases. At the present time the com
mon people of Northern Europe believe that be
tween eleven and twelve on Christmas night, and on
Easter night, spring water changes into wine. A
similar faith is found as far back as the latter part
of the fourth century, which is noted by Chrysos
tom in an Epiphany sermon preached at Antioch.
The following quotation will show that pagan
water-worship was indigenous in Northern Europe
as well as in the Orient :
" It is no less remarkable that a kind of infant baptism
was practised in the North, long before the dawning of
Christianity had reached those parts. Snorri Sturlason,
in his chronicle, speaking of a Norwegian nobleman who
lived in the reign of Harald Harfagra, relates that he
poured water on the head of a new-born child, and called
him Hakon, from the name of his father. Harald him-

IOO PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
self had been baptized in the same manner, and it is noted
of King Olaf Tryggvason, that his mother, Astrida, had
him thus baptized and named as soon as he was born.
The Livonians observed the same ceremony, which also
prevailed among the Germans, as appears from a letter
which the famous Pope Gregory the third sent to their
Apostle Boniface directing him expressly how to act in
this respect. It is probable that all these people might
intend, by such a rite, to preserve their children from the
sorceries and evil charms which witched spirits might em
ploy against them at the instant of their birth. Several
nations of Asia and America have attributed such a power
to ablutions of this kind ; nor were the Romans without
such a custom, though they did not wholly confine it to
new-born infants." '
S. Baring Gould testifies concerning pagan
baptism in Scandinavia as follows :
" Among the Scandinavians, infant baptism was in vogue
long before the introduction of Christianity, and the rite
accompanied the naming of the child. Before the accom
plishment of this rite, the exposition of the babe was law
ful, but after the ceremony it became murder. A baptism
in blood seems to have been practised by the Germans
and Norsemen in remote antiquity ; to this the traditions
of the horny Sigfrid, or Sigurd, and Wolfdietrich point.
Dipping in water, and aspersion with water, or with blood
of a victim, was also customary among the Druids, as was
also the baptism of fire, perhaps borrowed by them from
1 Northern Antiquities of the Ancient Scandinavians, translated from
the French of P. H. Mallet by Bishop Percy, edition revised by J. A.
Blackwell, London, 1847, p. 206.

WATER-WORSHIP IN EUROPE AND MEXICO. IOI
the Phoenicians. This was that passing through the fire to
Molech alluded to repeatedly in the Jewish Scriptures." '
There is an excellent picture of baptism among
the pagan Teutons, by Konrad Maurer, in which
the author shows, in detail, the relation between
infant baptism among the Greeks, Romans, Teu
tonic pagans, and Teutonic Christians. The Na
tion for September 22, 1881, speaks of Mr. Mau-
rer's work as follows 2 :
" A large portion of Maurer's monograph is devoted to
showing how the ceremonies connected with heathen bap
tism were adopted by the Christian Church, and in tracing
to a heathen source the rights and privileges secured to
children by baptism in the Church. The author suggests
that the laying at the breast was a recognition of the child
on the mother's part, and that the granting of the right
of baptism was a recognition of the child on the part of
the father, and that this was the chief significance of the
latter ceremony ; although it would seem from Havama4,
in the Elder Edda, that spiritual blessings were also se
cured to the infant by the sprinkling of holy water. Bap
tism made the child an heir both among the heathen and
among the old Teutonic Christians, and the fact that
among both it had so many things in common, that it
took place soon after the birth of the child, and was con
nected with the naming of it ; that there were god-fathers
1 The Origin and Development of Religious Belief, by S. Baring Gould,
M.A., London, 1869, p. 393.
2 For details see Uber die Wasserweihe des Germanischen Heidenthumes,
von Konrad Maurer, as found in the Transactions of the Bavarian Academy
of Science for 1880.

102 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
and god-mothers, and that presents were given, makes the
question an exceedingly interesting one. But the author
goes farther, and proves from ancient laws of the Ger
mans, Visigoths, and Anglo-Saxons, that the rite of bap
tism is to be performed within the ninth day after the
birth of the child ; and here he calls attention to the an
cient Roman custom of giving the name to a female in
fant on the eighth, and to a male infant on the ninth day
after birth, and quotes Roman law to show that this nam
ing day was of legal importance to the child. A similar
custom is also found among ancient Greeks, where the
seventh day after the birth of the child was celebrated
with cleansing, gifts, sacrifices, banqueting, and other cere
monies. Maurer suggests that this seventh day of cleans
ing among the heathen Greeks was of the same legal
value to the child as the day of sprinkling with water
among the Teutons, and that it determined whether the
child should live or be exposed. Roman law establishes
the fact that the eighth day after birth for girls, and the
ninth for boys was a Dies lustricus — that is, a day on which
a religious rite (lustratio) for infants took place, and on
which names were given to them, whence it was called
solonnitas nominalium. The day was observed by bring
ing the infants to the temple, by banquets, etc.1 We find,
therefore, among the old Greeks, and what is of vastly
more importance, in the old Roman laws, a day set apart
for infants on which they get their names, and this nam
ing connected with the observation of certain ceremonies.
What the precise nature of these rites was, we are not
told ; but inasmuch as the Roman documents designate
1 See on this point Marquardt, Das Privat-leben der Romer, i., pp.
.81. 82.

WATER-WORSHIP IN EUROPE AND MEXICO. 103
thereby the term lustratio, there can scarcely be room for
doubt that it must have been a symbolic cleansing by
means of water. And since the Dies lustricus confessed
ly secured legal rights to the infant, the question lies near
at hand whether the old Teutonic heathen borrowed the
baptismal right from the ancient Romans, or whether
baptism was an original institution among the Aryans
before they became divided into Teutons, Romans, etc.
There can be no doubt, on the one hand, that the Dies
lustricus of the Romans obtained among the Christians
in fixing the day for baptism, especially since it corre
sponded so nearly with the Mosaic day for circumcision ;
and on the other hand, that just as many of the old Teu
tonic feasts were turned into festivals, so the form of the
Teutonic baptism was largely adopted by the Christians
in Northern Europe."
Baptism was undoubtedly an ancient Aryan rite,
which existed before the division of the race, of
which Mr. Maurer speaks. For supplementary
proof of the lustration and naming of infants
among the Greeks and the Romans, consult
Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiqui
ties, pp. 800, 801. Also, for lustration, by holy
water, of children and adults, see The Life of
Greeks and Romans, by E. Guhl and W. Koner,
p. 282, London (no date, but since 1862). See
also Tertullian, Concerning Idolatry (chap, xvi.), for
reference to pagan " Naming Festivals."
Jacob Grimm {Teutonic Mythology, 4 vols.,
London, 1883), a most painstaking and scholarly

I04 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
authority, shows that the Christianity of the pres
ent century is yet deeply imbued with the residuum
of the ancient pagan water-worship. He says :
" Superstitious Christians then believed two things : a
hallowing of the water at midnight of the day of baptism,
and a turning of it into wine at the time of the beth-
phania. Such water the Germans called heilawdc, and
ascribed to it a wonderful power of healing diseases and
wounds, and of never spoiling.
" Possibly even in Syria an old pagan drawing of water
became veiled under new Christian meanings. In Germany
other circumstances point undisguisedly to a heathen con
secration of water : it was not to be drawn at midnight,
but in the morning before sunrise down stream and silently,
usually on Easter Sunday, to which the above explana
tions do not so well apply : this water does not spoil, it
restores youth, heals eruptions, and makes the young
cattle strong. Magic water, serving for unchristian divi
nation, is to be collected before sunrise on a Sunday in one
glass from three flowing springs ; and a taper is lighted
before a glass, as before a divine being. Here I bring in
once again the Hessian custom mentioned at page 58 :
On Easter Monday youths and maidens walk to the Hol
low Rock in the mountains, draw zvater from the cool
spring in jugs to carry home, and throw flowers in as an
offering. Apparently this water-worship was Celtic like
wise. The water of the rock spring Karnant makes a
broken sword whole again. Curious customs show us in
what manner young girls in the Pyrenees country tell their
own fortunes in the spring water on May-day morning." '
1 Vol. ii., pp. 586, 587.

WATER-WORSHIP IN EUROPE AND MEXICO. 1 05
Water Securing Immunity from Disease.
Sacred water as a means of lustration and of im
munity from disease is yet a prominent characteris
tic of Northern European water-worship. Grimm
thus describes it :
" In a spring near Nogent men and women bathed on
St. John's eve : Holberg's comedy of Kilde-reisen is
founded on the Copenhagen people's practice of pilgrim-
ing to a neighboring spring on St. Hans aftcn to heal and
invigorate themselves in its waters. On Midsummer-eve
the people of Ostergotland journeyed according to ancient
custom to Lagman's bergekalla near Skeninge, and drank
of the well. In many parts of Germany some clear foun
tain is visited at Whitsuntide, and the water drunk in jugs
of a peculiar shape. Still more important is Petrarch's
description of the annual bathing of the women of Cologne
in the Rhine ; it deserves to be quoted in full, because it
plainly proves that the cult prevailed not merely at here
and there a spring, but in Germany's greatest river. From
the Italian's unacquaintance with the rite, one might infer
that it was foreign to the country whence all Church
ceremonies proceeded, and therefore altogether unchris
tian and heathenish. But Petrarch may not have had a
minute knowledge of all the customs of his country ; after
his time, at all events, we find even there a lustration on
St. John's Day (described as ancient custom then dying
out). And long before Petrarch, in Augustine's time, the
rite was practised in Libya, and is denounced by that
Father as a relic of paganism. Generally sanctioned by
the Church it certainly was not, yet it might be allowed
here and there, as a not unapt reminder of the Baptizer in

106 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
the Jordan, and now interpreted of him, though once it had
been heathen. It might easily come into extensive favor,
and that not as a Christian feast alone : to our heathen fore
fathers St. John's Day would mean the festive 'middle of
the year, when the sun turns, and there might- be many
customs connected with it. I confess, if Petrarch had
witnessed the bathing in the river at some small town, I
would the sooner take it for a native rite of the ancient
Germani'; at Cologne, the holy city so renowned for its
relics, I rather suspect it to be a custom first introduced
by Christian tradition." '
Water used for mechanical purposes was also
looked upon as possessing peculiar virtues. Down
to the present time the Servians catch the water
which rebounds from the paddles of mill wheels.
Women go early on St. George's day, April 23d, to
catch such water for bathing purposes. Some carry
it home on the evening before the twenty-third and
sprinkle broken bits of green herbs and boughs
upon it. They believe that all evil and harm " will
then glance off their bodies like water off the mill
wheel," as the result of such bathing. A trace of
the same superstition remains in Servia in the
popular warning, " Not to flirt the water off your
hands after washing in the morning," else you flirt
away your luck for the day.
Many religious and superstitious practices are
prevalent in Northern Europe in times of drouth,
1 Vol. ii., pp. 588, 590.

WATER-WORSHIP IN EUROPE AND MEXICO. 107
in order to propitiate the divinities, either good or
evil, and secure a rainfall. Certain goddesses which
were prominent in the Northern European mythol
ogies, especially Nerthus and Holda, were closely
connected with water-worship. The former repre
sented the earth and is spoken of as " the bath-
loving Nerthus." Holda lived in wells. She was
identical with the Roman Isis. " When it snows,
she is making her bed, and the feathers fly. She
stirs up snow as Donar does rain." In Prussia
when it snows the people say: " The angels are
shaking their beds, and the flakes of down drop to
the earth." It was believed that Holda haunted
the lakes and fountains and might be seen bathing
at the hour of noon. Mortals could reach her
dwelling by passing through a well. She was sup
posed to pass through the land at Christmas time,
bringing fertility by her presence.1
On the fifth of August the lace-makers of
Brussels pray to Mary that their work " may
keep as white as snow." It was believed that
Holda appeared as an ugly old woman, long-nosed,
big-toothed, with bristling and thick-matted hair.
The common people still say of a man whose hair
is tangled and in disorder : " He has had a jaunt
with Holda."
1 Several attributes of the heathen goddess Holda passed over to the wor
ship of Mary in the Roman Catholic Church.

108 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
The pagan fear of water sprites still exists in
Sweden. On crossing any water after dark it is
thought advisable to spit three times, as a safeguard
against their evil influences.1 It is also thought to
be dangerous to draw water from a well without
saluting the divinity which governs it. This cus
tom remains among modern Greeks. A thief is
supposed to be safe in his evil course if he sacri
fices to the water sprites, by throwing a little of
that which he has stolen into a stream. In
Esthonia, the newly married wife drops a present
into the well of the house where she is to reside.
In 1641, Hans Ohm, of Sommerpahl in Esthonia,
built a mill upon a sacred stream. Bad harvests
followed for several years until the peasants fell
upon the mill, burnt it down and destroyed the
piles in the water. Ohm went to law and obtained
a verdict against the peasants. But to rid himself
of new and grievous persecutions, he induced
pastor Gutslaff to write a treatise especially com
bating this superstition. The Esthonians replied,
when asked how good or bad weather could depend
upon springs and brooks : " It is our ancient faith :
the men of old have so taught us. Mills have been
burnt down on this brook before now." They
called it " Holy Brook," and believed that when
1 Compare this with what is said by Pliny, and with the use of spittle by
the Roman Catholics in baptism. Chapter V. of this book.

WATER-WORSHIP IN EUROPE AND MEXICO. ICX)
they wanted rain it could be produced by throwing
something into the stream.1
Many similar stories abound in the modern liter
ature of Esthonia. Although less refined, the
water-worship mythology of Northern Europe was
as widespread and persistent in its influence as
that of Southern Europe or of Asia. Its influence
upon Christianity was not less strongly marked,
and the modifications which it produced in Chris
tian baptism continue in a great degree to the pre
sent day. The universal sway of pagan baptism
and its essential unity are shown by turning from
Northern Europe to the extreme point of another
continent and considering
Water- Worship in Mexico.
Prescott speaks of the amazement with which
the early Spaniards beheld the points of similarity
between the customs of the pagan Mexicans and
the Roman Catholic Church ; he says :
" With the same feelings they witnessed another cere
mony, that of the Aztec baptism ; in which, after a solemn
invocation, the head and lips of the infant were touched
with water, and a name given to it ; while the goddess
Cioacoatl, who presided over childbirth, was implored that
the sin which was given to us before the beginning of the
1 See A Short Account of the Holy Brook, etc. , by John Gutslaff, Pastor
at Urbs in Liefland, Dorpt, 1644, pp. 25, 258.

HO PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
world might not visit the child, but that, cleansed by these
waters, it might live and be born anew." '
A full account of this pagan baptism in Mexico
is given by Sahagun-de-Bernardino, as follows :
" When everything necessary for the baptism had been
made ready, all the relations of the child were assembled,
and the midwife, who was the person that performed the
rite of baptism, was summoned. At early dawn they
met together in the court-yard of the house. When the
sun had risen the midwife, taking the child in her arms,
called for a little earthen vessel of water, while those
about her placed the ornaments which had been prepared
for the baptism in the midst of the court. To perform
the rite of baptism, she placed herself with her face towards
the west, and immediately began to go through certain
ceremonies. . . . After this she sprinkled water on
the head of the infant, saying : ' O my child ! take and
receive the water of the Lord of the world, which is our
life, and is given for the increasing and renewing of our
body. It is to wash and to purify. I pray that these
heavenly drops may enter into your body and dwell there ;
that they may destroy and remove from you all the evil
and sin which was given to you before the beginning of
the world ; since all of us are under its power, being all
the children of Chalchivitlycue ' (the goddess of water).
She then washed the body of the child with water and
spoke in this manner : ' Whencesoever thou comest, thou
that art hurtful to this child, leave him and depart from
him, for he now liveth anew and is born anew ; now he is
purified and cleansed afresh, and our Mother Chalchivit-
1 Conquest of Mexico, vol. iii., p. 369 f., Philadelphia, J. B.Lippincott.

WATER-WORSHIP IN EUROPE AND MEXICO. Ill
lycue again bringeth him into the world.' Having thus
prayed, the midwife took the child in both hands, and lift
ing him towards heaven, said : ' 0 Lord, thou seest here
thy creature, whom thou hast sent into this world, this
place of sorrow, suffering, and penitence. Grant him, O
Lord, thy gifts and thine inspiration, for thou art the great
God, and with thee is the great goddess.' Torches of
pine were kept burning during the performance of these
ceremonies. When these things were ended, they gave
the child the name of some one of his ancestors, in hope
that he might shed a new lustre over it. The name was
given by the same midwife or priestess who baptized
him." »
A full discussion of baptismal ceremonies among
the pagans of Mexico may be found in H. H.
Bancroft's works,3 which discussion fully supports
the foregoing from Prescott and Sahagun.
1 Hist, de Neuva Espana, lib. vi., cap. xxxvii.
8 The Native Races, Myths, and Languages, vol. iii., p. 369 seq., San
Francisco, 1882.

CHAPTER V.
GREEK WATER-WORSHIP.
Sprinkling and Immersion Both Used — Prominence of "Baptismal Regen
eration" — Lustral Water at Temple Doors — Baptism of Animals —
Influence of " The Greek Mysteries" on Christian Baptism — Initiatory
Baptisms — Scenic Illustrations — Mithraic Baptism Engrafted on Grecian
— "Creed," "Symbol," Drawn from Grecian Water-Worship Cult —
Identity of Grecian and Roman Catholic Forms — The Use of Spittle
in Pagan Baptism.
IN our survey of the wide field, we now come to
a still more specific view of the pagan cult,
along the line of Hellenic thought, where it im
pinged most strongly upon Christianity.
Potter writes learnedly of water-worship among
the Greeks, in the following :
" At least every person who came to the solemn sacri
fices was purified by water. To which end at the entrance
to the temples there was commonly placed a vessel full of
holy water. This water was consecrated by putting into
it a burning torch taken from the altar. The same torch
was sometimes made use of to sprinkle those who entered
into the temple. Thus we find in Euripides, and also in
Aristophanes, where the scholiast observes that this
torch was used because of the quality of fire, which is
thought to purify all things. Instead of the torches, they

GREEK WATER-WORSHIP. 113
sometimes used a branch of laurel, as we find in Pliny.
Thus Sozomen, where he speaks of Valentinian following
Julian into a pagan temple, relates that when they were
about to enter, a priest holding certain green boughs drop
ping water besprinkled them after the Grecian manner.
Instead of laurel, olive was sometimes used. Thus we
find in Virgil :
' Old Corianseus compassed thrice the crew,
And dipped an olive branch in holy dew. '
" This custom of surrounding here expressed, was so
constant in purifying that most of the terms which relate
to any sort of purification are compounded with ns.pi,
< around, thus : itspipai vsiv, nspifxarreodai, nepideiovv,
xepiayvi Qeiv, etc.
" The vessel which contained the water of purification
was termed, nepippavrrfpiov. And the Latin word lus-
trare, which signifies to purify or expiate, came hence to
be a general word for any sort of surrounding or encom
passing. Thus it is used by Virgil, . . . dum monti-
bus umbra lustrabunt convexo. Spondanus tells us that
before the sacrifices of the celestial gods, the worshippers
had their whole bodies washed, or if that could not be, at
least their hands ; but for those that performed the sacred
rites to the infernal gods, a small sprinkling was sufficient.
Sometimes the feet were washed as well as the hands ;
whence came the proverbs, avmroi? xEP0lv and avinroii
noaiv. In Latin illotis manibus, and illotis pedibus, — which
are usually applied to men who undertake anything
without due care and preparation. Porphyry tells us
there was a programme fixed up, that no man should go
beyond the itEpippavrrjpiov till he had washed his hands ;
so great a crime was it counted to omit this ceremony, that

114 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
Timarchides hath related a story of one Asterius, who
was struck dead with thunder because he had approached
the altar of Jupiter with unwashed hands. Nor was this
custom only used at solemn sacrifices, but also at the
smallest parts of their worship. Hector tells us that he
was afraid to make so much as a libation to Jupiter before
he had washed. ' I dread with unwashed hands to bring,
My incensed wine to Jove, an offering.'
" And Telemachus is said, in Homer's Odysseis, to have
washed his hands before he ventured to pray to the gods.
This they did out of a conceit that thereby they were
purified from their sins ; and withal signifying that noth
ing impure ought to approach the deities. On the same
account, they sometimes washed their clothes, as Homer
relates of Penelope, before she offered prayers to the gods.
The water used in purification was required to be clear,
and without mud and all other impurities. It was com
monly fetched from fountains and rivers. The water of
lakes or standing ponds was unfit for this purpose. So
also was the purest stream if it had been a considerable
time separated from its source." *
Baring Gould gives another picture of baptism
and lustration among the Greeks :
" Among the Greeks, the mysteries of Cotys commenced
with a purification, a sort of baptism, and the priests of
the Thracian Goddess derived from this their title of
/3a7tTai. But Apollo, from a supposed derivation of his
1 Antiquities of Greece, by John Potter, D.D., vol. i., pp. 261-263,
Edinburgh, 1832.

GREEK WATER-WORSHIP. . 1 15
name from andkovoo to purify, was the special god of
expiation by baptismal acts. In Thessaly was yearly
celebrated a great festival of cleansing. A work bearing
the name of Muscbus was a complete ritual of purifications.
It distinguished the ceremonies into two orders, rsXsroti
and xadap/toi. The latter were purifications and expia
tions accomplished by special sacrifices. The former
resembled the purifications performed in the Mysteries.
The usual mode of purification was dipping in water, or
it was performed by aspersion. The baptism of immer
sion was called Xovrpov, the other napippavai?. These
sacraments were held to have virtue independent of the
disposition of the candidate, an opinion which called forth
the sneer of Diogenes when he saw some one undergoing
baptism by aspersion : ' Poor wretch ! do you not see
that, since these sprinklings cannot repair your gram
matical errors, they cannot repair either the faults of
your life ? '
" Lustral water was placed at the temple doors, with
which the profane were purified by the priests. Usually,
before entering a temple, the hands and feet were washed.
At Athens, when the prcedrai had opened the assembly,
the peristiarch offered a sacrifice, and then with the blood
of the victim sprinkled the seats. The herald then took
the place of the peristiarch, and continued the lustration
by burning incense ; for fumigations (n:epi8eiGoffei?), con
stituted another means of purification. In default of water,
sand was used, and salt, which, as a symbol of incorruption,
was regarded as possessed of purificatory virtue. Every
impure act, murder, the touch of a corpse, illegitimate
commerce, even the conjugal act, demanded purification.
In like manner, baptism was practised by the Romans,

Il6 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
and Juvenal satirizes those who washed away their sins
by dipping the head thrice in the morning into the waters
of the Tiber.1
" On the feast of Pales, the goddess of flocks, the shep
herds purified themselves by washing their hands thrice
in new fallen dew ; or a lustration was effected by asper
sion with consecrated water shaken from a branch of
laurel or olive; in reference to which rite Propertius
prays, much as once did David : ' Spargite me lymphis.' " '
The Grecian idea of baptism is well set forth by
Ovid, in the following lines :
' ' From Greece the custom came, for Greece esteems
Those free from guilt who bathe in sacred streams.
Thus did old Pelius once Patroclus lave,
And free from stain in the Hsemonian wave :
As, in that same Hsemonian stream before,
Acastus, Pelius freed from Phocus' gore.
The Phasian sorceress, in her fiery car,
Borne by yoked dragons through the liquid air,
To credulous ^Egeus supplication made,
And from him won an undeserved aid.
In Naupactoan Achelous' flood,
His horrid hands stained with his mother's blood,
Alcsemon bathed ; ' Cleanse me from crime,' he cried,
Nor by the stream was his request denied.
Ah, vain the hope, and far to easy they,
Who think the water takes such guilt away."
Fasti, book ii., line 58 ff.
1 See Satire vi., line 522.
* The Origin and Development of Religious Belief, by S. Baring Gould,
M.A., vol. i., p. 397, London, 1869.

GREEK WATER-WORSHIP. 117
Influence of the " Greek Mysteries."
The influence of the Greek mysteries in corrupt
ing Christian baptism is more plainly seen than that
of any other specific department of the pagan cult.
These mysteries were the remnant of the oldest re
ligion known to the Greeks. They embodied the
worship of the gods of the productive forces in
nature, and of the gods of death. The most
important centre of this cult was at Eleusis, where
the worship was celebrated in the largest temple
in Greece. The chief elements in the cult were
initiation, sacrifice, and scenic representations of
the great facts in the processes of nature and in
human life. The main conception in the initiation
was that the candidate must be purified before he
could approach God. The initiated, being thus
purified, were inducted to a divine life and to the
hope of a resurrection. The ceremonial began
with the proclamation : " Let no one enter whose
hands are not clean, and whose tongue is not
prudent." J
Confession was followed by a kind of baptism.'
The candidates for initiation bathed in the pure
waters of the sea. The manner of bathing and the
'See Keil, Attische Cults aus Inschrif ten, Phlologus, bd. xxiii., 212,
259> 592> 622 ; also Weingarten, Histor. Zeitschrift, bd. xiv., 1881, p. 441 ff.
2 See Tertullian, De Baptismo, chap. 1. ; and Clem, of Alex., Strom.,
book v. , chap. iv.

Il8 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
number of immersions varied with the degree of
guilt which they had confessed. They came from
the bath new men. It was a uaOapsi?, a Xovrpov, a
"laver of regeneration." Certain forms of absti
nence were imposed ; they had to fast ; and when
they ate they had to abstain from certain kinds of
food.1 After this purification came a aoor-hpia, " a great
public sacrifice of salvation"; also personal sacri
fices. After an interval of two days still more
sacrifices, shows, and "processions" followed. The
initiated carried lighted torches and sang "loud
peans in honor of the God." 2 Then came the
scenic representations at night. The initiated stood
outside the temple in deep darkness. Suddenly the
door opened, and in a blaze of light the drama of
Demeter and Kore appeared — in which the loss of
the daughter, the wanderings of the mother, and
the birth of the child, were enacted. This symbol
ized the earth in its great experiences, as well as the
corresponding experiences in human life. All this
was enacted in silence. Each man saw and medi
tated for himself. It was believed that this gave '
purity to the initiated, changed their relations to
the gods, and made them " partakers of a life to
¦ Cf. "Hatch, Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian
Church. a Cf. Clem, of Alex. , Exhortation to the Heathen, chap. xii.

GREEK WATER-WORSHIP. I ig
come."1 Mithraicism had a similar form of initia
tion, a prominent feature of which was a sacred
meal, upon a "holy table," of which the initiated
took part after they were purified. The societies
which practised these mysteries existed on a large
scale during the earliest centuries of our era, and
had a marked influence upon the earliest Christian
communities, and upon the subsequent church.
Hatch thus describes these effects :
" It was inevitable when a new group of associations
came to exist side by side with a large existing body of
associations, from which it was continually detaching
members, introducing them into its own midst, with the
practices of their original societies impressed upon their
minds, that this new group should tend to assimilate, with
the assimilation of their members, some of the elements
of these existing groups.
" This is what we find to have been in fact the case. It
is possible that they made the Christian associations more
secret than before. Up to a certain time there is no evi
dence that Christianity had any secrets. It was preached
openly to the world. It guarded worship by imposing a
moral bar to admission. But its rites were simple and its
teaching was public. After a certain time all is changed ;
mysteries have arisen in the once open and easily accessible
faith, and there are doctrines which must not be declared
in the hearing of the uninitiated." 2
1 Cf. Hatch as above ; and Lenormant, in Contemporary Review for Sep
tember, 1880.
* " The objection which Celsus makes (c. Cels., i., 1, Keim, p. 3)to the secrecy
of the Christian associations would hardly have held good in the apostolic age.

120 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
The effect of these pagan mysteries upon Chris
tian baptism, and upon the Lord's Supper also,
will be more clearly seen when we remember how
simple a ceremony New Testament baptism was.
It followed immediately upon confession of faith
in Christ. There was no preparatory ceremony,
no ritual, only the simple formula. There was no
confusion or controversy concerning the "mode,"
for submersion alone was known within Christian
circles. When the current of history emerges at and
after the middle of the second century, marked
changes appear which are so identical with gnosti
cism and the Greek mysteries that there can be no
question as to their source.1 Among these changes
were the following :
The name is changed, and the new terms used
come directly from the familiar mysteries. Justin
Origen admits (c. Cels., i., 7) that there are exoteric and esoteric doctrines in
Christianity, and justifies it by (1) the philosophies, (2) the mysteries. On
the rise of this conception of Christian teaching as something to be hidden
from the mass, cf. the Valentians in Tert., c. Valent., i., where there is a
direct parallel drawn between them and the mysteries ; also the distinction
of men into two classes — itv evfiarixoi and ipvxixol or vXinoi, — among the
Gnostics. Yet this very secrecy was naturalized in the Church. Cf. Cyril
Hier., Catech., vi., 30 ; Aug. in Psalm ciii. ; Horn., xcvi., in Joan ; Theo-
doret, Quast. xv., in Num., and Dial., ii., (Inconfusus) ; Chry., Horn., xix.,
in Matt. Sozomen's (i., 20, 3) reason for not giving the Nicene creed is
significant alike as regards motive and language." — Hibbert Lectures, 1888,
p. 293 and footnote.
1 Cf. Hatch, p. 294 ff.

GREEK WATER-WORSHIP. 121
calls it tpoonfffios, (pcoTigeGdai, " enlightenment." 1
Those who had passed the tests were " sealed,"
atpayis — a term from the mysteries.2 It was also
called /Avffrr/piov,* " Mysteries" and many other terms,
all of which sprung from the " mysteries of Greek
paganism, rather than from the New Testament."
The time of baptism of adults was changed to
meet the pagan conception of it as a purifying and
saving act. A long preparation was demanded,
and, to meet the pagan idea that it removed sins,
it was often deferred until near the close of life in
order to make the most of both worlds.4 The ini
tiated in the Greek mysteries were given a pass
word : GvfxfioXov or avvdr/fxa. " So the catechumens
had a formula which was only entrusted to them in
the last days of their catechumenate, the baptismal
formula itself, and the Lord's Prayer." " A special
rite accompanied the giving of this formula. Other
wise both the Lord's Prayer and the Creed were
kept as " mysteries"; the technical name for creed
remains to this day as avufioXov "symbol."8
Hatch quotes a description of baptism in the
Roman Catholic Church, which shows every essen-
1 Apol., i., 61.
2 Cf. Clem, of Alex., Stroma., bk. ii., chap. iii.
8 Chrysostom, Horn., 85, in Joan, xix., 34.
* Cf. Apostol. Const, and Bingham Antiq. in loco.
5 Hatch, p. 298.
6 Cf. Die. Chris. Antiq., " Baptism " and " Creed."

122 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
tial feature of the Eleusinian mysteries transferred
to "Christian baptism," falsely so called. The
account is taken from Mabillon.1 He writes thus :
" I will abridge the account which is given of the prac
tice at Rome so late as the ninth century. Preparation
went on through the greater part of Lent. The candi
dates were examined and tested ; they fasted ; they
received the secret symbols, the Creed and the Lord's
Prayer. On Easter eve, as the day declined towards
afternoon, they assembled in the Church of St. John
Lateran. The rites of exorcism and renunciation were
gone through in solemn form, and the rituals survive.
The Pope and his priests come forth in their sacred vest
ments, with lights carried in front of them, which the
Pope then blesses ; there is a reading of lessons and a
singing of psalms. And then, while they chant a litany,
there is a procession to the great bath of baptism, and
the water is blest. The baptized come forth from the
water, are signed with the cross, and are presented to the
Pope one by one, who vests them in a white robe and signs
their foreheads again with the cross. They are arranged in
a great circle, and each of them carries a light. Then a vast
array of lights is kindled ; the blaze of them, says a Greek
Father, makes night continuous with dawn. It is the
beginning of a new life. The mass is celebrated — the
mystic offering on the cross is represented in figure ; but
for the newly baptized the chalice is filled, not with wine,
but with milk and honey, that they may understand, says
an old writer, that they have entered already upon the
promised land. And there was one more symbolical rite
1 Com. Praev. Ad. Ord. Rom. Museum, Ital., ii., xcix.

GREEK WATER-WORSHIP. 1 23
in that early Easter sacrament, the mention of which is
often suppressed — a lamb was offered on the altar, after
wards, cakes in the shape of a lamb. It was simply the
ritual which we have seen already in the mysteries. The
purified crowd at Eleusis saw a blaze of light, and in the
light were represented in symbol life and death and resur
rection.1
Anointing and Baptism.
The use of anointing oil in baptism was borrowed
directly from paganism. To economize space, and
fortify by the power of a great name, we again
quote from Hatch :
" The general inference of the large influence of the
Gnostics on baptism, is confirmed by the fact that another
element, which certainly came through them, though its
source is not certain, and is more likely to have been
Oriental than Greek, has maintained a permanent place
in most rituals — the element of anointing. There were
two customs in this matter, one more characteristic of the
East, the other of the West — the anointing with (1) the
oil of exorcism before baptism and after the renunciation
of the devil, and (2) the oil of thanksgiving, which was
used immediately after baptism, first by the presbyter and
then by the bishop, who then sealed the candidate on the
forehead. The very variety of the custom shows how deep
and yet natural the action of the Gnostic systems, with
the mystic and magic customs of the Gnostic societies or
associations, had been on the practices and ceremonies of
the Church."3 1 Hatch, p. 299. 2 Pp. 307-308.

124 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
Use of Spittle in Baptism.
f The pagan doctrine of exorcism was carried still
further, and baptism was corrupted yet more by
adding the use of human saliva as a " charm." This
arose from the general use of spittle by the pagans
tas a talisman against harm and evil influences.
Rev. John James Blunt says :
" Human saliva was heretofore very generally used as a
charm, and was thought particularly efficacious against the
venom of poisonous animals. Pliny quotes some author
ities to prove that the pernicious powers of toads and
frogs may be disarmed by this means, and that serpents
may be rendered innoxious by spitting into their mouths.
The testimony of Varro is also cited by the naturalist to
show that there were peqple in the Hellespont, near
Pasium, who could cure the bite of snakes by their saliva.
. . . It is remarkable that in administering the rite of
baptism the priest, among other ceremonies, moistens a
napkin with his "own saliva, and then touches with it the
eyes and nose of the child, accompanying the action by
the word Ephphatha. It was with a similar rite that
Roman infants received their names on the Dies Lus
tricus." 1
The Satirists were not slow in holding up these
various superstitions to deserved ridicule. Perseus
touches the spittle superstition in the following
stanza :
1 Vestiges of Ancient Manners and Customs in Italy and Sicily, by John
James Blunt, pp. 164, 165, and 167. London, 1823.

GREEK WATER-WORSHIP. 125
" Lo ! from his little crib the grandam hoar,
Or aunt, well-versed in superstitious lore,
Snatches the babe ; in lustral spittle dips
Her middle finger, and anoints his lips
And forehead." 1
Pliny supports the statement of Blunt as follows :
" The Marsi, in Italy, are still in possession of the same
power, for which it is said they are indebted to their origin
from the son of Circe, from whom they acquired it as a
natural quality. But the fact is, that all men possess in
their bodies a poison which acts upon serpents, and the
human saliva, it is said, makes them take to flight as
though they had been touched with boiling water. The
same substance, it is said, destroys them as soon as it
enters their throat, and more particularly so, if it should
happen to be the saliva of a man who is fasting."2
In another place Pliny enumerates many uses
to which spittle is put :
" But it is the fasting spittle of a human being that is,
as already stated by us, the sovereign preservative against
the poison of serpents : while, at the same time, our daily
experience may recognize its efficacy and utility in many
other respects. We are in the habit of spitting, for in
stance, as a preservative from epilepsy, or, in other words,
we repel contagion thereby ; in a similar manner, too, we
repel fascinations, and the evil presages attendant upon
meeting a person who is lame in the right leg. We ask
pardon of the gods, by spitting in the lap, for entertain-
1 Perseus, Satire ii., 31.
"Natural History, book vii., chap, ii., vol. ii., p. 126. London, edition
1856.

126 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
ing some too presumptuous hope or expectation. On the
same principle, it is the practice, in all cases where medi
cine is employed, to spit three times on the ground, and
to conjure the malady as often, the object being to aid
the operation of the remedy employed. It is usual, too,
to mark a boil, when it first makes its appearance, three
times with fasting spittle. What we are going to say is
marvellous, but it may easily be tested by experiment : if a
person repents of a blow given to another, either by hand
or with a missile, he has nothing to do but to spit at once
in the palm of the hand which has inflicted the blow, and
all feelings of resentment will be instantly alleviated in
the person struck. This, too, is often verified in the case
of a beast of burden when brought on its haunches with
blows ; for upon this remedy being adopted, the animal
will immediately step out and mend its pace. Some per
sons, however, before making an effort, spit into the hand
in the manner above stated, in order to make the blow
more heavy. We may well believe, then, that lichens and
leprous spots may be removed by a constant application
of fasting spittle ; that ophthalmia may be cured by
anointing, as it were, the eyes every morning with fasting
spittle ; that carcinomata may be effectually treated by
kneading the root of the plant known as 'apple of the earth '
with human spittle ; that crick in the neck may be got rid of
by carrying fasting spittle to the right knee with the right
hand, and to the left knee with the left ; and when an
insect has got into the ear it is quite sufficient to spit into
that organ to make it come out. Among the counter-
charms, too, are reckoned the practice of spitting into the
urine the moment it is voided, of spitting into the shoe of
the right foot before putting it on, and of spitting while a

GREEK WATER-WORSHIP. 12 J
person is passing a place in which he has incurred any kind
of peril.
" Marcion, of Smyrna, who has written a work on the
virtues of simples, informs that the sea scolopendra will
burst asunder if spit upon ; and that the same is the case
with bramble frogs, and other kinds of frogs. Opilius
says that serpents will do the same if a person spits into
their open mouth ; and Salpe tells us that when any part
of the body is asleep the numbness may be got rid of by
the person spitting into his lap, or touching the upper
eyelid with his spittle. If we are ready to give faith to
such statements as these, we must believe also in the effi
cacy of the following practices : upon the entrance of a
stranger, or when a person looks at an infant while
asleep, it is usual for the nurse to spit three times upon
the ground ; and this, although infants are under the
special guardianship of the god Fascinus, the protector,
not of infants only, but of generals as well, and a divinity
whose worship is entrusted to the vestal virgins, and forms
a part of the Roman rites." '
1 Natural History, book xxviii., chap, vii., vol. v., pp. 288-90. London,
1856.

CHAPTER VI.
PAGAN WATER-WORSHIP TRANSFERRED TO CHRIS
TIANITY.
Testimony from Tertullian, Barnabas, Justin, Methodius, the Apostolic
Constitutions, etc. — Holy Water, or Repeated Baptism, Borrowed with
out Change — Magical Effects of Holy Water, the Same in Christian
as in Pagan Cult — Baptism of Animals by Holy Water, to Produce
Magical Results — Holy Water Prepared after the Pagan Method —
Consecration of Baptismal Waters Borrowed from Pagan Combination
of Sun- and Water-Worship — The Church Filled with Baptized but
Unconverted Pagans, and so Passed under Pagan Control.
Baptism in the Early Church.
TURNING to the earlier Church fathers, who
formulated much which has come to us as
Christian doctrine, we find the pagan idea of bap
tism repeated in all its essential characteristics.
We have seen that the Greek fathers came to
i Christianity by way of Neo-Platonism rather than
the New Testament. They accepted Christianity
as containing many excellent things, but not as the
only authoritative system of faith. They followed
the popular syncretic tendency, and combined
J Christianity with the pagan faith in which they
had been educated. 128

PAGAN WATER-WORSHIP. 1 29
Tertullian wrote a special treatise on the ques
tion of baptism, which represents the pagano-Chris-
tian creed in fulness and in detail. I transcribe
his words in part, and call attention to the simi
larity and the points of identity between these and
the pagan theories already presented. Chapter i.
of the treatise opens with these words :
" Happy is the sacrament of our water, in that, by wash
ing away the sins of our early blindness, we are set free
[and admitted] into eternal life ! . . . But we, little
fishes, after the example of our Ix^vi) Jesus Christ, are
born in water, nor have we safety in any other way than
by permanently abiding in [that] water." '
In the succeeding chapters Tertullian goes on to
show that water was "chosen as a vehicle of divine.
operation " because it was the element over which
the divine spirit brooded in creation. He says :
" Why should WA ter be chosen as a vehicle of divine
operation ? Its prominence first of all in Creation. —
Mindful of this declaration as of a conclusive prescript, we
nevertheless [proceed to] treat [the question], ' How fool
ish and impossible it is to be formed anew by water. In
what respect, pray, has this material substance merited an
office of so high dignity ? ' The authority, I suppose, of
the liquid element has to be examined. This, however,
is found in abundance, and that from the very beginning.
For [water] is one of those things, which, before all the
furnishing of the world, were quiescent with God in a yet
1 On Baptism, Ante-Nicene Library, vol. xi., p. 231 ft".

130 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY. 9
unshapen state. In the first beginning, saith [Scripture],
' God made the heaven and the earth. But the earth was
invisible, and unorganized, and darkness was over the
abyss ; and the Spirit of the Lord was hovering over the
waters.' The first thing, oh man, which you have to
venerate, is the age of the waters, in that their substance
is ancient ; the second, their dignity, in that they were
the seat of the Divine Spirit, more pleasing [to him], no
doubt, than all the other then existing elements. For the
darkness was total thus far, shapeless, without the orna
ment of stars ; and the abyss gloomy ; and the earth
unfurnished ; and the heaven unwrought ; water alone
— always a perfect, gladsome, simple material substance,
pure in itself — supplied a worthy vehicle to God. What
[of the fact] that waters were in some way the regulating
powers by which the disposition of the world thencefor
ward was constituted by God ? For the suspension of
the celestial firmament in the midst He caused by
' dividing the v/aters ' ; the suspension of ' the dry land,'
He accomplished by ' separating the waters.' After the
world had been hereupon set in order through [its] ele
ments, when inhabitants were given it, ' the waters ' were
the first to receive the precept, ' to bring forth living
creatures.' Water was the first to produce that which
had life, that it might be no wonder in baptism if waters
know how to give life. For was not the work of fashion
ing man himself also achieved with the aid of waters?
Suitable material is found in the earth, yet not apt for the
purpose unless it be moist and juicy ; which [earth] ' the
waters ' separated the fourth day before into their own
place, temper with their remaining moisture to a clayey
consistency. If, from that time onward, I go forward in

PAGAN WATER-WORSHIP.

131

recounting universally, or at more length [than I have
already done] the evidences of the ' authority ' of this ele
ment which I can adduce to show how great is its power
or its grace ; how many ingenious devices, how many
functions, how useful an instrumentality, it affords the
world, I fear I may seem to have collected rather the
praises of water than the reasons of baptism ; although I
should [thereby] teach all the more fully, that it is not to
be doubted that God has made the material substance
which he has disposed throughout all his products and
works, obey him also in his own peculiar sacraments ;
that [the material substance] which governs terrestrial
life acts as agent likewise in the celestial."
The title of chapter iv. is :
" The primeval hovering of the Spirit of God over the
waters typical of baptism. The universal element of water
thus made a channel of sanctification. Resemblance between
the outward sign and the inward grace."
In this chapter Tertullian teaches that the divine
power hovering over the water, in creation, made it
" holy " as well as life-producing, and that these
qualities continue to exist in all water. He says :
" Thus the nature of the waters, sanctified by the Holy
One, itself conceived withal the power of sanctifying.
Let no one say, ' Why, then, are we, pray, baptized with
the very waters which then existed in the first beginning ? '
Not with those very waters, of course, except in so far as
the genus indeed is one, but the species very many. But
what is an attribute to the genus reappears likewise in the

132 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
species. And accordingly it makes no difference whether
a man be washed in a sea or a pool, a stream or a font, a
lake or a trough ; nor is there any distinction between
those whom John baptized in the Jordan and those whom
Peter baptized in the Tiber, unless withal [it be thought
that] the eunuch whom Philip baptized in the midst of his
journeys with chance water, derived [therefrom] more or
less of salvation [than others]. All waters, therefore, in
virtue of the pristine privilege of their origin, do, after in
vocation of God, attain the sacramental power of sanctifi-
cation ; for the Spirit immediately supervenes from the
heavens, and rests over the waters, sanctifying them from
himself ; and being thus sanctified, they imbibe at the
same time the power of sanctifying."
In chapter v. Tertullian discusses the pagan
theory as embodied in the rites of Isis, Mithra,
the Apollinarian and the Eleusinian games, and
attempts to show that cleansing cannot come
through these rites, because idols cannot imbue
the water with sanctifying power, and evil spirits
can impart only evil influences. He expresses
faith in their power to do this, thus showing that
he still held to the fundamental features of the
pagan system, and made them the basis of his
theory of Christian baptism.
The Epistle of Barnabas presents a similar com
bination of fact and fancy concerning baptism.
The pagan idea of water as a regenerating power
underlies the theory set forth, and the reader will

PAGAN WATER-WORSHIP. 1 33
see how Scripture is misquoted and misapplied in
the effort to give a scriptural coloring to the pagan
theory. Chapter xi. of the epistle is entitled :
"Baptism and the Cross Prefigured in the Old Testament. —
Let us further inquire whether the Lord took any care
to foreshadow the water [of baptism] and the cross. Con
cerning the water, indeed, it is written, in reference to the
Israelites, that they should not receive that baptism which
leads to the remission of sins, but should procure another
for themselves. The prophet therefore declares : ' Be as
tonished, O heaven, and let the earth tremble at this, be
cause this people hath committed two great evils ; they
have forsaken me, a living fountain, and have hewn out
for themselves broken cisterns. Is my holy hill Zion a
desolate rock ? For ye shall be as the fledglings of a bird,
which fly away when the nest is removed.' And again
saith the prophet : ' I will go before thee and make level
the mountains, and will break the brazen gates, and bruise
in pieces the iron bars ; and I will give thee the secret,
hidden, invisible treasures, that they may know that I am
the Lord God.' And, ' He shall dwell in a lofty cave of
the strong rock.' Furthermore, what saith He in reference
to the Son ? ' His water is sure ; ye shall see the King in
His glory, and your soul shall meditate on the fear of the
Lord.' And again He saith in another prophet : ' The
man who doeth these things shall be like a tree planted
by the courses of waters, which shall yield its fruit in due
season ; and his leaf shall not fade, and all that he doeth
shall prosper. Not so are the ungodly, not so, but even
as chaff, which the wind sweeps away from the face of the
earth. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in judg-

134 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
ment, nor sinners in the counsel of the just ; for the Lord
knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the un
godly shall perish.' Mark how He has described at once
both the water and the cross. For these words imply,
Blessed are they who, placing their trust in the cross, have
gone down into the water ; for, says He, they shall receive
their reward in due time ; then He declares, I will recom
pense them. But now He saith, ' Their leaves shall not
fade.' This meaneth that every word which proceedeth
out of your mouth in faith and love shall tend to bring
conversion and hope to many. Again, another prophet
saith, ' And the land of Jacob shall be extolled above
every land.' This meaneth the vessel of His Spirit, which
He shall glorify. Further, what says He ? ' And there
was a river flowing on the right, and from it arose beauti
ful trees ; and whosoever shall eat of them shall live for
ever.' This meaneth that we indeed descend into the
water full of sins and defilement, but come up bearing
fruit in our heart, having the fear [of God] and trust in
Jesus in our spirit. ' And whosoever shall eat of these
shall live forever.' This meaneth : Whosoever, He de
clares, shall hear thee speaking, and believe, shall live
forever." ¦
Justin Martyr combines his theory with his
description of the rite of baptism as follows. Note
the misquotation of Scripture :
" I will also relate the manner in which we dedicated
ourselves to God when we had been made new through
Christ ; lest, if we omit this, we seem to be unfair in the
1 Epistle of Barnabas, chap, xi., Ante-Nicene Library, vol. i., pp. 120,
121.

PAGAN WATER-WORSHIP. 1 35
explanation we are making. As many as are persuaded
and believe that what we teach and say is true, and un
dertake to be able to live accordingly, are instructed to
pray and to entreat God, with fasting, for the remission of
their sins that are past, we praying and fasting with them.
Then they are brought by us where there is water, and
are regenerated in the same manner in which we were
ourselves regenerated. For, in the name of God, the
Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour, Jesus
Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the wash
ing with water. For Christ also said : ' Except ye be
born again, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.'
Now, that it is impossible for those who have once been
born to enter into their mother's womb, is manifest to all.
And how those who have sinned and repent shall escape
their sins is declared by Esaias, the prophet, as I wrote
above ; he thus speaks : ' Wash you, make you clean ;
put away the evil of your doings from your souls ; learn to
do well ; judge the fatherless, and plead for the widow;
and come and let us reason together, saith the Lord.
And though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them
white like wool ; and though they be as crimson, I will
make them white as snow. But if ye refuse and rebel, the
sword shall devour you ; for the mouth of the Lord hath
spoken it.' And for this [rite] we have learned from the
apostles this reason. Since at our birth we were born
without our own knowledge or choice, by our parents
coming together, and were brought up in bad habits and
wicked training; in order that we may not remain the
children of necessity and of ignorance, but may become
the children of choice and knowledge, and may obtain in
the water the remission of sins formerly committed, there

136 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
is pronounced over him who chooses to be born again,
and has repented of his sins, the name of God, the Father
and Lord of the universe ; he who leads to the laver the
person that is to be washed, calling him by this name
alone. For no one can utter the name of the ineffable
God ; and if anyone dare to say that there is a name, he
raves with a hopeless madness. And this washing is
called illumination, because they who learn these things
are illuminated in their understandings. And in the name
of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
and in the name of the Holy Ghost, who, through the
prophets, foretold all things about Jesus, he who is illu
minated is washed." "
The pagan o-Christian theory of baptism and
baptismal regeneration, variously expressed, is
found in Methodius, The Banquet of the Ten Vir
gins, chapter vi ; in Clement of Alexandria, The
Instructor, chapter xii ; in Tertullian, Against
Marcion, book i., chapter xxviii ; in Cyprian, Epis
tles? — 1, To Donatus ; 22, To Clergy at Rome ; 51,
To Antonianus ; and 75, To Magnus; also Testi
monies against the Jews, paragraph 65 ; also, A
Treatise on Re-baptism, by an unknown author,
published in connection with Cyprian's writings,
on page 402 of Clark's edition Ante-Nicene
Library, vol. xiii.
The Apostolic Constitutions clearly set forth the
1 First Apology, ch. Ii, Ante-Nicene Library, vol. ii., p. 59. T. & T. Clark.
a Numbering as found in vol. viii. of Ante-Nicene Library. Clark's
edition.

PAGAN WATER-WORSHIP. 1 37
result of this perversion of New Testament doc
trines concerning baptism. The late Baron Bun
sen, one of the most eminent of German scholars
and statesmen, has grouped the teachings of the
Constitutions upon the question of baptism in
such a way as to give the reader a better view
than is possible by quoting these writings ver
batim. Although these Constitutions are not the
work of the apostles, they are of great historic
value in presenting a picture of the practices of
the early Church. Bunsen thinks that the Consti
tutions present "a genuine, though not textual,
picture of the Ante-Nicene Church." He says :
" As soon as we take away what belongs to the bad taste
of the fiction, all the ethic introductions and occasional
moralizing conclusions, and, in general, all which mani
festly is re-written with literary pretension, and lastly, as
soon as we expunge some easily discernible interpolations
of the fourth and fifth centuries, we find ourselves unmis
takably in the midst of the life of the Church of the
second and third centuries." '
The summary made by Bunsen is given below.
By analyzing it the reader will see how much that
is extra-scriptural, and anti-scriptural, was asso
ciated with baptism thus early. By comparison
with the pagan water cultus, the source of these
errors is plainly apparent.
1 Vol. ii. of Hippolylus and His Age, page 236.

138 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
" And at the time of the crowing of the cock let them
first pray over the water. Let the water be drawn into
the font, or flowing into it. And let it be thus if they
have no scarcity. But if there be a scarcity, let them
pour the water which shall be found into the font ; and
let them undress themselves, and the young shall be first
baptized. And all who are able to answer for themselves,
let them answer. But those who are not able to answer,
let their parents answer for them, or one other numbered
amongst their relations. And after the great men have
been baptized, at the last the women, they having loosed
all their hair, and having laid aside the ornaments of gold
and silver which were on them. Let not anyone take a
strange garment with him into the water.
" And at the time which is appointed for the baptism,
let the bishop give thanks over the oil, which, putting
into a vessel, he shall call the oil of thanksgiving. Again,
he shall take other oil, and exorcising over it, he shall
call it the oil of exorcism. And a deacon shall bear the
oil of exorcism and stand on the left hand of the presbyter.
Another deacon shall take the oil of thanksgiving and
stand on the right hand of the presbyter.
" And when the presbyter has taken hold of each one of
those who are about to receive baptism, let him command
him to renounce, saying : ' I will renounce thee, Satan,
and all thy service, and all thy works.' And when he
has renounced all these, let him anoint him with the oil
of exorcism, saying : ' Let every spirit depart from thee.'
" And let the bishop or the presbyter receive him thus
unclothed, to place him in the water of baptism. Also
let the deacon go with him into the water, and let him
say to him, helping him that he may say : ' I believe in

PAGAN WATER- WORSHIP.

139

the only true God, the Father Almighty, and in his only
begotten Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, and
in the Holy Spirit, the Quickener, [the Consubstantial
Trinity]. One Sovereignty, one Kingdom, one Faith,
one Baptism ; in the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church, in
the life everlasting. Amen.'
"And let him who receives (baptism) repeat after all
these : ' I believe thus.' And he who bestows it shall
lay his hand upon the head of him who receives, dipping
him three times, confessing these things each time.
" And afterwards, let him say again : ' Dost thou believe
in our Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, the
Father ; that he became man in a wonderful manner for
us, in an incomprehensible unity, by his Holy Spirit, of
Mary, the Holy Virgin, without the seed of man ; and
that he was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, died of
his own will, once for our redemption, rose on the third
day, loosening the bonds ( of death ), he ascended up into
heaven, sat on the right hand of his good Father on high,
and he cometh again to judge the living and the dead at
his appearing and his kingdom ? And dost thou believe
in the Holy Good Spirit and Quickener, who wholly
purifieth ; and in the Holy Church ? '
" Let him say again : ' I believe.'
"And let them go up out of the water, and the
presbyter shall anoint him with the oil of thanksgiving,
saying : ' I anoint thee with holy anointing oil in the
name of Jesus Christ.' Thus he shall anoint every one
of the rest, and clothe them as the rest, and they shall
enter into the Church." '
1 Hippolytus and His Age, by C. C. J. Bunsen, D.C.L., vol. ii., pp.
321-7. London, 1852.

14© PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
After entering the church the candidate was
anointed a second time, in connection with the
"prayer of blessing " and the " kiss of peace." This
was followed by the service of the communion,
which included bread, wine, milk and honey, show
ing that the Lord's Supper, as well as baptism, was
corrupted with pagan elements.
Holy Water.
The use of holy water formed an important part
of the pagan system. It was a sort of continuous
baptism, a succession of baptismal acts. That it is
wholly unscriptural, and in every way foreign to
Christian baptism, is too obvious to need statement.
There are abundant evidences of its pagan origin ;
among them are the following :
" Some persons derive the use of holy water in the
churches from the Jews ; but that it has been derived
from the ancient heathens of Rome is now very generally
believed, and, indeed, is warmly defended by the intelli
gent Ecclesiastics at Rome, on the principle that, as the
heathen temples have been turned into Christian churches,
so it was well to lay hold of the heathen practices and
turn them into Christian customs, thus reconciling the
heathen to a change of religion, seeing it did not change
their favorite rites and customs. At the entrance
of the heathen temples there were vessels of water with
which the votaries sprinkled themselves as they entered to
worship, and as it seemed desirable to make as little dif
ference as possible, so as to induce the heathen to conform

PAGAN WATER-WORSHIP. 141
the more readily to Christian worship, similar vessels of
water consecrated or made holy, were placed at the en
trance of the Christian churches, and thus the custom has
continued. Such at least is the origin generally ascribed
at Rome to this practice, and such the principle on which
it is defended by the men of mind and judgment among
the priesthood." 1
Dr. Joseph Priestley thus supplements Mr.
Seymore's statements :
" In Popish churches the first thing that we are struck
with is a vessel of what is called holy water, into which those
who enter dip their fingers, and then mark their foreheads
with the sign of the cross. This holy water, there can be
no doubt, came from the lustral water of the pagans, as,
indeed, learned Catholics allow. This water was also placed
at the entrance of the heathen temples, and those who
entered were sprinkled with it." 2
Conyers Middleton attests the pagan origin of
holy water :
" The next thing that will of course strike one's imagi
nation is their use of holy water ; for nobody ever goes in
or out of a church but is either sprinkled by the priest,
who attends for that purpose on solemn days, or else
serves himself with it from a vessel, usually of marble,
placed just at the door, not unlike to one of our baptismal
fonts. Now, this ceremony is so notoriously and directly
transmitted to them from paganism, that their own writers
1 A Pilgrimage to Rome, by Rev. M. Hobart Seymore, M.A., p. 537.
London, 1848.
2 History of the Corruption of Christianity, by Joseph Priestley, LL.D.,
F.R.S., vol. ii., p. 111. Birmingham, 1782.

142 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
make not the least scruple to own it. The Jesuit la Cerda,
in his notes on a passage of Virgil, where this practice is
mentioned, says : ' Hence was derived the custom of
Holy Church to provide purifying or holy water at the
entrance of their Churches.' ' Aquaminarium or Amula,'
says the learned Montfaucon, ' was a vase of holy water,
placed by the Heathen at the entrance of their Temples
to sprinkle themselves with.' The same vessel was by the
Greeks called nspippavr-qpiov ,• two of which, the one of
gold, the other of silver, were given by Croesus to the
Temple of Apollo at Delphi ; and the custom of sprink
ling themselves was so necessary a part of all their re
ligious offices, that the method of excommunication seems
to have been by prohibiting to offenders the approach and
use of the holy water-pot. The very composition of this
holy water was the same also among the Heathens, as it
is now among the Papists, being nothing more than a
mixture of salt with common water ; and the form of the
sprinkling brush, called by the ancients aspersorium or
aspergillum (which is much the same with what the priests
now make use of), may be seen in bas-reliefs, or ancient
coins, wherever the insignia, or emblems of the Pagan
priesthood, are described, of which it is generally
one. " Palatina, in his lives of the popes, and other authors,
ascribes the institution of this holy water to Pope Alex
ander the First ; who is said to have lived about the year
of Christ 113; but it could not have been introduced so early,
since, for some ages after, we find the primitive fathers
speaking of it as a custom purely heathenish, and con
demning it as impious, and detestable. Justin Martyr
says that it was invented by demons, in imitation of the

PAGAN WATER-WORSHIP. 1 43
true baptism signified by the Prophets, that their votaries
might also have their pretended purifications by water ;
and the Emperor Julian, out of spite to the Christians,
used to order the victuals in the markets to be sprinkled
with holy water, on purpose either to starve, or force them
to eat what by their own principles they esteemed pol
luted. " Thus we see what contrary notions the Primitive and
Romish Church have of this ceremony : the first con
demns it as superstitious, abominable, and irreconcilable
with Christianity ; the latter adopts it as highly edifying
and applicable to the improvement of Christian piety :
the one looks upon it as the contrivance of the Devil to
delude mankind ; the other as the security of mankind
against the delusions of the Devil. But what is still
more ridiculous than even the ceremony itself, is to see
their learned writers gravely reckoning up the several vir
tues and benefits, derived from the use of it, both to the
soul and the body ; and to crown all, producing a long
roll of miracles, to attest the certainty of each virtue,
which they ascribe to it. Why may we not, then, justly
apply to the present people of Rome what was said by
the Poet of its old inhabitants, for the use of this very
ceremony ?
" ' Ah, easy Fools, to think that a whole Flood
Of water e'er can purge the Stain of Blood ! '
Ovid, Fasti, ii., 4s.1
Mr. Middleton wrote as a polemist against Ro
manism, and hence he took especial pains to apply
1 A letter from Rome, by Conyers MicMleton, D.D., Works, vol. iii., p.
71 ff. London, 1752.

144 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
these facts to that system of Christianity' exclu
sively. Such an application is manifestly unjust,
since baptism was fully corrupted before the formal
establishment of the Papacy, and many corrupt
elements are yet retained in Protestantism. Mr.
Middleton's suggestion that men were debarred
from the use of holy water as a punishment is
sustained by the following from ^Eschines. In his
speech against Ctesiphon he said :
" Now the said law-giver (Solon) excludes as well the
fearful, and him that refuses to serve in war, as him that
deserts his rank in battle, from the privilege of holy lustra
tion, and from the assembly of the people." 1
The magical virtues which Christians came to
ascribe to holy water are essentially identical with
those which the pagans attributed to it. Mr. Sey-
more, whom we have already quoted, gives a cata
logue of the uses and virtues of holy water, which
he found in the chapel of St. Carlo Borromeo at
Rome. Similar virtues are still attributed to
it by modern Catholics.2 The catalogue is as
follows :
" Holy water possesses much usefulness when Christians
sprinkle themselves with it with due reverence and devo
tion. The Holy Church proposes it as a remedy and
1 Orations, etc., p. 115. Oxford, 1755.
8 See The Church Progress and Catholic World, St. Louis, Mo., July 5,
1890.

PAGAN WATER- WORSHIP. 1 45
assistant in many circumstances, both spiritual and cor
poreal, but especially in these following :
" Its spiritual usefulness.
"1. It drives away devils from places and persons.
" 2. It affords great assistance against fears and diaboli
cal illusions.
" 3. It cancels venial sins.
" 4. It imparts strength to resist temptation and occa
sions to sin.
"5. It drives away wicked thoughts.
" 6. It preserves safely from the passing snares of the
devil, both internally and externally.
" 7. It obtains the favor and presence of the Holy Ghost
by which the soul is consoled, rejoiced, excited to devo
tion, and disposed to prayer.
" 8. It prepares the human mind for a better attendance
on the divine mysteries, and receiving piously and worthily
the most holy sacrament.
" Its corporeal usefulness.
"1. It is a remedy against barrenness, both in woman
and in beast.
" 2. It is a preservation from sickness.
"3. It heals the infirmities both of the mind and of the
body. " 4. It purifies infected air, and drives away plague and
contagion. " Such is this document. It is the only authorized one
I have seen respecting holy water ; and this extraordinary
statement stands as publicly in the church as do the ten
commandments in a church in England. It is affixed
separately over each of the vessels containing the Holy
Water ; and as every member of the congregation must

I46 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
have sprinkled himself with the water as he entered the
church, so he may have seen and read these, its uses." '
Holy water was also used to sprinkle animals.
This custom continues in the Roman Church. The
counterpart is found in several pagan customs
which are described by Ovid in Fasti, as already
quoted, and further as shown in book i., line 669.
Speaking of animals, Mr. Seymore says :
" It was supposed to guard them [horses] against evil
genii as they ran the race ; and a legend is told of the
horses of some Christians having outstripped all the horses
of the heathen, owing to their being sprinkled with holy
water. Such a legend serves as a sanction of primitive
Christianity to horse-races, quite as well as to the use of
holy water. The pagan custom soon became a papal cus
tom, and falling in with the humor of the people, and the
patronage of St. Anthony, who is usually pictured accom
panied by a pig, and being conducive to the pecuniary
interests of the convent of St. Anthony, the custom was
continued under a new name, and ' St. Anthony's day '
and the ' blessing of the horses ' are thus identified." *
Roman Catholics Defend this Use.
Dr. Wiseman, who stands high as a Roman
Catholic authority, in his third letter, in reply to
Poynder's Pagano-Papismus defends the use of
holy water :
1 Pilgrimage, etc., p. 527. » Ibid. p. 535.

PAGAN WATER-WORSHIP. I47
" But did not the ancient Christians use holy water ? In
deed they did, and that in a manner to shame us. They did
not sprinkle themselves with it, to be sure, or help them
selves from a vessel at the door, as you express it ; they
did more than either, they bathed in it. Read Pacciandi,
De Sacris Christianorum Balneis, Rome, 1758, and you will
find much to instruct you on this subject. You will see
how the ancient Christians used to bathe themselves
before going to church after the commission of any sin.
' Why do you run to the bath after sin ? ' asks St. John
Chrysostom. ' Is it not because you consider yourselves
dirtier than any filth ? ' And Theophylactus writes in a
similar strain. An ancient Christian bath was discovered
by Ciampini among the ruins of Rome. But what is more
to our purpose, the ancient Christians never went to
receive the Eucharist, or even to pray in their churches,
without washing their hands. ' What propriety is there,'
says Tertullian, 'to go to prayer with washed. hands and
yet with an unclean spirit ? ' St. Chrysostom is still
stronger : ' Thou darest not touch the sacred victim with
unwashed hands, although pressed by extreme necessity ;
approach not, therefore, with an unwashed soul.' To sup
ply the necessary convenience for this rite, a fountain or
, basin was provided at the church porch at which the faith
ful washed, as St. Paulinusof Nola several times described
in the churches which he built. ... St. Leo the
Great built one at the gate of St. Paul's Church which
was celebrated by Ennodius of Pavia in eight verses. . . .
The same was the practice of the Greek Church ; for Eu
sebius tells us with commendation how Paulinus, Bishop
of Tyre, placed in the porch of a splendid church which he
built, the symbols of sacred purification, that is, fountains

148 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
which gave, by their abundant supply, means of washing
themselves to those who entered the temple.1
" In fact, we have several of the old lustral vases with
early Christian symbols and inscriptions, belonging to both
the churches, as a celebrated Latin one at Pesaro, and a
Greek one at Venice, drawings of both of which you will
find in Pacciandi's work with an ample description."
Preparing Holy Water.
The corrupting presence of paganism is shown
in the preparation of water for purification and for
baptism quite as much as in its use. The follow
ing description is from Foy, Romish Rites, as
quoted by Brock :
" It appears that there are three kinds of holy water,
two of which are used for the consecration of churches.
Of these two, the first is considered to be inferior, since
nothing but salt is used in its preparation — ' salt exorcised
for the salvation of those that believe.' It serves for
sprinkling the building. The other is made up by a mix
ture of salt, ashes, and wine — all blessed, of course. This
appears to be the holier of the two, and is used for the con
secration of the altar. The third class of holy water, that
which is referred to above as being consecrated on ' Holy
1 Eusebius, Ecc. Hist., vi., x.
This reference to Eusebius should be book x., chap, iv., p. 375 of
vol. i. Christian Literature Company's publications, second series. The
description given by Eusebius shows that holy water played an important
part in the Christian Church at Tyre, as early as 315 a.d. See also Bing
ham, Antiquities, book viii., chap. iii. The church buildings described by
Eusebius and Bingham contained many prominent elements of sun-worship,
associated with the water-worship emblems.

PAGAN WATER-WORSHIP. 1 49
Saturday,' is used for baptisms during the following year ;
and also, as I gather, for sprinkling generally. In its
preparation — -amid many exorcisms of devils and evil
spirits, and forms of prayer — the following ceremonies
are observed : The priest divides the water in the font
with his hand, in the shape of a cross. In exorcising the
water he touches it with his hand. In blessing it, he
thrice makes over it the sign of the cross. In dividing
it, he pours it toward the four quarters of heaven. He
breathes thrice into it in the form of a cross. He lets
down the great Paschal candle a little into it, and says :
' The might of the Holy Ghost descend into this fountain
— plentitude.' In hanc plentitudinem fontis.
" Then he takes the candle from the water and again
merges it more deeply, saying the same words as before,
but in a higher tone. The third time he plunges it to the
bottom, again repeating the formula with a still louder
voice. Then blowing — sufflans — thrice into the water in
the form of the Greek letter Psi, he says : ' Impregnate
with regenerating efficacy the whole substance of this
water ' ; and so takes the candle out of the font. Besides
these doings, various oils are "poured into the water and
mixed with the hand ; and still more strange, spittle is
mingled with it, as I have once seen with my own eyes in
the grand baptistery at St. John Lateran in Rome.
" ' The might of the Holy Ghost descend into this fountain
—plentitude, and impregnate with regenerating efficacy the
whole substance of this water? Such is the spell. Exor
cisms first chase all evil spirits from the water, then incan
tations and charms — dividings, oils, crossings, breathings,
candle plungings, and other things — cause the might of
the Holy Ghost to descend and impregnate the water

150 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
with regenerating efficacy. It is no longer ordinary
water, such as that wherein the eunuch or Cornelius and
his friends were baptized ; but, by the power of charms,
it has become an ecclesiastical compound, and those to
whom it is administered are made new creatures and re
generate, not — so far as I understand — because they are
brought by faith to Christ, but through the mere applica
tion of the fluid impregnated with virtue by an ecclesiasti
cal process. And the only man who can make and apply
this 'Elixir of Life,' — of eternal life, — is the priest." '
Sun-Worship and Water-Worship.
We have already shown that the sun-worship
cultus and water-worship were united from the
beginning. This union was made anterior to
Grecian or Roman times, and much of the sacred-
ness of water arose from it. Hislop describes this
connection in the sanctifying of water, as follows :
" In Egypt, as we have seen, Osiris, as identified with
Noah, was represented when overcome by his grand
enemy, Typhon, or the ' Evil One,' as passing through
the waters. The poets represented Semiramis as sharing
in his distress, and likewise seeking safety in the same
way. We have seen already that under the name of
Astarte she was said to have come forth from the won
drous egg that was found floating on the waters of the
Euphrates. Now, Manilius tells, in his Astronomical
Poetics, what induced her to take refuge in these waters.
1 Rome, Pagan and Papal, by Mourant Brock, M.A., p. 107 ff. London,
1883.

PAGAN WATER-WORSHIP. 151
'Venus plunged into the Babylonian waters,' says he,
'to shun the fury of the snake-footed Typhon.' When
Venus Urania, or Dione, the ' Heavenly Dove,' plunged
in deep distress into these waters of Babylon, be it
observed what, according to the Chaldean doctrine, this
amounted to. It was neither more nor less than saying
that the Holy Ghost incarnate, in deep tribulation,
entered these waters, and that on purpose that these
might be fit, not only by the temporary abode of the
Messiah in the midst of them, but by the spirit's efficacy
thus imparted to them, for giving new life and regenera
tion, by baptism, to the worshippers of the Chaldean Ma
donna. We have evidence that the purifying virtue of
the waters, which, in pagan esteem, had such efficacy in
cleansing from guilt and regenerating the soul, was derived
in part from the passing of the mediatorial god, the sun-
god, and god of fire, through these waters during his
humiliation and sojourn in the midst of them ; and that
the Papacy at this day retains the very custom which had
sprung up from that persuasion. So far as heathenism
is concerned, the following extracts from Potter and
Athenseus speak distinctly enough : ' Every person,' says
the former, ' who came to the solemn sacrifices [of the
Greeks] was purified by water. To which end, at the en
trance of the temples, there was commonly placed a vessel
full of holy water.' How did this water get its holiness?
This water 'was consecrated,' says Athenaeus, 'by putting
into it a Burning Torch taken from the Altar.' The burning
torch was the express symbol of the god of fire ; and by
the light of this torch, so indispensable for consecrating
the 'holy water,' we may easily see whence came one
great part of the purifying virtue of 'the water of the

152 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
loud resounding sea,' which was held to be so efficacious
in purging away the guilt and stain of sin, — even from the
sun-god having taken refuge in its waters. Now this
very same method is used in the Romish Church for con
secrating the water for baptism. The unsuspicious testi
mony of Bishop Hay leaves no doubt on this point.
' It,' [the water kept in the baptismal font] says he, ' is
blessed on the eve of Pentecost, because it is the Holy
Ghost who gives to the waters of baptism the power and
efficacy of sanctifying our souls, and because the baptism
of Christ is with the Holy Ghost and with fire.' * In
blessing the waters a Lighted Torch is put into the font.
" Here, then, it is manifest that the baptismal regenera
ting water of Rome is consecrated just as the regenerating
and purifying water of the pagans was. Of what avail is
it for Bishop Hay to say, with a view of sanctifying
superstition and ' making apostasy plausible,' that this is
done ' to represent the fire of divine love, which is com
municated to the soul by baptism and the light of good
example, which all who are baptized ought to give.'
This is the fair face put on the matter; but the fact
still remains that while the Romish doctrine in regard to
baptism is purely pagan, in the ceremonies connected with
the papal baptism one of the essential rites of the ancient
fire-worship is still practised at this day, just as it was
practised by the worshippers of Bacchus, the Babylonian
Messiah. As Rome keeps up the remembrance of the
fire-god passing through the waters and giving virtue to
them, so when it speaks of the ' Holy Ghost suffering for
us in baptism,' it in like manner commemorates the part
which paganism assigned to the Babylonian goddess when
1 Matt, iii., n.

PAGAN WATER- WORSHIP. 1 53
she plunged into the waters. The sorrows of Nimrod, or
Bacchus, when in the waters, were meritorious sorrows.
The sorrows of his wife, in whom the Holy Ghost miracu
lously dwelt, were the same. The sorrows of the Ma
donna, then, when in these waters, fleeing from Typhon's
rage, were the birth-throes by which children were born to
God. And thus, even in the Far West, Chalchivitlycue,
the Mexican 'goddess of the waters' and 'mother' of
all the regenerate, was represented as purging the new
born infant from original sin, and ' bringing it anew into
the world.' " * Summary.
1. The worship of water as a divine element or
agent, and hence its use as a protection against
evil, and, in baptism, as a means of producing
spiritual purity, forms a prominent feature of pagan
religions. 2. Pagan water-worship was associated with the
higher forms of sun-worship in various ways, and
notably with that lower phase, Phallicism, with the
obscene rites of which it is yet closely connected
in India. In Mexico the cross was the special
symbol of the water-worship cult.
3. In pagan water-worship the sacred fluid was
applied in many ways — by immersion, by bathing,
by sprinkling ; in the latter use, the water was
sprinkled upon the candidate from a sacred sprink-
1 The Two Baby Ions, by Rev. Alexander Hislop, p. 142 ft"., seventh
edition, London.

154 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
ling-brush, or from a bough of some sacred tree ;
it was sometimes poured upon the candidate from
a cup made from the bark of a sacred tree ; trine
immersion appears in some instances. Inspiration
was sought from sacred water, by drinking, by
bathing, by sitting over it, and by inhaling its
vapors. 4. Water for religious purposes was taken from
sacred streams, fountains, and wells ; or it was
made holy by exorcisms and by the use of salt ; it
was carried to remote points and preserved for a
long time. The ancient Druids caught rain-water
in receptacles on the hill-tops and carried it to their
altars through necessary aqueducts.
5. The fundamental errors of the pagan water-
worship cult appeared in Western Christianity as
early as the middle of the second century ; this
resulted in the baptism of the sick, baptism of
infants, baptism for the dead, the delaying of bap
tism until the approach of death in order to make
the most of both worlds, and the doctrine of pen
ance to atone for sins committed after baptism ; all
these followed as a legitimate result.
6. As baptism was the door to Church member
ship, the Church was soon filled with "baptized
pagans," who were Christians in name only ; by
this means New Testament Christianity was rapidly
perverted.

PAGAN WATER- WORSHIP. I 55
7. Whoever will seek the ultimate facts must
confess that the Christianity of the third and the
succeeding centuries was far removed from the New
Testament standard. Protestants are returning to
that standard all too slowly and unwillingly. Many
are drifting farther away.
It is scarcely necessary to add that every form
of baptism except submersion was borrowed from
paganism ; that faith in baptism as producing spirit
ual purity, and hence as a " saving ordinance," was
borrowed from paganism : the notion that only the
baptized can be saved was borrowed from pagan
ism ; the use of oil, of spittle, of the sign of the
cross, of lights, of white robes, is a remnant of
paganism ; baptising for the dead, and delaying
baptism until near death, are a part of the pagan
residuum ; faith in water from the Jordan or else
where is paganism. The naming of children at
baptism was a direct importation from paganism.
In so far as any of these false elements are yet
retained by Roman Catholics, Greeks, or Protes
tants, thus far does paganism dominate Christian
thought and practice.

CHAPTER VII.
PAGAN SUN-WORSHIP.
Sun- Worship the Oldest and Most Widely Diffused Form of Paganism —
Gnostic Antinomianism or Lawlessness — Anti-Judaism, Mainly of Pa
gan Origin — Anti-Sabbathism and Sunday Observance Synchronous —
Anti-Lawism and Anti-Sabbathism Unscriptural — Christ's Teachings
Concerning the Law of God ; Paul's Teachings on the Same — Destruc
tive Effect of Pagan Lawlessness on Christianity.
THE sun-god, under various names, Mithras,
Baal, Apollo, etc., was the chief god of the
heathen pantheon. A direct conflict between
him and Jehovah appears wherever paganism and
revealed religion came in contact. As " Baal,"
"Lord" of the universe and of the productive
forces in nature and in man, this sun-god was the
pre-eminent divinity in ancient Palestine and
throughout Phoenicia. The chosen people of God
were assailed and corrupted by this cult, even while
they were in the desert,1 being led away by the
women of Moab. During the period of the Judges,
Baal-worship was the besetting sin of Israel, which
the most vigorous measures could not eradicate.2
1 Numbers xxv.
2 Judges ii., 13 ; iii., 7 ; vi., 25 ff.; x., 6 ; 1 Sam. vii., 4 ; xii. 10.
156

PAGAN SUN-WORSHIP. 1 57
A reformation came under Saul and David, only
to be followed by a relapse under Solomon, which
culminated in the exclusion of Jehovah- worship
under Ahab.1 Jehu broke the power of the cult,
for a time, but the people soon returned to it.2 It
also spread like a virus through Judah ; repressed
by Hezekiah, but continued by Manasseh.8
This worship of the sun-god was a sign of dis
loyalty to Jehovah, and formed the certain road to
wickedness and impurity.4
In its lowest forms it was so closely allied to
sex-worship, Phallicism, that it lent great power to
that debasing licentiousness, which sanctified lust,
and made prostitution of virtue a religious duty.
Sun-worship was both powerful and popular in the
Roman Empire when Christianity came into con
tact with Western thought. It furnished abundant
material for the corrupting process. We have seen
in a former chapter that several minor elements of
sun-worship mingled with pagan water-worship :
such as turning to the west to renounce evil, and
turning to the east to promise allegiance to Christ
and Light, before baptism ; "Orientation" — building
1 1 Kings xvi., 31 ff., and xix., 10.
2 2 Kings x., 18-28, and xvii., 16.
3 2 Kings xviii. , 4, and xxi. , 3.
4 When Joshua, the servant of Jehovah, commanded the sun to stand
still, there was given an ocular demonstration of the power of the God who
made the heavens and the earth, over the sun-god, in whom the pagan ene
mies of Israel trusted.

158 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
churches with the altar so that men should worship
toward the east — was another element, while the
extinguishing of a torch or a candle in the font,
in the preparation of holy water, was a direct im
portation from this cult. But these were of little
account in extent or influence, when compared with
the corruption which came through the introduc
tion of Baal's and Apollo's day, " Sunday," in place
of the Sabbath, which had always represented, and
yet represents, Jehovah, maker of heaven and
earth. The introduction of Sunday into Chris
tianity was a continuation of the old-time conflict
between Baal and Jehovah.
The definite and systematic manner in which the
corrupting process was carried forward .is clearly
seen by the preparatory steps which opened the
way for paganism to thrust the sun's day upon
Christianity. We have seen how the foundation
of God's authority was undermined by the gnostic
opposition to the Old Testament, and by the alle
gorizing of both Old and New ; how a false " bap
tismal-regeneration " theory filled the church with
baptized but unconverted heathens. These were
not enough to complete the corrupting process.
While men still had regard for the Sabbath, they
could not entirely give up the law of Jehovah on
which it was based, and thus the fundamental doc
trines of paganism were still held in check.

PAGAN SUN-WORSHIP.

159

The Simultaneous Development of Anti-Sabbat hzsm
and of Sunday Observance.
Gnosticism was antinomian from the core. All
knowledge, and hence all authority, was in the
heart of the "true Gnostic." The "initiated"
were divinely enlightened, were a law unto them
selves. This was doubly true when they came into
contact with a law promulgated by the " inferior
God of the Jews," the weak Creator of matter, and
hence a God in league with evil. Such opposition
was natural, was unavoidable, from the gnostic
standpoint. Coupled with the allegorical method
of interpretation, it was an easy task for this oppo
sition to create a violent anti-Jewish prejudice, and
a combined no-lawism, and no-Sabbathism, which
became the main factor in sundering the Jewish
and Gentile churches, and introducing the reign
of "lawlessness," of which Paul wrote in the second
chapter of Thessalonians. This anti-lawism and
anti-Sabbathism appear in Justin, the first pagano-
Christian writer of whom we have sufficient definite
knowledge to gain a picture of the incipient results
of pagaji influence on Christianity. He accepted
Christianity after reaching mature life, but retained
his "philosopher's cloak" as he did many of his
pagan ideas. His theories are a compound of
pagan philosophy and Christianity. He was furi
ously opposed to all that savored of Judaism. His

l6o PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
interpretations of Scripture and his religious opin
ions are all strongly colored by this anti-Jewish
spirit. His Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, wheth
er Trypho were a real or an imaginary character,
is the special exponent of anti-Judaism. The fol
lowing examples show how he confounded the
moral laws and the ceremonial code of the Jews,
and set forth baneful no-lawism and no-Sabbathism,
which grew in virulence and destroyed the author
ity of the Old Testament wherever his influence
was felt. His special anti-Jewish treatise is en
titled, Dialogue of Justin, Philosopher and Martyr,
with Trypho, a Jew. It opens as follows :
" While I was going about one morning in the walks of
the Xystus, a certain man, with others in his company, hav
ing met me said, ' Hail, O Philosopher ! ' And immediately
after saying this, he turned round and walked along with
me ; his friends likewise followed him. And I, in turn
having addressed him, said, ' What is there important ? '
" And he replied : ' I was instructed,' says he, ' by Co-
rinthus, the Socratic in Argos, that I ought not to despise
or treat with indifference those who array themselves in
this dress, but to show them all kindness, and to associ
ate with them, as perhaps some advantage would spring
from the intercourse either to some such man or to my
self. It is good, moreover, for both, if either the one or
the other be benefited.'
" On this account, therefore, whenever I see any one in
such costume, I gladly approach him, and now, for the

PAGAN SUN-WORSHIP. l6l
same reason, have I willingly accosted you ; and these
accompany me, in the expectation of hearing for them
selves something profitable from you."
This opening shows Justin in his true char
acter, as a philosopher who has united certain ele
ments of Christianity (see Dialogue, ch. viii.) with
his pagan theories, and is now to defend this prod
uct as Christianity. In chapter x., Trypho states
his case against Christians in the following words :
" Moreover I am aware that your precepts in the
so-called Gospel are so wonderful and so great, that I
suspect no one can keep them ; for I have carefully read
them. But this is what we are most at a loss about ; that you,
professing to be pious, and supposing yourselves better
than others, are not in any particular separated from them,
and do not alter your mode of living from the nations, in
that you observe no festivals or Sabbaths, and do not
have the rite of circumcision ; and further, resting your
hopes on a man that was crucified, you yet expect to
obtain some good thing from God, while you do not obey
His commandments. Have you not read, that that soul
shall be cut off from his people who shall not have been
circumcised on the eighth day ? And this has been
ordained for strangers and for slaves equally. But
you, despising this covenant rashly, reject the consequent
duties, and attempt to persuade yourselves that you know
God, when, however, you perform none of those things
which they do who fear God. If, therefore, you can de
fend yourself on these points, and make it manifest in
what way you hope for any thing whatsoever, even though

l62 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
you do not observe the law, this we would very gladly
hear from you, and we shall make other similar investi
gations."1 Justin answers Trypho in the next chapter,
(chapter xi), which is entitled : " The Law Abro
gated ; The New Testament Promised and Given
of God."
Note the following from this, and subsequent
chapters :
" For the law promulgated on Horeb is now old, and
belongs to yourselves alone ; but this is for all universally.
Now law placed against law has abrogated that which is
before it, and a covenant which comes after in like man
ner has put an end to the previous one ; and an eternal
and final law — namely Christ — has been given to us, and
the covenant is trustworthy, after which there shall be no
law, no commandment, no ordinance." 2
" You have now need of a second circumcision, though
you glory greatly in the flesh. The new law requires you
to keep perpetual Sabbath, and you, because you are idle
for one day, suppose you are pious, not discerning why
this has been commanded you ; and if you eat unleavened
bread, you say the will of God has been fulfilled. The
Lord our God does not take pleasure in such observances ;
if there is any perjured person, or a thief among you, let
him cease to be so ; if any adulterer, let him repent ; then
he has kept the sweet and true Sabbaths of God. If any
one has impure hands, let him wash and be pure.3
1 Dialogue with Trypho, chap. a.
2 Ibid., chap. xi. 'Ibid., chap. xii.

PAGAN SUN-WORSHIP. 163
" For we too would observe the fleshly circumcision,
and the Sabbaths, and in short all the feasts, if we did
not know for what reason they were enjoined you —
namely on account of your transgressions and the hard
ness of your hearts. For if we patiently endure all things
contrived against us by wicked men and demons, so that
even amid cruelties unutterable, death and torments, we
pray for mercy to those who inflict such things upon us,
and do not wish to give the least retort to any one even as
the new Lawgiver commanded us ; how is it, Trypho, that
we would not observe those rites which do not harm us — I
speak of fleshly circumcision, and Sabbaths and feasts ? " '
In many different forms Justin Martyr repeats
his theory, that the ten commandments and the
ceremonial economy of the Jews were abrogated,
and that there is no written law regulating con
duct on the part of the Christians.
Tertullian also taught the temporary character
of the Decalogue, and no-lawism, as the following
shows :
" Whence we understand that God's law was anterior
even to Moses, and was net first [given] in Horeb, or in
Sinai, and in the desert, but was more ancient ; [existing]
first in paradise, subsequently reformed for the patriarchs,
and so again for the Jews, at definite periods ; so that we
are not to give heed to Moses' law as to the primitive law,
but as to a subsequent, which at a definite period, God
has set forth to the Gentiles too, and, after repeatedly
promising so to do, through the prophets, has re-formed
1 Dialogue, etc., chap, xviii.

164 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
for the better ; and has premonished [men] that it should
come to pass that, ' just as the law was given through
Moses,' at a definite time, so it should be believed to have
been temporarily observed and kept. And let us not
annul this power which God has, which reforms the law's
precepts answerably to the circumstances of the times,
with a view to man's salvation. In fine, let him who con
tends that the Sabbath is still to be observed as a balm
of salvation, and circumcision on the eighth day because
of the threat of death, teach us that, for the time past,
righteous men kept the Sabbath, or practised circum
cision, and were thus rendered ' friends of God.' For if
circumcision purges a man, since God made Adam uncir-
cumcised, why did he not circumcise him, even after his
sinning, if circumcision purges ? At all events, in settling
him in paradise, He appointed one uncircumcised as colo
nist of paradise. Therefore since God originated Adam
uncircumcised, and inobservant of the Sabbath, conse
quently his offspring also, Abel, offering Him sacrifices,
uncircumcised and inobservant of the Sabbath, was by
Him commended ; while He accepted what he was offer
ing in simplicity of heart, and reprobated the sacrifice of
his brother Cain, who was not rightly dividing what he
was offering. Noah, also, uncircumcised, — yes, and inob
servant of the Sabbath — God freed from the deluge. For
Enoch, too, most righteous man, uncircumcised and
inobservant of the Sabbath, He translated from this
world ; [Enoch] who did not first taste death, in order
that, being a candidate for eternal life, he might by this
time show us that we also may, without the Burden of the
law of Moses, please God. Melchizedek, also, ' the priest
of the most high God,' uncircumcised and inobservant

PAGAN SUN-WORSHIP. 165
of the Sabbath, was chosen to the priesthood of God.
Lot, withal, the brother of Abraham, proves that it was
for the merits of righteousness, without observance of
the law, that he was freed from the conflagration of the
Sodomites. . . .
" Therefore, since it is manifest that a Sabbath temporal
was shown, and a Sabbath eternal foretold, and a circum
cision carnal foretold, and a circumcision spiritual pre-
indicated; a law temporal and a law eternal formally
declared ; sacrifices carnal and sacrifices spiritual fore
shown ; it follows that, after all these precepts had been
given carnally, in time preceding, to the people of Israel,
there was to supervene a time whereat the precepts of
the ancient law, and of the old ceremonies would cease,
and the promise of the new law, and the recognition
of spiritual sacrifices, and the promise of the New Tes
tament, supervene ; while the light from on high would
beam upon us who were sitting in darkness, and were
being detained in the shadow of death. And so there
is incumbent on us a necessity, binding us, since we have
premised that a new law was predicted by the proph
ets, and that not such as had been already given to
their fathers, at the time when He led them forth from
the land of Egypt, to show and prove, on the one hand,
that that old law has ceased, and on the other, that the
promised new law is now in operation." '
These examples must suffice, since all who are
familiar with Patristic literature know that its
general trend, and its openly avowed opposition to
Judaism and all things connected with the Old
1 Against the Jews, chapters ii. and vi.

l66 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
Testament and the Decalogue, place it beyond
controversy, that the prevailing type of Christian
ity during the third, fourth, and succeeding centu
ries, was anti-Sabbatic, and antinomian. There
were practical exceptions among the more common
people, but the prevailing thought, and hence the
strong tendency, was away from the Sabbath, and
from Sabbathism. He who questions this shows
himself ignorant in the premises. This growing
disregard for the authority of the Sabbath law, and
the steady development of anti-Sabbathism, pre
pared the way for a vast system of semi-religious
pagan days, with the Sun's day at their head.
Antinomianism and Anti-Sabbathism Unscriptural.
Before we inquire how Sunday was introduced,
it will be well to consider the unscriptural and de
structive nature of the theories by which the Dec
alogue and the Sabbath were dethroned, through
false teachings.
Christ is the central figure in both dispensations,
If new expressions of the Father's will are to be
made in connection with the work of Christ on
¦earth, they must be made by the " Immanuel," who
is thus "reconciling the world unto himself." Did
Christ teach the abrogation of the Decalogue, of
which the Sabbath law is a part? Let His own
words answer :

PAGAN SUN-WORSHIP. 1 67
" Think not that I came to destroy the law or the
prophets. I came not to destroy, but to fulfil. For
verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass away,
one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from
the law, till all things be accomplished. Whosoever,
therefore, shall break one of these least commandments,
and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the
kingdom of heaven ; but whosoever shall do and teach
them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." '
When Christ speaks of the law (rov vojxov) in
these emphatic words, He cannot mean the ceremo
nial code, for these ceremonies were typical of Him
and must pass away with His death. Besides this,
the word fulfil (nXr/pSffai) means the opposite of
destruction (xaraXvaai). Christ fulfilled the law by
perfect obedience to it. He corrected false inter
pretations, and intensified its claims. He taught
obedience to it in the spirit as well as the letter,
and urged obedience from love rather than fear.
Such a work could not have been done in connec
tion with the dying ceremonies of the Jewish sys
tem. Such a work Christ did do with reference to
the Decalogue. In connection with the passage
above quoted Christ immediately refers to two
laws from the Decalogue, explains and enforces
their meaning in a way far more broad and deep
than those who listened to Him were wont to con
ceive of them.
1 Matthew v., 17-19.

l68 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
On another occasion1 a certain shrewd lawyer
sought to entrap the Saviour by asking "which is
the greatest commandment in the law." The ques
tion has no meaning unless it be applied to the
Decalogue. Christ's answer includes all the com
mandments of the Decalogue, and thus avoids the
trap designed by the questioner, who sought to
lead Him into some distinction between laws known
to be equal in their nature and extent.
In the sixteenth chapter of Luke,2 Christ again
affirms in the strongest language, that " It is easier
for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the
law to fail." Language could not be plainer than
that which is used in these statements.
These sentiments accord fully with the practice
of Christ relative to the Sabbath. He boldly con
demned the unjust requirements which the Jews
had attached to the observance of it, and taught
that works of mercy were to be freely done on that
day ; that it was made for man's good, and not his
injury. But He never taught that because it was
" made for man " therefore it was to be abrogated,
or unsanctified. Neither did He delegate to His
disciples any power to teach the abrogation of the
law, or of the Sabbath. On the contrary, their
representative writings contain the same clear testi
mony in favor of the perpetuity of the law, and
1 Matthew xxii., 35-40. » 17th verse

PAGAN SUN-WORSHIP. 1 69
show the same practical observance of the Sabbath.
Paul, the great reasoner among the Apostles, after
an exhaustive discussion concerning the relations
between the law and the Gospel, concludes the
whole matter in these words :
" Do we then make the law of none effect through
faith ? God forbid ! Nay, we establish the law." "
Again in the same epistle2 he presents a conclu
sive argument, starting from the axiom that " where
there is no law there is no sin." Showing that
since death, which came by sin, reigned from Adam
to Moses, therefore the law then existed, and, by
the same reasoning that if there be no law under
the Gospel dispensation, there can be no sin ; if no
sin, then no Saviour from sin, and Christ died in
vain, if by His death he destroyed the law. In
another place Paul contrasts the Decalogue with
the ceremonial code, and declares the worthlessness
of the one and the binding character of the other,
in these words :
" Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is noth
ing, but the keeping of the commandments of God." 3
Thus, in a plain and unequivocal way, Paul
teaches as his Master taught.
'Romans iii., 31.
2 Romans v., 13, 14.
3 The example of Christ and His Apostles concerning Sabbath observance
is discussed in detail in Biblical Teachings, etc., by the writer, pp. 26—44.

170 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
In view of Christ's words, and Paul's sharp logic,
the following conclusions are unavoidable. They
annihilate the no-law theory.
i. If the Decalogue was abolished by the death
of Christ, then Christ by His death prevented the
possibility of sin, to redeem man from which He
died. 2. "Sin is not imputed where there is no law,"1
hence the consciousness of sin which men feel under
the claims of the Gospel is a mockery, and all faith
in Christ is a farce. It only increases the diffi
culty to say that the law is written in the hearts
of believers. If that be true, then :
3. None but believers in Christ can be convicted
of sin, for no others can know the law which con
victs of sin. Therefore those who reject Christ be
come, at least negatively, righteous by refusing to
come where they can be convicted of sin. Thus does
the no-Sabbath theory make infidelity better than
belief, and rejection of Christ the only means of salva-
, tion. It leads to endless absurdities, and the over
throw of all moral government. It contradicts the
plain words of God, and puts darkness for light.
Its fruitage in human life has been only bitterness
and ashes. 1 Romans v., 13.

CHAPTER VIII.
SUNDAY OBSERVANCE UNKNOWN TO CHRISTIANITY
BEFORE THE MIDDLE OF THE SECOND CENTURY.
Mistaken Notions Concerning the Beginning of Sunday Observance — No
Sunday Observance in the New Testament — Sunday Directly Referred
to but Three Times — It is Never Spoken of as a Sabbath, nor as Com
memorative of Christ's Resurrection — The Bible does not State that
Christ Rose on Sunday — Christ and His Disciples Always Observed
the Sabbath — The "Change of the Sabbath" Unknown in the New
Testament — The Sabbath Never Called "Jewish" in the Scriptures,
nor by Any Writer until after Paganism had Invaded the Church —
Origin of Sunday Observance Found in Paganism — First Reference to
Sunday Observance about 150 A.D. — No Writer of the Early Centuries
Claimed Scriptural Reasons for Its Observance — Pagan Reasons and
Arguments Adduced in Its Support ; a Day of " Indulgence to the.
Flesh" — Pretended Scriptural Reasons, ex post facto.
THERE are few if any questions concerning
which popular notions and ultimate facts
are more at variance than the question of the early
observance of Sunday. It is not uncommon for
men to assert that " Sunday has been observed as
the Christian Sabbath ever since the resurrection
of Christ " ; while the fact is, that the first authen
tic and definite statement concerning Sunday ob
servance was made by Justin Martyr as late as 150
a.d. Even if we accept the passage quoted from
171

I72 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
the Didache, the portion of that document in which
the reference occurs cannot be placed earlier than
1 50, and it is probably much later. Since the facts
as they appear in the New Testament can be easily
obtained, I shall take only space enough to state
them briefly.
" The first day of the week," Sunday, is defi
nitely referred to but three times in the New Tes
tament. Each of the Evangelists speaks of the
day on which Christ's resurrection was made known
to His disciples. These references are all to the
same day.1 The book of Acts has but one refer
ence to Sunday2; and there is but one in all the
Epistles.3 Three other passages are quoted in
favor of Sunday observance.4
It is so easy for the reader to examine these pas
sages, and to compare them with popular notions
and with what is said here, that I shall be content
with the following summary of facts touching Sun
day observance in the New Testament :
Six passages are quoted in favor of such observ
ance. Only three of these passages mention the
first day of the week in any manner. Neither of
them speaks of it as sabbatic, or as commemorative
of any event, or sacred, or to be regarded above
1 Matt, xxviii., 1-8 ; Mark xvi., 2 ; Luke xxiv., 1-3 ; John xx., 1.
2 Acts xx., 7.
3 1. Cor. xvi., 2.
4 John xix., 23 and 26, and Rev. i., 10.

SUNDAY OBSERVANCE. 1 73
other days, and it is only by vague and illogical
inferences that either of them is made to produce a
shadow of proof for such a change. Concerning the
other three, it is only supposed by the advocates of
the popular theory, that they in some way refer to
the first day. To this, therefore, does the "argu
ment from example" come, when carefully ex
amined. The New Testament never speaks of, or
hints at, a change of the Sabbath ; it contains no
notice of any commemorative or sabbatic observ
ance of Sunday. It does tell of the repeated and
continued observance of the Sabbath by Christ and
His Apostles. Will the reader please examine the
Bible to see whether these things are so. Sunday
is a myth, as far as the Bible is concerned, and the
theory of a "change of the Sabbath by divine
authority," had its birth with English Puritanism
less than three hundred years ago.
Christ's Resurrection and Sunday.
Another popular notion is equally unsupported
by New Testament history. The Bible never
associates the observance of Sunday, or of any
other day, with the resurrection of Christ. The
Bible does not state that Christ rose from the
grave on Sunday. The most that can be said on
this point is, that when the friends of Christ first
came to the tomb it was empty. He had risen and

174 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
gone. Matthew xxviii., i, shows that the first visit
was made 'late on the Sabbath," i. e. on Saturday
afternoon before sunset, at which time the tomb
was empty.1
All references to Sunday are fully accounted for
on other considerations than that it was a sacred
or a commemorative day. New Testament argu
ments in favor of Sunday observance are all ex post
facto ; they were developed after the practice had
been initiated for other reasons.
The Sabbath in the New Testament.
The history of the Sabbath in the New Testa
ment is as much at variance with popular notions
as is the history of Sunday. The statement some
times made that " The Sabbath was never observed
after the resurrection of Christ," contains as much
error as can be put into that number of words.
Since the facts are in the hands of every reader of
the New Testament, only a general summary of
them is given here.
Collating the facts, and summing up the case as
regards the example of Christ and His Apostles, it
stands as follows :
i. During the life of Christ the Sabbath was
always observed by Him and by His followers.
1 For discussion of the time of Christ's resurrection, see Biblical Teach
ings, etc., by the writer.

SUNDAY OBSERVANCE. 1 75,
He corrected the errors and false notions which
were held concerning it, but gave no hint that it was
to be abrogated.
2. The book of Acts gives a connected history
of the recognition and observance of the -Sabbath
by the Apostles while they were organizing many
of the churches spoken of in the New Testament.
These references extend over a period of eight or
nine years, the last of them being at least twenty
years after the resurrection.
3. In all the history of the doings and teachings
of the Apostles, there is not the remotest reference
to the abrogation of the Sabbath.
Had there been any change made or beginning
to be made, or any authority for the abrogation of
the Sabbath law, the Apostles must have known it.
To claim that there was is therefore to charge them
with studiously concealing the truth. And also,
with recognizing and calling a day the Sabbath
which was not the Sabbath.
Add to these considerations the following facts :
(a) The latest books of the New Testament, in
cluding the Gospel of John, were written about the
year ninety-five or later. In none of these is there
any trace of the change of the Sabbath, nor is the
abrogation of the Sabbath law taught in them.
(b) The Sabbath is mentioned in the New Testa
ment sixty times, and always in its appropriate
character.

176 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
Thus the law and the gospel are in harmony, and
teach that " the seventh day is the Sabbath of the
Lord thy God."
But some will say, " Christ and His Apostles did
all this as Jews, simply." If this be true, then
Christ lived and taught simply as a Jew and not as
the Saviour of the world. On the contrary, He
was at war with the false and extravagant notions
of Judaism concerning questions of truth and duty.
If Christ were not a " Christian," but a " Jew,"
what becomes of the system which He taught ? If
His first followers, who perilled all for Him and
sealed their faith with their blood, were only Jews,
or worse, were dissemblers, doing that which
Christians ought not to do, for sake of policy,
where shall Christians be found ? The assump
tion dies of its own inconsistency. More than this,
New Testament history repeatedly states that the
Greeks were taught on the Sabbath the same as the
Jews ; and in those churches where the Greek ele
ment predominated there is no trace of any differ
ent teaching or custom on this point. The Jewish
Christians kept up their national institutions, for a
time, such as circumcision and the passover, while
all Christians accepted the Sabbath as a part of
the law of God. The popular outcry against the
Sabbath as "Jewish" is unscriptural. Christ was
in all respects, as regards nationality, a Jew. So

SUNDAY OBSERVANCE. 1 77
were all the writers of the Old Testament, and all
the writers of the New Testament. God has given
the world no word of inspiration in the Bible, from
Gentile pen, or Gentile lips. Is the Bible there
fore "Jewish"? The Sabbath, if possible, is less
Jewish than the Bible. It had its beginning long
before a Jew was born. It is God's day marked by
His own example, and sanctified by His blessing,
for the race of man, beginning when the race
began, and can end only when the race shall cease
to exist. Christ recognized it under the Gospel as
He recognized each of the other eternal laws with
which it is associated in the Decalogue ; recognized
them as the everlasting words of His Father, whose
law He came to magnify and fulfil. It is mani
festly unjust and unchristian to attempt to thrust
out and stigmatize any part of God's truth as
" Jewish," when all of God's promises and all Bible
truths have come to us through the Hebrew
nation.1 As we were compelled to go outside the Bible
to find the influences which undermined the Deca
logue and the Sabbath, so we must seek for the
origin of Sunday observance outside of that book.
1 The reader will find this question discussed in detail in " Biblical
Teachings Concerning the Sabbath and the Sunday" p. 26 ff. If that is not
at hand, take your Bible and Concordance, and examine each passage in the
New Testament where ' ' Sabbath " occurs. Cf. also Sabbath Commentary,
by Bailey.

178 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
We find the first mention of such observance, and
of reasons therefor, in the same author, Justin,
who we have seen was the first to formulate the
anti-law and anti-Sabbath doctrines which have
already been examined.1
This earliest reference to Sunday observance is
found in Justin's Apology as follows :
" On the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in
the Country, gather together to one place, and the me
moirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are
read as long as time permits ; then when the reader
has ceased, the president verbally instructs and exhorts
to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise
together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer
is ended, bread, and wine, and water are brought, and the
president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings,
according to his ability, and the people assent saying
Amen ; and there is a distribution to each, and a partici
pation of that over which thanks have been given, and to
those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons.
And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each
thinks fit ; and what is collected is deposited with the
president, who succours the orphans and widows, and
those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in
want, and those who are in bonds, and the strangers
sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who
are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold
1 For an examination of the writings, genuine and spurious, which are
adduced in favor of Sunday observance, before the time of Justin Martyr,
consult A Critical History of the Sabbath and Sunday in the Christian
Church, by the writer, pp. 33-69.

SUNDAY OBSERVANCE.

179

our common assembly, because it is the first day on which
God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter,
made the world ; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the
same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on
the day before that of Saturn (Saturday) ; and on the day
after that of Saturn which is the day of the Sun, having
appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them
these things, which we have submitted to you also for
your consideration." :
There is nothing scriptural in the reasons given
by Justin ; the first is purely fanciful, and is in
accord with the prevailing gnostic speculations of
those times. His statement that Christ was cruci
fied on Friday is the beginning of a popular error,
which has come down, not unchallenged, but largely
uninvestigated. Some writers claim that the last
clause intends to state that Christ taught His dis
ciples when He first appeared to them, what Justin
had written concerning the Sunday ; but one has
only to read Justin's words to see how entirely
unfounded such a claim is. At all events, there is
not a word in Scripture to support the reasons
adduced by Justin for Sunday observance.
It is important that the reader note carefully
what sort of Sunday observance Justin describes.
Laying aside all "suppositions," and "inferences,"
and ex-post-facto conclusions, we learn from him
1 Chap. Ixvii.

l8o PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
that at the middle of the second century a form of
religious service was held on Sunday. But it is
equally evident that there was no sabbatic regard
for the day. Sir William Domville summarizes
the case as follows :
" This inference appears irresistible when we further
consider that Justin, in this part of his Apology, is profess
edly intending to describe the mode in which Christians
observed the Sunday. . . . He evidently intends to
give all information requisite to an accurate knowledge of
the subject he treats upon. He is even so particular as
to tell the Emperor why the Sunday was observed ; and
he does, in fact, specify every active duty belonging to
the day, the Scripture reading, the exhortation, the pub
lic prayer, the Sacrament, and the alms-giving : why then
should he not also inform the Emperor of the one inactive
duty of the day, the duty of abstaining from doing in it
any manner of work ? The Emperor well knew that such
abstinence was the custom of all his Jewish subjects on
the Saturday (die Saturni), and could readily have under
stood it to be the custom of his Christian subjects on the
Sunday (die Solis, as Justin calls it in his Apology), and,
therefore, if such was the custom of Christians in Justin's
time, his description of their Sunday duties was essentially
defective. It is not, however, at all probable that he
would intend to omit noticing so important a character
istic of the day, as the Sabbatical observance of it, if it
was in fact Sabbatically observed. But even were it
probable he should intend to omit all mention of it in his
Apology to the Emperor, it would be impossible to im
agine any sufficient cause for his remaining silent on the

SUNDAY OBSERVANCE. l8l
subject in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew ; and this
whether the Dialogue was real or imaginary, for if the
latter, Justin would still, as Dr. Lardner has observed,
' choose to write in character.' . . . The testimony of
Justin, therefore, proves most clearly two facts of great
importance in the Sabbath controversy : the one, that the
Christians in his time observed the Sunday as a prayer
day ; the other, that they did not observe it as a Sabbath-
day." '
Such is the summary of the case at the year
150 a.d. No-Sabbathism and a form of Sunday
observance were born at the same time. Trained
in heathen philosophies until manhood, Justin ac
cepted Christianity as a better philosophy than he
had before found. Such a man and those like him
could scarcely do other than build a system quite
unlike apostolic Christianity. That which they
did build was a paganized rather than an apostolic
type. Pagan Reasons for Observing Sunday.
Pagan philosophy as a source of argument in
favor of the observance of Sunday is made still
more prominent by Clement of Alexandria, as
follows :
"And the Lord's day Plato prophetically speaks of in
the tenth book of the Republic, in these words : ' And
when seven days have passed to each of them in the
1 Sabbath : An Examination of the Six Texts, p. 274 seq., London, 1849.

1 82 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
meadow, on the eighth they are to set out and arrive in
four days.' By the meadow is to be understood the fixed
sphere, as being a mild and genial spot, and the locality of
the pious ; and by the seven days each motion of the
seven planets, and the whole practical art which speeds to
the end of rest. But after the wandering orbs the journey
leads to heaven, that is, to the eighth motion and day.'
And he says that souls are gone on the fourth day, point
ing out the passage through the four elements. But the
seventh day is recognized as sacred, not by the Hebrews
only, but also by the Greeks ; according to which the
whole world of all animals and plants revolve. Hesiod
says of it :
" ' The first, and fourth, and seventh day were held sacred.'
" And again :
" ' And on the seventh the sun's resplendent orb.'
"And Homer:
" ' And on the seventh, then came the sacred day.'
" And :
" ' The seventh was sacred.'
"And again :
" ' It was the seventh day, and all things were accomplished.'
" And again :
' ' ' And on the seventh morn we leave the stream of Acheron. '
" Callimachus the poet also writes :
" ' It was the seventh morn, and they had all things done.'
" And again :
" ' Among good days is the seventh day, and the seventh race.'
" And :
" ' The seventh is among the prime, and the seventh is perfect.'

SUNDAY OBSERVANCE. 1 83
" And :
" ' Now all the seven were made in starry heaven,
In circles shining as the years appear.'
" The Elegies of Solon, too, intensely deify the seventh
day. And how ? Is it not similar to Scripture when it
says, ' Let us remove the righteous man from us, because
he is troublesome to us ? ' When Plato, all but predicting
the economy of salvation, says in the second book of the
Republic, as follows : ' Thus he who is constituted just
¦shall be scourged, shall be stretched on the rack, shall be
bound, have his eyes put out ; and, at last, having suf
fered all evils, shall be crucified.' " '
A similar combination of pagan error and wild
speculation is found in another of Clement's works,
where he discusses reasons for fasting on Wednes
day and on Friday, and also considers how one
may keep Sunday. Writing of the "True Gnostic,"
Clement says :
" He knows also the enigmas of the fasting of those
days — I mean the Fourth and the Preparation. For the
one has its name from Hermes, and the other from Aph
rodite. He fasts in his life, in respect of covetousness
and voluptuousness, from which all the vices grow. For
we have already often above shown the three varieties of
fornication, according to the apostle — love of pleasure,
love of money, idolatry. He fasts then, according to the
law, abstaining from bad deeds, and according to the per
fection of the Gospel, from evil thoughts. Temptations
are applied to him, not for his purification, but, as we have
1 Stromata, book v., chap. xiv.

1 84 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
said, for the good of his neighbors, if, making trial of toils
and pains, he has despised and passed them by.
"The same holds of pleasure. For it is the highest
achievement for one who has had trial of it, afterwards to
abstain. For what great thing is it, if a man restrains
himself in what he knows not ? He, in fulfilment of the
precept according to the Gospel, keeps the Lord's day,
when he abandons an evil disposition, and assumes that
of the Gnostic, glorifying the Lord's resurrection in him
self. Further also when he has received the comprehen
sion of scientific speculation, he deems that he sees the
Lord, directing his eyes towards things invisible, although
he seems to look on what he does not wish to look on ;
chastising the faculty of vision, when he perceives himself
pleasurably affected by the application of his eyes ; since
he wishes to see and hear that alone which concerns
him."1
Clement on the Sabbath Law.
Prominent examples of paganism are found in
Clement's Gnostic Exposition of the Decalogue.
Discoursing upon the Fourth Commandment, he
says :
" Having reached this point, we must mention these
things by the way, since the discourse has turned on the
seventh and the eighth. For the eighth may possibly
turn out to be properly the seventh, and the seventh
manifestly the sixth, and the latter properly the Sabbath,
and the seventh a day of work. For the creation of the
world was concluded in six days. For the motion of the
1 Stromata, book vii., chap. xii.

SUNDAY OBSERVANCE. \%$
sun from solstice to solstice is completed in six months
in the course of which, at one time the leaves fall, and at
another plants bud and seeds come to maturity. And
they say that the embryo is perfected exactly in the sixth
month, that is, in one hundred and eighty days in addition
to the two and a half, as Polybus the physician relates in
his book On the Eighth Month, and Aristotle the philoso
pher in his book On Nature. Hence the Pythagoreans,.
as I think, reckon six the perfect number, from the cre
ation of the world, according to the prophet, and call it
Meseuthys and Marriage, from its being the middle of the
even numbers, that is, of ten and two. For it is manifestly
at an equal distance from both." '
The next paragraph is too gross to appear in
this place. Toward the close of this learned (?)
"exposition," Clement gives birth to the following
curious argument from the Psalms :
" And the blessed David delivers clearly to those who
know the mystic account of seven and eight, praising thus :
' Our years were exercised like a spider. The days of our
years in them are seventy years ; but if in strength, eighty
years. And that will be to reign.' That, then, we may
be taught that the world was originated, and not suppose
that God made it in time, prophecy adds : ' This is the
book of the generation, also of the things in them, when
they were created in the day that God made heaven and
earth.' For the expression, ' when they were created ' in
timates an indefinite and -dateless production. But the
expression ' in the day that God made,' that is, in and by
1 Stromata, book vii., chap. xvi.

1 86 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
which God made ' all things," and ' without which not
even one thing was made,' points out the activity exerted
by the Son. As David says, ' This is the day which the
Lord hath made ; let us be glad and rejoice in it ' ; that
is, in consequence of the knowledge imparted by Him, let
us celebrate the divine festival ; for the Word that throws
light on things hidden, and by whom each created thing
came into life and being, is called day. And in fine, the
Decalogue, by the letter Iota, signifies the blessed name,
presenting Jesus, who is the Word." '
Pagan nonsense could scarcely go further, and
yet this man wielded a prominent influence in de
veloping the doctrine of Sunday Observance.
Tertullian on the Sabbath.
Tertullian was a prolific writer, and one not
noted for consistency. He taught the abolition of
the Sabbath (see Against the Jews, chapter iv.), and
refers to the observance of Sunday without giving
formal reasons therefor. But incidental refer
ences which he makes show how the Sunday, al
though it had then come to be called the " Lord's
Day," still bore the heathen characteristics. Wit
ness the following :
" The Holy Spirit upbraids the Jews with their holy-
days. ' Your Sabbaths, and new moons, and ceremonies,'
says He, ' My soul hateth.' By us, to whom Sabbaths are
strange, and the new moons and festivals formerly beloved
1 Stromata, book vi., chap. xvi.

SUNDAY OBSERVANCE. 1 87
by God, the Saturnalia and New-Years and Midwinter's
festivals and Matronalia are frequented — presents come
and go — New-Year's Gifts — games join their noise — ban
quets join their din ! Oh, better fidelity of the nations
to their own sect, which claims no solemnity of the
Christians for itself ! Not the Lord's day, not Pentecost,
even if they had known them, would they have shared
with us ; for they would not fear lest they would seem to
be Christians. We are not apprehensive least we seem to
be heathens ! If any indulgence is to be granted to the
flesh, you have it. I will not say your own days, but
more too ; for to the heathens, each festive day occurs but
once annually ; you have a festive day every eighth day.
Call out the individual solemnities of the nations and set
them out into a row, they will not be able to make up a
Pentecost." 1
Here we have the native character of the Sun
day truly set forth ; a day of " indulgence to the
flesh." Such was the legitimate, the unavoidable
fruitage of this semi-pagan festivalism, a fruitage
which poisoned the Church rapidly and almost
fatally. It is enough to add under this head, that no
writer of the first three hundred years gives, or
attempts to give, a scriptural reason for observing
Sunday. There are no such reasons to give.
1 De Idolatria, chap. xiv.

CHAPTER IX.
STATE RELIGION A PAGAN INSTITUTION.
Christ's Attitude toward the State — The Roman Conception of Religion
as a Department of the State — Roman CiviJ-Law Created and Regulated
All Religious Duties — Effect of the Pagan Doctrine of Religious Syncre
tism on Christianity — The Emperor a Demi-God, Entitled to Worship,
and, ex officio, the Supreme Authority in Religion — The Deep Corruption
of Roman Morals and Social Life under Pagan State Religion.
THREE fundamental points at which Christi
anity was corrupted by heathenism have
been examined. It remains to consider another
which was not less fundamental, and has not been
less persistent — viz., the Union of Christianity
with the State.
Christ's Attitude Toward the State.
Christ taught the infinite worth of man as an in
dividual. The divine priesthood of every believer
in Christ, and his absolute spiritual kingship over
himself, under God, is a fundamental doctrine of
the Gospel. On such a platform, Christ pro
claimed the absolute separation of Church and
State. " My kingdom is not of this world " was
the keynote in His proclamation. His kingdom
188

STATE RELIGION A PAGAN INSTITUTION. l8g
knew neither Jew nor Greek, Roman nor Egyptian,
bondman nor freeman. Ethnic distinctions and
lines of caste were unknown to the world's Re
deemer. Wherever a heart bowed in simple faith
and loyal obedience, there Christ's kingdom was
set up. Placed alongside the state-church theory
of Rome, the doctrine of Christ's kingdom was
noonday by the side of midnight. It was a
diamond among pebbles. It was the proclama
tion of a brotherhood all-embracing and eternal.
This kingdom rendered unto Caesar the little that
was due him, and demanded the fullest and higfhest
allegiance to the invisible but not unknown God.
It sought only simple protection from the civil
power, and patiently suffered wrong, even unto
death, when this was denied. Such a kingdom
found its first adherents among those who were
least entangled in the meshes of the state religions,
and whose hearts opened most loyal to the one
God, and His Son, the Christ. These were natu
rally the common people, who heard gladly, and
entered joyfully into the heavenly citizenship.
Thus the Church of Christ, like Himself, wa?
born among the lowly, and wholly independent of
the state. Such a spiritual kingdom could not be
brought under the control of the civil power, and
that a pagan power, without being corrupted,
if not destroyed.

IOO PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
Roman Conception of Religion.
The reader will be better prepared to understand
how Christianity became corrupted along this line,
by considering the genius of the Roman nation,
and its conception of religion. The idea of law
as the embodiment of absolute power pervaded
the Roman mind. Men were important only as
'citizens. Separate from the state, man was noth
ing. " To be a Roman, was greater than a king."
Every personal right, every interest was sub
servient to the state. This conception of power
was the source of Roman greatness, prowess, and
success. It conscripted the legions, conquered the
world, and made all roads lead to Rome. Previous
to Christianity, all religion was ethnic. To the
Roman, religion was a part of the civil code. It
was a system of contracts between men and the
gods, through the civil law. The head of the
State was, ex officio, the head of the Department
of Religion. There was no place in heathen
theories for the Gospel idea of the Church.
Speaking on this point, Dr. Schaff says :
" Of a separation of religion and politics, of the spiritual
power from the temporal, heathen antiquity knew noth
ing, because it regarded religion itself only from a natural
point of view, and subjected it to the purposes of the all-
ruling state, the highest known form of human society.

STATE RELIGION A PAGAN INSTITUTION. 191
The Egyptian kings, as Plutarch tells us, were at the
same time priests, or were received into the priesthood at
their election. In Greece the civil magistrate had super
vision of the priests and sanctuaries. In Rome, after the
time of Numa, this supervision was intrusted to a senator,
and afterward united with the imperial office. All the
pagan emperors, from Augustus to Julian the Apostate,
were at the same time supreme pontiffs (Pontifices Maximi),
the heads of the state religion, emperor-popes. As such
they could not only perform all priestly functions, even
to offering sacrifices, when superstition or policy prompted
them to do so, but they also stood at the head of the
highest sacerdotal college (of fifteen or more Pontifices),
which in turn regulated and superintended the three
lower classes of priests (the Epulones, Quindecemviri,
and Augures), the temples and altars, the sacrifices, divi
nations, feasts and ceremonies, the exposition of the
Sibylline books, the calendar, in short, all public wor
ship, and in part even the affairs of marriage and in
heritance." '
That Christianity must needs become paganized
if^pt became a religion of the state, is shown further
by the following, from an editor of Justinian s
Institutes :
" What was most peculiar in the religion of Rome was
its intimate connection with the civil polity. The heads
of religion were not a priestly caste, but were citizens, in
all other respects like their fellows, except that they were
invested with peculiar sacred offices. The king was at
1 Church History, vol. iii., pp. 131, 132, New York, 1884.

I92 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
the head of the religious body, and beneath him were
augurs and other functionaries of the ceremonies of re
ligion. The whole body of the populus had a place in the
religious system of the state. The mere fact of birth in
one of the families forming part of a gens gave admittance
to a sacred circle which was closed to all besides. Those
in this circle were surrounded by religious ceremonies
from their cradle to their grave. Every important act of
their life was sanctioned by solemn rites. Every division
and subdivision of the state to which they belonged had
its own peculiar ceremonies. The individual^ the family,
the gens, were all under the guardianship of their re
spective tutelar deities. Every locality with which they
were familiar was sacred to some patron god. The calen
dar was marked out by the services of religion. The
pleasure of the gods arranged the times of business and
leisure ; and a constantly superintending Providence
watched over the councils of the state, and showed, by
signs which the. wise could understand, approval or dis
pleasure of all that was undertaken." '
The fundamental difference between New Testa
ment Christianity and the Roman idea of religion
is further shown by the following from Reville and
Tiele :
Reville says :
\ " In Rome religious tradition was an affair of the state,
like the priesthood itself. The senate was by right its guar
dian. That body legislated for religion as for everything
1 The Institutes of Justinian, by Thomas Collett Sandars, Oxford, Eng.,
Introduction, p. 4, Chicago, 1876.

STATE RELIGION A PAGAN INSTITUTION. 193
else ; and when the Greco-Roman paganism persecuted, it
did so from essentially political motives."
Tiele says :
" Much greater weight was attached by the practical
Roman to the cultus than to the doctrines of religion.
This was the one point of supreme importance ; in his
view the truly devout man was he who punctually per
formed his religious obligations, who was pious according
to law. There was a debt to be paid to the gods, whiclV
must be discharged, but it was settled if the letter of the
contract was fulfilled, and the symbol was given in place
of the reality. The animistic conception that the gods
might be employed as instruments for securing practical
advantages, lies at the basis of the whole Roman cultus.
In the earliest times, therefore, it was quite simple, so fan/
as regards the absence of images or temples, but it was at
the same time exceedingly complicated and burdened
with all kinds of ceremonies and symbolic actions, and
the least neglect destroyed the efficacy of the sacrifice.
This necessitated the assistance of priests acquainted with
the whole ritual, not to serve as mediators, for the ap-^
proach to the deity was open to all, but to see that pious
action failed in no essential element. . . . Everything
was regulated with precision by the government, and the
fact that the highest of the priests was always under they
control of the state, prevented the rise of a priestly su
premacy, the absence of which in Greece was due to other
causes ; but the consequence was that the Roman religion
remained dry and formal and was external rather- than
1 Prolegomena of the History of Religions, by Albert Reville, D.D., p.
169, London, 1884.
13

194 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
inward. Even the purity (castitas) on which great stress
was laid, was only sacerdotal, and was attained by lustra
tion, sprinkling, and fumigation, and the great value at
tached to prayer, so that a single error had to be atoned
for as a neglect, had its basis in the superstitious belief
that it possessed a high magic power."1
Religious Syncretism.
The prevailing tendency to religious syncretism
in the Roman empire paved the way for corrupt
ing Christianity by union with the State.
The doctrine of courtesy in religious matters had
risen in the Roman mind, to a theory of religious syn
cretism, which offered recognition to other religions
outside the Roman. The religions of the Orient
and of Egypt already had a place and protection
at Rome. These, like the citizens of the lands
whence they came, were taken in charge by
the laws of the Mistress of the World. By the
opening of the fourth century, Christianity had
gained such influence and standing that, although
it had no claims as an ethnic religion, it was too
promising a waif to be longer unnoticed. The
great empire was conscious of present decline and
coming decay. New blood was an imperative ne
cessity ; perhaps this new religion, that had given
' Outlines of the History of Religions, C. P. Tiele, Boston, 1877, pp.
237. 238.

STATE RELIGION A PAGAN INSTITUTION. 195
such power of endurance to its votaries, would
furnish the needful help.
This recognition, at first, was not in any true
sense toleration, nor a full recognition of the free
dom of conscience. It was rather such recognition
as the foreman gives to the apprentice : " Come in
and show what you can do." In this recognition
Rome adopted no new policy, neither gave evi
dence of any genuine faith in Apostolic Christianity.
As late as 321 a.d., not more than one-twentieth
part of the people were Christians ; and Constantine,^
erroneously called " The first Christian emperor,"
did not make an open confession of Christianity,
until he lay on his death-bed in 337 a.d. Chris-*
tianity was taken under the protection of the
empire, to be cared for and controlled according
to the genius of Roman history and Roman law.
The " Christian emperors," from Constantine to .
Gratian (312-383), retained the title of " Ponti-*
fex Maximus." The visiting of heathen temples
for religious purposes, and the performance of
heathen rites in private, were not prohibited by
imperial law until 391-393 a.d. by Theodosius. No^
were these laws then enforced where the heathen
element was in the ascendency. Theodosius him
self was not deemed an enemy of the old religion ;
he stood in such favor that the senate enrolled him
among the gods, after his death, in 395 a.d.

196 PAGANISM /N CHRISTIANITY.
Instead of developing normally, after the simple
New Testament model, the Roman church was mod
elled largely after the Roman empire. The union
once begun, political intrigue and religious degen
eracy followed in rapid succession. All civil legis
lation in matters of religion pushes the divine
authority aside, and substitutes the human. This
creates conscience, if at all, toward the state alone,
and so remains on heathen ground.
Thus, by descending from the high ground of
the Apostolic period, from the immediate control
and direction of the Holy Spirit, to the control of
a heathen state-system, and being already weak
ened by the false philosophies which had driven
out the authority of the Word, Christianity was
turned far away from its true status and character.
The legislation which followed, concerning festi
vals, ceremonies, and doctrines, was a medley of
paganism and Christianity, truth and error, widely
removed from the Sermon on the Mount, and the
epistles of Paul. The kernel of Papal error, and
the fountain which was the source of the Dark
Ages, are both involved in the fundamental per
versions of Apostolic Christianity.
Since the emperor was, ex officio, the head of the
,Department of Religion, it was comparatively
easy to accomplish the amalgamation of the differ
ent systems. Gibbon gives an outline picture of

STATE RELIGION A PAGAN INSTITUTION. 197
this tendency as it prevailed during the third cen
tury. It was the more destructive to Christianity
because of the degraded character of the emperors
and those who controlled the public life of the
empire. The emperor of whom Gibbon writes
below, is described by Schaff as follows :
" The abandoned youth El-Gabal, or Heliogabalus (218-
222), who polluted the throne by the blackest vices and
follies, tolerated all the religions in the hope of at last
merging them in his favorite Syrian worship of the sun,
with its abominable excesses. He himself was a priest of
the god of the sun, and thence took his name.
" His far more worthy cousin and successor, Alexander
Severus (222-235), was addicted to a higher kind of relig
ious eclecticism and syncretism, a pantheistic hero-worship.
He placed the busts of Abraham and Christ in his do
mestic chapel, with those of Orpheus, Apollonius of
Tyana, and the better Roman emperors, and had the
Gospel rule, ' As ye would that men should do to you,
do ye even so to them,' engraven on the walls of his
palace and on public monuments. His mother, Julia
Mammaea, was a patroness of Origen."
Gibbon says of this period :
" The sun was worshipped at Emesa, under the name
of Elagabalus, and under the form of a black conical stone,
which, as it was universally believed, had fallen from
heaven on that sacred place. To this protecting deity
Antoninus, not without some reason, ascribed his eleva-
1 Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. ii., pp. 58, 59.

198 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
tion to the throne. The display of superstitious grati
tude was the only serious business of his reign. The
triumph of the god of Emesa over all the religions of the
earth, was the great object of his zeal and vanity ; and
the appellation of Elagabalus (for he presumed, as pontiff
and favorite to adopt that sacred name) was dearer to him
than all the titles of Imperial greatness. In a solemn
procession through the streets of Rome, the way was
strewed with gold-dust ; the black stone, set in precious
gems, was placed on a chariot, drawn by six milk-white
horses, richly caparisoned. The pious emperor held the
reins, and supported by his ministers, moved slowly back
wards, that he might perpetually enjoy the felicity of the
divine presence. In a magrrificent temple raised on the
Palatine Mount, the sacrifices of the god Elagabalus were
celebrated with every circumstance of cost and solemnity.
The richest wines, the most extraordinary victims, and
the rarest aromatics, were profusely consumed on his altar.
Around the altar, a chorus of Syrian damsels performed
their lascivious dances to the sound of barbarian music,
whilst the gravest personages of the state and army,
clothed in long Phoenician tunics, officiated in the meanest
functions, with affected zeal and secret indignation.
" To this temple, as to the common center of religious
worship, the Imperial fanatic attempted to remove the
Ancilia, the Palladium, and all the sacred pledges of the
faith of Numa. A crowd of inferior deities attended in
various stations the majesty of the god of Emesa; but his
court was still imperfect, till a female of distinguished
rank was admitted to his bed. Pallas had been first
chosen for his consort ; but, as it was dreaded lest her
warlike terrors might affright the soft delicacy of a Syrian

STATE RELIGION A PAGAN INSTITUTION. 1 99
deity, the Moon, adored by the Africans under the. name
of Astarte, was deemed a more suitable companion for
the Sun. Her image, with the rich offerings of her temple
as a marriage portion, was transported with solemn pomp
from Carthage to Rome, and the day of these mystic nup
tials was a general festival in the capital and throughout
the empire." *
Elagabalus reigned from 218 to 222 a.d. The,
foregoing facts show that the empire was practi
cally prostituted, and given over to the lowest
forms of sun-worship during his reign. It was
the triumph of Orientalism in the West. The
same devotion to sun-worship appears in other em
perors, toward the close of the third century.
Aurelian reigned from 270 to 276 a.d. Speak
ing of the magnificent " Triumph " of this emperor
in 274 a.d., Gibbon says :
" So long and so various was the pomp of Aurelian's
triumph, that, although it opened with the dawn of day,
the slow majesty of the procession ascended not the Capi
tol before the ninth hour ; and it was already dark when
the emperor returned to the palace. The festival was
protracted by theatrical representations, the games of the
circus, the hunting of wild beasts, combats of gladiators,
and naval engagements. Liberal donatives were dis
tributed to the army, and people, and several institutions
agreeable or beneficial to the city, contributed to per
petuate the glory of Aurelian.
1 Decline, etc., vol. i., pp. 170, 171, New York, 1883.

20O PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
"A considerable portion of his oriental spoils was con
secrated to the gods of Rome ; the Capitol, and every
other temple, glittered with the offerings of his ostenta
tious piety; and the temple of the Sun alone received
above fifteen thousand pounds of gold. This last was a
magnificent structure, erected by the emperor on the side
of. the Quirinal hill, and dedicated, soon after the triumph,
to that deity whom Aurelian adored as the parent of his
life and fortunes. His mother had been an inferior priestess
in a chapel of the Sun ; a peculiar devotion to the god of
Light was a sentiment which the fortunate peasant im
bibed in his infancy ; and every step of his elevation,
every victory of his reign, fortified superstition by grati
tude."1 Speaking of Diocletian, who reigned from 284
to 305, Milman says :
" Diocletian himself, though he paid so much deference
to the older faith as to assume the title of Jovius, as be
longing to the Lord of the world, yet, on his accession,
when he would exculpate himself from all concern in the
murder of his predecessor Numerian, appealed in the face
of the army to the all-seeing deity of the sun. It is the
oracle of Apollo of Miletus, consulted by the hesitating
emperor, which is to decide the fate of Christianity.
The metaphorical language of Christianity had uncon
sciously lent strength to this new adversary; and, in
adoring the visible orb, some, no doubt, supposed that
they were not departing far from the worship of the
" Sun of Righteousness." 1 Ibid., vol. i., p. 361.

STATE RELIGION A PAGAN INSTITUTION. 201
In a foot-note, Milman quotes :
" Hermogenes, one of the older heresiarchs, applied the
text, ' He has placed his tabernacle in the sun,' to Christ.
and asserted that Christ had put off his body in the sun." '
Dr. Geikie touches the point, and shows in a few
words how Christianity yielded to paganism and
its corrupting results ; he says :
" Helios, the sun, was the great object of worship, and
so deep-rooted was this idolatry that the early Christian
missionaries knew no other way of overthrowing it than
by changing it into the name of Elias, and turning the
temples into churches dedicated to him."2
Two important factors touching the union of
Christianity and the state are now before the
reader. i. Under the Roman empire all recognized re
ligions were controlled by the civil law. The per
secution of Christians was based upon the idea
that their worship was illegal ; or rather that their
refusal to worship the national gods, according to
the legal cultus, was an offence against the com
monwealth. 2. Sun-worship in its higher and lower forms was
the prevailing and popular cult at Rome in the
third and fourth centuries of Christian history.
1 Hist. Christianity, book ii., chap. ix.
8 Life and Words of Christ, vol. i., pp. 53, 54. Appleton & Co., 1883.

202 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
The emperors were devotees of this cult. It was
therefore a foregone necessity that when Chris
tianity grew strong enough to be entitled to recog
nition rather than persecution, it should be adopted
by the state, and further commingled with the pre
vailing sun-worship. The next chapter will show
how this was accomplished.

CHAPTER X.
THE CONTROL OF CHRISTIANITY BY THE STATE
UNDER CONSTANTINE AND HIS SUCCESSORS.
A New Epoch in the Paganizing of Christianity — Paganism Seeking a New
God, Strong enough to Save the Empire — Constantine not a " Christian
Emperor," but Superstitious, Tim e-Serving, and Ambitious — Murdering
his Kindred while Promoting Christianity as a rising Political Influence
— Seeking Christianity mainly for Ambitious Ends — Professing Christi
anity only on his Death-Bed — Making the Most of Both Worlds — Con
stantine Corrupted and Perverted Christianity More than he Aided it.
THE opening of the fourth century marks a
new era in the process by which paganism
poisoned Christianity, by applying to it the pagan
theory set forth in the last chapter. Though
sadly weakened and corrupted by these influences,
Christianity was a growing power in the empire.
I On the other hand, paganism was declining, and
I the fortunes of the disintegrating empire seemed
to be going down with the national religious cult.
Pagan superstition looked upon all the fortunes
of the empire as the direct work of the gods, and
as misfortunes piled up around the empire, it was
natural to think that the old gods were deserting
it, and that new gods must be sought. When the
203

204 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
empire became subdivided under different rulers,
the rivalry between them, and the varying success
which attended the efforts of each, naturally
associated success and failure with the gods to
whom each was devoted. The firmness of the
Christians under persecution was looked upon by
the pagans as evidence that the Christian's God
had great power to help those who worshipped
him. In this way many were brought to consider
the idea of adding this God to the catalogue of
those whom they already worshipped.
The severe edicts of Diocletian against the
Christians, issued in 303 a.d., spread desolation far
and wide. In Gaul, Britain, and Spain, where Con-
stantius Chlorus and Constantine his son reigned,
the edict was tamely enforced, they preferring'
to favor the Christians. The bitterness of the
persecutions in other parts of the empire inflamed
the zeal of Christians, and martyrdom was sought
by many, not so much from calm faith as from
fanatical zeal.1 This cruel persecution was the last
s direct effort of paganism to destroy Christianity
by the sword. The fortunes which befell the
leaders in the persecution increased superstitious
regard for the God of the martyrs, who was
thought to be like the gods of the pagans, only
more powerful.
1 See Schaff, vol. ii. , chap. 64 ff.

CONTROL OF CHRISTIANITY BY THE STATE. 205
Galerius, who was the leader in the horrid work,
being striken by a terrible disease, was overcome
with fear, and, in connection with Constantine and
Licinius, ordered the persecutions to cease, by an
edict in 311 a.d. This edict was to the effect that
since punishment had not reclaimed the Christians,
they might now hold their assemblies, providing
they did not disturb the order of the state. The
real animus of the edict is seen in its closing words,
in which Galerius suggested that " after this mani
festation of grace, Christians ought to pray to
their God for the welfare of the Emperors and of
the State." Constantine attributed the military
success which finally made him sole ruler in 323
a.d. to the help of the Christians' God. All
parties looked upon the issue as a political struggle
between Jupiter and Jehovah, in which the latter
was victorious.
Boissier, a late, learned French writer, says :
»
" Constantine recalled that of all the princes that he had
known, the only one who had lived prosperously, without
eclipse, was his father Constance, who had protected the
Christians ; while nearly all those who had persecuted
them had ended their lives miserably." '
1 La Fin du Paganisme : Etude sur les Dernieres Luttes Religieuses en
Occident, au Quatrieme Siecle. Par Gaston Boissier, de l'Academie
Francaise, et de l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres. Tome
premier, p. 28, Paris i8gr.

206 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
Character of Constantine.
Constantine has been called the " first Christian
Emperor " ; how unjustly will be seen in what
follows. In a certain sense, Christianity ascended
the throne of the Caesars with Constantine. It
was a political triumph, but a spiritual defeat.
That we may the better understand the case, the
reader needs to look carefully into the character
of this first representative of the pagan state-
church policy, and of the subordinating of Chris
tianity to the political power. The reader will be
permitted to make this survey mainly through the
eyes of other writers, which I think will be more
satisfactory than any picture that I might draw.
KilLen thus summarizes the character of Con
stantine :
" The personal conduct of Constantine in advanced life
did not exhibit Christianity as a religion fitted to effect
a marked improvement in the spirit and character. In
A.D. 326, he put to death his son Crispus, a youth of the
highest promise, who had in some way disturbed his sus
picious temper. His nephew Licinius and his own wife
Fausta shared the same fate. His growing passion for
gaudy dress betrayed pitiable vanity in an old man of
sixty ; and towards the end of his reign, the general ex
travagance of his expenditure led to an increase of taxa
tion of which his subjects complained. He desired to be
a dictator of the Church, rather than a disciple ; and
with a view to share its privileges without submitting to

CONTROL OF CHRISTIANITY BY THE STATE. 207
its discipline, deferred his baptism until the near approach '
of death. He then received the ordinance from the Arian
bishop of Nicomedia.
" The defects in the religious character of Constantine
greatly impaired his moral influence. ^Though he did
much to promote the extension of the visible Church, his
reign forms an era in the history of ecclesiastical corrupt-
tion. His own Christianity was so loose and accommo
dating that it seemed to consist chiefly in the admiration
of a new ritual ; and the courtiers who surrounded him
and who complimented him by the adoption of his creed,
seldom seemed to feel that it taught the necessity of per
sonal reformation. All at once, the profession of the\
Gospel became fashionable ; crowds of merely nominal
converts presented themselves at the baptismal font ; and
many even entered the clerical office who had no higher
object in view than an honorable or a lucrative position.
Ecclesiastical discipline was relaxed ; and that the hea-
\then might be induced to conform to the religion of
jthe emperor, many of their ceremonies were introduced
into the worship of the Church. The manner in which
Constantine intermeddled with ecclesiastical affairs was
1 extremely objectionable. He undertook not only to
preach, but also to dicate to aged and learned ministers.
¦Had any other individual who had never been baptized
appeared in the Nicene synod, and ventured to give
counsel to the assembled fathers, he would have been
speedily rebuked for his presumption ; but all were so
delighted to see a great prince among them, that there
.was a general unwillingness to challenge his intrusion.
He sometimes indeed declared, that he left spiritual!
matters to Church courts ; but his conduct demonstrated

208 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
bow little he observed such an arrangement. He con
vened synods by his own authority ; took a personal
i share in their discussions ; required their members to
appear before him, and submit their proceedings to his
review ; and inflicted on them civil penalties when their
official acts did not meet his approval. (Had Constantine
given his sanction and encouragement to the Church, and
yet permitted her to pursue her noble mission in the full
enjoyment of the right of self government, he might have
contributed greatly to promote her safe and vigorous
development ; but by usurping the place of her chief
ruler, and bearing down with the weight of the civil
power on all who refused to do his pleasure, he secularized
her spirit, robbed her of her freedom, and converted her
divine framework into a piece of political machinery." ')
Rev. E. Edwin Hall, who was for many years
chaplain of the American Legation at Rome, Italy,
also chaplain of the American Church at Florence,
made a careful study of the early history and of
the modern characteristics of Roman Catholicism.
In July, 1889, a paper from his pen was published
in the Outlook, a Sabbath quarterly from which the
following is taken :
\ " Soon after the so-called conversion of Constantine,
when he became sole emperor, the Church entered on its
apostasy from the primitive simplicity and purity which
marked its earlier history.) Pagans in vast multitudes
pressed into the Christian fold, bringing with them old
1 The Old Catholic Church, etc., by W. D. Killen, D.D., pp. 70-72,
Edinburgh, 1871.

CONTROL OF CHRISTIANITY BY THE STATE. 209
practices and customs, and filling the places of Christian
worship with the pageantry and the ornaments which
characterized the worship of the gods in heathen temples.
These unconverted millions became only nominally
Christian, impressing their character together with the
doctrines, rites and forms of pagan religion upon the
Christian Church. Gibbon, speaking of these innovations,
shows that : ' Rites and ceremonies were introduced which
seemed most powerfully to affect the senses of the people.
Vlf in the beginning of the 5th century Tertullian or Lac
tantius had been suddenly raised from the dead, to assist
at the festival of some popular saint or martyr, they
would have gazed with astonishment and indignation on
the profane spectacle which had succeeded the pure and
spiritual worship of a Christian congregation. As soon as
the doors of the church were thrown open, they must
have been offended at the smoke of incense, the perfume
of flowers, th^ glare of lamps and tapers which diffused at
noonday, in their opinions, a gaudy, superfluous, and sacri
legious light. They would see a prostrate crowd of wor
shipers devoutly kissing the walls and pavement of the sa
cred edifice, their fervent prayers directed to the bones, the
blood, or ashes of the saints, the walls covered with votive
offerings, representing the favors received from saints in
answer to their prayers and illustrating the abuse of
indiscreet or idolatrous devotion, in recognition of the
image, the attributes, and the miracles of the tutelar saint,
which had the same value to their mind as a local divinity
in the pagan religion. The ministers of various names in
the Catholic Church imitated the profane model which
they should have been impatient to destroy. So the re
ligion of Constantine achieved, in less than a century, the

2IO PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
»
final conquest of the Roman Empire, but the victors
themselves were insensibly subdued by the acts of their
vanquished rivals.' '
" From that time the worship of the Roman Catholic
Church, in its forms and ceremonies, has been more clearly
identified with the paganism of ancient Rome than with
the religion of the New Testament. The customs of
pagan religion were only baptized with Christian names.
Gregory the Great in the latter part of* the 6th century,
ignoring the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit and the power
of the Gospel, directed the Monk Augustine, whom he sent
to convert the idolaters of England, ' not to suspend or
abolish the pagan festivals, nor the customs of their
worship, but rather retain them, contenting himself with
substituting for the names of false gods, the names of
saints borne by their temples, and whose relics were de
posited in them.'"2
F. W. Maurice aptly describes the* Christianity
of Constantine's time as follows :
" And to the gloss of civilisation had been added the
gloss of Christianity. The Emperor had believed, when
other help was failing, that in the might of the Cross he
might still conquer. The sign was indeed there, but it
was marked upon the standard, not written upon the
hearts, of those rulers of the world. They saw not what
it meant ; how it interpreted and crowned all that had
been great in their history hitherto ; how it separated the
real great from the real little ; how it sanctified all those
feelings of obedience, duty, reverence for unseen law, self-
1 Decline, etc., c. xxviii.
* Beda, lib. i., c. xxx.

CONTROL OF CHRISTIANITY BY THE STATE. 211
devotion, by which the city had risen from nothing ; how
it poured contempt upon dominion, except as an instru
ment by which the highest might serve the lowest, upon
glory, except as it grew out of humiliation, and was the
exaltation of man above himself. The civilised Christian
Roman had lost the heart, the reverence, the faith which
belonged to his rude Pagan ancestors ; that Christianity i
and civilisation might be victorious, the miserable patrons |
of both were swept away." *
Speaking of the effect of Constantine's attitude
in favoring Christianity as a rising influence in the
nation, Merivale says :
" We may suppose, indeed, that the favor thus unex
pectedly showered on the new faith by the Imperial gov
ernment would tend inevitably to reverse the proportions
of the two persuasions, or rather of the two parties, which
now divided the Roman world. Powerful as the example
of rulers has always been in such matters, it would never,
perhaps, be more so than at the moment when paganism,
corrupt and effete, had lost all the spirit of a real faith,
and when, as we shall see, Christianity was only too ready
to accept overtures to the easy compromise which its
rivals soon began to offer it. Nevertheless, the progress
of the Church of Christ was really slower and less com
plete than might have been expected. Some allowance,
as we have seen, must be made for the spirit of pique and
the wounded pride of a class so deeply prejudiced on all
matters of sentiment as the magnates of Roman society.
But paganism, it must be added, developed at her last
1 The Religions of the World, by F. W. Maurice, p. 185, London, 1886.

212 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
gasp a new principle of vitality, and nerved herself for a
desperate conflict along her whole line." '
Concerning the overthrow of paganism, as late
as the time of Gratian, 375-383 a.d., Merivale says :
" It seems clear that, as might indeed be expected, the
earliest edicts for the confiscation of the temple-endow
ments under Gratian, big and stern as they look in the
codes or statute-book, were practically of little effect. If
many temples were really closed, as we may readily
believe, though certainly by no means all or the greater
number of them, we must suppose that the lordly holders
of their property contrived to retain the enjoyment of the
funds, while they, not unwillingly perhaps, relieved them
selves from the services for which these funds had been
originally given. Theodosius found the pagan priesthood
despoiled of their wealth in name only, and however
earnest he might be in his Christian profession, he long
abstained, both in policy and mercy, from asserting the
full authority of previous enactments." 2
Alzog, a modern Roman Catholic Church his
torian, though laboring hard to set forth Constan
tine as the first Christian emperor, and a " saint "
of the Roman Catholic Church, is forced to say :
" The law said to have been published by Constantine,
A-D- 335, prohibiting all pagan sacrifices, is of doubtful
authenticity, and, if authentic, is of very little importance,
for like a great many others of a similar nature, it was
1 Four Lectures on Early Church History, by Charles Merivale, D.D., pp.
13, 14, New York.
4 Ibid. p. 45.

CONTROL OF CHRISTIANITY BY THE STATE. 213
never enforced. The execution of such laws met with a
determined resistance in many places, and particularly at
Rome. (Constantine, although professing to be a Chris
tian, lived pretty much the same sort of life he had lived
while a pagan, and even stained his reputation by the
commission of deeds of murder. )
" Licinius was executed A.D. 324, and Licinianus, his son,
who appears to have excited the fears of Constantine,
shortly afterward met the fate of his father. Constantine
also had Crispus, his son by his first wife, Minervina,
apprehended in the midst of a solemn festival and exiled
him to the shore of Istria, where he perished by an ob
scure death. Learning afterward, as it is supposed, that
Fausta, his second wife, the daughter of Maximianus Her-
culeus, had been instrumental in causing the death of his
brave and illustrious son Crispus, he had her strangled in
a bath of warm water-heated to an insupportable tempera
ture. It may be that these murders, in which the design
ing policy of Fausta played so conspicuous a part,
prompted Constantine to delay his entrance into the
Church, and to put off his baptism till the hour of his
death. He was, moreover, influenced by the prevailing
prejudice relative to the sacrament of baptism, and also
wished to be baptized in the river Jordan, which, however,
'God did not permit.' " *
Dr. Schaff describes Constantine's relation to
Christianity as follows :
" Constantine adopted Christianity first as a supersti-i
tion, and put it by the side of his heathen supersition, till I
1 Universal Church History, by Rev. Dr. John Alzog, vol. i., p. 471.
Cincinnati, 1874.

214 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
finally, in his conviction, the Christian vanquished the
I pagan, though without itself developing into a pure and
enlightened faith.
"At first Constantine, like his father, in the spirit of the
Neo-Platonic syncretism of dying heathendom, reverenced
all the Gods as mysterious powers ; especially Apollo, the
god of the sun, to whom in the year 308 he presented
munificent gifts. Nay, so late as the year 32 1 he enjoined
regular consultation of the soothsayers in public misfor
tunes, according to ancient heathen usage ; even later, he
placed his new residence, Byzantium, under the protection
of the God of the Martyrs and the heathen goddess of
Fortune ; and down to the end of his life he retained the
title and the dignity of a Pontif ex Maximus, or high-priest
| of the heathen hierarchy. His coins bore on the one side
the letters of the name of Christ, on the other the figure
of the Sun-God, and the inscription " Sol invictus." Of
course these inconsistencies may be referred also to policy
and accommodation to the toleration edict in 313. Nor
is it difficult to adduce parallels of persons who in passing
from Judaism to Christianity, or from Romanism to Prot
estantism have so wavered between their old and their new
position that they might be claimed by both. With his
every victory over his pagan rivals, Galerius, Maxentius,
and Licinius, his personal leaning to Christianity and his
confidence in the magic power of the sign of the cross
increased ; yet he did not formally renounce heathenism
| and did not receive baptism until in 337 he was laid upon
the bed of death.
" He was far from being so pure and so venerable as
Eusebius, blinded by his favor to the Church, depicts

CONTROL OF CHRISTIANITY BY THE STATE. 21 5
him in his bombastic and almost dishonestly eulogistic
biography, with the evident intention of setting him up as
a model for all future Christian princes. It must, with all
regret, be conceded that his progress in the knowledge of
Christianity was not a progress in the practice of its virtues.
His love of display and his prodigality, his suspiciousness
and his despotism, increased with his power.
The very brightest period of his reign is stained with
gross crimes, which even the spirit of the age and the
policy of an absolute monarch cannot excuse. After hav
ing reached upon the bloody path of war the goal of his
ambition, the sole possession of the empire, yea, in the
very year in which he summoned the great council Nicsea,
he ordered the execution of his conquered rival and
brother-in-law Licinius, in breach of a solemn promise of
mercy (324). Not satisfied with this he caused soon after
wards, from political suspicion, the death of the young
Licinius, his nephew, a boy of hardly eleven years! But
the worst of all is the murder of his eldest son, Crispus, in
326, who had incurred suspicion of political conspiracy,
and of adulterous and incestuous purposes towards his
step-mother, Fausta, but is generally regarded as inno
cent. . . .
" At all events, Christianity did not produce in Con
stantine a thorough moral transformation. He was
concerned more to advance the outward social position of
the Christian religion than to further its inward mission.
He was praised and censured in turn by the Christians
and pagans, the orthodox and the Arians, as they succes
sively experienced his favor or dislike. He bears some
resemblance to Peter the Great both in his public acts and
his private character, by combining great virtues and merits

2l6 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
with monstrous crimes, and he probably died with the
same consolation as Peter, whose last words were : ' I
trust that in respect of the good I have striven to do my
people (the Church), God will pardon my sins.' It is
quite characteristic of his piety that he turned the sacred
nails of the Saviour's cross, which Helena brought from
Jerusalem, the one into the bit of his war horse, the other
into an ornament of his helmet. Not a decided, pure,
and consistent character, he stands on the line of transi
tion between two ages and two religions ; and his life
bears plain marks of both. When at last on his deathbed
he submitted to baptism with the remark : ' Now let us
cast away all duplicity] he honestly admitted the conflict
of two antagonistic principles which swayed his private
character and public life." ]
After such an array of testimony, which might
be extended much farther if space would permit, it
seems unnecessary to say more than this : the per
sonal character and the political attitude of Con
stantine make it impossible to think of him as a
"Christian Emperor." (He adopted and used the
paganized Christianity of his time forpersonal ends,
rather than because of true piety. ) The political
aid which he gave it was overbalanced many times
by the destruction of its best spiritual interests.
Judged from the standpoint of the Bible and the
facts of history, Constantine was the corrupter of
Christianity, not its defender?)
1 Church History, vol. iii., pp. 14-18.

CHAPTER XI.
constantine's legislation concerning the
pagan sunday.
All his Tolerative Legislation Essentially Pagan — Christians did not Seek
for Sunday Laws — The first Sunday Law, 321 A.D., Pagan in Every
Particular — Essentially Identical with Existing Laws Concerning Other
Days — Legislation against Heathen Religions Feeble and Unenforced
— Constantine not a " Christian Prince."
v I "HE representative legislation of Constantine,
X with reference to Christianity, was pagan
both as to its genius and formAlThe various
edicts in favor of Christians contained little or
nothing of true liberty of conscience. ) They were
the steps by which Christianity, already paganized,
was recognized, and gradually raised to a domi
nant place among the legal religions. This
accorded with the prevailing syncretism, and the
policy which Rome had always exercised toward
foreign religions. |On the other hand, the Em
peror, still acting as Pontifex Maximus, and long
before he was baptized into the fellowship of the
Church, became its dictator.) He convened and
controlled the famous council at Nice ( 325 a.d.)
217

2l8 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
while his hands were red with the blood of his
kindred, whom he slew lest they might come
between him and his ambition to be sole emperor.
V The decisions of the Council of Nice mark the
beginning of centuries in which imperial law
determined what should be called Christianity,
what orthodoxy, and what heterodoxy. /(The Bible
was not the standard of faith, or practice. Tradi
tions, imperial decrees, the decisions of councils
called and dictated by the imperial power, deter
mined the practice of the Church, and formulated
her faith.") This will be shown more in detail
farther on. Meanwhile we pause to examine the
character of one of Constantine's earliest laws,
which has left a lasting influence on all Christian
history — his " Synday__Ed]ct^'__of J2i_a.d. It is
the more important to do this, since the question
of Sunday laws and their enforcement is now at
the front, and it is well that the reader understand
the source from which Sunday legislation sprung.
This edict of Constantine is the beginning of Sun
day legislation, and it is not difficult to determine
the influences which gave it birth. There is no
evidence that such legislation was either sought or
desired by Christians. They formed but a small
fragment of the population of the empire, and in
so far as the, principles of New Testament Chris
tianity remained, they forbade all such legislation.

LEGISLATION CONCERNING THE PAGAN SUNDAY. 219
(The power to appoint holy days rested in the
Emperor. His voice was supreme in all such
matters. ! Although history has been carefully
searched, there is no trace that any influence was
brought to bear upon Constantine, by any person,
any event, any custom which represented the
Christians, or in which they were interested, to
induce him to enact a Sunday law. There is every
evidence that he acted in his proper capacity as
Pontifex Maximus, and whatever notions may
have entered into his determination to promulgate
the edict, they could not have been Christian.
(On the other hand, there were abundant reasons
why he should begin legislation in favor of Sun
day. It was Apollo's day. (Apollo was the patron
deity of Constantine. ) He was the beautiful Sun-
god, and Constantine was proud of his own per
sonal beauty, because of which his fawning cour
tiers were accustomed to liken him to Apollo.
The sun-worship cult had been popular for a long
time. Any favor shown to it would strengthen
his influence with the " first families " of the
empire. It was the settled policy of the emperors
to overcome the discontent of the masses, under
increasing taxation and burdens, by increasing
holidays, games, and enjoyments. To exalt the
day of the Sun at such a time was a stroke of
policy wholly in keeping with the universal prac-

220 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
tice of Constantine. The general character of the
I man, his personal devotion to the Sun-god, and the
surrounding demands, furnish all needful reasons
for an act of legislation which was pagan, as we
shall see, from centre to circumference. This
famous edict runs as follows :
" Let all judges, and all city people, and all tradesmen,
rest upon the Venerable Day of the Sun. But let those
dwelling in the country freely and with full liberty attend
to the culture of their fields ; since it frequently happens
that no other day is so fit for the sowing of grain, or the
planting of vines ; hence the favorable time should not
be allowed to pass, lest the provisions of heaven be lost." *
( This was issued on the seventh of March, a.d.
321.") |ln June of the same year it was modified so
as to allow the manumission of slaves on Sunday}
The reader will notice that this edict makes no
reference to the day as a Sabbath, as the Lord's
iday, or as in any way connected with Christianity.
1 Neither is it an edict addressed to Christians.
Nor is the idea of any moral obligation or Chris
tian duty found in it. It is merely the edict of a
'heathen emperor, addressed to all his subjects,
Christian and heathen, who dwelt in cities, and
were tradesmen, or officers of justice, commanding
them to refrain from their business on the " ven
erable day" of the god whom Constantine most
1 Cod. Justin., lib. iii., tit. xii., 1. 3.

LEGISLATION CONCERNING THE PAGAN SUNDAY. 221
adored, and to whom he loved in his pride to be
compared. There are several distinct lines of
argument which prove that this edict was a pagan
rather than a Christian document.
On the following day Constantine issued an
edict with reference to consulting the pagan sooth
sayers in case of public misfortune, which, like the
Sunday edict, is so purely heathen that no " Chris
tian Emperor " could have conceived or issued it.
It runs as follows :
Edict Concerning Aruspices.
" The August Emperor Constantine to Maximus :
" If any part of the palace or other public works shall be
struck by lightning, let the sooth-sayers, following old
usages, inquire into the meaning of the portent, and let
their written words, very carefully collected, be reported
to our knowledge ; and also let the liberty of making use
of this custom be accorded to others, provided they ab
stain from private sacrifices, which are specially prohibited.
" Moreover, that declaration and exposition written in
respect to the amphitheater being struck by lightning,
concerning which you had written to Heraclianus, the
tribune, and master of offices, you may know has been
reported to us.
" Dated the 16th, before the calends of January, at Ser-
dica (320) Ace. the 8th, before the Ides of March, in the
consulship of Crispus II. and Constantine III., Caesars
Coss. (321)." ¦ 1 Codex Theod., lib. xiv., tit. x., 1. I.

222 PAGANISM IN' CHRISTIANITY.
There is abundant evidence, beyond the above,
that the Sunday-law was the product of paganism.
The language used speaks of the day only as the
"Venerable Day of the Sun" a title purely heathen.
There is not even a hint at any connection be
tween the day and Christianity, or the practices of
Christians. Similar laws concerning many other heathen
festivals were common. Joseph Bingham bears
the following testimony, when speaking of the
edict under consideration :
" This was the same respect as the old Roman laws had
paid to their ferice, or festivals, in times of idolatry and
superstition. . . . Now, as the old Roman laws ex
empted the festivals of the heathen from all judicial
business, and suspended all processes and pleadings, ex
cept in the fore-mentioned cases, so Constantine ordered
that the same respect should be paid to the Lord's day,
that it should be a day of perfect vacation from all prose
cutions, and pleadings, and business of law, except where
any case of great necessity or charity required a juridical
process and public transaction."1
Bingham states correctly that such prohibitions
were made by the Roman laws in favor of pagan
festivals, but adds, incorrectly, that Constantine
made the same in favor of the " Lord's day." It
was not the Lord's day, but the " Venerable Day of
the Sun" which the edict mentions ; and it is im-
1 Antiquities of the Christian Church, book xx., chap, ii., sec. 2.

LEGISLATION CONCERNING THE PAGAN SUNDAY. 223
possible to suppose that a law, made by a Chris
tian prince, in favor of a Christian institution,
should not in any way mention that institution, or
hint that the law was designed to apply to it.
Millman corroborates this idea as follows :
" The earlier laws of Constantine, though in their effect
favorable to Christianity, claimed some deference, as it
were, to the ancient religion, in the ambiguity of their
language, and the cautious terms in which they interfered
with paganism. The rescript commanding the celebra
tion of the Christian Sabbath, bears no allusion to its
peculiar sanctity as a Christian institution. It is the day
of the sun which is to be observed by the general venera
tion: the courts were to be closed, and the noise and
tumult of public business and legal litigation were no
longer to violate the repose of the sacred day. But the
believer in the new paganism, of which the solar worship
was the characteristic, might acquiesce without scruple in
the sanctity of the first day of the week. . . .
" The rescript, indeed, for the religious observance of
the Sunday, which enjoined the suspension of all public
business and private labor, except that of agriculture,
was enacted, according to the apparent terms of the de
cree, for the whole Roman Empire. Yet, unless we had
direct proof that the decree set forth the Christian reason
for the sanctity of the day, it may be doubted whether
the act would not be received by the greater part of
the empire as merely adding one more festival to the
fasti of the empire, as proceeding entirely from the will
of the emperor, or even grounded on his authority as
supreme pontiff, by which he had the plenary power of

224 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
appointing holy days. In fact, as we have before ob
served, the day of the sun would be willingly hallowed by
almost all the pagan world, especially that part which had
admitted any tendency toward the oriental theology.1 "
Millman hints at some "direct proof." There is
none ; hence the correctness of his conclusion, that
the people looked upon the new holiday, "as
merely adding one more festival to the fasti' of
the empire." It was not only non-Christian but
eminently unchristian.
Stronger still is the testimony of an English
barrister, Edward V. Neale. These are his words :
" That the division of days into juridici et feriati, judi
cial and non-judicial, did not arise out of the modes of
thought peculiar to the Christian world must be known
to every classical scholar. Before the age of Augustus,
the number of days upon which out of reverence to the
gods to whom they were consecrated, no trials could take
place at Rome, had become a resource upon which a
wealthy criminal could speculate as a means of evading
justice ; and Suetonius enumerates among the praise
worthy acts of that emperor, the cutting off from the
number, thirty days, in order that crime might not go
unpunished nor business be impeded."2
After enumerating certain kinds of business
which were allowed under these general laws, Mr.
Neale adds : " Such was the state of the laws with
1 History of Christianity, book iii., chaps, i. and iv.
* Feasts and Fasts , p. 6.

LEGISLATION CONCERNING THE PAGAN SUNDAY. 225
respect to judicial proceedings, while the empire
was still heathen." Concerning the suspension of
labor, we learn from the same author that :
[" The practice of abstaining from various sorts of labor
upon days consecrated by religious observance, like that
of suspending at such seasons judicial proceedings, was
familiar to the Roman world before the introduction of
Christian ideas. Virgil enumerates the rural labors, which
might on festal days be carried on, without entrenching
upon the prohibitions of religion and right ; and the enu
meration shows that many works were considered as for
bidden. Thus it appears that it was permitted to clean
out the channels of an old water course, but not to make
a new one ; to wash the herd or flock, if such washing was
needful for their health, but not otherwise ; to guard the
crop from injury by setting snares for birds, or fencing in
the grain; and to burn unproductive thorns." l")
Sir Henry Spelman, who is recognized as high
authority, in discussing the origin of practices in
the English courts, says that all ancient nations
prohibited legal proceedings on sacred days. His
words are :
" To be short, it was so common a thing in those days
of old to exempt the times of exercise of religion from all
worldly business, that the barbarous nations, even our
Angli, while they were yet in Germany, the Suevians
themselves, and others in those Northern parts would in
no wise violate or interrupt it. Tacitus says of them
1 Feasts and Fasts, p. 86, et seq.

226 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
that during this time of holy rites, non bellum ineunt, non
arma sumunt. Clausum omne ferrum. Pax et guies tunc
tantum nota, tunc tantum amat."
Speaking of the origin of the English "court
terms," Spelman says :
" I will therefore seek the original of our terms only
from the Romans, as all other nations that have been
subject to their civil and ecclesiastical monarch do, and
must. " The ancient Romans, while they were yet heathens,
did not, as we at this day, use certain continual portions
of the year for a legal decision of controversies, but out of
superstitious conceit that some days were ominous and
more unlucky than others (according to that of the Egyp
tians), they made one day to be fastus or term day and
another (as an Egyptian day), to be. vacation or ne fastus ;
seldom two fast days or law days together ; yea, they
sometimes divided one and the same day in this manner :
' ' Qui modo fastus erat, mune nefastus erat.
" The afternoon was term, the morning holy day.
" Nor were all their fasti applied to judicature, but
some of them to other meetings and consultations of the
commonwealth ; so that being divided into three sorts,
which they called fastos proprie, fastos endotercisos, and
fastos comitiales, containing together one hundred and
eighty-four days through all the months of the year,
there remained not properly to the praetor, as judicial or
triverbial days, above twenty-eight."1
1 English Works from Original MS. in Bodleian Library, book ii., p. 75.

LEGISLATION CONCERNING THE PAGAN SUNDAY. 22J
Nothing more is needed to show that the Sun-
[day edict was the product of the heathen cult, as
truly as that which was issued in connection with
it, relative to the Aruspices. There is an evident
connection between the two edicts. Apollo was
the patron deity of the soothsayers, as well as of
Constantine. (At least nine years later than this,
Constantine placed his new residence at Byzan
tium under the protection of the heathen goddess
of Fortune ; he never gave up the title of high-
priest of the heathen religion ; he did not formally
embrace Christianity until sixteen years later. )
Whatever he did to favor Christianity, and what
ever claims he made to conversion, were the out
growth of a shrewd policy, rather than of a
converted heart. And when the conservative
historian can say of him, ( " The very brightest
period of his reign is stained with crimes, which
even the spirit of the age, and the policy of an ab
solute monarch, cannot excuse," he cannot be
called a Christian prince.^
Llf he made any general laws against heathenism,
they were little executed ; for it was not sup
pressed in the empire until a.d. 390 — seventy-nine
years after his Sunday edict, and fifty-three years
after his death.') The few abuses against which he
legislated were those which had been condemned
before by the laws of the heathen rulers who had.

228 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
preceded him, such as the obscure midnight orgies,
etc. Millman says on this point :
" If it be difficult to determine the extent to which
Constantine proceeded in the establishment of Christian
ity, it is even more perplexing to estimate how far he
exerted the imperial authority in the abolition of pagan
ism. . . . The pagan writers, who are not scrupulous in
their charges against the memory of Constantine and dwell
with bitter resentment on all his overt acts of hostility to
the ancient religion, do not accuse him of these direct
encroachments on paganism. Neither Julian nor Zosi-
mus lay this to his charge. Libanius distinctly asserts that
the temples were left open and undisturbed during his
reign, and that paganism remained unchanged. Though
Constantine advanced many Christians to offices of trust,
and no doubt many who were ambitious of such offices
conformed to the religion of the emperor, (probably most
of the high dignities of the State were held by the pagans.
. . ' . In the capitol there can be little doubt that sacri
fices were offered in the name of thesenate and the people
of Rome till a much later period." ')
The whole matter is tersely told by a late Eng
lish writer, who, speaking of the time of the Sun
day edict, says :
"At a later period, carried away by the current of opin
ion, he declared himself a convert to the church. Chris
tianity then, or what he was pleased to call by that name,
became the law of the land, and the edict of A.D. 321,
being unrevoked, was enforced as a Christian ordinance.'"
1 Historical Commentaries, book i v. , chap. iv.
8 Sunday and the Mosaic Sabbath (Anonymous), p. 4.

LEGISLATION CONCERNING THE PAGAN SUNDAY. 22Q
The following words of the learned Niebuhr,
in his lectures on Roman history, are to the same
effect :
" Many judge of Constantine by too severe a standard,
because they regard him as a Christian ; but I cannot look
at him in that light. The religion which he had in his
head, must have been a strange jumble indeed. . . . He
was a superstitious man, and mixed up his Christian reli
gion with all kinds of absurd and superstitious opinions.
When certain oriental writers call him equal to the apos
tles, they do not know what they are saying, and to speak
of him as a saint is a profanation of the word." 1
|lt is a curious and little known fact, that markets
were expressly appointed by Constantine to be
held on Sunday. ) This we learn from an inscrip
tion on a Slavonian bath rebuilt by him, published
in Gruter's Inscriptiones Antiques Totius Orbis Ro-
mani, clxiv., 2. It is there recorded of the em
peror, that "provisione pietatis sues nundinas dies
solis perpeti anno constituit" ; "by a pious provi
sion he appointed markets to be held on Sunday
throughout the year." His pious object doubtless
was to promote the attendance of the country peo
ple at churches in towns. " Thus," says Charles
Julius Hare, " Constantine was the author of the
practice of holding markets on Sunday, which, in
many parts of Europe, prevailed above a thousand
1 Lect. V.

230 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
yqars after, though Charlemagne issued a special
law (cap. cxl.) against it."1 [ In "Scotland, this
practice was first forbidden on holy days by an Act
of James IV., in 1503, and on Sundays in particu
lar by one of James VI., in 1579." 2!
1 Philological Museum, i., 30.
8 Cf. Robert Cox, Sabbath Literature, vol. i., p. 359. For the Scotch
laws mentioned by Cox, see Critical History of Sunday Legislation, by the
writer, pp. 144-146.

CHAPTER XII.
OTHER FORMS OF PAGAN RESIDUUM IN CHRISTIANITY.
A Low Standard of Religious Life — Faith in Relics — The Cross an
Ancient Pagan (Phallic) Symbol — A "Charm" Borrowed from
Paganism — Constantine's use of the Composite Symbol as a Military
Standard — Prevalence of Faith in ' ' Charms" — Sign of the Cross in
Baptism — Baptism and Holy Water as ' ' Charms" — Stupendous Mir
acles, like Pagan Prodigies, through Baptism — Delayed Baptism —
Orientation at Baptism, etc.
THOSE who have made a study of paganism
as it appeared in Christianity during and
after the third century know that many other
forms of it were prominent besides those funda
mental errors which have been discussed in the
preceding pages. Some of these have attracted
more attention than the fundamental ones, since
they lie more plainly on the surface of history.
We shall glance at several, that the reader may
see the field yet more fully.
A Low Standard of Christian Life.
[That the standard of individual character in the
Church was brought far below that of the New
Testament, and much below what would be ac-
231

232 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
cepted at the present day, appears in the history"
of morals and social life, and in many ways in the
Church. )
The degenerate character of his time is thus set
forth by Chrysostom :
" Plagues too, teeming with untold mischiefs, have
\ lighted upon the Churches. The chief offices have be-
I come saleable. Hence numberless evils are springing,
and there is no one to redress, no one to reprove them.
Nay the disorder has assumed a sort of method and
consistency. Has a man done wrong and been arraigned
for it ? His effort is not to prove himself guiltless, but
to find if possible accomplices in his crimes. What is
to become of us ? since hell is our threatened portion.
Believe me, had not God stored up punishment for us
there, ye would see every day tragedies deeper than the
disasters of the Jews. What then ? However, let no
one take offence, for I mention no names ; suppose some
one were to come into this church to present you that
are here at this moment, those that are now with me,
and to make inquisition of them ; or rather not now, but
suppose on Easter day any one endued with such a
spirit, as to have such a thorough knowledge of the things
they had been doing, should narrowly examine all that
came to Communion and were being washed [in baptism]
after they had attended the mysteries ; many things
would be discovered more shocking than the Jewish
horrors. He would find persons who practise augury,
jwho make use of charms, and omens, and incantations,
and who have committed fornication, adulterers, drunk-
Jards, and revilers— covetous I am unwilling to add, lest I

OTHER FORMS OF PAGAN RESIDUUM. 233
should hurt the feelings of any of those who are standing
here. What more ? Suppose any one should make scrutiny
into all the communicants in the world, what kind of
transgression is there which he would not detect ? And
what if he examined those in authority ? Would he not
find them eagerly bent upon gain ? making traffic of high
places? envious, malignant, vainglorious, gluttonous and
slaves to money ? " 1
A similar vivid description, under the figure of
a burning building, representing the Church as
consumed with evil, is found in Homily 10, On
Ephesians. Another description of the effect of
heathenism upon those who professed to be Chris
tians is sharply set forth in a Treatise Attributed
to Cyprian, on the " Public Shows."2 He says :
" Believers, and men who claim for themselves the
authority of the Christian name, are not ashamed — are
not, I repeat, ashamed to find a defence in the heavenly-
Scriptures for the vain superstitions associated with the
public exhibitions of the heathens, and thus to attribute
divine authority to idolatry. For how is it, that what is
done by the heathens in honor of any idol is resorted to
in a public show by faithful Christians, and the heathen
idolatry is maintained and the true and divine religion is
trampled upon in contempt of God ? Shame binds me
to relate their pretexts and defences in this behalf.
'Where,' say they, 'are there such Scriptures? where
1 Homily 6, On Ephesians.
* 7 go 222 of vol. ii. of The Writings of Cyprian, in Ante-Nicene.-
Librar,'

234 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
are these things prohibited ? On the contrary, both
Elias is the charioteer of Israel, and David himself danced
before the ark. We read of psaltries, horns, trumpets,
drums, pipes, harps, and choral dances. Moreover, the
apostle, in his struggle, puts before us the contest of the
Caestus, and of our wrestle against the spiritual things of
-wickedness. Again when he borrows his illustrations
from the racecourse, he also proposes the prize of the
crown. Why, then, may not a faithful Christian man
gaze upon that which the divine pen might write about ? '
At this point I might not unreasonably say that it would
have been far better for them not to know any writings
at all, than thus to read the writings [ of the Scriptures ].
For words and illustrations which are recorded by way of
•exhortation to evangelical virtue, are translated by them
into pleas for vice ; because those things are written of,
not that they should be gazed upon, but that a greater
eagerness might be aroused in our minds in respect of
things that will benefit us, seeing that among the hea
thens there is manifest so much eagerness in respect of
things which will be of no advantage."
That these evils increased with the years, is
shown by the words of Augustine, when he says :
" Accordingly you will have to witness many drunkards.
covetous men, deceivers, gamesters, adulterers, fornicators,
men who bind upon their persons sacrilegious charms, and
others given up to sorcerers and astrologers, and diviners
practised in all kinds of impious arts. You will also have
to observe how those very crowds which fill the theaters
on the festal days of the pagans, also fill the churches on
the festal days of the Christians. ' And when you see

OTHER FORMS OF PAGAN RESIDUUM. 235
these things you will be tempted to imitate them. Nay,
why should I use the expression, you will see, in reference
to what you assuredly are acquainted with even already.
For you are not ignorant of the fact that many who are
called Christians engage in all these evil things which I
have briefly mentioned. Neither are you ignorant that
at times, perchance, men whom you know to bear the
name of Christians are guilty of even more grievous of
fenses than these." '
Such degradation of Christian life was the una
voidable fruitage of the various pagan influences
which had substituted false standards of Church
membership and of action for the true ones laid
down in the Scriptures. Faith in " Relics''
( Faith in " Relics," bodies, bones, garments,
places, etc., as retaining the virtues of the persons
with whom they were associated, was a prominent
characteristic of paganism, from the earliest time. J
Paganism brought this element into Christianity,
where it took root and flourished, like a fast-grow
ing, noxious weed. The whole system of relic
worship, down to the " Holy Coat at Treves," in
1 89 1, is a direct harvest from pagan planting.
Relics were believed to be powerful agents for
good, by direct influence, and by acting as charms
1 On the Catechising of the Uninslructed, chap, xxv., f, 48.

236 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
to ward off evils of all kinds. Take an example
from one of the early Church historians, Sozomen,
who gives the following with all the soberness of
undoubted fact :
" While the Church everywhere was under the sway of
these eminent men, the clergy and people were excited
to the imitation of their virtue and zeal. Nor was the
Church of this era distinguished only by these illustrious
examples of piety ; for the relics of the proto-prophets,,
Habakkuk, and a little while after, Micah, were brought
to light about this time. As I understand, God made
known the place where both these bodies were deposited,
by a divine vision in a dream to Zebennus, who was then
acting as bishop of the Church of Eleutheropolis. The
relics of Habakkuk were found at Cela a city called Ceila.
The tomb of Micah was discovered at a distance of ten
stadia from Cela, at a place called Berathsatia. This tomb
was ignorantly styled by the people of the country, ' the
tomb of the faithful '; or, in their native language, Neph-
sameemana. These events, which occurred during the
reign of Theodosius, were sufficient for the good repute
of the Christian religion." ;
The same author reports the discovery of the
relics of Zechariah the prophet. Calemerus, a
serf, was directed in a dream to dig at a certain
place in a garden, being assured that he would
find two coffins, the inner one of wood, the other
of lead; "beside the coffins you will see a glass
1 Ecc. Hist., book vii., chap. xxix.

OTHER FORMS OF PAGAN RESIDUUM. 237
vessel full of water, and two serpents of moderate
size, but tame and perfectly innoxious, so that they
seem to be used to being handled." Calemerus
followed the directions, and found the body of
Zechariah, "clad in a white stole," with a royal
child lying at his feet ; and " although the prophet
had lain under the earth for so many generations,
he appeared sound ; his hair was closely shorn, his
nose was straight ; his beard moderately grown,
his head quite short, his eyes rather sunken, and
concealed by the eyebrows."1 (In a similar style,3
Sozomen relates how the head of John the Bap
tist was discovered in the suburbs of Constantino
ple. ) That such ridiculous myths could be written
down as a part of genuine Church history, shows
how fully the pagan falsehoods corrupted the best
currents of Christian life.
The Cross, its Sign, and other Charms.
(Comparatively few readers realize that the cross
was of heathen origin, and a religious symbol of
the lowest order, and that it was not adopted as a
symbol of Christianity until the Church was well
paganized. Its origin lies in the shadows of the
prehistoric period. 'It was a religious symbol in
the Asiatic, Egyptian, Grecian, Roman, Druidic,
1 Ibid., book ix., chap. xvii.
5 Book vii. , chap. xxi.

238 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
and Central American heathenism. y\t originated
in the lowest department of sun-worship cultus^
Ishtar, the Assyrian Venus, was represented as
holding a staff, the upper end of which was in the
form of a Latin cross. ) The worship of Ishtar was
one of the darkest features of the Babylonian reli
gion. It was conducted with lascivious rites which
may not be named. It corrupted the Hebrews on
every side. \We find it, with other forms of sun-
worship, • polluting the temple itself, and sharply
condemned by the prophet of Jehovah. * J
I Tammuz was the young and beautiful sun-god,
the bridegroom of Ishtar who bore the cross-
crowned sceptre ; and this mourning for him was
associated with gross obscenity. )
Another form of this same worship is condemned
by Jeremiah, thus :
" Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah
and in the streets, of Jerusalem ? The children gather
wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women
knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven,
and to pour out drink-offerings unto other gods, that they
may provoke me to anger." a
There is evidence to show that these cakes were
marked with one form of the cross, trie Greek tau
(T). [In later times the Greeks offered cakes thus
1 See Ezek. viii., 14-18.
s Jer. vii., 17-19.

OTHER FORMS OF PAGAN RESIDUUM. 239
marked to Bacchus, in connection with the vilest
orgies. Specimens of these are found at Hercu-
laneum?^ Similar ones have been found in the
catacombs. The " hot cross-bun " is the lineal
descendant of the tau (7,)-marked cakes of the
obscene sun-worship cultus. Its association with
Friday — day of Ishtar, Venus, Frega — is a remnant
of paganism, although later efforts to Christianize
it have associated it with " Good Friday."
(The cross appears in Assyrian history, worn as a
religious emblem by the priest-king, Samsi-Vul,
son of Shalamanezar, and also by Assur-Nazir-Pal.J
These specimens may be seen in the British Mu
seum. It is the Greek cross, and identical with
the "pectoral cross," worn by the Pope, and seen
on altar-cloths at the present day. Priority of
possession is several thousand years in favor of the
Assyrian. The same style of crosses are found in
the Etruscan department of the Vatican Museum
at Rome. They are on the breasts — painted — of cer
tain large Etruscan male figures, and are taken from
mural decorations in ancient Etruscan burial-places.
Similar " pectoral " crosses may be seen also in the
British Museum on two figures from Thebes, in
the Egyptian Hall. They date from about i ioo
B.c, and represent men of Asia bringing tribute.
In Wilkinson's Ancient Egypt the same cross may
be seen on the breast of two warriors.

240 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
There is a figure of the youthful Bacchus, taken
from an ancient vase, with which antiquarians are
familiar, holding a cup and fennel branch — a figure
of much beauty. The head-dress is a band with
crosses as of Horus. A portion of the band falls
from the head, and with its fringe and single cross,
if lengthened, would form a modern " stole."
The cross is also found on Greek pottery, dating
from 700 to 500 b.c. It appears in relics of the
Latin people of the same period. It was used as
a symbol in Buddhism in India long before the
time of Christ. It is also found in Thibet, Scandi
navia, and other parts of northern Europe.
That the cross was extensively known and used
before the Christian era is shown by an admirable
article in the Edinburgh Review of October, 1870,
on the pre-Christian Cross. The author of the
article claims to have collected nearly two hundred
varieties of the cross, in its heathen form. He
speaks of it as follows :
" From the dawn of organized paganism in the Eastern
world, to the final establishment of Christianity in the
Western, the cross was undoubtedly the commonest and
most sacred of symbolical monuments, and to a remarkable
extent it is so still in almost every land where that, of
Calvary is unrecognized or unknown. Apart from any
distinctions of social or intellectual superiority of caste,
color, nationality, or location in either hemisphere it
appears to have been the aboriginal possession of every

OTHER FORMS OF PAGAN RESIDUUM. 241
people of antiquity— the elastic girdte, so to say, which
embraced the most widely separated heathen communi
ties, the most significant token of universal brotherhood,
the principal point of contact in every system of pagan
mythology, to which all the families of mankind were
severally and irresistibly drawn, and by which their com
mon descent was emphatically expressed. . .
" Of the several varieties of the cross still in vogue as
national or ecclesiastical emblems in this and other Euro
pean states, and distinguished by the familiar appellations
of St. George, St. Andrew, the Maltese, the Greek, the
Latin, etc., there is not one amongst them the existence
of which may not be traced to the remotest antiquity." '
(it is also true that the cross does not appear as
the symbol of Christianity until after its paganiza-
tion under Constantine./ He made a composite
symbol, known as the Chi-ro, of which see below.
It seems probable that he added these to the pagan
cross. On this point Blake says :
"The Cross and the Crescent were combined in the Orien
tal standards (Fig. 29.) centuries before the time of Christ.
" Roman coins of the period of 269 B.C. show the cross
of Saturn (Fig. 30.) with distinctness. According to
Gaume, the illustrious writer, all the Roman standards
bore this cross, and Constantine being unable to vary the
banner of the empire, added ' XP ' the Greek sign for
Christ, to the imperial flag, 312 A.D." 2
1 Pp. 224, 226.
5 The Cross, Ancient and Modern, by Willson W. Blake, illustrated, pp.
18, 19, New York.
16

242 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
The similarity between the heathenism of Asia
and Central America is a well-known fact of history.
" The religion of the Mexicans was purely Chaldean.
They professed to believe in a Supreme God, but idol-
worship was general. They had a regular priesthood,
gorgeous temples and convents ; they had processions, in
which crosses, and even red crosses, were carried ; and
incense, flowers, and fruit-offerings were employed in their
worship. They confessed to their priests, and generally
confessed only once, receiving a written absolution which
served for the remainder of their lives as an effectual
safeguard against punishment, even for crimes committed
after receiving the said absolution. They worshipped,
and afterwards ate, a wafer-god, an idol made of flour and
honey, which they called ' the god of penitence,' and they
always ate him fasting. They also venerated the black
calf, or bull, and adored a goddess-mother, with an infant
son in her arms. They sacrificed human victims to the
God of Hell, of whom they considered the cross to be a
symbol, and to whom they were largely sacrificed, by
laying them on a great black stone and tearing out their
hearts. " We are now prepared to see how easily the heathen,
in adopting a nominal Christianity, as they did from the
reign of Constantine, would, have modified and Christian
ized their views of the heathen cross. Hitherto that em
blem had been associated with their worship of the gods.
In their temples, in their houses, on their images, their
clothes, their cattle, etc., the worshippers were accustomed
to see the peculiar cross, or, crosses, dedicated to each.
Bacchus had his, Serapis his, and so forth. Some of the
new converts were themselves wearing on their own per-

OTHER FORMS OF PAGAN RESIDUUM. 24$
sons the emblem of their gods. This was the case with
certain Asiatics and Etruscans, who wore the cross round'
their necks, but not, apparently, with the Egyptians as
far as relating to a neck ornament. Wilkinson, chapter
v., plate 342, gives the figures of four warriors from the
monuments of Egypt, from Asiatic tribes, wearing crosses
round their necks, or on their clothes. Their date is
about 1400 B.C.
"In plate 47 of his Peintures Antiques de Vases Grecs
(Rome, 1 8 17, fol.), Milligen gives examples of the cross on
the apron of the warrior, and within a circle on his horse.
" To enter then, into a heathen temple just rededicated
to Christ, where the cross of the rejected pagan deity still
existed, or where a new church cross had been substituted
—to visit a temple so reconsecrated, or to enter a basilica
(judgment hall) by the Emperor's order just handed over
to the bishop for Christian use — all this would aid in
making the change from the worship of the gods to the ,
worship of the Emperor's God very easy to the convert. /
" The old temples, and the old basilicas, the arrange
ments of the apse, etc., in the latter almost unchanged —
the lustral, or holy water — the mural paintings sometimes
left, sometimes altered to suit the persons of the new
heroes, or saints — the incense, the pomp of worship, the
long train of vested priests — all and much more, would1
make the transition from the old to the new faith, exter
nally, a matter of little difficulty. As to the cross, there
it was, and there it would continue, and has continued." *
In view of these and many similar facts, it is easy
to understand how the cross became a permanent
1 The Cross, Heathen and Christian, by Mourant Brock, M.A., pp. l8>
57-59, London.

244 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
pand prominent feature in the symbolism of pagan-
| ized Christianity. The famous vision of Constan
tine the Great, in which he is said to have seen a
cross in the sky, in connection with the sun, is not
supported by evidence which places it among facts.
It was not unnatural, however, that he, a devout
sun-worshipper, and familiar with the cross as the
symbol of the lowest form of that worship, should
associate the two, as he has been said to have done.
The symbol which he adopted on his military
standard was not the cross proper, but the two
Greek initials of the name of Christ, the " chi-ro."
One of these letters, resembling the English X,
gave the standard a similarity to the cross. Under
Valens, Emperor of the East, who died in 378 a.d.,
the cross appears without the letters, and from
that time the letters gradually disappear. The
Empress Eudocia wore the heathen form of the
cross on her head.1 It was the exact counterpart
of that which the moon-goddess, Diana, had worn
before. The leading facts concerning the cross
may be summed up as follows :
\Up to the time of Constantine — early part of
the fourth century — the cross remained what it had
always been, a pagan symbol, type of its most
revolting cultus. It is the same in India to-day.
By the opening of the fifth century it had become
1 Died 460 a.d..

OTHER FORMS OF PAGAN RESIDUUM. 245
the symbol of paganized Christianity. The crucifix
— a figure of Christ nailed to the cross — appears
first about the middle of the fifth century. The
following is the general order whereby the transi
tion was accomplished :
1. Constantine adopts the initial letters, giving
the chi-ro standard, about 312 a.d.1
2. The chi (X) was gradually changed to the
form of a cross, while the ro, similar to the English
P, remained in its original position.
3. The ro was rejected, and the chi (X) was
changed to the Greek cross of Bacchus.
4. The heathen tau (T), as used in India and
Egypt, was brought in, probably because of its
supposed resemblance to the cross on which Christ
was (said to have been) put to death.
5. The tau appears, surmounted by a roundel,
evidently the sacred egg of the heathen. This was
the emblem of the Goddess of Nature, the pro
ductive principle. This brought the original
heathen symbol into still greater similarity to what
is now known as the Latin cross
' Boissier gives a minute account of the vision of Constantine and its
effects in leading him to favor Christianity. He quotes from Lactantius,
tutor of Constantine's sons, who describes the vision of the Emperor in
his treatise, The Death of the Persecutors. This summary, given by
Boissier, shows that the sign which Constantine saw in his vision, and
which he engraved upon his military standard, was not the cross proper,
but the monogram known as the Chi-Ro. It is described by Lactantius in
these words : ' ' The letter ' X ' crossed by a bar, the top of which was gently
recurved, forming thus the monogram of Christ " — (cf. La Fin du Paganism).

346 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
6. The crux ansata, or handled cross. This is
the form usually seen in the hands of the gods of
India and Egypt. It is the symbol of the sun-god,
and is interpreted by modern Egyptologists as the
symbol of life. It was primarily a phallic symbol
of reproduction. An English writer (Rev. Mou-
rant Brock) has pertinently said :
" And it is high time that Christians should understand
a fact of which skeptics have been long talking and writ
ing, that the cross was the central symbol of ancient pa
ganism. What it represents, must remain untold ; but it
was probably made the medium of our Lord's death,
through the crafty device of the wicked one, into whose
hands he was for a while delivered, with a view to the
future corruption of Christianity, and the carrying on,
under its name, of all the abominations of the heathen."
The prominence and value which the "sign of
the Cross " and its associate pagan symbols gained
as "charms" in paganized Christianity can be
readily understood in view of the foregoing facts.
It is wholly unexplainable from the New Testa
ment standpoint, and without these facts. A few
examples must suffice, showing how this pagan
conception was transferred to Christianity. Bing
ham, a learned and conservative writer, says :
" But there was one sort of enchantment, which many
ignorant and superstitious Christians, out of the remains
eH heathen error, much affected; that was the use of

OTHER FORMS OF PAGAN RESIDUUM. 247
charms and amulets and spells to cure diseases, or avert
dangers or mischiefs, both from themselves and the fruits
of the earth. For Constantine had allowed the heathen,
in the beginning of his reformation, for some time, not
only to consult their augurs in public, but also to use'
charms by way of remedy for bodily distempers, and to
prevent storms of rain and hail from injuring the ripe
fruits, as appears from that very law, where he condemns
the other sort of magic, that tended to do mischief, to be
punished with death. And probably from this indulgence
granted to the heathen, many Christians who brought
a tincture of heathenism with them into their religion,
might take occasion to think there was no great harm in
such charms or enchantments, when the design was only
to do good, and not evil. However it was, this is certain
in fact, that many Christians were much inclined to this
practice, and therefore made use of charms and amulets,
which they called periammata and phylacteria, pendants
and preservatives to secure themselves from danger, and
drive away bodily distempers. These phylacteries, as they
called them, were a sort of amulets made of ribands, with
a text of Scripture or some other charm of words written
in them, which they imagined without any natural means
to be effectual remedies or preservatives against diseases."
The extent to which this evil existed in the Church
is indicated by Chrysostom, as is also his belief in
the sign of the cross as a superior "charm." He
says :
" For these amulets, though they who make money by
them are forever rationalizing about them, and saying,
1 Antiquities, etc., book xvi., chap, v., sec. 6.

248 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
' We call upon God, and do nothing extraordinary,' and
the like ; and ' the old woman [who made the amulets]
is a Christian,' says he, 'and one of the faithful'; the
thing is idolatry. Art thou one of the faithful ? sign the
cross ; say, this I have for my only weapon ; this for my
remedy ; and other I know none. Tell me, if a physician
should come to one, and, neglecting the remedies belong
ing to his art, should use incantations, should we call that
man a physician ? By no means : for we see not the
medicines of the healing art ; so neither, in this case, do
we see those of Christianity.
" Other women, again, tie about them the names of
rivers, and venture numberless things of like nature. Lo,
I say, and forewarn you all, that if any be detected, I will
not spare them again, whether they have made amulet, or
incantation, or any other thing of such an art as this." 1
"This sign [the cross], both in the days of our fore
fathers and now hath opened doors that were shut up ;
this hath quenched poisonous drugs ; this hath taken away
the power of hemlock ; this hath healed bites of venom
ous beasts. For if it opened the gates of hell, and threw
wide the archways of Heaven, and made a new entrance
into Paradise, and cut away the nerves of the devil ; what
marvel if it prevailed over poisonous drugs, and venomous
beasts, and all other such things ? " '
Tertullian shows his faith in the sign of the
cross as a cure for disease,3 in his discussion of the 1
nature and cure of the scorpion's sting. He says :'
' Horn, viii., On Colossians.
2 Homily liv., f 7, On the Gospel of St. Matthew.
3 Scorpiace, xv.

OTHER FORMS OF PAGAN RESIDUUM.

249

" We have faith for a defense if we are not smitten with
distrust, itself, also, in immediately making the sign [of
the cross over the wounded part] and adjuring [that part
in the name of Jesus] and besmearing the [poisoned] heel
with [the gore of] the beast."
The Sign of the Cross in Baptism.
( As one of the supreme charms, the sign of the
cross was associated with baptism, which was
also made a " charm " under the influence of pagan
water-worship.) It was associated with anointing,
which was also a pure importation from paganism.
Speaking of this sign Bingham says :
" The third use of it was in this unction before baptism.
For so jthe author under the name of Dionysius, describ
ing the ceremony of anointing the party, before the
consecration of the water, says, The Bishop begins the
unction by thrice signing him with the sign of the cross,
and then commits him to the priest to be anointed all
over the body, whilst he goes and consecrates the water
in the font. St. Austin also may be understood of this
when he says, The cross is always joined with baptism.
And by this we may interpret several passages in Cyprian,
as where he tells Demetrian, They, only, escape, who are
born again, and signed with the sign of Christ. And
what that sign is, and on what part of the body it is
made, the Lord signified in another place, saying, ' Go
through the midst of Jerusalem and set a mark upon
their foreheads.' And so again in his book of the Unity
of the Church, speaking of Uzziah's leprosy, he says, He

250 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
was marked for his offense against the Lord in that part
of his body, where those are signed who obtain his mercy.
Which seems plainly to refer to the sign of* the cross
made in baptism. The author of the Apostolic Consti
tutions is very express in this matter. For explaining
the meaning of the several parts and ceremonies used in
baptism, he says, The water is to represent Christ's burial,
the oil to represent the Holy Ghost, the sign of the cross
to represent the cross, and the ointment or chrism, the
confirmation of men's professions. And not improbably
St. Jerome might refer to this, though his words be not
so restrained to this time of unction, when he says, He
was a Christian, born of Christian parents, and carried
the banner of the cross in his forehead. Some add also
those words of Cyprian. Let us guard our foreheads that
we may preserve the sign of God without danger. And
those of Pontius in his life, where speaking of the
Christian confessors who were branded by the heathen
in the forehead, and sent as slaves into the mines, he
says, They were marked in the forehead a second time ;
alluding to the sign of the cross, which as Christians they
had received before. But these passages do not neces
sarily relate to baptism, but are only general expressions
that may refer to the use of the sign of the cross upon
any other occasion ; it being usual in those times to sign
themselves upon the forehead in the commonest actions
of their lives, upon every motion, as Tertullian expresses
it, at their going out and coming in, at their going to bath,
or to bed, or to meals, or whatever their employment or
occasions called them to. Yet thus far it may be argued
from them, that they who used it so commonly upon all
other occasions, would hardly omit it in this solemn

OTHER FORMS OF PAGAN RESIDUUM. 25 1
unction of baptism. And therefore these allegations may
be allowed to be a sort of collateral evidence of the
practice.

>> 1

Again he says :
" Secondly, I observe, that together with this prayer, it
was usual to make the sign of the cross also, not, as before,
upon the person to be baptised, but as a circumstance of
the consecration. This we learn not only from Dionysius,
but from St. Austin, who says, The water of baptism was
signed with the 'Cross of Christ. And St. Chrysostom
says, They used it in all their sacred mysteries ; when\
they were regenerated in baptism, when they were fed
with the mystical food in the eucharist, when they were
ordained, that symbol of victory was always represented
in the action, whatever religious matter they were con
cerned in. To which we may add the author under the
name of St. Austin, who runs over all the solemn conse
crations of the Church and tells us, the symbol of the cross
was used in every one, in catechising of new converts, in
consecrating the waters of baptism, in giving imposition
of hands in confirmation, in the dedication of Churches,
and altars, in consecrating the eucharist, and in promot
ing priests and Levites to holy orders.
" Thirdly, I observe concerning the effects of this con
secration, that the very same change was supposed to be
wrought by it in the waters of baptism, as by the conse
cration of bread and wine in the eucharist. For they,
supposed not only the presence of the Spirit, but also the,
mystical presence of Christ's blood, to be hereafter conse
cration. Julius Firmicus, speaking of baptism, bids men
1 Antiquities, book xi., chap, ix., sec. 5.'

252 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
here seek for the pure waters, the undefiled fountain,
where the blood of Christ, after many spots and defile
ments, would whiten them by the Holy Ghost." '
Superstitious regard for the sign of the cross
grew as paganism ripened in the church ; witness
the following words of Augustine :
" And lastly as every one knows, what else is the sign
of Christ but the Cross of Christ ? For unless that sign
be applied, whether it be to the foreheads of believers, or
to the very water out of which they are regenerated, or
to the oil with which they receive the anointing chrism,
or to the sacrifice that nourishes them, none of them is
properly administered." 2
Baptism and " Holy Water "as " Charms."
(The pagan doctrine of baptismal regeneration
involved the idea of water as a charm against
disease and misfortune, in men, in animals, in
growing crops, and fruits. ) These notions were
brought into the Christian Church and soon
became widely spread and firmly fixed. An excel
lent review of this subject is furnished by Canon
Farrar in his description of Cyprian's views relative
to baptism. These are his words :
" Cyprian holds that in baptism the Priest commands
the power of the Holy Ghost to forgive sin by means of
sanctified and purified water, but only if he be a Catholic
1 Antiquities, book xi., chap, x., sees. 3 and 4.
3 Tractate 118, On the Gospel of St. John.

OTHER FORMS OF PAGAN RESIDUUM. 253
Prieist, and free from every taint of what Cyprian or the
Episcopate regards as Schism or heresy. When the grace
of forgiveness for all past sins has been bestowed by this
act it is not valid for future sins. They too require that
satisfaction for them should be offered to God, and this
satisfaction must be penitence, penance, and good works." '
" He might have adopted the language of Tertullian
about baptism : ' in this way, without pomp, with no nov
elty of preparation, without cost, a man descends into the
water, and being immersed, with the utterance of a few
words, rises up out of it, scarcely, if at all, cleaner in
body, but, incredible consequence, the possessor of eternal
life.' " ' Miracles through Baptism.
Socrates, the Church historian, tells of miracu
lous cures through baptism as gravely as Sozomen
does of the finding of " Relics." Hear him :
" This was one important improvement in the circum
stances of the Church, which happened during the admin
istration of Atticus. Nor were these times without the
attestation of miracles and healing. For a certain Jew
being a paralytic had been confined to his bed for many
years ; and as every sort of medical skill, and the prayers
of his Jewish brethren had been resorted to but had
availed nothing, he had recourse at length to Christian
baptism, trusting in it as the only true remedy to be used.
When Atticus the bishop was informed of his wishes, he
1 Epists. 64 and 6q.
2 Lives of the Fathers, by F. W. Farrar, D.D., F.R.S., vol. i., pp.
332, 333, Edinburgh, 1889.

254 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
instructed him in the first principles of Christian truth,
and having preached to him to hope in Christ, directed
that he should be brought in his bed to the font. The
paralytic Jew receiving baptism with a sincere faith, as
soon as he was taken out of the baptismal font found
himself perfectly cured of his disease, and continued to
enjoy sound health afterwards. This miraculous power
Christ vouchsafed to be manifested even in our times ;
and the fame of it caused many heathens to believe and
be baptised. But the Jews, although zealously ' seeking
after signs,' not even the signs which actually took place
induced to embrace the faith. Such blessings were thus
conferred by Christ upon men." '
" A certain Jewish impostor, pretending to be a convert
to Christianity, was in the habit of being baptized often,
and by that artifice he amassed a good deal of money.
After having deceived many of the Christian sects by
this fraud— for he received baptism from the Arians and
Macedonians— as there remained no others to practise his
hypocrisy upon, he at length came to Paul bishop of the
Novatians, and declaring that he earnestly desired bap
tism, requested that he might obtain it at his hand.
Paul commended the determination of the Jew, but told
him he could not perform that rite for him, until he had
been instructed in the fundamental principles of the faith,
and given himself to fasting and prayer for many days.
The Jew compelled to fast against his will became the
more importunate in his request for baptism ; now as
Paul did not wish to discourage him by longer delays,
since he was so urgent, he consented to grant his request,
1 Socrates, Eccl. History, book vii., chap. iv.

OTHER FORMS OF PAGAN RESIDUUM. 255
and made all the necessary preparations for the baptism.
Having purchased a white vestment for him, he ordered
the font to be filled with water, and then led the Jew to>
it in order to baptize him. But a certain invisible power
of God caused the water suddenly to disappear. The
bishop, of course, and those present, had not the least
suspicion of the real cause, but imagined that water had.
escaped by the channels underneath, by means of which
they are accustomed to empty the font ; these passages.
were therefore very carefully closed, and the font filled
again. Again, however, as the Jew was taken there a.
second time, the water vanished as before. Then Paul,
addressing the Jew, said : ' Either you are an evil-doer,
wretched man, or an ignorant person who has already
been baptized.' The people having crowded together to-
witness this miracle, one among them recognized the Jew,
and identified him as having been baptized by Atticus,.
the bishop, a little while before. Such was the portent
wrought by the hands of Paul bishop of the Novatians." *
(That baptism was sought as a shield against
bodily ills, without even the pagan notion of spir
itual purity, is shown by the following from
Bingham : J
"Yet sometimes, as Euthymius relates in the same
place, they would bring their children to the presbyters
i of the Church to be baptised after the Catholic way, be
cause they had an opinion that both baptism and the cross
were of some advantage to the body for the cure of dis
eases, but of no other efficacy, benefit, or virtue to purge
1 Ibid., chap. xvii.

256 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
the soul. And such an opinion possessed the minds of
many others, who had no further regard for baptism, but
\ only as it was of use to free the body of some distem
per or uncleanliness." x
Delayed Baptism.
The pagan idea of " baptismal regeneration "
took such hold of the Church as to become a grave
evil, by inducing men to live in sin, under the
belief that they could gain salvation at the last
moment. The testimony of Bingham is presented
again, which testimony is the more valuable, be
cause coming from a conservative English Church
man.
" Others deferred it out of heathenish principles still
remaining in them, because they were in love with the
world and its pleasures, which they were unwilling
to renounce, to take upon them the yoke of Christ,
which they thought would lay greater restraints upon
them, and deny them those liberties which they could
now more freely indulge themselves in and securely en
joy. They could spend their life in pleasure, and be
baptised at last, and then they should gain as much as
those that were baptised before ; for the laborers who
came into the vineyard at the last hour, had the same
reward as those that had borne the burden and heat
of the day." *
1 Antiquities, book ii. , chap. ii.
s Antiquities, book ii. , chap. vi. , sec. 3.

OTHER FORMS OF PAGAN RESIDUUM. 257
Orientation at Baptism.
\the corruption of baptism by the pagan sun-
worship cult was especially shown in the practice
of turning eastward and westward in connection
with baptism.) This chapter has space for a single
quotation on this point from Bingham :
" This custom of turning about to the East when they
made their profession of obedience to Christ is also
mentioned by St. Ambrose, Gregory Nazianzen, Cyril of
Jerusalem, and the author under the name of Dionysius.
For which they assign two reasons: 1, Cyril tells his dis
ciples that as soon as they had renounced the devil, the
paradise of God, which was planted in the East, and
whence our first parent for his transgression was driven
into banishment, was now laid open to them ; and their
turning about from the West to the East, which is the
region of light, was a symbol of this. For the same rea
son, St. Basil and some others of the ancients tell us, they
prayed toward the East, that they might have their faces
toward paradise. The other reason for turning to the
East in baptism, was because the East or rising sun was an
emblem of the Sun of Righteousness, to whom they now
turned from Satan. Thou art turned about to the East,
says St. Ambrose, for he that renounces the devil, turns
unto Christ. Where he plainly intimates with St. Jerome,
that turning to the East was a symbol of their aversion
from Satan, and conversion unto Christ, — that is, from
darkness to light, from serving idols, to serve him who is
the Sun of Righteousness and Fountain of Light." '
1 Antiquities, book xi., chap, vii., sec. 7.

258 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
Faith in the magical effects of baptism increased,
until its sway ruled the wisest and best of the lead
ers in the Church. The great Augustine recounts
many cases which indicate, if possible, more than
pagan credulity. Among them are the following.
The chapter from which they are taken is entitled :
" Of Miracles which were wrought that the world
might believe in Christ, and which have not ceased
since the world believed. "
" In the same city of Carthage lived Innocentia, a very
devout woman of the highest rank in the state. She had
a cancer in one of her breasts, a disease, which, as physi
cians say, is incurable. Ordinarily, therefore, they either
amputated, and so separated from the body the member
on which the disease has seized, or, that the patient's life
may be prolonged a little, though death is inevitable,
even if somewhat delayed, they abandon all remedies
following, as they say, the advice of Hippocrates.
This lady we speak of had been advised to by a
skilful physician, who was intimate with her family ; and
she betook herself to God alone by prayer. On the ap
proach of Easter she was instructed in a dream to wait
for the first woman that came out from the baptistry after
being baptised, and ask her to make the sign of Christ
upon her sore. She did so and was immediately
cured. . . .
" A gouty doctor of the same city, when he had given
in his name for baptism, and had been prohibited the day
before his baptism from being baptised that year, by black
woolly-haired boys who appeared to him in his dream,

OTHER FORMS OF PAGAN RESIDUUM. 259
and whom he understood to be devils, and when, though
they trod on his feet, and inflicted the acutest pain he
had ever yet experienced, he refused to obey them, but
overcame them, and would not defer being washed in the
laver of regeneration, was relieved in the very act of bap
tism, not only of the extraordinary pain he was tortured
with, but also of the disease itself, so that, though he
lived a long time afterwards, he never suffered from gout,;
and yet who knows of this miracle ? We, however, do
know it, and so, too, do the small number of brethren
who were in the neighborhood, and to whose ears it might
come. " An old comedian of Curubis was cured at baptism not
only of paralysis, but also of hernia, and being delivered
from both afflictions, came up out of the font of regen
eration as if he had nothing wrong with his body. Who
outside of Curubis knows of this, or who but a very few
who might hear it elsewhere ? But we, when we heard
of it, made the man come to Carthage, by order of the
holy bishop Aurelius, although we had already ascertained
the fact on the information of persons whose word we
could not doubt.
" Hesperius, of a tribunitian family, and a neighbor of
our own, has a farm called Zubedi in the Fussalian dist
trict ; and finding that his family, his cattle, and his ser*
vants were suffering from the malice of evil spirits, he
asked our presbyters, during my absence, that one of them
would go with him and banish the spirits by his prayers.
One went, offered there the sacrifice of the body of
Christ, praying with all his might that vexation might
cease. It did cease forthwith, through God's mercy.
Now he had received from a friend of his own some holy

360 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
1 earth brought from Jerusalem, where Christ, having been
feuded, rose again the third day. This earth he had hung
tip in his bedroom to preserve himself from harm. But
When his house was purged of that demoniacal invasion,
he began to consider what should be done with the earth ;
'for his reverence for it made him unwilling to have it any
(longer in his bedroom. It so happened that I and Max-
iminus, Bishop of Synita, and then my colleague, were in
t)he neighborhood. Hesperius asked us to visit him, and
' we did so. When he had related all the circumstances, he
'begged that the earth might be buried somewhere, and
that the spot should be made a place of prayer where
'Christians might assemble for the worship of God. We
'made no objection ; it was done as he desired. There
was in that neighborhood a young countryman who was
paralytic, who, when he heard of this, begged his parents
to take him without delay to that holy place. When he
'had been brought there he prayed, and forthwith went
away on his own feet perfectly cured.
' " There is a country seat called Victoriana, less than thirty
miles from Hippo-regius. At it there is a monument to
the Milanese martyrs, Protasius and Gervasius. Thither
a young man was carried, who, when he was watering his
'horse one summer day at noon, in a pool of a river, had
been taken possession of by a devil. As he lay at
the monument, near death, or even quiet like a dead per
son, the lady of the manor, with her maids and religious
.attendants, entered the place for evening prayer and
praise, as her custom was, and they began to sing hymns.
At this sound, the young man, as if electrified, was thor
oughly aroused, and with frightful screaming seized the
aitar, and held it as if he did not dare or were not able
to let it go, and as if he were fixed or tied to it ; and the

OTHER FORMS OF PAGAN RESIDUUM. 263.
devil in him, with loud lamentation, besought that he
might be spared, and confessed where and when and how
he took possession of the youth. At last declaring1
that he would go out of him, he named one by one the
parts of his body which he threatened to mutilate as he
went out, and with these words he departed from the man.;
But his eye falling out on his cheek, hung by a slender
vein as by a root, and the whole of the pupil which had
been black became white. When this was witnessed by
those present (others, too, had now gathered to his cries,
and had all joined in prayer for him), although they were
delighted that he had recovered his sanity of mind, yet,
on the other hand, they were grieved about his eye, and
said he should seek medical advice. But his sister's hus
band, who had brought him there, said, ' God who has
banished the devil, is able to restore his eye at the pray
ers of his saints.' Therewith he replaced the eye that
was fallen out and hanging, and bound it in its place with
his handkerchief as well as he could, and advised him not
to loose the bandage for seven days. When he did so, he
found it quite healthy. Others also were cured there,
but of then] it were tedious to speak.
" I know that a young woman of Hippo was imme
diately dispossessed of a devil, on anointing herself with
oil, mixed with the tears of the presbyter who had been
praying for her. I know also that a bishop once prayed
for a demoniac young man whom he never saw, and that
he was cured on the spot." *
Many other similar miraculous occurrences are
related by Augustine, in this same chapter, show
ing how fully paganism mingled with his belief.
1 The City of God, book xxii., chap. viii.

262 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
He reports also many miracles performed by the
power of a shrine which was situated near Car
thage. The chapter sounds more like a record
of heathen prodigies than like sober Christian
history.

CHAPTER XIII.
SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
Lights in Worship— Worshipping " toward the East "—Easter Fires— Bel
tane or Baal Fires — Penance — Marioltry — The Mass — Purgatory and
Prayers for the Dead — Peter's Keys — Christmas — Easter — Lent, etc.
SUN-WORSHIP, as the dominant cult in all
pagan systems, furnished more elements of
corruption than any other.
Lights in Worship.
The pagan origin of lights in worship is univer
sally acknowledged. Their use was sharply con
demned in the earlier times.1 The Synod of
Elviri (305 or 306 a.d.) condemned their use in
cemeteries, where they already formed a part of
the services for the dead, j Canon 34 reads : " It is
forbidden to light wax candles during the day in
cemeteries for fear of disquieting the spirits of the '
saints." )
Baronius explains this as follows : " Many Neo
phytes brought the custom from paganism of light-
1 See Tertullian, Apologeticus, chap, xlvi., and Ad Uxorum, lib. ii.,
chap. vi. 263

264 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
ing wax candles upon tombs. The Synod forbids
this, because, metaphysically, it troubles the souls
of the, dead ; that is to say, this superstition wounds
them." Abespine gives another explanation, which is,
that the synod accepted the belief that was then
general, that the souls of the dead hovered around
their tombs. " The Synod consequently forbade
that wax candles should be lighted by day, perhaps
to abolish a remnant of paganism, but also to pre
vent the repose of the souls of the dead from being
troubled." »
Maitland says :
" The burning of lights is specified among the idola
trous rites forbidden by the Theodosian Code : ' Let no
one in any kind of place whatsoever in any city, burn
lights, offer incense, or hang up garlands to senseless
idols.' Vigilantius, in reference to the custom of using
lights in divine service, exclaims : ' We almost see the
ceremonial of the gentiles introduced into the Churches!
under pretence of religion ; piles of candles lighted while
the sun is still shining ; and everywhere people kissing
and worshipping, and I know not what ; a little dust in a /
small vessel wrapped up in a precious cloth. Great honor'
do such persons render to the blessed martyrs, thinking
with miserable tapers to illumine those whom the Lamb,
in the midst of the throne, shines upon with the splendor
of his majesty.' This passage proves that Vigilantius,
1 See Hefele, History of the Councils, etc., to 325 A.D., pp. 150, 151.
Clark's edition, Edinburgh, 1872.

SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 265
who must have known well the customs of paganism,
was struck with the resemblance between them and the
rites newly introduced into the Church." '
But love for paganism was too strong, and the
custom soon became universal, f Paulinus, Bishop
of Nola (396 a.d.), gloried in the use of lights. In
Natalis (3:100) he says :
" The bright altars are crowned with thickly clustered
lamps, the fragrant lights smell of waxed papyri ; day
and night they burn ; so that night glitters with the
splendor of day ; and day itself glories with heavenly
honors, shines the more, its lustre being doubled by innu
merable lamps." '
The persistency with which the use of lights yet
holds a place in many branches of the Church
1 shows how long and how vigorously paganism has
continued to corrupt Christianity.
" Orientation."
\Another residuum from sun-worship led to build
ing churches with the altar at the east, praying
toward the east, burying the dead with reference
to the east, etc. | Of the pagan origin of the cus
tom, Gale speaks as follows :
" Another piece'of Pagan Demonolatry was their cere
mony of bowing and worshipping towards the East. For 1
the Pagans universally worshipped the sun as their su-
1 The Church in the Catacombs, p. 225, London, 1846.
3 See Maitland, p. 228.

266 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
preme God, even the more reformed of them, the new
Platonists, Plotinus, Porphyry, and Julian the apostate, as
it appears by his oration to the Sun. Whence it came to
pass, that the sun rising in the east they usually wor
shipped in that way (as the Jews in Babylon usually wor
shipped west, because Jerusalem stood west thence).
Hence also they built their temples and buried their dead
towards the East. So Diogenes Laertius, in the life of
Solon, says : that the Athenians buried their dead towards
the East, the head of their graves being made that
way. And do not Anti-Christ and his sons exactly follow
this Pagan ceremony in building their temples and High
Altars towards the East, and in bowing that way in their
worship ? " l
Various explanations were made concerning this
practice, to cover up the prominence of this pagan
ism. For instance, Clement of Alexandria says :
" And since the dawn is an image of the day of birth,
and from that point the light which has shone forth at
first from the darkness, increases, there has also dawned
on those involved in darkness a day of the knowledge of
truth. In correspondence with the manner of the sun's
rising, prayers are made looking towards the sunrise in
the East. Whence also the most ancient temples looked
towards the West, that people might be taught to turn to
the East when facing the images. ' Let my prayer be
directed before thee as incense, the uplifting of my hands
as the evening sacrifice,' say the Psalms." '
1 Court of the Gentiles, by Theophilus Gale, part iii., book ii., chap, ii.,
•section 3, paragraph 4.
2 Stromata, book vii., chap. vii.

SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 267
Tertullian seeks to avoid the charge of pagan-
Ism, while defending this practice, as follows :
" Others, with greater regard to good manners, it must
be confessed, suppose that the sun is the god of the
Christians, because it is a well known fact that we pray
toward the East, or because we make Sunday a day of
festivity. What then ? Do you do less than this ? Do
not many among you, with an affectation of sometimes
worshipping the heavenly bodies, likewise, move your lips
in the direction of the sunrise? It is you, at all events,
who have even admitted the sun into the calendar of the
week ; and you have selected its day, in preference to the
preceding day, as the most suitable in the week, for
either an entire abstinence from the bath, or for its post
ponement until the evening, or for taking rest, and for
banqueting." ' Easter Fires.
Another element of pagan sun-worship continues
1 to the present time in the Easter fires, which
abound especially in Northern Europe. Fire is
regarded as a living thing, in Teutonic mythology.
It is often spoken of as a bird, the " Red Cock."
Notfuer, " Need-fire," is yet produced by friction,
at certain times. Such fire is deemed sacred. On
such occasions all fires in the neighborhood are
extinguished, that they may be rekindled from the
Notfuer. This fire is yet used to ward off evil,
1 Ad Naliones, chap. xiii.

268 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
and to cure diseases in domestic animals. Traces
of sex-worship appear in connection with the pro
ducing of this sacred fire; "two chaste boys"
must pull the ropes which produce the friction
necessary to generate the fire ; and a " chaste
youth " must strike the light for curing the dis
ease known as " St. Anthony's fire." In Scotland
such fire is held as a safeguard against the " be
witching of domestic animals."
Grimm, who is the highest authority on the
mythology of Northern Europe, has abundant
material touching all forms of fire-worship in that
region. Here is a single extract with reference
to Easter Fires.
" At all the cities, towns and villages of the country,
towards evening on the first (or third) day of Easter, there
is lighted every year, on mountain and hill, a great fire of
straw turf and wood, amidst a concourse and jubilation,
not only of the young, but of many grown up people.
On the Weser, especially in Schaumburg, they tie up a
tar barrel on a fir tree wrapt around with straw, and set it
on fire at night. Men and maids, and all who come
dance, exulting and singing, hats are waved, handker
chiefs thrown into the fire. The mountains all around
are lighted up, and it is an elevating spectacle, scarcely
paralleled by any thing else, to survey the country for
many miles around from one of the higher points, and in
every direction at once to see a vast number of these
bonfires, brighter or fainter, blazing up to heaven. In
some places they marched up the hill in stately proces-

SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 269
sion, carrying white rods : by turns they sang Easter
. hymns, grasping each other's hands, and at the Hallelujah,
clashed their rods together. They liked to carry some of
the fire home with them.
" For these ignes paschales there is no authority reaching
beyond the sixteenth century ; but they must be a great
deal older, if only for the contrast with Midsummer fires,
which never could penetrate into North Germany, because
the people there held fast by their Easter fires. Now
seeing that the fires of St. John, as we shall presently
show, are more immediately connected with the Christian
Church than those of Easter, it is not unreasonable to
trace these all the way back to the worship of the goddess
Ostara, or Eastre, who seems to have been more a Saxon
and Anglican divinity than one revered all over Germany.
Her name and her fires, which are likely to have come at
the beginning of May, would, after the conversion of the
Saxons, be shifted back to the Christian feast. Those
mountain fires of the people are scarcely derivable from
the taper lighted in the Church the same day : it is true
that Boniface calls it ignis paschalis, and such Easter
lights are mentioned in the sixteenth century. Even
now, in the Hildesheim country, they light the lamp on
Maundy Thursday, and that on Easter day, at an Easter
fire which has been struck with a steel. The people flock
to this fire, carrying oaken crosses, or simply crossed
sticks, which they set on fire and then preserve for a whole
year. But the common folk distinguish between this fire
and the wild fire produced by rubbing wood. Jager
speaks of a consecration fire of logs." '
1 Teutonic Mythology, by Jacob Grimm, four vols., London, 1883, vol
ii'., p. 115.

270 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
Midsummer Fires.
Midsummer was the central point of a great
1 pagan festival in honor of the sun, who had then
reached his greatest height, from which he must
soon decline. Catholic Christianity continued these
festivals, in St. John Baptist Day. Many of the
peculiarities of these midsummer fires were similar
to those of the Easter fires already noticed. The
following description of the modern festival in
Germany is taken from Grimm :
" We have a fuller description of a Midsummer fire,
made in 1823 at Konz, a Lorrainian but still German vil
lage, on the Moselle, near Sierk and Thionville. Every
house delivers a truss of straw on the top of the Strom-
berg, where men and youths assemble toward . evening.
Women and girls are stationed by the Burbach springs.
Then a huge wheel is wrapt round with straw, so that none
of the wood is left in sight, a strong pole is passed through
the middle, which sticks out a yard on each side, and is
grasped by the guiders of the wheel ; the remainder of the
straw is tied up into a number of small torches. At a
signal given by the Maire of Sierk (who according to the an
cient custom, earns a basket of cherries by the service), the
wheel is lighted with a torch, and set Vapidly in motion ;
a shout of joy is raised, all wave their torches on high,
part of the men stay on the hill, part follow the rolling
globe of fire, as it is guided down the hill to the Moselle.
It often goes out first : but if alight when it touches the
river, it prognosticates an abundant vintage, and the Konz
people have a right to levy a tun of white wine from the

/

SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 27 1
adjacent vineyards. Whilst the wheel is rushing past the
women and the girls, they break out into cries of joy, an
swered by the men on the hill, and inhabitants of neigh
boring villages, who have flocked to the river side, mingle
their voices in the universal rejoicing." l
Beltane or Baal Fires.
The Beltane or Baal fires and the ancient sacri
fices to the sun-god still continue in modified form
in Scotland. Grimm speaks of them as follows :
" The present custom is thus described by Armstrong
subv. bealtainn : In some parts of the Highlands the young
folks of a hamlet meet in the moors, on the first of May.
They cut a table in the green sod, of a round figure, by
cutting a trench in the ground, of such circumference as
to hold the whole company. They then kindle a fire and
dress a repast of eggs and milk, in the consistence of a
custard. They knead a cake of oatmeal, which is toasted
at the embers, against a stone. After the custard is eaten
up, they divide the cake in so many portions, as similar as
possible to one another in size and shape, as there are
persons in the company. They daub one of these portions
with charcoal, until it is perfectly black. They then put
all the bits of the cake into a bonnet, and every one,
blindfold, draws out a portion. The bonnet-holder is en
titled to the last bit. Whoever draws the black bit is the
devoted person who is to be sacrificed to Baal, whose favor
they mean to implore in rendering the year productive. The
devoted person is compelled to leap three times over the
1 Ibid., vol. ii., p. 619.

272 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
flames. Here the reference to the worship of a deity is
too plain to be mistaken ; we see by the leaping over the
flame, that the main point was, to select a human being to
propitiate the god, and make him merciful ; that after
wards an animal sacrifice was substituted for him, and
finally nothing remained of the bodily immolation but a
leap through the fire, for man and beast. The holy rite of
friction is not mentioned here, but as it was necessary for
the ' needfire ' that purged pestilence, it must originally
have been much more in requisition at the great yearly
festival." 2 Penance.
The pagan theory of baptismal regeneration
created a necessity for the doctrine of penance.
Under the idea that baptism removed all sins up
1 to the time of the ceremony, something was neces
sary to atone for sins committed after baptism.
Dr. Schaff describes the origin of penance as
follows :
" The effect of baptism, however, was thought to ex
tend only to sins committed before receiving it. Hence
the frequent postponement of the sacrament, which Ter
tullian very earnestly recommends, though he censures it
when accompanied with moral levity and presumption.
Many, like Constantine the Great, put it off to the bed of
sickness and of death. They preferred the risk of dying
unbaptized to that of forfeiting forever the baptismal \
grace. Death-bed baptisms were then what death-bed \
repentances are now. 1 Ibid., vol. ii., p. 613.

SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 273
" But then the question arose, how the forgiveness of
sins committed after baptism could be obtained ? This
is the starting-point of the Roman doctrine of the sacra
ment of penance. Tertullian and Cyprian were the first
to suggest that satisfaction must be made for such sins
by self-imposed penitential exercises and good works,
such as prayers and alms-giving. Tertullian held seven
gross sins, which he denoted mortal sins, to be unpardon
able after baptism, and to be left to the uncovenanted 1
mercies of God ; but the Catholic Church took a milder I
view, and even received back the adulterers and apostates
on their public repentance." '
More need not be said. The reader will readily
see the connection between these two elements of
paganism ; he will also see the deeply corrupting
effect of them both. Mariolatry.
The worship of a Mother Goddess and her son
formed a distinct feature in the paganism of Baby-j
Ion, India, Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and Rome.)
Though variant in conception, the core of Mariol
atry runs through all these pagan systems. Those
who desire to follow this theme in detail will do
well to consult Alexander Hislop.2 A single
extract from page 82 of that work is all that space
will permit :
1 Schaff, vol. ii., p. 254.
s The Two Babylons, seventh edition, London, p. 21 ff.
18

274 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
" The worship of the Goddess-Mother with the child in
her arms continued to be observed in Egypt till Chris
tianity entered. If the gospel had come in power among
the mass of the people, the worship of this goddess-
queen would have been overthrown. With the generality,
it tame only in name. Instead, therefore, of the Baby
lonian goddess being cast out, in too many cases her name,
only was changed. She was called the Virgin Mary, and, 1
with her child, was worshipped with the same idolatrous
feeling by professing Christians, as formerly by open and |
avowed pagans." The Mass.
\ The mass, which has been for centuries the cen
tral item in Roman Catholic worships finds its
origin in the "unbloody sacrifices" which were
offered to the Paphian Venus, and to her counter
part in Babylonia and Assyria, j It was this wor
ship of the Queen of Heaven into which the apos
tate women of Judah were drawn, whom Jeremiah1
condemns for " burning incense, pouring out drink
offerings, and offering cakes to the Queen of
Heaven." These cakes were marked with the
phallic symbol of the cross. As before noted,
they were the progenitors of the modern " hot
cross-buns," which are associated with Friday —
day of Venus.
The form of the cake-wafer adopted in pagan-
| ized Christianity, its roundness, was borrowed from
1 Jer. xliv., 19.

SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 275
the Egyptians, to whom the form represented the
disk of the sun. The mystic letters on the wafer
form another link which connects it with Egyptian
paganism. Christians explain these letters as
meaning Jesus Hominum Salvator ; but when the
worshippers of Isis, who were everywhere in the
Roman empire in the early centuries, read them
on the unbloody sacrifice, they understood by
them Isis, Horus, Seb, i. e., The Mother, the Child,
and the Father of the Gods. The pagan character^
of this unbloody sacrifice was so patent at the first,
that it was sharply condemned; but familiarity
changed opposition to acceptance, and what was/
wholly pagan became the centre of worship in
paganized Christianity.
Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead.
All the leading systems of pagan religions have
some form of purgatory, with its associate prayers
for the dead, for which large sums are paid by the
surviving friends. ^The purgatory which was
developed in the Christian cult is like its pagan i
prototype in almost every particular.^) An extract '
from Wilkinson describing the practical workings
of the doctrine in pagan Egypt would need little
changing to fit the facts connected with the purga
tory of Christians. We quote from Hislop x :
1 Two Babylons, p. 169. The references to Wilkinson's Egyptians are
vol. ii., p. 94, and vol. v., pp. 383, 384.

276 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
" ' The Priest,' says Wilkinson, ' induced the people to
.expend large sums on the celebration of funeral rites;
I and many who had barely sufficient to obtain the necessaries
I of life were anxious to save something for the expenses
of their death. For besides the embalming process, which
sometimes cost a talent of silver, or about ^250, English
\ money, the tomb itself was purchased at an immense ex
pense ; and numerous demands were made upon the
estate of the deceased, for the celebration of prayer and
other services for the soul.' ' The ceremonies,' we find
him elsewhere saying, ' consisted of a sacrifice similar to
those offered in the temples, vowed for the deceased to
l one or more gods (as Osiris, Anubis, and others connected
with Amenti) ; incense and libation were also presented ;
\and a prayer was sometimes read, the relations and friends
being present as mourners. They even joined their
prayers to those of the priest. The priest who officiated
at the burial service was selected from the grade of Pon
tiffs, who wore the leopard skin ; but various other rites
were performed by one of the minor priests, to the mum
mies, previous to their being lowered into the pit of the
..tomb after that ceremony. Indeed, they continued to be
/ administered at intervals, as long as the family paid for
their performance.' Such was the operation of the doc-
,' trine of purgatory and prayers for the dead among
j avowed and acknowledged pagans ; and in what essential
'l respect does it differ from the operation of the same doc
trine in Papal Rome? "
Saint Peter's Keys.
Those who claim the primacy of St. Peter and
his right to the keys of heaven, pretend to found

SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 277
that claim upon Christ's words to Peter. But an
examination of the history and characteristics of
the doctrine reveals its pagan origin too clearly to
admit of question. (Roman paganism had its col
lege of pontiffs, headed by the emperor, as Pontifex
Maximus. Babylonian and Assyrian paganism
had a similar council of pontiffs. The especial
primacy among the deities was associated with
Janus and Cybele. Each of these bore a key.
The Pope assumed them both in the fifth century,
after Christianity had been paganized. The term
cardinal is plainly derived from cardo, a hinge.
Janus was God of the Hinges, and was called the
" Opener, and Shutter." \
The sovereign pontiff of the pagan cult was the
representative of the divinity on earth, and was
worshipped as a god. This continued in the
Roman empire long after the emperors were called
" Christian." After that the Pope became God's
; representative among men. A single quotation
from Ovid will close this glance at St. Peter and
his keys. In it Janus is described, and he in turn
describes his office :
" He, holding in his right hand a staff, and in his left a
key, uttered these accents to me from the mouth of his
front face. . . . 'Whatever thou beholdest around
thee, the sky, the sea, the air, the earth, all these have
been shut up and are opened by my hand. In my power

278 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
alone is the guardianship of the vast universe, and the
prerogative of turning the hinge is entirely my own.
When it has been my pleasure to send forth Peace, from
her tranquil habitation, then at liberty she treads her
paths unobstructed by the restraints of war. The whole
world would be thrown into confusion in deadly blood
shed, did not my rigid bolts confine imprisoned warfare.
Together with the gentle seasons, I preside over the por
tals of Heaven ; through my agency Jupiter himself doth
pass and repass.' " '
Representative Festivals.
Those who have given even a cursory examina
tion of the subject, know that the swarm of festi
vals which came into Christianity, after the second
century, were nearly, if not all, pagan days, with
new or modified names, but with little or no change
of character. A few of the representative ones
will be noticed here. Christmas.
The Scriptures are wholly silent as to the date
of Christ's birth. The 25th of December, the
winter solstice, was not fixed as Christmas until a
long time after the New Testament period. But
in spite of serious objections, historical and other
wise, that date triumphed. \The winter solstice
was the date of the birth of Osiris, son of Isis the)
1 Ovid, Fasti, bk. i.

SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 279
iEgyptian Queen of Heavenf^The term "Yule,"
another name for Christmas, comes from the
Chaldee, and signifies "child's day." This name
for the festival was familiar to our Anglo-Saxon
ancestors, long before they knew anything of
Christianity. In Rome, this winter-solstice festival
was Saturn's festival ; the wild, drunken, licentious
" Saturnalia." It was observed in Babylonia in a
similar manner. When it came into Christianity
its leading features were like those of the Satur
nalia. These have been far too prevalent from
that time. Lighted candles and ornamented trees
were a part of the observance of the festival among
the pagans. The " Christmas goose " and " Yule
cakes " came, with the day, from paganism.
Easter.
The earliest Christians continued to observe the!
Jewish Passover on the 14th of the month Nisan.
As the pagan element increased in the Church, and
the anti-Jewish feeling accordingly, after a sharp
struggle, the time was changed from the fourteenth
of the month (to the Sunday nearest the vernal
equinox?) This brought it in conjunction with the
festival of the Goddess of Spring, an ancient pagan
feast, which probably dates back to the time of
Astarte-worship, in Babylonia. The name " Easter"
is comparatively modern. f It comes from Oestra,

280 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
the Goddess of Spring, in the Northern European
mythology. The forms of observance were almost
wholly heathen. Easter eggs, dyed, and "hot
cross-buns," figured in the Chaldean Easter, as
they have done in the Christian. The Hindus,
and Chinese, and Egyptians had a sacred egg, the
history of which can be traced to the Euphrates
and the worship of Astarte. Lent.
Lent has been given some appearance of having
a Christian origin by the assumption, for which
there is not a shadow of scriptural, or even apos
tolic authority, that it is the counterpart of Christ's
fast of forty days. But the history of Lent shows
unmistakably its pagan origin, j Its source is found
in the fasting which the Babylonians associated
with the Goddess of Reproduction, whose worship
formed the starting-point of Easter. ^ During that
period of fasting, social joy and all expressions of
sexual regard were forbidden, because the goddess
then mourned the loss of her consort. From this
came the germ of Lent, and especially the practice
of abstaining from marriage at that season.
The pagan tribes of Koordistan still keep such a
fast. Humboldt found the same in Mexico, and
Landseer in Egypt. It came into Christianity

SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 28l
comparatively slowly, and brought gross evils with
it. Witness the following :
" This change of the calendar in regard to Easter was
attended with momentous consequences. It brought into
the Church the grossest corruption, and the rankest su
perstition in connection with the abstinence of Lent. Let
any one only read the atrocities that were commemorated
during the ' sacred fast ' or pagan Lent, as described by
Arnobius and Clemens Alexandrinus, and surely he must
blush for the Christianity of those, who with the full
knowledge of all these abominations ' went down to
Egypt for help ' to stir up the languid devotion of the
degenerate Church, and who could find no more excellent
way to ' revive ' it than by borrowing from so polluted a
source ; the absurdities and abominations connected with
which the early Christian writers held up to scorn." '
Many devout Christians now observe Lent with
out taint of paganism ; but with the undevout,
Lent is only a resting time from the fashionable
dissipation of " society," which refreshes them for
the excesses that follow Easter.
' Hislop, Two Babylons, p. 106.

CHAPTER XIV.
FIVE CONCLUSIONS.
THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF PROTESTANTISM
INVOLVED IN PRESENT ISSUES.
Protestants must Accept the Bible in Fact, as well as in Theory, or be
Overthrown — The Bible must be Reinterpreted in the Light of " High
er Criticism " and Deeper Spiritual Life — The Present Tendencies in
Bible Study Mark the Opening of the Second Stage of the Protestant
Movement — Baptism must Cease to be the Foot-Ball of Denomination
al Polemics and be Raised to a Question of Obedience to the Example
of Christ — Protestants must Return to the Sabbath, Christianized by
Christ, and to True Sabbathism, Which is as Undenominational as
Faith — Such Sabbathism, and God's Sabbath, must be Restored to the
Place from Which Pagan No-Sabbathism and the Pagan Sunday Drove
Them — "Sabbath'' Legislation is Unchristian — All Union of Chris
tianity with the State must Yield before the Normal Development of
True Protestantism.
THE facts which have been set forth in the fore
going pages form the basis for certain im
portant conclusions. Unconsciously perhaps, but
not less certainly, the Protestant movement was the
beginning of a definite reaction againsf. paganism in
Christianity. Since humanity must learn all high
er truth through long and sometimes bitter ex
perience, errors and evils must ripen before those
282

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES INVOLVED. 283
who have once accepted them will let them go.
All great upward movements illustrate this fact.
Reformatory action begins when error reaches so
low a point that the best interests involved are
confronted with strangulation and destruction.
When the slow-beating heart threatens the death
of the sleeping patient, nature arouses all her forces
in a final struggle for life. Thus truth, stifled and
trodden under foot by the pagan elements in the
Church, awoke for the final struggle as the morn
ing began to dawn, after the ages of midnight.
(1) Reinstatement of the Bible.
As the first step in perverting Christianity was
to set aside the authority of God's book, and to
teach error for truth through false exegesis, so the
first step toward reformation was the unchaining
of that Word. Paganized Christianity had placed
itself between men and God, and His Word.
Faith, hedged and crippled, trusted in human
traditions, forms, and ceremonies, and in priestly
absolution from sin. Help could not come, neither
could hope arise, until the pagan elements should
be so far removed that men could stand face to
face with the Bible, with Christ, and with God.
Hence the central points in the first stage of the
reformatory work were an open Bible, an acces
sible Christ, and a Father whose law was the

284 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
ultimate appeal, and whose love was the ultimate
source of hope and the foundation of faith. The
upward movement started on the same plane of
fundamental truth on which the downward move
ment began. Hence the first struggle, under Lu
ther, centred around personal faith.
But it was in the nature of things that men
whose inheritance had come from the centuries
made dark and religiously corrupt through pagan
residuum, could not rise above all these influences
at once.
Though the leaders in such movements build
better than they know, their work is always com
paratively imperfect. The intensity with which
they must pursue a single truth in order to make
any progress, prevents them from seeing all truth.
This the more, since the public mind, at such times,
cannot grasp and hold more than one great truth
at a time. The reformers could not wholly free
themselves from the idea that " tradition and cus
tom " have authority. They did not actually accept
the Bible as the only rule of faith and practice.
Protestantism has never done this. As between
Protestantism and Romanism, from which it
revolted, there can be no middle or common
ground. The Roman Catholic claims that the
Church made the Bible, and formulated authori
tative traditions, and hence that the Church,

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES INVOLVED. 285
as law-maker and interpreter of the Bible, is the
supreme authority. The Protestant begins by
denying the authority of the Church, and appeal
ing to the Bible as the ultimate authority. Logic
and history combine to declare that Protestantism
must make its theory good, or fail. Hence we
draw Conclusion First.
Protestantism must fully accept the Bible as the
ultimate and only standard of faith and practice, or
it must be broken between the upper millstone of
Roman Catholicism and the nether millstone of ir
religious rationalism.
The years are ripe for decision. The backward
drift toward Roman Catholicism and rationalism
has well set in. The loss already sustained by
Protestantism, though an incomplete movement,
can be regained only by prompt and vigorous
action. These conclusions relative to the future of Prot
estantism, having been published in a magazine
edited by the author of this book, The Sabbath
Outlook, were commented upon by the Catholic
Mirror, Baltimore, under date of March 19, 1892,
as follows :

286 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
" Will ' Scriptural Simplicity ' Save Protestantism 1 "
" This development of Christianity — assumed to be
pagan and, therefore, corrupt — is naturally cause of much
anxiety to Christian people who so regard it. We have
said a few words to show how groundless is this concern.
But the power and extent of the development gives most
trouble. It is seen that the Catholic Church holds the
key to the present position ; and so Christians are warned
that they must return to ' the simple truths of the New
Testament,' if they would not yield to the development.
One of these people, a clear-headed, consistent Protes
tant, commenting upon Harnack's researches, boldly pro
claims : ' Protestantism must go back of these Gnostic
speculations and rebuild Christian faith and practice on
the New Testament records of the first century, or remain
hopelessly weak in its efforts to overcome the tide of
Roman Catholic influence and history.' He adds: ' This
is a vital truth which Protestantism must recognize and
act upon promptly, or the next century will witness its
crushing defeat between the forces of Roman Catholicism,
Irreligious Rationalism, and Worldliness.'
" There is a striking admission in this note of alarm.
' Roman Catholic influence and history ' is the tide set
ting in with overwhelming power. The warning is clear
and strong. There is no uncertain sound.
" It goes without saying that we can have no pleasure
( God forbid ! ), but only sadness in imagining the ' crush
ing defeat ' of our Christian brethren by ' irreligious
rationalism ' or ' worldliness.' We will not apply the
term ' defeat ' to their being brought to see the truth and
submit themselves to the Catholic Church. We are

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES INVOLVED. 287
wondering just now whether there is any practical good
in the warning given them ; whether it is at all likely
that Protestantism will ever go back to what are called
'the simple truths of the New Testament.' We don't
believe it will, or can.
" When it is considered what the Protestantism of
to-day is, — how much it has learned of the Church idea,
— the Catholic idea, — it may be seen how useless it is to
expect any such thing. To begin with, all or the immense
majority of Protestants, in the simple matter of accepting
the change from the Sabbath to the Sunday — from the
last to the first day of the week, — quietly admit an extra-
scriptural authority, the authority of the Church. Chil-
lingworth's famous maxim, ' The Bible only, the religion
of Protestants,' leaves this item at least out of the calcu
lation. All unwittingly our separated brethren are here
acting upon a Catholic principle, which does not deny or
do away Scripture, but makes the Rule of Faith to con
sist of Scripture and — something else — even Tradition;
and by this principle the ever-living voice of the Church
speaks with an authority always equal to that of the
written revelation, and sometimes apparently transcend
ing it."
¦ The issue is not one of mere name, or of denom-
inationalism, or of "Church" against "sects." It
is, as said above, a question of the reinstatement
of the Bible as the supreme rule of Protestant
Christianity. The Protestant movement began in
that issue. There can be no Protestantism out
side of it. If it be not true, Protestantism is a

288 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
failure. If it be true, Protestantism cannot remain
where it is and survive. If it be not true, Roman
ism has the logical and historical right to the field.
It is master of the situation, and its expectation
that erring Protestants will return to " The
Mother Church," or wander hopelessly away from
Christianity, will be realized in less time than
Protestantism has already existed. These facts
challenge the attention of all parties. They sound
the same key as do the words of Professor Har-
nack, spoken in July, 1889. I said to him: "Will
the Protestantism of the next century be more
spiritual than now, or less ? " He answered, " It
will be more spiritual, or it will die." I continued :
" If it dies, what will be the next scene in church
history?" He said: "Roman Catholicism will
take possession of the world as a new form of
paganism." These are not the words of an alarm
ist, nor a sectarian polemist ; they are the legiti
mate deductions made by a careful student of
universal history. Will you ponder them ?
(2) Biblical Interpretation ; Higher Criticism.
Whoever has read the chapters on gnosticism,
and the allegorical method of interpreting the
Bible, and has traced the influence of these pagan
elements upon the history of biblical interpretation,
cannot fail to see God's guiding hand in the move- .

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES INVOLVED. 289
ments of the last half of this century. The revival
of Bible study, the development of the " Inter
national Lessons," the call for something yet bet
ter, and the growth of exegetical literature form
an epoch not less important, though less noisy,
because less political, than the rise of Lutheranism,
the development of Calvinism, or the birth of the
English Reformation. The last half of this cen
tury has witnessed what no other century ever
saw, the beginning of a systematic study of the
Bible by the people. Such an epoch could not do
less than create the " higher criticism." That
phase of this Bible-study epoch is as legitimate a
result as the "Diet at Worms" was of Luther's
revolt, or as Puritanism was of the English Refor
mation. Therefore :
Conclusion Second.
Biblical study and biblical interpretation, in
cluding " Higher Criticism" are ushering in the
second great feature of tke Protestant movement.
Luther and his coadjutors unchained the Bible
and opened its pages. They did not, could not,
eliminate traditional authority and influence from
its exegesis. Traditionalism was largely pagan.
It had held sway for centuries, and is yet regnant in
many ways. All past exegesis needs retrial in the
fires of a devout criticism. That criticism must
19

290 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
introduce Christ's norm, — " By their fruits ye shall
know them." Pour exegetical and theological
traditionalism into that crucible. Heat it in the
fires of the best and most devout scholarship.
Let brave hearts and careful hands take away the
dross, fearless as to consequences. The Bible and
Protestantism are both on trial in the closing years
of the nineteenth century. There need be no fear
as to final results if Protestants are true and firm.
If they are not, the closing years of the twentieth
century will sit in sackcloth at the open grave of
a Christianity which began the elimination of
paganism well, but had not the bravery, and there
fore the strength, to finish the work.
(3) Concerning Baptism.
The paramount question touching the residuum
which came in from pagan water-worship does not
lie primarily in the mode of baptism ; although
historically, logically, and symbolically there were
no modes of baptism until they were brought in by
paganism. Paganism immersed, affused, sprinkled.
It immersed once, or three times. In the use of
holy water it sprinkled repeatedly and indefinitely.
According to the New Testament, baptism is sub
mersion, as the symbol of death to sin and resur
rection to righteousness. All beyond that was
pagan-born.

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES INVOLVED. 29 1
The central point of the evil which came from
pagan water-worship is found in "baptismal re
generation " ; i. e., the idea that by virtue of the
power and sacredness of water spiritual purity is
produced, and the candidate is fitted for member
ship in the Church, and for heaven. In so far as
this idea remains, paganism remains. The most
prominent examples of this residuum which now
survive are found in the use of " holy water," in
the theory that an unconscious infant to which
water has been applied as a religious ceremony, is
thereby made a member of the organic church,
and its future salvation thus assured ; in the idea,
still held by some, that "regeneration" takes place
only in connection with immersion ; and in the
general idea that baptism is a "saving ordinance."
Conclusion Third.
The core of the question of baptism, as of salva
tion through faith, is obedience, conformity to the
example of Christ ; kence it does not follow that he
who remains unbaptized, when thus remaining does
not involve the spirit of disobedience and neglect,
may not enter the kingdom of heaven.
(4) Sabbathism.
The Sabbath question is not merely "one of
days." The fundamental conception centres around

292 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
the fact that God must come to men in sacred time.
Eternity is an attribute of God, and the measured
portion we call "time" is the point where God
and man come together as Creator and created.
It is here that we "live in Him." Scriptural and
extra-scriptural history show that man has always
felt the need of communion with God, through
sacred time, and that God has always sought to
meet this want. Physical rest is not the primary
idea of the Sabbath. It is only a means to higher
ends, namely, communion with God, religious cult
ure, and spiritual development. , But since time is
also the essence of human existence, so far as ac
tivities and duties are concerned, and since the use
men make of time determines the character of each
human life, specific sacred time which shall represent
God, and draw men to Him, becomes an essential
part of God's moral and religious government for
man. The Sabbath finds its origin in God's desire
and purpose to aid and culture men in holiness,
and in man's need of God, and spiritual commun
ion. Incidentally, and subordinately, the Sabbath
is also a physical blessing to man. But its primal,
central thought is religious, and the physical good
depends largely on the motive for resting. The
Fourth Commandment embodies these deeper prin
ciples, and is God's law concerning the Sabbath.
The authority of the law is found in the reasons
and necessities which lie back of it.

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES INVOLVED. 293
The Jews had never attained, or had lost sight of
this higher law of the Sabbath, and had reduced its
observance to unmeaning formalities and useless
burdens. Christ brushed all these away, and glori
fied and established the Sabbath, enlarging and
making it a blessing instead of a bondage. He
taught His followers how to consider and observe
it, by His example and His words.
Paganism, filled with anti-Jewish prejudices
against the authority of the Old Testament, gave
no heed to Christ's teachings concerning the Sab
bath, but proclaimed that it was a " Jewish insti
tution with which Christians had nothing to do."
Borne on the waves of this false theory, Sunday,
and its associate pagan days, gradually drove the
Sabbath out. The Sunday of the Dark Ages, and
the "Continental Sunday" of to-day, are the
necessary results. So far as paganized Christianity
could do it, sabbathism was slain and buried.
A remnant, the denominational progenitors of the
present Seventh-day Baptists, refused to accept the
pagan theory, and remained true to the Sabbath
through all the changes, from the Apostles to the
English Reformation. They were not always or
ganized, but they kept the light burning. In that
Reformation the Seventh-day Baptists came to the
front, demanding a recognition of the authority of
the Fourth Commandment, and a return to the
observance of the Sabbath. Opposed to them,

294 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
Roman Catholics and Episcopalians continued to
assert that the customs and traditions of the
Church formed the highest authority in the matter
of Sabbath keeping. Between these two the
Puritan party sought a compromise, and invented
the theory (first propounded by Nicholas Bownde,
in 1595 a.d.) that the commandment, being yet
binding, might be transferred to the Sunday.
This Puritan compromise has been tested, its
fictitious sacredness has gone, and much in the
present state of the Sunday question is the fruitage
of that baseless compromise.
Sunday legislation, which, as we have seen in a
former chapter, was pagan in conception and form,
has continued, being made a prominent feature of
the Puritan theory. At the present writing (1892)
strenuous efforts are being made in the United
States to save the failing fortunes of Sunday by a
revival of Sunday laws. If, by any combination
of efforts, this can be done, no permanent good
will ensue. The verdict of history and the genius
of Christ's kingdom combine to declare that men
cannot be made good by act of Parliament, nor be
induced to keep any day sacred by the civil law.
If the " rest day " alone be exalted, the result is
holidayism, rather than Sabbath keeping. If the
enforcement of the Sunday laws is pressed it will
result in their repeal.

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES INVOLVED. 295
Conclusion Fourth.
(a) No day has ever been kept as a Sabbath except
under the idea of divine authority.
(b) Everything less than this promotes holidayism.
(c) There is no scriptural and therefore no truly
Protestant ground for Sunday observance.
The only alternative is a return to the observ
ance of the Sabbath, the Seventh day, under the
law of obedient love, such love as Christ had for
the will of His Father ; or to go down with the tide
of No-Sabbathism, which, checked temporarily by
the Puritan compromise, is now rushing on more
wildly than before. The issue is at hand, Christian
Sabbathism and the Sabbath, or Pagan holidayism
and the Sunday. Culminating events demand that
choice, and in the ultimate, universal Sabbathism.
(5) Christianity and the State.
Certain superficial investigators have claimed
that the union of Christianity with the civil power
was the outgrowth of the Hebrew theocratic idea.
The claim is groundless. The theocracy was a State
within the Church. The pagan theory, applied
to Christianity under Constantine and his suc
cessors, gave a Church dominated by the State,
and regulated, as to polity and faith, by civil law.
History has written some plain and pertinent

296 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
verdicts concerning the relations which ought to
exist between Christianity and the civil power.
Every verdict emphasizes the truth of Christ's
words : "My kingdom is not of this world." The
relations between Christianity and the civil power
which began under Constantine have worked in
calculable harm to Christianity as a spiritual reli
gion. Its political triumph was a most disastrous
defeat which became a large factor in producing
the subsequent centuries of decline and darkness.
Better conceptions of civil government, and in
creasing civilization have improved the status of
State Churches since the Reformation ; but
spiritual Christianity everywhere and always, is
calling for " disestablishment." It is a singular
fact that in the United States, where there has
been the nearest approach to religious liberty, we
are confronted with two phases of religio-civil
legislation which are now coalescing, and which,
however well meant, partake more of the spirit of
the ninth century than of the nineteenth, or of the
New Testament. These movements are " National
Reform," which seeks to Christianize the nation
by putting Christ's name into the National Con
stitution ; and the now popular Sunday-law move
ment. There are several points aimed at by the
National Reform Association, such as divorce,
gambling, etc., which are within the province of

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES INVOLVED. 297
the civil law ; but its primary aim, to secure
legislation on all points covered by the Ten Com
mandments, is fundamentally pagan in concept
and intent. The good men who are pressing the
movement think that their theory of government
is the true one, and that great good would come
if it were adopted. But the verdict of every
century since the pagan conception was introduced
into Christianity, forbids belief in their scheme as
a means of Christianizing the nation.
As to Sunday legislation we have seen that its
origin was absolutely pagan, and that it has been
destructive of true Sabbathism at all times. If
the highest hopes of the present agitators could be
realized ; if the civil law should compel all citizens of
the United States to rest on Sunday, every year
of such a system would sink the people deeper
into the slough of No-Sabbathism. The " Con
tinental Sunday" is the product of a No-Sabbath
theology, and civil Sunday-laws. The Sunday-law
advocates seek the supremacy of an unscriptural
Sabbathism, linked with Sunday by civil law.
This has been fully tried, at a time when men had
far more regard for Sunday as a sacred day than
they have now. But with all things in its favor,
the strength of youth, and the honest ignorance
of the masses concerning its true character, the
" Puritan Sunday " has returned to its original

2.98 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
holidayism, in spite of Church and State combined.
It could not do less, even if a fortuitous combina
tion of influences should exalt it temporarily again.
Religion and conscience are entitled to the pro
tection of the civil law, without regard to creed
or numbers. If immorality is practised in the
name of religion, it may be suppressed as immo
rality. Beyond such protection the State may
not go. Conclusion Fifth.
All union of Church and State, or of Christianity
and the State, is pagan-born, and opposed to the genius
and purpose of Christ's kingdom.
Last Words.
Whatever prepossessions or conceptions the
reader may have brought to the perusal of these
pages, he cannot finish them without seeing that
much which has come down to us as " Chris
tianity " is so tinctured with paganism that it does
not fairly represent what Christ taught. The
purity of the earliest Christianity was the source
of its wondrous conquering power. After it was
paganized, and united with the State, it continued
to conquer, but by the sword rather than by the
spirit of God. It is clear proof of the divine char-

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES INVOLVED. 299
acter of Christianity, that it was not wholly de
stroyed by its contact with paganism. It is
surpassing proof of that same divine origin, that it
could rise from the grave of the Dark Ages, with
such vigor as produced the Reformation, and has
carried that work to the point already gained.
But in the crises that await it, in the solving of
the problems which confront it, Protestant Chris
tianity must realize that its specific mission is to
complete the work of eliminating the pagan resid
uum, a work well begun by the Reformers, but
which must be carried on to higher victories, or
sink back to lower defeats. When the last stain
of paganism is removed, the world will see a Chris
tianity which will be primarily a life of purity,
through love for God and truth and men, rather
than a creed, emboding speculations about the un
knowable and abstractions concerning the un-
solvable. In such a Christianity, the Bible plainly
interpreted, without allegory or assumption, and
in the light of its own history, will hold the first
place. The Sabbath, as God's day, free from
burdensome formalism, and filled with good works
and spiritual culture, will be restored ; and this
recognition of it as God's ever-recurring representa
tive in human life will do much to bring in that uni
versal Sabbathism towards which God is patiently
leading his truth-loving children. The pagan

300 PAGANISM IN CHRISTIANITY.
Sunday, with its false claims, will be a thing of the
past. Baptism as the symbol of entrance to
Christ's kingdom, through spiritual life and faith
in Him, will be no longer the foot-ball of polemic
strife, nor the many-formed image of pagan water-
worship, nor the creator of a false standard of
Church membership through "baptismal regenera
tion." In that better day, the civil law will give
all religion full protection and full freedom, with
out regard to majorities or creeds. It will neither
oppose by persecution, nor control under the
name of protection. The persecution of Jews in
Russia, and useless efforts to make the world holy
by act of Parliament, will pass away. To hasten
that time, be it far or near, these pages go forth ;
and he who writes them will be thankful if they
bear some part in freeing our holy religion from
the poison of pagan residuum, and in giving that
higher spiritual life, to the attainment of which
all forms, ceremonies, times, and agencies ought to
bring Christ-loving men.

INDEX.

Abespine, on use of "lights" at tombs,
264.
Achamoth, gnostic idea of, injected into
N. T. exegesis, 45,
Alabaster, Henry, describes Brahmanic
baptism, 93.
Allegorists, the " Fathers " as, 44.
Allegory, the mediator between philosophy
and religion, 39 ; existed among the
Greeks before the Christian era, 39 ;
united paganism and Judaism, 39 ;
corrupted the earliest methods of
Scripture exegesis, 42 ; perverted the
true doctrine of " inspiration,** 43 ;
great influence of, on " Christian exe
gesis, 46 ; destructive examples of, 49,
50 ; foolish application of, to clean and
unclean food, 51, 52 ; unmeaning appli
cation of, to the " cross," 53 ; much
used by Augustine, 64, 65 ; prevailing
influence in Scripture interpretation,
after the second century, 66 ; used by
Barnabas in combining pagan and
Christian ideas concerning baptism,
133 f; destructive application of, to
the Decalogue, 184^.
Alzog, historian, describes the character of
Constantine, 212.
Anointing, in baptism, borrowed from pa
gans, 133 ; use of, in baptism, as shown
in apostolic constitutions, 138.
Antinomianism, wholly unscriptural, 166.
Anti-Sabbathism, appeared contemporane
ously with Sunday observance, 159;
wholly unscriptural, 166.
Apollo, the counterpart of Mithras and
Baal, 156; the patron deity of Con
stantine, 219.

Apostolic Constitutions, teach pagan theo
ries concerning baptism, 137 f.
Aringhus, on similarity between paganism
and Roman Catholicism, 11.
Aruspices, Constantine's law concerning,
associated with his Sunday edict, 222.
Astarte, worship of, reproduced in worship
of the " Virgin Mary," 28 ; the worship
of, at Rome, 199.
Augustine, influence of, on formation of
Christian doctrines, 64 ; evil effect of
allegorizing Scriptures by, 64, 65 ; de
scribes corrupting influence of pagan
ism on Christians, 224, 225 ; excessive
superstition of, regarding miracles
wrought by baptism, 258.
Aurelian, Emperor, "Triumph" of, igg ;
costly offerings to the Sun-god, 200.
Aztecs, baptism as practised by, 109 /.

B

Baal, the worship of, corrupted the Israel
ites, 156.
Baptism, character of, in the N. T., 71, 72 ;
pagans sought spiritual purity by it,
77 ; mithraic and gnostic, 77 ; gnostics
called it a " purifying fire," 79 ; pagans
initiated candidates to their " myste
ries " by it, 82 ; by blood, a feature of
mithraicism, 82 ; administered at death
as a means of salvation, 83 ; performed
for the dead, 83 ; associated with ser
pent worship, 85 ; pagan, in Egypt,
87 ; of young children in Thibet and
Mongolia, 93 ; pagan, of the dying, 93 ;
modern Buddhistic, 94 f; various
forms of, in Oriental paganism, 97 ; an
ancient Aryan rite, 103 ; pagan ideas
and forms of, reproduced in the early

301

302

INDEX.

Church, 128; pagano-Christian theo
ries of, taught by Methodius, Clement
of Alex., and others, 136 ; sign of the
cross, and anointing connected with,
249 ; deemed invalid without sign of
the cross upon the water and the can
didate, 252 ; miracles said to be
wrought by it, 253 ; believed to cure
physical diseases, 25s ; delayed until
near death, 256; "orientation" in
connection with vows, 257 ; supersti
tious acceptance of miracles in connec
tion with, 258 // magical power of,
258 ; cancer, paralysis, and gout cured
thereby, 258, 259 ; evil spirits exorcised
byi 259 J conclusions concerning, 290 ;
pagan elements yet remaining in, 291 ;
should be the symbol of new spiritual
life, 300.
Baptists, seventh-day, prominent in Eng
lish Reformation, 293.
Barnabas, closely allied to the Gnostics,
38 ; " Ep*istle" of, shows evil effect of
allegorical interpretation, 43; foolish
exegesis of Scripture by, 49 ; pagan
fancies applied to the '* cross,'* and to
baptism, by, 133/*.
Baronius, Cardinal, defends the transfer of
pagan ceremonies to Christianity, 8 ;
on " lights" used in worship, 263, 264.
Baur, F. C, describes influence of gnosti
cism on Christianity, 38.
Benares, city of, surrounded by sacred
wells, 89.
Bible, the, written wholly by " Jews,"
177 ; must be more fully reinstated as
the standard of Christian faith and
practice, 283.
Bingham, Rev. Joseph, compares Sunday
with other pagan festivals, 222 ; uses
"Lord's day" where it does not be
long, 222, 223 ; on sign of the cross as
an enchantment among Christians,
246 f; on " unction" and sign of the
cross in baptism, 249 ; on baptism as a
cure for disease, 255 ; on " delayed
baptism," 256; on "orientation" at
baptism, 267.
Blake, W. W., the cross as a pagan
" standard," 241.

Blood, mithraic baptism in, 82 ; baptisira
in, practised by the ancient Germans.
and Norsemen, 100.
Blunt, Rev. John James, describes pagan
use of human saliva as a "'charm," 124.
Boissier, Gaston, describes Constantine the-
Great, 205 ; describes Chi-Ro standard.
of Constantine, 245, note.
Bonwick, James, describes Egyptian bap
tism, 87.
Brock, Rev. Mourant, describes kinds of
" holy water," and how prepared, 148 ;
quoted on pre-Christian cross in Mex
ico, 242,
Bryant, Jacob, describes pagan water-
worship, 73.
Buddhistic baptism, described by Sir
Monier-Williams, 94/".
Bunsen, C. C. J., summarizes teachings of
Apostolic Constitutions concerning
baptism, 137/I
" Buns," hot cross, a remnant of pagan
phallicism, 238 J~.
Burmah, the " New Year" in, is <i great
water-worship festival, 95.

C
early

ones often mis-

describes Hindu

Centuries, the
judged, t.
Child, Mrs. Lydia M.,
baptism, 96 f.
Children, pagans named them at baptism,
100.
Choul, de, William, defends the transfer
of paganism to Christianity, 9.
Christ, his resurrection allegorically fore
shadowed in the deluge, 56 ; allegori
cally typefied by a bullock, 63 ; the
central character in both " dispensa
tions," 166 ; did not destroy the law,
167 ; taught full obedience to the
Decalogue, 167, 168 ; resurrection of,
not associated with Sunday observ
ance, in the Bible, 173 ; did not rise
from the grave on Sunday, 173 ; did
not live and teach simply as a " Jew,"
176 ; his attitude toward civil power,
188 ; His kingdom, spiritual, 189.
Christianity, weakened in the work of
reform, because corrupted, 6 ; deeply

INDEX.

303

corrupted by pagan influence before
the fifth century, 23 ; contrast between
that of the N. T. and that of the
fourth century, 31 ; first developed
within the Jewish Church, 32 ; prima
rily and essentially a new life, born of
love, 32 ; immensely changed in char
acter under influence of Greek thought,
33 ; fundamentally corrupted through
allegory, 48 ; passed a terrible ordeal
when it became united with the State,
68, 196 ; first recognition by Roman
law was not full toleration, 19s ; was
controlled and regulated by civil law
under Roman Empire, 195, 196 ; new
era in history of, began with fourth
century, 203 ; deeply corrupted by pa
ganism, 231 f; united with the State,
according to pagan theories, 295, 296 ;
Christ forbade its union with the
state, 296 ; tendency towards union
with civil power in the U. S. A., 296 ;
proved its divine origin by surviving
the conflict with paganism, 299 ; what
it will be when paganism is fully elimi
nated, 299./".
Christians, comparatively few in number
when Sunday legislation began, 218.
Christian, the, needs to be broad-viewed,
1.
Christmas, date of, borrowed from sun-
worship festival, 278, 279.
Chrysostom, on the use of water for
cleansing, 147 ; condemns low standards
of life in the Church, 232 ; considers
the sign of the cross the greatest of all
magical charms, 247, 248.
Circumcision, spiritual meaning of, accord
ing to allegory, 50.
Clement of Alex., his philippic against the
Sophists, 46, 47 ; his gnostic exegesis
of the N. T., 47 ; his gnostic exposition
of the Decalogue, 60 ; gives pagan rea
sons for observing Sunday, 181 ; de
fends " orientation, " 266.
Clement of Rome, examples of myth and
allegory from the writings of, 59.
"Conclusion," First, 285; Second, 289;
Third, 291 ; Fourth, 295 ; Fifth, 298.
** Conclusions," 282-300.

Congregations, the earliest Christian, were
guilds for holy living, 32 ; had no set
tled form of doctrines, 33.
Constantine the Great, was a superstitious
pagan, 4 ; character of, 206 ff ' ; mur
dered his own son, 206 ; baptized on
his death-bed, 207 ; his Christianity
loose and accommodative, 207 ; objec
tionable interference with affairs of the
Church, 207 ; a pagan while favoring
Christianity for political purposes,
214 ; falsely praised by Eusebius, 214,
215; his character not transformed by
Christianity, 215 ; was by no means a
Christian emperor, 216 ; his legislation
touching Christianity was paganT 217 ;
always remained pagan Pontifex
Maximus, 217 ; character of his Sun
day edict, 321 a.d., 218 ff ; special
worshipper of the Sun-god, 219 ;
favored Christianity from " policy,"
and not from principle, 227 ; made no-
effective legislation against paganism,,
228 ; established Sunday as a "¦ market
day," 229 ; how he placed the cross on
his military standard, 244/.
Creed, early Church had none, 33 ; an elab
orate one used at baptism, as shown in
Apostolic Constitutions y 139.
Criticism, the higher, offers cure for false
interpretation of Bible, 288 f ; to
gether with study of Bible, is bringing
the second stage of Protestant move
ment, 289 ; ought to be fully applied to
Bible, 290,
Cross, the, allegorically found in the
O. T., 53, 54 ; an ancient pagan sym
bol, 237 f; known among Assyrians,
Egyptians, Etruscans, etc., 239 ; pagan
origin of, shown in Edinburgh Re
view, 240; how Constantine combined
it on his military standard, 244, 245 ;
the " handled cross " the ancient phal
lic symbol of Egypt, 246 ; sign of, used
as a "charm," 246./V the sign of, in
baptism, 249 ; made on all occasions,
25°*
Cumbhacum, a sacred lake in Hindustan,
97-
Cyprian, condemns Christians who fre-

3°4

INDEX.

quent public shows, 233 ; extremely
superstitious concerning baptismal re
generation, 252. D
Dead, baptism for, of pagan origin, 83 ;
was transferred to Christianity, 84 ;
praying for, was borrowed from pagan
ism, 275.
Decalogue, gnostic exposition of, by Clem
ent of Alex., 60 ; allegorically compared
with man's senses, 61 ; Christ enforced
obedience to it, 167, 168 ; Paul declared
it to be binding, 169 ; if it be abolished
there can be no sin, 170 ; how it was
perverted by gnostic exposition, 184.
Demi-gods, the pagan, were the progeni
tors of Christian " saints," 16.
Demiurge, the, was creator of "matter"
and author of evil, 48.
Devil, the, cast out by anointing one pos
sessed, with oil, and tears of a presby
ter, 261.
Diocletian, emperor, a devotee of the Sun-
god, 200.
Diseases, miraculous curing of, in connec
tion with baptism, 258 f.
Domville, Sir William, shows that early
Sunday observance was not Sabbatic,
180.
Dyer Thomas H., describes introduction
of paganism into Christianity, 3.
E
Earth, sacred, from Jerusalem, cures
paralysis, 260.
Easter, grew in part from Jewish passover,
279 f> changed so as to coincide with
festival of Goddess of Spring, 279 f :
primarily a Chaldean sun-worship fes
tival, 280.
*• Eighth Day," pagan origin of argument
for, 184, 185 ; a day of " indulgence for
the flesh," 187.
Eleusis, city of, the chief seat of Greek
" mysteries," 117.
Elviri, synod of, condemned use of " lights"
in cemeteries, 263.
Empire, the Roman, disintegrated under
decay of pagaa religion, 203 f.

Europe, Northern, pagan water-worship in,
98.
Eusebius, his dishonest eulogy of Constan
tine, 215.
Exorcism, used in baptism, 138 ; resorted
to in preparing " holy water," 149.

Facts, denying does not remove them, 29.
Farrar, Canon, describes corruption of
Christianity through syncretism, 22 ;
on Cyprian's theories concerning bap
tism, 252.
" Fasts," the pagan, transferred to Chris
tianity, 26.
" Fathers," the, were uncritical in exegesis
of Scripture, 66, 67.
Fauchet, defends the introduction of pagan
ism into Christianity, 8.
Festivals, those of pagans transferred to
Christianity, 5, 28.
Fires, " Easter," borrowed from sun-wor
ship, 267 ; described by Grimm, 268,
269; "Midsummer," a pagan festival
identical with "St. John's Day," 270;
" Baal," yet continued in Scotland,"
271.

Gale, Theophilus, on pagan origin of
" orientation," 265.
Galerius, emperor, persecution of Chris
tians by, and death of, 205.
Ganges, the most sacred stream in India,
8Sf.
Geikie, Rev. Cunningham, shows union of
sun-worship cultus with Christianity,
201.
Gibbon, Edward, describes sun-worship
under Heliogabalus, 197 f; recounts
devotion of Aurelian to sun-worship,
199/".
Gnostics, the link between Christianity and
Greek culture, 37.
Gnosticism, the product of Oriental phi
losophy, 34 ; effect on Jewish thought,
34 ; claimed a hidden meaning in all
things, 34, 35 ; destroyed authority of
the O. T. by false exegesis, 35 ; per
meated Greek philosophy, 35 ; assailed

INDEX.

30S

infant Christianity, 36; Schaff's de
scription of, 36, 37 ; generally antino
mian, 36; "vulgarized" Christianity,
and made it " worldly," 37 ; Baur's
description of, 38 ; introduced allegory
into N. T. exegesis, 40, 41 ; sought a
hidden meaning in N. T., 44 ; applied
numerical mysteries to the Psalms, 58 ;
widely spread in second century, 69 ;
complete supremacy would have anni
hilated Christianity, 69 ; fundament
ally antinomian, 159, destructively ap
plied to the Decalogue, 184.
Gould, S. Baring, describes pagan baptism
iu Scandinavia, 100 ; on baptism among
the ancient Greeks, 114.
Gratian, Emperor, edicts of, against pagan
ism, inoperative, 2x2.
Greeks, named and " purified " children
when seven days old, 102 ; water-wor
ship among, 112.
Greek thought, thoroughly permeated by
gnosticism, 35.
Grimm, Jacob, on superstitions concerning
water, 104 ; on use of sacred water in
Germany, 105, 106 ; on " Easter fires "
in Northern Europe, 268 f ; on " Mid
summer fires," 270 ; on " Baal fires " in
Scotland, 271. H
Hall, Rev. E. E., on paganism in Roman
Catholic Church, 208 f.
Hard wick, Rev. Charles, on the reproduc
tion of paganism in early Christianity,
14.
Haoiak, Prof. Adolph, on influence of
gnosticism on Christianity, 37 * on the
future of Protestantism, 288.
Hatch, Prof. Edwin, D.D., describes pagan
elements in early methods of exegesis,
42 ; on the rejection of O. T. by many
Christians, 48 ; describes effect of
" Greek mysteries " on early Christian
ity, 119 • shows identity between the
Eleusinian mysteries and Roman Ca
tholic baptism, 122 ; declares pagan
origin of anointingin baptism, 123.
Heifer, the red, allegorically made a type
of Christ, 49.

Heliogabalus, emperor, submitted to
pagan baptism in blood, 83 ; degraded
character of, 197 ; his costly offerings
to the Sun-god, 198 ; triumph of sun-
worship at Rome under his reign, 199.
Herodotus, describes sun- and water-wor
ship by Xerxes, 76.
Hippolytus, fanciful commentary on the
Psalms, 57, 58.
Hislop, Rev. Alexander, on corruption of
Christianity by pagan sun- and water-
worship, 150 ; describes pagan origin of
" Mariolatry," 274 ; on "prayers for
the dead," 276 ; on pagan origin of
" Lent," 281.
Holda, a German water-goddess, 107.
Holy water, pagans refused it to wrong
doers, 144 ; magical virtues attributed
to, 144 ; catalogue of its effects, 145 ;
animals sprinkled with, 146 ; Roman
Catholics defend its use, 146 f ; me
thods of preparing, salt, ashes, and
wine used, 148.

India, extent of water-worship in, 88,/".
Isis, extensively worshipped at Rome, 19.

J aims, Gnostics made raising of his daugh
ter a type of Achamoth, 45.
Jamblicus describes sacred fountains, 73,
74-
Janus, God of the Keys, and prototype of
St. Peter, 277/.
Jew, a paralytic, reported cured by means
of baptism, 254 ; an impostor detected
by a miracle at baptism, 254.
Judaism, Christ enlarged and purified,
without destroying, 31, 32 ; strongly
opposed by the pagan-bred " Fathers,"
165.
Justin, Martyr, educated a pagan philoso
pher, 44 ; perverted the Scriptures by
false exegesis, 54 ; teaches much pagan
error concerning baptism, 134, 135 ; the
first to teach anti-Sabbathism, and to
tell of Sunday observance, 159, 178 ;
always partially pagan, 160 ; no-Sab-
bathism taught in his " Dialogue with

306

INDEX.

Trypho," 161 ; taught the abrogation
of the Sabbath law, 162.
Juvenal, describes baptism of Roman pros
titutes, 77. K
Kabbalists, were Jewish gnostics, 81.
Keys, St. Peter's, borrowed from pagan
god Janus, 277/".
Killen, Prof. W. D., shows that there was
no paganism in the earliest Christianity,
20 ; tells how baptism was corrupted
by pagan influences, 21 ; declares the
incompetency of the "Fathers" as
critics or exegetes, 67 ; on character of
Constantine, 206,
King, C. W., describes Mithraic baptism,
78-81 ; on pagan baptism for the dead,
83 ; on serpent worshippers, 85 ; on
Egyptian water-worship, 87.

Labor, prohibited on many pagan days
besides Sunday, 225.
Lechler, G. V., shows the relative influ
ence of paganism and Judaism on
Christianity, 29.
"Lent," originated in pagan fast, 280;
early character of, 281 ; devoutly ob
served by many at present time, 281.
Lightfoot, Bishop, on the tendency to mis
judge early history, z.
" Lights," use of in worship borrowed
from pagans, 263.
Lord, Prof. John, on paganism in the early
Church, 4. M
Maitland, Dr. Charles, shows worship of
martyrs borrowed from paganism, 15 ;
on pagan origin of "lights" in wor
ship, 264.
Mallet, P. H. describes pagan baptism in
Scandinavia, 997".
Mariolatry, pagan origin of, 273.
Martyr-worship, the product of paganism,
IS-
"Mass," the, derived from paganism, 274.
Maurer, Konrad, shows similarity between
pagan and Christian baptism, 101 f.

Maurice, Rev. F. W., describes corrupted
Christianity under Constantine, 210.
Merivale, Charles, on corruption of Chris
tianity under Leo the Great, 23 ; on
Constantine's relation to Christianity,
211 f; on paganism under Gratian,
212.
Mexico, pagan baptism in, 109 f.
Middleton, Rev. Conyers, on paganism in
the early Church, n ; on pagan origin
of " holy water, 141,/".
Milman, Rev. H. H., describes Diocletian's
sun-worship, 200 ; shows pagan charac
ter of first Sunday law, 223 ; shows
Constantine made little opposition to
paganism, 228.
Miracles, reported as wrought through
baptism, 253 ; newly baptized persons
reputed to work, 258 f.
Mirror, The Catholic^ on paganism in
Christianity, 286 f; on inability of
Protestantism to return to Bible alone,
287.
Mithraicism, extent of, in the second cen
tury, 19 ; had ceremonies of purifica
tion, and a " holy table," 119.
Monasticism, the product of Oriental
paganism, 14.
Mongolia, pagan baptism in, 93.
Moses, his rod made a type of Christ, by
allegory, 54-56.
" Mysteries," the Greek, supposed to
bring salvation, 117 ; embodied con
fession, baptism, and sacrifices, 117 f;
did much to corrupt baptism and the
Lord's Supper, 120.
MUller, Prof. Max, paganism of first three
Christian centuries, xi.
N
Nation, Thes quoted on Teutonic baptism,
pagan and Christian, xox.
Neale, E. V., shows non-Christian charac
ter of Constantine's Sunday law, 224_/V
designates other pagan days with simi
lar restrictions, 225.
Niebuhr, historian, shows that Constantine
was not a Christian, 229.
Nile, the river, regarded as highly sacred
by the Egyptians, 88.

INDEX.

O

"Orientation," the product of pagan sun-
worship, 157, 257 ; defended by Clem
ent of Alexandria 266 ; explained and
defended by Tertullian, 267.
Osiris, regarded as the counterpart of Noah,
150-
Outlook, The, quotations from, 208, 285.
Ovid, describes water-worship and sun-
worship at feast of " Pales," 75 ; de
scribes water-worship at temple of
"Themis," 76 ; describes Grecian bap
tism, 116 ; describes god Janus, 277^

Pagans, many baptized without conver
sion, 24 ; eminent ones as semi-Chris
tians, 25.
Paganism, not found in Catholic Church
alone, 3, 143 ; some of its lowest forms
mingled with Christianity, 6; "Ori
ental," in early Christianity, 6 ; much,
in Christianity before the "Papacy,"
18 ; in " Alexandrian " Christianity, 22 :
extent of, in early churches, 68 ; cus
toms of, continued under Christian
names, 210 ; employed various forms
of baptism, 290 ; opposed Sabbath-
keeping, 293.
" Pales," feast of, a combination of sun-
worship and water-worship, 75.
Paul, observed and upheld " the law,'' 169,
170.
Penance required for sins after baptism,
253 ; demanded by pagan theory of
"baptismal regeneration," 272.
Persecution of Christians under Diocletian,
204.
Perseus satirizes the pagan use of spittle as
a " charm," 124.
Phallicism, associated with water-worship
in India, 90 ; a department of sun-
worship, 157.
Philo blended Greek philosophy with O,
T. exegesis, 40.
Phoenix, fable of, used as a type of man's
resurrection, 59.
Pilgrimages, made to sacred streams for
salvation, 90.
** Pistis-Sophia," the gnostic gospel, 78.

307
Pliny, the historian, describes virtue of
spittle, and its use as a charm, 125 f.
Potter, Rev. John.D.D., describes Grecian
water-worship and purifications, 112.
Poynder, John, quoted in » Pagano-Papis-
mus," 9.
Prescott describes Aztec baptism, 109.
Priestley, Dr. Joseph, on pagan origin of
u holy water," 141.
Protestants, do not understand their rela
tion to Catholicism, 2 ; work of, but
fairly begun, 3.
Protestantism, an unconscious reaction
against paganism in Christianity, 282
f; has never wholly discarded " tra
dition," 284 ; must accept Bible wholly
or be overcome, 285 ; must act promptly
to overcome loss already sustained,
285 ; cannot survive except on purely
Biblical basis, 288.
Psalms, " Fathers " made whole number
of, * type of the '* Trinity," 57, 58 ;
meaning of, perverted by gnostic alle
gorizing, 65,
Purgatory, borrowed from paganism, 275.
Purification, Greeks sought, by dipping and
sprinkling, 115.
Purity, spiritual, pagans sought, by bathing
in sacred streams, 88 f.

Reformations begin when evils reach
their lowest point, 283.
Regeneration, baptismal, 87.
" Relics," faith in, borrowed from pagan
ism, 235 ; became widely spread in the
Church, 236./".
Religion, Roman, conception of, as a de
partment of civil government, 190 ; all
forms recognized in Roman Empire,
were regulated by civil law, 201.
Renan, Ernest, on Oriental paganism and
Christianity, 18.
Residuum, pagan, minor forms of, in
Christianity, 231.
Review, The Edinburgh, on pagan origin
of the cross, 240.
Reville, Albert, on civil character of Ro
man religion, 192/.

3o8
Rivers, confluence of, makes water sacred,
92 ; banks of, sacred, 92.
Roman Catholic writers, honesty «f, 7.
Romanized Christianity identical with
paganized, 17.

Sabbath, the, observed by Christ, 168, ob
servance of, 174, never associated with-
Christ's resurrection, 172 f; "change
of," never spoken of in the Bible, 173 ;
its recognition in the New Testament,
174 ; observed by the Apostles, 174 ;
abolition of, taught by Tertullian, 186,
187 ; divine authority necessary to cre
ate, 295.
Sabbathism, 291 ; sacred time, the essence
of, 292 ; spiritual life the end of, 292 ;
Jews did not understand, 293 ; Christ
exalted it, 293 ; destroyed by Sunday
legislation, 297.
Sahagun de Bernardino, describes pagan
baptism in Mexico, no f.
Saints, worship of, a revival of pagan
mythology, 27.
Sandars on " civil " character of Roman
paganism, xgi, 192.
" Saturnalia," disorder of, at Burmah's
" water-festival," 95.
Scandinavia, ancient baptism in, 99, 100.
Schaff, Dr. Philip, description of gnosti
cism, 36, 37 ; on Roman idea of state
religion, 190 f; describes Heliogabalus
and Severus, 197 ; on Constantine's
attitude towards Christianity, 213 f ;
on the origin of " penance," 272, 273.
Scotland, "Baal fires" continue there,
271.
Serpent-worship, a branch of gnosticism
closely associated with water-worship,
85.
Severus, Alex., emperor, character of, 197.
Seymore, Rev. Hobart, on heathen origin of
saint-worship, 16 ; on pagan origin of
" holy water," 140, 141 ; on virtues of
" holy water," 144 ; sprinkling of ani
mals, 146.
Simeon, a type of the Demiurge, 44.
Simon Magus, on gnostic baptism, 81 .

INDEX.

Socrates, historian, superstition of, concern
ing baptism, 253./".
Sozomen, had great faith in " relics," 236 ;
relates foolish myths as facts, 236,
237-
Spelman, Sir Henry, finds origin of English
"court terms" in paganism, 225/".
Spittle, use of, in baptism borrowed from
pagans, 124 ; more efficacious if " fast
ing," 125 ; various superstitions re
lated by Pliny, 125-7.
Springs, water of, specially sacred, 98.
Sprites, water-, superstitious fear of, 108.
State-religion, pagan origin of, 188.
Sunday law, text of Constantine's first,
220 ; permitted manumission of slaves,
220 ; associated with one for consulting
soothsayers, 220 f; not unlike laws
concerning other pagan days, 222 f ;
designates only the " Venerable Day of
the Sun," 222 ; purely pagan in form
and spirit, 227.
Sunday, observance of, weakens Decalogue,
158 ; first observance coupled with anti-
Sabbathism, 159 ; observance based on
tradition, 171 ; popular errors concern
ing, 171 fs observance unknown before
middle of second century, 171 f; never
called Sabbath in the Bible, 172 f; defi
nitely referred to in N. T. but three
times, 172 ; only six passages from N.
T. quoted in favor of, 173 ; observance
originated outside of the Bible, 177 ;
first mentioned by Justin Martyr, 150
a.d., 178 f; pagan reasons for its ob
servance, 181 f; the "puritan," a
compromise between the Sabbath and
the Sunday, 294 ; legislation concerning
a prominent feature in the puritan
movement, 294 ; earliest laws concern
ing, pagan in form and concept, 294 ;
no scriptural or Protestant ground for
its observance, 295.
Sun-worship, a myth of, used as a type of
man's resurrection, 59, 60 ; excessive
and costly under Heliogabalus, i-yjf;
a popular cult at Rome, 201.
Superstitions, excessive pagan, associated
with baptism, 258.
Syncretism, tendency to in early centuries,

INDEX.

309

12; a large factor in corrupting Chris
tianity, 194.
Synesius, Bishop, uncertain whether a
pagan or a Christian, 24.

Tammuz, worship of, condemned by Jere
miah, 238.
Taylor, Isaac, on pagan element in Chris
tianity, 6,
Tertullian, sometimes opposed allegorical
interpretation of the N. T., 46; un
meaning interpretation of " types," 62 \
teaches pagano-Christian theory of bap
tism, 129./V denies the power of pagan
I. \ gods to sanctify water, 132 ; taught
abrogation of the Decalogue, 163 f;
ideas concerning the Sabbath, 163 f;
superstitious faith in the sign of the
cross, 248; explains " orientation,"
267.
Testament, the Old, rejected by many
Christians on gnostic grounds, 48.
Teutons, pagan baptism among, xoi f.
Thebaud, Rev. Aug., on paganism at
Rome in fifth century, 13.
Thibet, baptismal customs in, 93 ; autumn
water-worship festival in, 96.
Tiele, C. P., on Oriental paganism in
Christianity, 6 ; on political character
of Roman religion, 193, 194.
Traditionalism largely pagan in origin,
289. U
Uhlhorn, Dr. Gerhard, on corruption of
Christianity by gnosticism, 68, 70.
Usages, pagan, adopted almost without
stint by Christians, 26.

Virgil, Polydore, claims that Christianity
" meliorated " pagan customs by ac
cepting them, 8.
Virgil shows union of water-worship and
sun-worship, 74, 75.
W
Water, pagans believed it contained divine
power to cleanse the soul, 72, 73 ;

power to inspire, 74 ; river, especially
sacred, 91 ; changes to wine on Easter
and Christmas at midnight, gg ;
" holy," if drawn at sacred seasons,
99 ; "holy," cures evils and averts
danger, 104 ; " sacred," prevents physi
cal disease, 105 ; superstitious value of,
from mill-wheel, 106; endued with
divine power at creation, 129 ; produces
life by divine power, 131 j *' holy,"
borrowed directly from paganism, 140;
used at doors of heathen temples, 140,
142 ; use of, by Christians condemned,
143 ; use of, defended by Cardinal
Wiseman, 146, 147 ; " baptismal," pre
pared according to pagan formula, 152 ;
sanctified by the sign of the cross, 251 ;
at first used as a " charm," 252.
Water-worship, the pagan, corrupted Chris
tianity fundamentally, 71 ; of Oriental
origin, 72 ; prominent among serpent
worshippers, 85 ; a special feature in
Egyptian religion, 86 ; associated with
Osiris worship, 87 ; superstitions con
nected with, in time of drouth, 106 f;
universal in Northern Europe, 109 ;
coupled with sun-worship among the
Greeks, 112 ; summary of its influence
on Christian baptism, 153-155.
Wells, " sacred," described by Sir Monier-
Williams, 89.
Westropp and Wake on gnosticism in
Christianity, 27.
Wilkins, W. J., describes water-worship
festival of " Dasahara," 94.
Williams, Sir Monier-, on water-worship in
India, 88 ; on baptism in Thibet and
Mongolia, 93 ; on Buddhistic baptism,
94
Wiseman, Cardinal, value of his testimony,
10 ; defends the introduction of pagan
ism in early Christianity, 10; on reten
tion of paganism in English Church,
10 ; defends the use of " holy water,"
146, 147.

X

Xerxes describes water- and sun-worship
at the " Hellespont," 76.

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