The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors; Or, Christianity Before Christ. Graves Kersey

"the only son, and sent of God: " twenty Messiahs, Saviors, and Sons of God, according to history or tradition, have, in past times, descended from heaven, and taken upon themselves the form of men, clothing themselves with human flesh, and furnishing incontestable evidence of a divine origin, by various miracles, marvelous works, and superlative virtues; and finally these twenty Jesus Christs (accepting their character for the name) laid the foundation for the salvation of the world, and ascended back to heaven.

      1. Chrishna of Hindostan.

      2. Budha Sakia of India.

      3. Salivahana of Bermuda.

      4. Zulis, or Zhule, also Osiris and Orus, of Egypt.

      5. Odin of the Scandinavians.

      6. Crite of Chaldea.

      7. Zoroaster and Mithra of Persia.

      8. Baal and Taut, "the only Begotten of God," of Phenicia.

      9. Indra of Thibet.

      10. Bali of Afghanistan.

      11. Jao of Nepaul.

      12. Wittoba of the Bilingonese.

      13. Thammuz of Syria.

      14. Atys of Phrygia.

      15. Xamolxis of Thrace.

      16. Zoar of the Bonzes.

      17. Adad of Assyria.

      18. Deva Tat, and Sammonocadam of Siam.

      19. Alcides of Thebes.

      20. Mikado of the Sintoos.

      21. Beddru of Japan.

      22 Hesus or Eros, and Bremrillah, of the Druids.

      23. Thor, son of Odin, of the Gauls.

      24. Cadmus of Greece.

      25. Hil and Feta of the Mandaites.

      26. Gentaut and Quexalcote of Mexico.

      27. Universal Monarch of the Sibyls.

      28. Ischy of the Island of Formosa.

      29. Divine Teacher of Plato.

      30. Holy One of Xaca.

      31. Fohi and Tien of China.

      32. Adonis, son of the virgin Io of Greece.

      33. Ixion and Quirinus of Rome.

      34. Prometheus of Caucasus.

      35. Mohamud, or Mahomet, of Arabia.

      These have all received divine honors, have nearly all been worshiped as Gods, or sons of God; were mostly incarnated as Christs, Saviors, Messiahs, or Mediators; not a few of them were reputedly born of virgins; some of them filling a character almost identical with that ascribed by the Christian's bible to Jesus Christ; many of them, like him, are reported to have been crucified; and all of them, taken together, furnish a prototype and parallel for nearly every important incident and wonder-inciting miracle, doctrine and precept recorded in the New Testament, of the Christian's Savior. Surely, with so many Saviors the world cannot, or should not, be lost.

      We have now presented before us a two-fold ground for doubting and disputing the claims put forth by the Christian world in behalf of "Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." In the first place, allowing the question to be answered in the affirmative as to whether he was really a Savior, or supernatural being, or more than a mere man, a negative answer to which seems to have been sprung (as previously intimated) at the very hour of his birth, and that by his kindred, his own nearest relatives; as it is declared, "his own brethren did not believe on him" – a skepticism which has been growing deeper and broader from that day to this.

      And now, upon the heel of this question, we find another formidable query to be met and answered, viz.: Was he (Christ) the only Savior, seeing that a multitude of similar claims are now upon our council-board to be disposed of?

      We shall, however, leave the theologians of the various religious schools to adjust and settle this difficulty among themselves. We shall leave them to settle the question as best they can as to whether Jesus Christ was the only son and sent of God – "the only begotten of the Father," as John declares him to be (John i. 14) – in view of the fact that long prior to his time various personages, in different nations, were invested with the title "Son of God," and have left behind them similar proofs and credentials of the justness of their claims to such a title, if being essentially alike – as we shall prove and demonstrate them to be – can make their claims similar.

      We shall present an array of facts and historical proofs, drawn from numerous histories and the Holy Scriptures and bibles appertaining to these various Saviors, and which include a history of their lives and doctrines, that will go to show that in nearly all their leading features, and mostly even in their details, they are strikingly similar.

      A comparison, or parallel view, extended through their sacred histories, so as to include an exhibition presented in parallels of the teachings of their respective bibles, would make it clearly manifest that, with respect to nearly every important thought, deed, word, action, doctrine, principle, precept, tenet, ritual, ordinance or ceremony, and even the various important characters or personages, who figure in their religious dramas as Saviors, prophets, apostles, angels, devils, demons, exalted or fallen genii – in a word, nearly every miraculous or marvelous story, moral precept, or tenet of religious faith, noticed in either the Old or New Testament Scriptures of Christendom – from the Jewish cosmogony, or story of creation in Genesis, to the last legendary tale in St. John's "Arabian Nights" (alias the Apocalypse) – there is to be found an antitype for, or outline of, somewhere in the sacred records or bibles of the oriental heathen nations, making equal if not higher pretention to a divine emanation and divine inspiration, and admitted by all historians, even the most orthodox, to be of much more ancient date; for while Christians only claim, for the earthly advent of their Savior and the birth of their religion, a period less than nineteen hundred years in the past, on the contrary, most of the deific or divine incarnations of the heathen and their respective religions are, by the concurrent and united verdict of all history, assigned a date several hundred or several thousand years earlier, thus leaving the inference patent that so far as there has been any borrowing or transfer of materials from one system to another, Christianity has been the borrower.

      And as nearly the whole outline and constituent parts of the Christian system are found scattered through these older systems, the query is at once sprung as to whether Christianity did not derive its materials from these sources – that is, from heathenism, instead of from high heaven – as it claims.

      CHAPTER II. MESSIANIC PROPHECIES

      NEARLY all religious history is prophetic of the coming of Saviors, Messiahs, Redeemers, and virgin-born Gods. Most religious countries, and more than a score of religious systems, had a standing prophecy that a divine deliverer would descend from heaven and relieve them from their depressed state, and ameliorate their condition. And in most cases that prophecy was believed to have been fulfilled by the birth of a being, who, as he approached the goal of moral and intellectual manhood exhibited such remarkable proof of superiority of mind as to be readily accepted as the promised Messiah.

      We can only find room for a few citations and illustrations in proof of this statement. Many texts have been hunted out and marked in the Christian bible, by interested priests, as prophetic of the coming and mission of Christ. But a thorough, candid, and impartial investigation will convince any reader that none of these texts have the remotest allusion to Christ, nor were they intended to have. On the contrary, most of them refer to events already past. The others are the mere ebullitions of pent-up feelings hopefully prayerful in their anticipation of better times, but very indefinite as to the period and the agencies or means in which, or by which, the desired reformation was to be brought about. A divine man was prayed for and hopefully expected. But no such being as Jesus Christ is anticipated, or alluded to, or dreamed of, by the prophecies. And it requires the most unwarrantable distortion to make one text refer to him.

      But this perversion has been wrought on many texts. We will cite one case in proof. In Isaiah's "famous prophecy" so-called, the phrase "Unto us a child is born" (Isa. ix. 6), the