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CHAPTER XII.
THE WORLD'S SAVIORS SAVED FROM DESTRUCTION IN INFANCY.
OF course such an extraordinary circumstance as the birth of a God into
the world must be marked with unusual incidents and great eclat. This
was first exhibited by angels, shepherds, prophets, magi or "wise men,"
flocking around their cradles. In the second place we observe an unusual
display of divine power and providential care on the part of the great
Father God, who was still left in heaven to save the young saviors
through their infancy.
It is certainly a remarkable circumstance that so many of the infant
Saviors should have been threatened with the most imminent danger of
destruction, and yet in every case miraculously preserved, and thus were
the Saviors saved.
A jealousy seems to have existed in several instances in the mind of the
tyrant king or ruler of the country that the young Saviors and
prospective spiritual rulers (who were mostly of royal descent) would
ultimately acquire such favor with the people, by such a display of
superior power and greatness of mind, as to endanger his retaining
peaceable possession of the secular throne; to express it in brief, he
feared the young God would prove a rival king, and hence took measures
to destroy him.
In the case of the Christian Savior we are told that an angel, or "the
angel," warned Joseph (the assumed father)
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to take the young Savior and God and flee with him into Egypt, because
"Herod the king sought to destroy the young child's life," and had, in
order to effect this end, decreed the destruction of all the children
under two years old. And Joseph heeded the divine warning, and fled as
directed. An angel and a dream, then, it will be observed, were the
instrumentalities used to save the young Judean Savior from massacre.
And strange as it may seem, we find the same agencies had been
previously employed to effect the rescue of other Saviors likewise and
similarly threatened.
In the case of Chrishna of India, in particular, the similitude is very
striking in nearly every feature of the whole story.
In the first place there is the angel warning. In the Christian story we
are not specifically informed how the tyrant Herod first became apprised
of the birth of the Judean Savior. The Hindoo story is fuller, and
indicates that the angel was not only sufficiently thoughtful to warn
the parents to flee from a danger which threatened to dispossess them of
a divine child, and the world of a Savior, but was condescending enough
to apprise the tyrant ruler (Cansa) of his danger likewise—as we are
told he heard an angel voice announcing that a rival ruler was born in
his kingdom.
And hence, like Herod, he set about concocting measures to destroy him
without a direct attack. Why either of them should have taken such a
circuitous or roundabout way of killing an infant, when the life of the
strongest man, and every man in their kingdoms, was at their instant
disposal, "divine inspiration" does not inform us.
But so it was. And we must not seek to "become wise above what is
written" in their bibles. Herod's decree required the destruction of all
infants under two years of age (see Matt. ii. 16)—first ordering,
however, "Go, and
p. 85
search diligently for the young child." (Matt. ii. 8.) Cansa's decree
ran thus: "Let active search be made for whatever young children there
may be upon earth, and let every boy in whom there may be found signs of
unusual greatness be slain without remorse."
Now, let it be specially noticed that there is to this day in the cave
temple at Elephants, in India, the sculptured likeness of a king
represented with a drawn sword, and surrounded with slaughtered
infants—admitted by all writers to be much older than Christianity. Mr
Forbes, in his "Oriental Memories," vol. iii. p. 447, says, "The figures
of the slaughtered infants in the cave of Elephanta represent them as
being all boys, who are surrounded by groups of figures of men and women
in the act, apparently, of supplicating for those children." And Mr.
Higgins testifies relative to the case, that Chrishna was carried away
by night, and concealed in a region remote from his natal place, for
fear of a tyrant whose destroyer it had been foretold he would become,
who, for that reason, had ordered all the male children born at that
time to be slain. Sculptures in Elephanta attest the story where the
tyrant is represented as destroying the children. The date of this
sculpture is of the most remote antiquity. "He who hath ears to hear,
let him hear," and deduce the pregnant inference, Joseph and Mary fled
with the young Judean God into Egypt; Chrishna's parents likewise fled
with the young Hindoo Savior to Gokul.
Now, let us observe for a moment the chain or category or resemblance.
1. There was an angel warning in each case relative to the impending
danger.
2. The governor or ruler was hostile in each case to the mission of the
young Savior.
3. A bloody decree was issued in both cases, having for its object the
destruction of these infant Messiahs.
p. 86
4. The hurried flight of the parents takes place in each case.
5. And it may be remarked further, that the "Gospel of the Infancy of
Jesus," once believed by the Christian world to be "inspired," and which
for hundreds of years passed current as divine authority, relates that
Christ and his parents sojourned for a time at a place called Matarea,
or Mathura, as Sir William Jones spells it, who says it was the birth
place of Chrishna.
It is further related in the case of Chrishna, that as he and his
parents approached the River Jumna in their flight, the waters "parted
hither and thither," so that they passed over "dry shod," like Moses and
the Israelites in crossing the Red Sea. And here let it be noted that
the representation of this flight, which is said to have occurred at
midnight, is like that of the massacre perpetuated and attested by
imperishable monuments of stone bearing evidence of being now several
thousand years old.
Sir William Jones says:—
The Indian incarnate God Chrishna, the Hindoos believe, had a virgin
mother of the royal race, who was sought to be destroyed in his infancy
about nine hundred years before Christ. It appears that he passed his
life in working miracles, and preaching, and was so humble as to wash
his friends' feet; at length, dying, but rising from the dead, he
ascended into heaven in the presence of a multitude." The Cingalese
relate nearly the same things of their Budha." And several authors of
Egyptian history refer to a story perpetuated in the Egyptian legends
concerning the God Osiris, who was threatened with destruction by the
tyrant Amulius, to save whom his parents fled and concealed him in an
arm of the River Nile, as Christ was concealed in the same country, and,
for aught that appears to the contrary, in the same locality. The mother
of another and older Savior of Egypt fled by a timely warning
p. 87
to Epidamis before the birth of the divine child, and was there
delivered of "our Lord and Savior," Horus. And the earthly or adopted
father of the Grecian Savior, and God, Alcides, had to flee with him and
his mother to Galem for protection from threatening danger.
In the ninth and tenth volumes of the "Asiatic Researches," we find the
story of the "only begotten" or "first begotten son of God," Salvahana,
of Cape Comorin, son of a virgin mother (as were all the other Saviors
referred to), and a carpenter by the name of Taishnea. (It will be
remembered that Joseph, "foster-father of Jesus," was a carpenter.) The
story of this "Son of God" presents several features very similar to
that relating to Jesus. Sir William Jones, Colonel Wilford, and the Rev.
Mr. Maurice all confess to the antiquity of this story, as originating
before the birth of Christ. Speaking of Zoroaster of Persia (another
case), 600 B.C., an author remarks, "Tradition reports that his mother
had alarming dreams of evil spirits seeking to destroy the child to whom
she was about to give birth. But a good spirit came to rescue him, and
consoled her by saying, 'Fear not; God Ormuzd will protect the infant,
who has sent him as a prophet to the people and the world who are
waiting for him.'"
China, too, presents us with a case of the threatened destruction of a
Savior in infancy, evidently recorded more than two thousand five
hundred years ago. It is the case of the God Yu, who was concealed in a
manner similar to that of Moses—a commemoration of the story of which is
perpetuated by an image or picture of the virgin mother with a babe upon
her knee—sometimes in her arms. Now, let it be noted that these
virgin-born Gods, who, we are told, came "to save the world," could not
save themselves, but had to be protected and saved by other Gods.
Without pursuing the subject further in detail, we may mention by way of
recapitulation, that Chrishna, Alcides,
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[paragraph continues] Zoroaster, Salvahana, Yu, to which list we may add
Bacchus, Romulus, Moses and Cyrus, according to their reputed history,
were threatened with death and destruction, but were providentially and
miraculously preserved. The case of Augustus is related by Suetonius,
that of Romulus by Livy, and that of Cyrus by Herodotus. It will be
recollected that Pharaoh, like Herod, in order to reach the infant
Moses, ordered the massacre of all the male infants (Herod making no
distinction of sex), in order that he might, by this singular and
circuitous method, reach the object of his jealousy and malignity
without passing a direct sentence of death upon him.
The whole story of Herod's slaughter edict, with the familiar history of
its execution, like nearly every other miraculous incident related in
"The Holy Scriptures," which detail their histories, are traceable in
the skies. Herod, we are told, literally means hero of the skin—a term
applied also to Hercules, a personification of the sun—because the sun,
on entering the constellation of the Zodiac in July, was supposed or
assumed to invest himself with the skin of the lion, and this became
"the hero of the skin," or a hero with a new skin. Now this solar Herod,
passing through the astronomical twins and young infants of May, was
said to destroy them, though the word destroy is in the Greek anairean,
which any person, on turning to the Greek lexicon, will observe means
also to take away, pass through, or withdraw from, so that Pharaoh more
properly passed through the infants than destroyed them.
The text, "In Rama there was a voice heard," "Rachel weeping for her
children," etc., is quoted by a writer (Strauss) as referring to the
children slaughtered by Pharaoh. Let two things be noticed here: 1. Rama
is the Indian and Phenician name for the zodiac. 2. Rachel had but two
children to weep for—Joseph and Benjamin—just the number found in the
fifth sign, or May sign, of the
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zodiac. And Venus, among the ancient Assyrians and Phenicians, was in
tears when the sun, in his annual cross through the heavens, passed
through or over the astronomical Twins (Gemini), doubtless fearfully
apprehending their destruction.
The case of the massacre is an illustration and example of the manner in
which all the miraculous stories related in the Christian Scriptures, as
having been practically exemplified in the life of Jesus Christ, are
traceable to older sources, frequently terminating among the stars.
SECTION II.—INCREDIBILITY OF THE STORY OF THE MASSACRE, OF THE HEBREW
INFANTS.
1. It is a cogent and potent fact, calculated to render the story of the
murder of the Hebrew children by Herod wholly incredible, that not one
writer of that age, or that nation, or any other nation, makes any
mention of the circumstance.
2. Even the Rabbinical writers who detail his wicked life so minutely,
and who bring to his charge so many flagitious acts, fail to record any
notice of this horrible and atrocious deed, which must have been
published far and wide, and known to all the writers of that age and
country, had it occurred.
3. And still more logically ruinous to the credit of the story is the
omission of Josephus to throw out one hint that such a wholesale
slaughter ever took place in Judea. And yet he not only lived in that
country, but was related to Herod's wife, and regarded him as his most
implacable enemy, and professes to write out the whole history of his
wicked life in the most minute detail, devoting thirty-seven chapters of
his large work to this subject, and apparently enumerates every evil act
of his life. And yet Josephus says not a word about his inhuman and
infamous butchery of the babes which Matthew charges him with (about
fourteen
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thousand in number)—a bloody deed, unmatched in the annals of tyranny.
Such facts prove the story not only incredible, but impossible. Josephus
could not and would not have omitted to notice this the most notorious
and nefarious act of his life, had it occurred. It, therefore, could not
have occurred. And it is almost equally incredible that Roman
historians, who furnish us with a particular account of Herod's
character, should pass over in silence such a villainous and bloody
deed.
4. And then some of our ablest and most reliable chronologists have
shown that Herod was not living at the time this bloody decree should
have been issued by him; that he died about three years prior to that
period, and hence could have been guilty of no such villainy, and
highhanded murder, and cruel infanticide.
5. And even if living, he would have been an old man (not less than
sixty-eight according to Josephus). Hence, he could not have calculated
on surviving long enough for the son of a village carpenter, then a
babe, to oust him from his throne.
6. It is wholly incredible, also, that Herod should have adopted such a
roundabout method of destroying the object of his fear and envy when he
could have singled him out, and put him to death at once, and thus avoid
the felonious act of breaking the hearts of thousands of parents, and
his most loyal subjects, too.
7. From the foregoing considerations, we endorse the sentiment of the
Rev. Edward Evanson, that it is "an incredible, borrowed fiction."
from Crucified Saviors
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