PAGAN ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF VICARIOUS ATONEMENT.

The doctrine of Vicarious Atonement supposes the dogma of a Personal Devil, the dogma of Original Sin, the dogma of Trinity, and the dogma of the Supreme Divinity of Jesus Christ. As in four chapters of this work we have proved that these four dogmas are of Pagan origin, we shall examine, in this chapter, the true origin of the body itself of the doctrine of Vicarious Atonement, which consists in the belief that a small number of privileged Christians obtain the forgiveness of their sins, and are exempted from the punishment of those sins through the medium of a substitute. Our historical researches will also lead us to the conclusion that it is of Pagan origin.

In the sixteenth century the Church of Rome held, and still now holds, the doctrine that Jesus Christ had washed away with his blood all the past, present and future sins of the men who would be within the pale of his only true Church, which was herself, and also that he had exempted them from the punishment of their sins. However, they were to enjoy these two privileges only on the condition that they would obey her prescriptions. The Partialist Protestant Churches rejected nearly all the prescriptions of the Church of Rome; rejected the doctrine that she was the only true Church of Jesus Christ; but they preserved the substance of the doctrine, namely, that Jesus Christ had washed away all the sins of those who would feel the descent of the Holy Spirit in their souls; who would experience a supernatural change of heart, or, as they commonly term it, would get religion; and also that through his atonement they are exempted from the punishment of their sins.

Consequently, the Partialist Protestant Churches, as well as the Church of Rome, hold the doctrine that a small number of privileged Christians obtain the forgiveness of their sins, and are exempted from the punishment of those sins through the medium of a substitute. Then if it is proved that the origin of the doctrine that a small number of privileged Christians obtain the forgiveness of their sins, and are exempted from the punishment of those sins, through the medium of a substitute—as held by the Church of Rome—is Pagan, it will thereby be proved that the doctrine that a small number of privileged Christians obtain the forgiveness of their sins, and are exempted from the punishment of those sins, through the medium of a substitute—as held by the Partialist Protestant Churches—is also of Pagan origin.

In this chapter we shall prove that the origin of the doctrine that a small number of privileged Christians obtain the forgiveness of their sins, and are exempted from the punishment of those sins through the medium of a substitute—as held by the Church of Rome—is Pagan.

It will be evident that the origin of the doctrine that a small number of privileged Christians obtain the forgiveness of their sins, and are exempted from the punishment of their sins, through the medium of a substitute—as held by the Church of Rome—is Pagan, if it is proved, 1st, That there is a striking similarity between the practices required by the Church of Rome to obtain the forgiveness of sins, and to be exempted from the punishment of those sins, and those which were, and still now are, required in the Pagan religion for the same purpose; and, 2d, That those practices were not instituted among Christians in the first two centuries. But it can be proved, 1st, That there is a striking similarity between the practices required by the Church of Rome to obtain the forgiveness of sins, and to be exempted from the punishment of those sins, through the medium of a substitute, and those which were, and still now are, required in the Pagan religion for the same purpose; and, 2d, That those practices were not instituted among Christians in the first two centuries.

1st. We prove that there is a striking similarity between the practices required by the Church of Rome to obtain the forgiveness of sins, and to be exempted from the punishment of those sins, through the medium of a substitute, and those which were, and still now are, required in the Pagan religion for the same purpose.

The Pagans, publicly and privately, used lustral water, which, they thought, had the virtue of purifying the soul, and of remitting the punishment of certain impurities and sins. The Priests, in solemn religious ceremonies, aspersed the assistants with it; and the people kept and used it in their families. In the same manner, the Church of Rome believes that holy water has the virtue of purifying the soul, and of remitting the punishment of certain impurities and sins. The Roman Catholics use it publicly and privately. Every Sunday, before the celebration of the high mass, the priests asperse the people with holy water for the aforesaid end; and also pour it on the coffins of the dead at the funerals. The laymen keep and use it in their families for the same end.

These lustrations are practiced, even in our days, by many of the Pagans. The Madegasses believe that they can obtain the forgiveness of the punishment of their sins in dipping a piece of gold in a vessel full of water, and in drinking that water. The Father Jesuit Bouchet, a missionary in India, writes: "The Indians say that in bathing in certain rivers sins are entirely remitted; and that their mysterious waters wash not only the bodies, but also purify the souls in an admirable manner."

This testimony, Chateaubriand adds, is confirmed by the Memoirs of the English Society of Calcutta. The waters of the Ganges are reputed as having the greatest expiatory virtue: so the Church of Rome holds that the baptismal waters remit the original and all other sins, and exempt those baptized from punishment.

The Pagans believed that certain ceremonies, and their medals representing the gods, had an expiatory virtue: so the Church of Rome holds that genuflexions, the Agnus Dei, the beads, the medals of the saints, and of the virgin Mary, have an expiatory virtue. The Pagans believed that certain prayers remitted certain sins and their punishment; so the Church of Rome believes that Novenas, indulgences, the recitation of the first chapter of the Gospel of John, etc., remit venial sins, and their punishment. The Pagans went in pilgrimage to chapels, where the prayers of the priests, they thought, had an expiatory virtue greater than in other temples; this practice and this belief have been preserved even by the Mahomedans. Now there are at the door of the Mosque of Ali, at Mesched-Aly, dervishes, who, for money, expiate with their prayers the sins of the pilgrims: so the Church of Rome believes that the expiatory virtue of the prayers made by priests, in certain chapels of saints and of Mary, where multitudes of pilgrims resort, is greater than that of the prayers made in other temples.

In China, the invocation of Omyto is sufficient to remit the punishment of the greatest crimes. It is on account of it that the followers of the sect of Fo repeat oftentimes, every day, the words, O-myto-Fo! The Indians believed, and still believe, that when a man expires in pronouncing the name of God, and in holding, at the same time, the tail of a cow, he immediately ascends to Paradise. The Bramas never failed, and even do not now, to read every morning the mysterious legend of Gosgendre-Mootsjam; because it is a dogma of the Indian religion that any one who reads this legend every morning, obtains the forgiveness of the punishment of all his sins; so the Church of Rome holds that any one who recites the Angelus when the bell rings, in the morning, at noon, and at sun down, or recites the acts of faith, of hope, and of charity, obtains the remittance of the punishment of several of his venial sins; and, also, that any one who regularly recites the prayers of Saint Brigitte, or who, when he dies, recites with great devotion the prayer Memorare o piissima, etc., will go to Paradise.

Greece was flooded with rituals, ascribed to Orpheus and to Museus, prescribing ceremonies, rites, and practices, which had the virtue of purifying the soul, and of exempting the sinners from the punishment of their sins. The priests of the Pagans persuaded entire towns, cities, and nations, that they could be purified of their crimes, and be exempted from the punishment, which the Deity would inflict upon them, through the means of expiatory rites, of feasts, and of initiations. They made the people believe that this purification, and this exemption, could extend to the living and to the dead, in what they called Teletes, or mysteries; and it was as a consequence of this belief that the priests of Cybel, those of Isis, the Orpheotelestes and others, went among the people to initiate them; but on the condition that they would pay to them large sums of money. This traffic was practiced even by priestesses, and bad women. Demosthenes informs us that the mother of Eschine made a living by it, and also in prostituting her body.

Likewise, the Church of Rome is flooded with rituals prescribing ceremonies, rites, and practices, which have the virtue of purifying the soul, and of exempting the sinners from the punishment of their sins. The priests make towns, cities, and nations believe that they can be purified of their crimes, and be exempted of the punishment they deserve, by fasting, by going processionally to churches, or to chapels of saints and of the virgin Mary. The priests, the monks, the begging-friars, and even the nuns, go among the people; they pledge themselves to obtain the forgiveness of their sins, and the exemption from divine punishment, if they give them sums of money.

The priests of the Pagans offered expiatory sacrifices for the living and for the dead for money; so, in the Church of Rome, the priests offer the sacrifice of Mass for the expiation of the sins of the living and of the dead, if they are well paid. The Pagans believed that the foundation of temples, their endowment, and other gifts presented to the gods and to their priests, had an expiatory virtue. Socrates portrayed the unjust man in saying, that initiation to mysteries caused them to despise the Tartarus with all its torments. He made the following remark: "The apologist of injustice says, they frighten us with the threat of the pains of the Tartarus; but who ignores that we find in the initiations a remedy to that fear? They are a great resource to us; and they inform us that there are gods who exempt us from the punishment deserved by crime. True, we have committed injustice, but injustice has been pecuniarily profitable to us. We are told that the gods are appeased by prayers, sacrifices, and offerings." Biache, one of the interlocutors in the Ezourvedam, said, that there is in the country called Magouodechan, a sacred spot, where, through some offerings, ancestors can be freed from the tortures of hell.

Likewise, the Church of Rome holds that the foundation of churches, of priest's houses, of monasteries, of convents, and of nunneries, and their endowment; or any other gift, presented to the saints, bishops, priests, monks, and nuns have a virtue so much the more expiatory for sins, as they are greater and more valuable. It is owing to this horrible doctrine, that the Church of Rome has acquired so much church property that its valuation is beyond any approximate calculation. The French poet, Boileau, spoke the truth when, in his ninth satire, he said:

Translation: "If we wish to inquire for what secret mystery Alidor, at his own expense, built a monastery.... He is a man of honor, of profound piety, and who wishes to restore to God what he stole from the world."

The Pagans believed that in piously gazing upon certain statues of the gods their souls were purified; and that the punishment of their sins was remitted; so, even now, the Indians believe that in simply gazing upon the shrub Toulouschi they obtain the forgiveness of their sins, and obtain the exemption from their punishment. Likewise the Church of Rome holds, that, in gazing piously upon the cross, the Catholics obtain the forgiveness of their venial sins, and the exemption from their punishment. The ancient initiations of the Pagans had tribunals of penance, where a priest, under the name of KoËs, heard from the mouth of the sinners themselves the avowal of their sins, of which their souls were to be purified, and from the punishment of which they wished to be exempted. One day the famous Lysandre, confessing his sins to one of those KoËs, was asked by him impudent questions. Lysandre answered him with this question, "Do you address me those questions in your own name, or in the name of the Deity?" The KoËs answered: "In the name of the Deity." "Well," Lysandre rejoined, "let me be; if God questions me, I will answer him." Likewise the Church of Rome has tribunals of penance, where priests hear from the mouth of the sinners themselves the avowal of their sins, of which their souls are to be purified, and from the punishment of which they wish to be exempted. Through the absolution of the priests the greatest sins, without any exemption, are remitted entirely, so that they not only are forgiven, but even their punishment.

Even the Church of Rome goes farther in regard to the pretended virtue of her expiatory practices, than the Pagans ever went. Indeed, it was a common thing among the Pagans to stigmatize certain crimes, and to call them irremissible—unexpiable. They excluded from the sanctuaries of Eleusis, the murderers, the traitors to their country, in a word, all those who were guilty of atrocious crimes; they were to be excluded from the Elysium forever, and to be endlessly tortured in the Tartarus. There were purifications for murder, it is true, but only for involuntary or necessary murder. When the ancient heroes had committed a murder, they resorted to expiation; after the sacrifices which were required, lustral water was poured on the murderous hand; from that moment they were readmitted in society; and they prepared themselves to new deeds of bravery. Hercules resorted to expiation when he had slain the Centaurs. But those sorts of expiations did not purify the soul from all impurities and crimes.

The great criminals had to dread all their lifetime the horrors of the Tartarus, or could not expiate their crimes, except by constantly practicing virtue, and constantly doing good to their fellow men. The legal purifications were not considered as having the virtue of securing to all criminals the hope of bliss, to which the righteous were entitled. Nero did not dare present himself to the temple of Eleusis; because he was debarred from entering its sanctuary on account of his atrocious crimes.

The famous Constantine I., to whom the Church of Rome is indebted for all her past and present aggrandizement, wealth, and power; and whose name has been, is, and shall always be, accursed by nations, because of the rivers of blood, of the deluge of ignorance, of superstition, in one word, of the ocean of crimes against God, against Christ, and against mankind, which the Church of Rome, enabled by his protection, poured over the world: Constantine, we say, guilty of all sorts of crimes; his hands reeking with the blood of his own mother, whom he had slain; and with the blood of the many, whom he had murdered; and guilty of many perjuries, presented himself to the Pagan priests to obtain the absolution of those atrocious crimes, and the exemption from their punishment.

Constantine was answered, that, among the various sorts of expiations, there was not one which had the virtue of purifying his soul from so many and so atrocious crimes, and of exempting him from the punishment they deserved; and that no religion had resources enough to appease the justice of the irritated gods; and, let us mark: Constantine was a mighty emperor. One of his courtiers, seeing the trouble and agitation of his soul, devoured by the restless and undying remorse, told him that his sufferings were not hopeless; that there were in the Church of Rome, purifications which had the virtue of expiating all crimes, without any exception, that this Church held, that whoever joined it, whatever may be his crimes, might hope that all his crimes will be forgiven by the Deity, and that the exemption from their punishment will be obtained.

From that time Constantine took the Church of Rome under his protection. He was a wicked man who tried to deceive himself, and to appease the remorse of his conscience. He gave then full scope to his flagitiousness; and he postponed being baptized until the hour of his death, because it was, as it is now, a dogma of the Church of Rome, that baptism purifies the soul from the original and all other sins and crimes, and that it has also the virtue of exempting those baptized from the punishment of all their sins. Thus the entry of the temple of Eleusis was interdicted to Nero; and yet the Church of Rome would have admitted him within her pale; would have purified his soul; and would have exempted him from the punishment of all his monstrous crimes, if he had taken her under his protection. How abominable a Church must be, when she deals so with tyrants and monsters with a human face! What! if Nero had been a Roman Catholic and had protected the Church of Rome, she would have canonized him! Why not? Constantine, as great a criminal as he was, has been canonized. In the ninth century his name was invoked at Rome in the ceremonies of the Church, and even now he is considered as a saint.

In England several churches have been built under the invocation of this pretended Saint Constantine, who founded at Constantinople a vast and costly establishment of ill fame. Such are the saints worshiped by the Church of Rome when she obtains their protection. Christ, reason, and nature, would never have absolved Nero from his crimes, and from the punishment they deserved; and yet the Church of Rome would have done it. Sophocles, in his Ædipe, says, that all the waters of the Danube, and of the Phase, would have been insufficient to purify, from their crimes, the souls of the family of LaÏus; and yet the Church of Rome would have done it. How truly the Arab poet Abu-Naovas exclaimed: "Lord, we have indulged to sin and to crime, because we saw that forgiveness soon followed them."

Therefore there is a striking similarity between the practices required by the Church of Rome, to obtain the forgiveness of sins, and to be exempted from the punishment of those sins, through the medium of a substitute, and those which were required in the Pagan religion for the same purpose.

2. We prove that the practices required by the Church of Rome to obtain the forgiveness of sins, and to be exempted from the punishment of those sins, through the medium of a substitute, were not instituted among Christians in the first two centuries.

The Roman Catholic theologians do not pretend that the Christians of the first two centuries held those practices, nor that the Church of Rome herself held them; but they say that the Church of Rome established them successively, as the good of Christians required it, according to the power of government and infallibility granted to her, and to her alone, by Jesus Christ.

Consequently, the practices required by the Church of Rome, to obtain the forgiveness of sins, and to be exempted from the punishment of those sins, were not instituted among Christians in the first two centuries.

We draw the general conclusions of this chapter:

It has been proved that there is a striking similarity between the practices required by the Church of Rome to obtain the forgiveness of sins, and to be exempted from the punishment of those sins, and those which were, and still now are, required in the Pagan religion for the same purpose; and that those practices were not instituted among Christians in the first two centuries.

Therefore the Church of Rome borrowed from the Pagans the doctrine of Vicarious Atonement, namely, that a small number of privileged Christians obtain the forgiveness of their sins, and are exempted from the punishment of their sins, through the medium of a substitute.

Since, though the other Partialist Christian Churches rejected the most of the practices used by the Church of Rome to obtain the forgiveness of sins, and the exemption from the punishment of those sins, they preserved the substance of the doctrine, namely, that Jesus Christ had washed away, or, in other words, atoned for all the sins of those who would feel the descent of the Holy Spirit in their souls; who would experience a supernatural change of heart, or, as they commonly term it, would get religion; and also that through his atonement they were exempted from the punishment of their sins—the doctrine which they hold is nothing but the very doctrine, though modified in its circumstances, of the Church of Rome. Therefore its origin is the same. But it has been proved that the Church of Rome borrowed from the Pagans, the doctrine that a small number of privileged Christians obtain the forgiveness of their sins, and are exempted from the punishment of those sins, through the medium of a substitute—as she holds it. Therefore it is thereby proved, that the other Partialist Christian Churches truly borrowed, from the Pagans, though through the medium of the Church of Rome, the doctrine that a small number of privileged Christians obtain the forgiveness of their sins, and are exempted from the punishment of those sins, through the medium of a substitute—as she holds it.

Therefore the doctrine that a small number of privileged Christians obtain the forgiveness of their sins, and are exempted from the punishment of those sins, through the medium of a substitute, is of Pagan origin. And as, on another hand, it has been proved, in four other chapters of this work, that the doctrine of a Personal Devil, the doctrine of Original Sin, the doctrine of Trinity, and the doctrine of the Supreme Divinity of Jesus Christ, are of Pagan origin—then we logically draw the conclusion that all the characteristics of the doctrine of Vicarious Atonement are of Pagan origin. Since all the characteristics of the doctrine of Vicarious Atonement are of Pagan origin, then the body itself of the doctrine of Vicarious Atonement is of Pagan origin.

Therefore the doctrine of Vicarious Atonement is of Pagan origin.