Image provided by: Silverton Country Historical Society; Silverton, OR
About Torch of reason. (Silverton, Oregon) 1896-1903 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 4, 1900)
2 THE TORCH OF REASON, SILVERTON OREGON, JANUARY 4, 1899. objects of nature, and especially the sun, moou, and stars and constella tions were living powers and be ings, if not actual human gods, heroes and persons. Many reminiscents of these old extatic celebrations and feasts have come down to us, like so much driftwood, buried in the root-words of our Aryan languages. That word “yell”, we are told, gives the root of “Yule”, the name of the day, and also of the Yule tree; and the Yule “log”, which, when the priest or father gave the sign, was drawn to the home,with thechildren trium ph ing on it, and made the backlog of the grand Christmas fire and feast with all its good food and cheer, and carol-songs and drinking and mummings and dances! Then that Yule tree! In the South it was the “tree of good and evil,” with the serpent, and Mother Eve and her first babe! in the Saxon and Scandinavian North the tree was the “Igdrasil,” the ash and evergreen—the “tree of life!”— with its four root Fates, and bore the sacred mistletoe , under which lovers were permitted a foretaste of their joy,under the smiles of priests and parents and kin. No more time for this revival of the pre-Christian world nowl But we can never tire in following the archaeologists and linguists as they pass from age to age, and people to people, in recalling the different ways in which each one has built up and conducted these four annu al festivals, and especially that of the “Yule-tide”. Nearly all of the great gods acquired the most ap propriate habit of being born, or of reappearing on that day, and most of their festivals were then dated, or by moon-quarters therefrom. Thus was it with Buddha, Krishna and Mythras in the East; Hercules, Adonis, Bacchus, Cybele, Ceres and Saturn, in Greece and Rome; and thus came the Saturnalia aud Bru- malia—(Lat., “ brum a,” winter)—or Winter Festival, with its “liberty of December”, when even the slave could tell the master what he thought. (See Horace, Satire VII, Book II). Now, so our Gibbon says, this Sat urnalia is the one festival on which th e “ R)inau Christians” fixed the birth of baby Christ and built their Christmas. But this was not doue until by Julius, the Bishop (or Pope?) of Rome, about A. D. 350, which was about the time also in which the Christian Era was in troduced. Both changes were in troduced to enable the nascent Pa pacy and Christianity to absorb Rome by putting a Christian Era in place of the Roman Era, and the birthday feast of its god, Christ, in the place of the birthday and feast of the old Roman god, Saturn, the “ Father T ime ”, the “ Father of Jove”, the “ Father of Gods and men!” and of us all? This fixing of the time and the place of the birth of “Jesus the Christ” was a matter of pure fancy. There is not the slightest evidence that he was born then , or there , or ever at all ! The facts bearing on the question show decisively that no man Jesus Christ was eve»* born or lived, or walked about on two feet, as we walk. Let us see about this:— No grown up, intelligent person is likely to contend now that the gods and myths and fancies by which the human feelings, incident to this winter festival, have been expressed by any peoples in the past, are re ally true as objective facts, i. e., hist orically, actually, scientifically. We shall have “Santa Claus” and “ The old Woman who lived in a shoe” appear before you tonight, but not one of you will believe that they ever were actual persons; and no truthful Liberal, or other person, will ever so pretend — even to a child—the present Governor of the State of Oregon to the contrary notwithstanding! No person should ever leave his credibility open to question, under any motive or pre tense,—and least of all to a child? When you teach fancy as fact, “ false in one, false in all”, is the inevitable conclusion. W ith “ this wand” we may here marry “Santa Claus” and the “Old Woman,” and thus account for their flock of childreu. But the end of the play divorces them,for symbols are of the stuff that dreams and myths are made of and objectively end with the play. That is the trouble with our Christian friends, they fail to dis tinguish between fancy and fact —the subjective from the objective. But we must distinguish. We have to ask, therefore, what is the verdict of Science upon the birth or origin of Christ and of Christianity. Science at once gives us the clue in the inquiry: How did all of the other similar god-men and mythologies came into exist ence or belief? Prof. Max Muller has well described the process of their generation: Originally, he shows how, in the Animistic or Fetichistic state of belief, every thing and body, and family and tribe, and office , had its spirit, ghost, or “banshee”, or title. The name gradually became the soul- word or myth as well as the title thereof; and thus the abstract-real ity, which never died, remained and would reappear ,whenever the need, stress, or craze of the believer, be came intense enough to translate his subjective fancy into an object ive “spirit” and image. Thus have arisen all of the sprites, fairies, spirits, ghosts, gods, devils, angels, hobgoblins, etc., etc.—in a word, to use Goethe’s fine word for them, all of the “spooks” that have amused or cursed, consoled or damned all of the generations of Man, until the Sun of Science sent them all fluttering back into the fearful and fanciful “ limbo” of the A_pocalypses or revelations that subjective imagination. Many of Christianity and the “Christ Jesus,” these mythic “origins” are so shad the spiritual successor of the Mes ed by the darkness before the dawn, siah, Joshua, David and Abraham and by the loss of records and ma was born. In that form he was terials, that they can now be only tempted by his Anti-Christ, the partially worked out. But with Devil; in that form he came to the Christianity, and the Christ title- help of his storm-beset disciples on myth and apparition, the story has the sea. Of this “Christ walking on the come down to us an open flower of history, with nearly all its petals waters” seance, we have a beautiful raised by the Sun. The word—i. e., picture by the celebrated French root or germ-word—out of which painter, Jalabert, aud a fine large this entire religion had its start, is engraving from it by Sartain, th elleb rew “ M essiah ,’’which means which I have placed here on the anointed ; (Latin-Greek C hristus , wall. It is worth tons of books Old Eng. Crysm.) That is the offic»* about the origin of Christianity, for title , from the oil or ointment, by it reveals the whole story of that which priests and rulers of old were “ Divine Revelation.” Notice that consecrated. J esus is the Greek of diaphanous face shedding rays of the Hebrew J oshua , which means “spirit-light” through the darkness. deliverer, savior. Thus we have in Notice its beaming inspiration of the Bible, “Jesus the Christ,” or power, peace and hope, contrasted “ Christ Jesus,” and finally,for short, with the wild waters under his feet. “ Jesus Christ,”as a double title—fin Notice how wonder, fear, hope and ally personified as a character, and faith sweep over the faces of the poor fishermen in that boat. They then “ materialized” as a person. When, as you should read in Jo said, behold a “spirit,”—and they sephus, the craze of the Jews for were«right, for through the din of a Messiah-deliverer reached its fever winds aud waves they heard the heat, under Roman oppression, echo of their own hearts: “ Fear not, many personal Cnrists did really it is I.” Now look again at the story of come to deliver the Jews, but the Roman sw’ord soon killed and weed the “Transfiguration,”iu G reek “ me ed them out. Finally, this tem tamorphosis,” when not only his poral, personal Messiah title-idea face and form but his very clothes took on a more “spiritual” form of were translucent, and beamed out union, with “ the Kingdom of Hea iight, when “ Moses and Eiias came ven” or “ New Jerusalem” in the down and talked with him ;” and “ firmament above.” For, up there when he charged Peter, James and their great God, Yahveh, lived and John, the only witnesses, to say reigned;and thence would come down nothing of the vision. And yet the new “ kingdom of heaven,” the they told it “in the spirit,” and New Jerusalem.” For the coming Raphael’s great painting of the of which “Jesus, the anointed son “transfiguration” is a reflection of of David and Abraham ” would ap its glory? Often did he “appear” pear and make announcement and as a surprise; and after his “resur preparation. Then sprang up en rection” often to those in Jerusalem thusiasts like John the Baptist, as and also to those in Galilee—even “ forerunners” of this “Jesus the to “five hundred at once;” and Christ,” inflaming the people with finally he “ascended into the glory the idea of his actual coming; aud of heaveu,” from whence he was to then, in “the fullness of time,” he come again! Christianity was in did come like one of the Gods and deed a revelation, and at first only Ghost-heroes of old, by appari that. The earliest Christians had tion—Epiphany, A pocalypse , Rev no “gospels,” they believed because elation; or, as our new Spiritualists they saw and heard! would now say and believe, by Next arrange the books of the “ materialization .” His appear New Testament in the order of ance at the baptism of John was their dates—which would be first? thus very proper aud natural; then Do you say “Matthew” or “ Mark” ? “ the heavens were opened” and he No! It would be the Apocalypse, “saw the Spirit of God,” in the or “ Revelation”, then next the chief form of a dove, come down aud epistles, or P aul’s, then the Acts, “ lighten upon him,” with the words: then Mark and Mathew, then Luke “This is my beloved son in whom I and Johu, and possibly some of the am well pleased.” This may not bitsof “GeneralEpistles”. In a word, have been, but probably was, the if we want to know the truth about first appearance, and it was per Christianity, we must read their fectly normal there in those days. books in an order, the reverse of There were many apparitions of that in which they are printed. this “Christ” thereafter, in which “ The Revelations”, of which that of this “Jesus” sard as John had John was a late specimen, were the done: “Think and join ye with us first great events of what we know (not “ repent” ), for the Kingdom of as “Christianity”. Besides that one Heaven incoming near”—that is,it is to John, we notice how the Christ now coming down from the firma had before appeared to Stephen ment above, by the will of our [myj when he was stoned to death, then Father who lives and reigns there to Paul at his conversion, and how abovel It was by and out of these t Paul went up unto the “ third hea-