: charmus, an Egyptian martyr, it is related that all the Christians in Alexandria, upon the coming of a cruel judge, either fled away, or pretended to be still followers of the Pagan impiety and if the approach of a judge only could produce this effect, it is no wonder that the coming of the emperor himself, and he, as they all knew, being a most strenuous asserter of the Gentile superstitions, should have a similar effect*. In Socrates's History of Constantiné, he relates how that most holy emperor went about to promote the Christian religion, and to banish. the rites and ceremonies of the Ethnics, he set up his own image in their idolatrical temples: and finding that there prevailed a general belief of the people of Egypt that it was the god Serapis who caused the river Nile to overflow and fertilize their country, in honour of which, a certain ell (the upright post with the transverse beam which had been used to measure the height and extent of the inundation) was annually brought with religious ceremonies into the temple of the god Serapis, the emperor commanded that ell to be brought into the church of Alexandria. Upon this profanation, the Egyptian people had wrought themselves up to the too-critical belief, that the Nile would resent the indignity, and no more condescend to overflow his banks as usual; thereby subjecting themselves to a sort of miracle, which was pretty safely promised them beforehand; for, behold! on the following year the river did not only overflow after his wonted manner, and from that time forth keep his course, (0 most miraculous of all miracles!) but also did thereby declare unto the world that Nilus was accustomed to overflow, not after their superstitious opinion, but by the secret determination of Divine Providence.† Notwithstanding, however, this adoption of the Pagan symbol of the cross into the Christian church, and the rapid propagation of Christianity, it was not till after the commencement of the fifth century, when the emperor Theodosius had given the exterminatory business, by commission, into the hands of Theophilus bishop of Alexandria, that it was completed with something like episcopal vigour. "By the procurement and industry of Theophilus the bishop, the emperor commanded that all the idol groves of the Ethnics within Alexandria should down to the ground, and that Theophilus should oversee *Kortholt in codem loco. † Socrates Schol. lib. 1, c. 14. it. Theophilus, being thus authorized, omitted nothing that might tend to the reproach and contumely of heathenish ceremonies down goes the temple of Mithra, with all its idolatrical filth and superstition: down goes the god Serapis; their embrued and bloody mysteries are publicly derided; their vain and ridiculous practices are publicly ridiculed in the open market-place, to their utter shame and ignominy."* I need not continue this hideous passage through the description which follows, and was sure to follow, of the sanguinary horrors in which it issued. To deny that Christianity was and hath been the religion of the sword from first to last, and hath been propagated and sustained by means of violence and fraud, and by no other means, or to assert that there ever was on earth, or could have been any other religion that ever made its professors of all sorts and in all ages, one half so savage, so bloody, and so wicked, is, as it were, to assert any thing, to trample all evidence of fact and history under foot, to deny the existence of the sun, to deny that the jury who convicted the Rev. Robert Taylor of blaspheming their Lord Jesus Christ "BY FORCE AND ARMS,' were a perjured jury, to deny that there is any gaol at Oakham, any innocent man in that gaol, or truth in truth itself. THE SIGN OF THE CROSS FOUND IN THE TEMPLE OF SERAPIS. "In the temple of Serapis, now overthrown and rifled throughout, there were found engraven in the stones certain letters which they call hieroglyphical; the manner of their engraving resembled the form of the cross. The which, when both Christians and Ethnics beheld before them, every one applied them to his proper religion. The Christians affirmed that the cross was a sign or token of the passion of Christ, and the proper symbol of their profession. The Ethnics avouched that therein was contained something in common, belonging as well to Serapis as to Christ; and that the sign of the cross signified one thing unto the Ethnics, and another to the Christians.While they contended thus about the meaning of these hieroglyphical letters,† many of the Ethnics became Chris * Socrates Schol. lib. 5, c. 16. † We see at this day, without any countenance of Scripture, the letters I.N.R.I engraved in all' our idolatrical representations of the crucifixion. It is obvious that they would bear any other reading as well as that which Christian conceit may give them. tians, for they perceived at length the sense and meaning of those letters, and that they prognosticated salvation, and LIFE ΤΟ COME. 99* This most important evidence of the utter indifference between Christianity and any, even the grossest forms of the ancient Paganism, is supplied by a Christian historian ; and independent of its fairness, as taken from such a source, and its inherent versimilitude, is corroborated by a parallel passage from the ecclesiastical history of Sozomenes, who, about the year 443, wrote the history of the church from the reign of Constantine the Great to that of the younger Theodosius. He is speaking of the temple of the god Serapist-"It is reported that when this temple was destroyed, there appeared some of those characters called hieroglyphics, surrounding the sign of the cross, in engraven stones; and that, by the skilful in these matters, these hieroglyphics were held to have signified this inscription-THE LIFE TO COME! And this became a pretence for becoming Christians to many of the Grecians, because there were even other letters which signified this sacred end when this character appeared." Thus in every genuine historical document, we are continually met by evidence of the superfluous prodigality of miracles, and that offence against the laws of the drama, as well as of historical probability, which makes a god appear where there was no knot worthy of a god. The Pagans, so far from needing miracles to convert them, were at all times ready to embrace any new faith whatever : no trick could be too gross to fail of success on their easy credulity. They really had not the CAPACITY of inflicting martyrdom: they were ready to be winked and whistled into Christianity.-Socrates continues his acconnt: * Εν δε τω ναω του Σεραπίδος λυομενου, και γυμνούμενου, ηύρητο γραμματα εγκεχαραγμένα τοις λίθοις, τω καλουμενω ειρογλυφικω. Ησαν δε οι χαρακτήρες σταρων έχοντες τυπους. Τουτους ορώντες Χριστιανοι τε και Ελληνες, τη ιδία, εκατεροι θρησκεια προσηρμόζοντο Χριστιανοι μεν γαρ σημειον του κατα Χριστου σωτηριώδους παθους ειναι λεγοντες τον σταυρόν, οικειον ειναι τον χαρακτηρα ενομίζον. Έλληνες δε τι κοινον Χριστω και Σεραπι διελενον, ει ο σταυροειδης χαρακτηρ, αλλο μεν Χριστιανοις, αλλο δε Ελλησι ποιείται το συμβολον. Τούτων δε αμφισβητευμένων, τινες, των Ελλήνων τω Χριστιανισμω προσελθοντες, τα ιερογλυφικα τε γραμματα επισταμενοι, διερμηνεύοντες τον σταυροειδη χαρακτηρα. Ελεγον σημαινειν ζωην Επερχομενην.—Socrat. Eccl. Hist. lib. 5, c. 17. † Φασι δε του ναου καθαιρουμένου τουτου, τινα των καλουμένων χαρακτήρων, σταυρω σημείω εμφερείς, εγκεχαραγμένοις τοις λίθοις αναφανηναι. Παρ επιστημόνων δε τα τοιαδε ερμηνευθείσαν σμηαναι ταυτην την γραφην ΖΩΗΝ ΕΠΕΡΧΟΜΕΝΗΝ τουτο δε προφασιν Χριστιανισμου πολλοις γενεσθαι των ελληνιστων: καθοτι και γραμματα ετέρα τουτο το ειραν τελος εξεστιν εδηλον, ηνικα ουτος ο χαρακτηρ φανη. Lib. 2, cap. 15. "The Christians perceiving that this made very much for their religion, made great account thereof, and were not a little proud of it. When as by other hieroglyphical letters it was gathered, that the temple of Serapis should go to ruin when the sign of the cross therein engraven came to light (by that LIFE TO COME was foreshewed), many more embraced the Christian religion, confessed their sins, and were baptized. Thus much have I learned of the cross."*-And thus far quote I from the Ecclesiastical History of Socrates, a Christian historian, who lived and wrote about A. D. 412, the contemporary of Damasus bishop of Rome, of Chrysostom of Constantinople, and of the events which he has here recorded. Though the god Serapis stood in so immediate a relation to the Nile, his worship was by no means confined to Egypt; he was worshipped not only in Egypt and in Greece, but also at Rome, and sometimes considered as one and the same as Jupiter Ammon, sometimes as identical with Pluto, Bacchus, Esculapius, Osiris,† and Jesus Christ. It is certain, however, that his most magnificent temple was at Alexandria in Egypt, whence all our most distinguished Christian Fathers and writers derived their education; that the bishops of Serapis, as they alone were justly entitled to be called bishops of Alexandria, while Alexandria was a Pagan city, yet called themselves bishops of Christ; and though Christianity can in no reasonable sense be said to have been established in Alexandria while the temple of Serapis remained-and Tillemont admits that the very first Christian church that was ever built, of which history gives us any certain and express information, was founded by Gregory the wonder-worker, A. D. 244, or after that timet, yet have we an uninterrupted succession of bishops of Alexandria from the evangelist Mark, who we are required to believe was the first of them, downwards. The Jews, it seems, took Serapis to be identical with the patriarch Joseph the son of Sarah.§ In all the representations of the crucified King of the Jews that have come down to us, the essential requisites of the Egyptian hieroglyphic have been most religiously preserved. The ribs of the figure are almost breaking through his skin, and it seems doubtful whether the being * Lib. 5, c. 18, p. 348. London Ed. anno 1649. † Pomey De Diis Indiget, p. 268. Quoted in Lardner's Credibility, vol. i, p. 594. § Quasi Σαρας απο. so represented had died of hunger before he was nailed to the cross, or had expired under the inconveniences of that uncouth appointment. But the most extraordinary phonomenon attending this mystical personification, is, that his hieroglyphical history will be found to dove-tail exactly into all the various and apparently contradictory developements of the Christian theology. Thus the cross was blessed, but the figure upon it was made a curse; and accordingly, as it was the cross, or the crucified, that was referred to, so shall we find it, even in the same writings, spoken of as the blessed cross or the accursed cross, as a badge of honour or of shame, of joy or of sorrow, of triumph or of humiliation. CHAPTER XXX. THE TAURIBOLIA WERE expiatory sacrifices, which were renewed every twenty years, and conferred the highest degree of holiness and sanctification on the partakers of those holy mysteries. Prudentius informs us, that in these religious ceremonies the Pagan priests, or whoever was ambitious of obtaining a mystical REGENERATION, excavated a pit, into which he descended. The pit was then covered over with planks, which were bored full of holes, so that the blood and what not of the goat, bull, or ram that was sacrificed upon them, might trickle through the holes upon the body of the person beneath; who, having been thus sanctified, and born again, was obliged ever after to walk in newness of life; to maintain a conduct of the most inflexible virtue; to shew forth God's praise, not only with his lips, but in his life, by giving up himself to God's service; and by walking before him in holiness and righteousness all his days. Potter, however, in his Antiquities, informs us, that the Athenians had a less offensive way than this to convey the spiritual blessedness of regeneration. The person desirous of it, whether male or female, was slipped through a characteristic part of the female habiliments, and thenceforth recognized as one who had been born again. The only observable coincidence of the Tauribolia with the great sacrifice of Christianity, consists in the fact, that the grossest sense of the terms in which the Pagan obscenity |