upon the doctrine of Incarnation, except when the Redeemer's body is a mere form, a shadow, an apparition-body visible only to the eye and made invisible at will, which was the opinion of the Doceta and of the writer of John's Gospel. In such a case as with Djenschid and Mithras, no birth at all is necessary. But the Grecian heroes were all born of virgins. To the mother of Hercules the seer Tiresias spoke, "Be of good cheer, thou mother of a glorious offspring: blessed art thou among Argine women," -almost the very words addressed by the angel to the virgin mother of Jesus.

The doctrines of Atonement held by the Catholic and Protestant churches were absolute creations of the schoolmen, as late as the eleventh century, and can therefore with no plausibility claim to be called Christian, unless by Christ we mean Anselm of Canterbury, and Thomas Aquinas.

The Christian doctrines respecting heaven and hell, the condition and destiny of departed spirits, angels and devils, and Satan the prince of devils, existed in Persia from time immemorial, and were brought thence, as everybody knows, by the Jews.

The Christian doctrine respecting human nature and the human lot is as ancient as the fabled origin of Zoroastrism, being a natural inference from the belief in a fall from primeval state of heaven. Philo's writings are full of passages that might be literally rendered into the formularies of the popular theology.

Plato likewise teaches unequivocally the doctrine of eternal punishment, and in the "Republic" describes the place of judgment, the judges with the souls of men assembled before them, and the two ways: that to the right conducting the good to the seats of bliss, that to the left conducting the evil to the abode of misery. "If any New Testament doctrine" says Gfrörer, in his "Urchristenthum," "is of Alexandrine extraction, it is the doctrine of saving and effectual grace."

The Christian doctrine of Faith has its parallel, point for point, in the Platonic doctrine of Love. As Faith is at once of divine and human birth, on one side a gift of the divine grace, on the other side a voluntary direction of the human soul towards the infinite, so Love, according to Plato, has this twofold nature, being at the same the result of inspiration and of longing.

The origin of the Christian Sacraments is involved in some obscurity, but that they were derived from the ancient mysteries

admits now of little doubt. The early Fathers of the church confessed the resemblance between the symbols employed in the Mithras mysteries and those used at the supper. Tertullian allows their significance to be the same. Justin Martyr ascribes their identity to the influence of evil spirits. Von Hammer notes that the bloodless offering with bread and the cup is purely Persian. But the Christian Sacraments bear a closer analogy to the mysteries than is suggested by the mere identity of symbols. There is a near resemblance of meaning. As the mysteries had reference to the suffering deities of nature, so the sacraments have reference to the suffering god-man; life and death, sin and atonement, giving significance to the doctrines and rites of both. Christianity perceives the necessity of expressing its abstract thought in material forms, and selects the very same emblems which the ancient naturalism had invented. Water, the element of purification in the latter, is in Christianity the symbol of consecration to the higher life. Bread and wine, the representations in all the old religions of high life, spiritual truth, hold the same place in the Christian rite of "communion," as the emblems of that heavenly bread which feeds the soul, and of that heavenly vine whose juice is the lifeblood of each believer's heart. An additional proof that the sacraments of the church were suggested by the heathen mysteries, appears in the historical fact that, about the time of Constantine, a so-called "disciplina arcani," a secret or esoteric teaching, was formed, and intimately associated with the Supper, which received the character of the ancient mysteries!

Christianity's obligations to the elder religions for its symbols are extremely heavy, as any one, by reading Creuzer's "Symbolik," or Didron's "Iconographie Chretienne," may easily discover. Its cyphers and emblems and illustrations of Trinity, its representations of the virgin mother and child, are exactly copied from the Indian and Persian drawings. A painting at St. Reim in Rheims, of St. John the Evangelist, with a circular nimbus surrounded by two sun-flowers, is almost line for line like the numerous Egyptian figures, from the head of which two lotus flowers rise in a similar manner, with crossing stems. The cross which decorates the nimbus around the head of the Almighty, in some early paintings, corresponds curiously with the cross that decorates the halo surrounding the head of Buddhist and Hindu divinities, and is more likely to have been suggested by that than

by the cross of the Savior's crucifixion, which could not without impropriety be given to the Father. The Hindu goddess Maya wears a cruciform nimbus exactly resembling that worn by figures of God. The circumference of the nimbus, in the same way, is notched, and its field striated with luminous sparks, while parallel with the temples and forehead, stretching bepond the circumference, three clusters of rays shoot forth, corresponding precisely with the cross lines in the divine nimbus of Christian art. The nimbus upon the head of the Savior often resembles a terrestrial globe, and reminds us at once of numerous figures in Egyptian iconography, that bear the world on their heads. Such correspondences are not accidental, nor are they insignificant; for every symbol is a doctrine, and not only a doctrine, but a central and root doctrine.

With these facts before us-and a closer research would discover many more such—is it not a fair conclusion that Christianity is not of Christ? By what right is the name of Christ attached to doctrines which existed centuries before he was born, to which he contributed nothing, to which he did not so much as give his countenance, and which probably he never heard of? The doctrines may be true that is not the question. They are not held as being true, but as being Christian. They are not recommended to the philosophical on grounds of reason, but are dogmatically asserted in spite of reason, on the authority of Christ. The popular Christianity, under every existing form thereof, may be supposed true without being supposed Christian. It may be supposed false, also, without the slightest disrespect to the religion of Jesus. It is a mixed system of mysticism and metaphysics, dependent for every one of its essential parts upon the human philosophy which it derides, and owing its very existence to the ancient religion which it claims to have overthrown.

Still, it may be contended that Christianity is Christian, inasmuch as it is the offspring of Christianized minds, which, drawing their material from the dogmas already existing in the world, were diligent in remoulding and reconstructing them in accordance with the faith of Jesus. But, even were this true, the dogmas themselves by such a process do not become Christian. Can a Christian man have none but Christian ideas? And are all the notions which professing Christians may entertain on religious matters to be ascribed to Jesus? But let this pass. How stands the fact

itself? Were they Christianized minds that constructed the creeds of the church? It is notorious that the Christian Fathers, early and late, were Gentile philosophers, who held fast to their philosophy, and prided themselves upon it to the end. Justin Martyr was a revering disciple of Plato before he became a Christian, and was no less one after his conversion. He regarded his new faith as a supplement to his old philosophy. "The doctrines of Plato," he says, "are not foreign to Christianity. When we Christians say that all things are created and ruled by God, we seem to utter a thought of Plato, and between our view of God's being and his, the article makes the sole distinction." Clement of Alexandria gloried in Grecian philosophy, and especially in Plato, with whose writings he delighted to enrich his own pages. He loved to draw comparisons between Platonic and Christian doctrines, held that true philosophy and true religion were one and the same thing, and looked upon Christianity as the perfect and effective Platonism. The learned and influential Origen was a true Platonist, both in letter and in spirit. The very genius of Plato rules and often creates his thought. "Origen," says Huetius, "did not so much accommodate the doctrine of Plato to the dictum of Christ, as reduce the dogmas of Christianity to the rules of Platonic thought." And again: Origen seems to have transferred the entire academy into the church." Even the dogmatical Irenæus, in his ethical and psychological teaching, and in his doctrine of the Logos, shows his respect for Plato. Eusebius of Cesarea calls Plato the only Greek who pressed into the very porch of Christian truth. And Theodoret avows his belief that this prince of philosophers did much to prepare the way for the new faith. Especially did the famous Augustine acknowledge his own and the world's obligation to the Grecian sage. He too had been a zealous disciple of the academy, and never wholly repudiated his old leaders. His book, called "The City of God," contains some very strong passages; for example: "This very thing which is now called the Christian religion existed with the ancients, and was extant at the commencement of the human race: until Christ came in the flesh, when the true religion which already was known began to be called Christian." And again, in the "Confessions," he says: "If I had first been instructed in the holy books, and had afterwards fallen in with these volumes [the writings of Plato], they might either have torn me away from the foundations of faith, or,

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if I had preserved in my heart the wisdom I had imbibed, might have persuaded me that the same could have been found in these books, by one who had been taught from them only." Jerome, the laborious scholar and the renowned saint, though born of Christian parents, received his education in the schools, and was an accomplished philosopher. He repented of his profane studies and abandoned them, but not until they had moulded his mind and established his methods of thought. He himself narrates with solemn asseverations, that, being ill with afever, so that the heat of life failing his death was expected, he was suddenly caught up in the spirit before the judgment-seat of God, and being questioned as to his condition, and answering "A Christian," it was replied, "Thou liest! thou art a Ciceronian, for where thy treasure is, there thy heart is also." And Jerome was silent, and the Judge commanded him to be scourged severely. But entreating for mercy, and those standing near interceding for him, he was released on promising no more to read secular writings.

The Latin Fathers of the West did not share with the Greek Fathers their admiration of the philosophers. But their dread of philosophy is the strongest possible testimony to the power which it exerted upon Christian speculation, and betrays, like a similar fear in the cardinal Bellarmin, a secret belief in it. When the Pope Clement VIII. proposed introducing the Platonic philosophy as a higher branch of study in the universities, Bellarmin dissuaded him, because, he said, the philosophy of Plato so closely resembles the Christian theology, that those who are seeking for what is Christian will be drawn into it, and restrained from further inquiry. The mystical theology that prevailed in the fifth and sixth centuries was purely philosophical in its origin. The system of Dionysius the Areopagite, says Ackermann, was nothing but Neoplatonism translated into Christianity. Scotus Erigena, one of the most eminent names in speculative thought, was a Platonist. So was, later, the great Anselm of Canterbury, and even St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who found fault with Abelard for being so zealous to prove that Plato was a Christian.

Men like the early Fathers were much better qualified for interpreting the old religious systems, than for understanding the spirit of Jesus, and were more likely to borrow their ideas from Alexandria or Rome than from Nazareth. They were Greeks in native cast of mind, and in acquired culture. Their leading thoughts,