"These priests and religious men used great fastings, of five and ten days together, before any of their great feasts, and they were unto them as our four ember weeks.

They drank no wine, and slept little, for the greatest part of their exercises (of penance) were at night, committing great cruelties and martyring themselves for the devil, and all to be reputed great fasters and penitents."

In regard to the number of days which Jesus is said to have fasted being specified as forty, this is simply owing to the fact that the number forty as well as seven was a sacred one among most nations of antiquity, particularıy among the Jews, and because others had fasted that number of days. For instance; it is related❜ that Moses went up into a mountain, "and he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights, and he did neither eat bread, nor drink water," which is to say that he fasted.

In Deuteronomy' Moses is made to say-for he did not write it, "When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty

nights, I neither did eat bread nor drink water."

Elijah also had a long fast, which, of course, was continued for a period of forty days and forty nights.*

St. Joachim, father of the "ever-blessed Virgin Mary," had a long fast, which was also continued for a period of forty days and forty nights. The story is to be found in the apocryphal gospel Protevangelion."

The ancient Persians had a religious festival which they annually celebrated, and which they called the "Salutation of Mithras. During this festival, forty days were set apart for thanksgiving and sacrifice."

The forty days' fast was found in the New World.

Godfrey Higgins tells us that:

"The ancient Mexicans had a forty days' fast, in memory of one of their sacred persons (Quetzalcoatle) who was tempted (and fasted) forty days on a mountain."

Lord Kingsborough says:

"The temptation of Quetzalcoatle, and the fast of forty days,

very curious and mysterious."s

are

The ancient Mexicans were also in the habit of making their

1 Acosta: Hist. Indies, vol. ii. p. 839.

Exodus, xxiv. 28.

Deut. ix. 18.

1 Kings, xix. 8.

• Chapter i.

See Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. p. 272.

▾ Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 19.

• Mexican Antiquities, vol. vi. pp. 197–200.

prisoners of war fast for a term of forty days before they were put to death.'

Mr. Bonwick says:

"The Spaniards were surprised to see the Mexicans keep the vernal forty days' fast. The Tammuz month of Syria was in the spring. The forty days were kept for Proserpine. Thus does history repeat itself."

The Spanish monks accounted for what Lord Kingsborough calls "very curious and mysterious" circumstances, by the agency of the devil, and burned all the books containing them, whenever it was in their power.

The forty days' fast was also found among some of the Indian tribes in the New World. Dr. Daniel Brinton tells us that "the females of the Orinoco tribes fasted forty days before marriage," and Prof. Max Müller informs us that it was customary for some of the females of the South American tribes of Indians "to fast before and after the birth of a child," and that, among the CaribCouduve tribe, in the West Indies, "when a child is born the mother goes presently to work, but the father begins to complain, and takes to his hammock, and there he is visited as though he were sick. He then fasts for forty days."

The females belonging to the tribes of the Upper Mississippi, were held unclean for forty days after childbirth." The prince of the Tezcuca tribes fasted forty days when he wished an heir to his throne, and the Mandanas supposed it required forty days and forty nights to wash clean the earth at the deluge."

The number forty is to be found in a great many instances in the Old Testament; for instance, at the end of forty days Noah sent out a raven from the ark.' Isaac and Esau were each forty years old when they married." Forty days were fulfilled for the embalming of Jacob. The spies were forty days in search of the land of Canaan.10 The Israelites wandered forty years in the wilderness." The land "had rest" forty years on three occasions." The land was delivered into the hand of the Philistines forty years.' Eli judged Israel forty years." King David reigned forty years."

1 See Kingsborough's Mexican Antiquities, vol. vi. p. 223.

* Bonwick's Egyptian Belief, p. 370. Brinton: Myths of the New World, p. 94. 4 Max Müller's Chips, vol. ii. p. 279. Brinton: Myths of the New World, p. 94. Ibid. According to Genesis, vii. 12, "the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights" at the time of the flood.

Genesis, viii. 6.

8 Gen. xxv. 20-xxvi. 84.
• Gen. i. 8.

10 Numbers, xiii. 25.

11 Numbers, xiii. 13.

12 Jud. iii. 11; v. 31; vill. 28.
13 Jud. xiii. 1.

14 I. Samuel, iv. 18.
16 I. Kings, ii. 11.

13

King Solomon reigned forty years.' Goliath presented himself forty days.' The rain was upon the earth forty days at the time of the deluge.' And, as we saw above, Moses was on the mount forty days and forty nights on each occasion." Can anything be

more mythological than this?

The number forty was used by the ancients in constructing temples. There were forty pillars around the temple of Chilminar, in Persia; the temple at Baalbec had forty pillars; on the frontiers of China, in Tartary, there is to be seen the "Temple of the forty pillars." Forty is one of the most common numbers in the Druidical temples, and in the plan of the temple of Ezekiel, the four oblong buildings in the middle of the courts have each forty pillars. Most temples of antiquity were imitative-were microcosms of the Celestial Templum-and on this account they were surrounded with pillars recording astronomical subjects, and intended both to do honor to these subjects, and to keep them in perpetual remembrance. In the Abury temples were to be seen the cycles of 650-608-600-60-40-30-19-12, etc."

1 I. Kings, xi. 42.

I. Samuel, xvii. 16.
Gen. vii. 12.

4 Exodus, xxiv. 18-xxxiv. 28.

See Higgins' Anacalypsis, vol. i. p. 708; vol. ii. p. 402.

• See Ibid. vol. ii. p. 708.

CHAPTER XX.

THE CRUCIFIXION OF CHRIST JESUS.

THE punishment of an individual by crucifixion, for claiming to be "King of the Jews," "Son of God," or "The Christ;" which are the causes assigned by the Evangelists for the Crucifixion of Jesus, would need but a passing glance in our inquiry, were it not for the fact that there is much attached to it of a dogmatic and heathenish nature, which demands considerably more than a "passing glance." The doctrine of atonement for sin had been preached long before the doctrine was deduced from the Christian Scriptures, long before these Scriptures are pretended to have been written. Before the period assigned for the birth of Christ Jesus, the poet Ovid had assailed the demoralizing delusion with the most powerful shafts of philosophic scorn : "When thou thyself art guilty," says he, "why should a victim die for thee? What folly it is to expect savlation from the death

of another."

The idea of expiation by the sacrifice of a god was to be found among the Hindoos even in Vedic times. The sacrificer was mystically identified with the victim, which was regarded as the ransom for sin, and the instrument of its annulment. The Rig-Veda represents the gods as sacrificing Purusha, the primeval male, supposed to be coeval with the Creator. This idea is even more remarkably developed in the Tāndya-brāhmanas, thus:

"The lord of creatures (prajā-pati) offered himself a sacrifice for the gods.” And again, in the Satapatha-brahmana :

"He who, knowing this, sacrifices the Purusha-medha, or sacrifice of the primeval male, becomes everything.”

Prof. Monier Williams, from whose work on Hindooism we quote the above, says:

1 Monier Williams: Hinduism, pp. 36-40.

"Surely, in these mystical allusions to the sacrifice of a representative man, we may perceive traces of the original institution of sacrifice as a divinely-appointed ordinance typical of the one great sacrifice of the Son of God for the sins of the world."

This idea of redemption from sin through the sufferings and death of a Divine Incarnate Saviour, is simply the crowning-point of the idea entertained by primitive man that the gods demanded a sacrifice of some kind, to atone for some sin, or avert some calamity.

In primitive ages, when men lived mostly on vegetables, they offered only grain, water, salt, fruit, and flowers to the gods, to propitiate them and thereby obtain temporal blessings. But when they began to eat meat and spices, and drink wine, they offered the same; naturally supposing the deities would be pleased with whatever was useful or agreeable to themselves. They imagined that some gods were partial to animals, others to fruits, flowers, etc. To the celestial gods they offered white victims at sunrise, or at open day. To the infernal deities they sacrificed black animals in the night. Each god had some creature peculiarly devoted to his worship. They sacrificed a bull to Mars, a dove to Venus, and to Minerva, a heifer without blemish, which had never been put to the yoke. If a man was too poor to sacrifice a living animal, he offered an image of one made of bread.

In the course of time, it began to be imagined that the gods demanded something more sacred as offerings or atonements for sin. This led to the sacrifice of human beings, principally slaves and those taken in war, then, their own children, even their most beloved "first-born." It came to be an idea that every sin must have its prescribed amount of punishment, and that the gods would accept the life of one person as atonement for the sins of others. This idea prevailed even in Greece and Rome; but there it mainly took the form of heroic self-sacrifice for the public good. Cicero says: "The force of religion was so great among our ancestors, that some of their commanders have, with their faces veiled, and with the strongest expressions of sincerity, sacrificed themselves to the immortal gods to save their country."

In Egypt, offerings of human sacrifices, for the atonement of sin, became so general that "if the eldest born of the family of Athamas entered the temple of the Laphystan Jupiter at Alos in Achaia, he was sacrificed, crowned with garlands like an animal victim."

Monier Williams: Hinduism, p. 36.

See Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. p. 303.

• Kenrick's Egypt, vol. i. p. 443.