Josephus was barred. Philo Judaeus, who was living near the centre of
things, an observer on the scent of the spiritual, a man acquainted with
the writings of Rabbi Hillel, and the father of Neoplatonism--never
mentions Jesus, nor does he speak of any religious uprising in Judea.
The passage in Virgil, which has through the doubtful testimony of
monkish writers been construed into a prophecy of a forthcoming Messiah,
Hyzlo, who was a scholar, knew to have been addressed to a son of
Virgil's intimate friend. Tacitus, too, has been interpolated. Seneca's
ideal man is not Jesus, for Jesus is Osiris, Horus, Krishna, Mithra,
Hercules, Adonis,--think of this beautiful young god's death!--Buddha.
Such a mock trial and death could not have taken place under the Roman
or Jewish laws. The sacraments derive from the Greeks, from the
Indians--the mysteries of Ceres and Bacchus, from the _Haoma_ sacrifice
of the Persians, originally Brahmanic. The Trinity, was it not a relic
of that ineradicable desire for polytheism implanted in the human bosom?
Was the crucifixion but a memory of those darker cults and blood
sacrifices of Asia, and also of the expiating goats sent out into the
wilderness? What became of that Hosanna-shouting crowd which welcomed
Christ on Palm Sunday? And there never were such places as Gethsemane
and Calvary.
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