Biblos, learning the secret mysteries of all these places. Whilst in this country he chiefly dwelt in a temple on Mount Carmel; probably in the temple of Jove, in which there was no image. After his return from India, he is stated to have travelled about the world, to Egypt, Syria, Greece, Italy, &c., preaching reformation of manners to these different nations, and leaving among them numbers of proselytes. He was generally favoured by the people, but as generally persecuted by the governments; which almost always persecute real philanthropists. Here are certainly some circumstances in this history very like those in the histories of Jesus.
The stories told of the mother of Pythagoras having had connexion with an Apolloniacal spectre, is not the only one of the kind: the same story is told of Plato, who was said to be born of Parectonia, without connexion with his father Ariston, but by a connexion with Apollo. On this ground the really very learned Origen defends the immaculate conception, assigning, also, in confirmation of the fact, the example of Vultures, (Vautours,) who propagate without the male. What a striking proof that a person may possess the greatest learning, and yet be in understanding the weakest of mankind!
It seems to be quite impossible for any person of understanding to believe, that the coincidence of these histories of Plato[1] and Pythagoras, with that of Jesus, can be the effect of accident. Then how can they be accounted for otherwise than by supposing that in their respective orders of time they were all copies of one another? How the priests are to explain away these circumstances I cannot imagine, ingenious as they are. They cannot say that Jamblicus, knowing the history of Christ, attributed it to the philosophers, because he quotes for his authorities Epimenides, Xenocrates, and Olimpiodorus, who all lived long previous to the birth of Christ.
In my next chapter all these sacred predicted births will be shewn to be supposed renewed incarnations of portions of the Holy Spirit or Ghost. And here I must observe, that these miraculous facts, charged to the account of Plato and Pythagoras, by no means prove that these men did not exist, nor can such facts, charged to Jesus, if disbelieved, justify an Unbeliever in drawing a conclusion that he never existed.
- ↑ Vide Olimpiodorus’s Life of Plato.
