"Being honoured as a god in Phoenicia and Egypt, his worship passed into Greece, and was established first at Epidaurus, a city of Peloponnesus, bordering on the sea; where probably some colonies first settled: a circumstance sufficient to induce the Greeks to give out that this god was a native of Greece."-Bell's Pantheon, p. 27. Among the Greeks, it was believed that the god Apollo himself had represented Esculapius as his son by a voice from the oracle (Ibid.): and it is a striking coincidence of fact, if it be no more than a coincidence, that we find the Christian Father, Eusebius, attempting to prove the divinity of Jesus Christ, from an answer given by the same oracle ;* while the text of the Gospel of St. Matthew iii. 17, written certainly much later than those answers, runs, "Lo, a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." By the mother side, Esculapius was the son of Coronis, who had received the embraces of God, but for whom, unfortunately, the worshippers of her son have forgotten to claim the honour of perpetual virginity. To conceal her pregnancy from her parents, she went to Epidaurus, and was there delivered of a son, whom she exposed upon the Mount of Myrtles; when Aristhenes, the goatherd,§ in search of a goat and a dog missing from his fold, discovered the child, whom he would have carried to his home, had he not, in approaching to lift him up, perceived his head encircled with fiery rays, which made him to believe the child to be divine. The voice of fame soon published the birth of a miraculous infant; upon which the people flocked from all quarters to behold this heaven-born child.¶ It was believed that "Esculapius was so expert in medicine, as not only to cure the sick, but even to raise the dead." Ovid says he did this by Hyppolitus (and Julius says the same of Tyndarus); that Pluto cited him before the tribunal of Jupiter, and complained that his * Dem. Evan. quoted translated and commented on, in the anthor's Syntagma, p. 116. + Mount of Myrtles-why not Mount of Olives? Aristhenes-why not Joseph ? Thus all Christian painters have depicted the infant Jesus. Heaven-born child.Equally applicable to Esculapius as to Jesus, is the divine doggerel annexed, Veiled in flesh, the Godhead, He- empire was considerably diminished, and in danger of becoming desolate, from the cures performed by Æsculapius; so that Jupiter, in wrath, slew him with a thunderbolt. Within a short time after his death, he was deified, and received divine honours. His worship was first established at Epidaurus, and soon after propagated throughout all Greece. The cock* and serpent were especially consecrated to him, and his divinity was recognized and honoured in the last words of the dying Socrates, "Remember that we owe a cock to Esculapius." At a time when the Romans were infested with the plague, having consulted their sacred books, they learned that, in order to be delivered from it, they were to go in quest of Esculapius at Epidaurus; accordingly, an embassy was appointed of ten senators, at the head of whom was Quintus Ogulnius; and the worship of Esculapius was established at Rome A. U. c. 462, that is, Before Christ, 288. But the most remarkable coincidence is, that the worship of this god continued with scarcely diminished splendour, even for several hundred years after the establishment of Christianity. We have the best and most rationally attested account of a cure brought about by the influence of imagination in connection with his name, as late as the year 485 A.D. Marinus, a scholar of the philosopher Proclus, a. D. 485, in his life of his master, says, "I might relate very many theurgic operations of this blessed man: one, out of innumerable, I shall mention; and it is wonderful to hear.Asclipigenia, daughter of Archiades and Plutarcha, and wife of Theagenes, to whom we are much indebted, when she was yet but a young maiden, and lived with her parents, was seized with a grievous distemper, incurable by the physicians. All help from the physicians failing, as in other cases, so now in this also; her father applied to the sheet-anchor, that is, to the philosopher, as his good Saviour,+ earnestly entreating him to pray for his daughter, whose condition was not unknown to him. He therefore, * The serpent is prime agent in the story of human redemption; and the cock really bears a very important character in the Gospel, in rebuking Peter for cursing and swearing. + The good Saviour, which was the express title of Esculapius, is given by Eusebius, in the mouth of his fabricated personage, Abgarus, to the no less fabricated Jesus: Αβγαρος το παρχης Εδεσσης Ιησε αωτηρι αγαπω αναφανεντι εν τοπω Ιεροσολυμων Xaipei.-Lib. 1, c. 13, let. D. Eccl. Hist. "Abgarus, toparch of Edessa, to Jesus, the good Saviour, who hath shone forth in Jerusalem-greeting! taking with him Pericles of Lydia, who was also a philosopher and worthy of that name,* went to the temple of Esculapius, intending to pray for the sick young woman to the god; for the city (Athens) was at that time blessed in him, and still enjoyed the undemolished temple of THE SAVIOUR. But while he was praying according to the ancient form,+ a sudden change appeared in the damsel, and she immediately became convalescent; for THE SAVIOUR, as being God, easily healed her." With respect to the miracles ascribed to Esculapius, and continuing to be performed for so many ages by the efficacy of faith in his name, and in answer to prayers offered up in his temple; the power and influence of imagination, in producing changes in the animal economy to an indefinite extent, is well known to physicians; and, without intending any injurious imposture, the most benevolent and intelligent medical men at this day avail themselves of the patient's superstition, to aid and second the operations of medicine. A strongly excited expectation of relief will often produce such an improved tone of muscular action, and such a more vigorous flow of the animal spirits, as will be sufficient to throw off the obstructions in which the disease originated, and thus effect many extraordinary and otherwise unaccountable cures. A medical friend once succeeded in curing a poor man of chronic rheumatism, after he had followed the prescriptions of the ablest physicians without receiving the least benefit, by working upon his imagination to make sure of receiving a cure, by taking seven tea-spoonfuls of the decoction of a brickbat that should be found in a churchyard, the brickbat to be boiled for seven hours, in seven quarts of water; the essential conditions of the miracle being that its efficacy was not to be doubted; and the whole process to be kept an inviolable secret. This prescription he affected to translate out of the spider-leg text of a Greek folio. The cure was perfect. The primitive Christians were content never to call in question the miracles pretended by their Pagan * I preserve so much of the original text as is essential to the proof of the matter before us : Και γαρ Ανγει εις το ασκληπειον προσευξόμενος τω θεω υπερ της καμνεσης. ηυτυχει τ8τ8 η πολις τοτε και είχεν ετι απόρθητον το το Σωτηρος ιερον. Ευχομενα αυτό τον αρχαιοτερον τρόπον, αθρόα μεταβολη περι την κορην εφαίνετο, και ραστώνη εξαίφνης εγιγνετο. Ρεια γαρ ο Σωτηρ ωστε θεός ιασατο.-Quoted in Lardner, vol. 4, p. 410. The ancient form, forsitan; "Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven," &c. adversaries, so they could get their own similar pretensions recognised. Their argument was one that was well contrived to evade all possibility of being determined: the Pagan miracles were wrought by the power of dæmons, while their's were to be ascribed to the True God. Justin Martyr, in his Apology for the Christian Religion, addressed to the emperor Hadrian, seems to seek rather an excuse for the Christian miracles, than to consider them as resting on any grounds of evidence:-"As to our Jesus curing the lame, and the paralytic, and such as were cripples from their birth, this is little more than what you say of your Esculapius." "In the performance of their miracles," says Dr. Conyers Middleton," the primitive Christians were always charged with fraud and imposture by their adversaries. Lucian tells us, that whenever any crafty juggler, expert in his trade, and who knew how to make a right use of things, went over to the Christians, he was sure to grow rich immediately, by making a prey of their simplicity; and Celsus represents all the Christian wonder-workers as mere vagabonds and common cheats, who rambled about to play their tricks at fairs and markets, not in the circles of the wiser and better sort, (for among such they never ventured to appear,) but whenever they observed a set of raw young fellows, slaves or fools, there they took care to intrude themselves, and to display their arts."- Free Inquiry, p. 144. The reader has only to consult the 1st and 2d chapters of the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, and he will see that this principle of playing off upon the credulity of the weakest and most ignorant of mankind, is expressly avowed by the great Apostle of the Gentiles-" Christ crucified," to the Jews, "a stumbling block," as contrary to all evidence of fact; "and to the Greeks, foolishness," as revolting to reason. The principle result, however, of this resemblance is, the evidence it affords that the terms or epithets of " OUR SAVIOUR"-the Saviour being God, were the usual designations of the god Esculapius;† and that miracles of healing, and resurrection from the dead, See the Chapter on Justin Martyr, in this DIEGESIS. + Both Bacchus, and Jupiter also, was distinguished by the epithet OUR SAVIOUR. Sir John Marsham had a coin of the Thasians on which was the inscription Hoaкλess_Σwτnpos, of HERCULES THE SAVIOUR.-Bryant's Annot. vol. 2. p. 406. 195. The name of Christ, as we have seen (Definitions, p. 7,) was ridiculously common, and extended even to every individual of the Jewish race: אל תנעז במשיהי ולנביאיאל תרען "Touch not my Christs, and do my fortune-tellers no harm."-Psalm cv. 14. were the evidence of his divinity, for ages before similar pretences were advanced for Jesus of Nazareth. "Strabo informs us, that the temples of Esculapius were constantly filled with the sick, imploring the help of God; and that they had tables hanging around them, in which all the miraculous cures were described. There is a remarkable fragment of one of these tables still extant, and exhibited by Gruter in his collection, as it was found in the ruins of Esculapius's temple, in the island of the Tyber in Rome; which gives an account of two blind men restored to sight by Esculapius, in the open view, and with the loud acclamations of the people acknowledging the manifest power of the god."--Middleton's Free Inquiry, p. 78. Could such a document be produced to authenticate any one of the miracles ascribed to Jesus, what would become of the cause of infidelity? CHAPTER XXI. HERCULES-JESUS CHRIST. OR Alcides, was the son of God by Alcmena, wife of Amphytrion, king of Thebes, and is said to have been born in that city, 1280 years before the Christian era. HERCULES was pointed out by the ancients as their great exemplar of virtue. It was affirmed by some, that he voluntarily engaged in his great labours. The whole of his life appears to have been devoted to the good of mankind. "The writers who treat of his adventures, and of the antiquities relating to them," says Mr. Spence, “ have generally fallen into a great deal of confusion, so far, that I scarcely know any one of them that has perfectly well settled which were his twelve labours. To avoid falling into the same confusion, one may divide all his adventures into three classes. In the first class, I should place such as are previous to his twelve celebrated labours; "In the second, those twelve labours themselves, which he was obliged to do by the fatality of his birth; "And in the third, any supernumerary exploits. "His first exploit was that of strangling two serpents sent to destroy him in his cradle. This he seems to have performed, according to some accounts of it, when he was not above half an hour old. But what is still more extraordinary is, that there are exploits supposed to have been performed by Hercules, even before Alcmena brought him into the world." |