Shadow of the Third Century

Shadow of the Third Century A Revaluation of Christianity BY ALVIN BOYD KUHN, PH. D. "...the tyranny exercised over the human mind in the name of religion."--H. H. MILMAN, The History of Christianity (page 461). "From the very beginning it was a tradition of faith. In all strictness the Gospels are not historical documents. They are catechisms for use in common worship . that and no other is the content they announce; that and no other is the quality they claim."-- ALFRED LOISY, The Birth of the Christian Religion (p. 12). [1949] TO ALL THOSE WHO KNOW THAT TRUTH ALONE WILL FREE US FROM THE TYRANNY OF INDOCTRINATED PIOUS OBSESSIONS THIS VOLUME IS SINCERELY DEDICATED -Originally posted by Juan Schoch, who also lead me to discover the work of Vitvan-- (School of the natural order , Gerald Massey©s research on Egypt, the pagan origin of Christanity, and Alvin Boyd Kuhn, the pupil of Massey who has written extensively on the meaning of symbols in myth. Also, Godfrey Higgins work Anacalypsis can be found at Juan©s site. Message from Juan: Electronically typed and edited by Juan Schoch for educational research purposes. Join gnosis284 - Send e-mail to: [email protected]. Refs: <a href="http://www.enlightenment-engine.net">enlightenment-engine</a>, <a href="http://members.tripod.com/~pc93">members.tripod.com/~pc93</a> I am looking for contributions: texts, comments, etc. I (Juan) can be contacted at: [email protected] Do not remove this notice. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. PRIMEVAL CHRISTIANITY II. THE SHADOW OF THE SPHINX III. WHEN VISION FAILED IV. THE VEILED LIGHT V. WISDOM IN A MYSTERY VI. MILK FOR BABES VII. NIGHTFALL VIII. HATRED OF PHILOSOPHY IX. FROM RELIGION TO PHILOSOPHY X. TO FAITH ADD KNOWLEDGE XI. THE GREAT EBB-TIDE XII. CRUMBS FROM THE TABLE OF THE GODS XIII. WISDOM IS MUTE XIV. THE MYTH-GHOSTS WALK ABROAD XV. PAUL KNOWS NOT JESUS XVI. GREAT PAN IS DEAD XVII. THE REAL GHOST OF HISTORY XVIII. "HIGHER" CRITICISM XIX. THEN IS OUR FAITH VAIN XX. DEMENTIA IN EXCELSIS XXI. PRAYER AND HEALING XXII. THE NIGHT IS LONG INDEX PREFACE In the mountains of Virginia a few years ago the minister of a sect of religious addicts, standing in his pulpit, released a rattlesnake and provoked the reptile to strike him twice in the arm. This, it was announced, was to prove that the power of faith in God was able to overcome the power of the serpent©s poison. Lamentably all that was proved impeccably was the failure of arrant faith in God to overcome human folly, when goaded to feverish pitch of fanaticism by irrational religion. Some years before that the author saw the cinema dealing with the Easter (rather pre-Easter) rites of the Penitentes, or Flagellantes in New Mexico, in which on Good Friday they marched up to a hilltop lashing each the one in front with knotted ropes upon bare backs, to a cross on which a victim in human form was savagely put through an ordeal simulating the crucifixion and well-nigh actually murdered. The reflections of the beholder of this eccentric monstrosity of religious pietism were centered upon the agency that could have brought to birth in normally sensible human beings such outlandish and insufferable perversions of religious motivation. Obviously it was a product of the Christian religion, for every motive and feature in it sprang from a Christian principle or practice. What should one think about a religion that could generate such appalling prodigies of fanaticism? Back in 1837 there broke out in New England and spread west as far as Ohio a wave of religious frenzy that threw the land into a furore of excitement and swept people into its maelstrom of insane force like leaves in an autumn gale. It originated in a single bit, or several bits, of calculation based on a literal interpretation of figures in the Bible by a rather fine young Vermont schoolmaster and local lay preacher. Young Miller took some numbers given in Daniel, Ezekiel and Revelation and with a little arithmetical manipulation, by two distinct methods, deduced that the date of April seventeenth, 1843--six years ahead--was the "day" set by Biblical prophecy as the "Day of the Lord," that dreadful day on which the crack of doom would shatter the heavens and all the world would be dissolved with fervent heat vii at twelve o©clock midnight. The village preacher began spreading his arithmetic in Sabbath discourses about the countryside; excitement took hold; the Boston ministerium put him on for great evangelistic campaigns; and leading divines fell in with the extravaganza. As the six years sped by, the closer approach of the "Day" swelled the hysteria to ever expanding proportions. Hundreds disposed of all their properties; and on the fatal night all sought the nearest mountain top, hilltop, treetop or rooftop (following a Biblical admonition) to be nearer the heavens. When the night passed calmly and dawn broke the deluded fanatics were left deflated. Miller scratched his head, and also scratched pencil again on paper, with the result that he announced that he had made a miscalculation, and that the final day of earth was to fall on the succeeding October fifteenth. The pitiable farce was again gone through. Then Miller and his chief aides quarreled over who was to blame; and one more dire instance of the derationalizing power of the religion known as Christianity, taking its Holy Scriptures as literal historical record, had grievously marked its dark blot on the stained pages of world history. Not a century since at least the tenth A.D. but has heard the lusty preachment of the repeated claims that events then transpiring were the literal fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy, to which the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have added the prophecies alleged to be indicated by measured dimensions in the halls, corridors, chambers, passages and stairways in the great pyramid of Gizeh. This rage is upon the world with more abandon and fanaticism in this twentieth century than ever before, and probably has materially influenced international movements, particularly in Germany and England. Thousands blare forth their excitable predictions, presenting for proof the texts of Scripture, twisted by a heated imagination into meanings fitted to the preconceived construction and sublimely insensible of the fact that others in every preceding century have with the same far-strained "plausibility" interpreted the fulfilment of ancient "prophecy" in the events of their time. Always Bible and pyramid "prophecy" is being fulfilled now. If we can reincarnate and be back in the twenty-fourth century, we will doubtless witness the same asinine procedure. It will be just as easy to match prophecy with current event then as now and in the past. Thus another weird frenzy of Christian origin runs its course in each century. A schoolgirl in this New Jersey city a few years ago reported to her viii parents that her teacher in the public schools had asked her to take her turn reading the prescribed ten verses from the Scriptures in the day©s opening exercises, and handed her an edition of the Bible that was a non-Catholic one. The parents, Roman Catholics, were so incensed at the thought of a Protestant Bible having touched the hands of their child that they visited the teacher, poured out their indignant feelings upon her and laid complaint with the School Superintendent. This sample of narrow bigotry is also a product of the religion called Christianity. And so, stated simply, this book has been written to tell the truth about a religion that has produced such obviously irrational behavior. The story needs telling all the more for the reason that it has never been told in its bald straight factual truth, and because heaven and earth have been called upon to prevent its being known ever since the third century. It is in the main truth that has been suppressed, buried, its evidences destroyed, its documents changed, with a story far other than the true one substituted in its place and promulgated with every device of propaganda. It aims to take its place as the true history of the origin and spread of what has been named the Christian religion. It is eminently desirable to say at once, before its first page is read, that the work is not an attack upon Christianity. So far from being hostile to Christianity, it is in all likelihood the first book in centuries that is written in support and defense of Christianity, striking forceful blows at every influence inimical to Christianity. It stands unqualifiedly as the courageous champion and crusader for Christianity, a Christianity that is so sorely needed at the present epoch to save a still savage world. In spite of this protestation the essay will sound to many like the most scathing denunciation and blaspheming of what they have believed to be Christianity they have ever read. Many will lay the book down with the indignant query whether the author has never been able to see a single item of good in the whole long history of the faith. It is admitted here that emphasis in the work has been placed upon the idiosyncrasies, foibles, follies, cruelties, fallacies, impostures and falsities, the horrifying list of evils that are an integral part of the record, and are not denied. The intrinsic and sincere reason for this accentuation is the consideration that while it is assuredly not the whole story, it is that part of the story which has to be known if any true evaluation of the place, function and further utility of this religion is to be appraised in the modern generation for future history.

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