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In several of the previous articles we have made mention of several "magi" accounts. We add to these now. As soon as the God-begotten saviours were born into the world they were adored by shepherds from near by. In some cases they were also visited by wise men, or Magi, as the Persians and Brahmins called them, from far away. Sometimes the visitors were from even farther away, even angels leaving their heavenly ranks to wing their way to this rude tenement to adore its new born saviour.
We are informed by the Matthew writer, that being guided by a star, the Magi from the east came to where the young child was. The original word here is "magoi" from which comes our word "Magician." The persons here denoted were philosophers, priests, or astronomers. They dwelth chiefly in Persia and Arabia. They were the learned men of the Eastern nations, devoted to astronomy, to religion, and to medicine. They were held in high esteem by the Persian court; were admitted as counselors, and followed the camps in war to give advice (Barne's Notes, vol. i. p. 25). Matthew relates in 2:2: "And when they were come into the house (not stable) they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down and worshipped him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh."
The visit by "Magi" to the newly born incarnate Sun-god is very natural, for after all the Magi were Sun worshippers, and at early dawn on the 25th of December, the astrologers of the Arabs, Chaldeans, and other Oriental nations, greeted the infant Savior with gold, frankincense and myrrh. They started to salute their God long before the rising of the Sun, and having ascended a high mountain, thy waited anxiously for his birth, facing the East, and there hailed his first rays ;with incense and prayer (Dupis, Orig. Relig. Belief, p. 284; Higgins, Anacalypsis, vol. ii. pp. 96-97; Prof. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. p. 272).
In an earlier age we find what seems strange to man today was anything but that to the primitive Gentiles of antiquity. I am speaking of the birth of their god-men or Avatars. Such events were numerous in country after country, at least as far as legends go. The birth of a God or Messiah was, as a matter of course, regarded as an event of sufficient importance to attract the attention of the great ones of the earth, and even the creatures of heaven also. "And hence we find it related in the history of several of the God-begotten Saviors of antiquity, that as soon as they were born into the world they were visited by "wise men from a distance" (or Magi, as they were called by the Persians and Brahmins). And in some cases they were likewise waited upon and adored by the neighboring shepherds; and even celestial spirits are reported in some instances as leaving their star-gilt homes to wing their way to the humble mansion, the rude tenement, containing a new-born God, that they might honor and adore "the Savior of men, the Savior of the world" (Graves, The Sixteen Crucified Saviors).
One only needs to look at the sacred biographies of both Confucius and Christ because both provide examples of the angel host forsaking their homes in the skies to pay their adoration and worship to a Deity-begotten god-man at his birth. Such a godman was always sent down by the "Father of Mercies" to save a guilt-laden world. And in both cases the Magi are reported as assembling to present their offerings to the infant God.
In the case of Confucius (born 598 B.C.), it is declared, "Five wise men from a distance came to the house, celestial music was heard in the skies, and angels attended the scene" (Five Volumes). Strikingly similar to this ancient legend, in each of the several characteristics, is the Christian story.
Matthew in chapter 2 verse 1 which speaks of "wise men from the east" journeying to Jerusalem to visit the infant Christ, soon after his birth, amongst the mules and oxen in a stable, though he omits to state the number of itinerant adorers who presented themselves on the occasion.
The Persian story is more specific, as it gives the number of Magi who visited the young Savior of that country as five. Luke 2:13 speaks of "a multitude of the heavenly host praising God," in gratulation of the birth of the Judean Savior.
Now, when we bear in mind that one method of praising God, with the orientals, was by music, we quickly understand this is only another mode of proclaiming, as in the case of Confucius, that "celestial music was heard in the skies." And "angels attended the scene" of Confucius' birth. So, likewise, Luke 2:15 relates that the angels, after rejoicing with the shepherds on the occasion of the birth of Christ, "went away into heaven."How complete the parallel! and, but for the digression, and monopoly of space, we might trace it much further, and show that Confucius, like Christ, had twelve chosen disciples; that he was descended from a royal house of princes, as Christ from the royal house of David; that he, in like manner, retired for a long period from the noise and bustle of society into religious contemplative seclusion; that he inculcated the same Golden Rule of doing to others as we desire them to act toward us, and other moral maxims equal in importance to anything that can be found in the Christian Scriptures, etc.
Other Saviors at birth, we are told, were visited by both angels and shepherds, also "wise men," at least great men.
Chrishna, the eighth avatar of India, 1200 B.C., (so it is related by the "inspired penman" of their pagan theocracy) was visited by angels, shepherds and prophets (avatars). "Immediately after his birth he was visited by a chorus of devatas (angels), and surrounded by shepherds, all of whom were impressed with the conviction of his future greatness." We are informed further that "gold, frankincense and myrrh" were presented to him as offerings. The well-known modern traveler, Mr. Ditson, who visited India but a few years since, uses the emphatic declaration, "In fact, as soon as Chrishna was born he was saluted by a chorus of devatas, or angels." In the evangelical narrative of the Christian Savior an angel is reported to have saluted his mother thus: "Hail, thou that art highly favored; the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women" (Luke 1:28)
Answer for yourself: Can these facts be relegated to the bin of "coincidence?"
And in the next chapter the angel is reported as joining with "the heavenly host" "in praising God."
A similar report is found in the Hindu bible (the Ramayana), appertaining to the mother of the eighth Savior, of whom it is declared "Brahma and Siva, with a host of attending spirits, came to her and sang, 'In thy delivery, O favored among women, all nations shall have cause to exult.'" And when the celestial infant (Chrishna) appeared (it is related in a subsequent chapter), "a chorus of heavenly spirits saluted him with hymns; the whole room was illuminated by his light, and the countenance of his father and mother shone with brightness and glory (by reflection), their understandings were opened so that they knew him to be the Preserver of the world, and they began to worship him." The last text here quoted brings to mind Luke 24:45, which declares, "Then he (Christ) opened their (his parents) understandings."
Answer for yourself: Can these facts be mere "coincidence?"
The ninth avatar of India (Sakia) furnishes to some extent a similar parallel. According to the account of an exploration made in India, and published in the New York Correspondent of 1828, "There is on a silver plate in a cave in India an inscription stating that about the time of the advent of Buddha Sakia (600 B.C.), a saint in the woods learned by inspiration that another avatar (Messiah or Savior) had appeared in the house of Rajah of Lailas. Learning which, he flew through the air to the place, and when he beheld the new-born Savior he declared him to be the great avatar (Savior or prophet), and that he was destined to establish a new religion" -- the New Covenant Religion.
Answer for yourself: Can these facts be relegated to the bin of "coincidence?"
This should make you sick. Look at what we have we inherited in the Gentile Christian Church.
Answer for yourself: Is it any wonder that Jews, the true people of Jesus, won't accept what we so readily hold as "sacred?"
We next draw on the history of Greece. It is authentically related of Pythagoras (600 B.C.) that his fame having reached Miletas and neighboring cities, men renowned for wisdom (wise men) came to visit him. (Progress of Religious Ideas, vol. i.) In the Anacalypsis we are told that Magi came from the East to offer gifts at Socrates' birth, bringing gold, frankincense and myrrh," the same kind of offering as that presented to the two divine infants Chrishna and Christ, according to their respective "inspired" biographers. (Matt. 2:4, and the Ramayana).
And the legend of Mithra, of Persia, might also be included in our category of comparison, if we had space for it. All the four Saviors last named (if Socrates may be called such) are reported as having been honored and enriched with aromatic offerings at their respective births. And we have the statement from Mr. Higgins (Anacalypsis), that the same assortment of spices (with the gold) constituted the materials offered as gifts to the sun, in Persia more than three thousand years ago; and likewise in Arabia near the same era.
And it may be stated here, that an ancient historic account of Zoroaster of Persia (6,000 B.C., according to Pliny and Aristotle), speaks of his having also been visited by Magi, or "Magia," at the period of his earthly advent. And it is, perhaps, well to note in this place, that "Magi" is the term used in the Apocryphal Gospels, to designate the "wise men" who visited Christ at birth; and that Magi, Magic and Magician are but variations of the same word, at least derivations from the same root, all suggesting a wisdom correlated to the Gods. Osiris, an incarnate deity of Egypt, we may cite as another case of an infantile God receiving signal honors and eclat at birth, as he was visited while yet in the cradle by a host of admiring adorers. "People flocked from all parts of the world to behold the heaven- born infant." Such a world-wide fame must have had the effect to attract, with the numerous crowd who thronged to see and worship him, no small number of "wise men."
Answer for yourself: Now ask yourself: "Is Christianity a Divine and unique religion from God?
Answer for yourself: Does it make sense at all that the divine Father, in his infinite wisdom, should have chosen to reveal the intelligence of the birth of his son Jesus Christ to a set of nomadic heathen idolaters hundreds of miles distant (though known as "wise men" because of their skill in astrology) before he made it known to his own "chosen people" (the Jews)?
Answer for yourself: Does it make sense that God would call such pagans "wise men," while men of God's own election, the Jews, according to the Christian bible, were often stigmatized and denounced as "fools," a "generation of vipers," etc?
Let us not forget that it was at the moment of the winter solstice (25th December), precisely when the Persian magi drew the horoscope of the new year, the the "morning star" was positioned in the heavens as being in the bosom of the Virgin (Virgo) rising heliacally in the eastern horizon. On this account he was figured in their astronomical pictures under the form of a child suckled by a chaste virgin (Volney, Ruins, p. 155; Dupuis, Origin of Religious Belief, p. 236).
Answer for yourself: If you have been keeping up, is there little doubt that so far the telling of the story of Christ in the New Testament is nothing but the "re-telling" of the Sun-Myths?