The following extract from the work of Maimonides, called More Nevochim,[1] exhibits a fair example of the policy of the ancient philosophers: “Taken to the letter, this work (Genesis) gives the most absurd and extravagant ideas of the Divinity. Whoever shall find the true sense of it ought to take care not to divulge it. This is a maxim which all our sages repeat to us, and above all respecting the meaning of the work of the six days. If a person should discover the meaning of it, either by himself or with the aid of another, then he ought to be silent: or if he speak of it, he ought to speak of it but obscurely, and in an enigmatical manner as I do myself; leaving the rest to be guessed by those who can understand me.”[2]
Although it is clear from the works of Philo and others, that the learned in all ancient times acknowledged an allegorical sense in the accounts of Genesis; it is equally clear from the works of that learned man, that in his time its meaning was in a great degree lost. The most celebrated of the Christian fathers equally admitted it to be allegorical, but the moderns have a difficulty to contend with, unknown to them and to the Jews. To admit the accounts in Genesis to be literal, would be to admit facts directly contrary to the moral attributes of God. Fanatical as the ancient fathers were, their fanaticism had not blinded them, as it has blinded the moderns, so far as to admit this. But if the story of the garden of Eden, the trees of knowledge and of life, the talking serpent, and the sin of Adam and Eve were allegorical, redemption by the atonement from the consequences of his allegorical fault could not but be equally allegorical. This, it is evident, instantly overthrows the whole of the present orthodox or fashionable scheme of the atonement—a doctrine not known in the early ages of the religion, but picked up in the same quarter whence several other doctrines of modern Christianity will be found to have been derived. If the history of the fall be allegorical, we repeat, that the allegorical nature of the redemption seems to follow as a necessary consequence.
In reasoning from cause to effect, this seems to be a necessary consequence. From this difficulty arose a great mass of contradictions and absurdities. It is impossible to deny, that it has always been a part of the modern corrupt Christian religion, that an evil spirit rebelled against God, and that he having drawn other beings of his own description into the same evil course, was, for this conduct, expelled along with them from heaven, into a place of darkness and intense torment. This nonsense, which is no part of the religion of Jesus the Nazarite, came from the same quarter as the atonement. We shall find them both in India.
It is quite impossible, that the doctrine of the fallen angels can be taken from the Pentateuch; for not a word of the kind is to be met with there: but it is the identical doctrine of the Brahmins and later Magi. The Devil is the Mahasoor of the Brahmins, and the Ahriman of the Magi; the fallen angels are the Onderah and Dewtahs of the Brahmins, and the Dowzakh and Dews of the Magi. The vulgar Jews and Christians finding the story of the serpent, did not know how to account for it, and in consequence went to the Persians for an explanation. They could not have gone to a better place, for the second book of Genesis, with its serpent biting the foot of the woman’s seed, is nothing but a part of a Hindoo-Persian history, of which the story of the fallen angels, &c., is a continuation.
In several places in this chapter, the reader will have observed that I have used an expression of doubt respecting the existence of Abraham. This I have done because I feel that in inquiries of this kind a person can scarcely ever be too careful. And after reading the works of Sir William Drummond, Mons. Dupuis, &c., suspicion cannot be entirely banished. Besides, I wish not to take any thing for granted; particularly the questions under examination, and this question will be amply discussed hereafter. I think it is perfectly clear that magical or astrological theories or
