only prior in existence, but gave birth to Ormuzd, the creator of good; and to Ahriman, the creator of evil. It is true, that the work which we have at present under the title of Zendavesta, is not the ancient and genuine Zendavesta; yet it certainly contains many ancient and genuine Zoroastrian doctrines. It is said, likewise, that the Indian philosophers have their Λογος, which, according to their doctrines, is the same as the Μονογενης.”
In reply to this, attempts will be made to shew that the Λογος of John is different from the Oriental Logos: all mere idle, unmeaning verbiage, fit only for those described by Eusebius, who wish to be deceived: the doctrines as well as the terms are originally the same, in defiance of the ingenuity of well-meaning devotees to hide from themselves the sources whence they are derived. The variation is not greater than might be expected from change of place, of language, and lapse of time.
Eusebius acknowledges that the doctrines of the Christians, as described in the first chapter of John, are perfectly accordant with those of the Platonists, who accede to every thing in it, until they come to the sentence, Et verbum caro factum est. This seems to be almost the only point in which the two systems differed. The philosophers could not bring themselves to believe that the Logos, in the gross and literal sense of the Christians, quitted the bosom of God, to undergo the sorrowful and degrading events attributed to him. This appeared to them to be a degradation of the Deity. Eusebius allows, what cannot be denied, that this doctrine existed long anterior to Plato; and that it also made part of the dogmas of Philo and other Hebrew doctors. He might have added also, had he known it, of the priests of Egypt, and of the philosophers of India.
The origin of the verbum caro factum est, we shall presently find in the East. It was not new, but probably as old as the remainder of the system. Its grossness well enough suited such men as Justin, Papias, and Ireneus.[1] For the same reason that it suited them, it was not suitable to such men as Plato and Porphyry.
In the doctrines of the Hindoos and Persians, as it has already been stated, the third person in the Trinity is called both the Destroyer and the Regenerator. Although in the Christian Trinity the Destroyer is lost sight of, yet the Regenerator is found in the Holy Ghost. The neophite is said to be regenerate, or born again, by means of this holy spiritus or mind. Plutarch says, that Mithras or Oromasdes was frequently taken for the το θειον, or whole deity, and that Mithras is often called the second mind. “Whereupon he observes, how great an agreement there was betwixt the Zoroastrian and the Platonic Trinity, they differing in a manner only in words!”[2] This second mind is evidently the Holy Ghost of the Christians, so accurately described above in the oracles of Zoroaster, the רוח ruh of the second verse of Genesis, which moved, or more correctly brooded, (see Fry’s Dictionary,) upon the face of the waters. This, in sacred writ, is often called יהוה רוח Ieue ruh, or אלהים רוח Aleim ruh. The words Ieue and Aleim not being in regimine, which would make it the Spirit of Aleim, or of Jehovah, but being in the nominative case, they make it the Ieue ruh or Aleim ruh.
The figure in the Hindoo caves (whose date cannot be denied to be long anterior to the time of Moses) of the second person, Cristna, having his foot bitten by the serpent, whose head he is bruising, proves the origin of Genesis.
There can be no longer any reasonable doubt that it came from India, and as the Christian Trinity is to be found in its first chapter, it raises, without further evidence, a strong presumption
R
