Christ Conspiracy_ The Greatest Story Ever Sold - Acharya S [36]
In making these comparisons between Christianity and its predecessor Paganism, however, Martyr sinisterly spluttered:
It having reached the Devil's ears that the prophets had foretold the coming of Christ, the Son of God, he set the heathen Poets to bring forward a great many who should be called the sons of Jove. The Devil laying his scheme in this, to get men to imagine that the true history of Christ was of the same characters the prodigious fables related of the sons of Jove.4
In his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, Martyr again admits the pre-existence of the Christian tale and then uses his standard, irrational and self-serving apology, i.e., "the devil got there first":
Be well assured, then, Trypho, that I am established in the knowledge of and faith in the Scriptures by those counterfeits which he who is called the devil is said to have performed among the Greeks; just as some were wrought by the Magi in Egypt, and others by the false prophets in Elijah's days. For when they tell that Bacchus, son of Jupiter, was begotten by [Jupiter's] intercourse with Semele, and that he was the discoverer of the vine; and when they relate, that being torn in pieces, and having died, he rose again, and ascended to heaven; and when they introduce wine into his mysteries, do I not perceive that [the devil] has imitated the prophecy announced by the patriarch Jacob, and recorded by Moses? And when they tell that Hercules was strong, and travelled over all the world, and was begotten by Jove of Alcmene, and ascended to heaven when he died, do I not perceive that the Scripture which speaks of Christ, "strong as a giant to run his race," has been in like manner imitated? And when he [the devil] brings forward Aesculapius as the raiser of the dead and healer of all diseases, may I not say that in this matter likewise he has imitated the prophecies about Christ? ... And when I hear, Trypho, that Perseus was begotten of a virgin, I understand that the deceiving serpent counterfeited also this.
This "devil did it" response became de rigeur in the face of persistent and rational criticism. As Doane relates:
Tertullian and St. Justin explain all the conformity which exists between Christianity and Paganism, by asserting "that a long time before there were Christians in existence, the devil had taken pleasure to have their future mysteries and ceremonies copied by his worshipers."5
Christian author Lactantius (240-330), in his attempts to confirm the emperor Constantine in his new faith and to convert the "Pagan" elite, also widely appealed to the Pagan stories as proof that Christianity was not absurd but equally viable as they were, even though naturally he dismissed these earlier versions as works of the devil. As Wheless says, "In a word, Christianity is founded on and proved by Pagan myths."6
Other Christians were more blunt in their confessions as to the nature and purpose of the Christian tale, making no pretense to being believers in higher realms of spirituality, but demonstrating more practical reasons for fanatically adhering to their incredible doctrines. For example, Pope Leo X, privy to the truth because of his high rank, made this curious declaration, "What profit has not that fable of Christ brought us!" As Wheless also says, "The proofs of my indictment are marvellously easy."
The Gnostics
Although the Christian conspirators were quite thorough in their criminal destruction of the evidence, especially of ancient texts, such that much irreplaceable knowledge was lost, from what remains we can see that the scholars of other schools and sects never gave up their arguments against the historicizing of a very ancient mythological creature. This group of critics included many Gnostics, who