[179:1] See Kingsborough's Mexican Antiquities, vol. vi. p. 223. [179:2] Bonwick's Egyptian Belief, p. 370. [179:3] Brinton: Myths of the New World, p. 94. [179:4] Max Müller's Chips, vol. ii. p. 279. [179:5] Brinton: Myths of the New World, p. 94. [179:6] Ibid. According to Genesis, vii. 12, "the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights" at the time of the flood. [179:7] Genesis, viii. 6. [179:8] Gen. xxv. 20-xxvi. 34. [179:9] Gen. i. 3. [179:10] Numbers, xiii. 25. [179:11] Numbers, xiii. 13. [179:12] Jud. iii. 11; v. 31; viii. 28. [179:13] Jud. xiii. 1. [179:14] I. Samuel, iv. 18. [179:15] I. Kings, ii. 11. [180:1] I. Kings, xi. 42. [180:2] I. Samuel, xvii. 16. [180:3] Gen. vii. 12. [180:4] Exodus, xxiv. 18-xxxiv. 28. [180:5] See Higgins' Anacalypsis, vol. i. p. 798; vol. ii. p. 402. [180:6] See Ibid. vol. ii. p. 708. CHAPTER XX. THE CRUCIFIXION OF CHRIST JESUS. The punishment of an individual by crucifixion, for claiming to be "King of the Jews," "Son of God," or "The Christ;" which are the causes assigned by the Evangelists for the Crucifixion of Jesus, would need but a passing glance in our inquiry, were it not for the fact that there is much attached to it of a _dogmatic_ and _heathenish_ nature, which demands considerably more than a "passing glance." The doctrine of atonement for sin had been preached long before the doctrine was deduced from the Christian Scriptures, long before these Scriptures are pretended to have been written. Before the period assigned for the birth of Christ Jesus, the poet _Ovid_ had assailed the demoralizing delusion with the most powerful shafts of philosophic scorn: "_When thou thyself art guilty,_" says he, "_why should a victim die for thee? What folly it is to expect salvation from the death of another._" The idea of expiation by the sacrifice of a _god_ was to be found among the Hindoos even in _Vedic_ times. _The sacrificer was mystically identified with the victim_, which was regarded as the ransom for sin, and the instrument of its annulment. The _Rig-Veda_ represents the gods as sacrificing _Purusha_, the primeval male, supposed to be coeval with the Creator. This idea is even more remarkably developed in the _Tāndya-brāhmanas_, thus: "The lord of creatures (_prajā-pati_) _offered himself a sacrifice for the gods_." And again, in the _Satapatha-brāhmana_: "He who, knowing this, sacrifices the _Purusha-medha_, or sacrifice of the primeval male, becomes everything."[181:1] Prof. Monier Williams, from whose work on _Hindooism_ we quote the above, says: "Surely, in these mystical allusions to the sacrifice of a representative man, we may perceive traces of the original institution of sacrifice as a _divinely-appointed ordinance typical of the one great sacrifice of the Son of God for the sins of the world_."[182:1]