Ancient as may be the origin of Hermes, lost in the unknown days of Egyptian colonization, there is yet a far older prophecy, directly relating to the Hindu Christna, according to the Brahmans. It is, to say the least, strange that the Christians claim to base their religion upon a prophecy of the _Bible_, which exists nowhere in that book. In what chapter or verse does Jehovah, the “Lord God,” promise Adam and Eve to send them a Redeemer who will save humanity? “I will put enmity between thee and the woman,” says the Lord God to the serpent, “and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” In these words there is not the slightest allusion to a Redeemer, and the subtilest of intellects could not extract from them, as they stand in the third chapter of _Genesis_, anything like that which the Christians have contrived to find. On the other hand, in the traditions and _Manu_, Brahma promises directly to the first couple to send them a Saviour who will teach them the way to salvation. “It is from the lips of a messenger of Brahma, who will be born in Kuroukshetra, Matsya, and the land of Pantchola, also called Kanya-Cubja (mountain of the Virgin), that all men on earth will learn their duty,” says _Manu_ (book ii., slokas 19 and 20). The Mexicans call the Father of their Trinity Yzona, the Son Bacab, and the Holy Ghost Echvah, “and say they received it (the doctrine) from their ancestors.”[79] Among the Semitic nations we can trace the trinity to the prehistorical days of the fabled Sesostris, who is identified by more than one critic with Nimrod, “the mighty hunter.” Manetho makes the oracle rebuke the king, when the latter asks, “Tell me, O thou strong in fire, who before me could subjugate all things? and who shall after me?” And the oracle saith thus: “First God, then the Word, and then ‘the Spirit.’”[80] In the foregoing lies the foundation of the fierce hatred of the Christians toward the “Pagans” and the theurgists. Too much had been _borrowed_; the ancient religions and the Neo-platonists had been laid by them under contribution sufficiently to perplex the world for several thousand years. Had not the ancient creeds been speedily obliterated, it would have been found impossible to preach the Christian religion as a New Dispensation, or the direct Revelation from God the Father, through God the Son, and under the influence of God the Holy Ghost. As a political exigence the Fathers had--to gratify the wishes of their rich converts--instituted even the festivals of Pan. They went so far as to accept the ceremonies hitherto celebrated by the Pagan world in honor of the _God of the gardens_, in all their primitive _sincerity_.[81] It was time to sever the connection. Either the Pagan worship and the Neo-platonic theurgy, with all ceremonial of magic, must be crushed out forever, or the Christians become Neo-platonists.