In regard to this miscellany, the Manicheans say that it was formed from scraps of legends and traditions which the itinerant fathers happened to pick up in their journeyings in the eastern countries, in search of "gospel truth." "Thus some parts would be, as we find them, Indian, some Persian, some Egyptian, etc., etc., all jumbled together, and forming, after undergoing the required fittings and alterations, the mass which we now possess. Thus from India came the murder of the Innocents; from all quarters of the heathen world came the Trinity, the crucifixion of Christ, the Lord Sol, and Iao, born at the winter solstice, and triumphing over the powers of hell, or cold and darkness, and rising into light or glory, as the Regenerator and Savior, at the vernal equinox: from the Egyptian--perhaps the Eleusinian mysteries, came the worship of the virgin and child; and from all the countries of the east, the miraculous conception." On a careful examination of the quirks and quibbles of St. Paul, it plainly appears that he had some smattering of the Pagan mysteries; and just as it suited his interest for the time being, or the degree of knowledge in his auditors, he used the exoteric or esoteric doctrines; the former was adapted for street-preaching, and bamboozling the long-eared multitude; and the latter was used only when he was addressing the initiated few, some of whom were, in all probability, playing the same game as himself.* He designates these mysteries as being "_shadows of heavenly things_;" and "_patterns of things in the heavens_" (Hebrews viii., 5, and ix., 23), meaning, unquestionably, astronomical truths concealed from the million, under the veil of allegory; for that word is used by him, and he frequently makes use of the term veil. St. Barnabas, in his Gospel, denies the truth of Paul's exoteric doctrine, declaring that no person called Christ did actually and _bona fide_ die upon the cross: hence the quarrel between the two; and from this cause was Barnabas' Gospel rejected. In further proof that there were two doctrines in use, the ostensible and the hidden, Jesus is made to say, Matthew xiii., 11, "To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven." This compliment could be addressed to none but such as were initiated in the symbolical worship of the sun, and other celestial bodies; whilst to the rabble multitude the secret was concealed under metaphor or parable, in order that, "hearing ye shall hear and shall not understand; and seeing, ye shall see and not perceive." (Acts xxviii., 26.) Paul, in his epistle to the Ephesians (iii., 4), boasts of a knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which he says in the 5th verse, "was not in other ages made known to the sons of men." Now, this could not possibly allude to Jesus of the New Testament, with whom, as some of the fathers have assumed, Paul was contemporary; and therefore, in speaking of "other ages" it inevitably follows that he was