The Jewish sects of Essenes and Therapeutæ,* out of which the Galileans and Christians more immediately sprang, had thus their superstition composed of a mixture of the Egyptian and Persian mysteries, consequently sun worship was common to many of the subsequent branches of Christianity, such as the Mani-chees and others. Tertullian, in the apologetics, makes a broad confession of this, as follows:--"Many think, with more probability, _that our god is the Sun_;** and they trace our religion to that of the Persians." If this is not an admission, it is the next thing to it, that about the beginning of the third century, the secret object of Christian worship _was the Sun_; and it would have been well if they had continued in that rational adoration, instead of adopting those midnight rites which were held in horror and detestation by their Gentile neighbors, as being cruel, wicked, and blasphemous;*** and which caused the votaries of the new religion to be branded as atheists. Arnobius who turned Christian, (most probably in view of a bishopric), complains of the Gentiles thus:--"We (the Christians) are called by you ill-omened men, and atheists; you call us impious and irreligious atheists. You are in the habit of exciting the hatred of the mob against us, by calling us atheists."**** * We are told by Philo, that these pious enthusiasts abandoned father, mother, wife, children, and property, and devoted themselves to a contemplative life; which are exactly the injunctions attributed to Christ. ** In another treatise Tertullian alludes to the strong similarity between the religion of Christ, and that of Mithra, or the Sun. "The priests of the Persian god had sacraments. Their baptism procured the remission of sins to the believers and the faithful." "Saint Justin also alludes to the mystical consecrations of these two religions; and to the similarity of the birth of Christ, and his Persian rival, the Sun." *** The Agapæ, or love feasts of the early Christians, were close imitations of the bacchanal orgies; at the latter, it was a vital principle, that no action whatsoever constituted a crime, if committed by any of the initiated during their meetings. It appears that the spirit of this horrible license was fully entered into by the Christians.--Vide Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," vol. ii, p. 894. **** Adv. Gentes.