As noted in various parts of this work, unless Christians believe in the possibility of miracles, the power of a personal devil, and the physical resurrection of the body, there is no foundation for their faith, and it is a mockery. Not satisfied with having executed their god according to the most approved methods of antiquity, Christians felt the necessity of the presence of some remarkable natural phenomena at the time of his death, for among all ancient peoples it was customary to attribute some remarkable natural convulsions to the death of a great man. When Prometheus was crucified on Mount Caucasus "the earth quaked, thunder roared, lightning flashed, wild winds rent the air and boisterous billows rose." On the death of Romulus, there was "darkness over the face of the earth for six hours," and when Quetzalcoatl died the sun became black! Even in historical times, we find narrations of similar phenomena accompanying the deaths of royalty; and we read in many authenticated histories of the frightful thunderstorms that were coincident with the deaths of Isabella of Castile, Charles the Fifth, Napoleon the Great, and Oliver Cromwell. Therefore, it is not surprising to find mention of such occurrences at the time of the execution of the Christian god, although we are not prepared for such astonishing and unprecedented phenomena as related by the ever exaggerating author of the "Gospel according to St. Matthew," who states very seriously that "the vail of the temple was rent in twain from top to bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many." But the execution, while it completes the mortal life of the incarnate Christian deity, by no means finishes the legend. Like the gods of antiquity, the Christ must also descend into hell and perform wonders similar to those of the ancient heroes. All the saviors of mankind had done so--Zoroaster, the Persian; Osiris, the Egyptian; Baldur, the Scandinavian; Quetzalcoatl, the Mexican; and Krishna, the Hindu; while Ishtar voluntarily descended into the Assyrian inferno.