Alexander the Great had? no less vanity. Not content with seeing himself master of the world, he wished to persuade mankind that he was the son of Jupiter. Perseus pretended also to have derived his origin from the same god and the virgin Danae. Plato also insisted on a virgin nativity, regarding Apollo as his father. There have been many other personages who have been guilty of the same absurdity. No doubt all these great men believed in the opinion of the Egyptians, who maintained that the Spirit of God was capable of having intercourse with the female sex, and rendering them pregnant. § 12. JESUS CHRIST. Jesus Christ, who was acquainted with the maxims and the science of the Egyptians, gave currency to the belief alluded to above, because he thought it suitable to his purposes. Reflecting how Moses had become renowned by his command of an ignorant people, he undertook to build on this foundation, and got some few imbecile people to follow him, whom he persuaded that the Holy Ghost was his father, and that his mother was a virgin. These simple folks, accustomed to give themselves over to dreams and reveries, adopted his opinions, and believed whatever he wished: indeed, something considerably beyond this miraculous birth would by no means have been too miraculous for them. A beautiful dove overshadowed a virgin: there is nothing surprising in that. It happened frequently in Lydia; and the swan of Leda is the counterpart of the dove of Mary. [43] That a man should be born of a virgin, by the operation of the Holy Spirit, is neither more extraordinary nor more miraculous that that Genghis Khan should be born of a virgin, as the Tartars assert; or that Foh, according to the Chinese belief, derived his origin from a virgin rendered pregnant by the rays of the sun.