Here is a great and important query, and one involving a momentous
problem. Couple the two facts together, that the disciples were first
known as Christians at Antioch, and that the Essenian order of believers
expired and went out of history about that period, and the question is
at once and forever satisfactorily settled. It was not an infrequent act
on making important changes in a religion, and adopting some new items
of faith to change the title of the system, and give it a new name.
After Alexander Campbell had made some modifications in his previous
religious faith, and started a new church, his followers were popularly
called Campbellites. Elias Hicks ingrafted some reform ideas into the
Quaker faith, and instituted a new society of that order. Hence, and
henceforth, his disciples were known as Hicksites. In like manner Jesus
Christ having made some innovations in his inherited Jewish faith (which
was of the Essene stamp) by ingrafting more of the Budhist doctrine into
it, his followers were henceforth called Christians. How complete the
analogy! Here let it be borne in mind, as powerfully confirmatory of
this conclusion, that the first Christians were (as history affirms)
"merely reformatory Jews." The twelve chosen were all Jews, probably of
the Essene order. According to the Rev. Mr. Prideaux (Jewish History),
the Jews of this order were first called Israelites, in common with the
other tribes; then Chassidim; and thirdly Essenes. And finally, after
the Essenian Jesus Christ, with some new radical ideas, proclaimed, "Ye
have heard it hath been said by them of old time" thus and so, "but I
say unto you" differently. The title was again changed, and they adopted
or received the name of Christians--the Essenes going out of history
at the very date Christians first appear in history. Put this and that
together, and the chain is welded. Thus we can as easily trace the
origin of Christianity as we can trace the origin of a root running
beneath the soil in the direction of a certain tree. History, then,
proclaims that to the honest, pious, deeply-devout, self-denying, yet
ignorant, slothful, and filthy Budhistic Essenes must be awarded the
honor or dishonor of giving birth to that system of religion now known
as Christianity.
CHRISHNA AS A GOD--ADDITIONAL FACTS.
The following additional facts relative to the history, character, life,
and teachings of Zeus Chrishna, or Jeseus Christna (as styled by one
writer) are drawn mostly from the Vedas, Baghavat, Gita (Bible in
India).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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