After Jesus was dead and buried, some of his followers thought that he rose from the dead and came back to life again within three days, and showed himself to a few persons here and there,--coming suddenly and then vanishing, as a "ghost" is said to appear all at once and then vanish, or as the souls of other dead men are thought to "appear" to the spiritualists, who do not, however, _see_ the ghosts, but only _hear_ and _feel_ them. Very strange stories were told about his coming to men through closed doors, and talking with them,--just as in our time the "mediums" say the soul of Dr. Franklin, or Dr. Channing, or some great man comes and makes "spiritual communication." They say, that at last, he "was parted from them, and carried up into heaven," and "sat on the right hand of God." His friends and followers went about from place to place, and preached his doctrines; but gradually added many more of their own. They said that he was the Anointed, the Messiah, the Christ, who was foretold in the Old Testament, and that did strange things called Miracles; that at a marriage feast, where wine was wanted, he changed several barrels of water into wine of excellent quality; that he fed five thousand men with five loaves, walked on the water, opened the eyes, ears, and mouths of men born blind, deaf, and dumb, and at a touch or a word brought back a maimed limb. They called him a SAVIOUR, sent from God to redeem the Jews, and them only, from eternal damnation; next, said that he was the Saviour of all mankind,--Jews and Gentiles too; that he was a Sacrifice offered to appease the wrath of God, who had become so angry with his children that he intended to torment them all forever in hell. By and by his followers were called CHRISTIANS,--that is, men who took Jesus for the Christ of the Old Testament; and in their preaching they did not make much account of the noble ideas Jesus taught about man, God, and religion, or of his own great manly life; but they thought his DEATH was the great thing,--and that was the means to save men from eternal torment. Then they went further, and declared that Jesus was not the son of Joseph and Mary, but THE SON OF GOD and Mary,--miraculously born; next, that he was GOD'S ONLY SON, who had never had any child before, and never would have another; again, that he was a GOD who had lived long before Jesus was born, but for the then first time took the human form; and at last, that he was THE ONLY GOD, the Creator and Providence of all the universe; but was man also, the GOD-MAN. Thus, gradually, the actual facts of his history were lost out of sight, overgrown with a great mass of fictions, poetic and other stories, which make him a mythological character; the Jesus of fact was well-nigh forgot,--the Christ of fiction took his place.