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Man’s failure to understand that these truths are figurative, and his rigid insistence upon their literal interpretation, have led to the weakening and discrediting of religion. To maintain that the resurrection of Christ was unique and solely a miracle of Christ, leads to grave problems, for we shall see that the symbol of the bodily resurrection is not limited to Jesus and to Christianity. Although Alexander Cruden, in his unabridged Concordance of the Bible, stated that, "The resurrection is a doctrine unknown to the wisest heathens, and peculiar to the gospel," we find that similar24 phenomena have been attributed to many gods in the Mediterranean area. Some of these resurrection stories date back to nearly 3,000 years before Christ. These tales of the death and resurrection of the gods were commonly known, until they were suppressed by force in the fourth century of the Christian era. (107:2) Among the gods who performed this miracle of death and resurrection were: Mithra, Dionysus, Osiris, Attis, Persephone, Eurydice, and Aphrodite. The Feast of Saturnalia in which a mock king is slain as an atoning sacrifice for the people was one of the most thoroughly enjoyed spectacles. (107:3) Patterson, in his Mithraism and Christianity, and Smith, in his Man and His Gods, both speak of the outward similarity in these resurrection stories. Toynbee lists "eighty-seven correspondences between the story of Jesus’ life and the stories of certain Hellenic ‘saviours’ ..." Adonis was buried in a stone tomb. He was mourned; then he was declared resurrected, following which he ascended into heaven.25 (107:4) The demi-god Herakles in myth was sent by God to maintain a kingly authority over mankind. He suffered agonies. He resigned himself to the will of his heavenly father. He was sacrificed, and his mortal remains miraculously disappeared. He descended into hell. He made special appearances to the women of his gatherings. The death and glorious resurrection of Herakles were celebrated each year in a festival at Tarsus, the boyhood home of Paul.26 (107:5) As the similarity between Christian rituals and those of other beliefs becomes more generally known, it is obvious that an insistence on a literal acceptance of such truths as the resurrection can only lead to the gradual weakening and dissolution of the faith of the individual Christian. Whereas an understanding of the symbolic nature of these truths, and of their true meaning, can only serve to fortify and strengthen his belief. (107:6) Taken as a literal truth, resurrection can only serve to divide and separate. Taken symbolically, it tells the simple, beautiful story of the continual death and rebirth of the spirit, a process very similar to the death of the earth in winter and its rebirth in the springtime. (107:7) When the Christians preach the truth of Christ crucified, it is the inward symbol of His sacrifice that is important, not the outward fact that He was crucified. Christ’s greatness does not depend upon His crucifixion, for He shares this distinction with thousands and thousands of others, many criminals of the worst sort. Crucifixion was not a unique punishment given only to Jesus. The Roman highways, in those days, were dotted with punished criminals who had been crucified. It was the most commonly accepted form of punishing serious offenders. It is interesting to note that some sources state that a tree and not a cross was used for such punishment. Victims of crucifixion were hanged or nailed to a tree, or a pole, with their hands above their heads. When the Galileans followed Judas the Gaulonite as the Messiah, during the rule of the procurator Quirinius, two thousand of them were crucified in one mass slaughter. (107:8) Throughout the lives of these World Educators, or Messengers of God, it is always the spirit which is important, never the body.
(107:9)
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