are His
handiwork. Are we then to blame for our imperfections? Is not Jesus,
instead of a mediator, rather a votive offering to the wounded vanity of
the great Jehovah? Was not Prometheus--a light broke in upon Hyzlo.
Prometheus, a myth, Buddha a myth. All myths. There were other
virgin-born saviours. Krishna, Mithra, Buddha. Vishnu had not one but
nine incarnations. Christianity bears alarming resemblances to
Mithraism. Mithra, too, was born in a cave. The dates of Christ's birth
and death may be astronomical: the winter and vernal equinoxes. But the
conflict of the authorities regarding these dates is mortifying. The
four gospels are in reality four witnesses warring against each other.
They were selected haphazard at a human council. They were not composed
until the latter part of the second century, and the synoptic gospels
are compilations from unknown writers, while the fourth gospel is a much
later work. And how colourless, imitative, is the New when compared to
the Old Testament,--echoing with the antiphonal thunders of Jehovah and
his stern-mouthed Prophets! The passage in Josephus touching on Christ
is now known to have been interpolated. Authentic history does not
record the existence of Christ. Not one of His contemporaries mentions
him. That tremendous drama in Galilee was not even commented upon by the
Romans, a nation keen to notice any deviation from normal history. The
Jewish records are doubtful, written centuries after His supposed death.
And they are malicious. What cannot happen in two centuries? Hyzlo
reflected sadly upon Moslemism, upon Mormonism, upon the vagaries of a
strange American sect at whose head was said to be a female pope.

The similarity of circumstances in the lives of Buddha and Christ also
annoyed him. Both were born of virgins, both renounced the world, both
were saviours. There were the same temptations, the same happenings;
prophecies, miracles, celestial rejoicings, a false disciple, the seven
beatitudes--a reflection of the Oriental wisdom--an expiatory death and
resurrection. The entire machinery of the Christian church, its saints,
martyrs, festivals, ritual, and philosophies are borrowed from the
mythologies of the pagans. Sun-worship is the beginning of all
religions. To the genius of the epileptic Paul, or Saul,--founders of
religions are always epilepts,--a half Greek and disciple of the
Pharisee Gamaliel, who saw visions and put to the sword his enemies, to
Paul, calle