ignorance, and on the other, interest only, can continue to claim
inspiration for the authors of the undated and unsigned fragmentary
documents which pass for the Word of God. If, then, Jesus is stripped
of all the borrowed legends and miracles of which he is the subject;
and if we also take away from him all the teachings which collected
from Jewish and Pagan sources have been attributed to him--what will
be left of him? That the ideas put in his mouth have been culled and
compiled from other sources is as demonstrable as the Pagan origin of
the legends related of him.

Nearly every one of the dogmas and ceremonies in the Christian cult
were borrowed from other and older religions. The resurrection myth,
the ascension, the eucharisty, baptism, worship by kneeling or
prostration, the folding of the hands on the breast, the ringing of
bells and the burning of incense, the vestments and vessels used in
church, the candles, "holy" water,--even the word _Mass_ were all
adopted and adapted by the Christians from the religions of the
ancients. The Trinity is as much Pagan, as much Indian or Buddhist, as
it is Christian. The idea of a Son of God is as old as the oldest
cult. The sun is the son of heaven in all primitive faiths. The
physical sun becomes in the course of evolution, the Son of
Righteousness, or the Son of God, and heaven is personified as the
Father on High. The halo around the head of Jesus, the horns of the
older deities, the rays of light radiating from the heads of Hindu and
Pagan gods are incontrovertible evidence that all gods were at one
time--the sun in heaven.