Ancient Faiths And Modern. Thomas Inman
army was "the god of war," "the patron of the kingdom," whose temples were more noble in their barbaric majesty than any other, and to whom human beings were sacrificed in abundance. They were the noblest creatures that could be found, and in truth, there were very few other animals to offer in their place.
This great Mexican divinity was essentially the same as the Jehovah Tsebaoth of the Hebrew Scriptures; the Lord of Hosts of whom we read in Exod. xv. 3, "The Lord (Jehovah) is a man of war, the Lord (Jehovah) is His name;" and in Ps. xxiv. 8, "Who is this King of glory?—the Lord, strong and mighty; the Lord, mighty in battle;" and again, the same idea appears in verse 10 of the same Psalm; see also 1 Chron. xvii. 24, "The Lord of Hosts is the God of Israel." Indeed, we should weary the reader if we were to quote all the texts to be found in the Old Testament, which prove that the Hebrew Jehovah was as much a god of war as was the chief deity of the Mexicans. Modern civilization may frame the belief that God is not "the author of confusion, but of peace" (1 Cor. xiv. 33); but the Hebrews in the East, and the Mexicans in the West, held a different opinion. Besides the god of war there was a god of the air, who once lived on earth, and taught metallurgy, agriculture, and the art of government. He was essentially a human benefactor, who caused the earth to teem with fruit and flowers, without the trouble of laborious cultivation—his reign was analogous to the golden age of the Greeks and Romans. But he was not wholly satisfactory, and was banished; yet he is to have a second coming, like Elias, and a modern deity of the Eastern world. His portrait is identical, apparently, with the commonly received likeness of Jesus. In Christian mythology (see Eph. ii. 2), "the prince of the power of the air" is regarded as "the adversary," or a devil. No other deities are described in detail by Prescott, but he says that every household had its "penates," or household gods. On turning to Higgins, who quotes entirely from Lord Kingsborough's Mexican Antiquities, we find that the Mexicans baptized their children with what they called "water of regeneration." Their king also danced before his god, as David did, to his chaste wife's disgust, and was consecrated and anointed by the high priest with a holy unction as Saul and the son of Jesse were. On one day of the year all the fires in the Mexican kingdom were extinguished and lighted again from one sacred hearth in the temple, which again reminds us of the Vestal Virgins, whose business was to keep up a holy fire in Rome, and of the lamp which was to burn perpetually in the Jewish temple (Exod. xxvii. 20). At the end of October the Mexicans had a feast resembling our "All Souls," or "Saints," day, which was called "the festival of advocates," because each human being had an advocate in the heaven above to plead for him, which again reminds us of Jesus' dictum, that children have guardian angels, who are always in God's presence (Matt, xviii. 10)
The same people had a forty-days' fast, in honour of a god who was tempted forty days upon a mountain, and thus resembled the Prophet of Nazareth. He was called the morning star, and thus is to be identified with Lucifer as well as Jesus (Isa. xiv. 12, Rev. xxii. 16), and carried a reed for an emblem (see Eev. xxi. 15). The Mexicans honoured a cross, and the god of air was represented sometimes as nailed to one, and even occasionally between two other individuals.*
* As we cannot imagine that the Mexicans were aware of the
manner in which modern Christians depict Jesus on the cross,
we most, I think, seek for some idea which was common to
both the East and West. In Payne Knight's work, so often
referred to by us, there is a picture which represents a
cock with a lingam instead of a head and beak; on its
pediment there is in Greek the words, soteer kosmou, "the
saviour of the world." This is also an epithet of Siva, and
he is sometimes represented as a phallus. In this he is the
Asher or Bel of the Assyrian triad, erected higher than the
other two. In Christian history the outsiders are said to be
thieves, but it was not so in Mexico. The three crosses
are simply emblems of the "trinity."
A virgin and child were also adored, as they were in Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, and Hindostan, and as they are in a great part of Europe at the present time. The people believed in vast cycles of years, at the end of each of which there was to be a general destruction of life, and a perfect regeneration, an idea which Higgins has shown to have existed amongst Persians, Romans, and Jews alike. The Mexicans still further believed in a threefold future state—a heaven for the brave, and those who were sacrificed, there being, so far as I can discover, no abstract idea of what we call "virtue"; a hell for the wicked; and a sort of quiet limbo for those who were in no way distinguished. Heaven was located in the sun, and the blessed were permitted to revel amongst lovely clouds and singing birds, enjoying, unharmed, all the charms of nature: a conception which is to the full as poetical, and, probably, quite as near the truth, as that given in "Revelation." When a man died he was burned, and, if rich, his slaves were sacrificed with him, the Mexicans, in this respect, resembling the ancient Scythians, with whom they had much in common. When the ceremony of giving a name to children was gone through, their lips and bosom were sprinkled with water, and the Lord was implored to permit the holy drops to wash away the sin that was given to the child before the foundation of the world, so that the infant might be born anew, or, in modern terms, regenerated (Prescott, ch. 3). Amongst their prayers, or invocations, were the formulas, "Wilt Thou blot us out, O Lord, for ever? Is this punishment intended, not for our reformation, but for our destruction?" again, "Impart to us, out of Thy great mercy, Thy gifts which we are not worthy to receive through our own merits;" "Keep peace with all;" "Bear injuries with humility, God who sees will avenge you;" "He who looks too curiously on a woman commits adultery with eyes." These Mexican maxims so closely resemble those to be found in the Bible, that it is difficult to believe that the Spaniards really told the truth respecting them. The sacerdotal order amongst the Mexicans was a numerous one, well arranged and powerful. The priests used musical choirs in their worship, arranged the calendar, and appointed the time for festivals. They superintended the education of youth, and wrote up the traditions, like the "recorders" of the Jews, Persians, other Orientals, and Christian monks, and looked to the conservancy of the hieroglyphic paintings. There were two high priests, who alone had to undertake the duty of offering human sacrifices, and these were elected by the king and nobles, quite irrespective of previous rank, and, when elected, they were inferior only to the sovereign. When reading this, anyone who is familiar with biblical history will bethink him of Luke iii. 3, "Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests," the plural, not the singular, number being used, and of the dictum of Caiaphas, John xi. 50, "It is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, that the whole nation perish not." We may put what construction we please upon these facts, but, whatever interpretation we may adopt, we must acknowledge that the Hebrews, at the time when our era commences, had two high priests who were concerned in human sacrifice.
The priests, in general, were devoted to the service of some particular deity, and, during the time of their attendance, lived in the temple, celibate; but, when not on duty, they resided with their wives and families. Thrice during the day, and once at some period of the night, they were called to prayer, much like all the varieties of Christian monks and nuns. They were frequent in their ablutions, in which habit they may be contrasted with those saintly hermits, who regarded dirt as a divine ordinance, and never washed; and they mortified the flesh by long vigils, fasting, and cruel penance, drawing blood from their bodies by flagellation, or by piercing them with the thorns of the aloe. The resemblance of the Mexican sacerdotalism with Jewish and Christian customs is thus shown to be wonderful and striking, so much so, that the Spaniards started the idea that they had been taught by some stray apostle of Jesus. The great cities of Mexico were divided into districts, each of which was placed under the charge of a sort of parochial clergy, who regulated every act of religion within their precincts, and who administered the rites of confession and absolution. The secrets of the confessional were held inviolable, and penances were imposed, of much the same kind as those enjoined by the Roman Catholic Church upon her votaries.
It was a tenet of Mexican faith, that a sin once atoned for, was, if repeated, inexpiable a second time; consequently, confession was only once resorted to, and that late in life; a good plan, upon the whole, for it enabled a man whose days were