ssiah_,[433:2] first heard of among them when taken captives to
Babylon. These believed that just as Buddha appeared at different
intervals, and as Vishnu appeared at different intervals, the avatars
appeared among the Jews. Adam, and Enoch, and Noah, and Elijah or Elias,
might in outward appearance be different men, but they were really the
self-same divine person successively animating various human
bodies.[433:3] Christ _Jesus_ was the _avatar_ of the ninth age, Christ
_Cyrus_ was the _avatar_ of the eighth. Of the hero of the eighth age it
is said: "Thus said the Lord to his Anointed (_i. e._, his _Christ_),
his Messiah, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden to subdue
nations."[434:1] The eighth period began about the Babylonish captivity,
about six hundred years before Christ _Jesus_. The ninth began with
Christ Jesus, making in all eight cycles before Jesus.

"What was known in Judea more than a century before the birth of Jesus
Christ cannot have been introduced among Buddhists by Christian
missionaries. It will become equally certain that the bishop and
church-historian, Eusebius, was right when he wrote, that he considered
it highly probable that the writings of the Essenic Therapeuts in Egypt
had been incorporated into our Gospels, and into some Pauline
epistles."[434:2]

For further information on the subject of the connection between
Essenism and Christianity, the reader is referred to Taylor's Diegesis,
Bunsen's Angel-Messiah, and the works of S. F. Dunlap. We shall now
speak of another powerful lever which was brought to bear upon the
promulgation of Christianity; namely, that of FRAUD.

It was a common thing among the early Christian Fathers and saints to
lie and deceive, if their lies and deceits helped the cause of their
Christ. Lactantius, an eminent Christian author who flourished in the
fourth century, has well said:

"Among those who seek power and gain from their religion,
there will never be wanting an inclination to forge and lie
for it."[434:3]

Gregory of Nazianzus, writing to St. Jerome, says:

"A little jargon is all that is necessary to impose on the
people. The less they comprehend, the more they admire. Our
forefathers and doctors have often said, not what they
thought, but what circumstances and necessity
dictated."[434:4]

The celebrated _Eusebius_, Bishop of CAESAREA, and friend of Constantine
the Great, who is our chief guide for the