Note 200 — Chapter VI
Reading edition
The earliest form of the Christian doctrine of the atonement was that the Devil killed Jesus in ignorance of his divine nature. The Devil was thus deceived into doing what he had no right to do, consequently he was obliged to pay for this by giving up the souls of sinners to which he had a right. The Osiris myth of the death of a god, which deeply colored the mysteries of Adonis and Eleusis, took its last form im this peculiar doctrine of atonement.