Note 11 — ON THE MEANING OF THE WORD RELIGION; HOW, AND FOR WHAT PURPOSE, SO MANY RELIGIONS HAVE BEEN INTRODUCED INTO THE WORLD.

Jesus Christ, who was acquainted with the maxims and the science of the Egyptians, gave currency to the belief alluded to above, because he thought it suitable to his purposes. Reflecting how Moses had become renowned by his command of an ignorant people, he undertook to build on this foundation, and got some few imbecile people to follow him, whom he persuaded that the Holy Ghost was his father, and that his mother was a virgin. These simple folks, accustomed to give themselves over to dreams and reveries, adopted his opinions, and believed whatever he wished: indeed, something considerably beyond this miraculous birth would by no means have been too miraculous for them. A beautiful dove overshadowed a virgin: there is nothing surprising in that. It happened frequently in Lydia; and the swan of Leda is the counterpart of the dove of Mary.11 That a man should be born of a virgin, by the operation of the Holy Spirit, is neither more extraordinary nor more miraculous that that Genghis Khan should be born of a virgin, as the Tartars assert; or that Foh, according to the Chinese belief, derived his origin from a virgin rendered pregnant by the rays of the sun.