The Diegesis

Being a Discovery of the Origin, Evidences, and Early History of Christianity, Never Yet Before or Elsewhere so Fully and Faithfully set Forth; I very respectfully dedicate the Diegesis, the employment of my many solitary hours in an unjust imprisonment, incurred in the most glorious cause that ever called virtue to act, or fortitude to suffer. Partial Contents: Identity of Jesus Christ of Nazareth; Christian and Pagan Creeds; State of the Heathen World; State of the Jews; State of Philosophy; Admissions of Christian writers; Of the Essenes or Therapeuts; Christian scriptures, doctrines, discipline and ecclesiastical polity; Of Philo and his testimony; References to the monkish or Theapeutan doctrines to be traced in the New Testament; On the claims of the scriptures of the New Testament to be considered as genuine and authentic; Canons of criticism; Of the four gospels in general, Confession of the forgery of the gospels, by Faustus; Of the origin of our three first canonical gospels; Of St. John’s gospel in particular; The monks of Egypt; Resemblances of the Pagan and Christian theology; sculapius and Jesus Christ, the same figment of imagination; Hercules and Jesus Christ; Adonis; Mystical sacrifice of the Phoenicians, A draft of the whole Christian system; Chrishna, of the Brahmins, the original Jesus Christ; Sign of the Cross entirely Pagan; Tauribolia; Baptism; Eleusianian Mysteries; Pythagoras; Archbishop Tillotson’s confession of the identity of Christianity and Paganism; Resemblance of Pagan and Christian forms of worship; Charges brought against Christianity by its early adversaries; Arguments of Martyrdom; Apostolic Fathers; Fathers of the Third Century, Fourth Century; Testimony of Heretics.