In Egypt, offerings of human sacrifices, for the atonement of sin, became so general that "if the eldest born of the family of Athamas entered the temple of the Laphystan Jupiter at Alos in Achaia, he was sacrificed, crowned with garlands like an animal victim."[182:3]
When the Egyptian priests offered up a sacrifice to the gods, they pronounced the following imprecations on the head of the victim:
"If any evil is about to befall either those who now sacrifice, or Egypt in general, _may it be averted on this head_."[183:1]
This idea of atonement finally resulted in the belief that the incarnate _Christ_, the _Anointed_, the _God among us_, was to _save_ mankind from a curse by God imposed. Man had sinned, and God could not and did not forgive without a propitiatory _sacrifice_. The curse of God must be removed from the _sinful_, and the _sinless_ must bear the load of that curse. It was asserted that _divine justice_ required BLOOD.[183:2]
The belief of redemption from sin by the sufferings of a _Divine Incarnation_, whether by death on the cross or otherwise, was general and popular among the heathen, centuries before the time of Jesus of Nazareth, and this dogma, no matter how sacred it may have become, or how _consoling_ it may be, must fall along with the rest of the material of which the Christian church is built.
Julius Firmicius, referring to this popular belief among the _Pagans_, says: "The _devil_ has _his Christs_."[183:3] This was the general off-hand manner in which the Christian Fathers disposed of such matters. Everything in the religion of the Pagans which corresponded to their religion was of the devil. Most Protestant divines have resorted to the _type_ theory, of which we shall speak anon.
As we have done heretofore in our inquiries, we will first turn to _India_, where we shall find, in the words of M. l'Abbé Huc, that "_the idea of redemption by a divine incarnation_," who came into the world for the express purpose of redeeming mankind, was "general and popular."[183:4]
"A sense of _original corruption_," says Prof. Monier Williams, seems to be felt by all classes of Hindoos, as indicated by the following prayer used after the _Gāyatrī_ by some Vaishnavas: