"....from a statement of Plutarch: "The Temple of this deity at Abydos," says he, "was also particularly honored, and so holy was the place considered by the Egyptians, that persons living at some distance from it sought, and perhaps with difficulty obtained, permission to possess a sepulchre within its Necropolis, in order that, after death, they might repose in GROUND HALLOWED BY THE TOMB of this great and mysterious deity."
If the places where the relics of Osiris were buried were accounted peculiarly holy, it is easy to see how naturally this would give rise to the pilgrimages so frequent among the heathen.
The reader does not need to be told what merit Rome attaches to such pilgrimages to the tombs of saints,... Now, in the Scripture there is not the slightest trace of any such thing as a pilgrimage to the tomb of saint, martyr, prophet, or apostle.
*The very way in which the Lord saw fit to dispose of the body of Moses in burying it Himself in the plains of Moab, so that no man should ever known where his sepulchre was, was evidently designed to rebuke every such feeling as that from which such pilgrimages arise.
*And considering whence Israel had come, the Egyptian ideas with which they were infected, as shown in the matter of the golden calf, and the high reverence they must have entertained for Moses, the wisdom of God in so disposing of his body must be apparent.
* ...when the Babylonian Zoroaster died, he was said voluntarily to have given his life as a sacrifice, and to have "charged his countrymen to preserve his remains," assuring them that on the observance or neglect of this dying command, the fate of their empire would hinge.
------Now, in comparing the death and fabled resurrection of the false Messiah with the death and resurrection of the true, when he actually appeared, it will be found that there is a very remarkable contrast.
-*-When the false Messiah died, limb was severed from limb, and his bones were scattered over the country.
-*-When the death of the true Messiah took place, Providence so arranged it that the body should be kept entire, and that the prophetic word should be exactly fulfilled--"a bone of Him shall not be broken." (John 19:36).
-*-When, again, the false Messiah was pretended to have had a resurrection, that resurrection was in a new body, while the old body, with all its members, was left behind, thereby showing that the resurrection was nothing but a pretence and a sham.
-*-When, however, the true Messiah was "declared to be the Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead," the tomb, though jealously watched by the armed unbelieving soldiery of Rome, was found to be absolutely empty, and no dead body of the Lord was ever afterwards found, or even pretended to have been found.
If the places where the relics of Osiris were buried were accounted peculiarly holy, it is easy to see how naturally this would give rise to the pilgrimages so frequent among the heathen.
The reader does not need to be told what merit Rome attaches to such pilgrimages to the tombs of saints,... Now, in the Scripture there is not the slightest trace of any such thing as a pilgrimage to the tomb of saint, martyr, prophet, or apostle.
*The very way in which the Lord saw fit to dispose of the body of Moses in burying it Himself in the plains of Moab, so that no man should ever known where his sepulchre was, was evidently designed to rebuke every such feeling as that from which such pilgrimages arise.
*And considering whence Israel had come, the Egyptian ideas with which they were infected, as shown in the matter of the golden calf, and the high reverence they must have entertained for Moses, the wisdom of God in so disposing of his body must be apparent.
* ...when the Babylonian Zoroaster died, he was said voluntarily to have given his life as a sacrifice, and to have "charged his countrymen to preserve his remains," assuring them that on the observance or neglect of this dying command, the fate of their empire would hinge.
------Now, in comparing the death and fabled resurrection of the false Messiah with the death and resurrection of the true, when he actually appeared, it will be found that there is a very remarkable contrast.
-*-When the false Messiah died, limb was severed from limb, and his bones were scattered over the country.
-*-When the death of the true Messiah took place, Providence so arranged it that the body should be kept entire, and that the prophetic word should be exactly fulfilled--"a bone of Him shall not be broken." (John 19:36).
-*-When, again, the false Messiah was pretended to have had a resurrection, that resurrection was in a new body, while the old body, with all its members, was left behind, thereby showing that the resurrection was nothing but a pretence and a sham.
-*-When, however, the true Messiah was "declared to be the Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead," the tomb, though jealously watched by the armed unbelieving soldiery of Rome, was found to be absolutely empty, and no dead body of the Lord was ever afterwards found, or even pretended to have been found.
The resurrection of Christ, therefore, stands on a very different footing from the resurrection of Osiris."
AlexanderHislop