Comte de Gabalis [1913], at sacred-texts.com
TTThroughout the world's history, the life stories of the supreme Spiritual teachers, or Saviours of mankind, have been so identical in incident that a thoughtful comparison of them leads inevitably to the conclusion that to be "a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek " is to fill a definite office and to perform a predetermined work in the transmission of spiritual force for the liberation of human souls. For example, the parallelism between the lives of Hercules and of Christ
is so close that orthodox writers admit Hercules to have been a type of that which the Christ was to accomplish and to endure. And the Rev. Mr. Faber identifies the Greek with the Christian Theology in the following passage: "On the sphere he (Hercules) is represented in the act of contending with the serpent, the head of which is placed under his foot: and this serpent, we are told, is that which guarded the tree with golden fruit in the midst of the garden of the Hesperides. But the garden of the Hesperides, as we have already seen, was no other than the garden of Paradise: consequently, the serpent of that garden, the head of which is crushed beneath the heel of Hercules, and which itself is described as incircling with its folds the trunk of the mysterious tree, must necessarily be a transcript of that serpent whose form was assumed by the tempter of our first parents. We may observe the same ancient tradition in the Phenician fable respecting Ophion or Ophioneus." GEORGE STANLEY FABER, B.D., "THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY," VOL. i, PAGE 443.