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PREFATORY NOTE
PREFATORY NOTE
Most of the propositions in mythology and anthropology in this book are founded on bodies of evidence given in the larger works of the author. It seemed fitting, therefore, to refer to those works instead of repeating hundreds of references there given. Readers concerned to investigate the issues are thus invited and enabled to do so. For brevity’s sake, Christianity and Mythology is cited as C.M. ; Pagan Christs as P.C. ; and the Short Histories of Christianity and Freethought as S.H.C. and S.H
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THE JESUS PROBLEM Chapter I THE APPROACH
THE JESUS PROBLEM Chapter I THE APPROACH
What is now to be done is to revise the general theory in the light of further study as well as of the highly important expositions of it by Professor Smith and other scholars. An attempt is now definitely made not merely to combine concisely the evidence for a pre-Christian Jesus-cult, but to show how that historically grew into “Christianity,” thus substituting a defensible historical view for a mythic narrative of beginnings. And this, of course, is a heavy undertaking. The question, “What do
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§ 1. The Ground of Conflict
§ 1. The Ground of Conflict
Where Strauss was rash, later rationalistic writers have been more so. My old friend, the English translator of Jules Soury’s early work on Jesus, took for granted that behind legendary heroes in general there is always a nucleus of fact; but Soury, after postulating a large part of the gospel story as veridical, gave up a number of his own items. 9 As soon as he began to apply criticism, they were seen to be arbitrary assumptions. Equally arbitrary is the assumption of “some basis,” made upon n
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§ 2. The Sacrificial Rite
§ 2. The Sacrificial Rite
Primarily, voluntary victims were desired; and in Roman and Japanese history there are special or general records of their being forthcoming, annually or in times of emergency. 37 Even in the case of animal sacrifice, the Romans had a trick of putting barley in the victim’s ear to make him bow his head as if in submission. 38 But as regards human sacrifices, which were felt to be specially efficacious, the progression was inevitable from willing to compelled victims; and out of the multitude of
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§ 3. Contingent Elements
§ 3. Contingent Elements
What leaps to the eyes is that the gospel legend preserves two separated features of the festival of a Sacrificed Mock-King, which as incidents in the life of the Teacher are wholly incompatible, and which the biographical theory cannot reasonably explain—the acclaimed and welcomed Entry into Jerusalem and within a week the demand of the city multitude for the crucifixion. The Entry is an elaboration of several myth elements, but it contains the item of the acclaimed ride of the quasi-king, moun
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§ 4. The Mock-King Ritual
§ 4. The Mock-King Ritual
The question here arises, however, whether the triple execution was a customary rite. All executions being, as aforesaid, quasi-sacrificial, an ordinary execution might conceivably be combined with a specific sacrifice. It is to be observed that no mention of the triple execution occurs outside of the gospels: the Acts and the Epistles have no allusion to it. It is thus conceivably, as was hinted by Strauss, a late addition to the myth, motived by the verse now omitted as spurious from Mark ( xv
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§ 5. Doctrinal Additions
§ 5. Doctrinal Additions
In the later myth the robbers, as it happens, are made to embody certain features of sacrificial ritual. We are told in the fourth gospel that the Jews “asked of Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away,”—“that the bodies should not remain on the cross upon the sabbath, for the day of that sabbath was a high day.” Accordingly the soldiers break the legs of the two thieves, “but when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs.” T
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§ 6. Minor Ritual and Myth Elements
§ 6. Minor Ritual and Myth Elements
It is not at all certain, and it is not probable, that in the earlier stages of the myth the cross as such was prominent. Early crucifixion was not always a nailing of outstretched hands in the cross form, but often a hanging of the victim by the arms, tied together at the wrists, with or without a support to the body at the thighs. 100 The stauros was not necessarily a cross: it might be a simple pile or stake. In the Book of Acts ( v, 30 ) Peter and the Apostles are made to speak of Jesus “who
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§ 7. The Cross
§ 7. The Cross
By way of accounting for the Jewish refusal to see in Jesus the promised Messiah, orthodox exegesis has spread widely the belief that it was no part of the Messianic idea that the Anointed One should die an ignominious death; and some of us began by accepting that account of the case. Clearly it was not the traditional or generally prevailing Jewish expectation. Yet in the Acts we find Peter and Paul alike ( iii, 18 ; xvii, 3 ; xxvi, 23 ) made to affirm that the prophets in general predicted tha
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§ 8. The Suffering Messiah
§ 8. The Suffering Messiah
In any case the idea arose among Jews, and quite intelligibly. The picture drawn by Isaiah was a standing incitement to the rise of a cult whose Hero-God had been slain. It was the one kind of Messianic cult which the Romans would leave unmolested. At the same time it committed the devotees to the position that the Messiah must come again , “in the clouds, in great glory”; and the Christian Church was actually established on that conception, which sufficed to sustain it till the earthly Providen
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§ 9. The Rock Tomb
§ 9. The Rock Tomb
The Greek word is μνημεῖον —that used in the gospel story. There is thus no support whatever either for the suggestion of “a common foss” or for the allegation about “ the common pit reserved for crucified malefactors”—a wholly unwarranted figment. The second “they” of the sentence is indefinite: it may mean either the Jews of the previous sentence or another “they”: but either way it expressly posits a tomb. Yet after this deliberate perversion of the document, which of course he does not quote
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§ 10. The Resurrection
§ 10. The Resurrection
It does not follow from the proved existence of mystery-dramas in pagan cults in the Roman empire in the first century, C.E. , that the Jesuists had a similar usage; but when we find in the New Testament an express reference to such parallelism, and in the early Fathers a knowledge that such parallels were drawn, we are entitled to ask whether there is not further evidence. When “Paul” 1 tells his adherents: “Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of daimons: 2 ye cannot partake of the
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§ 1. Historical Data
§ 1. Historical Data
4. The existence in the Hellenistic period of theatres at Damascus, Cæsarea, Gadara, Jericho and Scythopolis, the first two being, as we learn from Josephus, built by Herod the Great. 5. The chronic pressure of Hellenistic culture influence upon Jewish culture for centuries. 6. The prevalence of Greek culture influence at the city of Samaria, Damascus, Gaza, Scythopolis, Gadara, Panias (Cæsarea Philippi). 7. The “half-heathen” character of the districts of Trachonitis, Batanea, and Auranitis, ea
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§ 2. Prototypes
§ 2. Prototypes
The reference is certainly to Joshua, who is here quasi-deified. Plainly, as Mr. Whittaker observes, “the binding of erring angels can only be attributed to a supernatural being, and not to a mere national hero.” And, as Mr. Whittaker also notes, we have yet another clear indication from the Jewish-Christian side that Joshua in Jewish theology had a heavenly status. In the “Sibylline Oracles” there occurs the passage:— Now a certain excellent man shall come again from heaven, who spread forth hi
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§ 3. The Mystery-Drama
§ 3. The Mystery-Drama
The disciples still asleep. Enter Jesus. Jes. Sleep on now and take your rest. [ Exit. Enter Jesus. ( Disciples still asleep. ) Jes. It is enough: the hour is come, etc. The transcriber, missing an exit and an enter , has simply run two speeches together; and the gospel copyists have faithfully followed their copy, putting “they wist not what to answer him” in the wrong place. In an original narrative the combination could not happen. In the transcription of the copy of a play it could easily ha
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§ 1. The Primary Impulsion
§ 1. The Primary Impulsion
(13) And it is not merely on the Jewish side that we have evidence of elements in the early Jesuist movement which derive from sources alien to the gospel record. M. Loisy 16 admits that the hymn of the Naassenes, given by Hippolytus, 17 in which Jesus appeals to the Father to let him descend to earth and reveal the mysteries to men, “has an extraordinary resemblance to the dialogue between the God Ea and his son Marduk in certain Babylonian incantations.” 18 He disposes of the problem by claimi
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§ 2. The Silence of Josephus
§ 2. The Silence of Josephus
But that is all that can be claimed. The fact remains that in the Life , telling of his youthful search for a satisfactory sect, Josephus says not a word of the existence of that of the crucified Jesus; that he nowhere breathes a word concerning the twelve apostles, or any of them, or of Paul; and that there is no hint in any of the Fathers of even a hostile account of Jesus by him in any of his works, though Origen makes much of the allusion to James the Just, 51 —also dismissible as an interpo
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§ 3. The Myth of the Twelve Apostles
§ 3. The Myth of the Twelve Apostles
Now, though fives and fours and threes are all quasi-sacred numbers in the Old Testament, it is noteworthy that in one of the Talmudic allusions to Jesus Ben-Stada he is declared to have had five disciples—Matthai, Nakai or Neqai, Nezer or Netzer, Boni or Buni, and also Thoda, all of whom are ostensibly though not explicitly described as having been put to death. 57 As this passage points to the Jesus who is otherwise indicated as post-Christian, it cannot critically be taken as other than a ref
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§ 4. The Process of Propaganda
§ 4. The Process of Propaganda
Thus far, the local movement was not only Jewish but Judaic. It may or may not have been before the fall of Jerusalem that a Jesuist “apostle” named Paul conceived the idea of creating by propaganda a new Judæo-Jesuist movement appealing to Gentiles. Such an idea is not the invention of Paul or any other Jesuist; the idea of a Messianic Kingdom in which the Gentiles should be saved is found in the Jewish Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs , written in Hebrew by a Pharisee between the years 109
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§ 5. Real Determinants
§ 5. Real Determinants
Professor Smith draws a powerful picture of the relief given by monotheism to polytheists. In his eloquent words, the “tyranny of demons” had “trodden down humanity in dust and mire since the first syllable of recorded time”; and the new proclamation “roused a world, dissolved the fetters of the tyrannizing demons, set free the prisoners of superstition, poured light upon the eyes of the blind, and called a universe to life.” 109 But let us be clear as to the facts. If by “demons” we understand
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§ 1. The Economic Side
§ 1. The Economic Side
The next section (xii) still adheres broadly to the same view. Every entrant must work for his living. “If he will not act according to this, he is a Christmonger ( χριστέμπορός ).” Evidently there were already Christmongers. But in chapter xiii the primitive stage has been passed, and there is systematic enactment of economic provision for the installed prophet or teacher as such:— But every true prophet who will settle among you is worthy of his food. Likewise a true teacher, he also is worthy
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§ 2. Organization
§ 2. Organization
No literature, indeed, could avert schism. Schism and strife are among the first notes sounded in the epistles; and a religion which aimed at dogmatic teaching, as against the purely liturgical practice of the old pagan cults, was bound to multiply them. Judaism itself was divided into antagonistic groups of Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes, to say nothing of the Zealots, the Essenes, and other diverging groups. But sects do not destroy a religion any more than parties destroy a State; and the
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§1. The “Didachê”
§1. The “Didachê”
We can now understand the tradition that Matthew, of which the present opening chapters are so plainly late, was the first of the gospels, and was primarily a collection of logia . But the logia were in the terms of the case not logia Iesou at all, being but a compilation of Jewish dicta on the lines of the Teaching , and, as regards the form of beatitude, probably an imitation of other Jewish literature as exampled in the “Slavonic Enoch .” 5 It must be repeated, however, that the ninth and ten
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§ 2. The Apocalypse
§ 2. The Apocalypse
The outstanding problem in regard to the Epistles in the mass is that while criticism is more and more pressing them out of the “apostolic” period into the second century, they show practically no knowledge of the gospels. As little do they show any trace of the “personality” of the Founder, which is posited by the biographical school as the ground for the resurrection myth. Of Jesus as a remarkable personality there is no glimpse in the whole literature; and it must be a relief for the defender
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§ 3. Epistles
§ 3. Epistles
If on the other hand we accept the strongly supported thesis that they are all pseudepigraphic, the historicity of the gospels is in no way accredited. We reach the view that early in the second century, when such early gospels as the Matthew and Mark of Papias may be supposed to have been current, even the devotees who wrote in Paul’s name took no interest in the human personality of Jesus, but were concerned simply about the religious significance of his death. The passages in First Corinthian
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§ 1. Tradition
§ 1. Tradition
On either view, we must pronounce that the Hebrew gospel, as exhibited in the fragments, has none of the marks of a real biographical record. The items of narrative are wholly supernaturalist; the items of teaching belong to the more advanced Jewish ethic which we find progressively developed from Matthew to Luke. Once more, the critical inference is either ( a ) that the ethically-minded among the Jesuist “prophets” set out by putting approved doctrines in the mouth of the legendary Saviour-God
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§ 2. Schmiedel’s Tests
§ 2. Schmiedel’s Tests
On the first head, the answer is, as aforesaid, that throughout all ancient religion we find derogatory views of deity constantly entertained, at different stages of culture, without any clear consciousness of incongruity. Yahweh in the Old Testament “repents” that he made man; wrangles with Sarah; and is unable to overcome worshippers of other Gods who have “chariots of iron.” Always he is a “jealous” God; and at a later stage he is alleged to be consciously thwarted by the Israelites when they
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§ 3. Tendential Tests
§ 3. Tendential Tests
If it be asked how, on the biographical view, there came to be Jewish Jesuists of the Ebionite type, men such as those described by Justin Martyr and his Jewish antagonist Trypho, believing in a Jesus “anointed by election” who thus became Christ, but adhering otherwise to Judaic practices, 25 what is the answer? What idea, what teaching, had Jesus left them? The notion which seems to have mainly differentiated Ebionites from Jews was simply that Jesus had been the Messiah, and that his Second C
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§ 4. Historic Summary
§ 4. Historic Summary
8. The Epistles represent a polemic development, perhaps on the basis of a few short Paulines. That of James, which has no specific “Christian” colour, represents Judaic resistance, in the Ebionite temper of “voluntary poverty,” to the Gentilizing movement. The Paulines carry on doctrinal debate and construction against the Judaistic influence. The synoptic gospels, which in their present forms were developing about the same time, reflect those struggles primarily in anti-Samaritan and pro-Samar
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§ 1. Myths of Healing
§ 1. Myths of Healing
And it was to the popular credulity that appeal was made by the stories of the Annunciation, the Virgin Birth, the Adoration by the Magi and the Shepherds, the stable, the manger, 6 the menace of Herod, the massacre, and the flight. 7 The question that here arises for the mythologist is whether the birth-myths had belonged to the early Jesus-myth at a stage before gospel-making commenced, and had at first been ignored, only to be embodied later. For suggesting that they had been connected with t
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§ 2. Birth-Myths
§ 2. Birth-Myths
The question, of course, is not philological at all; and not only was no philological “equation” ever hinted at, but the very passage attacked begins with the avowal that it is impossible to prove historical connections, and that what is in question is analogy of “name and epithets.” Nothing in philology is more speculative than the explanation of early names. Any one who has noted the discussion over “Moses,” and noted the diverging theories, from the Coptic “water-rescued” or “water-child” ( m
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§ 3. Minor Myths
§ 3. Minor Myths
Of that process the myth-theory is simply the attempted scientific consummation. It is resisted as every previous step was resisted, before and after Middleton, partly in sincere religious conviction, partly on the simple instinctive resentment felt for every “upsetting” theory about matters which men have habitually taken for granted. Some of the best reasoned resistance comes from professional theologians who have been disciplined by the habit of exact argument in the documentary field; some o
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Chapter IX CONCLUSION
Chapter IX CONCLUSION
It is remarkable that Professor Schmiedel, who has gone nearly as far as M. Loisy in recognizing in detail the force of the pressures on the historical position, makes the avowal: “My inmost religious convictions would suffer no harm, even if I now felt obliged to conclude that Jesus never lived ,” 7 though as a critical historian he “sees no prospect of this.” He further avows that his religion does not require him “to find in Jesus an absolutely perfect model,” and that in effect he does not f
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Appendix A THE “TEACHING OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES”
Appendix A THE “TEACHING OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES”
Chap. IV.—My child, him that speaketh to thee the word of God thou shalt remember night and day, 22 and honour him as [the] Lord; for where that which pertaineth to the Lord 23 is spoken there [the] Lord is. And thou shalt seek out daily the faces of the saints, that thou mayest be refreshed by their words. Thou shalt not desire division, but shall make peace between those who contend; thou shalt judge justly; thou shalt not respect persons in reproving for transgressions. Thou shalt not hesitat
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I
I
We know from their version of the Pentateuch that the later Samaritans, being strong “monotheists” in one of the senses of that elastic and misleading term, sought always to substitute angels for Elohim in the old narratives of divine action ( e. g. Gen. iii, 5 ; v, 1 ; v, 24 ; xvii, 22 ), “lest a corporeal existence should be attributed to the Deity.” 23 And it is instructive to note how their theological drift exhibits itself in early Christism. The doctrine of the “Logos” is not merely Alexan
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II
II
There remains to be considered the theory of the Tübingen school that the Christian legend of Simon Magus is to be found in its earliest form in the “Clementines,” that body of early sectarian forged literature which has been made to yield so much light as to the early history of the Christist Church. Here, in a set of writings (“Recognitions” and “Homilies,” of which books one is a redaction of the other), purporting to be by Clement of Rome, we have a propaganda that is on the face of it stron
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III
III
In conclusion, let it be noted that the bearing of the myth of Simon Magus on Christianity is not limited to the explanation of the Samaritan origins and the elucidation of the Paul-and-Peter antagonism. The more the matter is looked into, the more reason is seen for surmising that Samaria played a large part in the beginnings of the Christian system. Samaria seems to have been beyond all other parts of Palestine a crucible in which manifold cult-elements tended to be fused by syncretic ideas; a
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IV
IV
1 Apol. i, 26. ↑ 2 If we could but trust the assertion of Origen in the next century ( Against Celsus , vi, 11) that there were then no Simonians left, the presumption would be that they had been absorbed by another cult. ↑ 3 Ovid, Fasti , vi, 213; Livy, viii, 20. ↑ 4 Cory’s Ancient Fragments , ed. 1876, p. 92; Lenormant’s Chaldean Magic , Eng. tr., p. 131. ↑ 5 Sanchoniathon, in Cory, as cited, p. 5. ↑ 6 Eratosthenes’ Canon of Theban Kings, in Cory as cited, pp. 139–141. ↑ 7 Diodorus Sicul
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Corrections
Corrections
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