Scientific inquiry into the origins of Christianity begins to-day with
the question: "Did Jesus Christ really live?" Was there a man named
Jesus, who was called the Christ, living in Palestine nineteen centuries
ago, of whose life and teachings we have a correct account in the New
Testament? The orthodox idea that Christ was the son of God -- God himself
in human form -- that he was the creator of the countless millions of
glowing suns and wheeling worlds that strew the infinite expanse of the
universe; that the forces of nature were the servants of his will and
changed their courses at his command -- such an idea has been abandoned by
every independent thinker in the world -- by every thinker who relies on
reason and experience rather than mere faith -- by every man of science who
places the integrity of nature above the challenge of ancient religious
tales.
Not only has the divinity of Christ been given up, but his existence as
a man is being more and more seriously questioned. Some of the ablest
scholars of the world deny that he ever lived at all. A commanding
literature dealing with the inquiry, intense in its seriousness and
profound and thorough in its research, is growing up in all countries,
and spreading the conviction that Christ is a myth. The question is one
of tremendous importance. For the Freethinker, as well as for the
Christian, it is of the weightiest significance. The Christian religion
has been and is a mighty fact in the world. For good or for ill, it has
absorbed for many centuries the best energies of mankind. It has stayed
the
march of civilization, and made martyrs of some of the noblest men
and
women of the race: and it is to-day the greatest enemy of knowledge,
of freedom, of social and industrial improvement, and of the genuine
brotherhood of mankind. The progressive forces of the world are at war
with
this Asiatic superstition, and this war will continue until the
triumph of truth and freedom is complete. The question, "Did Jesus
Christ Really Live?" goes to the very root of the conflict between
reason and faith; and upon its determination depends, to some degree,
the decision as to whether religion or humanity shall rule the world.
Whether Christ did, or did not live, has nothing at all to do with what
the churches teach, or with what we believe, It is wholly a matter of
evidence. It is a question of science. The question is -- what does
history say? And that question must be settled in the court of
historical criticism. If the thinking world is to hold to the position
that Christ was a real character, there must be sufficient evidence to
warrant that belief. If no evidence for his existence can be found; if
history returns the verdict that his name is not inscribed upon her
scroll, if it be found that his story was created by art and ingenuity,
like the stories of fictitious heroes, he will have to take his place
with the host of other demigods whose fancied lives and deeds make up
the mythology of the world.
What, then, is the evidence that Jesus Christ lived in this world as a
man? The authorities relied upon to prove the reality of Christ are the
four Gospels of the New Testament -- Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. These
Gospels, and these alone, tell the story of his life. Now we know
absolutely nothing of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, apart from what is
said of them in the Gospels. Moreover, the Gospels themselves do not
claim to have been written by these men. They are not called "The Gospel
of Matthew," or "The Gospel of Mark," but "The Gospel According to
Matthew," "The Gospel According to Mark," "The Gospel According to Luke,"
and "The Gospel According to John." No human being knows who wrote a
single line in one of these Gospels. No human being knows when they were
written, or where. Biblical scholarship has established the fact that
the Gospel of Mark is the oldest of the four. The chief reasons for this
conclusion are that this Gospel is shorter, simpler, and more natural,
than any of the other three. It is shown that the Gospels of Matthew and
Luke
were enlarged from the Gospel of Mark. The Gospel of Mark knows
nothing of the virgin birth, of the Sermon on the Mount, of the Lord's
prayer, or of other important facts of the supposed life of Christ.
These features were added by Matthew and Luke.
But the Gospel of Mark, as we have it, is not the original Mark. In the
same way that the writers of Matthew and Luke copied and enlarged the
Gospel
of Mark, Mark copied and enlarged an earlier document which is
called the "original Mark." This original source perished in the early
age of the Church. What it was, who wrote it, where it was written,
nobody knows. The Gospel of John is admitted by Christian scholars to be
an unhistorical document. They acknowledge that it is not a life of
Christ, but an interpretation of him; that it gives us an idealized and
spiritualized picture of what Christ is supposed to have been, and that
it is largely composed of the speculations of Greek philosophy. The
Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, which are called the "Synoptic
Gospels," on the one hand, and the Gospel of John, on the other, stand
at opposite extremes of thought. So complete is the difference between
the teaching of the first three Gospels and that of the fourth, that every
critic admits that if Jesus taught as the Synoptics relate, he could not
possibly have taught as John declares. Indeed, in the first three Gospels
and in the fourth, we meet with two entirely different Christs. Did I
say two? It should be three; for, according to Mark, Christ was a man;
according to Matthew and Luke, he was a demigod; while John insists that
he was God himself.
There is not the smallest fragment of trustworthy evidence to show that
any of the Gospels were in existence, in their present form, earlier than
a
hundred years after the time at which Christ is supposed to have died.
Christian scholars, having no reliable means by which to fix the date of
their composition, assign them to as early an age as their calculations
and
their guesses will allow; but the dates thus arrived at are far
removed from the age of Christ or his apostles. We are told that Mark
was written some time after the year 70, Luke about 110, Matthew about
130, and John not earlier than 140 A.D. Let me impress upon you that
these dates are conjectural, and that they are made as early as possible.
The
first historical mention of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, was
made by the Christian Father, St. Irenaeus, about the year 190 A.D. The
only earlier mention of any of the Gospels was made by Theopholis of
Antioch, who mentioned the Gospel of John in 180 A.D.
There is absolutely nothing to show that these Gospels -- the only sources
of authority as to the existence of Christ -- were written until a hundred
and
fifty years after the events they pretend to describe. Walter R.
Cassels, the learned author of "Supernatural Religion," one of the
greatest works ever written on the origins of Christianity, says: "After
having exhausted the literature and the testimony bearing on the point,
we have not found a single distinct trace of any of those Gospels during
the
first century and a half after the death of Christ." How can Gospels
which were not written until a hundred and fifty years after Christ is
supposed to have died, and which do not rest on any trustworthy testimony,
have the slightest value as evidence that he really lived? History must
be founded upon genuine documents or on living proof. Were a man of
to-day
to attempt to write the life of a supposed character of a hundred
and
fifty years ago, without any historical documents upon which to base
his narrative, his work would not be a history, it would be a romance.
Not a single statement in it could be relied upon.
Christ
is supposed to have been a Jew, and his disciples are said to have
been Jewish fishermen. His language, and the language of his followers
must, therefore, have been Aramaic -- the popular language of Palestine in
that
age. But the Gospels are written in Greek -- every one of them. Nor
were
they translated from some other language. Every leading Christian
scholar since Erasmus, four hundred years ago, has maintained that they
were originally written in Greek. This proves that they were not written
by Christ's disciples, or by any of the early Christians. Foreign
Gospels, written by unknown men, in a foreign tongue, several generations
after
the
death of those who are supposed to have known the facts -- such
is the evidence relied upon to prove that Jesus lived.
But
while
the Gospels were written several generations too late to be of
authority, the original documents, such as they were, were not
preserved. The Gospels that were written in the second century no
longer exist. They have been lost or destroyed. The oldest Gospels
that we have are supposed to be copies of copies of copies that were
made
from those Gospels. We do not know who made these copies; we do
not know when they were made; nor do we know whether they were honestly
made. Between the earliest Gospels and the oldest existing manuscripts
of the New Testament, there is a blank gulf of three hundred years. It
is, therefore, impossible to say what the original Gospels contained.
There were many Gospels in circulation in the early centuries, and a
large number of them were forgeries. Among these were the "Gospel of
Paul," the Gospel of Bartholomew," the "Gospel of Judas Iscariot," the
"Gospel of the Egyptians," the "Gospel or Recollections of Peter," the
"Oracles or Sayings of Christ," and scores of other pious productions,
a collection of which may still be read in "The Apocryphal New
Testament." Obscure men wrote Gospels and attached the names of
prominent Christian characters to them, to give them the appearance of
importance. Works were forged in the names of the apostles, and even in
the name of Christ. The greatest Christian teachers taught that it was
a virtue to deceive and lie for the glory of the faith. Dean Milman,
the standard Christian historian, says: "Pious fraud was admitted and
avowed." The Rev. Dr. Giles writes: "There can be no doubt that great
numbers of books were then written with no other view than to deceive."
Professor Robertson Smith says: "There was an enormous floating mass of
spurious literature created to suit party views." The early church was
flooded with spurious religious writings. From this mass of literature,
our Gospels were selected by priests and called the inspired word of God.
Were these Gospels also forged? There is no certainty that they were not.
But let me ask: If Christ was an historical character, why was it
necessary to forge documents to prove his existence? Did anybody ever
think of forging documents to prove the existence of any person who was
really known to have lived? The early Christian forgeries are a
tremendous testimony to the weakness of the Christian cause.
Spurious or genuine, let us see what the Gospels can tell us about the
life of Jesus. Matthew and Luke give us the story of his genealogy. How
do they agree? Matthew says there were forty-one generations from Abraham
to
Jesus. Luke says there were fifty-six. Yet both pretend to give the
genealogy of Joseph, and both count the generations! Nor is this all.
The Evangelists disagree on all but two names between David and Christ.
These worthless genealogies show how much the New Testament writers knew
about
the ancestors of their hero.
If Jesus lived, he must have been born. When was he born? Matthew says
he was born when Herod was King of Judea. Luke says he was born when
Cyrenius was Governor of Syria. He could not have been born during the
administration of these tow rulers for Herod died in the year 4 B.C., and
Cyrenius, who, in Roman history is Quirinius, did not become Governor of
Syria until ten years later. Herod and Quirinius are separated by the
whole reign of Archelaus, Herod's son. Between Matthew and Luke, there
is, therefore, a contradiction of at least ten years, as to the time of
Christ's birth. The fact is that the early Christians had absolutely no
knowledge as to when Christ was born. The Encyclopaedia Britannica says:
"Christians count one hundred and thirty-three contrary opinions of
different authorities concerning the year the Messiah appeared on earth."
Think of it -- one hundred and thirty-three different years, each one of
which is held to be the year in which Christ came into the world. What
magnificent certainty!
Towards the close of the eighteenth century, Antonmaria Lupi, a learned
Jesuit, wrote a work to show that the nativity of Christ has been
assigned to every month in the year, at one time or another.
Where
was Christ born? According to the Gospels, he was habitually
called "Jesus of Nazareth." The New Testament writers have endeavored
to leave the impression that Nazareth of Galilee was his home town.
The Synoptic Gospels represent that thirty years of his life were spent
there. Notwithstanding this, Matthew declares that he was born in
Bethlehem in fulfillment of a prophecy in the Book of Micah. But the
prophecy of Micah has nothing whatever to do with Jesus; it prophesies
the coming of a military leader, not a divine teacher. Matthew's
application of this prophecy to Christ strengthens the suspicion that
his Gospel is not history, but romance. Luke has it that his birth
occurred at Bethlehem, whither his mother had gone with her husband, to
make the enrollment called for by Augustus Caesar. Of the general census
mentioned by Luke, nothing is known in Roman history. But suppose such a
census was taken. The Roman custom, when an enrollment was made, was that
every
man was to report at his place of residence. The head of the
family alone made report. In no case was his wife, or any dependent,
required to be with him. In the face of this established custom, Luke
declares that Joseph left his home in Nazareth and crossed two provinces
to go Bethlehem for the enrollment; and not only this, but that he had to
be accompanied by his wife, Mary, who was on the very eve of becoming a
mother. This surely is not history, but fable. The story that Christ
was born at Bethlehem was a necessary part of the program which made
him the Messiah, and the descendant of King David. The Messiah had to
be born in Bethlehem, the city of David; and by what Renan calls a
roundabout way, his birth was made to take place there. The story of
his
birth in the royal city is plainly fictitious.
His home was Nazareth. He was called "Jesus of Nazareth"; and there he
is said to have lived until the closing years of his life. Now comes
the question -- Was there a city of Nazareth in that age? The
Encyclopaedia Biblica, a work written by theologians, the greatest
biblical reference work in the English language, says: "We cannot
perhaps venture to assert positively that there was a city of Nazareth
in
Jesus' time." No certainty that there was a city of Nazareth! Not
only are the supposed facts of the life of Christ imaginary, but the
city of his birth and youth and manhood existed, so far as we know,
only on the map of mythology. What amazing evidence to prove the
reality of a Divine man! Absolute ignorance as to his ancestry;
nothing whatever known of the time of his birth, and even the existence
of the city where he is said to have been born, a matter of grave
question!
After
his birth, Christ, as it were, vanishes out of existence, and with
the exception of a single incident recorded in Luke, we hear absolutely
nothing of him until he has reached the age of thirty years. The account
of his being found discussing with the doctors in the Temple at Jerusalem
when he was but twelve years old, is told by Luke alone. The other
Gospels are utterly ignorant of this discussion; and, this single incident
excepted, the four Gospels maintain an unbroken silence with regard to
thirty years of the life of their hero. What is the meaning of this
silence? If the writers of the Gospels knew the facts of the life of
Christ, why is it that they tell us absolutely nothing of thirty years
of that life? What historical character can be named whose life for
thirty years is an absolute blank to the world? If Christ was the
incarnation of God, if he was the greatest teacher the world has known,
if he came to cave mankind from everlasting pain -- was there nothing
worth remembering in the first thirty years of his existence among men?
The fact is that the Evangelists knew nothing of the life of Jesus,
before his ministry; and they refrained from inventing a childhood, youth
and
early manhood for him because it was not necessary to their purpose.
Luke, however, deviated from the rule of silence long enough to write the
Temple incident. The story of the discussion with the doctors in the
Temple
is
proved
to be mythical by all the circumstances that surround it.
The statement that his mother and father left Jerusalem, believing that he
was with them; that they went a day's journey before discovering that he
was not in their company; and that after searching for three days, they
found
him in the Temple asking and answering questions of the learned
Doctors, involves a series of tremendous improbabilities. Add to this
the fact that the incident stands alone in Luke, surrounded by a period
of silence covering thirty years; add further that none of the other
writers have said a word of the child Jesus discussing with the scholars
of their nation; and add again the unlikelihood that a child would appear
before serious-minded men in the role of an intellectual champion and
the fabulous character of the story becomes perfectly clear.
The Gospels know nothing of thirty years of Christ's life. What do they
know of the last years of that life? How long did the ministry, the
public career of Christ, continue? According to Matthew, Mark and Luke,
the public life of Christ lasted about a year. If John's Gospel is to
be believed, his ministry covered about three years. The Synoptics
teach that Christ's public work was confined almost entirely to
Galilee, and that he went to Jerusalem only once, not long before his
death. John is in hopeless disagreement with the other Evangelists as
to the scene of Christ's labors. He maintains that most of the public
life of Christ was spent in Judea, and that Christ was many times in
Jerusalem. Now, between Galilee and Judea there was the province of
Samaria. If all but the last few weeks of Christ's ministry was
carried on in his native province of Galilee, it is certain that the
greater part of that ministry was not spent in Judea, two provinces away.
John tells us that the driving of the money-changers from the Temple
occurred at the beginning of Christ's ministry; and nothing is said of
any serious consequences following it. But Matthew, Mark and Luke
declare that the purification of the Temple took place at the close
of his career, and that this act brought upon him the wrath of the
priests, who sought to destroy him. Because of these facts, the
Encyclopedia Biblica assures us that the order of events in the life
of Christ, as given by the Evangelists, is contradictory and
untrustworthy; that the chronological framework of the Gospels is
worthless; and that the facts "show only too clearly with what lack of
concern for historical precision the Evangelists write." In other
words, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote, not what they knew, but
what
they imagined.
Christ
is said to have been many times in Jerusalem. It is said that he
preached daily in the Temple. He was followed by his twelve disciples,
and by multitudes of enthusiastic men and women. On the one hand, the
people shouted hosannas in his honor, and on the other, priests engaged
him in discussion and sought to take his life. All this shows that he
must
have
been
well known to the authorities. Indeed, he must have been
one of the best known men in Jerusalem. Why, then, was it necessary for
the priests to bribe one of his disciples to betray him? Only an
obscure man, whose identity was uncertain, or a man who was in hiding,
would need to be betrayed. A man who appeared daily in the streets, who
preached daily in the Temple, a man who was continually before the public
eye, could have been arrested at any moment. The priests would not have
bribed a man to betray a teacher whom everybody knew. If the accounts of
Christ's betrayal are true, all the declarations about his public
appearances in Jerusalem must be false.
Nothing could be more improbable than the story of Christ's crucifixion.
The civilization of Rome was the highest in the world. The Romans were
the greatest lawyers the world had ever known. Their courts were models
of order and fairness. A man was not condemned without a trial; he was
not handed to the executioner before being found guilty. And yet we are
asked to believe that an innocent man was brought before a Roman court,
where Pontius Pilate was Judge; that no charge of wrongdoing having been
brought against him, the Judge declared that he found him innocent; that
the mob shouted, "Crucify him; crucify him!" and that to please the
rabble, Pilate commanded that the man who had done no wrong and whom he
had
found innocent, should be scourged, and then delivered him to the
executioners to be crucified! Is it thinkable that the master of a
Roman court in the days of Tiberius Caesar, having found a man innocent
and declared him so, and having made efforts to save his life, tortured
him of his own accord, and then handed him over to a howling mob to be
nailed
to a cross? A Roman court finding a man innocent and then
crucifying him? Is that a picture of civilized Rome? Is that the Rome
to which the world owes its laws? In reading the story of the
Crucifixion, are we reading history or religious fiction? Surely not
history.
On the theory that Christ was crucified, how shall we explain the fact
that during the first eight centuries of the evolution of Christianity,
Christian art represented a lamb, and not a man, as suffering on the
cross
for the salvation of the world? Neither the paintings in the
Catacombs nor the sculptures on Christian tombs pictured a human figure
on the cross. Everywhere a lamb was shown as the Christian symbol --
a lamb carrying a cross, a lamb at the foot of a cross, a lamb on a
cross. Some figures showed the lamb with a human head, shoulders and
arms, holding a cross in his hands -- the lamb of God in process of
assuming the human form -- the crucifixion myth becoming realistic.
At the close of the eighth century, Pope Hadrian I, confirming the
decree
of the sixth Synod of Constantinople, commanded that thereafter
the figure of a man should take the place of a lamb on the cross. It
took Christianity eight hundred years to develop the symbol of its
suffering Savior. For eight hundred years, the Christ on the cross was
a lamb. But if Christ was actually crucified, why was his place on the
cross so long usurped by a lamb? In the light of history and reason,
and in view of a lamb on the cross, why should we believe in the
Crucifixion?
And let us ask, if Christ performed the miracles the New Testament
describes, if he gave sight to blind men's eyes, if his magic touch
brought youthful vigor to the palsied frame, if the putrefying dead at
his command returned to life and love again -- why did the people want
him crucified? Is it not amazing that a civilized people -- for the Jews
of that age were civilized -- were so filled with murderous hate towards
a kind and loving man who went about doing good, who preached forgiveness,
cleansed the leprous, and raised the dead -- that they could not be
appeased until they had crucified the noblest benefactor of mankind?
Again I ask -- is this history, or is it fiction?
From the standpoint of the supposed facts, the account of the Crucifixion
of
Christ
is as impossible as is the raising of Lazarus from the
standpoint of nature. The simple truth is, that the four Gospels are
historically worthless. They abound in contradictions, in the
unreasonable, the miraculous and the monstrous. There is not a thing in
them
that can be depended upon as true, while there is much in them that
we certainly know to be false.
The accounts of the virgin birth of Christ, of his feeding five thousand
people with five loaves and two fishes, of his cleansing the leprous, of
his walking on the water, of his raising the dead, and of his own
resurrection after his life had been destroyed, are as untrue as any
stories that were ever told in this world. The miraculous element in
the Gospels is proof that they were written by men, who did not know how
to write history, or who were not particular as to the truth of what
they wrote. The miracles of the Gospels were invented by credulity or
cunning, and if the miracles were invented, how can we know that the
whole history of Christ was not woven of the warp and woof of the
imagination? Dr. Paul W. Schmiedel, Professor of New Testament
Exegesis at Zurich, Switzerland, one of the foremost theologians of
Europe, tells us in the Encyclopaedia Biblica, that there are only nine
passages in the Gospels that we can depend upon as being the sayings of
Jesus; and Professor Arthur Drews, Germany's greatest exponent of the
doctrine that Christ is a myth, analyses these passages and shows that
there is nothing in them that could not easily have been invented. That
these passages are as unhistorical as the rest is also the contention of
John M. Robertson, the eminent English scholar, who holds that Jesus
never lived.
Let me make a startling disclosure. Let me tell you that the New
Testament itself contains the strongest possible proof that the Christ
of the Gospels was not a real character. The testimony of the Epistles
of Paul demonstrates that the life story of Jesus is an invention. Of
course, there is no certainty that Paul really lived. Let me quote a
passage from the Encyclopaedia Biblica, relative to Paul: "It is true
that the picture of Paul drawn by later times differs utterly in more
or fewer of its details from the original. Legend has made itself
master
of his person. The simple truth has been mixed up with
invention; Paul has become the hero of an admiring band of the more
highly developed Christians." Thus Christian authority admits that
invention has done its work in manufacturing at least in part, the
life of Paul. In truth, the ablest Christian scholars reject all but
our of the Pauline Epistles as spurious. Some maintain that Paul was
not the author of any of them. The very existence of Paul is
questionable.
But for the purpose of my argument, I am going to admit that Paul
really lived; that he was a zealous apostle; and that all the Epistles
are from his pen. There are thirteen of these Epistles. Some of them
are lengthy; and they are acknowledged to be the oldest Christian
writings. They were written long before the Gospels. If Paul really
wrote them, they were written by a man who lived in Jerusalem when
Christ
is supposed to have been teaching there. Now, if the facts of
the life of Christ were known in the first century of Christianity,
Paul was one of the men who should have known them fully. Yet Paul
acknowledges that he never saw Jesus; and his Epistles prove that he
knew nothing about his life, his works, or his teachings.
In all the Epistles of Paul, there is not one word about Christ's virgin
birth. The apostle is absolutely ignorant of the marvellous manner in
which Jesus is said to have come into the world. For this silence,
there
can be only one honest explanation -- the story of the virgin birth
had not yet been invented when Paul wrote. A large portion of the
Gospels is devoted to accounts of the miracles Christ is said to have
wrought. But you will look in vain through the thirteen Epistles of
Paul for the slightest hint that Christ ever performed any miracles. Is
it conceivable that Paul was acquainted with the miracles of Christ --
that he knew that Christ had cleansed the leprous, cast out devils that
could talk, restored sight to the blind and speech to the dumb, and even
raised the dead -- is it conceivable that Paul was aware of these wonderful
things and yet failed to write a single line about them? Again, the
only solution is that the accounts of the miracles wrought by Jesus had
not yet been invented when Paul's Epistles were written.
Not only is Paul silent about the virgin birth and the miracles of Jesus,
he is without the slightest knowledge of the teaching of Jesus. The
Christ
of the Gospels preached a famous sermon on a mountain: Paul
knows nothing of it. Christ delivered a prayer now recited by the
Christian world: Paul never heard of it. Christ taught in parables:
Paul is utterly unacquainted with any of them. Is not this
astonishing? Paul, the greatest writer of early Christianity, the man
who did more than any other to establish the Christian religion in
the
world -- that is, if the Epistles may be trusted -- is absolutely
ignorant of the teaching of Christ. In all of his thirteen Epistles
he does not quote a single saying of Jesus.
Paul was a missionary. He was out for converts. Is it thinkable that
if the teachings of Christ had been known to him, he would not have made
use of them in his propaganda? Can you believe that a Christian
missionary would go to China and labor for many years to win converts
to the religion of Christ, and never once mention the Sermon on the
Mount, never whisper a word about the Lord's Prayer, never tell the
story of one of the parables, and remain as silent as the grave about
the precepts of his master? What have the churches been teaching
throughout the Christian centuries if not these very things? Are not
the churches of to-day continually preaching about the virgin birth,
the miracles, the parables, and the precepts of Jesus? And o not these
features constitute Christianity? Is there any life of Christ, apart
from these things? Why, then, does Paul know nothing of them? There is
but one answer. The virgin-born, miracle-working, preaching Christ was
unknown to the world in Paul's day. That is to say, he had not yet been
invented!
The Christ of Paul and the Jesus of the Gospels are two entirely
different beings. The Christ of Paul is little more than an idea. He
has no life story. He was not followed by the multitude. He performed
no miracles. He did no preaching. The Christ Paul knew was the Christ
he was
in a vision while on his way to Damascus -- an apparition, a
phantom, not a living, human being, who preached and worked among men.
This vision-Christ, this ghostly word, was afterwards brought to the
earth by those who wrote the Gospels. He was given a Holy Ghost for a
father and a virgin for a mother. He was made to preach, to perform
astounding miracles, to die a violent death though innocent, and to rise
in triumph from the grave and ascend again to heaven. Such is the
Christ
of the New Testament -- first a spirit, and later a miraculously
born, miracle working man, who is master of death and whom death cannot
subdue.
A large body of opinion in the early church denied the reality of
Christ's physical existence. In his "History of Christianity," Dean
Milman writes: "The Gnostic sects denied that Christ was born at all,
or that he died," and Mosheim, Germany's great ecclesiastical historian,
says: "The Christ of early Christianity was not a human being, but an
"appearance," an illusion, a character in miracle, not in reality -- a myth.
Miracles do not happen. Stories of miracles are untrue. Therefore,
documents in which miraculous accounts are interwoven with reputed facts,
are untrustworthy, for those who invented the miraculous element might
easily have invented the part that was natural. Men are common; Gods
are
rare; therefore, it is at least as easy to invent the biography of
a man as the history of a God. For this reason, the whole story of
Christ
-- the human element as well as the divine -- is without valid claim
to be regarded as true. If miracles are fictions, Christ is a myth.
Said
Dean Farrar: "If miracles be incredible, Christianity is false."
Bishop Westcott wrote: "The essence of Christianity lies in a miracle;
and if
it can
be shown that a miracle is either impossible or incredible,
all further inquiry into the details of its history is superfluous."
Not only are miracles incredible, but the uniformity of nature declares
them to be impossible. Miracles have gone: the miraculous Christ cannot
remain.
If
Christ lived, if he was a reformer, if he performed wonderful works
that attracted the attention of the multitude, if he came in conflict
with the authorities and was crucified -- how shall we explain the fact
that history has not even recorded his name? The age in which he is
said to have lived was an age of scholars and thinkers. In Greece,
Rome and Palestine, there were philosophers, historians, poets,
orators, jurists and statesmen. Every fact of importance was noted
by interested and inquiring minds. Some of the greatest writers the
Jewish race has produced lived in that age. And yet, in all the
writings of that period, there is not one line, not one word, not one
letter, about Jesus. Great writers wrote extensively of events of minor
importance, but not one of them wrote a word about the mightiest
character who had ever appeared on earth -- a man at whose command the
leprous were made clean, a man who fed five thousand people with a
satchel full of bread, a man whose word defied the grave and gave life
to the dead.
John E. Remsburg, in his scholarly work on "The Christ," has compiled
a list
of forty-two writers who lived and wrote during the time or
within a century after the time, of Christ, not one of whom ever
mentioned him.
Philo, one of the most renowned writers the Jewish race has produced,
was born before the beginning of the Christian Era, and lived for many
years after the time at which Jesus is supposed to have died. His home
was in
or near Jerusalem, where Jesus is said to have preached, to have
performed miracles, to have been crucified, and to have risen from the
dead.
Had
Jesus done these things, the writings of Philo would certainly
contain some record of his life. Yet this philosopher, who must have
been familiar with Herod's massacre of the innocents, and with the
preaching, miracles and death of Jesus, had these things occurred; who
wrote an account of the Jews, covering this period, and discussed the
very questions that are said to have been near to Christ's heart, never
once mentioned the name of, or any deed connected with, the reputed
Savior
of the world.
In the closing years of the first century, Josephus, the celebrated
Jewish historian, wrote his famous work on "The Antiquities of the Jews."
In this work, the historian made no mention of Christ, and for two
hundred years after the death of Josephus, the name of Christ did not
appear
in his history. There were no printing presses in those days.
Books were multiplied by being copied. It was, therefore, easy to add
to or change what an author had written. The church felt that Josephus
ought to recognize Christ, and the dead historian was made to do it. In
the fourth century, a copy of "The Antiquities of the Jews" appeared, in
which occurred this passage: "Now, there was about this time, Jesus, a
wise
man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of
wonderful works; a teacher of such men as received the truth with
pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the
Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the
principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that
loved
him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them
alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and
ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of
Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day."
Such is the celebrated reference to Christ in Josephus. A more brazen
forgery was never perpetrated. For more than two hundred years, the
Christian Fathers who were familiar with the works of Josephus knew
nothing of this passage. Had the passage been in the works of Josephus
which they knew, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen an Clement of
Alexandria would have been eager to hurl it at their Jewish opponents
in their many controversies. But it did not exist. Indeed, Origen, who
knew his Josephus well, expressly affirmed that that writer had not
acknowledged Christ. This passage first appeared in the writings of
the Christian Father Eusebius, the first historian of Christianity,
early in the fourth century; and it is believed that he was its author.
Eusebius, who not only advocated fraud in the interest of the faith, but
who is know to have tampered with passages in the works of Josephus and
several other writers, introduces this passage in his "Evangelical
Demonstration," (Book III., p.124), in these words: "Certainly the
attestations I have already produced concerning our Savior may be
sufficient. However, it may not be amiss, if, over and above, we make
use of Josephus the Jew for a further witness."
Everything demonstrates the spurious character of the passage. It is
written in the style of Eusebius, and not in the style of Josephus.
Josephus was a voluminous writer. He wrote extensively about men of
minor importance. The brevity of this reference to Christ is, therefore,
a strong argument for its falsity. This passage interrupts the narrative.
It has nothing to do with what precedes or what follows it; and its
position clearly shows that the text of the historian has been separated
by a later hand to give it room. Josephus was a Jew -- a priest of the
religion of Moses. This passage makes him acknowledge the divinity,
the miracles, and the resurrection of Christ -- that is to say, it makes
an orthodox Jew talk like a believing Christian! Josephus could not
possibly have written these words without being logically compelled to
embrace Christianity. All the arguments of history and of reason unite
in the conclusive proof that the passage is an unblushing forgery.
For
these reasons every honest Christian scholar has abandoned it as
an interpolation. Dean Milman says: "It is interpolated with many
additional clauses." Dean Farrar, writing in the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, says: "That Josephus wrote the whole passage as it now
stands
no sane critic can believe." Bishop Warburton denounced it as
"a rank forgery and a very stupid one, too." Chambers' Encyclopaedia
says: "The famous passage of Josephus is generally conceded to be an
interpolation."
In the "Annals" of Tacitus, the Roman historian, there is another
short passage which speaks of "Christus" as being the founder of a party
called Christians -- a body of people "who were abhorred for their crimes."
These words occur in Tacitus' account of the burning of Rome. The
evidence for this passage is not much stronger than that for the passage
in Josephus. It was not quoted by any writer before the fifteenth century;
and when it was quoted, there was only one copy of the "Annals" in the
world; and that copy was supposed to have been made in the eighth
century -- six hundred years after Tacitus' death. The "Annals" were
published between 115 and 117 A.D., nearly a century after Jesus' time --
so the passage, even if genuine, would not prove anything as to Jesus.
The name "Jesus" was as common among the Jews as is William or George
with us. In the writings of Josephus, we find accounts of a number of
Jesuses. One was Jesus, the son of Sapphias, the founder of a
seditious band of mariners; another was Jesus, the captain of the
robbers whose followers fled when they heard of his arrest; still
another Jesus was a monomaniac who for seven years went about
Jerusalem, crying, "Woe, woe, woe unto Jerusalem!" who was bruised and
beaten many times, but offered no resistance; and who was finally
killed with a stone at the siege of Jerusalem.
The word "Christ," the Greek equivalent of the Jewish word "Messiah,"
was not
a personal name; it was a title; it meant "the Anointed One."
The Jews were looking for a Messiah, a successful political leader, who
would restore the independence of their nation. Josephus tells us of
many men who posed as Messiahs, who obtained a following among the
people, and who were put to death by the Romans for political reasons.
One of these Messiahs, or Christs, a Samaritan prophet, was executed
under Pontius Pilate; and so great was the indignation of the Jews
that Pilate had to be recalled by the Roman government.
These facts are of tremendous significance. While the Jesus Christ
of Christianity is unknown to history, the age in which he is said to
have lived was an age in which many men bore the name of "Jesus" and
many political leaders assumed the title of "Christ." All the
materials necessary for the manufacture of the story of Christ existed
in that age. In all the ancient countries, divine Saviors were
believed to have been born of virgins, to have preached a new religion,
to have performed miracles, to have been crucified as atonements for
the sins of mankind, and to have risen from the grave and ascended into
heaven. All that Jesus is supposed to have taught was in the literature
of the time. In the story of Christ there is not a new idea, as Joseph
McCabe has shown in his "Sources of the Morality of the Gospels," and
John M. Robertson in his "Pagan Christs."
"But," says the Christian, "Christ is so perfect a character that he
could
not have been invented." This is a mistake. The Gospels do not
portray
a
perfect character. The Christ of the Gospels is shown to be
artificial by the numerous contradictions in his character and
teachings. He was in favor of the sword, and he was not; he told men
to love their enemies, and advised them to hate their friends; he
preached the doctrine of forgiveness, and called men a generation of
vipers; he announced himself as the judge of the world, and declared
that he would judge no man; he taught that he was possessed of all power,
but was unable to work miracles where the people did not believe; he
was represented as God and did not shrink from avowing, "I and my Father
are
one,"
but in the pain and gloom of the cross, he is made to cry out
in his anguish: "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" And how
singular it is that these words, reputed as the dying utterance of the
disillusioned Christ, should be not only contradicted by two Evangelists,
but should be a quotation from the twenty-second Psalm!
If there is a moment when a man's speech is original, it is when, amid
agony
and despair, while his heart is breaking beneath its burden of
defeat and disappointment, he utters a cry of grief from the depth of
his wounded soul with the last breath that remains before the chill
waves of death engulf his wasted life forever. But on the lips of the
expiring Christ are placed, not the heart-felt words of a dying man, but
a quotation from the literature of his race!
A being with these contradictions, these transparent unrealities in his
character, could scarcely have been real.
And if Christ, with all that is miraculous and impossible in his nature,
could
not have been in vented, what shall we say of Othello, of Hamlet,
of
Romeo?
Do not Shakespeare's wondrous characters live upon the stage?
Does not their naturalness, their consistency, their human grandeur,
challenge our admiration? And is it not with difficulty that we believe
them to be children of the imagination? Laying aside the miraculous, in
the
story of the Jewish hero, is not the character of Jean Valjean as
deep, as lofty, as broad, as rich in its humanity, as tender in its
pathos, as sublime in its heroism, and as touchingly resigned to the
cruelties of fate as the character of Jesus? Who has read the story of
that marvelous man without being thrilled? And who has followed him
through his last days with dry eyes? And yet Jean Valjean never lived
and
never died; he was not a real man, but the personification of
suffering virtue born in the effulgent brain of Victor Hugo. Have you
not wept when you have seen Sydney Carton disguise himself and lay his
neck beneath the blood-stained knife of the guillotine, to save the
life of Evremonde? But Sydney Carton was not an actual human being;
he is
the heroic, self-sacrificing spirit of humanity clothed in human
form by the genius of Charles Dickens.
Yes, the character of Christ could have been invented! The literature
of the world is filled with invented characters; and the imaginary lives
of the splendid men and women of fiction will forever arrest the interest
of the mind and hold the heart enthralled. But how account for
Christianity if Christ did not live? Let me ask another question.
How account for the Renaissance, for the Reformation, for the French
Revolution, or for Socialism? Not one of these movements was created
by an individual. They grew. Christianity grew. The Christian church
is older than the oldest Christian writings. Christ did not produce the
church. The church produced the story of Christ.
The
Jesus Christ of the Gospels could not possibly have been a real
person. He is a combination of impossible elements. There may have
lived in Palestine, nineteen centuries ago, a man whose name was Jesus,
who went about doing good, who was followed by admiring associates, and
who in the end met a violent death. But of this possible person, not a
line was written when he lived, and of his life and character the world
of
to-day knows absolutely nothing. This Jesus, if he lived, was a man;
and if
he was a reformer, he was but one of many that have lived and died
in every age of the world. When the world shall have learned that the
Christ
of the Gospels is a myth, that Christianity is untrue, it will
turn its attention from the religious fictions of the past to the vital
problems of to-day, and endeavor to solve them for the improvement of
the well-being of the real men and women whom we know, and whom we ought
to help and love.
