Did Jesus Christ Really Live? (ca.
1922)
by Marshall J. Gauvin
Scientific inquiry into the origins of Christianity begins today
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
today 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 showing 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 today 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 two 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, where 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 save 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, analyzes 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 marvelous 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 today continually preaching about the virgin
birth, the miracles, the parables, and the precepts of Jesus? And do 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 saw in a vision
while on his way to Damascus—an apparition, a phantom, and not a living,
human being, who preached and worked among men. This vision-Christ, this
ghostly word, was afterward 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," compiled a
list of forty-two writers who lived and wrote during the time or within a
century after the time of Christ and 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 and 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 Josephus 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 today 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 today, 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.