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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

JESUS THE CHRIST:
HISTORICAL OR MYTHICAL?

JESUS THE CHRIST
HISTORICAL OR MYTHICAL?
A REPLY TO PROFESSOR DREWS'
DIE CHRISTUSMTTHE

THOMAS JAMES THORBURN
D.D., LL.lT

Edinburgh : T. & T. CLARK, 38 George Street
1912

Printed by
Morrison & Gibb Limited,
for
T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH
LONDON I SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED.
NEW YORK : CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.

FILIO • FILIAEQVE •
OPTIMIS ¦ CARISSIMIS
AMORIS • PATERNI •
PIGNVS

'Vnirovv rbv NafupaHW, S,vSpa aToSeSevynhov
&ir& rov Qeov, els V/J.S.S Swapeai Kal ripain
Kal o-ruielois ... Sia xaP^ avbptov
TrpooTnyfacTes aveCKare. Act. Apost. ii. 22, 23.
NeW/o/Kas, TaXiXaie ! Julianus, Imperator.
(Theod. Eccl. Hist. iii. 21.)
So he proposed inquiring first
Into the various sources, whence
This Myth of Christ is derivable ;
Demanding from the evidence
(Since plainly no such life was liveable)
How these phenomena should class?
Whether 'twere best opine Christ was,
Or never was at all, or whether
He was and was not — both together —
It matters little for the name
So the Idea be left the same.
Robert Browning, Christmas Eve, xv.
Hero-worship, heartfelt prostrate admiration,
submission burning, boundless, for a noblest
god-like Form of Man, — is not that the germ
of Christianity itself? The greatest of all
Heroes is One — whom we do not name here.
Thomas Carlyle, The Hero as Divinity.

PREFACE.

It would seem to have been reserved for the
wisdom of the nineteenth century to initiate
serious doubts regarding, and even entire dis
belief in, the historical character of Jesus
Christ. This fact, however, — startling as it may seem, —
need not occasion any surprise. An age which,
for the most part, delighted to belittle the great
Personalities of the Past, which could tolerate
such a definition of genius as ' the capacity for
taking infinite pains,' and which, in many cases
at least, coolly denied the existence of everything
that could not be forced into a narrow and
materialistic world-formula — alike inexplicable
and purposeless in its nature and results — might
well be conceived as capable of the rejection of
even the greatest, the most human arid the most
Divine Figure, that has ever been presented to
mankind for their homage, and as the supreme
Model upon which they must fashion their own
lives.

viii Preface
In this work the present writer has attempted
to trace in outline the development of this
historical heresy from its rise in the mind of the
quondam Hegelian theologian Strauss,1 through
the hasty and sweeping negations of Bruno
Bauer, the reckless statements of Mr. J. M.
Robertson, and the critical theories of Professor
W. B. Smith and others, down to its most recent
issues and culmination in the extreme and im
practicable idealism of Professor Drews, who
seems fondly to imagine that the great spiritual
Temple of Christianity, which has been built up
at the cost of so much travail and sorrow, and
which has conferred so many benefits, material as
well as spiritual, upon mankind, can be preserved
intact for the use of generations yet unborn, when
the historical Jesus, ' the chief corner-stone ' of
the building, has been taken away. What the
inevitable result to the world, in such a case,
would be, it requires no inspired prophet to
foretell !
In the historical section of the work, the
author has endeavoured to show, in the first place,
that the Messiah expected by every Jew, both at
the time of Christ and previously, was a triumphant
Deliverer and Ruler, and not a suffering and
dying God. Even the Prophets and Psalmists
1 Although Strauss believed in a (wholly unknown) historical
Jesus, he practically initiated and developed the Christ Myth,
strictly so called.

Preface ix
of Exilic and post-Exilic times shared in this
outlook, and (contrary to what is commonly
supposed) looked forward to no such Redeemer
as the One who, 'in the fulness of time,' came to
work out both the temporal and eternal destinies
of the human race.
In the next place, special stress is here laid
upon the historic character and value of the
underlying basis of our present Synoptic Gospels
— the Primitive Gospel, as we may term it — which,
though actually lost as a separate and independent
document, can still be traced in the three inter
related narratives that largely grew up out of it.
The writer has also attempted to show that the
Logia, or Sayings of Jesus, which are now extant
in our Gospels, contain a spiritual and ethical
doctrine immensely superior to that of any of the
' sources ' from which many present-day writers
would derive them, and, therefore, that in them
selves they plainly indicate an absolutely original
and spiritual Personality as their Author.
The teaching of St. Paul is also set forth as a
system harmonizing in spirit with that of Jesus,
as recorded in the Synoptic Gospels ; and the
indirect and incidental references to an ' historical
Jesus' which are met with in his Epistles, and in
the extant record of his travels, are regarded as
showing clearly that it was no ' spectral ' Jesus,
or 'mythical' Christ, which was present in his
mind when, amid toil, and weariness, and suffer-

x Preface
ing, he preached ' Jesus Christ crucified and risen
from the dead.'
Further, an attempt has been made to estimate
more accurately the true nature and value of the
direct secular evidence for an historical Jesus, as
it is found in the testimony of Josephus, and in
that of the Roman writers, and also in the early
Jewish impressions, as these are recorded in
Talmud and Midrash, and, later, in the highly
legendary Toledoth Jeschu. The indirect value
of much of this Jewish literature has hitherto
been greatly underestimated.
In the part dealing with the Mythical data, the
entire lack of valid historical and other evidence
for the existence of pre-Christian and secret
Jewish cults worshipping a Redeemer, or Healer-
God, named ' Jesus,' is insisted upon ; and the
numerous ethical and spiritual, as well as historical,
differences between the Jesus of the Evangelists
and St. Paul, and the (so-called) dying and rising
' saviours ' of the various contemporary nature-
cults is dealt with so far as space-limits would
allow. Finally, the current fashion in some theological
circles, of mythologizing the Gospels generally, is
discussed in three separate chapters, in which —
taking a selected number of the chief events
recorded by the Synoptists — by showing the
forced 'parallels,' the more than questionable
etymologies, and the frequently inaccurate and

Preface xi
misleading quotations and inferences drawn from
the works of ancient and even modern writers,
the methods too freely adopted by many mythi-
cizers are set forth in some detail.
A short chapter bearing upon the adoption and
use of symbols in the primitive Church has also
been added, which, it is hoped, will show that
while the early Christians undoubtedly borrowed
perhaps all the symbols which were used by them,
they gave to these secret signs, in many respects,
an entirely new turn, and invested them with a
meaning hitherto wholly unknown to the religious
thought of the ancient world.
I have to thank my friend Mr. J. Arthur Hill
for kindly and efficient help in reading the proof-
sheets.

CONTENTS.

A Bibliography of Recent Works . . xv
Introduction : The Old and the New
Mythicism  i
PART I.
THE HISTORICAL DATA.
I. Pre-Christian Messianic Concepts . . 29
II. The Jesus of the Primitive Gospel and
the Logia  48
III. St. Paul and the Historic Jesus. . . 71
IV. The Testimony of Josephus .... 94
V. The Testimony of the Roman Writers . 112
VI. The Jesus of Jewish Tradition . . .132
PART II.
THE MYTHICAL DATA.
VII. Pre-Christian Jesus-Cults . . . .157
VIII. The Dying and Rising Saviours of Ethnic
Nature-Cults  182

xiv Contents
CHAP. PAGE
IX. Mythology and the Gospels .... 205
X. Mythology and the Gospels (continued) . 230
XI. Mythology and the Gospels {continued) . 256
XII. Christian Symbolism: Its Origin and Use . 279
Conclusion  291
Appendix — A Public Discussion in Germany
of the ' Christ Myth '  305
Index  307

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

The following list of the chief modern books and pamphlets,
dealing with the question of the ' Christ Myth,' will be of use
to the reader who wishes to pursue the subject further.1
I. NEGATIVE WORKS.
Seydel, R., Das Evangelium von Jesu in seinen Verhdltnissen
zu Buddha-Saga und Buddhalehre (1882); Die Buddha-
legende und das Leben Jesu nach den Evangelien (1884;
2nd ed. 1909).
[In these works Seydel attempts to prove that the sources of our present
accounts of the Buddha are older than the Christian Gospels, and that the
latter are largely derived from them. (Answered effectively by Bousset
in the Tkeologische Rundschau, February 1889.)]
Robertson, J. M., ** Christianity and Mythology (1900) ; A
Short History of Christianity (1902). **Pagan Christs :
Studies in Comparative Hierology (1903; 2nd ed. 1912).
[Robertson traces the picture of Christ, as portrayed in the Gospels, to
a syncretism of mythological elements derived primarily from Judaism,
combined with various Pagan beliefs, including the Krishna myth and the
Buddha story. He believes that the Jesus of the Gospels was practically
identical with an old Ephraimite sun-god named 'Joshua.']
1 ** indicate the more important works, especially for the English
reader.

xvi Bibliography
Kalthoff, A., Das Christusproblem: Grundlinien zu Sozial-
theologie (1903); Die Entstehung des Christentums, JVeue
Beitrage zum Christusproblem (1904). Was wissen wir
von Jesus 1 Eine Abrechnung mit Prof. Dr. Bousset (1904).
[Kalthoff asserts that the original Christianity, so far from being in any
sense an individualistic religion, was merely a collective movement of the
masses. It originated, he maintains, in Rome, and is a syncretism of
Jewish Messianism, Stoic philosophy, and the ideas of various proletarian
socialistic societies, which existed at that period in the Roman Empire.
The notion of a personal founder he rejects as wholly unhistorical; he
is only a personification of the ideals and experiences of the primitive
Christian community, the suffering, dying and rising Christ merely typify
ing trie community's own life of suffering, martyrdom and revival.]

Amongst the writers of the (Socialistic) school of Kalthoff
the chief, perhaps, are : —
Kautsky, K., Der Ursprung des Christentums (1908)5 'Jesus
der Rebell' in Die neue Zeit. xxviii. 13-17, 44-52
(1910).
[Kautsky admits an ' historic Jesus,' but makes Him a social and political
revolutionist — a kind of ' Marxist.']
Maurenbrecher, M., Von Nazareth nach Golgotha, eine
Untersuchung uber die weltgeschichtlichen Zusammenhdnge
des Dr christentums (1909); Berliner Religionsgesprach
(1910).
[Maurenbrecher makes Christianity a derivative of the ' Son of Man
myth,' and supposes that the hopes of the proletariat of the period were
expressed in concrete form in the person of Jesus, after His death.]
Smith, W. B., **Der Vorchristliche Jesus (1906); Eng. tr. The
Pre-Christian Jesus (1906).
[Smith derives the 'Christ-myth' from certain alleged 'Jesus-cults,'
dating from pre-Christian times. Starting from the statement found in

Bibliography xvii
Acts xviii. 25, that Apollos preached 'the things of Jesus' (rb, irepl rov
IijcroD), while he was only acquainted with ' the baptism of John,' Smith
supposes that these ' things ' refer to some doctrines peculiar to an old
cult-god of that name.
He also urges that the word ' Nazareth ' was not originally the name of
a town, or village (as in the N.T.), but, as Nazaraios, meant ' Guardian,' or
'Saviour' — having the same meaning, in fact, as the word 'Jesus' itself.
' Christ,' also, in his view, means the Deity, Xpurr6s being equated with
XpTjards (cp. Ps. xxxiv. 8).]
Jensen, P., Das Gilgamesch-epos in der Weltliteratur (1906) ;
Moses, Jesus, Paulus: drei varianten des babylonischen
gottmenschen Gilgamesch (1909) ; Hat der Jesus der
Evangelien wirklich gelebt ? (19 10).
[Jensen (whose work is not utilized by Drews) thinks that Jesus was
neither a personified ideal (Drews), nor an anthropomorphized cult-god
(Smith), but a reproduction of one (or possibly more) of the heroes of the
Babylonian Gilgamesh epic.
The whole of his argument rests upon the supposed parallels to be
found when that epic is compared with the Gospels, many agreements in
the succession of events being alleged. Although the author does not
absolutely deny the existence of Jesus, he makes both the Gospels and the
Pauline Letters mere imitations of the Babylonian myth. (Jensen, how
ever, completely ignores the numerous events which are not parallel, and
also the fact that, in the main, the two stories are utterly unlike.) It is
generally agreed that the ' correspondences ' are very strained, and that
the whole work is fantastic and unsatisfactory.]

Drews, A., **Die Christusmythe (4th ed. 1911); Eng. tr., The
Christ Myth (3rd ed. 1910); Berliner Religionsgeprach :
'Hat Jesus gelebt?' (Berlin and Leipzig, 1910).
[In the Die Christusmythe, Drews builds largely upon the work of both
Robertson and Smith. From the former he takes the general mythical
theory of the Gospel narratives, and in particular the identification of
Jesus with an old Israelite cult-god, — equating Joshua- Jason -Jesus as
all representing the sun.
From Smith he adopts the theory of pre-Christian cults of 'Jesus,' and
the further contention that the members of these cults were denominated
(like the Christians subsequently) ' Nazoraeans.' Christianity, he maintains,
b

xviii Bibliography
is a syncretism mainly of these elements, together with Jewish Messianism
and the pagan idea of a 'redeemer-god' (e.g. Adonis), who 'dies' and
'rises,' a. synthesis effected in the mind of St. Paul, who 'knew no
historical Jesus.'
At first St. Paul, as a legalist, opposed the Gospel, because the Law
pronounced as cursed every one who had been 'hanged upon a tree.' But
suddenly he became 'enlightened,' and then he synthesized in his mind
the expected and ' orthodox Jewish Messiah ' with the ' self-sacrificing
god' of the Ethnic nature-cults, which were closely akin to the pre-
Christian Jesus-cults. This, says Drews, was "the moment of Christianity's
birth as a religion of Paul."]

Stendel, F., Wir Gelehrten vom Fach t Eine Streitschrift gegen
Professor Dr. von Soden' s ' Hat Jesus gelebt ? ' (1910).
Lublinski, S., Die Entstehung des Christentums aus der Antiken
Kultur (19 10); Falsche Brewise fiir die Existenz des
Menschen Jesus (19 10).
Schultz, W., Documente der Gnosis. Mit einer Ausfuhrlichen
Einleitung ( 1 9 1 o).
II. AFFIRMATIVE WORKS
Bornemann, Jesus als Problem (1909).
Windisch, 'Der geschichtliche Jesus' in the Theologische
Rundschau, xii. (1910).
Wernle, P., 'Wider moderne Skepsis fiir den Glauben an
Jesus,' in Die Christliche Welt(i-jth February 1910).
Holtzmann, H, ' Paulus als Zeuge wider die Christusmythe
von Arthur Drews ' (idem).
von Soden, H., ** Hat Jesus Gelebtl (1910); Eng. tr., Has
Jesus Lived 1 (191 1).
Beth, Hat Jesus Gelebtl (1910).
Julicher, A., **Hat Jesus Gelebtl (1910).
Weinel, H., 1st das ' liberate' Jesusbild Widerlegt? (1910).

Bibliography xix
Weiss, J., ** Jesus von Nazareth: Mythus oder Geschichte?
(1910).
Dunkmann, K., **Der historische Jesus, der mythol. Christus,
und Jesus der Christus (19 10).
Rossington, H. J., Did Jesus really Live? (191 1).
Case, S. J., **The Historicity of Jesus (1912).

INTRODUCTION.
THE OLD AND THE NEW MYTHICISM.
Before proceeding to marshal and discuss the
evidence which is now available for establishing
the actual existence of Jesus Christ, the greatest
Figure in all history, whether religious or secular,
it will, perhaps, be advisable to obtain a clear,
even though it be a brief, view, not only of the
new mythical theory of Professor Drews, but also,
as far as may be in the space at our disposal, to
arrive at an understanding of its relation to the
older mythical theory of the origin of Christianity,
which was put forward with equal confidence
some three generations ago.
David Friedrich Strauss (1808-74), the
originator of this older hypothesis, published
his once famous Das Leben Jesu (' The Life of
Jesus ') in 1835-36.1 In this work the theological
premises of Strauss were largely shaped by con-
1 Revised and republished (tr. by ' George Eliot ') in a popular
form as The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (1846). Finally, it
was again rewritten and published (1865) as A New Life of Jesus
for the German People.

2 Jesus The Christ
tact with the Hegelian system of Philosophy.1
He took from this system an emphatic conception
of Ideas as, indeed, the great and only true factors
in history, the real determining forces at the back
of the chain of events, which are ever unfolding,
according to a law of inner necessity, and finding,
even in the greatest personalities who have lived,
not so much masters as instruments of their
evolution. The speculation of the age, observed Strauss,
referring to the great Hegelian system, which
was then at the very apex of its popularity,
represents that God has the character of Self-
Conscious Spirit through a process of Self-Objecti-
fication in the world and return unto Himself.
He is not a Person alongside of, or over, other
persons. The Personality of God must be thought
of, not as a single Personality, but as the All-
Personality, and, as such, realised through a
world-process. This does not, however, mean
that God attains to completeness in time. " He
is," to quote Strauss directly {Glaubenskhre,
1840-41, §§ 34, 38), "ever finished and perfect;
but He is this only because, and in so far as, He
1 This system found its extreme expression in the saying of
Michelet, one of the 'Left Wing' Hegelians, to which party
Strauss himself belonged at the time when he wrote the first
edition : " The Absolute arrives at consciousness first in man.
Man is the epiphany of the Eternal Personality of the Spirit." In
later life Strauss sank gradually into a materialistic Monism of a "
pessimistic type.

The Old and the New Mythicism 3
has created from eternity, and continues to create ;
His eternal ingoing into Himself is conditioned
upon His eternal outgoing from Himself."1
It might — apart from all controversial questions
— be added here, that there is probably much
insight displayed, and some truth expressed, in
this definition of the existence of the Divine
Being ; provided always that it can be stripped
of its implicated Pantheism, and the true Person
ality of the Deity can be retained in a form which
transcends all our present conceptions of indi
vidual existence.
But this is exactly what Strauss failed to see,
though the necessity of it — if we would escape
the inevitable and bottomless abyss of a vague
Pantheism (or even the more modern Panpsych-
ism), whether idealistic or materialistic — was
clearly foreseen by Hegel himself, and guarded
against more or less effectually by the other
Hegelian schools.2 The latter fact, however,
was realized to some extent by Strauss, for we
find him expressing his conviction that Hegel,
had he been then alive, would not have altogether
approved of his metaphysical position in the
Leben Jesu. For it was, without doubt, quite
contrary to the view of that profound thinker to
1 Cp. the affinities of this conception of God, and His activity,
with the Vedantic teaching about the nature of the Universe, which
is an 'expiration' (to be followed by an 'inspiration') of the
' Breath of Brahm'— the only Reality.
2 i.e. the ' Right Wing ' (' orthodox ') and ' Centre ' Hegelians.

4 Jesus The Christ
hold that God has not a Personal Existence,
as well as an Immanence in the world of Nature.
{Logic, §§ 63, 151)-
The fact is, that Hegel undoubtedly held that
in concrete Personality alone lay the goal of the
(otherwise abstract) Idea. It was only through
personality that the Idea was able fully to express
itself both in Nature and in History. Hence
God Himself must have a personal existence —
though personal in a sense very far removed
above all our present conceptions of personality.
Furthermore, it is clear that Strauss was fully
conscious that his Christological views would not
have been consonant with those of Hegel. With
the latter thinker Jesus Christ, in a special sense,
exemplified the union of the divine and the
human, and, therefore, formed an eternal recon
ciliation of the two great antinomies, the Human
and the Divine, objectified and embodied in an
historic person, who in his complete unity re
flected, whilst combining, each component in a
manner that was both perfect and unique — a
necessary outcome, in short, of the manifestation
and self-realization of God.1
1 It is frequently asserted that Hegel left the Christological
problem undecided, and extracts from his works can be quoted
which may bear this interpretation. The following passages, how
ever, seem to us decisive against this view. " Christ ... is not
merely a man who experienced a particular fate . . . He is also
the Son of God " (Philos. ofRelig., tr. Spiers and Saunderson, i. 226).
" Christ has been called the God- Man . . . the unity of the divine
and human natures has here been brought into human conscious-

The Old and the New Mythicism 5
This view, however, Strauss seems unable to
accept (see Leben Jesu, § 151, Glaubenslehre, § 66) ;
hence we may conclude that he, and all those
who departed from this view of Jesus Christ,
were no true Hegelians.
But it is not altogether directly with these high
and abstract philosophemes that we are here con
cerned, but rather with Strauss's view that our
knowledge of Jesus Christ, as a real historic
character, is, in a sense, purely mythical. And
here let us see, in the first instance, what Strauss
means by ' myth ' and ' mythical.'
Myth, says Strauss, is not so much the product
of conscious invention, as the result of a pro
nounced inclination to the pictorial. This, he
contends, is the form to which the human mind
naturally resorts at the stage where it inevitably
finds the difficulty of resting in the conceptual
world. In other words, mythicizing is the child
like faculty of putting things, which the juvenile
mind is incapable of stating in a scientific fashion,
in a concrete and pictorial form.
ness, and has become a certainty for it " (ibid. iii. 76). " Christ's
death primarily means that Christ was the God-Man" (ibid. iii. 89);
" Christ calls Himself the Son of God and the Son of Man ; these
titles are to be taken in their strict meaning " (ibid. iii. 85) ; cp. also
his statements in thePhilos. of Hist. (tr. Sibree), pp. 336, 337, 340.
In short, he both speaks of the story of Christ as true history
with a divine content, and affirms that He, as the Divine Son — the
Other of the Father — possesses " the entire fulness of the divine
nature in Himself." But, of course, it is not implied here thatHegel
always uses Christian phrases in exactly the 'orthodox' sense.

6 Jesus The Christ
In its pure form, he goes on to say, the Gospel
myth contains the whole substance of the narrative ;
in its modified form it is attached to a substratum
of real history. The myth-making faculty which
was operative in the Gospel narratives, was set to
work first of all by Messianic expectation. As
the Messiah was to crown the prophetical suc
cession in which Moses stood, it was deemed
necessary that He also should do mighty works.
As the countenance of the great Lawgiver was
glorified by the Divine Presence, so it was thought
fitting that the Messiah should appear in a scene
of Transfiguration. Thus, anticipation put its
own fashion upon Christ, and wrought to make
Him seem to have been, and to have actually
done, what was called for as the ideal of His
office. The above definition, and statement as to the
nature of the Gospels, contains, it must be allowed,
a germ of truth. The Evangelists who wrote —
or rather compiled — the Gospel narratives, did
not always record the life of Jesus exactly as we
moderns sometimes suppose. Hence the difficulty
which exists to-day in reducing these records to
the terms demanded by modern scientific history.
In like manner primitive thinkers and writers
explained the creation of the world under pictorial
images, while the more mature mind of to-day
expresses it — perhaps still inadequately — by the
help of an evolutionary formula.

The Old and the New Mythicism 7
It will accordingly have been observed that
Strauss nowhere declares Jesus Christ to be a
mythical person, in the sense of an entirely non
existent human being. He is mythical only in
the sense that all our accounts of Him are childish
narratives, by means of which His simple-minded
and ignorant followers endeavoured to portray the
real man to those who came after them. Thus,
he says : " We rate as Gospel myths any narrative,
related directly or indirectly to Jesus, which is not,
and in so far as it is not, to be accounted an
expression of fact, but a precipitate of an idea of
his earliest disciples" {Leben Jesu, § 15). Conse
quently, according to Strauss, all our existing
narratives about Jesus are inacceptable in so far
as they testify not to His existence merely, but
also to His actions and sayings ; because the
records of these are merely precipitates of the
ideas existent in the minds of His disciples about
Him.1 They are — he would assert — mere child-
stories, expressing some truths probably, but
setting them forth in such a fashion that they
have little or no more value for us than the
nursery-story has, because we will probably never
be able to resolve the mythical forms in which
the facts are enshrined into historic verities relating
to the actual and real Jesus. *
So far the position of Strauss is, we hope,
clear : let us now proceed to inquire further, and
1 Cp. here Hegel, Philos. of Relig. i. 146, § b.

8 Jesus The Christ
more precisely, why Strauss holds that our Gospel
narratives have a wholly mythical form, and,
therefore, are not historical in the strict modern
sense of the term. And we very soon find what
are his real grounds for this view. Strauss objects
in toto to the Gospel narratives being classed as
history, because (i) they imply a Revelation, and
(2) relate 'Miracles' as having been performed
by Jesus. We will, therefore, examine his views
upon these two points, which indirectly raise the
important question of the ' Supernatural.'
"A revelation," says Strauss {Glaubenslehre,
§ 19), "that is an immediate working of the
highest being upon the human spirit, leaves to
the latter nothing but absolute passivity ; J for the
highest being is absolutely active, while the cor
relate of absolute activity is absolute passivity.
It follows at once then, from this side, that
the conception of revelation is an impossible
one." It is easy to see how Strauss, by such an over
straining of Hegelian logic, placed himself directly
in a position which necessitated a total rejection
of revelation in any form. But his premises are
wholly inaccurate and misleading, and his con
clusion, accordingly, though logically drawn, is
untrue. The Divine Spirit, and the human spirit,
do not stand over against each as wholly separate
and antagonistic entities, though for the purposes
1 Italics ours.

The Old and the New Mythicism g
of the dialectic they may be regarded as opposed
' moments ' in the march of Thought.1
The human spirit, in its origin and essence, is,
as it has frequently been .recognised to be, an
' image ' — however much distorted by sin — of the
divine, and, as such, partakes in some degree of
its nature, and, therefore, has affinities with it.
Consequently, the latter does not work "upon"
the former (as Strauss supposes) in an external
and carpenter-like fashion ; but it works internally
through the plastic medium of the human con
sciousness, which, in its turn, mirrors (though
ever imperfectly), the divine ; and the whole pro
cess is, in effect, a self-reciprocal one.2 In other
words, the Divine Spirit yearns for (to use a com
mon, but imperfect, expression), and reaches out
to, the human spirit, and the human spirit, in its
turn, and by virtue of its true affinity with it, ever
seeks the divine. And it is through this mutual
interaction, of what in its real essence is related,
that the human spirit can grasp — however im
perfectly — the > divine, and the Divine Spirit can
effectually help the human. Strauss might well
reject the possibility of a revelation, if there were
an alien and Divine Spirit, and an absolute activity
1 Thought = Being, in the Hegelian schema.
2 The analogy, which here suggested itself, is that of the sun
and its image upon the bosom of the lake. But, like all analogies,
it is imperfect. Cp. how the cruder concept of Gen. i. 26, 27, and
similar passages, is subsumed under the higher concept expressed
in 2 Cor. iii. 18, etc.

10 Jesus The Christ
on the one hand, and an alien and unresponsive
human spirit, with an absolute passivity on the
other. But the curious part of the matter is, that
he seems never to have realized that these pos
tulates were a mere chimcera of his imagination —
a fact which the history of man's efforts to reach
out to, and realize himself in, God might have
taught him, had he deigned to observe the
commonest and most fundamental phenomena of
religion. Again, with regard to miracles, Strauss is
equally conscious of a departure from the actual
teaching of Hegel. The latter philosopher never
denied the possibility of miracles, and their
probability even was an accepted fact, at least
with the Hegelians of the ' Right Wing.' But
Strauss, despite Hegel's practical admission of the
possibility (in a certain sense) of the miraculous,
says dogmatically : " The Absolute Causality
never breaks in upon the chain of conditioned
causes in single acts, seeing that it rather manifests
itself only in the production of finite causes, and
of their interworking " {Das Leben Jesu, § 16).
Perhaps not ; but we have strong reasons for
holding that the Absolute Causality — or, to use
a term which we prefer, God — works out His
deliberate purposes by frequently so arranging
that the higher and more spiritual of the ' Laws,'
by means of which He rules and regulates the
Universe, should in some way override, and (in a

The Old and the New Mythicism . 1 1
sense) supersede the action of the lower, and
especially the more physical, laws.1 Thus, for
example, to give a rough illustration — a dead bird
will fall to the ground in accordance with the
physically universal ' Law ' of gravitation, whereas
a live bird, under the impulsion of its special vital
powers, will rise superior to gravitation, and ascend
into the heavens — a 'miracle' of the power of
life to transcend the lower laws governing mere
inert matter. So, too, of the spirit. Everywhere,
indeed, and on all sides, we have evidences of the
power of the higher law to control, and, as we
have said, to supersede, the effects of the lower,
passing through all grades of being, from inert
matter up to self-conscious spirit, in which last-
named order of existence we see evidences of a
Personal Divine Spirit overruling the phenomena
which appertain solely to the lower grades of being.
1 In Harnack's Das Wesen des Christentums, there occurs the
following remarkable passage : " Although the order of Nature is
inviolable, we are not yet by any means acquainted with all the
forces working in it, and .acting reciprocally with other forces.
Our acquaintance even with the forces inherent in matter, and
with the field of their actions, is incomplete ; while of psychic forces
we know very much less. We see that a strong will, and a firm
faith, exert an influence upon the life of the body, and produce
phenomena which strike us as marvellous. Who is there up to
now that has set any sure bounds to the province of the probable
and the actual ? No one. Who can say how far the influence of
soul upon soul, and of soul upon body, reaches ? No one. Who
can still maintain that any extraordinary phenomenon that may
appear in this domain is entirely based upon error and delusion ? "
This exactly puts the matter at issue with the materialist, and the
scientific dogmatist.

12 Jesus The Christ
But, at the same time, there was also, according
to Strauss, another and secondary cause, which
had contributed largely to the rise of the Gospel
' myths ' ; this was the extraordinary impression
made by the Personality of Jesus upon His con
temporaries. In this impression Strauss himself
seems to share. "To me," he says {Streitsch-
riften, iii. 145, 152, 153), "he is the greatest
religious personality which history has brought to
view. In his greatness, too, his natural endow
ment had, in my mind, the largest share. . . .
His power over the minds of men, with which
very likely also a physical power of healing was
combined, which we may explain somewhat after
the analogy of magnetic force, effected cures
which must appear as miracles. His standpoint
at the utmost height of religious self-consciousness,
was expressed in lofty sayings, even as his pure
human sense was revealed in edifying, and his
originality in ingenious, discourse. His fame, like
his person, was, from the beginning to the end
of his life, extraordinary."
It may seem strange to us that a man who
was capable of getting thus far within a measur
able range of a comprehension of the transcendent
Personality of Jesus, should yet finally fail to
reach it after all ! But the mind of Strauss was
beclouded at the outset by an overstrained view
of an intellectual system, which, perhaps, by its
too complete inversion of the true sequence of

The Old and the New Mythicism 13
observation and theory, proved, in his case at
least, a real obstacle to any arrival at the ultimate
truth. Had Strauss observed more and dog
matized less, he might, with his naturally profound
insight, and, we may well believe, his real honesty
of purpose, have reached other and more accurate
conclusions. But the mythical theory of Strauss was de
veloped still further, and pushed to yet greater
extremes, by another and contemporary Hegelian,
Bruno Bauer (1809-82),1 who, after 1834, de
voted himself exclusively to a scientific criticism
of the Bible. Bauer's purpose at the outset, says
Schweitzer, " was only to continue the work of
Strauss. But the conception of myth and legend,
of which the latter made use, was, Bauer thought,
much too vague to explain the deliberate ' trans
formation of a personality.' In the place of myth,
Bauer, therefore, set ' reflection.' The life which
pulsates in the Gospel history is too vigorous to
be explained as created by legend ; it is real
'experience,' only not the experience of Jesus,
but of the Church. The representation of this
experience of the Church in the life of a Person
is not the work of a number of persons, but of
a single author. It is in this twofold aspect —
1 He also belonged to the younger Hegelians, or ' Left Wing '
party, and taught that immortality is merely the eternity of the
Universal Reason, and that the * God-Man ' is not a single Person,
but simply Humanity, and that the Godhead attains to consciousness
first in human spirits.

14 Jesus The Christ
as the composition of one man, embodying the
experience of many — that the Gospel history is to
be regarded. As religious art, it has a profound
truth. When it is regarded from this point of
view the difficulties, which are encountered in the
endeavour to conceive it as real, immediately
disappear." 1
Bauer thus postulated not simply a number of
evangelists as the first narrators of the Gospel
story, but one man as the inventor of the
whole. This primary originator, he averred, was
Mark.2 But even Bauer hesitated to dismiss Jesus as
a wholly fictitious character in history, from the
mere results of an analysis of the Gospels, and
especially the Gospel of Mark. He decided that
a further investigation — this time of the structure
and contents of the Pauline Epistles — was a
necessity before arriving at any definite conclu
sions. This was then carried out by him and
published later in his Kritik der Paulinischen
Briefe (1850-51), and the results which he ob
tained therefrom were applied to the problem in
the new edition of his Criticism of the Gospel
History {Kritik der Evangelien und Geschichte
ihres Ursprungs). His final conclusion is — there
never was an historical Jesus !
1 The Quest of the Historical Jesus, Eng. tr. p. 145.
2 Most Hegelian theologians then regarded Matthew as the
primary Gospel.

The Old and the New Mythicism 15
Thus, Schweitzer sums up {op. cit. p. 1 56) :
" From an examination of the Gospels [? and the
Pauline Epistles], he concludes that the Jesus of
the Gospels is the creation of the self-alienated
Ego, and that He ceases to exist as soon as this
is recognized. The formation of the Church, and
the arising of the idea that the Jesus of the
Gospels is the Messiah, are not two different
things ; they are one and the same thing ; they
coincide and synchronize ; but the idea was only
the imaginative conception of the Church, the
first movement of its life, the religious expression
of its experience.
"The question, which has so much exercised
the minds of men- — whether Jesus was the historic
Christ — is answered in the sense, that everything
that the historical Christ is, everything that is
said of Him, everything that is known of Him,
belongs to the world of imagination, that is of
the Christian community, and, therefore, has
nothing to do with any man who belongs to
the real world."
The vitiating influence which deprived the
criticism of Strauss of all real permanent value,
also pervaded, and, in a still more exaggerated
form, depreciated that of Bauer. And this was
the necessity of making the phenomena of Christ
and Christianity entirely square with the a priori
reasoning of a philosophic system which can only
justly be designated as a false and perverted

1 6 Jesus The Christ
Hegelianism. If Hegel's God-Man — the actual
ization of the Idea — be realized only in Humanity
as a whole, then the historic Christ, whom Hegel
had recognized as its most perfect embodiment,
becomes a mere phantom, which vanishes when
an effort is made to grasp and comprehend it.1
This conclusion follows inevitably from the fact that
the Idea is actualized in a generic form only. But
this view is a pure fiction of the imagination, and
rests upon no established facts.2 Moreover, there
is not a shred of evidence to indicate — much less
to prove — that Mark (or, indeed, any evangelist)
invented out of the common consciousness the life
of Christ, as depicted in the Gospels. Recent
research has shown that all the Evangelists were
compilers and biographers, and not originators in
any sense. They had documents of various sorts
to select from, as well as oral historic tradition,
amongst the Twelve and their immediate suc-

1 The theologians of the ' Right Wing,' the reader may here
be reminded, held that the true incarnation of the divine Logos
was to be found, not in a perfected human society — an impossible
ideal, as all history clearly shows — but in a single Individual,
whose life and teaching should regenerate the world.
2 Such facts as mankind have gathered from experience go a
long way towards proving that Humanity is very far from being
divine, much less an embodiment of the divine Idea, which cannot
be thought of as employing so imperfect and inadequate an ex
pression of itself. The climax of absurdity, however, was reached
when Auguste Comte, in his enthusiasm for humanity, gravely
invited us to worship it ! We are here irresistibly reminded of
the well-known dictum of Thomas Carlyle, that he would as soon
worship a wilderness of apes.

The Old and the New Mythicism 17
cessors, to incorporate. In short, it would be
impossible to lay the finger upon any one man
with whom the life could originate, even if
the first century produced such a sublime and
colossal genius, which also is more than doubt
ful. Neither had the ' Church ' of that day the
spiritual consciousness, or the intellectual ability,
for such a task.
On the other hand, the Gospels throughout
breathe the actual life of the period in which
Jesus is said to have lived, and outline accurately,
but variously, the marvellous Personality which
He undoubtedly possessed. The figure of Jesus
is also too human, and too true to daily life in
its smaller details, to be the mere creation of the
mythic Idea diffused throughout any community.
It is an actual portrait drawn from life, not by
one man but by many, who, it must be confessed,
for the most part, but imperfectly understood the
grandeur of the Personality which lived and
moved and spake in their midst. And this fact
has ever been recognized with a practical un
animity by all who have approached the study of
the question, without previous bias, which moved
' them to explain away the facts that were presented
for their consideration. Consequently it becomes
impossible for a well-balanced mind to accept
either the explanation of Reimarus, who found-
the basis of the story of Jesus in a deliberate
imposture on the part of the disciples, or that

1 8 Jesus The Christ
of Strauss, who sought its explanation in the
' transfiguration of a personality ' by the general
mythicizing tendencies of the age, or, again, that
of Bauer, who postulated an original evangelist,
who embodied the thoughts and aspirations of a
community in his biography of a pseudo-historical
Jesus. Each of these hypotheses of the origin of
Christ and Christianity, which we may well believe
"terrified the respective generations which saw
them put forth," has rightly, since that time, sunk
into the discredit and oblivion which was its
inevitable and proper due.
The problem of the 'historic Jesus,' which
was thus for a time practically shelved by the
generation amongst whom Strauss and Bauer
died, remained for all intents and purposes in
abeyance until the opening years of the present
century. During the last decade, however, it has
again been brought to the front by a new school
of Mythicists, who have been trained upon wholly
different principles from those which had under
lain the investigations of the members of the older
school. Stimulated and informed chiefly by the immense
amount of new knowledge brought to light during
recent years by critical theology and archaeological
research, as well as by the comparative study of
religion, the mythical theory of Christianity has
been revived and placed upon a new and, perhaps,
less speculative basis than that of the Hegelian

The Old and the New Mythicism 19
dialectic. Many modern scholars have found —
or thought that they have found — the existence
of primitive and often world-wide myths, which
in many cases can be compared and correlated
with the cardinal doctrines of Christianity. The
tenets of the latter, which are the most immedi
ately and obviously assailed, are those of the
Parthenogenetic Birth and the Resurrection of
Jesus from the Dead. These two doctrines, more
particularly, have, in many cases and somewhat
hastily, been concluded to be mere variant forms
of world - wide stories of similar and mythical
events. But this view of the narratives in question, it
is often forgotten, is, after all, no new discovery
of the present enlightened age. Readers of the
earlier patristic literature, and especially the works
of the Apologists and Fathers of the second and
third centuries, will remember that very similar
theories were broached, and a like discussion was
carried on, even in those far-back times. The
' parallelism ' between the Christian stories and
the heathen myths — so far as it exists — was
pointed out nearly eighteen hundred years ago,
and the differences between them (often great
and fundamental) were also then insisted on.
The battle, however, which was then won by
Christianity, has, it would appear, now to be
fought out again, this time with a new formation,
and new weapons, on each side.

20 Jesus The Christ
But the mythologists of the new and modern
school have gone even further than the majority
of those of the earlier part of the last century.
The latter (following Strauss) for the most part
admitted an historical basis for the personality
of Jesus, and merely maintained that a complete
and impenetrable halo of myth had been thrown
around Him. The latest modern advocates of
the mythical theory (following Bauer), dispense
with His existence altogether.
We will quote here but a few typical examples
of the new school : Mr. J. M. Robertson in his
Christianity and Mythology (1900), and Pagan
Christs : Studies in Comparative Hierology { 1 903),
has sought to resolve the whole Gospel story into
a mixture mainly of Hebraic and pagan mythic
elements. Synchronously with the publication of
the last-named work there appeared Das Christus
problem : Grundlinien zu einer Socialtheologie of
Pastor Kalthoff, of Bremen, who affirmed that
the whole of the phenomena of Christianity could
be explained without the help of an historical
Jesus, by recognizing the force of a great social
movement which had begun in the first century
amongst the 'lower' classes within the Roman
Empire — a theory, however, which he was sub
sequently compelled to modify in some degree.
Kalthoff declared that he had long previously
tried to understand Jesus, but, in spite of this,
had altogether failed to do so. One wonders

The Old and the New Mythicism 21
whether he ever tried in the right way ! 1 That
He is to be found merely by means of any
process of dialectic, or in any mere scheme of
social reform, may well be doubted. At the same
time, it is quite credible, and probable, that such
mental processes, and the impulse which His life
supplied and maintained ever afterwards for the
betterment of the poor and the downtrodden2
will, if rightly used, and duly considered in their
true relations and meaning, throw much light
upon both the question of His historic character
and mission, and the overwhelming need, which
has existed and ever must exist, in the world of
all ages of such a living spiritual and moral force
embodied in a concrete and personal human form.
This latter fact is, indeed, indisputable, and hence,
for this reason alone, His present influence in
the world is either overlooked, or underrated, by
thinkers of mythicizing proclivities.
Another present-day theorist, the Assyriologist
P. Jensen, in his Das Gilgamesch Epos in der
1 Those modern thinkers who — following a current fashion of
the day — underrate, or even deny, the prime importance of great
personalities, and their immense effects upon the world's history
and progress, will never understand Him, or indeed any great
historical character.
2 The teaching of Jesus, it is true, gave rise (i) to the abolition
of slavery, and (2) to the relief of the poor. But the doctrine of
the personal freedom of man, and systems for the relief of the poor
simply, do not, as many people now appear to suppose, constitute
Christianity. 'Social service' is no doubt a duty, but it is not
an end ; and poverty, in the vast majority of cases, is due to lack
of initiative and an absence of individual ideals.

22 Jesus The Christ
Weltliteratur (1906),1 has tried, but without suc
cess, to show that the whole life of Jesus, as
narrated in the Gospels and Epistles, is simply a
derivative from the Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic
(circa 2000 B.C.) and, therefore, of course, nothing
but a pure myth.2
And, last of all, Professor Drews has arisen —
also in Germany — who, in his already notorious
Die Christusmythe, undertakes to account for the
origin of Jesus Christ and Christianity, by means
of a synthesis of three then existing and widely
divergent factors, viz. the prevalence of certain
old Hebrew variants of an ancient cult of the
Redeemer sun-god, worshipped secretly in Pales
tine as ' Jesus ' (Joshua), and openly elsewhere,
under various symbols, the concepts of the post-
exilic Jewish Apocalyptists, and the widespread
pagan notion of a dying and rising ' Saviour,'
who bore various names, Adonis, Attis, Osiris,
etc., in the different countries where he was wor
shipped. These three widely divergent ideas, he
thinks, combining at a favourable moment, formed
a precipitate in the mind of the Church under
the influence and teaching of St. Paul, whose
' spectral ' Jesus developed, during the second
century, into, on the one hand, the historical Jesus

1 Cp. also his Moses, Jesus, Paulus* (1909).
2 Professor B. W. Bacon says, in his usual trenchant and out
spoken style (Hibbert Journal, July 191 1, p. 739) : "Jensen's New
Testament criticism is elaborate bosh.''

The Old and the New Mythicism 23
of flesh and blood, and, on the other, into the
transcendent Christ, united in one and the same
Person, of the Christian Church of that and sub
sequent ages.1
Such, stated briefly, is at present the 'last
word ' of anti-Christian Mythology upon the great
problem of the nature and existence of Jesus
Christ. The famous ' Quest,' which has occupied
the minds of so many theologians and thinkers of
Europe, during the past one hundred and fifty
years, seems once again to have ended— for some
at least — in the discovery of the fact that there
was really, after all, no historical Jesus to look
for ! Paradoxical, and even absurd, as this result
may appear to us, it is nevertheless a conclusion
with which we have to reckon, since it has been
reached by certain perfectly sincere and able, if
not altogether impartially minded men, who are
professedly, and no doubt really, anxious to
reach the whole truth regarding this important
matter. And the question which lies before us now, and
demands our most serious attention is this : Does
this view of the matter represent, after all, the
truth ; nay, more, does it even contain any
elements of the truth? This, we repeat, is a
1 These three prime factors are said to have been first resolved
as &pure Idea in the mind of St. Paul (and perhaps a few of his
followers), and then to have become finally an embodied Person
ality— the objective Jesus Christ— in the Church of the second
century.

24 Jesus The Christ
most important — a vital question for the whole
world. For upon its final answer will depend
how far Christianity — that is the teaching and
ideals of Jesus Christ — is to continue to be a
living power for good in the civilization of the
future. For, if our existing civilization — with all
its grave defects — once loses its present spiritual
motive-power, and the living and divine energy
which guides its course and constitutes its very
inner being, and which Christianity alone can
supply, then this civilization must inevitably sink
into the same welter of anarchy and decay —
physical, moral, and spiritual — into which all the
previous civilizations of antiquity fell before they
were swept from off the very face of the earth.
" Man doth not live by bread alone ; but by every
utterance of the mouth of Jahveh doth man live,"
says the far-seeing Deuteronomist ; and his words
are echoed in a still higher sense by the Man
of Galilee.1 Even so, we privileged people who
dwell amidst all the wondrous material resources
and inventions of this twentieth century, will find
that we cannot subsist upon such ' bread ' alone ;
that other, and more spiritual, sustenance — the
" Word out of the mouth of Jahveh " — is just as
needful for us to-day as it was to them of old ;
nay, more needful, because our senses are more
distracted and drugged by the specious glamour
1 See Deut. viii. 3 ; Matt. iv. 4. In the latter, the saying is more
completely spiritualized.

The Old. and the New Mythicism 25
of a material and transient prosperity. And,
therefore, woe will betide the nation, or the people
which is heedless of the warning, which refuses
to hear that Word, and neglects to follow its
behests.

PART I
THE HISTORICAL DATA

CHAPTER I.
PRE-CHRISTIAN MESSIANIC CONCEPTS.
In his reference to pre-Christian Messianic concepts,
Professor Drews lays considerable stress upon the
influence, which, he thinks, the idea of an expected
Messiah, who should suffer, instead of triumph,
had in preparing the way for a fusion of Messian
ism with the pagan concept of a periodically dying
God, which is found in practically all the great
nature-cults of Western Asia. And, in connec
tion with this alleged rapprochement between two
originally very different concepts,1 he points in
particular to two distinct portions of the Old
Testament Scriptures — Ps. xxii. and Isa. liii. — in
support of his thesis.
Now, it is true, that for many centuries past,
in fact, ever since the early days of Christianity, it
has been the common view amongst Christians
that Ps. xxii. is Messianic, i.e. that it was written
solely, or at all events chiefly, with a view to fore
tell the sufferings of the future Messiah. Some
1 i.e. a suffering and superhuman Man (Jewish Messianism) and
a dying God (Paganism). 29

30 Jesus The Christ [chap.
theologians, indeed, have gone even further than
this ; they have held that it is, to. use the words
of Cassiodorus, 'not so much a prophecy as
history ' — a description of the sufferings of Christ,
written beforehand, under the special enlighten
ment of the Holy Spirit of God.
This is practically the view taken by so recent
and accomplished a writer as Bishop Alexander
in his Bampton Lectures (1876), on The Witness
of the Psalms to Christ and Christianity, and
even still later commentators have echoed these
sentiments. Many modern and competent scholars have,
however, rejected this view, either partially or
wholly. Dr. Cheyne, e.g., who assigns the Psalm
to the period of Nehemiah, sees in the sufferer
here depicted a description of the 'ideal Israelite'
— 'the flower of Israel,' the genius of the nation
" in word and act, in life and in death, rivalling
and surpassing the Israel and Moses of antiquity."
" No individual," he says, "can be the speaker.
. . . Nor can the depressed Jewish people be the
speaker ; stanzas 3 and 4 show that an Israel
within the larger Israel here pours out its grief
and woes. These woes it shares with all who
have not practically rejected the Jewish law, and
found means to conciliate those whom true Israel
ites ought, as far as possible, to shun ; but a
spiritual sorrow is theirs, which the mass of
imperfect, though not faithless, Israelites cannot

i.] Pre-Christian Messianic Coitcepts 31
fully realize. They are constant in prayer, but
how useless it seems. . . ."1
And again: "The poem represents a com
pany, or community. It is a complaint of highly-
strung natures, brought up on the doctrine of
earthly retribution, and surprised that they meet
with contempt and ignominy, which are only
worthy of malefactors. And the grandeur of the
Psalm consists in this, that in spite of the terrible
strain put upon their faith, this divinely-given
quality does not fail them. Though God seems
to have forsaken them, He is still their God."2
We have thus, at the outset, two sharply,' defined
and alternative views of the Psalm, — that it is
{a) a Messianic prophecy throughout, or {b) a
personification of the pious remnant in Judah,
who are sharing in the disasters and downfall
which have befallen their nation.
Now, it is evident that the ordinary current
Messianic interpretation derives its strength largely
from the quotation and mention of this Psalm in
various parts of the New Testament. Thus, we
find in Matt, xxvii. 46, in the first of the seven
traditional sayings from the Cross, Jesus utters
the opening words of the Psalm : Eli, Eli, lama
sabachthani.3 1 Introduction to the Psalms, vol. i. p. 86.
2 The Christian Use of the Psalter, p. 93 f.
3 It is worth while, perhaps, noting here, that Mark gives this
saying more exactly in the then vernacular Aramaic : Eloi, Eloi,
lama sabachthani. The original Hebrew words of the Psalm are :

32 Jesus The Christ [chap.
In John xix. 20, the writer claims that the
Psalmist's words, in ver. 18, were fulfilled by the
partition of Jesus' clothing amongst the soldiers
who carried out the sentence of death. The
scribes and elders, who came to witness the scene,
are also reported to have re-echoed vers. 7 and 8
in taunting Jesus, — an unlikely proceeding, had
they recognized a Messianic character in the
Psalm. Furthermore, vers. 14 and 16 are gener
ally regarded as describing the pains of the
Crucifixion, and, finally, there is, in the Epistle to
the Hebrews, an express quotation of ver. 22, as
having been spoken by Our Lord Himself on this
occasion. Now, at first sight, these various quotations
and references might be, and indeed have been,
taken as proof conclusive of the wholly Messianic
and prophetic character of the Psalm. But this
is a somewhat hasty inference to draw. Let us
look a little more closely into the matter ; for it
does not at all necessarily follow that because
Our Lord Himself quotes one verse, as reflecting
His state of mind in that dread hour, and various
Christian writers have likewise subsequently seen
the parallel between several circumstances con
nected with the Crucifixion and the Psalmist's
lament, either that the Psalm has throughout this
Eli, Eli, lama 'azabtani. Neither of the later Gospels (Luke and
John) report it, and the apocryphal Peter has instead : " My power,
my power," etc.

i.] Pre-Christian Messianic Concepts 33
meaning, or, further, that this was ever the inter
pretation of it by any body, or sect, of Jews in
pre-Christian times. This latter point is, indeed,
of the highest importance for our present purpose,
as will presently appear.
To make even a brief analysis of the contents
of the Psalm is beyond the scope of this chapter.
We will, however, note a few salient points where
its general inapplicability, as a Messianic prophecy,
is patent. If the first half of the opening strophe has a
peculiar suitability to the occasion (and few would
dispute that assertion), it is equally clear that the
next part of it has not. Apart from the unsuit-
ability of the phrase — (literally) ' the words of my
roaring' — to the recorded utterances of Jesus,
there is a querulousness about it, and, indeed,
about the whole Psalm, which is utterly foreign
to the dignified and resigned demeanour of the
great Sufferer. Of His seven extant ' Words '
from the Cross, during the agonies of the Cruci
fixion, only one is a lament. Furthermore, vers.
4 and 5 of the Psalm, implying that God had
delivered the forefathers of the Jewish nation, but
not the present speaker, seem also inapplicable,
as implying a lack of resignation to His Father's
will, and an unwillingness to die for others, which
are not characteristics of Jesus Christ.
Neither, once more, does the concluding portion
of the Psalm (vers. 22-31) in any way express
3

34 Jesus The Christ [chap.
the kind of triumph achieved by Jesus in His
victory over the grave by a triumphant Resur
rection from the Dead and Ascension into Heaven.
It accords better with the idea of a restoration to
favour with God of a distressed and temporarily
forsaken people, who, after a period of trial and
bitter experience, have realized more fully the true
source of their strength and comfort, and returned
to the service of God.
That the Psalm has, in parts at least, and in a
secondary sense, a subjective applicability to Our
Lord's experiences on the Cross, and that the
author of it may have unconsciously, or subcon
sciously, depicted them here and there throughout
it, the present writer is far from denying. Nor
would he aver that the early Christian writers
were in error in seizing upon and emphasizing
these points for the edification of their readers.
But this is a very different thing from saying that
the Psalm is a deliberately drawn picture of a
suffering Messiah which was recognized and
accepted by any Jews, as individuals, or as a
society, during the pre-Christian period, as Pro
fessor Drews would have it to be the case, in
order to suit the peculiar exigencies of his mythic
theory. There is, however, no reason whatever to sup
pose that this Psalm had ever, before the time of
Our Lord, a Messianic interpretation attached to
it. Its writer comes forward as the spokesman

i.] Pre-Christian Messianic Concepts 35
and representative of his pious but depressed
brethren, and by a bold and poetical personification
of these in his own person, he utters the previous
laments, and concluding clearly expressed hopes
and triumphs, which he feels must arise out of the
justice and goodness of God, upon whom he relies
and in whom he never for long entirely loses faith.
The consideration of the Messianic character of
the 53rd chapter of our present Book of Isaiah
opens up a number of critical problems of the
highest importance, and the most complex char
acter, to which it would be quite impossible
to do anything like justice, within the limits at
our disposal. We will, therefore, condense, and,
where possible, present summaries of probable
and established results.
Stated briefly, the problem before us here is
— just as in the case of Ps. xxii. — a question of
two opposing interpretations. That is to say, the
writer has in his mind either {a) a single individual,
undergoing pains and degradations for the salvation
of others, in short, a suffering Messiah, or {b) that
he is referring by means of a bold poetic per
sonification, couched in the first person, to the
sufferings and degradation of the faithful remnant,
who share, along with the unfaithful Israelites, in
the oppression and humiliation of the nation in
their exile. The whole problem of this prophecy,
indeed, is inextricably involved in that of a number

36 Jesus The Christ [chap.
of other prophecies (Isa. xl.-lxvi.) uttered by one,
or more, of the later ' Isaiahs,' which have been
well described by Koenig as forming quite a
separate treatise, and entitled by him The Exiles'
Book of Consolation.
His view, therefore, and that of probably the
great majority of modern critical scholars, both
German and English, is that the Servant of
Jahveh {E bed Jahveh), depicted generally through
out these chapters, is (just as in the case of the
sufferer in the Psalm we have been considering)
a personification of the Jewish people.1 Of course,
we find here, as previously, passages breathing
intense personal interest — interest which at first
sight seems too deep and too intense for mere
personification. This fact is fully admitted by
Cheyne, who says:2 "Certainly it is as clear as
the day that the Servant of Yahwe is more like
an individual in chap. liii. than elsewhere. . . ."
But he adds : " Still ... it seems to me unsafe
to separate this portrait of the Servant from those
which precede and follow it."
Now, as we have already said, a pretty general
consensus of recent scholars, who have made a
special study of these ' Messianic ' passages, has
agreed that it is a nation, or rather a pious portion
1 For his arguments fully set forth, see The Exiles' Book of
Consolation (1899); cp. also the art. 'Servant of the Lord,1
Ency. Bibl., which gives also the names of the supporters of each
view. 2 Intr. to the Book of Isaiah, p. 305.

i.] Pre-Christian Messianic Concepts 37
of a nation, which is here primarily referred to,
not an individual, in the true sense, whether Our
Lord Himself, or any one else.1 And their chief
reasons for taking the Collective view of the
' servant ' are these : ( 1 ) The whole language of
the chapter implies that the events described in
it are then and there going on, or have been
happening in the recent past, not going to happen
in a, more or less, distant future.
Thus, the servant 'grew up as a sapling ' ; ' he
had no form nor majesty,' etc. ; 'despised was
he, and forsaken of men ' ; he was ' cruelly
treated and opened not his mouth ' — an expression
which Would well describe the patience and resig
nation of the pious remnant, amidst the general
1 Those scholars who hold to the Individual view have suggested
various historic personalities (other than Our Lord Himself), as
representing this ' servant ' — involving often widely different dates
for the utterance of the prophecy, which is now almost universally
assigned to the Exilic period.
Thus, Thirtle proposes Hezekiah ; Winckler and Kittel Zerub
babel ; Sellin, fehoiachin (but see Jer. xxii. 30), etc. Cyrus finds a
supporter in Weir. The portrait, however, does not seem to suit
any of these — Cyrus least of all.
Gressmann has suggested the god Adonis (Tammuz), and thinks
that chap. liii. is, in reality, a hymn belonging to the mysteries of
that cult, celebrating the birth, death and resurrection of the god,
sung by the Mystse on his deathday.
But, apart from the fact that there is very little evidence
(except in Ezek. viii. 14) that this nature-cult obtained any hold
upon the people of Judah, Adonis is always depicted as a
beautiful youth, whereas the ' servant ' has no comeliness ; and,
moreover, is a person 'despised and rejected by men,' not,
as in the case of Adonis, bewailed by them with passionate
lamentation.

38 Jesus The Christ [chap.
impatience of the less righteous and resigned
among the exiles.1
Further, the expression in ver. 10, 'he would
see a seed, he would prolong his day,' accords
better with the experiences of a restored nation
than with those of any Messiah. Indeed, the
whole tenor of the chapter seems not (in any
primary sense) consciously to refer to the future.
(2) There is no evidence either that the writer
believed in, or held to, any scheme of personal
resurrection, which it would be necessary to show,
if the passage is held to be directly and primarily
a prophecy of Christ. This point will be realized
more clearly later on, in discussing the Apoc
alyptic ideas regarding the Messiah. It will
suffice, therefore, to say here, that this chapter
does not give any direct support to, or furnish
any direct evidence of, a belief in an individual
Messiah, who, at some future time, would suffer
and die and rise again. The writer's interest is
in the immediate present, or the future that is
close upon the present, and the Jewish nation
as he then knew it. This nation had been
humbled and brought very low indeed, so that
many thoughtful men despaired of both the
present and the future. But still he feels
assured that this humiliation will not endure for
ever, but will be followed shortly by an exalta
tion in the presence of their enemies, and a
1 Dr. Cheyne's text and translation is used here.

i.] Pre-Christian Messianic Concepts 39
return to their own land, there to serve Jahveh
as aforetime.
But here, again — as we have noticed before —
the points of applicability have naturally been
seized upon by Christian writers of a later time,
and a very beautiful and touching picture of the
Messiah has been drawn, by the help of the
language and imagery of this chapter. Still,
the crucial point in this matter, after all, is, not
whether the original writers did, or did not, un
consciously depict Christ in these prophecies, or
even whether subsequent Christian interpreters
are right, or wrong, in reading therein portraitures
and predictions of a future Messiah ; it is not
either of these points that is important for our
present purpose, but the question whether any of
the Jewish people in pre-Christian times ever
recognized a prefiguration and portrait of the
Messiah that was to be. We ourselves think
that there is the strongest evidence to show that
they never did ; and, consequently, that they did
not look forward to such a suffering Messiah.
But, in order to determine this, it will be necessary
to examine more particularly the Apocalyptic
literature, which intervenes between the close of
the Old Testament canon, and the birth of Jesus.
Before doing this, however, we will notice the
close parallel which exists between many of the
words and passages in Isa. xl.-lxvi. (the 'Servant'
chapters), and the Book of Wisdom ii. 12-21,

40 Jesus The Christ [chap.
wherein the ' righteous man ' is depicted by the
author. The latter passage sounds, as Koenig
says, almost like an echo of the former. The
righteous man {6 lUauoi) of the Book of Wisdom
affirms his knowledge of God; he calls himself,
as in many of the 'Servant' passages in Isaiah,
•n-cw? Kvpiov, ' servant of the Lord.'
Again, Koenig notes that Wisdom iii. 1-8 is
also a close parallel to this passage in ' Isaiah.'
And this parallelism in both cases is strong pre
sumptive evidence that the writer of the ' Isaiah '
passage, by the righteous but suffering servant,
whom he portrays, had the same object in his
mind as the author of the passages in Wisdom,
viz. the pious section of his countrymen. And,
indeed, we find that this view of the passage
continued to be held by the Jews in the earlier
days of Christianity. From the Dialogue with
Trypho, of Justin Martyr, it is to be inferred that
Trypho and his friends saw in the 'servant of
Jahveh' only the righteous Jew who was still
groaning under oppression. At any rate, they
nowhere admit what Justin affirms — that here,
or elsewhere, the Old Testament speaks of a
suffering Messiah.1
This, of course, may be set down to the pro
verbial Jewish obstinacy in refusing to recognize
a portraiture of Jesus ; but, elsewhere in the
Dialogue, they are described as yielding to the
1 See chaps, xxxvi., xxxix., xlix., Ixviii.

i.] Pre-Christian Messianic Concepts 41
arguments adduced for identifying Jesus with
the Messiah expected by the Jews.
Furthermore, in the tract known as the Alter-
catio Simonis et Theophili (ed. Harnack), it is
definitely stated that 'we' {i.e. the Jews), nec
passum [Christum] in Scripturis nostris invenimus ;
and this would seem to have been the vox universa
of Judaism in all ages before the time of Christ.1
But the most conclusive proof of all, that the
pre-Christian Jews of all classes did not recognize
in Ps. xxii. and Isa. liii. a portraiture of the
Messiah in this Sufferer, is the fact that such
sufferings were not regarded as in any sense
Messianic by the Jews in Our Lord's time — nay,
not even by His own disciples, who of all their
countrymen might be supposed most readily to
recognize Jesus in this portrait.
Thus, when Jesus announced His unalterable
resolve to become a sacrifice at Jerusalem (Matt.
xvi. 22 f.),2 His disciples refused to accept such
a view of the Messiah's office. This significant
fact is brought out very plainly by the two earlier
Synoptists. Both say that Peter, as the mouth
piece of the rest, even rebuked Him for such a
1 The concept of a dying Messiah was ' foolishness ' to the
educated Greek; but it was also a 'stumbling block' to all the
Jews. The latter never advanced beyond the idea of the offered
victim in the sacrificial system, while mystical Jews dispensed with
a victim altogether.
2 Cp. also the following: xx. 17-19; Mark vm- 3'-33. «• 31)
x. 33 ; Luke xviii. 31, xxiv. 6, 7.

42 Jesus The Christ [chap.
resolution, and all three distinctly imply acquies
cence on the part of the others in Peter's rejection
of this idea of the Messianic office. Mark and
Luke further add that, 'they understood not that
saying.'1 It was, as a matter of fact, not within
their purview of the work of the Messiah, or that
of their contemporaries.
Upon these, and other grounds, which we are
unable to detail here, we may, therefore, unhesi
tatingly affirm that Professor Drews' proposition,
that there was amongst certain sects of Jews of
the pre-Christian and Christian eras, under the
influence of such writings as Ps. xxii. and Isa. liii.,2
an idea of a Messiah who should suffer humiliation
and death, is an entirely groundless supposition.
And this conclusion, furthermore, is confirmed
by an examination of the Messianic concepts of
the writing prophets of Judah in the eighth
century B.C. — the forerunners of the authors of
Ps. xxii. and Isa. liii. These invariably connect
Israel's deliverance with an idealized Davidic
1 This fact in itself quite negatives Professor Drews' theory
that the disciples were merely members of a brotherhood who
worshipped a suffering Messiah-God, named Jesus, which Messiah
was to be identified with the dying cult-god of pagan nature-
religion. 2 Isa. liii. 12 was interpreted by post-Christian (and probably by
pre-Christian) Jews of Moses, who 'poured out his soul unto
death' (Ex. xxxii. 32), and was 'numbered with the transgressors
(those who died in the wilderness), and bare the sins of many,'
that he might atone for the sin of the golden calf (Sotah. 14 ). It
was reserved for Christians, later on, to recognize in it a truer
portrait of the historical Jesus.

i.] Pre-Christian Messianic Concepts 43
monarch, full of the Spirit of Jahveh : so writes
Isaiah in ix. 6 f., xi. 1 f. 1 (cp. also Mic. v. 2).
Jeremiah, again, speaks (xxiii. 5 f.) of a Messiah,
who will be a 'righteous sprout' of David's
stem, i.e. a man of royal descent, and doubtless,
in his mind, a king. Ezekiel also uses similar
language (cp. xxxiv. 23, xxxvii. 24 f.).
The figure of the coming Messiah, in these
writers, is still vague and undefined, the picture
of a worthy and idealized, but earthly, prince,
sitting upon the throne of David and executing
judgment and mercy with almost divine power
and impartiality.
In a later part of the present Book of Isaiah,
this ideal prince seems to be identified with Cyrus,
King of Persia, who is to be the anointed of
Jahveh, and the divine grace which had previously
been promised to David is now transferred to the
ideal Israel (the 'servant of Jahveh') as a whole.2
With Haggai and Zechariah the Messianic ex
pectations are connected with Zerubbabel, who is
represented in Ezek. ii. 2 (Neh. vii. 7) as the
leader of a band of captives who have returned
from Babylonia to Jerusalem. Thus, he receives
1 The genuineness of these prophecies — as utterances of Isaiah
— has been disputed by Hackmann, Marti, Volz and Cheyne. But
this question does not materially affect the argument here.
2 See Isa. liii. 3. Many scholars think it is also the collective
Israel that is meant by the writer of Dan. vii. 13, 18, 22, 27, under
the phrase of the ' Son of Man,' which Our Lord adopted as His
own designation.

44 Jesus The Christ [chap.
in Haggai the significant title of ' My Servant,'
and the prophet foretells that, when the powers
that are hostile to Israel shall have been over
thrown, he will receive special proofs of the divine
favour and protection.
In like manner, when we turn to and examine
the works of the various popular writers of
Apocalyptic leanings, who, for the most part,
succeeded the canonical authors, we still find the
same clear intimations of the type of Messiah
who was universally expected. In no case do we
ever read of a suffering Messiah. Such a concept
is conspicuously absent throughout the whole of
Jewish post-canonical literature.
In the books forming the Old Testament
Apocrypha, the doctrine of Messianism does not
occupy an important place. We may see, how
ever, even there, that the hopes and expectations,
as moulded and set forth by the prophetic writers,
were not altogether forgotten. It is, however, in
the Apocalyptic literature that we meet with its
greatest development. But here, again, there is,
¦ i as we have said, no suffering Messiah. Broadly
ji speaking, we find that where a ppersonal Messiah
1 ' is looked forward to, it is a triumphant Monarch
who is to be the avenger and vindicator of Israel,
or the righteous portion of Israel. He is to be
either (i) a purely earthly, or (2) a heavenly Man,
endowed with supernormal powers and attributes.
The Messianic kingdom to be established by him

i.] Pre-Christian Messianic Concepts 45
is to be, in like manner, either an ideal city-state
upon earth, or a spiritual city in the heavens, to
which the ' saved ' are to be transferred after the
destruction of their earthly enemies.
Thus — to run briefly through these writings —
in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, a
priestly Messiah of the tribe of Levi is expected
(Lev. xviii. §§ 2-5, 8, 10, 14-18).1 He will
judge as king; will bind Beliar, and open the
gates of Paradise to the righteous. In the Psalms
of Solomon the Messiah is to be descended from
David. He will be a righteous king, who is pure
from sin — in the Jewish and legal sense of the
term ; — but his kingdom is to be of only tempor
ary duration. In the Sibylline Oracles, He is
defined as a holy king, who shall come to sway
the sceptre of every land ; 2 and he will reign for
all ages. In the Book of Jubilees the Messiah
looked for seems to be a prince sprung from the
tribe of Judah. Even in the allegorizing system of
Philo of Alexandria room is made for an actual, and
not merely ideal, Messiah sprung from the tribe of
Judah. He will, however, be chiefly a man of war.3
In two of the various ' revelations ' contained
in the Apocalypse of Baruch we also find that the
Messiah looked for is a warrior, who will slay the
enemies of Israel with his own hand.
^ Sometimes a royal Messiah of the tribe of Judah is spoken of.
2 rjl-ei 8' ayvos Svaf; iraxrqs yijj cncrjirTpa Kpa.Tt]arcav .
8 Karacrrparapxav iccri noKepmv Wvrj.

46 Jesus The Christ [chap.
In short, turn whithersoever we will, in all the
extant Jewish literature, canonical and otherwise,
belonging to the centuries preceding the Christian
era, we find that wherever a clearly defined and
personal Messiah is spoken of, the concepts of
power and of dominion are attached to him, but
never those of rejection and (apparent) failure in
his mission. In like manner, nothing is said of
suffering and death. Practically the only excep
tions to this rule, in the whole field of Jewish
literature, would be Ps. xxii. and Isa. liii., if these
are to be taken as referring directly and consciously
to a coming personal Messiah.
But, as we have endeavoured to make clear,
there are many and weighty reasons why these
pictures should be referred to Israel — the pious
portion of suffering Israel — as the ideal 'servant'
of God. And not least amongst these reasons is
the fact that they form the solitary exceptions to
a general picture of a powerful and triumphant
Messiah, who will establish either upon earth, or
in heaven, after the wicked and the oppressors
have been destroyed by him, an ideal kingdom,
wherein universal prosperity and happiness will be
the marked characteristics of his sway.
That these concepts, common amongst all Jews,
were never realized, and that Christian thought,
subsequently to the advent of Jesus Christ, recog
nized this fact, and turned instinctively to the
truer concept — a spiritual victory and a spiritual

i.] Pre-Christian Messianic Concepts 47
kingdom, issuing out of earthly defeat, and apparent
failure — does not in the least affect the point at
issue. It was then — subsequently to the time of
Christ — seen for the first time that the portrait
of the Suffering Israel marvellously fitted, and
harmonized completely, with the circumstances of
the life and death of the typical Israelite — Jesus
Christ ;. and that He was, after all, the true
Servant of Jahveh, and the Saviour of the human
race. But such a portrait of the Messiah was never
recognized before that time by any Jew, or sect of
Jews, or even at the time of His advent ; and it
still remains unrecognized by the Jewish race of
to-day.1
1 W, R. Smith and E. Kautzsch sum up the matter thus : " That
the Jews in the time of Christ believed in a suffering Messiah is, to
say the least, unproved and highly improbable " (Ency. Bibl., art.
' Messiah,' § 9, ref. to De Wette, Opuscula ; Wunsche, Die Leiden
des Messias, 1870).

CHAPTER II.
THE JESUS OF THE PRIMITIVE GOSPEL
AND THE LOGIA [40-50 A.D. ?].
It is now a generally accepted dictum of Criticism
that, if we would comply with the demands of
modern scientific history, we must get behind the
Gospels, in order to obtain a knowledge of the
actual life and teaching of Jesus.1 Our present
Gospels, it is urged — and with some truth — are
largely accreted with contemporary, and later,
views about Jesus, views not necessarily wrong,
or superfluous, it may here be added, but, by
reason of which the purely historical Figure is,
to some extent, obscured and hidden from our
view.
1 With regard to the claim of the Gospels generally to be
seriously treated as historical, after they have undergone a critical
sifting, Professor Harnack very truly remarks (Die Chronologie der
Altchristlichen Litteratur, vol. i. pp. viii, ix) : " There was a
time . . . when people fancied themselves obliged to consider the
most ancient Christian literature, inclusive of the New Testament,
a mass of deceits and falsifications. That time has passed away.
. . . The oldest literature of the Church is, in its main points, and
'in most of its details, treated in a literary-historical way, truthful
and reliable." 48

n.] The Jesus qf the Primitive Gospel 49
Now many and various attempts have been
made at different times to discover this ' historical
Jesus,' most of which are recorded in Schweitzer's
famous book, The Quest of the Historical Jesus.
Setting all these aside, however, as unsuitable for
our present purpose, let us see whether it be
possible, in the light of more modern knowledge,
to find in these same- Gospels a substratum of
undoubted biographical fact, and ethical teaching,
which will establish the actual existence of the
great Teacher and Saviour as He is said to have
appeared amongst men, nearly nineteen centuries
ago. Amongst the many tentative essays towards
this end which have been made of recent years,
and which, we think, fulfil the canons of scientific
history, as these are laid down by historians, are
two or three which we may examine and avail
ourselves of, so far as they promise to prove
useful for our purpose.
And in the first place we will notice that of
Professor Schmiedel, who sets out from what we
may term a "minimum basis,' and lays down the
following preliminary canon of historical criticism : 1
"When a profane historian finds before him an
historical document, which testifies to the worship
of a hero unknown to other sources, he attaches
first and foremost importance to those features
which cannot be deduced merely from the fact of
1 Ency. Bibl., art. 'Gospels,' § 131.
4

50 Jesus The Christ [chap.
his worship ; and he does so on the simple and
sufficient ground that they would not be found in
this source, unless the author had met with them
as fixed data of tradition."
But he further continues : " The same funda
mental principle may safely be applied in the case
of the Gospels, for they are also all of them written
by worshippers of Jesus.
" We now have, accordingly, the advantages . . .
of being in a position to recognize something as
being worthy of belief, even without being able to
say, or even called upon to; inquire, whether it
comes from the original Mark, from Logia, from
oral tradition, or from any other quarter that may
be alleged. The relative priority becomes a
matter of indifference, because the absolute
priority — that is the origin in real tradition — is
certain. In such points the question as to credi
bility becomes independent of the synoptical
question. Here the clearest cases are those in
which only one Evangelist, or two, have data of
this class, and the second, or third, or both, are
found to have taken occasion to alter these in the
interests of the reverence due to Jesus. If we
discover any such points, even if only a few, they
guarantee not only their own contents, but much
more; For, in that case, one may hold as credible
all else which agrees in character with these, and
is, in other respects, not open to suspicion."
In accordance with the above rule, Professor

h.] The Jesus of the Primitive Gospel 51
Schmiedel finds nine passages, which he terms
elsewhere ' Foundation pillars,' upon which to
build a Life of Jesus, which may lay claim to
historical certainty, in the modern sense of the
term. The passages selected are : Mark x. 18 (' Why
callest thou Me good ? ') ; Matt. xii. 32 f. (' Blas
phemy against the Son of Man can be forgiven ') ;
Mark iii. 31 (' The relatives of Jesus thought Him
beside Himself); Mark xiii. 32 ('Of that day
and that hour knoweth no man,' etc.); Mark xv.
34 (' My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken
Me?'); Mark viii. 12 ('There shall no sign be
given unto this generation ') ; Mark vi. 5 f. (' Jesus
was able to do no mighty work, save healing a
few sick folk in Nazareth,' etc.) ; Mark viii. 14-20
('Jesus warns the disciples against the leaven of
the Pharisees,' etc.), and, lastly, Markxi. 5, where
Jesus sends an answer to the Baptist's inquiry as
to whether He were the Messiah or not.1
Now, we gather from a careful examination of
these 'Foundation pillars,' which are of a form
that cannot be conceived as originating mythically,
and gathering round a non-existent personality, as
actual sayings and doings on his part, the following
outline sketch of the historic Jesus : He was a
Man who went about the country doing good, and
gathered round Him a band of followers ; He
pardoned calumnious representations of Himself
1 Ency. Bibl., art. ' Gospels,' § 139.

52 Jesus The Christ [chap.
and His teaching ; He recognized the supreme
goodness of His Father, God ; He was considered
to be mad by His relatives ; He sent a message
to John the Baptist, His contemporary, which
seems to imply an affirmative answer to the
question put by the latter, as to whether He were
the Christ ; He warned His disciples against the
current, orthodox, teaching of the Pharisees ; He
knew not the day, or hour, of the future coming
of the ' Son of Man ' ; He wondered at the un
belief which He encountered in His own land,
and, finally, He was deserted by all, even (as He
thought) by God, and probably put to death.1 In
all this there is nothing that can be construed as
mythical, or even legendary,2 and we are, therefore,
justified in inferring, when the evidence set forth
receives corroboration elsewhere, that such a man
actually existed, and did, and said, what he is
represented here as doing and saying. As Dr.
Schmiedel truly adds: "They (the passages in
question) prove that he really did exist, and that
the Gospels contain at least some absolutely trust
worthy facts concerning him. If passages of this
kind were wholly wanting in them, it would be
impossible to prove to a sceptic that any historical
1 This saying certainly implies this, and occurs in a narrative
portion of the Gospel, which definitely states it.
2 These two terms are not always sufficiently distinguished.
Myth is primitive, and very crude, science, or philosophy, in the
making ; Legend is crude and distorted history which gathers
round persons.

ii.] The Jesus of the Primitive Gospel 53
value whatever was to be assigned to the Gospels ;
he would be in a position to declare the picture of
Jesus contained in them to be purely a work of
phantasy, and could remove the person of Jesus
from the field of history." 1
So far Dr. Schmiedel and his minimum basis :
let us now turn to another similar view which
attains to further, and somewhat more detailed,
results. Speaking of our present Gospels, and
the historic Jesus, Dr. van Manen says: "As
for their origin, the Gospels, on close comparison,
point us back to an ' oldest ' written Gospel (to
evarfyeKiov), which unfortunately does not exist for
us, except in so far as we can recover any traces
of it preserved in later recensions. Perhaps it
began somewhat as follows : 'In the fifteenth year
of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate
being Governor of Judaea ... in the priesthood
of Annas and Caiaphas . . . there came down to
Capernaum, a city of Galilee, Jesus Christ, the
Son of God ' ; and then proceeded to sketch,
somewhat in the following order, His appearance
at Capernaum, His casting out of -daemons, the
proclamation of the Kingdom of God, the trans
figuration, the final journey to Jerusalem, His
passion, death and resurrection. Nothing else
was said as yet of His origin, birth, early life,
meeting with John, baptism in Jordan, temptation
1 Schmiedel has replied to critics of this passage in hisTpreface
to Neumann's fesus, q.v.

54 fesus The Christ [chap.
in the wilderness, nor much of consequence re
garding His mission as a religious teacher and
preacher in Galilee."1
If we might assume the above as the results
of a critical inquiry into our present narratives,
the position we are seeking to establish would be
gained. But it will be evident to every thoughtful
reader that such a sketch as the above contains
some elements, at least, which may be considered
disputable, and which will require further evidence
for their support. It is really a considerable step
beyond the position reached by Schmiedel, and,
moreover, it is so far purely hypothetical, inasmuch
as it goes somewhat arbitrarily beyond the data
laid down by the latter scholar.
The question, therefore, arises : Can we by any
possible means, by 'any historical and scientific
process applied to our present Synoptic Gospels,
extract such a ' Primitive ' Gospel as the basis
immediately underlying the three Synoptic records,
and, therefore, standing perhaps midway between
these, and (let us say) the nine ' Foundation
pillars ' of Professor Schmiedel ? If we can do
so, then the great problem, so far as it is historical,
is solved, and we will be able to construct a simple
biography of Jesus which will satisfy the Canons
which are now laid down by all modern historians.2
1 Ency. Bibl., art. ' Old Christian Literature,' § 6.
2 Professor Burkitt prefers Mark itself to all other sources (the
so-called Logia included) as a guide to the actual Life of Jesus.

n.] The Jesus of the Primitive Gospel 55
Now, it so happens that such an attempt has
quite recently been made by Professor Flinders
Petrie in The Growth of the Gospels (1910).1
Stated briefly, his method is as follows : He re
moves from each Synoptic Gospel every episode
which does not occur in the same order in both
of the other Gospels. " Everything," he says
(p. 14), "that is not in common to all three, in
a parallel text, should be set aside. Thus there
remains a body of episodes which are identical
in order in all three Gospels. This must be the
Nucleus, or common basis, on which each Gospel
has been built."
Of course, this primary Gospel, or Nucleus,
" very probably grew out of smaller documents,"
and it forms merely the stage where the primary
compilation "passed as a whole, in unvaried order,
into different lines of growth leading to several
Gospels." This ' Nucleus,' therefore, Professor Petrie
believes, represents, as nearly as possible, "the
Narrative used in the Church at Jerusalem,
probably before 40 a.d., certainly before 50 a.d.,
He thinks that Mark's account is free from any ruling theological
bias, and that the Evangelist did not employ any earlier written
'sources' (The Earliest Sources for the Life of Jesus, 1910).
Wrede and others dissent from this view.
1 One especial merit of Professor Petrie's method is, that he
gets rid entirely of the subjective element in the analysis, and it
stands apart from all questions as to the priority of each Synoptic.
The work itself should be consulted for details, which cannot be
given here.

56 Jesus The Christ [chap.
upon which the Evangelists, later on, built the
Gospels as we now have them," by the further
incorporation of matter derived partly, perhaps,
from oral, but more particularly from documentary
sources.1 But this primary, or Apostolic, Gospel was not
yet so named. The word ' Gospel ' {evayyeXiov),
as Professor Petrie points out, never appears in
this Nucleus. The earliest use of that term dates,
perhaps, from 53 a.d. " The new teaching," adds
Professor Petrie, "was called 'The Way'; or,
if a fuller title was given to it, perhaps, ' The
Teaching of the Way for Such as should be
Saved.'"2 Now what do we find in this Apostolic Gospel
(as we may term it) in its primitive and most
historic, or narrative, form ? We find it begins
with the Mission of the Baptist ; the meeting of
Jesus and John is next recorded ; then the retire
ment of the former into the desert ; the re
appearance of Jesus in Galilee, with His call to
repentance, because ' the kingdom of heaven was
at hand.' Next, we have the summons of Peter
and James and John to follow Him ; the healing
1 Recent archaeological research has shown that the art of writing
was practised freely by even the humblest classes of that time, and
there was certainly one professional scribe (Matthew) amongst the
Twelve. It is, therefore, more than probable that a kind of diary
of the journeyings would be kept, and notes taken (Logia) of the
teaching of Jesus.
2 Acts ii. 47, ix. 2, xvi. 17, xviii. 26, xix. 9, 23, xxiv. 14 (not 'that
way,' as in E.V.).

ii.] The Jesus of the Primitive Gospel 57
of the sick and 'possessed'; the call of Levi;
the collision with the Pharisees on questions con
nected with the Jewish law ; the teaching of the
Galilean crowds by the lake-shore ; the great
Parable of the Sower spoken by Jesus ; the report
of His fame carried to Herod the tetrarch; the
Feeding of the Five Thousand ; 1 the acknowledg
ment of Jesus as the expected Messiah by Peter ;
the prediction by Jesus of His approaching
sufferings, death and resurrection ; His doctrine
of self-denial as the test of discipleship ; the Trans
figuration ; x the supreme significance of the child-
spirit in spiritual matters ; the ' Counsel of Perfec
tion' ; the second prediction of His sufferings and
death ; the entry into Jerusalem ; the expulsion
of the traders from the Temple ; the Parable of
the Husbandman ; the trap set for Jesus by the
Herodians, Pharisees, and Sadducees ; His pre
diction of the destruction of the Temple, and the
signs of the end; the betrayal by Judas after the
eating of the Passover with the disciples ; the scene
in the garden ; the trials before the Sanhedrin and
Pilate ; the Crucifixion ; the burial and resurrec
tion, — though the post-mortem Appearances do
not seem to have been included in this ' earliest
Gospel.'2
1 The alleged ' miraculous ' character of these episodes may
be left out of account here.
2 This, however, may possibly be due to the loss of the end of
Mark, which seems to have recorded an Appearance.

58 Jesus The Christ [chap.
Now, we evidently have here what we may
term a very full, as well as primitive Gospel.
And if it may be taken, as Professor Petrie avers
it may, as written testimony, in existence, perhaps,
within ten, or even twenty years, after the death
of Jesus, we have in it indisputable material for
a scientific Life of Jesus. There is no trace of
Myth x in this document. Even Legend is largely
precluded, because, inter alia, the cures spoken of
can, if need be, be paralleled by well-attested
modern ' psychical ' therapeutic phenomena.
And the definite assignment of the trial and
crucifixion of Jesus to the procuratorship of
Pontius Pilate and the high priesthood of Annas
and Caiaphas, would have enabled both the Jewish
and Roman Authorities, for many years after
wards, promptly and publicly to contradict the
1 Exception may here be taken, that all references to a
' resurrection ' are mythical. But surely such an event is mainly
a matter of comparison (with the pagan myths), and sufficient
attestation. The ' resurrections ' of Adonis, or Osiris, etc., contain
quite different elements, as we will show hereafter. And what
attestation have any of these stories, and who saw these gods
afterwards ? The Resurrection of Jesus, on the other hand,
St. Paul says, was attested by over 500 persons, many of whom
were alive and known to him. It was, in fact, this ' difficulty,'
which led Schmiedel to formulate his famous Subjective Hallucina
tion theory (see present writer's The Resurrection Narratives
and Modern Criticism, 1910). The only other alternatives seem
to be that the disciples were either liars or lunatics. The former,
however, is disproved by the fact that they went in peril of their
lives, the latter is rendered most improbable by the sobriety of
their conduct. But we will waive this point here, as our chief
concern is with the mere historic existence of Jesus.

"•] The Jesus of the Primitive Gospel 59
crucial statement. This, however, as we will see
later, they never did, either during the years
immediately subsequent to the death of Jesus,
or during the two centuries following that event.
They frequently endeavour, we find, to discredit
Jesus, to controvert His teaching, but never to
deny His life and death.
Again, this primary document, or Nucleus of
the future Gospels, was not long afterwards sup
plemented by another document1 of a different
nature, which contained the chief ' Sayings ' of
Jesus, and which is now mostly represented by
that great block of teaching comprising Matt. v. 1-
vii. 29, the so-called ' Sermon on the Mount.'
This large group of ' Sayings ' (perhaps incor
porated almost in its entirety by the author of
Matthew) was evidently based upon actual notes
taken of the various discourses of Jesus, and was
to some extent used by Luke, and, perhaps, Mark.
This would place its date, at the latest, earlier
than the composition of Mark's Gospel (60-70
A.D.).2 Concerning this collection of Sayings, Professor
Flinders Petrie says (p. 25): "The character of
the Sermon is remarkable for the absence of the
detail of all time and place in it, for the entirely
1 Now generally designated ' Q.' It contained some Narrative,
in addition to the ' Sayings.'
2 Mark is here assumed to be the first gospel of the three
Synoptics, though it makes no difference to our argument if
Matthew be taken as the first, as a very few scholars still think.

60 Jesus The Christ [chap.
ethical and fundamental character of it, and for
the regular system and arrangement of it, as a
whole.1 It obviously belongs to the time when
the relation of the new teaching to the old
was the first question to the hearers, and when
all the local and personal facts were familiar,
and did not need any mention or allusion. It
has every appearance of an encheiridion com
piled during the ministry, or immediately after
wards." We have now to deal with what Professor
Petrie terms "The Historic Position of the
Nucleus "(p. 3 8 f. ). "When we search through
it," he says, . . . "there is not a single idea or
incident recorded which steps beyond the field of
thought of the ministry, and of the Church at
Jerusalem in its earlier growth."
Again: "When the geographical position is
regarded, the result is still more trenchant.
Galilee is only vaguely named, without indicating
a single locality. There is but one precise state
ment of any place north of Jerusalem and Jericho.
That exception is Caesarea (Matt. xvi. 13), and
that exactly localized account was due to Philip
the Evangelist of Caesarea (Acts xxi. 3), who was
at Jerusalem by 30 a.d. (Acts vi. 5).
" Another strong evidence of the early date
1 It would seem that this ' Sermon ' received the accretion of
two Narratives (Matt. viii. 5-13, and x. 2-24), before it was used by
the Evangelists.

ii.] The Jesus of the Primitive Gospel 61
of the Nucleus is its treatihent of the Resurrection
period. It is full of minute detail, down to the
burial, but only three or four verses at the utmost
can be in the common basis of the Gospels re
garding the Resurrection. Yet the Resurrection
was preached at a very early date, and were the
Nucleus even ten years later, there would have
been a full record about it. The close of the
Nucleus suggests a document drawn up within a
few months of the final events."
Finally, Professor Petrie summarizes as follows :
" The Nucleus was compiled probably in Jeru
salem before any Galilean documents were
publicly recognized there. All the classes of
later additions have Galilean detail. . . .
" Taking historical facts into account, we see
the changes of standpoint and of interests in each
decade of the Early Church. The subjects dealt
with in the Gospels are mostly those of import
ance before 40 a.d., while but little refers to the
Diaspora [Dispersion] and the Gentile stages of
50 and 60 a.d. . . .
"The relation of the [Synoptic] Gospels which
is seen to be most likely, is that Mark and Luke
collaborated on additions to the Nucleus, when
in Jerusalem in 54-56. After the first third,
Luke left with his material, which he had person
ally collected in Galilee, and finished his Gospel
elsewhere. Mark then obtained Matthew's
Gospel, so far as then accreted, and finished his

62 Jesus The Christ [chap.
Gospel, which remained in Egypt isolated from
further accretion." J
Now we have above, the present writer ven
tures to think, a very simple and consistent, as
well as probable theory of the origins and develop
ment of the Synoptic Gospels. The question,
however, from our immediate standpoint, is, what
is its historic value as a witness to the historicity
of Jesus ?
In the Primitive document, or Nucleus, as
evolved by this hypothesis, we have a very natural
and life-like story, in which (omitting for the
present the brief notice of the Resurrection) there
is not a single item which raises the slightest
suspicion or distrust. A new Teacher comes
forth from out of the obscurity of His early life
— as so often happens in Eastern countries —
and delivers Himself of His message. His
wonderful personal and 'magnetic' influence (a
faculty found in all great teachers) wins attention
from the people, and even rouses the sick and
'possessed' to a higher degree of bodily and
spiritual health, so that they quickly return to a
normal condition of body and mind. This, again,
may, if necessary, be to some extent paralleled in
the history of modern 'psychic' phenoinena.
And then, as we might expect, this great Man
meets with opposition from the ' vested interests '
of the official priesthood of the day, who watch
1 The Growth of the Gospels, pp. 53, 54.

h.] The Jesus of the Primitive Gospel 63
His progress with jealousy and suspicion. And
the result is, as history has shown over and over
again to be the case, His persecution, and, finally,
His death at their hands.
The whole story is told with a naivete" and
charm which stamps it as both a natural and a
truthful story of historic events.
And, if this be so, why should not this account
rank as an historic document? In secular history
no doubts whatever would be raised as to the
actual truth of such a narrative ; and, indeed,
there are hundreds of stories, with less attestation
than this record has, which are accepted without
demur by historians of the highest authority. If
the story dealt merely with the career of some
figure, conspicuous, or inconspicuous, in the daily
secular life of the past, it certainly would not be
set down as mythical, or put aside as legendary,
and a worthless testimony to the actual existence
of such a person as it describes. Whatever value
we may attach to the additions, which were sub
sequently made, from other sources, to this story,
culminating finally in our present triple Synoptic
record, is of no moment in the consideration of
this primitive document. Moreover, in the matter
of the qualities above referred to, it stands out
clear and conspicuous from all the other con
temporary literature of the first century a.d., and
also the centuries which immediately preceded
and followed it. In a word, in its character it is

64 Jesus The Christ' [chap.
absolutely and perfectly unique, a fact which,
in itself, suggests very strongly that it has no
common value. Its evidence, therefore, must
possess the weight which attaches to all evidence
of this kind; and, indeed, in its simpler form at least,
the story fulfils all the conditions which are laid
down as necessary by the modern scientific historian.
Finally, we have to consider briefly the historical
value which attaches to the collection of Logia
found in Matthew, which form now the greater
part of the Sermon on the Mount. The question
here is simply, do these Sayings — as representing
a kind of summary of the higher ethical and spiritual
teaching of Jesus — afford any evidence for the
existence of a single historical personality f Or, do
they indicate the wisdom of many, — are they merely
an aggregation of sayings and maxims uttered at
different times by different persons, and collected,
perhaps, by the compiler of ' Q,' or the editors of
Matthew and Luke from various sources ? This
is a very important question ; it is necessary,
therefore, to give it a most careful and unbiased
consideration. Now, at the outset, we may remark that this
' Sermon ' has always greatly impressed the
majority of thoughtful men with the unity, as well
as the great spirituality and profundity, of its
teaching, thus clearly suggesting an origin in a
single mind remarkable for its transcendent powers
and discernment.

ii.] The Jesus of the Primitive Gospel 65
Of recent years, however, a different tendency
has sometimes arisen in certain quarters. It has
become, for example, the practice with writers of
the mythological school both to doubt the origin
ality of the teaching contained in it — and the
Gospels generally — and to disparage its ethical
and spiritual value. Thus, Mr. J. M. Robertson,
who may, perhaps, be taken as a fair representative
of this school of thought in its extreme form, says :
" Careful comparative study resolves such dis
courses as the Sermon on the Mount into com
pilations of the gnomic sayings of many teachers." x
And, anticipating such a reply as, that the borrow
ing (if any) was all the other way, he adds : " The
Talmudic parallels to any part of the Sermon on
the Mount cannot conceivably have been borrowed
by the Rabbis . . . ; they would as soon have bor
rowed from the ritual of the Pagans."2
We are not quite so sure about this latter point,
as Mr. Robertson appears to be, and personally
are of opinion that the Rabbis, like many other
people, were not always quite so scrupulous in
such matters. Waiving this point, however, as
immaterial here, let us see more particularly in
what respect the originator (or originators) of the
Sermon on the Mount is (are) alleged to be
indebted to these Rabbis, whether in Talmud, or
in Midrashim.
Mr. Robertson, in his work just quoted, gives a
1 Christianity and Mythology, p. 307. 2 Ibid. p. 450.
5

66 Jesus The Christ [chap.
detailed list of ' parallel ' sayings from the works
of the Rabbis, which is too long for quotation
here,1 and from which, by a series of plagiarisms,
he believes the ' Sermon ' was constructed.
But many of these so-called 'parallels,' which
he gives, are certainly far-fetched, and but little
resemble their supposed copies, not to mention
the fact that, in point of expression, they are
generally very inferior to their Christian ' imita
tions.' Moreover, the pre-Christian antiquity of
some is, to say the least, doubtful ; and, again,
the question of other parallels in pagan teaching
has sometimes to be considered. The same ideas,
as a matter of fact, frequently spring up quite
independently in different countries, at different
times, and among different peoples.
But, even granting, for argument's sake (though
we do not admit it to be a fact), that Jesus did
borrow 2 frequently from the teaching of previous,
or contemporary Rabbis (or even from heathen
writers, which is still more improbable, as there is
no reason for supposing that He was acquainted
with pagan literature), there is still another fact
to be considered. This is so clearly set forth by
the learned and candid Jewish scholar, Mr. C. G.
Montefiori, that we cannot state it better than in
his own words. " To each individual striking
utterance of Jesus," he says, "it is likely enough
1 The reader is referred to his book for details.
2 The theory of borrowing, either way, has been greatly overdone.

ii.] The Jesus of the Primitive Gospel 67
that a good parallel can be found in Rabbinic
literature ; but when Jewish scholars adopt this
method of disproving the originality of the Gospel,
they forget (quite apart from questions of date)
the size of the Talmud and Midrashim. The
teaching of Jesus is contained in three small
books, which do not fill more than sixty-eight
double-column pages of tolerably small print.
The teaching belongs, or is attributed, to one
man, and constitutes in large measure a consistent
and harmonious whole. It is not a combination
of a thousand different occasional and disconnected
sayings of a hundred different Rabbis. . . . We
have not to neglect a vast quantity of third- and
fourth-rate material, and seek for occasional pearls
amid a mass of negligent trivialities. And, lastly,
we must take into consideration . . . not only
what Jesus said, but how he said it. The beauty,
the distinction, in a word, the genius of the form,
must surely be taken into account, as well as the
excellence of the matter." x
This is all profoundly true ; and it is an absolute
vindication, from the non-Christian point of view
too, of the entire originality and profundity of the
teaching of Jesus. To it we may also add the
fact that, even to pick out and co-ordinate and
systematize what is really valuable from a large
mass of indifferent stuff, which is commonly the
main characteristic of the work of pedants and
1 The Religious Teaching of fesus, pp. iio-iii.

68 Jesus The Christ [chap.
dullards, demands a capacity of no ordinary kind,
and is quite beyond the powers of the mere
compiler. The fact is, that no hypothesis but
that of a single, supernormal, spiritual genius can
explain the origin of the teaching contained, not
merely in the ' Sermon,' but also throughout the
Gospels. This teaching can only proceed from
some individual Man, possessing in the highest
degree the divine gift of spirituality and person
ality, such as has never been manifested by any
other great religious teacher — not even the Buddha
himself — with whom the world has been acquainted.
It may please Mr. Robertson to describe the teach
ing of the Gospels as 'a literary patchwork,' and
to sneer at the ' moderate ethical height ' of the
parable of the Good Samaritan ; or, again, Mr.
Blatchford may delight to inform his readers that
the ' Sermon ' is merely a new arrangement of
old texts, taken out of the Old Testament ; but
these statements are mere assertions, and, more
over, untrue. And, indeed, Dr. Estlin Carpenter
has invited (we believe in vain !) Mr. Robertson
to produce an equal to this same parable out of
the whole range of Greek literature, which un
doubtedly contains the choicest teaching of the
ancient world.1 And the same test may also be

1 In like manner the Hebrew and Jewish parables, generally,
will not bear comparison with those of Jesus. Fiebig indeed
asserts (Altjiidische Gleichnisse und die Gleichnisse fesu, 1904,
p. 105) that there are no parables in the whole range of Jewish

n.] The Jesus of the Primitive Gospel 69
applied to the Sermon itself. We would like to
see any extract from, or portion of, Jewish, or
other, literature, which can compare for a moment,
in point of merit, spiritual, ethical, or literary, with
this discourse. It is, in truth, like the Synoptic
Gospels themselves, a gem found in, for the most
part, a literary wilderness of human pedantry and
mediocrity ; even the choicest passages of the
Hebrew prophets are but pale reflections of divine
truths in comparison with it. Herein we have
displayed both the individuality and the greatness
of Jesus ; in this discourse a standpoint is reached
which no mere compiler, or compilers, could
attain, and which no mere ' literary patchwork '
could ever show.
We will, therefore, conclude this chapter with
a passage which shows that this is the conclusion
also reached by one of the most eminent and
fearless, as well as independent, of modern critical
scholars. "Jesus," he says, "reveals to us by
His teaching the true and ultimate Will of God.
In His heroic stature and absolute self-devotion,
in His exclusive insistence upon the highest and
best and His scorning of anything less, He stands,
perhaps, at an unattainable distance from us, and
even shows an unbending sternness, nay, an
awfulness, before which we shrink." x
literature relating to the kingdom of heaven. Neither are the
Buddhist parables comparable.
1 Wilhelm Bousset, Jesus, p. 157.

70 Jesus The Christ [chap. n.
This, again, is very true; but not quite the
whole truth. It may be added that, with all this,
He shows also a tenderness and a divine pity for
the weakness, and the frailty, and the ignorance
of man, such as are also unique in the experience
of the human race. The advocates of an un
historical Jesus may, indeed, also be invited to
produce any mythical parallel to His lofty, but
withal meek and benign Figure. If they cannot
do this, then the thesis of an historical Jesus is as
good as proved.

CHAPTER III.
ST. PAUL AND THE HISTORIC JESUS.
We now turn to another division of canonical
literature, which comes next in point of chrono
logical order, and importance, to that which we
have just been considering, and constitutes a
record of an important part of the life and teach
ing of St. Paul. And here, too, we will confine
ourselves strictly within the limits which are
agreed upon by modern critical research.
We may, provisionally, assign the conversion
of St. Paul to the year 35 a.d., and the Notes and
Letters with which we have here to deal will come
within the period 51-63 a.d., and fall into two
groups. In the first place, we have what is generally
known as the ' We,' or ' Travel' document1
(Acts xvi. 10-xxviii. 16). This is, by common
consent of modern scholars, in all probability,
extracted, if not actually copied, from a kind of
diary kept by one of the companions of St. Paul
in his second and third missionary journeys.
1 See Harnack, Luke the Physician, Eng. tr. pp. 26-120.
7'

72 Jesus The Christ [chap.
According to Acts xx. 4> the Apostle was accom
panied by a number of associates, who are, for the
most part, mentioned by name, and who joined
him at Troas. It is, however, tolerably clear
that none of those persons who are mentioned
there was the author of this diary. Several others
have been suggested as the probable author, e.g.
Silas ; but he seems not to have been continuously
with St. Paul throughout the period, and, more
over, is not mentioned after chap, xviii. 5, hence,
he, too, seems out of the question ; Titus — who
was with Paul at the Council of Jerusalem (Gal.
ii. 1), and continued with him during a part, at
least, of his stay at Ephesus, and also during his
subsequent residence in Macedonia (2 Cor. ii. 13,
vii. 6, viii. 16 f., 23, xii. 18). But the editor of
the Acts entirely suppresses the name of Titus, a
thing which he probably would n6t have done
had the latter been the authority for this period.
Lastly, and probably the most likely suggestion
of all, we are offered the alternative of Luke
himself as the diarist. If he were the editor of
the Acts also, as Harnack and several other
liberal scholars now believe, it would only be
natural for him to insert an abstract of the
contents of his travel-diary into the work which
he compiled, perhaps some thirty years after
wards. It is, however, possibly none of these men who
is the author of the diary, but some unknown

hi.] St. Paul and the Historic Jesus 73
travelling companion whose name has not been
recorded. Now, it has frequently been asserted, and re
asserted, that St. Paul himself had no knowledge
whatever of the historical Jesus. This statement,
too, is largely founded upon the alleged authority
of St. Paul himself, who says {e.g. 2 Cor. v. 16)
that, "We henceforth know no man after the
flesh ; (and) even if we have known Christ after
the flesh, yet we now know Him no more." x
Hence, say certain critics, the historical Jesus is
for St. Paul a mere concrete embodiment, created
by his mind to clothe the abstract idea of a
suffering Christ, or Messiah, which latter concept
he derived chiefly from Jewish Messianism, but
partly also from the surrounding nature-cults of
the Adonis type. We will deal with this latter
point presently, and, meanwhile, will merely say
that there is no reason whatever for drawing any
such conclusion from the data which are available.
It is quite true, on the other hand, that nowhere
in his letters does he give a continuous, or detailed,
account of the life and works of Jesus ; 2 but he
frankly admits that the mere historical Jesus is
1 J. Weiss (Paulus und fesus, 1909), however, thinks that St.
Paul had previous personal acquaintance with Jesus before His
death, as this passage shows indirectly.
2 Mr. Edward Clodd has very aptly pointed out (fesus of
Nazareth, p. 70) that, in his Epistles, " Paul was addressing people
supposed to be acquainted with traditions then current." Hence,
it is very evident that there was no need to go into any mere
biographical details at that time.

74 Jesus The Christ [chap.
not for him, or even (in his view) for the Church,
the chief centre of interest, as He has perhaps
become for us who form this present generation.
St. Paul is concerned chiefly with the deeper
effects produced by that Life, — its meaning and
power, as part of a spiritual and divine scheme
for the redemption and elevation of mankind.
The Apostle, in fact, is very largely a doctrin
arian by the natural bent of his mind, and not
a historian, or even a biographer.
Furthermore, he no doubt assumed that the
mere human biography of Jesus was of little
spiritual value — a totally different view of the
matter, it may be added, from the one which
prevails nowadays.1 Still, in any case, it is in
correct to say, or even to assume, that he wholly
ignores the historic Jesus in his Epistles, as we
will see presently. The latter, indeed, is some
thing more than a mere hypothetical centre round
which his doctrinal ideas gather and precipitate,
as Professor Drews and others would have us
believe. For, if we read carefully the narrative
in the Acts,2 which is based upon this rdiary of
St. Paul's travels, we will find scattered here and
there many historic references, direct as well as
indirect, to an actual Jesus, of whom Paul knew
1 It is probable, too, as we saw in the last chapter, that the
primary Gospel, 'The Way' was in Very general circulation in
Christian communities at this time.
2 The Acts, it may be remarked, is now regarded by many^
critical scholars as having a considerable amount of historic value.

in.] St. Paul and the Historic Jesus 75
much, even though he had, perhaps, never seen
Him 'in the flesh.'
For example, at Thessalonica, the diarist records
(xvii. 3) that after preaching the Christ, who was
destined to suffer and rise again — so far, possibly,
a mere abstraction, or even' a mythical idea, from
the point of view of the modern reader — he dis
tinctly identifies Him with the Jesus of Galilean
repute, with whom, and whose history, he plainly
assumes that the Jews of that town are acquainted.
As Thessalonica contained a great number of his
former co-religionists, there is good reason to
believe that the name of the great ' Apostate '
and ' Sorcerer ' would be well known in that city,
and the general circumstances of His life and
death quite familiar to the people. Otherwise
his identification of the ' Christ ' with the ' Jesus '
would have made no impression whatever upon
the audience — who were orthodox Jews.
At Corinth, in like manner, we find (xviii. 4, 5)
that St. Paul insisted upon the identification of
Jesus with the 'Christ' looked for by the Jews,
and this, again, in direct opposition to the latter,
who denied not the actual existence of Jesus, but
only that Jesus was that Christ. And when
Gallio, the proconsul of Achaia, was appealed to
by the Jews to settle this important point, he very
naturally declined to enter into such a controversy,
and 'drave from the judgment seat' the Jews
who wished to argue out the point there. Gallio,

76 Jesus The Christ [chap.
we think, has earned a quite undeserved reputation
for stolid indifference in religious matters.
The next point to be noticed is the impression
of the fact of the identity of Jesus with Christ
upon an Alexandrian Jew, named Apollos, at
Ephesus (xviii. 24) by Aquila and Priscilla, also
Hellenistic Jews, who themselves had been pre
viously won over to that view (cp. xviii. 2) at
Corinth. Apollos apparently knew only the earlier
teaching of the Baptist regarding the ' Coming
One,' whom the latter had, a generation ago,
declared to be 'at hand.' John, according to
the Synoptic writers, appears to have long been
in doubt as to whether Jesus were actually that
' Coming One,' or not ; possibly he was never
fully convinced of the identity (cp. Matt. xi. 3).
A further historic reference to Jesus — merely
indirect, it is true — occurs in St. Paul's famous
speech from the steps of the ' Castle ' in Jeru
salem. The reference here to Jesus the Nazoraean
as the expected Christ, even though it be merely
indirect, is of the greatest evidential importance.
For, St. Paul, who preached everywhere ' Christ
crucified' in the person of Jesus the Nazoraean,
repeats here his identification of the expected
Jewish Messiah with the crucified Galilean of a
previous generation. Now, if the crucifixion of
Jesus had been a mere legend, or, still more, a
mythical idea embodied in a pseudo-historical
form, as we are now asked to believe, it is im-

in.] St. Paul and the Historic Jesus 77
possible that such a statement could have passed
muster on such an occasion ; it would have been
at once challenged by the Jewish authorities in
that city. These authorities would have flatly
denied that there had been any such crucifixion
under their auspices ; ' no such event happened
at the time you speak of,' would have been their
reply ; and ' no such man was ever found in
Jerusalem.' And St. Paul's subsequent clever artifice for
escaping from the clutches of a wholly hostile
Sanhedrin, — hostile, that is to say, to all identi
fication of Jesus the Nazoraean with the Messiah,
corroborates this view. All the members of that
assembly denied this identification, and denied
also that the executed Jesus had ' risen ' from
the dead. Consequently, the Apostle's only chance
of escape was to put forward prominently the
question of a general resurrection, by which means
he could divide the council in his favour. His
identification of the actually crucified Jesus with
the suffering Christ is again repeated (xxvi. 9, 23)
before Agrippa.
We gather, therefore, both directly and in
directly, from this travel-narrative, or diary,
embodied in the present Acts of the Apostles,
that there had been, some thirty years previously,
an actual Man, who was commonly known, in
Jerusalem and elsewhere, as Jesus the Nazoraean ;
that this Man, on account of His teaching, had

78 Jesus The Christ [chap.
been put to death at the instigation of the priests
in Jerusalem, and, moreover, that this same Man
was, in the opinion of St. Paul and others, the
Messiah who had been, and still was, expected by
the Jews.
Let us now turn to the other documents, in
which St. Paul sets forth not a mere doctrinal
and ideal Christ, but this same Christ as identical
with a concrete and historical Jesus, who had
lived and died, as a Man amongst men, but a
short time previously. We refer to his Epistles,
or Letters, to the various Churches, of which
four, out of our present collection, are regarded
by a consensus of even advanced critics x (so also
Professor Drews) as genuine. These are (with
their approximate dates) — Galatians, 51-53 a.d.,
1 and 2 Corinthians, 52-56, and Romans, 54-57.
We will, therefore, examine these, and set down
here the chief references therein to an historic
Jesus. In Gal. i. 1, St. Paul tells his readers that
' God raised him -\i.e. Jesus] from the dead.'
It is a common practice, we are aware, with
1 The authenticity of these four is only denied by Van Manen
and five or six other Dutch critics of the Leyden school.
Jensen attempts to prove (Hat der Jesus der Evangelien wirck-
lich gelebt? 1910) that the Pauline Letters (as also the Gospels) are
mere imitations of the Babylonian myth of Gilgamesh, etc., and
are consequently wholly untrustworthy as historic documents.
The absurdity of this theory has been clearly shown by Professor
B. W. Bacon. See his article in the Hibbert fournal (July 191 1),
PP- 735-739, and refs.

hi.] St. Paul and the Historic Jesus 79
critics of the school of Professor Drews, to assert
that this is a mere reference to the ' resurrection '
of a solar hero, or a vegetation-spirit. But if we
carefully compare it with St. Paul's references
elsewhere to the same event, this statement can
only naturally be referred to a current story of
the resurrection of a Man named Jesus, which
was alleged to have taken place once only some
twenty, or more, years previously.
The story of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ
(whether a fact or a non-fact) was, we repeat, an
account of a single event occurring in a certain
year, and, therefore, as such, widely different from
the periodic (annual) and figurative ' resurrec
tions ' of the sun-god, or vegetation - spirit,
predicated in the various contemporary nature-
cults. It plainly refers to the familiar Jesus of
Galilee, who had been, in the recollection of a
large number of men still living, done to death
in Jerusalem. This is a most important point
to bear constantly in mind, if we would under
stand clearly the various references in St. Paul's
Letters, which we are about to set down here for
consideration. Another allusion in Galatians will be found in
iv. 4, where we read that ' God sent his Son,
made of a woman ' — a plain and unmistakable
corroboration of the above view, and unquestion
ably a reference to an actual human birth and a
human existence.

80 Jesus The Christ [chap.
In the three remaining Letters, the references
are both more plentiful and more explicit.
Thus, in i Cor. ii. 2, he tells the Corinthians : ' I
determined not to know {eiBevai) anything among
you, except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.' J
It will be noted here that he does not write Jesus,
merely, and, therefore, it may be objected that
the reference is, after all, merely to a Mythic
Christ of the nature-cult order. But a con
sideration of, and a comparison with, other
similar passages in these Epistles leaves, we
think, no doubt whatever that this is not what
St. Paul refers to here. A similar remark, too,
applies to ver. 8 in the same chapter : ' They
have crucified the Lord of glory.'
A perfectly clear identification, however, will
be found in xi. 23, where, in describing the
institution of the Lord's Supper, he says : ' The
Lord Jesus, in the night that he was betrayed,
took bread,' etc. — a very human and striking
picture of the scene in the Upper Room at
Jerusalem. There is no 'mythic Christ' here;
neither does the reference fit in with the teachings
and beliefs of any of the supposed pre-Christian
'Jesus-Cults,' as we will show in the proper
place.

1 It is not probable that iicMvm is used here in a mystical rather
than an historic sense. Liddell and Scott give iyvconevcu. (novisse) to
know by intuition ; elSivat (scire) to know by reflection. Know
ledge of a mystical character is always yvaxris.

in.] St. Paul and the Historic Jesus 81
Again, chap. xv. vers. 3-8 gives us a series of
very clear and distinct references to the historic
Jesus: "Christ (meaning Jesus)1 died . . . was
buried . . . rose again on the third day . . . was
seen by Cephas ... by the Twelve ... by over
500 brethren at the same time ... by James . . .
by all the Apostles," etc.
The suffering gods of the nature-cults were,
it is true, said to have died, and their devotees
played at the comedy of their supposed rising
again, at the beginning of each new year in the
life of Nature ; but no one of these people ever
asserted, or even believed, that he actually saw
them directly afterwards in actual human form.
Moreover, as we have already said, the Christian
Resurrection was a single act, once performed.
The resurrection of Adonis, etc., was an annual
affair, symbolizing the birth of each new year.
Again, in 2 Corinthians we have two brief
references — (1) to 'the sufferings of Christ' (i. 5),
and (2) to the fact that He 'was crucified in
weakness.' These expressions, if they stood
alone, without qualification, might, it is true, be
pressed into a reference to the dying god of
a nature-cult ; standing, as they evidently do,
in connection with a human Jesus, they cannot
1 We often, nowadays also, speak of ' Christ,' when we should,
strictly speaking, say ' Jesus ' ; ' Christ ' is, of course, a title — not
a name. We should say 'Jesus the Christ,' or 'the Christ.'
So, also, ' Gautama the Buddha,' or ' the Buddha.'
6

82. Jesus The Christ [chap.
possibly have any such meaning here. But
the Epistle most fruitful of all in allusions to a
human Jesus is that addressed to the Romans.
In ver. 3 of chap. i. we are told that He was
'made of the seed of David, according to the
flesh,' i.e. was an actual man, and not a mere
mythical personage, the supposed embodiment of
an idea.
In ver. 4 He is further declared to be 'the
Son of God by the resurrection from the dead,'
i.e. endued also with a superhuman and divine
power. In vi. 4 there is another reference to
the death of Jesus Christ, with whom (ver. 6) ' our
old man ' [ = former nature] is said to be' crucified.'
In ver. 9 of the same chapter, Christ, it is said,
thus ' raised from the dead, dieth no more ' — a
strongly marked distinction (as we have noted)
from the ' saviour-gods ' of the orgiastic nature-
cults, who died annually, often about the close of
each year, and also rose again annually directly
afterwards. Again, in ix. 5, this same Christ is descended
from Paul's ' kinsmen according to the fiesh,' i.e.
the Jews, from whom, so far as the flesh is
concerned, Christ came : this descent implies a
human parentage. And, lastly, in xiv. 9, he
says, that 'Christ died and lived that He might
be the Lord both of the dead and the living.'
Now what is the conclusion, historically con
sidered, which we draw from these references

in.] St. Paul and the Historic Jesus 83
detailed above ? It is, that there existed — some
time previously to the date of these Letters — a
Man of Jewish race, who was born into the
world of a Jewish mother, and that this same
Man underwent certain sufferings, was put to
death by crucifixion, and thereafter was seen after
death — an experience which was not to be re
peated in His case.
A very brief and scanty biography, it may be
remarked ; and it is so. But it is sufficient for
St. Paul's purpose here, and was also sufficient
for those who remembered and knew the story.
Furthermore, it is not intended as a biography ;
it is merely a series of incidental references, made
as occasion demanded.
St. Paul, moreover, is not interested in mere
biography, even the biography of Jesus Christ.
But he is interested, and profoundly so, in the
meaning of His life and death and resurrection,
as elements in a divine scheme for the amelioration
of mankind.
What that meaning is for him, St. Paul develops
in his system of Christian doctrine. But with that
we are not here concerned.
And now we come to another point which is of
considerable importance, though only indirectly
so, for our present purpose. It is sometimes
asserted that St. Paul sets forth in his Letters
quite a different Gospel from that which, according
to the Synoptic writers, was delivered by Jesus

84 Jesus The Christ [chap.
Christ. In other words, that St. Paul's Gospel is
doctrinal and transcendental merely, whilst that of
Jesus, in the Synoptics, is ethical and practical.
St. Paul, it is true, deduces certain conclusions
from certain data — ethical and practical — which
are given in the Gospels ; or rather, let us say,
the Gospel in its more primitive form, as we
traced it in the last chapter. But he, also, along
with these doctrinal deductions, reflects a very
great deal of the ethical and other teaching of
Jesus, which is found in that important group of
Logia that so largely make up the ' Sermon on
the Mount.'
Let us examine these four Epistles side by side
with that document.1
Taking the former in their presumed chrono
logical order, we have, in the first place, the
fundamental spiritual principle of the whole of
the New Testament laid down in Gal. v. 14 :
' All the Law is fulfilled in one saying ; thou shalt
love thy neighbour as thyself.' This is, so far,
an imperfect echo of that beautiful Logion of the
1 Professor Drews completely ignores the net results of the
recent 'Jesus versus Paul' controversy, which has shown that
there is not the difference between their outlook and teaching
which was supposed to exist a few years ago, e.g. by Bruckner and
Wrede ; cp. Jiilicher, Paulus und fesus (1907), and J. Weiss, Paulus
und fesus (1909). Bavinck says (Gereformeerde Dogmatick, 1910)
that : " The Christ of Paul and John is, in point of fact, none other
than the Christ of the earliest community, and agrees in all His
traits with the Son of Man, who is made known in the Synoptic
Gospels.''

in.] St. Paul and the Historic Jesus 85
Master, wherein He says (Matt. v. 43) : " Ye have
heard that it hath been said : thou shalt love thy
neighbour and hate thine enemy. But / say unto
you : love your enemies, bless them that curse
you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for
them that despitefully use you, and persecute
you." St. Paul, however, adds the missing
portion in Rom. xii. 14, 17 : "Bless them which
persecute you ; bless and curse not," and, " Re
compense to no man eyil for evil." Saul of
Tarsus had been trained in the school of ' them
of old time ' ; Paul the Apostle had learnt the
newer Law of Jesus Christ ! Ini Cor. iv. 5
St. Paul teaches : " Judge nothing before the time
until the Lord comes." This also reflects exactly
the mind of Jesus, who says (Matt. viii. 1):
"Judge not, that ye be not judged" — a spiritual
rule still much needed, and by none more than by
professedly ' religious ' people. Again, in 1 Cor.
viii. 3, we read : "If any man love God, the same
(man) is known by Him." Amongst the recorded
sayings of Jesus there is none which is a verbal
equivalent of this ; but it matches exactly the
teaching of the ' Sermon,' as recorded in Matt. vii.
21-23, where the Lord 'knows' those who have
lovingly done His will, while He tells those who
have not : "I never knew you," etc.
St. Paul also teaches — alike with Jesus Christ —
most clearly, the great spiritual value of a true
humility of mind. Compare these two dicta :

86 Jesus The Christ [chap.
" Mind not high things, but condescend to men of
low estate " (Rom. xii. 16) ; and, " Blessed are the
meek," etc. (Matt. v. 5), and kindred sayings.
In Rom. ii. 13, according to St. Paul,, it is not
the ' hearers,' but the ' doers ' of the higher Law
who are justified before God. So, too, Our Lord
says (Matt. vii. 21): "Not every one that saith
unto me, ' Lord, Lord,' but he that doeth the will
of my Father," etc.
Again, St. Paul declares (Rom. v. 3) that
Christians 'glory in tribulations,' etc., which is a
literal fulfilment of the maxim of Jesus (Matt. v.
11, 12) : "Blessed are ye when men shall revile
. . . and persecute you," etc. : " rejoice and be
exceeding glad," etc.
Once more, the plain impossibility of 'serving'
two masters, whose demands upon us are of an
absolutely contrary nature, as laid down by Our
Lord (Matt. vi. 24), is clearly echoed by St. Paul,
who says : " Know ye not that to whom ye yield
yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are "
— and, therefore, of course, no one else's.
The teaching of Jesus on divorce is, it must
be confessed, somewhat weakened by St. Paul in
Rom. vii. 3. The Apostle seems never to have
been able to free himself completely from the
innate and characteristic Oriental contempt for
women, and to rise to the idea of a perfectly
impartial law for both sexes. Still, we find else
where that he disapproved of divorces by husbands

in.] St. Paul and the Historic Jesus 87
on various pretexts, which is a great advance upon
the teaching of the Jewish scribes of that day.
Furthermore, the great aim and object to
which the whole Jewish Law tended is explained
in exactly the same manner by Our Lord and
St. Paul. The latter says : "Christ {i.e. Jesus) is
the end of the Law for Righteousness" (Rom. x. 4),
and the former begs the Jews not to think, "that
I am come to destroy the Law," etc. : " I am come
to fulfil" (Matt. v. 17); in both of which utterances
we recognize the same truth, that the old Law,
as imperfectly expressed in the Decalogue, is
absorbed into the new Law, which is perfectly
set forth in the two ' new commandments ' which
are given by Jesus to men.
Once more ; let us take also Our Lord's definite
teaching with regard to almsgiving. He taught
(Matt. vi. 1): " Take heed that ye do not your
alms before men" i.e. publicly and ostentatiously.
St. Paul, in like manner, urges upon the Romans :
"He that giveth, let him do it with simplicity "
(Rom. xii. 8), i.e. without ostentation.
Now, the above brief analysis and summary
has shown the close agreement of the teaching,
ethical and spiritual, of St. Paul with that of Jesus,
and it might be carried out much further did our
space permit. Enough, however, has been said
to show their almost exact correspondence on
many points, wherein the teaching of Jesus differed
widely from the current maxims of the Rabbis.

88 Jesus The Christ [chap.
We may affirm, therefore, in opposition to much
modern opinion to the contrary, that the spiritual
energies of the Apostle were not wholly directed
towards the establishment of doctrinal and
eschatological theories, to the neglect of the
higher and deeper spiritual truths. A really
careful study of his writings shows, indeed, that
the doctrinal is quite of secondary importance.1
But the really important question which con
fronts us here is this : From what source did the
Apostle derive this highly developed spiritual and
ethical teaching, which, like that of Jesus, was
undoubtedly the highest which the world had ever
heard, and which has served as the highest and
truest expression of the mind of God for now
nearly nineteen centuries, which have elapsed
since that time ? Surely not from a mythical
Christ ! Of what mythical ' saviour ' of any of
the numerous nature-cults are such laws and
precepts recorded ? Or, again, from what human
being, or society of human beings, living at that
time, or previously, could St. Paul have derived
them ? Certainly not the official Rabbis, as we
have seen. The contemporary Essenes, and
Therapeutae, and other organizations similar to
these (if any such existed), lived, no doubt, for
the most part, excellent and exemplary lives.
But they were, in reality, merely a kind of
1 This is unmistakably shown by such passages as I Cor. viii. ib,
xiii. 2, 13.

hi.] St. Paul and the Historic Jesus 89
monastic order, or an aggregate of eremites, shut
up, as it were, within the narrow circle of their
own needs and ideas, troubling little, if at all,
about the world outside, in which, we cannot
doubt, they had little interest and less hope.
At any rate, history does not record any effort
on their part to better it. And that outside world
itself was certainly quite unable, and, we might
add, equally unwilling, to evolve (and still more so
to act upon) any such body of spiritual laws and
precepts as these that we have been examining.
By the • method of exhaustion ' (to use a mathe
matical expression) there remains, therefore, only
one source of this teaching — the historical Jesus.
It is very easy to assert, as writers like, e.g.,
Kalthoff often do, that " Christianity should be
regarded as a particular development of social
life, and not as the work of a personal founder of
a religion " ; x or, to declare off-hand with Mr. J.
M. Robertson, that the Christian religion is
merely an aggregation of solar and other myths ; 2
but we wish to know how this exalted type of
spiritual and ethical teaching could arise, either
out of a society which was confessedly rotten to
the core, or out of a series of myths, which, for
the most part, merely pandered to the basest of
the primary instincts of humanity ?
The actual answer to this question has, so far,
1 The Rise of Christianity, p. 3.
2 Christianity and Mythology (passim). See chaps, ix.-xi.

90 Jesus The Christ [chap.
not even been attempted by the respective sup
porters of these theories.
One more question only now remains to be
dealt with in this chapter. It will no doubt be
asked — if our solution of the above problem be the
correct one- — how and when did St. Paul acquire
the knowledge of the historic Jesus and His teach
ing, which is displayed in the four Epistles which
have been under consideration ? Now, we cannot
possibly conceive that either of these were acquired
during that ' psychic storm ' through which he
passed near Damascus, when a new turn to his
life was certainly given ; or, even during such
experiences as that ecstasy, wherein he was
'caught up into the third heaven.'1 There can
be little doubt that the religious value of these
subconscious — or 'super-conscious,' as Professor
P. Gardner prefers to call them2 — states, has for
many years past been greatly overlooked. Let
the materialist say what he pleases, some of the
highest truths and aspirations 'have, from time to
time, come to mankind through these channels.
How far St. Paul was uplifted spiritually during
these states we do not know, and it would be
fruitless to inquire. We need not, however,
resort to any such hypothesis in order to explain
1 2 Cor. xii. 2. Lucian of Samosata refers to this incident in
his Philopatris, chap. xii. The key to the understanding of such
experiences as these is undoubtedly the fact that 'heaven' is a
state, rather than a place, in the mundane sense of the term.
2 See Hibbert fournal (April ign).

in.] St. Paul and the Historic Jesus 91
his knowledge either of the main facts of the life
of the historic Jesus, or his familiarity with such
teaching as that contained in the Sermon on the
Mount. Indeed, St. Paul himself, indirectly and
incidentally, lets us into the secret of it — if secret
it may be termed.
In Gal. i. 18, he tells us that, after his vision of
Jesus,1 he retired to Arabia for a while, and then
after another visit to Damascus, when three years
had elapsed, he went up to Jerusalem, where he
abode for fifteen days in company with Peter and
James. This visit would, of course, afford ample
opportunity for acquiring (whether by way- of oral
conversation with the Apostles, or by a study of
' The Way ' document, and an authoritative col
lection of the Logia of Jesus, a sufficient knowledge
of both His life and the rudiments at least of His
ethical and spiritual teaching. According to
Gal. ii. 11, he again met Peter at Antioch on the
occasion of the Apostolic Council there 2 regarding
the dispute about circumcision and other matters.
In these places, therefore, and on these occasions
we may rightly infer that St. Paul gained that
knowledge of the historic Jesus, and of His
teaching, which we find in his Epistles ; for we
cannot believe that so earnest and alert a convert,
as St. Paul proved himself to be, would be remiss
1 For similar experiences, cp. Jundt, Rulwan Merswin, p. 19, and
the Pensees Fragments et Lettres de Paschal (1897), p. 269.
2 Acts xv. 22-25.

92 Jesus The Christ [chap.
in seizing such favourable opportunities as these
for acquiring knowledge.
Furthermore, these visits to, and conferences
with, his brother Apostles alone preclude our
taking St. Paul's references to the life and death
and teaching of Jesus in any mythical, or merely
ideal, sense.1 He must have learned, both at
Jerusalem and Antioch, at first-hand, from one of
the three innermost disciples of Jesus, as also from
James, 'the Lord's brother,' the facts relating to
the earthly career of Jesus.2 Had such inter
course never taken place, we might well have
been at a loss to conceive from what sources
his knowledge was obtained ; and it would always
have b^?n possible, in such a case, to suspect
that the historic allusions at least had reference
to a mere ideal and unhistoric personage, though
even then we should have been hard put to it to
derive St. Paul's teaching from such a source.
His purely historical, or biographical, interest
in Jesus was, however, never aroused to any great
extent. Perhaps he thought the narrative of
' The Way ' was quite sufficient ; more probably,
perhaps, his mind was cast in a different mould.
The ethical, and spiritual, teaching of Jesus, on
1 " There is no trace of any mythological basis," von Soden,
Has fesus Lived? p. 21.
2 For the complete failure of modern negative criticism to
supply a reasonable historic explanation of the sources of the
material in the Pauline Letters, see Johannes Weiss, fesus von
Nazareth, pp. 94 and 100.

hi.] St. Paul and the Historic Jesus 93
the other hand, he readily absorbed, with the
result that his statements of Christian doctrine are
always subservient to the higher law of Love,
which law, like his Master, he ever set forth as
being, in every sense, the fulfilment of the entire
Law.

CHAPTER IV.
THE TESTIMONY OF JOSEPHUS.
Joseph ben Matthai, or — to give him the
Roman name which he adopted in middle
life — Flavius Josephus,1 the celebrated Jewish
historian, was born at Jerusalem in the first year
of the reign of the Emperor Caius Caesar (Cal
igula), 38 a.d. Both on the side of his father and
his mother he was well connected : the former
was a member of one of the chief priestly families
in Jerusalem ; the latter was descended from
Jonathan, the first of the Hasmonean High
Priests. He was carefully educated in all the
learning of the time, both Jewish and Hellenistic,
and he tells us that he made such good progress
with his studies that, at the age of fourteen, he
was frequently consulted by the priesthood on
disputed, or difficult, points of Jewish law.
1 Speaking of Josephus as an historian, the famous sixteenth-
century scholar Scaliger declared that, not only in the affairs of
the Jews, but even in those of foreign nations, he deserves more
credit than all the Greek and Roman writers put together. There
is no doubt whatever as to the wide information of Josephus, or as
to his tact and discretion in using it.

chap. iv. ] The Testimony of Josephus 95
At the age of sixteen he made a close study of
the tenets of the various schools of philosophy of
the time, and, in addition to this intellectual train
ing, he underwent a course of mystical instruction
under Banus, a celebrated Essene, with whom he
remained for a period of three years. After that
he returned to Jerusalem, where he definitely
attached himself to the party of the Pharisees, at
the early age of nineteen. His subsequent career
does not directly concern us here. It will suffice,
therefore, to say that after the Jewish war he
retired to Rome, where he is believed to have
lived on into the second century, busying himself
with the various works of history and antiquities
which bear his name.
We now proceed to state and discuss the
evidence which is to be found, at the present day,
in the works of Josephus ; and it will be convenient
to commence our examination with a transcript of
the famous passage, directly referring to Jesus,
which is found in the Antiquities of the fews,
xviii. chap. iii. § 3 : —
" Now at this time there appeared a certain
Jesus, a wise man [if, indeed, he may be called a
man, for he was a worker of miracles, and a
teacher of such men as received the truth with
joy],1 and he drew to himself many Jews [and
many also of the Greeks. This was the Christ].
" Now when, at the instigation of our chief men,
1 Brackets indicate supposed interpolations.

96 Jesus The Christ [chap.
Pilate condemned him to the cross, those who
had first loved him did not fall away. [For he
appeared to them alive again, on the third day,
according as the holy prophets had declared this,
and countless other marvels of him.]
" To this day the sect of Christians, called after
him, exists."1
The above narrative would, perhaps, at first
glance appear conclusive enough ; but many and
grave objections have been taken to it, especially
in its fuller form. Before discussing these, how
ever, we will refer to Professor Drews' brief
comment2 upon it: "As for the testimony of
Josephus in his Antiquities, which was written
93 a.d., the first passage (xviii. iii. 3) is so evidently
an after insertion of a later age that even Roman
Catholic theologians do not venture to declare it
authentic, though they always attempt, with pitiable
naivete", to support the credibility of pre-Christian
documents of this type."
This criticism is both very sweeping and very
1 Fiverai Se Kara, rovrov rov %povov 'Irjcrovs, crocpbs dvrjp, e'iye avtipa
avrov Xeyeiv XPV> Vv y°-P napa86£<ov epyav noir/rrjs, bihda-KoKos dvdpai-
naiv rcov ybovrj rdXrjOrj de^opevav. Kal noWoiis pev 'lov8alovs, noXXovs
Se Kal rou 'EXXtjvikov enrjydyero. 'O Xpiarbs ovros r\v. Kal avrbv ev8ei£ai
rcov npmrav dvSp&v nap' f]p2v,oTavpa> eni,TerpT}Kafros lUXdrov, ovk enav-
cravro oiye npSyrpv avrbv dyanrjO~avres. ecpdvrj yap avrois rpirrjv e^cav
rjpepav ndXiv £&v, rav 6eiav npocprjrav ravra re Kal aXXa pvpia Bav-
pAora nepl avrov elprjKorav. els en vvv ra>v Xpia-riav&v anb rovSe
a>vopacrp.eva>v ovk dne\me rb cpvKov.
'Itjo-oOs ns is the reading in Euseb. H.E. i. 11, and, if the passage
be genuine, probably the true one.
2 The Christ Myth, 3rd ed. p. 230.

iv,] The Testimony of Josephus 97
vague. We will, therefore, examine it in greater
detail ; when we find that ( 1 ) the passage was
apparently unknown to Origen and the earlier
Fathers who quoted from Josephus. These are
uniformly silent about it. (2) Even its position,
in our present Greek text, seems uncertain. The
remarks of Eusebius about it also appear to show
that, in his time, it was found before Josephus'
notices of Pilate, whereas now it is found after
them.1 (3) In its present position it very awk
wardly breaks the narrative, and is followed
directly by an utterly irrelevant account of a
disgraceful trick played upon a Roman lady by
the priests of I sis in Rome, in the reign of
Tiberius. Now, although the genuineness of the entire
passage has been defended by a few scholars of
note, viz. in the earlier part of the last century by
Daubuz and F. H. Schoedel,2 and one or two
others, and even recently by F. Bole,3 it is very
difficult to find any real support for it in the face
of the objections above stated.
Furthermore, it is obvious that there are various
statements contained in it which do not agree
with what we know of Josephus from other
sources. It seems unlikely, for example, that
Josephus could have written such a phrase as, ' if,
1 See Eusebius, H.E. ii. 6.
2 Flavius fosephus dejesu Christo testatus (1840).
3 Flavius fosephus iiber Christus und die Christen (1896).
7

98 Jesus The Christ [chap.
indeed, he may be called a man ' ; or, again,
' This was the Christ ' ; or, once more, ' for he
appeared to them alive again, on the third day.'.
Such expressions as these, added without any
qualifying statements, would indicate that the
writer was a Christian, either openly, or secretly,
a thing which Josephus, whatever else he may
have been, certainly was not.
Accordingly, some scholars have maintained
that there was an original genuine passage which
was subsequently interpolated by Christian scribes.1
This view has received the support of not a few
modern scholars of repute, amongst whom we
may mention G. A. Muller 2 and T. Reinach.3
But it must be confessed that their position is
somewhat doubtful ; for such emendations as they
propose do not seem to most critics wholly to
remove the fundamental objections to its authen
ticity, though, at the same time, it is quite possible
that Josephus may have penned it in some shorter
form. At all events, the whole passage, whether
in its full, or in any amended, form, is somewhat
1 Not necessarily with dishonest motives, as is commonly
assumed by antichris'tian writers. Many fussy scribes often added
matter derived from other MSS., or what had been picked up in
monastic and other gossip.
2 Christus bei Josephus Flavius (1895), 2nd ed.
8 Rev. Etud. fuives, xxxv. 1-18.
So Renan, who says : " I believe the passage respecting Jesus to
be authentic. It is perfectly in the style of Josephus. . . . We feel
only that a Christian hand has retouched the passage . . ." (Life
of fesus — Introduction).

iv.] The Testimony of Josephus 99
unsatisfactory, and so tainted with suspicion that
it is unsafe to rely upon it as credible evidence for
any historic record by Josephus of the existence of
Jesus. But a very obvious and important question
at once arises out of this fact. Assuming the
actual existence of Jesus in the generation im
mediately preceding that of Josephus, how is it
that an enlightened and careful historian, such
as he shows himself to be, does not refer at some
length to so important a matter as the career of
Jesus Christ P1
The answer to this natural and apparently
simple question must, of necessity, be somewhat
complex. In the first place, we must remember that —
strange as it may appear to us — the Figure and
Personality of Jesus Christ did not bulk anything
like so largely in the world of Josephus as it does
in the world of to-day.
Jesus was, no doubt, uniformly regarded by the
Jewish world of that age as either a magician
1 This question also arises in connection with Philo fudmus, of
Alexandria, who, although a contemporary, never even distantly
alludes to Jesus. But Philo was wholly wrapt up in his allegorical
system of Judaism, and the Life and Teaching of Jesus could not
be dragged into any such system of exegesis. Hence neither
would interest Philo.
Another Jewish writer of this period, fustus of Tiberius, who
wrote a brief chronicle of Jewish kings, also makes no mention of
Him. But such a reference did not come within the scope of his
work. And no other contemporary Jewish writings have survived.

ioo Jesus The Christ [chap.
or a half-crazy and wholly impossible enthusiast
of mere peasant origin ; and the religion which
He founded was, for some time, a comparatively
small and obscure sect, which was very im
perfectly understood, and wholly despised, by
the cultured writers and historians of the day.
Indeed, at Rome, some eighty years afterwards,
it was entirely misjudged, as the various notices
of it in the works of Latin writers clearly show.
Furthermore, both Jesus and His followers were
probably just as complete a puzzle to Josephus
himself.1 From what we know of him, he appears
to have been an enlightened and humane Pharisee,
utterly devoid, it would seem, of the bitterness
and narrowness which, we gather from the New
Testament, were characteristic of that party in
Our Lord's time.
Still, he was a Pharisee, and no doubt shared to
some extent the intellectual and spiritual limita
tions of that sect. And to have given any
detailed account of Jesus would almost have
committed him to undertaking either a justifica-
1 There seems to be a great difference of opinion amongst
modern critics as to what the .views of Josephus upon this subject
really were. According to Ewald, Paret and Schaff, he looked
upon Jesus as a sorcerer and seducer.
Renan and Weizsacker, however, believe that he merely rejected
His Messiahship. Again, Ewald thinks that he disapproved of
the Crucifixion, while Paret believes that he approved of it. At
all events, he doubtless took refuge in a comparative and discreet
silence — the best course, perhaps, for a puzzled and undecided
man.

iv.] The Testimony of Josephus 101
tion, or a condemnation, of the policy of the
Pharisees of a former generation.
Again, when Josephus wrote his Antiquities,
he was resident in Rome as a guest and friend
of the Roman State. And, as we have before
intimated, Christianity was distinctly an unfashion
able sect in Rome,1 and its Founder regarded
as a mere obscure Jewish fanatic. And since
Josephus was, above everything, a discreet and
politic man, it was certainly better for him to
avoid, as far as possible, such a subject where it
was not very directly concerned with the general
current of political history. Both Jesus and His
followers would undoubtedly be regarded by the
most tolerant of the educated Jews and Romans
of that time as mere ignorant fanatics, about
whom the less said the better. That Josephus,
in particular, could have said much has been
the opinion of the great majority of scholars.
But since he was writing mainly for educated
Greeks and Romans, who knew nothing and
cared nothing about Jesus, who, politically speak
ing, played an insignificant part in the history of
the period, he does not prominently obtrude the
question. By adopting this line of action, he
continued to hold, until the end of his life, the
regard of his own countrymen also, and especially
1 e.g. the Jews (and perhaps the Christians also) were believed
in Rome to worship an ass-headem idol. Cp. Tacitus, Hist. v. 3 ;
and (a hundred years later) Tertullian, Ad Nationes, xi.

102 Jesus The Christ [chap.
that Of the Pharisees, whom he was anxious to
conciliate and reconcile to his Roman friends.1
There is, however, another direct but brief
reference to the historic Jesus, and also references
to two men who were closely connected with
Him, which are made by Josephus because they
come into the general current of historic events
which he is relating. Thus in the Antiquities*
we read : —
" Now, some of the Jews thought that the de
struction of Herod's army3 came from God, and
that very justly, as a punishment for what he
did against John, who was called the Baptist.
For Herod slew him, who was a good man, and
commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as
to righteousness towards one another and piety
towards God, and so to come to baptism ; for
that the washing [with water] would be acceptable
to him, not in order to the putting away of some
sins [only], but for the purification of the body,
supposing still that the soul was thoroughly
purified beforehand by righteousness."
Now, we have here a very definite and credible
reference to John the Baptist, — 'a splendid and
unassailable account,' Keim terms it,4 — together
1 For similar reasons, Josephus largely ignores the Messianic
hopes of the Jews. These had then become distasteful to the more
cultured classes, and were obnoxious to the Romans.
2 xvm. chap. v. § 2.
3 By Aretas, King of Arabia.
4 fesus of Nazareth, vol. i. p. 16.

iv.] The Testimony of Josephus 103
with a brief account of his mission, which is
evidently viewed from a somewhat different
standpoint to that of the writers of the Gospels.
John, as here referred to, is certainly no mere
idea, or mythical personage, as some modern
critics would doubtless like to make him. The
rest of the passage goes on to state that he
attracted great crowds, who came to hear his
discourses, which agrees in general with what the
Evangelists tell us.
But at this point there is, again, a curious
deviation from the Gospel version. Thus, in
Mark vi. 17-27, we are told that John was arrested
by Herod, probably at the instigation of Herodias,
because he had denounced the incestuous union
which the latter had contracted with Herod, and
that, although Herod ' feared ' John, and ' heard
him gladly,' he executed him to please Herodias.
The account in Matt. xiv. 3-12 is very similar,
except that we are not told that Herod feared
John, or admired him ; he feared the people ; but
he still acts at the instigation of Herodias.
Luke iii. 19, 20, gives a very condensed version
of the story, but adds that John's reproof included
the mention also of ' all the evils which Herod
had done.' He likewise omits the account of
John's execution, but refers to the mere fact later
on (ix. 7-9).
Now Josephus gives a wholly different version
of John's disagreement with Herod. Herod, he

104 Jesus The Christ [chap.
says, feared the great influence which John had
over the immense crowds who flocked to him ;
he feared that this influence might put it into
the power of John to raise a rebellion against
him — a contingency not wholly improbable in
civilizations of that type. Accordingly, he was
sent as a prisoner "out of Herod's suspicious
temper to Machaerus, the castle I before men
tioned, and was there put to death." This de
scription of the final scene in the main agrees with
the narrative in the Gospels.
It is quite possible that Josephus' information
— or recollections — with regard to Herod's real
motive in executing John, may have been defec
tive. He wrote long after Mark, in any case,
and the statement of the latter may, after all, be
nearer to the truth. It is also not unlikely that
John's monition of Herod, respecting his union
with his brother's wife, may have been, indeed
probably was, privately delivered. It is certainly
improbable that such a strong reproof would be
administered openly before the Court. In either
case, at any rate, Herod may have shut John
up, because the latter might make this act, which
he had condemned, an excuse for stirring up some
revolt against him in the future. He ' feared '
him for some reason, and therefore thought he
had best be placed somewhere out of the way.
And his subsequent violent and unjust death, we
may well believe, was due to the caprice of a

iv.] The Testimony of Josephus 105
spiteful woman, and Herod's absurd regard for
the binding nature of a rash oath. We see,
therefore, in spite of the differences in these
separate versions, which probably arise largely
out of the different points of view from which
the question is regarded, a remarkable proof of
the general historical veracity of the Synoptic
writers.1 The second passage, which we have to quote
in the same book,3 contains not only a mention
of Jesus, but also a direct reference to James,
the ' brother ' of Jesus. The earlier part of this
section is devoted to explaining that Caesar, after
the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judaea as
propraetor, whilst the High Priest Joseph was
deposed from his office, and that dignity conferred
upon Ananus. This person, Josephus tells us,
" was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent,"
and belonged to the sect of the Sadducees.
Ananus, therefore, seems to have thought that
this propraetorial interregnum was a fitting op
portunity for the exercise of a tyrannical and
unlawful authority. "Festus was now dead,"
continues Josephus, "and Albinus was upon the
road, so he assembled the Sanhedrin of the judges,
and brought before them the brother of Jesus who
was called Christ, whose name was James? and
some others. And when he had framed an ac-
1 Cp. especially Mark vi. 14-29. 2 xx. chap. ix. § 1.
3 rbv dbeXcpbv 'lt/crov rov \eyopevov Xpiarov, 'laKtofios ovopa avra.

106 Jesus The Christ [chap.
cusation against them, as breakers of the law, he
delivered them over to be stoned. But as for
those who seemed to be the just portion of the
citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at this
breach of the laws, they disliked what was done.
And so they sent to the king, desiring him to
send to Ananus [to command] that he should so
act no more, for that which he had already done
was not to be justified."
The remainder of this section relates how
Albinus, on hearing of these proceedings, threatened ,
Ananus with punishment, and that Agrippa sub
sequently took away the priestly office from hi
after a tenure of only three months.
Although the death of James, ' the brother
the Lord,' is not mentioned in the New Testa
ment, wherein he occupies for the most part an
inconspicuous position, there can be little doubt
that he died by the hands of the Jewish zealots,
urged on, it would seem, by Ananus, somewhere
about 63 a.d., as Josephus states. A very cir
cumstantial account of his death is given by
Hegesippus, a converted Jew {circa 160 a.d.),
which is preserved by Eusebius.1
This passage, just quoted, has been questioned
by some scholars, who have fancied that they
detected signs of a Christian interpolation ; but
no sufficient arguments have been advanced
against it. Turning to Professor Drews, we find
1 HE. ii. 23.

iv.] The Testimony of Josephus 107
that he also adopts this view. " But the other
passage, too," he says, "which states that James
was executed under the authority of the priest
Ananus (62 a.d.), and. refers to him as 'the
brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ,' in the
opinion of eminent theologians, such as Credner
{Einl. ins. N.T. p. 581, 1836), Schiirer {Gesch. d.
jiid. Volkes, i. p. 548), etc., must be regarded as
a forgery." And he adds (in a footnote to this
passage) that " Origen, though he collected all
Josephus' assertions which could serve as support
to the Christian religion, does not know the
passage, but probably another [passage], in which
the destruction of Jerusalem was represented
as a punishment for James' execution, which is
certainly a forgery.
" But," he continues further, " even if its
authenticity were established, it would still prove
nothing in favour of the historical Jesus ; for,
first, it leaves undecided whether a bodily rela
tionship is indicated by the word 'brother,' or
whether, as is much more likely, the reference is
merely to a religious brotherhood. Secondly, the
passage only asserts that there was a man of the
name of Jesus, who was called Christ, and this
is in no way extraordinary, in view of the fact
that at the time of Josephus, and far into the
second century, many gave themselves out as
the expected Messiah."1
1 The Christ Myth, 3rd ed. pp. 230-31.

108 Jesus The Christ [chap.
Now, setting aside Professor Drews' primary
objection that certain 'eminent theologians have
had their doubts as to the genuineness of the
passage — which is not a very valid argument, since
equally, and even still more, eminent theologians
and scholars might be quoted on the other side
of the question — and turning to a more serious
criticism, viz. that Origen does not seem to
know of this passage, but probably 'another' re
ferring to James' execution, which is ' certainly a
forgery,' it is somewhat difficult to see exactly
what Professor Drews means here. Is it that
there were two spurious passages, of which the
present one is now the sole survivor ? The mere
fact, however, that Origen knew of a reference
to the execution of James points to this passage
— unless strong evidence for some other can be
produced. But we have no such evidence.
Moreover, the mere assertion that either, or
both, are forgeries does not prove them to be so ;
neither does the fact {if it be a fact) that the
passage is not quoted by Origen necessarily have
this meaning, for we do not know that he
' collected all Josephus' assertions ' ; he may have
collected only what he thought pertinent and
sufficient for his purpose.
Therefore, any omission on the part of Origen
would be, at the most, mere negative evidence,
which always requires some positive support, if it
is to prove anything. There are, really, no valid

iv.] The Testimony of Josephus 109
reasons of any kind for regarding the passage as
a forgery. Keim remarks upon it: "There can
exist scarcely any doubt concerning the authenticity
of this passage, which is quoted in full by Origen ;
here is genuine Jewish history, without a trace
of Christian embellishment, and the identity of
person with the Christian James is established by
the ancient but somewhat legendary notices of
the death of the latter by Clement of Alexandria,
and chiefly by the Christian Palestinian, Hege-
sippus. The designation of James as 'the
brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ,' is also in
itself unprejudicial ; the Jewish author expresses
— a? Origen saw — not, indeed, his own belief, but
the general notoriety of the name of Jesus Christ,
as it must have prevailed about the year 70." x
There can, indeed, be little doubt that the
reference to the destruction of Jerusalem as being
a divine punishment of the Jews for the death of
James2 was in the nature of an expression of
popular opinion, perhaps that of the then some
what numerous Ebionite, or Nazoraean, sects of
Christians who would not hesitate to form such a
conclusion when the head of their party was thus
summarily and unjustly executed. And Josephus
1 fesus of Nazareth, vol. i. pp. 16, 17. Italics ours.
2 Origen remarks (Contr. Cels. i. 47) that Josephus ought to have
said that the conspiracy against fesus was the cause of these
calamities befalling the people. But probably Josephus only quotes
an opinion he had heard, not his own. Justin Martyr held the
former view (cp. Dial. c. Tryph. 16).

no Jesus The Christ [chap.
would be much more likely to put on record some
such expression of current popular opinion than
to give his own personal views.
The further objection that, in any case, the
passage ' proves nothing in favour of the historical
Jesus ' is equally irrelevant. Here there is not
the slightest reason for supposing, as Professor
Drews does, that ' brother ' has any other meaning
than that of blood relative.1 Had it meant a
member of the ' brotherhood ' of Jesus 2 we would
find the disciples of Jesus (whether the Twelve
or the Seventy) invariably referred to in the
Gospels as His ' brothers.' But this is just what
we never do.3 On the other hand, we do find
references to certain ' brethren ' of Jesus, whether
children of Joseph and Mary, or children of
Joseph by a former wife, as some Christians
have supposed.
The natural inference from these facts, therefore,
is, that Josephus here means ' James, the brother
of the Lord,' who is mentioned in the Gospels as
a member of Our Lord's family circle.
1 Origen remarks (Contr. Cels. i. 47) : " Paul . . . says that he
regarded this James as a brother of the Lord, not so much on
account of their relationship by blood, or of their being brought up
together, as because of his virtue and doctrine." It seems to be
uncertain from what source Origen derived this statement, but it
certainly makes indirect reference to a phy steal relationship. And
in Gal. i. 19 he is distinctly termed by St. Paul, 'James, the brother
of the Lord,' in the natural sense of the term.
2 i.e. a member of the ' Jesuist cult.' See Chap. VII.
3 They are mentioned separately in 1 Cor. ix. 5.

iv.] The Testimony of Josephus in
Nor, again, will his criticism that the reference
here made does not fix upon the Christian Jesus
as the one referred to possess any real weight.
For, in the first place, we have no evidence to
show that any of the other Messianic claimants —
whether before, or subsequently to Our Lord's
time — were namedjesus.1 Neither is it likely that,
even if any one of them were so named, that
he had a brother named James. In short, the
simplest and most natural explanation of this
passage is, that it refers directly to the Jesus of
the Christian world, and to His brother James,
who is mentioned both in the Gospels and Epistles
as holding such a family relationship to Him.
1 The real name of Bar Kocheba, for instance, was Simeon.

CHAPTER V.
THE TESTIMONY OF THE ROMAN
WRITERS.
Cornelius Tacitus, the most famous of the
historians of Imperial Rome, was born probably
between 52 and 54 a.d., and died, perhaps, about
the year 120.
Of his abilities and value as an historian 1 there
can be little or no room for doubt, and his work
in that department of Letters will always rank
with that of the greatest historians, whether ancient
or modern. That he did not always approach the
consideration of the .events which he recorded
in a perfectly impartial spirit is evident from his
treatment of the origins of Christianity ; that he
1 Determined attempts have been made in recent times to
undervalue Tacitus as a careful and trustworthy writer. Cp.
Bruno Bauer, Christus und die Ccesaren, etc. (1879), 2nd ed., and
J. C. Tarver, Tiberius the Tyrant, 1902. The latter writer has
maintained that his estimate of Tiberius, in particular, is a mere
caricature. Tacitus, it may be allowed, was somewhat prejudiced
by Roman aristocratic bias ; but, in spite of that, he is reliable as
an historian, and even his gloomy picture of the condition of Rome
under the Emperors is amply confirmed by the evidence of other
and contemporary writers.

chap, v.] Testimony of Roman Writers 113
was deliberately unfair cannot be maintained by
any reasonable critic. Indeed, he himself earnestly
claims that, in writing his histories, he was actuated
by the loftiest motives. " I regard it," he says in
a well-known passage,1 "as the highest function
of history to rescue merit from oblivion, and to
hold up as a terror to base words and actions the
reprobation of posterity."
The earliest notices of Jesus from pagan authors
are found in the little group of contemporary
writers of the time of Trajan (r. 98-1 17 a.d.) —
Tacitus, Suetonius and Pliny. These notices are
brief and largely incidental, being called forth by
various exigencies of the social or political situa
tion in Rome, or the provinces, to which the
historian is referring ; and, proceeding as they
do from writers avowedly hostile to the nascent
Christianity, are the more valuable on that account
alone. The first mention of the new ' sect ' is by
Tacitus, who, in describing the burning of Rome
during the reign of Nero, — a.d. 64, — distinctly
affirms that the fire was really initiated by the
Emperor himself, but was imputed by him to
the Christians, who had become, by that time,
a somewhat numerous, if uninfluential, body in
Rome.2

1 Annals, iii. 65.
2 Gibbon and a few other writers since his time have expressed
great doubts as to whether the Christians really existed there in
8

114 Jesus The Christ [chap.
In the eyes of Tacitus the nascent Christianity
is merely 'a detestable superstition,' which has
made its way to Rome from Judaea, ' the source
of this evil.' He evidently considers it, from a
superficial examination of its tenets — as indeed
Roman writers did — a mere variety of Judaism,
and thinks that it displays the same exclusive
ness and contempt for all other cults, which was
characteristic of that religion. Thus he declares
that the Christians "have been convicted of a
hatred of the human race."1
The passage in which Tacitus refers directly,
but still only incidentally, to the Founder of
Christianity, written about the year 115 a.d., is
found in the Annals, xv. 4. 4. He says there :
" The author of this name [i.e. Christian], Christus,
was executed in the reign of Tiberius by the
procurator Pontius Pilate, and the detestable
superstition, suppressed for a time, broke out
again, and spread not only over Judaea, where
the evil originated, but even through Rome,
where everything upon earth that is vile, or
shameless, finds its way, and is practised."2
such numbers as to attract imperial notice, and serve as a scape
goat for imperial crime. They were, however, undoubtedly
numerous, chiefly amongst the humbler classes of citizens and
slaves, and were found even amongst the servants of the Emperor
himself. 1 Odio humani generis convicti sunt. The Jews were also
infected with an Adversus omnes hostile odium (Hist. v. 5).
2 Auctor nominis ejus, Christus, Tiberio imperitante, per pro-
curatorem Pontium Pilatum, suppliciis affectus erat ; repressaque

v.] Testimony of Roman Writers 115
Now this is — apparently, at least — a very clear
and definite reference to the origin of Christianity,
and to the historical existence of its Founder.
The religion, he says, takes both its name and
origin from a personal founder, one ' Christus,'
who lived and taught in Judaea, and subsequently
died there, during the procuratorship of Pontius
Pilate, that is to say, between 26 and 36 a.d. .
We may note here, before passing on to a
critical examination of this passage, one or two
preliminary points, which are worthy of remark.
And, first of all, we may notice that Tacitus
appears to regard ' Christus ' as a personal name
— not, as it really is, a title merely.
This is, of course, a very natural mistake for
an imperfectly informed pagan historian to make :
other Roman writers also fell into the same error.
The references to it as 'a detestable superstition,'
and ' an evil,' are also just what we might expect
from an ignorant, but self-satisfied, pagan writer.
These expressions, therefore, are not likely to
proceed from some dishonest, or even honest but
officious, Christian interpolator.
In spite, however, of these very obvious pre
liminary facts, the whole passage has been very
seriously called in question, chiefly by writers who
have a case to make out against Christianity.
in praesens exitiabilis superstitio rursus erumpebat, non modo per
Judaeam, originem ejus mali, sed per Urbem etiam, quo cuncta
undique atrocia aut pudenda confluunt celebranturque.

116 Jesus The Christ [chap.
We will, therefore, commence with the objec
tions to it recently put forward by Professor
Drews : " Are we," he asks,1 " so certain that the
passage cited from Tacitus, as to the persecution
of the Christians under Nero, is not, after all, a
later insertion and falsification of the original text ?
This is, indeed, the case, judging from Hochart's
splendid and exhaustive inquiry. In fact, every
thing points to the idea that ' the first persecution
of the Christians,' which is previously mentioned
by no writer, either Jewish or heathen, is nothing
but the product of a Christian's imagination in
the fifth century."
Again, he further continues (p. 232) : " But let
us admit the authenticity of Tacitus' assertion. . . .
Tacitus can at most have heard that the Christians
were followers of a Christ who was supposed to
have been executed under Pontius Pilate. That
was probably, even at that time [i.e. after 100 a.d.],
in the Gospels, and need not, therefore, be a real
fact of history.
And even if it has been proved, according to
Mommsen, that Tacitus took his materials from
the protocols of the Senate, and imperial archives,
there has been, on the other hand, a most definite
counter-assertion, that he never consulted these
authorities."2 1 The Christ Myth, 3rd ed. p. 231.
2 Referring to Handb. d. Klass, Altertumsw., viii. 2, Abt., Aft. 2,
under 'Tacitus,1 which says : " Consulting the Archives has been

v.] Testimony of Roman Writers 1 1 7
We will now proceed to examine these, and
other, objections.
The first, and incontestably the most serious,
difficulty raised is the alleged lack of authenticity
for this passage. Professor Drews would regard
it as undoubtedly a later falsification of the text
of the' Annals — the product, he suggests, of the
' imagination ' of some Christian in the fifth
century !
In support of this view he merely quotes the
authority of the French writer Hochart.1 Now
Hochart published in 1885 his Etudes au Sujet de
la Persecution des Chrdtiens sous Ndron, in which
he endeavoured to prove that this passage was
spurious, and that the Neronic persecutions were
unhistorical. But no classical scholar or historian, of any re
pute, has accepted his arguments and conclusions !
Hochart, however, was not to be discouraged.
In the year 1890 he went a long step further, and
declared in a second and third book 2 that the last
six books of the Annals, and the first five of the
Histories, of Tacitus were entirely a forgery by

but little customary among ancient historians ; and Tacitus has
bestowed but little consideration on the Acta Diurna, and the
Protocols of the Senate."
1 von Soden says of Hochart (Hat fesus Gelebt 7) : " He is quite
unknown to us in Germany."
2 De P Authenticity des Annals et des Histoires de Tacite (1890),
p. 320 ; and Nouvelles Considerations au Sujet des Annates et des
Histoires de Tacite (1895), p. 293.

118 Jesus The Christ [chap.
Poggio Bracciolini, an Italian scholar of the
Renascence period.
Regarding this latter extreme view, Bishop
Lightfoot— a liberal-minded prelate and profound
scholar — prophesied : "It will go the way of
Father Hardouin's theories, that Terence's plays,
and Vergil's ^Eneid, and Horace's Odes, and I
know not what beside, were monkish forgeries." 1
Subsequent research seems likely to justify
completely this forecast. For it has been .found
that various minute details and references in the
Annals correspond accurately with the evidence
furnished by coins and inscriptions discovered
since Bracciolini'stime. Furthermore, Rudolphus,
a monk of a monastery at Fulda, in Hesse Cassel,
who wrote in the ninth century, says that Tacitus
speaks of the river Weser as the Visurgis. This
name of the river, it will be found, occurs five
times in our existing text of the Annals ; hence it
is clear that a MS. of this text must have existed
in the ninth century, that is to say, over four
hundred years before Bracciolini 's time ! To this
may be added the fact that Jerome (340-420 a.d.)
refers 2 to the lives of the Caesars as a work
written by Tacitus — no doubt the Annals in
question.

1 Apostolic Fathers, vol. i. p. 75 note. For a further treatment
of this question see Introduction to vol. i. of Furneaux' edition of
the Annals of Tacitus (Clarendon Press).
2 Ep. vii. 33-

v.] Testimony of Roman Writers 119
Again, there is indisputable pagan testimony
for certain extensive persecutions under Nero,
which, although the Christians are only once
mentioned by name,1 must in every instance refer
to them, and thus confirms the statements made
by Tacitus {Annals, xv. 4. 4).2
Finally, we have further important confirmation
from no less than four early Christian writers, as
von Soden has pointed out {Has Jesus Lived?
p. 10). These are Clement of Rome (96 a.d.),
Dionysius of Corinth (170 a.d.), Zephrynus, Caius,
a presbyter of Rome (early third century), and
Tertullian. The last-named writer is very clear
in his testimony. He says {Apol. v.) : " Consult
your histories and you will find that Nero was the
first who assailed with the imperial sword the
Christian sect, then making progress, especially
in Rome."
But to this evidence — in the case of Clement
above referred to — Professor Drews takes ex
ception. He says : " The authenticity of the
author of Clement is . . . quite uncertain, and
has been most actively combated, from its first
publication in 1663 till the present day, by
investigators of repute, such as Semler, Baur,
Schwegler, Volkmar, Keim, etc." It suffices
1 See p. 124, note 2.
2 These are Suetonius (Nero, xvi.); Juvenal (Sat. i. *55ff.);
Martial (Epigr. x. 25); When these passages are compared, and it
is borne in mind that there is no record of any other persecutions
at that time, the conclusion is irresistible.

120 Jesus The Christ [chap.
here to reply, that in the judgment of the vast
majority of competent and unbiased scholars,
the first Letter of Clement is an authentic pro
duction of the friend and fellow-worker of
St. Paul.1
As regards Tertullian, in any case, his testi
mony is wholly undisputed, and its date (Mosheim
198 a.d. ; Allix. 217 a.d.) precludes entirely the
invention of a Neronian persecution by the
imagination of a fifth-century Christian !
Amongst the various other, and minor, objec
tions to this passage in the Annals, we may
notice the following. It is alleged that Tacitus
would never have penned the phrase, ' Tiberio
imperitante,' but would have written, ' Tiberio
principe.' The ground for this objection is based upon
the fact that the earlier Roman emperors were
regarded merely as heads of the Republic,
and, therefore, were styled ' principes.' When
Tacitus wrote, however, the imperial view of
this headship was in practice, if not in theory,
already well established ; he might, therefore, in
his day, very naturally write of even the long-
dead Tiberius (d. T,y a.d.) as 'imperitans.'2
Moreover, the word thus used, in a somewhat
1 Cp. Euseb. H.E. iii. 15, 16. In any case, it must be dated
early in the second century.
2 Hadrian (r. 1 17-138 A.D.), the successor of Trajan, seems to
have been the first Emperor openly to assume the plenitude of
imperial legislative power.

v.] Testimony of Roman Writers 121
loose and popular sense, had long been current
amongst writers of both the ' Golden ' and
' Silver ' ages of Latin literature.1
We have still to consider, in greater detail,
the question of the sources of the information
possessed by Tacitus upon this and other matters.
Professor Drews confidently declares that, in any
case, this passage, if authentic, is at best founded
upon mere hearsay report. Now, it is well-
known that several sources of exact information
existed at Rome in the time of Tacitus. The
chief of these were the Acta Senatus (a record of
the proceedings, etc., of that body) and the Acta
Diurna (or Acta Populi) a kind of Daily Gazette,
or Journal, which was regularly published in the
city to chronicle current events of interest, or
importance, which had occurred throughout the
Empire. We have, of course, no reason to
suppose that a report of the execution of Jesus
would be likely to be discussed in the Senate,
although He had been ostensibly convicted of
setting Himself up as ' King of the Jews.'
The beginnings of Christianity, and the mock
charge against Jesus, were matters much too
obscure and unimportant to merit such dis
tinguished notice.2 Still, it is just possible, if not
1 e.g. Livy, Cicero, Sallust, Vergil, Horace, etc. Tacitus
himself also uses it of the influence of ¦ Veleda (a German sibyl) :
Ea virgo nationis Bructerae late imperitabat (Hist. iv. 61).
2 There is, however, an old story— probably quite untrue— that

122 Jesus The Christ [chap.
probable, that Pilate sent a report of the matter
to Rome, after his strained relations with the
priests, who hinted very plainly that his conduct
showed a lukewarmness in the matter of duty to
Caesar. And if they made any formal complaint,
a report would doubtless find its way into the
State archives. Possibly, too, the Story of the
Grim Tragedy itself may have been chronicled
in the Acta Diurna. We do not know, and
can only conjecture what may have happened.
But if this were so, Tacitus, and perhaps the
other Roman writers, may have derived their
information indirectly, if not directly, from some
such sources. Tacitus certainly seems too
precise in his statement for mere hearsay in
formation, the general worthlessness of which he
must have well known. And, as we have already
pointed out, the weighty opinion of Mommsen,
that Tacitus did use contemporary records in
writing his historical memoirs, cannot be set aside
in any such off-hand manner as some writers
would appear to think it may be.1
But there are yet other and positive reasons
for receiving this passage. The general style
and Latinity are, by the almost universal
consent of scholars, those of Tacitus, whose

the Senate formally rejected a proposal of Tiberius to deify Jesus,
and to place His bust upon the Capitol.
1 Hochart's sneer at the historical scholarship of Germany
(Etudes, etc., p. 227) is quite undeserved, and unworthy of notice.

v.] Testimony of Roman Writers 1 23
diction is characterized by many well-marked
peculiarities. Besides, we are not acquainted
with any Christian writer of the second century, or
even later,1 who could be pronounced- capable of
reproducing his Latin.
Moreover, we repeat, the notice is, in all
respects, just what a Roman historian of strong
aristocratic leanings would bestow upon a
religion with so humble an origin as that of
Christianity. But for the fact of the fire in
Rome being imputed to Christian misanthropy by
Nero, a charge which even Tacitus rejects, and
the fact that the spread of the new religion,
especially among the humbler classes of Rome,
was fast becoming a nuisance to the old pagan
element in the city, the historian would probably
not have mentioned the Christians at all. The
whole cult, indeed, was to him plebeian and
vulgar, and of no importance whatever, except
in so far as it might be connected with other and
momentous historic facts. Such an outlook as
this, again, would not have been that of a Chris
tian interpolator.
In short, we may sum up our examination of
this document by saying that we see no valid,
or even satisfactory, evidence whatever for re
jecting the passage, as not being the work of
Tacitus ; or for regarding ' it as founded upon
mere hearsay, which Tacitus was not at sufficient
1 i.e. until we come to the period of the Revival of Learning.

124 fesus The Christ [chap.
pains to verify before inserting it in his narra
tive. The balance of the evidence points decisively
to the entire genuineness of the statement.
We turn now to a contemporary of Tacitus.
Caius Suetonius Tranquillus (born about 70 a.d.)
began public life as an advocate at Rome. Sub
sequently, he became a private secretary to the
Emperor Hadrian, in whose service he must
have had access to many important private
and State documents. Like Tacitus, he also
had many opportunities of conversing with well-
informed men who had lived in the reigns of
Caius (Caligula), Claudius and Nero.
In his Life of Claudius he refers (chap, xvi.) to
a ' Chrestus,' whom he seems to regard as a restless
and seditious Jewish agitator, still living in Rome
in the reign of Claudius, and who had been the
cause of tumults in that city.1
Again, in his Life of Nero (chap, xvi.), he
further says : " The Christians, a set of men of a
new and mischievous superstition, were punished," 2
which confirms the similar statement made by
Tacitus.
1 Impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes. A hundred years
later Tertullian had still to refer to ' Chrestus ' and ' Chrestiani '
as ' a faulty pronunciation ' of the words, in use chiefly amongst
the heathen (Ad Nationes, iii.). Cp. also Lactantius (Institutes,
iv. 7), a century later still.
2 Affecti suppliciis Christiani, genus hominum superstitionis
novas et maleficae.

v.] Testimony of Roman Writers 1 25
The authenticity of this passage, which presents
several features in common with the one cited
from Tacitus, is undisputed, even by Professor
Drews. He remarks, however, concerning the
reference contained in the Life of Claudius :
" Let us suppose . . . that by Suetonius'
Chrestus is really meant Christ, and not a popular
Jewish rioter of that name ; let us suppose that
the unrest of the Jews was not connected with
the expectation of the Messiah, or that the
Roman historian, in his ignorance of Jewish
dreams of the future, did not imagine a leader
of the name of 'Chrestus.' Can writers of the
second century after Christ, at which time the
tradition was already formed, and Christianity
had made its appearance in history as a power, be
regarded as independent authorities for facts which
are supposed to have taken place long before the
birth of the tradition ? " x
This paragraph, just quoted, propounds a plain
and simple question, but one which nevertheless
involves a complex answer. We reply briefly,
however, that Suetonius — and Tacitus also — are
not taken as primary and independent authorities
for the fact of the existence of Jesus, but as
testifying, in a secondary sense, to the record f of
that fact in general and well-informed public
opinion. What their testimony — if authentic —
really shows is, that the main fact was in their
1 The Christ Myth, 3rd ed. p. 232.

126 Jesus The Christ [chap.
day, and had been for a long time previously, in
the memory of living men, a matter of common
knowledge.1 And, indeed, we have here — as previously in the
case of Tacitus — the same kind of indirect proofs
as to the value of the statement ; we have the lofty
contempt of the Roman bureaucrat, as shown in
the ignorance of the personal name of Christ, and
even (in the case of Suetonius) of the correct
spelling of His Messianic title, together with a
complete misunderstanding of His character and
mission, which at that time was almost universal
in pagan Rome, and considered no disgrace even
in an educated Roman. That Suetonius does
refer here to Jesus there can be no doubt. Had
he been thinking of one of the many ordinary
Jewish rioters of the time, he would certainly
have written ' Chresto quodam.'
' Chresto ' simply, practically identifies it with
the Christ, i.e. Jesus. Mdreover, we have no
evidence to show that any Jew living in Rome, or
even in Italy, ever took upon himself this Messianic
designation.2 In default, therefore, of any other
historic person, the reference must be taken as
applying to Jesus, who had long before this time
been granted that title by the Synoptic writers.
And, lastly, we need not even wonder at the
1 Cp. Spinoza, Theologico-Political Tract (chap, xii., end).
2 The pseudo-Messiah Bar Kocheba (temp. Hadrian) confined
his activities to Palestine.

v.] Testimony of Roman Writers 1 27
extreme ignorance and confusion which Suetonius
displays in placing the scene of Our Lord's
activity in Rome, and regarding Him as still
living in the reign of Claudius. Both errors are
probably due to the carelessness and inattention
with which Suetonius treated a matter that did
not really interest him, or his friends and
contemporaries. Before concluding this chapter, we have also to
deal with the references to Christ and Christianity
which are found in the celebrated Letters of
Pliny, the nephew and heir of Pliny the Naturalist.
Caius Caecilius Secundus (commonly called
Pliny the Younger) was born in 61 a.d., and
became a pupil of Quintilian, and later an advo
cate in Rome. He was subsequently appointed
Propraetor of Bithynia and Pontica (103-105 a.d.),
and in that capacity wrote many official reports
and letters to the Emperor Trajan.
In his well-known inquiry {circa 104 a.d.) into
the lives and circumstances of the Christians
living in his province, which investigation was
carried out at the orders of the Emperor, he
reports : " There are many of every age, and of
both sexes, and not only cities, but country towns
and rural districts have been touched by the
contagion of this superstition." x
Again, he adds in the same Epistle (97, 98) :
1 Epist. x. 96.

128 Jesus The Christ [chap.
" I have found nothing [against them] beyond an
unbounded and perverse superstition " — a view
of Christianity practically identical' with that of
Tacitus and Suetonius. Finally, Pliny reports
that, "those who obstinately persisted that they
were Christians, after being warned of the con
sequence, I ordered to be led off to punishment,
nothing doubting that whatever it was that they
professed, their inflexible obstinacy deserved it."
The Emperor, in reply to this report, ordered
that, if information were laid and proof obtained,
the Christians, if obstinate, were to be punished.
They Were, however, not to be sought out, and
if any denied that he was a Christian, and paid
reverence to the State gods, he was to be given
the benefit of the doubt.
The chief point of interest in Pliny's report,
however, is the statement that he had heard, in
the course of his inquiries, first of all from heathen
sources, that the Christians neither sacrificed to
the gods, nor yet offered incense to the Emperor,
and that they refused, when bidden, to 'curse
Christus ' ; and, secondly, from the Christians
themselves upon examination, that they held early
morning and evening meetings, at the former of
which they sang songs of praise to Christ ' as if to
a god ' {quasi deo), and made holy vows, and at
the latter partook of common meals.
In reply to the above statements, Professor
Drews asserts that, " in all probability Pliny's

v.] Testimony of Roman Writers 129
letter to the Emperor is a later Christian
forgery." He also objects that Jesus is no
where in the Letters referred to as an historical
person, but rather as a divine being. Other
writers have (as usual) pronounced the passage
interpolated. It will be impossible, within the limits at our
disposal, to discuss in any detail all these ques
tions.1 It must suffice, therefore, to say that the
alleged inconsistency of these punishments, legal
or illegal, with the established Roman policy and
practice of tolerating every superstitio, however
absurd, is explained by the fact that Pliny
evidently doubted the loyalty and fidelity to the
Emperor of those who stoutly refused to make
the customary offering of incense to his statue.
It was for that reason, as also on account of
their ' exclusive ' and ' unsocial ' attitude, that he
exercised such severity, and that the Roman
populace rose against them. Indeed, the context
of the letter indicates very clearly that Pliny
suspected the Christians of forming secret and
illegal societies {hetaritz) of a political character.
With the view of ascertaining whether this were
so, or not, he put to the torture two deaconesses
(ministrce). 1 The matter has been fully investigated by Platner (Bibliography
of the Younger Pliny, 1895), and Wilde (De. C. Plinii Cacilii
Secundi et Imp. Traj. Epp. mutuis Disputatio, 1889), who maintain
the genuineness of the letter and the quotations.
9

130 Jesus The Christ [chap.
With regard to Professor Drews' remark that
in the Letters Jesus does not appear as an
historical person, but as a god, it is worthy of
notice that Pliny does not say, or even imply, that
Christ was addressed in the hymns as a god, that
is to say, a god in the sense in which the term
was understood by the devotees of the various
nature-cults. The hymns were sung ' quasi deo '
— 'as if to a god.' It is a reasonable inference,
from this wording of the phrase, to affirm that the
Christians fully recognized the full humanity and
historical nature of Jesus. That there was, at
that time and subsequently, a strong tendency
— chiefly in Gnostic and Docetic circles — to
deny the humanity of Christ, is, of course, well-
known. But the main current of primitive
Christianity always struggled, and in the end
successfully, against this view, and also against
any separation of the Christ from the historic
Jesus. The evidence of Pliny's Letters as to the
Roman policy towards the Christians is, further
more, corroborated by an extant rescript of
Hadrian to Minucius Fundanus, the Proconsul
of Asia, from which it appears that the people of
that Province had been accustomed to assail the
Christians in a tumultuous and illegal fashion.
The Emperor strictly enjoins here that, for the
future, they are to be brought to trial in a regular
and lawful manner.

v.] Testimony of Roman Writers 131
The authenticity of this edict, which has been
questioned on insufficient grounds, was long ago
discussed and defended by Keim.1
1 In an article in the Theol. fahrb. (1857), p. 387 : " Doubts as to
the genuineness of the Edict of Hadrian concerning the Christians."

CHAPTER VI.
THE JESUS OF JEWISH TRADITION.
The authorities upon which we have to depend
for a knowledge of the views held by the Jews,
in the earlier ages of the Church, with regard to
Jesus, are mainly (i) the Talmud, and (ii) the
writings of certain of the earlier Apologists and
Fathers, as, e.g., Justin Martyr and Origen ; also
(iii) the mass of tradition and legend finally em
bodied in the Toledoth Jeschu {' Origins of Jesus')
— a source far inferior in point of value to the
two previously mentioned. In this chapter, how
ever, we will confine ourselves exclusively to the
first- and the last-named.
In dealing with both the above sources, it will
be necessary to state at the outset our position
with regard to them in a few preliminary remarks.
Whatever date may be assigned to the com
mittal to writing of the matter which composes
the various portions of the Talmud,1 it must
1 Perhaps the earlier portions (the Mishna) were committed to
writing somewhere about 200 A.D., and the whole work was
probably in MS., as we now have it, before 500 a.d.

chap, vi.] The Jesus oj Jewish Tradition 133
always be remembered that this work contains a
much earlier oral tradition and teaching.
As regards the value of the matter found in the
Talmud, it is the custom of most modern scholars
to dismiss it summarily as wholly legendary in
character, and, therefore, absolutely worthless as
evidence in any inquiry like the present.
We venture to think, however, that this view
is a mistaken one. It is true, of course, that no
particular and uncorroborated statement in the
Talmud can safely be used as direct evidence
for the truth of any event, or the existence of
any person, with which, or whom, history is
concerned. But at the same time, it is, we
believe, equally true that, indirectly, the Talmud
is often of great value for the purpose of throwing
a sidelight, so to speak, upon some question, or
corroborating some statements which are under
historic examination.1
Approaching this aspect of our present subject,
therefore, with these preliminary postulates as our
guide during the inquiry, we have to ascertain,
as far as may be within the limits of a single
chapter, what the Talmud, and — in a lesser degree
— the Toledoth Jeschu have to say about Jesus,
1 Dr. S. A. Cooke very truly remarks (The Guardian, 18th August
191 1, p. 1094) : " Historical criticism realizes that the most circum
stantial narrative, free from all suspicion of mythological motifs,
may be historically valueless ; and that incredible narratives, with
all the marks of myth and legend, may encircle actual persons
and events.''

134 Jesus The Christ [chap.
i.e. about the historic character of His birth, life,
mission, death and resurrection.
But here we must enter another caveat. As
the references to Jesus, and His teaching, found
in these works, are frequently of a cryptic nature,
and, moreover, often differ considerably in their
statements, it will not be possible for us to get
a perfectly developed and clearly cut portrait of
Jesus as seen by the Jews of that time. Neither,
of course, can its accuracy in any detail be
guaranteed, nor is there any need that it should
be. No doubt, too, there were many and various
views and opinions amongst the Jews respecting
Jesus, as on other matters. Still, it is perhaps
possible for us, even to-day, to obtain a fair outline
sketch of His ' official ' portrait, which will amply
suffice for the purpose which we have in view.
The first notice which will claim our attention
here is a tradition embodied in the Talmud,
regarding the genealogy of Our Lord, two variant
forms of which, given in the first and third
Gospels, are familiar to Christian readers. These
genealogies, as is well-known, have long been
matters of much controversy. Some scholars
have inclined to the view that they were originally
not only quite separate documents from the rest
of their respective Gospels, but were added some
time after the compilation of the latter, perhaps
very late in the first or early in the second
century a.d. In any case, they undoubtedly

vi.] The Jesus of Jewish Tradition 135
represent, in their present form, and from our
modern standpoint, a quite valueless attempt to
affiliate Our Lord's progenitors with a direct line
of descent from Abraham and from Adam
respectively. Despite this fact, however, it will be instructive
to see what the Talmud has to say upon this
subject ; and we accordingly find the following
passage in the Mishna referring to the matter :
" Simeon ben Azzai has said : ' I found in Jeru
salem a book of genealogies ; therein was written
that So and So is an illegitimate son {mamser) of
a married woman.' " 1
This, at first sight, seems vague ; but we find
upon reference that Simeon ben Azzai was a Jewish
Rabbi who lived at the end of the first century,
and belonged to the generation immediately
preceding that of the famous Rabbi Akiba, the
supporter of the pseudo- Messiah Bar Kocheba in
his revolt against the Romans (132-135 a.d.).
' So and So,' likewise, is a well-known Talmudic
and cryptic reference to Jesus, who when directly
mentioned by name is termed Jeschu. In many
copies of the Talmud, indeed, His name is sup
pressed from fear of a not wholly unreasonable
Christian hostility, and some designation or
other, which was well understood by the Jevvs,
substituted in its place.2
1 Jebamoth, 49".
2 Some of these are very offensive : ' the fellow ' ; ' he who may

136 Jesus The Christ [chap.
Now, the above reference — which we may take
provisionally as an actual statement of this Rabbi,
that he had found such an entry in the Temple
records before 70 a.d. — is interesting, and not
impossible. In times when genealogies were of
the highest importance both to families and in
dividuals, records of family descents were carefully
stored up in Temple archives, much as records of
marriages are kept to this day in English parish
churches.1 Many families of that time, no doubt,
claimed a descent from Abraham, or David, or
other Jewish worthies, and these would be anxious
to have tables of such descents registered and
deposited there. But this particular genealogy,
Rabbi Simeon states, showed that ' So and So '
was 'the illegitimate son of a married woman.'
It is unfortunate that our present Greek text
of Matt. i. 16 is so uncertain. The majority of
the readings describe Jesus as the Son of Mary,
the wife of Joseph. The ancient Syriac palimpsest
MS. discovered at Sinai, and published in 1904,
says, however: 'Joseph . . . begat Jesus.'2
But whether this be so or not, there can be
no doubt that the earliest Christians attached no
not be (or ought not to be) named,' etc. In the Toledoth Jeschu
very slanderous epithets are used.
1 Josephus, Vita, i.
2 See Hibbert fournal (October 1902), 'Early Doctr. Modi
fications of Gosp.' also ibid. (January 1903), pp. 354-59. The
question is analysed and discussed in the present writer's Critical
Examination of the Evidences for the Doctr. of the Virg. Birth,
i-iii.

vi.] The Jesus of Jewish Tradition 137
importance to any exact definition of this problem,
and undoubtedly referred to Jesus as 'the Son of
Joseph,' in a formal and legal sense, if in no
other. When the Matthaean genealogy1 (the
earlier of the two lists found in the Gospels) was
introduced, the question seems to have been
discussed as a matter of prime importance, and
the result of that discussion is the various con
flicting readings in the MSS. upon which the text
of our present Gospels is based.
Now, if the Rabbi's reference, in the above-
quoted saying, be to Jesus — and it would be
difficult to controvert the application — we have
clear and distinct reference to His birth in the
earlier Jewish tradition — a reference, moreover,
which is stated to be an extract from a genea
logical table found in Jerusalem before the siege.
There is a suggestion, too, of something unusual
about the record. Of course it would be quite
possible (assuming the actual existence of this
record) that the original entry had been altered
by the official priesthood during the period which
followed the death of Jesus — or, for that matter,
even previously. For it is difficult to see how
Jesus could have been entered in any official,
or semi-official, records otherwise than as the
son of Joseph, which, having been born in
1 Supposed by some to have/ been derived from the family records
of Joseph the carpenter, who appears to have claimed to be an
impoverished descendant of the royal house of David.

138 Jesus The Christ [chap.
wedlock, He was, in any case, from the Jewish
legal point of view. If, however, any alteration
were made after the death of Jesus, it seems
1 probable that it would date from the time of
the publication of the Matthaean genealogy, as
a document separate from the (later) gospel.
But, in any case, the interesting quotation from
an alleged Jerusalemite genealogy is valuable
for our present purpose, because it shows at least
that the Jews of the generations immediately
succeeding that of Jesus acknowledged the actual
birth, and, therefore, so far, the historical character
of the Founder of Christianity. For the Talmud
seems distinctly to bear witness to an alleged
registration of that birth in the Temple archives
at Jerusalem.
But, in addition to this, we find that the Birth
Stories of the two Synoptics have also their
equivalents — or rather caricatures — in the Talmud.
Indeed, there is no event in the life of Jesus
which is oftener, or in a more offensive and
slanderous manner, referred to in Jewish tradition.
The Jewish versions of the event vary consider
ably in their details x ; but, in the main, the story
is presented as follows : Miriam, the mother of
Jesus, is described generally as a woman's hair-
1 The tradition is very confused and contradictory on all points.
Mary appears to be confounded with Mary Magdalene, and the
name of her husband is variously given. It is impossible to form
a consistent narrative out of it.

vi.] The Jesus of Jewish Tradition 139
dresser,1 and the wife of a certain Stada. She
is stated, however, to have formed an intrigue
with a Pandera Pappus, son of Judas. As the
result of this Jesus is born. That this disgraceful
slander originated at a very early date is evidenced
by Origen.2 The later Jewish traditions, found,
e.g., in the Toledoth Jeschu — a most scurrilous work
— which, perhaps, reached its present and final
form in the ninth century, and which is com
piled from various sources, give this malicious
story in much greater detail, and with many
fanciful additions.
In this late work, the father of Jesus is said
to have been a Roman soldier named Panthera,
and in consequence Our Lord is chiefly styled
Jeschu ben Panthera (Pandera).3 Miriam is, for
this reason, cast off by her betrothed (husband)
Juchanan (John), and, after wandering about for
some time, gives birth to her son.
Thte sojourn in Egypt also — assigned by the
Matthaean synoptist to the period of the Infancy
— is, by Jewish tradition, invariably referred to
a much later period, and has quite different
reasons assigned for it. It was from that country,
1 This appears to have been considered a discreditable occupation.
2 Contr. Cels. i. 28.
* Jesus is generally styled, when directly referred to, ben Stada in
the Talmud, and ben Pandera (or Jeschu ha-Notzri) in the
Toledoth. Ben Stada is never found in the Toledoth. The above
two works appear to contain — to a great extent — two separate lines
of tradition.

140 Jesus The Christ [chap.
say both the Talmud and the Toledoth, that
Jesus brought the magic by means of which He
wrought His 'mighty works.' Thus, we find in
the Palestinian Gemara : "He who scratches the
skin in the fashion of writing is guilty ; but he
who [merely] makes marks on the skin in the
fashion of writing is exempt from punishment.
Rabbi Eliezer said to them : ' But has not ben
Stada brought spells out of Egypt in this way ? '
They answered him : ' On account of one fool
we do not ruin a multitude of reasonable
men.'"1 In the Babylonian Gemara we have a slightly
different version of the story : " Rabbi Eliezer
said to the wise men : 'Has not ben Stada
brought magic spells from Egypt in an incision
in his body?' They answered him: 'He was
a fool, and we do not take proofs from fools.' "2
In the Tosephta we read further: "Rabbi
Eliezer said to the wise men : ' Ben Stada surely
learned sorcery by such writing.' "
The ' scratching ' on the skin means, probably,
magical hieroglyphs tattooed upon its surface ;
these were supposed to have power over daemons.
Perhaps the ' incisions ' were made as temporary
receptacles for spells written upon small pieces
1 Shabbath, 13^.
1 Ibid. 104b. The Toledoth feschu says that He stole the
Ineffable Name (JHVH) from the Temple by writing it upon
parchment, which He concealed in an incision in His thigh. He
then, afterwards, learnt its magical use.

vi.] The Jesus of Jewish Tradition 141
of parchment, or paper, and sewed up in the
wound. Another mention of this is met with in the
Gemara of the Palestinian Talmud. But there
the question is as to the lawfulness of such writing
on the Sabbath day.
Talmudic tradition also tells us that Jesus chose
five disciples to aid Him in His work. But why
this number is chosen, instead of the twelve of
the Christian records, it would be difficult to say.
Thus we find a passage which says : " Jeschu
had five disciples {talmidim), Mathai [Matthew],
Nakai [? Nicodemus (Laible)], Nezer [?], Bonai
[? Nicodemus (Thilo)], Todah [? Thaddeus ;
Theudas (Laible)].1
The works performed by the disciples of Jesus,
also seem to find an echo in Jewish tradition, as
witness the following story ; " Rabbi Eliezer, the
son of Dama, was bitten by a serpent ; and there
came to him Jacob [ = James], a man of Kaphar
Secama,2 to heal him by means of the name of
Jeschu, son of Pandera ; 3 but Rabbi Ishmael 4
1 Bab. Talm., Sanhedrin Tract, 43a.
2 Voisin quotes a Massoretic gloss on the Aboda Zara, which
says that this Jacob was one of the disciples of Jeschu.
3 Cp. Matt. vii. 22 ; Luke x. 17 ; Acts iii. 6 ; xix. 13, etc. Instead
of these words, common copies of the Midrash have ' in the name
of a certain one.' The name is suppressed, probably from fear
of the Christians.
4 Rabbi Ishmael — without any suffix — always stands in the
Talmud for R. Ishmael ben Elisha, the contemporary of R. Akiba,
the famous Rabbi already mentioned, who flourished early in the
second century.

142 Jesus The Christ [chap.
suffered him not, saying : ' That is not allowed
to thee, son of Dama.' He answered him :
' Suffer me, and I will produce an authority
against thee, that it is lawful.' But he could not
produce an authority before he died. And what
was the authority ? It was : ' Which, if a man
do, he shall live in them ' (Lev. xviii. 5). But it
is not said that he shall die in them." 1
The same story is found in the Palestinian
Talmud with the following addition,2 that R.
Ishmael pronounced the dead man blessed, in
spite of the divine judgment (his death) on the
meditated disobedience, for having escaped this
unholy cure, in reference to which he quotes
Eccles. x. 8.
Another case is quoted in the Midrash on
Eccles. x. 5 : "The son of R. Jehoshua ben Levi
had something in his throat. He went and fetched
one of the men [disciples] of ben Pandera to
extract what he had swallowed. Jehoshua said
to him, ' What didst thou say over him ? ' He
answered, ' A certain verse after a certain man!
He said, ' It had been better for him had he
buried him, and not said over him that verse.' "
The miracles of Jesus are almost entirely passed
over by the Talmud, and in Midrashim, etc. But
in the Toledoth Jeschu line of tradition several
are described of a foolish character, and only
1 Midrash Koheleth, or Comm. on Eccles. i. 8.
2 Tract Aboda Zara (on Idolatry).

vi.] The Jesus of Jewish Tradition 143
comparable to those recorded in some of the
Christian Apocryphs. Thus, in the Toledoth,
when sent for by Queen Helene,1 'the ruler of
the land of Israel,' to answer a charge of sorcery,
and of leading men astray, Jesus is said to have
uttered the Ineffable Name, in her presence, over
some clay sparrows, which then became alive and
flew away. , Another feat was the placing of a
millstone upon the sea, where it floated when
He sat upon it.2 He is also said to have flown
up into the air, when brought before the queen,
who thereupon commissioned Judas Iscariot to
emulate the performance, which he did, by
means of the same power, ' because the Shem ha-
Mephoresh was equally with him.' Judas is said
finally to have conquered by means of a trick :
' he befouled Jeschu, so that he was made un
clean, and fell to the earth, and with him Judas.'
Sufficient has now been quoted of these stories
of the earlier life of Jesus — mostly foolish in their
character — to show the slight thread of historical
tradition which runs through them, the tradition,
that is to say, of an actual Man, who lived and
worked, and was remembered by the people
and their teachers. We will now turn to those
referring to His later life.
The Toledoth relates how Jesus was brought
1 Apparently the Empress Helena, the ' inventress ' of the Cross,
is meant, a most absurd anachronism.
2 Suggested, perhaps, by Matt, xviii. 6, and parallels.

144 Jesus The Christ [chap.
for punishment to the Synagogue of Tiberias.
There He was bound to 'the pillars of the ark,'
and had a crown of thorns placed upon His
head. But He was rescued by the 'Apostates,'
and went to Antioch, and from that city to
Jerusalem, which He entered upon an ass on the
rest day of the Passover. Then one of His
disciples, named Gaisa (gardener), arranged to
betray Him by means of an obeisance : He was
thereupon seized by the 'wise men.'
One variant of the Talmud ic story of the
trial and condemnation of Jesus runs as follows :
" Thus . . . they managed with ben Sot' da at Lud.1
Against him two disciples of learned men were
placed in concealment, and he was brought
before the Court of Justice [condemned] and
stoned." 2
The Babylonian Gemara tells a similar tale,
relating how witnesses are placed in hiding, in
order that they may hear the suspected person's
talk, and so be able to give evidence against
him. Then, it explains, another man would ask :
"How can we abandon our God in heaven, and
practise idolatry ? " If the suspected person
answered : " Such is our duty, and so we like to
have it," then the witnesses, who were listening,
brought him to the tribunal, by whom he was
1 A variant form of Satda, or Stada. Lud was a small town
near Joppa.
2 Palest. Tal., Sanhed. Tract, iii. 2$d.

vi.] The Jesus of Jewish Tradition 145
condemned and executed. " And thus did they,"
says the writer, " to ben Stada at Lud ; and they
hanged him on the day before the Passover."1
Another variant of the Talmudic account of
the charge, trial and execution is given without
any mention of Lud : " On the Sabbath of the
Passover festival Jeschu was hanged. Now the
herald went forth beforehand for the space of
forty days, while he cried : ' Jeschu goeth forth to
be executed, because he has practised sorcery,
and seduced Israel, and estranged them from God.
Let any one who can bring forward any justifying
plea for him come forward and give information
concerning it.' But no justifying plea was found
for him, and so he was hanged on the Sabbath
of the Passover festival. Ulla 2 has said, ' But
dost thou think that he belongs to those for
whom a justifying plea is to be sought ? He
was a very seducer, and the All Merciful has
said : Thou shalt not spare him, nor conceal him '
(Deut. xiii. 8). However, in Jeschu's case it was
somewhat different ; for his place was near those
in power." 3
1 Bab. Tal., Sanhed. Tract, 67a.
2 A Palestinian Rabbi of the early fourth century.
8 Bab. Tal., Sanhed. Tract, 43a. Laible (fesus Christ im
Talmud) thinks that Pilate and the Romans are meant here. It
is curious to note the entire absence of Pilate's name, and also any
mention of a Roman trial. Probably the pride of the later Jews
forbade their admitting that the Jews of Our Lord's time had no
power to inflict capital punishment. A modern Jewish writer,
Rabbi Aaron P. Drucker, however, endeavours to prove (The
10

146 Jesus The Christ [chap.
There is also a further reference in the Targum
Sheni to Esth. vii. 9, where ' the lecture platform
of ben Pandera ' is mentioned in connection with
the rivalry between Mordecai and Haman. This
is clearly intended as a grim jest upon the ' tree '
whereon Jesus suffered death.1
But the fullest parody of the Gospel Crucifixion
narratives is to be found in the Toledoth Jeschu.
We will here summarize its version of that event.
When Jesus was seized ' the apostates began to
lament, but could not deliver him.' The time of
His execution is described as 'on a Friday, or
rest day before the Passover and the Sabbath.'
Then follows the extraordinary statement that
' when they would hang him on a tree {holz), it
brake, for the Name was with him.' Then —
since no tree would bear His weight — a cabbage-
stalk was tried, which did not break.
This is explained in the Toledoth as being due
to the fact that Jesus had foreseen the manner of
His death, and had, therefore, uttered the Name
over all trees ; but — the writer quaintly adds — had
not done so over the cabbage-stalk ; for that is
not a tree, but a vegetable ; and, consequently,
was unaffected by the spell cast upon trees.
Trial of fesus from fewish Sources) that the Jews had nothing
to do with the charges brought against Jesus, and that Caiaphas
was in reality a Roman spy.
1 It may be noted here that the Romans frequently referred to
the cross as ' infelix arbor,' and spoke of being hanged upon it.
See Liv. i. 26 ; Cic. Pro Rabir, 4 etc

vi.] The Jesus of Jewish Tradition 1 47
The narrative then goes on to relate that Jesus
was allowed to hang upon the cabbage-stalk,
'until the time of the afternoon prayer,' a state
ment which tallies generally with the Gospel
accounts. The reason given for the removal of
the body the same day, seems, however, to differ
slightly. It is written : 'His body shall not remain
all night upon the tree.'
A much greater divergence is found in the
account of the burial : ' They buried him,' says
the writer, ' on the first day of the week ' ; and
His disciples are described as 'weeping over his
grave ' — a statement indirectly contradicted by
the Gospels. Then follows a curious, rambling
story, full of gross anachronisms and palpable
fictions. The ' apostates ' are said to have sent
to the Queen, announcing that Jesus had, after
death, ascended up to heaven, and thus triumphed
over the Jews. Then the Queen sent to the
latter, to ask what they had done with the body
of Jesus. They replied that they had buried it ;
but, when they afterwards sought for it, the body
was gone. The Queen, however, insisted on its
being produced, so, after stipulating for sufficient
time, the Jews again began their search, but still
were unable to ascertain where it was.
Thereupon was great lamentation in Israel ;
but an 'elder,' named Rabbi Tanchuma, came
forward at last, and informed them that he had
removed it from the grave in the garden, and

148 Jesus The Christ [chap.
digged another in the bed of a stream, and placed
the body therein, and allowed the water to flow
over the spot again, and thus hide the grave.
The body of Jesus is then dug up again by the
Jews, and dragged by means of cords round the
streets of Jerusalem, and then brought before
the Queen. "Here," said they, "is he who
ascended up to heaven ! " The Queen then
" mocked the apostates," who fled, " three of them
to Mount Ararat, three of them to Armenia, three
of them to Rome, and others to other places, and
they misled the people." " But " — the writer
rejoices to add — " everywhere, where they took
refuge, God sent his judgments upon them, and
they were slain."
It will have been noted by the attentive reader
that there are several points of contact between
these — in the main — nonsensical narratives, and
the story of the condemnation and death of Jesus
as told in the Gospels. And a careful analysis
and comparison will indicate clearly the historical
thread which runs throughout, sometimes even in
the greatest absurdities. The statements found
in both Talmud and Toledoth cannot be derived
from the Gospels ; this much is plain even from
the disagreement and contradictions which exist
between them. Their common basis of agree
ment, therefore, must rest upon a common record
of actual historic events — events which have
become distorted, and, in a greater or less degree,

vi.] The Jesus of Jewish Tradition 149
exaggerated and misstated in the course of trans
mission from generation to generation, culminating
in the grosser absurdities of the Toledoth.
But Professor Drews will haye none of the
Talmud as even an imperfect source of history.
He says,1 quoting Kropatscheck 2 : " The Talmud
gives a hostile caricature of his advent, which
has no historical value." A caricature, no doubt,
and of no great, or direct, value as history. But
still of some value, at least indirectly, as to the
historical nature of what is caricatured. And its
evidential value, in this sense, can only be gauged
by critical examination, whereby the grain of pure
gold can be separated from the mass of dross in
which it is embedded, and wholly lost, it may be,
to the sight of the uncritical eye. Then, beneath
all the chaotic mass of legend — and even rubbish
— of later Jewish tradition, there stands revealed to
the sympathetic critic the actual figure of a Man.
Moreover, it is a notorious fact that no Jewish
teacher, or writer, has ever questioned the ex
istence of the Jesus of the Gospels. In all their
bitterest controversies with the Christians, through
out the last eighteen centuries and more, no Rabbi
has even suggested that Jesus was not an historical
personality. What would have been easier, or
more effective, as an answer to their Christian
opponents, if there were no real basis of fact for
1 The Christ Myth, 3rd ed. p. 234.
2 Writing in Kreuzzeitung (7th April 1910). Italics ours.

I5° Jesus The Christ [chap.
the story of Jesus, than to have asserted directly
and boldly : " Your Jesus had no real existence
in history. Our records contain no mention of
any such historic person."
Such a retort made eighteen, or more, centuries
ago, or even generations afterwards, would have
been quite unanswerable. But this is exactly the
line of defence which the Jews have never adopted.
Jesus was, they said, a sorcerer ; Jesus was a
false Messiah ; Jesus was a seducer of the people
from the worship of the true God ; but He was
never a mere imaginary being — an Idea, simply,
to use the philosophical terminology of to-day.
We deduce, therefore, from this important fact,
as also from the absurdities and fictions of Jewish
tradition, as these are found in Talmud and
Toledoth, that there are here also strong lines of
evidence to show that Jesus the Nazoraean was,
what the other sources of our knowledge unite in
affirming Him to be, an actual historic being, and
no mere figment of the human imagination. But
at the same time the other sources of our know
ledge of Him declare that He was utterly unlike
the picture which is painted for us in the literature
of Jewish tradition.
Before closing this brief examination of Jewish
views regarding Jesus, there is another point
which must be noticed, since it is one of consider
able importance for our present inquiry, and,
therefore, demands attention, though it cannot be

vi.] The Jesus of Jewish Tradition 151
discussed at all adequately here. We find also
in the Talmud apparently a mention of quite a
different Jesus from the one who is the subject of
the Gospel narratives. Briefly stated, it seems
that this other Jesus must have lived in the reign
of King Jannai (John),1 and would seem to have
been excommunicated for heterodox opinions by
a certain Rabbi ben Perachiah, and also (it seems)
put to death by stoning. The reader will doubt
less remember that in the various traditions
discussed above, Jesus was in some accounts
spoken of as finally hanged; but in others as
being at last stoned to death.
Now, the question arises — a question, which,
as we have already remarked, is one of great
moment for the subject of our present discussion —
are these various accounts mere confused tradi
tions, mere confused statements relating to one
historic person, or do they refer to two separate
men ? This is a problem which, as yet, has re
ceived very inadequate attention from both Jewish
and Christian historians and scholars.
Some writers of more recent years have main
tained that the tradition of ben Pandera, or ben
Stada, does not refer to the Jesus of the Gospels at
all ; it refers wholly, they think, to this 'pre-Christian
1 He bore also the Greek name of Alexander, and was the son of
John Hyrcanus. He reigned over Judaea from 104-78 B.C., during
which period he had a perpetual feud with the party of the Pharisees,
many of whom he put to death by crucifixion (Josephus, B.f. I. iv. 6 ;
Ant. xni. xiv. 2).

152 Jesus The Christ [chap.
Jesus ' — an historic person of King Jannai's time.
Such a view leaves the question of the historicity
of the Jesus of the Gospels, in a sense, an open
question, so far as Talmudic and other extant
Jewish evidence is concerned. He would, in that
case, be either some other person, or, as Professor
Drews urges, a mere mythical ingraft upon historic
narrative. But this solution of the question is, in the first
place, wholly contrary to all Jewish opinion in
every age, which distinctly and firmly holds to the
identity of the ben Pandera, or ben Stada, with the
Jesus of the Gospels ; and, for many other reasons
also, seems to the present writer in the highest
degree improbable. Setting aside the possibility
that the Jesus of King Jannai's time is a mere fiction
of the Rabbis (and indeed there is no historical
evidence for his existence outside of the Talmud,
and very little in it), and even allowing that some
noted teacher, bearing the popular name of Jesus,
it may be, did exist a century or so before the
time of Christ, — we have in Talmudic and other
notices too many obvious references to the Jesus
of the Gospels to be explained away as meant for
some other person. It would be presumptuous
to offer here any dogmatical assertion, but the
present writer believes it will be found that both
Jesuses were historical persons, and that the
Rabbis of the early Christian centuries confused
them either in a spirit of carelessness, and through

vi.] The Jesus of Jewish Tradition 153
inadvertence, or else wilfully, in their eagerness to
defame the hated name of the Gospel Jesus. If
this be the case, the fact will go a long way
towards explaining the confusions and anachron
isms which characterize the delineation of the
Christian Jesus, which we find everywhere in the
Talmud, and also in the other lines of Jewish
teaching and tradition.

PART II
THE MYTHICAL DATA

155

CHAPTER VII.
PRE-CHRISTIAN JESUS-CULTS.
A very important and almost essential part of
Professor Drews' theory of a Christ-myth is the
alleged existence among the Jews, in pre-Christian
times, of one or more cults, the members of which
he supposes worshipped a kind of Redeemer- or
Healer-God, who was named by them 'Jesus.'
Furthermore, these cults, in his opinion, would
seem to have formed a connecting link, so to
speak, between the purely Jewish Apocalyptic
Messianism of the post-exilic period, and the
vegetative-solar and orgiastic nature-cults found
at that time, and long subsequently, in the neigh
bouring countries of Asia Minor, and in Egypt,
Assyria and even Greece, in some cases at least,
alongside of a higher and more formal State
religion, in which sacrifices and ritual acts and
words formed the most essential part.
Now, extending his inquiries into the dim
region of early Hebrew history, where much is
problematical and vague, and somewhat hastily
adopting, as the basis of his arguments, the dubious

J58 Jesus The Christ [chap.
speculations of other writers,1 Professor Drews
practically assumes that Israel possessed, before
the days of a State-organized Jahvism, an old and
primitive, but unofficial, form of sun-worship,
similar to that out of which all the various
' redeemer ' cults are often supposed to have
arisen, but which, it now seems probable, were
based upon a still earlier cult of the spirit of
vegetative life.
Now, it is well-known that Israel found, upon
their arrival in Canaan, a widespread local
worship of the Ba'alim, which continued to exist
for many generations alongside of the worship of
Jahveh, with which, indeed, it was to some extent
confused.2 But this Ba'alism, again, though for a
long time thought to be a mere variety of sun-
worship, is now believed to have been the mere
deification and propitiation of the local repro
ductive powers in nature, as manifested in
generation in the animal world, and in the fruits
yielded annually by the earth. Sun-worship,
properly so-called, is something both later, and
essentially different from this Ba'alism, at least in
the form which it takes in these and allied cults.
1 Notably Professor W. B. Smith (The Pre-Christian fesus), and
Mr. J. M. Robertson (Christianity and Mythology, and Pagan
Christs, etc.).
2 The primitive worship of the (?) desert God Jahveh was largely
ba'alized, i.e. assimilated to the cults of the local and agricultural
ba'alim, soon after Israel's arrival. It was then afterwards ethicized
by the exertions of the prophets, especially the later and writing
prophets.

vu.] Pre-Christian Jesus-Cults 159
The solar powers, like those of the earth, appear
to wane annually at the time of the winter-solstice ;
but they do so in each case only to ' rise ' again
in spring and restore once more to mankind the
blessings of the previous year. This — stated
briefly — is the common basis of all those solar- and
vegetation-cults, in which the great luminary, alike
with the fruits of the ground, is represented
anthropomorphically as a handsome youth, who
is ultimately and annually slain by the scorching
rays of the summer sun, or the winter storms and
frosts, represented, perhaps, as in the Adonis-cult,
by a fierce boar, or, as in that of Osiris, by his
wicked brother Set.1 And the preliminary
question in this inquiry is — What evidences are
there — if any — for the existence of such cults
amongst the Jews in pre-Christian times ?
Some modern scholars,2 it is true, have affirmed
that they could detect slight traces of them
amongst the early Hebrews in the existing text
of the books of the Old Testament, our chief
and almost sole authority for the earlier periods.
1 It may, perhaps, be pointed out here that such cults, whether
in the main of a vegetative or solar character, are wholly a mere
worship (in the lowest sense) of the powers of Reproduction.
Consequently they are (with the partial exception of the Osiris
variant) unethical. They were invariably associated with the most
licentious orgies on the part of their devotees, who strove to
emulate and (upon the principles of homoeopathic magic) to
stimulate the powers of Nature.
2 Notably Dr. Winckler, the brilliant Assyriologist, as set forth
in his Geschichte Israels in Einzeldarstellungen (1900).

i6o Jesus The Christ [chap.
Mr. J. M. Robertson, however — followed closely
by Professor W. B. Smith — goes much further
than this, and settles somewhat off-hand this very
difficult question. He says: "That Joshua isa
purely mythical personage, was long ago decided
by the historical criticism of the school of Colenso
and Kuenen ; that he was originally a solar deity
can be established at least as satisfactorily as the
solar character of Moses, if not as that of Samson.
And when we note that in Semitic tradition
(which preserves a variety of myths, that the
Bible-makers, for obvious reasons, suppressed or
transformed) Joshua is the son of the mythical
Miriam,1 that is to say, there was probably an
ancient Palestinian Saviour sun-god, Jesus, the
Son of Mary, we are led to surmise that the
elucidation of the Christ-myth is not yet
complete." 2
The extent to which Mr. Robertson's vivid
imagination has enabled him to fill in the numerous
lacunce, which exist in our present actual know
ledge of the subject, will, however, be better
understood from another quotation, giving all the
facts, so far as they are at present available.
"The historical character of Joshua, as an
individual," writes Dr. Cheyne, "is doubtful. It
was natural to provide Moses with attendants,
1 Citing Baring-Gould, Legends of O.T. Characters (1871),
ii. 138.
2 Christianity and Mythology, pp. 82, 83.

vn.] Pre-Christian Jesus-Cults 161
and to give a name to the chief of these (Num.
xi. 28), who was in training to become Moses'
successor. " Nor could such a successor have a more
suitable name than ' Jehoshua.' x . . . Naturally
he would be assigned to the tribe which had the
leadership in early times [Ephraim, Num. xiii. 8],
and if Joseph was (as Winckler maintains) a solar
hero, it would not be surprising if details of solar
mythical origin attached themselves to the Joshua
tradition."2 The fact is, that the whole of
Mr. Robertson's theory here is based upon a
speculation of several German scholars, that
Joseph was originally a ' solar hero,' and only
afterwards historicized into a son of Jacob. And
so with Joshua, in like manner.
Another and very different conjecture is, that
Joshua, as the son of Nun [1«, Nun = ' fish,'
'serpent,'] was a member of a fish — or perhaps
a serpent-clan, fishes and serpents being much
confused in ancient times. The word Nun,
Cheyne thinks, is probably a shortened form of
Nahshon, which might mean (he says) 'a little
serpent' These speculations, however, open up
1 (?)=' Jahveh (is) deliverance' [but see p. 178] ; a shorter form
is foshua. Philo explains it as 'Irjaovs eppeveverm, o-arn\pia Kvpiov,
' Jesus [Joshua] is interpreted (as) safety of the Lord.' The same
name, mostly written feshua [jW)l m later times, was borne
by the High Priest in the reign of Darius 1., and by many other
persons. ? Ency. Bibl, art. 'Joshua.'

1 62 Jesus The Christ [chap.
the difficult question as to whether a system of
Totemism prevailed amongst the Israelites in
primitive times, a theory for which there is
certainly some evidence, but Vegarding which
there is considerable diversity of opinion.1
Yet another view explains Nahshon as a cor
ruption of Hushan, or Husham, an Edomite name
in Gen. xxxviiii. 34. Dr. Cheyne finally sums up
the whole question : " Joshua was the closest of
the friends of Moses, and must have belonged to
the same clan, if we should not treat both Moses
and Joshua as the eponyms of kindred clans.
Now Joshua should be another form of Abishua
= Abisheba, which is an Aaronite name and
closely resembles Eli-sheba, the name of a Judahite
clan, with which ' Aaron ' intermarried. That
Abi-sheba and Eli-sheba are really names of
the same clan can hardly be doubted. Now
Eli-sheba is introduced to us as a ' daughter of
Amminadab, sister of Nahshon.' It is very
probable that, according to another representation,
Josheba, or Abi-sheba, or Eli-sheba, was the son
of Nahshon, and that Pktu [Nahshon] was some
times written in the abbreviated form P^ [Nun]."2
Enough has now been said upon this particular
1 See ' Animal Tribes in the O.T.' (Lects. and Essays of W. R.
Smith, 1912); also 'Totemism in the O.T.,' by H. J. D. Astley,
in The Quest, April 1912, with Frazer's Totemism and Exogamy,
iv. pp. 13-ff.
2 Ency. Bibl., art. ' Nun,1 to which (and ' Joshua ') the reader
is referred for further discussion and details.

vn.] Pre-Christian Jesus-Cults 163
point to show the extreme danger of drawing
hasty inferences from even brilliant speculations.1
The fact is that ' Joshua ' may be explained —
with more or less plausibility — in several ways ;
and it is still not improbable that he was some
conspicuous tribal hero, who took part in the
conquest of Canaan, and whose exploits have,
perhaps, been magnified by the patriotism of later
chroniclers. Mr. Robertson, however, despite the great lack
of really direct evidence, is quite sure about the
early worship of an Ephraimite sun-god named
' Joshua,' which (he thinks) was, later, carried on
in opposition to the national cult of Jahveh by
certain secret societies, who carefully kept as
much as possible out of the notice of the official
priesthood of their time. And it would seem
that, in his view, this ancient (and from a later
standpoint ' heretical ') worship in time became
amalgamated (or confused) with the Messianism
which sprung up and flourished so vigorously
during the post-exilian period. That there were,
at this time (and probably earlier), societies of a
more or less secret character who professed, in
greater or less degree, the special tenets peculiar
to what we term Mysticism, Gnosticism and
Messianism, is more than probable. Such societies
1 Wienel says (1st das 'liberate' fesusbild wider iegt? p. 91)
that any argument based upon the connection of Jesus with
Joshua is ' simply grotesque.'

164 Jesus The Christ [chap.
have existed in almost every age, and alongside
of, or within, almost every form of religious
belief. It so happens, also, that the names of some of
such societies — existing in the early Christian
centuries (if not previously) have been handed
down to us. And Professor Drews, drawing
upon the meagre information which we have
respecting them, has made these two assumptions :
(i) that such sects held to the belief in, and wor
shipped a god of purely solar origin, who ' died and
rose again ' for the good of mankind, and (ii) that
the same god, later on, became identified, in the
mind of St. Paul and the earliest Christians,
with the Messiah, who was expected even by the
'orthodox' section of the Jewish people. In
other words, the sun-god Joshua (Jesus), and the
Messiah, or Christ, were eventually combined and
embodied in an imaginary Jesus Christ, from
Galilee, in the first century of the Christian era.
This theory, perhaps very plausible at first
sight, is, however, partly based upon extremely
uncertain speculative considerations, and partly
upon precarious data, which are both very scanty
in amount, and very difficult to interpret. We
will, therefore, proceed to examine briefly the
grounds of this hypothesis, so far as the information
to hand at the moment will admit of our so doing.1
1 It should be noted that at one of the public discussions of the
subject, held in Germany, Professor Drews insisted that his view

vn.] Pre-Christian Jesus-Cults 165
We will take first of all an obscure sect, existing
at least in Christian times — the Jessaer.1
Our knowledge of these people is wholly derived
from a brief, and not very clear, reference to them
in Epiphanius {Hcer. xxix). The name of the
sect would seem to be probably derived from
Jesse, the father of David,2 though Professor Drews
clearly desires to think that they more probably
named themselves after 'Jesus' — the old cult-
god. Professor von Soden, on the other hand,
declares that "it can only be, derived from Jesse,
. . . Perhaps," he continues, "it was a sect which
believed in the Messiah, and expected Him as
the Son of David, to come of the root of Jesse,
or Isai." 3
These latter conclusions seem even more than
probable, though we must be careful not to
dogmatize. If the sect existed before the time
of Christ (and Epiphanius [fourth century a.d.J
is notoriously untrustworthy as an authority), they
were, in all probability, one of the numerous
Messianic sects who looked forward to a Messiah
that the Founder of Christianity was a purely mythical character,
did not depend upon the existence of a pre-Christian cult-god named
' Jesus.' It is, however, in any case, a great support to the hypo
thesis, and practically indispensable to it. See J. Weiss, fesus von
Nazareth j Mythus oder Geschichte? pp. 19-21.
1 Also written ' Jessaioi ', ' Jessaes ' and ' Jessenes.'
2 Cp. Isa. ii. 1 : 'the branch of the root of Jesse.'
3 Hat Jesus gelebt? Eng. tr. p. 28; cp. also Isa. xi. 1-10 ;
1 Sam. xvi. 1 : and Rom. xv. 12.

1 66 Jesus The Christ [chap.
ben- David as the great hope of the race.1 It
is quite probable, too, that, regarding Him as
a future descendant of David, the anointed King
of Judah, they postulated a royal Messiah, who
should revive the traditional glories of that
kingdom, and bring peace and prosperity again
upon earth. Probably, also — like many other
Messianists in later times — they regarded the
Messiah as the representative (in some spiritual
sense) of Jahveh Himself.2 And, if so, what is
more likely than that they would bestow upon
the looked-for Messiah some great name with
which they were familiar, and which would aptly
describe the rdle which He was expected to
assume ? And such was the time-honoured name
of the traditional conqueror of Canaan, Joshua —
always a popular and very common name amongst
Jews in all ages. But this we do not know for
certain. There is, however, in any case, not a single
scrap of credible evidence for the existence of a
Jesus-cult among them. In fact, the very name
selected for the Messiah — if, indeed, it were
selected — seems to forbid such an interpretation,
1 It must be remembered that the northern Israelites (Ephraim),
and later the Samaritans, may possibly have expected a ' Messias
ben-foseph' (but see chap. ix. p. 212, note 4).
2 This idea was afterwards very much developed, especially in
the Kabbalah, where the angel Metatron is regarded as the visible
manifestation of Deity, cp. the (late) 'Theophanies' of the
Pentateuch.

vn.] Pre-Christian Jesus-Cults 167
and even to suggest the exact contrary. If
Joshua (? 'Jahveh is deliverance ' — but see p. 178),
then He is to them simply Jahveh's earthly
agent, or representative, and, ipso facto, not some
minor god who ' redeems ' on his own initiative,
like the pagan ' saviour-deities.'
Indeed, we have not the slightest reason to
suppose that this, or any other pre-Christian sect
of Jews, or Israelites, regarded the Messiah who
was to come as a ' god ' in any sense of the word.1
He was to be sent by God. The mere fact that
they expected Him, and, perhaps, prayed for His
coming, and even, it may be, gave Him the
honoured name of 'Joshua' [Jesus], does not
imply any cult of Him, in the sense of worship,
such as the Christians, later on, paid to Christ.
We have, in short, no record of any pre-
Christian god ' Jesus,' who was worshipped by
these Jessaer. Such a statement is founded
merely upon a rash inference drawn from the
few facts which are at our disposal, and which
do not, when carefully examined, support any
such view.
Another sect, which is instanced by Professor
Drews in support of the Jesus-cult theory, is that
of the Naasenes, or Ophites.2 He regards this
1 In Isa. vii. 14, 'Immanu-el' = probably, and literally, merely
' the Strong-One with us.'
2 Ophites from ocpis, 'a serpent' =Heb. B7U Nahash), whence
Naasenes, 'serpent-worshippers.'

1 68 Jesus The Christ [chap.
society as undoubtedly existing in pre-Christian
times, and reverencing 'Jesus' as their cult-god.
Now, the fundamental belief of all the later
Ophite, or Naasene, sects was that the first
principle of everything was a Spiritual Man,
who was bisexual {dpcrev60r)Xv<i), and of a rational,
psychical and earthly nature ; and this man
corresponded to the (later) Adam Kadmon of
the Jewish Kabbalah.1 In their Christology the
human Jesus was the passive recipient of an efflux
from the Divine Nature, but only mediately ; for
the Ophite Christ emanated conjointly from the
First Principle, or Adam Kadmon, from a Second
Principle, called the ' Son ' (but known also by
the name, Enncea [^'Ewoia]), and from a Third,
and feminine, Principle, the Spirit, or Mother
of Creation.2 Thus we have a Christ-ceon
existing independently of, and antecedent to,
Creation in the spiritual Pleroma forming the
Supreme Godhead. Another, and lower, aeonic
being was Sophia (XofyLa, ' Wisdom '), also a
feminine Principle, forming an intermediate link
between the spiritual Pleroma of Divine beings,
and the material world with its Creator.
This Sophia is represented as sinking down to
the material chaos, where, failing to find rest, she
invoked the help of the Mother Spirit, and
1 Hippolytus, Refut. of All Heresies, v. I.
2 See Irenaeus, Against All Heresies, i. 30 ; also see chap. ix. p.
212, note 1.

vn.] Pre-Christian Jesus-Cults 169
obtained from the First, or Archetypal Man, that
the aeon Christ should be sent to her aid, and,
being united with her, should, by a descent upon
Jesus at His baptism, form the Ecclesia, or
Church, upon earth, which would have an eternal
counterpart in heaven, in the union of Christ
with the Father (Adam Kadmon), the Son
(Ennoea), and the Spirit, or Creative Mother.
This aeonic Christ, united thus with Jesus, left
Him again at His Crucifixion, and the inferior,
or psychic Man, alone suffered death, and was
buried. Space prohibits a further exposition of this
complex System of theosophy, which included
several variant sects ; x but one conclusion is very
evident, viz. that the Jesus-element set forth
above is wholly post-Christian, and an attempt
to explain the Gospel narratives in the light
of ancient occult theories. That pre-Christian
Naasenes (if they existed then) managed to fit
in, and identify with, one of their own aeons —
the Helper of Sophia perhaps — the expected
Messiah of the Jews, is more than probable.
They would naturally aver : " Your Messiah is
merely our Helper-^Eon ; and if he is to be
named Jesus (or Joshua), then we may call our
^Eonic Helper, when embodied in a human form,
Jesus also." We have no direct evidence of this
1 See summary given by Hippolytus (who supplements Irenaeus),
Refut. of All Heresies, x. S-

170 Jesus The Christ [chap.
though, and it remains a mere speculation. In
any case, there is no pre-Christian cult of Jesus
signified by their system.
Very similar to this is the evidence supplied by
a Naasene hymn preserved by Hippolytus {op.
cit. v. 5). This hymn, after describing the woes
and sufferings of the human soul during its
wanderings upon earth,1 says —
" But Jesus said : Father behold
a war of evils has arisen upon the earth ;
it comes from thy breath, and ever works. '
Man strives to shun this bitter chaos,
but knows not how he may pass [safely] through it.
Therefore, do thou, O Father, send me ;
bearing thy seals I shall descend [to earth] ;
throughout the ages will I pass ;
all mysteries I will unfold ;
all forms of Godhead I will unveil ;
all secrets of thy holy path,
styled gnosis [knowledge] I will impart."
This hymn, of which we have quoted the con
cluding portion, shows clearly what the tenets of
these Naasenes were. They were evidently a
sect which — after Christ — professed a theosophi-
cal form of Christianity engrafted upon an older
scheme of pagan Gnosticism. Their first cause
was an archetypal Man-Woman {Androgyne),
1 Probably a metempsychosis is here referred to. The text of this
hymn, however, is very corrupt, though the general meaning is
fairly clear. ' Jesus,' of course, is properly the human recipient of
the Saviour Row of this Gnostic system. The name is probably a
later interpolation.

vn.] Pre-Christian Jesus-Cults 171
as we have already seen, possessing a triad
Personality, whose complete apprehension was a
matter of higher knowledge, not of worship, or
experience. Furthermore, we do not know even approxi
mately the date of this hymn. Professor W. B.
Smith {The Pre-Christian Jesus) hazards the
statement that it is 'old' (whatever that may
mean) — 'no one can say how old.' Professor
Drews deftly alters this expression of* opinion
into, it is ' according to all appearance a pre-
Christian hymn ' x — a most unwarrantable
deduction. All we really know about it is, that
{teste Hippolytus) it was used after the time of
Christ in this form. And the mere fact that these
same Naasenes made use of St. Paul's Epistles,
and the Fourth Gospel, certainly suggests that the
semi-Christian flavour about their teaching was
not derived from pre-Christian sources. If the
sect actually did exist before Christ, in some form
or other, there was nothing to prevent their sub
sequently absorbing certain peculiarly Christian
ideas and terms, which could be incorporated into
their system. And, even in the post-Christian
form of their tenets, Jesus is not a god in any
sense, but, strictly speaking, a mere human
embodiment of one of the aeons of the Pleroma,
who (along with Sophia) comes to impart divine
knowledge {yv5>a-i<;) to mankind, a fact which is
1 Die Christusmythe, 4th ed. p. 23.

172 Jesus The Christ [chap.
destructive of any theory that they worshipped a
dying and reviving saviour-god of any kind.1
Again, the Nazarenes, or Nazoraes {Nafapatoi)
were also — if Epiphanius is to be trusted2 — in
existence as a sect, in some form or other, before
the time of Christ. And here Professor Drews
embarks upon a still more doubtful theory of
derivation and speculative construction. He
says : " They were, however, called Nazoraes,
because they honoured the mediator God, the
Divine ' Son,' as a Protector and Guardian (Syr.
Nasarya ; Heb. Ha-n6sri — cp. ' Protector of
Israel ' ; also the fact that Mithras was honoured
as ' Protector of the World '). According to Acts
xxiv. 5, the first ' followers of Jesus were also
called Nazoraes, or Nazarenes. The expressions
'Jesus' and ' Nazorean ' [ = Nazorcean] were,
therefore, originally of almost like meaning, and
by the addition of ' the Nazorean,' or ' Nazarene,'
Jesus is not characterized as the man of Nazareth,
as the Evangelists represent it, but as the Healer
and Deliverer."3
1 According to Theodoret, they sacrificed to the serpent
(npoa-Kwovo-i rbv ocpiv) whose presence consecrated their mystic
feast. But the ' serpent ' seems to have been the symbol of water, the
material basis of creation in the Ophite and other systems. It
represented the world of organized, quickened and intellectualized
matter. Therefore, their ' serpent '-worship would seem to have
been nothing else than a veneration of the self-cognizant spirit
of all life — symbolized under this form.
2 Hcer. xxix. 6.
3 The Christ Myth, 3rd ed. p. 59. Italics ours.

vn.] Pre-Christian Jesus-Cults 173
Another argument for Professor Smith's theory
— which forms the basis of Drews' hypothesis —
that the Greek Nagwpalo? {Na&paic*;) is connected
with the Aramaic Nasaria, and combines Nasar
and Jah { = Protector-, or Guardian- Jahveh),
which, again, is to be equated with 'Jesus the
Nazorean' (Nazarene), is derived from the
Parisian Magic Papyrus.1
In this document, which is variously referred to
the fourth and fifth centuries a.d. (Cheyne says
that the date may be 'soon after a.d. 500'),
there occur the following lines : —
(1549) 6pKi£a> ere Kara rov paprrapKOvpiB" vaaaapi
(31 19) bpKi(u> ore Kara rou Qeov rcov 'Eftpauov 'Irjcrov
['lafiaiarj].
vaaaapi is identified with Nasaria and made
interchangeable with tov Qeov rcov 'Efiptucov 'Itjo-ov,
the whole being taken to mean : "I conjure you
by the Protector" — " I conjure you by Jesus, the
God of the Hebrews," these being formula used
in the exorcism of daemons.
Now the word commonly rendered ' Nazarene '
in the A.V., appears variously in the MSS. of
the N.T. as Na^ap^voi, Natyp-qvos and Na^mpalo<s,
and is of obscure origin and doubtful spelling.
Without entering here into a detailed discussion
as to the respective claims of the different variants
which are found in the codices, we will point out
that Professor Drews is in manifest error with
1 Published by C. Wessely, Paris.

174 Jesus The Christ [chap.
regard to his derivation of it from the stem
N.S.R., meaning 'Guardian,' 'Protector.' As
Dr. Cheyne has clearly shown, in Hebrew 'the
guardian ' would be ha-nozer — not ha-nosri. He
further points out that, " it is in the highest degree
probable that Nazareth, or (better) some name
which underlies this corrupt form, is an old
synonym for Galll, i.e. Galilee. The name under
lying Nazareth is clearly Resin (or Rezon).
That, as I have said, would mean ' Galilee ' ;
Galilean might be Rezoni (Rezonai). The people,
however, according to its wont, transposed the
letters to produce a more pleasing, or obvious,
sense, and Nazareth (a ' place of shooting plants '),
and Nazorai (Nazarene) were the results."1
With this view the Gospel evidence entirely
agrees. When we have corrected the common
readings, and made Jesus appear as 'the Nazorean,'
there are still five passages left in the Gospels 2
(also Acts x. 38), where Nat,apeO appears as a place
of some kind. That the Evangelists were foolish
enough to make — or had any ulterior motive in
making — Jesus come from a place, which (as a
town) was not in existence in their day, is in the
highest degree improbable ; for prophecy had
pointed distinctly to Bethlehem (Mic. v. 2)/ as
1 The Hibbert fournal, July 191 1, p. 892; see also April 191 1,
art. 'Judas Iscariot,' pp. 541, 542.
9 Mark i. 9 ; Matt. ii. 23, xxi. 1 1 ; Luke ii. 4 ; John i. 45, 46.
3 i.e. Bethlehem- Judah. There was, however, another Bethlehem

vn.] Pre-Christian Jesus-Cults 175
the place of origin of the Messiah. It is clear,
therefore, that the term ' Nazareth ' must be
equivalent to Galilee, which would agree with
tradition, and the designation 6 Na%apcuo<i ac
cordingly must mean 'the Galilean,' a name by
which Jesus was, later on, commonly known,
especially by pagan writers.1 And the present-
day Mohammedan designation of Christians as
' Nazarenes ' is merely the equivalent of ' Gali
leans ' (as the Emperor Julian always insisted
upon their being called), i.e. the followers of the
Prophet from Galilee.
Galilee was not, in Jewish eyes, productive
of prophets, or, indeed, of men of either genius
or eminence ; hence the scornful question of
Nathanael, ' Can any good thing come out of
Nazareth ? ' 2 and, perhaps, the so-called prophecy,
'He shall be called a Nazorean,'3 merely ex
pressed a common popular belief in the northern
part of Palestine that the Messiah would be (or
would be called) a Galilean ; in which case He
may have been born in Bethlehem of Zebulon.
of Zebulon (Josh. xix. 15), now Beit Lahm, seven miles north-west of
the present town of Nazareth. In the Talmud it is termed n""lV,
commonly regarded as a corruption for iVHyj, ' of Nazareth.' Can
there have been any confusjon, in Biblical times, between these
two Bethlehems ?
1 Dr. Cheyne also notes (Ency. Bibl., art. 'Joseph'), that the
Aramaic n'sar (Heb. *1B>3) means 'to saw'; so that Jesus the
" T
Nazarene (Nasarene ?) might possibly mean — or be taken to mean
— 'Jesus the Carpenter' (cp. Mark vi. 3).
2 John i. 46. s Matt. ii. 23. No such prophecy exists in the O.T.

176 Jesus The Christ [chap.
Consequently, there can be no thought of
1 Guardian ' or ' Protector ' — much less that of
' Healer ' or ' Deliverer ' 1 — being implied in the
name 'Jesus.' Here, again, therefore, the cult-
idea is conspicuously absent.
Neither does the designation ' Nazorean,' as
applied to Jesus, seem at all to imply the existence
of a pre-Christian society of any kind. Epiphanius
may have thought so, but, like so many of the
Fathers, he was, no doubt, anxious to find
everywhere pre-Christian recognitions of Jesus
as the Messiah. Possibly, too, the (alleged) older
Israelite belief in a future Messiah ben-Joseph
may have become expressed about the time of
Christ as meaning a Galilean Prophet, and the
Nazoreans, in that case, may have been a kind
of Galilean Messianic sect who were eagerly
awaiting Him.2 We cannot at present, however,
decide these questions, owing to the imperfection
of our information ; but it seems, at any rate,
perfectly clear that the Nazaraios was at least
no ancient cult-god, and that no worship was at
that time offered to such a deity.
1 It is true that, from the time of the Maccabees onwards, the
purely Greek name of fason ('Healer' or 'Deliverer') was
commonly regarded by Hellenized Jews as a rough equivalent of
' Joshua ' (Jos. Ant. v. i.).
But there is no etymological connection, and the superficial
identity is a mere surmise, probably based upon the ever-growing
need, which the Jews of that age felt, for a national deliverer from
Syria, in the first place, and afterwards from Rome.
2 See Chap. IX. p. 212, note 4.

vn.] Pre-Christian Jesus-Cults 177
With regard to the testimony afforded by the
Parisian Magic Papyrus, here again we have no
evidence to indicate that the formulce of exorcism
are /^-Christian. It is, indeed, far more probable
that the document (if really more ancient) was
interpolated with the name ' Jesus ' after the
latter had gained repute as a word of power (cp.
Acts iii. 6, iv. 10, etc.). Dr. Cheyne, in dealing
with this question, says : " The next word 'Iafiaiari
seems to be a distorted form of the well-known
Israelite God Yahwe." 1 And he further boldly
adds : " The material is doubtless old, i.e. the
cult of Jeshu (Jesus), or Jeshu-Yahwe, possibly
existed among some circles of Jews in pre-
Christian times."
But this is largely the merest speculation —
absolutely without reputable evidence to back it,
as Dr. Cheyne himself admits in the next para
graph, which we will summarize. "There is,
however," he says, "for one practised in these
inquiries, more safety in referring to the old
Hebrew name Joshua (Jehoshua), whence ad
mittedly comes the post-exilic form Jeshua."
And then, turning to the theory of Professor
Drews, that Joshua means ' Saviour ' (cp. Matt. i.
21), and that he was probably an Ephraimite
form of the sun-god ; also that his name conveys
the idea of 'Healer' (so Epiphanius), and that it
is connected with Jason, or Jasios, the mythical
1 The Hibbert fournal (April 191 1), p. 658.
12

178 Jesus The Christ [chap.
name of a pupil of Chiron in the art of healing :
"I am sorry to add," he remarks, "that almost
every word of this is contrary to the present
decisions of scholarship." He further rejects
even the ordinary explanation of ' Joshua ' as
' Jahveh-help,' and interprets the name as " a
corruption of the second part of the cultual divine
name Jahu-Ishma[el]."
Whether this latter theory be justifiable or not,
it seems abundantly evident that (1), so far, no
historic connection has been shown between the
(hypothetical) Ephraimite sun-god ' Joshua ' and
' Jesus, the Nazorean,' of both sacred and secular
history ; and (2) that the designation Nazorean
has etymologically nothing to do with the words
for ' Protector,' ' Guardian ' and ' Deliverer ' or
' Healer.' The next Jewish sects with which we have
still to deal, are the well-known Essenes and
Therapeutce. Of these we have fairly detailed
accounts handed down, though the origins of
both are involved in much obscurity. For in
formation regarding the Essenes we are largely
dependent upon Josephus.1 They were apparently
a kind of monastic community practising celibacy
and a community of goods. Josephus says that
they were found in many villages and even
towns ; but their headquarters appears to have
been situated on the western shore of the Dead
* B. f. ii. 8 ; also Ant. XVIII. i. 5.

vn.] Pre-Christian Jesus-Cults 179
Sea. They renounced sacrifices and slavery, and
had fixed rules for the initiation of proselytes,
and a series of various grades of offices.
The actual tenets of the society were largely
kept a profound secret. Outwardly, they offered
prayer to the rising sun, as a symbol of Deity,
worked till the fifth hour, when they bathed and
assembled for a frugal meal. Then work was
resumed until sunset, when they again met
together for another repast. It is said that the
stillness of the whole settlement impressed all
strangers with a feeling of mysterious awe.
Similarly, in the case of the Therapeutce, we
find these recluses established in a colony of cells
situated on the farther shore of Lake Mareotis
in Egypt. According to the author of the De
Vitd Contemplativa,1 they lived singly, men and
women, in their separate cells, and gave them
selves up almost entirely to prayer and meditation.
Neander says that they interpreted the Scriptures
allegorically, and had ancient theosophical writ
ings in their possession. Probably they, too,
like the Essenes, rejected the whole of the sacri
ficial Torah. They fasted much, and came
together on the Sabbath (from reverence to the
number Seven), when they held a solemn convo
cation, as also they did on one other day in
every seven weeks. On this occasion, a simple
love-feast was held, similar to the Christian
1 ? Philo Judaeus.

180 Jesus The Christ [chap.
Agape, consisting of bread, salt and hyssop, after
which mystic discourses were delivered, and
hymns embodying old traditions sung. Like the
Essenes, they held to the immortality of the
soul, in some form, its future condition, in their
view, being determined by the life spent previously
upon earth.
It has been a favourite speculation with some
writers to assert that the Essenes and Therapeutae
were identical, and formed really one brotherhood.
This would seem to be at least doubtful. It
is not improbable, however, that similar prin
ciples, and similar tendencies, may have given
rise, about the same time, to two distinct, though
in many respects similar, organizations, the one
in Palestine, and the other in Egypt.
Now here we clearly have two systems — or
possibly only one — of a Quietist type. Both
Essenes and Therapeutae, it would seem, believed
that a knowledge of God, and thereby a true
knowledge of self, was to be attained by the
intuitive method, that is, by the exclusion of both
sacrifices and conscious thought.
That they reverenced — still more that they
worshipped any pre-Christian 'Jesus' there is not
a tittle of evidence to show. Indeed, the contrary
is much more probable, as we can judge from
the tendencies of the various types of Quietism
with which we are acquainted. The great aim
of the Mystic has ever been that his spirit should

vu.] Pre-Christian Jesus-Cults 181
realize its union and identity with the Divine
Spirit ; and this is to be accomplished directly in
meditation, rather than indirectly and mediately
through sacrifice, or cultual worship.
Professor Drews, however, attempts to connect
the Essenes with the Jessaer, taking advantage
of the fact that Pliny terms the former Essaei
(' Eo-o-alot) ; x he would argue that they were
closely connected, if not absolutely identical, and
that these Jessaer, again, were similarly connected
with the Nazaraioi (Nazarenes).
But these identifications are, to say the least,
of them, extremely problematical. And even if
they were shown to be identical, there is still no
evidence of a 'Jesus-cult' as any part of their
system. We have, indeed, very little real know
ledge of the innermost tenets of any of these
societies, which makes it highly dangerous to
speculate upon them. What we do know,
however, certainly points in a very different
direction, viz. towards either a vague and
subjective Mysticism, or a Gnosticism, in which
there was neither room nor need for a cult of
dying solar or other heroes.2
1 Josephus writes it 'Eo-o-ipoi.
2 Professor Case, says (Am. fourn. of Theol., Jan. 191 1) : " That
the main line of Judaism contained syncretistic elements is now
generally recognized ; but the perpetual and widespread existence
of secret, polytheistic cults among the Jews is not supported by
any substantial evidence."

CHAPTER VIII.
THE DYING AND RISING SAVIOURS OF
ETHNIC NATURE-CULTS.1
We have now to deal briefly with a very old
and widespread myth, which forms the basis
of numerous ethnic nature-worships, frequently
orgiastic in their character, and which, according
to Professor Drews and some other writers, has
been a very important factor in the origin and
development of the ' Christ Myth.'
This ancient form of Nature- worship at one
time prevailed almost universally throughout the
countries of Western Asia and Egypt, as well as
those of south-eastern Europe. As we have
stated, it set forth in symbolic form primarily
the annual outgrowth and subsequent death of
vegetation, together with, in later times, the
waning and waxing of the solar energy in autumn
and spring respectively, under the figure of the
birth and death of an anthropomorphic god, to
whom various local names were given in the
1 See the Encyclopcedia of Religion and Ethics, under the
various names, as available.

c vin. ] Saviours of Ethnic Nature-Cults 1 83
different countries in which the cult prevailed.1 In
Syria, for example, this god, representing the cos
mic reproductive energy, was the so-called Adonis.2
The extant Greek version of the story of this
Syrian deity relates that he was the lover of the
goddess Aphrodite (Astarte), and was slain by
the tusk of a wild boar when hunting in the
mountains of Lebanon. The goddess afterwards
lamented his death, and caused a red flower to
grow up annually in spring out of his spilt blood. s
This plainly symbolic story, Macrobius tells us,4
the Syrians interpreted to mean that the summer sun
was, later in the year, slain by the gloom and frosts
of winter ; and also that his revival in the follow
ing spring was regarded as a ' victory over the first
six zodiacal signs.' This statement would seem to
indicate that Adonis was primarily a sun-god ; but
there can be little doubt, as Dr. Frazer has shown,
that Adonis was, in his origin, a vegetation spirit,
and was only at a later period identified with the
spirit conceived as manifesting itself in the waxing
and waning of the sun's power throughout the year.
1 Dr. Frazer in his Dying God, and Adonis, Attis, Osiris,
traces the origin of this cult at great length.
2 Heb. Tammuz (cp. Jer. xxii. 1 8, xxxiv. 5 ; Ezek. viii. 14).
His real Syrian name is unknown. The Greeks, who heard the
Syrians lamenting his death and addressing him as ' Adoni '
(' My Lord '), mistook this word for a proper name, and called him
Adonis. See Plut. De. Is. et Osir, 5 ; Lucian, De Syr. Ded, 7 ;
Apollodor, ii. 1. 3, 7, iii. 14. 3, 4.
3 Ovid, Metam. x. 503 ff.
4 Saturnalia, i. 21 ; cp. Sayce, Hibb. Lecis. (1887), Lect. iv.

184 Jesus The Christ [chap.
In Phrygia this same god, as representing the
reproductive powers that are hidden in Nature,
and especially those regarded as resident in the
soil of the earth, was named Attis.1
It is from Egypt, however, that what is,
perhaps, the most developed version of the
general myth comes. In the very early days of
its history, the Semitic conquerors brought with
them from Asia the story of Asari, who was one
of the sons of Ed, the Accadian ocean-deity and
culture-god of Babylonia.2 This god, known long
afterwards to the Greek conquerors of Egypt as
Osiris ( Egypt, Ausar), was later identified largely
with the sun, which was ' born ' and ' died '
annually, and also daily.3
To summarize : Osiris was eventually conceived
by the Egyptians as being engaged in perpetual
strife with his brother (or son, in some versions
of the myth) Set. These two deities were ulti
mately regarded as two antagonistic principles of
light and darkness respectively, and, in a moral
sense, of good and evil. In their yearly (and
daily) contest, Osiris was ultimately (but only for
1 Also written Atys, Attin, and in variant, Agdistis.
2 Asari (Accad. Asari-uru-dugu, ' the god whose word was
creative'), the Merodach (Marduk) of the Semites, and another
form of the same deity.
3 While Frazer regards Osiris as originally a corn- or tree-spirit,
Sayce believes that he was an actual man. His deification is, in
that case, an instance of Euhemerism and confusion with an
older ethnic myth (see Sayce, Religions of Ancient Egypt and
Babylonia, p. 123).

vin.] Saviours of Ethnic Nature-Cults 185
a time) vanquished, and his body was said to
have been cut in pieces by Set, and submerged
in the waters of the Nile. His red blood was
recognized in the ruddy glow seen in the clouds,
and on the western waters at sunset.
But his sister- wife Isis (Egypt. Auset), helped
by Nephtliys, collected the pieces of his body, and
put them together again. Thereafter Osiris re
appeared daily and yearly, in renewed splendour,
as the youthful sun Horus, who was the fruit of
the union of Osiris and Isis. The body of the
slain Osiris was said to be preserved as a mummy
at Heliopolis, while Osiris himself remained below
the earth as god and king of the underworld of
the dead {Amentet)}
In the so-called Book of the Dead, in the hymn
to the setting sun,2 that luminary is clearly identi
fied with Osiris: "Thou shinest there with thy
beams, O thou great god Osiris, the everlasting
prince. The lords of the zones of the Tuat
(Underworld) in their caverns stretch out their
hands in adoration before thy ka (double), and
they cry out to thee, and they all come forth in
the train of thy form shining brilliantly. The
hearts of the lords of the Tuat are glad when
thou sendest forth thy glorious light in Amentet ;
their two eyes are directed towards thee, and
their hearts rejoice when they see thee."
1 Cp. Plutarch, De Is. et Osir, 13-21.
2 Chap, xvi., Budge's tr. vol. i. pp. 87, 88.

1 86 Jesus The Christ [chap.
In Babylonia this same deity also appears
under the name Dumuzu, which, according to
Sayce,1 is probably derived from the Accadian
Dumu-zi7apsu, ' son of the Life of the Deep,' i.e.
of Ea, as god of the primeval ocean, the source
of all living things. He too dies in the fall of the
year, and I star, his sister- wife, goes down to the
world of the dead to find and bring him back to
light and life, as we are told in the story of the
' Descent of Istar.'
In each of these forms of the primitive vegeta
tion-myth, often amalgamated (or confused) with
the later concept of a solar spirit, the god was
ceremonially lamented2 as dying at some period
1 See The Old Test, in the Light of the Historical Records
and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia. The Babylonian ' Re
deemer-god,' Marduk, is more analogous, in certain of his aspects,
to the Jewish Messiah.
2 The following ' Lament,' in Greek hexameters, is said to have
been sung, at a festival celebrated by Queen Arsmoe, daughter of
Berenice. (See Ahrens' Bucolici Graeci, sub Bionis reliq.).
Aidfa rbv ' Adcoviv' dnSXero KaKbs Aficovis
"Q\ero KaXbs "hhtavis, inid^ovariv "Epares.
Ai, Ai', rav Kv8epaiav' dnaXero KaXbs "Ahavis,
Airav rav KvBepaiav" e'naid£ovcriv "Spares.
At this magnificent spectacle a statue of the young lover, repre
sented as dying at the age of about nineteen years, was placed on
a couch, under a canopy made of velvet, and splendidly adorned,
in the arms of Aphrodite.
The next day, when he was supposed to be dead, the statue was
carried by the women to the seashore, where its ' wounds ' were
washed. Then the women, with dishevelled hair, and their robes
ungirt and bosoms bared, broke forth into the above lament.
According to Aristophanes, these festivals were scenes of great
immorality, and the same charge is repeated by other writers, with
regard to the celebrations elsewhere.

vin.] Saviours of Ethnic Nature-Cults 187
of the year, though the time varied with the
climate and circumstances of the country. In
Babylonia and the hotter countries of the East,
the fierce summer heats which burnt up the
vegetation were regarded as the foe of the god.
In the mountains of Syria, on the other hand, his
enemy was the frosts of winter, which synchronized
with the time of the winter-solstice, when the sun
' dies down ' for a time ; but, like the vegetation,
does so only to be reborn shortly afterwards.
These and similar instances serve to show how
the older idea of the vegetative character of the
god was being gradually more or less supplanted,
in some countries at least, by his later identification
with the spirit manifesting itself as solar energy.
But, before proceeding to discuss the question
of the alleged connection of this somewhat com
plex myth with Christian origins, we have another,
and even more important form of solar deity to
consider. Mithra x (or Mithras), was a god of the early
Aryan pastoral tribes inhabiting chiefly the modern
Persia. His name, as Mitra {' friend' ), is found
in the hymns of the Rig- Veda, perhaps the
oldest extant records of the Aryan races.2 Here
he is associated with the Vedic Varuna (Gk.
Ovpavos), the two gods denoting respectively the
heaven of day and the heaven of night.
1 See Lagarde, Recherches sur le Culte de Mithras.
2 See Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, 5, 58-76.

1 88 Jesus The Christ [chap.
In the old Persian religion, as developed by
Zarathustra, Mithra was retained as the senior
god of a divine triad, and later, when the Persians
conquered Assyria and Babylonia, the cult of
Mithra became more and more important ; for he
was identified with the sun as the Divine Being,
and worshipped through the medium of an
elaborate ritual, while a system of Mysteries,
which had some superficial resemblance to the
Christian Sacraments, was introduced, thus
changing an originally subordinate god of light
into the higher Deity of goodness and knowledge.
In these Mysteries we find the germ of the
subsequently developed Gnostic psychology, viz.
that the pre-existing soul of man has undergone
a separation from God, its divine source and final
goal, and has descended to earth, from which it
endeavours to ascend again to heaven, and to
become reunited with the Godhead, largely by
means of the discipline of occult knowledge,
aided in some degree by penance and fasting.
In the later Mithraism this process of reunion
with God is aided by the work of Mithra himself.1
In ancient statuary Mithra is represented as a
young man with a Phrygian cap upon his head,
kneeling upon a prostrate bull, one of the horns
1 It is important to bear in mind that there are no Mithraic
Scriptures extant, and that our very imperfect knowledge of
Mithraism is almost wholly derived from Cumont's Textes et
Monuments Figurh relatifs aux Mysteres de Mithra (1899-1906)
the standard work upon the subject.

vih.] Saviours of Ethnic Nature-Cults 189
of which he holds with his left hand, while with
the right hand he plunges a dagger into the
animal's neck.
The more developed and later forms of Mithra-
worship and doctrine were introduced into Rome
soon after the fall of the Republic, and speedily
became a very popular cult, especially amongst
the soldiery of the earlier Empire.
Let us now examine, as fully as is here possible,
the supposed indebtedness of Christianity to the
ideas contained in these various primitive vegeta
tive and solar cults.
And, in the first place, Dr. Frazer says,1 with
regard to Agdistis (who is really a mere double
of Attis): "His mother Nana was a .virgin,
who conceived by putting a ripe plum, or
pomegranate, into her bosom." There are,
however, several other versions of his birth, one
of which makes him the offspring of Zeus a,nd a
large rock, and which further says that he was
the father of Attis.
But, setting these variant, and in a sense un
important, details aside, we find the account of
his mother's conception, above referred to, often
put forward as an example of a parthenogenetic
birth-myth,2 which is straightway compared with
the Birth-stories of Jesus that are found in two
1 Adonis, Attis, Osiris, p. 219.
2 Many other examples are given by Mr. Hartland in his Legend
of Perseus, vol. i., 'The Supernatural Birth,' passim.

190 Jesus The Christ [chap.
of the Synoptic Gospels. We are not here
directly concerned with the latter, or the question
of their historic value ; but we would point out
that the conception of Agdistis, as here related,
is in no strict sense, like the conception of Jesus,
a parthenogenetic one, in the true meaning of
that term. The almond, or pomegranate, is an
Oriental symbol for a very unsavoury concept,
setting forth a method of conception of (in a
sense) a natural kind, but one which is brought
about by unnatural and indescribable means.1
Neither, if we may trust Arnobius, did the
original myth tell of an actual resurrection of
Attis (or Agdistis) to a new life. Agdistis, he
says, begged of Zeus that he would restore the
body of Attis to life. But this Zeus refused to
do ; he only consented that it should remain
undecayed, and that the hair should continue to
grow upon it. Here we obviously have an
instance of a purely vegetative myth, the ever
growing hair of Attis representing the various
plants that continue, in some countries, to spring
from the soil of the earth, even during the winter
1 Arnobius relates (Adv. Gentes, v.) how Agdistis emasculated
himself ; he then proceeds : " Cum discidio partium sanguis
fluit immensus. Rapiuntur et contribuuntur hase terra. Malum
repente cum pomis ex his punicum nascitur, cujus Nana speciem
contemplata . . . carpit mirans, atque in sinu reponit. Fit ex eo
prcegnans'' It is palpably absurd to compare — as so many writers now do —
such unsavoury stories as this with the Gospel Birth narratives

vih.] Saviours of Ethnic Nature-Cults 191
season.1 The introduction of an anthropomorphic
' resurrection ' element into the Attis myth (if one
were really ever brought in) is, therefore, a much
later addition, and would date, not improbably,
from post-Christian times. Similarly, too, with
the so-called ' resurrection ' of Adonis : Lucian
tells us 2 that on the day after Adonis ' died ' at
the festival, " they say mythically {i.e. pretend)
that he is alive, and send him into the air." Now
it is quite plain — to some persons at least — that
there is here no idea corresponding to that of a
resurrection in the true sense of that abused
Word — as it is set forth, for example, in the four
Gospels. Indeed, the only return to life of the
Adonis (portrayed as a youth) consisted in the
springing up of a flower from his spilt blood to
mark the spot where he was slain, — possibly a
crude attempt to depict the idea that last year's
solar energy reappears next year, partially as
vegetative life. But this is mere speculation.
Again, the mere fact that Adonis ' died ' and
' rose ' annually suggests that there was no
parallel whatever with the death and resurrection
of Jesus, which are stated to have occurred but
once. The former events represented mythically
certain natural phenomena, and, therefore, the
whatever historic value the latter may, or may not, have, because
the fundamental ideas in each are totally different.
1 Cp. the old Norse myth of Ymir.
2 De Syr. Deft, 6 : p.erd 8e rfj erepfi £6>eiv re p,iv p.v6o\oyiovo-i koi
es rbv rjepa nipnovai.

192 Jesus The Christ [chap.
annual ceremony was a symbolical explanation of
an annual process. The festival of the Resur
rection of Jesus, on the other hand, was a com
memoration of an event which did not recur.
The two 'resurrections,' in short, belong to two
entirely different categories of thought, and are,
consequently, not comparable ; and even if it were
shown that we must regard the Resurrection of
Jesus as unhistorical, the story of it bears no
resemblance whatever to that of Adonis. We
have, in fact — in these ' births ' and ' resurrections '
— quite different concepts at work. In the one
the concept is largely material and unethical, and
professes to depict to us the working of earthly
phenomena ; in the other the concept is purely
spiritual and ethical, and is intended to lead us
on to the contemplation and understanding of the
realities of a higher form of existence.
Again, in the mythic story of Dusares, the
North Arabian equivalent for Tammuz and
Adonis, etc., Dr. Cheyne, relying upon the
authority of Epiphanius,1 lays great stress upon a
statement made by him that this god was wor
shipped as ' the only-begotten of the Lord '
{/j,ovoyevr)<; tov AeaiTOTOv), while his mother was
similarly adored as the ' Virgin ' {¦n-apffevos, Kopr/).
1 Har. li. Surely an untrustworthy authority ! This peevish
and marvel-mongering old pedant, like some others of the Fathers,
in order to confirm Christian doctrine, was on the look out for
' virgins ' everywhere. See also Bible Problems, p. 74.

vin.] Saviours of Ethnic Nature-Cults 193
But setting aside such minor points as the
equating of AetrTrot^s with Kvpios (as applied to the
Jewish Jahveh), which we believe to be quite
illegitimate, we very much doubt whether the
word nrapOevos, in the minds of the devotees of the
Dusares cult (and similar cults) meant at all what
it implied in the language of the Evangelists.1
And, indeed, Dr. Cheyne practically admits this : 2
" And what was the original meaning of the term
' virgin ' ? As has long since been shown, it
expressed the fact that the great mythic mother-
goddess was independent of the marriage tie. In
those remote times " — he continues, quoting
Barton's Semitic Origins (1902), p. 84 — "to which
the cult of that goddess properly belonged, ' the
mother held the chief place in the clan, and all
women shared a measure of free love.' " Precisely
so ; the one class of stories are all more or less
obscene ; the New Testament narratives, on the
other hand, are not, as may be seen by a careful
comparison. For the mythic stories of the pagans all relate
(or imply) the visit, in corporeal person, of some
anthropomorphic god to the lady in question, or
else the actual semina vitce of the god are thought
of as being conveyed to their destination in some
physical, but abnormal and extravagant manner.
1 See also A Critical Examination of the Evidences for the
Doctrine of the Virgin Birth, pp. 12-14, 34~36, 42-43, 48-49.
2 Bible Problems, p. 75. Italics ours.
13

194 Jesus The Christ [chap.
In the Christian narratives, however, there is not
a trace of this. It is the Holy Spirit (to Ilvevfia)
which ' comes upon ' the Virgin, i.e. the power
{Avvap,i<s) of the ' Most High ' that ' overshadows
her.' It is throughout a wholly immaterial pro
cess. There is, therefore, as the careful reader
will readily see, a different idea underlying it,
inasmuch as there is a total absence of the
objective carnal element, which is always found,
directly or indirectly expressed, in these old
nature-myths and folk-stories. Hence, we may
legitimately infer that the New Testament story
(from whatever sources it originated) could
not arise out of any idea derived from them.
The New Testament story may not relate an
historic fact (in our modern sense of the term) ;
it may be merely a symbolical reference to some
higher spiritual truth with which we are at present
unfamiliar. But, at any rate, whichever may be
the meaning, we feel confident that it is not a
derivative of any of these old myths. It is quite
wanting in the immoral (or, ' unmoral ') quality
found universally in the ancient myth, in which
there is invariably, as Dr. Cheyne euphemistically
puts it, an entire ' independence of the marriage
tie ' in the most literal sense of the term.
As regards the ' resurrection ' of the Babylonian
form of this deity, Dr. Cheyne remarks i1 " The
1 Bible Problems, p. 119. Marduk here is practically another
form of Asari, the two gods being somewhat confused. The early

vm.] Saviours of Ethnic Nature-Cults 195
Babylonian deity of the spring- tide sun (Marduk),
who died, also rose again ; his chief festival went
by the name of the ' standing-up ' {tabd)." But
when we come to inquire closely into this matter,
we find that the myth of his ' resurrection ' is
merely inferred from the fact that his grave was
said to have been shown in Babylonia, while the
term ' standing-up ' refers to Marduk's rebirth
shortly after the winter-solstice. And, as regards
his old Accadian title, 'the god who raises the
dead to life,' the term has probably no reference
whatever to a resurrection of mankind, but means
that the spirit of the dead man, through the
intercession and help of Marduk, will be allowed
to drink of ' the waters of life ' that bubbled up in
the underworld beneath the golden throne of the
spirits of the earth, and then ascend to the old
Accadian heaven, ' the land of the silver sky.'
Similarly, in the case of Osiris, we find the
myth finally reduced to such a state of confusion
and ' unmorality ' that he, as identified with
Horus, at last becomes the son of his own wife !
This statement is, no doubt, intended to set forth
some nature-teaching or other, as probably most
of these old myths do. But we must at the same
time remember how these ideas reflect the ' un
moral ' conditions of the age. What is merely
figurative and symbolical with ' higher spirits ' in
Christians noticed the (imperfect) analogy in nature, and used it as
an illustration.

196 Jesus The Christ [chap.
the case of the multitude, is an index of the
average moral state. Hence these nature-cults
are always remarkable for the fact that they
indicate a low moral tone in the races amongst
whom they are found. This, however, has not
been the case where the Christian Birth story has
prevailed. Its influence has been rather exhibited
in the promotion of an exaggerated estimate of
the value of celibacy.
Again, it is very generally held that in the story
of Osiris we have a ' resurrection-myth ' strictly
parallel to that of Jesus. But Osiris certainly
cannot be said to 'rise again,' for he is distinctly
stated to have remained below the earth after
death. From being a god of the living, he
becomes a god of the underworld, as king over
the dead.1 It is true that, in the fuller form of
the myth, his body is said to have been pieced
together again by Isis ; but this is only that it
may continue as a mummy upon earth. To the
Egyptian popular mind it was as incomprehen
sible that a god should not have a ' fleshly
tabernacle,' as that a man should ever be complete
without that accessory being in existence some
where, even when he was dwelling among the
spirits of the dead. The actual reappearance of
Osiris upon earth, accordingly, is only in the
1 This has been equated with the ' decension ' of Jesus to Hades
after His death. But both the motifs and details of the two stories
are quite different. See Chap. XI. pp. 274, 275.

vin.] Saviours of Ethnic Nature-Cults 197
form of his son Horus, who is ever the new sun-
god of the next day, a concept which may be
paralleled in human life by the thought that in
this world a man lives on in the person of his
son, the only kind of immortality which is (in the
view of some) possible for man.
But, it may be objected here, it was through
the suffering and death of Osiris that the Egyp
tian hoped that his body might hereafter rise
again, in a transformed and glorious and incor
ruptible shape ; and, therefore, the devotee
appealed in prayer for eternal life to him who had
conquered death, and become the king of the
underworld. Moreover, Osiris was thought of
as a very human god, and the confession put into
the mouth of the dead man x when standing before
the judgment throne of Osiris, and the forty-
two assessors shows the high morality of the
Osirian faith. The dead man was called upon to
show reason why he should be admitted to the
fields of Alu, and to prove that he had consist
ently abstained from evil-doing. There is much
truth in this contention. The Egyptian seems,
from the later texts, to have gradually developed
the idea of the resurrection of a spiritual as
opposed to the resuscitation of the material body.
Thus Dr. Budge says:2 "All the available
evidence shows that the Egyptians of dynastic
1 Budge, Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Ani), chap, cxxv;
2 The Book of the Dead, Introduction, pp. lvii-lviii.

198 Jesus The Christ [chap.
times mummified the dead body, because they
believed that a spiritual body would germinate,
or develop itself, from it." This, so far, agrees
with St. Paul's teaching that the psychical body
(o-w/tta ¦yfrvxiKov) would be transmuted into a
spiritual body {o-S>p,a wvevfiaTi.Kov) at the Resur
rection ; for ' flesh and blood cannot inherit the
kingdom of God.' x
But there is an important difference here. The
Osirians seem to have thought that this change
could not proceed unless the former material body
was still undissolved — hence the practice of
mummification ; whereas St. Paul teaches that
where the old body was dispersed into its
elements, and otherwise appropriated, the spirit
(to Trvevp,a) could develop a fresh body of a
spiritual type, which would be an identifiable
replica of the former material body — a much
profounder and wider concept than that of the
Egyptians. Again, the Egyptian resurrection was, in
another respect also, a mere partial affair. A man
might well be unable to endure the tests of the
tribunal of Osiris and the forty-two assessors. In
this case, and "for such a man no re-edification
and no resurrection was possible. The immortal
elements were divine, and by nature pure and
imperishable ; but they could be preserved from
1 See 1 Cor. xv. 50. The whole chapter, indeed, is deserving of
careful and intelligent study, especially vers. 35-54.

vin.] Saviours of Ethnic Nature-Cults 199
entering Osiris, from re-entering the hull of the
man who had proved himself unworthy of them.
The soul, indeed, as such, did not die, although
personal annihilation was the lot of the evil-doer
in whom it had dwelt."1
The Christian teaching, on the other hand,
is that all 'rise,' and are either admitted into
'life,' or condemned to the ' asonian fire' (to
irvp to aicoviov) — a symbolic term implying a
spiritual purification of a permanent personality.
Thus, in the Osirian eschatology, sin is punished
by the loss of personality, and consequent
practical annihilation ; in the Christian, by a
process - of agelong 2 purgation — a concept of
much higher ethical value. Indeed, while there
are many resemblances between the later Egyp
tian and the Christian teaching, there are also
great and fundamental differences, which tell
greatly against any hypothesis of derivation from
each other, or from a common source.
We must, however, in any case, allow that of
all the various nature-cults, that of Osiris was not
only the most developed, but without doubt the
best and purest. But, even here, its ethical teach
ing is infinitely below that of the Christian religion.
It is purely negative in its character : the soul,
1 The Ancient Egyptian Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul,
Wiedmann, pp. 55, 56. Italics ours.
2 It is, perhaps, still necessary to point out that alavvos does not
mean ' everlasting,' ' eternal,' in the ordinary sense.

200 Jesus The Christ [chap.
at the bar of judgment, urges, ' I have not done '
so and so. This is, in effect, its whole keynote
throughout. It will, therefore, be profitable to
compare this — in many respects beautiful though
merely negative — confession with the teaching of
Jesus, as expressed in, e.g., the Beatitudes, and espe
cially in such passages as Matt. xxv. 34-40, and
Mark viii. 34 (Luke ix. 23), where the Christian
qualifications for the Blessed State are definitely
formulated in positive terms. In the latter it is
not simply a question of what ' I have not done,'
it is how far ' I have ' fulfilled the Law of Christ —
the ' New Commandment,' as He termed it.
But it must be allowed that, at times, the
Egyptians did manage to rise to some degree
above these mere negative conceptions. In the
Pyramid texts, and in tombs, we find occasionally
such statements as these : "I loved my father ; I
honoured my mother, . . . and when a famine
arose, lasting for many years, I distributed corn to
the needy." But these are exceptions to the rule ;
and even the Osirian faith cannot show such a
steady record for over eighteen hundred years, of
the positive virtues as are recorded in the annals of
Christianity. Its standard, when all is said and
done, remains negative throughout, and if a few
here and there rose superior to that standard, it
was rather in spite of their religion than because
of it. It is, in short, admirable in theory, and up
to a certain point ; but nothing more. It is in

vin.] Saviours of Ethnic Nature-Cults 201
Christianity alone that we find the ' last word '
regarding the ' whole duty of man,' and that duty
is lifted by it infinitely above the level of even the
best and highest Osirian view.
It still remains to deal with the Mithra-cult.
Now we must remember that the actual Mithra-
myth has been lost, and, therefore, that it can now
be reconstructed only tentatively from the scenes
depicted on the stone reliefs. But in spite of this,
Mr. J. M. Robertson confidently informs us1 that
Mithra was " supernaturally born of a virgin
mother, and of the Most High God." This, he
asserts, was admitted by certain Christian bishops
of Armenia, in the fourth and fifth centuries of the
Christian era. He refers here to the reply which
these prelates gave to the attack of the Persian
viceroy, Mihr Nerseh, upon Christianity, recorded
by the Armenian historian Elisaeus.2 Let us,
therefore, turn to this work, and see exactly
what they said.
There are two references in it bearing upon the
birth of Mithra. In one we are told that "the
god Mithra was born of a woman " ; 3 in the
other it is said that " the god Mithra is in-
cestuously born of a mortal mother." i
1 Pagan Christs, p. 339.
2 Concerning the Vardans and the Armenian War, bk. ii. pp.
53-57- 3 Mihr astouads i knoche.
* Mihr astouads mairddsin e i mardkane. I am indebted to Dr.
St. Clair Tisdall for these two quotations and translation.

202 Jesus The Christ [chap.
From these statements we can gather nothing
whatever about ' a virgin birth.' Neither do we
find any allusion to such a thing elsewhere, not
even in the recent Eine Mithrasliturgie of
Dietrich.1 As a matter of fact, the extant
Mithraic sculptures represent him as issuing
from a rock at his birth (not resurrection) ; by
which is possibly meant the earth as the all-
producing mother. Dr. St. Clair Tisdall, however,
thinks that, since the Avestic asman ( Vedic Sanskr.
asman) means, besides 'rock,' 'cloud' and 'sky,'
the reference here really is to Mithra (the sun) as
a child of the sky, which is very probable.
In like manner he explains the struggle of
Mithra with the 'bull,' which has caused some
modern writers to style Mithra ' a suffering
Saviour.' The Avestic word gaus, in addition to
meaning ' bull,' ' cow,' is also translatable ' earth ' ;
and since the Avestic word urvan ('soul') is
probably a derivative of the same root as urvara
('plant,' 'tree'), the symbolic representation of
the sculpture really means that the sun, piercing
the earth with his rays (the dagger), causes the
vegetation to spring up — another instance of an
old vegetative myth combining in later times with
a solar one.2
1 Leipzig, 1903.
8 See Mythic Christ and True, pp. 19, 20. Professor Drews
explains it (The Christ Myth, p. 142) thus : Before 800 B.C., the sun,
in the shape of the constellation of the Bull, opened the spring and
released the world from the power of winter.

vin.] Saviours of Ethnic Nature-Cults 203
An old Persian belief (perhaps Mithraic) was
that, at the end of all things, Mithra will kill
another ' bull,' and, mixing its fat with wine, will
give it to his worshippers to drink, and by so
doing will confer immortality upon them. Mr.
J. M. Robertson appears to see in this a source
of the Eucharist and the Christian concept of
immortality. But it is impossible to find any
such connection here. Neither is there any
reference in ancient Persian tradition to a burial
in, or a resurrection from, a rock- tomb, as Mr.
Robertson's exuberant fancy has imagined.
Mithra springs from the ' rock ' at birth, as
we have seen, not after death. In short, the
' parallel ' between Jesus and Mithra is of the
very vaguest description — if, indeed, we may
speak of a parallel at all. The story of the
latter, as is the case with all the" other sun- and
vegetation-gods, is utterly unlike that of the
former, and neither story can be said to be
derivable from the other.
We cannot conclude this chapter better than
with a quotation from Dr. St. Clair Tisdall's work x
already quoted, which bears directly upon the
question under consideration : " The religion of
Mithra, which deified the Caesars, permitted its
professors to fraternize with the worshippers of
Anaitis, Cybele, Jupiter and Baal, and to adore
these and other deities, bathed its devotees in
1 Pp. 22, 23.

204 Jesus The Christ [chap. vm.
bull's blood, and feigned, if it did not practise,
ritual-murder at the initiation of its neophytes,
cannot by any process of reasoning be identified
with the faith which sternly condemned each and
every one of these practices, and whose professors
died by the extremity of agonizing torture rather
than sprinkle a pinch of incense on the fire burning
before Caesar's statue. But the study of Mithra
ism is valuable because it enables us to see what
Christianity would have been had it originated in
the worship of the sun. The rise, progress and
downfall of Mithraism show us also how great is
man's felt need of a Saviour, and how utterly
insufficient to satisfy it was such a ' pagan Christ '
as Mithra, who was not incarnated, who neither
suffered nor died, nor rose again for men, and was
held to be the intermediary between the Spirit of
Good and the Spirit of Evil."
A similar verdict must be pronounced in the
case of each and all of these nature-cults. With
the solitary exception of the cult of Osiris, which
was partly ethicized, they were totally void
of all ethical, and — in its true sense — spiritual
elements. They are, accordingly, in no sense
comparable with the religion of Jesus, and their
mythical ' Saviours ' in each case bear no real
resemblance to Him. The idea underlying the
nature-cult, and the idea underlying Christianity,
are wholly different, and cannot be equated and
brought into any true connection with each other.

CHAPTER IX.
MYTHOLOGY AND THE GOSPELS.
The attempt to mythologize the whole of the
contents of the four Gospels had been attempted
in England by Mr. J. M. Robertson nearly ten
years before the issue of Professor Drews' book.
As the latter builds his theory largely upon the
methods and results of Mr. Robertson's research,
it will be necessary to examine in some detail, in
this and the two following chapters, the processes
by which the latter writer in particular arrives at
his conclusions. And we may conveniently pre
face this inquiry by a quotation from his chief
work,1 which expresses in a summarized form his
general views.
" The whole of Mr. Frazer's investigation," 2 he
says, leads up, though unavowedly, to the re
cognition of the crucified Jesus, as the annual slain
vegetation-god on the Sacred Tree.
" But Jesus is buried in a rock-tomb,3 as is
1 Christianity and Mythology, p. 37.
2 Referring to Adonis, Attis, Osiris, etc.
s See Chap. VIII. p. 202.
203

206 Jesus The Christ [chap.
Mithra, the rock-born sun-god, and it is as sun-god
that he is born at the winter-solstice ; x it is as
sun-god (though also as carrying over the ad
ministrative machinery of the Jewish Patriarch)
that he is surrounded by Twelve Disciples ; it is as
sun-god that, like Osiris, he is to judge men after
death — a thing not done by Adonis or Attis ; it
is as sun-god, passing through the zodiac, that he
is represented successively in art and lore by the
Lamb and the Fishes ; 2 and it is as sun-god that
he enters Jerusalem before his death on two
asses 3 — the Ass and the Foal of the Greek sign of
Cancer (the turning-point in the sun's course) —
on which Dionysus also rides. The Christ-cult,
in short, was a synthesis of the two most popular
myth-motives, with some Judaic elements as
nucleus, and some explicit ethical teaching
superadded." It will be impossible here, within our necessary
limits of space, to do more than deal with a
selected number of the chief events in the life and
career of Our Lord, which Mr. Robertson and
(largely following his method) Professor Drews
have mythologized, in accordance with their
preconceived ideas as to the non-historical
character of the Founder of Christianity. These
selected instances, however, we will set forth
below in separate sections as samples of the
1 See p. 222. 2 See Chap. XII. pp. 283-89.
3 See Chap. X. pp. 235 flf.

ix.] Mythology and the Gospels lorj
general methods which are employed by both
writers. i. The Three Marys.1
A very important and fundamental point in the
mythical theory of Mr. Robertson is the equating
of the names Mary (Mariam), Myrrha, Maia and
Maya. That is to say, it is gravely maintained by him
that Mary, as the mother of Jesus (and also of the
mythical (?) ' Joshua'), Myrrha, as the mother of
Adonis, Maia, as the mother of Hermes, the
messenger of the Greek gods, and Maya, as the
mother ofGautama the Buddha, are merely variant
forms of the universal name of the great Divine
Mother recognized in all the ethnic nature-myths.
And it would, of course, naturally follow from this,
that Jesus, Adonis, Hermes and even Gautama
the Buddha were also variant forms of the
mythical Divine Saviour, who was said to have
been born of this nature-goddess, though this
latter conclusion has not the support of similar
personal names.
But what are the chief grounds upon which the
former identifications are based ? In the first place
there is the alliterative assonance of the four
female names — Mary, Myrrha, Maia and Maya,
so tempting to the man with an a priori theory
in his mind. But this similarity in sound — really
1 Christianity and Mythology, pp. 319 ff.

208 Jesus The Christ [chap.
very superficial — in itself proves nothing, and
does not even render the alleged connection prob
able. If there really be any such relationship, as
Mr. Robertson tries to make out with the help of
these names, it must be a deeper one ; it must lie,
e.g. in some etymological affinity between them,
which results in all expressing a common under
lying mythological idea. Let us apply this
touchstone to the theory, and see what results
we get.
Let us take first the Jewish name Mariam.
Dr. Cook says : 1 " There are but two alternative
roots that can be seriously considered : mo
'to be rebellious,' and tnu, ' to be fat.' The x of
the k-io might, before the a of -am, pass into ',
which, in the case of ma, is already the third
consonant The termination -am indicates sub
stantives of an abstract meaning as well as ad
jectives, and is especially common in the case of
proper names. Mariam, then, might mean either
' the rebellious ' 2 or ' the corpulent.' " He finally
decides in favour of the latter derivation as
according " excellently with the whole analogy of
Semitic names ; it is associated with the Semitic
idea of beauty."
The name Myrrha, on the other hand, is a mere
variant form of Smyrna {%p,vpva), the Arabian
myrtle tree, which possesses a balsamic juice.
The myth says that, for committing an unnatural
1 Ency. Bib., art. 'Mary.' 2 Cp. Num. xii. 1-15.

ix.] Mythology and the Gospels 209
offence, Myrrha was pursued by her father, who
endeavoured to kill her. But she prayed the
gods to make her invisible, and they, moved to
pity, changed her into the evergreen myrtle.
And, after the lapse of nine months, the tree burst
open and Adonis was born.
Again, in the case of Maia (or Maias), we have
an obvious derivation from Jma, which was no
doubt originally suggested by the frequent use of
that syllable by infants to their mothers, and on
that account it had attached to it the meaning of
' one who brings forth.'
Similarly in Sanskrit we have also a Jma, in
the sense of ' to bring forth,' ' produce,' with
matri, 'a mother,' and may a, 'illusion,' as applied
to the material universe, which is regarded by
Vedantists as a mere illusive product of the senses.
Now in these four names there does not appear
to be the slightest reference to some common
goddess. ' The bringer-forth ' is a term which
may be applied to all women in its plain natural
sense, without any recondite or occult meaning
whatever; hence we may very properly choose
the simpler and more direct explanation rather
than the remoter and more obscure one. Further
more, and above all, there is no etymological
connection between the Aryan root ma and the
Hebrew sod : the meanings are totally different,
and, therefore, we have absolutely no grounds for
equating them.
14

210 Jesus The Christ [chap.
Again, Mr. Robertson, very gratuitously and
upon the slenderest possible grounds, regards
these three ' mythic Marys ' of the Gospel story
as mere 'figures in a ritual lamentation.' Be
cause Adonis was ceremoniously ' wept for ' by
women, therefore the equally ' mythical ' Jesus was
lamented in His death by mythical women ! But
this statement, again, in any case proves nothing.
Is not mourning for the beloved dead the peculiar
office of women all the world over in daily life ?
And what more probable — nay, certain — than that
the gentle Rabbi from Galilee should attract the
pure and disinterested ministrations and love of a
few devoted women ?
Mary (Miriam) was, as we all knew, a very
common and popular name amongst both the
Hebrews and later Jews, a fact no doubt largely
due to the traditional exploits of the sister of
Moses. We have as many as six Marys men
tioned in the New Testament — certainly not all
figures in any ritual lamentation. Moreover, early
Christian records contain no references to any
annual ceremonious lamentations comparable with
those for Adonis or Osiris. We, therefore, see
no need for supposing that the more prominent
trio were mere 'figures.' That they are not
otherwise conspicuous in the story need excite
no surprise. In the East, the home is still
exclusively the woman's sphere of activity,
and if she steps outside it is not with a view

ix.] Mythology and the Gospels 2,11
to achieve public notoriety. No doubt it is
easy to draw a parallel of a sort between
the women who ministered to Jesus, and the
hysterical creatures who yearly, in a dramatic
manner, bewailed the ' slain Adonis ' ; but the
comparison is merely a superficial one, and based
solely upon the common emotions of humanity.
There is no real identity ; the pagan mourning
is clearly theatrical : the Christian mourning
is not ; it appeals to us with all those marks of
reality and genuineness which it is impossible to
simulate. Another point of difference may here be
noted. The mangled body of the slain Osiris
was said to be found again by Isis, and that of
Adonis — as an image of the god— by the Syrian
women. The body of Jesus, on the other hand,
is not found in its tomb by any of the women,
or by the disciples — a significant point of differ
ence. Furthermore, no heathen cult ever reached the
full concept of a spiritual body.1 In the resurrec
tion, or, more properly speaking, the rebirth, of
the pagan God, he reappears annually (for the
most part) in the same material guise as before—
the sun in the heavens, or the plant which springs
from the earth ; whereas the resurrection body of
Jesus is not conceived as material in its nature.
The whole concept of the pagan cults, therefore,
1 The cult of Osiris realized this to some extent.

212 Jesus The Christ [chap.
is different, both in general and in detail, from that
which underlies the Christian story.1

2. Joseph.2
Mr. J. M. Robertson's views regarding Joseph
are largely based upon the hypothesis of a Messias
ben-Joseph, which has been already noticed.3
That the later Samaritan representatives of the
Joseph clans postulated a Messiah of that house
is perhaps not impossible ; that these tribes
themselves in earlier times looked forward to such
a Messiah is very doubtful.4
" The myth of Joseph," Mr. Robertson con
fidently adds, "arose as a real accessory to the
cult. Once introduced, he would naturally figure
1 The fact that Mary is nowhere in the Gospels regarded as, in
any sense, a divine woman (cp. Mark iii. 33, 34) tells also very
strongly against her identification with the pagan goddess-mother.
Even in the modern Roman Church, which renders latreia
(' worship ') to God, only hyper-douleia is offered to the Virgin —
that is to say, an exaggerated form of the 'service' douleia
rendered to the saints.
2 Christianity and Mythology, pp. 326 ff.
3 See Chap. VII. p. 166, Note 1.
4 Dr. Cheyne says (Ency. Bibl., art. ' Messiah,' § 9) of this
theory : " The developed form of this idea is almost certainly a
product of the polemic with Christianity, in which the Rabbins were
hard pressed by arguments from passages which their own exegesis
admitted to be Messianic."
There is, at least, no evidence of its existence until after the time
of Christ. The Samaritan doctrine of the Taheb, 'he who returns,'
or ' he who restores,' is founded entirely upon Deut. xviii. 15, where
it has no Messianic application.

ix.] Mythology and the Gospels 213
as an elderly man, not only in the interest of the
virgin-myth, but in terms of the Hebrew pre
cedent adopted in the myth of the parentage of
John the Baptist."
Mr. Robertson here jumps so rapidly from one
assumption, and consequent assertion, to another,
that it is difficult to see how he establishes his
results even to his own satisfaction. Why was
'the myth of Joseph,' 'a real accessory to the
cult' of a Messias ben-Joseph,' compounded with
an older cult of an Ephraimite sun-god ? Joseph,
as a matter of fact, plays but a very subordinate
part in the Gospel 'drama,' and, from a mythical
point of view, might very well have been dis
pensed with altogether. And the ' virgin-myth '
is really not a Hebrew concept at all.1
If we may judge from the recorded examples
of abnormal births, the Hebrew view was pre
viously quite different. However, even taking
the story as a myth, it is much more probable
that the account of Zacharias was an accessory
to that of Joseph, than that it was the original
pattern upon which the latter story was con
structed. There is, again, nothing here but assertion
piled upon assertion, and no real evidence for
these statements is forthcoming. Mr. Robertson,
however, at least admits that the canonical
1 It is found amongst the Hellenistic Jews (Philo, Lib. de Cherub.
§ 13), but in an allegorical sense only.

214 Jesus The Christ [chap.
Gospels do not describe Joseph as a very old man,1
as he desires they should do ; but he derives
comfort from the fact that not only some of the
Apocryphs do, but also Christian tradition —
meaning thereby the popular religious ideas
embodied in art by medieval painters and others
— which came largely from extra-canonical and
pagan sources, when celibacy had become the
ideal state of life. However, ' the old man,' when
once obtained, is very useful to him, and he is
straightway equated with the feeble old man
leading an ass in the sacred procession of Isis,
described by Apuleius in his Metamorphoses.
But Mr. Robertson himself — further on — sup
plies what is no doubt the true explanation of
this symbolic figure. He quotes from Plutarch,
who says, that in the court of the temple
of that goddess at Sais there were sculptured
' a child, an old man and some animal figures ' 2
— of which the two first named, he explains,
stood simply for the beginning and end of life !
Precisely so ; the figures there depicted were
merely symbolical of life-periods.
In like manner, the old man, in the procession
referred to, was probably the living symbol of old
age hobbling to the grave, and hence had nothing
1 Cp. Matt. i. 24, 25, which certainly does not even suggest it.
Contrast with this Luke i. 18.
2 De Is. et Osir. xxxii. Plutarch says these consisted of ' a hawk,
a fish and a hippopotamus,' symbolizing, respectively, God, hatred
and impudence.

ix.] Mythology and the Gospels 215
whatever to do with any mythic God. Moreover,
in these symbolic representations just quoted, the
goddess-mother is not depicted at all ! Can we
imagine a mythic picture in which the great
Divine Mother of All — the central figure in any
mythical scheme — is not portrayed? This fact
alone would, in all probability, divest the picture
of any such mythical significance as that alleged
by Mr. Robertson.
But to return to sober history. The most
serious objection that can be raised against the
historical character of Joseph is the paucity of
references to him in the New Testament. He is
mentioned exactly seven times by both Matthew
and Luke ; by the former only in chaps, i. and ii. ;
by the latter only in chaps, i.-iv. The last
reference in chap. iii. occurs in the Lucan
genealogy, while in chap. iv. Jesus is described
merely as ' the carpenter's son.'
Mark, who has no Birth Story, does not
mention him. Elsewhere he is referred to
directly in the Fourth Gospel (i. 45, vi. 42), and
indirectly in Matt. xiii. 15, where Jesus is again
called 'the carpenter's son.'1
Now, how are we to account for such a meagre
list of references upon any hypothesis of an
1 The Sinaitic palimpsest here substitutes 'the son of Joseph.'
The phrase 133 "13 simply means 'a carpenter,' and it has been
suggested that, as used in the tradition, it may mean here nothing
more than this (cp. Mark vi. 3).

216 Jesus The Christ [chap.
historic Joseph ? This fact is, we think, not
difficult to account for. Joseph was not a figure
of the first magnitude in the Gospel story, and
may have died before Jesus reached early man
hood. But Mark may have heard of him, and of
the Birth Story also, though he mentions neither.
It is only in the earlier episodes of the Infancy
that Joseph has any real significance in the story.
For, as Schmiedel points out,1 women who gave
birth to children outside of the bonds of wedlock
were, by the Mosaic law, liable to be put to death
by stoning (Deut. xxii. 21), and even in Roman
times they would have been subject to severe
social and ecclesiastical censure. The whole story,
too, would no doubt, if it be historical, naturally
be kept in the background, for obvious reasons,
during the lifetime of the Mother of Jesus, and
made known only to a limited circle during that
period. In any case we may well take heed to the
warning of Dr. Cheyne — no credulous upholder
of tradition — who says : "It would, however, be
hasty to assert that there was no element of truth
in the expression ' Joseph, the husband of Mary, of
whom was born Jesus, who is called the Christ '
(Matt. i. 16)." 2
1 Ency. Bibl., art. ' Mary,' § 16 ; cp. Deut. xxii. 21.
2 Ibid., art. ' Joseph.'

ix.] Mythology and the Gospels 217
3. The Birth Story.1
Mr. Robertson says : " The bringing forth of
the god-child while ' on a journey ' is an item
common to a dozen pre-Christian myths, as those
of Hagar and Ishmael, Mandane and Cyrus,
Latona and Apollo, Maya and Buddha, and the
stories of ^Esculapius and Apollonius of Tyana,
and the peculiar motive of the tax-paying is almost
certainly derived either from the Hindu legend of
Krishna, or from a cognate Asiatic myth."
Let us here, in the first place, make a brief
examination of this general statement. It is
unfortunate for Mr. Robertson's illustrations that
several out of the six given do not, as they stand
in our records, relate to the birth of ' god-children '
at all, the Buddha even especially disclaiming any
divine origin. Neither, for that matter, is Jesus
exactly represented by the Evangelists as ' a god
child,' in the pagan sense of the term.
As regards Latona (Leto) and Apollo, a later
myth certainly regards her as the mistress of
Zeus, and, therefore, an object of jealousy to Here
who persecuted her during her pregnancy. And,
after some wanderings, she is said to have settled
at last on the island of Ortygia, where shefgave
birth to Apollo. &». But this is hardly an example
of a birth ' on a journey.'
Again, ^Esculapius (Asclepios) is said, in
1 Christianity and Mythology, pp. 319, 329-31.

218 Jesus The Christ [chap.
common story, to have been born to Apollo and
Coronis. The local legend of Epidaurus, it is
true, related that he was born whilst his mother
was accompanying her father on a campaign
in the Peloponnesus ; but other versions omit
this detail. In the case of Krishna, the certainly
late date of the present myth invalidates the
comparison.1 Even here, however, Mr. Robertson
is inexact. The motive of the journey in the
Gospels is not tax-paying (so wrongly in A.V.,
followed by him), but registration in a census of
the population. And for such registrations in
Judaea, about that time, there is some direct
historic evidence, though this particular census
has not been identified.
The rest of Mr. Robertson's criticism (pp. 329-
331) we must deal with in a condensed form.
"The cave at Bethlehem," he says, " had been
from time immemorial a place of worship in the
cult of Tammuz, as it actually was in the time
of Jerome." There is little or no evidence for
this statement.
Certainly Jerome says {Ep. 58, Ad Paulinum),
that it was so used in his day {circa 395 A.D.);
but there is no proof, or even probability, that it
1 Dr. L. D. Barnett, of the British Museum, says (Hinduism,
1906, p. 21 note) : "A considerable number of the details in the
Puranic myths of Krishna's birth and childhood seem to have come
from debased Christian sources (apocryphal Gospels and the like)
such as were current in the Christian Church of Malabar." See
also infra, pp. 200, 201.

ix.] Mythology and the Gospels 219
had been so used 'from time immemorial.' For,
e.g., in the strictly legalistic period, after the
reforms of Ezra, it is extremely doubtful whether
any forms of idolatry survived in Judah, since
they were suppressed with great thoroughness.1
Moreover, a cave is mentioned only in the late
New Testament apocryphal narratives, which
dress up the canonical story with many fantastic
details and additions, derived, no doubt, from
various pagan sources.
Again, Daoud, or Dod (Dodo), he says, was
identical with Tammuz, and it is not improbable
that on this account Bethlehem was traditionally
called 'the City of David.' That Tammuz bore
the epithet D6d ('beloved') has been shown by
Sayce2 and others. But Dr. Sayce also points
out that the same epithet is also applied to
Jahveh in Isa. v. 1, where He is termed D$di
('my beloved'), and adds: "We can easily
understand how a name of this kind, with such
a signification, should have been transferred by
popular affection from the Deity [Jahveh] to the
King, of whom it is said that 'all Israel and
Judah loved him' (1 Sam. xviii. 6).'"
In fact, there is little doubt in the minds of any
but the out-and-out mythologizers that Bethlehem
was not called 'the city of David,' because
Tammuz was worshipped there some three
thousand years ago (which is doubtful, to say the
1 Cp. Neh. xiii. 2 Hibbert Lectures (1887), pp. 56-57.

220 Jesus The Christ [chap.
least of it) ; but because all Hebrew tradition
asserted that the beloved king who bore this
designation was descended from a well-to-do
sheep-farmer of that place.
Again, Mr. Robertson refers to 'the mythical
Joshua, son of Miriam,' as an early Hebrew deity,
one form of the Tammuz-cult, and supposes that
this cult may, in pre-Christian times, have been
a worship of Mother and Child, Mary and Jesus
— that, in short, Maria = Myrrha, and that Jesus
was a name of Adonis.
The questions of the divine character of Joshua,
and the equating of ' Maria ' [Mariam] with
Myrrha, etc., have already been discussed, and
we need only add here that the statement that
the mother of Joshua was named Mariam, is
based solely upon an Arab tradition of no great
antiquity, and of absolutely no historical value.
It is probable that the Arabs, who are usually
very ignorant of history, confused the equivalent
names Joshua and Jesus, and, in so doing, made
Mariam the mother of the former also.
Neither have we any historic record of the
worship of a ' Mother and Child ' in any
heterodox Israelite cult, and, moreover, to be
exact, Matthew expressly states (ii. 11) that the
young Child alone was ' worshipped ' by the
Magi.1 That many of the peoples both in and
1 It is perhaps worth noting that the shepherds are not repre
sented by Luke (chap, ii.) as ' worshipping ' either Child or Mother.

ix.] Mythology and the Gospels 2.2.\
around Palestine had a cult (or cults) of this kind
is an undoubted fact ; but there is no record of
its adoption, or practice, by the Israelites amongst
the various other idolatries, to which at different
periods they were addicted. Lastly, the identifica
tion of a ' pre-Christian Jesus ' with Adonis is a
mere speculation, for which no real evidence
has, so far, been adduced.
Again, Mr. Robertson also lays much stress
upon the statement of Luke that Jesus was at
birth ' wrapped in swaddling clothes ' and ' laid
in a manger,' as being also an exact description
of several other mythical divine children ; and
he further describes the crib of the infant Dionysos
as being represented in ritual and art as a
' manger-basket.' But, since all infants are at first wrapped in
some kind of 'swaddling clothes,' and laid in
some sort of cradle, it is only natural that stories
of mythical children should also relate the same
custom. The ' manger-basket,' however, is a
mere fiction of Mr. Robertson's own devising ;
for the cradle of Dionysos was represented as
an ordinary wicker one of a type still in common
use, without anything appertaining to a manger
about it ; while that of Jesus, we are told, was
a manger pur et simple, and, therefore, no proper
cradle at all.
Also, it is to be remembered that npoo-Kwea likewise may mean
to salaam to, in the usual Eastern fashion.

222 Jesus The Christ [chap.
Again, Mr. Robertson's attempt to identify
the birth of Jesus, as celebrated at Christmas
time, with that of ' Horus, son of the Virgin Isis,'
which was represented annually as occurring soon
after the winter- solstice (21st December), breaks
down entirely on an examination of the real
facts of the case.
There is, as is well known, no record of the
actual birthday of Jesus. It is quite certain,
however, from the narrative of Luke, that the
Christians of the first century did not fix it
about the time of the winter-solstice, because
December comes in the height of the rainy season
in Judaea, when neither flocks nor shepherds are
to be found at night-time in the fields around
Bethlehem. It has been surmised, with some
probability, from what is known about the ' course
of Abia' (Luke i. 5), that the earliest Christians
regarded the month of October as the time of
that event ; but this is not certain. The festival
was kept, later on, at various times (in March,
September, December, January, etc.) by different
churches, until at length Pope Julius 1. intervened,
and the 25th Decernber was fixed officially, from
354 a.d. onwards, as the date upon which it
should be universally observed. The object of
this arrangement was, no doubt, largely to assimi
late a pagan solar-festival with it, and thus to
facilitate the Christianizing of the Empire. It
is absolutely certain, however, that in the first

ix.] Mythology and the Gospels ¦ 223
century there was no identification of the birth
day of Jesus with that of the sun-god soon after
the time of the winter-solstice.
As regards the further statement that the
goddess Isis was held by the ancient Egyptians
to be ' supernaturally impregnated by a ray of
light — an idea reproduced in pictorial treatment
of the myth of the Virgin Mary,' there can be
little doubt that this concept was purely a mystical
and symbolic one. It refers, like a large number
of similar cases collected by Mr. Hartland,1 rather
to some occult cosmical process than to an actual
birth of any being, real or imaginary, in a mythic
scheme. Finally, Mr. Robertson's explanation of the
shepherds as derivatives from the Krishna- myth
is largely discounted — if not discredited — at the
outset by the notoriously late date of that story
in its present form.2 Furthermore, these shep-
1 The Legend of Perseus, passim. So also through her ear. Cp.
the medieval hymn to the Virgin (Lincoln MSS. Ff. i. 6, 42),
'mater Christi, qvueper aurem'.ccmcepisti.'
3 The story of Jesus Christ was carried into India at the latest
in the latter part of the second century (see Eusebius H.E. bk. v.
chap. ix.). According to Weber's version of a paragraph in the
Mahabharata it was brought back to India by Brahman travellers.
Both Weber and Lassen interpret the passage to mean that early
in the Christian era three Brahmans visited a community of
Christians in the East, and that on their return " they were able
to introduce improvements (!) into the hereditary creed, and more
especially to make the worship of Krishna Vasudeva, the most
prominent feature of their system" (Hardwick, vol. i. p. 182). See
also notes in the works of Weber and Lassen. See also an article

224 Jesus The Christ [chap.
herds figure in a totally different rdle in each
story. In the Lucan narrative they are mere
recipients of the first news of the birth. In the
Krishna story the babe Krishna is carried away
by his father to one of them, who brings him up
in seclusion.
And this latter objection applies with still
greater force to the story of Hermes and Apollo,
which does not seem to bear even the most
distant resemblance to the narrative in the
Gospel. In all ages, and in all countries, when
and where the occupations of the people are
mainly pastoral, it is not extraordinary that
shepherds should be in some way, directly or
indirectly, connected with stories of births,
whether actual or merely mythical. But this
fact does not, per se, reduce all these stories
to being mere variants of some universal myth,
any more than the numerous parallels that exist
between events in history and in fiction reduce
all historic narratives to the level of mere ficti
tious stories. In a word, the same kind of
events often occur in myth and in actual life,
by an anonymous Sanskritist in the Athenaum (loth August 1867),
where the writer shows how the Brahmans took from the Gospels
such things as suited them, and used these extracts in the com
position of ' Krishna-episodes ' interpolated into the Mahabharata,
etc. For a further analysis of the Birth Story, and its alleged relation
to Buddhism, and the ethnic cults generally, see present writer's
Critical Examination of the Doctrine of the Virgin Birth (1908),
Appendix F.

ix.] Mythology and the Gospels 225
and are, therefore, described in much the same
terms. 4. The Baptism.1
Professor Drews' attitude with reference to
this event in the life of Jesus may be gathered
from the following passage : "In Hebrew the
word ' spirit {ruach) is of feminine gender. As
a consequence of this, the Holy Ghost was
looked upon by the Naasenes and the earliest
Christians as the ' Mother ' of Jesus. Indeed,
it appears that, in their view, the birth of the
Divine Son was only consummated by the
baptism and the descent of the Spirit. Accord
ing to the Gospels which we possess, on the
occasion of the baptism in the Jordan, a voice
from above uttered these words : ' Thou art
my beloved son ; in thee I am well pleased.'
On the other hand, in an older reading of the
passage in question in Luke, which was in use
as late as the fourth century, it runs, in agree
ment with Ps. ii. 7 : ' Thou art my son ; this
day have I begotten thee.' This is shown by
the dove which descends from heaven, for this
was the holy bird, the symbol of the mother-
goddess of Nearer Asia."
It is true that, owing largely to the accident
of the word ruach being generally feminine, the
Naasenes, in later times, regarded the Holy
1 The Christ Myth, 3rd ed. p. 118.
IS

226 Jesus The Christ [chap.
Spirit as the female complement to God the
Father,1 thereby, perhaps, endeavouring to bring
the Hebrew and Christian conception of the
Godhead into line with the heathen and Gnostic
views which almost universally recognized a duality
of sex in the Divine Being.
But it is absolutely untrue to fact to assert that
the earliest Christians generally regarded the
Holy Spirit as the ' Mother ' of Jesus.2 The Birth
narratives, as independent documents, certainly
date from the first century, even if they were not
actually inserted into the original ' Matthew ' and
' Luke ' until the beginning of the second ; and as
1 So also a fragment of (?) the Gospel according to the Hebrews,
which reads : " My mother, the Holy Spirit, took me by one of
my hairs, and bore me up on to the great mountain Tabor."
The Elkasaites (who also recognized a primordial duality of sex
in the Godhead) made the Holy Spirit the 'sister' (d8e\cpri) of
Jesus (Epiphanius, Hcer. liii.). There can be little doubt but that
these views of the Holy Spirit are due to Gnostic influences, which
were already operative in the Church at the beginning of the second
century, and that they do not represent the beliefs of the earlier
Christians. And it surely cannot be the Man Jesus who is said to
be taken to Mount Tabor, but the AZon Christus ; hence the Holy
Spirit is, in the mind of the writer, probably identical with the Gnostic
Mother of Creation (see chap. vii. p. 168), and not the mother-god
dess of the common nature-cults — a much coarser type of concept.
In the New Testament, too, Spirit is neuter — ro nvevpa rb dyiov.
2 Drews urges (p. 119 note), that the baptismal account in Mark
represents practically the original views of the nature of His Divine
birth, and really forms the Marcan birth-story.
The first mention of a. festival of the Baptism of Jesus is found
in the Strom, i. 21 of Clement of Alexandria, who says that the
Basilidean Gnostics observed it on 6th or 10th January (nth or
15th Tuli).

ix.] Mythology and the Gospels 227
early as the date of Mark's Gospel {circa 60-65
a.d?) we find a human mother referred to (iii.
31-35). Any reference, therefore, to the Holy
Spirit as ' Mother ' must refer merely to the
mother of the seonic Christ of the Gnostics.
The views of all three Synoptists regarding the
meaning of both the Baptism and the Trans
figuration of Jesus would seem to be that they
were special assurances of the Divine support
which he needed both for the Life and Death
which they respectively heralded, as well as
outward manifestations to mankind of the Divine
authority and power which had been bestowed
upon Him.
Neither is Professor Drews altogether fair in
his bare and unqualified statement that there was
an older reading in Luke in use as late as the
fourth century. According to Epiphanius {Hcer.
xxx.), the Ebionite Gospel added to the first
clause of Luke's statement the words i<yci> o-faepov
yeyevrj/ca ere (' I have this day begotten thee) ; i but
1 This addition is only foundl (in existing Greek codices) in D
(circa end of fifth century), a MS. abounding in interpolations.
Elsewhere it is met with in the Old Latin Version (circa 150 a.d. ?)
and in a fragment of the Gospel according to the Hebrews.
Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Methodius, Lactantius,
Juvencus, Hilary and Faustus the Manichasan also notice it.
Augustine says (De Consensu Evang. ii. 14) that it was found in
some MSS. in his time, but not in the older Greek codices. Some
non-canonical writers also speak of ' a great light ' and ' a fire ' at
the Baptism. Mark distinctly implies that the Vision of the Dove
and the Voice were, largely at any rate, subjective in their nature
(Mark i. 10 ; Matt. iii. 16).

228 Jesus The Christ [chap.
this addition cannot seriously be adduced as
evidence for early and official views, since the
words are manifestly a ' tag ' from the Psalms
(Ps. ii. 7), added probably by some officious
scribe to establish the view already entertained
by some that the spiritual birth of Jesus dated
only from His baptism.1 The oldest extant
version of the Baptism (Mark i. 11) omits them,
in all authorities, as also does Matthew, and there
is no special evidence to indicate that they were
inserted in the original Lucan version, and only
suppressed by later ' orthodox ' scribes, a con
venient and favourite hypothesis when all other
testimony is wanting.
As regards the dove, and its sacred character
in Asia Minor, as the bird of the great mother-
goddess Astarte, it certainly was not regarded as
divine amongst the earlier Hebrews, or later
Jews. This fact is evidenced, inter alia, by its
legalized use by poorer persons as a form of
animal sacrifice to Jahveh (Lev. xii. 6 ; cp. Luke
ii. 24). Indeed, the Jews commonly reproached
the Samaritans with worshipping the dove, which,
however, seems merely to have been venerated
by them as the image of the Shechinah. Amongst
the later Jews it was sometimes popularly sup
posed to have been the objective form in which
the Spirit of Jahveh brooded over the waters of
chaos (Gen. i. 2). And it long occupied a place
1 This would be the view of both Ebionites and many Gnostics.

ix.] Mythology and the Gospels 229
in the familiar imagery of the Old Testament
(cp. Ps. Ixviii. ; Song of Sol. ii. 12) as a symbol
of such divine qualities as innocence, gentleness
and brooding love. It had, therefore, in a sense,
a quasi-sacred character ; x but it was never in
vested with a divine and personal character by
them, much less did it receive worship.
1 e.g. the sacrifices in which a dove was offered were not eaten.

CHAPTER X.
MYTHOLOGY AND THE GOSPELS (continued).
5. The Temptation.1
In passing on to a consideration of this event,
Mr. Robertson remarks that the " Buddhist
parallel clearly shows a nature-myth, possibly
representing the sun-god as assailed by the
storm-spirits at the outset of his career," and
adds: "the Christian myth might fairly be
regarded as a later sophistication [sic] of the
same fancy."
We may here briefly dismiss this suggestion
with the remark that, in our judgment, most
readers who detected any ' sophistication ' in
these episodes would be more inclined to attribute
it to the Buddhist narrative, which is very inferior
both in motif and literary merit all throughout.
It is also doubtful whether, in its present form,
it has any great antiquity.
We find subsequently, however, that he prefers
a derivation of this ' myth ' from a story given by
Ennius in his translation of the Sacred History of
1 Christianity and Mythology, p. 343.
230

chap, x.] Mythology and the Gospels 231
Euhemerism, preserved by Lactantius,1 where
Jupiter is led by Pan to the top of a mountain
(the Pillar of Heaven), from which he contemplated
the lands from afar, and there raised an altar,
and sacrificed to Ccelus (Heaven). The Christian
narrative, says Mr. Robertson, is "merely an
ethical adaptation of the Greek story ! " 2
We regret to add that we are unable to trace
any real and fundamental connection between
the stories. In the Buddhist narrative, e.g., the
differences are very great ; there the ' temptation '
to satisfy the cravings of hunger, the promptings
of ambition, and the doubts as to the overruling
Providence of God, are all wanting. In the
Roman story, too, Pan, as representing in satyr-
form the lower and animal propensities of man,
is a very different being to the Hebrew Satan ;
moreover, there is no tempting of Jupiter, as
there is of Jesus. Jupiter, likewise, is wholly a
god ; Jesus is a sorely bested Man, although
divine. There is, in short, not the least affinity
between any of these narratives beyond the
general idea of trial. It is difficult, also, to see
how what has just previously been described as a
'sophistication' of the Buddhist story can sud
denly have become an 'ethical adaptation' of
1 The Divine Institutes, bk. i. chap. xi. This passage should be
read and compared with Mark i. 13 and parallels.
2 See also Birth Stories, Rhys Davids, i. 84, 96 f., 108 ff. ; also
Vendidad, xix. 1-1 1, and compare differences.

232 Jesus The Christ [chap.
the Roman tale ! If a conjecture may be hazarded
here, we should be inclined to say that the
Christian narrative largely presents, in picturesque
and symbolic form, the subjective experiences
and doubts of Jesus — whether these were of
internal origin merely, or were suggested ex
ternally by some malignant spiritual being — as
to His capacities and power for the great work
which He had undertaken. Professor Bevan has
suggested1 that the scene is a description of a
traditional practice, or ceremony, by which it was
supposed that a man could obtain control over
daemons, and which is in use in Eastern countries
even at the present day.
6. The Twelve Apostles.2
According to Professor Drews, the Twelve
Apostles are a mere reflection of the traditional
story that Joshua had twelve helpers, or assistants,
when he led Israel through Jordan to the Promised
Land. He referred previously, however {op. cit.
p. 95), with approval to Mr. Robertson's theory
that they represent, when present at the Lord's
Supper, 'the twelve mythical priests' who were
associated with Aaron at the Passover meal.
Another suggestion, much favoured by those
1 In a paper read before Oxford Soc. of Hist. Theology,
November 1901.
2 Die Christusmythe, 4th ed. p. 185.

x.] Mythology and the Gospels 233
who would view the Gospels as simply an
elaborate collection of astronomical and other
myths, is, that Jesus and the Twelve, as they
passed through the country of Galilee (Galil =
' circle,' ' district ') teaching and healing the people,
really represent the sun in its annual passage
through the twelve signs of the zodiac.
Apart from such fancies, one would have thought
that by this time it was well-known how pro
minent a part the number twelve plays in the
ancient historic traditions of Israel. The voices
of Israelite antiquity are unanimous in tracing
the origin of the nation to the ' twelve ' Une
Jisra-el, who, it is true, may have been mere
eponymous ancestors to the congeries of allied
clans that later on composed the nation. Jesus,
therefore, had doubtless a profound reason for
selecting twelve disciples as representatives of
these traditional divisions, ten of which had long
wholly disappeared from history.
Moreover, it was quite in accordance with the
custom of Eastern teachers thus to gather round
them such a picked body of disciples, who would
be, in after years, the living depositaries of their
doctrines. The whole arrangement, therefore, is so natural,
and so in accordance with all historic precedent,
that we see no grounds whatever for resorting
to a highly speculative theory, which makes of
it merely an idea reflecting either the story of

234 Jesus The Christ [chap.
an ancient mythical body of priests, or some
cosmic phenomenon. Such explanations are both
unnatural and superfluous, unless they rest upon
better evidence than is here presented.

7. The Entry into Jerusalem.
With regard to this event in the life of Our
Lord, Mr. Robertson makes the following com
ments : "Such a candid and scholarly inquirer
as Dr. Percy Gardner {Explor. Evang., 1899,
p. 156) repeating once more the fallacious ex
planation which has imposed [sic] on so many of
us, that ' an ass and the foal of an ass ' represents
a Greek misconception of the Hebrew way of
saying 'an ass,' as if the Hebrews, even in every
day life, lay under a special spell of absurdity,
when a glance at the story of Bacchus crossing
a marsh on two (!) asses, and at the Greek sign
of the constellation Cancer (an ass and its foal)
would have shown him that he was dealing with
a zodiacal myth."1
1 Christianity and Mythology, p. 310. But see also p. 230,
infra. Amongst other mythicizing guesses may here be mentioned
one of Fries, who maintains (Studien zur Odyssea) that the
wandering Odysseus, who is welcomed by the Phasacians, is a
type of the spring-god (Marduk) entering his temple, and that —
amongst the numerous mythological parallels — the entry of Jesus
into Jerusalem is simply another form of this astro-mythological
phase of the spring-god's festival, or of Odysseus, the ascetic
bhikshu. The cleansing of the Temple he also explains as the
destruction of chaos by the Deity, and the re-establishment of a
new world !

x.] Mythology and the Gospels 235
The story here referred to is that told of
Dionysos, who, when driven mad by Here, met
during his peregrinations two asses ; and, mounting
one of these, he crossed a marsh, and in this
manner reached the temple of Dodona, where
he came again to his senses. This story is
supposed to be symbolic of the sun reaching its
zenith in the month of June, and Mr. Robertson
would have it that Jesus ' on the two asses '
( = the two halves of the year) signifies that the
sun-god is at its highest pitch of glory and power,
and is then on the point of descending to his
ultimate doom at the winter-solstice. As to the
actual entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, there is,
he says, " not a single item of it credible history."
We have, however, no explanation given us as
to why this simple story — in which the ' super
natural ' is conspicuously absent — cannot be
'credible history.' But, before turning to the
text of the Gospels, we will carefully examine
Mr. Robertson's mythical view.
Now, at times, the zodiacal signs and the
stellar constellations, through which lies the sun's
apparent path across the heavens during the year,
are coincident. But owing to the phenomenon
known as the ' precession of the equinoxes,' the
sun each subsequent year enters upon (at the
vernal equinox) its apparent path through the stars
at a slightly different point. Thus, in the far-
back days, when history began to dawn, the

236 Jesus The Christ [chap.
point at which it crossed the Equator in spring
(21st March) was situated in the constellation
Taurus (Bull). Later, however, about the time
of Christ, this point had shifted, and the sun at
that time entered the constellation Aries1 (Ram),
and the zodiacal sign Cancer had then become
the sun's position about the time of the summer-
solstice (21st June).
Now in the group of stars forming the con
stellation Cancer {icapidvo<;) two are especially
conspicuous (in the body of the ' crab '), which
were named by the Greeks tco ovco — 'the two
asses.'2 Hence, at the summer-solstice, when
the sun is at the highest point of its ascendancy,
it (personified as Dionysos) might be said, figura
tively, to be ' riding between two asses,' and the
whole sidereal phenomenon might be celebrated in
some manner as a summer festival, expressing a
celestial event in picturesque and symboliclanguage.
But when we endeavour to apply these astro
nomical facts to the narrative of Jesus' entry into
Jerusalem we find that they do not fit at all.
No doubt He might be said to be at the zenith
of His popularity and influence on that occasion.
1 It now lies in the constellation Pisces (Fishes). It takes about
26,000 years for the sun to pass in succession through all the
Twelve Signs, or Constellations, i.e. one-twelfth of the journey
gives 2200 years, the time occupied in passing through one ' sign '
and changing to the next.
2 Theoc. xxii. 21 ; cp. Arat. 890-98 ; Theoph. Sign. Pluv. iv. 2 ;
Pliny, xviii. 20. The Greeks undoubtedly borrowed the ideas and
terms from the Chaldeans.

x.] Mythology and the Gospels i^l
The event, however, is stated to have happened
just before the Passover, i.e. about the time of
the vernal equinox. If it merely represents (as
Mr. Robertson thinks) some solar phenomenon,
then it must certainly be connected with an
equinoctial one. It is perfectly clear, therefore,
that the Evangelists here are not telling a story
which represents in picturesque and symbolic
fashion the entrance of the sun into the solstitial
zodiacal sign of that time. Consequently his
explanation fails utterly, as does also the supposed
mythical connection of the Birth and Death
festivals with similar events. No doubt Mr.
Robertson would reply that the time of these
things was a mere trifling matter of detail; but
it would have been just as easy, and more natural,
for a compiler of mythical tastes to have avoided
this error, and fixed a purely supposititious event
at the time of year to which it was appropriate.
We may, therefore, reasonably conclude that the
Gospel writers would have made their pseudo-
historical events agree in time with the solar
phenomena, e.g., in the case of the triumphant
entry into the city, fixed it, say, at the summer-
solstice of the year preceding the death of Jesus.
But this they have not done, and that fact alone
forms a sufficient reason for concluding that the inci
dent has no connection whatever with a solar myth.
Turning now to the text of the Gospels, we
find that the editor of Matthew tells us (xxi. 4)

238 Jesus The Christ [chap.
that this episode was the fulfilment of a prophecy
of Zechariah (ix. 9). It will, therefore, be conven
ient to begin with an examination of this passage.
The Hebrew Massoretic text states that the
future Messianic king is to come riding —
" Upon an ass, even upon a foal, a son of she-asses." 1
The prophecy is — as prophecies in the Old
Testament generally are — couched in terms of
Hebrew poetry, the most important feature of
which is a system of parallelism in the lines,
the second member of the couplet repeating in
somewhat different phraseology the sentiments
expressed in the first one.
Now the conjunction Vav (1) in such cases
has commonly an epexegetical (explanatory) force
renderable by ' even,' instead of the more purely
conjunctive meaning ' and.' So also in Greek,
Kal, has the double meaning ' and ' and ' even,'
according as it is conjunctive or explanatory.
Turning next to the Greek LXX translation
of Zechariah we find the passage rendered
thus : —
" Riding upon a beast of burden, even {Kal) a
young (ass) foal." 2
Here Kal is epexegetical.
It is to be noted, also, that the iirl ('upon') is
not repeated after the Kal, as it would be in
1 ni:hK-|3 i^5?1 lion-^y.
2 enifiefir/Kms enl v7ro£vyiov Kal ncoKov veov.

x.] Mythology and the Gospels 239
Greek, if the meaning were ' upon a beast of
burden, and upon a young ass,' i.e. upon two
asses, as Mr. Robertson, misled by the indifferent
AV. translation, and a vehement desire to find
myth everywhere, assumes.
The meaning, therefore, is clearly that there
was to be only one ass, and that upon it the
Messianic king was to ride into the city.
Referring next to the Gospels, we read (Mark
xi. 7) :—
" They bring the foal to Jesus, and put their
cloaks upon it, and he sat upon it!' 1
In Luke xix. 35, we have the same statement
in a slightly different form of words : —
" And they brought him to Jesus, and having
thrown their cloaks upon the foal, they set Jesus
upon [it]."2
The Fourth Gospel is equally instructive
(John xii. 14, 15):—
"And Jesus having found a young ass, sat
upon it, as it is written :
" ' Fear not, daughter of Zion :
Behold thy King comes
Sitting upon a foal of an ass ; ' " s
1 cpepovcriv rbv naiKov rrpbs rbv 'Ir/crovv, Kai emfidWovo-iv avrm ra
ipdria \avra>v\ Kal eKadia-ev en' avrov.
2 Kal. rjyayov avrbv npbs rbv 'lijo-ovv, Kai empiyavres air&v ra
ipdna eVl rbv naikov enefilPao-av rbv 'Ir/aovv.
s evpav 8e 6 '\rjaovs ovdpiov eKatiicrev en' avro, Kadas ecrriv yeypap-
pAvov. M^ cpofiov, Qvydrrjp Slav
'l8ov, 6 Bao-ikevs aov epxerai
KaBJjpevos inl naiXov ovov.

240 Jesus The Christ [chap.
which shows that the writer— like Mark and
Luke — correctly understood the prophecy of
Zechariah. But now let us turn back to the text of the
Matthaean version of this incident. We find
there, in xxi. 2 : —
" Ye will find an ass tied, and a foal with her," 1
i.e. two asses {ical here is not epexegetical).
Again, in ver. 5, the writer says, professedly
translating Zechariah : —
" Thy king comes to thee . . . sitting upon an
ass, and upon a foal, a son of a beast of burden." 2
And in ver. 7 he further says : —
" And they led the she-ass, and the foal [to
Jesus], and placed their cloaks upon them, and he
sat upon them!' s
Now what is the explanation of these variations
in Matthew, from the text of a perfectly plain
and straightforward story, correctly told by the
three other Evangelists ?
It is that the editor of the Gospel of Matthew,
taking the story as he found it originally, prob
ably in Mark, or a Marcan form, tried to
improve upon it. Being extremely anxious —
as ' Matthew ' invariably is — to find a literal
fulfilment of prophecy in all the acts and words
1 evprjcrere ovoi' 8e8epevrjv xal nakov per air^r.
2 d /3ao-i\evs o~ov ep-^erai aoi. . . . em^e^tjKas eVi oj/ou, Kal esri
nat\ovl vlbv vno£vyiov.
a rjyayov rr/v ovov Kal rbv na>\ov, Kal eneBrjKev en' avrwv ra ipdria,
Kal eneKadiaev indva avrav.

x.] Mythology and the Gospels 241
of Jesus, he seems to have turned directly to the
Hebrew prophecy, where, as we have seen, he
found the two lines of the prophecy connected
by a Vav ; and being apparently ignorant of the
ancient Hebrew system of versification, he trans
lated this Vav ' and,' and supposed that the
¦brophet really meant two asses — a very natural
mistake for an imperfectly informed person to
make. That he derived this error from the Hebrew
Massoretic text, and not from the LXX version,
is evident from the fact that the LXX translator
carefully avoids such a mistake by not repeat
ing the evi {' upon'), as we have seen, and as he
undoubtedly would have done, had he meant that
Jesus rode upon two asses — on the face of it a
most palpable absurdity to all but an over-con
scientious pedant. The result of the whole
matter, therefore, is to justify fully Dr. Gardner's
statement, upon which Mr. Robertson endeavours
to pour contempt — a result which we might
anticipate all along from the world-wide reputa
tion of Dr. Gardner as both a brilliant and an
accurate scholar.
There is, accordingly, no need to resort to
Mr. Robertson's hypothetical Dionysos and his
two asses, when a simple and perfectly natural
explanation founded upon the error of a well-
intentioned, but imperfectly informed writer, as
regards this matter of detail, is ready to hand.

16

242 Jesus The Christ [chap.
8. The Lord's Supper.1
This institution is for Mr. Robertson 'an
imitation of a pre-existing ritual practice ' ; and,
again : 'the supper was a Mithraic institution.'
He believes: "that the narrative first took
shape in a Jesuist mystery-drama seems the most
likely view of its origin. The supper itself was
a mystery-drama, and to introduce the god in
person was only to do what the Greeks had done
long before, as in the Bacchce of Euripides, and
what the Egyptians did in the rites of Osiris."
Previously (p. 220) — referring to early Euchar-
istic practices in certain churches — he said : "As
to what may seem to many readers the most
unlikely of all, the eating of the baked image of
a child, there is really the most evidence (!). It
is an admitted historic fact that in some of the
churches, after the abandonment of the eating of
an actual lamb2 in the Eucharist at Easter, there
arose the practice of eating the baked image of
a lamb. Without suggesting a similar process of
substitution we may reasonably surmise that the
infaus farre confectus of the pagan charge 3 was
really a model of an infant in dough, after the
manner of pagan-cults in all ages."
1 Christianity and Mythology, p. 386 f. ; cp. p. 220.
2 The explanation appears to be that some Jewish Christian
sects continued to eat the Passover before celebrating the
Eucharist. 8 Minucius Felix, Octavius, ix.

x.] Mythology and the Gospels 243
If Mr. Robertson means by the first two
remarks quoted above that a common meal, with
a peculiar sense of sanctity attached to it, is an
institution not first devised by the early Christian
society, or peculiar to it, we can readily assent
to his statement. But if he means that the
Christians derived the idea from the Mithraists,
we dispute the contention, and ask for direct
proof of such origin.
There can be no doubt that the Supper proper
had its ultimate origin, primarily at least, in the
Jewish Passover ; 1 but, at the same time, it was
still further spiritualized by the addition of the
Eucharistic celebration which followed after it.
In all the brotherhoods of Essenes and Thera
peutae, as we have seen, similar meals prevailed,
and Christianity, in adopting and still further
spiritualizing these customs, only acted in
accordance with the principles of all true de
velopment. It is but natural that man should seize upon
such primary instincts as hunger and thirst, and
by carefully regulating their exercise in social com
munion, spiritualize them, thus indicating that
there is a higher and nobler hunger and thirst
' Dr. Percy Gardner thinks (The Relig. Exper. of St. Paul,
p. 1 10, note 2) that the Pauline Sacrament of the Lord's Supper
was not suggested by the Greek Mysteries celebrated at Eleusis,
as some scholars have maintained. See also arts. 'St. Paul and
the Mystery Religions,' The Expositor (April, May, July, etc.,
191 2), by Professor Kennedy.

244 Jesus The Christ [chap.
than that of the body, and one in which spiritual
sustenance may be conveyed to mankind through
even material channels.
Our information respecting the Mithraic Supper,
however, is very scanty and incomplete. The
Mithraists appear to have eaten thereat bread
and drunk water ; possibly wine was added.1
But, it seems, as in the case of other pagan
mysteries, to have been intended rather to pro
mote ecstatic states of mind, together with,
perhaps, a development of the subconscious
supernormal powers, than to act as an ethical
and spiritual bond of union between man and
man, and man with God, as in the case of the
Christian institution.2
Turning now to the Octavius of Minucius Felix
{circa 220 a.d.) we find the heathen objector
Ccecilius saying (chap, ix.) : " Now the story about
the initiation of young novices is as much to be
detested as it is well known. An infant covered
1 Our authority for this statement is Justin Martyr, who says
(Apol. i. 66), that, "wicked daemons have imitated [the Eucharist]
in the mysteries of Mithras . . . [wherein] bread and a cup of
water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of
one who is being initiated." We do not really know whether the
later Mithraists did not borrow from the Christian Eucharist, or,
again, those of an earlier age from the Paschal Feast of the Jews.
In any case, the Mithraic Supper certainly seems to have served
quite a different purpose.
2 Those who were initiated into Mithraism had to pass through
quite a long period of probation, with scourging and fasting, and
ordeal by water, and only then were eligible for admission as
soldiers fighting on behalf of Mithra. And these severe tests

x.] Mythology and the Gospels 245
over with meal, that it may deceive the unwary,
is placed before him [the catechumen], who is to
be stained with their rites ; this infant is slain by
the young pupil, who has been urged on as if to
harmless blows on the surface of the meal with
dark and secret wounds. Greedily (oh ! horror)
those who are present drink up its blood ; eagerly
they divide its limbs. By this victim they are
pledged together ; with this consciousness of
wickedness they are contracted to a mutual
silence." Octavius, the Christian advocate, very justly
replies that these statements are mere fables set
forth by those who never witnessed such things
as they relate, and never inquired into the truth
of them ; the whole statement, in short, is a bare
faced calumny. The truth is that the whole fable
of the dough-infant is absurd. The Christians
never practised even sham ritual-murder. As
a matter of fact, a similar slander has been per-
merely admitted to the lowest terrestrial grade of initiates. There
were still two others to attain, those of the ' Bull ' and the ' Lion,'
each involving further probation and tests before the soul could
rise above the earth and its limitations. It then ascended higher
by the grades of ' Vulture,' ' Ostrich ' and ' Crow ' through the
region of the aether ; then it strove to become pure ' Fire ' through
the grades of ' Gryphon,' of ' Perses ' and of the ' Sun.' Finally,
the soul attained complete union with the Divine Nature through
the last grades of ' Father Eagle,' ' Father Falcon ' and ' Father of
Fathers.' A holy cave on a hill was the place of worship, and the
mystic rites involved watching and fasting all night till dawn
(Recherches sur le Cult de Mithras, Lagarde). For a short account,
see also Hist, of Christian Church, Foakes Jackson, pp. 184-85.

246 Jesus The Christ [chap.
petrated upon the Jews in all ages of the Christian
era down to the present day, when it is still
believed in by the ignorant Christian populace of
Eastern Europe. This charge of modern ritual-
murder, followed by a cannibalistic feast, has been,
however, carefully inquired into, and thoroughly
refuted by Professor Strack1 — a non-Jew — who,
while showing the absurdity of the accusation,
examines carefully the whole subject of super
stitions connected with the use of blood. The
idea of the efficacy of blood is a very old one,
and since the beliefs and practices of the Jews
and Christians were for several centuries much
confused by their heathen neighbours, we can
readily understand how a similar custom came to
be attributed to both. But there is no evidence
whatever for even feigned ritual-murder, much
less for cannibalism, in historic times, in either
religion. Dr. Edwin Hatch, who is quoted above by
Mr. Robertson, in describing a ninth century
Mass at Rome on Easter Eve, for the benefit of
the newly baptized, says : " The mystic offering
on the Cross is represented in figure. . . . And
there was one more symbolic rite in that early
Easter sacrament, the mention of which is often
suppressed — a lamb was offered on the altar,
afterwards cakes in the shape of a lamb."
This lamb he appears to regard as representing
1 The few and Human Sacrifice (1909).

x.] Mythology and the Gospels 247
in symbol, life, death and resurrection. This is
not improbable, at least in Christian times ; but
it seems doubtful whether such ever was the case
with the Jewish Paschal Lamb. The original
idea was rather that of protection afforded against
the destroying daemon ('angel') to the members
of the household in which the blood had been
sprinkled and its flesh eaten by the inmates.
Blood was regarded as par excellence the seat of
life, and, therefore, protective in its character and
effects, probably by diverting the attention of the
daemon as he passed by. Here the Israelites
utilized — as we so often find — an old animistic
belief, and at the same time lifted it up to a
higher plane of spiritual meaning. Beyond this
fact we cannot see any further trace of pagan
ideas, but rather an attempt at, it may be, identi
fying the Christian with the Jewish sacrifice.
9. Judas Iscariot.1
Mr. Robertson's theory of the ' origin ' of Judas
Iscariot is that the idea was first developed as a
' character ' in a primitive mystery-play, or ritual-
drama. The suggestion is once more interesting,
so we will give the statement of it in his own
words. "In the Gospel of Peter 'the Jews'
figure as equivalent factors with Herod and Pilate
in the crucifixion, and in a ritual-drama, written
1 Christianity and Mythology, p. 385.

248 Jesus The Christ [chap.
for an audience so prepared, unnamed Jews would
figure as the god's enemies and captors. At a
later period the anti- Jewish animus which led to
the presentment of the whole Twelve in the
Gospel story as deserting their Lord at the
supreme moment, would easily develop the idea
of the actual treachery of one of the Twelve, and
to him would be allotted the part of the leading
captor, who to start with had been simply foudaios,
' a Jew.' A bag to hold the reward would be a
natural stage accessory ; in this way would arise
the further myth that the traitor who ' carried the
bag ' was treasurer of the group, and a miser and
a thief at that ; while out of Ioudaios would grow
the name Judas."
It would be more satisfactory, in the first place,
to hear the evidence which Mr. Robertson has
for the existence of these ' ritual-dramas '
amongst the Jews and early Christians of Our
Lord's time. As, however, none is forthcoming
in his books, we must suppose that he falls back
upon the hypothetical 'Jesus-cults 'of pre-Chris
tian times, in which it is asserted (upon very
insufficient grounds) that a 'Jesus' was worshipped
as their cult-deity, perhaps under the form of a
sort of dramatic representation of their esoteric
teaching. Now we know that something remotely re
sembling this existed among the Greeks and
other Aryan races during that period, as, also,

x.] Mythology and the Gospels 249
amongst some Semitic peoples, as, for instance,
in the Adonis rites. There were, e.g., the
Eleusinian Mysteries, wherein were set forth
dramatically the myth qf the goddess-mother
Demeter and her daughter Persephone, represent
ing the powers of preservation and reproduction
inherent in Nature.
But of anything of this kind, amongst post-
exilic Jews, at least, we are absolutely ignorant.
Their extant literature records none, though it
refers to the various idolatries to which they had
been addicted. Indeed, the Jewish mind, between
the times of the return from exile and the Christian
era, seems to have been thoroughly saturated
with the spirit of the so-called Mosaic legalism,
which tended effectually to kill all other concep
tions of a contrary nature,1 while it has served as
a tie to knit together the whole Jewish race in a
monotheistic creed down to the present day.
The growth, therefore, of the figure out of a
ritual-drama, founded, let us say, upon such
traditions as those embodied in the Gospel of
Peter, would, in any case, be something quite
late and probably Aryan in its origin and incep
tion — a sort of protest, in fact, against the Jewish
legalistic element in a second century (or later)
and mainly Gentile Church.
But it is precisely in early documents of
1 Apocalyptic Messianism, however, managed to exist side by
side with it, but was greatly modified by its influence.

25° Jesus The Christ [chap.
Judaic-Christian origin, for the most part, and
dating from the latter half of the first century
that we first find the fully developed story of
Judas, not, be it noted, in the literature which
was written subsequently by Greek and Roman
converts of the second or later centuries. And
as for the name Judas representing simply
Ioudaios, 'a Jew,' it is well-known that it was a
not uncommon personal name (being the Graecized
form of the Hebrew Judah), long before the
time of Christ, and no less than eight others of
that name, mentioned in the Scriptures and
Apocrypha, are held in memory at the present
day. Lastly, Mr. Robertson's suggestion of the final
' stage-touch ' to the character of villain in the
mystery play, where the ' bag ' is added, and the
reputation of miser and thief acquired, does credit
to the powers of his dramatic imagination, but it
is a mere fiction, without one jot or tittle of
evidence to justify its intrusion into sober history.
If Mr. Robertson has any evidence to support
such an hypothesis, let him by all means produce
it, and we will gladly welcome the proof as a ray
of that final truth, of which we are all in equally
earnest search.
There is, however, a very generally accepted
explanation of the term Iscariot, which it will be
well worth our while to examine before proceed
ing further with mythical theories of origin.

x.] Mythology and the Gospels 251
Ishkarioth, ' man of Karioth,' is still accepted by
Holtzmann.1 But the whereabouts of this Karioth (or
Kerioth) is quite uncertain. In Josh." xv. 25,
there is a reference to a q'riyyoth ; but this word
would appear to be a plural of a local dialectical
form qiryath, ' a city,' and, therefore, to refer to
a group of towns mentioned in the RV. as
' Kerioth-hezron (the same is Hazor).' A Kerioth
in Moab is also mentioned in Jer. xlviii. 24, 41,
and Keim believed that he had discovered yet
another (now called Kuriut) in Josephus, B.J.
1. vi. 5, and Ant. xiv. iii. 4 ; but this is doubtful.
The objection raised to the first-named de
rivation does not seem to be insurmountable.
' Man from Kerioth ' (cities-district) is not impos
sible. Or, again, he may have been a native
of the Kerioth in Moab, though of Jewish
extraction. The chief difficulty with these derivations,
however, seems to lie in the fact that it is doubtful
whether the initial 'Is' of his name really repre
sents the Hebrew s^k {ish), ' man,' the probability
being that the ' s ' is connected rather with the
second part of the word.2 On the whole, there
fore, 'man from Kerioth' is a doubtful
1 Hand-Commentar, i. p. 97.
2 There is, e.g., the Syriac form skariota, which, however, does
not seem to be identifiable with ni'Hi? B^N ; for in it the Syriac has
D and not B>, and a and not j> — and the initial vowel is altogether
wanting.

252 Jesus The Christ [chap.
derivation, and we have, perhaps, to look farther
afield. But the resources of the mythicist do not come
to an end with Mr. Robertson and his theory.
Professor W. B. Smith has another and rival
hypothesis,1 which we will proceed to state.
After a minute discussion of the variant forms of
(I)skariot(h) — Iskariotes (Mark xiv. 43), Karyotes
{a, John vi. 71, etc.) and Scariotes (D, Matt. x. 4,
etc.) — he turns to its meaning. The generally
received view, already referred to, he dismisses
summarily : " for every reason we must reject
the accepted interpretation ' man of Kerioth ' as
impossible," claiming the support of Wellhausen
in so doing. The latter scholar, he says, also
rejects the notion that it is a gentilitial, and wisely
inclines to regard it as a 'name of reproach, like
Bandit (Sicarius).' He also favourably notes in
passing — but not to adopt — the suggestion of the
Hon. Willis Brown {The Open Court, August
1909), that the name is connected with the
Hebrew root S-K-R, and means 'hired.'2
There is, however, he continues, another Hebrew
root of the same three letters (isd), which appears
' once in the exact sense which the New Testament
seems to require,' viz. in Isa. xix. 4. But he
admits that this stem regularly means ' shut up '
1 Cp. Hibbert fournal (April 191 1), pp. 529-44.
2 Cp. Matt, xxvii. 9, 10 ; [Zech. xi. 12 ;] but the older Mark omits
mention of latter.

x.] Mythology and the Gospels 253
in Hebrew, Aramaean and Syriac, and may be
so rendered here (Cheyne) ; and that in another
passage (Ezek. xxx. 12) the initial letter d (s) may
be a mistake for o (m), as many scholars suppose.
But none of these facts, he believes, affect the
case, and the translation of the word v'sikkarti in
the LXX by koI irapa&coo-co {' and I will deliver up ')
corresponds exactly to the words of Matt. xxvi. 15.
Hence, he holds that since the Greek verb
irapaSiSovat, means strictly 'to hand over,' 'sur
render' rather than 'to betray,'1 Iscariot means
simply 'the Deliverer-up ' — not 'the Traitor.'
"(I)scariot is then precisely what Wellhausen
felt it must be, a ' Schimpfname,' a sobriquet, an
opprobrious nickname, the most appropriate, and
even unavoidable."
There is, perhaps, much to be said in favour of
this acute theory of Professor Smith. But the
further conclusion that he draws therefrom is
utterly inadmissible, unless he can also show
that Jesus is wholly unhistorical. He says : " I
suspect that the oldest thought was one of the
surrender of the Great Idea of the Jesus, of the
Jesus-cult, by the Jews to the heathen? This, in
fact, was the supreme, the astounding fact of
early Christian history, and engaged intensely
the minds of men."
And again: "that Judas Iscariot typifies the
1 But see Liddell and Scott's Lexicon, s.v.
2 Italics ours.

254 Jesus The Christ [chap.
Jewish people in its rejection of the Jesus-cult
seems so obvious, it seems to meet us so close to
the threshold of the inner sense of the New
Testament, that it may move our wonder that
any one should overlook it."
With every respect for Professor Smith's able
and detailed analysis, we cannot follow him in this
conclusion. The earliest disciples and evangelists
belonged to the more simple folk, whose minds
are ' intensely engaged ' rather with concrete facts,
those facts of their daily life, which are embodied
in persons and things.
The idea comes afterwards, and is the outcome
of education and reflection. It is much easier,
therefore, to identify Judas with some actual man
who was a member of the little group which Jesus
gathered round Himself to receive His teaching,
in the first place, and afterwards to pass it on to
the world.
Nor does the descriptive designation of Traitor
(or Deliverer-up), in such a case as this, present any
difficulty. The experiences of almost any little
band of ' reformers ' (or would-be reformers by
violent means) of the world about them would
furnish a similar example. Such bodies of
enthusiasts almost always contain at least one
member who is willing to make terms with ' the
Powers that be ' by handing over his leader or
comrades to them. And this is precisely what
Judas is said to have done, whatever his ruling

x.] Mythology and the Gospels 255
motive, or motives, may have been.1 The whole
story of the betrayal — read as history — is, in fact,
perfectly true to human nature, and actual human
life and experience, in all ages.
1 We may advert here to De Quincey's theory that the motive of
Judas was merely to force the hand of Jesus to declare Himself a
temporal Messiah. This was, undoubtedly, the general aim of the
disciples at that time.

CHAPTER XI.
MYTHOLOGY AND THE GOSPELS (continued).
10. Jesus and Barabbas.1
Professor Drews says that while the Jews were
subject to Persian government, a solar festival
was inaugurated amongst them, which combined
the old Babylonian feast of the Sakaees 2 with the
Persian feast of the ' Beardless One,' and was
known later as the Feast of Purim (Lots).
Further : " in their accounts of the last events
of the life of the Messiah, Jesus, the custom at the
Jewish Purim feast . . . passed through the minds
of the Evangelists. They described Jesus as the
Haman, Barabbas as the Mordecai of the year,
and, in so doing, on account of the symbol of the
lamb of sacrifice, they merged the Purim feast in
the feast of Easter, celebrated a little later. They,
1 The Christ Myth, 3rd ed. pp. 74, 76.
2 In this festival a mock king is said to have represented the
departing winter sun : the Persian ceremony was very similar. In
the Jewish Purim feast Haman is supposed to have represented the
dying sun of the old year, and Mordecai the rising sun of the new
year, shortly before the vernal equinox. 256

chap, xi.] Mythology and the Gospels 257
however, transferred the festive entry of the
' Beardless One,' 1 his hostile measures against the
shopkeepers and money-changers, and his being
crowned in mockery as ' King of the Jews,' from
Mordecai-Barabbas to Haman-Jesus, thus anti
cipating symbolically the occurrences which should
only have been completed on the Resurrection
of the Marduk [ = the spring-sun] of the new
year. " According to an old reading of Matt, xxvii.
17 et seq., which, however, has disappeared from
our texts since Origen, Barabbas, the criminal set
against the Saviour, is called ' Jesus Barabbas ' —
that is, 'Jesus the son of the Father.'2 May
an indication of the true state of the facts not lie
herein, and may the figure of Jesus Barabbas, the
god of the year, corresponding to both halves of
the year, that is, of the sun's course upwards and
downwards, not have separated into two distinct
personalities on the occasion of the New Year's
feast?"8 Before proceeding further with the consideration
of this interesting and, at first sight, plausible
speculation, it will be well to make a careful
examination of the text of Matthew at this point.
It is true that several Cursive MSS. and some
1 But see Mr. Robertson's explanation, p. 210 supra.
2 Another explanation makes it ' son of a Rabbi.'
3 The Christ Myth, pp. 75, 76. So Winckler explains Joshua and
Caleb as the winter and summer sun respectively.
17

258 Jesus The Christ [chap.
versions (Syr. Arm. Jer.'s) of no great authority
read here ' Jesus Barabbas ' ; but none of the
great and more ancient Uncials sanction this
addition. The simpler explanation, perhaps, of
the insertion of ' Jesus ' before Barabbas in the
texts referred to above, is that it is due to an
instance of what is known as ' dittography ' in
MSS. ; i.e. the repetition (in copying) of the last
syllable of the word preceding the one to be
written next — a mistake to which all copyists are
peculiarly liable, especially in the case of short
words. Thus we have here, diroXva-co vttiv Bapa/3-
fiav r) 'Itjo-ow. The scribe in copying this, which,
we must remember, was written continuously
(without the word-spacing of modern printed
books), probably repeated in error the last syllable
of vp.iv, with this result
dnoXvcravpivlvPapaP^av, k.t.X.
Now iv is the usual Cursive MS. abbreviation for
irjcrow (Jesus), and it was suggested by Tregelles
that the scribe, on seeing his error, afterwards
deleted the superfluous syllable {underlined above)
in the usual way with dots — thus iv. This iv
was then mistaken by some subsequent scribe,
or reader, for iv, and this the more readily
because fiapafifiav in the passage appears to be a
patronymic.1
1 Meyer and Fritsche defend the insertion of 'Iriaovv here, and think
that subsequent copyists erased it from motives of reverence. But,
if so, why is it retained in any of the later cursives ? Tischendorf

xi.] Mythology and the Gospels 259
On the other hand, 'Jesus' was, as we have
seen, a very popular, and, therefore, a very
common Jewish personal, or circumcision, name,
and it is by no means impossible that Barabbas
was so named ; the general balance of the two
clauses also rather suggests this view.
But an argument against this hypothesis would
be the fact that in ver. 20 we read : 'iva ahija-covTai
tov f$apa$$av, tov Be 'Irjaovv diroXearcocriv ('In order
that they should ask for Barabbas, and destroy
Jesus ') — where both ffapafificiv and 'Irjuovv, by
the article tov prefixed to each, appear to indicate
that previously he was simply designated Barabbas.1
Accordingly, the careless error of some ancient
scribe is a much simpler, and more natural ex
planation, than the highly hypothetical theory
put forward by Professor Drews and others,
most of the outlines of which (to say nothing
of the details) do not at' all fit the Barabbas
inserts it in earlier editions of his text, but omits it in later ones ;
finally, he thought that it arose from Jerome's account of the
parallel reading in the Gosp. ace. to the Hebrews. Alford's ex
planation is that some ignorant scribe, unwilling to concede to
Barabbas the epithet enicrrjpov ('illustrious,' 'notable'), wrote in
the margin ujo-ow ; and that from thence it found its way into
the text in ver. 16, and, when once supposed to be a prefix to
Barabbas, into ver. 17 also.
It is interesting to observe that in the Latiiftrans. of Origen the
word 'Jesus ' stands in ver. 17, but not in ver. 16 also.
1 It is curious, however, that, in whatever way we explain the
matter, both the Synoptists and 'John' exhibit such entire un
animity in withholding the circumcision name of Barabbas ! But
perhaps they did not know it.

260 Jesus The Christ [chap.
episode of the Gospels. The whole balance of
evidence, therefore, is directly against any such
mythical explanation as is here proposed.
And, in any case, Professor Drews' explanation
of Barabbas does not of necessity follow, even
if the original text did read 'Irjo-ovv /3. Such a
fact might very well be a mere coincidence of a
common name ; very much, e.g., as two prisoners
in an English court, one perhaps innocent and
the other guilty, might happen to be each named
'John.' n. The Seamless Tunic1
The idea of the seamless coat of Jesus was,
according to Mr. Robertson, derived from the
story of the Chiton woven for Apollo, and the
Peplos, or shawl, woven for Here at Elis.
This seamless coat has, he says, a mystical
significance, representing 'the robe of the solar
Osiris ' which is ' one and indivisible, that robe
being the Universal Light (Plutarch).'2
We need not, however, go so far afield for a
sufficient explanation for the existence of such
a coat. Ordinarily, it is true, Jewish tunics seem
to have consisted of two separate parts, which,
when worn, were held together by means of
1 Christianity and Mythology, pp. 414, 415.
2 Apparently the ref. is to De Is. et Osir. 78, " that [vestment]
of Osiris has no shadow nor variation, but (is) one, simple, the
image of light." The above quotation is inexact.

xi.] Mythology and the Gospels 261
clasps ; but Josephus tells us,1 that a single
seamless tunic was worn habitually by the High
Priest. It is clear from this reference, therefore,
that Jewish tunics were, sometimes at least,
woven all in one piece.
The writer of the Fourth Gospel certainly lays
great stress upon the fact that the tunic of Jesus
was seamless, and seems to imply that it had in
consequence a mystical significance, perhaps that
of showing that Jesus acted as His own High
Priest in the sacrifice of Himself on behalf of
mankind. 12. The Crucifixion.
We must now summarize as much as possible
the chief remarks of Mr. Robertson and Professor
Drews upon this subject.
The former alleges that there is a trace of
a Talmudic Jesus, who was put to death on the
eve of the Passover a century or more before the
time of Pontius Pilate.2 He then continues :
" Two of the leading saviour figures of paganism
were Prometheus and Herakles, and each of these
is mythologically represented as wearing a mock
crown. The myth connects the two heroes.
According to Athenaeus,3 Jupiter condemned
1 Antiq. in. vii. 4. 2 See Chap. VI. p. 151 f.
3 Deipnosophistce, bk. xv. 13, 16 — a late writer (second to third
century A.D.). The myth by this time was probably mixed with
Christian and other elements.

262 Jesus The Christ [chap.
Prometheus when he released him from captivity
to wear in memory of that a crown of osiers and
an iron ring ; . . . and worshippers wear a crown
in honour of Prometheus, thereby symbolically
representing his bondage. The crown is thus a
memorial of a sacrifice undergone for the good
of mankind."
Again, Herakles, after killing the eagle that
tortured Prometheus, set out to seek the apples
of the Hesperides, but eventually, at Prometheus'
warning, sent Atlas for them, he meanwhile up
holding the heavens in the absence of the latter
(nth labour). Afterwards, at Prometheus' sug
gestion, Herakles begged Atlas to relieve him
for a moment, while he (Herakles) made a wisp-
pad for his head ; and thus, by this subterfuge,
Atlas was left to bear them for ever, and Herakles
ever after wore the crown [i.e. the wisp-pad].
As regards the narratives of the actual cruci
fixion of Jesus, Mr. Robertson does not deal
with them from their historical point of view,1
1 The words rendered 'hanging' in the E. V., Hebrew, xhv\ (talah),
T T
Greek, Kpepd^eiv, Kpepav, Kpepawivai (Esth. vii. 9 ; Luke xxiii. 39 ;
Acts v. 30 ; Gal. iii. 13), aravpovv, invariably seem to mean some
form of impalement, or crucifixion — not mere hanging in the
modern sense.
Crucifixion was introduced into Judasa apparently about the time
of King Jannai, who put a number of the Pharisees to death in
this way ; it is believed, on good evidence, to have been derived
from the Carthaginians, as impalement was the ordinary Eastern
form of punishment. Sometimes, however, the criminal was
merely tied to the cross and starved to death ; but more commonly

xi.] Mythology and the Gospels 263
but in a long passage, which we cannot quote
in extenso, we are told (p. 402) that the cross
was a symbol ' absolutely universal in pre-Christian
times' ; and, further, that it has 'a. phallic signifi
cance.' He further says that, in Mexico, the
' Sacred Tree ' was " made into a cross, on which
was exposed a baked dough-image of a saviour-
god, and this [image] was after a time climbed
for, taken down and ceremoniously eaten."1
Passing on to the Burial and Resurrection,
Mr. Robertson adds : " Beyond all reasonable
doubt these were simple developments of those
mourning rituals, which have been in use in so
many ancient systems " ; and he continues : " The
body of the slain Osiris was searched for with
lamentations, and the prepared image when found
seems to have been further mourned over, and
he was literally nailed to it, either by the hands only, or by both
hands and feet. In spite of the efforts of some modern critics to
dispute the accuracy of the details of the Evangelists, there can
be no doubt that our four accounts are substantially a correct
description of this mode of punishment.
Death resulted either from exhaustion and pain, or, in the case
of exceptionally strong men, from starvation, and sometimes
from tetanus.
Few persons seem to have survived the ordeal, even when taken
down and carefully tended (Jos. Vita, 75). After the time of
Augustus, the body was subsequently given up to the friends for
burial (Quint. Decl. vi. 6; Jos. B.f. iv. xv. 2). The traditional
shape of the cross employed is confirmed by a third-century cari
cature of the crucifixion of Jesus, which was found in Rome on
the Palatine Hill a few years ago.
1 Quoting H. H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States of
North America (1875), ii. 386, 509 ; and J. L. Stephens' Central
America (1842), ii. 346.

264 Jesus The Christ [chap.
then rejoiced over. Whatever may have been
the order of the ceremony, it is certain that the
burying of an image of the slain god was a
regular part of it.1 And, above all, in the cult
of Mithra is the basis of the Gospel legend
apparent. There the stone image of the '.God
from the rock ' was laid on a bier, was mourned
for, was placed in his rock-tomb, and was
liturgically rejoiced over."2
Let us now turn to Professor Drews. He
says : "Is not Robertson perhaps right after all
in considering the whole statement of the last
fate of Jesus to be the re- writing of a dramatic
Mystery play, which among the Gentile Christians
of the larger cities followed the sacramental meal
on Easter Day ? We know what a great r61e
was played by dramatic representations in
numerous cults of antiquity, and how they came
into special use in connection with the veneration
of the suffering and rising god-redeemers.3
"Thus, in Egypt, the passion, death and resur
rection of Osiris, and the birth of Horus ; at
Eleusis the searching and lamentation of Demeter
for her lost Persephone, and the birth of Iacchus ;
at Lernae in Argolis, and many other places, the
fate of Dionysos (Zagreus) ; in Sicyon the suffer
ings of Adrastus, who threw himself on the
1 But see Chap. VIII. p. 186, note 1.
2 See Chap.VIII. p. 202.
3 Cp. Christianity and Mythology, p. 315.

xi.] Mythology and the Gospels 265
funeral pyre of his father Hercules ; at Amyclae
the passing away of Nature, and its new life in
the fate of Hyacinth : these were celebrated in
festal pageants and scenic representations, to say
nothing of the feasts of the death and resurrec
tion of Mithras, Attis and Adonis. Certainly
Matthew's account, xx.-xxviii. (with the exception
of vers. 1 1- 1 5 in the last chapter), with its con
nected sequence of events, which could not
possibly [sic] have followed each other like this
— supper, Gethsemane,1 betrayal, passion, Peter's
denial, the crucifixion, burial and resurrection —
throughout gives one the impression of a chain of
isolated dramatic scenes. And the close of the
Gospel agrees very well with this conception, for
the parting words and exhortations of Jesus to
His people are a very suitable ending to a
drama." 2
Finally, he says (p. 186): "The Gospel was
in origin nothing but a Judaized and spiritualized
Adonis-cult." And, in the fourth footnote on the
same page, he works out in brief his arguments
1 Both Professor Drews and Mr. Robertson raise the same objec
tion to the account of the agony in Gethsemane, viz. that Jesus is
described as being alone, and the disciples asleep ; therefore the
latter could not have seen and heard what is reported ! But surely
an observant reader must see (i) that Jesus withdraws but a 'little
way ' (Matt, xxxvi. 39), (2) that they hear only fragments of His
prayers, and (3) that they are awoke twice by Jesus, and each time
would no doubt make' an effort to keep awake for some little time
at least. In any case, the three are not represented as all asleep
the whole time, or as being far away from Jesus.
2 The Christ Myth, 3rd ed. pp. 242, 243.

266 Jesus The Christ [chap.
for that view : " ' I am the A and il, the begin
ning and the end,' the Revelation of John makes
the Messiah say (i. 8). Is, there not at the same
time in this a concealed reference to Adonis ?
The Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last
letters of the Greek alphabet, form together the
name of Adonis — Ao (Aoos), as the old Dorians
called the god, whence Cilicia is also called Aoa.
A son of Adonis and Aphrodite (Maia) is said
(Schol. Theoc. xv. ioo) to have been called
Golgos. His name is connected with the phallic
cones (Greek, Golgoi), as they were erected on
heights in honour of the mother-divinities of
Western Asia, who were themselves, probably on
this account, called Golgoi, and golgon anassai
{' Queens of the Golgoi '), and is the same as the
Hebraic plural Golgotha (Sepp. ' Heidenthum,'
i. i57ff.). " Finally, was the ' place of skulls ' an old
Jebusite place of worship of Adonis, under the
name of Golgos, and was the cone of rock on
which a statue of Venus was erected in the time
of Hadrian, selected for the place of execution of
the Christian Saviour because it was connected
with the real sacrifice of a man in the rdle of
Adonis (Tammuz) ? "
We will deal first of all with Professor Drews'
questions and theories, as they are the more
important, and form a more complete and con
sistent mythical theory.

xi.] Mythology and the Gospels 267
He appears to hold, in particular, that on the
summit of a hill just outside Jerusalem (Golgotha)
there was held, from ancient times down to the
first century a.d., a worship of the vegetation-
god (Adonis), and that upon this hill a phallic
cone, symbolical of the god, had been set up, and
also that, subsequently, a 'ritual-drama,' consisting
of the mock sacrifice and death of his image
(originally a real man was slain) was performed,
and that this image was, after lamentation and
burial, produced ' alive ' to the people. Further,
that the Gospels contain a literary rdsumd and
presentment of this symbolic nature - drama
expressed in pseudo-historic terms. Let us
examine this theory closely.
His suggestion that a phallic emblem (Golgos ?)
existed once upon a hill near Jerusalem has not
even a shred of historical probability in its favour.
Had such a symbol ever stood there, the historians
and prophets would certainly have mentioned it,
as they did the high places of Ba'al, the Brazen
Serpent, and other heathen symbols and worships
which at various times existed in Judah.1 We
read, it is true, of certain wooden posts {Asherim,
A. V., but wrongly, ' groves '), which, along with
1 Isa. xvii. 10, 11, contains references to 'Gardens of Adonis,'
which show that the northern kingdom that bordered on Syria
had some taint of the Adonis-cult ; and Ezek. viii. 14-18 refers to
'men worshipping the sun' (? Mithra-cult), but neither mention
any ' golgoi,' nor indicate any regular and systematized Adonis-
worship in either the northern or the southern kingdom.

268 Jesus The Christ [chap.
the Hamman-pillftrs, stood by the altars of Ba'al
(and Jahveh) upon the hilltops of Canaan. Oort
( Worship of the Ba'alim), Movers {De Phonizier,
i. p. 571), and also Collins {Proc. of Bib. Soc. of
Archceol. xi. 291) think that these posts were
phallic emblems, sacred to Ba'al, etc., a view
which has some support in later Jewish tradition.
But the latest modern scholarship rejects this
view, and Dr. Moore says {Ency. Bibl., art.
' Asherah') 'the shape of an Asherah is unknown.'1
Neither can we find any reference to Adonis in
the words ' I am Alpha and Omega,' etc. A and
il do not form the 'first and last' letters of Eos
( = Aos) as it was written by the Ionian Greeks,
though they are the first and last letters of the
Greek alphabet, to which the common interpreta
tion refers them.2 Indeed, we profoundly distrust
Professor Drews' etymologies here. Cilicia, the
'land of the dawn,' or East, was sometimes called
Aoa (Eoa) by the Greeks; but this fact appears
to have no connection whatever with Adonis as a
vegetation-god, but to be derived from the Greek
goddess E5s ( = Aos), who was a daughter of the
Titan Hyperion and Theia.
It is unlikely, therefore, that the Dorian Greeks
applied the same name, Ao(s), to the goddess of
the dawn, and to the (male) spirit of vegetation
(Adonis). And why does Professor Drews quote
1 These all seem to have disappeared after the exile.
2 Cp. similar use in Isa. xliv. 6, and xlviii. 12, of this phrase.

xi.] Mythology and the Gospels 269
the Doric form of the name, rather than that in
use among the lonians who lived in the very midst
of these nature-cults of Asia Minor, and spelled
the name Eo(s)?
Furthermore, there would seem to be no
possible affinity between Golgotha and Golgos,
except that of alliterative assonance, the former
being derived from some Semitic root, while the
latter would seem to be of Aryan origin. In
Theocritus, Idylls, xv. 100, ToXydx; {ToXyol) is
coupled with 'IBdXiov, and is obviously a town,
the two places being seats of the worship of the
Cyprian Aphrodite. Of course, the people of the
town may have claimed descent from an- epony
mous ancestor Golgos, and, therefore, called them
selves Golgoi ; but this possibility does not affect
our conclusion.
On the other hand, Golgotha ( = Giilgotha) — said
by the editor of ' Matthew ' to mean the place of
a skull {not ' skulls ') — has been variously derived
from the Hebrew gii{u)lgolet {^Jgalal, 'to roll')
and gol goatha (Jer. xxxi. 39), (?) 'hill of dying' ;
but the actual derivation and meaning is probably
unknown. Perhaps it waa a place of Jewish
execution for criminals long before the time of
Christ. There cannot, however, be any real and etymo
logical connection between ' Golgotha ' and ' Gol
gos ' ; accordingly any such theory is wholly
fanciful, and based upon preconceptions which

270 Jesus The Christ [chap.
are unhistorical. Professor Drews' further specu
lation that the various narratives relating to the
Supper, Gethsemane, Betrayal, Passion, Cruci
fixion, Burial and Resurrection read like so many
scenes in a Mystery drama can be answered by
the fact that there is no proof that such repre
sentations were ever in vogue amongst the Jews
of that period, or amongst the earliest Christians
of the first century ; there is no record, or trace,
of any such dramas, and the equally important
fact that the supposed parallels, viz. those of
Adonis, Osiris, Demeter, etc., have an entirely
different motif underlying them, we have already
endeavoured to make clear. Consequently these
latter cults were at all times freely tolerated by
the Roman authorities, whilst the Christian
religion was discouraged and persecuted — a fact
in itself indicative of the great difference between
them. Next, turning to Mr. Robertson's views, we
repeat, in the first place, that the Talmudic Jesus
is, almost without doubt, the Jesus of the Gospels.
The agreement between them, as the reader will
have observed — despite the slanders and mis
representations of the writers — is so remarkable
that we feel their references cannot be to any
other than the Jesus of the Synoptic writers.1
Again, Mr. Robertson's parallels with the
myths of Prometheus and Herakles are almost
1 Chap. VI. pp. 136, 137.

xi.] Mythology and the Gospels ttji
too absurd to be taken seriously. It is only
necessary to compare the supposed life-stories
of these demi-gods with the story of Jesus to
see this. They are wholly different both in
general conception and in detail. Prometheus
was ultimately released, and the benefits which
he was said to have conferred upon mankind
were chiefly the procuring of fire from heaven.
Further, the adroit manner in which Herakles
outwits Atlas is unworthy of comparison with any
of the acts of Jesus, while the 'wisp-pad' is no
analogue of the crown of thorns. Finally, as
regards the ' phallic significance ' of the Cross —
a statement frequently and recklessly made — it
is a pity that Mr. Robertson does not state
precisely upon what evidence his assertion is
based.1 As it stands, it is a mere assertion,
depending, it would seem, upon other very
questionable hypotheses, and not supported
by any actual proofs. We have been unable
to find any connection whatever with so unsavoury
(not to say disgusting) an emblem as the phallus.
That the Cross was a very general symbol, with
a definite meaning of a mystical character,
amongst many races, and in many lands, is well
1 The Egyptian ankh (a handled cross) seems to have been in
Egypt a very ancient and mystical symbol of life. In like manner,
in the ethnic nature-cults, a coarser symbol of life and fertility was
the phallus. But these facts do not establish the ' phallic signifi
cance of the Cross ' ! The two symbols were quite distinct and
independent.

272 Jesus The Christ [chap.
known, as we will see in the next chapter. But
that is a wholly different matter, and does not
affect the question.
With regard to Mr. Robertson's citation of
Mr. Bancroft's Native Races of the Pacific States
of North America, vol. ii. pp. 309, 'xfib, an
examination of that work has failed to verify
these references. Mr. Bancroft, however, states
(p. 321) that at the festival of Huitzilopochtli,
the Mexican god of war, a life-sized image of
the god was made of wicker-work, and covered
with a dough made of amaranth and other seeds.
A paper cap set with plumes was then placed
upon the head of the idol.
And again (pp. 330, 331), he says, that the
Tepanecs had a festival in which ' a bird of
dough ' was placed at the top of a huge tree.
" Women dressed in the finest garments, and
holding small dough idols in their hands, danced
round the pole, while the youths struggled wildly
to reach and knock down the bird image."
There is nothing whatever said, it will be
observed, about a dough figure affixed to a
sacred tree made into a cross, or of the figure
being ceremoniously eaten, and what possible
connection these two ceremonies can have with
either the Crucifixion, or the Eucharist, it would
be extremely difficult to say.
Yet again, as regards his reference to Stephen's
Central America, ii. 346, we find {loc. cit.) a

xi.] Mythology and the Gospels 273
mention of a stone tablet found in an ancient
building there. "The principal subject of the
tablet," says Mr. Stephens, "is the cross. It
is surmounted by a strange bird, and loaded with
indescribable ornaments. The two figures [males]
are evidently those of important personages. . . .
Both are looking towards the cross [? or at each
other], and one seems in the act of making an
offering, perhaps of a child ; 1 all speculations on
the subject are, of course, entitled to little regard ;
but perhaps it would not be wrong to ascribe to
these personages a sacerdotal character."
Mr. Stephens likewise adds, further on : " Our
friends the padres, at the sight of it, immediately
decided that the old inhabitants of Palenque were
Christians, and by conclusions, which are some
times called 'jumping,' they fixed the age of the
buildings in the third century."
It would seem that nowadays also there are
other persons, who, like these padres, reach
various conclusions upon these subjects by the
'jumping' method. And, considering that the
whole tablet bears not the least resemblance to
a crucifixion scene (there is, e.g., no figure on the
cross), and that the original use of the building
is unknown, no conclusions can be drawn from
the relic. Above all, it lends no support to those
1 The present writer can see no resemblance whatever to a child
in the object depicted in the plate. It seems more like something
of a vegetable nature, perhaps maize.
18

274 Jesus The Christ [chap.
which Mr. Robertson wishes to draw from it.
As for the cross itself, Mr. Stephens wisely re
marks that Dupaix "accounts for the appear
ance of the cross by the argument that it was
known, and had a symbolical meaning among
ancient nations, long before it was established
as the emblem of the Christian faith." 1

13. The Descent to Hades.2
Mr. Robertson says that this idea " is familiar
in the Mysteries of Dionysus, who descended into
Hades to bring back his mother, Semele, and
carry her to heaven."
The idea of a ' descent ' into the realms of the
dead was undoubtedly very familiar to men in
pagan antiquity. Thus we have, e.g., the descents
of Istar, Orpheus, Odysseus, .-Eneas and others ;
1 We may, perhaps, add here a few other mythical ' identifica
tions.' Mr. Robertson also connects Simon of Cyrene with
Samson (!), whose exploits are again compared with those of
Herakles, and referred to the invariable sun-myth. But, as Dr.
Estlin Carpenter observes, the names 'have no linguistic con
nection.' Neither are their exploits alike ! Weidel also tries to
show (Studien und Kritiken, 1912, pp. 167-286) that the Synoptic
account of the sufferings and death of Jesus is largely unhistorical and
based upon an interest in Old Testament prophecies. The' Warheit'
in short, is overlaid with ' Dichtung,' even in Mark. Ahithophel
supplies the type of Judas ; Joseph and his two fellow-prisoners
are the types of Jesus and the two thieves crucified along with
Him ; Daniel immured in the lions' den is a type of Jesus in the
tomb, and so on. It is all very fanciful and, as a rule, very far
fetched. * Christianity and Mythology, p. 249 f.

xi.] Mythology and the Gospels 275
and the motive in these undertakings was gener
ally either to bring back to earth, or to consult
in person, some beloved relative, or friend, who
had departed this life.
But Jesus, in the scanty references which we
have relating to this event, is not represented as
doing anything of the kind. In the Gospels and
Acts, and the Pauline Epistles, the ' descent ' is
not mentioned at all, and possibly not even
implied. But the later writer of 1 Pet. iii. 9
states that Jesus, between His death and resur
rection, went to Hades, and there "preached to
the spirits in prison" [? to the spirits of the
dead]. But we have no very early, and no
other canonical, authority for this belief ; and, in
any case, the object was entirely different from
the ' descents ' recorded in the pagan myths.

14. The Ascension.1
This important narrative is dismissed by
Mr. Robertson in a contemptuous and cavalier
fashion. It is, he says, " obviously a fable born
of ignorance. Only in a world living under the
primitive delusion of a flat earth, and a solid
over-reaching firmament could such a fable have
been framed."
He then quotes various pagan parallels :
Krishna thus mounts to the firmament of Indra.
1 Christianity and Mythology, p. 420.

276 Jesus The Christ [chap.
At Byblos the dead Adonis was believed to rise
on the second day and mount to heaven in the
presence of his worshippers.1 Herakles, in turn,
rises to heaven and immortality from the funeral
pyre, which in his case rounds the myth,2 the
suggestion coming "from the spectacle of the
litten clouds at sunset."
It is, of course, well-known that the concept
of a passage from this material world to a
co-existent spiritual universe has been always
depicted in both art and literature as an ascension
in space. But such descriptions have always had
a greater or less degree of symbolical meaning,
except in the cases of ruder races and more
uneducated persons. And even in the cases
of persons and races, who have made considerable
advances in culture and the power of thought,
there is a convenience in this mode of representa
tion which it would be difficult to dispense with.
Hence, no doubt, its use by the simple and com
paratively uneducated folk, who were the earliest
teachers and professors of the Christian religion.
Perhaps they took it quite literally, and in a
sense which provokes Mr. Robertson's contempt,
just as, no doubt, they held " the primitive
delusion of a flat earth and a solid over-
1 Lucian, De Syr. De&, 6. See Chap. VIII. p. 191.
2 Ref. to W. Robertson Smith, Relig. Sem., pp. 373, 469.
Many others might have been cited, but the question is — How far
are they analogous ?

xi.] Mythology and the Gospels 277
arching firmament." But that is really not
the important point here. What the writer is
trying to impress upon his readers is, that Jesus
after death passed over from this lower and
material to a higher and spiritual mode of exist
ence. And he expresses this teaching by the only
possible means by which both he and his readers
can grasp it. On the other hand, we twentieth-
century readers are better circumstanced. Many
of us, at least, have been trained in the principles
of abstract thought and, therefore, these cruder
symbolizations are less necessary in our case.
And if we have learnt that space is probably — in
some of its aspects — largely a mere form of our
perceptive faculties, we can dimly understand
that the passage from a material to a spiritual
world may not be a matter of actual spatial
transition at all. Still, it is even now a con
venience to us to make use of symbolic imagery
such as this.
But Mr. Robertson is not altogether happy,
even in his mythical parallels. He omits to
note, for instance, that Herakles was carried off
from the funeral pyre before death, and therefore
in the same physical body. Jesus, on the other
hand, had undergone a change, the Gospel writers
tell us. And this change, according to St. Paul's
teaching, must have been the transmutation of the
' natural body ' {o-&p,a t}tv%ik6v) into the ' spiritual
body ' {a&pM •irvevp.aTiKov), that is to say, a tran-

278 Jesus The Christ [chap. xi.
scendence of a previous state — a change from the
material to the spiritual.
The case of Adonis, too, is not to the point.
No one ever witnessed, or ever stated that he
actually witnessed, the ' ascensions ' of these
'gods,' or perhaps more properly, 'nature-
spirits.' They were really not ' ascensions,' in the
strict sense of the term at all. They symbolized
the rebirth and the gradual regrowth of the
vegetation, or the return of the once dying sun,
and as such form no proper parallels to the
death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus
Christ.

CHAPTER XII.
CHRISTIAN SYMBOLISM: ITS ORIGIN
AND USE.
THE CROSS, THE LAMB AND THE FISH
(IXdvs).
We have selected for examination here what are
probably the three earliest and most important
Christian symbols.
In all religious associations of every country,
and in every age, the members have doubtless
made use of certain signs which have a definite
and peculiar meaning. And chief amongst these
signs, which in historic times were numerous, was
the mark or representation, in wood, or stone, or
metal, of the Cross. That this mystical symbol
is of very great antiquity and of widespread use
is undoubted, though Mr. Robertson probably
exaggerates when he avers that it was ' universal.'
Thus, we find it used in ancient Egpyt,
particularly in the cult of Isis and her son Horus.
Its use is also met with in Assyria and Persia,
where it was worn by both kings and priests.
Amongst the Greeks it seems to have been

280 Jesus The Christ [chap.
placed on the images of such gods as Apollo,
Artemis and Demeter. In Rome it was worn,
partly as an ornament, by the vestal virgins,
and, subsequently to the rise of Christianity, it
was placed — in the shape of the so-called ' mono
gram ' 1— upon the Labara, or standards, of the
later Roman Empire.
Amongst the Norsemen, again, we meet with
the Cross in Runic inscriptions, and as Thor's
hammer, and even amongst the ancient Israelites
the mystic mark made in blood upon the door
posts of the house, before the eating of the
Passover, has been supposed by some writers
(though upon no very sufficient grounds) to have
been a cross, whilst others have recognized the
same symbol in the attitude of Moses, when he
stood upon the hilltop with outspread arms
watching the battle between Israel and Amalek.
Finally, it has even been met with in the ruins of
an ancient civilization of the New World, as we
saw in the last chapter.
Besides this religious, or, perhaps more strictly
speaking, mystical, use of the Cross, there was, as
1 Deissmann says (Light from the East, p. 251, note 3) that
"the so-called monogram of Christ (>^) has been in use long
before the time of Christ."
Some have regarded the Cross as a symbol anciently used in
astral worship, expressive of the sun's crossing the equinoctial line,
thereby bringing annually saving heat and light to the world, and
thus stimulating the development of both the vegetable and animal
life. This is a not improbable view.

xn.] Christian Symbolism 281
we have seen, a. restricted employment of it as an
instrument of capital punishment, chiefly in the
western parts of Asia and Northern Africa, and
in the eastern and southern parts of Europe.
As a development of the primitive stake, which
served for purposes of impalement, we meet with
the Cross thus used in three different shapes :
the crux immissa (1"), the crux commissa ("["), and
the crux decussata (x). No fixed principle in the
employment of these various forms is discoverable,
for they seem to have been employed indifferently
at the caprice of the official charged with the
execution of the criminal.
As regards the meaning of the Cross, in a
mystical sense, it is probable that we can best
reach its original signification by a consideration
of its use among the numerous symbols of ancient
Egypt from whence perhaps it was spread
amongst later civilizations in various other parts
of the ancient world.1 In Egypt we find it
exclusively in the form of the ankh — a tau-shaped
cross furnished with a loop affixed to the top of
the horizontal bar for the purpose of suspension,
or as a handle, by which it might be grasped, as
seen in the representations of the various deities.
The symbol ankh has in Egypt the meaning of
1 Lipsius (De Cruce, i. 7) argues that it is of Phoenician origin.
If that be the case, it is remarkable that the instrument of bodily
death, and the symbol of eternal spiritual life, should originate
from the same source and take the same form.

282 Jesus The Christ [chap.
' life,' or ' soul,' and, in Egyptian art, it is the
emblem of enduring life.
We may take it, therefore, that the Cross, in
whatever shape it was used in a symbolical sense,
had the same signification, in a higher or lower
degree in the minds of all races amongst whom it
has been found.
Now it cannot be doubted that the Christian
use of this symbol is, in part, a borrowed one ; at
the same time, however, it has also an original
signification. For, on the one hand, the early
Christians must have been quite familiar with its
use as an old symbol of life, while on the other
they knew it to be the instrument by means of
which their Master and Founder had paid the
penalty of His life. And since, according to early
and apostolic teaching, the death on the Cross
was but the prelude to an eternal life for mankind,
to be attained by them also only by self-denial
and suffering, it was but natural that the symbolic
use of the Cross, in the signification of life in
death, should grow up at an early period in the
Christian Church. It was, in fact, like so many
other Christian concepts and practices, not wholly
original ; but, like them, when once adopted, it
was used to a large extent in an entirely new
and original sense. It symbolized, in short, the
profound and everlasting truth, first made per
fectly clear to the world by the teaching and
example of Jesus Christ, that all higher life is

xn.] Christian Symbolism 283
only to be attained by man through the suffering
and death of the lower life, a fact persistently
pressed home in the teaching of Our Lord
Himself.1 The symbol of the Lamb has also a history
reaching far back into the twilight of human
records. Without doubt, however, its Christian
use is directly connected with, and largely derived
from the sacrificial side of the Jewish Paschal
feast. Whether this institution was derived
ultimately from an ancient spring festival of the
sun is another matter, and, in any case, beyond
the scope of this inquiry. It is not improbable,
however, that, in the early Jewish Church, the
commemoration of a great national deliverance
from bondage was combined with an old solar
festival connected with the vernal equinox ; just
as in the Christian Church, as we have seen, the
birth of Jesus was officially fixed, in the fourth
century, as contemporary with the beginning of a
new solar year, immediately after the hibernal
solstice. This fact, however — if it be a fact —
does not prove, or even indicate, that either the
Jewish or the Christian festivals were nothing
but mere transformed survivals of an ancient
solar worship, as many now seek to prove.
We can easily understand the reasons which
1 Cp. especially Matt. x. 38, xvi. 24, xvii. 24, 25 ; Mark viii. 34 ;
Luke ix. 23, xiv. 27, etc.

284 Jesus The Christ [chap.
prompted the early Christian communities to
identify Jesus with the Paschal Lamb. Apart
from the fact that He was put to death by the
religious leaders of their nation, at the time of
their great national festival, the efficacy of an
atonement by means of blood was, through the
beliefs of ages, deeply ingrained into their minds,
and the teaching of Jesus Himself had confirmed
this view. The earliest apostolic preaching — if
we may trust Acts ii. 24 — was simply ' Jesus of
Nazareth . . . whom God hath raised from the
dead' ; but very soon the sacrificial aspect of His
death forced itself upon their attention, though,
perhaps, still in a sense subordinate to the great
fact of the Resurrection, and all that that fact
implied. But it is, above all, in the writings of
St. Paul that we find these two events set forth
on equal terms, and co-ordinated in importance.
' Christ died for our sins,' writes St. Paul to the
Corinthians ; 1 and, again, writing to the Romans,
he adds the necessary corollary, that ' Jesus . . .
was raised for our justification.'2 The inference
to be drawn from the Paschal analogue, strength
ened by the fact that a lamb was also the sin-
offering which a Nazarite must bring before
Jahveh,3 was irresistible, and the symbol of the
Lamb would naturally be seized upon for repre
senting Jesus more particularly in the sacrificial
aspect of His mission.
1 1 Cor. xv. 3. 2 Rom. iv. 25. 3 Num. vi. 14.

xn.] Christian Symbolism 285
But Professor Drews here launches forth into
a theory, which is based upon an hypothetical
and etymological connection between the two
words Agnus ('lamb') and Agni ('fire' — as a
god), with a view to showing the purely pagan
nature, and origin, of the symbol. He says:1
" The Latin expression for lamb {Agnus) also
expresses its relation to the ancient fire-god, and
its sanctity as a sacrificial animal. For its root is
connected with ignis (Sanskrit, Agni, the purifying
' fire,' and yagna, ' victim '), and also, according to
Festus Pompeius, with the Greek hagnos, ' pure,'
'consecrated,' and hagnistes, 'expiator.' In this
sense," he adds, " Agnus Dei, the Lamb of God,
as Christ is very frequently called, is, in fact,
nothing else than Agni Deus, since Agnus stands
in a certain measure as the Latin translation for
Agni!"1
But we have no confidence in Professor Drews'
derivations and etymologies here, upon which his
whole theory is based. He connects directly
Agnus with Agni; and the words at least re
semble one another superficially, and in sound.
But according to the eminent philologer and
Sanskritist, Professor Whitney, Agnus is a synco
pated form of ' avignus ' (avis, older form of ovis,
'sheep'), and this latter word means literally
the 'sheep-born' {i.e. ovi-{g)-natus), the word
1 The Christ Myth, 3rd ed. p. 144.
2 Citing Burnouf, La Science des Religions, p. 186 f. Italics ours.

286 Jesus The Christ [chap.
for ' sheep ' appearing in Sanskrit as avi, and in
Greek as oft? (ot?).1
On the other hand, Agni is derived from a
Sanskrit root ag (Latin, agilis, 'agile'), 'to move
quickly,' and signifies 'fire,' which was in ancient
times supposed to be the manifestation of an
active but invisible spirit dwelling in the wood.
" Men were struck most by his quick movements,
his sudden appearances and disappearances, and
so they called him the quick, or agile, in Sanskrit
Agnis, in Latin Ignis." 2
We may, therefore, safely infer from these and
other facts that there is no direct connection,
etymologically or otherwise, between Agnus and
Agni, and, if this be so, Professor Drews' equating
of Agnus Dei (' Lamb of God') with Agni Deus
('Agni [is] God') is quite untenable, and that he
has no real warrant for affirming that the yearly
celestial phenomenon of " the victory of the sun-
fire (Agni) over the night of winter, and the
resurrection of nature to a new life," found "its
reflection in the sacrifice on earth of a lamb."3
Indeed, it would seem to be more correct to say
that the fertile imagination of primitive man tried
1 The Sanskrit root is said to be av, Latin, servare, tueri. See
Curtius, 596.
2 Max Muller, Lectures on the Origin of Religion, p. 212. The
god Agni was regarded as the carrier to the gods of the volatile
essence of the sacrifice, and in that sense was viewed as a Mediator
between them and mankind.
3 The Christ Myth, 3rd ed. p. 145.

xn.] Christian Symbolism 287
to picture in the phenomena of the heavens a
reflection of his life and experiences upon earth,
though, no doubt, afterwards he came to look
upon the former as the abiding reality, while the
latter was but a mere copy of the original.
The designation of Christ, therefore, as ' the
Lamb of God ' first arose when the recognition
of the sacrificial nature of the death of Jesus
dawned upon the mind of the early Church, while
the reference to a ' lamb ' was due partly to the
fact that this animal was par excellence the
sacrificial victim of all pastoral races, and partly
because, owing to its mild and innocent nature,
it appeared to them to suffer uncomplainingly,
and in a sense unjustly. In short, in the early
Church, the Lamb came to be looked upon as the
type of Jesus, the meek Sufferer, and Jesus as the
antitype of the sacrificial lamb.
The Fish ('I^Av?) has also been employed since
a very early date of the Christian era as a symbol
of Christ. The word 'Ix0w has generally been
explained as an anagram formed out of the initial
letters of the five following words, 'I170-0V9 X/motos
eeov 'Tibs ~2cott)p ('Jesus Christ, Son of God,
Saviour ').
But it is very improbable that this was the actual
and sole origin of the symbolic use of the Fish by the
early Christians, since it undoubtedly dates back
to very much earlier times, as a pagan symbol.

288 Jesus The Christ [chap.
Thus, in Babylonia we find the primeval deity
Ei, the god of water and life, represented as a
fish-like being who was said to have issued in the
remote past from out of the waters of the Persian
Gulf to teach the early inhabitants of Babylonia
the arts of life and civilization.
In Egypt, too, Horus, the son of Osiris, was
styled 'the divine Fish,' and was represented as
having a., fish-tail, and holding in his hand the
ankh, the symbol of life and immortality. Fishes
were also, in Syria, considered to be sacred to
the goddess Atargate, who was a form of Astarte.
Two other examples, however, as to the sacred
character of the Fish, quoted by Professor Drews,
are of questionable value. Thus, it is not certain
that Dagon was a fish-god at all, or that he was
depicted in a fish-like form. Philo of Byblius
derives his name from dagan, ' corn,' and makes
him a farmer's god {Zei><; dpoTpio<;), while the
statement that his idol was fish-shaped, as regards
its lower extremities, does not rest upon any very
ancient authority.
It is also doubtful whether in ' Joshua, the son
of Nun,' we have any reference to a fish, as we
have already stated.1
How far any of these facts influenced the early
Christians in choosing the fish as symbol of
Christ, it is extremely difficult to say. It is,
however, by no means improbable that they did
1 See Chap. VII. p. 162 f.

xn.] Christian Symbolism 289
so, possibly to a considerable extent. If these
old myths were then widely known in tradition,
and folk-lore, as is most probable, then we can
easily imagine that the mental picture of Jesus
rising out of the baptismal waters of the Jordan,
to teach men the rules of the higher spiritual
life, would inevitably suggest some sort of
parallel with Ea, who was said to have issued
from the Persian Gulf to teach mankind the
higher earthly life. And the fact that several
of the Apostles themselves were fishermen would
also tend in the same direction, whilst the initial
letters of the name Jesus, and His common titles,
would very soon form themselves noticeably into
the anagram 'I%Qv<i,
In any case, the tesserce (members' tickets)
given to the baptized catechumens as tokens, or
marks, of the benefits and rights conferred in
baptism were very frequently made in the shape
of a fish.
But it may here be asked, what need was
there for such a complex system of symbolism
as we find amongst the earlier Christian com
munities? What use did it serve at that time,
and why did they adopt a symbolic system which
had been associated for a long period with so
many heathen cults ?
The reasons for its adoption were, no doubt,
principally two in number. In the first place, it
expressed, as in the case of the nature-cults, in a
19

290 Jesus The Christ [chap. xn.
simple and convenient, as well as pictorial form,
the main outlines of Christian doctrine.
The symbols themselves, indeed, formed
object-lessons, which were early comprehended
and remembered by the simple folk who had
accepted the new Gospel, and who, moreover,
had been habituated to a symbolic system of
expression for unnumbered generations.
And, secondly, they served as signs and pass
words whereby Christian strangers, might re
cognize one another, while, at the same time,
owing to their use by non-Christians also, they
were not likely to betray their holders to the
hostile pagan world in which they had to live.
The latter reason, it must be remembered, was
of the highest importance in the days, when to
be a Christian was practically to declare oneself,
ipso facto, an enemy to the Roman State.
Accordingly, we find that the adoption and
use of symbols developed amongst Christians
to a remarkable degree, throughout the whole of
the second and third centuries, the great eras of
struggle and actual persecution, though at the
same time it cannot be doubted that they were
also used, to a considerable extent at least, during
the latter part of the first century of the Christian
era.

CONCLUSION.
In summarizing the main results of the fore
going analysis it will be advisable to confine
ourselves chiefly to the three main points of our
thesis : (i) that the Christ of St. Paul is identical
with the Jesus of the Synoptists ; (ii) that the Jesus
of the Synoptists is an historical Person, and not
an ancient cult-god, either Jewish or pagan ; and
(iii) that the Jesus Christ of primitive Christianity
is no mere idea, which, either in the mind of
St. Paul, or in that of the early Christian
community, was subsequently ' precipitated ' and
historicized as an unreal and pseudo-historical
figure, the supposed Founder of the Christian
Church. (i) St. Paul — whom Professor Drews at least
allows to be an historical personality of primal
importance in the earliest Christian Church —
was no doubt, when living in Tarsus, perfectly
familiar with the idea underlying the various
heathen cults which were practised by the people
of Asia Minor. But that he did not include
Christianity among them seems perfectly plain
for many reasons. 291

292 Jesus The Christ
In the first place, St. Paul himself was born
' a Pharisee of the Pharisees,' trained under
Gamaliel, the most famous Rabbi of that period.
His whole education and sympathies, therefore,
were with official Judaism ; and from this attitude,
in a certain sense, he never departed. For he
states definitely that he accepted the teachings
of Christianity, and the Person of Christ, as a
fulfilment of the Law — not as a system fore
shadowed in, or connected in any way with, some
natural religion, or cult-worship.
This is a primary and important point, and
consequently demands the closest attention in
any consideration of the matter. Had the
analogy of some one of the nature-cults been the
means of bringing him over to the new faith, and
of diverting that faith in his mind, to some extent,
into a new channel, he would certainly have laid
much stress upon these cult-systems and their
great significance for the true understanding of
the mission of Christ. But, we repeat, he does
not do this. On the contrary, he continually
adverts to the Mosaic Law as the preparation
for the Gospel — the 'schoolmaster' which led
men to Christ ; and Christ, again, as the ' ful
filment' of that Law. Indeed, he never once
makes mention of these widespread cults of a
' dying and rising Saviour,' which clearly shows
that in his mind they had no connection whatever
with the Christ of the Gospels.

Conclusion 293
To this significant fact may be added another,
which points to the same conclusion, viz. that
St. Paul's whole conception of the expected
Christ does not in the least harmonize with the
portrait of the young and beautiful Adonis of
the Graeco-Syrian peoples, with whose form and
attributes he was doubtless quite familiar.
Again ; the great difficulty which St. Paul
encountered in his proclamation of the Gospel,
amongst both Jews and Gentiles, was not the
unwillingness of either people to admit that a god
might become a man, and, indeed, had done so.
To the Greeks especially this idea was very
familiar, at least in a somewhat crude form. And
even the Jews were to some extent prepared for
such teaching by their Messianic expectations,
and by the anthropomorphic Theophanies which
were so frequently recorded in the later portions
of their Pentateuch. On the contrary, the great
difficulty with both Jew and Gentile was a realiza
tion of the fact that a Man, who was practically an
obscure and despised Galilean Peasant, had really
proved Himself to be, in some entirely new and
peculiar sense, the Son of God. Indeed, as a
matter of undeniable fact, Christian and Ethnic
thought on this subject moved in quite opposite
directions from the very outset; in the Ethnic
cults the thought-movement was wholly from the
idea to its personification ; in Christianity it is
from the Person to His idealization, that is to say,

294 Jesus The Christ
from the idea of a human Jesus onwards to the
realization of this same human Jesus as One who
is fqund by experience to be the heavenly Christ.
He appears, in fact, to His disciples first of all
in the guise of a son of man, and then reveals
Himself gradually, and as they are able to
receive it, by His works and final resurrection
from the dead, as the Son of God. Consequently
this development is a complete inversion of the
whole course of thought-movement which runs
through each of the pagan cults where the object
of worship starts with the postulate of divinity,
while he ends by a self-evident proof of human
nature. Furthermore, not only does St. Paul, in all
his discussions and arguments with opponents,
take for granted the actual existence of an
historical Christ, the details of whose life are
still quite fresh in the minds of men, but he
also lays claim to have received (like the other
Apostles) his commission directly from this living
personal Christ.
The Twelve Apostles, it is clear, at first based
their claim to some kind of superiority, or at
least precedence, upon the fact that they had
been personal companions of Jesus, and had been
commissioned directly by Him. St. Paul, on the
other hand, while he allows that he had not
' known Christ ' in the flesh, as they had, asserts
that nevertheless Christ had ' appeared ' to him

Conclusion 295
in an objective form, and had commissioned him
also ; and that he was 'the least of the Apostles'
only because, in the times of his ignorance, he
had been guilty of 'persecuting the Church
of God.' In all other respects, however, he
maintains, he is on a footing of perfect equality
with them.
Again ; Professor Drews, as we have already
noted, strongly urges that when St. Paul men
tions the ' brethren of the Lord ' ( 1 Cor. ix. 5 ;
Gal. i. 19) he is referring only to members of a
cult-community, and not the blood-relatives of
any historic man.
But the context to these references does not
indicate any such interpretation ; for in that
same context he draws a firm, though incidental,
distinction between the two classes. He distin
guishes between ' the brethren of the Lord ' and
' the other Apostles,' as also Cephas and himself
and Barnabas. There are plainly two different
categories referred to here — blood-relatives, and
disciples unrelated by blood. In the Synoptic
narratives, too, we read of the ' brethren ' of
Jesus ; but the Twelve, or the Seventy, are never
so styled.
Finally, when Professor Drews dogmatically
and off-hand dismisses every clear reference in
the Pauline Letters to the historic Christ, as a
'later insertion,' we reach the very negation of
all sound textual and historical criticism, the first

296 Jesus The Christ
and foremost rule of which is, that there must
be some definite authority of an objective nature
for such rejection, an authority, indeed, which is
less subjective and more trustworthy than the
mere fact that the passages excised are in
convenient for, and inconsistent with, some
particular and preconceived scheme of inter
pretation. In short, to deny, or even ignore, St. Paul's
references to the historical nature and reality of
Christ is absolutely fatal to the whole system of
his spiritual teaching ; for, as we have seen,
while, on the one hand, he regards Him as the
antitype of the offered victim in the sacrificial
system of the Jewish legal code, on the other
he consistently re-echoes in spirit, and sometimes
even in word, the sublime and original teaching
of Jesus- — teaching which, by the almost universal
consent of mankind, Christian and non-Christian,
is unique in the history of the world, and which,
in fact, can only have been formulated in the
mind of One who was directly sent by God, and
commissioned to give to men in His own name
a rule of life infinitely superior to any which
had hitherto been conceived by, or communicated
to, mankind.
(ii) That the Jesus of the Synoptists is an
historical Person, and not the mere ideal repre
sentative of some ancient cult-god, is the only
really adequate explanation of the evidence which

Conclusion 297
is now available. We repeat once more that
the whole development of the Gospel idea in the
Synoptists clearly shows this. They begin with
Jesus, the Man of Galilee,1 the Teacher of
Righteousness ; they then pass on to the Divine
Healer of those who are sick in body or soul ;
and, finally, they end with a revelation of the
Jesus who has overcome death, and over whom
— unlike the various cult-gods who had to die
annually — ' death hath no more dominion.'
Equally significant, too, for the present question,
is the fact that in Mark, which we believe to be
the earliest and most primitive extant record of
the life of Jesus, He is represented, almost all
throughout the Gospel, as being misunderstood
by both His followers and His relatives. Even
His closest intimates amongst the Twelve failed
utterly to grasp the true explanation of His being
and mission.
The cult-gods, on the other hand, from the
very outset are regarded as, in their nature and
degree, superhuman and divine, and, therefore,
are not comparable, in this respect, with the
Jesus of the Gospels.
To the above considerations we may also add
another weighty fact. The typical and early
Hebraic-Christian view, which persisted for some
generations amongst the Ebionites of the first
1 The Birth narratives in two of the Synoptics were added
later.

298 Jesus The Christ
century, was that He was simply a human being,
and no god in any sense of the word. And the
mere existence of the Ebionite sect, and their
acceptance of Jesus as a Teacher of righteousness,
and, it may be, as a temporal Messiah of some
kind, is a strong testimony to His historicity and
personality. And this, again, agrees entirely
with the order of development of conceptions
regarding the Personality of Jesus ; the Ebionites,
representing the most primitive and conservative
section of the followers of Jesus, stuck resolutely
to their first impressions of Him, which were
formed during the earlier days of His actual
ministry. (iii) Professor Smith, and — following his lead
— Professor Drews, as we have noted, lay great
stress upon the phrase tc\ irepl tov 'Itjo-ov1 {'the
things of Jesus'), as undoubtedly indicating the
existence of some secret doctrines relative to
a pre-Christian cult-god named ' Jesus.' But,
turning to the context of this passage, we soon
see that this vague phrase (especially vague in
the bald translation of the AV.) really means
nothing whatever of the sort. It refers2 merely
to the fundamental difference which existed
between the baptismal teaching of John the
Baptist and that of St. Paul and the other
Apostles. John had baptized with ' the baptism
of repentance for the remission of sins ' ; the
1 Acts xviii. 24. 2 See Acts xix. 1-5.

Conclusion 299
Apostles added to this the gift of the Holy
Spirit, by whose aid alone such repentance could
become actually operative and effectual in the
future. And since that was the case, a belief
in, and a knowledge of, this operation of the
Holy Spirit was necessary for the Christian.
Hence, ' the baptism of John ' was so far de
fective, and needed supplementing by a more
perfect system. There seems to be, therefore,
in this phrase, no reference whatever to any
secret and pre-Christian cult-doctrines.
And, indeed, the whole hypothesis of the ' pre
cipitation ' of these alleged cult-doctrines regarding
an ideal Jesus, and their concrete embodiment in
a pseudo-historical and real Jesus, is both un
provable and improbable. We do not know
that such doctrines, or such an idea, ever existed
amongst the Jews at any period of their history,
and the whole historical process of its development,
as postulated by the mythicist, is opposed both to
the known order of the growth of Christian
doctrine in the mind of St. Paul, and also the
historic development of the Church. Had the
former, indeed, passed through any such phase
of thought as Professor Drews supposes, he would
undoubtedly have seized upon, and made great
use of, the figure of the Suffering Servant as
portraying the future Christ. But this he never
does ; he nowhere in his Letters identifies the
Christ of the Gospels with this ' Servant ' ; and this

300 Jesus The Christ
fact alone goes a long way towards proving that
St. Paul had never recognized such an identity, and
that it had not been recognized by any Jews of
that or any previous time. They had invariably
looked for a victorious and living Messiah, and
the only analogue which would be possible to the
mind of St. Paul, or any other Jew, was the lamb
which was slain at the Passover, a sacrifice which,
St. Paul came finally to realize, in many respects
typified the crucified Christ.
But the conclusions of Professor Drews, and
the various other members of this mythical school,
with regard to the non-historical character of Jesus,
are by no means shared by the majority of
workers in the field of early religious beliefs and
customs. In this department of theology and
anthropology there is no greater authority than
Dr. Frazer. We may, therefore, with some
advantage, refer to his conclusions with reference
to this important question : " The historical reality
both of Buddha and Christ," he says,1 "has
sometimes been doubted, or denied. It would be
just as reasonable to question the historic exist
ence of Alexander the Great and Charlemagne on
account of the legends which have gathered round
them. " The great religious movements which have
stirred humanity to its depths, and altered the
1 Attis, Adonis, Osiris, p. 202 note.

Conclusion 301
belief of nations, spring ultimately from the
conscious and deliberate efforts of extraordinary
minds, not from the blind unconscious co-operation
of the multitude. The attempt to explain history
without the influence of great men may flatter the
vanity of the vulgar, but it will find no favour
with the philosophical historian."
We believe that these words express a most
profound. and important truth, even though it is
the prevailing fashion at the present time to under
value and even to deny it. Every great religion of
the past has been undoubtedly the work of a per
sonal Founder and Originator, and without such a
person to initiate it, that religion would never have
been. And the success, or non-success, of any
religion has ever been in direct ratio to the
spiritual genius and the magnetic Personality of
its originator. This latter fact is also clearly
recognized by a modern writer, whom we may
perhaps also quote in connection with this subject.
"Even if one were to concede that all the
recorded sayings and doings of Jesus are fabrica
tions (a wildly absurd hypothesis) there remains
a common element in them, a unity of tone and
character which points to a well-known and clearly
marked personality behind them, whose actual
existence is further implied by the Christian
movement. In other words, whether true or false
in detail, the statements of the Gospels, if we
know how to use them aright, establish for us the

302 Jesus The Christ ,
historicity of Jesus, and leave no sort of doubt as
to his personality, and the impression he made
upon all those who came into contact with
him."1 The test of Personality is, indeed, the supreme
and final one, which we must apply to check all
our historical evidence and conclusions. The
stories which have come down to us of the various
mythic ' Saviours ' with whom Jesus has been
equated by the mythicist, have a vagueness and
an unreality about them, when compared with the
natural and life-like portrait which is drawn, with
many minor variations, in the Synoptic Gospels.
It is, for example, impossible to depict clearly in
one's mind the figure of an Adonis, or an Osiris,
or a Mithra, as an actual living man. They are
all unreal, shadowy figures, without content or
substance, and elude our efforts to comprehend
them. Everything that is recorded of them is
altogether wanting in concreteness and definite
ness. Jesus, on the other hand, is the most definite
and most concrete of all personalities in the
history of the past. We can at once grasp Him
with our minds ; He stands out upon the pages of
history so vividly and forcibly that we almost see
Him with our bodily eyes as He journeys about
1 The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire, T. R.
Glover, p. 115; cp. also Three Essays in Religion, J. S. Mill,
pp. 253, 254.

Conclusion 303
the hills and plains of Palestine. We realize Him
clearly as the wise Master, the tender Friend, the
sympathetic Helper. And we understand, too,
His human relationships — His mother, His kins
folk and His friends. The Galilean and Jewish
life of the time is also placed vividly before us, in
these biographies, in its most real and truest form.
We see the peasants at their occupations in the
fields and villages, the throngs of people in the
city streets, or Temple courts. The whole
picture, in short, is drawn from, and is true to,
the actual life of the time in its most real
and concrete form. On the other hand, all
this is wholly absent from the stories of the
cult-gods. We may, therefore, with all confidence and
well-grounded assurance, conclude, after making
a careful survey of the evidence which we have
passed in review, that Jesus is in the truest and
most actual sense, an historic personality of the
period in which He is said to have lived.
Amongst all the great historic personalities of the
past, and towering far above the greatest of these,
stands the solitary Figure of the Man from Galilee,
who was eventually recognized by His most
intimate friends and disciples not only as a ' Man
approved of God,' but also as a manifestation of
the Divine in human form. For, just as without
a Buddha there could have been no Buddhism —
without a Moses there could have been no

304 Jesus The Christ
Judaism — and without a Mohammed modern
Islam would never have been, so, too, without
a personal Jesus, Christianity would never have
arisen to guide and control the future destinies of
mankind.

APPENDIX.

At one of the many public discussions which have taken place
in Germany, held in Berlin on 31st January and ist February
1 910, when the Berlin division of the Deutscher Monistenbund
debated this subject,1 the chief speakers on either side being
Professor Drews and Professor von Soden, the former stated
his final position as classified under five headings : —
1. Before the times of the Jesus of the Gospels there
existed, among certain secret Jewish sects, a cult-
god named ' Jesus,' probably identical with an old
Israelite sun-god named ' Joshua.' With this deity
were fused Jewish apocalyptic ideas, and the pagan
notion of a dying ' Saviour.'
2. Paul knew nothing of an 'historical' Jesus. The
incarnated Son of God of his Epistles is merely
this Jewish-heathen redeeming deity objectified
and placed in history as an ideal centre of thought
and worship.
3. The Gospels do not contain the history of an actual
man, but only the myth of the God-Man Jesus,
clothed in an historical dress.
4. The important, and for religious purposes significant,
matters in the Gospels, i.e. the Baptism, the Lord's
Supper, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection of
Jesus, are all borrowed from the cult-symbolism of
the mythical Jesus.
1 Now published as Berliner Religionsgesprikh. : Hat fesus Gelebt '?
(Berlin and Leipzig, 1910).
20

306 Appendix
5. The ' historical ' Jesus of modern critical theology has
now become so vague and doubtful a figure in
both theology and history that he can no longer
be regarded as the absolutely indispensable condi
tion of salvation.
Professor Drews stated that his work, Die Christusmythe,
was written in the true interests of religion, for which ideas
alone— not personalities — have value, and by reason of his
conviction that the forms of Christianity, which have hitherto
prevailed, are no longer sufficient for modern needs. Not
the historical Jesus, he urges, but Christ as an Idea — as an
idea of the divine humanity — must henceforth be the ground
of religion. "When we can and will no longer believe on
accidental personalities, we can and must believe on Ideas1'
(Berliner Religionsgesprdch, p. 94 f. ; cp. Die Christusmythe,
p. xi).
He believes, in particular, that the 'JesusisirT of modern
theology is wholly and fundamentally 'irreligious,' and now
presents the greatest possible hindrance to all true religious
progress. To this it may be replied briefly that the Idea is sterile
until embodied in a Personality.

INDEX

Acta Diurna, 121, 122.
Acta Senatus, 121.
Adonis, 37 note, 58 note, 183, 191,
209, 211, 266,278.
Agdistis, 189, 190.
Agnus and Agni, 285.
Aldivios, 199.
Albinus, 105, 106.
Alpha and Omega, 266, 268.
Altercatio Simonis et Theophili, 41.
Ananus, 105.
Ankh, 271, 281, 288.
Apocalypse of Baruch, 45.
Apocalyptists, Jewish, 22.
Apocrypha, Messianic Concepts in,
44- _
Apuleius, 214.
Aquila and Priscilla, 76.
Armenian bishops and Mithra, 201.
Arnobius, 190 note.
Arrest of Jesus in Talmud, 144.
AJari, 1 84.
Ascension of Jesus, 148, 275.
Ass and the Foal, the, 206.
Astarte, 228.
Attis, 184.
Ba'alism, 158, 267.
Bacon, Prof. B. W., 22 note.
Banus the Essene, 95.
Baptism of Jesus, the, 225.
Barnett, Dr., on Krishna, 218 note.

Bauer, Dr. Bruno, 13, 14, 112
note.
Beardless One, feast of, 256.
Ben Pandera, 139 note, 151.
Ben Stada (Satda), 139 note.
Bethlehem, 174, 175, 218.
Birth of Jesus, the time of, 222.
,, ,, in Talmud, 139.
Birth Stories, Pagan, 217.
Blatchford, R., 68.
Book of the Dead, 185.
Bousset, Dr. W., 69.
Bracciolini, P., 118.
Brahm, breath of, 3 note.
Brother of Jesus, James, 109.
'Brothers' of Jesus, 42 note, no.
Budge, Dr., 197.
Burial of Jesus, in Toledoth Jeschu,
147, 148.
Burkitt, Prof. F. C, 54 note.
Burning of Rome, 113.
Cancer (Crab), Constellation of,
234, 236.
Carlyle, T., 16 note.
Carpenter, Dr. E., 68, 274 note.
Case, Prof., 181.
Cheyne, Dr. T. K., 301., 160, 162,
174, 177, 178, 192, 193, 216.
Chrestus (Chrestiani), 124.
Christology, Hegel on, 4, 5.
Clodd, E., 73 note.

307

3o8

Index

Comte, A., 16 note.
Condemnation of Jesus, in Talmud,
144, H5-
Cook, Dr. S. A., 208.
Cross, the, 279 f., 281.
Crucifixion, the, 261, 262, 263.
Dagon (dagan), 288.
Daoud (D6d, Dodo), 219.
De Quincey, 255 note.
Descent to Hades, 275.
Dionysus (Bacchus), 206, 234, 235,
241.
Disciples, five, in Talmud, 141.
,, works of, in Talmud, 142.
Dittography, 258.
Dove, as symbol of Holy Spirit, 228.
Drews, Prof. A., 22, 78, 96, 106-8,
n6, 117, 119, 121, 123, 128,
158, 164, 167, 172, T77, 181, 227,
232, 256, 260, 261, 285, 286.
Dusares, 192.
Ea, 288, 289.
Egyptian resurrection, 198, 199.
Eine Mithrasliturgie, 202.
Elkasaites, the, 226 note.
Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, 234,
239 f.
Epiphanius, 165, 192, 227.
Essenes, the, 88, 178, 179, 180, 181.
Euhemerism, 231.
Eusebius, 97.
Execution of Jesus, in Talmud,
I44> 145, 146.
Exile's Book of Consolation, 36.
Fish, the, as Christian symbol,
287.
' Foundation Pillars,' 51.
Fraser, Dr. J. G., 183, 300.
Fries, Dr., mythical theories of,
234 note.
GalIl (Galilee), 174.

Gardner, Prof. P., 90, 234, 241,
243 note.
Genealogy of Jesus, 135, 136.
Gethsemane, 265 note.
Glaubenslehre, 2, 5.
Glover, T. R., 301.
Gnostic and Docetic Christ, 130.
Gnostic hymn, 170.
Gnostic view of Jesus, 169.
Golgos {Golgoi), Golgotha, 266,
269.
Gospel according to the Hebrews,
226.
Gospel in India, 223.
Gospel myth, Strauss on, 6, 7.
Gressmann on Isa. liii., 37 note.
Growth of the Gospels, 55.
HARNACK,'Prof. A., n note, 48, 72.
Hatch, Dr. E., 246.
Hegel, 3, 4.
Hegelian system of philosophy, 2,
13, 16.
Helene, Queen, 143.
Herod, 103, 104.
Hochart, 117.
Holy Spirit as Mother of Jesus, 226.
Horus, 195, 197, 288.
Huitzilopochtli (Mexican), 272.
Humanity as divine, 16 note.
'la^aia-n, 173, 177.
Ideas, 4.
Identification of Jesus with Christ,
75, 76, 78, 79, 80, 81.
Individual views of ' Servant of
Jahveh,' 37 note.
'IxMs (Fish), as symbol of Christ,
287.
James, the Lord's brother, 92,
105.
Jannai, King, 151, 152, 262.
Jason (= Joshua, Jesus), 176 note,
177, 178.

Index

309

Jensen, Prof. P., 21, 78.
Jerome, 218.
Jessaer, 165 f.
Jesus the Carpenter, 175.
„ the Nazoraean, 76, 77, 172.
Jesus and Barabbas, 256.
Jesus v. Paul Controversy, 84 note.
John the Baptist, 102, 103.
Joseph, 212.
Josephus, views of Jesus, 100 note.
Joshua, an Ephraimite sun-god,
163, 177, 178, 220.
,, historical character of, 160,
161, 162.
„ meaning of name, 167, 288.
Jubilees, Book of, 45.
Judas Iscariot, 247, 250-51, 252,
253-
Justin Martyr, 40, 227, 244 note.
Kabbalah, the, 168.
Kalthoff, Pastor, 20, 89.
Keim, Dr. Th., 109, 131.
Kittel, Prof., 37 note.
Lamb and Fishes, the, 206.
Lamb as a Christian symbol, 283.
Lament iojc Adonis, text of a, 186
note.
Leben Jesu (Strauss), 1, 5, 7, 10.
Lightfoot, Bishop, 118.
Logia, 64, 84, 91.
Lord's Supper, the, 242.
Macrobius, 183.
Magic of Jesus, the, 140.
Maia, 209.
Manen, Dr. van, 53, 78 note.
Marduk, 186 note, 195.
Mariam (Miriam), 208, 210, 212
note.
Marys, the three, 207.
Maya, 209.
Messiah, triumphant or suffering,
44, 47 note.

Messiahs, dying and rising, 41.
Messianic kingdom, 44, 45.
Messianism, 163.
Messias ben David, 166.
,, ben Joseph, 166, 212 note,
213.
Michelet, 2 note.
Minucius Felix, 244.
Miracles of Jesus, in Toledoth, 143.
Mithra (Mithras), 187, 188, 189,
201, 202, 203.
Mithraic Supper, 242.
Mommsen, Prof., 116.
Montefiori, C. G., 66.
Mourning rituals, 263.
Muller, Prof. F. Max, 286.
Myrrha, 208.
Mysteries (Mithraic), 188, 244, 245.
Mystery plays, 247 f. , 270.
Myth, definition of (Strauss), 5.
Naasene hymn, 170.
Naasenes (Ophites), 167, 225.
. Nafapaios, 173-
,, meaning of, 174.
Nazarenes (Nazoraes), 172.
Nazareth as a place, 1 74.
Nero, Emperor, 113, 116, 1 17, 123.
Nucleus of Gospels, 55.
Ophites (Naasenes), 167, 225.
Origen, 97, 108, 109 note.
Osiris, 159, 184, 185, 195, 196,
206.
Panthera (Pandera), 139.
Parisian Magic Papyrus, 173, 177.
Paschal Lamb, 247, 284.
Passover and Eucharist, the, 242.
Paul, St., 23, 198, 277.
Personality of Jesus, 12, 17, 99.
Petrie, Prof. W. Flinders, 55, 59,
60, 61.
Phallic emblem, the cross as a,
263, 267, 271.

3io

Index

Philo of Alexandria, 45, 99 note.
Plutarch, 214.
Pre-Christian Jesus, a, 151, 152.
Prophets, Messianic Concepts of
Hebrew, 43.
irpoaicvvtw, 220 note.
Psalms of Solomon, 45.
Purim, Feast of, 256.
'Q,' 59 note.
Quest of the Historical Jesus, 13,
14. 49-
Redeemer - gods as vegetation-
spirits, 183.
Reimarus, 17.
Renan, E., 98 note, 100 note.
Reproduction, cult of the powers
of, 159 note.
Rescript of Hadrian, 130.
Resurrection of Jesus, 58, 192.
„ of mankind, 195, 198,
277.
„ of redeemer-god, 211,
263, 264.
Revelation, definition of (Strauss), 8.
Ritual lamentations, 210.
,, murder, 246, 266, 267.
Robertson, J. M., 20, 65, 68, 89,
160, 201, 203, 205, 207, 208, 210,
212, 213, 217, 218, 220, 221, 223,
230, 232, 241, 243, 247, 260, 261,
262, 270, 273, 274 note, 275, 279.
Ruach (spirit), 235.
Sacred Tree, the, 263, 272.
Sakaees, the Feast of, 256.
Samaritans, the, 228.
Saviours, dying and rising, 22.
Sayce, Prof. A., 219.
Schmiedel, Prof. P., 49, 51, 53,
216.
Schweitzer, Dr. A., 13, 15, 49.
Seamless Tunic, the, 260.
Sellin, Dr., 37.

Sermon on the Mount, 64, 65, 91.
Servant of Jahveh, 36, 37, 39, 40.
Shechinah, the, 228.
Shem ha-Mephoresh, 143.
Shepherds and the Birth Story, 220
and note, 224.
Sibylline Oracles, the, 45.
Simon of Cyrene, 274 note.
Smith, Prof. W. B., 160, 171, 173,
252, 253.
Soden, Prof. A. von, 92 note, 117
note, 119, 165.
Spirit, Divine and human, 8, 9.
Stephens, J. L., 272, 273.
Strauss, Dr. D. F., 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7,
8, 9, 10, 15, 18.
Sun-god, Jesus as a, 22.
Symbols, use of, 289 f.
Talmud, the, 132, 133.
Talmudic Jesus, a pre-Christian,
151 f., 261.
Tammuz, cult of, 218, 219, 220.
Temptation, the, 231.
Tertullian, 119, 120.
Tesserae, 289.
Therapeutae, 88, 178, 179, 180.
Thirtle, Dr., 37.
Tisdall, Dr. W. St. Clair, 202,
203.
Toledoth Jeschu, 132, 133, 139.
Totemism in O.T., 162.
Tregelles, Dr., 258.
Trypho the Jew, 40.
Twelve Apostles, the, 233.
Twelve Patriarchs, Testaments of
the, 45.
Virgin goddesses, 193.
1 Way, The,' 56, 91, 92.
'We,' or 'Travel,' document, the
71. 77-
Weber, 223 note.
Weir, Dr., 37 note.

Index

3"

Weiss, Dr. J., 73 note, 92.
Whitney, Prof. W. D., 285 f.
Winckler, Prof. H., 37 note.
Wisdom, The Book of, 39, 40.
' Words ' from the Cross, the, 33.

Worship of Christians, the, ioi
note.
Zachariah, the prophecy of, 238.
^Zodiacal signs, 235.

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Intorcathntart d&nttral Cnmmiitiarg
air % jiolg ffmppros of % (f Ifr aitfr
jUto ®legfamm:te.
UNDER THE EDITORSHIP OF
The Rev. SAMUEL ROLLES DRIVER, D.D.,
Regius Professor of Hebrew, Oxford;
The Rev. ALFRED PLUMMER, M.A., D.D.,
Late Master of University College, Durham;

The Rev. CHARLES AUGUSTUS BRIGGS, D.D.,
Graduate Professor qf Theological Encyclopedia and Symbolics^
Union. Theological Seminary ', New York.
The time has come, in the judgment of the projectors of this enterprise, when
it is practicable to combine British and American scholars in the production
of a critical, comprehensive Commentary that will be abreast of modern biblical
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international and inter-confessional, and will be free from polemical and
ecclesiastical bias. They will be based upon u, thorough critical study of the
original texts of the Bible, and upon critical methods of interpretation.

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OXFORD.
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ISAIAH
INTRODUCTION, AND COMMENTARY
ON CHAPTERS i to 27.
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COLLEGE, OXFORD.
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MICAH, ZEPHANIAH,
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HAGGAI, ZECHARIAH,
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Fourth Edition. In post 8vo (pp. 678), price 12s.,
ST. LUKE'S GOSPEL
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LATE MASTER OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, DURHAM.
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EPHESIANS and COLOSSIANS
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In post 8vo (pp. ), price
THESSALONIANS By JAMES E. FRAME, M.A.,
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Second Edition. In post 8vo (pp. 369), price 10s. 6d.,
ST. PETER and ST. JUDE
By CHARLES BIGG, D.D.,
CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH, AND REGIUS PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL
HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
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In post 8vo (pp. 342), price ios. 6d.,
THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES
By Rev. A. E. BROOKE, B.D.,
FELLOW, DEAN AND DIVINITY LECTURER KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

THE INTERNATIONAL CRITICAL COMMENTARY.

Foe Detailed List of the
TWENTY-FIVE VOLUMES NOW READY
See previous pages of this Prospectus.

The following otlier Volumes are in course of preparation : —

Exodus. Leviticus.
Joshua. Kings.

Ezra and Nehemiah.
Rath, Song of Songs
and Lamentations
Isaiah, ohs. 28-66.
Jeremiah. Ezekiel. Daniel. Synopsis of the
Four Gospels.
John. Acts.
2nd Corinthians.
Galatians.
The Pastoral Epistles.
Hebrews.James. Revelation.

THE OLD TESTAMENT.
A. B. S. Kennedy, D.D. , Professor of Hebrew, University of Edinburgh.
J. F. Stenning, M.A., Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford ; and the late
H. A. "White, M.A., Fellow of New College, Oxford.
George Adam Smith, D.D., LL.D., Principal of Aberdeen University.
Francis Brown, D.D., Litt.D., LL.D., Professor of Hebrew and Cognate
Languages, Union Theological Seminary, New York.
L. W. Batten, D.D., late Professor of Hebrew, P. E. Divinity School,
Philadelphia.
0. A. Briggs, D.D., Professor of Theological Encyclopaedia and Symbolics,
Union Theological Seminary, New York.
G. Buchanan Gray, D.D., Mansfield College, Oxford ; and A. S. Peake,
D.D., University of Manchester.
A. F. Kirkpatrick, D.D., Dean of Ely.
G. A. Cooke, D.D., Fellow of Oriel CoUege, and C. F. Burnet, D.Litt.,
Fellow and Lecturer in Hebrew, St. John's College, Oxford.
John P. Peters, D.D., late Professor of Hebrew, P. E. Divinity
School, Philadelphia, now Rector of St. Michael's Church, New York.

THE NEW TESTAMENT.
W. Sanday, D.D., LL.D., Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, and
Canon of Christ Church, Oxford ; and W. C Allen, M.A., Principal
of Egerton Hall.
John Henry Bernard, D.D., Dean of St. Patrick and Lecturer in Divinity,
University of Dublin.
C. H. Turner, M.A., Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford; and H. N.
Bate, M.A., late Fellow and Dean of Divinity in Magdalen College,
Oxford, now Vicar of St. Stephen's, Hampstead, and Examining
Chaplain to the Bishop of London.
The Right Rev. Arch. Robertson, D.D., Lord Bishop of Exeter; and
Alfred Pdummer, M.A., D.D., formerly Master of University
College, Durham.
Ernest D. Burton, D.D., Professor of New Testament Literature,
University of Chicago.
, Walter Lock, D.D., Dean Ireland's Professor of Exegesis, Oxford.
James Moffatt, D.D., Professor in Mansfield College, Oxford.
James H. Ropes, D.D., Bussey Professor of New Testament Criticism in
Harvard University.
Robert H. Charles, D.D., D.Litt., Fellow of Merton College, Oxford,
Grinfield Lecturer on the Septuagint and Speaker's Lecturer in
Biblical Studies.
Other engagements will be announced shortly.

T. & T. CLARK,

38 GEORGE STEEET, EDINBURGH.
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