{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_45068/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_45068","id":"gutenberg_45068","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45068","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Religious","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Jesus Christ -- Historicity","Rationalism"],"text":"THE TRUTH ABOUT JESUS IS HE A MYTH?\n\nIllustrated\n\nBy M. M. Mangasarian\n\n1909\n\n\n[Illustration: 005 Woman Crucified. In the Church of St. Etienne,\nFrance. For a Long Time This Bearded Woman Was Supposed to be the\nChrist]\n\n_If it is not historically true that such and such things happened in\nPalestine eighteen centuries ago, what becomes of Christianity?_\n--THOMAS HUXLEY.\n\n\n_By education most have been misled, So they believe because they were\nso bred; The priest continues what the nurse began, And thus the child\nimposes on the man_.--DRYDEN.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\nThe following work offers in book form the series of studies on the\nquestion of the historicity of Jesus, presented from time to time\nbefore the Independent Religious Society in Orchestra Hall. No effort\nhas been made to change the manner of the spoken, into the more\nregular form of the written, word.\n\n\nM. M. MANGASARIAN.\n\n\n[Illustration: 010 Picture in Herculaneum, of the Days of Pompeii,\nShowing Cupid Crowned with a Cross.]\n\n\n\n\nPART I.\n\n\n\n\nA PARABLE\n\nI am today twenty-five hundred years old. I have been dead for nearly\nas many years. My place of birth was Athens; my grave was not far from\nthose of Xenophon and Plato, within view of the white glory of Athens\nand the shimmering waters of the Aegean sea.\n\nAfter sleeping in my grave for many centuries I awoke suddenly--I\ncannot tell how nor why--and was transported by a force beyond my\ncontrol to this new day and this new city. I arrived here at daybreak,\nwhen the sky was still dull and drowsy. As I approached the city I\nheard bells ringing, and a little later I found the streets astir\nwith throngs of well dressed people in family groups wending their way\nhither and thither. Evidently they were not going to work, for they\nwere accompanied by their children in their best clothes, and a\npleasant expression was upon their faces.\n\n\"This must be a day of festival and worship, devoted to one of their\ngods,\" I murmured to myself.\n\nLooking about me I saw a gentleman in a neat black dress, smiling, and\nhis hand extended to me with great cordiality. He must have realized I\nwas a stranger and wished to tender his hospitality to me. I accepted\nit gratefully. I clasped his hand. He pressed mine. We gazed for a\nmoment silently into each other's eyes. He understood my bewilderment\namid my novel surroundings, and offered to enlighten me. He explained\nto me the ringing of the bells and the meaning of the holiday crowds\nmoving in the streets. It was Sunday--Sunday before Christmas, and the\npeople were going to \"the House of God.\"\n\n\"Of course you are going there, too,\" I said to my friendly guide.\n\n\"Yes,\" he answered, \"I conduct the worship. I am a priest.\"\n\n\"A priest of Apollo?\" I interrogated.\n\n\"No, no,\" he replied, raising his hand to command silence, \"Apollo is\nnot a god; he was only an idol.\"\n\n\"An idol?\" I whispered, taken by surprise.\n\n\"I perceive you are a Greek,\" he said to me, \"and the Greeks,\" he\ncontinued, \"notwithstanding their distinguished accomplishments, were\nan idolatrous people. They worshipped gods that did not exist. They\nbuilt temples to divinities which were merely empty names--empty\nnames,\" he repeated. \"Apollo and Athene--and the entire Olympian lot\nwere no more than inventions of the fancy.\"\n\n\"But the Greeks loved their gods,\" I protested, my heart clamoring in\nmy breast.\n\n\"They were not gods, they were idols, and the difference between a god\nand an idol is this: an idol is a thing; God is a living being. When\nyou cannot prove the existence of your god, when you have never seen\nhim, nor heard his voice, nor touched him--when you have nothing\nprovable about him, he is an idol. Have you seen Apollo? Have you\nheard him? Have you touched him?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said, in a low voice.\n\n\"Do you know of any one who has?\"\n\nI had to admit that I did not.\n\n\"He was an idol, then, and not a god.\"\n\n\"But many of us Greeks,\" I said, \"have felt Apollo in our hearts and\nhave been inspired by him.\"\n\n\"You imagine you have,\" returned my guide. \"If he were really divine\nhe would be living to this day.\"\n\n\"Is he, then, dead?\" I asked.\n\n\"He never lived; and for the last two thousand years or more his\ntemple has been a heap of ruins.\"\n\nI wept to hear that Apollo, the god of light and music, was no\nmore--that his fair temple had fallen into ruins and the fire upon his\naltar had been extinguished; then, wiping a tear from my eyes, I said,\n\"Oh, but our gods were fair and beautiful; our religion was rich and\npicturesque. It made the Greeks a nation of poets, orators, artists,\nwarriors, thinkers. It made Athens a city of light; it created the\nbeautiful, the true, the good--yes, our religion was divine.\"\n\n\"It had only one fault,\" interrupted my guide.\n\n\"What was that?\" I inquired, without knowing what his answer would be.\n\n\"It was not true.\"\n\n\"But I still believe in Apollo,\" I exclaimed; \"he is not dead, I know\nhe is alive.\"\n\n\"Prove it,\" he said to me; then, pausing for a moment, \"if you produce\nhim,\" he said, \"we shall all fall down and worship him. Produce Apollo\nand he shall be our god.\"\n\n\"Produce him!\" I whispered to myself. \"What blasphemy!\" Then, taking\nheart, I told my guide how more than once I had felt Apollo's radiant\npresence in my heart, and told him of the immortal lines of Homer\nconcerning the divine Apollo. \"Do you doubt Homer?\" I said to him;\n\"Homer, the inspired bard? Homer, whose inkwell was as big as the sea;\nwhose imperishable page was Time? Homer, whose every word was a drop\nof light?\" Then I proceeded to quote from Homer's _Iliad_, the Greek\nBible, worshipped by all the Hellenes as the rarest Manuscript between\nheaven and earth. I quoted his description of Apollo, than whose lyre\nnothing is more musical, than whose speech even honey is not sweeter.\nI recited how his mother went from town to town to select a worthy\nplace to give birth to the young god, son of Zeus, the Supreme Being,\nand how he was born and cradled amid the ministrations of all the\ngoddesses, who bathed him in the running stream and fed him with\nnectar and ambrosia from Olympus. Then I recited the lines which\npicture Apollo bursting his bands, leaping forth from his cradle, and\nspreading his wings like a swan, soaring sunward, declaring that he\nhad come to announce to mortals the will of God. \"Is it possible,\" I\nasked, \"that all this is pure fabrication, a fantasy of the brain, as\nunsubstantial as the air? No, no, Apollo is not an idol. He is a god,\nand the son of a god. The whole Greek world will bear me witness\nthat I am telling the truth.\" Then I looked at my guide to see what\nimpression this outburst of sincere enthusiasm had produced upon him,\nand I saw a cold smile upon his lips that cut me to the heart. It\nseemed as if he wished to say to me, \"You poor deluded pagan! You are\nnot intelligent enough to know that Homer was only a mortal after all,\nand that he was writing a play in which he manufactured the gods of\nwhom he sang--that these gods existed only in his imagination, and\nthat today they are as dead as is their inventor--the poet.\"\n\nBy this time we stood at the entrance of a large edifice which my\nguide said was \"the House of God.\" As we walked in I saw innumerable\nlittle lights blinking and winking all over the spacious interior.\nThere were, besides, pictures, altars and images all around me. The\nair was heavy with incense; a number of men in gorgeous vestments were\npassing to and fro, bowing and kneeling before the various lights\nand images. The audience was upon its knees enveloped in silence--a\nsilence so solemn that it awed me. Observing my anxiety to understand\nthe meaning of all this, my guide took me aside and in a whisper told\nme that the people were celebrating the anniversary of the birthday of\ntheir beautiful Savior--Jesus, the Son of God.\n\n\"So was Apollo the son of God,\" I replied, thinking perhaps that after\nall we might find ourselves in agreement with one another.\n\n\"Forget Apollo,\" he said, with a suggestion of severity in his voice.\n\"There is no such person. He was only an idol. If you were to search\nfor Apollo in all the universe you would never find any one answering\nto his name or description. Jesus,\" he resumed, \"is the Son of God. He\ncame to our earth and was born of a virgin.\"\n\nAgain I was tempted to tell my guide that that was how Apollo became\nincarnate; but I restrained myself.\n\n\"Then Jesus grew up to be a man,\" continued my guide, \"performing\nunheard-of wonders, such as treading the seas, giving sight, hearing\nand speech to the blind, the deaf and the dumb, converting water into\nwine, feeding the multitudes miraculously, predicting coming events\nand resurrecting the dead.\"\n\n\"Of course, of your gods, too,\" he added, \"it is claimed that they\nperformed miracles, and of your oracles that they foretold the future,\nbut there is this difference--the things related of your gods are\na fiction, the things told of Jesus are a fact, and the difference\nbetween Paganism and Christianity is the difference between fiction\nand fact.\"\n\nJust then I heard a wave of murmur, like the rustling of leaves in\na forest, sweep over the bowed audience. I turned about and\nunconsciously, my Greek curiosity impelling me, I pushed forward\ntoward where the greater candle lights were blazing. I felt that\nperhaps the commotion in the house was the announcement that the God\nJesus was about to make his appearance, and I wanted to see him. I\nwanted to touch him, or, if the crowd were too large to allow me that\nprivilege, I wanted, at least, to hear his voice. I, who had never\nseen a god, never touched one, never heard one speak, I who had\nbelieved in Apollo without ever having known anything provable about\nhim, I wanted to see the real God, Jesus.\n\nBut my guide placed his hand quickly upon my shoulder, and held me\nback.\n\n\"I want to see Jesus,\" I hastened, turning toward him. I said this\nreverently and in good faith. \"Will he not be here this morning? Will\nhe not speak to his worshippers?\" I asked again. \"Will he not permit\nthem to touch him, to caress his hand, to clasp his divine feet, to\ninhale the ambrosial fragrance of his breath, to bask in the golden\nlight of his eyes, to hear the music of his immaculate accents? Let\nme, too, see Jesus,\" I pleaded.\n\n\"You cannot see him,\" answered my guide, with a trace of embarrassment\nin his voice. \"He does not show himself any more.\"\n\nI was too much surprised at this to make any immediate reply.\n\n\"For the last two thousand years,\" my guide continued, \"it has not\npleased Jesus to show himself to any one; neither has he been heard\nfrom for the same number of years.\"\n\n\"For two thousand years no one has either seen or heard Jesus?\"\nI asked, my eyes filled with wonder and my voice quivering with\nexcitement.\n\n\"No,\" he answered.\n\n\"Would not that, then,\" I ventured to ask, impatiently, \"make Jesus\nas much of an idol as Apollo? And are not these people on their knees\nbefore a god of whose existence they are as much in the dark as were\nthe Greeks of fair Apollo, and of whose past they have only rumors\nsuch as Homer reports of our Olympian gods--as idolatrous as the\nAthenians? What would you say,\" I asked my guide, \"if I were to demand\nthat you should produce Jesus and prove him to my eyes and ears as\nyou have asked me to produce and prove Apollo? What is the difference\nbetween a ceremony performed in honor of Apollo and one performed\nin honor of Jesus, since it is as impossible to give oracular\ndemonstration of the existence of the one as of the other? If Jesus is\nalive and a god, and Apollo is an idol and dead, what is the evidence,\nsince the one is as invisible, as inaccessible, and as unproducible\nas the other? And, if faith that Jesus is a god proves him a god, why\nwill not faith in Apollo make him a god? But if worshipping Jesus,\nwhom for the best part of the last two thousand years no man has seen,\nheard or touched; if building temples to him, burning incense upon his\naltars, bowing at his shrine and calling him 'God,' is not idolatry,\nneither is it idolatry to kindle fire upon the luminous altars of the\nGreek Apollo,--God of the dawn, master of the enchanted lyre--he with\nthe bow and arrow tipped with fire! I am not denying,\" I said, \"that\nJesus ever lived. He may have been alive two thousand years ago, but\nif he has not been heard from since, if the same thing that happened\nto the people living at the time he lived has happened to him,\nnamely--if he is dead, then you are worshipping the dead, which fact\nstamps your religion as idolatrous.\"\n\nAnd, then, remembering what he had said to me about the Greek\nmythology being beautiful but not true, I said to him: \"Your temples\nare indeed gorgeous and costly; your music is grand; your altars\nare superb; your litany is exquisite; your chants are melting; your\nincense, and bells and flowers, your gold and silver vessels are\nall in rare taste, and I dare say your dogmas are subtle and your\npreachers eloquent, but your religion has one fault--_it is not\ntrue_.\"\n\n[Illustration: 022 Swastika. Earlier Form of the Cross. ]\n\n[Illustration: 023 The Lamb in the Holy Sepulchre, Mosaic of the IV\nCentury, Sarcophagus of Luc de Bearn. Showing the Lamb on the Cross.]\n\n\n\n\nIN CONFIDENCE\n\nI shall speak in a straightforward way, and shall say today what\nperhaps I should say tomorrow, or ten years from now,--but shall say\nit today, because I cannot keep it back, because I have nothing better\nto say than the truth, or what I hold to be the truth. But why seek\ntruths that are not pleasant? We cannot help it. No man can suppress\nthe truth. Truth finds a crack or crevice to crop out of; it bobs up\nto the surface and all the volume and weight of waters can not keep it\ndown. Truth prevails! Life, death, truth--behold, these three no\npower can keep back. And since we are doomed to know the truth, let us\ncultivate a love for it. It is of no avail to cry over lost illusions,\nto long for vanished dreams, or to call to the departing gods to come\nback. It may be pleasant to play with toys and dolls all our life, but\nevidently we are not meant to remain children always. The time comes\nwhen we must put away childish things and obey the summons of truth,\nstern and high. A people who fear the truth can never be a free\npeople. If what I will say is the truth, do you know of any good\nreason why I should not say it? And if for prudential reasons I should\nsometimes hold back the truth, how would you know _when_ I am telling\nwhat I believe to be the truth, and when I am holding it back for\nreasons of policy?\n\nThe truth, however unwelcome, is not injurious; it is error which\nraises false hopes, which destroys, degrades and pollutes, and which,\nsooner or later, must be abandoned. Was it not Spencer, whom Darwin\ncalled \"our great philosopher,\" who said, \"Repulsive as is its aspect,\nthe hard fact which dissipates a cherished illusion is presently found\nto contain the germ of a more salutary belief?\" Spain is decaying\ntoday because her teachers, for policy's sake, are withholding the\ndisagreeable truth from the people. Holy water and sainted bones can\ngive a nation illusions and dreams, but never,--strength.\n\nA difficult subject is in the nature of a challenge to the mind.\nOne difficult task attempted is worth a thousand commonplace efforts\ncompleted. The majority of people avoid the difficult and fear danger.\nBut he who would progress must even court danger. Political and\nreligious liberty were discovered through peril and struggle. The\nworld owes its emancipation to human daring. Had Columbus feared\ndanger, America might have slept for another thousand years.\n\nI have a difficult subject in hand. It is also a delicate one. But\nI am determined not only to know, if it is possible, the whole truth\nabout Jesus, but also to communicate that truth to others. Some people\ncan keep their minds shut. I cannot; I must share my intellectual\nlife with the world. If I lived a thousand years ago, I might have\ncollapsed at the sight of the burning stake, but I feel sure I would\nhave deserved the stake.\n\nPeople say to me, sometimes, \"Why do you not confine yourself to\nmoral and religious exhortation, such as, 'Be kind, do good, love one\nanother, etc.'?\" But there is more of a moral tonic in the open\nand candid discussion of a subject like the one in hand, than in a\nmultitude of platitudes. We feel our moral fiber stiffen into force\nand purpose under the inspiration of a peril dared for the advancement\nof truth.\n\n\"Tell us what you believe,\" is one of the requests frequently\naddressed to me. I never deliver a lecture in which I do not, either\ndirectly or indirectly, give full and free expression to my faith in\neverything that is worthy of faith. If I do not believe in dogma, it\nis because I believe in freedom. If I do not believe in one inspired\nbook, it is because I believe that all truth and only truth is\ninspired. If I do not ask the gods to help us, it is because I believe\nin human help, so much more real than supernatural help. If I do not\nbelieve in standing still, it is because I believe in progress. If I\nam not attracted by the vision of a distant heaven, it is because\nI believe in human happiness, now and here. If I do not say \"Lord,\nLord!\" to Jesus, it is because I bow my head to a greater Power than\nJesus, to a more efficient Savior than he has ever been--Science!\n\n\"Oh, he tears down, but does not build up,\" is another criticism about\nmy work. It is not true. No preacher or priest is more constructive.\nTo build up their churches and maintain their creeds the priests\npulled down and destroyed the magnificent civilization of Greece and\nRome, plunging Europe into the dark and sterile ages which lasted\nover a thousand years. When Galileo waved his hands for joy because\nhe believed he had enriched humanity with a new truth and extended the\nsphere of knowledge, what did the church do to him? It conspired to\ndestroy him. It shut him up in a dungeon! Clapping truth into jail;\ngagging the mouth of the student--is that building up or tearing down?\nWhen Bruno lighted a new torch to increase the light of the world,\nwhat was his reward? The stake! During all the ages that the church\nhad the power to police the world, every time a thinker raised his\nhead he was clubbed to death. Do you think it is kind of us--does it\nsquare with our sense of justice to call the priest constructive,\nand the scientists and philosophers who have helped people to their\nfeet--helped them to self-government in politics, and to self-help in\nlife,--destructive? Count your rights--political, religious, social,\nintellectual--and tell me which of them was conquered for you by the\npriest.\n\n\"He is irreverent,\" is still another hasty criticism I have heard\nadvanced against the rationalist. I wish to tell you something. But\nfirst let us be impersonal. The epithets \"irreverent,\" \"blasphemer,\"\n\"atheist,\" and \"infidel,\" are flung at a man, not from pity, but from\nenvy. Not having the courage or the industry of our neighbor who works\nlike a busy bee in the world of men and books, searching with the\nsweat of his brow for the real bread of life, wetting the open page\nbefore him with his tears, pushing into the \"wee\" hours of the\nnight his quest, animated by the fairest of all loves, \"the love of\ntruth\",--we ease our own indolent conscience by calling him names. We\npretend that it is not because we are too lazy or too selfish to work\nas hard or think as freely as he does, but because we do not want to\nbe as irreverent as he is that we keep the windows of our minds shut.\nTo excuse our own mediocrity we call the man who tries to get out\nof the rut a \"blasphemer.\" And so we ask the world to praise our\nindifference as a great virtue, and to denounce the conscientious toil\nand thought of another, as \"blasphemy.\"\n\n[Illustration: 029 The Lamb Standing Upon the Gospels. VIII Century.]\n\n\n\n\nIS JESUS A MYTH?\n\nWhat is a myth? A myth is a fanciful explanation of a given\nphenomenon. Observing the sun, the moon, and the stars overhead, the\nprimitive man wished to account for them. This was natural. The mind\ncraves for knowledge. The child asks questions because of an inborn\ndesire to know. Man feels ill at ease with a sense of a mental vacuum,\nuntil his questions are answered. Before the days of science, a\nfanciful answer was all that could be given to man's questions about\nthe physical world. The primitive man guessed where knowledge failed\nhim--what else could he do? A myth, then, is a guess, a story, a\nspeculation, or a fanciful explanation of a phenomenon, in the absence\nof accurate information.\n\nMany are the myths about the heavenly bodies, which, while we call\nthem myths, because we know better, were to the ancients truths. The\nSun and Moon were once brother and sister, thought the child-man; but\nthere arose a dispute between them; the woman ran away, and the man\nran after her, until they came to the end of the earth where land and\nsky met. The woman jumped into the sky, and the man after her, where\nthey kept chasing each other forever, as Sun and Moon. Now and\nthen they came close enough to snap at each other. That was their\nexplanation of an eclipse. (Childhood of the World.--Edward Clodd.)\nWith this mythus, the primitive man was satisfied, until his\ndeveloping intelligence realized its inadequacy. Science was born of\nthat realization.\n\nDuring the middle ages it was believed by Europeans that in certain\nparts of the world, in India, for instance, there were people who\nhad only one eye in the middle of their foreheads, and were more like\nmonsters than humans. This was imaginary knowledge, which travel and\nresearch have corrected. The myth of a one-eyed people living in India\nhas been replaced by accurate information concerning the\nHindoos. Likewise, before the science of ancient languages was\nperfected--before archaeology had dug up buried cities and deciphered\nthe hieroglyphics on the monuments of antiquity, most of our knowledge\nconcerning the earlier ages was mythical, that is to say, it was\nknowledge not based on investigation, but made to order. Just as\nthe theologians still speculate about the other world, primitive\nman speculated about this world. Even we moderns, not very long ago,\nbelieved, for instance, that the land of Egypt was visited by ten\nfantastic plagues; that in one bloody night every first born in the\nland was slain; that the angel of a tribal-god dipped his hand in\nblood and printed a red mark upon the doors of the houses of the Jews\nto protect them from harm; that Pharaoh and his armies were drowned\nin the Red Sea; that the children of Israel wandered for forty years\naround Mount Sinai; and so forth, and so forth. But now that we can\nread the inscriptions on the stone pages dug out of ancient ruins; now\nthat we can compel a buried world to reveal its secret and to tell us\nits story, we do not have to go on making myths about the ancients.\nMyths die when history is born.\n\nIt will be seen from these examples that there is no harm in\nmyth-making if the myth is called a myth. It is when we use our\nfanciful knowledge to deny or to shut out real and scientific\nknowledge that the myth becomes a stumbling block. And this is\nprecisely the use to which myths have been put. The king with his\nsword and the priest with his curses, have supported the myth against\nscience. When a man _pretends_ to believe that the _Santa Claus_ of\nhis childhood is real, and tries to compel also others to play a part,\nhe becomes positively immoral. There is no harm in believing in _Santa\nClaus_ as a myth, but there is in pretending that he is real, because\nsuch an attitude of mind makes a mere trifle of truth.\n\nIs Jesus a myth? There is in man a faculty for fiction. Before history\nwas born, there was myth; before men could think, they dreamed. It\nwas with the human race in its infancy as it is with the child. The\nchild's imagination is more active than its reason. It is easier for\nit to fancy even than to see. It thinks less than it guesses. This\nwild flight of fancy is checked only by experience. It is reflection\nwhich introduces a bit into the mouth of imagination, curbing its pace\nand subduing its restless spirit. It is, then, as we grow older, and,\nif I may use the word, riper, that we learn to distinguish between\nfact and fiction, between history and myth.\n\nIn childhood we need playthings, and the more fantastic and _bizarre_\nthey are, the better we are pleased with them. We dream, for instance,\nof castles in the air--gorgeous and clothed with the azure hue of\nthe skies. We fill the space about and over us with spirits, fairies,\ngods, and other invisible and airy beings. We covet the rainbow. We\nreach out for the moon. Our feet do not really begin to touch the firm\nground until we have reached the years of discretion.\n\nI know there are those who wish they could always remain\nchildren,--living in dreamland. But even if this were desirable, it\nis not possible. Evolution is our destiny; of what use is it, then, to\ntake up arms against destiny?\n\nLet it be borne in mind that all the religions of the world were born\nin the childhood of the race.\n\nScience was not born until man had matured. There is in this thought a\nworld of meaning.\n\nChildren make religions.\n\nGrown up people create science.\n\nThe cradle is the womb of all the fairies and faiths of mankind.\n\nThe school is the birthplace of science.\n\nReligion is the science of the child.\n\nScience is the religion of the matured man.\n\nIn the discussion of this subject, I appeal to the mature, not to\nthe child mind. I appeal to those who have cultivated a taste for\ntruth--who are not easily scared, but who can \"screw their courage\nto the sticking point\" and follow to the end truth's leading. The\nmultitude is ever joined to its idols; let them alone. I speak to the\ndiscerning few.\n\nThere is an important difference between a lecturer and an ordained\npreacher. The latter can command a hearing in the name of God, or in\nthe name of the Bible. He does not have to satisfy his hearers about\nthe reasonableness of what he preaches. He is God's mouthpiece, and\nno one may disagree with him. He can also invoke the authority of\nthe church and of the Christian world to enforce acceptance of his\nteaching. The only way I may command your respect is to be reasonable.\nYou will not listen to me for God's sake, nor for the Bible's\nsake, nor yet for the love of heaven, or the fear of hell. My only\nprotection is to be rational--to be truthful. In other words, the\npreacher can afford to ignore common sense in the name of Revelation.\nBut if I depart from it in the least, or am caught once playing fast\nand loose with the facts, I will irretrievably lose my standing.\n\n[Illustration: 035 In Use Upon Heathen Altars Centuries Before\nChristianity.]\n\n\nOur answer to the question, Is Jesus a Myth? must depend more or\nless upon original research, as there is very little written on the\nsubject. The majority of writers assume that a person answering to the\ndescription of Jesus lived some two thousand years ago. Even the few\nwho entertain doubts on the subject, seem to hold that while there is\na large mythical element in the Jesus story, nevertheless there is a\nhistorical nucleus round which has clustered the elaborate legend of\nthe Christ. In all probability, they argue, there was a man called\nJesus, who said many helpful things, and led an exemplary life, and\nall the miracles and wonders represent the accretions of fond and\npious ages.\n\nLet us place ourselves entirely in the hands of the evidence. As far\nas possible, let us be passive, showing no predisposition one way or\nanother. We can afford to be independent. If the evidence proves the\nhistoricity of Jesus, well and good; if the evidence is not sufficient\nto prove it, there is no reason why we should fear to say so; besides,\nit is our duty to inform ourselves on this question. As intelligent\nbeings we desire to know whether this Jesus, whose worship is not only\ncosting the world millions of the people's money, but which is also\ndrawing to his service the time, the energies, the affection, the\ndevotion, and the labor of humanity,--is a myth, or a reality. We\nbelieve that all religious persecutions, all sectarian wars, hatreds\nand intolerance, which still cramp and embitter our humanity, would\nbe replaced by love and brotherhood, if the sects could be made to\nsee that the God-Jesus they are quarreling over is a myth, a shadow\nto which credulity alone gives substance. Like people who have been\nfighting in the dark, fearing some danger, the sects, once relieved\nof the thraldom of a tradition which has been handed down to them by a\nchildish age and country, will turn around and embrace one another. In\nevery sense, the subject is an all-absorbing one. It goes to the root\nof things; it touches the vital parts, and it means life or death to\nthe Christian religion.\n\n[Illustration: 037 Ascension of Jesus, Ninth Century.]\n\n[Illustration: 038 Juno Nursing Her Divine Child, Mars.]\n\n\n\n\nTHE PROBLEM STATED\n\nLet me now give an idea of the method I propose to follow in the study\nof this subject. Let us suppose that a student living in the year 3000\ndesired to make sure that such a man as Abraham Lincoln really lived\nand did the things attributed to him. How would he go about it?\n\nA man must have a birthplace and a birthday. All the records agree as\nto where and when Lincoln was born. This is not enough to prove his\nhistoricity, but it is an important link in the chain.\n\nNeither the place nor the time of Jesus' birth is known. There\nhas never been any unanimity about this matter. There has been\nconsiderable confusion and contradiction about it. It cannot be proved\nthat the twenty-fifth of December is his birthday. A number of other\ndates were observed by the Christian church at various times as the\nbirthday of Jesus. The Gospels give no date, and appear to be quite\nuncertain--really ignorant about it. When it is remembered that the\nGospels purport to have been written by Jesus' intimate companions,\nand during the lifetime of his brothers and mother, their silence on\nthis matter becomes significant. The selection of the twenty-fifth of\nDecember as his birthday is not only an arbitrary one, but that date,\nhaving been from time immemorial dedicated to the Sun, the inference\nis that the Son of God and the Sun of heaven enjoying the same\nbirthday, were at one time identical beings. The fact that Jesus'\ndeath was accompanied with the darkening of the Sun, and that the date\nof his resurrection is also associated with the position of the Sun at\nthe time of the vernal equinox, is a further intimation that we\nhave in the story of the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus,\nan ancient and nearly universal Sun-myth, instead of verifiable\nhistorical events. The story of Jesus for three days in the heart of\nthe earth; of Jonah, three days in the belly of a fish; of Hercules,\nthree days in the belly of a whale, and of Little Red Riding Hood,\nsleeping in the belly of a great black wolf, represent the attempt of\nprimitive man to explain the phenomenon of Day and Night. The Sun is\nswallowed by a dragon, a wolf, or a whale, which plunges the world\ninto darkness; but the dragon is killed, and the Sun rises triumphant\nto make another Day. This ancient Sun myth is the starting point\nof nearly all miraculous religions, from the days of Egypt to the\ntwentieth century.\n\n[Illustration: 041 The Persian God, Mithra. All the Gods Have the\nSolar Disc Around Their Heads, Showing That Sun-Worship Was One of the\nEarliest Forms of Religion.]\n\nThe story which Mathew relates about a remarkable star, which sailing\nin the air pointed out to some unnamed magicians the cradle or cave in\nwhich the wonder-child was born, helps further to identify Jesus with\nthe Sun. What became of this \"performing\" star, or of the magicians,\nand their costly gifts, the records do not say. It is more likely that\nit was the astrological predilections of the gospel writer which led\nhim to assign to his God-child a star in the heavens. The belief\nthat the stars determine human destinies is a very ancient one.\nSuch expressions in our language as \"ill-starred,\" \"a lucky star,\"\n\"disaster,\" \"lunacy,\" and so on, indicate the hold which astrology\nonce enjoyed upon the human mind. We still call a melancholy\nman, _Saturnine_; a cheerful man, _Jovial_; a quick-tempered man,\n_Mercurial_; showing how closely our ancestors associated the\nmovements of celestial bodies with human affairs. * The prominence,\ntherefore, of the sun and stars in the Gospel story tends to show that\nJesus is an astrological rather than a historical character.\n\n     *Childhood of the World.--Edward Clodd.\n\nThat the time of his birth, his death, and supposed resurrection is\n_not_ verifiable is generally admitted.\n\nThis uncertainty robs the story of Jesus, to an extent at least, of\nthe atmosphere of reality.\n\nThe twenty-fifth of December is celebrated as his birthday. Yet there\nis no evidence that he was born on that day. Although the Gospels are\nsilent as to the date on which Jesus was born, there is circumstantial\nevidence in the accounts given of the event to show that the\ntwenty-fifth of December could not have been his birthday. It snows in\nPalestine, though a warmer country, and we know that in December\nthere are no shepherds tending their flocks in the night time in\nthat country. Often at this time of the year the fields and hills\nare covered with snow. Hence, if the shepherds sleeping in the\nfields really saw the heavens open and heard the angel-song, in all\nprobability it was in some other month of the year, and not late in\nDecember. We know, also, that early in the history of Christianity\nthe months of May and June enjoyed the honor of containing the day of\nJesus' birth.\n\n[Illustration: 043 Isis Nursing Her Divine Child, 3000 B. C.]\n\nOf course, it is immaterial on which day Jesus was born, but why is\nit not known? Yet not only is the date of his birth a matter of\nconjecture, but also the year in which he was born. Matthew, one of\nthe Evangelists, suggests that Jesus was born in King Herod's time,\nfor it was this king who, hearing from the Magi that a King of the\nJews was born, decided to destroy him; but Luke, another Evangelist,\nintimates that Jesus was born when Quirinus was ruler of Judea, which\nmakes the date of Jesus' birth about fourteen years later than the\ndate given by Matthew. Why this discrepancy in a historical document,\nto say nothing about inspiration? The theologian might say that this\nlittle difficulty was introduced purposely into the scriptures to\nestablish its infallibility, but it is only religious books that\nare pronounced infallible on the strength of the contradictions they\ncontain.\n\nAgain, Matthew says that to escape the evil designs of Herod, Mary\nand Joseph, with the infant Jesus, fled into Egypt, Luke says nothing\nabout this hurried flight, nor of Herod's intention to kill the infant\nMessiah. On the contrary he tells us that after the forty days of\npurification were over Jesus was publicly presented at the temple,\nwhere Herod, if he really, as Matthew relates, wished to seize him,\ncould have done so without difficulty. It is impossible to reconcile\nthe flight to Egypt with the presentation in the temple, and this\ninconsistency is certainly insurmountable and makes it look as if the\nnarrative had no value whatever as history.\n\nWhen we come to the more important chapters about Jesus, we meet with\ngreater difficulties. Have you ever noticed that the day on which\nJesus is supposed to have died falls invariably on a Friday? What is\nthe reason for this? It is evident that nobody knows, and nobody ever\nknew the date on which the Crucifixion took place, if it ever took\nplace. It is so obscure and so mythical that an artificial day has\nbeen fixed by the Ecclesiastical councils. While it is always on a\nFriday that the Crucifixion is commemorated, the week in which the day\noccurs varies from year to year. \"Good Friday\" falls not before the\nspring equinox, but as soon after the spring equinox as the full moon\nallows, thus making the calculation to depend upon the position of the\nsun in the Zodiac and the phases of the moon. But that was precisely\nthe way the day for the festival of the pagan goddess Oestera was\ndetermined. The Pagan Oestera has become the Christian Easter. Does\nnot this fact, as well as those already touched upon, make the story\nof Jesus to read very much like the stories of the Pagan deities.\n\nThe early Christians, Origin, for instance, in his reply to the\nrationalist Celsus who questioned the reality of Jesus, instead of\nproducing evidence of a historical nature, appealed to the mythology\nof the pagans to prove that the story of Jesus was no more incredible\nthan those of the Greek and Roman gods. This is so important that\nwe refer our readers to Origin's own words on the subject. \"Before\nreplying to Celsus, it is necessary to admit that in the matter of\nhistory, however true it might be,\" writes this Christian Father, \"it\nis often very difficult and sometimes quite impossible to establish\nits truth by evidence which shall be considered sufficient.\" * This is\na plain admission that as early as the second and third centuries\nthe claims put forth about Jesus did not admit of positive historical\ndemonstration. But in the absence of evidence Origin offers the\nfollowing metaphysical arguments against the sceptical Celsus:\n1. Such stories as are told of Jesus are admitted to be true when told\nof pagan divinities, why can they not also be true when told of\nthe Christian Messiah? 2. They must be true because they are the\nfulfillment of Old Testament prophecies. In other words, the only\nproofs Origin can bring forth against the rationalistic criticism of\nCelsus is, that to deny Jesus would be equivalent to denying both the\nPagan and Jewish mythologies. If Jesus is not real, says Origin, then\nApollo was not real, and the Old Testament prophecies have not been\nfulfilled. If we are to have any mythology at all, he seems to argue,\nwhy object to adding to it the mythus of Jesus? There could not be\na more damaging admission than this from one of the most conspicuous\ndefenders of Jesus' story against early criticism.\n\n   * Origin _Contre Celse._ 1. 58 et Suiv. Ibid.\n\nJustin Martyr, another early Father, offers the following argument\nagainst unbelievers in the Christian legend: \"When we say also that\nthe Word, which is the first birth of God, was produced without sexual\nunion, and that he, Jesus Christ, our teacher, was crucified,\ndied, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing\ndifferent from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons\nof Jupiter.\" * Which is another way of saying that the Christian\nmythus is very similar to the pagan, and should therefore be equally\ntrue. Pressing his argument further, this interesting Father discovers\nmany resemblances between what he himself is preaching and what the\npagans have always believed: \"For you know how many sons your esteemed\nwriters ascribe to Jupiter. Mercury, the interpreting word (he spells\nthis word with a small _w_ while in the above quotation he uses a\ncapital _W_ to denote the Christian incarnation) and teacher of\nall; Aesculapius...who ascended to heaven; one Hercules...and\nPerseus;...and Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals, rose\nto heaven on the horses of Pegasus.\" ** If Jupiter can have, Justin\nMartyr seems to reason, half a dozen divine sons, why cannot Jehovah\nhave at least one?\n\n     * First Apology, Chapter xxi (Anti-Nicene Library).\n\n     ** Ibid.\n\n[Illustration: 048 The Unsexed Christ, Naked In the Church of St.\nAntoine, Tours, France.]\n\nInstead of producing historical evidence or appealing to creditable\ndocuments, as one would to prove the existence of a Caesar or an\nAlexander, Justin Martyr draws upon pagan mythology in his reply to\nthe critics of Christianity. All he seems to ask for is that Jesus be\ngiven a higher place among the divinities of the ancient world.\n\nTo help their cause the Christian apologists not infrequently also\nchanged the sense of certain Old Testament passages to make them\nsupport the miraculous stories in the New Testament. For example,\nhaving borrowed from Oriental books the story of the god in a manger,\nsurrounded by staring animals, the Christian fathers introduced a\nprediction of this event into the following text from the book of\nHabakkuk in the Bible: \"Accomplish thy work in the midst of the\n_years_, in the midst of the years make known, etc.\" * This Old\nTestament text appeared in the Greek translation as follows: \"Thou\nshalt manifest thyself in the midst of _two animals_\" which was\nfulfilled of course when Jesus was born in a stable. How weak must be\none's case to resort to such tactics in order to command a following!\nAnd when it is remembered that these follies were deemed necessary\nto prove the reality of what has been claimed as the most stupendous\nevent in all history, one can readily see upon how fragile a\nfoundation is built the story of the Christian God-man.\n\n     * Heb. iii. 2.\n\nLet us continue: Abraham Lincoln's associates and contemporaries are\nall known to history. The immediate companions of Jesus appear to be,\non the other hand, as mythical as he is himself. Who was Matthew? Who\nwas Mark? Who were John, Peter, Judas, and Mary? There is absolutely\nno evidence that they ever existed. They are not mentioned except in\nthe New Testament books, which, as we shall see, are \"supposed\"\ncopies of \"supposed\" originals. If Peter ever went to Rome with a new\ndoctrine, how is it that no historian has taken note of him? If Paul\nvisited Athens and preached from Mars Hill, how is it that there is\nno mention of him or of his strange Gospel in the Athenian chronicles?\nFor all we know, both Peter and Paul may have really existed, but it\nis only a guess, as we have no means of ascertaining. The uncertainty\nabout the apostles of Jesus is quite in keeping with the uncertainty\nabout Jesus himself.\n\nThe report that Jesus had twelve apostles seems also mythical. The\nnumber twelve, like the number seven, or three, or forty, plays an\nimportant role in all Sun-myths, and points to the twelve signs of\nthe Zodiac. Jacob had twelve sons; there were twelve tribes of Israel;\ntwelve months in the year; twelve gates or pillars of heaven, etc. In\nmany of the religions of the world, the number twelve is sacred.\nThere have been few god-saviors who did not have twelve apostles or\nmessengers. In one or two places, in the New Testament, Jesus is made\nto send out \"the seventy\" to evangelize the world. Here again we\nsee the presence of a myth. It was believed that there were seventy\ndifferent nations in the world--to each nation an apostle. Seventy\nwise men are supposed to have translated the Old Testament, sitting in\nseventy different cells. That is why their translation is called\n\"_the Septuagint_\" But it is all a legend, as there is no evidence\nof seventy scholars working in seventy individual cells on the Hebrew\nBible. One of the Church Fathers declares that he saw these seventy\ncells with his own eyes. He was the only one who saw them.\n\nThat the \"Twelve Apostles\" are fanciful may be inferred from the\nobscurity in which the greater number of them have remained. Peter,\nPaul, John, James, Judas, occupy the stage almost exclusively. If\nPaul was an apostle, we have fourteen, instead of twelve. Leaving out\nJudas, and counting Matthias, who was elected in his place, we have\nthirteen apostles.\n\nThe number forty figures also in many primitive myths. The Jews were\nin the wilderness for forty years; Jesus fasted for forty days; from\nthe resurrection to the ascension were forty days; Moses was on the\nmountain with God for forty days. An account in which such scrupulous\nattention is shown to supposed sacred numbers is apt to be more\nartificial than real. The biographers of Lincoln or of Socrates do not\nseem to be interested in numbers. They write history, not stories.\n\nAgain, many of the contemporaries of Lincoln bear written witness\nto his existence. The historians of the time, the statesmen, the\npublicists, the chroniclers--all seem to be acquainted with him, or to\nhave heard of him. It is impossible to explain why the contemporaries\nof Jesus, the authors and historians of his time, do not take notice\nof him. If Abraham Lincoln was important enough to have attracted the\nattention of his contemporaries, how much more Jesus. Is it reasonable\nto suppose that these Pagan and Jewish writers knew of Jesus,--had\nheard of his incomparably great works and sayings,--but omitted\nto give him a page or a line? Could they have been in a conspiracy\nagainst him? How else is this unanimous silence to be accounted for?\nIs it not more likely that the wonder-working Jesus was unknown to\nthem? And he was unknown to them because no such Jesus existed in\ntheir day.\n\nShould the student, looking into Abraham Lincoln's history, discover\nthat no one of his biographers knew positively just when he lived or\nwhere he was born, he would have reason to conclude that because\nof this uncertainty on the part of the biographers, he must be more\nexacting than he otherwise would have been. That is precisely\nour position. Of course, there are in history great men of whose\nbirthplaces or birthdays we are equally uncertain. But we believe in\ntheir existence, not because no one seems to know exactly when and\nwhere they were born, but because there is overwhelming evidence\ncorroborating the other reports about them, and which is sufficient\nto remove the suspicion suggested by the darkness hanging over their\nnativity. Is there any evidence strong enough to prove the historicity\nof Jesus, in spite of the fact that not even his supposed companions,\nwriting during the lifetime of Jesus' mother, have any definite\ninformation to give.\n\nBut let us continue. The reports current about a man like Lincoln are\nverifiable, while many of those about Jesus are of a nature that no\namount of evidence can confirm. That Lincoln was President of these\nUnited States, that he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and that\nhe was assassinated, can be readily authenticated.\n\nBut how can any amount of evidence satisfy one's self that Jesus was\nborn of a virgin, for instance? Such a report or rumor can never even\nbe examined; it does not lend itself to evidence; it is beyond the\nsphere of history; it is not a legitimate question for investigation.\nIt belongs to mythology. Indeed, to put forth a report of that\nnature is to forbid the use of evidence, and to command forcible\nacquiescence, which, to say the least, is a very suspicious\ncircumstance, calculated to hurt rather than to help the Jesus story.\n\nThe report that Jesus was God is equally impossible of verification.\nHow are we to prove whether or not a certain person was God? Jesus may\nhave been a wonderful man, but is every wonderful man a God? Jesus may\nhave claimed to have been a God, but is every one who puts forth\nsuch a claim a God? How, then, are we to decide which of the numerous\ncandidates for divine honors should be given our votes? And can we by\nvoting for Jesus make him a God? Observe to what confusion the mere\nattempt to follow such a report leads us.\n\nA human Jesus may or may not have existed, but we are as sure as we\ncan be of anything, that a virgin-born God, named Jesus, such as we\nmust believe in or be eternally lost, is an impossibility--except\nto credulity. But credulity is no evidence at all, even when it\nis dignified by the name of _faith_. Let us pause for a moment to\nreflect: The final argument for the existence of the miraculous Jesus,\npreached in church and Sunday-school, these two thousand years, as\nthe sole savior of the world, is an appeal to faith--the same to which\nMohammed resorts to establish his claims, and Brigham Young to\nprove his revelation. There is no other possible way by which the\nvirgin-birth or the _godhood_ of a man can be established. And such a\nfaith is never free, it is always maintained by the sword now, and by\nhell-fire hereafter.\n\nOnce more, if it had been reported of Abraham Lincoln that he\npredicted his own assassination; that he promised some of his friends\nthey would not die until they saw him coming again upon the clouds of\nheaven; that he would give them thrones to sit upon; that they could\nsafely drink deadly poisons in his name, or that he would grant them\nany request which they might make, provided they asked it for his\nsake, we would be justified in concluding that such a Lincoln never\nexisted. Yet the most impossible utterances are put in Jesus' mouth.\nHe is made to say: \"Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name that will I\ndo.\" No man who makes such a promise can keep it. It is not sayings\nlike the above that can prove a man a God. Has Jesus kept his promise?\nDoes he give his people everything, or \"whatsoever\" they ask of him?\nBut, it is answered, \"Jesus only meant to say that he would give\nwhatever he himself considered good for his friends to have.\" Indeed!\nIs that the way to crawl out of a contract? If that is what he meant,\nwhy did he say something else? Could he not have _said_ just what he\n_meant_, in the first place? Would it not have been fairer not to\nhave given his friends any occasion for false expectations? Better\nto promise a little and do more, than to promise everything and do\nnothing. But to say that Jesus really entered into any such agreement\nis to throw doubt upon his existence. Such a character is too wild\nto be real. Only a mythical Jesus could virtually hand over the\ngovernment of the universe to courtiers who have petitions to press\nupon his attention. Moreover, if Jesus could keep his promise, there\nwould be today no misery in the world, no orphans, no childless\nmothers, no shipwrecks, no floods, no famines, no disease, no crippled\nchildren, no insanity, no wars, no crime, no wrong! Have not a\nthousand, thousand prayers been offered in Jesus' name against every\nevil which has ploughed the face of our earth? Have these prayers been\nanswered? Then why is there discontent in the world? Can the followers\nof Jesus move mountains, drink deadly poisons, touch serpents, or work\ngreater miracles than are ascribed to Jesus, as it was promised that\nthey would do? How many self-deluded prophets these extravagant claims\nhave produced! And who can number the bitter disappointments caused by\nsuch impossible promises?\n\nGeorge Jacob Holyoake, of England, tells how in the days of utter\npoverty, his believing mother asked the Lord, again and again--on her\nknees, with tears streaming from her eyes, and with absolute faith\nin Jesus' ability to keep His promise,--to give her starving children\ntheir daily bread. But the more fervently she prayed the heavier grew\nthe burden of her life. A stone or wooden idol could not have been\nmore indifferent to a mother's tears. \"My mind aches as I think of\nthose days,\" writes Mr. Holyoake. One day he went to see the Rev.\nMr. Cribbace, who had invited inquirers to his house. \"Do you really\nbelieve,\" asked young Holyoake to the clergyman, \"that what we ask in\nfaith we shall receive?\"\n\n\"It never struck me,\" continues Mr. Holyoake, \"that the preacher's\nthreadbare dress, his half-famished look, and necessity of taking up\na collection the previous night to pay expenses showed that faith was\nnot a source of income to him. It never struck me that if help could\nbe obtained by prayer no church would be needy, no believer would\nbe poor.\" What answer did the preacher give to Holyoake's earnest\nquestion? The same which the preachers of today give: \"He parried his\nanswer with many words, and at length said that the promise was to be\ntaken with the provision that what we asked for would be given, _if\nGod thought it for our good.\"_ Why then, did not Jesus explain that\nimportant _proviso_ when he made the promise? Was Jesus only making\na half statement, the other half of which he would reveal later to\nprotect himself against disappointed petitioners. But he said: \"If\nye ask anything in my name, I will do it,\" and \"If it were not so, I\nwould have told you.\" Did he not mean just what he said? The truth is\nthat no historical person in his senses ever made such extraordinary,\nsuch impossible promises, and the report that Jesus made them only\ngoes to confirm that their author is only a legendary being.\n\nWhen this truth dawned upon Mr. Holyoake he ceased to petition Heaven,\nwhich was like \"dropping a bucket into an empty well,\" and began to\nlook _elsewhere_ for help. * The world owes its advancement to the\nfact that men no longer look to Heaven for help, but help themselves.\nSelf-effort, and not prayer, is the remedy against ignorance, slavery,\npoverty, and moral degradation. Fortunately, by holding up before us\nan impossible Jesus, with his impossible promises, the churches have\nsucceeded only in postponing, but not in preventing, the progress of\nman. This is a compliment to human nature, and it is well earned. It\nis also a promise that in time humanity will be completely emancipated\nfrom every phantom which in the past has scared it into silence or\nsubmission, and\n\n         \"A loftier race than e'er the world\n     Hath known shall rise\n     With flame of liberty in their souls,\n     And light of science in their eyes.\"\n\n     * Bygones Worth Remembering.--George Jacob Holyoake\n\n[Illustration: 061 Portion of Manuscript Supposed to Be Copy of Lost\nOriginals.]\n\n\n\nTHE CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS\n\nThe documents containing the story of Jesus are so unlike those about\nLincoln or any other historical character, that we must be doubly\nvigilant in our investigation.\n\nThe Christians rely mainly on the four Gospels for the historicity\nof Jesus. But the original documents of which the books in the New\nTestament are claimed to be faithful copies are not in existence.\n_There is absolutely no evidence that they ever were in existence_.\nThis is a statement which can not be controverted. Is it conceivable\nthat the early believers lost through carelessness or purposely\n_every_ document written by an apostle, while guarding with all\nprotecting jealousy and zeal the writings of anonymous persons? Is\nthere any valid reason why the contributions to Christian literature\nof an inspired apostle should perish while those of a nameless scribe\nare preserved, why the original Gospel of Matthew should drop quietly\nout of sight, no one knows how, while a supposed copy of it in an\nalien language is preserved for many centuries? Jesus himself, it\nis admitted, did not write a single line. He had come, according to\npopular belief, to reveal the will of God--a most important mission\nindeed, and yet he not only did not put this revelation in writing\nduring his lifetime, and with his own hand, which it is natural to\nsuppose that a divine teacher, expressly come from heaven, would have\ndone, but he left this all-important duty to anonymous chroniclers,\nwho, naturally, made enough mistakes to split up Christendom into\ninnumerable factions. It is worth a moment's pause to think of\nthe persecutions, the cruel wars, and the centuries of hatred and\nbitterness which would have been spared our unfortunate humanity,\nif Jesus himself had written down his message in the clearest and\nplainest manner, instead of leaving it to his supposed disciples\nto publish it to the world, when he could no longer correct their\nmistakes.\n\nMoreover, not only did Jesus not write himself, but he has not even\ntaken any pains to preserve the writings of his \"apostles,\" It is well\nknown that the original manuscripts, if there were any, are nowhere\nto be found. This is a grave matter. We have only supposed copies of\nsupposed original manuscripts. Who copied them? When were they copied?\nHow can we be sure that these copies are reliable? And why are there\nthousands upon thousands of various readings in these, numerous\nsupposed copies? What means have we of deciding which version or\nreading to accept? Is it possible that as the result of Jesus' advent\ninto our world, we have only a basketful of nameless and dateless\ncopies and documents? Is it conceivable, I ask, that a God would send\nhis Son to us, and then leave us to wander through a pile of dusty\nmanuscripts to find out why He sent His Son, and what He taught when\non earth?\n\nThe only answer the Christian church can give to this question is\nthat the original writings were purposely allowed to perish. When\na precious document containing the testament of Almighty God, and\ninscribed for an eternal purpose by the Holy Ghost, disappears\naltogether there is absolutely no other way of accounting for its\ndisappearance than by saying, as we have suggested, that its divine\nauthor must have intentionally withdrawn it from circulation. \"God\nmoves in a mysterious way\" is the last resort of the believer. This\nis the one argument which is left to theology to fight science with.\nUnfortunately it is an argument which would prove every cult and \"ism\"\nunder the heavens true. The Mohammedan, the Mazdaian, and the Pagan\nmay also fall back upon faith. There is nothing which faith can not\ncover up from the light. But if a faith which ignores evidence be not\na superstition, what then is superstition? I wonder if the Catholic\nChurch, which pretends to believe--and which derives quite an income\nfrom the belief--that God has miraculously preserved the wood of the\ncross, the Holy Sepulchre, in Jerusalem, the coat of Jesus, and quite\na number of other mementos, can explain why the original manuscripts\nwere lost. I have a suspicion that there were no \"original\"\nmanuscripts. I am not sure of this, of course, but if nails, bones and\nholy places could be miraculously preserved, why not also manuscripts?\nIt is reasonable to suppose that the Deity would not have permitted\nthe most important documents containing His Revelation to drop into\nsome hole and disappear, or to be gnawed into dust by the insects,\nafter having had them written by special inspiration.\n\nAgain, when these documents, such as we find them, are examined, it\nwill be observed that, even in the most elementary intelligence which\nthey pretend to furnish, they are hopelessly at variance with one\nanother. It is, for example, utterly impossible to reconcile Matthew's\ngenealogy of Jesus with the one given by Luke. In copying the names of\nthe supposed ancestors of Jesus, they tamper with the list as given\nin the book of Chronicles, in the Old Testament, and thereby justly\nexpose themselves to the charge of bad faith. One evangelist says\nJesus was descended from Solomon, born of \"her that had been the wife\nof Urias.\" It will be remembered that David ordered Urias killed in\na cowardly manner, that he may marry his widow, whom he coveted.\nAccording to Matthew, Jesus is one of the offspring of this adulterous\nrelation. According to Luke, it is not through Solomon, but through\nNathan, that Jesus is connected with the house of David.\n\nAgain, Luke tells us that the name of the father of Joseph was _Heli;_\nMatthew says it was _Jacob_. If the writers of the gospels were\ncontemporaries of Joseph they could have easily learned the exact name\nof his father.\n\nAgain, why do these biographers of Jesus give us the genealogy of\nJoseph if he was not the father of Jesus? It is the genealogy of Mary\nwhich they should have given to prove the descent of Jesus from\nthe house of David, and not that of Joseph. These irreconcilable\ndifferences between Luke, Matthew and the other evangelists, go to\nprove that these authors possessed no reliable information concerning\nthe subjects they were writing about. For if Jesus is a historical\ncharacter, and these biographers were really his immediate associates,\nand were inspired besides, how are we to explain their blunders and\ncontradictions about his genealogy?\n\nA good illustration of the mythical or unhistorical character of the\nNew Testament is furnished by the story of John the Baptist. He is\nfirst represented as confessing publicly that Jesus is the Christ;\nthat he himself is not worthy to unloose the latchet of his shoes;\nand that Jesus is the Lamb of God, \"who taketh away the sins of the\nworld.\" John was also present, the gospels say, when the heavens\nopened and a dove descended on Jesus' head, and he heard the voice\nfrom the skies, crying: \"He is my beloved Son, in whom I am well\npleased.\"\n\nIs it possible that, a few chapters later, this same John forgets his\npublic confession,--the dove and the voice from heaven,--and actually\nsends two of his disciples to find out who this Jesus is, * The only\nway we can account for such strange conduct is that the compiler or\neditor in question had two different myths or stories before him, and\nhe wished to use them both.\n\n   * Matthew xi.\n\nA further proof of the loose and extravagant style of the Gospel\nwriters is furnished by the concluding verse of the Fourth Gospel:\n\"There are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they\nshould be written, every one, I suppose that even the world itself\ncould not contain the books that should be written.\" This is more like\nthe language of a myth-maker than of a historian. How much reliance\ncan we put in a reporter who is given to such exaggeration? To say\nthat the world itself would be too small to contain the unreported\nsayings and doings of a teacher whose public life possibly did not\nlast longer than a year, and whose reported words and deeds fill\nonly a few pages, is to prove one's statements unworthy of serious\nconsideration.\n\nAnd it is worth our while to note also that the documents which have\ncome down to our time and which purport to be the biographies of\nJesus, are not only written in an alien language, that is to say, in\na language which was not that of Jesus and his disciples, but neither\nare they dated or signed. Jesus and his twelve apostles were Jews;\nwhy are all the four Gospels written in Greek? If they were originally\nwritten in Hebrew, how can we tell that the Greek translation is\naccurate, since we can not compare it with the originals? And why are\nthese Gospels anonymous? Why are they not dated? But as we shall\nsay something more on this subject in the present volume, we confine\nourselves at this point to reproducing a fragment of the manuscript\npages from which our Greek Translations have been made. * It is\nadmitted by scholars that owing to the difficulty of reading these\nancient and imperfect and also conflicting texts, an accurate\ntranslation is impossible. But this is another way of saying that what\nthe churches call the Word of God is not only the word of man, but a\nvery imperfect word, at that.\n\n    * See page 57.\n\nThe belief in Jesus, then, is founded on secondary documents, altered\nand edited by various hands; on lost originals, and on anonymous\nmanuscripts of an age considerably later than the events therein\nrelated--manuscripts which contradict each other as well as\nthemselves. Such is clearly and undeniably the basis for the belief\nin a historical Jesus. It was this sense of the insufficiency of\nthe evidence which drove the missionaries of Christianity to commit\nforgeries.\n\nIf there was ample evidence for the historicity of Jesus, why did his\nbiographers resort to forgery? The following admissions by Christian\nwriters themselves show the helplessness of the early preachers in\nthe presence of inquirers who asked for proofs. The church historian,\nMosheim, writes that, \"The Christian Fathers deemed it a pious act to\nemploy deception and fraud.\" *\n\n     * Ecclesiastical Hist., Vol. I, p. 247.\n\nAgain, he says: \"The greatest and most pious teachers were nearly all\nof them infected with this leprosy.\" Will not some believer tell\nus why forgery and fraud were necessary to prove the historicity\nof Jesus. Another historian, Milman, writes that, \"Pious fraud was\nadmitted and avowed\" by the early missionaries of Jesus. \"It was an\nage of literary frauds,\" writes Bishop Ellicott, speaking of the times\nimmediately following the alleged crucifixion of Jesus. Dr. Giles\ndeclares that, \"There can be no doubt that great numbers of books were\nwritten with no other purpose than to deceive.\" And it is the opinion\nof Dr. Robertson Smith that, \"There was an enormous floating mass of\nspurious literature created to suit party views.\" Books which are now\nrejected as apochryphal were at one time received as inspired,\nand books which are now believed to be infallible were at one time\nregarded as of no authority in the Christian world. It certainly is\npuzzling that there should be a whole literature of fraud and forgery\nin the name of a historical person. But if Jesus was a myth, we can\neasily explain the legends and traditions springing up in his name.\n\nThe early followers of Jesus, then, realizing the force of this\nobjection, did actually resort to interpolation and forgery in order\nto prove that Jesus was a historical character.\n\nOne of the oldest critics of the Christian religion was a Pagan, known\nto history under the name of Porphyry; yet, the early Fathers did not\nhesitate to tamper even with the writings of an avowed opponent of\ntheir religion. After issuing an edict to destroy, among others, the\nwritings of this philosopher, a work, called _Philosophy of Oracles,_\nwas produced, in which the author is made to write almost as a\nChristian; and the name of Porphyry was signed to it as its author.\nSt. Augustine was one of the first to reject it as a forgery. * A\nmore astounding invention than this alleged work of a heathen bearing\nwitness to Christ is difficult to produce. Do these forgeries, these\napocryphal writings, these interpolations, freely admitted to have\nbeen the prevailing practice of the early Christians, help to prove\nthe existence of Jesus? And when to this wholesale manufacture\nof doubtful evidence is added the terrible vandalism which nearly\ndestroyed every great Pagan classic, we can form an idea of the\ndesperate means to which the early Christians resorted to prove that\nJesus was not a myth. It all goes to show how difficult it is to make\na man out of a myth.\n\n     * Geo. W. Foote. Crimes of Christianity.\n\n[Illustration: 072]\n\n[Illustration: 073 The Goddess Mother in the Grecian Pantheon.]\n\n\n\n\nVIRGIN BIRTHS\n\nStories of gods born of virgins are to be found in nearly every age\nand country. There have been many virgin mothers, and Mary with her\nchild is but a recent version of a very old and universal myth. In\nChina and India, in Babylonia and Egypt, in Greece and Rome, \"divine\"\nbeings selected from among the daughters of men the purest and most\nbeautiful to serve them as a means of entrance into the world of\nmortals. Wishing to take upon themselves the human form, while\nretaining at the same time their \"divinity,\" this compromise--of an\nearthly mother with a \"divine\" father--was effected. In the form of\na swan Jupiter approached Leda, as in the guise of a dove, or a\n_Paracletus,_ Jehovah \"overshadowed\" Mary.\n\nA nymph bathing in a river in China is touched by a lotus plant, and\nthe divine Fohi is born.\n\nIn Siam, a wandering sunbeam caresses a girl in her teens, and the\ngreat and wonderful deliverer, Codom, is born. In the life of Buddha\nwe read that he descended on his mother Maya, \"in likeness as the\nheavenly queen, and entered her womb,\" and was \"born from her right\nside, to save the world.\" * In Greece, the young god Apollo visits a\nfair maid of Athens, and a Plato is ushered into the world.\n\n     * Stories of Virgin Births. Reference: Lord Macartney.\n     Voyage dans \"interview de la Chine et en Tartarie.\" Vol. I,\n     p. 48. See also Les Vierges Meres et les Naissance\n     Miraculeuse. p. Saintyves. p. 19, etc.\n\nIn ancient Mexico, as well as in Babylonia, and in modern Corea, as in\nmodern Palestine, as in the legends of all lands, virgins gave birth\nand became divine mothers. *\n\n     * Stories of Virgin Births. Reference: Lord Macartney.\n     Voyage dans \"interview de la Chine et en Tartarie.\" Vol. I,\n     p. 48. See also Les Vierges Meres et les Naissance\n     Miraculeuse. p. Saintyves. p. 19, etc.\n\nBut the real home of virgin births is the land of the Nile. Eighteen\nhundred years before Christ, we find carved on one of the walls of the\ngreat temple of Luxor a picture of the _annunciation, conception\nand birth_ of King Amunothph III, an almost exact copy of the\nannunciation, conception and birth of the Christian God. Of course\nno one will think of maintaining that the Egyptians borrowed the idea\nfrom the Catholics nearly two thousand years before the Christian era.\n\"The story in the Gospel of Luke, the first and second chapters is,\"\nsays Malvert, \"a reproduction, 'point by point,' of the story in\nstone of the miraculous birth of Amunothph.\" *\n\n     * Science and Religion p. 96.\n\n[Illustration: 076 The Annunciation, Birth, and Adoration of Amenophis\nof Egypt, Nearly 2000 Years Before Christ.]\n\nSharpe in his Egyptian Mythology, page 19, gives the following\ndescription of the Luxor picture, quoted by G. W. Foote in his _Bible\nRomances,_ page 126: \"In this picture we have the annunciation, the\nconception, the birth and the adoration, as described in the first\nand second chapters of Luke's Gospel.\" Massey gives a more minute\ndescription of the Luxor picture. \"The first scene on the left hand\nshows the god Taht, the divine Word or Loges, in the act of hailing\nthe virgin queen, announcing to her that she is to give birth to a\nson. In the second scene the god Kneph (assisted by Hathor) gives\nlife to her. This is the Holy Ghost, or Spirit that causes\nconception....Next the mother is seated on the midwife's stool, and\nthe child is supported in the hands of one of the nurses. The fourth\nscene is that of the adoration. Here the child is enthroned, receiving\nhomage from the gods and gifts from men.\" * The picture on the wall of\nthe Luxor temple, then, is one of the sources to which the anonymous\nwriters of the Gospels went for their miraculous story. It is no\nwonder they suppressed their own identity as well as the source from\nwhich they borrowed their material.\n\n     * Natural Genesis. Massey, Vol.  II, p. 398\n\nNot only the idea of a virgin mother, but all the other miraculous\nevents, such as the stable cradle, the guiding star, the massacre of\nthe children, the flight to Egypt, and the resurrection and bodily\nascension toward the clouds, have not only been borrowed, but are even\nscarcely altered in the New Testament story of Jesus.\n\n[Illustration: 078 The Nativity of the God Dionysius, Museum of\nNaples. ]\n\nThat the early Christians borrowed the legend of Jesus from earthly\nsources is too evident to be even questioned. Gerald Massey in his\ngreat work on Egyptian origins demonstrates the identity of Mary, the\nmother of Jesus, with Isis, the mother of Horus. He says: \"The most\nancient, gold-bedizened, smoke-stained Byzantine pictures of the\nvirgin and child represent the mythical mother as Isis, and not as a\nhuman mother of Nazareth.\" * Science and research have made this fact\nso certain that, on the one hand ignorance, and on the other, interest\nonly, can continue to claim inspiration for the authors of the undated\nand unsigned fragmentary documents which pass for the Word of God. If,\nthen, Jesus is stripped of all the borrowed legends and miracles of\nwhich he is the subject; and if we also take away from him all the\nteachings which collected from Jewish and Pagan sources have been\nattributed to him--what will be left of him? That the ideas put in\nhis mouth have been culled and compiled from other sources is as\ndemonstrable as the Pagan origin of the legends related of him.\n\n     * Natural Genesis. Massey, Vol. ii, p. 487.\n\nNearly every one of the dogmas and ceremonies in the Christian cult\nwere borrowed from other and older religions. The resurrection\nmyth, the ascension, the eucharisty, baptism, worship by kneeling or\nprostration, the folding of the hands on the breast, the ringing of\nbells and the burning of incense, the vestments and vessels used in\nchurch, the candles, \"holy\" water,--even the word _Mass_ were all\nadopted and adapted by the Christians from the religions of the\nancients. The Trinity is as much Pagan, as much Indian or Buddhist,\nas it is Christian. The idea of a Son of God is as old as the oldest\ncult. The sun is the son of heaven in all primitive faiths.\nThe physical sun becomes in the course of evolution, the Son of\nRighteousness, or the Son of God, and heaven is personified as the\nFather on High. The halo around the head of Jesus, the horns of the\nolder deities, the rays of light radiating from the heads of Hindu\nand Pagan gods are incontrovertible evidence that all gods were at one\ntime--the sun in heaven.\n\n[Illustration: 080 Prehistoric Crosses Discovered in Pagan Sepulchres\n(Italy).]\n\n\n\n\nTHE ORIGIN OF THE CROSS\n\nOnly the uninformed, of whom, we regret to say, there are a great\nmany, and who are the main support of the old religions, still believe\nthat the cross originated with Christianity. Like the dogmas of the\nTrinity, the virgin birth, and the resurrection, the sign of the\ncross or the cross as an emblem or a symbol was borrowed from the more\nancient faiths of Asia. Perhaps one of the most important discoveries\nwhich primitive man felt obliged never to be ungrateful enough to\nforget, was the production of fire by the friction of two sticks\nplaced across each other in the form of a cross. As early as the stone\nage we find the cross carved on monuments which have been dug out of\nthe earth and which can be seen in the museums of Europe. On the coins\nof later generations as well as on the altars of prehistoric times we\nfind the \"sacred\" symbol of the cross. The dead in ancient cemeteries\nslept under the cross as they do in our day in Catholic churchyards.\n\n[Illustration: 081 House of Goodness, with Cross. Egyptian, 2000 B.\nC.]\n\nIn ancient Egypt, as in modern China, India, Corea, the cross is\nvenerated by the masses as a charm of great power. In the Musee\nGuimet, in Paris, we have seen specimens of pre-Christian crosses.\nIn the Louvre Museum one of the \"heathen\" gods carries a cross on his\nhead. During his second journey to New Zealand, Cook was surprised to\nfind the natives marking the graves of their dead with the cross. We\nsaw, in the Museum of St. Germain, an ancient divinity of Gaul, before\nthe conquest of the country by Julius Caesar, wearing a garment on\nwhich was woven a cross. In the same museum an ancient altar of Gaul\nunder Paganism, had a cross carved upon it. That the cross was not\nadopted by the followers of Jesus until a later date may be inferred\nfrom the silence of the earlier gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, on\nthe details of the crucifixion, which is more fully developed in the\nlater gospel of John. The first three evangelists say nothing about\nthe nails or the blood, and give the impression that he was hanged.\nWriting of the two thieves who were sentenced to receive the same\npunishment, Luke says, \"One of the malefactors that was _hanged_ with\nhim.\" The idea of a bleeding Christ, such as we see on crosses in\nCatholic churches, is not present in these earlier descriptions of\nthe crucifixion; the Christians of the time of Origin were called \"the\nfollowers of the god who was hanged.\" In the fourth gospel we see the\nbeginnings of the legend of the cross, of Jesus carrying or falling\nunder the weight of the cross, of the nail prints in his hands and\nfeet, of the spear drawing the blood from his side and smearing his\nbody. Of all this, the first three evangelists are quite ignorant.\n\n[Illustration: 082 Pagan Priest of Herculaneum Wearing the Cross.]\n\n[Illustration: 083 Cross of the Chinese Emperor Fou-Hi,2953 Years\nBefore Christ; and An Ancient Pagan Cross Discovered in Newgrange,\nIreland.]\n\nLet it be further noted that it was not until eight hundred years\nafter the supposed crucifixion that Jesus is seen in the form of a\nhuman being on the cross. Not in any of the paintings on the ancient\ncatacombs is found a crucified Christ. The earliest cross bearing a\nhuman being is of the eighth century. For a long time a lamb with a\ncross, or on a cross, was the Christian symbol, and it is a lamb which\nwe see entombed in the \"holy sepulchre.\" In more than one mosaic of\nearly Christian times, it is not Jesus, but a lamb, which is bleeding\nfor the salvation of the world. How a lamb came to play so important\na role in Christianity is variously explained. The similarity between\nthe name of the Hindu god, _Agni_ and the meaning of the same word in\nLatin, which is a lamb, is one theory. Another is that a ram, one of\nthe signs of the zodiac, often confounded by the ancients with a lamb,\nis the origin of the popular reverence for the lamb as a symbol--a\nreverence which all religions based on sun-worship shared. The lamb\nin Christianity takes away the sins of the people, just as the paschal\nlamb did in the Old Testament, and earlier still, just as it did in\nBabylonia.\n\n[Illustration: 084 Used by a Priest of Bacchus, Showing the Cross.]\n\n[Illustration: 085 Engraving of the XI Century; Lamb on Cross; A Lamb\nCarrying the Cross; The Lamb and the Cross, IX Century. ]\n\nTo the same effect is the following letter of the bishop of Mende, in\nFrance, bearing date of the year 800 A. D.: \"Because the darkness\nhas disappeared, and because also Christ is a real man, Pope Adrian\ncommands us to paint him under the form of a man. The lamb of God must\nnot any longer be painted on a cross, but after a human form has\nbeen placed on the cross, there is no objection to have a lamb\nalso represented with it, either at the foot of the cross or on the\nopposite side.\" * We leave it to our readers to draw the necessary\nconclusions from the above letter. How did a lamb hold its place on\nthe cross for eight hundred years? If Jesus was really crucified, and\nthat fact was a matter of history, why did it take eight hundred years\nfor a Christian bishop to write, \"now that Christ is a real man,\"\netc.? Today, it would be considered a blasphemy to place a lamb on a\ncross.\n\n     * Translated from the French of Didron. Quoted by Malvert.\n\nOn the tombstones of Christians of the fourth century are pictures\nrepresenting, not Jesus, but a lamb, working the miracles mentioned\nin the gospels, such as multiplying the loaves and fishes, and raising\nLazarus from the dead.\n\n[Illustration: 086 Mosaic of St. Praxedes, V Century, Showing the\nLamb Christ; The Lamb Slowly Becoming Human; The Lamb Multiplying the\nLoaves and Fishes, IV Century Sarcophagus.]\n\nThe first representations of a human form on the cross differ\nconsiderably from those which prevail at the present time.\n\n[Illustration: 087 The Lamb Resurrecting Lazarus, IV Century\nSarcophagus.]\n\nWhile the figure on the modern cross is almost naked, those on the\nearlier ones are clothed and completely covered. Wearing a flowing\ntunic, Jesus is standing straight against the cross with his\narms outstretched, as though in the act of delivering an address.\nFrequently, at his feet, on the cross, there is still painted the\nfigure of a lamb, which by and by, he is going to replace altogether.\nGradually the robe disappears from the crucified one, until we see him\ncrucified, as in the adjoining picture, with hardly any clothes on,\nand wearing an expression of great agony.\n\n[Illustration: 088 Modern Christ.]\n\n[Illustration: 089 Christ and the Twelve Apostles, Carrying Swastikas\nand Solar Discs Instead of the Cross. Sarcophagus, Milan.]\n\n\n\n\nTHE SILENCE OF PROFANE WRITERS\n\nIn all historical matters, we cannot ask for more than a _reasonable_\nassurance concerning any question. In fact, absolute certainty in any\nbranch of human knowledge, with the exception of mathematics, perhaps,\nis impossible. We are finite beings, limited in all our powers, and,\nhence, our conclusions are not only relative, but they should ever\nbe held subject to correction. When our law courts send a man to the\ngallows, they can have no more than a reasonable assurance that he is\nguilty; when they acquit him, they can have no more than a reasonable\nassurance that he is innocent. Positive assurance is unattainable. The\ndogmatist is the only one who claims to possess absolute certainty.\nBut his claim is no more than a groundless assumption. When,\ntherefore, we learn that Josephus, for instance, who lived in the\nsame country and about the same time as Jesus, and wrote an extensive\nhistory of the men and events of his day and country, does not mention\nJesus, except by interpolation, which even a Christian clergyman,\nBishop Warburton, calls \"a rank forgery, and a very stupid one, too,\"\nwe can be reasonably sure that no such Jesus as is described in the\nNew Testament, lived about the same time and in the same country with\nJosephus.\n\nThe failure of such a historian as Josephus to mention Jesus tends to\nmake the existence of Jesus at least reasonably doubtful.\n\nFew Christians now place any reliance upon the evidence from Josephus.\nThe early Fathers made this Jew admit that Jesus was the Son of God.\nOf course, the admission was a forgery. De Quincey says the passage is\nknown to be \"a forgery by all men not lunatics.\" Of one other supposed\nreference in Josephus, Canon Farrar says: \"This passage was early\ntampered with by the Christians.\" The same writer says this of a third\npassage: \"Respecting the third passage in Josephus, the only question\nis whether it be partly or entirely spurious.\" Lardner, the great\nEnglish theologian, was the first man to prove that Josephus was a\npoor witness for Christ.\n\nIn examining the evidence from profane writers we must remember that\nthe silence of one contemporary author is more important than the\nsupposed testimony of another. There was living in the same time\nwith Jesus a great Jewish scholar by the name of Philo. He was an\nAlexandrian Jew, and he visited Jerusalem while Jesus was teaching and\nworking miracles in the holy city. Yet Philo in all his works never\nonce mentions Jesus. He does not seem to have heard of him. He could\nnot have helped mentioning him if he had really seen him or heard\nof him. In one place in his works Philo is describing the difference\nbetween two Jewish names, Hosea and Jesus. Jesus, he says, means\nsaviour of the people. What a fine opportunity for him to have added\nthat, at that very time, there was living in Jerusalem a saviour\nby the name of Jesus, or one supposed to be, or claiming to be, a\nsaviour. He could not have helped mentioning Jesus if he had ever seen\nor heard of him.\n\nWe have elsewhere referred to the significant silence of the Pagan\nhistorians and miscellaneous writers on the wonderful events\nnarrated in the New Testament. But a few remarks may be added here in\nexplanation of the supposed testimony of Tacitus.\n\nThe quotation from Tacitus is an important one. That part of the\npassage which concerns us is something like this:--\"They have their\ndenomination from _Chrestus,_ put to death as a criminal by Pontius\nPilate during the reign of Tiberius.\" I wish to say in the first place\nthat this passage is not in the _History_ of Tacitus, known to the\nancients, but in his _Annals,_ which is not quoted by any ancient\nwriter. The _Annals_ of Tacitus were not known to be in existence\nuntil the year 1468. An English writer, Mr. Ross, has undertaken, in\nan interesting volume, to show that the _Annals_ were forged by an\nItalian, Bracciolini. I am not competent to say whether or not Mr.\nRoss proves his point. But is it conceivable that the early Christians\nwould have ignored so valuable a testimony had they known of its\nexistence, and would they not have known of it had it really existed?\nThe Christian Fathers, who not only collected assiduously all that\nthey could use to establish the reality of Jesus--but who did not\nhesitate even to forge passages, to invent documents, and also to\ndestroy the testimony of witnesses unfavorable to their cause--would\nhave certainly used the Tacitus passage had it been in existence in\ntheir day. _Not one of the Christian Fathers_ in his controversy with\nthe unbelievers has quoted the passage from Tacitus, which passage is\nthe church's strongest proof of the historicity of Jesus, outside the\ngospels.\n\nBut, to begin with, this passage has the appearance, at least, of\nbeing penned by a Christian. It speaks of such persecutions of\nthe Christians in Rome which contradict all that we know of Roman\ncivilization. The abuse of Christians in the same passage may have\nbeen introduced purposely to cover up the identity of the writer. The\nterrible outrages against the Christians mentioned in the text\nfrom Tacitus are supposed to have taken place in the year 64 A. D.\nAccording to the New Testament, Paul was in Rome from the year 63\nto the year 65, and must, therefore, have been an eye-witness of the\npersecution under Nero. Let me quote from the Bible to show that there\ncould have been no such persecution as the Tacitus passage describes.\nThe last verse in the book of Acts reads: \"And he (Paul) abode two\nwhole years in his own hired dwelling, and received all that went in\nunto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching things concerning\nthe Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness, _none forbidding him_.\" How\nis this picture of peace and tranquility to be reconciled with the\ncharge that the Romans rolled up the Christians in straw mats and\nburned them to illuminate the streets at night, and also that the\nlions were let loose upon the disciples of Jesus?\n\nMoreover, it is generally known that the Romans were indifferent to\nreligious propaganda, and never persecuted any sect or party in the\nname of religion. In Rome, the Jews were free to be Jews; why should\nthe Jewish Christians--and the early Christians were Jews--have been\nthrown to the lions? In all probability the persecutions were much\nmilder than the Tacitus passage describes, and politics was the real\ncause.\n\nUntil not very long ago, it was universally believed that William Tell\nwas a historical character. But it is now proven beyond any\nreasonable doubt, that Tell and his apple are altogether mythical.\nNotwithstanding that a great poet has made him the theme of a powerful\ndrama, and a great composer devoted one of his operas to his heroic\nachievements; notwithstanding also that the Swiss show the crossbow\nwith which he is supposed to have shot at the apple on his son's\nhead--he is now admitted to be only a legendary hero. The principal\narguments which have led the educated world to revise its views\nconcerning William Tell are that, the Swiss historians, Faber and\nHamurbin, who lived shortly after the \"hero,\" and who wrote the\nhistory of their country, as Josephus did that of his, do not mention\nTell. Had such a man existed before their time, they could not have\nfailed to refer to him. Their complete silence is damaging beyond help\nto the historicity of Tell. Neither does the historian, who was an eye\nwitness of the battle of Morgarten in 1315, mention the name of Tell.\nThe Zurich Chronicle of 1497, also omits to refer to his story. In the\naccounts of the struggle of the Swiss against Austria, which drove the\nformer into rebellion and ultimate independence, Tell's name cannot be\nfound. Yet all these arguments are not half so damaging to the William\nTell story, as the silence of Josephus is to the Jesus story. Jesus\nwas supposed to have worked greater wonders and to have created a\nwider sensation than Tell; therefore, it is more difficult to explain\nthe silence of historians like Josephus, Pliny and Quintilian; or of\nphilosophers like Philo, Seneca and Epictetus, concerning Jesus, than\nto explain the silence of the Swiss chroniclers concerning Tell.\n\n\n\n\nTHE JESUS STORY A RELIGIOUS DRAMA\n\nWe have now progressed far enough in our investigation to pause a\nmoment for reflection before we proceed any further. I am conscious of\nno intentional misrepresentation or suppression of the facts relating\nto the question in hand. If I have erred through ignorance, I shall\ncorrect any mistake I may have made, if some good reader will take the\ntrouble to enlighten me. I am also satisfied that I have not commanded\nthe evidence, but have allowed the evidence to command me. I am\nnot interested in either proving or disproving the existence of the\nNew-Testament Jesus. I am not an advocate, I am rather an umpire, who\nhears the evidence and pronounces his decision accordingly. Let the\nlawyers or the advocates argue _pro_ and _con_. I only weigh,--and I\nam sure, impartially,--the evidence which the witnesses offer. We\nhave heard and examined quite a number of these, and, I, at least,\nam compelled to say, that unless stronger evidence be forthcoming, a\nhistorical Jesus has not been proven by the evidence thus far taken\nin. This does not mean that there is no evidence whatever that Jesus\nwas a real existence, but that the evidence is not enough to prove it.\n\nTo condemn or to acquit a man in a court of law, there must not only\nbe evidence, but enough of it to justify a decision. There is some\nevidence for almost any imaginable proposition; but that is\nnot enough. Not only does the evidence offered to prove Jesus'\nhistoricity, already examined, fail to give this assurance, but,\non the contrary, it lends much support to the opposite supposition,\nnamely, that in all probability, Jesus was a myth--even as Mithra,\nOsiris, Isis, Hercules, Sampson, Adonis, Moses, Attis, Hermes,\nHeracles, Apollo of Tyanna, Chrishna, and Indra, were myths.\n\nThe story of Jesus, we are constrained to say, possesses all the\ncharacteristics of the religious drama, full of startling episodes,\nthrilling situations, dramatic action and _denouement_. It reads more\nlike a play than plain history. From such evidence as the gospels\nthemselves furnish, the conclusion that he was no more than the\nprincipal character in a religious play receives much support. Mystery\nand morality plays are of a very ancient origin. In earlier times,\nalmost all popular instruction was by means of _Tableaux vivant_.\n\nAs a great scenic or dramatic performance, with Jesus as the hero,\nJudas as the villain--with conspiracy as its plot, and the trial, the\nresurrection and ascension as its _finale_, the story is intelligent\nenough. For instance, as the curtain rises, it discloses upon the\nstage shepherds tending their flocks in the green fields under the\nmoonlit sky; again, as the scene shifts, the clouds break, the heavens\nopen, and voices are heard from above, with a white-winged chorus\nchanting an anthem. The next scene suggests a stable with the cattle\nin their stalls, munching hay. In a corner of the stable, close to\na manger, imagine a young woman, stooping to kiss a newly born babe.\nAnon appear three bearded and richly costumed men, with presents in\ntheir hands, bowing their heads in ecstatic adoration. Surely enough\nthis is not history: It does not read like history. The element of\nfiction runs through the entire Gospels, and is its warp and woof. A\ncareful analysis of the various incidents in this _ensemble_ will not\nfail to convince the unprejudiced reader that while they possess all\nthe essentials for dramatic presentation, they lack the requirements\nof real history.\n\nThe \"opened-heavens,\" \"angel-choirs,\" \"grazing flocks,\" \"watchful\nshepherds,\" \"worshiping magicians,\" \"the stable crib,\" \"the mother and\nchild,\" \"the wonderful star,\" \"the presents,\" \"the anthem\"--all these,\nwhile they fit admirably as stage setting, are questionable material\nfor history. No historical person was ever born in so spectacular a\nmanner. The Gospel account of Jesus is an embellished, ornamental,\neven sensationally dramatic creation to serve as an introduction for\na legendary hero. Similar theatrical furniture has been used thousands\nof times to introduce other legendary characters. All the Savior Gods\nwere born supernaturally. They were all half god, half man. They were\nall of royal descent. Miracles and wonders attended their birth. Jesus\nwas not an exception. We reject as mythical the birth-stories about\nMithra, and Apollo. Why accept as history those about Jesus? It rests\nwith the preachers of Christianity to show that while the god-man\nof Persia, or of Greece, for example, was a myth, the god-man of\nPalestine is historical.\n\nThe dramatic element is again plainly seen in the account of the\nbetrayal of Jesus. Jesus, who preaches daily in the temples, and in\nthe public places; who talks to the multitude on the mountain and\nat the seaside; who feeds thousands by miracle; the report of whose\nwonderful cures has reached the ends of the earth, and who is often\nfollowed by such a crush that to reach him an opening has to be made\nin the ceiling of the house where he is stopping; who goes in and\nout before the people and is constantly disputing with the elders\nand leaders of the nation--is, nevertheless, represented as being so\nunknown that his enemies have to resort to the device of bribing with\nthirty silver coins one of his disciples to point him out to them, and\nwhich is to be done by a kiss. This might make a great scene upon the\nstage, but it is not the way things happen in life.\n\nThen read how Jesus is carried before Pilate the Roman governor, and\nhow while he is being tried a courier rushes in with a letter from\nPilate's wife which is dramatically torn open and read aloud in the\npresence of the crowded court. The letter, it is said, was about a\ndream of Pilate's wife, in which some ghost tells her that Jesus is\ninnocent, and that her husband should not proceed against him. Is this\nhistory? Roman jurisprudence had not degenerated to that extent as to\npermit the dreams of a woman or of a man to influence the course of\njustice. But this letter episode was invented by the playwright--if\nI may use the phrase--to prolong the dramatic suspense, to complicate\nthe situation, to twist the plot, and thereby render the impression\nproduced by his \"piece\" more lasting. The letter and the dream did\nnot save Jesus. Pilate was not influenced by his dreaming wife. She\ndreamed in vain.\n\nIn the next place we hear Pilate pronouncing Jesus guiltless; but,\nforthwith, he hands him over to the Jews to be killed. Does this\nread like history? Did ever a Roman court witness such a trial? To\npronounce a man innocent and then to say to his prosecutors: \"If you\nwish to kill him, you may do so,\" is extraordinary conduct. Then,\nproceeding, Pilate takes water and ostentatiously washes his hands, a\nproceeding introduced by a Greek or Latin scribe, who wished, in all\nprobability, to throw the blame of the crucifixion entirely upon the\nJews. Pilate, representing the Gentile world, washes his hands of the\nresponsibility for the death of Jesus, while the Jews are made to say,\n\"His blood be upon us and our children.\"\n\nImagine the clamoring, howling Jews, trampling on one another,\ngesticulating furiously, gnashing their teeth, foaming at the mouth,\nand spitting in one another's face as they shout, \"Crucify him!\nCrucify him!\" A very powerful stage setting, to be sure--but it\nis impossible to imagine that such disorder, such anarchy could\nbe permitted in any court of justice. But think once more of those\nterrible words placed in the mouths of the Jews, \"His blood be upon\nus and our children.\" Think of a people openly cursing themselves and\nasking the whole Christian world to persecute them forever--\"His blood\nbe upon _us and our children_.\"\n\nNext, the composers of the gospels conduct us to the Garden of\nGethsemane, that we may see there the hero of the play in his agony,\nfighting the great battle of his life alone, with neither help nor\nsympathy from his distracted followers. He is shown to us there,\non his knees, crying tears of blood--sobbing and groaning under the\nshadow of an almost crushing fear. Tremblingly he prays, \"Let this\ncup pass from me--if it be possible;\" and then, yielding to the terror\ncrowding in upon him, he sighs in the hearing of all the ages, \"The\nspirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,\" precisely the excuse given\nby everybody for not doing what they would do if they could. Now, we\nask in all seriousness, is it likely that a God who had come down\nfrom heaven purposely to drink that cup and to be the martyr-Savior of\nhumanity--would seek to be spared the fate for which he was ordained\nfrom all eternity?\n\nThe objection that Jesus' hesitation on the eve of the crucifixion,\nas well as his cry of despair on the cross, were meant to show that he\nwas as human as he was divine, does not solve the difficulty. In that\nevent Jesus, then, was merely acting--feigning a fear which he did\nnot feel, and pretending to dread a death which he knew could not hurt\nhim. If, however, Jesus really felt alarmed at the approach of death,\nhow much braver, then, were many of his followers who afterwards faced\ndangers and tortures far more cruel than his own! We honestly think\nthat to have put in Jesus' mouth the words above quoted, and also to\nhave represented him as closing his public career with a shriek on the\ncross: \"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?\" was tantamount\nto an admission by the writers that they were dealing with a symbolic\nChrist, an ideal figure, the hero of a play, and not a historical\ncharacter.\n\nIt is highly dramatic, to be sure, to see the sun darkened, to feel\nthe whole earth quaking, to behold the graves ripped open and the dead\nreappear in their shrouds--to hear the hero himself tearing his own\nheart with that cry of shuddering anguish, \"My God! my God!\"--but\nit is not history. If such a man as Jesus really lived, then his\nbiographers have only given us a caricature of him. However beautiful\nsome of the sayings attributed to Jesus, and whatever the source\nthey may have been borrowed from, they are not enough to prove his\nhistoricity. But even as the Ten Commandments do not prove Moses to\nhave been a historical personage or the author of the books and deeds\nattributed to him, neither do the parables and miracles of Jesus prove\nhim to have once visited this earth as a god, or to have even existed\nas a man.\n\nSocrates and Jesus! Compare the quite natural behavior of Socrates in\nprison with that of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. The Greek sage\nis serene. Jesus is alarmed. The night agony of his soul, his tears\nof _blood_, his pitiful collapse when he prays, \"if it be possible\nlet this cup pass from me,\"--all this would be very impressive on the\nboards, but they seem incredible of a real man engaged in saving a\nworld. Once more we say that the defense that it was the man in Jesus\nand not the god in him that broke down, would be unjust to the memory\nof thousands of martyrs who died by a more terrible death than that of\nJesus. As elsewhere stated, but which cannot be too often emphasized,\nwhat man would not have embraced death with enthusiasm,--without a\nmoment's misgiving, did he think that by his death, death and sin\nwould be no more! Who would shrink from a cross which is going to\nsave millions to millions added from eternal burnings. He must be\na phantom, indeed, who trembles and cries like a frightened child\nbecause he cannot have the crown without the cross! What a spectacle\nfor the real heroes crowding the galleries of history! It is difficult\nto see the shrinking and shuddering Savior of the world, his face\nbathed in perspiration, blood oozing out of his forehead, his lips\npale, his voice breaking into a shriek, \"My God, my God, why hast thou\nforsaken me!\"--it is difficult to witness all this and not to pity\nhim. Poor Jesus! he is going to save the world, but who is going to\nsave _him?_\n\nIf we compare the trial of Jesus with that of Socrates, the fictitious\nnature of the former cannot possibly escape detection. Socrates was\nso well known in Athens, that it was not necessary for his accusers to\nbribe one of his disciples to betray him. Jesus should have been even\nbetter known in Jerusalem than Socrates was in Athens. He was daily\npreaching in the synagogues, and his miracles had given him an _eclat_\nwhich Socrates did not enjoy.\n\nSocrates is not taken to court at night, bound hand and feet. Jesus\nis arrested in the glare of torchlights, after he is betrayed by\nJudas with a kiss; then he is bound and forced into the high priest's\npresence. All this is admirable setting for a stage, but they are no\nmore than that.\n\nThe disciples of Socrates behave like real men, those of Jesus are\nactors. They run away; they hide and follow at a distance. One of them\ncurses him. The cock crows, the apostate repents. This reads like a\nplay.\n\nIn the presence of his judges, Socrates makes his own defense. One\nby one he meets the charges. Jesus refused, according to two of the\nevangelists, to open his mouth at his trial. This is dramatic, but it\nis not history. It is not conceivable that a real person accused as\nJesus was, would have refused a great opportunity to disprove the\ncharges against him. Socrates' defense of himself is one of the\nclassics. Jesus' silence is a conundrum. \"But he answered nothing,\"\n\"But Jesus as yet answered nothing,\" \"And he answered him never a\nword,\" is the report of two of his biographers. The other two\nevangelists, as is usual, contradict the former and produce the\nfollowing dialogues between Jesus and his judges, which from beginning\nto end possess all the marks of unreality:\n\n_Pilate_.--\"Art thou the King of the Jews?\"\n\n_Jesus_.--\"Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it\nthee of me?\"\n\n_Pilate_--\"Art thou a King?\"\n\n_Jesus_.--\"Thou sayest that I am a King.\"\n\nIs it possible that a real man, not to say the Savior of the world,\nwould give such unmeaning and evasive replies to straightforward\nquestions? Does it not read like a page from fiction?\n\nIn the presence of the priests of his own race Jesus is as indefinite\nand sophistical as he is before the Roman Pilate.\n\n_The Priests_--\"Art thou the Christ--tell us?\"\n\n_Jesus._--\"If I tell you ye will not believe me.\"\n\n_The Priests_.--\"Art thou the Son of God?\"\n\n_Jesus_.--\"Ye say that I am.\"\n\nIn the first answer he refuses to reveal himself because he does not\nthink he can command belief in himself; in his second answer he either\nblames them for saying he was the Son of God, or quotes their own\ntestimony to prove that he is the Son of God. But if they believed\nhe was God, would they try to kill him? Is it not unthinkable? He\nintimates that the priests believe he is the Son of God--\"Ye say that\nI am.\" Surely, it is more probable that these dialogues were invented\nby his anonymous biographers than that they really represent an actual\nconversation between Jesus and his judges.\n\nCompare in the next place the manner in which the public trials of\nSocrates and Jesus are conducted. There is order in the Athenian\ncourt; there is anarchy in the Jerusalem court. Witnesses and accusers\nwalk up to Jesus and slap him on the face, and the judge does\nnot reprove them for it. The court is in the hands of rowdies and\nhoodlums, who shout \"Crucify him,\" and again, \"Crucify him.\" A Roman\njudge, while admitting that he finds no guilt in Jesus deserving of\ndeath, is nevertheless represented as handing him over to the mob to\nbe killed, after he has himself scourged him. No Roman judge could\nhave behaved as this Pilate is reported to have behaved toward an\naccused person on trial for his life. All that we know of civilized\ngovernment, all that we know of the jurisprudence of Rome, contradicts\nthis \"inspired\" account of a pretended historical event. If Jesus was\never tried and condemned to death in a Roman court, an account of it\nthat can command belief has yet to be written.\n\nAgain, when we come to consider the random, disconnected and\nfragmentary form in which the teachings of Jesus are presented, we\ncannot avoid the conclusion that he is a _dramatis persona_ brought\nupon the stage to give expression not to a consistent, connected\nand carefully worked-out thought, but to voice with many breaks and\ninterruptions, the ideas of his changing managers. He is made to play\na number of contradictory roles, and appears in the same story in\ntotally different characters.\n\nOne editor or compiler of the Gospel describes Jesus as an ascetic and\na mendicant, wandering from place to place, without a roof over his\nhead, and crawling at eventide into his cave in the Mount of Olives.\nHe introduces him as the \"Man of Sorrows,\" fasting in the wilderness,\ncounseling people to part with their riches, and promising the Kingdom\nof Heaven to Lazarus, the beggar.\n\nAnother redactor announces him as \"eating and drinking\" at the\nbanquets of \"publicans and sinners,\"--a \"wine-bibbing\" Son of Man.\n\"John the Baptist came neither eating nor drinking, but the Son of\nMan came both eating and drinking,\" which, if it means anything, means\nthat Jesus was the very opposite of the ascetic John.\n\nA partisan of the doctrine of non-resistance puts in Jesus' mouth the\nwords: \"Resist not evil;\" \"The meek shall inherit the earth,\"\netc., and counsels that he who smites us on the one cheek should be\npermitted to strike us also on the other, and that to him who robs us\nof an undergarment, we should also hand over our outer garments.\n\nAnother draws the picture of a militant Jesus who could never endorse\nsuch precepts of indolence and resignation. \"The kingdom of heaven is\ntaken by _violence_,\" cries this new Jesus, and intimates that no such\nbeggar like Lazarus, sitting all day long with the dogs and his sores,\ncan ever earn so great a prize. With a scourge in his hands this Jesus\nrushes upon the traders in the temple-court, upturns their tables and\nwhips their owners into the streets. Surely this was resistance of the\nmost pronounced type. The right to use physical force could not have\nbeen given a better endorsement than by this example of Jesus.\n\nIt will not help matters to say that these money-changers were\nviolating a divine law, and needed chastisement with a whip. Is not\nthe man who smites us upon the cheek, or robs us of our clothing,\nequally guilty? Moreover, these traders in the outer courts of the\nsynagogue were rendering the worshipers a useful service. Just as\ncandles, rosaries, images and literature are sold in church vestibules\nfor the accommodation of Catholics, so were doves, pigeons and Hebrew\ncoins, necessary to the Jewish sacrifices, sold in the temple-courts\nfor the Jewish worshiper. The money changer who supplied the pious Jew\nwith the only sacred coin which the priests would accept was not very\nmuch less important to the Jewish religion than the rabbi. To have\nfallen upon these traders with a weapon, and to have caused them the\nloss of their property, was certainly the most inconsistent thing that\na \"meek\" and \"lowly\" Jesus preaching non-resistance could have done.\n\nAgain; one writer makes Jesus the teacher _par excellence_ of peace.\nHe counsels forgiveness of injuries not seven times, but seventy times\nthat number--meaning unlimited love and charity. \"Love your enemies,\"\n\"Bless them that curse you,\" is his unusual advice. But another hand\nretouches this picture, and we have a Jesus who breaks his own golden\nrule. This other Jesus heaps abuse upon the people who displease him;\ncalls his enemies \"vipers,\" \"serpents,\" \"devils,\" and predicts for\nthem eternal burnings in sulphur and brimstone. How could he who said,\n\"Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden,\" say also, \"Depart from me\nye _cursed_?\" Who curses them? How can there be an everlasting hell in\na universe whose author advises us to love our enemies, to bless them\nthat curse us, and to forgive seventy times seven? How could the same\nJesus who said, \"Blessed are the peacemakers,\" say also, \"I came not\nto bring peace, but a sword?\" Is it possible that the same Jesus who\ncommands us to love our _enemies_, commands us also to \"hate\" father,\nmother, wife and child, for \"his name's sake?\" Yes! the same Jesus who\nsaid, \"Put up thy sword in its sheath,\" also commands us to sell our\neffects and \"buy a sword.\"\n\nOnce more: A believer in the divinity of Jesus--I am going to\nsay--invents the following text: \"The Father and I are _one_.\" An\nopponent to this Trinitarian dogma introduces a correction which robs\nthe above text of its authority: \"The Father is greater than I,\"\nand makes Jesus admit openly that there are some things known to\nthe father only. It is difficult not to see in these passages the\nbeginnings of the terrible controversies which, starting with Peter\nand Paul, have come down to our day, _and which will not end_ until\nJesus shall take his place among the mythical saviors of the world.\n\nTo harmonize these many and different Jesuses into something like\nunity or consistency a thousand books have been written by the clergy.\nThey have not succeeded. How can a Jesus represented at one time as\nthe image of divine perfection, and at another as protesting against\nbeing called \"good,\" for \"none is good, save one, God,\"--how can these\ntwo conceptions be reconciled except by a resort to artificial and\narbitrary interpretations? If such insurmountable contradictions in\nthe teachings and character of another would weaken our faith in\nhis historicity, then we are justified in inferring that in all\nprobability Jesus was only a name--the name of an imaginary stage\nhero, uttering the conflicting thoughts of his prompters.\n\nAgain, such phrases as, \"and he was caught up in a cloud,\"--describing\nthe ascension and consequent disappearance of Jesus, betray the\nanxiety of the authors of the Gospels to bring their marvelous story\nto a close. Not knowing how to terminate the career of an imaginary\nMessiah, his creators invented the above method of dispatching him.\n\"He was caught up in a cloud,\"--but for that, the narrators would have\nbeen obliged to continue their story indefinitely.\n\nIn tragedy the play ends with the death of the hero, but if the\nbiographers of Jesus had given a similar excuse for bringing their\nnarrative to a _finale_, there would have been the danger of their\nbeing asked to point out his grave. \"He was caught up in a cloud,\"\nrelieved them of all responsibility to produce his remains if called\nupon to do so, and, at the same time, furnished them with an excuse to\nbring their story to a close.\n\nIt would hardly be necessary, were we all unbiased, to look for any\nfurther proofs of the mythical and fanciful nature of the Gospel\nnarratives than this expedient to which the writers resorted. To\nquestions, \"Where is Jesus?\"\n\n\"What became of his body?\" etc., they could answer, \"He was caught up\nin a cloud.\" But a career that ends in the clouds was never begun on\nthe earth.\n\n[Illustration: 117 Coin of the XII Century, Showing Halo Around Lamb's\nHead.]\n\nLet us imagine ourselves in Jerusalem in the year One, of the\nChristian era, when the apostles, as it is claimed, were proclaiming\nJesus as the Messiah, crucified and risen. Desiring to be convinced\nbefore believing in the strange story, let us suppose the following\nconversation between the apostles and ourselves. We ask:\n\nHow long have you known Jesus?\n\nI have known him for one year.\n\nAnd I for two.\n\nAnd I for three.\n\nHas any of you known him for more than three years?\n\nNo.\n\nWas he with his apostles for one year or for three?\n\nFor one.\n\nNo, for three.\n\nYou are not certain, then, how long Jesus was with his apostles.\n\nNo.\n\nHow old was Jesus when crucified?\n\nAbout thirty-one.\n\nNo, about thirty-three.\n\nNo, he was much older, about fifty.\n\nYou cannot tell with any certainty, then, his age at the time of his\ndeath.\n\nNo.\n\nYou say he was tried and crucified in Jerusalem before your own eyes,\ncan you remember the date of this great event?\n\nWe cannot.\n\nWere you present when Jesus was taken down from the cross?\n\nWe were not.\n\nYou cannot tell, then, whether he was dead when taken down.\n\nWe have no personal knowledge.\n\nWere you present when he was buried?\n\nWe were not, because we were in hiding for our lives.\n\nYou do not know, therefore, whether he was actually buried, or where\nhe was buried.\n\nWe do not.\n\nWere any of you present when Jesus came forth from the grave?\n\nNot one of us was present,\n\nThen, you were not with him when he was taken down from the cross; you\nwere not with him when he was interred, and you were not present when\nhe rose from the grave.\n\nWe were not.\n\nWhen, therefore, you say, he was dead, buried and rose again, you are\nrelying upon the testimony of others?\n\nWe are.\n\nWill you mention the names of some of the witnesses who saw Jesus come\nforth from the tomb?\n\nMary Magdalene, and she is here and may be questioned.\n\nWere you present, Mary, when the angels rolled away the stone, and\nwhen Jesus came forth from the dead?\n\nNo, when I reached the burying place early in the morning, the grave\nhad already been vacated, and there was no one sleeping in it.\n\nYou saw him, then, as the apostles did, _after_ he had risen?\n\nYes.\n\nBut you did not see anybody rise out of the grave.\n\nI did not.\n\nAre there any witnesses who saw the resurrection?\n\nThere are many who saw him after the resurrection.\n\nBut if neither they nor you saw him dead, and buried, and did not\nsee him rise, either, how can you tell that a most astounding and\nsupposedly impossible miracle had taken place between the time you saw\nhim last and when you saw him again two or three days after? Is it\nnot more natural to suppose that, being in a hurry on account of the\napproaching Sabbath, Jesus, if ever crucified, was taken down from the\ncross before he had really died, and that he was not buried, as rumor\nstates, but remained in hiding; and his showing himself to you under\ncover of darkness and in secluded spots and in the dead of night only,\nwould seem to confirm this explanation.\n\nYou admit also that the risen Jesus did not present himself at the\nsynagogues of the people, in the public streets, or at the palace of\nthe High Priest to convince them of his Messiahship. Do you not think\nthat if he had done this, it would then have been impossible to deny\nhis resurrection? Why, then, did Jesus hide himself after he came out\nof the grave? Why did he not show himself also to his enemies? Was he\nstill afraid of them, or did he not care whether they believed or not?\nIf so, why are _you_ trying to convert them? The question waits for\na reasonable answer; Why did not Jesus challenge the whole world with\nthe evidence of his resurrection? You say you saw him occasionally, a\nfew moments at a time, now here, and now there, and finally on the\ntop of a mountain whence he was caught up in a cloud and disappeared\naltogether. But that \"cloud\" has melted away, the sky is clear, and\nthere is no Jesus visible there. The cloud, then, had nothing to hide.\nIt was unnecessary to call in a cloud to close the career of your\nChrist. The grave is empty, the cloud has vanished. Where is Christ?\nIn heaven! Ah, you have at last removed him to a world unknown, to\nthe undiscovered country. Leave him there! Criticism, doubt,\ninvestigation, the light of day, cannot cross its shores. Leave him\nthere!\n\n[Illustration: 122 St. Margaret of the Catholic Church, Westminster,\nEngland; The Goddess Astarte Carrying a Cross, British Museum.]\n\n\n\n\nTHE JESUS OF PAUL\n\nThe central figure of the New Testament is Jesus, and the question we\nare trying to answer is, whether we have sufficient evidence to\nprove to the unbiased mind that he is historical. An idea of the\nintellectual caliber of the average churchman may be had by the nature\nof the evidence he offers to justify his faith in the historical\nJesus. \"The whole world celebrates annually the nativity of Jesus; how\ncould there be a Christmas celebration if there never was a Christ?\"\nasks a Chicago clergyman. The simplicity of this plea would\nbe touching were it not that it calls attention to the painful\ninefficiency of the pulpit as an educator. The church goer is trained\nto believe, not to think. The truth is withheld from him under the\npious pretense that faith, and not knowledge, is the essential thing.\nA habit of untruthfulness is cultivated by systematically sacrificing\neverything to orthodoxy. This habit in the end destroys one's\nconscience for any truths which are prejudicial to one's interest. But\nis it true that the Christmas celebration proves a historical Jesus?\n\nWe can only offer a few additional remarks to what we have already\nsaid elsewhere in these pages on the Pagan origin of Christmas. It\nwill make us grateful to remember that just as we have to go to the\nPagans for the origins of our civilized institutions--our courts\nof justice, our art and literature, and our political and religious\nliberties--we must thank them also for our merry festivals, such as\nChristmas and Easter. The ignorant, of course, do not know anything\nabout the value and wealth of the legacy bequeathed to us by our\nglorious ancestors of Greek and Roman times, but the educated can have\nno excuse for any failure to own their everlasting indebtedness to\nthe Pagans. It will be impossible today to write the history of\ncivilization without giving to the classical world the leading role.\nBut while accepting the gifts of the Pagan peoples we have abused\nthe givers. A beneficiary who will defame a bounteous benefactor\nis unworthy of his good fortune. I regret to say that the Christian\nchurch, notwithstanding that it owes many of its most precious\nprivileges to the Pagans, has returned for service rendered insolence\nand vituperation. No generous or just institution would treat a rival\nas Christianity has treated Paganism.\n\nBoth Christmas and Easter are Pagan festivals. We do not know, no\none knows, when Jesus was born; but we know the time of the winter\nsolstice when the sun begins to retrace his steps, turning his\nradiant face toward our earth once more. It was this event, a natural,\ndemonstrable, universal, event, that our European ancestors celebrated\nwith song and dance--with green branches, through which twinkled a\nthousand lighted candles, and with the exchange of good wishes\nand gifts. Has the church had the courage to tell its people that\nChristmas is a Pagan festival which was adopted and adapted by the\nChristian world, reluctantly at first, and in the end as a measure of\ncompromise only? The Protestants, especially, conveniently forget\nthe severe Puritanic legislation against the observance of this Pagan\nfestival, both in England and America. It is the return to Paganism\nwhich has given to Christmas and Easter their great popularity, as\nit is the revival of Paganism which is everywhere replacing the Bible\nideas of monarchic government with republicanism. And yet, repeatedly,\nand without any scruples of conscience, preacher and people claim\nthese festivals as the gifts of their creed to humanity, and quote\nthem further to prove the historical existence of their god-man,\nJesus. It was this open and persistent perversion of history by the\nchurch, the manufacture of evidence on the one hand, the suppression\nof witnesses prejudiced to her interests on the other, and the\ndeliberate forging of documents, which provoked Carlyle into referring\nto one of its branches as _the great lying Church_.\n\nWe have said enough to show that, in all probability--for let us not\nbe dogmatic--the story of Jesus,--his birth and betrayal by one of\nhis own disciples, his trial in a Roman court, his crucifixion,\nresurrection and ascension,--belongs to the order of imaginative\nliterature. Conceived at first as a religious drama, it received many\nnew accretions as it traveled from country to country and from age to\nage. The \"piece\" shows signs of having been touched and retouched to\nmake it acceptable to the different countries in which it was\nplayed. The hand of the adapter, the interpolator and the reviser is\nunmistakably present. As an allegory, or as a dramatic composition,\nmeant for the religious stage, it proved one of the strongest\nproductions of Pagan or Christian times. But as real history, it lacks\nthe fundamental requisite--probability. As a play, it is stirring\nand strong; as history, it lacks naturalness and consistency. The\nmiraculous is ever outside the province of history. Jesus was\na miracle, and as such, at least, we are safe in declaring him\nun-historical.\n\nWe pass on now to the presentation of evidence which we venture to\nthink demonstrates with an almost mathematic precision, that the Jesus\nof the four gospels is a legendary hero, as unhistorical as William\nTell of Switzerland. This evidence is furnished by the epistles\nbearing the signature of Paul. He has been accepted as not only the\ngreatest apostle of Christianity, but in a sense also the author of\nits theology. It is generally admitted that the epistles bearing the\nname of Paul are among the oldest apostolical writings. They are older\nthan the gospels. This is very important information. When Paul\nwas preaching, the four gospels had not yet been written. From\nthe epistles of Paul, of which there are about thirteen in the\nBible--making the New Testament largely the work of this one\napostle--we learn that there were in different parts of Asia, a number\nof Christian churches already established. Not only Paul, then, but\nalso the Christian church was in existence before the gospels were\ncomposed. It would be natural to infer that it was not the gospels\nwhich created the church, but the church which produced the gospels.\nDo not lose sight of the fact that when Paul was preaching to the\nChristians there was no written biography of Jesus in existence. There\nwas a church without a book.\n\nIn comparing the Jesus of Paul with the Jesus whose portrait is drawn\nfor us in the gospels, we find that they are not the same persons at\nall. This is decisive. Paul knows nothing about a miraculously\nborn savior. He does not mention a single time, in all his thirteen\nepistles, that Jesus was born of a virgin, or that his birth was\naccompanied with heavenly signs and wonders. He knew nothing of\na Jesus born after the manner of the gospel writers. It is not\nimaginable that he knew the facts, but suppressed them, or that he\nconsidered them unimportant, or that he forgot to refer to them in\nany of his public utterances. Today, a preacher is expelled from his\ndenomination if he suppresses or ignores the miraculous conception of\nthe Son of God; but Paul was guilty of that very heresy. How explain\nit? It is quite simple: The virgin-born Jesus was not yet _invented_\nwhen Paul was preaching Christianity. Neither he, nor the churches he\nhad organized, had ever heard of such a person. The virgin-born Jesus\nwas of later origin than the Apostle Paul.\n\nLet the meaning of this discrepancy between the Jesus of Paul, that\nis to say, the earliest portrait of Jesus, and the Jesus of the four\nevangelists, be fully grasped by the student, and it should prove\nbeyond a doubt that in Paul's time the story of Jesus' birth from the\nvirgin-mother and the Holy Ghost, which has since become a cardinal\ndogma of the Christian church, was not yet in circulation. Jesus had\nnot yet been Hellenized; he was still a Jewish Messiah whose coming\nwas foretold in the Old Testament, and who was to be a prophet like\nunto Moses, without the remotest suggestion of a supernatural origin.\n\nNo proposition in Euclid is safer from contradiction than that, if\nPaul knew what the gospels tell about Jesus, he would have, at\nleast once or twice during his long ministry, given evidence of his\nknowledge of it. The conclusion is inevitable that the gospel Jesus\nis later than Paul and his churches. Paul stood nearest to the time of\nJesus. Of those whose writings are supposed to have come down to\nus, he is the most representative, and his epistles are the _first_\nliterature of the new religion. And yet there is absolutely not a\nsingle hint or suggestion in them of such a Jesus as is depicted in\nthe gospels. The gospel Jesus was not yet put together or compiled,\nwhen Paul was preaching.\n\nOnce more; if we peruse carefully and critically the writings of Paul,\nthe earliest and greatest Christian apostle and missionary, we find\nthat he is not only ignorant of the gospel stories about the birth and\nmiracles of Jesus, but he is equally and just as innocently ignorant\nof the _teachings_ of Jesus. In the gospels Jesus is the author of the\nSermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, the Parable of the Prodigal\nSon, the Story of Dives, the Good Samaritan, etc. Is it conceivable\nthat a preacher of Jesus could go throughout the world to convert\npeople to the teachings of Jesus, as Paul did, without ever quoting\na single one of his sayings? Had Paul known that Jesus had preached a\nsermon, or formulated a prayer, or said many inspired things about\nthe here and the hereafter, he could not have helped quoting, now and\nthen, from the words of his master. If Christianity could have been\nestablished without a knowledge of the teachings of Jesus, why, then,\ndid Jesus come to teach, and why were his teachings preserved by\ndivine inspiration? But if a knowledge of these teachings of Jesus is\nindispensable to making converts, Paul gives not the least evidence\nthat he possessed such knowledge.\n\nBut the Apostle Paul, judging from his many epistles to the earliest\nconverts to Christianity, which are really his testimony, supposed to\nhave been sealed by his blood, appears to be quite as ignorant of a\nJesus who went about working miracles,--opening the eyes of the\nblind, giving health to the sick, hearing to the deaf, and life to the\ndead,--as he is of a Jesus born of a virgin woman and the Holy Ghost.\nIs not this remarkable? Does it not lend strong confirmation to the\nidea that the miracle-working Jesus of the gospels was not known in\nPaul's time, that is to say, the earliest Jesus known to the churches\nwas a person altogether different from his namesake in the four\nevangelists. If Paul knew of a miracle-working Jesus, one who could\nfeed the multitude with a few loaves and fishes--who could command the\ngrave to open, who could cast out devils, and cleanse the land of the\nfoulest disease of leprosy, who could, and did, perform many other\nwonderful works to convince the unbelieving generation of\nhis divinity,--is it conceivable that either intentionally or\ninadvertently he would have never once referred to them in all his\npreaching? Is it not almost certain that, if the earliest Christians\nknew of the miracles of Jesus, they would have been greatly surprised\nat the failure of Paul to refer to them a single time? And would not\nPaul have told them of the promise of Jesus to give them power to work\neven greater miracles than his own, had he known of such a promise.\nCould Paul really have left out of his ministry so essential a chapter\nfrom the life of Jesus, had he been acquainted with it? The miraculous\nfills up the greater portion of the four gospels, and if these\ndocuments were dictated by the Holy Ghost, it means that they were too\nimportant to be left out. Why, then, does not Paul speak of them at\nall? There is only one reasonable answer: A miracle-working Jesus was\nunknown to Paul.\n\nWhat would we say of a disciple of Tolstoi, for example, who came\nto America to make converts to Count Tolstoi and never once quoted\nanything that Tolstoi had said? Or what would we think of the\nChristian missionaries who go to India, China, Japan and Africa to\npreach the gospel, if they never mentioned to the people of these\ncountries the Sermon on the Mount, the Parable of the Prodigal Son,\nthe Lord's Prayer--nor quoted a single text from the gospels?\nYet Paul, the first missionary, did the very thing which would be\ninexplicable in a modern missionary. There is only one rational\nexplanation for this: The Jesus of Paul was not born of a virgin; he\ndid not work miracles; and he was not a teacher. It was after his day\nthat such a Jesus was--I have to use again a strong word--_invented_.\n\nIt has been hinted by certain professional defenders of Christianity\nthat Paul's specific mission was to introduce Christianity among the\nGentiles, and not to call attention to the miraculous element in\nthe life of his Master. But this is a very lame defense. What is\nChristianity, but the life and teachings of Jesus? And how can it be\nintroduced among the Gentiles without a knowledge of the doctrines\nand works of its founder? Paul gives no evidence of possessing\nany knowledge of the teachings of Jesus, how could he, then, be a\nmissionary of Christianity to the heathen? There is no other answer\nwhich can be given than that the Christianity of Paul was something\nradically different from the Christianity of the later gospel writers,\nwho in all probability were Greeks and not Jews. Moreover, it is\nknown that Paul was reprimanded by his fellow-apostles for carrying\nChristianity to the Gentiles. What better defense could Paul have\ngiven for his conduct than to have quoted the commandment of Jesus--\n\n\"Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.\"\nAnd he would have quoted the \"divine\" text had he been familiar with\nit. Nay, the other apostles would not have taken him to task for\nobeying the commandment of Jesus had they been familiar with such a\ncommandment. It all goes to support the proposition that the gospel\nJesus was of a date later than the apostolic times.\n\nThat the authorities of the church realize how damaging to the reality\nof the gospel Jesus is the inexplicable silence of Paul concerning\nhim, may be seen in their vain effort to find in a passage put in\nPaul's mouth by the unknown author of the book of _Acts_, evidence\nthat Paul does quote the sayings of Jesus. The passage referred to is\nthe following: \"It is more blessed to give than to receive.\" Paul is\nmade to state that this was a saying of Jesus. In the first place,\nthis quotation is not in the epistles of Paul, but in the _Acts_, of\nwhich Paul was not the author; in the second place, there is no such\nquotation in the gospels. The position, then, that there is not a\nsingle saying of Jesus in the gospels which is quoted by Paul in his\nmany epistles is unassailable, and certainly fatal to the historicity\nof the gospel Jesus.\n\nAgain, from Paul himself we learn that he was a zealous Hebrew, a\nPharisee of Pharisees, studying with Gamaliel in Jerusalem, presumably\nto become a rabbi. Is it possible that such a man could remain totally\nignorant of a miracle worker and teacher like Jesus, living in the\nsame city with him? If Jesus really raised Lazarus from the grave,\nand entered Jerusalem at the head of a procession, waving branches\nand shouting, \"hosanna\"--if he was really crucified in Jerusalem, and\nascended from one of its environs--is it possible that Paul neither\nsaw Jesus nor heard anything about these miracles? But if he knew all\nthese things about Jesus, is it possible that he could go through the\nworld preaching Christ without ever once referring to them? It is\nmore likely that when Paul was studying in Jerusalem there was no\nmiraculous Jesus living or teaching in any part of Judea.\n\nIf men make their gods they also make their Christs. * It is\nfrequently urged that it was impossible for a band of illiterate\nfishermen to have created out of their own fancy so glorious a\ncharacter as that of Jesus, and that it would be more miraculous to\nsuppose that the unique sayings of Jesus and his incomparably perfect\nlife were invented by a few plain people than to believe in his actual\nexistence. But it is not honest to throw the question into that\nform. We do not know who were the authors of the gospels. It is pure\nassumption that they were written by plain fishermen. The authors of\nthe gospels do not disclose their identity. The words, _according_\nto Matthew, Mark, etc., represent only the guesses or opinions of\ntranslators and copyists.\n\n     * Christianity and Mythology. J. M. Robertson, to whom the\n     author acknowledges his indebtedness, for the difference\n     between Paul's Jesus and that of the Gospels.\n\nBoth in the gospels and in Christian history the apostles are\nrepresented as illiterate men. But if they spoke Greek, and could also\nwrite in Greek, they could not have been just plain fishermen. That\nthey were Greeks, not Jews, and more or less educated, may be safely\ninferred from the fact that they all write in Greek, and one of\nthem at least seems to be acquainted with the Alexandrian school\nof philosophy. Jesus was supposedly a Jew, his twelve apostles all\nJews--how is it, then, that the only biographies of him extant are all\nin Greek? If his fishermen disciples were capable of composition in\nGreek, they could not have been illiterate men, if they could not have\nwritten in Greek--which was a rare accomplishment for a Jew, according\nto what Josephus says--then the gospels were not written by the\napostles of Jesus. But the fact that though these documents are in a\nlanguage alien both to Jesus and his disciples, they are unsigned and\nundated, goes to prove, we think, that their editors or authors wished\nto conceal their identity that they may be taken for the apostles\nthemselves.\n\nIn the next place it is equally an assumption that the portrait of\nJesus is incomparable. It is now proven beyond a doubt that there is\nnot a single saying of Jesus, I say this deliberately, which had not\nalready been known both among the Jews and Pagans. Sometimes it is\nurged by pettifogging clergymen that, while it is true that Confucius\ngave the Golden Rule six hundred years before Jesus, it was in a\nnegative form. Confucius said, \"Do not unto another what you would not\nanother to do unto you.\" Jesus said, \"Do unto others,\" etc. But every\nnegative has its corresponding affirmation. Moreover, are not the Ten\nCommandments in the negative? But the Greek sages gave the Golden Rule\nin as positive a form as we find it in the Gospels. \"And may I do to\nothers as I would that others should do to me,\" said Plato. *\n\n     * Jowett Trans., V. p. 483.\n\nBesides, if the only difference between Jesus and Confucius, the one a\nGod, the other a mere man, was that they both said the same thing, the\none in the negative, the other in the positive, it is not enough\nto prove Jesus infinitely superior to Confucius. Many of Jesus' own\ncommandments are in the negative: \"Resist not evil,\" for instance.]\nAnd as to his life; it is in no sense superior or even as large and as\nmany sided as that of Socrates. I know some consider it blasphemy to\ncompare Jesus with Socrates, but that must be attributed to prejudice\nrather than to reason.\n\nAnd to the question that if Jesus be mythical, we cannot account for\nthe rise and progress of the Christian church, we answer that the\nPagan gods who occupied Mount Olympus were all mythical beings--mere\nshadows, and yet Paganism was the religion of the most advanced\nand cultured nations of antiquity. How could an imaginary Zeus, or\nJupiter, draw to his temple the elite of Greece and Rome? And if there\nis nothing strange in the rise and spread of the Pagan church; in the\nrapid progress of the worship of Osiris, who never existed; in the\nwonderful success of the religion of Mithra, who is but a name; if\nthe worship of Adonis, of Attis, of Isis, and the legends of Heracles,\nPrometheus, Hercules, and the Hindoo trinity,--Brahma, Shiva,\nChrishna,--with their rock-hewn temples, can be explained without\nbelieving in the actual existence of these gods--why not Christianity?\nReligions, like everything else, are born, they grow old and die. They\nshow the handiwork of whole races, and of different epochs, rather\nthan of one man or of one age. Time gives them birth, and changing\nenvironments determine their career. Just as the portrait of Jesus we\nsee in shops and churches is an invention, so is his character. The\nartist gave him his features, the theologian his attributes.\n\nWhat are the elements out of which the Jesus story was evolved? The\nJewish people were in constant expectation of a Messiah. The belief\nprevailed that his name would be Joshua, which in English is Jesus.\nThe meaning of the word is _savior_. In ancient Syrian mythology,\nJoshua was a Sun God. The Old-Testament Joshua, who \"stopped the\nSun,\" was in all probability this same Syrian divinity. According to\ntradition this Joshua, or Jesus, was the son of Mary, a name which\nwith slight variations is found in nearly all the old mythologies.\nGreek and Hindoo divinities were mothered by either a Mary, Meriam,\nMyrrah, or Merri. Maria or Mares is the oldest word for sea--the\nearliest source of life. The ancients looked upon the sea-water as the\nmother of every living thing. \"Joshua (or Jesus), son of Mary,\" was\nalready a part of the religious outfit of the Asiatic world when Paul\nbegan his missionary tours. His Jesus, or anointed one, crucified or\nslain, did in no sense represent a new or original message. It is\nno more strange that Paul's mythological \"savior\" should loom into\nprominence and cast a spell over all the world, than that a mythical\nApollo or Jupiter should rule for thousands of years over the fairest\nportions of the earth.\n\nIt is also well known that there is in the Talmud the story of a\nJesus, Ben, or son, of Pandira, who lived about a hundred years before\nthe Gospel Jesus, and who was hanged from a tree. I believe this Jesus\nis quite as legendary as the Syrian Hesous, or Joshua. But may it not\nbe that such a legend accepted as true--to the ancients all legends\nwere true--contributed its share toward marking the outlines of the\nlater Jesus, hanged on a cross? My idea has been to show that the\nmaterials for a Jesus myth were at hand, and that, therefore, to\naccount for the rise and progress of the Christian cult is no more\ndifficult than to explain the widely spread religion of the Indian\nChrishna, or of the Persian Mithra. *\n\n     * For a fuller discussion of the various \"Christs\" in\n     mythology read Robertson's Christianity and Mythology and\n     his Pagan Christs.\n\nNow, why have I given these conclusions to the world? Would I not\nhave made more friends--provoked a warmer response from the public at\nlarge--had I repeated in pleasant accents the familiar phrases about\nthe glory and beauty and sweetness of the Savior God, the Virgin-born\nChrist? Instead of that, I have run the risk of alienating the\nsympathies of my fellows by intimating that this Jesus whom\nChristendom worships today as a god, this Jesus at whose altar the\nChristian world bends its knees and bows its head, is as much of an\nidol as was Apollo of the Greeks; and that we--we Americans of the\ntwentieth century--are an idolatrous people, inasmuch as we worship a\nname, or at most, a man of whom we know nothing provable.\n\n[Illustration: 142 Italian Sculpture of the X Century.]\n\n\n\n\nIS CHRISTIANITY REAL?\n\nIt is assumed, without foundation, as I hope to show, that the\nreligion of Jesus alone can save the world. We are not surprised at\nthe claim, because there has never been a religion which has been too\nmodest to make a similar claim. No religion has ever been satisfied to\nbe _one_ of the saviors of man. Each religion wants to be the _only_\nsavior of man. There is no monopoly like religious monopoly. The\nindustrial corporations with all their greed are less exacting than\nthe Catholic church, for instance, which keeps heaven itself under\nlock and key.\n\nBut what is meant by salvation? Let us consider its religious meaning\nfirst. An unbiased investigation of the dogmas and their supposed\nhistorical foundations will prove that the salvation which\nChristianity offers, and the means by which it proposes to effect the\nworld's salvation, are extremely fanciful in nature. If this point\ncould be made clear, there will be less reluctance on the part of the\npublic to listen to the evidence on the un-historicity of the founder\nof Christianity.\n\nWe are told that God, who is perfect, created this world about half\na hundred centuries ago. Of course, being perfect himself the world\nwhich he created was perfect, too. But the world did not stay perfect\nvery long. Nay, from the heights it fell, not slowly, but suddenly,\ninto the lowest depths of degradation. How a world which God had\ncreated perfect, could in the twinkling of an eye become so vile as\nto be cursed by the same being who a moment before had pronounced it\n\"good,\" and besides be handed over to the devil as fuel for eternal\nburnings, only credulity can explain. I am giving the story of what is\ncalled the \"plan of salvation,\" in order to show its mythical nature.\nIn the preceding pages we have discussed the question, Is Jesus a\nMyth, but I believe that when we have reflected upon the story of\nman's fall and his supposed subsequent salvation by the blood of\nJesus, we shall conclude that the function, or the office, which Jesus\nis said to perform, is as mythical as his person.\n\nThe story of Eden possesses all the marks of an allegory. Adam and\nEve, and a perfect world _suddenly_ plunged from a snowy whiteness\ninto the blackness of hell, are the thoughts of a child who\nexaggerates because of an as yet undisciplined fancy. Yet, if Adam and\nEve are unreal, theologically speaking, Jesus is unreal. If they are\nallegory and myth, so is Jesus. It is claimed that it was the fall of\nAdam which necessitated the death of Jesus, but if Adam's fall be a\nfiction, as we know it is, Jesus' death as an atonement must also be a\nfiction.\n\nIn the fall of Adam, we are told, humanity itself fell. Could anything\nbe more fanciful than that? And what was Adam's sin? He coveted\nknowledge. He wished to improve his mind. He experimented with\nforbidden things. He dared to take the initiative. And for that\nimaginary crime, even the generations not yet born are to be forever\nblighted. Even the animals, the flowers and vegetables were cursed for\nit. Can you conceive of anything more mythical than that? One of\nthe English divines of the age of Calvin declared that original\nsin,--Adam's sin imputed to us,--was so awful, that \"if a man had\nnever been born he would yet have been damned for it.\" It is from this\nmythical sin that a mythical Savior saves us. And how does he do it?\nIn a very mythical way, as we shall see.\n\nWhen the world fell, it fell into the devil's hands. To redeem a part\nof it, at least, the deity concludes to give up his only son for\na ransom. This is interesting. God is represented as being greatly\noffended, because the world which he had created perfect was all in\na heap before him. To placate himself he sacrificed his son--not\nhimself.\n\nBut, as intimated above, he does not intend to restore the whole world\nto its pristine purity, but only a part of it. This is alarming. He\ncreates the whole world perfect, but now he is satisfied to have only\na portion of it redeemed from the devil. If he can save at all,\npray, why not save all? This is not an irrelevant question when it\nis remembered that the whole world was created perfect in the first\nplace.\n\nThe refusal of the deity to save all of his world from the devil would\nlead one to believe that even when God created the world perfect he\ndid not mean to keep all of it to himself, but meant that some of it,\nthe greater part of it, as some theologians contend, should go to the\ndevil! Surely this is nothing but myth. Let us hope for the sake\nof our ideals that all this is no more than the childish prattle of\nprimitive man.\n\nBut let us return to the story of the fall of man; God decides to save\na part of his ruined perfect world by the sacrifice of his son. The\nlatter is supposed to have said to his father: \"Punish me, kill\nme, accept my blood, and let it pay for the sins of man.\" He thus\ninterceded for the _elect_, and the deity was mollified. As Jesus is\nalso God, it follows that one God tried to pacify another, which is\npure myth. Some theologians have another theory--there is room here\nfor many theories. According to these, God gave up his son as a\nransom, not to himself, but to the devil, who now claimed the world\nas his own. I heard a distinguished minister explain this in the\nfollowing manner: A poor man whose house is mortgaged hears that some\nphilanthropist has redeemed the property by paying off the mortgage.\nThe soul of man was by the fall of Adam mortgaged to the devil. God\nhas raised the mortgage by abandoning his son to be killed to satisfy\nthe devil who held the mortgage. The debt which we owed has been paid\nby Jesus. By this arrangement the devil loses his legal right to our\nsouls and we are saved. All we need to do is to believe in this story\nand we'll be sure to go to heaven. And to think that intelligent\nAmericans not only accept all this as inspired, but denounce the\nman who ventures to intimate modestly that it might be a myth, as\na blasphemer! \"O, judgment!\" cries Shakespeare, \"thou hast fled to\nbrutish beasts, and men have lost their reason.\"\n\nThe morality which the Christian church teaches is of as mythical a\nnature as the story of the fall, and the blood-atonement. It is not\nnatural morality, but something quite unintelligible and fictitious.\nFor instance, we are told that we cannot of ourselves be righteous. We\nmust first have the grace of God. Then we are told that we cannot have\nthe grace of God unless he gives it to us. And he will not give it to\nus unless we ask for it. But we cannot ask for it, unless he moves us\nto ask for it. And there we are. We shall be damned if we do not come\nto God, and we cannot come to God unless he calls us. Besides, could\nanything be more mythical than a righteousness which can only be\nimputed to us,--any righteousness of our own being but \"filthy rags?\"\n\nThe Christian religion has the appearance of being one great\nmyth, constructed out of many minor myths. It is the same with\nMohammedanism, or Judaism, which latter is the mischievous parent of\nboth the Mohammedan and the Christian faiths. It is the same with\nall supernatural creeds. Myth is the dominating element in them all.\nCompared with these Asiatic religions how glorious is science! How\nwholesome, helpful, and luminous, are her commandments!\n\nIf I were to command you to believe that Mount Olympus was once\ntenanted by blue-eyed gods and their consorts,--sipping nectar and\nambrosia the live-long day,--you will answer, \"Oh, that is only\nmythology.\" If I were to tell you that you cannot be saved unless you\nbelieve that Minerva was born full-fledged from the brain of Jupiter,\nyou will laugh at me. If I were to tell you that you must punish your\ninnocent sons for the guilt of their brothers and sisters, you will\nanswer that I insult your moral sense. And yet, every Sunday, the\npreacher repeats the myth of Adam and Eve, and how God killed his\ninnocent son to please himself, or to satisfy the devil, and with\nbated breath, and on your knees, you whisper, _Amen._\n\nHow is it that when you read the literature of the Greeks, the\nliterature of the Persians, the literature of Hindoostan, or of the\nMohammedan world, you discriminate between fact and fiction, between\nhistory and myth, but when it comes to the literature of the Jews, you\nstammer, you stutter, you bite your lips, you turn pale, and fall\nupon your face before it as the savage before his fetish? You would\nconsider it unreasonable to believe that everything a Greek, or a\nRoman, or an Arab ever said was inspired. And yet, men have been\nhounded to death for not believing that everything that a Jew ever\nsaid in olden times was inspired.\n\nI do not have to use arguments, I hope, to prove to an intelligent\npublic that an infallible book is as much a myth as the Garden of\nEden, or the Star of Bethlehem.\n\nA mythical Savior, a mythical Bible, a mythical plan of salvation!\n\nWhen we subject what are called religious truths to the same tests by\nwhich we determine scientific or historical truths, we discover that\nthey are not truths at all; they are only opinions. Any statement\nwhich snaps under the strain of reason is unworthy of credence. But it\nis claimed that religious truth is discovered by intuition and not by\ninvestigation. The believer, it is claimed, feels in his own soul--he\nhas the witness of the spirit, that the Bible is infallible, and that\nJesus is the Savior of man. The Christian does not have to look into\nthe arguments for or against his religion, it is said, before he makes\nup his mind; he knows by an inward assurance; he has proved it to\nhis own deepermost being that Jesus is real and that he is the only\nSavior. But what is that but another kind of argument? The argument is\nquite inadequate to inspire assurance, as you will presently see, but\nit is an argument nevertheless. To say that we must believe and\nnot reason is a kind of reasoning, This device of reasoning against\nreasoning is resorted to by people who have been compelled by modern\nthought to give up, one after another, the strongholds of their\nposition. They run under shelter of what they call faith, or the\n\"inward witness of the spirit,\" or the intuitive argument, hoping\nthereby to escape the enemy's fire, if I may use so objectionable a\nphrase.\n\nWhat is called faith, then, or an intuitive spiritual assurance, is a\nspecies of reasoning; let its worth be tested honestly.\n\nIn the first place, faith or the intuitive argument would prove too\nmuch. If Jesus is real, notwithstanding that there is no reliable\nhistorical data to warrant the belief, because the believer feels in\nhis own soul that He is real and divine, I answer that, the same\nmode of reasoning--and let us not forget, it is a kind of\n_reasoning_--would prove Mohammed a divine savior, and the wooden idol\nof the savage a god. The African Bushman trembles before an image,\nbecause he feels in his own soul that the thing is real. Does that\nmake it real? The Moslem cries unto Mohammed, because he believes in\nhis innermost heart that Mohammed is near and can hear him. He will\nrisk his life on that assurance. To quote to him history and science\nto prove that Mohammed is dead and unable to save, would be of no\navail, for he has the witness of the spirit in him, an intuitive\nassurance, that the great prophet sits on the right hand of Allah. An\nargument which proves too much, proves nothing.\n\nIn the second place, an intuition is not communicable. I may have an\nintuition that I see spirits all about me this morning. They come,\nthey go, they nod, they brush my forehead with their wings. But do\n_you_ see them, too, because I see them? There is the difference\nbetween a scientific demonstration and a purely metaphysical\nassumption. I could go to the blackboard and assure you, as I am\nmyself assured, that two parallel lines running in the same direction\nwill not and cannot meet. That is demonstration. A fever patient\nwhen in a state of delirium, and a frightened child in the dark, see\nthings. We do not deny that they do, but their testimony does not\nprove that the things they see are real.\n\n\"What is this I see before me?\" cries Macbeth, the murderer, and he\nshrieks and shakes from head to foot--he draws his sword and rushes\nupon Banquo's ghost, which he sees coldly staring at him. But is that\nany proof that what he saw we could see also? Yes, we could, if we\nwere in the same frenzy! And it is the revivalist's aim, by creating\na general excitement, to make everybody _see things_. \"Doctor, Doctor,\nhelp! they are coming to kill me; there they are--the assassins,--one,\ntwo, three--oh, help,\" and the patient jumps out of bed to escape\nthe banditti crowding in upon him. But is that any reason why the\nattending physician, his pulse normal and his brow cool, should\nbelieve that the room is filling up with assassins? I observe people\njump up and down, as they do in holiness meetings; I hear them say\nthey see angels, they see Jesus, they feel his presence. But is that\nany evidence for you or me? An intuitive argument is not communicable,\nand, therefore, it is no argument at all.\n\nOur orthodox friends are finally driven by modern thought, which is\ngrowing bolder every day, to the only refuge left for them. It is the\none already mentioned. Granted that Jesus was an imaginary character,\neven then, as an ideal, they argue, he is an inspiration, and the most\neffective moral force the world has ever known. We do not care, they\nsay, whether the story of his birth, trial, death, and resurrection\nis myth or actual history; such a man as Jesus may never have existed,\nthe things he is reported as saying may have been put in his mouth by\nothers, but what of that--is not the picture of his character\nperfect? Are not the Beatitudes beautiful--no matter who said them?\nTo strengthen this position they call our attention to Shakespeare's\ncreations, the majority of whom--Hamlet, Othello, Lear, Portia,\nImogen, Desdemona, are fictitious. Yet where are there grander men, or\nfiner women? These children of Shakespeare may never have lived, but,\nsurely, they will never die. In the same sense, Jesus may be just as\nideal a character as those of Shakespeare, they say, and still be \"the\nlight of the world.\" A New York preacher is reported as saying that if\nChristianity is a lie, it is a \"glorious lie.\"\n\nMy answer to the above is that such an argument evades instead of\nfacing the question. It is receding from a position under cover of a\nrhetorical manoeuvre. It is a retreat in disguise. If Christianity is\na \"glorious lie,\" then call it such. The question under discussion is,\nIs Jesus Historical? To answer that it is immaterial whether or not\nhe is historical, is to admit that there is no evidence that he\nis historical. To urge that, unhistorical though he be, he is,\nnevertheless, the only savior of the world, is, I regret to say,\nnot only evasive,--not only does it beg the question, but it is\nalso clearly dishonest. How long will the tremendous ecclesiastical\nmachinery last, if it were candidly avowed that it is doubtful whether\nthere ever was such a historical character as Jesus, or that in all\nprobability he is no more real than one of Shakespeare's creations?\nWhat! all these prayers, these churches, these denominations,\nthese sectarian wars which have shed oceans of human blood--these\nunfortunate persecutions which have blackened the face of man--the\nfear of hell and the devil which has blasted millions of lives--all\nthese for a Christ who may, after all, be only a picture!\n\nNeither is it true that this pictorial Jesus saved the world. He has\nhad two thousand years to do it in, but as missionaries are still\nbeing sent out, it follows that the world is yet to be saved. The\nargument presented elsewhere in these pages may here be recapitulated.\n\nThere was war before Christianity; has Jesus abolished war?\n\nThere was poverty and misery in the world before Christianity; has\nJesus removed these evils?\n\nThere was ignorance in the world before Christianity; has Jesus\ndestroyed ignorance?\n\nThere were disease, crime, persecution, oppression, slavery,\nmassacres, and bloodshed in the world before Christianity; alas, are\nthey not still with us?\n\n_When Jesus shall succeed in pacifying his own disciples; in healing\nthe sectarian world of its endless and bitter quarrels, then it will\nbe time to ask what else Jesus has done for humanity._\n\nIf the world is improving at all, and we believe it is, the progress\nis due to the fact that man pays now more attention to _this_ life\nthan formerly. He is thinking less of the other world and more of\nthis. He no longer sings with the believer:\n\n     The world is all a fleeting show\n        For man's delusion given.\n     Its smiles of joy, its tears of woe,\n        Deceitful shine, deceitful flow,\n     There's nothing true but heaven.\n\nHow could people with such feelings labor to improve a world they\nhated? How could they be in the least interested in social or\npolitical reforms when they were constantly repeating to themselves--\n\n     I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger--\n     I can tarry, I can tarry, but a night.\n\nThat these same people should now claim not only a part of the credit\nfor the many improvements, but all of it--saying that, but for their\nreligion the \"world would now have been a hell,\" * is really a little\ntoo much for even the most serene temperament.\n\n     * Rev. Frank Gunsaulus, of the Central Church, Chicago. See\n     A New Catechism.--M. M. Mangasarian.\n\nWhich of the religions has persecuted as long and as relentlessly as\nChristianity?\n\nWhich of the many faiths of the world has opposed Science as\nstubbornly and as bitterly as Christianity?\n\nIn the name of what other prophets have more people been burned at the\nstake than in the names of Jesus and Moses?\n\nWhat other revelation has given rise to so many sects, hostile and\nirreconcilable, as the Christian?\n\nWhich religion has furnished as many effective texts for political\noppression, polygamy, slavery, and the subjection of woman as the\nreligion of Jesus and Paul?\n\nIs there,--has there ever been another creed which makes salvation\ndependent on belief,--thereby encouraging hypocrisy, and making honest\ninquiry a crime?\n\nTo send a thief to heaven from the gallows because he believes, and\nan honest man to hell because he doubts, is that the virtue which is\ngoing to save the world?\n\nThe claim that Jesus has saved the world is another myth.\n\nA _pictorial_ Christ, then, has not done anything for humanity\nto deserve the tremendous expenditure of time, energy, love, and\ndevotion, which has for two thousand years taxed the resources of\ncivilization.\n\nThe passing away of this imaginary savior will relieve the world of an\nunproductive investment.\n\nWe conclude: Honesty, like charity, must begin at home. Unless we can\ntell the truth in our churches we will never tell the truth in our\nshops. Unless our teachers, the ministers of God, are honest, our\ninsurance companies and corporations will have to be watched. Permit\nsham in your religious life, and the disease will spread to every\nmember of the social body. If you may keep religion in the dark, and\ncry \"hush,\" \"hush,\" when people ask that it be brought out into the\nlight, why may not politics or business cultivate a similar partiality\nfor darkness? If the king cries, \"rebel,\" when a citizen asks for\njustice, it is because he has heard the priest cry, \"infidel,\" when a\nmember of his church asked for evidence. Religious hypocrisy is the\nmother of all hypocrisies. Cure a man of that, and the human world\nwill recover its health.\n\nNot so long ago, nearly everybody believed in the existence of a\npersonal devil. People saw him, heard him, described him, danced with\nhim, and claimed, besides, to have whipped him. Luther hurled his\ninkstand at him, and American women accused as witches were put to\ndeath in the name of the devil. Yet all this \"evidence\" has not saved\nthe devil from passing out of existence. What has happened to the\ndevil will happen to the gods. Man is the only real savior. If he is\nnot a savior, there is no other.\n\n[Illustration: 160 The Hindu Trinity.]\n\n\n\n\nPART II.\n\n\n\n\nIS THE WORLD INDEBTED TO CHRISTIANITY?\n\n\"But,\" says the believer, again, as a last resort, \"Jesus, whether\nreal or mythical, has certainly saved the world, and is its only\nhope.\" If this assertion can be supported with facts, then surely it\nwould matter very little whether Jesus really lived and taught, or\nwhether he is a mere picture. Although even then it would be more\ntruthful to say we have no satisfactory evidence that such a teacher\nas Jesus ever lived, than to affirm dogmatically his existence, as\nit is now done. Whatever Jesus may have done for the world, he has\ncertainly not freed us from the obligation of telling the truth. I\ncall special attention to this point. Because Jesus has saved the\nworld, granting for the moment that he has, is no reason why we should\nbe indifferent to the truth. Nay, it would show that Jesus has\nnot saved the world, if we can go on and speak of him as an actual\nexistence, born of a virgin and risen from the dead, and in his name\npersecute one another--oppose the advance of science, deny freedom of\nthought, terrorize children and women with pictures of hell-fire and\nseek to establish a spiritual monopoly in the world, when the evidence\nin hand seems clearly to indicate that such a person never existed.\n\nWe shall quote a chapter from Christian history to give our readers an\nidea of how much the religion of Jesus, when implicitly believed in,\ncan do for the world. We have gone to the earliest centuries for our\nexamples of the influence exerted by Christianity upon the ambitions\nand passions of human nature, because it is generally supposed that\nChristianity was then at its best. Let us, then, present a picture of\nthe world, strictly speaking, of the Roman Empire, during the first\nfour or five hundred years after its conversion to Christianity.\n\nWe select this specific period, because Christianity was at this time\nfifteen hundred years nearer to its source, and was more virile and\naggressive than it has ever been since.\n\nShakespeare speaks of the uses of adversity; but the uses of\nprosperity are even greater. The proverb says that \"adversity tries\na man.\" While there is considerable truth in this, the fact is that\nprosperity is a much surer criterion of character. It is impossible to\ntell, for instance, what a man will do who has neither the power nor\nthe opportunity to do anything. \"Opportunity,\" says a French writer,\n\"is the cleverest devil.\" Both our good and bad qualities wait upon\nopportunity to show themselves. It is quite easy to be virtuous when\nthe opportunity to do evil is lacking. Behind the prison bars, every\ncriminal is a penitent, but the credit belongs to the iron bars\nand not to the criminal. To be good when one cannot be bad, is an\nindifferent virtue.\n\nIt is with institutions and religions as with individuals--they should\nbe judged not by what they pretend in their weakness, but by what they\ndo when they are strong. Christianity, Mohammedanism and Judaism, the\nthree kindred religions--we call them kindred because they are related\nin blood and are the offspring of the same soil and climate--these\nthree kindred religions must be interpreted not by what they profess\ntoday, but by what they did when they had both the power and the\nopportunity to do as they wished.\n\nWhen Christianity, or Mohammedanism, was professed only by a small\nhandful of men--twelve fishermen, or a dozen camel-drivers of the\ndesert--neither party advocated persecution. The worst punishment\nwhich either religion held out was a distant and a future punishment;\nbut as soon as Christianity converted an Emperor, or Mohammed became\nthe victorious warrior,--that is to say, as soon as, springing forth,\nthey picked up the sword and felt their grip sure upon its hilt,\nthis future and distant punishment materialized into a present and\npersistent persecution of their opponents. Is not that suggestive?\nThen, again, when in the course of human evolution, both Christianity\nand Mohammedanism lost the secular support--the throne, the favor\nof the courts, the imperial treasury--they fell back once more upon\nfuture penalties as the sole menace against an unbelieving world. As\nreligion grows, secularly speaking, weaker, and is more completely\ndivorced from the temporal, even the future penalties, from being both\nliteral and frightful, pale into harmless figures of speech.\n\nIt was but a short time after the conversion of the Emperor\nConstantine, that the following edict was published throughout the\nprovinces of the Roman Empire:\n\n\"O ye enemies of truth, authors and counsellors of death--we enact\nby this law that none of you dare hereafter to meet at your\nconventicles...nor keep any meetings either in public buildings\nor private houses. We have commanded that all your places of\nmeeting--your temples--be pulled down or confiscated to the Catholic\nChurch.\"\n\nThe man who affixed his signature to this edict was a monarch, that\nis to say, a man who had the power to do as he liked. The man and\nmonarch, then, who affixed his imperial signature to this _first_\ndocument of persecution in Europe--the first, because, as Renan has\nbeautifully remarked, \"We may search in vain the whole Roman law\nbefore Constantine for a single passage against freedom of thought,\nand the history of the imperial government furnishes no instance of\na prosecution for entertaining an abstract doctrine,\"--this is glory\nenough for the civilization 'which we call _Pagan_ and which was\nreplaced by the Asiatic religion--the man and the monarch who fathered\nthe first instrument of persecution in our Europe, who introduced\ninto our midst the crazed hounds of religious wars, unknown either in\nGreece or Rome, Constantine, has been held up by Cardinal Newman as \"a\npattern to all succeeding monarchs.\" Only an Englishman, a European,\ninfected with the malady of the East, could hold up the author of such\nan edict,--an edict which prostitutes the State to the service of a\nfad--as \"a pattern.\"\n\nIf we asked for a modern illustration of what a church will do when\nit has the power, there is the example of Russia. Russia is today\ncenturies behind the other European nations. She is the most\nunfortunate, the most ignorant, the most poverty-pinched country, with\nthe most orthodox type of Christianity. What is the difference\nbetween Greek Christianity, such as prevails in Russia, and American\nChristianity! Only this: The Christian Church in Russia has both the\npower and the opportunity to do things, while the Christian church in\nAmerica or in France has not. We must judge Christianity as a religion\nby what it does in Russia, more than by what it does not do in France\nor America. There was a time when the church did in France and\nin England what it is doing now in Russia, which is a further\nconfirmation of the fact that a religion must be judged not by what it\npretends in its weakness, but by what it does when it can. In Russia,\nthe priest can tie a man's hands and feet and deliver him up to the\ngovernment; and it does so. In Protestant countries, the church,\nbeing deprived of all its badges and prerogatives, is more modest and\nhumble. The poet Heine gives eloquent expression to this idea when he\nsays: \"Religion comes begging to us, when it can no longer burn us.\"\n\nThere will be no revolution in Russia, nor even any radical\nimprovement of existing conditions, so long as the Greek Church has\nthe education of the masses in charge. To become politically free,\nmen must first be intellectually emancipated. If a Russian is not\npermitted to choose his own religion, will he be permitted to choose\nhis own form of government? If he will allow a priest to impose his\nreligion upon him, why may he not permit the Czar to impose despotism\nupon him? If it is wrong for him to question the tenets of his\nreligion, is it not equally wrong for him to discuss the laws of his\ngovernment? If a slave of the church, why may he not be also a slave\nof the state? If there is room upon his neck for the yoke of the\nchurch, there will be room, also, for the yoke of the autocracy. If he\nis in the habit of bending his knees, what difference does it make to\nhow many or to whom he bends them?\n\nNot until Russia has become religiously emancipated, will she conquer\npolitical freedom. She must first cast out of her mind the fear of the\nchurch, before she can enter into the glorious fellowship of the free.\nIn Turkey, all the misery of the people will not so much as cause a\nripple of discontent, because the Moslem has been brought up to submit\nto the Sultan as to the shadow on earth of Allah. Both in Russia and\nTurkey, the protestants are the heretics. The orthodox Turk and the\northodox Christian permit without a murmur both the priest and the\nking to impose upon them at the point of a bayonet, the one his\nreligion, and the other his government. It is only by taking the\neducation of the masses out of the hands of the clergy that either\ncountry can enjoy any prosperity. Orthodoxy and autocracy are twins.\n\nLet me now try to present to you a picture of the world under\nChristianity about the year 400 of the present era. Let us discuss\nthis phase of the subject in a liberal spirit, extenuating nothing,\nnor setting down aught in malice. Please interpret what I say in the\nnext few minutes metaphorically, and pardon me if my picture is a\nrepellant one.\n\nWe are in the year of our Lord, 400:\n\nI rose up early this morning to go to church. As I approached the\nbuilding, I saw there a great multitude of people unable to secure\nadmission into the edifice. The huge iron doors were closed, and upon\nthem was affixed a notice from the authorities, to the effect that all\nwho worshiped in this church would, by the authority of the state, be\nknown and treated hereafter as \"infamous heretics,\" and be exposed to\nthe extreme penalty of the law if they persisted in holding services\nthere. But the party to which I belonged heeded not the prohibition,\nbut beat against the doors furiously and effected an entrance into the\nchurch. The excitement ran high; men and leaders shouted, gesticulated\nand came to blows. The Archbishop was urged to ascend his episcopal\nthrone and officiate at the altar in spite of the formal interdiction\nagainst him. He consented. But he had not proceeded far when soldiers,\nwith a wild rush, poured into the building and began to discharge\narrows at the panic-stricken people. Instantly pandemonium was let\nloose. The officers commanding the soldiers demanded the head of the\noffending Archbishop. The worshipers made an attempt to resist; then\nblood was shed, the sight of which reeled people's heads, and, in\nan instant, the sanctuary was turned into a house of murder. Taking\nadvantage of the uproar, the Archbishop, assisted by his secretaries,\nescaped through a secret door behind the altar.\n\n[Illustration: 170 Engraving of XV Century Representing the Trinity.]\n\nOn my way home from this terrible scene, I fell upon a procession of\nmonks. They were carrying images and relics, and a banner upon which\nwere inscribed these words: \"The Virgin Mary, Mother of God.\" As they\nmarched on, their number increased by new additions. But suddenly\nthey encountered another band of monks, carrying a different banner,\nbearing the same words which were on the other party's banner, but\ninstead of \"The Virgin Mary, Mother of God,\" their banner read: \"The\nVirgin Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ.\" The two processions clashed, and\na bloody encounter followed; in an instant images, relics and banners\nwere all in an indiscriminate heap. The troops were called out again,\nbut such was the zeal of the conflicting parties that not until\nthe majority of them were disabled and exhausted, was tranquility\nrestored.\n\nLooking about me, I saw the spire of a neighboring church. My\ncuriosity prompted me to wend my steps thither. As soon as I entered,\nI was recognized as belonging to the forbidden sect, and in an instant\na hundred fists rained down blows upon my head. \"He has polluted the\nsanctuary,\" they cried. \"He has committed sacrilege.\"\n\n\"No quarter to the enemies of the true church,\" cried others, and it\nwas a miracle that, beaten, bruised, my clothes torn from my back, I\nregained the street. A few seconds later, looking up the streets, I\nsaw another troop of soldiers, rushing down toward this church at full\nspeed. It seems that while I was being beaten in the main auditorium,\nin the baptistry of the church they were killing, in cold blood,\nthe Archbishop, who was suspected of a predilection for the opposite\nparty, and who had refused to retract or resign from his office. The\nnext day I heard that one hundred and thirty-seven bodies were taken\nout of this building.\n\nSeized with terror, I now began to run, but, alas, I had worse\nexperiences in store for me. I was compelled to pass the principal\nsquare in the center of the city before I could reach a place of\nsafety. When I reached this square, it had the appearance of a\nveritable battlefield. It was Sunday morning, and the partisans\nof rival bishops, differing in their interpretation of theological\ndoctrines, were fighting each other like maddened, malignant\ncreatures. One could hear, over the babel of discordant yells,\nscriptural phrases. The words, \"The Son is equal to the Father,\" \"The\nFather is greater than the Son,\" \"He is begotten of the same substance\nas the Father,\" \"He is of like substance, but not of the same\nsubstance,\" \"You are a heretic,\" \"You are an atheist,\" were invariably\naccompanied with blows, stabs and sword thrusts, until, as an\neye-witness, I can take an oath that I saw the streets leading out of\nthe square deluged with palpitating human blood. Suddenly the\ncommander of the cavalry, Hermogenes, rode upon the scene of feud and\nbloodshed. He ordered the followers of the rival bishops to disperse,\nbut instead of minding his authority, the zealots of both sides rushed\nupon his horse, tore the rider from the saddle and began to beat him\nwith clubs and stones which they picked up from the street. He managed\nto escape into a house close by, but the religious rabble surrounded\nthe house and set fire to it. Hermogenes appeared at the window,\nbegging for his life. He was attacked again, and killed, and his\nmangled body dragged through the streets and rushed into a ditch.\n\nThe spectacle inflamed me, being a sectarian myself. I felt ashamed\nthat I was not showing an equal zeal for _my_ party. I, too, longed\nto fight, to kill, to be killed, for my religion. And, anon! the\nopportunity presented itself. I saw, looking up the street to my\nright, a group of my fellow-believers, who, like myself, shut out of\ntheir own church by the orthodox authorities, armed with whips loaded\nwith lead and with clubs, were entering a house. I followed them.\nAs we went in, we commanded the head of the family and his wife to\nappear. When they did, we asked them if it was true that in their\nprayers to Mary they had refrained from the use of the words, \"The\nmother of God.\" They hesitated to give a direct answer, whereupon we\nused the club, and then, the scourge. Then they said they believed in\nand revered the blessed virgin, but would not, even if we killed them,\nsay that she was the mother of God. This obstinacy exasperated us\nand we felt it to be our religious duty, for the honor of our divine\nQueen, to perpetrate such cruelties upon them as would shock your\ngentle ears to hear. We held them over slowly burning fires, flung\nlime into their eyes, applied roasted eggs and hot irons to the\nsensitive parts of their bodies, and even gagged them to force the\nsacrament into their mouths.....As we went from house to house, bent\nupon our mission, I remember an expression of one of the party who\nsaid to the poor woman who was begging for mercy: \"What! shall I be\nguilty of defrauding the vengeance of God of its victims?\" A sudden\nchill ran down my back. I felt my flesh creep. Like a drop of poison\nthe thought embodied in those words perverted whatever of pity or\nhumanity was left in me, and I felt that I was only helping to secure\nvictims with which to feed the vengeance of God!\n\n[Illustration: 175 Trinity in XIII Century.]\n\nI was willing to be a monster for the glory of God!\n\nThe Christian sect to which I belonged was one of the oldest in\nChristendom. Our ancestors were called the Puritans of the fourth and\nfifth centuries. We believe that no one can be saved outside of our\ncommunion. When a Christian of another church joins us, we re-baptize\nhim, for we do not believe in the validity of other baptisms. We are\nso particular that we deny our cemeteries to any other Christians than\nour own members. If we find that we have, by mistake, buried a member\nof another church in our cemetery, we dig up his bones, that he may\nnot pollute the soil. When one of the churches of another denomination\nfalls into our hands, we first fumigate the building, and with a sharp\nknife we scrape the wood off the altars upon which other Christian\npriests have offered prayers. We will, under no consideration, allow\na brother Christian from another church to commune with us; if by\nstealth anyone does, we spare not his life. But we are persecuted just\nas severely as we persecute, ourselves. *\n\n     * This sect (Donatist) and others, lasted for a long time,\n     and made Asia and Africa a hornet's nest,--a blood-stained\n     arena, of feud and riot and massacre, until Mohammedanism\n     put an end, in these parts of the world, not only to these\n     sects, but to Christianity itself.\n\nAs the sun was setting, fatigued with the holy Sabbath's religious\nduties, I started to go home. On my way back, I saw even wilder,\nbloodier scenes, between rival ecclesiastical factions, streets even\nredder with blood, if possible, yea, certain sections of the city\nseemed as if a storm of hail, or tongues of flame had swept over them.\nChurches were on fire, cowled monks attacking bishops' residences,\nrival prelates holding uproarious debates, which almost always\nterminated in bloodshed, and, to cap the day of many vicissitudes,\nI saw a bear on exhibition which had been given its freedom by the\nruler, as a reward for his faithful services in devouring heretics.\nThe Christian ruler kept two fierce bears by his own chamber, to which\nthose who did not hold the orthodox faith were thrown in his presence\nwhile he listened with delight to their groans.\n\nWhen I reached home, I was panting for breath. I had lived through\nanother Sabbath day. *\n\n     * If the reader will take the pains to read Dean Milman's\n     History of Christianity, and his History of Latin\n     Christianity; also Gibbon's Downfall of the Roman Empire,\n     and Mosheim's History of Christianity, he will see that we\n     have exaggerated nothing. The Athanasian and the Arian, the\n     Donatist and Sabellian, the Nestorian and Alexandrian\n     factions converted the early centuries into a long reign of\n     terror.\n\nI feel like covering my face for telling you so grewsome a tale.\nBut if this were the fourth or the fifth century, instead of the\ntwentieth, and this were Constantinople, or Alexandria, or Antioch,\ninstead of Chicago, I would have spent just such a Sunday as I have\ndescribed to you. In giving you this concentrated view of human\nsociety in the great capitals of Christendom in the year 400, I have\nrestrained, rather than spurred, my imagination. Remember, also, that\nI have confined my remarks to a specific and short period in history,\nand have excluded from my generalization all reference to the\ncenturies of religious wars which tore Europe limb from limb,--the\nwholesale exterminations, the crusades, which represented one of the\nmaddest spells of misguided and costly zeal which ever struck our\nearth, the persecution of the Huguenots, the extermination of the\nAlbigenses and of the Waldenses,--the massacre of St. Bartholomew,\nthe Inquisition with its red hand upon the intellect of Europe, the\nAnabaptist outrages in Germany, the Smithfield fires in England, the\nreligious outrages in Scotland, the Puritan excesses in America,--the\nreign of witchcraft and superstition throughout the twenty\ncenturies--I have not touched my picture with any colors borrowed from\nthese terrible chapters in the history of our unfortunate earth. I\nhave also left out all reference to Papal Rome, with its dungeons,\nits stakes, its massacres and its burnings. I have said nothing of\nGalileo, Vanini, Campanella or Bruno. I have passed over all this in\nsilence. You can imagine, now, how much more repellant and appalling\nthis representation of the Roman world under Christianity would have\nbeen had I stretched my canvas to include also these later centuries.\n\nBut I tremble to be one-sided or unjust, and so I hasten to say that\nduring the twenty centuries' reign of our religion, the world has also\nseen some of the fairest flowers spring out of the soil of our earth.\nDuring the past twenty centuries there have been men and women,\ncalling themselves Christians, who have been as generous, as heroic\nand as deeply consecrated to high ideals as any the world has ever\nproduced. Christianity has, in many instances, softened the manners of\nbarbarians and elevated the moral tone of primitive peoples. It\ngives us more pleasure to speak of the good which religions have\naccomplished than to call attention to the evil they have caused.\nBut this raises a very important question. \"Why do you not\nconfine yourself,\" we are often asked, \"to the virtues you find in\nChristianity or Mohammedanism, instead of discussing so frequently\ntheir short-comings? Is it not better to praise than to blame, to\nrecommend than to find fault?\" This is a fair question, and we may\njust as well meet it now as at any other time.\n\nSuch is the economy of nature that no man, or institution or religion,\ncan be altogether evil. The poet spoke the truth when he said: \"There\nis a soul of goodness in things evil.\" Evil, in a large sense, is the\nraw material of the good. All things contribute to the education of\nman. The question, then, whether an institution is helpful or hurtful,\nis a relative one. The character of an institution, as that of an\nindividual, is determined by its ruling passion. Despotism, for\ninstance, is generally considered to be an evil. And yet, a hundred\ngood things can be said of despotism. The French people, over a\nhundred years ago, overthrew the monarchy. And yet the monarchy had\nrendered a thousand services to France. It was the monarchy that\ncreated France, that extended her territory, developed her commerce,\nbuilt her great cities, defended her frontiers against foreign\ninvasion, and gave her a place among the first-class nations of\nEurope. Was it just, then, to pull down an institution that had done\nso much for France?\n\nWhy did the Americans overthrow British rule in this country? Had not\nEngland rendered innumerable services to the colony? Was she not one\nof the most progressive, most civilizing influences in the modern\nworld? Was it just, then, that we should have beaten out of the land a\ngovernment that had performed for us so many friendly acts?\n\nReferring once more to the case of Russia: Why do the awakened people\nin that country demand the overthrow of the autocracy? Is there\nnothing good to be said of Russian autocracy? Have not the Czars loved\ntheir country and fought for her prosperity? Have they not brought\nRussia up to her present size, population and political influence in\nEurope? Have they not beautified her cities and enacted laws for the\nprotection of their subjects? Is it right, then, in spite of all these\nthings that autocracy has done for Russia, to seek to overthrow it?\n\nOnce more: Why do the missionaries go into India and China and Japan\ntrying to replace the ancestral religion of these people with the\nChristian faith? Why does the missionary labor to overthrow the\nworship of Buddha, Confucius and Zoroaster? Have not these great\nteachers helped humanity? Have they not rendered any services to\ntheir countrymen? Are there no truths in their teachings? Are there no\nvirtues in their lives? Is it right, then, that the missionary should\ncriticise these ancient faiths?\n\n[Illustration: 182 Conception of Trinity, Ninth Century.]\n\nLet us take an example from nearer home. We were talking some years\nago with a gentleman who had just returned from Dowie's Zion. He was\nsurprised to find there a clean, orderly and well-behaved people,\napparently quite happy. He said that after his experiences there, he\nwould rather do business with Dowie and his men than with the average\nmember of other religious bodies. He found the Dowieites honest,\nreliable and peaceful. Now, all this may be true, and I hope it is;\nbut what of it? Dowieism is an evil, notwithstanding this recital\nof its virtues. It is an evil, because it arrests the intellectual\ndevelopment of man, because it makes dwarfs of the people it converts,\nbecause it pinches the forehead of each convert into that of either a\ncharlatan or an idiot. We regret to have to use these harsh terms. But\nDowieism is denounced, because it brings up human beings as if they\nwere sheep, because it robs them of the most glorious gift of life,\nthe freedom to grow, Dowieism is an evil, because it makes the human\nrace mediocre by contracting its intellect down to the measure of a\ncreed. We would much rather that the Dowieites smoked and drank and\nswore, than that they should fear to think. There is hope for a bad\nman. There is no hope for the stupid.\n\nIn the case of an institution or a religion, then, it is not by adding\nup the debit and credit columns and striking a balance sheet that the\nquestion whether it has helped or hurt mankind is to be determined.\nWe cannot, for instance, place ninety-nine vices in one column, and\na hundred virtues in another, and conclude therefrom that the\ninstitution or the religion should be preserved. Nor, conversely\nspeaking, can we place a hundred vices against ninety-nine virtues,\nand, therefore, condemn, the institution. Even as a man is hanged for\none act in his life, in spite of the thousand good acts which may be\nquoted against the one evil deed, so an institution or a religion\nis honored or condemned, as we said above, for its _ruling passion_.\nMohammedanism, Judaism and Christianity have done much good, just as\nother religions have, but they are condemned today by modern thought,\nbecause they are a conspiracy against reason--because they combat\nprogress, as if it were a crime!\n\nAnother criticism frequently advanced against us is that we fail to\nrealize that all the evil of which Christianity is said to have been\nthe cause, is only the result of human ignorance and passion. When\nattention is called, for instance, to the intolerance and stubborn\nopposition to science, of Christianity, the answer given is, that this\nconduct is not only not inspired by the spirit of Christianity, but\nthat it is in direct contradiction to its teachings. The Christians\nclaim that all the luminous chapters in history have been inspired by\ntheir religion, all its sorrowful and black pages have been written by\nthe passions of men. But this apology, which, we regret to say, is\nin every preacher's mouth, is not an honest one. In our opinion, both\nMohammedanism and Christianity, as also Judaism, are responsible for\nthe evil as well as the good they have accomplished in the world. They\nare responsible for the lives they have destroyed, as for the lives\nthey have saved. They are responsible for the passions they have\naroused,--for the hatred, the persecutions and the religious wars of\nthe centuries, as for the piety and charity they have encouraged.\n\nThe central idea in all the three religions mentioned above, is that\nGod has revealed his will to man. There is, we say frankly, the root\nof all the evil which religion has inflicted upon our unfortunate\nearth. The poison is in both the flower and the fruit which that idea\nbrings forth. If it be true that God has revealed his will, that he\nhas told us, for instance, to believe in the Trinity, the atonement,\nthe fall of man, and the dogma of eternal punishment, and we refuse\nto do so, will we not, then, be regarded as the most odious, the\nmost heinous, the most rebellious, the most sacrilegious, the most\nstiff-necked, the most criminal people in the world? Think of refusing\nto believe as God has dictated to us! Think of saying _no!_ to one's\nCreator and Father in Heaven! Think of the consequences of differing\nwith God, and tempting others to do the same! Is it at all strange\nthat during the early centuries of Christianity, the people who\nhesitated to agree with the deity, or to believe as he wanted them to,\nwere looked upon as incarnate fiends, as the accomplices of the devil\nand the enemies of the human race, and were treated accordingly?\n\nThe doctrine of salvation by faith makes persecution inevitable. If to\nrefuse to believe in the Trinity, or in the divinity of Christ, is a\ncrime against God and will be punished by an eternity of hell in the\nnext world, and if such a man endangers the eternal salvation of his\nfellows, is it not the duty of all religious people to endeavor to\nexterminate him and his race, now and here? How can Christian people\ntolerate the rebel against their God, when God himself has pronounced\nsentence of death against him? Why not follow the example of the\ndeity, as set forth in the persecutions of the Old Testament?\n\nWhen we have a God for a teacher, the highest and surest virtue is\nunconditional acquiescence. Judaism, Mohammedanism and Christianity,\nin giving us a God for a teacher, have taken away from us the liberty\nto think for ourselves. Each one of these three religions makes\nunconditional obedience the price of the salvation it offers, but\ndo you know what other word in the English language unconditional\nobedience is a synonym of?--Silence! A dumb world, a tongue-tied\nhumanity alone can be saved! The good man is the man on his knees with\nhis mouth in the dust. But silence is sterility! Silence is slavery!\nThink, then, of the character of a religion which makes free speech,\nfree thought, a crime--which hurls hell against the Protestant!\n\nThere is a third question to be answered: It is true, they say to us,\nthat there are many things in the Koran, the Old Testament and the\nNew, which are really injurious, and which ought to be discarded, but\nthere are also many beautiful principles, noble sentiments and high\neducational maxims in these scriptures. Why not, then, dwell upon\nthese, and pass in silence over the objectionable teachings of these\nreligions? It is not necessary to repeat again that in all so-called\nsacred scriptures, there are glorious truths. It could not have been\notherwise. All literature, whether secular or religious, is the voice\nof man and sweeps the whole compass of human love and hope. We have\nno objection to quoting from the Veddas, the Avestas, the Koran or the\nBible; nor do we hesitate to admire and enjoy and praise generously\nthe ravishingly beautiful utterances of the poets and prophets of all\ntimes and climes. Nevertheless, it remains true that the modern world\nfinds more practical help and inspiration in secular authors, in the\nbooks of science and philosophy, than in these so-called inspired\nscriptures. Jesus, who is popularly believed to have preached the\nSermon on the Mount, has said little or nothing which can help the\nmodern world as much as the scientific revelations of a student like\nDarwin, or of a philosopher like Herbert Spencer, or of a poet like\nGoethe or Shakespeare. We know this will sound like blasphemy to the\nbeliever, but a moment's honest and fearless reflection will convince\neveryone of the fact that neither Mohammed nor Jesus had in view\nmodern conditions when they delivered their sermons. Jesus could have\nhad no idea of a world outside of his little Palestine. The thought\nof the many races of the world mingling together in one country could\nnever have occurred to him. His vision did not embrace the vista of\ntwo thousand years, nor did his mind rise to the level of the problems\nwhich today tax the brain and heart of man. Jesus believed implicitly\nthat the world would speedily come to an end, that the sun and the\nmoon would soon fall from the face of the sky, and that people living\nthen in Palestine would not taste of death before they saw \"the Son\nof Man return upon the clouds.\" Jesus had no idea of a progressive\nevolution of humanity. It was beyond him to conceive the consolidation\nof the nations into one fellowship, the new resources which science\nwould tap, or the new energies which human industry would challenge.\nJesus was in peaceful ignorance of the social and international\nproblems which confront the world of today. The Sermon on the Mount,\nthen, which is said to be the best in our gospels, can be of little\nhelp to us, for it could not have been meant for us. And it is very\neasy to show that the modern world ignores, not out of disrespect to\nJesus, but by the force of circumstances and the evolution of society,\nthe principles contained in that renowned sermon.\n\nI was waiting for transportation at the corner of one of the principal\nstreets of Chicago, the other day, when, looking about me, I saw the\ntremendous buildings which commerce and wealth have reared in our\nmidst. On one hand was a savings bank, on the other a colossal\nnational bank, and up and down the street a thousand equally solid\nand substantial buildings, devoted to the interests of commerce and\ncivilization. To bring out and emphasize the wide breach between\nthe man who preached the Sermon on the Mount, and progressive and\naggressive, busy and wealthy, modern Chicago, I took the words of\nJesus and mentally inscribed them upon the walls of these buildings.\nUpon the savings bank--and a savings bank represents economy,\nfrugality, self-sacrifice, self-restraint,--the desire of the people\nto provide for the uncertainties of the future, to lay by something\nfor the education of their children, for the maintenance of their\nfamilies when they themselves have ceased to live,--I printed upon the\nfacade of this institution, figuratively speaking, these words of the\nOriental Jesus:\n\n\"Take no thought of the morrow, for the morrow will take care of\nitself.\"\n\nAnd upon the imposing front of the national bank, I wrote: \"Lay not\nup for yourselves treasures on earth.\" If we followed these teachings,\nwould not our industrial and social life sink at once to the level of\nthe stagnating Asiatics?\n\nPursuing this comparison between Jesus and modern life, I inscribed\nupon the handsome churches whose pews bring enormous incomes, and on\nthe palatial residences of Bishops, with salaries of from twenty-five\nto a hundred thousand dollars, these words:\n\n\"How hardly shall a rich man enter into the kingdom of Heaven,\" and,\n\"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a\nrich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven.\"\n\nIn plain words, the gospel condemns wealth, and cries, \"Woe unto you\nrich,\" and \"Sell all thou hast and give it to the poor,\" which, by the\nway, would only be shifting the temptation of wealth from one class to\nanother. Buckle was nearer the truth, and more modern in spirit,\nwhen he ascribed the progress of man to the pursuit of truth and the\nacquisition of wealth.\n\nBut let us apply the teachings of Jesus to still other phases of\nmodern life. Some years ago our Cuban neighbors appealed to the United\nStates for protection against the cruelty and tyranny of Spanish rule.\nWe sent soldiers over to aid the oppressed and down-trodden people\nin the Island. Now, suppose, instead of sending iron-clads and\nadmirals,--Schley, Sampson and Dewey,--we had advised the Cubans to\n\"resist not evil,\" and to \"_submit_ to the powers that be,\" or suppose\nthe General of our army, or the Secretary of our navy, had counseled\nseriously our soldiers to remember the words of Jesus when fighting\nthe Spaniards: \"If a man smite thee on one cheek,\" etc. Write upon\nour halls of justice and courthouses and statute books, and on every\nlawyer's desk, these solemn words of Jesus: \"He that taketh away thy\ncoat, let him have thy cloak also.\"\n\nIntroduce into our Constitution, the pride and bulwark of our\nliberties, guaranteeing religious freedom unto all,--these words\nof Paul: \"If any man preach any other gospel than that which I have\npreached unto you, let him be accursed.\" Think of placing nearly fifty\nmillions of our American population under a curse!\n\nTell this to the workers in organized charities: \"Give to every man\nthat asketh of thee,\" which, if followed, would make a science of\ncharity impossible.\n\nTo the workingmen, or the oppressed seeking redress and protesting\nagainst evil, tell this: \"Blessed are they that are persecuted,\" which\nis equivalent to encouraging them to submit to, rather than to resist,\noppression.\n\nOr upon our colleges and universities, our libraries and laboratories\nconsecrated to science, write the words: \"The wisdom of this world is\nfoolishness with God,\" and \"God has chosen the foolish to confound the\nwise.\"\n\nAh, yes, the foolish of Asia, it is true, succeeded in confounding\nthe philosophers of Europe. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Jesus, did\nreplace Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, Cicero, Caesar and the\nAntonines! But it was a trance, a spell, a delirium only, and it did\nnot last,--it could not last. The charm is at last broken. Europe is\nforever free from the exorcism of Asia.\n\nI believe the health and sanity and virtue of our Europe would\nincrease a hundred fold, if we could, from this day forth, cease to\npretend professing by word of mouth what in our own hearts and lives\nwe have completely outgrown. If we could be sincere and brave; if our\nleaders and teachers would only be honest with themselves and honest\nwith the modern world, there would, indeed, be a new earth and a new\nhumanity.\n\nBut the past is past. It is for us to sow the seeds which in the day\nof their fruition shall emancipate humanity from the pressing yoke of\na stubborn Asiatic superstition, and push the future even beyond the\nbeauty and liberty of the old Pagan world!\n\n[Illustration: 195 Figures on a Phoenician Vase, Showing the Use of\nthe Cross, Evidently in Some Ceremony of a Religious Nature.]\n\n\n\n\nCHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM\n\nChristianity as an Asiatic cult is not suitable to European races.\nTo prove this, let us make a careful comparison between Paganism\nand Christianity. There are many foolish things, and many excellent\nthings, in both the Pagan and the Christian religions. We are not\nconcerned with particular beliefs and rites; it is Paganism as a\nphilosophy of life, and Christianity as a philosophy of life, that we\ndesire to investigate. And at the threshold of our investigation we\nmust bear in mind that Paganism was born and grew into maturity\nin Europe, while Asia was the cradle of Christianity. It would be\nsuperfluous to undertake to prove that in politics, in government, in\nliterature, in art, in science, in the general culture of the people,\nEurope was always in advance of Asia.\n\nDo we know of any good reason, when it comes to religion, why Asia\nshould be incomparably superior to anything Europe has produced in\nthat line? Unless we believe in miracles, the natural inference\nwould be that a people who were better educated in every way than the\nAsiatics should have also possessed the better religion. I admit that\nthis is only inferential, or _a priori_ reasoning, and that it still\nremains to be shown by the recital of facts, that Europe not only\nought to have produced a better religion than Asia, but that she did.\n\nIn my opinion, between the Pagan and Christian view of life there is\nthe same difference that there is between a European and an Asiatic.\nWhat makes a Roman a Roman, a Greek a Greek, and a Persian a Persian?\nThat is a very interesting, but also a very difficult question. Why\nare not all nations alike? Why is the oak more robust than the spruce?\nWhat are the subtle influences which operate in the womb of\nnature, where \"the embryos of races are nourished into form and\nindividuality?\" I cannot answer that question satisfactorily, and I am\nnot going to attempt to answer it at all. We know there is a radical\ndifference between the European and the Asiatic; we know that Oriental\nand Occidental culture are the antitheses of each other, and nowhere\nelse is this seen more clearly than in their interpretations of the\nuniverse, that is to say, in their religions.\n\nIn order to understand the Oriental races, we must discover the\nstandpoint from which they take their observations.\n\nBut first, it is admitted, of course, that there are Europeans who\nare more Asiatic in their habits of life and thought than the Asiatics\nthemselves, and, conversely, there are Asiatics who in spirit, energy\nand progressiveness are abreast of the most advanced representatives\nof European culture.\n\nNor has Asia been altogether barren; she has blossomed in many spots,\nand she nursed the flame of civilization at a time when Europe was not\nyet even cradled.\n\nTo show the intellectual point of view of the Asiatic, let me quote\na passage from the Book of Job, which certainly is an Oriental\ncomposition, and one of the finest:\n\n\"How, then, can man be justified with God, or how can he be clean that\nis born of a woman? _Man that is a worm, and the son of man, which is\na worm_.\"\n\nThis, then, is the standpoint of the Oriental. He believes he is a\npoor little worm. His philosophy must necessarily _trail_ in the dust.\nA worm cannot have the thoughts of an eagle; a worm cannot have the\nimagination of a _Titan_; a worm sees the world only as a worm may.\nThis is the angle of vision of the Asiatic. He calls himself a\nworm, and naturally his view of life shrinks to the limits of his\nstandpoint. To be perfectly fair, however, we must admit there are\npassages in all the bibles of the Orient which are as daring as those\nfound in any European book, but they represent only the strayings of\nthe Oriental mind, not its normal pulse. The habitual accent of the\nOriental is that man, calling a woman his mother, is a worm. In the\nPsalms of David, or whoever wrote the book, we read these words: \"_I\nam a worm, and not a man_.\" What did the Oriental see in the worm,\nwhich induced him to select it out of all things as the original,\nso to speak, of man? The worm _crawls_ and _creeps_ and _writhes_.\nNothing is so distressing as to see its helpless wiggling--and its\nhome is in the dust; dirt is its daily food. Moreover, it is in danger\nof being stamped or trampled into annihilation at any instant. A worm\n_represents the minimum_ of worth,--the dregs in the cup of existence;\nit is the scum or the froth of life, which one may blow into the air.\nIt is impossible to descend lower than this in self-abasement.\n\nWhen the Oriental, therefore, says that man is a worm or \"I am a\nworm,\" he is just as much _obeying the cumulative_ pressure of his\nAsiatic ancestry, and voicing the inherited submission of the Oriental\nmind, as Prometheus, with the vulture at his breast, and shaking his\nhand in the face of the gods, expresses the revolt of the European\nmind. The normal state for the Asiatic is submission; for the European\nit is independence. Slavery has a fascination for the children of\nthe east. The air of independence is too sharp for them. They crave a\nmaster, a Sultan or a Czar, who shall own them body and soul. Through\nlong practice, they have acquired the art of servility and flattery,\nof salaams and prostrations--an art in which they have become so\nefficient that it would be to them like throwing away so much capital\nto abandon its practice. They expect to go to Heaven on their knees.\nThis is not said to hurt the feelings of the races of the Orient.\nWe are explaining the influence of absolutism upon the products\nand tendencies of the human mind. The religion of the Orient, then,\nnotwithstanding its many beautiful features like its politics, is a\n_product of the suppressed_ mind, which finds in the creeping worm of\nthe dust the measure of its own worth. How different is the European\nfrom the Asiatic in this respect! The latter crawls upon the stage of\nthis magnificent universe with the timidity, hesitancy and tremblings\nof a worm. True to his bringing up, he falls prostrate, overwhelmed by\nthe marvelous immensities opening before him and the abysses yawning\nat his feet. He contracts and dwindles in size, imploring with\noutstretched hands to be spared because he is a poor worm. It is a\npart of his religion or philosophy that if he admits he is nothing but\na worm, the dread powers will not consider him a rival or a rebel,\nbut will look upon him as a confirmed subject, and permit him to\nlive. This is his art, the strategy by which he hopes to secure his\nsalvation.\n\nThere has never been a republic in Asia, which is another way of\nsaying that the Asiatic mind has never asserted its independence.\nHence its thought smacks of slavery. In politics, as in religion, the\nAsiatic has always been passive. He has never been an actor, but only\na spectator. It is his to nod the head, fold the arms and bend the\nknee. On earth he must have a king and a pope, and in heaven an Allah\nor a Jehovah. He has not been created for himself, but for the glory\nof his earthly and heavenly Lords. This radical difference between\nEuropean self-appreciation and Asiatic self-depreciation furnishes the\nkey to the problem under discussion.\n\nPaganism is the religion of a self-governing race. Buddhism, Judaism,\nMohammedanism, and Christianity are religions born on a soil where man\nis owned by another. It will be impossible to imagine Marcus Aurelius,\nfor instance, crawling upon his knees before any being, or calling\nhimself a worm. One must have in his blood the taint of a thousand\nyears of slavery, before he can stoop so low. Marcus Aurelius was a\ngentleman. The European conception of a gentleman implies self-respect\nand independence; the Oriental conception of a gentleman implies\nself-abasement and acquiescence. The Oriental gentleman is a man who\nserves his king as though he were his slave.\n\nBut observe now how the Oriental proceeds to pull down his mind to the\nlevel of his body, which he has likened to a worm. When I was still\na Presbyterian minister, I was invited to address a Sunday-school\ncamp-meeting at Asbury Park in New Jersey. There were other speakers\nbesides myself; one of them, known as a Sunday-school leader, had\nbrought with him a chart of the human heart, which, when he arose to\naddress the children, he spread on a blackboard before them: \"This is\na picture of your heart before you have accepted Jesus. What do you\nthink of it?\" he asked the school. \"It is all black,\" was the answer;\nand it was. He had drawn a totally black picture to represent the\nheart of the child before conversion.\n\nIn all the literature of Pagandom, there is not the least intimation\nof so fearful an idea as the total depravity of human nature.\nThe Pagans never thought, spoke, or heard of such a thing. It was\ninconceivable to them; they would have recoiled from it as from a\nspecies of barbarism. How radically different, then, must European\nculture have been from the Asiatic. There is a gulf well-nigh\nimpassible between the thought of a free-born citizen and that of the\noppressed and enslaved Oriental.\n\nBut let us continue. Not satisfied with thinking of himself as a worm,\nand of his intellectual and moral nature as totally degraded, the\nOriental strikes with the same paralyzing stroke, at _the world\nin which he lives_, until it, too, withers and becomes an ugly and\nheinous thing. He calls the world a \"vale of tears,\" ruled by the\npowers of darkness, and groaning under a primeval curse. \"The world,\nthe flesh and the devil\" become a trio of iniquity and sin. Some of\nyou in your earlier days must have sung that Methodist hymn which\nrepresents the world as a snare and a delusion:\n\n    \"The world is a fleeting show\n     For man's illusion given.\"\n\nGiven! Think of believing that the world has been purposely given\nus to lead us astray. The thought staggers the mind. It suggests a\nterrible conspiracy against man. For his ruin, sun, moon and stars\nco-operate with the devil. Help! we cry, as we realize our inability\nto cope with the tremendous powers hurling themselves against us like\nbillows of the raging sea, and taking our breath away. It suggests\nthat we are placed in a world which has been made purposely beautiful,\nin order to tempt us into sin. Think of such a belief! It is that of\na slave. It is Asiatic; it is not European. Neither you nor I, in all\nour readings, have ever come across any such attitude toward nature\nin Pagan literature. The Greeks and the Romans loved nature and made\nlovely gods out of every running brook, caressing zephyr, dancing\nwave, glistening dew, sailing cloud, beaming star, beautiful woman,\nor brave man. The Oriental suspects nature and regards her smiles--the\nshining of the sun, the perfume of the meadows, the swell of the\nsea, the fluttering of the branches tipped with blossoms, the emerald\ngrass, the sapphire sky--looks upon all these as the seductive\nadvances of a prostitute in whose embrace lurks death!\n\nBut, once more; not satisfied with dragging the world down to the\nplane of his totally depraved nature, and that again to the level of\nthe worm, the Asiatic projects his fatal thought into the next world\nand, crossing the grave, that silent and painless home of a tired\nrace, he crowds the beyond with a thousand thousand pains and aches\nand horrors and fires--with sulphur and brimstone and burning hells.\nHis frightened imagination invokes dark and infernal beings without\nnumber, fanning with their dark wings the very air he breathes. This\nis too revolting to think of. Poor slave! Inured to suffering,--to the\nlash, to oppression's crushing heel,--he dare not dream of a painless\nfuture, of a quiet, peaceful sleep at life's end, nor has he the\ndivine audacity to invent a new world wherein the misery and slavery\nof his present existence will be impossible,--where all his tyrants\nwill be dead, where he shall taste of sweet freedom and become himself\na god. In his timidity and shrinking submission, with the spring of\nhis heart broken, his spirit crushed, all independence strangled\nin his soul,--he puts in the biggest corner of his heaven even,--a\n_hell_!\n\nNor does he pause there, but, stinging his slave imagination once\nmore, he declares that this future of torture and hell-fire is\n_everlasting_. He cannot improve upon that. Deeper in degradation he\ncannot descend. That is the darkest thought he can have, and, strange\nto say, he hugs it to his bosom as a mother would her child. The\ndoctrine of hell is the thought of a slave and of a coward. No\nfree-horn man, no brave soul could ever have invented so abhorrent an\nidea. Only under a regime of absolutism, only under an Oriental Sultan\nwhose caprice is law, whose vengeance is terrible, whose favors are\nfickle, whose power is crushing, whose greed is insatiable, whose\ntorture instruments are without number, and whose dark dungeons always\nresound with the rattling of chains and the groans of martyrs--only\nunder such a regime could man have invented an unending hell. But we\nwere mistaken when we said that hell was the darkest that the Asiatic\nwas capable of. He has grafted upon the European mind a belief which\nis darker still.\n\nIs there anything more precious in human life than children? The\nsternest heart melts, the fiercest features relax, at the sight of an\ninnocent, sweet, laughing, frolicking babe in its mother's arms. Look\nat its glorious eyes, so full of surprises, so deep, so appealing!\nLook at the soft round hands, the little feet, the exquisite mouth,\nopening like a bud! Hear its prattle, which is nothing but the mind\nbeginning to stir! Watch its gestures, the first language of the\nchild! See it with its tiny arms about its mother's neck. Mark its\njoy when it is kissed. What else in our human world is more beautiful,\nmore divine? And yet, and yet, the slave creed of Asia has drawn into\nits burning net of damnation even the cradle. John Burroughs describes\nhow in a Catholic cemetery near where he lives he was shown a\nneglected, unkept corner, used for the burial of unbaptized children.\nConsecrated ground is denied to them, and so their poor bodies are\nhuddled together in this profane plot, unblessed and unsaved. I do\nnot wish to live in a world where such absurdities are not only\ncountenanced, but where they are exalted even to the dignity of a\nreligion!\n\nO holy children! O sweet children! huddled together in unconsecrated\nground, and thus exposed to the cruelty of indescribable demons! Can\nyou hear me? I am a man of compassion. I can forgive the murderer. I\ncan pardon and pity the meanest wretch and take him into my arms, but\nI confess that even if I had a heart as big as the ocean, I could not,\nI would not, forgive the creed that can be guilty of such inhumanity\nagainst you,--dear, innocent ones, who were born to breathe but for a\nmoment the harsh air of this world! When such gloom overpowers me and\nwrings from my lips such hard words, I find some little respite in\ncontemplating the old Pagan world in its best days. I hasten for\nconsolation to my Pagan friends, and in their sanity find healing for\nmy bruised heart.\n\nIn one of his letters, the Greek Plutarch says this about\nchildren, which I want you to compare with what St. Augustine, the\nrepresentative of the Asiatic creed, says on the same subject. \"It is\nirreligious,\" writes Plutarch, \"to lament for those pure souls (the\nchildren) who have passed into a better life and a happier dwelling\nplace.\" * Compare this Pagan tenderness for children with the\nAsiatic doctrine of infant damnation but recently thrown out of the\nPresbyterian creed. Yet, if St. Augustine is to be believed, it is a\nheresy to reject the damnation of unbaptized infants: \"Whosoever\nshall tell,\" writes this Father of the church, \"that infants shall be\nquickened in Christ who died without partaking in his sacrament, does\nboth contradict the apostles' teaching and condemn the whole church.\"\n** It is infinitely more religious to disagree with the apostles and\nthe church, if that is their teaching. The Pagan view of children is\nthe holier view. The doctrine of the damnation of children could only\nfind lodgment in the brain of a slave or a madman. It is Asiatic and\naltogether foreign to the culture of Europe.\n\n     * Plutarch Ad Uxorem. Comp. Lecky's History of European\n     Morals. Vol. I.\n\n     ** St. Augustine Epist. 166.\n\nAll that we have advanced thus far may be summed up in one phrase:\nAsia invented the idea that man is a _fallen_ being. This idea, which\nis the _dors espinal_,--the backbone--of Christianity, never for once\nentered the mind of the European. We have already quoted from Job and\nthe Psalms; the following is from the book of Jeremiah: \"The heart is\ndeceitful above all things and desperately wicked.\" This is one of the\ntexts upon which the doctrine of the fall of man is based. We repeat\nthat only under a religion of slavery, where one slave vies with\nanother to abase himself before his lords and masters, could such\nan idea have been invented. There is not a man in all our sacred\nscriptures who could stand before the deity erect and unabashed, or\nwho could speak in the accents of a Cicero who said, \"We boast justly\nof our own virtue, which we could not do if we derived it from\nthe deity and not from ourselves,\" or this from Epictetus, \"It is\ncharacteristic of a wise man that he looks for all his good and evil\nfrom himself.\" Such independence was foreign to a race that believed\nitself _fallen_.\n\nIn further confirmation of our position, it may be said that the\nmodels which the Pagans set up for emulation were men like themselves,\nonly nobler. The models which the Orientals set up for imitation, on\nthe other hand, were supernatural beings, or men who were supposed to\npossess supernatural powers. The great men for the Oriental are men\nwho can work miracles, who possess magical powers, who possess secrets\nand can know how to influence the deity,--Moses, Joshua, David,\nJoseph, Isaiah, Jesus, Paul,--all demi-divinities. The Pagans, on the\nother hand, selected natural men, men like themselves, who had earned\nthe admiration of their fellows. Let me quote to you Plutarch's\neloquent sentence relative to this subject: \"Whenever we begin an\nenterprise or take possession of a charge, or experience a calamity,\nwe place before our eyes the examples of the greatest men of our own\nor of bygone ages, and we ask ourselves how Plato, or Epaminondas,\nor Lycurgus, or Agesilaus, would have acted. Looking into these\npersonages, as into a faithful mirror, we can remedy our defects in\nword or deed.\"\n\nThe Westminster Catechism, which in its essentials is a resume of our\nAsiatic religion, emphasizes the doctrine of the fall of man, of which\nthe Pagan world knew nothing, and refused to believe it until priests\nsucceeded in dominating the mind of Europe: \"The catechism following\nthe Scripture teaches that...we are not only a disinherited family,\nbut we are personally depraved and demoralized.\" * Goodness! the\nOriental imagination, abused by slavery, cannot rid itself of the idea\nof being disinherited, turned out into the cold, orphaned and smitten\nwith moral sores from head to foot. To the Pagan, such a description\nof man would have been the acme of absurdity. Again: \"It (the fall)\naffirms that he (man) is all wrong, in all things and all the time.\"\n** If this was comforting news to the Asiatic, the Pagan world would\nhave rejected the idea as unworthy of men in their senses. Once more:\n\"All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his\nwrath and curse, and so made liable to all miseries in this life and\nto the pains of hell forever.\" *** And this is the Gospel we have\nimported from Asia!\n\n     * Westminster Catechism, Comments.\n\n     ** Westminster Catechism, Comments.\n\n     *** Westminster Catechism, Comments.\n\nIs it not pathetic? Could slavery ever strike a deeper bottom than\nthat? Standing before his owner, the Asiatic, of his own choice, hands\nhimself over to be degraded, to be placed in chains and delivered\nup to the torments of hell forever. I despair of man. I would cry my\nheart out if I permitted myself to dwell upon the folly and stupidity\nand slavery of which man voluntarily makes himself the victim. Think\nof it! A man and a woman, nobody knows where or when, are supposed\nto have tasted of the fruit of a tree; the Oriental mind, with its\ncrouching imagination, pounces upon this flimsy, fanciful tale with\nthe appetite of a carrion crow, and exalts it to the dignity of an\nexcuse for the eternal damnation of a whole world. I am dazed! I can\nsay no more!\n\nLet us recapitulate. The Oriental distrust of the natural man, born of\nself-depreciation, which is the fruit of prolonged slavery, develops\ninto a sort of mental canker spreading at a raging pace until the\nwhole universe, with its glorious sun and stars, becomes an object of\nhorror and loathing. Not satisfied with thinking of himself as a\nworm, of his intellectual and moral nature as totally depraved, he\ncommunicates his disease to the world in which he lives until it, too,\nshrinks and wastes away. Then the disease, finding no more on this\nside of the grave to feed upon, leaps over the grave and converts the\nbeyond, the virgin worlds, into an _inferno_ with which to satiate its\nfear. Indeed frightful are the thoughts of a slave people!\n\nLet me now, in conclusion, call your attention to another difference\nbetween the Occidental and the Oriental mind. When the body is feeble\nor ill-nourished, it is less liable to resist disease; likewise when\nthe mind is alarmed, cowed, or pinched with fear, it becomes more\nexposed to superstition. Superstition is the disease of the mind. It\nwill keep away from robust minds, as physical disease from a body\nin health. Now, the Asiatic mind, scared into silence and\nsubjection,--starved to a mere shadow of what it should be, falls an\neasy prey to all the maladies that mind is heir to. The European mind,\non the other hand, with room and air to move and grow in, develops\na vitality which offers resistance to all attacks of mental disease.\nThat explains why superstition thrives with ignorance and slavery,\nand expires when science and liberty gain the ascendency. Sanitary\nprecautions prevent physical disease; knowledge and liberty constitute\nthe therapeutics of the mind. Why is the Oriental so prone or partial\nto miracle and mystery? His mind is sick. To believe is easier to him\nthan to reason. He follows the line of the least resistance: he has\ninvented faith that he may not have to think. The mental cells in his\nbrain are so starved, so devitalized, that they have to be\nwhipped into movement. Only the bizarre, the monstrous, the\nsupernatural,--demons, ghosts, dream worlds, miracles and\nmysteries,--can hold his attention. Not science, but metaphysics,\nbarren speculation,--is the product of the Oriental mind. The\nphilosopher Bacon describes the Asiatic when he speaks of men who\n\"have hitherto dwelt but little, or rather only slightly touched upon\nexperience, whilst they have wasted much time on theories and fictions\nof the imagination.\"\n\nAgain: I sometimes think that if it be true that monotheism, the idea\nof one God, was first discovered in Asia, it must have been suggested\nto them by the regime of Absolutism, under which they lived. Unlike\nAsia, democratic Europe believed in a republic of gods. Polytheism is\nmore consonant with the republican idea, than monotheism. If we would\nlet the American President rule the land without the aid of the\ntwo houses of congress or his cabinet ministers, his power would be\ninfinitely more than it is now, but his gain would be the people's\nloss. His increased power would only represent so much more power\ntaken away from the people. One God means not only more slaves, but\nmore abject, more helpless ones. One God is a centralization which\nreduces man's liberty to a minimum. With more gods, and gods at times\ndisagreeing among themselves, and all bidding for man's support, man\nwould count for more. The Greeks could not tolerate a Jehovah, or an\nAllah, before whom the Oriental rabble bent the knee. \"Allah\nknows,\" exclaims the Moslem; that is why the Mohammedans continue\nin ignorance. \"Allah is great,\" cries again the Turk. That is why he\nhimself is small. The more powerful the sovereign, the smaller the\nsubject.\n\nNow this leads us to a final reflection upon the difference between\nthe mind brought up under restraint,--in slavery,--and the mind of the\nfree. \"The Pagan,\" to quote Lecky, \"believed that to become acceptable\nto the deity, one must be virtuous;\" the Asiatic doctrine, on the\ncontrary, taught that \"the most heroic efforts of human virtue are\ninsufficient to avert a sentence of eternal condemnation, unless\nunited with an implicit belief\" in the dogmas of religion. In other\nwords, the noblest of men cannot be saved by his own merits of\ncharacter alone, for even when we have done our best, we are but\n\"unprofitable slaves,\" quoting a Bible text. Only by the merits of\nChrist, or by the grace of God, can any man be saved. Have you ever\npaused to think of the purport of this piece of Orientalism? It wipes\nout every imaginable claim or right of man. Even when he is just and\ngreat and good, he has no rights, he is as vile as the vilest. Only\nthe favor of the king can save,--only the grace of God, who can save\nthe thief on the cross if he so pleases. Is he not absolute? If he\nextends his scepter, you live; if he smiles you are spared; if he\npatronizes you, you are fortunate. He says, live! you live. He says,\ndie! you die. This is the apotheosis of despotism exalted into a\nrevelation.\n\nWhat, then, is our creed, but the thoughts of an eastern slave\npopulation, cringing before the throne of a Sultan, and one by one\nsigning away their liberties? \"The foundation of all real grandeur is\na spirit of proud and lofty independence,\" says Buckle; but that is\nnot the spirit of Asia, or of its religion. It is, and we ought to try\nto keep it, the spirit of the Western world.\n\nI cannot imagine how we in this country, born of sturdy parents, born\nof the freedom-loving Pagans of Rome and Greece, born of men who\nshook their hands in the face of heaven, and pulled the gods off their\nthrones when they violated the rights of man,--I cannot understand how\nwe have thrown overboard the proud, lofty spirit of independence of\nthe Pagans,--our forefathers, and taken upon our necks the strangling\nyoke of the slave-thought of Asia!\n\n[Illustration: 218 Christ, Half Woman, at Baptism in Jordan. Cathedral\nof Chartres, France.]\n\n\n\n\nPART III.\n\n\n\n\nSOME MODERN OPINIONS ABOUT JESUS.\n\n\n_Christianity \"dwells with noxious exaggeration about the person of\nJesus.\"_--Emerson.\n\nChristmas is the season in the year when pulpit and press dwell, with\nwhat Emerson calls \"noxious exaggeration,\" about the work and life, as\nwell as the person of Jesus. We have, lying before us, the Christmas\nsermon of so progressive a teacher as the Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones. *\nHere is his text: \"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,\nand we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the\nFather.\"--John 1:14. How our educated neighbor can find food for sober\nreflection in so mystical and metaphysical an effusion, is more than\nwe can tell. Who is the _Word_ that became flesh? And when did the\nevent take place? What does it mean to be the \"only begotten from the\nFather?\" We know what it means in the orthodox sense, but what does\nit mean from the Unitarian standpoint of Mr. Jones? But the text\nfaithfully reflects the discourse which follows. It is replete with\nunlimited compliments to this _Word_ which became flesh and assumed\nthe name of Jesus. The following is a fair sample:\n\n\"I am compelled to think of Jesus of Nazareth as an epoch-making soul,\nan era-forming spirit, a character in whom the light of an illustrious\nrace and a holy ancestry was focalized, a personality from which\nradiated that subtle, creative power of the spirit which defies all\nanalysis, which baffles definition, which overflows all words.\"\n\n     * Unitarian-Independent preacher of All Souls Church, Chicago.\n\nGoodness! this is strong rhetoric, and we regret that the evidence\njustifying so sweeping an appreciation has been withheld from us.\nAlthough the doctor says that Jesus \"defies all analysis, baffles\ndefinition and overflows all words,\" he nevertheless proceeds to\ndevote fifteen pages to the impossible task. \"I am compelled to\nthink of him as one who won the right of preeminence in the world's\nhistory,\" continues Mr. Jones, as if he had not said enough.\n\nThat is a definite claim, and personally, we would be glad to see it\nmade good. But truth compels us to state that the claim is unjust.\nWithout entering into the question of the authenticity of the gospels,\na question which we have discussed at some length in our pamphlet on\nthe \"Worship of Jesus,\" we beg to submit that there is nothing in the\ngospels,--the only records which speak of him,--to entitle him to the\n\"right of preeminence in the world's history.\" No one knows better\nthan Mr. Jones that the sayings attributed to Jesus--the finest of\nthem--are to be found in the writings of Jewish and Pagan teachers\nantedating the birth of Jesus by many centuries.\n\nWas it, then, for his \"works,\" if not for his \"words,\" that Jesus \"won\nthe right of preeminence in the world's history\"? What did he do\nthat was not done by his predecessors? Was he the only one who worked\nmiracles? Had the dead never been raised before? Had the blind, and\nthe lame, and the deaf, remained altogether neglected before Jesus\ntook compassion upon them? Moreover, what credit is there in opening\nthe eyes of the blind or in raising the dead by miracle? Did it cost\nJesus any effort to perform miracles? Did it imply a sacrifice on his\npart to utilize a small measure of his _infinite_ power for the good\nof man? Who, if he could by miracle feed the hungry, clothe the naked\nand give light and sound to the blind and deaf, would be selfish\nenough not to do so? If Mr. Jones does not believe in miracles, then\nJesus contributed even less than many a doctor contributes today to\nthe welfare of the world. More poor and diseased people are visited\nand medicined gratuitously by a modern physician in one month, than\nJesus cured miraculously in the two or three years of his career.\nJesus, if he was \"the only begotten of God,\" as Mr. Jones' text\nstates, was not in any danger of contracting disease himself, which is\nnot the case with the doctors and nurses who extend their services\nto people afflicted with contagious and abhorrent diseases. Moreover,\nJesus' power must have come to him divinely, while we have to study,\nlabor, and conquer with the sweat of our brow any power for good that\nwe may possess. If Jesus as a God opened the eyes of the blind, would\nit not have been kinder if he had prevented blindness altogether? If\nJesus can open the eyes of the blind, then, why is there blindness in\nthe world? How many of the world's multitude of sufferers did Jesus\nhelp? Which of us, if he had the divine power, would not have extended\nit unto every suffering child of man? Of what benefit is it to\nopen the eyes of a few blind people, two thousand years ago, in one\ncountry, when he could, by his unique divinity, have done so much\nmore? Mr. Jones falls into the orthodox habit of not applying to Jesus\nthe same canons of criticism by which _human_ beings are judged.\n\nBut perhaps the \"preeminence of Jesus\" lay in his willingness to give\nhis life for us. Noble is every soul who prefers truth and duty to\nlife. But was Jesus the only one, or even the first to offer himself\nas a sacrifice upon the altar of humanity? If Jesus died for us, how\nmany thousands have died for him--and by infinitely more cruel deaths?\nIt is easier for an \"only begotten\" of God, himself a God--who knows\ndeath can have no power over him--who sees a throne prepared for him\nin heaven--who is sure of rising from the dead on the third day--to\nface death, than for an ordinary mortal. Yet Jesus showed less\ncourage, if his reporters are reliable, than almost any martyr whose\nname shines upon memory's golden page.\n\nThe European churches are full of pictures showing Jesus suffering\nindescribable agonies as the critical hour draws nigh. We saw, in\nParis, a painting called \"The Holy Face,\" _La Sainte Face_, which was,\ntruly, too horrible to look upon; big tears of blood trickling down\nhis cheeks, his head almost drooping over his chest, an expression\nof excruciating pain upon his features, his eyes fairly imploring\nfor help,--he is really breaking down under the weight of his cross.\nCompare this picture with the serenity of Socrates drinking the\nhemlock in prison!\n\nNor would it do to say that this is only the Catholic way of\nrepresenting Jesus in his passion. The picture is in the gospels, it\nmay be seen in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross with all\nits realism. Far be it from us to withhold from Jesus, if he really\nsuffered as the gospels report, one iota of the love and sympathy he\ndeserves, but why convert the whole world into a black canvas upon\nwhich to throw the sole figure of Jesus? Which of us, poor, weak,\nsinful though we are, would not be glad to give his life, if thereby\nhe could save a world? Do you think we would mourn and groan and weep\ntears of blood, or collapse, just when we should be the bravest, if\nwe thought that by our death we would become the divine Savior of\nall mankind? Would we stammer, \"Let this cup pass from me, if it be\npossible,\" or tear our hearts with a cry of despair: \"My God, my God,\nwhy hast thou forsaken me,\" if we knew that the eternal welfare of the\nhuman race depended upon our death? If the Russian or Japanese soldier\ncan take his home and wife and children,--his hopes and loves, his\nlife,--his all,--and throw them into the mouth of the cannon, dying\nwith a shout upon his lips,--who would hesitate to do the same,\nwhen not the salvation of one country alone, but of the whole world,\ndepended upon it? There are examples of heroism in the annals of man\nwhich would bring the blush to the cheeks of Jesus, if his biographers\nhave not abused his memory.\n\nWherein, then, was the \"preeminence\" of Jesus? Upon what grounds does\nMr. Jones claim, with \"unlimited rhetoric,\" to use his own expression,\nfor Jesus \"the right of preeminence in the world's history?\"\n\nWhile there is neither a commendable saying nor an act attributed to\nJesus in our gospels which teachers older than himself had not already\nsaid or done, there are some things in which his seniors clearly\noutshine him. King Asoka, for instance, the Buddhist sovereign of\nIndia, 250 years before Jesus, in one of his edicts chiseled on the\nrocks of India, declared against human slavery and offered the sweet\ngift of liberty to all in captivity. Jesus used the word slave in one\nof his parables (improperly translated servant), without expressing\nhimself on the subject, except to intimate that when a slave does all\nhis duty faithfully, even then he is only an \"unprofitable slave,\"\nunworthy of the thanks of his master. There was slavery of the worst\nkind in the world of Jesus, and yet he never opened his mouth to\ndenounce the awful curse. It is claimed that Jesus' doctrine of love\nwas indirectly a condemnation of slavery. Even then, inasmuch as\nother and earlier teachers did more than strike only indirectly at the\nancient evil,--for they not only taught the brotherhood of man,\ntoo, but expressed themselves, besides, positively on the subject of\nslavery,--they have a prior claim to the \"right of preeminence\" in the\nworld's history, if they cared anything about ranks and titles.\n\nThe doctrine of humanity to animals, our dumb neighbors, is a positive\ntenet in Buddhism; is it in Christianity?\n\nTwo and a half centuries before Jesus, under the influence of Buddha's\nteaching, King Asoka convened a religious Parliament, offering to\neach and every representative of other religions, absolute religious\nliberty. Is there any trace of such tolerance in any of the sayings of\nJesus? On the contrary, the claim of Jesus that he is the light, the\nway, the truth, and that no man can come to the father except through\nhim, leaves no room for the greatest of all boons--liberty, without\nwhich every promise of religion is only a mockery and a cheat. Not\neven heaven and eternal life can be accepted as a consideration for\nthe loss of liberty. The liberty of teaching is alien to a teacher who\nclaims, as Jesus did, that he alone is infallible, and that all who\ncame before him were \"thieves and robbers.\"\n\nOf course, Mr. Jones will deny that Jesus ever said any of the things\nascribed to him which spoil his ideal picture of him. But he finds his\nideal Jesus, whose personality \"defies analysis, baffles definition\nand overflows all words,\" in the gospels; if these are not reliable,\nwhat becomes of his argument? If the writers of our gospels bear false\nwitness against Jesus when they represent him as \"cursing the fig\ntree,\" as calling his enemies liars and devils, as calling the\nGentiles dogs, as claiming equality with God, as menacing with\ndamnation all who disagree with him,--what security have we that they\nspeak truthfully when they put the beatitudes in his mouth? We have no\nmore reliable authority for attributing to Jesus the beatitudes than\nwe have for holding him responsible for the curses attributed to him\nin the gospels.\n\nTo return to our comparison between Jesus and his illustrious\ncolleagues. It is with cheerful praise and generous pleasure that we\nexpress our admiration for many of the sayings, parables, and precepts\nattributed to Jesus. The fact that they are much older than Jesus,\nmore universal than Christianity, only enhances their value and\nreflects glory upon the human race, a glory of which Jesus, too, as a\nbrother, if he ever existed, has his share. We love and admire every\nteacher who has a message for humanity; we feel our indebtedness to\nthem and would deem ourselves fortunate if we could contribute to the\nadvancement of their noble influence; but we have no idols, and in our\npantheon, truth is above all. We have no hesitation to sacrifice even\nJesus to the Truth. If we were in India, and some Hindoo preacher\nspoke of Buddha, as Mr. Jones does of Jesus, as a \"personality defying\nall analysis, baffling definition and overflowing all words\"--one who\nhas \"won the right to preeminence in the world's history,\"--we would\nprotest against it, in the interest of Jesus and other teachers, as\nwe now protest against Mr. Jones' Jesus, in the interest of truth.\nWe have a suspicion, however, that if Mr. Jones, or preachers of his\nstyle, were Hindoos, they would speak of Buddha, as they now, being\nChristians, speak of Jesus--echoing in both instances the _popular_\nopinion.\n\nThe best way to illustrate Mr. Jones' style of reasoning is to quote a\nfew examples from his sermon:\n\n\"The story of the Good Samaritan has had a power beyond the story of\nthe senseless blighting of the fig tree; the ages have loved to think\nof Jesus talking with the woman at the well more than they have loved\nto think of him as manufacturing wine at Cana. No man is so orthodox\nbut that he reads more often the Sermon on the Mount than he does the\nstory of the drowning of the pigs.\"\n\nBut if he did not \"drown the pigs,\" the reporter who says he did might\nhave also collected from ancient sources the texts in the Sermon on\nthe Mount and put them in Jesus' mouth.\n\nAgain:\n\n\"The dauntless crusaders who now in physical armament and again in\nthe more invulnerable armament of the spirit, went forth, reckless of\ndanger, regardless of cost, to rescue the world from heathen hands or\nto gather souls into the fold of Christ.\"\n\nWe can hardly believe Mr. Jones speaking of \"rescuing the world\nfrom _heathen_ hands,\" etc. Who were the heathen? And think of\ncountenancing the craze of the crusades, which cost a million lives\nto possess the empty sepulchre of a mythical Savior! Is it one of the\nmerits of Christianity that it calls other people \"heathen,\" or that\nit kills them and lays waste their lands for an empty grave?\n\nOnce more:\n\n\"Jesus had tremendous expectations....He believed mightily in\nthe future, not as some glory-rimmed heaven after death, but as a\nconquering kingdom of love and justice. Jesus took large stock in\ntomorrow; he laughed at the prudence that never dares, the mock\nrighteousness of the ledger that presumes to balance the books and pay\nall accounts up to date. He knew that the prudence of commerce, the\nthrift of trade, the exclusive pride of the synagogue, must be broken\nthrough with a larger hope and a diviner enterprise. He believed there\nwas to be a day after today and recognized his obligation to it; he\nacknowledged the debt which can never be paid to the past and which\nis paid only by enlarging the resources of the future. Life, to Jesus,\nwas an open account; he was a forward looker; he was honest enough\nto recognize his obligations to the unborn. Perhaps this adventurous\nspirit in the realms of morals, even more than his heart of love, has\nmade him the superlative leader of men.\"\n\nWe sincerely wish all this were true, and would be glad to have Mr.\nJones furnish us with the texts or evidences which have led him to\nhis conclusions. Would not his adjectives be equally appropriate\nin describing any other teacher he admires? \"Jesus had tremendous\nexpectations.\" Well, though this is somewhat vague as a tribute to\nJesus, we presume the preacher means that Jesus was an optimist. The\nreports, unfortunately, flatly contradict Mr. Jones. Jesus was a \"man\nof sorrows.\" He expressly declared that this earth belonged to the\ndevil, that the road which led to destruction was crowded, while few\nwould enter the narrow gates of life. He said: \"Many are called but\nfew are chosen;\" he told his disciples to confine their good work to\nthe lost sheep of the House of Israel, and intimated that it were not\nwise to take the bread of children (his people) and give it to\nthe dogs (other people). The \"Go ye into all the world\" is a\npost-resurrection interpolation, and Mr. Jones does not believe in the\nmiracle of the resurrection. Jesus looked forward to the speedy ending\nand destruction of the world, \"when the sun and moon would turn black,\nand the stars would fall;\" and he doubted whether he would find any\nfaith in the world when \"the son of man cometh\"; and it was Jesus who\nexpected to say to the people on his left, \"depart from me, ye cursed,\ninto _everlasting_ punishment.\" This is the teacher, whose pessimism\nis generally admitted, of whom Mr. Jones says that, he had \"tremendous\nexpectations.\"\n\n\"He believed there was to be a day after today, and recognized his\nobligation to it,\" writes Mr. Jones in his indiscriminate laudation\nof Jesus. Is that why he said \"Take no thought of the morrow,\" and\npredicted the speedy destruction of the world? \"He acknowledged the\ndebt which can never be paid to the past.\" A sentence like this has\nall the ear-marks of a glittering generality. Did Jesus show gratitude\nto the past when he denounced all who had preceded him in the field\nof love and labor as \"thieves and robbers?\" Equally uncertain is the\nfollowing: \"He was honest enough to recognize his obligations to the\nunborn.\" How does our clerical neighbor arrive at such a conclusion?\nFrom what teaching or saying of Jesus does he infer his respect for\nthe rights of posterity? Indeed, how could a teacher who said, \"He\nthat believeth not shall be damned,\" he described as recognizing the\nrights of future generations? To menace with damnation the future\ninquirer or doubter is to seek to enslave as well as to insult the\ngenerations yet to be born, instead of \"recognizing his obligations\"\nto them. The Jesus Mr. Jones is writing about is not in the gospels.\n\n\"Do you ask me if I am a 'Christian'?\" writes Mr. Jones, and he\nanswers the question thus: \"I do not know. Are you? If anyone is\ninclined to give me that high name, with the spiritual and ethical\nconnotation in mind, I am complimented and will try to merit it.\" As\nour excellent neighbor is still in the dark, and does not know whether\nor not, or in what sense he is a Christian--unless he is allowed to\ndefine the word himself,--and as he also intimates that he would like\nto be a _Jesus_ Christian, but not a Church Christian, we humbly\nbeg to express this opinion: The American churches of today,\nnotwithstanding all their shortcomings, are, on every question of\nethics and science, of charity and the humanities, far in advance\nof Jesus, and that in these churches there are men and women who in\nbreadth of mind and nobility of spirit are as good, and even better\nthan Jesus.\n\nDoes our neighbor grasp our meaning? Charging all the bad in a\nreligion to the account of man, and attributing all the good to God,\nor to a demi-god, is, after all, only a dodge. Had not the disciples\nof Jesus been braver than their master, his religion would not have\ncome down to us. And had the Christian church lived up to the\nletter of this Semitic teacher, Europe would never have embraced\nChristianity. By modernizing Jesus, by selecting his more essential\nteachings, and relegating his eccentricities to the background, by\nmaking his name synonymous with the best aspirations of humanity,\nby idealizing his character and enclosing it with a human halo, the\nchurches have saved Jesus from oblivion. Jesus was a tribal teacher,\nthe church universalized him; Jesus had no gospel for women, the\nchurch has after much hesitation and wavering converted him to the\nEuropean attitude toward women; Jesus was silent on the question of\nslavery, the churches have urged him with success to champion the\ncause of the bondsman; Jesus denounced liberty of conscience when he\nthreatened with hell-fire the unbeliever; but the churches have won\nhim over to the modern secular principle of religious tolerance;\nJesus believed only in the salvation of the elect, but the church to\na certain extent has succeeded in reconciling him to the larger hope;\nJesus was an ascetic, preferring the single life to the joys of the\nhome, and fasting and praying to the duty and privilege of labor, but\nthe church in America and Protestant Europe at least has made Jesus\na lover and a seeker of wealth and knowledge, the two great forces of\ncivilization. No longer does Jesus say, \"hate your father and mother;\"\nno longer does he cry in our great thoroughfares, \"blessed are the\npoor;\" no longer is his voice heard denouncing this world as belonging\nto the devil. The modern church, modernized by science, has in turn\nmodernized the gospels. And yet Mr. Jones prefers to be a Christian\nsuch as Jesus was. He is repeating one of those phrases which\napologists use when they give God all the praise and man all the\nblame.\n\nIn conclusion: Mr. Jones admits that Christianity is not unique, that\nBuddha conquered greater tyrannies than Christ; that \"humility\nand self-sacrifice...have world-wide foundations;\" but he draws no\nconclusions from these important facts, but returns in a hurry to say\nthat Jesus is the \"finest and dearest stream swelling the mighty tide\nof history.\" The only objection we have to Mr. Jones' Jesus is that he\nis not real.\n\n\n\n\nANOTHER RHETORICAL JESUS\n\nThe Rev. W. H. H. Boyle, of St. Paul, improves even on Mr. Jones'\nsuperlative tribute to Jesus. He says:\n\n\"Can you imagine such a thing as a black sun, or the reversal of\ncreation or the annihilation of primal light? Then, give rest to\nimagination and soberly think what it would mean to have the spiritual\nprocesses of two millenniums reversed, to have the light of life in\nthe unique personally of Jesus forever eclipsed.\"\n\nHere is an idolator, indeed. To make an idol of his Jesus he takes a\nsponge, and without a twinge of conscience, wipes out all the beauty\nand grandeur of the ancient world. Has this gentleman never heard of\nGreece? During a short existence, in only two centuries and a half,\nthat little land of Greece achieved triumphs in the life of the mind\nso unparalleled as to bring all the subsequent centuries upon\ntheir knees before it. In philosophy, in poetry,--lyrical, epical,\ndramatic,--in sculpture, in statesmanship, in ethics, in literature,\nin civilization,--where is there another Greece?\n\nOh, land of Sophocles! whose poetry is the most perfect flower the\nearth has ever borne,--of Phidias and Praxiteles! whose immortal\nchildren time cannot destroy, though the gods are dead--whose\nmasterpieces the earth wears as the best gem upon her brow,--of\nAristotle! the intellect of the world,--of Socrates! the _parens\nphilosophiae_, and its first martyr!--of Aristides! the Just--of\nPhocion and Epaminondas!--of Chillon and Anarcharchis! whose devotion\nto duty and beauty have perfumed the centuries! O, Athens, the bloom\nof the world! Hear this sectarian clergyman, in his black Sunday\nrobes, closing his eyes upon all thine immortal contributions, pulling\ndown like a vandal, as did the early Christians, the libraries and\ntemples, the culture and civilization of the ancient world--the\nmonuments of thy unfading glory--to build therewith a pedestal for his\nmythical Christ!\n\nI can imagine the reverend advocate saying: \"But there was slavery in\nGreece, and immorality, too,\"--of course, and is the Christian world\nfree from them? Has Christ after two thousand years abolished war?\nIndeed, he came to bring, as he says, \"not peace, but a sword!\" Has\nJesus healed the world of the maladies for which we blame the Pagan\nworld? Has he made humanity free? Has he saved the world from the\nfear of hell? Has he redeemed man from the blight of ignorance? Has\nhe broken the yoke of superstition and priest-craft? Has he even\nsucceeded in uniting into one loving fold his own disciples? How,\nthen, can this clergyman, with any conscience for truth, compare\na world deprived of the god of his sect, to a tomb--to a blind man\ngroping under a blackened sun? Must a man rob the long past in order\nto provide clothing for his idol? Must he close his eyes upon all\nhistory before he can behold the beauty of his own cult?\n\nBut let us quote again:\n\n\"To efface from the statute books of Christendom every law which has\nits basal principle in Christian ethics; to abolish every institution\nwhich ministers to human need and misfortune in the name of Him whose\nsympathy is the heart of the divine; to lower every sense of moral\nobligation between man and man to the old level of Paganism to silence\nthe great oratorios which have made music the echo of the divine; to\ntake down from the galleries of the world the sacred canvases\nwith which genius has sanctified them; to obliterate from memorial\nsymbolism the cross of sublime renunciation which has been the rebuke\nof human selfishness; to disband every organization which makes\nprayer, through the merit of one great name, the hand of man upon the\narm of God--you may be able to think of an ocean without a harbor, of\na sky without a sun, of a garden without a flower, of a face without a\nsmile, of a home without a mother; but, can you think of a world with\nholiness and happiness in it and Jesus gone out of it? You cannot,\n'Then, come, let us adore him,'\" etc., etc.\n\nObserve how this special pleader avoids breathing so much as a word\nabout any of the many evils which may be laid at the door of his\nreligion with as much show of reason as the benefits he enumerates.\n\nWhat about the dark ages which held all Europe for the space of a\nthousand years in the clutches of an ignorance the like of which no\nother religion in the world had known?\n\nWhat about the atrocious inquisition to which no other religion in the\nworld had ever been able to give the swing that Christianity did?\n\nWhat about the persecution and burning of helpless women as witches?\nIs there anything as infamous as that in any religion outside of ours?\n\nWhat about the wholesale massacres in the name of the true faith?\n\nWhat about the centuries of religious wars, the most imbecile as well\nas the most bloody, from the effects of which Germany, France, Italy\nand England are still suffering today?\n\nAnd need we also call attention to that obstinate resistance to\nscience and progress, which rewarded every discoverer of a new power\nfor man, with the halter or the stake, which filled the dungeons with\nthe _elite_ of Europe,--which even dug open graves to punish the bones\nof the dead savants and illuminators of man?\n\nThe Pagans, in their gladitorial games, sacrificed the lives of\nslaves: Christianity made a holocaust of the noblest intellects of\nEurope.\n\nAnd shall we speak of the bigotry, the fanaticism, the bitter\nsectarian prejudices which to this day embitter the life of the world?\nAre not these, too, the fruits of Christianity?\n\nWe know the answer which the reverend gentleman would make to this:\n\"All the evils you speak of are chargeable, not to Christianity, but\nto its abuse.\" But we have already shown that that argument won't\ndo. We might as well say that all the evil of Paganism was due to its\nabuse. The mere fact that Christianity lent itself to such fearful\ndistortions, and was capable of arousing the worst passions in man on\nsuch a fearful scale, is condemnation enough. It shows that there was\nin it a potentiality for evil beyond compare. Moreover, wherein does\na \"divine\" religion differ from a man-made cult, if it is equally\npowerless to protect itself against perversion? In what sense is Jesus\na god, while all his rivals were \"mere men,\" if he is as helpless to\nprevent the abuse of his teachings as they were? But it would not be\ndifficult to show that the characteristic crimes we have scheduled\nare the direct inspiration of a religion claiming exclusiveness and\ninfallibility. Such texts as, \"there is no other named given under\nheaven by which men can be saved;\" \"Let such an one (the man who will\nnot be converted) be like a heathen and a publican to you;\" John's\nadvice to refrain from saying \"God speed\" to the alien in faith; the\nbible command not to \"suffer a witch to live;\" and many of the dogmas\nwhich might be cited,--corrupted the sympathies, perverted the\njudgment of the noblest, while at the same time they stung the evil-\nminded into something like madness. The world knew nothing of the\ntyranny of dogma, or religious oppression and persecution,\ncomparatively speaking, until the advent of the Jewish-Christian\nChurch.\n\n\"Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of\nSodom and of Gomorrah, in the day of judgment, than for that city,\"\nsaid Jesus, speaking of the people who might not accept his teachings.\nHow can Christianity be a religion of love, and how can it believe\nin tolerance, when it threatens the unbeliever with a fate worse than\nthat of Sodom and Gomorrah?\n\nThe benefits which the Rev. Boyle parades as the direct fruit of his\ncult, did not appear until after the Renaissance, that is to say,--the\nreturn to Pagan culture and ideals. The art and science and the\nhumanities which he praises, followed upon the gradual decline of\nthe Jewish-Christian religion which had already destroyed two\ncivilizations.\n\nBut Greece and Rome triumphed. To this day, if we need models\nin poetry, in art, in philosophy, in literature, in politics, in\npatriotism, in service to the public, in heroism and devotion to\nideals--we must go to the Greeks and the Romans. Not that these\nnations were by any means perfect, but because they have not been\nsurpassed. In our colleges and schools, when we wish to bring up our\nchildren in the ways of wisdom and beauty, we do not give them the\nChristian fathers to read, we give them the Pagan classics.\n\nWe ask this St. Paul clergyman to read Gibbons' tribute to Pagan Rome:\n\"If a man was called upon to fix a period in the history of the\nworld during which the condition of the human race was most happy and\nprosperous, he would without hesitation name that which elapsed from\nthe death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus.\" This period\nincluded such men and rulers as Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, Antoninus Pius,\nand above all, the greatest of them all--the greatest ruler our earth\nhas ever owned--Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Let the Rev. W. H. H. Boyle\nlook over the names of the kings of Israel and of Christian France,\nSpain, Italy and England, and find among them any one that can come up\nto the stature of these Pagan monarchs.\n\n\n\n\n\"WE OWE EVERYTHING TO JESUS\"\n\nBut, behold! another clergyman with the claim that the modern world\nowes all its joy and cheer, during the Christmas season, \"to the babe\nin Bethlehem.\"\n\n\"What was it that brought about such a condition that crowds the\nstores, that overflows the mails, and loads the express with packages\nof every description? The little babe in Bethlehem set all this in\nmotion,--the wreath, the holly, are all from him.\"\n\nWhen we read the above and more to the same effect, we wrote to the\nRev. W. A. Bartlett, * the author of the words quoted, asking him if\nhe was correctly reported. We reproduce herewith a copy of our letter:\n\n     * Pastor First Congregational Church, Chicago\n\nDEC, 20, 1904. _Rev. W. A. Bartlett, Washington Boul. and Ann St.,\nChicago_.\n\nDEAR MR. BARTLETT: In the report of your sermon of last Sunday you are\nrepresented as claiming that it is to the \"babe in Bethlehem\" we owe\nthe Christmas festival, the giving of presents, etc., etc. I write to\nascertain whether this report has stated your position correctly? I am\nsure you know that Christmas is only a recomposition of an old Pagan\nfestival, and that \"giving presents\" at this season is a much older\npractice than Christianity. Of course, you do not believe that\nChristmas is celebrated in December and on the 25th of the month\nbecause Jesus was born on that day. You know as well as I do of the\nPagan festivals celebrated in the month of December throughout the\nRoman Empire--celebrations which were accompanied with the giving and\nreceiving of presents. Moreover, you know also, as every student does,\nthat in the Latin countries of Europe it is not on Christmas day, but\non New Year's day, that presents are exchanged. Surely you would\nnot claim that for New Year's day, too, the world is indebted to the\nBethlehem babe. You must also have known that the use of the evergreen\nand the holy was in vogue among the Druids of Pagan times. Be kind\nenough, therefore, to give me, if I am not asking too much, the\nfacts which led you to make the statement to which I have called your\nattention, and believe me, with great respect, etc.\n\nTo this neighborly letter the reverend gentleman did not condescend to\nsend an acknowledgment. We knocked at his door, as it were, and he, a\nminister of the Gospel, declined to open it unto us. Clergymen, as\na rule, say that they are happy when people will let them preach the\ngospel to them. In our case, we saved the clergyman from calling\nupon us, we called upon him--that is to say, we wrote and gave him an\nopportunity to enlighten us, to bring his influence to bear upon us,\nto open our eyes to the error of our ways,--and he would have nothing\nto do with us. Was not our soul worth saving? Did the Rev. W. A.\nBartlett consider us beyond hope? We ask this clergyman to place his\nhand upon his conscience and ask himself whether he did the brotherly\nthing in not returning a friendly and kindly answer to our honest\ninquiry for truth. But he did not answer us, because he had no real\nfaith in his gospel. It was not good enough for an inquirer.\n\nBut the clergyman, according to reports, made an attempt on the Sunday\nfollowing the receipt of our letter, before his congregation, to\nanswer indirectly our question. He denied that \"Christmas was a\nrecomposition of an old Pagan festival,\" and said that the early\nChristians \"fasted and wept\" because of these Pagan festivals,\nand that as early as the second century, the birth of Jesus was\ncommemorated. In short, he pronounced it \"a distortion of history\" to\nassign to the Christmas festival a Pagan origin. In his great work on\nthe _History of Civilization,_ Buckle says this, to which we call Dr.\nBartlett's attention: \"As soon as eminent men grown unwilling to enter\nany profession, the luster of that profession will be tarnished; first\nits reputation will be lessened, then its power abridged.\" We fear\nthis is true of Mr. Bartlett's profession.\n\nHow can Christian ministers hope to engage the interest of the\nreading public if they themselves abstain from reading? Ask a secular\nnewspaper about the origin of the Christmas celebration, and _it_\nwill tell you the truth. On the very Sunday that Dr. Bartlett was\ndenouncing, in his church, our claim that the Pagans gave us the\nDecember season of joy and merry-making, as \"a distortion of history,\"\nand editorial in the _Chicago Tribune_ said this:\n\nBut the festive character of the celebration, the giving of presents,\nthe feasting and merriment, the use of evergreen and holly and\nmistletoe, are all remnants of Pagan rites.\n\nContinuing, the same editorial called attention to the antiquity of\nthe institution:\n\nLong before the shepherds on the Judean plains saw the star rise in\nthe east and heard the tidings of \"Peace on earth, good will to man,\"\nthe Roman populace surged through the streets at the feast of Saturn,\ngiving themselves up to wild license and boisterous merry making. They\nexchanged presents, they decorated their dwellings and temples with\ngreen boughs; slaves were given special privileges, and the spirit\nof good will was abroad among men. This Roman Saturnalia came at the\nwinter solstice, the same as does our Christmas day, while the birth\nof Christ is widely believed to have taken place at some other season\nof the year.\n\nBut Dr. Bartlett may have had in mind the quotation from Anastasius:\n\n\"Our Lord, Jesus Christ, was born of the Holy Virgin, Mary,\nin Bethlehem, at one o'clock in the afternoon of December\n25th,\"--appearing to quote from some old manuscript which,\nunfortunately, is not to be found anywhere. But Clement of Alexandria,\nin the year 210 A. D., dismisses all guesses as to when Jesus was\nborn,--the 18th of April, 19th of May, etc.,--as products of reckless\nspeculation. March 28th is given as Jesus' birthday in _De Pascha\nComputius_, in the year 243. Jan. 5th is the date defended by\nEpiphanius. Baradaens, Bishop of Odessa, says: \"No one knows exactly\nthe day of the nativity of our Lord: this only is certain from what\nLuke writes, that he was born in the night.\" Poor Dr. Bartlett, his\nDecember 25th does not receive support from the Fathers.\n\nFor our clerical brother's sake, we quote some more from the _Tribune_\neditorial:\n\nPrimeval man looked upon the sun as the revelation of divinity. When\nthe shortest day of the year was passed, when the sun began his march\nnorthward, the primitive man rejoiced in the thought of the coming\nseedtime and summer, and he made feasts and revelry the mode of\nexpressing the gladness of his heart. Among the sun worshipers of\nPersia, among the Druids of the far north, among the Phoenicians,\namong the Romans, and among the ancient Goths and Saxons the winter\nsolstice was the occasion of festivities. Many of them were rude\nand barbarous, but they were all distinguished by hearty and profuse\nhospitality.\n\nAnd yet our neighbor calls it \"distortion of history\" to connect\nChristmas with the Pagan festival, celebrated about this time. We\nquote once more from the Secular press:\n\nThe Christian church did not abolish these heathen ceremonies,\nbut grafted upon them a deeper spiritual meaning. For this reason\nChristmas is an institution which memorializes the best there was in\nPagan man. Its good cheer, its charity, its sports, its feasting, and\nthe features which most endear it to children are all the heritage of\nour Pagan ancestors.\n\nHow refreshing this, compared with the clergyman's silence, or cry\nof \"distortion.\" But in one thing the doctor is correct. The early\nChristians did bewail the Pagan festivals, as they did everything else\nthat was Pagan. But it did not help them at all; they were compelled\nto acquiesce. The Christians have \"fasted and prayed\" also against\nscience, progress, and modern thought, but what good has it done? They\nasked God to hook Theodore Parker's tongue; to overthrow Darwin,\nand to confound the wisdom of this world, but the prayer remains\nunanswered. Yes, the doctor is right, the church has \"fasted and\nprayed\" against religious tolerance, against the use of Sunday as a\nday of recreation,--the opening of galleries and libraries on that\nday, the advancement of women, the emancipation of the negro, the\nsecularization of education, the revision of old creeds, and a\nthousand other things. But their opposition has only damaged their\nown cause. They did try to suppress the Pagan festival, which we call\nChristmas, and the Puritans in this country, until recently,\nabstained from all recognition of the day, and called it \"Popery,\" and\n\"Paganism,\" but their efforts bore no fruit. Dr. Bartlett, if he will\nread, will learn that for many years, in England and in this country,\nthe observance of Christmas was forbidden by law under severe\npenalties. As to our being indebted for the cheer and merriment of\nthe December festival to the \"Bethlehem babe,\" the doctor must inform\nhimself of those acts of Parliament which, under the Puritan regime,\ncompelled people to mourn on Christmas day and to abstain from\nmerrymaking. In Christian Connecticut, for a man to have a sprig\nof holly in his house on Christmas day was a finable crime. In\nMassachusetts, any Christian detected celebrating Christmas was fined\nfive shillings and costs. But, see, having failed to suppress these\ngood institutions, they now turn about and claim that they have always\nbelieved in them, and that, in fact, we would not now be enjoying any\none of these benefits but for the Christian Church.\n\nIn conclusion, we have one other word to say to the three clerical\nteachers from whose writings we have quoted. Against them we are\nconstrained to bring the charge of looseness in thought. They seem to\nhave little conscience for evidence. Mr. Jones says, for instance:\n\n\"In short, I am compelled to think that this Light of Souls, this\nsaving and redeeming spirit, was the loved and loving child of\nJoseph, the carpenter, and the loyal wife Mary. I believe this,\nnotwithstanding the stories of immaculate conceptions, star-guided\nmagi, choiring angels and adoring shepards that gathered around the\nbirth-night.\"\n\nWhich is another way of saying that he is \"compelled to believe\"\nagainst the evidence, merely because it is his pleasure or interest to\ndo so. This is not very edifying, to be sure. Mr. Jones takes all his\ninformation about Joseph and Mary and Jesus from the gospels, and yet\nthe gospels clearly contradict his conclusions. Mary, the mother of\nJesus, gives her word of honor that Joseph was not the father of her\nchild, and Joseph himself testifies that he is not Jesus' father, but\nMr. Jones pays no attention to their testimony; he wishes Joseph to\nbe the father of Jesus, and that ought to be sufficient evidence, he\nthinks. We quote from the gospel:\n\n\"Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When his mother Mary\nhad been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was\nfound with child of the Holy Ghost. And Joseph, her husband, being\na righteous man, and not willing to make her a public example, was\nminded to put her away privily. But when he thought on these things,\nbehold, an angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying,\nJoseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife;\nfor that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.\"\n\nNow, if Joseph admits he was not Jesus' father, and Mary corroborates\nhis testimony (See Luke, 1st chapter), Jesus was, if he ever lived,\nand the records which give Mr. Jones his ideal Jesus are reliable, the\nson of a man who has succeeded in concealing his identity, unless, of\ncourse, we believe in the virgin birth. If the real father of Jesus\nhad come forth and owned his son, and Mary had acknowledged that he\nwas the father of her child, what would have become of Christianity?\nWe hope these clergymen who have dwelt, as Emerson says, \"with noxious\nexaggeration about the person of Jesus,\" will reflect upon this, and\nwhile doing so, will they not also remember this other saying of\nthe Concord philosopher: \"The vice of our theology is seen in the\nclaim...that Jesus was something different from a man.\"\n\nWe take our leave of the three clergymen, assuring them that in what\nwe have said we have not been actuated, in the least, by any personal\nmotive whatever, and that we have only done to them what we would have\nthem do to us.\n\n[Illustration: 255 Head of a God with Horns. Museum of St. Germain.]\n\n\n\n\nA LIBERAL JEW ON JESUS\n\nFELIX ADLER, PRAISES JESUS\n\nThat it is very easy for scholars to follow the people instead of\nleading them, and to side with the view that commands the majority,\nreceives fresh confirmation from the recent utterances of the founder\nof the Ethical Culture Society in New York. Professor Adler, the son\nof a rabbi, and at one time a freethinker, has slowly drifted into\northodox waters, after having tried for a period of years the open\nseas, and has become a more enthusiastic champion of the god of the\nChristians than many a Christian scholar whom we could name. The\npendulum in the Adler case has swung clear to the opposite side. We\ndo not find fault with a man because he changes his views, we only ask\nfor reasons for the change. It will be seen by the following extracts\nfrom Adler's printed lectures that he has made absolutely no critical\nstudy of the sources of the Jesus story, but has merely, and hurriedly\nat that, accepted the conventional estimate of Jesus and enlarged upon\nit. Jesus is entitled to all the praise which is due him, but it must\nfirst be shown that in praising him we are not sacrificing the truth.\nPraising any man at such a cost is merely flattering the masses and\nbowing to the fashion of the day.\n\nLet us hear what Professor Adler has to say about Jesus. He writes:\n\nIt has been said that if Christ came to New York or Chicago, they\nwould stone him in the very churches. It is not so! If Christ came to\nNew York or Chicago, the publicans and sinners would sit at his feet!\nFor they would know that he cared for them better than they in their\ndarkness knew how to care for themselves, and they would love him as\nthey loved him in the days of yore.\n\nThis would sound pious in the mouth of a Moody or a Torrey, but, we\nconfess, it sounds like affectation in the mouth of the free thinking\nson of a rabbi. That Prof. Adler enters here into a field for which\nhis early Jewish training has not fitted him, is apparent from the\nhasty way in which he has put his sentences together. \"It has been\nsaid,\" he writes, \"that if Christ came to New York or Chicago, they\nwould stone him in the very churches. It is not so.\" Why is it not so?\nAnd he answers: \"If Christ came to New York or Chicago, the publicans\nand sinners would sit at his feet.\" But what has the reception which\npublicans and sinners might give Jesus to do with how _the churches_\nwould receive him? He proves that Jesus would not be stoned in the\nchurches of New York and Chicago by saying that the \"publicans and\nsinners would sit at his feet.\" Does he mean that \"New York and\nChicago churches\" and \"publicans and sinners\" are the same thing?\n\"Publicans and sinners\" might welcome him, and still the churches\nmight stone him, which in fact, according to Adler's own admission,\nwas the case in Jerusalem, where the synagogues conspired against\nJesus, while Mary Magdalene sat at his feet. Nor are his words about\n\"the publicans and sinners loving Jesus as they loved him in the days\nof yore\" edifying. Who does he mean by the \"publicans and sinners,\"\nand how many of them loved Jesus in the days of yore, and why should\nthis class of people have felt a special love for him?\n\nOn the question of the resurrection of Jesus, Prof. Adler says this:\n\n\"It is sometimes insinuated that the entire Christian doctrine depends\non the accounts contained in the New Testament, purporting that Jesus\nactually rose on the third day and was seen by his followers; and\nthat if these reports are found to be contradictory, unsupported by\nsufficient evidence, and in themselves incredible, then the\nbottom falls out of the belief in immortality as represented by\nChristianity.\"\n\nIt was the Apostle Paul himself who said that \"if Jesus has not risen\nfrom the dead, then is our faith in vain,--and we are, of all men,\nmost miserable.\" So, you see, friend Adler, it is not \"sometimes\ninsinuated,\" as you say, but it is openly, and to our thinking,\nlogically asserted, that if Jesus did not rise from the dead, the\nwhole fabric of Christian eschatology falls to the ground. But we must\nremember that Prof. Adler has not been brought up a Christian. He has\nacquired his Christian predilections only recently, so to speak, hence\nhis unfamiliarity with its Scriptures. Continuing, the Professor says:\n\n\"But similar reports have arisen in the world time and again,\napparitions of the dead have been seen and have been taken for real;\nand yet such stories, after being current for a time, invariably have\npassed into oblivion. Why did this particular story persist, despite\nthe paucity and the insufficiency of the evidence? Why did it get\nitself believed and take root?\"\n\nWhat shall we think of such reasoning from the platform of a\npresumable rationalist movement? Does not the Professor know that the\nstory of the resurrection of Jesus is not original, but a repetition\nof older stories of the kind? Had the world never heard of such\nafter-death apparitions before Jesus' day, it would never have\ninvented the story of his resurrection. And how does the Professor\nknow that the story of Jesus' resurrection is not going to meet the\nsame fate which has overtaken all other similar stories? Is it not\nalready passing into the shade of neglect? Are not the intelligent\namong the Christians themselves beginning to explain the resurrection\nof Jesus allegorically, denying altogether that he rose from the dead\nin a literal sense? Moreover, the pre-Christian stories of\nsimilar resurrections lived to an old age,--two or three thousand\nyears--before they died, and the story of Jesus' resurrection has\nyet to prove its ability to live longer. All miraculous beliefs are\ndisappearing, and the story of the Christian resurrection will not be\nan exception. But Prof. Adler's motive in believing that the story of\nthe resurrection of Jesus shall live, is to offer it as an argument\nfor immortality, and in so doing he strains the English language in\nlauding Jesus. He says:\n\n\"In my opinion, people believed in the resurrection of Jesus because\nof the precedent conviction in the minds of the disciples that such\na man as Jesus could not die, because of the conviction that\na personality of such superlative excellence, so radiant, so\nincomparably lofty in mien and port and speech and intercourse with\nothers, could not pass away like a forgotten wind, that such a star\ncould not be quenched.\"\n\nWe regret to say that there are as many assumptions in the above\nsentence as there are lines in it. Of course, if we are for\nemotionalism and not for exact and accurate conclusions, Adler's\nestimate of Jesus is as rhetorical as that of Jones or Boyle, but if\nwe have any love for historical truth, there is not even the shadow\nof evidence, for instance, that the disciples could not believe \"that\nsuch a man as Jesus could die.\" On the contrary, the disciples\nleft him at the cross and fled, and believed him dead, until it was\nreported to them that he had been seen alive, and even then \"some\ndoubted,\" and one wished to feel the flesh with his fingers before he\nwould credit his eyes. Jesus had to eat and drink with them, he had\nto \"open their eyes,\" and perform various miracles before they would\nbelieve that he was not dead. The text which says that the apostles\nhesitated to believe in the resurrection because \"as yet they knew not\nthe scripture, that he would rise from the dead,\" shows conclusively\nhow imaginary is the idea that there was a \"precedent conviction\" in\nthe minds of the disciples that such a man as Jesus could not die.\nApparently it was all a matter of prophecy, not of moral character at\nall. Yet in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, Prof. Adler\ntells his Carnegie Hall audience, who unfortunately are even less\ninformed in Christian doctrine than their leader, that \"there was a\nprecedent conviction in the minds of the disciples that such a man\nas Jesus could not die.\" And what gave the disciples this supposed\n\"precedent conviction?\"\n\n\"That a personality of such superlative excellence, so radiant, so\nincomparably lofty in mien and port and speech and intercourse with\nothers, could not pass away like a forgotten wind, that such a star\ncould not be quenched.\" We are simply astonished, and grieved as well,\nto see the use which so enlightened a man as Prof. Adler makes of his\ngifts. Will this Jewish admirer of the god of Christendom kindly tell\nus wherein Jesus was superlatively excellent, or incomparably lofty\nin mien and port and speech and intercourse with others? Was there\na weakness found in men like Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, etc., from\nwhich Jesus was free? That Jesus created no such ideal impression upon\nhis disciples, is shown by the fact that they represented him as a\nsectarian and an egotist who denounced all who had preceded him as\nunworthy of respect and to be despised. And how could a man whose\npublic life did not cover more than two or three years of time, and\nwho lived as a celibate and a monk, returning every night to his\ncave in the Mount of Olives, taking no active part in the business\nlife--supporting no family or parents, assuming no civil or social\nduties--how can such a man, we ask, be held up as a model for the men\nand women of today? Jesus, according to his biographers, believed he\ncould raise the dead, and announced himself the equal of God. \"I\nand my father are one,\" he is reported to have said; and one of his\napostles writes: \"He (Jesus) thought it no robbery to be equal to\nGod.\" Either this report is true, or it is not. If it is, what shall\nwe think of a man who thought he was a god and could raise the\ndead? If the report is not true, what reliance can we place in his\nbiographers when the things which they affirm with the greatest\nconfidence are to be rejected?\n\nYet Prof. Adler, swept off his feet by the popular and conventional\nenthusiasm about Jesus, describes him as \"a personality of such\nsuperlative excellence, so radiant, so incomparably lofty in mien and\nport and speech and intercourse with others,\" that his followers could\nnot believe he was a mere mortal. But where is the Jesus to correspond\nto this rhetorical language? He is not in the anonymous gospels. There\nwe find only a fragmentary character patched or pieced together, as\nit were, by various contributors--a character made up of the most\ncontradictory elements, as we have tried to show in the preceding\npages. The Jesus of Adler is not in history, he is not even in\nmythology. There is no one of that name and answering that description\nin the four gospels.\n\nThat a loose way of speaking grows upon one if one is not careful, and\nthat sounding phrases and honest historical criticism are not the same\nthing, will be seen by Prof. Adler's lavish praise of John Calvin. He\nspeaks of him in terms almost as glowing as he does of Jesus. He calls\nCalvin \"that mighty and noble man.\"\n\nThat Calvin ruled Geneva like a Russian autocrat; that he was \"mighty\"\nin a community in which Jacques Gruet was beheaded because he had\n\"danced,\" and also because he had committed the grave offense of\nsaying that \"Moses was only a man and no one knows what God said\nto him,\" and in which Michael Servetus was burned alive for holding\nopinions contrary to those which the Genevan pope was interested\nin,--is readily conceded. But was Calvin \"mighty\" in a beneficent\nsense? Did his power save people from the Protestant inquisition? Was\nnot the Geneva of his day called _the Protestant Rome?_ And if he\ndid not use his powerful influence to further religious tolerance and\nintellectual honesty; if he did not use his position to save men from\nthe grip of superstition and the fear of hell, how can Prof. Adler\nrefer to him as \"that mighty and noble man--John Calvin?\"\n\nIt is not our purpose to grudge Calvin any compliments which Felix\nAdler wishes to pay him. What we grieve to see is, that he should,\nindirectly at least, recommend to the admiration of his readers a\nman who, if he existed today and acted as he did in the Geneva of\nthe sixteenth century, would be regarded by every morally and\nintellectually awakened man, as a criminal. Has not Felix Adler\nexamined the evidence which incriminates Calvin and proves him beyond\ndoubt as the murderer of Servetus? \"If he (Servetus) comes to Geneva,\nI shall see that he does not escape alive,\" wrote John Calvin to\nTheodore Beza. And he carried out his fearful menace; Servetus was put\nto death by the most horrible punishment ever invented--he was burned\nalive in a smoking fire. What did this mighty and noble man do to save\na stranger and a scholar from so atrocious a fate? Let his eulogist,\nProf. Adler, answer. It will not do to say that those were different\ntimes. A thousand voices were raised against the wanton and cruel\nmurder of Servetus, but Calvin's was not among them. In fact, when\nCalvin himself was a fugitive and a wanderer, he had written in favor\nof religious tolerance, but no sooner did he become the Protestant\npope of Geneva, than he developed into an exterminator of heresy by\nfire. Such is the \"mighty and noble man\" held up for our admiration.\n\"Mighty\" he was, but we ask again, was he mighty in a noble sense?\n\nHad Calvin been considered a \"mighty and noble man\" by the reformers\nwho preceded Prof. Adler, there would have been no Ethical Culture\nsocieties in America today. Prof. Adler is indebted for the liberties\nwhich he enjoys in New York to the Voltaires and the Condorcets, who\nregarded Calvin and his \"isms\" as pernicious to the intellectual life\nof Europe, and did all they could to lead the people away from them.\nThink of the leader of the Ethical Societies exalting a persecutor, to\nsay nothing of his abominable theology, or of his five _aliases,_ as\n\"that mighty and noble man;--John Calvin!\" We feel grateful to Prof.\nAdler for organizing the Ethical Societies in American, but we would\nbe pleased to have him explain in what sense a man of Calvin's small\nsympathies and terrible deeds could be called both \"noble and\nmighty.\" *\n\n     * See \"The Kingdom of God in Geneva Under Calvin.\"--M. M. Mangasarian.\n\nIt was predicted some years ago that the founder of the Ethical\nSocieties will before long return to the Jewish faith of his fathers.\nHowever this may be, we have seen, in his estimate of Jesus and John\nCalvin, evidences of his estrangement from rationalism, of which in\nhis younger days he was so able a champion. In his criticism of the\nRussian scientist, Metchnikoff, of the Pasteur Institute in Paris,\nProf. Adler, endorsing the popular estimate of Jesus, accepts also the\npopular attitude toward science. He appears to prefer the doctrine\nof special creation to the theory of evolution. We would not have\nbelieved this of Felix Adler if we did not have the evidence before\nus. We speak of this to show the relation between an exaggerated\npraise of a popular idol, and a denial of the conclusions of modern\nscience. It is the popular view which Prof. Adler champions in both\ninstances. In his criticism of Metchnikoff's able book, _The Nature of\nMan,_ Prof. Adler writes:\n\nAnd to account for the reason in man, this divine spark that has been\nset ablaze in him, it is not sufficient to point to an ape as our\nancestor. If we are descended from an anthropoid ape on the physical\nside, we are not descended from him in any strict sense of the word on\nour rational side; for as life is born of life, so reason is born\nof reason, and if the anthropoid ape does not possess reason as we\npossess it, it cannot be said that on our rational side we are his\nprogeny.\n\nIf the above had been written fifty years ago, when the doctrine of\nevolution was a heresy, or by an orthodox clergyman of today, we\nwould have taken no note of it. But coming as it does from the worthy\nfounder of the Ethical Movement in America, it deserves attention.\n\"If,\" says Dr. Adler, \"we are descended from an anthropoid ape on the\nphysical side, we are not descended from him in any strict sense of\nthe word on our rational side.\" He is not sure, evidently, that even\nphysically man is the successor of the anthropoid ape, but he is sure\nthat \"we are not descended from him...on our rational side.\" Is Dr.\nAdler, then, a dualist? Does he believe that there are two eternal\nsources, from one of which we get our bodies, and from the other our\n\"rational side?\" And why cannot Dr. Adler be a monist? He answers,\n\"for as life is born of life, so reason is born of reason, and if the\nanthropoid ape does not possess reason as we possess it, it cannot\nbe said that on our rational side we are his progeny.\" Not so, good\ndoctor! There is no life without reason. Do we mean to say that the\njelly-fish, the creeping worm, or the bud on the tree has reason? Yes;\nnot as much reason as a horse or a dog, and certainly not as much as a\nMetchnikoff or an Adler, but these lower forms of life could not have\nsurvived but for the element of rationality in them. We may call this\ninstinct, sensation, promptings of nature, but what's in a name?\nThe difference between a pump and a watch is only a difference of\nmechanism. The stone and the soul represent different stages\nof progression, not different substances. If a charcoal can be\ntransformed into a diamond, why may not nature, with the resources of\ninfinity at her command, refine a stone into a soul? Let us not\nmarvel at this; it is not less thinkable than the proposition of two\nindependent sources of life, the one physical, the other rational.\nIf \"life is born of life,\" where did the first life come from? Let\nus have an answer to that question. And if, as the professor says,\n\"reason is born of reason,\" how did the first reason come? Is it not\nvery much simpler to think in monistic terms, than to separate life\nfrom reason, and mind from matter, as Prof. Adler does in the words\nquoted above? Why cannot mind be a state of matter? What objection is\nthere to thinking that matter, refined, elevated, ripened, cultured,\nbecomes both sentient and rational? If matter can feel, can see, can\nhear, can it not also think? Does not the horse see, hear and think?\nThere is no lowering of the dignity of man to say that he tastes with\nhis palate, sees with his eyes, hears with his ears, and thinks with\nthe gray matter in his brain. Remove his optic nerve and he becomes\nblind, destroy the ganglia in his brain, and he becomes mindless. Gold\nis as much matter as the dust, but it is very much more precious; so\nis mind infinitely more precious than the matter which can only feel,\nsee, taste or hear. \"If the anthropoid ape does not possess reason as\nwe possess it, it cannot be said that on our rational side we are\nhis progeny,\" says Dr. Adler: But, suppose we were to say that if our\nremote African or Australian savage ancestors did not possess reason\nas we possess it, \"it cannot be said that on our rational side we are\ntheir progeny,\" The child in the cradle does not possess reason \"as\nwe do,\" any more than does the anthropoid ape, but the beginnings of\nreason are in both. Let the worm climb and he will overtake man. This\nis a most hopeful, a most beautiful gospel. Its spirit is not one\nof isolation and exclusiveness from the rest of nature, but one of\nfellowship and sympathy. We are all--plants, trees, birds, bugs,\nanimals--all members of one family, children at various ages and\nstages of growth of the same great mother,--Nature. We quote again:\n\n\"When I ask him (Metchnikoff) whence do I come, he points to the\nsimian stage which we have left behind; but I would look beyond that\nstage to some ultimate fount of being, to which all that is highest in\nme and in the world around me can be traced, a source of things equal\nto the best that I can conceive.\"\n\nBut if there is \"some ultimate fount of being,\" to which our \"highest\"\nnature \"can be traced,\" whence did our lower nature come? Is Prof.\nAdler trying to say God? We do not object to the word, we only ask\nthat he give the word a more intelligible meaning than has yet been\ngiven. If God is the \"ultimate fount of being to which all that is\nhighest in us can be traced,\" who or what is the ultimate fount to\nwhich all that is lowest in us can be traced? Let us have the names of\nthe two ultimate founts of being, and also to what still more ultimate\nfounts _these_ founts may be traced.\n\nIn our opinion Dr. Adler has failed to do justice to Prof.\nMetchnikoff. It is no answer to the Darwinian Theory, which the\nRussian scientist accepts in earnest, and in all its fullness,--not\nfractionally, as Adler seems to do--to say that it does not explain\neverything. No one claims that it does. Not all the mystery of life\nhas been cleared. Evolution has offered us only a new key, so to\nspeak, with which to attempt the doors which have not yielded to\nmetaphysics. And if the key has not opened all the doors, it has\nopened many. Prof. Adler seems to think that the doctrine of evolution\nexplains only the physical descent of man; for the genesis of the\nspiritual man, he looks for some supernatural \"fount\" in the skies.\nWell, that is not science; that is theology, and Adler's estimate of\nJesus is just as theological as his criticism of evolution.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX\n\nThe argument in this volume will be better understood if we give to\nour readers the comments and criticisms which our little pamphlet,\n_Jesus a Myth,_ and _The Mangasarian-Crapsey Debate on the Historicity\nof Jesus,_ * called forth from orthodox and liberal clergymen. We\nshall present these together with our reply as they appeared on the\nSunday Programs of the Independent Religious Society.\n\n     * Price, 25c. Independent Religious Society, Orchestra Hall, Chicago.\n\nCriticism is welcome. If the criticism is just, it prevents us\nfrom making the same mistake twice; if it is unjust, it gives us an\nopportunity to correct the error our critic has fallen into. No one's\nknowledge is perfect. But the question is, does a teacher suppress the\nfacts? Does he insist on remaining ignorant of the facts?\n\n\n\n\nFROM THE SUNDAY PROGRAMS\n\nI\n\nNow that the debate on one of the most vital questions of modern\nreligious thought--The Historicity of Jesus--is in print, a few\nfurther reflections on some minor points in Dr. Crapsey's argument may\nadd to the value of the published copy.\n\nREV. DR. CRAPSEY: \"Now, I say this is the great law of religious\nvariation, that in almost every instance, indeed, I think, in every\nsingle instance in history, all such movements begin with a _single_\npersonality.\" (p. 5, _Mangasarian-Crapsey Debate._)\n\nANSWER: The only way this question can be settled is by appealing to\nhistory. Mithraism is a variant religion, which at one time spread\nover the Roman Empire and came near outclassing Christianity. Yet,\nMithra, represented as a young man, and worshiped as a god, is a myth.\nHow, then, did Mithraism arise?\n\nReligions, as well as their variations, appear as new branches do upon\nan old tree. The new branch is quite as much the product of the soil\nand climate as the parent tree. Like Brahmanism, Judaism, Shinto and\nthe Babylonian and Egyptian Cults, which had no _single_ founders,\nChristianity is a _deposit_ to which Hellenic, Judaic and Latin\ntendencies have each contributed its quota.\n\nBut the popular imagination craves a Maker for the Universe, a founder\nfor Rome, a first man for the human race, and a great chief as\nthe starter of the tribe. In the same way it fancies a divine, or\nsemi-divine being as the author of its _credo._\n\nBecause Mohammed is historical, it does not follow that Moses is also\nhistorical. That argument would prove too much.\n\nREV. DR. CRAPSEY: \"We would be in the same position that the\nastronomers were when they discovered the great planet Uranus--from\ntheir knowledge of the movements of these bodies they were convinced\nthat these perturbations could be occasioned by nothing less than\na great planet lying outside of the then view of mankind.\" (p. 6,\n_Ibid._)\n\nANSWER: But the astronomers did not rest until they converted the\n_probability_ of a near-by planet into _demonstration._ Jesus is still\na probability.\n\nREV. DR. CRAPSEY: \"We have of Jesus a very distinctly outlined\nhistory. There is nothing vague about him.\" (p. 12, _Ibid_.)\n\nANSWER: But in the same sentence the doctor takes all this back by\nadding: \"There are a great many things in his history that are not\nhistorical.\" If so, then we do not possess \"a very distinctly outlined\nhistory,\" but at best a mixture of fact and fiction.\n\nREV. DR. CRAPSEY: \"We can follow Jesus' history from the time that he\nentered upon his public career until the time that career closed, just\nas easily as we can follow Caesar, etc.\" (p. 12, _Ibid_.)\n\nANSWER: How long was \"the time from the opening of Jesus' public\ncareer until the time that it closed?\"--One year!--according to the\nthree gospels. It sounds quite a period to speak of \"following his\npublic career\" from beginning to end, especially when compared with\nCaesar's, until it is remembered that the entire public career of\nJesus covers the space of only one year. This is a most decisive\nargument against the historicity of Jesus. With the exception of one\nyear, his whole life is hid in impenetrable darkness. We know nothing\nof his childhood, nothing of his old age, if he lived to be old,\nand of his youth, we know just enough to fill up a year. Under the\ncircumstances, there is no comparison between the public career of a\nCaesar or a Socrates covering from fifty to seventy years of time, and\nthat of a Jesus of whose life only one brief year is thrown upon the\ncanvas.\n\nAn historical Jesus who lived only a year!\n\nREV. DR. CRAPSEY: The Christ I admit to be purely mythological....the\nword Christ, you know, means the anointed one....they (the Hebrews)\nexpected the coming of that Christ....But that is purely a mythical\ntitle. (_The Debate_--p. 35.)\n\nANSWER: Did the Hebrews then expect the coming of a _title?_ Were they\nlooking forward to seeing the ancient throne of David restored by a\n_title?_ By Messiah or Christ the Jews did not mean a _name,_ but a\nman--a real flesh and bone savior, anointed or appointed by heaven.\n\nBut if the 'Christ' which the Hebrews expected was \"purely mythical,\"\nwhat makes the same 'Christ' in the supposed Tacitus passage\nhistorical? The New Testament Jesus is Jesus Christ, and the apostle\nJohn speaks of those \"who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the\nflesh\"--mark his words--not Christ, but _Jesus Christ._ The apostle\ndoes not separate the two names. There were those, then, in the early\nchurch who denied the historicity, not of a _title_,--for what meaning\nwould there be in denying that a _title_ \"is come in the flesh,\"--but\nof a person, known as _Jesus Christ._\n\nAnd what could the doctor mean when he speaks of a _title_ being\n\"mythological?\" There are no mythological titles. Titles are words,\nand we do not speak of the historicity or the non-historicity\nof words. We cannot say of words as we do of men, that some are\nhistorical and others are mythical. William Tell is a myth--not the\nname, but the man the name stands for. _William_ is the name of many\nreal people, and so is _Tell._ There were many anointed kings, who\nare historical, and the question is, Is Jesus Christ--or Jesus the\nAnointed--also historical? To answer that Jesus is historical, but The\nAnointed is not, is to evade the question.\n\nWhen Mosheim declares that \"The prevalent opinion among early\nChristians was that Christ existed in appearance only,\" he could not\nhave meant by 'Christ' only a title. There is no meaning in saying\nthat a man's title \"existed in appearance only?\"\n\nWe do not speak of a title being born, or crucified; and when some\nearly Christians denied that Jesus Christ was ever born or ever\ncrucified, they had in mind not a _title_ but a _person._\n\nIn conclusion: If the 'Christ' by whom the Hebrews meant, not a mere\nname, but a man, was \"purely mythological,\" as the reverend debater\nplainly admits (see pages 35, 36 of _The Debate_)--that is, if when\nthe Hebrews said: \"Christ _is_ coming,\" they were under the influence\nof an illusion,--why may not the Christians when they say that\n'Christ' _has_ come, be also under the influence of an illusion? The\nHebrew illusion said, Christ was coming; the Christian illusion says,\nChrist has come. The Hebrews had no evidence that 'Christ' was coming,\nalthough that expectation was a great factor in their religion; and\nthe Christians have no more evidence for saying 'Christ' has come,\nalthough that belief is a great factor in _their_ religion.\n\n\nII\n\nThe minister of the South Congregational Church, who heard the debate,\nhas publicly called your lecturer an \"unscrupulous sophist,\" who\n\"practices imposition upon a popular audience\" and who \"put forth\nsentence after sentence which every scholar present knew to be a\nperversion of the facts so outrageous as to be laughable.\"\n\nAs one of the leading morning papers said, the above \"is not a reply\nto arguments made by Mr. Mangasarian.\"\n\nInvited by several people to prove these charges, the Reverend\nreplies: \"In the absence of any full report of what he (M. M.\nMangasarian) said, or of any notes taken at the time, I am unable\nto furnish you with quotations.\" When the Reverend gentleman was\naddressing the public his memory was strong enough to enable him to\nsay, \"sentence after sentence was put forth by Mr. Mangasarian which\nevery scholar present knew to be a perversion of the facts.\" But when\ncalled upon to mention a few of them, his memory forsakes him. Our\ncritic is not careful to make his statements agree with the fact.\n\nOne instance, however, he is able to remember which \"when it fell\nupon my ears,\" he writes, \"it struck me with such amazement, that it\ncompletely drove from my mind a series of most astonishing statements\nof various sorts which had just preceded it.\"\n\nWe refrain from commenting on the excuse given to explain so\nsignificant a failure of memory. The instance referred to was about\nthe denial of some in apostolic times that \"Jesus Christ is come in\nthe flesh.\" But as Mr. Mangasarian had hardly spoken more than twenty\nminutes when he touched upon this point, it is not likely that it\ncould have been \"preceded by a series of most astonishing statements\nof various sorts.\"\n\nAnd what was the statement which, while it crippled his memory, it did\nnot moderate his zeal? We will let him present it himself; \"I refer\nto the use he made of one or two passages in the New Testament,\nmentioning some who deny 'that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.'\n'So that,' he went on to say, 'there were those even among the early\nChristians themselves who denied that Jesus had come in the flesh.\nOf course, they were cast out as heretics.' _Here came an impressive\npause,_ and then without further explanation or qualification, he\nproceeded to something else.\"\n\nThis is his most serious complaint. Does it justify hasty language?\n\nSt. John writes of those who \"confessed not that Jesus Christ is\ncome in the flesh.\" The natural meaning of the words is that even in\napostolic times some denied the flesh and bone Jesus, and regarded him\nas an idea or an apparition--something like the Holy Ghost. All church\nhistorians admit the existence of sects that denied the New Testament\nJesus--the Gnostics, the Essenes, the Ebionites, the Marcionites, the\nCerinthians, etc.\n\nAs the debate is now in print, further comment on this would not be\nnecessary.\n\nIncidents like the above, however, should change every lukewarm\nrationalist into a devoted soldier of truth and honor.\n\nTo us, more important than anything presented on this subject, is\nthis evidence of the existence of a very early dispute among the first\ndisciples of Jesus on the question of whether he was real or merely an\napparition. The Apostle John, in his epistle, clearly states that even\namong the faithful there were those _who confess not that Jesus Christ\nis come in the flesh._ This is very important. As early as John's\ntime, if he is the writer of the epistle, Jesus' historicity was\nquestioned.\n\nThe gospel of John also hints at the existence in the primitive church\nof Christians who did not accept the reality of Jesus. When doubting\nThomas is told of the resurrection, he answers that he must feel the\nprints of the nails with his fingers before he will believe, and Jesus\nnot only grants the wishes of this skeptical apostle, but he also eats\nin the presence of them all, which story is told evidently to silence\nthe critics who maintained that Jesus was only a spirit, \"the Wisdom\nof God,\" an emanation, a light, and not real flesh and bones.\n\n\nIII\n\nThe same clergyman, to whom a copy of the _Mangasarian-Crapsey Debate_\nwas sent, has written a five page criticism of it.\n\nThe strength of a given criticism is determined by asking: Does it\nin any way impair the soundness of the argument against which it is\ndirected? Critics have discovered mistakes in Darwin and Haeckel, but\nare these mistakes of such a nature as to prove fatal to the theory of\nevolution?\n\nTo be effective, criticism must be aimed at the _heart_ of an\nargument. A man's life is not in his hat, which could be knocked off,\nor in his clothes--which could be torn in places by his assailant\nwithout in the least weakening his opponent's position. It is the blow\nthat disables which counts.\n\nTo charge that we have said 'Gospel,' where we should have said\n'Epistle,' or 'Trullum' instead of 'Trullo'; that it was not Barnabas,\nbut Nicholas who denied the Gospel Jesus, and that there were\nvariations of this denial, does not at all disprove the fact that,\naccording to the Christian scriptures themselves, among the apostolic\nfollowers there were those to whom Jesus Christ was only a phantom.\n\nMilman, the Christian historian, states that the belief about Jesus\nChrist \"adopted by almost all the Gnostic sects,\" was that Jesus\nChrist _was but an apparent human being, an impassive phantom,_\n(_History of Christianity._ Vol. 2, p. 61). Was ever such a view\nentertained of Caesar, Socrates or of any other historical character?\n\nOn page 28 of _The Debate_ we say: \"The Apostle John complains of\nthose who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.\" To\nthis the clergyman replies:\n\n\"The Apostle John never made any such complaint. Critical scholarship\nis pretty well agreed that he did not write the epistles ascribed to\nhim.\"\n\nWe have a lecture on \"How the Bible was Invented,\" and this\nclergyman's admission that at least parts of the bible _are_ invented\nis very gratifying.\n\nIn a former communication, this same clergyman tried to prove that\nthe Apostle John's complaint does not at all imply a denial of the\nhistorical Jesus. In his recent letter he denies that the apostle ever\nmade such a complaint.\n\nJohn did not write the epistles, then, which the Christian church for\ntwo thousand years, and at a cost of millions of dollars, and at the\ngreater sacrifice of truth and progress has been proclaiming to the\nworld as the work of the inspired John!\n\nThe strenuous efforts to get around this terrible text in the \"Holy\nBible,\" show what a decisive argument it is. Every exertion to meet it\nonly tightens the text, like a rope, around the neck of the belief in\nthe historical Jesus. Our desire, in engaging in this argument, is\nto turn the thought and love of the world from a mythical being, to\nhumanity, which is both real and present.\n\nOn page 22 of _The Debate,_ we say: \"St. Paul tells us that he lived\nin Jerusalem at a time when Jesus must have been holding the attention\nof the city; yet he never met him.\" To this the clergyman replies:\n\n\"Paul tells us nothing of the kind. In a speech which is put into the\nmouth of Paul\"--_put into the mouth of Paul!_ Is this another instance\nof forgery? John did not write the epistles, and Paul's speech in the\nBook of Acts was put into his mouth! Will the clergyman tell us which\nparts of the bible are _not_ invented?\n\nLet us make a remark: The church people blame us for not believing in\nthe trustworthiness of the bible; but when we reply that if the bible\nis trustworthy, then Paul must have been in Jerusalem with Jesus, and\nJohn admits that some denied the historical Jesus, we are blamed for\nnot knowing better than to prove anything by quoting Paul and John as\nif everything they said was trustworthy.\n\nIn other words, only those passages in the bible are authentic which\nthe clergy quote; those which the rationalists quote are spurious. In\nthe meantime, the authentic as well as the spurious passages together\ncompose the churches' _Word of God_.\n\n\nIV\n\nIn a letter of protest to Mr. Mangasarian, Rabbi Hirsch, of this city,\nasks: \"Was it right for you to assume that I was correctly reported by\nthe _News?\"_ After stating what he had said in his interview with the\nreporter, the Rabbi continues: \"But said I to the reporter all these\npossible allusions do not prove that Jesus existed....You see in\nreality I agreed with you. I personally believe Jesus lived. But I\nhave no proof for this beyond my feeling that the movement with\nwhich the name is associated could even for Paul not have taken its\nnomenclature without a personal substratum. But, and this I told the\nreporter also, this does not prove that the Jesus of the Gospels is\nhistorical.\" Rabbi Hirsch writes in this same letter that he did not\nsay Jesus was mentioned in the Rabbinical Books. The News reports the\nRabbi as saying, \"But we know through the Rabbinical Books that Jesus\nlived.\"\n\nA committee from our Society waited on the editor of the _Daily News_\nfor an explanation. The editor promised to locate the responsibility\nfor the contradiction.\n\nAs the report in the _News_ was allowed to stand for four days without\ncorrection, and as Rabbi Hirsch did not even privately, by letter or\nby phone, disclaim responsibility for the article, to Mr. Mangasarian,\nthe latter claims he was justified in assuming that the published\nreport was reliable. But it is with pleasure that the Independent\nReligious Society gives Rabbi Hirsch this opportunity to explain his\nposition. We hope he will also let us know whether he said to the\nreporter: \"I do not believe in Mr. Mangasarian's argument that\nChristianity has inspired massacres, wars and inquisitions. It is a\nstock argument and not to the point.\" This is extraordinary; and\nas the Rabbi does not question the statement, we infer that it is\na correct report of what he said. Though we have room for only one\nquotation from the Jewish-Christian Scriptures, it will be enough to\nshow the relation of religion to persecution:\n\n\"And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord, thy God, shall\ndeliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them.\"\n\nWhy were women put to death as witches? Why were Quakers hanged? For\nwhat \"economic and political reasons,\" which the Rabbi thinks are\nresponsible for persecution, was the blind Derby girl who doubted the\nReal Presence, burned alive at the age of twenty-two?\n\n\nV\n\nThe Rev. W. E. Barton, of Oak Park, is one of the ablest\nCongregational ministers in the West. He has recently expressed\nhimself on the Mangasarian-Crapsey Debate. Let us hear what he has to\nsay on the historicity of Jesus.\n\nThe Reverend gentleman begins by an uncompromising denial of our\nstatements, and ends by virtually admitting all that we contend\nfor. This morning we will write of his denials; next Sunday, of his\nadmissions.\n\n\"Mr. Mangasarian,\" says Dr. Barton, \"has not given evidence of his\nskill as a logician or of his accuracy in the use of history.\" Then he\nproceeds to apologize, in a way, for the character of his reply to our\nargument, by saying that \"Mr. Mangasarian's arguments, fortunately, do\nnot require to be taken very seriously, for they are not in themselves\nserious.\"\n\nNotwithstanding this protest, Dr. Barton proceeds to do his best to\nreply to our position.\n\nIn _The Debate_ we call attention to the fact that according to the\nNew Testament, Paul was in Jerusalem when Jesus was teaching and\nperforming his miracles there. Yet Paul never seems to have met Jesus,\nor to have heard of his teachings or miracles. To this Dr. Barton\nreplies: \"We cannot know and are not bound to explain where Paul was\non the few occasions when Jesus publicly visited Jerusalem.\"\n\nThe above reply, we are compelled to say, much to our regret, is\nnot even honest. Without actually telling any untruths, it suggests\nindirectly two falsehoods: First, that Jesus was not much in\nJerusalem--that he was there only on a few occasions; and that,\ntherefore, it is not strange that Paul did not see him or hear of his\npreaching or miracles; and second, that Paul was absent from the city\nwhen Jesus was there. The question is not how often Jesus visited\nJerusalem, but how conspicuous was the part he played there. He may\nhave visited Jerusalem only once in all his life, yet if he preached\nthere daily in the synagogues; if he performed great miracles\nthere; if he marched through the streets followed by the palm-waving\nmultitude shouting _Hosanna,_ etc.; if he attacked the high-priest and\nthe pharisees there, to which latter class Paul belonged; and if he\nwas arrested, tried and publicly executed there; and if his teaching\nstirred the city from center to circumference,--it would not be honest\nto intimate that the \"few\" times Jesus visited Jerusalem, Paul was\nengaged elsewhere.\n\nThe Reverend debater attempts to belittle the Jerusalem career of\nJesus, by suggesting that he was not there much, when according to the\nGospels, it was in that city that his ministry began and culminated.\n\nAgain, to our argument that Paul never refers to any of the teachings\nof Jesus, the Reverend replies: \"Nor is it of consequence that Paul\n_seldom_ quotes the words of Jesus.\" _\"Seldom\"_---would imply that\nPaul quotes Jesus sometimes. We say Paul gives not a single quotation\nto prove that he knew of a teaching Jesus. He had heard of a\ncrucified, risen, Christ--one who had also instituted a bread and wine\nsupper, but of Jesus as a _teacher_ and of his _teaching,_ Paul is\nabsolutely ignorant.\n\nBut by saying \"Paul _seldom_ quotes Jesus,\" Dr. Barton tries to\nproduce the impression that Paul quotes Jesus, though not very often,\nwhich is not true. There is not a single miracle, parable or moral\nteaching attributed to Jesus in the Gospels of which Paul seems to\npossess any knowledge whatever.\n\nNor is it true that it is of no consequence that \"Paul seldom quotes\nthe words of Jesus.\" For it proves that the Gospel Jesus was unknown\nto Paul, and that he was created at a later date.\n\nOnce more; we say that the only Jesus Paul knew was the one he met\nin a trance on his way to Damascus. To this the pastor of the\nFirst Congregational Church of Oak Park replies in the same\nwe-do-not-care-to-explain style. He says: \"Nor is it of consequence\nthat Paul values comparatively lightly, having known him in the\nflesh.\"\n\nThe words \"Paul valued comparatively lightly\" are as misleading as\nthe words \"Paul _seldom_ quotes Jesus.\" Paul _never_ quotes Jesus'\nteachings, and he _never_ met Jesus in the flesh. The clergyman's\nwords, however, convey the impression that Paul knew Jesus in the\nflesh, but he valued that, knowledge \"comparatively lightly,\" that\nis to say, he did not think much of it. And Dr. Barton is one of the\nforemost divines of the country.\n\nAnd now about his admissions:\n\n\nVI\n\nI. \"The Gospels, by whomever written,\" says the clergyman, \"are\nreliable.\" By _whomever_ written! After two thousand years, it is\nstill uncertain to whom we are indebted for the story of Jesus. What,\nin Dr. Barton's opinion, could have influenced the framers of the\nlife of Jesus to suppress their identity? And why does not the church\ninstead of printing the words, \"The Gospel according to Matthew\nor John,\" which is _not true,_--print, \"The Gospel by _whomever_\nwritten\"?\n\nII. \"At the very least, four of Paul's epistles are genuine,\" says the\nsame clergyman. Only four? Paul has thirteen epistles in the bible,\nand of only four of them is Dr. Barton certain. What are the remaining\nnine doing in the Holy Bible? And which 'four' does the clergyman\naccept as doubtlessly \"genuine?\" Only yesterday all thirteen of Paul's\nletters were infallible, and they are so still wherever no questions\nare asked about them. It is only where there is intelligence and\ninquiry that \"four of them\" at least are reliable. As honesty and\nculture increase, the number of inspired epistles decreases. What\nthe Americans are too enlightened to accept, the church sends to the\n_heathen_.\n\nIII. \"It is true that early a sect grew up which....held that Jesus\ncould not have had a body of carnal flesh; but they did not question\nthat he had really lived.\" According to Dr. Barton, these early\nChristians did not deny that Jesus had really lived,--they only denied\nthat _Jesus could have had a body of carnal flesh_. We wonder how many\nkinds of flesh there are according to Dr. Barton. Moreover, does not\nthe bible teach that Jesus was tempted in all things, and was a man of\nlike passions, as ourselves? The good man controls his appetites and\npassions, but his flesh is not any different from anybody else's. If\nJesus did not have a body like ours, then he did not exist as a human\nbeing. Our point is, that if the New Testament is reliable, in the\ntime of the apostles themselves, the Gnostics, an influential body\nof Christians, denied that Jesus was any more than an imaginary\nexistence. \"But,\" pleads the clergyman, \"these sects believed that\nJesus was real, though not carnal flesh.\" What kind of flesh was he\nthen? If by _carnal_ the Gnostics meant 'sensual,' then, the apostles\nin denouncing them for rejecting a carnal Jesus, must have held that\nJesus was carnal or sensual. How does the Reverend Barton like the\nconclusion to which his own reasoning leads him?\n\nIV. \"It is true that there were literary fictions in the age following\nthe apostles.\" This admission is in answer to the charge that even in\nthe first centuries the Christians were compelled to resort to forgery\nto prove the historicity of Jesus. The doctor admits the charge,\nexcept that he calls it by another name. The difference between\nfiction and forgery is this: the former is, what it claims to be; the\nlatter is a lie parading as a truth. Fiction is honest because it\ndoes not try to deceive. Forgery is dishonest because its object is\nto deceive. If the Gospel was a novel, no one would object to its\nmythology, but pretending to be historical, it must square its claims\nwith the facts, or be branded as a forgery.\n\nV. \"We may not have the precise words Jesus uttered; the portrait may\nbe colored;....tradition may have had its influence; but Jesus was\nreal.\" A most remarkable admission from a clerical! It concedes all\nthat higher criticism contends for. We are not sure either of Jesus'\nwords or of his character, intimates the Reverend preacher. Precisely.\n\nIn commenting on our remark that in the eighth century \"Pope Hadrian\ncalled upon the Christian world to think of Jesus as a man,\" Dr.\nBarton replies with considerable temper: \"To date people's right to\nthink of Jesus as a man from that decree is not to be characterized\nby any polite term.\" Our neighbor, in the first place, misquotes us\nin his haste. We never presumed to deny anyone the right to think\nof Jesus what he pleased, before or after the eighth century. (_The\nDebate,_ p. 28.) We were calling attention to Pope Hadrian's order\nto replace the lamb on the cross by the figure of a man. But by what\n_polite_ language is the conduct of the Christian church--which to\nthis day prints in its bibles \"Translated from the Original Greek,\"\nwhen no _original_ manuscripts are in existence--to be characterized?\n\nDr. Barton's efforts to save his creed remind us of the Japanese\nproverb: \"It is no use mending the lid, if the pot be broken.\"\n\nVII\n\nThe most remarkable clerical effort thus far, which _The\nMangasarian-Crapsey Debate_ has called forth, is that of the Rev. E.\nV. Shayler, rector of Grace Episcopal Church of Oak Park.\n\n\"In answer to your query, which I received, I beg to give the\nfollowing statement. Facts, not theories. The date of your own letter\n1908 tells what? 1908 years after what? The looking forward of the\nworld to Him.\"\n\nRev. Shayler has an original way of proving the historicity of Jesus.\nEvery time we date our letters, suggests the clergyman, we prove that\nJesus lived. The ancient Greeks reckoned time by the Olympiads, which\nfact, according to this interesting clergyman, ought to prove that the\nOlympic games were instituted by the God Heracles or Hercules, son of\nZeus; the Roman Chronology began with the building of Rome by Romulus,\nwhich by the same reasoning would prove that Romulus and Remus, born\nof Mars, and nursed by a she-wolf, are historical.\n\nRev. Shayler has forgotten that the Christian era was not introduced\ninto Europe until the sixth century, and Dionysius, the monkish author\nof the era, did not compute time from the birth of Jesus, but from\nthe day on which the Virgin Mary met an angel from heaven. This date\nprevailed in many countries until 1745. Would the date on a letter\nprove that an angel appeared to Mary and hailed her as the future\nMother of God? According to this clergyman, scientists, instead of\nstudying the crust of the earth and making geological investigations\nto ascertain the probable age of the earth, ought to look at the date\nin the margin of the bible which tells exactly the world's age.\n\nRev. Shayler continues: \"The places where he was born, labored and\ndied are still extant, and have no value apart from such testimony.\"\n\nWhile this is amusing, we are going to deny ourselves the pleasure of\nlaughing at it; we will do our best to give it a serious answer. If\nthe existence of such a country as Palestine proves that Jesus is\nreal, the existence of Switzerland must prove that William Tell is\nhistorical; and the existence of an Athens must prove that Athene and\nApollo really lived; and from the fact that there is an England, Rev.\nShayler would prove that Robin Hood and his band really lived in 1160.\n\nThe Reverend knows of another 'fact' which he thinks proves Jesus\nwithout a doubt:\n\n\"A line of apostles and bishops coming right down from him by his\nappointment to Anderson of Chicago,\" shows that Jesus is historical.\nIt does, but only to Episcopalians. The Catholics and the other sects\ndo not believe that Anderson is a descendant of Jesus. Did the priests\nof Baal or Moloch prove that these beings existed?\n\nThe Reverend has another argument:\n\n\"The Christian Church--when, why and how did it begin?\" Which\nChristian church, brother? Your own church began with Henry the Eighth\nin 1534, with persecution and murder, when the king, his hands wet\nwith the blood of his own wives and ministers, made himself the\nsupreme head of the church in England. The Methodist church began with\nJohn Wesley not much over a hundred years ago; the Presbyterian church\nbegan with John Calvin who burned his guest on a slow fire in Geneva\nabout three hundred years ago; and the Lutheran church began with\nMartin Luther in the sixteenth century, the man who said over his own\nsignature: \"It was I, Martin Luther, who slew all the peasants in the\nPeasants War, for I commanded them to be slaughtered....But I throw\nthe responsibility on our Lord God who instructed me to give this\norder;\" and the Roman Catholic church, the parent of the smaller\nchurches--all chips from the same block--began its real career\nwith the first Christian Emperor, Constantine, who hanged his\nfather-in-law, strangled his brother-in-law, murdered his nephew,\nbeheaded his eldest son, and killed his wife. Gibbon writes of\nConstantine that \"the same year of his reign in which he convened the\ncouncil of Nice was polluted by the execution, or rather murder, of\nhis eldest son.\"\n\nBut our clerical neighbor from Oak Park has one more argument: \"Why is\nSunday observed instead of Saturday?\" Well, why? Sun-day is the day of\nthe Sun, whose glorious existence in the lovely heavens over our heads\nhas never been doubted; it was the day which the Pagans dedicated\nto the Sun. _Sunday_ existed before the Jesus story was known,--the\nanniversary of whose supposed resurrection falls in March one year,\nand in April another. If Jesus rose at all, he rose on a certain\nday, and the apostles must have known the date. Why then is there a\ndifferent date every year?\n\nRev. Shayler concludes: \"Haven't time to go deeper now,\" and he\nintimates that to deny his 'facts' is either to be a fool or a \"liar.\"\nWe will not comment on this. We are interested in arguments, not in\nepithets.\n\n\nVIII\n\nOne of our Sunday programs, the other day, found its way into a\nchurch. It went farther; it made its appearance in the pulpit.\n\n\"In my hand I hold the notice of a publication bearing the title _Is\nJesus a Myth?\"_ said Dr. Boyle. \"This, too, just as though Paul never\nbore testimony.\"\n\nThis gave the clergyman a splendid opportunity to present in clear and\nconvincing form the evidence for the reality of Jesus. But one thing\nprevented him:--the lack of evidence.\n\nTherefore, after announcing the subject, he dismissed it, by remarking\nthat Paul's testimony was enough.\n\nThe Rev. Morton Culver Hartzell, in a letter, offers the same\nargument. \"Let Mr. Mangasarian first disprove Paul,\" he writes. The\nargument in a nutshell is this: Jesus is historical because he is\nguaranteed by Paul.\n\nBut _who_ guarantees Paul?\n\nAside from the fact that the Jesus of Paul is essentially a different\nJesus from the gospel Jesus there still remains the question, Who is\nPaul? Let us see how much the church scholars themselves know about\nPaul:\n\n\"The place and manner and occasion of his death are not _less\nuncertain_ than the facts of his later life...The chronology of the\nrest of his life is as uncertain...We have no means of knowing when he\nwas born, or how long he lived, or at what dates the several events of\nhis life took place.\"\n\nReferring to the epistles of Paul, the same authority says: \"The chief\nof these preliminary questions is the genuineness of the epistles\nbearing Paul's name, which _if they be his_\"--yes, IF--\n\nThe Christian scholar whose article on Paul is printed in the\n_Britannica_, and from which we are now quoting, gives further\nexpression to this uncertainty by adding that certain of Paul's\nepistles \"have given rise to disputes which cannot easily be settled\nin the absence of collateral evidence...The pastoral epistles...have\ngiven rise to still graver questions, and are probably even _less_\ndefensible.\"\n\nLet the reader remember that the above is not from a rationalist,\nbut from the Rev. Edwin Hatch, D. D., Vice-Principal, St. Mary Hall,\nOxford, England.\n\nWere we disposed to quote rationalist authorities, the argument\nagainst Paul would be far more decisive. But we are satisfied to rest\nthe case on orthodox admissions alone.\n\nThe strongest argument then of clergymen who have attempted an answer\nto our position is something like this:\n\nJesus is historical because a man by the name of Paul says so, though\nwe do not know much about Paul.\n\nIt is just such evidence as the above that led Prof. Goldwin Smith to\nexclaim: \"Jesus has flown. I believe the legend of Jesus was made by\nmany minds working under a great religious impulse--one man adding a\nparable, another an exhortation, another a miracle story;\"--and\nGeorge Eliot to write: \"The materials for a real life of Christ do not\nexist.\"\n\nIn the effort to untie the Jesus-knot by Paul, the church has\nincreased the number of knots to two. In other words, the church has\nproceeded on the theory that two uncertainties make a certainty.\n\nWe promised to square also with the facts of history our statement\nthat the chief concern of the church, Jewish, Christian, or\nMohammedan, is not righteousness, but orthodoxy.\n\n\nIX\n\nSpeaking in this city, Rev. W. H. Wray Boyle of Lake Forest, declared\nthat unbelief was responsible for the worst crimes in history. He\nmentioned the placing.\n\n--\"of a nude woman on a pedestal in the city of Paris.\n\n--\"the assassination of William McKinley.\n\n--\"The same unbelief sent a murderer down the isle of a church in\nDenver to pluck the symbol of the sacrament from the hands of a priest\nand slay him at the altar.\"\n\nThe story of a \"nude woman,\" etc., is pure fiction, and that the two\nmurders were caused by unbelief is mere assumption. To help his creed,\nthe preacher resorts to fable. We shall prove our position by quoting\n_facts_:\n\nI. HYPATIA * was dragged into a Christian church by monks in\nAlexandria, and before the altar she was stripped of her clothing and\ncut in pieces with oyster shells, and murdered. Her innocent blood\nstained the hands of the clergy, who also handle the Holy Sacraments.\nShe was murdered not by a crazed individual but by the orders of the\nbishop of Alexandria. How does the true story of Hypatia compare with\nthe fable of \"a nude woman placed on a pedestal in the city of Paris?\"\nThe Reverend must answer, or never tell an untruth again.\n\n     * See Author's, The Martyrdom of Hypatia.\n\nHypatia was murdered in church, and by the clergy, because she was not\northodox.\n\nII. POLTROT, the Protestant, in the 16th century assassinated\nFrancois, the Catholic duke of Guise, in France, and the leaders\nof the church, instead of disclaiming responsibility for the act,\npublicly praised the assassin, and Theodore Beza, the colleague of\nCalvin, promised him a crown in heaven. (_De l'etat etc, p. 82._\nQuoted by Jules Simon.)\n\nIII. JAMES CLEMENT, a Catholic, assassinated Henry III. For this act\nthe clergy placed his portrait on the altar in the churches between\ntwo great lighted candle-sticks. Because he had killed a heretic\nprince, the Catholics presented the assassin's mother with a purse.\n(_Esprit de la Ligue I. III. p. 14._)\n\nIf it was unbelief that inspired the murder of McKinley, what inspired\nthe assassins of Hypatia and Henry III?\n\nWe read in the Bible that Gen. Sisera, a heathen, having lost a\nbattle, begged for shelter at the tent of Jael, a friendly woman, but\nof the Bible faith. Jael assured the unfortunate stranger that he was\nsafe in her tent. The tired warrior fell asleep from great weariness.\nThen Jael picked up a tent-peg and with a hammer in her hand \"walked\nsoftly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it\ninto the ground... So he died.\"\n\nThe BIBLE calls this assassin \"blessed above women.\" (_Judge IV. 18,\netc._) She had killed a heretic.\n\nIn each of the instances given above, the assassin is honored\nbecause he committed murder in the interest of the faith. We ask this\nclergyman and his colleagues who are only too anxious to charge every\nact of violence to unbelief in their creeds--What about the crimes of\n_believers_?","title":"The Truth About Jesus : Is He a Myth?: Illustrated","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":56819}