Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions Part 139

How much of the Gospel narratives can we rely upon as fact?

Jesus of Nazareth is so enveloped in the mists of the past, and his history so obscured by legend, that it may be compared to footprints in the sand. We know _some one_ has been there, but as to what manner of man he may have been, we certainly know little as fact. The Gospels, _the only records we have of him_,[508:1] have been proven, over and over again, unhistorical and legendary; to state _anything as positive_ about the man is nothing more nor less than _a.s.sumption_; we can therefore _conjecture_ only. Liberal writers philosophize and wax eloquent to little purpose, when, after demolishing the historical accuracy of the New Testament, they end their task by eulogizing the man Jesus, claiming for him the _highest_ praise, and a.s.serting that he was the _best_ and _grandest_ of our race;[508:2] but this manner of reasoning (undoubtedly consoling to many) _facts_ do not warrant. We may consistently revere his name, and place it in the long list of the great and n.o.ble, the reformers and religious teachers of the past, all of whom have done their part in bringing about the freedom we now enjoy, but to go beyond this, is, to our thinking, unwarranted.

If the life of Jesus of Nazareth, as related in the books of the New Testament, be in part the story of a man who really lived and suffered, that story has been so interwoven with images borrowed from myths of a bygone age, as to conceal forever any fragments of history which may lie beneath them. Gautama Buddha was undoubtedly an historical personage, yet the Sun-G.o.d myth has been added to his history to such an extent that we really know nothing positive about him. Alexander the Great was an historical personage, yet his history is one ma.s.s of legends. So it is with Julius Cesar, Cyrus, King of Persia, and scores of others. "The story of Cyrus' perils in infancy belongs to _solar_ mythology as much as the stories of the magic slipper, of Charlemagne and Barbarossa. His grandfather, Astyages, is purely a mythical creation, his name being identical with that of the night demon, Azidahaka, who appears in the Shah-Nameh as the biting serpent."

The actual Jesus is inaccessible to scientific research. His image cannot be recovered. He left no memorial in writing of himself; his followers were illiterate; the mind of his age was confused. Paul received only traditions of him, how definite we have no means of knowing, apparently not significant enough to be treasured, nor consistent enough to oppose a barrier to his own speculations. As M.

Renan says: "The Christ who communicates private revelations to him _is a phantom of his own making_;" "it is _himself_ he listens to, _while fancying that he hears Jesus_."[509:1]

In studying the writings of the early advocates of Christianity, and Fathers of the Christian Church, where we would naturally look for the language that would indicate the real occurrence of the facts of the Gospel--if real occurrences they had ever been--we not only find no such language, but everywhere find every sort of sophistical ambages, ramblings from the subject, and evasions of the very business before them, as if on purpose to balk our research, and insult our skepticism.

If we travel to the very sepulchre of Christ Jesus, it is only to discover that he was never there: _history_ seeks evidence of his existence as a man, but finds no more trace of it than of the shadow that flits across the wall. "The Star of Bethlehem" shone not upon _her_ path, and the order of the universe was suspended without _her_ observation.

She asks, with the Magi of the East, "Where is he that is born King of the Jews?" and, like them, finds no solution of her inquiry, but the guidance that guides as well to one place as another; descriptions that apply to aesculapius, Buddha and Crishna, as well as to Jesus; prophecies, without evidence that they were ever prophesied; miracles, which those who are said to have seen, are said also to have denied seeing; narratives without authorities, facts without dates, and records without names. In vain do the so-called disciples of Jesus point to the pa.s.sages in Josephus and Tacitus;[510:1] in vain do they point to the spot on which he was crucified; to the fragments of the true cross, or the nails with which he was pierced, and to the _tomb_ in which he was laid. Others have done as much for scores of _mythological personages_ who never lived in the flesh. Did not Damus, the beloved disciple of Apollonius of Tyana, while on his way to India, see, on Mt. Caucasus, the identical chains with which Prometheus had been bound to the rocks?

Did not the Scythians[510:2] say that Hercules had visited their country? and did they not show the print of his foot upon a rock to substantiate their story?[510:3] Was not his _tomb_ to be seen at Cadiz, where his _bones_ were shown?[510:4] Was not the _tomb_ of Bacchus to be seen in Greece?[510:5] Was not the _tomb_ of Apollo to be seen at Delphi?[510:6] Was not the _tomb_ of Achilles to be seen at Dodona, where Alexander the Great honored it by placing a crown upon it?[510:7]

Was not the _tomb_ of aesculapius to be seen in Arcadia, in a grove consecrated to him, near the river Lusius?[510:8] Was not the _tomb_ of Deucalion--he who was saved from the Deluge--long pointed out near the sanctuary of Olympian Jove, in Athens?[510:9] Was not the _tomb_ of Osiris to be seen in Egypt, where, at stated seasons, the priests went in solemn procession, and covered it with flowers?[510:10] Was not the tomb of Jonah--he who was "swallowed up by a big fish"--to be seen at Nebi-Yunus, near Mosul?[510:11] Are not the _tombs_ of Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Seth, Abraham, and other Old Testament characters, to be seen even at the present day?[510:12] And did not the Emperor Constantine dedicate a beautiful church over the _tomb_ of St. George, the warrior saint?[510:13] Of what value, then, is such evidence of the existence of such an individual as Jesus of Nazareth? The fact is, "the records of his life are so very scanty, and these have been so shaped and colored and modified by the hands of ignorance and superst.i.tion and party prejudice and ecclesiastical purpose, that it is hard to be sure of the original outlines."

In the first two centuries the professors of Christianity were divided into many sects, but these might be all resolved into two divisions--one consisting of Nazarenes, Ebionites, and orthodox; the other of _Gnostics_, under which all the remaining sects arranged themselves. The former are supposed to have believed in Jesus crucified, in the common, literal acceptation of the term; the latter--believers in the _Christ_ as an _aeon_--though they admitted the crucifixion, considered it to have been in some _mystic_ way--perhaps what might be called _spiritualiter_, as it is called in the Revelation: but notwithstanding the different opinions they held, they all denied that _the Christ_ did really die, in the literal acceptation of the term, on the cross.[511:1] The Gnostic, or Oriental, Christians undoubtedly took their doctrine from the _Indian crucifixion_[511:2] (of which we have treated in Chapters XX. and x.x.xIX.), as well as many other tenets with which we have found the Christian Church deeply tainted. They held that:

"To deliver the soul, a captive in darkness, the 'Prince of Light,' the 'Genius of the Sun,' charged with the redemption of the intellectual world, of which the Sun is the type, manifested itself among men; that the light appeared in the darkness, but the darkness comprehended it not; that, in fact, light could not unite with darkness; it put on only the appearance of the human body; that at the crucifixion Christ Jesus only _appeared_ to suffer. His person having disappeared, the bystanders saw in his place a cross of light, over which a celestial voice proclaimed these words; 'The Cross of Light is called Logos, Christos, the Gate, the Joy.'"

Several of the texts of the Gospel histories were quoted with great plausibility by the Gnostics in support of their doctrine. The story of Jesus pa.s.sing through the midst of the Jews when they were about to cast him headlong from the brow of a hill (Luke iv. 29, 30), and when they were going to stone him (John iii. 59; x. 31, 39), were examples not easily refuted.

The Manichean Christian Bishop Faustus expresses himself in the following manner:

"Do you receive the gospel? (ask ye). Undoubtedly I do! Why then, you also admit that Christ was born? Not so; for it by no means follows that in believing the gospel, I should therefore believe that Christ was born! Do you then think that he was of the Virgin Mary? Manes hath said, 'Far be it that I should ever own that Our Lord Jesus Christ . . . . . . .'"

etc.[512:1]

Tertullian's manner of reasoning on the evidences of Christianity is also in the same vein, as we saw in our last chapter.[512:2]

Mr. King, speaking of the Gnostic Christians, says:

"Their chief doctrines had been held for centuries before (their time) in many of the cities in _Asia Minor_. There, it is probable, they first came into existence as _Mystae_, upon the establishment of direct intercourse with _India_, under the Seleucidae and Ptolemies. The college of _Essenes_ and _Megabyzae_ at Ephesus, the _Orphics_ of Thrace, the _Curets_ of Crete, _are all merely branches of one antique and common religion, and that originally Asiatic_."[512:3]

These early Christian Mystics are alluded to in several instances in the New Testament. For example:

"Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come _in the flesh_ is of G.o.d; and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of G.o.d."[512:4]

"For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh."[512:5]

This is language that could not have been used, if the reality of Christ Jesus' existence as a man could not have been denied, or, it would certainly seem, if the apostle himself had been able to give any evidence whatever of the claim.

The quarrels on this subject lasted for a long time among the early Christians. _Hermas_, speaking of this, says to the brethren:

"Take heed, my children, that your dissensions deprive you not of your lives. How will ye instruct the elect of G.o.d, when ye yourselves want correction? Wherefore admonish one another, and be at peace among yourselves; that I, standing before your father, may give an account of you unto the Lord."[512:6]

_Ignatius_, in his Epistle to the Smyrnaeans, says:[512:7]

"Only in the name of Jesus Christ, I undergo all, to suffer together with him; he who was made a perfect man strengthening me. _Whom some, not knowing, do deny_; or rather have been denied by him, being the advocates of death, rather than of the truth. Whom neither the prophecies, nor the law of Moses, have persuaded; _nor the Gospel itself even to this day_, nor the sufferings of any one of us. _For they think also the same thing of us_; for what does a man profit me, if he shall praise me, and blaspheme my Lord; _not confessing that he was truly made man_?"

In his Epistle to the Philadelphians he says:[513:1]

"I have heard of some who say, _unless I find it written in the originals_, I will not believe it to be written in the Gospel. And when I said, It is written, they answered what lay before them in their corrupted copies."

_Polycarp_, in his Epistle to the Philippians, says:[513:2]

"Whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, he is Antichrist: _and whosoever does not confess his sufferings upon the cross_, is from the devil. And whosoever perverts the oracles of the Lord to his own l.u.s.ts; and says that there shall neither be any resurrection, nor judgment, he is the first-born of Satan."

_Ignatius_ says to the Magnesians:[513:3]

"Be not deceived with strange doctrines; nor with old fables which are unprofitable. For if we still continue to live according to the Jewish law, we do confess ourselves _not_ to have received grace. For even the most holy prophets lived according to Jesus Christ. . . . Wherefore if they who were brought up in these ancient laws came nevertheless to the newness of hope; no longer observing Sabbaths, but keeping the Lord's Day, in which also our life is sprung up by him, and through his death, _whom yet some deny_. By which _mystery_ we have been brought to believe, and therefore wait that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only master. . . . . These things, my beloved, I write unto you, not that I know of any among you _that be under this error_; but as one of the least among you, I am desirous to forewarn you that ye fall not into the snares of vain doctrine."

After reading this we can say with the writer of Timothy,[513:4]

"Without controversy, great is the MYSTERY of G.o.dliness."

Beside those who denied that Christ Jesus had ever been manifest _in the flesh_, there were others who denied that _he_ had been crucified.[513:5] This is seen from the words of Justin Martyr, in his _Apology_ for the Christian Religion, written A. D. 141, where he says:

"As to the _objection_ to _our_ Jesus's being crucified, I say, suffering was common to all the Sons of Jove."[513:6]

This is as much as to say: "_You_ Pagans claim that _your_ incarnate G.o.ds and _Saviours_ suffered and died, then why should not _we_ claim the same for _our_ Saviour?"

The _Koran_, referring to the _Jews_, says:

"They have not believed in Jesus, and have spoken against Mary a grievous calumny, and have said: 'Verily we have slain Christ Jesus, the son of Mary' (the apostle of G.o.d). _Yet they slew him not, neither crucified him, but he was represented by one in his likeness. And verily they who disagreed concerning him were in a doubt as to this matter, and had no sure knowledge thereof, but followed only an uncertain opinion._"[514:1]

This pa.s.sage alone, from the Mohammedan Bible, is sufficient to show, if other evidence were wanting, that the early Christians "disagreed concerning him," and that "they had no sure knowledge thereof, but followed only an uncertain opinion."

In the books which are _now_ called _Apocryphal_, but which _were_ the most quoted, and of equal authority with the others, and which were _voted not_ the word of G.o.d--for obvious reasons--and were therefore cast out of the canon, we find many allusions to the strife among the early Christians. For instance; in the "First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians,"[514:2] we read as follows:

"Wherefore are there strifes, and anger, and divisions, and schisms, and wars, among us? . . . Why do we rend and tear in pieces the members of Christ, and raise seditions against our own body? and are come to such a height of madness, as to forget that we are members one of another."

In his Epistle to the Trallians, Ignatius says:[514:3]

"I exhort you, or rather not I, but the love of Jesus Christ, that ye use none but Christian nourishment; abstaining from pasture which is of another kind. I mean _Heresy_. For they that are heretics, confound together the doctrine of Jesus Christ with their own poison; whilst they seem worthy of belief. . . . Stop your ears, therefore, as often as any one shall speak contrary to Jesus Christ, who was of the race of David, of the Virgin Mary. Who was _truly_ born, and did eat and drink; was _truly_ persecuted under Pontius Pilate; was _truly_ crucified and dead; both those in heaven and on earth, and under the earth, being spectators of it. . . . But if, as some who are atheists, that is to say, infidels, pretend, _that he only seemed to suffer_, why then am I bound? Why do I desire to fight with beasts? Therefore do I die in vain."

We find St. Paul, the very first Apostle of the Gentiles, expressly avowing that _he was made a minister of the gospel, which had already been preached to every creature under heaven_,[514:4] and preaching _a G.o.d manifest in the flesh_, who had been _believed on in the world_,[514:5] therefore, _before the commencement of his ministry_; and who could not have been the man of Nazareth, who had certainly not been preached, _at that time_, nor generally believed on in the world, till ages after that time.[514:6] We find also that:

1. This Paul owns himself a _deacon_, the lowest ecclesiastical grade of the _Therapeutan_ church.

2. The Gospel of which these Epistles speak, had been extensively preached and fully established before the time of Jesus, by the Therapeuts or Essenes, who believed in the doctrine of the Angel-Messiah, the aeon from heaven.[515:1]

Leo the Great, so-called (A. D. 440-461), writes thus:

"Let those who with impious murmurings find fault with the Divine dispensations, and who complain about the _lateness_ of our Lord's nativity, cease from their grievances, as if what was _carried out_ in later ages of the world, had not been impending _in time past_. . . .

"What the Apostles preached, the prophets (in Israel) had announced before, and what has _always been (universally) believed_, cannot be said to have been _fulfilled_ too late.

By this delay of his work of salvation, the wisdom and love of G.o.d have only made us more fitted for his call; so that, _what had been announced before by many Signs and Words and Mysteries during so many centuries_, should not be doubtful or uncertain in the days of the gospel. . . G.o.d has not provided for the interests of men by a _new council_ or by a _late compa.s.sion_; but he had inst.i.tuted from the beginning for all men, _one and the same path of salvation_."[515:2]

This is equivalent to saying that, "G.o.d, in his '_late compa.s.sion_,' has sent his Son, Christ Jesus, to save _us_, therefore do not complain or 'murmur' about 'the lateness of his coming,' for the Lord has already provided for those who _preceded us_; he has given them '_the same path of salvation_' by sending to _them_, as he has sent to _us_, a _Redeemer_ and a _Saviour_."

Justin Martyr, in his dialogue with Typho,[515:3] makes a similar confession (as we have already seen in our last chapter), wherein he says that there exists not a people, civilized or semi-civilized, who have not offered up prayers in the name of a _crucified Saviour_ to the Father and Creator of all things.