In the most different religions the belief in a divine Saviour and
Redeemer is found bound up with the conception of a suffering and dying
God, and this idea of a suffering and dying Messiah was by no means
unknown to the Jews. It may be of no importance that in the Apocalypse
of Esdras [65] the death of Christ is spoken of, since in the opinion
of many this work only appeared in the first century after Christ;
but Deutero-Isaiah too, during the Exile, describes the chosen one
and messenger of God as the "suffering servant of God," as one who
had already appeared, although he had remained unknown and despised,
had died shamefully and been buried, but as one also who would rise up
again in order to fulfil the splendour of the divine promise. [66] This
brings to mind the suffering, death, and resurrection of the Gods of
Babylon and of the whole of Nearer Asia; for example, Tammuz, Mithras,
Attis, Melkart, and Adonis, Dionysus, the Cretan Zeus, and the Egyptian
Osiris. The prophet Zechariah, moreover, speaks of the secret murder of
a God over which the inhabitants of Jerusalem would raise their lament,
"as in the case of Hadad-rimmon (Rammân) in the valley of Megiddon,"
that is, as at the death of Adonis, one of the chief figures among
the Gods believed in by the Syrians. [67] Ezekiel also describes the
women of Jerusalem, sitting before the north gate of the city and
weeping over Tammuz. [68] The ancient Israelites, too, were already
well acquainted with the suffering and dying Gods of the neighbouring
peoples. Now, indeed, it is customary for Isaiah's "servant of God"
to be held to refer to the present sufferings and future glory of
the Jewish people, and there is no doubt that the prophet understood
the image in that sense. At the same time Gunkel rightly maintains
that in the passage of Isaiah referred to, the figure of a God who
dies and rises again stands in the background, and the reference to
Israel signifies nothing more than a new symbolical explanation of
the actual fate of a God. [69]
Every year the forces of nature die away to reawaken to a new life only
after a long period. The minds of all peoples used to be deeply moved
by this occurrence--the death whether of nature as a whole beneath
the influence of the cold of winter, or of vegetable growth under the
parching rays of the summer sun. Men looked upon it as the fate of a
fair young God whose death they deeply lamented and whose rebirth or
resurrection they greeted with unrestrained rejoicing. On this account
from earliest antiquity there was bound up with the celebration
of this God an imitative mystery under the form of a ritualistic
representation of his death and resurrection. In the primitive stages
of worship, when the boundaries between spirit and nature remained
almost entirely indistinct, and man still felt himself inwardly in a
sympathetic correspondence with surrounding nature, it was believed
that one could even exercise an influence upon nature or help it in
its interchange between life and death, and turn the course of events
to one's own interest. For this purpose man was obliged to imitate
it. "Nowhere," says Frazer, to whom we are indebted for a searching
inquiry into all ideas and ritualistic customs in this connection,
"were these efforts more strictly and systematically carried out than
in Western Asia. As far as names go they differed in different places,
in essence they were everywhere alike. A man, whom the unrestrained
phantasy of his adorers clothed with the garments and attributes
of a God, used to give his life for the life of the world. After he
had poured from his own body into the stagnating veins of nature a
fresh stream of vital energy, he was himself delivered over to death
before his own sinking strength should have brought about a general
ruin of the forces of nature, and his place was then taken by another,
who, like all his forerunners, played the ever-recurring drama of the
divine resurrection and death." [70] Even in historic times this was
frequently carried out with living persons. These had formerly been
the kings of the country or the priests of the God in question, but
their place was now taken by criminals. In other cases the sacrifice
of the deified man took place only symbolically, as with the Egyptian
Osiris, the Persian Mithras, the Phrygian Attis, the Syrian Adonis,
and the Tarsic (Cilician) Sandan (Sandes). In these cases a picture
of the God, an effigy, or a sacred tree-trunk took the place of the
"God man." Sufficient signs, however, still show that in such cases
it was only a question of a substitute under milder forms of ritual
for the former human victim. Thus, for example, the name of the High
Priest of Attis, being also Attis, that is, "father," the sacrificial
self-inflicted wound on the occasion of the great feast of the God
(March 22nd to 27th), and the sprinkling with his blood of the picture
of the God that then took place, makes us recognise still more plainly
a later softening of an earlier custom of self-immolation. [71] With
the idea of revivifying dying nature by the sacrifice of a man was
associated that of the "scapegoat." The victim did not only represent
to the people their God, but at the same time stood for the people
before God and had to expiate by his death the misdeeds committed by
them during the year. [72] As regards the manner of death, however,
this varied in different places between death by his own sword or
that of the priest, by the pyre or the gibbet (gallows).
In this way we understand the 53rd chapter of Isaiah: "Surely he
hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him
stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our
transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement
of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we
like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way;
and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed,
yet he humbled himself, and opened not his mouth; as a lamb that is led
to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before her shearers is dumb; yea,
he opened not his mouth. He was cut off out of the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And they made
his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death; although
he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. When
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed,
he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper
in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul [? sufferings],
and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant
justify many, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I
divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil
with the strong; because he poured out his soul unto death, and was
numbered with the transgressors; yet he bare the sin of many, and made
intercession for the transgressors." Here we obviously have to do with
a man who dies as an expiatory sacrifice for the sins of his people,
and by his death benefiting the lives of the others is on that account
raised to be a God. Indeed, the picture of the just man suffering, all
innocent as he is, itself varies between a human and a divine being.
And now let us enter into the condition of the soul of such an unhappy
one, who as "God man" suffers death upon the gibbet, and we understand
the words of the 22nd Psalm: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my
roaring? O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou answereth not;
and in the night season, and am not silent. But thou art holy, O thou
that inhabitest the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in thee;
they trusted, and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto thee, and
were delivered; they trusted in Thee, and were not ashamed. But I am
a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All
they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake
the lip, saying, Commit thyself unto the Lord, let him deliver him:
let him deliver him, seeing he delighteth in him.... Many bulls have
compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gape
upon me with their mouth, as a ravening and a roaring lion. I am
poured out like water. And all my bones are out of joint: my heart
is like wax: it is melted in the midst of my bowels.... They pierced
my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones. They look and stare
upon me: they part my garments among them, and upon my vesture do
they cast lots. But be not thou far off, O Lord: O Thou, my succour,
haste Thee to help me.... Save me from the lion's mouth, yea, from
the horns of the wild oxen...."
When the poet of the psalms wished to describe helplessness in its
direst extremity, before his eyes there came the picture of a man, who,
hanging upon the gibbet, calls upon God's aid, while round about him
the people gloat over his sufferings, which are to save them; and the
attendants who had taken part in the sacrifice divide among themselves
the costly garments with which the God-king had been adorned.
The employment of such a picture presupposes that the occurrence
depicted was not unknown to the poet and his public, whether it
came before their eyes from acquaintance with the religious ideas
of their neighbours or because they were accustomed to see it in
their own native usages. As a matter of fact in ancient Israel human
sacrifices were by no means unusual. This appears from numberless
passages of the Old Testament, and has been already exhaustively set
forth by Ghillany in his book "Die Menschenopfer der alten Hebräer"
(1842), and by Daumer in his "Der Feuer- und Molochdienst der alten
Hebräer." Thus we read in 2 Sam. xxi. 6-9 of the seven sons of the
House of Saul, who were delivered over by David to the Gibeonites,
who hung them on the mountain before the Lord. Thus was God appeased
towards the land. [73] In Numb. xxv. 4 Jahwe bade Moses hang the chiefs
of the people "to the Lord before the sun, in order that the bitter
wrath of the Lord might be turned from Israel." And according to the
Book of Joshua this latter dedicated the inhabitants of the city of Ain
to the Lord, and after the capture of the city hung their king upon
a tree, [74] while in the tenth chapter (15-26) he even hangs five
kings at one time. Indeed, it appears that human sacrifice formed a
regular part of the Jewish religion in the period before the Exile;
which indeed was but to be expected, considering the relationship
between Jahwe and the Phoenician Baal. Jahwe himself was, moreover,
originally only another form of the old Semitic Fire- and Sun-God;
the God-king (Moloch or Melech), who was honoured under the image of
a Bull, was represented at this time as a "smoking furnace" [75] and
was gratified and propitiated by human sacrifices. [76] Even during
the Babylonian captivity, despite the voices raised against it by
some prophets in the last years of the Jewish state, sacrifices of
this kind were offered by the Jews; until they were suppressed under
the rule of the Persians, and in the new Jewish state were expressly
forbidden. But even then they continued in secret and could easily be
revived at any time, so soon as the excitement of the popular mind in
some time of great need seemed to demand an extraordinary victim. [77]
Now the putting to death of a man in the rôle of a divine ruler was
in ancient times very often connected with the celebration of the
new year. This is brought to our mind even at the present day by the
German and Slav custom of the "bearing out" of death at the beginning
of spring, when a man or an image of straw symbolising the old year or
winter, is taken round amidst lively jesting and is finally thrown into
the water or ceremonially burnt, while the "Lord of May," crowned with
flowers, makes his entrance. Again, the Roman Saturnalia, celebrated
in December, during which a mock king wielded his sceptre over a world
of joy and licence and unbounded folly, and all relationships were
topsy-turvy, the masters playing the part of slaves and vice-versâ,
in the most ancient times used to be held in March as a festival of
spring. And in this case, too, the king of the festival had to pay
for his short reign with his life. In fact, the Acts of St. Dasius,
published by Cumont, show that the bloody custom was still observed
by the Roman soldiers on the frontiers of the Empire in the year 303
A.D. [78]
In Babylon the Feast of the Sakæes corresponded to the Roman
Saturnalia. It was ostensibly a memorial of the inroad of the Scythian
Sakes into Nearer Asia, and according to Frazer was identical with the
very ancient new year's festival of the Babylonians, the Zakmuk. This
too was associated with a reversal of all usual relationships. A
mock king, a criminal condemned to death, was here also the central
figure--an unhappy being, to whom for a few days was accorded absolute
freedom and every kind of pleasure, even to the using of the royal
harem, until on the last day he was divested of his borrowed dignity,
stripped naked, scourged, and then burnt. [79] The Jews gained a
knowledge of this feast during the Babylonian captivity, borrowed
it from their oppressors, and celebrated it shortly before their
Pasch under the name of the Feast of Purim, ostensibly, as the Book
of Esther is at pains to point out, as a memorial of a great danger
from which in Persia during the reign of Ahasuerus (Xerxes) they
were saved by the craft of Esther and her uncle Mordecai. Jensen,
however, has pointed out in the Vienna Zeitschrift für die Kunde des
Morgenlandes [80] that the basis of the narrative of Esther is an
opposition between the chief Gods of Babylon and those of hostile
Elam. According to his view under the names of Esther and Mordecai
are hidden the names of Istar, the Babylonian Goddess of fertility,
and Marduk, her "son" and "beloved." At Babylon during the Feast
of the Sakæes, under the names of the Elamite Gods Vashti and Haman
(Humman), they were put out of the way as representatives of the old
or wintry part of the year in order that they might rise up again
under their real names and bring into the new year or the summer half
of the year. [81] Thus the Babylonian king of the Sakæes also played
the part of a God and suffered death as such upon the pyre. Now we
have grounds for assuming that the later Jewish custom at the Feast
of Purim of hanging upon a gibbet and burning a picture or effigy
representing the evil Haman, originally consisted, as at Babylon,
in the putting to death of a real man, some criminal condemned to
death. Here, too, then was seen not only a representative of Haman,
but one also of Mordecai, a representative of the old as well as of
the new year, who in essence was one and the same being. While the
former was put to death at the Purim feast, the latter, a criminal
chosen by lot, was given his freedom on this occasion, clothed with
the royal insignia of the dead man and honoured as the representative
of Mordecai rewarded by Ahasuerus for his services.
"Mordecai," it is said in the Book of Esther, "went out from the
king in royal attire, gold and white, with a great crown of gold, and
covered with a robe of linen and purple. And the town of Susa rejoiced
and was merry." [82] Frazer has discovered that in this description we
have before us the picture of an old Babylonian king of the Sakæes,
who represented Marduk, as he entered the chief town of the country
side, and thus introduced the new year. At the same time it appears
that in reality the procession of the mock king was less serious
and impressive than the author of the Book of Esther would out of
national vanity make us believe. Thus Lagarde has drawn attention to
an old Persian custom which used to be observed every year at the
beginning of spring in the early days of March, which is known as
"the Ride of the Beardless One." [83] On this occasion a beardless
and, when possible, one-eyed yokel, naked, and accompanied by a
royal body-guard and a troop of outriders, was conducted in solemn
pomp through the city seated upon an ass, amidst the acclamations of
the crowd, who bore branches of palm and cheered the mock king. He
had the right to collect contributions from the rich people and
shopkeepers along the route which he followed. Part of these went
into the coffers of the king, part were assigned to the collector,
and he could without more ado appropriate the property of another
in case the latter refused his demands. He had, however, to finish
his progress and disappear within a strictly limited time, for in
default of this he exposed himself to the danger of being seized by
the crowd and mercilessly cudgelled to death. People hoped that from
this procession of "the Beardless One" an early end of winter and a
good year would result. From this it appears that here too we have
to do with one of those innumerable and multiform spring customs,
which at all times and among the most diverse nations served to
hasten the approach of the better season. The Persian "Beardless One"
corresponded with the Babylonian king of the Sakæes, and appears to
have represented the departing winter. Frazer concludes from this
that the criminal also who played the part of the Jewish "Mordecai"
with similar pomp rode through the city like "the Beardless One," and
had to purchase his freedom with the amusement which he afforded the
people. In this connection he recalls a statement of Philo according
to which, on the occasion of the entry of the Jewish King Agrippa into
Alexandria, a half-crazy street sweeper was solemnly chosen by the
rabble to be king. After the manner of "the Beardless One," covered
with a robe and bearing a crown of paper upon his head and a stick
in his hand for a sceptre, he was treated by a troop of merry-makers
as a real king. [84] Philo calls the poor wretch Karabas. This is
probably only a corruption of the Hebrew name Barabbas, which means
"Son of the Father." It was accordingly not the name of an individual,
but the regular appellation of whoever had at the Purim feast to
play the part of Mordecai, the Babylonian Marduk, that is, the new
year. This is in accordance with the original divine character of
the Jewish mock king. For as "sons" of the divine father all the
Gods of vegetation and fertility of Nearer Asia suffered death, and
the human representatives of these gods had to give their lives for
the welfare of their people and the renewed growth of nature. [85]
It thus appears that a kind of commingling of the Babylonian Feast of
the Sakæes and the Persian feast of "the Beardless One" took place
among the Jews, owing to their sojourn in Babylon under Persian
overlordship. The released criminal made his procession as Marduk
(Mordecai) the representative of the new life rising from the dead,
but it was made in the ridiculous rôle of the Persian "Beardless
One"--that is, the representative of the old year--while this latter
was likewise represented by another criminal, who, as Haman, had to
suffer death upon the gallows. In their account of the last events of
the life of the Messiah, Jesus, the custom at the Jewish Purim feast,
already referred to, passed through the minds of the Evangelists. They
described Jesus as the Haman, Barabbas as the Mordecai of the year,
and in so doing, on account of the symbol of the lamb of sacrifice,
they merged the Purim feast in the feast of Easter, celebrated a little
later. They, however, transferred the festive entry into Jerusalem of
"the Beardless One," his hostile measures against the shopkeepers
and money-changers, and his being crowned in mockery as "King of
the Jews," from Mordecai-Barabbas to Haman-Jesus, thus anticipating
symbolically the occurrences which should only have been completed
on the resurrection of the Marduk of the new year. [86] According
to an old reading of Math. xxvii. 18 et seq., which, however, has
disappeared from our texts since Origen, Barabbas, the criminal set
against the Saviour, is called "Jesus Barabbas"--that is, "Jesus,
the son of the Father." [87] May an indication of the true state
of the facts not lie herein, and may the figure of Jesus Barabbas,
the God of the Year, corresponding to both halves of the year, that
of the sun's course upwards and downwards, not have separated into
two distinct personalities on the occasion of the new year's feast?
The Jewish Pasch was a feast of spring and the new year, on the
occasion of which the firstfruits of the harvest and the first-born of
men and beasts were offered to the God of sun and sky. Originally this
was also associated with human sacrifices. Here too such a sacrifice
passed, as was universal in antiquity, for a means of expiation,
atoning for the sins of the past year and ensuring the favour of Jahwe
for the new year. [88] "As representing all the souls of the first-born
are given to God; they are the means of union between Jahwe and his
people; the latter can only remain for ever Jahwe's own provided a new
generation always offers its first-born in sacrifice to God. This was
the chief dogma of ancient Judaism; all the hopes of the people were
fixed thereon; the most far-reaching promises were grounded upon the
readiness to sacrifice the first-born." [89] The more valuable such
a victim was, the higher the rank which he bore in life, so much the
more pleasing was his death to God. On this account they were "kings"
who, according to the Books of Joshua and Samuel, were "consecrated"
to the Lord. Indeed, in the case of the seven sons of the house of Saul
whom David caused to be hung, the connection between their death and
the Pasch is perfectly clear, when it is said that they died "before
the Lord" at the time of the barley harvest (i.e., of the Feast of the
Pasch). [90] Thus there could be no more efficacious sacrifice than
when a king or ruler offered his first-born. It was on this account
that, as Justin informs us, [91] the banished Carthaginian general
Maleus caused his son Cartalo, decked out as a king and priest, to be
hung in sight of Carthage while it was being besieged by him, thereby
casting down the besiegers so much that he captured the city after
a few days. It was on this account that the Carthaginian Hamilcar at
the siege of Agrigentum (407 B.C.) sacrificed his own son, and that
the Israelites relinquished the conquest of Moab, when the king of
this country offered his first-born to the Gods. [92] Here, too, the
human victim seems to have been only the representative of a divine
one, as when, for example, the Phoenicians in Tyre until the time of
the siege of that city by Alexander sacrificed each year, according
to Pliny, a boy to Kronos, i.e., Melkart or Moloch (king). [93] This
Tyrian Melkart, however, is the same as he to whom, as Porphyry states,
a criminal was annually sacrificed at Rhodes. According to Philo of
Byblos the God was called "Israel" among the Phoenicians, and on the
occasion of a great pestilence, in order to check the mortality, he
is said to have sacrificed his first-born son Jehud (Judah), i.e.,
"the Only one," having first decked him out in regal attire. [94]
Thus Abraham also sacrificed his first-born to Jahwe. Abraham
(the "great father") is, however, only another name for Israel,
"the mighty God." This was the earliest designation of the God of
the Hebrews, until it was displaced by the name Jahwe, being only
employed henceforth as the name of the people belonging to him. The
name of his son Isaac (Jishâk) marks the latter out as "the smiling
one." This however, does not refer, as Goldzither [95] thinks, to
the smiling day or the morning light, but to the facial contortions
of the victim called forth by the pains he endured from the flames
in the embrace of the glowing oven. These contortions were anciently
called "sardonic laughter," on account of the sacrifices to Moloch
in Crete and Sardinia. [96] When, as civilisation increased, human
sacrifices were done away with in Israel, and with the development
of monotheism the ancient Gods were transformed into men, the story
of Genesis xxii. came into existence with the object of justifying
"historically" the change from human to animal victims. The ancient
custom according to which amongst many peoples of antiquity, kings,
the sons of kings, and priests were not allowed to die a natural
death, but, after the expiration of a certain time usually fixed
by an oracle, had to suffer death as a sacrificial victim for the
good of their people, must accordingly have been in force originally
in Israel also. Thus did Moses and Aaron also offer themselves for
their people in their capacity of leader and high priest. [97] But
since both, and especially Moses, passed as types of the Messiah, the
opinion grew up quite naturally that the expected great and mighty
leader and high priest of Israel, in whom Moses should live again,
[98] had to suffer the holy death of Moses and Aaron as sacrificial
victims. [99] The view that the idea of a suffering and dying Messiah
was unknown to the Jews cannot accordingly be maintained. Indeed,
in Daniel ix. 26 mention is made of a dying Christ. We saw above
that among the Jews of the post-exilic period the thought of the
Messiah was associated with the personality of Cyrus. Now of Cyrus
the story goes that this mighty Persian king suffered death upon
the gibbet by the order of the Scythian queen Tomyris. [100] But in
Justin the Jew Trypho asserts that the Messiah will suffer and die
a death of violence. [101] Indeed, what is more, the Talmud looks
upon the death of the Messiah (with reference to Isaiah liii.) as
an expiatory death for the sins of his people. From this it appears
"that in the second century after Christ, people were, at any rate
in certain circles of Judaism, familiar with the idea of a suffering
Messiah, suffering too as an expiation for human sins." [102]
The Rabbinists separate more accurately two conceptions of the
Messiah. According to one, in the character of a descendant of
David and a great and divine hero he was to release the Jews from
servitude, found the promised world-wide empire, and sit in judgment
over men. This is the Jewish conception of the Messiah, of which
King David was the ideal. [103] According to the other he was to
assemble the ten tribes in Galilee and lead them against Jerusalem,
only to be overthrown, however, in the battle against Gog and Magog
under the leadership of Armillus on account of Jeroboam's sin--that
is, on account of the secession of the Israelites from the Jews. The
Talmud describes the last-mentioned Messiah, in distinction from the
first, as the son of Joseph or Ephraim. This is done with reference
to the fact that the kingdom of Israel included above all the tribes
of Ephraim and Manasseh, and that these traced back their origin
to the mythical Joseph. He is thus the Messiah of the Israelites
who had separated from the Jews, and especially, as it appears,
of the Samaritans. This Messiah, "the son of Joseph," it is said,
"will offer himself in sacrifice and pour forth his soul in death,
and his blood will atone for the people of God." He himself will
go to heaven. Then, however, the other Messiah, "the son of David,"
the Messiah of the Jews in a narrower sense, will come and fulfil the
promises made to them, in which connection Zech. xii. 10 sq. and xiv. 3
sq. seem to have influenced this whole doctrine. [104] According to
Dalman, [105] the figure of the Messiah ben Joseph first appeared
in the second or third century after Christ. Bousset too appears
to consider it a "later" tradition, although he cannot deny that the
Jewish Apocalypses of the end of the first thousand years after Christ,
which are the first to make extensive mention of the matter, may have
contained "very ancient" traditions. According to Persian beliefs,
too, Mithras was the suffering Redeemer and mediator between God and
the world, while Saoshyant, on the other hand, was the judge of the
world who would appear at the end of all time and obtain the victory
over Ariman (Armillus). In the same way the Greek myth distinguished
from the older Dionysus, Zagreus, the son of Persephone, who died a
cruel death at the hands of the Titans, a younger God of the same name,
son of Zeus and Semele, who was to deliver the world from the shackles
of darkness. Precisely the same relationship exists between Prometheus,
the suffering, and Heracles, the triumphant deliverer of the world. We
thus obviously have to do here with a very old and wide-spread myth,
and it is scarcely necessary to point out how closely the two figures
of the Samaritan and Jewish Messiahs correspond to the Haman and
Mardachai of the Jewish Purim feast, in order to prove the extreme
antiquity of this whole conception. The Gospel united into one the
two figures of the Messiah, which had been originally separate. From
the Messiah ben Joseph it made the human Messiah, born in Galilee,
and setting out from there with his followers for Jerusalem, there to
succumb to his adversaries. On the other hand, from the Messiah ben
David it made the Messiah of return and resurrection. At the same time
it elevated and deepened the whole idea of the Messiah in the highest
degree by commingling the conception of the self-sacrificing Messiah
with that of the Paschal victim, and this again with that of the God
who offers his own son in sacrifice. Along with the Jews it looked
upon Jesus as the "son" of King David, at the same time, however,
preserving a remembrance of the Israelite Messiah in that it also gave
him Joseph as father; and while it said with respect to the first idea
that he was born at Bethlehem, the city of David, it assigned him in
connection with the latter Nazareth of Galilee as his birthplace,
and invented the abstruse story of the journey of his parents to
Bethlehem in order to be perfectly impartial towards both views.
And now, who is this Joseph, as son of whom the Messiah was to be
a suffering and dying creature like any ordinary man? Winckler has
pointed out in his "Geschichte Israels" that under the figure of
the Joseph of the Old Testament, just as under that of Joshua, an
ancient Ephraimitic tribal God is concealed. Joseph is, as Winckler
expresses it, "the heroic offspring of Baal of Garizim, an offshoot
of the Sun-God, to whom at the same time characteristics of Tammuz,
the God of the Spring Sun, are transferred." [106] Just as Tammuz had
to descend into the under-world, so was Joseph cast into the well,
in which, according to the "Testament of the twelve Patriarchs,"
[107] he spent three months and five days. This betokens the winter
months and five additional days during which the sun remains in the
under-world. And again he is cast into prison; and just as Tammuz,
after his return from the under-world, brings a new spring to the
earth, so does Joseph, after his release from confinement, introduce
a season of peace and happiness for Egypt. [108] On this account he
was called in Egypt Psontomphanech, that is, Deliverer of the World,
in view of his divine nature, and later passed among the Jews also as
a prototype of the Messiah. Indeed, it appears that the Evangelists
themselves regarded him in such a light, for the story of the two
fellow-prisoners of Joseph, the baker and cupbearer of Pharaoh, one
of whom, as Joseph foretold, was hanged, [109] while the other was
again received into favour by the king, was transformed by them into
the story of the two robbers who were executed at the same time as
Jesus, one of whom mocked the Saviour while the other besought him
to remember him when he entered into his heavenly kingdom. [110]
But the Ephraimitic Joshua too must have been a kind of Tammuz
or Adonis. His name (Joshua, Syrian, Jeshu) characterises him as
saviour and deliverer. As such he also appears in the Old Testament,
finally leading the people of Israel into the promised land after
long privations and sufferings. According to the Jewish Calendar
the commencement of his activity was upon the tenth of Nisan,
on which the Paschal lamb was chosen, and it ended with the Feast
of the Pasch. Moses introduced the custom of circumcision and the
redemption of the first-born male, and Joshua was supposed to have
revived it. [111] At the same time he is said to have replaced the
child victims, which it had been customary to offer to Jahwe in early
days, by the offering of the foreskin of the male and thereby to have
established a more humane form of sacrificial worship. This brings to
our mind the substitution of an animal victim for a human one in the
story of Isaac (Jishâks). It also brings to mind Jesus who offered his
own body in sacrifice at the Pasch as a substitute for the numberless
bloody sacrifices of expiation of prior generations. Again, according
to an ancient Arabian tradition, the mother of Joshua was called Mirzam
(Mariám, Maria), as the mother of Jesus was, while the mother of Adonis
bore the similar sounding name of Myrrha, which also expressed the
mourning of the women at the lament for Adonis [112] and characterised
the mother of the Redeemer God as "the mother of sorrow." [113]
But what is above all decisive is that the son of the "Ploughman"
Jephunneh, Caleb (i.e., the Dog), stands by Joshua's side as a hero of
equal rank. His name points in the same way to the time of the summer
solstice, when in the mouth of the "lion" the dog-star (Sirius) rises,
while his descent from Nun, the Fish or Aquarius, indicates Joshua
as representing the winter solstice. [114] Just as Joshua belonged to
the tribe of Ephraim, to which according to the Blessing of Jacob the
Fishes of the the Zodiac refer, [115] so Caleb belonged to the tribe
of Judah, which Jacob's Blessing likened to a lion; [116] and while
the latter as Calub (Chelub) has Shuhah for brother, that is, the Sun
descending into the kingdom of shadows (the Southern Hemisphere),
[117] in like manner Joshua represents the Spring Sun rising out
of the night of winter. They are thus both related to one another
in the same way as the annual rise and decline of the sun, and as,
according to Babylonian ideas, are Tammuz and Nergal, who similarly
typify the two halves of the year. When Joshua dies at Timnath-heres,
the place of the eclipse of the Sun (i.e., at the time of the summer
solstice, at which the death of the Sun-God was celebrated [118]),
he appears again as a kind of Tammuz, while the "lamentation" of the
people at his death [119] alludes possibly to the lamentation at the
death of the Sun-God. [120]
It cannot be denied after all this that the conception of a suffering
and dying Messiah was of extreme antiquity amongst the Israelites
and was connected with the earliest nature-worship, although later it
may indeed have become restricted and peculiar to certain exclusive
circles. [121]
The Jewish representative of Haman suffered death at the Feast of
Purim on account of a crime, as a deserved punishment which had been
awarded him. The Messiah Jesus, on the other hand, according to the
words of Isaiah, took the punishment upon himself, being "just." He
was capable of being an expiatory victim for the sins of the whole
people, precisely because he least of all deserved such a fate.
Plato had already in his "Republic" sketched the picture of a "just
man" passing his life unknown and unhonoured amidst suffering and
persecution. His righteousness is put to the proof and he reaches
the highest degree of virtue, not allowing himself to be shaken in
his conduct. "The just man is scourged, racked, thrown into prison,
blinded in both eyes, and finally, when he has endured all ills,
he is executed, and he recognises that one should be determined not
to be just but to appear so." In Pharisaic circles he passed as a
just man who by his own undeserved sufferings made recompense for
the sins of the others and made matters right for them before God,
as, for example, in the Fourth Book of the Maccabees the blood of
the martyrs is represented as the expiatory offering on account of
which God delivered Israel. The hatred of the unjust and godless
towards the just, the reward of the just and the punishment of the
unjust, were favourite themes for aphoristic literature, and they
were fully dealt with in the Book of Wisdom, the Alexandrian author
of which was presumably not unacquainted with the Platonic picture
of the just man. He makes the godless appear conversing and weaving
plots against the just. "Let us then," he makes them say, "lie in
wait for the righteous; because he is not to our liking and he is
clean contrary to our doings; he upbraideth us with our offending
the law and reproacheth us with our sins against our training. He
professeth to have the knowledge of God; and he calleth himself
the child of the Lord. He proved to be to us for the reproof of our
designs. He is grievous unto us even to behold: for his life is not
like other men's, his ways are of another fashion. We are esteemed
of him as counterfeits; he abstaineth from our ways as from filth;
he pronounceth the end of the just to be blessed and maketh his boast
that God is his father. Let us see if his words be true: and let us
prove what will happen in the end of him. For if the just man be the
son of God, he will help him, and deliver him from the hand of his
enemies. Let us examine him with despitefulness and torture that we
may know his meekness and prove his patience. Let us condemn him with
a shameful death: thus will he be known by his words." [122] "But
the souls of the just," continues the author of the Book of Wisdom,
"are in the hands of God, and there shall no torment touch them. In
the sight of the unwise they seemed to die: and their departure is
taken for misery, and their going from us for utter destruction:
but they are in peace. For though they be punished in the sight of
men yet is their hopes full of immortality. And having been a little
chastised, they shall be greatly rewarded: for God proved them and
found them worthy for himself. As gold in the furnace hath he tried
them, and received them as a burnt offering. And in the time of their
visitation they shall shine and run to and fro like sparks among
the stubble. They shall judge the nations and have dominion over the
people and their Lord will rule for ever." [123] It could easily be
imagined that these words, which were understood by the author of the
Book of Wisdom of the just man in general, referred to the just man
par excellence, the Messiah, the "son" of God in the highest sense
of the word, who gave his life for the sins of his people. A reason
was found at the same time for the shameful death of the Messiah. He
died the object of the hatred of the unjust; he accepted contempt and
scorn as did the Haman and Barabbas of the Feast of Purim, but only
in order that by this deep debasement he might be raised up by God,
as is said of the just man in the Book of Wisdom: "That is he whom we
had sometimes in derision and a proverb of reproach: We fools accounted
his life madness and his end to be without honour: Now is he numbered
among the children of God, and his lot is among the saints." [124]
Now we understand how the picture of the Messiah varied among the
Jews between that of a divine and that of a human being; how he was
"accounted just among the evil-doers"; how the idea became associated
with a human being that he was a "Son of God" and at the same time
"King of the Jews"; and how the idea could arise that in his shameful
and undeserved death God had offered himself for mankind. Now too we
can understand that he who died had after a short while to rise again
from the dead, and this in order to ascend into heaven in splendour
and glory and to unite himself with God the Father above. These were
ideas which long before the Jesus of the Gospels were spread among the
Jewish people, and indeed throughout the whole of Western Asia. In
certain sects they were cherished as secret doctrines, and were the
principal cause that precisely in this portion of the ancient world
Christianity spread so early and with such unusual rapidity.
V