NOTES

[1] Cf. also his "Kritik der Evangelien," 2 vols. (1850-51).

[2] "Kultur d. Gegenwart: Gesch. d. christl. Religion," 2nd ed.,

1909, 47.

[3] The same is true of Clemen, who, judging by his

"Religionsgeschichtl. Erklärung d. N.T." (1909), appears to be

acquainted with Robertson's masterpiece, "Christianity and Mythology,"

only from a would-be witty notice of Réville, and furthermore only

cites the author when he thinks he can demolish him with ease.

[4] A. Hausrath, in his work "Jesus u. die neutestamentlichen

Schriftsteller," vol. i. (1908), offers a striking example of how

light a matter our theologians make it to overthrow the attacks of

the opponents of an historical Jesus. In scarcely three pages at

the commencement of his compendious work he rejects the myth theory

of Bruno Bauer with the favourite appeal to a few individual and

historical features of the Gospel tradition which are intrinsically

of no significance, finishing up this "refutation" with a reckless

citation from Weinel which proves nothing for the historical character

of Jesus.

[5] Cf. also his work "Moses, Jesus, Paulus. Drei sagen varianten

des babylonischen Gottmenschen Gilgamesch," 2nd ed., 1909.

[6] Cf., for example, "Jesus Vier Vorträge, geh. in Frankf." 1910.

[7] In other respects the "progress" in the province of religious

history is not so great as I formerly believed I could assume. That

is to say, in essentials modern learning in this connection has

only brought facts to light and given a new focus to points of

view which were already possessed (cf. Dupuis and Volney) by the

eighteenth century. In the twenties and forties of the nineteenth

century investigations, unprejudiced and independent of theology,

had already reached in the case of some of their representatives,

such as Gfrörer, Lützelberger, Ghillany, Nork, and others, the point

which is to-day again represented by the most advanced learning. The

revolution of 1848 and the reaction consequent on it in ecclesiastical

matters then again shook, on account of their radical tendency, those

views which had been already arrived at. The liberal Protestantism,

too, that rose as a recoil against orthodoxy in its effort to work out

the "historical" Jesus as the kernel of Christianity on its part had

no interest in again bringing up the old results. Indeed, it actually

makes it a reproach to a person of the present day if he quotes the

works of those earlier investigators, and reminds him that religious

learning did not begin only with the modern Coryphaei, with Holtzmann,

Harnack, &c. Whoever looks upon things from this point of view can

most probably agree in the melancholy reflection of a reviewer of

the first edition of "The Christ Myth," when he says with reference

to the "latest investigations": "Apparently the whole learning of the

nineteenth century so far as relates to investigations into the moving

forces of civilisation and national upheavals will be considered by

future research as an arsenal of errors" (O. Hauser in the Neue Freie

Presse, August 8, 1909).

[8] It has also been reckoned as a want of "method" in this work

that I have often made use of a cautious and restrained mode of

expression, that I have spoken of mere "suppositions" and employed

locutions such as "it appears," &c., when it has been for the time

being impossible for science or myself to give complete certainty to

an assertion. This reproach sounds strange in the mouths of such as

plume themselves upon "scientific method." For I should think that it

was indeed more scientific in the given cases to express oneself in

the manner chosen by me, than by an unmeasured certainty in assertions

to puff out pure suppositions into undoubted facts. I must leave such

a mode of proceeding to the historical theologians. They work purely

with hypotheses. All their endeavours to obtain an historical kernel

from the Gospels rest upon conjectures simply. Above everything,

their explanation of the origin of Christianity simply from an

historical Jesus is, in spite of the certainty and self-confidence

with which it comes out, a pure hypothesis, and that of very doubtful

value. For that in reality the new religion should have been called

into life by the "all-subduing influence of the personality of

Jesus" and its accompaniments, the visions and hallucinations

of the disciples worked up into ecstasies, is so improbable, and

the whole view is psychologically so assailable, and, moreover,

so futile, that even a liberal theologian like Gunkel declares it

entirely insufficient ("Zum religionsgesichtl. Verständnis d. N.T.,"

89 sq.). With this explanation, however, stands or falls the whole

modern Jesus-religion. For if they cannot show how the Pauline and

Johannine Christology could develop from the mere existence of an

historical Jesus, if this now forms "the problem of problems of New

Testament research" (Gunkel, op. cit.), then their whole conception

of the rise of Christianity disappears into air, and they have no

right to hold up against others who seek a better explanation the

partially hypothetical character of the views advanced by them.

[9] Op. cit., 10 sq.

[10] Cf. K. Dunkmann, "Der historische Jesus, der mythologische

Christus, und Jesus der Christ" (1910). Cf. also Pfleiderer, "Das

Christusbild des urchristlichen Glaubens in religionsgeschichtlicher

Beleuchtung" (1903), 6 sq. Here, too, it is pointed out that modern

scientific theology in its description of the figure of Christ

proceeds in anything but an unprejudiced manner. Out of the belief in

Christ as contained in the New Testament it "only draws forth what

is acceptable to present modes of thinking--passing over everything

else and reading in much that is its own--in order to construct an

ideal Christ according to modern taste." Pfleiderer declares it a

"great illusion" to believe that the pictures of Christ in works

such as Harnack's "Wesen des Christentums," each differently drawn

according to the peculiarities of their composers, but all more or

less in the modern style, are the result of scientific historical

research, and are related to the old conceptions of Christ like truth

to error. "One should," he says, "be reasonable and honourable enough

to confess that both the modern and the antique conceptions of Christ

are alike creations of the common religious spirit of their times and

sprung from the natural need of faith to fix its special principle in

a typical figure and to illustrate it. The differences between the

two correspond to the differences of the times, the former a simple

mythical Epic, the latter a sentimental and conscious Romance." In

the same sense Alb. Schweitzer also characterises the famous "method"

of historical theology as "a continual experimentation according to

settled hypotheses in which the leading thought rests in the last

resort upon an intuition" ("Von Reimarus bis Wrede," 1906). Indeed,

Weinel himself, who cannot hold up against the author with sufficient

scorn his lack of method and his dilettantism has to confess that

the same blemishes which in his opinion characterise dilettantism are

to be found even in the most prominent representatives of historical

theology, in a Wrede or a Wellhausen. He reproaches both of these with

the fact that in their researches "serious faults of a general nature

and in method" are present (21). He advises the greatest prudence

in respect to Wellhausen's Gospel Commentaries "on account of their

serious general blemishes" (26). He objects to Wrede that to be

consistent he must himself go over to radical dilettantism (22). He

charges Schweitzer actually with dilettantism and blind bias which

cause every literary consideration to be lacking (25 sq.). Indeed,

he finds himself, in face of the "dilettante endeavours" to deny the

historical Jesus, compelled even to admit that liberal theology for

the future "must learn to express itself with more caution and to

exhibit more surely the method of religious historical comparison"

(14). He blames Gunkel for imprudence in declaring Christianity to be

a syncretic religion, and demands that the historical works of liberal

theology "should be clearer in their results and more convincing in

their methods" (16). He says that the method which they employ is

at present not sure and clear enough since "it has been spoken of

generally in very loose if not misleading terms," and he confesses:

"We have apparently not made the measure, according to which we

decide upon what is authentic and what not so in the tradition,

so plain that it can always be recognised with security" (29). Now,

if matters are in such a position, we non-theologians need not take

too tragically the reproach of dilettantism and lack of scientific

method, since it appears very much as though historical theology,

with the exception at most of Herr Weinel, has no sure method.

[11] Cf. W. v. Schnehen, "Der moderne Jesuskultus," 2nd ed., 1907,

p. 41, a work with which even a Pfleiderer has agreed in the main

points; also the same author's "Fr. Naumann vor dem Bankrott des

Christentums," 1907.

[12] The excursus on "The Legend of Peter" which was contained in

the first edition of this work, and there appears to have been rather

misunderstood, has recently (1910) appeared more closely worked out

and reasoned in an independent form in the Neuer Frankfurter Verlag

under the title "Die Petrus Legende. Ein Beitrag zur Mythologie des

Christentums."

[13] Op cit., 82.

[14] Ep. ad Luc. 41.

[15] E. v. Mommsen and Wilamowitz in the Transactions of the

German Archæological Institute, xxiii. Part iii.; "Christl. Welt,"

1899, No. 57. Compare as a specially characteristic expression of

that period's longing for redemption the famous Fourth Eclogue of

Virgil. Also Jeremias, "Babylonisches im Neuen Testament," 1905,

pp. 57 sqq. Lietzmann, "Der Weltheiland," 1909.

[16] It is certain that the old Israelite Jahwe only attained that

spiritualised character for which he is nowadays extolled under the

influence of the Persians' imageless worship of God. All efforts to

construct, in spite of this admission, a "qualitative" difference

between Jahwe and Ahuramazda, as, for example, Stave does in his work

("Der Einfluss des Parsismus auf das Judentum," 1898, 122 sq.) are

unavailing. According to Stave, the conception of good and evil is

not grasped in Mazdeism in all its purity and truth, but "has been

confused with the natural." But is that distinction "grasped in all

its purity" in Judaism with its ritualistic legality? Indeed, has it

come to a really pure realisation even in Christianity, in which piety

and attachment to the Church so often pass as identical ideas? Let

us give to each religion its due, and cease to be subtle in drawing

such artificial distinctions in favour of our own--distinctions which

fall into nothingness before every unprejudiced consideration.

[17] Exod. iv. 22; Deut. xxxii. 6; Hosea xi. 1.

[18] Isa. xlix. 6, 8.

[19] Id. li. 16.

[20] Isa. xliv. 28, xlv. 1 sq.

[21] Cumont, "Textes et monuments figurés relatifs aux mystères de

Mithra," 1899, vol. i. 188.

[22] Isa. xi. 65, 17 sqq.

[23] Isa. ix. 6; Micah v. 1.

[24] Psa. xlvii. 6, 9, lvii. 12.

[25] Ch. xlv.-li.

[26] Ch. vi. 1 sqq.

[27] Cf. Gunkel, "Zum religionsgesch. Verständnis des Neuen

Testaments," 1903, p. 23, note 4.

[28] Revelation xxii.; cf. Pfleiderer, "Das Urchristentum. Seine

Schriften und seine Lehren," 2nd edit., 1902, vol. ii. 54 sqq.

[29] Dan. xii. 3.

[30] The assertion advanced by Grätz and Lucius that the work mentioned

is a forgery of a fourth-century Christian foisted upon Philo with

the object of recommending the Christian "Ascesis," and that a sect

of Therapeutes never existed, can now be considered disposed of,

since its refutation by Massebiau and Conybeare. Cf. Pfleiderer,

"Urchristentum," ii. 5 sq.

[31] Cf. as regards the Essenes, Schürer, "Geschichte des jüdischen

Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi," 1898, II. 573-584.

[32] Regarding the connection between the Essenes and the Apocalypse,

cf. Hilgenfeld, "Die jüdische Apokalyptik," 1857, p. 253 sqq.

[33] On this point, cf. Brandt, "Die mandäische Religion," 1899;

"Realenzyklop, f.d. protest. Theologie u. Kirche," xii. 160 sqq.;

Gunkel, op. cit., 18 sqq.

[34] Cf. Hilgenfeld, "Ketzergeschichte des Urchristentums," 1884.

[35] Gunkel, op. cit., 29.

[36] Gen. xxxii. 24.

[37] Numb. xx. 16; Exod. xiii. 21.

[38] Exod. xxxiii. 14; 2 Sam. v. 23.

[39] 1 Kings i. 3; Ezek. xliii. 5.

[40] Isa. lxiii. 9 sqq.

[41] Psa. ii.

[42] Cf. Ghillany, "Die Menschenopfer der alten Hebräer," 1842,

326-334; Eisenmenger, "Entdecktes Judentum," 1711, i. 311, 395

sqq. Also Movers, "Die Phönizier," 1841; i. 398 sq.

[43] Exod. xxiii. 20 sqq.

[44] Jos. xxiv. 11.

[45] Jos. v. 2-10. The unhistorical nature of Joshua is admitted also

by Stade. Stade counts him an Ephraimitic myth, recalling to mind in

so doing that the Samaritans possessed an apocryphal book of the same

name in place of our Book of Joshua ("Gesch. d. Volkes Israel," 1887,

i. 64 sqq., 135). The Samaritan Book of Joshua (Chronicum Samaritanum,

published 1848) was written in Arabic during the thirteenth century in

Egypt, and is based upon an old work composed in the third century

B.C. containing stories which in part do not appear in our Book

of Joshua.

[46] That the hypothesis of Smith here mentioned is quite admissible

from the linguistic point of view has lately been maintained by

Schmiedel in opposition to Weinel (Protestantenbl., 1910, No. 17, 438).

[47] Epiph., "Hæresiol." xxix.

[48] Smith, op. cit., 37 sq., 54.

[49] Isa. ii. 1. Cf. Epiphanius, op. cit.

[50] Id. xxix. 6.

[51] "Enc. Bibl.," art. "Nazareth."

[52] "Since ha-nosrîm was a very usual term for guardians or

protectors, it follows that when the term or its Greek equivalent

hoi Nazoraioi was used the adoption of its well-known meaning was

unavoidable. Even if the name was really derived from the village

of Nazareth, no one would have thought of it. Every one would have

unavoidably struck at once upon the current meaning. If a class of

persons was called protectors, every one would understand that as

meaning that they protected something. No one would hit upon it to

derive their name from an otherwise unknown village named Protection"

(Smith, op. cit., 47).

[53] Cf. in this connection Smith, op. cit., 36 sq., 42 sqq.

[54] Cf. Cumont, op. cit., 195 sq.

[55] Matt. ii. 25.

[56] Zech. iii. 10.

[57] Jeremias, op. cit., 56; cf. also 33 and 46, notes.

[58] Robertson, "A Short History of Christianity," 1902, 9 sqq.

[59] Gunkel, op. cit., 34.

[60] Id., op. cit., 39-63; cf. also Robertson, "Pagan Christs," 1903,

155 seq.

[61] Cf. Robertson, op. cit., 156.

[62] Mark v. 27; Luke xxiv. 19; Acts xviii. 25, xxviii. 31.

[63] Luke ix. 49, x. 17; Acts iii. 16; James v. 14 sq. For more

details regarding Name magic, see W. Heitmüller, "Im Namen Jesu," 1903.

[64] Cf. on whole subject Robertson, op. cit., 153-160.

[65] Ch. vii. 29.

[66] Isa. iii.

[67] Ch. xii. 10 sqq.; cf. Movers, op. cit., i. 196.

[68] Ch. viii. 14.

[69] Op. cit., 78.

[70] Frazer, "The Golden Bough," 1900, ii. 196 sq.

[71] Frazer, "Adonis, Attis, Osiris," 1908, 128 sqq.

[72] "The Golden Bough," i., iii. 20 sq.

[73] Verse 14.

[74] Op. cit., viii. 24-29.

[75] 1 Gen. xv. 17.

[76] Ghillany, op. cit., 148, 195, 279, 299, 318 sqq. Cf. especially

the chapter "Der alte hebräische Nationalgott Jahve," 264 sqq.

[77] J. M. Robertson, "Pagan Christs," 140-148. It cannot be

sufficiently insisted upon that it was only under Persian influence

that Jahwe was separated from the Gods of the other Semitic races,

from Baal, Melkart, Moloch, Chemosh, &c., with whom hitherto he had

been almost completely identified; also that it was only through

being worked upon by Hellenistic civilisation that he became that

"unique" God, of whom we usually think on hearing the name. The idea

of a special religious position of the Jewish people, the expression

of which was Jahwe, above all belongs to those myths of religious

history which one repeats to another without thought, but which

science should finally put out of the way.

[78] "Golden Bough," iii. 138-146.

[79] Movers, op. cit., 480 sqq.

[80] VI. 47 sqq., 209 sqq.

[81] Cf. Gunkel, "Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit," 1895. 309

sq. E. Schrader, "Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament," 1902,

514-520.

[82] Ch. viii. 15. Cf. also vi. 8, 9.

[83] "Abhandlungen d. Kgl. Ges. d. Wissenschaften zu Göttingen," xxxiv.

[84] Cf. also P. Wendland, "Ztschr. Hermes," xxxiii., 1898, 175 sqq.,

and Robertson, op. cit., 138, note 1.

[85] In the same way the Phrygian Attis, whose name characterises him

as himself the "father," was also honoured as the "son," beloved and

spouse of Cybele, the mother Goddess. He thus varied between a Father

God, the high King of Heaven, and the divine Son of that God.

[86] Frazer, op. cit., iii. 138-200. Cf. also Robertson, "Pagan

Christs," 136-140.

[87] Keim, "Geschichte Jesu," 1873, 331 note.

[88] Ghillany, op. cit., 510 sqq.

[89] Id. 505.

[90] 2 Sam. xxi. 9; cf. Lev. xxiii. 10-14.

[91] "Hist.," xviii. 7.

[92] 2 Kings iii. 27.

[93] "Hist. Nat.," xxxiv. 4, § 26.

[94] Mentioned in Eusebius, "Praeparatio Evangelica,"

i. 10. Cf. Movers, op. cit., 303 sq.

[95] "Der Mythus bei den Hebräern," 1876, 109-113.

[96] Cf. Ghillany, op. cit., 451 sqq.; Daumer, op. cit., 34 sqq., 111.

[97] Numb. xx. 22 sqq., xxvii. 12 sqq., xxxiii. 37 sqq.,

Deut. xxxii. 48 sqq. Cf. Ghillany, op. cit., 709-721.

[98] Deut. xviii. 15.

[99] Cf. Heb. v.

[100] Diodorus Siculus, ii. 44.

[101] Justin, "Dial. cum Tryphone," cap. xc.

[102] Schürer, op. cit., ii. 555. Cf. also Wünsche, "Die Leiden des

Messias," 1870.

[103] See above, page 40 sqq.

[104] Cf. Eisenmenger, op. cit., ii. 720 sqq.; Gfrörer, "Das

Jahrhundert des Heils," 1838, ii. 260 sqq.; Lützelberger, "Die

kirchl. Tradition über den Apostel Johannes u. s. Schriften,"

1840, 224-229; Dalman, "Der leidende und der sterbende Messias der

Synagoge im ersten nachchristlichen Jahrtausend," 1888; Bousset,

"Die Religion des Judentums, im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter," 1903,

218 sq.; Jeremias, op. cit., 40 sq.

[105] Op. cit., 21.

[106] Op. cit., 71 sq.

[107] Kautzsch, "Pseudoepigraphen," 500.

[108] Winckler, op. cit., 67-77. Cf. also Jeremias, op. cit., 40,

and his "Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients," 1904, 239 sq.

[109] Gen. xl.

[110] Luke xxiii. 39-43; cf. also Isa. lxxx. 12.

[111] Jos. v. 2 sqq.

[112] Amos viii. 10; cf. Movers, op. cit., 243.

[113] Cf. Robertson, "Pagan Christs," 157.

[114] Numb. xiv.

[115] Id. xiii. 9; Gen. xlviii. 16.

[116] Id. xiii. 7; Gen. xlix. 9.

[117] 1 Chron. iv. 11.

[118] Judges ii. 9.

[119] Id. iv.

[120] Cf. Nork, "Realwörterbuch," 1843-5, ii. 301 sq.

[121] Cf. on whole subject Martin Brückner, "Der sterbende und

auferstehende Gottheiland in den orientalischen Religionen und ihr

Verhältnis zum Christentum. Religionsgesch. Volksbücher," 1908.

[122] Ch. ii. 12-20.

[123] Ch. iii. 1-8.

[124] Ch. v. 3-5.

[125] Ch. xii.

[126] "Zum religionsgesch. Verst. d. N.T.," 54.

[127] "L'origine de tous les cultes," 1795, v. 133.

[128] "Abraxas," 117.

[129] Cf. regarding the mythical nature of Moses, who is to be looked

upon as an offshoot of Jahwe and Tammuz, Winckler, op. cit., 86-95.

[130] Cf. also O. Pfleiderer, "Das Christusbild des urchristlichen

Glaubens in religionsgesch. Beleuchtung," 1903, 37. Also Jeremias,

"Das A.T. im Lichte des alten Orients," 254.

[131] I. 107.

[132] Cf. Plutarch, "Artaxerxes," ch. i.

[133] Movers, op. cit., 228.

[134] II. 9, 2.

[135] Bousset, "Das Judentum," 220.

[136] 1 Kings xi. 14 sq.

[137] Schrader, "Die Keilinschriften u. d. A.T.," 225.

[138] Winckler, op. cit., 172 sqq., Jeremias, "Das A.T. im Lichte

d. a. O.," 2nd. ed., 488 sqq.; cf. also Baentsch, "David und sein

Zeitalter. Wissenschaft u. Bildung," 1907.

[139] Ep. viii. 3.

[140] Id. xlii. 58.

[141] Ch. v. 1.

[142] Gen. xxxv. 11-19; Deut. xxxiii. 12; Gen. xliv. 26.

[143] Cf. Nork, "Realwörterbuch," i. 240 sq.

[144] The other famous "prophecy" supposed to refer to the birth of the

Messiah, viz., Isaiah vii. 14, is at present no longer regarded as such

by many. The passage obviously does not refer to the Messiah. This

is shown by a glance at the text, and it would hardly have been

considered so long as bearing that meaning, if any one had taken the

trouble to read it in its context. Consider the situation. Queen Rezin

of Syria and Pekah of Israel march against the Jewish King Ahaz, who

is therefore much troubled. At the command of Jahwe the prophet goes

to the king in order to exhort him to courage, and urges him to pray

for a sign of the happy outcome of the fight. He, however, refuses

to tempt God. Thereupon Isaiah himself gives him a sign. "Behold,"

he says, "a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his

name Immanuel, God be with us. Before the child shall know to refuse

the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings thou abhorrest

shall be forsaken." And undisturbed by the fact that this prophecy

for the moment can give but little encouragement to the king, Isaiah

goes with the help of two witnesses(!) to a prophetess and gets her

with child in order to make his words true(!). The text does not say

in what relationship the woman stood to Isaiah. The Hebrew word Almah

may mean "young woman" as well as "virgin." The Septuagint, however,

thoughtlessly making the passage refer to the Messiah, and having

before its eyes very possibly the stories of the miraculous birth of

the heathen Redeemer Gods, translates the word straightway by "virgin,"

without thinking what possible light it thereby threw upon Isaiah.

[145] Ch. lx. 1 sqq.

[146] Psa. lxviii. 32 sq.

[147] Dupuis, op. cit., 268.

[148] Matt. i. 14 sq.

[149] The feasts of the Gods in question also correspond to this

in character. They fell upon the solstice (the birthday or day

of death of the sun), so far as their connection with the sun was

emphasized. On the contrary, upon the equinoxes, so far as their

connection with vegetation was concerned, sowing and harvest were

brought into prominence. Usually, however, death and reappearance were

joined in one single feast, and this was celebrated at the time in

spring when day and night were of equal length, when vegetation was

at its highest, and in the East the harvest was begun. Cf. Jeremias,

"Babylonisches im N.T.," 10 sq.

[150] One should compare the description given by Hommel of the

climate of Babylonia (op. cit., 186) with the picture of the natural

occurrences which, according to Gunkel, gave occasion for the myth

of the birth of Marduk, and the threatening of the child by the

"Winter Dragon," Tiâmat. "Before spring descends to the earth from

heaven, winter has had its grim (!) rule upon the earth. Men pine away

(in the country of the two rivers!) beneath its sway, and look up to

heaven wondering if deliverance will not come. The myth consoles them

with the story that the God of spring who will overthrow winter has

already been born. The God of winter who knows for what he is destined

is his enemy, and would be very pleased if he could devour him. And

winter at present ruling is much stronger than the weak child. But his

endeavour to get rid of his enemy comes to nought. Do you then want to

know why he is so grim? He knows that he has only a short time. His

might is already broken although we may be yet unaware of it. The

year has already changed to spring. The child grows up in heaven; the

days become longer, the light of the sun stronger. As soon as he is

grown up he descends and overthrows his old enemy. 'Only trust in God

without despair, spring must come'" ("Schöpfung und Chaos," 389 sq.).

[151] Dupuis has already pointed this out, op. cit., 152.

[152] Macrobius, "Saturnal.," i. 18, i. 34-35.

[153] "Adversus Nationes," v. 6 and 13.

[154] Cf. Simrock, "Handbuch der deutschen Mythologie," 4th ed.,

1874, 201 and 225.

[155] Op. cit., 138. The transfixing of the victim with the holy lance,

as we meet it in John xix. 34, appears to be a very old sacrificial

custom, which is found among the most different races. For example,

both among the Scythian tribes in Albania in the worship of Astarte

(Strabo) and in Salamis, on the island of Cyprus, in that of Moloch

(Eusebius, "Praep. Evang.," iv. 16). "The lance thrust," says Ghillany,

with reference to the Saviour's death, "was not given with the object

of testing whether the sufferer was still alive, but was in order to

correspond with the old method of sacrificing. The legs were not broken

because the victim could not be mutilated. In the evening the corpse

had to be taken down, just as Joshua only allowed the kings sacrificed

to the sun to remain until evening upon the cross" (op. cit., 558).

[156] Frazer, op. cit., 345 sq. F. Kauffmann, "Balder Mythus u. Sage

nach ihren dichterischen u. religiösen Elementen untersucht," 1902,

266 sq.

[157] Rigv. v. 1, v. 2, iii. 1, vii. 12, i. 96, &c.

[158] Hillebrand, "Vedische Mythologie," 1891-1902, ii. 38 sq.

[159] According to early Christian writers, such as Justin and Origen,

Jesus also came into the world in a cave, and Jerome complains

(Epist. lviii.) that in his time the heathens celebrated the feast

of the birth of Tammuz at Bethlehem in the same cave in which Jesus

was born.

[160] I. 72, 2; v. 11, 6; v. 2, 1; iii. 1, 14; i. 65, 1; x. 46, 2.

[161] III. 1, 7; iii. 9, 7; v. 1, 1; v. 2, 1, and 2; iii. 7, 2; x. 4,

2, and 3.

[162] Cf. Volney, "Die Ruinen," 1791 (Reclam), note 83 to

chap. xiii. This is the reason why the infant Christ was represented

in early Christian pictures lying in his mother's lap or in a cradle

between an Ox and an Ass.

[163] Jeremias, "Babylonisches im Neuen Testament," 35, note

1. Cf. Dupuis, op. cit., 111 sqq.

[164] Dupuis, op. cit., 143 sq.

[165] Cf. also Winckler, "Die babylonische Geisteskultur Wissenschaft

u. Bildung," 1907. Jeremias, "Babylonisches im N.T.," 62 sqq. The

astral references of the Christ myth are very beautifully shown in

the "Thomakapelle" at Karlsruhe, where the Master has depicted in

costly profusion and unconscious insight the chief points of the

Gospel "history" in connection with the signs of the Zodiac and the

stars--the riddle of the Christ story and its solution! As is well

known, the theological faculty in Heidelburg conferred an "honorary

doctorate of theology" upon the Master.

[166] "Le Lalita Vistara, traduit du sanscrit en français," i. 76 sqq.

[167] Further in R. Seydel, "Die Buddhalegende u. das Leben Jesu," 2nd

ed., 1897, and in his "Das Evangelium von Jesus in seinem Verhältnis

zur Buddhasage u. Buddhalegende," 1882. Also Van den Bergh van Eysinga,

"Indische Einflüsse auf evang. Erzählungen," 2nd ed., 1909. Cf. also

O. Pfleiderer, "Das Christusbild," 23 sqq.

[168] "Urchristentum," i. 411 sq.

[169] Robertson, "Christianity and Mythology," 1900, 129-302.

[170] Op. cit., 25 sqq., 239-244; cf., on the other hand, Paul

W. Schmidt, "Die Geschichte Jesu erläutert," 1904, 16.

[171] Cf. also Seydel, "Evangelium von Jesus," 305 sqq.;

"Buddha-Legende," 46 sqq. Also Émile Burnouf, "La Science des

Religions," 4th ed., 1885, 105.

[172] R. Kessler, "Realenz. f. prot. Theol. u. Kirche," xii. 163.

[173] Foucaux, "Le Lalita Vistara," i. 40.

[174] Hippolytus, op. cit., 9, 10; Epiphanius, op. cit., 30, 53.

[175] Cf. Pfleiderer, "Christusbild," 14 sq.

[176] Cf. also Max Müller, "Natural Religion"; Bergaigne, "La religion

védique d'après les hymnes du Rigveda," 1878-83; Holtzmann, "Agni

nach den Vorstellungen des Mahâbhârata," 1878.

[177] Rgv. iii. 1, 9, 10.

[178] Id. ii. 23; i. 7; xcv. 2, 5; x. 2, 7; viii. 29, 3.

[179] Id. iii. 5, 10; i. 148, 1. Cf. also Adalb. Kuhn, "Die Herabkunft

des Feuers und des Göttertrankes," 2nd ed., 1886-9. In Mazdeism also

the light is indissolubly connected with the air, passing as this

does as its bearer. Cf. F. Cumont, "Textes et monuments," i. 228,

ii. 87 sq., and his "Mystères de Mithra."

[180] Il., xi. 20; cf. Movers, op. cit., 242 sq.

[181] Cf. John x. 3, 7, 9.

[182] O. Gruppe, "Griech. Mythologie," 1900, ii. 1328, note 10.

[183] Id., op. cit., 1307. According to the Arabian legend Father

Abraham, also, who here plays the part of a saviour and redeemer,

was under the name of Thare, a skilful master workman, understanding

how to cut arrows from any wood, and being specially occupied with

the preparation of idols (Sepp, "Das Heidentum und dessen Bedeutung

für das Christentum," 1853, iii. 82).

[184] "Praep. Evang.," ix. 27.

[185] 2 Cor. viii. 9.

[186] Gruppe, op. cit., 1322, 1331.

[187] Preller, "Griech. Mythol.," 1894, 775 sq., 855.

[188] Robertson, "Christianity and Mythology," 322.

[189] Matt. iii. 17; Mark i. 11; Luke iii. 22.

[190] Phereda or Pheredet, the dove, is the Chaldaic root of the name

Aphrodite, as the Goddess in the car drawn by two doves was called

among the Greeks. In the whole of Nearer Asia the cult of doves was

connected with that of the Mother Goddess. As is well known, the dove

as a symbol of innocence or purity is also the bird of the Virgin

Mary, who is often compared to one. Indeed, in the Protevangelium

of James she is actually called a dove which nested in the temple, a

plain reference to the dove cult of the Syrian Aphrodite or Atargatis

(Astarte, Astaroth).

[191] Irenæus, i. 28.

[192] Hippolytus iv. 35. This brings to mind that, according to

Persian ideas also, besides the Trinity of Heaven (Ahuramazda), Sun,

Fire (Mithras), and Air (Spirit, "word," Honover, Spenta Armaiti),

the earth stood as a fourth principle (Anahita, Anaitis, Tanit). This

stood in the same relation to Mithras as Istar to Tammuz, Cybele to

Attis, Atargatis to Adonis, Maya to Agni, Aphrodite to Hermes, Mary

to Jesus, &c., becoming identical, however, usually with the "word"

of God, the holy spirit (Cumont, op. cit., ii. 87 sq.).

[193] "Dialog.," 88.

[194] One cannot therefore say, as is usual, that Mark, in whom the

story of the birth given in Matthew and Luke is not found, knew nothing

of a supernatural birth of Christ. For the narrative of the baptism

is the history of his birth, while the corresponding narrative of the

other Evangelists only came into existence later, when the original

sense of the story of the baptism in Mark was no longer understood.

[195] Quoted in Usener, "Religionsgesch. Untersuchungen," 1889, i. 64.

[196] Thus Mithras also was said to have been born on the bank of a

river, just as Jesus received baptism in or near the Jordan. On this

account "the Rock-born" was usually represented with a torch in his

left and a sword or knife in his right hand (Cumont, "Myst. d. Mithra,"

97). This recalls to mind the words of Jesus in Matt. x. 34: "I came

not to send peace, but a sword."

[197] Cf. Wobbermin, "Religionsgesch. Studien zur Frage der

Beeinflussung des Urchristentums durch das antike Mysterienwesen,"

1896, 154 sqq. The Christian Church also surrounded the act of baptism

with an unusual splendour of lights and candles. Not only was the

House of God lit up on this occasion in a festive manner, but each

individual to be baptized had to carry a burning candle. The sermons

which have come down to us delivered on the feast of the Epiphany,

the feast of the birth and baptism of the Saviour which in earlier

days fell together(!), excel in the description of the splendour of

the lights; indeed, the day of the feast itself was actually called

"the day of lights" or "the lights" (phota).

[198] Rgv. x. 88, 2.

[199] Id. v. 2, 9.

[200] "Antiq.," xviii. 5, 2.

[201] "Contra Celsum," i. 47.

[202] Graetz calls it "a shameless interpolation" ("Gesch. d. Juden,"

1888, iii. 278). Cf. J. Chr. K. v. Hofmann, "Die heiligen Schriften

des N.T.," vii. Tl. 3, 1876, 4; Schürer, "Gesch. den jüdischen Volkes

im Zeitalter Jesu," i. 438, note.

[203] Cf. Sepp., op. cit., i. 168 sqq.

[204] Cf. Usener, op. cit., 62.

[205] I. 8, 9, 10, 16; cf. Matt. iv. 16.

[206] Luke i. 5 sqq.

[207] Gen. xvii. 16 sqq.

[208] Judges, xiii. 2 sqq.

[209] John v. 35.

[210] Id. iii. 30.

[211] Luke i. 26.

[212] Matt. iii. 4.

[213] 2 Kings i. 8.

[214] Matt. xi. 14.

[215] Cf. Nork, "Realwörterbuch," i. 451 sqq. The Baptist John in

the Gospels also appears as the "forerunner," announcer, herald, and

preparer of the way for Jesus, and it appears that the position of

Aaron in regard to Moses, he being given the latter as a mouthpiece

or herald, has helped in the invention of the Baptist's figure. A

similar position is taken in the Old Testament by the "Angel of the

Countenance," the messenger, mediator, ambassador, and "Beginning

of the way of God," the rabbinic Metatron, whom we saw earlier was

identical with Joshua (see above, p. 56 sq.). In the Syro-Phoenician

and the Greek Mysteries Cadmus, Kadmilos, or Kadmiel, a form of the

divine messenger and mediator Hermes, also called Iasios (Joshua),

corresponded to him, his name literally meaning "he who goes before

God" or prophesies of him, the announcer, herald, or forerunner

of the coming God (cf. Schelling, "Die Gottheiten von Samothrake

Ww.," i. 8, 358, 392 sqq.). Ezra ii. 40, 39, and Nehem. vii. 43,

call Kadmiel a Levite, he being always named together with the High

Priest Joshua. It is probably only another name of the latter himself,

and characterises him as servant and herald of God. Now Kadmiel is the

discoverer of writing and the establisher of civilisation, and in so

far identical with Oannes, the Babylonian "Water-man" and Baptism-God

(Movers, op. cit., 518 sqq.). Can Oannes (Johannes) the Baptist in

this way have become Kadmiel, the "forerunner" and preparer of the

way of Jesus, who announced his near arrival, and the God Jesus, in

consequence of this, have divided into two different figures, that

of Joshua-Kadmiel (Johannes) and the Messiah Jesus? In this regard

it is certainly not without significance that the figure of the High

Priest Joshua in Zechariah wavers between the Messiah (Zemah) and a

mere forerunner of the latter. John's question to Jesus, "Art thou

he that cometh, or look we for another?" (Matt. xi. 3) is exactly the

question which strikes the reader in reading the corresponding passage

of Zechariah. Possibly the presence of the dove at the baptism in the

Jordan obtains in this way a still closer explanation, for Semiramis,

the Dove Goddess, is the spouse of Oannes (Ninus); John and the dove

accordingly are the parents, who are present at the "birth" of the

divine son. But the violent death of John at Herod's command and

the head of the prophet upon the dish have prototypes in the myth of

Cadmus. For the head of the latter is supposed to have been cut off by

his brother and to have been buried upon a brazen shield, a cult story

which plays a part especially in the Mysteries of the Cabiri Gods,

to whom Cadmus belongs (cf. Creuzer, "Symbolik und Mythologie der

alten Völker," 1820, ii. 333). According to Josephus (op. cit.) John

was put to death because Herod feared political disorders from his

appearance, while Matthew makes him fall a victim to Herod's revenge,

the latter having been censured by John for his criminal marriage with

the wife of his brother. Moreover, the prophet Elijah, who accuses Ahab

of having yielded to his wife Jezebel and of having murdered Naboth

(1 Kings xxi.), as well as the prophet Nathan, who reproaches David

for having killed Uriah and having married his wife (2 Sam. xii.,

cf. also Esther v. 7, 2), are also prototypes. According to this

a religious movement or sect must, in the minds of posterity, have

been condensed into the figure of John the Baptist. Its followers,

who closely resembled the Essenes, in view of the imminent nearness

of the kingdom of heaven, exhorted men to a conversion of mind,

looked upon the Messiah in the sense of Daniel essentially as the

God appointed ("awakened") judge over the living and the dead,

and sought by baptism to apply to the penitents the magic effects

which should flow from the name of their Cult God Johannes (Oannes),

the Babylonian-Mandaic Baptism and Water-God. The stern and gloomy

character of this sect may have been reflected in the character sketch

of the John in the Gospels, and between it and the sect of Jesus many

collisions, disagreements, and conversions appear to have taken place

(Matt. xi. 1 sq.; Luke vii. 18 sqq.; John i. 37). Possibly the sect

of Jesus was originally only an excrescence from, and a development

of, the conception which the disciples of John had of the Messiah,

as is indicated by the supposed blood relationship between Jesus and

John. At any rate, the adherents of the former in their belief in the

sufferings, death, and resurrection of the Messiah felt that their

point of view was higher and more perfect as compared with that of

John's disciples, who do not appear to have risen essentially above

the general ideas of the Jewish Apocalyptics. According to Matthew

iii. 13 Jesus came out of Galilee, the "Galilee of the Heathens," to

the baptism of John. Herein the original heathenish origin of the faith

of Jesus was pointed to. "The people which sat in darkness have seen

a great light. To them which sat in the region and shadow of death,

to them did light spring up" (Matt. iv. 16; cf. Smith, op. cit.,

95). The opposition of the two different sects was, at any rate, so

great that John's disciples needed a further instruction and a new

baptism "in the name of the Lord Jesus" to receive the Holy Ghost,

in order to be received into the Christian community. For example,

the twelve at Ephesus, who had simply received the baptism of John,

as well as the eloquent and literary Alexandrian, Apollo, who none

the less proclaimed the message of salvation (ta peri tou Iesou)

(Acts xviii. 24 sqq., xix. 1-7).

[216] Cf., Sepp, "Heidentum," i. 170 sq., 190 sq.; Winckler, "Die

babylonische Geisteskultur," 89, 100 sq. By this reference of the

Gospel story to the sun's course it appears that the activity of Jesus

from his baptism in the Jordan to his death, according to the account

of the Synoptics, only covered a year. It is the mythological year

of the sun's course through the Watery Region in January and February

until the complete exhaustion of its strength in December.

[217] Mark ix. 2-7.

[218] The horns (crescent) which he also shares with Jahwe, as the

Syrian Hadah shows (Winckler, "Gesch. Israels," ii. 94), recalls to

mind the Moon nature of Moses. Moses is, as regards his name, the

"Water-drawer." The moon is, however, according to antique views,

merely the water-star, the dispenser of the dew and rain, and the

root ma (mo), which, in the name of Moses, refers to water, is also

contained in the various expressions for the moon.

[219] "Contra Tryph.," xlvi.

[220] Cf. above, 112.

[221] Burnouf, op. cit., 195 sq.

[222] That in the closer description of this occurrence Old Testament

ideas have had their part has already been advanced by others. Thus

in the transfiguration of Jesus the transfiguration of Moses upon

Sinai without doubt passed before the mind of the narrator. And just

as Jesus took with him his three chief disciples on to the mount of

transfiguration, so Moses took his three trusted followers, Aaron,

Nadab, and Abihu, to partake in the vision of Jahwe (Strauss, "Leben

Jesu," ii. 269 sqq.).

[223] Rgv. x. 191; cf. i. 72, 5.

[224] Id. iii. 28, vi. 11.

[225] Max Müller, "Einleitung in die vergl. Religionswissenschaft,"

note to p. 219.

[226] Rigv. x. 90.

[227] The Rigveda describes Purusha as a gigantic being (cf. the

Eddic Ymir) who covers the earth upon all sides and stretches ten

fingers beyond. The Talmud, too (Chagiga, xii. 1), ascribes to the

first man Adam a gigantic size, reaching as he did with his head to

heaven and with his feet to the end of the world. Indeed, according

to Epiphanius ("Haeres." xix. 4), the Essenes made the size of Christ

too, the "second Adam," stretch an immeasurable distance.

[228] In Hebrew Messiah means "the anointed." But Agni too as God of

Sacrifices bears the name of the anointed, akta (above, p. 99). Indeed,

it appears as though the Greek Christ, as a translation of Messiah,

stands in relation to Agni. For the God over whom at his birth was

poured milk or the holy Soma cup and sacrificial butter, bore the

surname of Hari among the members of the cult. The word signified

originally the brightness produced by anointing with fat and oil. It

appears in the Greek Charis, an epithet of Aphrodite, and is contained

in the verb chrio, to anoint, of which Christos is the participial form

(cf. Cox, "Mythology of the Aryan Nations," 1903, 27, 254).

[229] The Bhagavadgîta shows that the idea of a self-sacrifice

was associated with Krishna also, whom we have already learnt to

recognise as a form of Agni, and that his becoming man was regarded

as such a sacrifice. It (ii. 16) runs: "I am the act of sacrifice,

the sacrifice of God and of man. I am the sap of the plant, the

words, the sacrificial butter and fire, and at the same time the

victim." And in viii. 4 Krishna says of himself: "My presence in

nature is my transitory being, my presence in the Gods is Purusha

(i.e., my existence as Purusha), my presence in the sacrifices is

myself incorporated in this body." But Mithras too offers himself for

mankind. For the bull whose death at the hands of the God takes the

central position in all the representations of Mithras was originally

none other than the God himself--the sun in the constellation of the

Bull, at the spring equinox--the sacrifice of the bull accordingly

being also a symbol of the God who gives his own life, in order

by his death to bring a new, richer and better life. Mithras, too,

performs this self-sacrifice, although his heart struggles against

it, at the command of the God of Heaven, which is brought to him by

a raven, the messenger of the God of Gods. (cf. Cumont, op. cit.,

98 sqq.). And just as according to Vedic ideas Purusha was torn in

pieces by the Gods and Dæmons and the world made out of his parts,

so too according to Persian views the World Bull Abudad or the Bull

Man Gayomart at the beginning of creation is supposed to have shed

his blood for the world, to live again as Mithras (Sepp., op. cit.,

i. 330, ii. 6 sq.).

[230] Cumont, "Myst. de Mithra," 101.

[231] Rgv. x. 16.

[232] Id. x. 16, 6.

[233] Id. lx.; cf. also Burnouf, op. cit., 176 sqq.

[234] Op. cit., vii. 3. He is Jahwe, the King of Jeru-Salem itself

(Josephus, "Ant.," x. 2), and corresponds to the Phoenician Moloch

(Melech) Sidyk, who offered his only born son, Jehud, to the people

as an expiation. Cf. supra, p. 77.

[235] Op. cit., xix. 13, xxxii. 29, xliv. 17, xvi. 25.

[236] Op. cit., lxv. 11.

[237] As is well known, the Germanic first man, Mannus, according to

Tacitus, was a son of the hermaphrodite Thuisto.

[238] Lev. xxiv. 5-9.

[239] Jos. iv. 1 sqq.; ch. v.

[240] Thus Helios also, the Greek Sun-God, the heavenly physician and

saviour, annually prepared the "Sun's Table" in nature, causing the

fruit to ripen, the healing herbs to grow, and inviting mortals to

the life-giving feast. "This Table of the Sun was always spread in

the land of the happy and long-living Ethiopians; even the twelve

Gods journeyed thither each year with Zeus for twelve days, i.e.,

in the last Octave of the old and new year, as though to the feast of

Agape" (Sepp., op. cit., i. 275). For the rest the number twelve had

throughout the whole of antiquity in connection with such ceremonial

feasts a typical signification. For example, among the Athenians, whose

common religious feasts were celebrated annually on the occasion of

the spring sacrifices; also among the Jews at least twelve persons had

to be assembled round the table of the Easter Lamb (Sepp., op. cit.,

ii. 313 sqq.).

[241] Ghillany, op. cit., 510 sqq.

[242] Preller, "Griech. Mythol.," 398, 850, and his "Röm. Mythol.,"

275.

[243] Strabo, xi. 2; Justin, xlii. 3.

[244] Preller, "Griech. Mytholog.," 110.

[245] It is worth while to observe that the High Priest Joshua

returned to Jerusalem at the head of twelve elders (Ezra ii. 2;

Nehem. vii. 7. Cf. Stade, "Gesch. d. V. Israel," ii. 102).

[246] Cf. Movers, op. cit., 539 sqq.; Sepp., "Heidentum," 271, 421.

[247] Cf. Jeremias, "Babyl. im N.T.," 69-80.

[248] Rgv. vi. 54.

[249] Cf. "The Hymns to Dadhikra," iv. 38-40.

[250] Cf. Burnouf, op. cit., 196. The connection between the Fire-God

and water is of extreme antiquity. As is well known, in the Edda Loki

seeks to escape the pursuit of the Gods in the shape of a salmon;

Hephaistos, too, after being cast forth from heaven remains concealed

in the sea until Dionysus brings him out; in Rome on the 22nd of

August fish from the Tiber used to be sacrificed to Vulcan, being cast

living into the fire in representation of the souls of men (Preller,

"Röm. Mythol.," ii. 151). It is uncertain whether or to what degree the

relations of the sun to the constellation of the Fishes have influenced

these images. As regards Babylon, where astrology underwent the most

accurate development, this can indeed be looked upon as certain. Here

Ea (Oannes), the God of Water and of Life, the father of the Redeemer

God Marduk, was represented under the form of a fish. Again, it was not

only to the Philistinian Dagon that fish as well as doves were sacred

(above, p. 118), but also to the Syrian Atargatis, the latter having

borne, as was said, the "Ichthus," or fish, and the worship of fish

being connected with devotion to her (Robertson Smith, "Religion of

the Semites," 174 sqq.). In Egypt Horus was the "divine fish," being

represented with a fish-tail and holding a cross in the hand. But the

Joshua of the Old Testament, in whom we believe we see the Israelite

original of the Christian Saviour, was also called a "Son of the Fish"

(Nun, Ninus, a form of Marduk, whose spouse or beloved, Semiramis,

is also a Fish Divinity and is the same as Derketo (Atargatis), the

Syrian Mother Goddess.) The Rabbinists called the Messiah son of Joseph

(see above, p. 80 sq.), Dag (Dagon) the Fish, and made him to be born

of a fish; that is, they expected his birth under the constellation of

the Fishes, on which account the Jews were long accustomed to immolate

a fish on expiatory feasts. Finally, the fish is also Vishnu's symbol,

in whose worship baptism of water takes an important place. Again,

the God is said in the form of a fish to have come to the rescue of

the pious Manu, the only just man of his time, the Indian Noah, and

to have steered the Ark through the flood, thus ensuring to mankind

its continuation. It is not difficult to suppose that this idea as

well influenced the symbols of Christianity through Mandaic (Gnostic)

channels. At any rate, it cannot be admitted at all that the symbol

of the fish first arose out of a mere play on letters so far as the

formula "Jesous Christos Theou Huios Soter" represents in five words

the expression of the quintessence of the Christian faith (cf. van den

Bergh van Eysinga, "Ztschr. d. Deutchen Morgenländ. Gesellschaft B.,"

ix., 1906, 210 sqq.).

[251] Cf. Iamblichus, "De Symbol. Aegyptiorum," ii. 7.

[252] Gunkel, op. cit., 32. sq.; Robertson, "Pagan Christs," 135 sq.

[253] Op. cit., v. 6 sq.

[254] Rev. xxi. 23.

[255] Hatch, "The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the

Christian Church," Hibbert Lectures, 1888, 300.

[256] John i. 7, 12; ix. 5; xii. 36, 46.

[257] Sepp., i. 353.

[258] Burnouf, op. cit., 186 sq.

[259] Cf., for example, F. X. Kraus, "Geschichte d. christl. Kunst,"

i. 105.

[260] "Hist. Rom.," i. 26.

[261] Cf. Zöckler, "Das Kreuz Christi," 1875, 62 sqq.; Hochart,

"Études d'histoire religieuse," 1890, chap, x., "La crucifix."

[262] Aringhi, "Roma subterranea," vi. ch. 23, "De Cervo."

[263] Cf. on the other hand Justin, "Apol.," i. 35.

[264] Esther v. 14, vii. 10.

[265] Cf. the picture of Marsyas hanging upon a tree-trunk in the

collection of antiquities at Karlsruhe; also the illustrations in

P. Schmidt, "Die Geschichte Jesu, erläutert," 1904.

[266] Movers, op. cit., 687; Nork, "Reallexikon," ii. 122 sq.; Frazer,

"Adonis, Attis, Osiris," 185 sq.

[267] Rev. ii. 7, xxii. 2.

[268] lxvi. 19.

[269] ix. 3, 4.

[270] Exod. xvii. 10 sqq.

[271] For particulars see Zöckler, op. cit., 7 sqq.; also Hochart,

op. cit., chap, viii., "Le symbole de la croix"; G. de Mortillet,

"Le signe de la croix avant le christianisme," 1866; Mourant Brock,

"La croix payenne et chrétienne," 1881; Goblet d'Alviella, "La

migration des symboles," 1891.

[272] Henry Petersen, "Über den Gottesdienst u. den Götterglauben

des Nordens während der Heidenzeit," 1882, 39 sqq. 95 sqq.

[273] Zöckler, op. cit., 21 sqq.

[274] Winckler, "Die babyl. Geisteskultur," 82.

[275] Tertullian, "Contra Haereses," 40.

[276] Burnouf, op. cit., 240.

[277] Goblet d'Alviella, op. cit., 61. sqq. Cf. also Ludw. Müller,

"Det saakaldte Hagekors Anvendelse og Betydning i Oldtiden," 1877.

[278] Op. cit., 296.

[279] One feels the words of Revelation quoted above brought to his

mind: "And madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests;

and they reign upon the earth!"

[280] "De errore profanae religionis," i. 5.

[281] Op. cit., § 48.

[282] "Apolog.," i. ch. 60.

[283] III. 12, vii. 3 sqq., ix. 4, xiv. 1, xx. 4, xxii. 4.

[284] Gal. vi. 17; Ephes. i. 13 sq.

[285] Mourant Brock, op. cit., 177 sqq., 178 sqq.

[286] So also in Tertullian when, with reference to the passage of

Ezekiel above quoted (ix. 5), he describes the Greek letter Tau as

"our [the Christians'] kind of cross" (nostra species crucis), not

because it had the shape of the gibbet upon which Jesus is supposed

to have died, but because it represented the seal or sign upon the

inhabitants of the New Jerusalem ("Contra Marcionem," iii. 22). And

when in the same work (iii. 18) he explains the horns of the "unicorn"

(ox?) mentioned in the Blessing of Moses (Deut. xxxiii. 17) as the two

arms of the cross, this happens only for the reason that the sign of

union and uplifting and the gibbet became commingled in his fancy into

the one and the same form (cf. also "Adv. Judaeos," 10, and Justin,

"Dial.," 91; also Hochart, op. cit., 365-369).

[287] Zöckler, op. cit., 14 sq.

[288] Frazer, "Adonis, Attis, Osiris," 174 sq., 276 sqq.

[289] Cf. on the whole subject Hochart, op. cit., 359 sqq.; P. Schmidt,

"Gesch. Jesu," 386-394. In spite of all his efforts Zöckler has

not succeeded in proving that Jesus was nailed to a piece of wood

having the form of a four-armed cross. The assertion that this form

of gibbet was borrowed by the Romans from the Carthaginians, and was

the usual one in late pre-Christian days, is simply a figment of the

imagination. All passages usually brought forward in support of this

traditional view either prove nothing, as the appeal to Luke xxiv. 39,

John xx. 20 and 25, or they refer to the symbol, not to the gibbet

of the cross, and consequently cannot serve to support the usual view

of the matter (Zöckler, op. cit., especially 78; 431 sqq.).

[290] "Geschichte der christlichen Kunst," 174.

[291] Cf. Detzel, "Christl. Ikonographie," 1894, 392 sqq.; Hochart,

op. cit., 378 sqq.

[292] Moreover, the so-called Flabellum, the fan, which in the

early Christian pictures of the birth of Christ a servant holds

before the child, shows the connection of the Christ Cult and that

of Agni. This fan, which was in use in divine service of the Western

Church as late as the fourteenth century, cannot be for the driving

away of insects or for cooling purposes, as is usually considered,

for this would obviously be in contradiction to the "winter" birth

of the Saviour. It refers to the fanning of the divine spark in the

ancient Indian fire-worship. In this sense it has been retained until

the present day in the Greek and Armenian rites, in which during the

Mass the fan is waved to and fro over the altar. A synopsis of all

the facts and illustrations bearing on the matter are to be found in

A. Malvert's "Wissenschaft und Religion," 1904.

[293] Of course the "Acts of the Apostles" is, and remains in spite

of all modern attempts at vindication (Harnack), a very untrustworthy

historical document, and the information it gives as to Paul's life

is for the most part mere fiction. We need not go so far as Jensen,

who disputes the existence at any time of an historical Paul ("Moses,

Jesus, Paulus. Drei Sagenvarianten des babylonischen Gottmenschen

Gilgamesch," 2 Aufl., 1909), but will nevertheless not be able

to avoid the view that the description of Paul, as Bruno Bauer

has already shown, represents an original, in any case very much

worked over, and in the opinion of many only a copy of the original,

which preceded it in the portrayal of the "chief of the apostles,"

Peter (cf., on the historical value of the Acts, also E. Zeller,

"Die Apg. nach ihrem Inhalt und Ursprung kritisch untersucht," 1854).

[294] Cf. H. Jordan, "Jesus und die modernen Jesusbilder. Bibl. Zeit-

u. Streitfragen," 1909, 36.

[295] "To create authors who have never written a letter, to forge

whole series of books, to date the most recent production back into

grey antiquity, to cause the well-known philosophers to utter opinions

diametrically opposed to their real views, these and similar things

were quite common during the last century before and the first after

Christ. People cared little at that time about the author of a work, if

only its contents were in harmony with the taste and needs of the age"

(E. Zeller, "Vorträge u. Abhdlg.," 1865, 298 sq.). "It was at that time

a favourite practice to write letters for famous men. A collection

of not less than 148 letters was attributed to the tyrant Phalaris,

who ruled Agrigentum in the sixth century B.C. Beyschlag has proved

that they were ascribed to him in the time of Antoninus. Similarly the

letters attributed to Plato, to Euripides and others, are spurious. It

would have been indeed strange if this custom of the age had not gained

an influence over the growing Christian literature, for such forgery

would be produced most easily in the religious sphere, since it was

here not a question of producing particular thoughts, but of being

an organ of the common religious spirit working in the individual"

(Steck, op. cit., 384 sq.; cf. also Holtzmann, "Einl. in das N.T.,"

2 Aufl., 223 sqq.).

[296] E. Vischer, "Die Paulusbriefe, Rel. Volksb.," 1904, 69 sq.

[297] Op. cit., ix. 3 sqq.

[298] 1 Cor. xv. 5 sqq.

[299] Cf. W. Seufert, "Der Ursprung und die Bedeutung des Apostolates

in der christlichen Kirche der ersten Jahrhunderte," 1887, 46, 157.

[300] An attempt is now being made to prove the contrary, citing 2

Cor. v. 16, which runs: "Wherefore we henceforth know no man after

the flesh: even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet

now we know him so no more." The passage has been most differently

explained. According to Baur the "Christ after the flesh" refers to

the Jewish Messiah, the expected king and earthly Saviour of the Jews

from political and social distress, in whom even Paul believed at

an earlier date; and the meaning of the passage quoted is that this

sensuous and earthly conception of the Messiah had given place in him

to the spiritual conception ("Die Christuspartei in der kor. Gemeinde

Tüb. Ztschr.," 1831, 4 Heft, 90). According to Heinrici the "even

though we have known" is not a positive assertion of a point of view

which had once determined his judgment of Christ, but a hypothetical

instance, which excludes a false point of view without asserting

anything as to its actuality ("Komment," 289). According to Beyschlag

the passage is to be understood as asserting that Paul had seen Jesus

at Jerusalem during his life on earth. But with Paul there is no

talk of a mere seeing, but rather of a knowing. Lütgert disproves

all these different hypotheses with the argument that the words

"after the flesh" refer not to Christ but to the verb. "The apostle

no longer knows any one 'after the flesh,' and so he no longer knows

Jesus thus. At an earlier stage his knowledge of Christ was 'after

the flesh.' At that time he did not have the spirit of God which made

him able to see in Jesus the Son of God. Paul then is not protecting

himself from the Jews, who denied him a personal knowledge of Jesus,

but from the Pneumatics, who denied him a pneumatic knowledge of Jesus"

("Freiheitspredigt und Schwarmgeister in Korinth," 1908, 55-58).

[301] Gal. i. 11, 12; 1 Cor. ii. 10; 2 Cor. iv. 6.

[302] Gal. i. 17-19.

[303] Gal. ii. 1 sqq.

[304] Id. i. 19.

[305] Matt. xxviii. 10; Mark xiii. 33 sqq.; John xx. 17.

[306] In the opinion of the Dutch school of theologians, whom Schläger

follows in his essay, "Das Wort kürios (Herr) in Seiner Bezichung auf

Gott oder Jesus Christus" ("Theol. Tijdschrift," 33, 1899, Part I.),

this mention of the "Brother of the Lord" does not come from Paul;

as according to Schläger, all the passages in 1 Cor., which speak of

Jesus under the title "Kurios," are interpolated. "Missionary travels

of Brothers of Jesus are unknown to us from any other quarter, and

are also in themselves improbable" (op. cit., 46; cf. also Steck,

op. cit., 272 sq.).

[307] Similarly Origen, "Contra Celsum," i. 35; cf. Smith, op. cit.,

18 sq.

[308] Cf. as to this Sieffert in "Realenzyklop. f. prot. Theol. und

Kirche" under "James." In Ezr. ii. 2 and 9 there is also mention

of "Brothers" of the High Priest Joshua, by which only the priests

subordinate to him seem to be meant; and in Justin ("Dial c. Tryph.,"

106) the apostles are collectively spoken of as "Brothers of

Jesus." Similarly in Rev. xii. 17, those "who keep the word of God

and bear testimony to Jesus Christ" are spoken of as children of

the heavenly woman and also as Brothers and Sisters of the Divine

Redeemer, whom the dragon attempts to swallow up together with his

mother. As Revelation owes its origin to a pre-Christian Jesus-cult,

the designation of pious brothers of a community as physical brothers

of Jesus seems also to have been customary in that cult, antecedent

to the Pauline epistles and the Gospels.

[309] This is actually the view of the Dutch school of theologians.

[310] A. Kalthoff, "Was wissen wir von Jesus? Eine Abrechnung mit

Prof. D. Bousset," 1904, 17.

[311] 1 Cor. vii. 10.

[312] Id. ix. 14.

[313] 1 Cor. xi. 23.

[314] Cf. Brandt, "Die evangel. Geschichte u. d. Ursprung

d. Christentums," 1893, 296. Schläger also agrees with the Dutch

school, and produces telling arguments in favour of the view that

1 Cor. xi. 23-32 is an interpolation. "In our opinion," he says,

"the opening words, 'For I received of the Lord,' betray the same

attempt as can be seen in vii. 10 and ix. 14--and probably the attempt

of one and the same interpolator--to trace back Church institutions

and regulations to the authority of the Lord, of the Kurios. In the

three cases in which the latter is mentioned he is called 'the Lord,'

which is a fact well worthy of consideration in view of the usual

designation." Schläger also shows that verse 32 is a very appropriate

conclusion to verse 22; while as they stand now the logical connection

is broken in a forcible manner by the interpolation of the account of

the Last Supper. Another proof of the interpolation of 23-32 is to be

found, Schläger thinks, in the fact that in verse 33 as in verse 22

the Corinthians are addressed in the second person, while in verses

31 and 32 the first person plural is used (op. cit., 41 sq.). In

view of these notorious facts we can hardly understand how German

theologians can with such decision adhere to the authenticity of the

passage, reproaching those who contest it with "faults in method." As

against this view of theirs Schläger justly objects that "References to

words and events from the life of Jesus are so isolated in the Pauline

writings that we are entitled to and forced to raise the question as to

each such reference, whether it is not the reflection of a later age,

of an age which already placed confidence in the Gospel literature,

that brought Jesus' authority into the text" (Schläger, op. cit.,

36). And the critical theologians are convinced that the writings

of the New Testament are worked over to a great extent, rectified to

accord with the Church, and in many places interpolated. But when some

one else brings this to publicity, and dares to doubt the authenticity

of a passage, they immediately raise a great outcry, and accuse him

of wilfully misrepresenting the text; as if there were even one single

such passage on which the views of critics are not divergent!

[315] M. Brückner's opinion also is "that the Pauline account of the

scene at the Last Supper is in all probability not a purely historical

one, but is a dogmatic representation of the festival." And he adds:

"In any case just on account of its religious importance this scene

cannot be cited to prove Paul's acquaintance with the details of

Jesus' life" ("Die Entstehung der paulinischen Christologie," 1903,

44). Cf. also Robertson, "Christianity and Mythology," 388 sq.

[316] Holtzmann has, as a matter of fact, in an essay in the

"Christliche Welt" (No. 7, 1910) recently attempted to prove the

contrary, citing from Paul a number of moral exhortations, &c., which

are in accord with Jesus' words in the Gospels. But in this argument

there is a presupposition, which should surely be previously proved,

that the Gospels received their corresponding content from Jesus and

not, on the contrary, from Paul's epistles. It is admitted that they

were in many other respects influenced by Pauline ideas. Moreover,

all the moral maxims cited have their parallels in contemporary

Rabbinical literature, so that they need not necessarily be referred

back to an historical Jesus; also, such is their nature, that they

might be advanced by any one, i.e., they are mere ethical commonplaces

without any individual colouring. Thus we find the Rabbis in agreement

with Rom. xiii. 8 sq. and Gal. v. 14, which Holtzmann traces back

to Matt. vii. 12: "Bring not on thy neighbour that which displeases

thee; this is our whole doctrine." Rom. xiii. 7 has its parallel

not only in Matt. xxii. 21, but also in the Talmud, which runs:

"Every one is bound to fulfil his obligations to God with the like

exactness as those to men. Give to God his due; for all that thou hast

is from him." Rom. xii. 21 runs in the Sanhedrin: "It is better to

be persecuted than to persecute, better to be calumniated by another

than to slander." So that the remark need not necessarily be based on

Matt. v. 39; in fact, the last-named passage is not found at all in

the standard MSS., in the Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. The phrase,

"to remove mountains" (1 Cor. xiii. 2). is a general Rabbinical one

for extolling the power of a teacher's diction, and so could easily be

transferred to the power of faith. So also the phrase, Mark ix. 50,

"Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace one with another"--which

Rom. xii. 18 is supposed to resemble--is a well-known Rabbinical

expression. Matt. v. 39 sq., which is supposed to accord with 1

Cor. vi. 7, runs in the Talmud: "If any one desires thy donkey, give

him also the saddle." Matt. vii. 1-5, on which Rom. ii. 1 and xiv. 4

are supposed to be based, equally recalls the Talmud: "Who thinks

favourably of his neighbour brings it about that fair judgments are

also made of him." "Let your judgment of your neighbour be completely

good." "Even as one measures, with the same measure shall it also

be measured unto him." Rom. xiv. 13 and 1 Cor. viii. 7-13 need not

necessarily be an allusion to Jesus' tender consideration for those who

are ruined by scandal, as we find in the Talmud: "It would have been

better that the evil-minded had been born blind, so that they would not

have brought evil into the world" (cf. also Nork, "Rabbinische Quellen

und Parallelen zu neutestamentlichen Schriftstellen," 1839). And

does Paul's usual phrase of greeting, "from God our Father and the

Lord Jesus Christ," really contain the avowal of the "Father-God"

preached by Christ? For the connection of the divine Son and bearer

of salvation with the "Father-God" is a general mythological formula

which occurs in all the different religions--witness the relation

between Marduk and Ea, Heracles and Zeus, Mithras and Ormuzd, Balder

and Odin. What then does it mean when Paul speaks of the "meekness

and humility of Christ," who lived not for his own pleasure, who

made no fame for himself, but was "submissive," assumed the form of

a servant, and was "obedient" to the will of his "father," even to

the death of the cross? All these traits are reproduced directly from

the description of the suffering servant of God in Isaiah, which we

know had a great part in shaping the personality of Jesus. Meekness,

humility, charitableness, and obedience are the specific virtues of

the pious of Paul's time. It was a matter of course for Christ also,

the ideal prototype of good and pious men, to be endowed with these

characteristics. Abraham was obedient when he sacrificed his son Isaac;

and so was the latter to his father, being also submissive in himself

bringing the wood to the altar and giving himself up willingly to

the sacrificial knife. And we know what a significant rôle the story

of Isaac's sacrifice has always played in the religious ideas of the

Jews. Moreover, the heathen redeemer deities--Marduk, of the Mandaic

Hibil Ziwâ, Mithras and Heracles--were also obedient in coming down

upon earth at the bidding of their heavenly father, burst the gates

of death, and gave themselves up, in the case of Mithras, even to be

sacrificed; and Heracles served mankind in the position of a servant,

fought with the monsters and horrors of hell, and assumed the hardest

tasks at the will of others.

[317] Kalthoff, "Die Entstehung d. Christentums," 1904, 15.

[318] P. Wernle, "Die Quellen des Lebens Jesu,

Religionsgesch. Volksbücher," 2 Aufl., 4.

[319] Gunkel, op. cit., 93.

[320] Gunkel also takes the view "that before Jesus there was a belief

in Christ's death and resurrection current in Jewish syncretic circles

(op. cit., 82). Now we have already seen (p. 57) that the term "Christ"

is of very similar significance to "Jesus." So that it is not at all

necessary to believe, as Gunkel asserted in the Darmstadt discussion,

that Paul in speaking of "Jesus" testifies to an historical figure,

because Jesus is the name of a person. "Jesus Christ" is simply a

double expression for one and the same idea--that is, for the idea

of the Messiah, Saviour, Physician, and Redeemer; and it is not at

all improbable, as Smith supposes, that the contradictions in the

conception of the Messiah in two different sects or spheres of thought

found their settlement in the juxtaposition of the two names.

[321] "Not the teacher, not the miracle-worker, not the friend of

the publicans and sinners, not the opponent of the Pharisees, is of

importance for Paul. It is the crucified and risen Son of God alone"

(Wernle, op. cit., 5).

[322] "Indeed, the historical Jesus in the sense of the Ritschlian

school would have been for Paul an absurdity. The Pauline theology

has to do rather with the experiences of a heavenly being, which

have, and will yet have, extraordinary significance for humanity"

(M. Brückner, "Die Entstehung der paulinischen Christologie," 1903,

12). Brückner also considers it settled "that Jesus' life on earth

had no interest at all for Paul" (op. cit., 46). "Paul did not

trouble himself about Jesus' life on earth, and what he may here

and there have learnt concerning it, with few exceptions, remained

indifferent to him" (42). Brückner also shows that the passages which

are cited to contradict this prove nothing as to Paul's more detailed

acquaintance with Jesus' life on earth (41 sqq.). He claims "to have

given the historical demonstration" in his work "that the Christian

religion is at bottom independent of 'uncertain historical truths'"

(Preface). And in spite of this he cannot as a theologian free himself

from the conception of an historical Jesus even with regard to Paul,

though he is, nevertheless, not in a position to show where and to what

extent the historical Jesus had a really decided influence over Paul.

[323] Movers, op. cit., 438 sqq.; Fraser, "Adonis, Attis, Osiris,"

42, 43, 47, 60, 79 sq.

[324] Cumont, "Textes et monuments," &c., i. 240; Pfleiderer,

"Urchristentum," i. 29 sqq.

[325] 1 Cor. x. 16.

[326] Pfleiderer, op. cit., 45.

[327] xi. 19 sqq.

[328] Smith, op. cit., 21 sq.

[329] Cf. Zimmern, "Zum Streit um die Christusmythe," 23.

[330] "I am the A and the O, the beginning and the end," the Revelation

of John makes the Messiah say (i. 8.). Is there not at the same time

in this a concealed reference to Adonis? The Alpha and the Omega, the

first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, form together the name of

Adonis--Ao (Aoos) as the old Dorians called the God, whence Cilicia

is also called Aoa. A son of Adonis and Aphrodite (Maia) is said

("Schol. Theocr.," 15, 100) to have been called Golgos. His name is

connected with the phallic cones (Greek, golgoi), as they were erected

on heights in honour of the mother divinities of Western Asia, who were

themselves, probably on this account, called Golgoi and golgon anássa

(Queens of the Golgoi), and is the same as the Hebraic plural Golgotha

(Sepp, "Heidentum," i. 157 sq.). Finally, was the "place of skulls"

an old Jebusite place of worship of Adonis under the name of Golgos,

and was the cone of rock, on which statue of Venus was erected in the

time of Hadrian, selected for the place of execution of the Christian

Saviour because it was connected with the remembrance of the real

sacrifice of a man in the rôle of Adonis (Tammuz)?

[331] Deut. xxi. 23.

[332] We notice that already in these distinctions the germs of those

endless and absurd disputes concerning the "nature" of the God-man lie

concealed, which later, in the first century A.D., tore Christendom

into countless sects and "heresies," and which gave the occasion for

the rise of the Christian dogma.

[333] Rom. i. 3.

[334] Rom. viii. 3; 2 Cor. viii. 9; Phil. ii. 7 sq.

[335] Gal. iii. 10 sqq.; Rom. iii. 9.

[336] Rom. iii. 20, iv. 15, v. 20, vii., sqq.

[337] Gal. iii. 19 sqq.

[338] Rom. vi. 9 sq.

[339] Id. v. 14.

[340] Rom. iv. 3 sqq.

[341] Rom. vi. 3 sqq.

[342] Gal. iii. 27.

[343] Cf. above, p. 137.

[344] 1 Cor. x. 16 sqq., xi. 23-27.

[345] 1 Cor. x. 3 sqq., 16-21.

[346] Cf., e.g., Pfleiderer, op. cit., 333.

[347] Cf. above, p. 49 sqq.

[348] Plato, "Symposium," c. 22.

[349] Col. ii. 9.

[350] Op. cit., 80.

[351] Cf. my work, "Plotin und der Untergang der antiken

Weltanschauung," 1907.

[352] Gal. ii. 20; Rom. viii. 4, 26.

[353] Id. viii. 14 sqq.

[354] 2 Cor. iii. 17.

[355] Gal. v. 26.

[356] 1 Cor. ii. 9, 14; Rom. xii. 2.

[357] Op. cit., 86.

[358] Wrede, Id.

[359] Id.

[360] Op. cit., 94.

[361] Wrede, op. cit., 85.

[362] 1 Cor. xv. 17.

[363] Cf. as to the whole question my essay on "Paulus u. Jesus"

("Das Freie Wort" of December, 1909).

[364] It is true that other theologians think differently on this

point, as, e.g., Feine in his book, "Jesus Christus und Paulus"

(1902), declares that Paul had "interested himself very much in

gaining a distinct and comprehensive picture of Jesus' activity and

personality" (!) (229).

[365] Kalthoff has in his writings laid especial stress on this social

significance of Christianity. Cf. also Steudel, "Das Christentum und

die Zukunft des Protestantismus" ("Deutsche Wiedergeburt," iv., 1909,

26 sq.), and Kautsky, "Der Ursprung des Christentums," 1908.

[366] xl. 26.

[367] In the same way Vollers also, in his work on "Die Weltreligionen"

(1907), seeks to explain the faith of the original Christian sects

in Jesus' death and resurrection as a blend of the Adonis (Attis)

and Christ faiths. He regards this as the essence of that faith,

that the existing views of the Messiah and the Resurrection were

transferred to one and the same person; and shows from this of what

great importance it must be that this faith met a well-prepared

ground, in North Syria, Anatolia, and Egypt, where it naturally

spread. But he treats the Jewish Diaspora of these lands as the

natural mediator of the new preaching or "message of Salvation"

(Gospel), and finds a proof of his view in this, "that the sphere of

the greatest density of the Diaspora almost completely coincides with

those lands where the growing and rising youthful God was honoured,

and that these same districts are also the places in which we meet,

only a generation after Jesus' death, the most numerous, flourishing,

and fruitful communities of the new form of belief." It is the Eastern

Mediterranean or Levantine horse-shoe shaped line which stretches

from Ephesus and Bithynia through Anatolia to Tarsus and Antioch,

thence through Syria and Palestine by way of the cult-centres Bubastes

and Sais to Alexandria. Almost directly in the middle of these lands

lies Aphaka, where was the chief sanctuary of the "Lord" Adonis,

and a little south of this spot lies the country where the Saviour

of the Gospels was born (op. cit., 152).

[368] Cf. O. Pfleiderer, "Die Entstehung des Christentums," 1905,

109 sqq.

[369] Luke xxiv. 33, xlix. 52; Acts i. 4, 8, 12 sqq.

[370] "Religionsgesch. Erklärung d. N.T.," 261. Cf. also Joel iii. 1

and Isa. xxviii. 11, and the Buddhist account of the first sermon of

Buddha: "Gods and men streamed up to him, and all listened breathlessly

to the words of the teacher. Each of the countless listeners believed

that the wise man looked at him and spoke to him in his own language;

though it was the dialect of Magadha which he spoke." Seydel,

"Evangelium von Jesus," 248; "Buddha-Legende," 92 sq.

[371] Stephen's so-called "martyrdom," whose feast falls on December

26th, the day after the birth of Christ, owes its existence to

astrology, and rests on the constellation of Corona (Gr., Stephanos),

which becomes visible at this time on the eastern horizon (Dupuis,

op. cit., 267). Hence the well-known phrase "to inherit the martyr's

crown." Even the theologian Baur has found it strange that the Jewish

Sanhedrin, which could not carry into effect any death sentence without

the assent of the Roman governor, should completely set aside this

formality in the case of Stephen; and he has clearly shown how the

whole account of Stephen's martyrdom is paralleled with Christ's death

(Baur, "Paulus," 25 sqq.).

[372] Smith, op. cit., 23-31.

[373] Frazer, "Golden Bough," iii. 197.

[374] Smith, op. cit., 30 sq.

[375] As to the small value of Papias' statement, cf. Gfrörer, "Die

heilige Sage," 1838, i. 3-23; also Lützelberger, "Die kirchl. Tradition

über den Apostel Johannes," 76-93. The whole story, according to

which Mark received the essential content of the Gospel named after

him from Peter, is based on 1 Peter v. 13, and merely serves the

purpose of increasing the historical value of the Gospel of Mark. "As

the first Gospel was believed to be the work of the Apostle Matthew,

and the second (Luke) the work of an assistant of Paul, it was very

easy to ascribe to the third (Mark) at least a similar origin as

the second, i.e., to trace it back in an analogous way to Peter;

as it would have seemed natural for the chief of the apostles,

longest dead, to have had his own Gospel, one dedicated to him,

as well as Paul. The passage 1 Peter v. 13, "My son Mark saluteth

you," gave a suitable opportunity for bestowing a name on the book,"

(Gfrörer, op. cit., 15; cf. also Brandt, "Die evangelische Geschichte

u. d. Ursprung des Christentums," 1893, 535 sq.)

[376] Op. cit., 58.

[377] xv. 39.

[378] 60.

[379] Id.

[380] The proper explanation for this should lie in the fact that

the Jesus-faith was set up as a sect-faith and not for "outsiders."

[381] 63 sqq.

[382] 68.

[383] 70.

[384] 3.

[385] It strikes the reader, who stands apart from the controversy, as

comical to find the matter characterised in the theological works on

the subject as "undoubtedly historical," "distinct historical fact,"

"true account of history," and so forth; and to consider that what

holds for one as "historically certain" is set aside by another as

"quite certainly unhistorical." Where is the famous "method" of which

the "critical" theologians are so proud in opposition to the "laity,"

who allow themselves to form judgments as to the historical worth or

worthlessness of the Gospels?

[386] Wrede, op. cit., 91.

[387] 104.

[388] 129.

[389] 131.

[390] 148.

[391] 148.

[392] Cf. Pfleiderer, "Entstehung des Christentums," 207, 213. All

estimates as to the time at which the Gospels were produced rest

entirely on suppositions, in which points of view quite different

from that of purely historical interest generally predominate. Thus

it has been the custom on the Catholic side to pronounce, not Mark

or Luke, but Matthew, to be the oldest source. "Proofs" for this

are also given--naturally, as it is indeed the "Church" Gospel: it

contains the famous passage (xvi. 18, 19) about Peter's possession of

the keys; how, then, should this not be the oldest? And lately Harnack

("Beiträge zur Einl. in das N.T.," iii., "Die Apostelgeschichte," 1908)

has tried to prove that the Acts, with the Gospel of Luke, had been

already produced in the early part of the year 60 A.D. But he does

not dare to come to a real decision; and his reasons are opposed by

just as weighty ones which are against that "possibility" suggested

by him (op. cit., 219 sqq.). Such is, first, the fact that all the

other early Christian writings which belong to the first century,

as the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas, evidently know

nothing of them. In the Epistle of Barnabas, written about 96 A.D.,

we read that Jesus chose as his own apostles, as men who were to

proclaim his Gospel, "of all men the most evil, to show that he had

come to call, not the righteous, but sinners, to repentance" (iv.). As

to this Lützelberger very justly remarks, "That is more even than our

Gospels say. For these are content to prove that Jesus did not come for

the righteous by saying that he ate with publicans and was anointed

by women of evil life; while in this Epistle even the Apostles must

be most wicked sinners, so that grace may shine forth to them. This

passage was quite certainly written neither by an Apostle nor by a

pupil of an Apostle; and also it was not written after our Gospels,

but at a time when the learned Masters of the Church had still a

free hand to show their spirit and ingenuity in giving form to the

evangelical story" ("Die hist. Tradition," 236 sq.). But also the

so-called Epistle of Clement, which must have been written at about

the same time, is completely silent as to the Gospels, while the

"Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles," which perhaps also belongs to the

end of the first century, cites Christ's words, such as stand in the

Gospels, but not as sayings of Jesus. Moreover, according to Harnack,

the "Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles" is the Christian elaboration

of an early Jewish document; whence we may conclude that its Words

of Christ have a similar origin in Jewish thought to that from which

the Gospels obtained them. (Cf. Lützelberger, op. cit., 259-271.)

[393] 81.

[394] 71.

[395] 81 sq.

[396] Id.

[397] The laity has, as is well known, but a slight suspicion of

this. So S. E. Verus' "Vergleichende Übersicht der vier Evangelien"

(1897), with the commentary, is to be recommended.

[398] 83.

[399] 83.

[400] 85 sq.

[401] "Jesus u. d. neutestamentl. Schriftsteller," ii. 43. Let us

take the final paragraph in E. Petersen's "Die wunderbare Geburt des

Heilandes," which reaches the zenith in proving the mythical nature

of the evangelical account of the Saviour's birth: "If, not because

we wish it, but because we are forced to do so by the necessity

of History, we remove the sentence, 'Conceived of the Holy Ghost,

born of the Virgin Mary'--Jesus nevertheless remains the 'Son of

God.' He remains such because he experienced God as his father, and

because he stands at God's side for us. Also, in spite of our setting

aside the miraculous birth as unhistorical, we are quite justified in

declaring 'Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God.'" M. Brückner

speaks similarly at the close of his otherwise excellent work. "Der

sterbende und auferstehende Gottheiland." For the person to whom such

phraseology is not--futile, there is no help.

[402] Cf. "Jesus Christus," a course of lectures delivered at the

University of Freiburg i. B., 1908.

[403] Schäfer, "Die Evangelien und die Evangelienkritik," 1908,

123. The story of the Church's development in the first century is

a story of shameless literary falsifications, of rough violence in

matters of faith, of unlimited trial of the credence of the masses. So

that for those who know history the iteration of the "credibility"

of the Christian writers of the age raises at most but an ironical

smile. Cf. Robertson, "History of Christianity," 1910.

[404] Cf. Hochart, "Études au sujet de la persécution des Chrétiens

sous Néron," 1885, cp. 4.

[405] A. Kalthoff, "Das Christusproblem, Grundzüge zu einer

Sozialtheologie," 1902, 14 sq.

[406] Kalthoff, "Die Entstehung des Christentums: Neue Beiträge zum

Christusproblem," 1904, 8.

[407] If v. Soden ("Hat Jesus gelebt?" vii. 45) has proved wrong the

comparison with the Tell-legend, and thinks I have "probably once more"

forgotten that Schiller first transformed a very meagre legend, which

was bound up in a single incident, from grey antiquity into a living

picture, he can know neither Tschudi nor J. v. Müller. Cf. Hertslet,

"Der Treppenwitz der Weltgeschichte," 6 Aufl., 1905, 216 sqq.

[408] The passage runs: "At this time lived Jesus, a wise man,

if he may be called a man, for he accomplished miracles and was a

teacher of men who joyously embrace the truth, and he found a great

following among Jews and Greeks. This one was the Christ. Although at

the accusation of the leading men of our people Pilate sentenced him to

the cross, those who had first loved him remained still faithful. For

he appeared again to them on the third day, risen again to a new life,

as the prophets of God had foretold of him, with a thousand other

prophecies. After him are called the Christians, whose sect has not

come to an end."

[409] "Einl. ins N.T.," 1836, 581.

[410] "Gesch. d. jüd. Volkes," i. 548.

[411] Origen, though he collected all Josephus' assertions which

could serve as support to the Christian religion, does not know

the passage, but probably another, in which the destruction of

Jerusalem was represented as a punishment for James' execution,

which is certainly a forgery.

[412] Cf. Kalthoff, "Entstehung d. Chr.," 16 sq. As to the whole

matter, Schürer, op. cit., 544-549.

[413] V. Soden proves the contrary in his work, "Hat Jesus

gelebt?" (1910), "in order to show the reliability of Drew's

assertions," from Clement's letter of 96 A.D., from Dionysius of

Corinth (about 170) from Tertullion and Eusebius (early fourth century,

not third, as v. Soden writes); and wishes to persuade his readers

that the persecution under Nero is testified to. The authenticity

of the letter of Clement is, however, quite uncertain, and has been

most actively combated, from its first publication in 1633 till

the present day, by investigators of repute, such as Semler, Baur,

Schwegler, Volkmar, Keim, &c. But as for the above-cited authors,

the unimportance of their assertions on the point is so strikingly

exhibited by Hochart that we have no right to call them up as witnesses

for the authenticity of the passage of Tacitus.

[414] Cf. Hochart, op. cit., 280 sqq.; H. Schiller,

"Gesch. d. röm. Kaiserzeit," 447, note.

[415] "Consulting the archives has been but little customary

among ancient historians; and Tacitus has bestowed but little

consideration on the Acta Diurna and the protocols of the Senate"

("Handb. d. klass. Altertumsw.," viii., 2 Abt., Aft. 2, under

"Tacitus"). Moreover, the difficulties of the passage from Tacitus have

been fully realised by German historians (H. Schiller, op. cit., 449;

"De. Gesch. d. röm. Kaiserreiches unter der Regierung des Nero," 1872,

434 sqq., 583 sq.), even if they do not generally go as far as to say

that the passage is completely unauthentic, as Volney did at the end

of the eighteenth century ("Ruinen," Reclam, 276). Cf. also Arnold,

"Die neronische Christenverfolgung. Eine historiche Untersuchung zur

Geschichte d. ältesten Kirche," 1888. The author does indeed adhere

to the authenticity of the passage in Tacitus, but as a matter of

fact he presupposes it rather than attempts to prove it; while in

many isolated reflections he gives an opinion against the correctness

of the account given by Tacitus, and busies himself principally in

disproving false inferences connected with that passage, such as the

connection of the Neronic persecution with the Book of Revelation. The

conceivable possibility that the persecution actually took place,

but that at all events the sentence of Tacitus may be a Christian

interpolation, Arnold seems never to have considered.

[416] Op. cit., 227.

[417] Kalthoff, "Christusproblem," 17.

[418] Weinel, "Jesus im 19 Jahrhundert," 1907, 68.

[419] "Babylonisches im Neuen Testament," 109 sq.

[420] "Zerduscht Nameh," ch. xxvi.

[421] Gfrörer, "Jahrhundert des Heils," Part II., 380 sqq.

[422] Luke iii. 23.

[423] Numb. iv. 3.

[424] Matt. xxi. 12 sqq.

[425] Zech. xiv. 21 runs in the Targum translation: "Every vessel

in Jerusalem will be consecrated to the Lord, &c., and at that time

there will no longer be shopkeepers in the House of the Lord." In

this there may have been a further inducement for the Evangelists to

state that Jesus chases the tradesmen from the Temple.

[426] 2 Sam. xvii. 23; cf. also Zech. xi. 12 sq.; Psa. xli. 10.

[427] Gfrörer, "Jahr. d. Heils," ii. 318 sqq.

[428] Cf. 1 Cor. x. 1 sq.

[429] 2 Kings iv. 19 sqq.

[430] Numb. i. 44; Jos. iii. 12; iv. 1 sqq. Cf. "Petrus-legende,"

51 sq.

[431] Cf. p. 127, note.

[432] Josephus, "Antiq.," iv. 8, 48; Philo, "Vita Mos.," iii.

[433] 2 Kings ii. 11.

[434] E.g. also the account of the arrest of Jesus (Matt. xxvi. 51

sqq.) cf. 2 Kings vi. 10-22.

[435] Matt. ix. 11 sq., xii. 8 sq., xv. 1 sqq., 11 and 20, xxviii. 18.

[436] Psa. cxlvi. 7.

[437] Bereshith Rabba zu Gen. xli. 1.

[438] Cf. esp. Acts xi. 2 sqq.

[439] Matt. v. 17 sqq.

[440] Id. viii. 11 sqq., x. 5, xxiii. 34 sqq., xxviii. 19 sqq.

[441] Cf. Lützelberger, "Jesus, was er war und wollte," 1842, 16 sqq.

[442] Cf. above, 59 sqq.

[443] It is given as a reason for his appearing first in Galilee

that the Galileans were first led into exile, and so should first

be comforted, as all divine action conforms to the law of requital

(Gfrörer, "Jahr. d. Heils," 230 sq. Cf. also Isa. viii. 23).

[444] Cf. above, 173 sq.

[445] See above, 171.

[446] Exod. xvi. 17 sqq.; Numb. xxi. 1 sqq.; Exod. vii. 17 sqq. 1

Kings xvii. 5 sqq.

[447] "Hist.," iv. 81.

[448] "Vespasian," vii.

[449] lxvi. 8.

[450] Isa. 1. 6 sq.

[451] Zech. xii 10.

[452] Cf. "Petruslegende," 24.

[453] Gen. xxvi. 6; cf. also Tertullian, "Adv. Jud.," 10.

[454] Cf. for this Brandt, "Die Evangelische Geschichte," esp. 53

sqq. Even such a cautious investigator as Gfrörer confesses that,

after his searching examination of the historical content of the

Synoptics, he is obliged to close "with the sad admission" that their

testimony does not give sufficient assurance to enable us to pronounce

anything they contain to be true, so far as they are concerned, with a

good historical conscience. "In this it is by no means asserted that

many may not think their views correct, but only that we cannot rely

on them sufficiently to rest a technically correct proof on them

alone. They tell us too many things which are purely legendary,

and too many others which are at least suspicious, for a prudent

historian to feel justified in a construction based on their word

alone. This admission may be disagreeable--it is also unpleasant to

me--but it is genuine, and it is demanded by the rules which hold

everywhere before a good tribunal, and in the sphere of history"

("Die hl. Sage," 1838, ii. 243).

[455] This is the case with the corresponding account in Mark,

while in Luke the dramatic presentation seems to be more worked

away, and the coherence, through the introduction of descriptions

and episodes (disciples at Emmaus) bears more the character of

a simple narrative. Cf. Robertson, "Pagan Christs," 186 sqq.; "A

Short History," 87 sqq. The fact that in almost all representations

of this kind both the scene at Gethsemane and the words spoken by

Jesus usually serve as signs of his personality (e.g. also Bousset's

"Jesus"--Rel. Volksb., 1904, 56), shows what we must think of the

historical value of the accounts of the life of Jesus; especially when

we consider that certainly no listeners were there, and Jesus cannot

himself have told his experience to his disciples, as the arrest is

supposed to have taken place on the spot.

[456] "Messiasgeheimnis," 143.

[457] Gen. xxiv.

[458] E. v. Hartmann, "Das Christentum des Neuen Testaments," 1905, 22.

[459] Op. cit.

[460] Cf. H. Jordan, "Jesus und die modernen Jesusbilder, Bibl. Zeit-

u. Streitfragen," 1909, 38.

[461] Mark vi. 1 sq.

[462] Mark xiii. 32.

[463] Mark iii. 20.

[464] 1 Kings xix.; cf. also Isa. xlii. 4.

[465] Cf. Brandt, op. cit., 553 sq.

[466] Hertlein treats of these Bases of Schmiedel in the

"Prot. Monatsheften," 1906, 386 sq.; cf. also Schmiedel's reply.

[467] Op. cit., 141.

[468] Bousset agrees with this in his work "Was wissen wir von

Jesus?" (1901). "Jesus' speeches are for the most part creations of

the communities, placed together by the community from isolated words

of Jesus." "In this, apart from all the rest, there was a powerful

and decided alteration of the speeches" (47 sqq.).

[469] Cf. Robertson, "Christianity and Mythology," 424 sqq., 429.

[470] Op. cit., 43.

[471] "Protest. Monatshefte," 1903, Märzheft.

[472] Op. cit., 161 sq.

[473] Matt. xviii. 15 sqq.

[474] Id. xxix. 3 sqq.

[475] Cf. Pfleiderer, "Urchristentum," i. 447 sq.; van den Bergh van

Eysinga, op. cit., 57 sqq.

[476] Smith, op. cit., 107 sqq.

[477] Cf. Nork, "Rabbinische Quellen und Parallelen zu

neutestamentlichen Schriftstellen," 1839.

[478] Cf. Robertson, "Christianity and Mythology," 440-457.

[479] Cf. v. Hartmann, op. cit., 131-143. It will always be a telling

argument against the historical nature of the sayings of Jesus that

Paul seems to know nothing of them, that he never refers to them

exactly; and that even up to the beginning of the second century,

with the exception of a few remarks in Clement and Polycarp, the

Apostles and Fathers in all their admonitions, consolations, and

reprimands, never make use of Jesus' sayings to give greater force

to their own words.

[480] V. Hartmann, op. cit., 44 sq.

[481] Let us hear what Clemen says against this: "In its reduction of

the Law to the Commandment of love, though this was already prominent

in the Old Testament [!] and even earlier had here and there [!] been

characterised as the chief Commandment, Christianity is completely

original [!]. And for Jesus the subordination of religious duties

to moral was consequent on this, though in this respect he would

have been equally influenced by the prophets of the Old Testament"

(op. cit., 135 sq.).

[482] "We must (as regards the moral ideals of Jesus) pay just as

much attention to what he does not treat of, to what he set aside,

as to what he clung to, indeed, setting it in opposition to all the

rest. At least this wonderfully sure selection is Jesus' own. We may

produce analogies for each individual thing, but the whole is unique

and cannot be invented" (v. Soden, op. cit., 51 sq.). This method,

practised by liberal theology, of extolling their Jesus as against all

other mortals, and of raising him up to a "uniqueness" in the absolute

sense, can make indeed but a small impression on the impartial.

[483] Wrede, "Paulus," 91.

[484] We admit that besides the eschatological grounding of his

moral demands, Jesus also makes use occasionally of expressions that

pass beyond the idea of reward. But they are quite isolated--as,

e.g., Matt. v. 48, "Be ye perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is

perfect," a phrase which is, moreover, in accord with Lev. xi. 44

and xix. 3--and without any fundamental significance. In general,

and in particular even in the Sermon on the Mount, that "Diamond in

the Crown of Jesus' ethics," the idea of reward and punishment is

prevalent (Matt. v. 12 and 46; vi. 1, 4, 6, 14, 18; v. 20; vi. 15;

vii. 1, &c.). Views may still differ widely as to whether it is

historically correct to estimate, as Weinel would like to, Jesus'

ethics in this connection really by the few sayings which go beyond

that idea. (Cf. v. Hartmann, op. cit., 116-124.) The favourite

declaration, however, is quite unhistorical, that Jesus was the

first who introduced into the world the principle of active love;

and that the Stoics, as Weinel represents, only taught the doing away

with all our passions, even that of love; or indeed that Jesus, who

wished salvation only to benefit the Jews, who forbade his people

to walk in the ways of the Gentiles, and who hesitated to comply

with the Canaanite woman's prayer, "raised to the highest degree of

sincerity" the "altruistic ideal," and that in principle he broke down

the boundaries between peoples and creeds with his "Love thy enemy,"

(Weinel, op. cit., 55, 57). As against this cf. the following passage

from Seneca: "Everything which we must do and avoid may be reduced to

this short formula of human obligation: We are members of a mighty

body. Nature has made us kindred, having produced us from the same

stuff and for the same ends. She has implanted in us a mutual love,

and has arranged it socially. She has founded right and equity. Because

of her commands to do evil is worse than to suffer evil. Hands ready

to aid are raised at her call. Let that verse be in our mouths and our

hearts: I am a man, nothing human do I despise! Human life consists

in well-doing and striving. It will be cemented into a society of

general aid not by fear but by mutual love. What is the rightly

constituted, good and high-minded soul, but a God living as a guest

in a human body? Such a soul may appear just as well in a knight as

in a freedman or in a slave. We can soar upwards to heaven from any

corner. Make this your rule, to treat the lower classes even as you

would wish the higher to treat you. Even if we are slaves, we may yet

be free in spirit. The slaves are men, inferior relatives, friends;

indeed, our fellow-slaves in a like submission to the tyranny of

fate. A friendship based on virtue exists between the good man and

God, yes, more than a friendship, a kinship and likeness; for the

good man is really his pupil, imitator, and scion, differing from

God only because of the continuance of time. Him the majestic father

brings up, a little severely, as is the strict father's wont. God

cherishes a fatherly affection towards the good man, and loves him

dearly. If you wish to imitate the gods, give also to the ungrateful;

for the sun rises even on the ungodly and the seas lie open even to the

pirate, the wind blows not only in favour of the good, and the rain

falls even on the fields of the unjust. If you wish to have the gods

well-disposed towards you, be good: he has enough, who honours and who

imitates them." Cf. also Epictetus: "Dare, raising your eyes to God,

to say, Henceforth make use of me to what end thou wilt! I assent,

I am thine, I draw back from nothing which thy will intends. Lead

me whithersoever thou wilt! For I hold God's will to be better than

mine." (Cf. also Matt. xxvi. 39.)

[485] Kautsky, "Ursprung des Christentums," 17.

[486] Op. cit., 3.

[487] "How is it conceivable," even Pfleiderer asks, "that the new

community should have fashioned itself from the chaos of material

without some definite fact, some foundation-giving event which could

form the nucleus for the genesis of the new ideas? Everywhere in the

case of a new historical development the powers and impulses which are

present in the crowd are first directed to a definite end and fastened

into an organism that can survive by the purpose-giving action of

heroic personalities. And so the impulse for the formation of the

Christian community must have come from some definite point, which,

from the testimony of the Apostle Paul and of the earliest Gospels, we

can only find in the life and death of Jesus" ("Entstehung des Chr.,"

11). But that the "testimony" for an historical Jesus is not testimony,

and that the "definite fact," the "foundation-giving event," is to

be looked for, if anywhere, in Paul himself and nowhere else--such

is the central point of all this analysis.

[488] Op. cit., 61 sq.

[489] "Von Reimarus bis Wrede," 396.

[490] ii. 44.

[491] "Gesch. Israels," ii. 1 sqq.

[492] Holtzmann, "Zum Thema 'Jesus und Paulus'" ("Prot. Monatsheft,"

iv., 1900, 465).

[493] Parerga, ii. 180.

[494] Neutest. Theol. ii. 4. Cf. R. H. Grützmacher: "Ist das liberale

Christusbild modern? Bibl. Zeit- und Streitfragen," 39 sq.

[495] Pfleiderer, "Entstehung d. Chr.," 108 sqq.

[496] Cf. Stendel, op. cit., 22.

[497] "Von Reimarus bis Wrede," 313.

[498] Gal. i. 24.

[499] 1 Cor. ii. 1; 2 Cor. xix. 9.

[500] Acts i. 3, x. 41.

[501] Acts i. 21 sq.

[502] Seufert, "Der Ursprung und die Bedeutung des Apostolates in der

christlichen Kirche der ersten Jahrhunderte," 1887, 143. Cf. also my

"Petruslegende," in which the unhistorical nature of the disciples

and apostles is shown, 50 sqq.

[503] Op. cit., 42.

[504] Cf. my work "Die Petruslegende."

[505] Cf. Hausrath, "Jesus und die neutestamentl. Schriftsteller,"

ii. 203 sqq.

[506] "Entstehung d. Chr.," 239.

[507] Cf. above, p. 31. sqq.

[508] Cf. Arnold Meyer, "Was uns Jesus heute ist. Rel. Volksb.,"

1907--a very impressive presentation of the liberal Protestant point

of view; also Weinel, "Jesus im 19ten Jahrhundert."

[509] "Entstehung d. Chr.," 98 sq.

[510] Weinel, indeed, resolutely denies that this is a real

characteristic of liberal Protestantism, and asserts that he has

looked for it in vain in any liberal theologian's book. But he need

only look in A. Meyer's work, which is cited by me, to find my idea

confirmed. There it is said of Jesus inter alia: "Not only should we

move and live in his love, but we are as he was, of the faith that

this love will overcome the world, that it is the meaning, end,

and true content of the world; that the power which uniformly and

omnipotently fills and guides the world, is nothing but the God in

whom he believed [was Jesus then a Pantheist?], and whom he calls

his heavenly father. As he believed, so let us also, that whoever

trusts in this God and lives in his love has found the meaning of

life and the power which preserves him in time and in eternity. Jesus

was the founder of our religion, of our faith, and of our inner

life" (31). According to Meyer, Jesus attracts us by his manner,

his Being, his love and his faith, we feel ourselves bound to him,

become kin with him and so live by his strength; he is called "the

voice of God to us," "our redeemer," and so forth. Those are simply

expressions which applied to God have at least a valid meaning,

but applied to the historical man Jesus are nothing but phrases,

and are to be explained purely psychologically from the fact that

liberalism in honouring the "unique" man Jesus does nevertheless

unwittingly allow the belief in his divinity to come into play. In

this atmosphere, obscured with phrases, the so-called "theology"

of liberal Protestantism moves. Moreover, Weinel himself quotes a

sentence of Herrmann with approval, which also gives expression

to the idea that Jesus is for Protestant liberalism a kind of

"demonstration of God" (80), and he adds himself: "It may indeed

be that our conception of the significance of Jesus has often been

expressed unskilfully enough. It may be that in discourses, lectures,

or other popular ways of speaking something is at times said which

may be so clumsily put as to give occasion for such things to be

said." Indeed, he himself maintains regarding Jesus: "Whoever places

the ideal of his life in him, he experiences God in him" (84). He

also finds that the desire for God of the Jews, Greeks, Semites,

and Germans "could be stilled in him." Taking into account these

expressions and the whole tone which it pleases Herr Weinel to adopt

towards the opponents of his standpoint, it appears time to remind him

once again of E. v. Hartmann's "Die Selbstzersetzung des Christentums"

(it is obvious he has only a third-hand acquaintance with the author

whose point of view he calls Neo-Buddhism, counting him among the

supporters of the morality of pity!) and especially of the chapter on

"Die Irreligiosität des liberalen Protestantismus." Here, in connection

with the lack of metaphysics displayed by liberal Protestantism (and

admitted even by Weinel) and the latter's principle of love, he says:

"If we transform the whole of religion into Ethics and soften down the

whole of Ethics into love, we thereby renounce everything that is in

religion besides love, and everything which makes love religious. We

thereby confess that the impulse of love is raised into religion

since religion properly so called has been lost. It is true religion

is not a shark, as the inquisitors thought, but at the same time it is

not a sea-nettle. A shark can at least be terrifying, a sea-nettle is

always feeble." Liberal Protestantism, as Hartmann sums it up, consists

"of a shapeless, poor, shallow metaphysic, which is concealed as far

as possible from critical eyes; of a worship successfully freed from

all mystery, but one that has become thereby by no means incapable of

being objected to; of an Ethics forcibly separated from Metaphysics

and on that account irreligious. It rests upon a view of the world

which by its worldliness and optimistic contentment with the world

is by no means in a position to give birth to a religion, and which

sooner or later will allow the remnants of religious feeling which

it brought with it to be smothered in worldly ease."

[511] Op. cit., 39.

[512] Cf. E. v. Hartmann, "Die Selbstzersetzung des Christentums und

die Religion der Zukunft," 2nd ed., 1874, especially chaps. vi. and

vii.

[513] Cf. W. v. Schnehen, "Der moderne Jesuskultus," 2nd ed., 1906;

also "Naumann vor dem Bankerott des Christentums," 1907.

[514] Cf. my work, "Die Religion als Selbstbewusstsein Gottes," 1906,

199 sq.

[515] Cf. my work, "Die Religion als Selbstbewusstsein Gottes," in

which the attempt has been made to form a general religious view of

the world in the sense mentioned.

[516] Cf. "Der Monismus, dargestellt in Beiträgen seiner Vertreter,"

2 vols., 1908.