_“For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made
alive.”..._
_“And so it is written, the first Adam was made a living soul, the last
Adam was made a quickening spirit.”—1 Cob. 15: 22-45._
THE claim of sacerdotalism is substantially as follows: Adam was the
first man and the sole progenitor of the entire human race. When he
fell, all his progeny “sinned in him and fell with him in the first
transgression.” Death was first introduced in the world by Adam’s sin,
and life is restored by Christ. Adam and Christ are the two great
representatives of death and life, of the fell and the restoration. The
Creator permitted this great calamity to happen, having purposed from
all eternity to redeem this degenerate race, or at least a portion of
it, from the terrible curse caused by Adam’s sin. In due time he did
incarnate himself, became man, human flesh and blood, by impregnating,
or “overshadowing,” a Jewish virgin, and so was born, by ordinary
generation, a human babe in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, who was
called the Christ. After about thirty years this human-born God died to
make it possible to restore our race to its original moral status. This
is called the “redemptive scheme,” and is the sum and substance of
Christianity, and is fully set forth in what is very improperly called
the “Apostles’ Creed,” which is publicly recited in thousands of
churches every Sunday as an epitome of their belief.
The story of this one first man, who sinned by eating an apple from a
certain forbidden tree, has been proved to be a _fable, a myth, an
allegory_. The legend may shadow forth certain natural truths, but it is
nevertheless a myth. The thing never occurred. The alleged facts are not
facts. There was no first Adam. There may have been some one whom
certain persons called the last Adam, but it is nevertheless true that
what is said of him was founded upon an _unreality_—a thing which never
happened. According to biblical chronology, the last Adam did not make
his advent until about four thousand years after the first Adam fell,
Even this seems to have been a long period to wait, but if we accept the
interpretation of certain modern writers, that which is called “the
beginning” in Genesis may have been forty thousand or four hundred
thousand years before the advent of Jesus. True, this would show certain
events to have been a very long way apart (for instance, the creation of
Eve after that of Adam) and would make the work of Christ in the
“redemptive act” occur ages and ages after the mischief was done.
It is contended that the promise of the sending of a Saviour was made
the very day that the first Adam sinned, and that the salvation of the
sinner was conditioned upon man’s faith in, and acceptance of, the
promise that in due time, not mentioned, the last Adam should come and
repair all the mischief which the first Adam had caused. It is claimed
by sacerdotalists that the saying in Genesis 3: 15 is the first promise
of a Redeemer: “And I will put enmity between thee [the serpent] and
the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head
and thou shalt bruise his heel.” But these very words occur in the
pagan fables that were written long before the time that I Genesis was
written, and in some of these fables, much more consistently with the
passage above quoted, the woman is represented as standing with her heel
on the serpent’s head. Then it is claimed that the Creator accepted the
sacrifice of Abel because it was a _bloody_ sacrifice, prefiguring the
shedding of the _blood_ of
Christ, and that he rejected the offering of Cain because there was no
_blood_ in it. We have looked in vain through the Old-Testament
Scriptures for a promise of the _last_ Adam who was to come and redeem
man, but have failed to find it. A system of “redemption” that is based
on expressions so enigmatical must have a very flimsy foundation upon
which to stand. It is like the assumption that women generally have an
aversion to reptiles because a serpent tempted Eve and brought so many
curses on the sex. To such miserable subterfuges will sacerdotalists
resort to maintain a theory.
One of the first points emphasized in connection with the advent of
Jesus is the claim that it was _in exact fulfilment of Hebrew
prophecy_. Certain orthodox Christian writers claim that there are _two
hundred_ prophecies in the Old Testament relating to Jesus, while
certain other eminent German and English Christian scholars deny that
there is even one prophecy which does not admit of another and a more
rational explanation. The quotations from Old-Testament prophecies in
the Gospels are, to say the least, unfortunate, and rather suggest the
hypothesis that certain things, if done at all, were done to make the
history fit the prediction.
Learned Bible critics contend that there is not to be found a single
example of such redemptive prophecy, even though the theory of the
double sense of prophecy be admitted. These predictions or hopes were
intended to apply to eminent characters in Hebrew history as
_deliverers_, and can only be applied to Jesus by a _forced and
unnatural_ construction; and, though Cyrus and others appeared, the
expectations of the Jews have not yet been realized, and some of them
are still awaiting _their_ Messiah, spurning the idea that the
predictions of their prophets were fulfilled in the humble Man of
Nazareth.
One or two examples of so-called Messianic prophecies must suffice.
Matthew (27: 9) says the prophecy of “Jeremy the prophet” regarding the
thirty pieces of silver was fulfilled in the betrayal of Jesus; whereas
no such prophecy is found in Jeremiah, and, though similar words occur
in Zechariah, they have another obvious application. Then in Matthew
(chap. 2) Hosea is quoted to prove that Jesus dwelt in Egypt to fulfil
a prophecy, whereas it is evident (Hos. 11:1) that it was of Israel, not
Jesus, that those words were spoken. Again, in Matt. 22:41 the quotation
from the Psalms is obviously misapplied—“The Lord said unto my lord,”
etc.—as it was not written by David, but Nathan addressed it to David.
It was the poet that called David _lord_, which spoils the prophecy and
ruins the argument of the evangelist. Many things recorded in the New
Testament are unwittingly admitted to have been done to fulfil a
supposed prophecy—“that it might be fulfilled.” There is one very
amusing example of an attempt to fulfil an alleged prophecy—that of
Jesus dwelling in Nazareth, because it had been prophesied that he
should be called a Naz-arene, no such prophecy ever having been uttered.
The Indian Yedas are full of alleged prophecies relating to coming
incarnations, and so are the Chinese sacred books. Even Zoroaster, who
lived 570 years b. c., prophesied; “A virgin shall conceive and bear a
son, and a star shall appear blazing at midday to announce his
appearance. When you behold the star (said he), follow it whithersoever
it leads you. Adore the mysterious child, offering him gifts with
profound humility. He is indeed the Almighty Word which created the
heavens. He is indeed your Lord and everlasting King” (_History of
Idolatry_, Faber, vol. ii. p. 92). It was believed that this prophecy
was fulfilled by the advent of the Persian god _Sosia_. It was common
among the ancients to presage the birth of a god by the appearance of a
mysterious star, and for astronomers to hasten to adore the new-born
deity and present him gifts. Greece, Rome, Arabia, and even Mexico, were
all familiar with _Messianic_ prophecies. Bishop Hawes says that “the
idea that God should in some extraordinary manner visit and dwell with
men is found in a thousand forms among ancient heathens.”
The fact is, there is no promise or prophecy of a “last Adam” in the
Hebrew Scriptures. The Jews give a very different interpretation to
those utterances alleged to be Messianic, and the alleged types of Jesus
in the Old Testament are purely fanciful, and many of them are
exceedingly childish. The idea that Solomon and Moses and the scapegoat
were _types_ of Jesus is simply absurd, and not creditable to the
alleged antetype. There is no Jesus of Nazareth in the Hebrew oracles.
The bloody sacrifices of the Old Testament were antedated by heathen
nations centuries before the Jews. The sacrificing of brute beasts was
heathenism pure and simple, to conciliate an imaginary anthropomorphic
god. Twenty generations of innocent animals slaughtered by divine
command in order to notify the world beforehand of the coming of the
last Adam, yet never saying so, seem to have failed to prepare the
people for the alleged spiritual sacrifice of Jesus. It was a signal
failure. If these bloody offerings were types of Jesus, there must have
been some resemblance. Wherein did it lie? A bullock was forced to the
altar; he died like any beast at the shambles. It made the sanctuary a
slaughter-house. The involuntary offering of an innocent lamb or pigeon
cannot be a type of a willing offering of a human being. The whole
scheme of bloody animal sacrifices is a type of nothing but the cruelty
of barbarism, and meant a good dinner and fat priests! It is generally
condemned by the Hebrew prophets as useless, and was entirely rejected
by those who “professed and called themselves Christians.”
Since we can learn absolutely nothing that is rationally reliable
concerning the “last Adam” from the Old Testament, it becomes necessary
for us to consult comparatively modern history. The advent of Jesus was
made, if made at all within the historic period, scarcely nineteen
hundred years ago. If such a person appeared among men at that time,
there must be some written record of so wonderful an event by
contemporary parties.
In the Jewish Talmud, a perfect wilderness of religious and secular
speculations, we find many spiteful and distorted allusions to one Jesus
who went into Egypt and learned sorcery and magic, and by such influence
raised a tumult among the people and led away a party of deluded
followers. Whether this was Jesus of Nazareth it is impossible to say.
There were many persons bearing similar names.
There is at the present day much ignorance—or at least indifference—even
among intelligent Christians, to the fact that the very name of Jesus is
not of Hebrew, but of Greek origin, as indeed is the whole history of
his life as related in the four Gospels; and no one but those who have a
previous theory to uphold can believe that the people of Jerusalem
during the time of Christ spoke any other language than that spoken by
their forefathers. From this we will pass to other instances where the
name of Jesus is applied to others not named in the Gospels; and it will
be a matter of surprise to many to know that no less than fifteen, most
of them living at the time of the Christian era, are named by the Jewish
historian Josephus as bearing the name of Jesus:
1. Jesus, son of Josedek (Ant., xi. iii. 10, iv. 1).
2. Jesus, sumamed Jason, son of Simon (Ant., xi. iii. 10, iv. 1).
3. Jesus, son of Phabet (Ant., xv. ix. 3).
4. Jesus, son of Sie (Ant., xvii. xiii. 1).
5. Jesus, son of Damneus (Ant., xx. ix. 1).
6. Jesus, son of Gamaliel (Ant., xx. ix. 4).
7. Jesus, son of Sapphias ( Wars, ii. xx. 4).
8. Jesus, son of Shaphat ( Wars, iii. ix. 7).
9. Jesus, son of Ananus ( Wars, iv. iv. 9).
10. Jesus, son of Ananus, a plebeian ( Wars, vi. v. 3).
11. Jesus, son of Gamala (Life, 38, 41).
12. Jesus, a high priest ( Wars, vi. ii. 2).
13. Jesus, son of Thebuthi ( Wars, vi. viii. 3).
14. Jesus, father of Elymas.
15. Jesus, surnamed Barabbas.
Josephus also refers to one Judas, a Gaulonite, who was a leader of the
people, and whose character and career answer in so many respects to
qualities credited to Jesus of Nazareth that it is supposed by many that
the name Jesus had been changed to Judas; and he also refers to other
Jesuses who are too much like the traditional Jesus of the Gospels in
many things to be mere coincidences. Then there was the _meek_ Jesus,
mentioned by Josephus, who lived during the reign of Albinus, who
prophesied such evil things, and who was scourged until his bones were
laid bare, and who uttered no reply, and in so many ways was like the
Jesus of tradition ( _Wars of the Jews_, book vi., chap. 5). Then we
have the mention of the Jesus, as is well known, who was the friend of
Simon and John and the “son of Sapphias,” who was the leader of a
seditious tumult, _who was betrayed by one of his followers_, and
defeated by Josephus himself when he was governor of Galilee, and put to
shame and confusion (_Life of Josephus_, sec. 12-14).
This undoubtedly shows that nearly all that is claimed for Jesus of
Nazareth _might_ have been said as the substance of what was written by
Josephus concerning real historical persons called Jesus. This may
account for the conglomerate character and the many inconsistencies
ascribed to this Jesus of tradition.
The failure of Jewish writers of the first century to recognize Jesus of
Nazareth, even in the most casual way, is a significant fact. Philo, the
celebrated writer of his day, was born about twenty years before the
Christian era, and spent his time in philosophical studies at that
centre of learning, Alexandria in Egypt. He labored diligently and wrote
voluminously to reconcile the teachings of Plato with the writings of
the Old Testament, and, though in the prime and vigor of manhood when
Jesus is said to have lived, and dwelling in the immediate vicinity of
Judea, and in the very city where Christianity was early introduced, yet
this learned, devout, and honest Jew makes no mention of Jesus of
Nazareth.
Even more strange is the silence of Josephus, the Jewish historian, who
was born about A. d. 35, and lived and wrote extensively until after the
destruction of Jerusalem, and yet he never mentioned the name of Jesus.
The celebrated passage regarding Christ is known to be a forgery, and
the one respecting “James the brother of Jesus, called the Christ,” is
by no means worthy of confidence. It must be certain that in the first
century of our era Jesus of Nazareth did not attract the attention of
these fair and distinguished Jewish writers, if he in fact existed.
In early times the name Jesus, as has been shown, was as common as the
names John or James, and when the name is mentioned it is impossible to
say who is referred to. The passage in Josephus referring to Jesus thus,
“About this time appeared Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it be right to
call him a man,” etc., is acknowledged by celebrated Christian writers
to be a fraud. Its authenticity was given up as long ago as the time of
Dr. Nathaniel Lardner, author of the _Credibility of the Gospel
History_, and one of the most highly regarded of Christian writers.
Gibbon, too, decided it to be a forgery. Bishop Warburton, the
distinguished defender of Pope’s _Essay on Man_ against the charge of
atheism, and one of the most distinguished of Christian defenders,
agreed with Lardner. The Rev. Robert Taylor quotes many other Christian
writers as coinciding. The biographer of Josephus in the _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_ says the passage is unanimously regarded as spurious. Drs.
Oort, Hookyaas, and Xuenen, German Christian writers of great repute, in
the _Bible for Learners_ declare the passage to be “certainly spurious”
and “inserted by a later and a Christian hand.”
Gibbon says it was forged between the time of Origen (a. d. 230) and
Eusebius (a. d. 315). The credit of the forgery, however, is generally
given to Eusebius, who first quoted it. The distinguished authors of the
_Bible for Learners_ distinctly state that Josephus never mentioned
Jesus, and cite Josephus’s close following of the atrocious career of
Herod up to the very last moments of his life, without mentioning the
slaughter of the innocents, as indubitable proof that Josephus knew
nothing of Jesus. Dr. Lardner gives these reasons why he regards the
passage as a forgery:
“I do not perceive that we at all want the suspected testimony to Jesus,
which was never quoted by any of our Christian ancestors before
Eusebius.
“Nor do I recollect that Josephus has anywhere mentioned the name or
word _Christ_ in any of his works, except the testimony above mentioned
and the passage concerning James, the Lord’s brother.
“It interrupts the narrative.
“The language is quite Christian.
“It is not quoted by Chrysostom, though he often refers to Josephus, and
could not have omitted quoting it had it been in the text.
“It is not quoted by Photius, though he has three articles concerning
Josephus.
“Under the article ‘Justus of Tiberias, this author (Photius) expressly
states that the historian (Josephus), being a Jew, has not taken the
least notice of Christ.
“Neither Justin in his dialogue with Trypho the Jew, nor Clemens
Alexandrinus, who made so many extracts from Christian authors, nor
Origen against Celsus, have ever mentioned this testimony.
“But, on the contrary, in chapter xxxv. of the first book of that work,
Origen openly affirms that Josephus, who had mentioned John the Baptist,
did not acknowledge Christ.”
The Rev. Dr. Giles, author of the _Christian Records_, adds to the
reasons for rejecting the passage, as follows:
“Those who are best acquainted with the character of Josephus and the
style of his writings have no hesitation in condemning this passage as a
forgery interpolated in the text during the third century by some pious
Christian, who was scandalized that so famous a writer as Josephus
should have taken no notice of the Gospels or of Christ their subject.
But the zeal of the interpolator has outrun his discretion, for we might
as well expect to gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles as to
find this notice of Christ among the Judaizing writings of Josephus. It
is well known that this author was a zealous Jew, devoted to the laws of
Moses and the traditions of his countrymen. How, then, could he have
written that _Jesus was the Christ?_ Such an admission would have proved
him to be a Christian himself, in which case the passage under
consideration, too long for a Jew, would have been far too short for a
believer in the new religion; and thus the passage stands forth, like an
ill-set jewel, contrasting most inharmoniously with everything around
it. If it had been genuine, we might be sure that Justin Martyr,
Tertullian, and Chrysostom would have quoted it in their controversies
with the Jews, and that Origen or Photius would have mentioned it. But
Eusebius, the ecclesiastical historian (i. 11), is the first who quotes
it, and our reliance on the judgment, or even honesty, of this writer is
not so great as to allow our considering everything found in his works
as undoubtedly genuine.”
Oxley in his great work 011 Egypt says: “However, I have found in some
papers that this discourse _was not written by Josephus, but by one
Caius, a presbyter._”
Here, according to their own showing, what had passed for centuries as
the work of Josephus was a fraud perpetrated by a dignitary of the
Church. This is in perfect keeping with ancient custom. In addition to
all this, there is not an original manuscript of Josephus in existence,
nor one (that I have heard of) that dates farther back than the tenth or
eleventh century A. D.
Another forged reference to Christ is found in the _Antiquities_, book
xx. chapter ix. section 1, where Josephus is made to speak of James,
“the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ.” Some theologians who
reject the longer reference to Jesus accept this as genuine. But they do
it without reconciling the discrepancies between the stories regarding
the end of this same James. According to this passage, James was put to
death under the order of the high priest. But according to Hegesippus, a
converted Jew who wrote a history of the Christian Church about A. d.
170, James was killed in a tumult, not by sentence of a court. Clement
of Alexandria confirms this, and is quoted by Eusebius accordingly.
Eusebius also quotes the line from Josephus without noticing that the
two do not agree. The statement is quoted in various ways in the early
writers, and the conclusion is irresistible that the copies of Josephus
were tampered with by copyists. Even had Jesus lived and taught as
described in the Gospels, Josephus, an orthodox Jew, a priest, and
conservative government official, would never have given him the title
of Christ, or Messiah, a party leader for whom the Jews were looking to
free them from their Roman bondage.
Among the great pagan writers of the first century of our era we find
absolutely nothing relating to Jesus of Nazareth. There was Seneca,
living not far from these times, and then the Elder and the Younger
Pliny, Tacitus, Plutarch, Galen, Epictetus, Marcus Antoninus—some of the
noblest men of the world. Let us look at some few fragments of testimony
that we have. One historian writes that “under a ringleader named
Chrestus the Jews raised a tumult.” In another place he refers to the
Christians as a class of men devoted to a “new and mischievous
superstition.” And Tacitus speaks of Judea as “the source of this evil.”
Another speaks of the Christians as “a sect hated for their crimes,” and
Suetonius gives Nero special praise for having done the most that he
could to wipe them off the face of the earth. In a _Life of Claudius_,
another Roman emperor, Christ is spoken of as “a restless, seditious
Jewish agitator.” Pliny the Younger, writing to the emperor about A. D.
104, when he was governor of Bithynia, says the Christians do not
worship the gods nor the emperors—as most of the people then did—nor
could they be induced to curse Christ. He says they met mornings for
virtuous vows, and chanted a hymn to Christ as to a god, and in the
evening they ate together a common meal. And after he had put them to
torture he said all he could find against them was “a perverse and
immoderate superstition.” Lucian, about the middle of the second
century, speaks of Jesus as the crucified Sophist. We do not know
certainly whether these references to Christ allude to Jesus of Nazareth
at all. _Chrestians_ and _Chrestus_ were designations in common use all
over the world, and the writers merely mentioned them as a sect well
known as creating some noise in the world. Certainly the language used
in describing them is not very complimentary. They may have referred to
the Essenes, who had their ideal Chrest.
A modern writer has shown that the story of the persecution of
Christians by the emperor Nero (a. d. 54-68) is a modern fabrication.
Robert Taylor, in his _Diegesis_ published in 1829, proved that
Cornelius Tacitus never could have written the passage describing such
persecution. It has been demonstrated that the whole of the so-called
_Annals of Tacitus_, containing the celebrated passage, was forged by a
Papal secretary named Poggio Bracciolini. In 1422, while in the receipt
of a small salary under Martin V., he was tempted by an offer of five
hundred sequins (which would now be equal to fifty thousand dollars) to
engage in some mysterious literary work. Seven years later, six books of
what are now called the _Annals of Tacitus_ were brought to him by a
monk from Saxony. Then all Christendom rejoiced to learn that the
heathen Tacitus had mentioned Christ crucified under Pontius Pilate.
Poggio, though a father both spiritually and carnally, was not a husband
till the age of fifty-four. At seventy-two he accepted the office of
secretary to the republic of Florence, and at seventy-nine he died,
leaving five sons of his old age. Up to the last he was a busy student
and writer. Fifty-six years after his death his fourth son was secretary
to Pope Leo X., at which time the pope’s steward, stimulated by a
munificent reward, discovered the first six incomplete books of the
_Annals_, being the unfinished work of Poggio in his old age.
The finding of ancient MSS. was a very lucrative business for scholars
in those days. It began with Petrarch, who died in 1374, and did not end
with Poggio, who died in 1459. Poggio discovered several orations of
Cicero, a history by Ammianus Marcollinus, and several other classic
works, besides the unclassic writings of Tertullian, the first Latin
Father.
The modern fabrication of many of the ancient Latin and Greek MSS. is
now becoming apparent. Jean Hardouin, a French Jesuit, died in 1729,
aged eighty-three years. He was deeply versed in history, language, and
numismatology. At the age of forty-four he began to suspect that certain
writings of the Christian Fathers were spurious, and soon became
convinced that none of them were genuine. Then turning his attention to
the Greek and Latin classics, he found evidence sufficient to convince
him that most of those also were forgeries, being fabricated by the
Benedictine monks after the middle of the fourteenth century.
Eusebius’s _Ecclesiastical History_, first found in Latin in the
fifteenth century and then in Greek in the six-teenth century, we have
no doubt is a probable forgery. And if so we have really no history of
the primitive Church except what may be found in the New Testament and a
few uncertain fragments of apocryphal literature, all much corrupted.
The use of the word _Christus_ and _Christianus_ by the Latin writers is
sufficient evidence of modern fabrication. Ainsworth’s Latin Dictionary
has not the word Christus nor Christianus in the Latin part, but in the
part which gives the Latin equivalents of English words we find this:
A Christian = Christianus.
Christianism or Christianity = Christianismus.
Christmas = Christianataliam festum.
Now, the words Christus and Christianus are used by Tacitus, Suetonius,
Pliny (the younger), Tertullian, and all the succeeding Latin Fathers.
_Christos_ in Greek is a very proper word, being a translation of the
Hebrew _mashiach_, meaning “anointed.” Therefore, the Latins would have
rendered it _unctus_.
But the Benedictine monks who forged the literature of the pretended
Fathers, instead of translating _christos,_ audaciously transferred the
word, and thus the new word _Christus_, with a capital C, became an
additional name for the man-god of the Catholic Church.
Now, we respectfully raise the query whether it is rational to suppose
that such wonderful things occurred in the little province of Palestine,
surrounded by learned sages and philosophers of the most enlightened
nations of the world, and not one direct and intelligent reference
should have been made to them? Is it not strange that we have no account
of the birth, sayings, and doings of this “last Adam,” who is said to
have come into this world on the most important mission, and yet we hear
nothing of him except in four or five little anonymous and dateless
pamphlets written a long while after the events are said to have
transpired? Since the New Testament contains _all_ that has been written
on this subject, is it not our highest duty to subject this book to the
most thorough examination? This we shall now proceed to do in the most
fearless manner, however startling the conclusions which may be reached.