_“Come now, let us reason together.”—Isa. 1:18._
_“Let me reason the case with thee.”—Jer. 12: 1._
THAT there should be held so many different views concerning the
character and work of Christ is itself a very suggestive circumstance.
It implies that the evidence in the case is not direct and clear, and
that there are grounds for doubt and uncertainty. That honest,
well-meaning men should be left in doubt regarding the most wonderful
event in history, involving their salvation, is still more astounding.
One would suppose that if so wonderful an event as the incarnation of
God had taken place it would have been made so manifest that the most
skeptical could not doubt it. There seems to have been great neglect or
indifference regarding the matter. Contemporaneous history takes no
notice of Jesus, and the biographies that we have of him cannot be shown
to have had an existence until nearly two centuries after he is said to
have made his advent; and Paul, who had written concerning him before
these Gospels were compiled, was so ambiguous that the most learned
theologians differ as to whether he regarded the Christ as an actual
person or merely an impersonation. The early records of the life of
Christ, if any existed, seem to have been destroyed or lost, and there
are no original documents nor authenticated copies of such records.
There can be no true faith, no genuine intelligent belief, without
evidence; and where is the evidence? To believe without some reason for
believing is blind credulity. The most intelligent Christian writers do
not even pretend to have any documents relating to the existence of
Jesus that by any strain of language can be called evidence.
Neander, an eminent Christian writer, author of a _Life of Christ_,
acknowledges in so many words his painful consciousness of the utter
lack of historic evidence in regard to him, his acts, and wonderful
performances. He demands, as an imperative necessity, to be permitted at
the beginning to take the most important matters for granted. He asks:
“What, then, is the special presupposition with which we must approach
the life of Christ? It is, in a word, the belief that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God in a sense that cannot be predicated of any human being,
the truth that Christ is God-man being presupposed.” Neander, by making
this confession, surrenders the whole question. There is no direct
evidence of the existence of such a person as Jesus of Nazareth, and all
fair-minded, intelligent Christian writers admit it. What is called
evidence is found only in the short sketches of the New Testament, which
have been shown to be no evidence at all.
We might rest the case here. It is admitted that it cannot be _proved_
that Jesus existed, and when we undertake to show to the contrary we
undertake to prove a negative—a thing which is never required in a court
of justice. Yet we do undertake it, and reverently invite the reader to
impartially consider the points in our case.
There is in the biography of Jesus an utter want of _originality_. It is
a copy of other lives. It is a significant fact that all the principal
claims made for Jesus of Nazareth had been made for others long before
him. We can only mention a few.
The birth of Buddha, like the birth of Jesus, was announced in the
heavens by an asterism on the horizon which is singularly called the
“Messianic star.” When Chrishna was born his star was pointed out by
Nared, a great astronomer.
The birth of every East Indian _avatar_ was announced by celestial
signs. Even the Jews have similar traditions regarding Moses and
Abraham. Canon Farrar admits in his _Life of Christ_ that the Greeks and
Romans always held this idea of the birth and death of great men being
presaged by mysterious stars, and Tacitus affirms this regarding the
dethronement of Nero. All candid theologians admit that this doctrine of
the announcement of the birth of extraordinary persons by the appearance
of stars was a universal belief among ancient peoples.
Luke is the only evangelist who records the fact that the birth of Jesus
was attended with the songs of angels from the heavenly world, and there
is good reason for believing that this professed compiler drew his
information from the apocryphal Gospel called “Protevangelion.” But
there is nothing novel in this idea, for the same thing had long before
been recorded of Chrishna at his birth, that “the quarters of the
horizon were irradiate with joy,”... that “the spirits and nymphs of
heaven danced and sang, and at midnight the clouds emitted low pleasing
sounds and poured down rain of flowers.” It is only necessary here to
state that similar demonstrations are alleged to have attended the
advent of other Hindoo saviors, and also of Confucius, of Osiris, of
Apollonius, of Apollo, of Hercules, and of Esculapius.
It is certainly very singular that all the circumstances connected with
the birth of Jesus are recorded of several other persons long before.
Chrishna was cradled among shepherds, to whom his birth was first
announced, and the prophet Nared visited his father and mother and
declared the child to be of divine descent. An aged hermit named Asita,
like Simeon of our Gospels, visited the infant Buddha and predicted
wonderful things of his life and mission, and wept because he was too
old to see the day. Not only was the infant Chrishna adored by the
shepherds and magi, but was presented with “gifts of sandal-wood and
perfume,” very like “frankincense and myrrh;” and he was also presented
with gifts of “costly jewels and precious substances,” very like “gold.”
Substantially the same things are recorded of Mithras, the Persian
savior, of Socrates, and many of the Grecian and Roman demigods.
It must suffice it to say that these incidents are too numerous and
circumstantial to be mere coincidences. King Kansa was jealous of the
infant Chrishna, and ordered a general slaughter of the infants under a
certain age and in a# certain district, just as Herod is falsely charged
with having done when Jesus was born; and as Joseph and Mary were warned
in a dream to flee into Egypt to save the young child’s life, so the
foster-father of Chrishna was warned of danger by a “heavenly voice,”
and he was taken to Mathura; and Canon Farrar, speaking of the sojourn
of Joseph, Mary, and the infant Jesus in Egypt, writes: “Ancient legends
say that they remained two years absent from Palestine, and lived at
Matarieh, a few miles northeast of Cairo.” This seems to be the same
legend, but the one regarding Chrishna is sculptured upon the rocks and
temples of India, while contemporary history makes no mention of the
slaughter of the innocents by Herod; and further embarrassment arises
from the fact that Herod was not king at that time, as the taxing under
Quirinus did not take place under the reign of Herod, he having been
dead for several years.
It would be easy to present more than a score of instances in which
persons who came to be regarded as demigods and heroes had been obliged
to flee from the wrath of the reigning monarch at their birth, as is
recorded of the infant Jesus. In all centuries of olden times the
reigning monarch has generally been jealous of some mysterious child,
whose parents or caretakers were obliged to hide him away in some safe
resort.
The long fast and temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, found in the
Gospel “according” to Matthew, have numerous parallels in the experience
of other Messiahs, even in minor details. The fast generally, as in the
case of Moses, the Ninevites, and Jesus, lasted forty days, but that of
Buddha continued forty-seven days, and in his weakness and attenuation
of body he was tempted by _Mara_, the prince of evil, who promised him
all the kingdoms of the earth, “universal empire,” on certain
conditions; but, like Jesus, he said, “Avaunt! get thee away from me!”
After the temptation and triumph both Buddha and Jesus were ministered
unto by visiting angels! Zoroaster, the founder of the Persian religion,
had a similar experience with the devil, of which there are fully
detailed reports.
Both Chrishna and Jesus were precocious boys, disputing with doctors and
astonishing their teachers with their learning, which had not been
acquired in the usual way; and both wandered away from their parents and
became objects of anxiety and search to anxious mothers. Both preached a
celebrated sermon, wrought numerous and very similar miracles, were
hated and opposed by the priests of their day, and both suffered
premature violent deaths at about the same age, and then arose from the
dead.
These parallels might be given to an indefinite extent, as they appear
in _Asiatic Researches_, by Sir William Jones; Upham’s _History and
Doctrine of Buddhism_; Hardy’s _Manual of Buddhism_; numerous other
ancient and modern writings on this subject; and the parallel facts
presented by these authorities are admitted by the most distinguished
Christian writers not a few.
In regard to miracles it is thought best to say only a passing word.
It is admitted by the ablest theologians of the orthodox schools that
miracles are indispensable to establish the claim of a special
supernatural revelation, and great reliance is made upon the miracles
accredited to the Christian Christ; and yet we find other saviors and
heroes credited not only with the same miracles substantially, but with
a larger number of even more wonderful miracles. It would be easy to
fill a large volume with the alleged miracles of Buddha and Chrishna,
and Prof. Max Müller affirms that the Buddhistic miracles “surpass in
wonderfulness the miracles of all other religions.” Zoroaster, Buddha,
Osiris, Isis, and Horus all wrought miracles, even the raising of the
dead; Serapis, Marduk, Bacchus, Esculapius, and Apollonius did the same;
and the early Christian Fathers admitted the reality of heathen
miracles, but very conveniently attributed them to the devil. In short,
it may safely be affirmed that more wonderful and better-authenticated
accounts of miracles are given of numerous other persons, both before
and after the advent of the Christian Christ, than are given of his
miracles in the Gospels.
The Greeks were accustomed to say, “Miracles for fools,” and the Romans
shrewdly said, “The common people like to be deceived—deceived let them
be;” and even the Christian Father St. Chrysostom declared that
“miracles are proper only to excite sluggish and vulgar minds; men of
sense have no occasion for them.” The modern theological idea of proving
the record by the miracle, and the miracle by the record, has become too
transparent for even the most credulous.
There is also great confusion about the time of the birth of Jesus,
though the Church in a sort of perfunctory manner settled this by saying
he was born December 25, A. D. One. But the Church adopted this date for
reasons of an astronomical character. More than one hundred different
dates, some extending back nearly a century, have been fixed as to his
birth, showing that no one knew anything about it. A blundering notice
of his birth assigns its date to the period when Cyrenius was governor
of Syria, and makes the enrolment ordered by that official the occasion
of Joseph’s temporary sojourn at Bethlehem when that event took place.
This enrolment, however, was not made till after the displacement of
Archelaus from the kingdom of Judea and some ten years or more after the
death of Herod, and the story is accordingly in direct contradiction
with the account of the flight of Joseph into Egypt, while Herod was
still alive, to preserve the life of his son from that monarch’s
jealousy. But what is very significant is the fact that when Cyrenius
commanded the enrolment Judas of Galilee arose and denounced it. He
established a distinct sect which continued till the overthrow of the
Jewish people.
Josephus says: “When Cyrenius had now disposed of Archelaus’s money, and
when the taxings were come to a conclusion, which were made in the
thirty-seventh year of Caesar’s victory over Antony at Actium,” Antiq.
xviii. 2. The battle of Actium, in which Octavianus gained his final
victory over Antony, occurred in b. c. 31. Counting thirty-seven years,
would bring the date of the taxings down to A. d. 6. Archelaus after
reigning ten years was deposed for misconduct, and banished into Gaul.
Cyrenius, a Roman senator, had been sent by the government to settle up
his finances and take an account of the substance of the Jews, or, in
other words, to assess their property in order to apportion their taxes.
These things were done in the thirty-seventh year after the battle of
Actium, or in 6 A. d. Counting ten years back, we would be at the year 4
b. c., or the year Archelaus began to reign. As Herod of course was dead
before Archelaus ascended the throne, he consequently died before Christ
was born, and hence the entire story of the slaying of the infants, the
journey of the wise men, and the flight into Egypt falls helplessly to
the ground.
“But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea, in the room of his
father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned
of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee.” Matt.
2:22.
Here we have a strange state of affairs. Joseph and the young child
turned from Judea to Galilee when Archelaus was as powerful in the one
country as in the other, for his ethnarchy included both!
In reading the first chapter of Matthew’s Gospel we find an inexplicable
mystery. The very first verse reads: “The book of the generation of
Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Then in the
sixteenth verse it is said, “And Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of
Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ.” In the eighteenth,
nineteenth, and twentieth verses the Holy Ghost is represented as the
real Father of Jesus by a virgin; and his miraculous divine descent is
elsewhere specifically taught in the Gospels, and the divine Sonship of
Jesus has been accepted as a fact by the general Church—Roman Catholic,
Greek, and Protestant.
On the other hand, there is proof positive, if the record is accepted,
that Jesus claimed for himself simple humanity, and consequent
inferiority and subjection to God; and Roman Catholics and orthodox
Protestants very conveniently settle these contradictions by affirming
that he was both God and man; while Unitarians reject the divinity of
Jesus, and by way of apology for so doing magnify his manhood so as to
make him quite divine, a human god.
It would be easy to fill volumes with accounts, with very slight
variations, of the miraculous conception and birth of divine personages
born of virgin mothers, who, after laboring and suffering for the good
of men, came to a tragic death, which was generally followed by a
triumphant resurrection and subsequent deification. The cases are so
numerous that one hardly knows where to begin to enumerate them. It
would be easy to furnish a roll containing the names of scores of
incarnate deities, and it would be tedious to describe the many things
in which they substantially agree.
According to some modern writers, supported by abundant sculptures in
temples, caves, and rocks, Vishnu, the second person of the Hindoo
trinity, has been incarnated eight or nine times, Buddha being the
first, Chrishna the eighth, and Gautama, also called Sakya-Muni, the
ninth. The fact that these alleged incarnations took place at uniform
intervals show their astronomical origin.
Equally suggestive is the fact that there are so many peculiarities
connected with the birth of these gods, and also so many incidents in
their lives and deaths absolutely identical.
The name of the mother of Buddha was _Maia_ and the same name was given
to the mother of the Greek Mercury and even to later divinities; which,
like the name Mary, typifies the sea and sometimes the month of May.
Buddha had no earthly father, but was an immaculate conception of a ray
of celestial light through a virgin mother. Chrishna, the eighth Indian
incarnation, was born of the left intercostal rib of a virgin. His birth
was concealed through fear of the tyrant Kansa. He raised the dead and
wrought marvellous miracles, and washed the feet of the Brahmans. It
would be tedious to give details, as almost every incident recorded in
the Gospels of the life of the alleged Christian incarnation is recorded
in circumstantial detail of some ancient pagan deity.
The fact is, that all the great nations of antiquity, and many of the
smaller tribes, have had very similar views as to divine manifestations
in human flesh; and you need only turn to the pages of any good
dictionary of mythology to verify the truth of this allegation.
We might extend these analogies to an indefinite extent. The author of
_Bible Myths_ has specified about fifty particulars in which Jesus is
said to have resembled Buddha, and as many more particulars in the case
of Chrishna. Nobody having any knowledge of the world’s history will
doubt that these Indian divinities preceded the Judean Christ by several
centuries, as many distinguished writers, like Prof. Max Müller, have
admitted.
We challenge the theologians to present one single prominent feature or
characteristic said to have been shown in the career of Jesus which did
not appear in several other alleged incarnations hundreds of years
before. The fact is, that the Christ of modern times is a perfect copy
of other Christs who preceded him. Not only are all ancient Oriental
scriptures full of incarnated divine saviors, but the same symbols and
ceremonies abound in their worship. Take the cross, for an example. In
ancient India the cross was as common as in modern Rome, and heathen
temples were built in the form of a cross centuries before papists and
Puseyites and their liberal imitators ever thought of such a thing. It
was a common symbol in the ancient worship of Egypt. It was a Druidic
emblem in Britain five hundred years before the introduction of
Christianity. Plato, the Grecian philosopher, four hundred or five
hundred years before Christ proclaimed the cross to be the best symbol
of the divinity next to the supreme. The worshippers of Serapis used it,
and Hadrian, the Roman emperor, as late as A. d. 130 mistook them for
Christians. The standard portrait of Jesus, so honored by modern
Christians, is a copy of the head of Serapis, the well-known sun-god,
according to the testimony of Mr. King in his able work, _Gnostics and
their Remains_ (p. 68).
The same is true of baptism and the Eucharist, as ceremonies identical
with these, in their main aspects, existed among the ancient pagans. The
“Lord’s Supper” virtually was in use more than two hundred and fifty
years before Christ. Wherever Christian missionaries have gone they have
found substantially the same dogmas and religious observances, and
Tertullian, a Christian Father of the second century, conveniently
explained this fact by saying that the devil had taught the heathen
these same things to forestall the preaching of the missionaries.
And yet Justin Martyr in the second century (a. d. 140), in defending
the Christian religion against the assaults of pagans, said: “For
declaring that the Logos, the first-begotten Son of God, our Master
Jesus Christ, to be born of a virgin without any human mixture, and to
be crucified and dead and to have arisen again into heaven, we say no
more in this than what you say of those whom you style the sons of
Jove.” Here is a distinct admission in the second century, from one in
high authority, that the doctrine of the death and resurrection of
miraculously-incarnated deities born of virgin mothers was well known
among pagans before the Christian era.
But we are not done with Justin Martyr yet. In his Apology to the
emperor Hadrian he makes this most astonishing admission: “In saying
that all things were made in this beautiful order by God, what do we
seem to say more than Plato? When we teach a general conflagration, what
do we teach more than the Stoics? By opposing the worship of the works
of men’s hands we concur with Menander the comedian.... For you need not
be told what a parcel of sons the writers most in vogue among you assign
to Jove; there’s Mercury, Jove’s interpreter, in imitation of the Logos,
in worship among you. There’s Æsculapius, the physician, smitten by a
thunderbolt, and after that ascending into heaven. There’s Bacchus, torn
to pieces; and Hercules, burnt to get rid of his pains. There’s Pollux
and Castor, the sons of Jove by Leda, and Perseus by Danæ; and, not to
mention others, I would fain know why you always deify the departed
emperors, and have a fellow at hand to make affidavit that he saw Cæsar
mount to heaven from the funeral pile?
“As to the Son of God, called Jesus, should we allow him to be nothing
more than man, yet the title of the Son of God is very justifiable, upon
the account of his wisdom, considering that you have your Mercury in
worship under the title of the Word and Messenger of God.
“_As to the objection of our Jesus being crucified,_ I say that
suffering was common to all the forementioned sons of Jove, but only
they suffered another kind of death. As to his being born of a virgin,
you have your Perseus to balance that. As to his curing the lame and the
paralytic and such as were cripples from birth, this is little more than
what you say of your Æsculapius.”
St. Augustine says: “For the thing itself which is now called the
Christian religion really was known to the ancients, nor was not wanting
at any time from the beginning of the human race until the time when
Christ came in the flesh, from whence the true religion which had
previously existed began to be called Christian; and this in our day is
the Christian religion, not as having been wanting in former times, but
as having in later times received this name.”
A fellow and tutor in Trinity College and lecturer on ancient history in
the University of Dublin (Mr. Mahaffy) closes one of his lectures in the
following manner: “There is, indeed, hardly a great or fruitful idea in
the Jewish or Christian system which has not its analogy in the
(ancient) Egyptian faith. The development of the one God into a
_trinity_; the incarnation of the mediating deity in a virgin, and
without a father; his conflict and his momentary defeat by the powers of
darkness; his partial victory (for the enemy is not destroyed); his
resurrection and reign over an eternal kingdom with his justified
saints; his distinction from, and yet identity with, the uncreate
incomprehensible Father, whose form is unknown and who dwelleth not in
temples made with hands,—_all these theological conceptions pervade the
oldest religion of Egypt_. So, too, the contrast and even the apparent
inconsistencies between our moral and theological beliefs—the
vacillating attribution of sin and guilt partly to moral weakness,
partly to the interference of evil spirits, and likewise of
righteousness to moral worth, and again to help of good genii or angels;
the immortality of the soul and its final judgment,—_all these things
have met us in the Egyptian ritual and moral treatises_. So, too, the
purely human side of morals and the catalogue of virtues and vices are
by natural consequences as like as are the theological systems. _But I
recoil from opening this great subject now; it is enough to have lifted
the veil and shown the scene of many a future contest._”
Indeed, the ablest of the Christian Fathers never claimed that
Christianity was a new religion recently and specially revealed by
Jesus, but made many admissions quite to the contrary. Clarke in his
_Evidences_ says that the most ancient writers of the Church did not
scruple to acknowledge the Athenian Socrates a Christian.
Clemens Alexandrinus, of the second century (a. d. 194), wrote: “And
those who lived according to the _Logos_ were really Christians that is
to say, those who practically accepted the Greek conception of a divine
incarnation were really Christians.” And why not, for is not John’s
Gospel an elaboration of the Neo-Platonism of the Greeks? and is not the
whole Christian scheme an ingenious combination of Judaism and Oriental
philosophy?
Lactantius well said: “If there had been one to have collected the truth
that was scattered and diffused among the sects into one, and to have
reduced it into a system, there would indeed have been no difference
between him and us.” Could anything be more emphatic than this admission
of a Christian Father of the fourth century that Christianity is made up
of fragments of other religions?
A volume might be filled with similar admissions from the highest
Christian authority, for it would be easy to show that it was the main
argument of Justin Martyr (a. d. 141) that the Christian religion
contained nothing that might not be found in all earlier religions, and
that therefore its votaries deserved toleration and protection rather
than persecution.
Compare the following, furnished by Mr. Johnson, with the teachings of
Jesus:
“When you have shut your doors and darkened your room, beware of saying
that you are alone, for you are not alone, for God is within, and your
genius is within, and what need have they of light to see what you are
doing?” (Epictet., i. 14); “Dare look up to God, and say, ‘Use me as
thou wilt. I am one with thee. I refuse nothing that seems good to thee.
Lead me whither thou wilt’” (ii. 16); “Be not angry with the erring, but
pity them rather” (i. 18); “Be patient, mild, ready to forgive, severe
to none, knowing that the soul is never willingly deprived of truth”
(ii. 22); “No need to lift up the hands or get close to the ears of an
image, so as to be heard. God is near thee, with thee, in thee. I tell
thee, Lucilius, a holy spirit dwells within us, beholder of our conduct”
(Seneca, Ep., xli.); “Between God and good men is friendship, yea,
necessary intimacy” (De Prov., i. 5); “What use in concealment from men?
Nothing is hid from God” (Ep., lxxxiii. 1); “God escapes the eyes; he is
seen by thought only” (Nat. Quest., vii. 30); “No temples are to be
built to him. He must be hallowed by each in his own breast” (Seneca,
quoted by Lactantius, Ind., vi. 25); “Man’s primal union is with God”
(Cicero, De Leg., i. 7); “Virtue is the same in God and man; man
therefore is in the likeness of God” (ibid.).
We could multiply these quotations indefinitely, but we forbear. The
fact cannot be denied that Christianity is but the continuation and
modification of the old pagan religions, and that Egypt has to be
largely credited with supplying a great portion of the subject-matter of
our so-called “special revelation.” We could take up the sun-gods of
Egypt and show that all the titles and offices ascribed to them are
given to Jesus, and that often the very language is used. “Out of Egypt
have I called my Son” is emphatically true, but in a broader and wider
sense than is generally supposed. This will be more clearly shown
hereafter.