_“Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.”—John
6:12._
GNOSTICISM.
SINCE preparing Chapter XI., on _The Ideal Christ_, and quoting freely
from Mr. Gerald Massey regarding the Gnostics, some doubts have been
suggested as to the soundness of his views. We have therefore carefully
reviewed this matter, and can find no reason to abate one tittle from
the conclusions presented by this painstaking and able writer.
The word _gnosis_, meaning _knowledge_, does not apply exclusively to a
party or sect The Gnostics were not distinguished from Christians at
first by sectarian lines. The Epistles of Paul, both genuine and
spurious, recognize the gnosis, and there were Gnostic sects, as well as
individual Gnostics, both before and after the Christian era. The gnosis
consisted in knowing, and mainly in not accepting as historical and
literal what was really only allegorical. The chief Gnostic sects held
as _secret_ their essential doctrines, and at the same time they had an
exoteric statement which they gave to the common people. Even Paul, who
seems to have been a first-class Gnostic, preached one gospel publicly
to the Gentiles, and another which he gave “privately to them that were
of reputation” (Gal. 2: 2). His teachings were highly _Cabalistic_, and
he seems to have delighted in “mysteries.” He had no conference with any
of the other apostles as to what he should teach, but went to Arabia,
where he doubtless met the Essenean brotherhood, and probably learned
from them instead of the Judean teachers. The Essenes were famous for
the cultivation of sacred literature, and had their _personified_
Christ, as we have reason to believe. Mr. C. Staniland Wake thinks, with
good reason, that the Essenes were Mithrasts, and that they worshipped
the sun, and Mithras, the Persian savior, was a personification of the
sun. The Essenes, according to Josephus, treated the sun with great
veneration, and offered certain prayers early in the morning, as if they
made supplication for its rising. The Essenes and Mithrasts were
Gnostics in that they held to a personified savior, and not a literal
man of flesh and blood. The symbolism of the universe afforded models
for the secrets of their religion, and their rites were introduced into
every part of the Roman empire—of course including Palestine—and for
nearly four centuries the Mithraic religion wellnigh overshadowed
Christianity. Much that was written of Jesus indicates the
characteristics of the secret initiations. It may appear strange to the
superficially informed when we affirm, as heretofore, that many of those
matters which Paul set forth with such seeming literalness were in fact
mystic and arcane, the transcript of older doctrines, and were made up
throughout of astrological symbolism.
The systems of many ancient peoples centuries before Christianity
contain doctrines and dramatic stories closely analogous to the gospel
story of Jesus. The Neo-Platonists held that these occult rites were
merely a form of representing philosophic thought as if in scenes of
daily life. While Paul refers to certain matters as apparently
historical, he never overlooks their symbolic import. The interpolators
of his writings misrepresented his real views, as is evinced by internal
evidence in the writings themselves.
The fourth Gospel, falsely credited to John, was written for the evident
purpose of opposing the Gnostic doctrine of Jesus not made flesh by
presenting the Neo-Platonic dogma of “the Word made flesh.” In many
places throughout the New Testament there is an implication that there
were those who denied that Jesus came in the flesh: “And every spirit
that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of
God” (1 John 1: 3). In 2 John, 7th verse, it is said: “For many
deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ
is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.” How does
this comport with the assumption that the existence of the human Jesus
was never doubted in the apostolic age? The ignorant and disingenuous
ecclesiastics who wrote on Gnosticism in early ages always observed one
rule, and that was to represent it as a mere offshoot and corruption of
Christianity, invented because of disappointed ambition by apostates
from the religion established by the apostles. The Rev. Mr. King, in his
_Gnostics, and their Remains_, affirms that such representations “are
entirely false.” The truth is, that Gnosticism did not purport to be a
Christian system, except by a kind of syncretism to reconcile different
faiths. The Neo-Platonists attempted this, and Gnostics did the same on
an analogous plan. The historical existence of Jesus was little else
than a concession made to the unreasoning multitude, while the esoteric
doctrine was so much older as to make such an existence of no possible
account except as a piece of folk-lore to hang illustrations of
doctrines upon. This is the central idea of every branch of Gnosticism.
The forms set forth by different expositors are secondary and
incidental, liable to mislead those who attempt to place them in the
front and draw deductions from them; and hence Saturninus taught that
all that was considered physical in Jesus was only a phantasy, and that
what was from God was spiritual only, and not at all corporeal. As for
the writings of Tatian, they are “lost”—that is, destroyed—and we are
under no obligations to accept what his enemies have said of them. The
period was one in which calumny, slander, and forgery were the rule, as
well as the main dependence for refuting an adversary. We know nothing
of Cerinthus except through Epiphanius, whose reputation for truth and
veracity is so bad that he would make falsehood appear like truth by his
manner of telling it. Our evidence respecting Cerinthus comes chiefly
from Epiphanius, who once professed to be a Gnostic (Macosian), and
afterward turned Catholic, and, Judas-like, betrayed some scores of his
former associates, including seventy women, to the persecuting civil
authorities.
The Ophites were certainly mystics, and read everything concerning Jesus
as a sacred allegory. Many think that _Christos_ was with them
_Chrëstos_, the good, the incarnation and associate of Sophia, “the
wisdom from on high.” The “wisdom religion” was extensively symbolized.
Pythagoras named his esoteric doctrine the _gnosis_ or “knowledge,” and
Plato used a similar expression to indicate the “interior knowledge.”
Marcion was evidently Persian and used Mithraic symbolism. The
ceremonials of Mithraism (red-cap Christians) and astral rites were
adopted by the Catholic Church, besides many other rites of paganism.
The Jewish _Cabala_ and the Gnostics had much in common. The Sethites
were of Jewish origin, and they held that Seth was the son of Sophia,
who had filled him with the divine gnosis, and that his descendants were
a spiritual race.
The Mandaites were Gnostics, as their name indicates, and they found in
the system the older type of doctrine which obtained in Mesopotamia and
in the old and elaborate Babylonian religion. This is seen from the fact
that the names of the old pantheon were adopted.
The variety of legends regarding Jesus show that he was not an
historical character. Deriving the bulk of their theosophy from beyond
the Euphrates, and even much from beyond the Indus, the early
ecclesiastics changed names, but retained their original ideas. Nearly
all Christian festivals are the equivalents of pagan observances, as is
well known. Prof. F. W. Newman denounces the assertions of Tischendorf
and Canon Westcott, concerning the Gnostics as “unworthy of scholars,
and only calculated to mislead readers, who most generally are ignorant
of the actual facts in in the case.” “The uncritical and inaccurate
character of the Fathers rendered them peculiarly liable to be misled by
forgone conclusions.”
Oriental Christianity and Parseeism furnish a striking example of
religious syncretism. In the Gnostic basis itself it is not difficult to
recognize the general features of the religion of ancient Babylon, and
thus we are brought nearer to a solution of the problem as to the real
origin of Gnosticism in general.
Dr. John Tulloch, principal of St. Andrew’s University and the writer of
the article on the Gnostics in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ (ninth
edition), truly says: “The sources of Gnosticism are to be found in
diverse forms of religion and speculative culture antecedent to
Christianity, especially in the theology of the Alexandrian Jews as
represented in the writings of Philo, and again in the influences
flowing from the old Persian or Zarathustrian religion and the
Buddhistic faiths of the East.” He also says it is “the fact that the
spirit of Gnosticism and the language which it afterward developed were
in the air of the apostolic age, and that the last thing to seek in the
early Fathers is either accuracy of chronology or a clear sequence of
thought.”
In Appletons’ New _American Cyclopedia_, under the title “Gnostics,” it
is said: “The Gnostics numbered two classes—the select few who were
admitted to the divine secrets, and the large class of common believers
who were not able to rise above the physical condition.” The point is
that the Gnostics had a _secret doctrine_ which their adversaries did
not know. The recognition of Jesus as an actual person was only
apparent, and hence different people differed in that respect. The
doctrine came from the far East, and teachers only sought to harmonize
it with the new worship, as they also did with Mithraism. The real
Gnostics were the spiritual men of the times, and mere externalists
could not understand them. It would be amusing if it were not so serious
to see men often affecting great learning, themselves not professing
orthodoxy, yet vehement for what can only be called Roman
ecclesiasticism. “The letter killeth,” and “the wise shall understand.”
Many writers on Gnosticism seem to know no more than the cock on the
dunghill knows of the jewels that lie before him. The fact is, that the
writings of the so-called Fathers, and of the New Testament itself, have
come down to us percolated through Roman sacerdotalism, and must be
taken with many grains of allowance. There were many men named Jesus at
the commencement of the Christian era, but that a Jesus was crucified
and rose from the dead is not supported by a particle of evidence. The
anonymous author of the great English book, _Supernatural Religion_, has
shown how utterly valueless the Gospels are as sources of evidence; and
where else shall we look for an historical Jesus? We can have no faith
in historical “phantoms,” “aions,” and “illusions.” Neither pagan nor
Jewish contemporaneous history gives any countenance to the orthodox
claim of a personal, crucified, and risen Jesus.
ORIGIN OF THE CHRIST STORY.
The Gospels were doubtless compiled nearly two hundred years after the
beginning of the Christian era from the mythological and superstitious
lore that was then circulating in great abundance; and Christ himself is
only a mythological personage who, if such a person ever had any
existence at all, existed many centuries before the Christian era, and
was very different from the Christ of the Gospels, being originally
Æsculapius or some other character of the like fame, and serving only as
the basis of the Christian fable. It is certain that the primitive
teachers of Christianity converted to their own purposes the writings of
ancient poets and philosophers, mixing together the Oriental Gnosticism
and Greek philosophy, and palming them on the world in a new form as
things especially revealed to themselves.
It may further be remarked that at a most early period of the Christian
era there appears to have been great doubts as to the real existence of
Christ. The Manichees, as Augustine informs us, denied that he was a
man, while others maintained that he was a man, but denied that he was a
God (August. Serm. xxxvii. c. 12). There is, therefore, considerable
force in the expressions of a modern writer that the being of no other
individual mentioned in history ever labored under such a deficiency of
evidence as to its reality, or ever was overset by a thousandth part of
the weight of positive proof that it was a creation of imagination only,
as that of Jesus Christ. His existence as a man has, from the earliest
day on which it can be shown to have been asserted, been earnestly and
strenuously denied; and that not by the enemies of the Christian faith,
but by the most intelligent, most learned, and most sincere of the
Christian name who have left to the world proofs of their intelligence
and learning in their writings and of their sincerity in their
sufferings. The existence of no individual of the human race that was
real and positive was ever by a like conflict of jarring evidence
rendered equivocal and uncertain. Nothing, however, is more common than
for some persons to assume an air of contempt, and to cry out that those
who deny that such a person as Jesus of Nazareth ever existed are
utterly unworthy of being answered. It is, truly, very convenient for
them thus to shelter themselves by assuming his existence as
incontrovertible, instead of fairly meeting historical facts which, to
say the least, render his existence very problemetical. It is to no
purpose to urge that it might as well be denied that no such a person as
Alexander the Great or Napoleon Bonaparte ever existed as to set at
defiance the evidence of the existence of Jesus. For the existence of
neither Alexander nor Napoleon was miraculous, and there never was on
earth one other real personage whose existence, as a real personage, was
denied and disclaimed even as soon as ever it was asserted, as was the
case with respect to the assumed personality of Christ. But the only
common character that runs through the whole body of the evidence of
heretics is, that they, one and all, from first to last, deny the
existence of Jesus Christ as a man, and, professing their faith in him
as a God and Saviour, yet uniformly and consistently hold the whole
story of his life and actions to be allegorical. The very earliest
Christian writings that have come down to us are of a controversial
character and written in attempted refutation of heresies. These
heresies must therefore have been of so much earlier date and prior
prevalence; they could not have been considered of sufficient
consequence to have called (as they seem to have done) for the entire
devotion and enthusiastic zeal of the orthodox party to extirpate or
keep them under, if they had not acquired deep root and become of
serious notoriety—an inference which leads directly to the conclusion
that they were of anterior origination to any date that has hitherto
been ascribed to the Gospel history.
In accordance with the notion that Christ was a phantom, the writer of
the Commentaries which are attributed to Clement of Alexandria,
apparently quoting from the Gospel of Nicodemus, tells us that an
apostle attempted to touch the body of Christ, but in so doing found no
hardness of flesh and met with no resistance from it, although he thrust
his hand into the inner part of it. A similar idea is conveyed by Luke
where he says that Christ _vanished_ out of the sight of his disciples,
but yet shortly after stood in the midst of them—a notion consistent
only with that of an apparition (Luke 24: 31, 36). Similar remarks may
be made on the words of Christ to Thomas and Mary; to the latter he
says, “Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to my Father that is, I
am not to be felt;” and to the former he says, “Reach hither thy hand,
and thrust it into my side” (John 20:17, 27). Both these expressions,
contradictory as they are with regard to Jesus, still show that the
writer knew something of the notion entertained that Christ was a
_phantom_. Luke (24: 37, 39) also has words proving the same point,
where he says that the disciples, when they saw Christ after his
resurrection, thought they had seen a spirit and that he told them to
handle him. Marcion of Pontus, who flourished about A. D. 127, believed
Christ not to have been born of a virgin and to have grown up gradually,
but that he took the form of a man and _appeared_ as a man without being
born, and at once showed himself in Galilee in full maturity. Manes
also, according to the testimony of Socrates and others, “denied that
Christ was ever really born or had real human flesh, but asserted that
he was a mere phantom.” (See Lardner’s _Credibility_, vol. ii. p. 141.)
For men who entertained this notion of “the person of Christ,” his
sufferings, death, and resurrection were of course a delusion—were only
in appearance. Thus, according to Father Apelles, who wrote about A. D.
160, Christ was _not born_, nor was his body like ours, but consisted of
aërial and ethereal particles. Very probably, Apelles did not think it
unlikely that a body composed of such subtile matter as this should rise
from the grave and be capable of passing not only through the smallest
aperture, but even through solid matter. Barnabas, the companion of
Paul, in his Gospel had another way of disposing of the question of the
resurrection—namely, by denying that Christ was crucified at all, but
was taken up into the third heaven by four angels; that it was Judas
Iscariot who was crucified in his stead; and that Christ will not die
till the very end of the world (Toland’s _Nazarenus_, Letter i. chap. v.
p. 17.) The _Basilidians_, about the commencement of the second century,
disposed in a similar manner of the miracle of the resurrection by
asserting that it was not Christ, but Simon of Cyrene, who was crucified
instead of Jesus.
Such are some of the various opinions of the origin of the story of
Christ’s resurrection. They are placed before the reader that he may
have a choice of theories. After matured reflection, however, he will,
most probably, come to the conclusion that this tale originated in the
same manner as “The Gospel of the Birth of Mary,” “The Gospels of the
Infancy of Christ,” “The Gospel of Nicodemus,” the epistolary
correspondence of Christ and Abgarus, of the Virgin Mary and Ignatius,
together with hundreds of other similar productions of the ages when
facts were not so much appreciated as fables in the form of books. If he
arrive at this conclusion, he will see no reason to believe that such a
personage as the Christ of the Gospels was ever crucified, much less
raised from the dead.
ANCIENT ENIGMAS.
It is amusing to observe how, in ancient times, the dark, enigmatical,
and allegorical style was practised, particularly in the East, by all
public teachers, both Jews and Gentiles. By this means they explained
away the fabulous tales current regarding their gods, and discoursed on
every branch of knowledge known to them. They deemed religion a mystery
not to be publicly explained, and always delivered its dogmas clothed in
dark allegories (_Oie. de Nat. Deor. lib. ii. iii.; Spencer de Legibus
Heb., p. 182; Clerici Hist. Eccles.,_ p. 23). The Egyptians and
Chaldeans were noted for their dark sayings (_Simon Hist crû. des
Comment_, p. 4). Gale (_Opuscula Mythologica_) gives an account of
several ancient books expressly written as instructions to interpret
allegories. The Greek poets, Homer not excepted, are by their scholiasts
regarded as treating of their gods in a mystical style. The Stoic
philosophers dressed the whole heathen theology in allegorical language
(_Cic. de Nat. Deor_., lib. ii.). The Pythagorean philosophy was taught
in enigmatical expressions, the meaning of which was studiously
concealed from the vulgar mind, and revealed even to the initiated only
gradually as their years of maturity were thought to qualify them for
its reception. Plato and his followers in the groves of Academia
practised the same mode of teaching religion, especially theogony. The
writings attributed to Paul the apostle, as has been shown, are replete
with mystical and enigmatical expressions. This he confesses, saying
that he spoke “the wisdom of God in a mystery,” “comparing spiritual
things with spiritual” (1 Cor. 2: 7, 13). Accordingly, he regards the
history of Isaac and Ishmael as an allegory (Gal. 4: 22-25), which he
condescends to explain. The primitive Fathers of Christianity pursued
the same mode of communicating instruction and of defending their
religion against the pagans. Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria,
Irenæus, Tertullian, Origen, all of them, were very expert in this
occult system, in imitation of the heathen philosophers, by whom most of
them had been educated. Eusebius (_Hist. Eccles_.y lib. vi. c. 19),
citing what he is pleased to call the assertions of Porphyry, writes
that Origen, having been educated in Greek literature, intermingled it
with the fictions of Christianity, that he dealt in the works of Plato,
Numenius, Cranius, Apollophanes, Longinus Moderatus, Nico-machus,
Chæremon, and Cornutus, and that he derived from these pagan authors the
allegorical mode of interpretation usual in the mysteries of the Greeks,
and applied it to the Jewish Scriptures. Thus, Origen’s mode of teaching
was identical with that of the pagans—a mode commended even by the
learned Dodwell (_Letters of Advice_, etc., p. 208), who says that the
pagan mystical arts of concealment are of use toward understanding the
Scriptures. The Jewish rabbis also delivered their doctrines in the same
obscure and mystical manner, as their Talmud, Cabala, Gemara, and other
books, besides what we call the Hebrew Scriptures, amply show. The
religious teachers of all the nations of antiquity thus delighting in
dark sayings, it is therefore by no means wonderful that the writers of
the Gospels, whoever they were, attribute similar enigmas to Jesus. This
accounts, in a measure, for the obscurity of the Gospels, while,
however, it traces their origin to a pagan source.
GODS OF VIRGIN BIRTH.
It is in perfect harmony with what has long ago been demonstrated by
some of the most critical writers, not only in English, but also in
other languages—namely, that the New Testament has been collected by
Eclectic monks—particularly Egyptian monks of Jewish extraction
connected with the Alexandrian college—from various legendary tales and
other documents then afloat, which they modified to answer their own
purposes, and which since their time have been considerably altered to
suit the requirements of different religious communities.
The Christian apologists of the second and third centuries evinced no
lack of knowledge on this point. Justin Martyr, as already cited, in
addressing a Roman emperor, says that the Christians, by declaring Jesus
to be the Son of God, born of a virgin, said no more than the Romans
said of those whom they styled the 24 sons of Jupiter, such as Mercury,
Bacchus, Hercules, Pollux, and Castor; and as to Jesus, he repeats,
having been born of a virgin, the pagans had their Perseus, son of Jove
and the virgin Danaë, to balance this feature. Creusa, daughter of
Erectheus, was visited by the god Apollo, and in consequence became the
mother of the god Janus. A Chinese virgin by means of the rays of the
sun—regarded as a deity—became the mother of the god Fo, who acted as a
mediator between his followers and another superior god. The Hindoo
virgin Rohini in like miraculous manner gave birth to a god, one of the
Brahman trinity. Another Hindoo virgin, Devaci, as already observed,
having had an intercourse with the deity Yasudeva, became the mother of
an incarnate god whose name was Chrishna; whose birth was announced by
the appearance of a new star; whose life, when an infant, was sought in
vain by the reigning tyrant of the country; whose principal exploits
were killing a terrible serpent, holding a mountain on the tip of his
finger, washing the feet of the Brahmans, saving multitudes by his
miraculous power, raising many from the dead, dying to save the world
from sin and darkness, rising from the dead, and then ascending to his
heavenly seat in Vaicontha (Sir Wm. Jones’s Asiatic Researches, vol. i.
pp. 259-273). Somonocodom, who, according to the sacred books of the
Talapoins of Siam, was destined to save the world, was another personage
who had a virgin mother. The followers of Plato about two hundred years
after his death, but more than a century before the Christian era,
reported that he had been born of a virgin.
The most ancient Alexandrian chronicles, which furnish ample proofs of
the universal prevalence of our gospel religion in Egypt for ages before
the Christian era, testify as follows: “To this day Egypt has
consecrated the pregnancy of a virgin and the nativity of her son, whom
they annually present in a cradle to the adoration of the people; and
when King Ptolemy, three hundred and fifty years before our Christian
era, demanded of the priests the significancy of this religious
ceremony, they told him it was a mystery.” (See _Christian Mythology
Unveiled_, p. 94.)
Indeed, the fabulous lore of ancient times is teeming with the amours of
gods with virgins and the results thereof. Some writers have intimated
that such births were the consequences of the artful intrigues of the
pagan priests with holy virgins; but Dupuis, Albert, Alphonso,
Boulanger, and others have clearly shown “that these and similar tales,
which are revolting to common sense if taken literally, were originally,
in Oriental learning, astronomical and other allegories, conveying the
most sublime truths then known touching the revolutions of the heavenly
bodies and other physical and moral facts, while their meaning in after
ages was gradually perverted to answer other ends.”
THE EPISTLES SILENT CONCERNING THE WORDS AND WORKS OF JESUS.
It is a most remarkable fact that in none of the Epistles is there any
mention made of the various wonderful things narrated in the Gospels as
having been said and done by Christ. Indeed, there is scarcely an
allusion made in them to those astounding details with which every page
of the Gospels is replete. No mention is made in them of what the
Gospels state that Christ declared _regarding the day of
judgment_—nothing about Christ’s preternatural birth, his baptism, his
temptation by Satan, his denunciations of the different existing sects,
his precepts, his parables, his intimate acquaintance with publicans,
with Magdalene, with Mary and other women. Not one of his miracles is
detailed, and nothing is said of the marvellous circumstances which
attended his crucifixion and death, such as the sun darkening, the earth
quaking, the temple rending, rocks cleaving asunder, graves opening, the
dead rising and walking the streets of Jerusalem. These are matters
which, one would imagine, should occupy a very prominent position in all
the Epistles—should be relied upon by the writers respectively as facts
with which to attest and establish the truth of their doctrines, and
which would, of themselves, suffice to convince and convert the most
incredulous and obdurate mind. In the Epistles ascribed to Peter, James,
and John, who are said to have been eye- and ear-witnesses of what
Christ did and said, one would expect, certainly, to find frequent
details of the marvellous things said of Jesus in the Gospels. But Peter
does not so much as allude to the keys of heaven and hell which the
Gospels say were given him to keep, nor even to the fact that Jesus,
walking on the sea, enabled him also to do so and saved him from
drowning. Neither does he tell those to whom he writes that Jesus
conferred his blessing upon him when he pronounced him “the Christ, the
Son of the living God;” nor that Jesus, after he had suspiciously asked
him three times whether he loved him, and had as often received
affirmative answers, charged him to feed his flock. Of course we cannot
expect him to have recorded in his Epistles that Jesus graced him with
the epithet “Satan,” or that he denied the same Jesus thrice. If it was
the son of Zebedee who wrote “the General Epistle of James” (about the
authorship of which Christians have not as yet agreed), it would not
seem too great a tribute to his divine Master for him to refer to some
of his mighty words and deeds which he must have witnessed. Or if the
author is the brother of Jesus (which is not very likely, since all his
relatives except his mother shunned him), he could deplore the fact that
he and his brothers—Joses, Simon, and Judas—_did not believe_ in the
pretensions of their divine brother, Jesus. But the very name of Jesus
is mentioned, and that casually, only thrice in the whole Epistle. John,
“the beloved disciple,” could in one of his Epistles, or at least in
that which it is agreed he wrote—to the confirmation of the genuineness
of Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s Gospels—have adverted to that curious
incident of his mother asking Jesus to allow him and his brother James
to sit on each side of him in his kingdom; or could, with a mixture of
joy and sorrow, ruminate on the pleasure he had felt in accompanying
Peter to prepare the last Passover which they had eaten with their
divine Master, and bemoan the fatal disaster which shortly after
overtook his Lord. But he writes not one word about these remarkable
events, or about anything that occurred personally between him and
Jesus. Indeed, the writers of the Epistles totally ignore the contents
of the Gospels. How, then, is this fact to be accounted for? Did the
writers of the Epistles—whoever they were—know anything at all about the
contents of the present Gospels? Are we not entitled to infer that
either the churches, etc. to which these Epistles were addressed were
much older than the date of the Gospels, and even than the time at which
the Christ of the Gospels was born, or that, if the present Gospels then
existed, the authors of the Epistles knew nothing of them?
CONCLUSION.
We have seen that, so limited was the knowledge of Jesus of futurity, he
falsely prophesied the end of the world, the time of his own
resurrection, the perpetual praise of a woman who poured upon him a box
of ointment, and the signs which believers in Christianity would
manifest. We have also seen that a vast number of his precepts and
doctrines were obscure, contradictory, bigoted, absurd, and untrue, and
that much of his conduct was open to criticism. We have further seen
that he was deficient in knowledge of natural philosophy; that he
borrowed the best part of his doctrine from heathen mythology; that his
life, his teaching, and his practices were identical with those of
heathen monks who had preceded him; that, like many other human beings,
he feared death; that neither his own neighbors, nor kinsmen, nor even
his disciples, believed that he was, either in nature or power, superior
to other mortals; and that he himself avowed that the purpose for which
he had been ushered into the world was to send strife, division, fire,
and sword on earth, and to make “brother deliver up brother to death,
and the father the child, and incite children to rise up against their
parents and cause them to be put to death” (Matt. 10: 21).
Such has been the result of our inquiry. But let it not be supposed that
there was nothing to admire in the alleged character and teachings of
the ideal Jesus. There are many exceedingly tender things mingled with
the arrogant and severe. His character, made up from many models, could
not be otherwise than inconsistent and contradictory. It is a perfect
mosaic, but such has been the reverence for Jesus, in view of the
extraordinary claims made for him, that men have closed their eyes to
his imperfections and faults, while they have greatly magnified his
virtues. We have known many persons in our day who as far excelled Jesus
in every noble and manly quality as the civilization and morality of the
nineteenth century are superior to those of the first. It has been well
said that Jesus, whether a person or an impersonation, will continue to
be the leader just so long as he _leads_; but he no longer leads. It is
found (assuming his personality) that he taught nothing but what had
been taught with equal distinctness before him, and that he taught much
not suited to this commercial age and to the wants of this nineteenth
century. While many persons profess to be disciples of Jesus, yet nobody
even pretends to conform their lives to his alleged teachings. Properly
speaking, there is not now a real Christian upon the face of the earth,
as no one attempts to practise the extreme precepts Christ is said to
have laid down in the so-called Sermon on the Mount. What is called
Christianity is proved and admitted to be an evolution from various
religions which were before it. The good in every religion is the same,
and men will go on weeding out the impure and imperfect, the fittest
only surviving. Christianity claims to be an infallible divine
revelation, and that it is complete in itself, and of course admits of
no progress. This is the difficulty between the old orthodoxy and the
new orthodoxy of the creeds. The Church carries no flag of truce. It
says, You _must_ believe! True men answer, We _cannot_ believe the
impossible and the absurd. There can be no doubt as to who will survive
in this struggle for existence. The “spirit of truth” is coming, and it
will “teach in all things.”