The Christ Myth

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.