The Christ Myth

170

Op. cit., 25 sqq., 239–244; cf., on the other hand, Paul W. Schmidt, “Die Geschichte Jesu erläutert,” 1904, 16.

171

Cf. also Seydel, “Evangelium von Jesus,” 305 sqq.; “Buddha-Legende,” 46 sqq. Also Émile Burnouf, “La Science des Religions,” 4th ed., 1885, 105.

172

R. Kessler, “Realenz. f. prot. Theol. u. Kirche,” xii. 163.

173

Foucaux, “Le Lalita Vistara,” i. 40.

174

Hippolytus, op. cit., 9, 10; Epiphanius, op. cit., 30, 53.

175

Cf. Pfleiderer, “Christusbild,” 14 sq.

176

Cf. also Max Müller, “Natural Religion”; Bergaigne, “La religion védique d’après les hymnes du Rigveda,” 1878–83; Holtzmann, “Agni nach den Vorstellungen des Mahâbhârata,” 1878.

177

Rgv. iii. 1, 9, 10.

178

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

179

Id. iii. 5, 10; i. 148, 1. Cf. also Adalb. Kuhn, “Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Göttertrankes,” 2nd ed., 1886–9. In Mazdeism also the light is indissolubly connected with the air, passing as this does as its bearer. Cf. F. Cumont, “Textes et monuments,” i. 228, ii. 87 sq., and his “Mystères de Mithra.”

180

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

181

Cf. John x. 3, 7, 9.

182

O. Gruppe, “Griech. Mythologie,” 1900, ii. 1328, note 10.

183

Id., op. cit., 1307. According to the Arabian legend Father Abraham, also, who here plays the part of a saviour and redeemer, was under the name of Thare, a skilful master workman, understanding how to cut arrows from any wood, and being specially occupied with the preparation of idols (Sepp, “Das Heidentum und dessen Bedeutung für das Christentum,” 1853, iii. 82).

184

“Praep. Evang.,” ix. 27.

185

2 Cor. viii. 9.

186

Gruppe, op. cit., 1322, 1331.

187

Preller, “Griech. Mythol.,” 1894, 775 sq., 855.

188

Robertson, “Christianity and Mythology,” 322.

189

Matt. iii. 17; Mark i. 11; Luke iii. 22.

190

Phereda or Pheredet, the dove, is the Chaldaic root of the name Aphrodite, as the Goddess in the car drawn by two doves was called among the Greeks. In the whole of Nearer Asia the cult of doves was connected with that of the Mother Goddess. As is well known, the dove as a symbol of innocence or purity is also the bird of the Virgin Mary, who is often compared to one. Indeed, in the Protevangelium of James she is actually called a dove which nested in the temple, a plain reference to the dove cult of the Syrian Aphrodite or Atargatis (Astarte, Astaroth).

191

Irenæus, i. 28.

192

Hippolytus iv. 35. This brings to mind that, according to Persian ideas also, besides the Trinity of Heaven (Ahuramazda), Sun, Fire (Mithras), and Air (Spirit, “word,” Honover, Spenta Armaiti), the earth stood as a fourth principle (Anahita, Anaitis, Tanit). This stood in the same relation to Mithras as Istar to Tammuz, Cybele to Attis, Atargatis to Adonis, Maya to Agni, Aphrodite to Hermes, Mary to Jesus, &c., becoming identical, however, usually with the “word” of God, the holy spirit (Cumont, op. cit., ii. 87 sq.).

193

“Dialog.,” 88.

194

One cannot therefore say, as is usual, that Mark, in whom the story of the birth given in Matthew and Luke is not found, knew nothing of a supernatural birth of Christ. For the narrative of the baptism is the history of his birth, while the corresponding narrative of the other Evangelists only came into existence later, when the original sense of the story of the baptism in Mark was no longer understood.

195

Quoted in Usener, “Religionsgesch. Untersuchungen,” 1889, i. 64.

196

Thus Mithras also was said to have been born on the bank of a river, just as Jesus received baptism in or near the Jordan. On this account “the Rock-born” was usually represented with a torch in his left and a sword or knife in his right hand (Cumont, “Myst. d. Mithra,” 97). This recalls to mind the words of Jesus in Matt. x. 34: “I came not to send peace, but a sword.”

197

Cf. Wobbermin, “Religionsgesch. Studien zur Frage der Beeinflussung des Urchristentums durch das antike Mysterienwesen,” 1896, 154 sqq. The Christian Church also surrounded the act of baptism with an unusual splendour of lights and candles. Not only was the House of God lit up on this occasion in a festive manner, but each individual to be baptized had to carry a burning candle. The sermons which have come down to us delivered on the feast of the Epiphany, the feast of the birth and baptism of the Saviour which in earlier days fell together(!), excel in the description of the splendour of the lights; indeed, the day of the feast itself was actually called “the day of lights” or “the lights” (phōta).

198

Rgv. x. 88, 2.

199

Id. v. 2, 9.

200

“Antiq.,” xviii. 5, 2.

201

“Contra Celsum,” i. 47.

202

Graetz calls it “a shameless interpolation” (“Gesch. d. Juden,” 1888, iii. 278). Cf. J. Chr. K. v. Hofmann, “Die heiligen Schriften des N.T.,” vii. Tl. 3, 1876, 4; Schürer, “Gesch. den jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu,” i. 438, note.

203

Cf. Sepp., op. cit., i. 168 sqq.

204

Cf. Usener, op. cit., 62.

205

I. 8, 9, 10, 16; cf. Matt. iv. 16.

206

Luke i. 5 sqq.

207

Gen. xvii. 16 sqq.

208

Judges, xiii. 2 sqq.

209

John v. 35.

210

Id. iii. 30.

211

Luke i. 26.

212

Matt. iii. 4.

213

2 Kings i. 8.

214

Matt. xi. 14.

215

Cf. Nork, “Realwörterbuch,” i. 451 sqq. The Baptist John in the Gospels also appears as the “forerunner,” announcer, herald, and preparer of the way for Jesus, and it appears that the position of Aaron in regard to Moses, he being given the latter as a mouthpiece or herald, has helped in the invention of the Baptist’s figure. A similar position is taken in the Old Testament by the “Angel of the Countenance,” the messenger, mediator, ambassador, and “Beginning of the way of God,” the rabbinic Metatron, whom we saw earlier was identical with Joshua (see above, p. 56 sq.). In the Syro-Phœnician and the Greek Mysteries Cadmus, Kadmilos, or Kadmiel, a form of the divine messenger and mediator Hermes, also called Iasios (Joshua), corresponded to him, his name literally meaning “he who goes before God” or prophesies of him, the announcer, herald, or forerunner of the coming God (cf. Schelling, “Die Gottheiten von Samothrake Ww.,” i. 8, 358, 392 sqq.). Ezra ii. 40, 39, and Nehem. vii. 43, call Kadmiel a Levite, he being always named together with the High Priest Joshua. It is probably only another name of the latter himself, and characterises him as servant and herald of God. Now Kadmiel is the discoverer of writing and the establisher of civilisation, and in so far identical with Oannes, the Babylonian “Water-man” and Baptism-God (Movers, op. cit., 518 sqq.). Can Oannes (Johannes) the Baptist in this way have become Kadmiel, the “forerunner” and preparer of the way of Jesus, who announced his near arrival, and the God Jesus, in consequence of this, have divided into two different figures, that of Joshua-Kadmiel (Johannes) and the Messiah Jesus? In this regard it is certainly not without significance that the figure of the High Priest Joshua in Zechariah wavers between the Messiah (Zemah) and a mere forerunner of the latter. John’s question to Jesus, “Art thou he that cometh, or look we for another?” (Matt. xi. 3) is exactly the question which strikes the reader in reading the corresponding passage of Zechariah. Possibly the presence of the dove at the baptism in the Jordan obtains in this way a still closer explanation, for Semiramis, the Dove Goddess, is the spouse of Oannes (Ninus); John and the dove accordingly are the parents, who are present at the “birth” of the divine son. But the violent death of John at Herod’s command and the head of the prophet upon the dish have prototypes in the myth of Cadmus. For the head of the latter is supposed to have been cut off by his brother and to have been buried upon a brazen shield, a cult story which plays a part especially in the Mysteries of the Cabiri Gods, to whom Cadmus belongs (cf. Creuzer, “Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker,” 1820, ii. 333). According to Josephus (op. cit.) John was put to death because Herod feared political disorders from his appearance, while Matthew makes him fall a victim to Herod’s revenge, the latter having been censured by John for his criminal marriage with the wife of his brother. Moreover, the prophet Elijah, who accuses Ahab of having yielded to his wife Jezebel and of having murdered Naboth (1 Kings xxi.), as well as the prophet Nathan, who reproaches David for having killed Uriah and having married his wife (2 Sam. xii., cf. also Esther v. 7, 2), are also prototypes. According to this a religious movement or sect must, in the minds of posterity, have been condensed into the figure of John the Baptist. Its followers, who closely resembled the Essenes, in view of the imminent nearness of the kingdom of heaven, exhorted men to a conversion of mind, looked upon the Messiah in the sense of Daniel essentially as the God appointed (“awakened”) judge over the living and the dead, and sought by baptism to apply to the penitents the magic effects which should flow from the name of their Cult God Johannes (Oannes), the Babylonian-Mandaic Baptism and Water-God. The stern and gloomy character of this sect may have been reflected in the character sketch of the John in the Gospels, and between it and the sect of Jesus many collisions, disagreements, and conversions appear to have taken place (Matt. xi. 1 sq.; Luke vii. 18 sqq.; John i. 37). Possibly the sect of Jesus was originally only an excrescence from, and a development of, the conception which the disciples of John had of the Messiah, as is indicated by the supposed blood relationship between Jesus and John. At any rate, the adherents of the former in their belief in the sufferings, death, and resurrection of the Messiah felt that their point of view was higher and more perfect as compared with that of John’s disciples, who do not appear to have risen essentially above the general ideas of the Jewish Apocalyptics. According to Matthew iii. 13 Jesus came out of Galilee, the “Galilee of the Heathens,” to the baptism of John. Herein the original heathenish origin of the faith of Jesus was pointed to. “The people which sat in darkness have seen a great light. To them which sat in the region and shadow of death, to them did light spring up” (Matt. iv. 16; cf. Smith, op. cit., 95). The opposition of the two different sects was, at any rate, so great that John’s disciples needed a further instruction and a new baptism “in the name of the Lord Jesus” to receive the Holy Ghost, in order to be received into the Christian community. For example, the twelve at Ephesus, who had simply received the baptism of John, as well as the eloquent and literary Alexandrian, Apollo, who none the less proclaimed the message of salvation (τὰ περὶ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ) (Acts xviii. 24 sqq., xix. 1–7).

216

Cf., Sepp, “Heidentum,” i. 170 sq., 190 sq.; Winckler, “Die babylonische Geisteskultur,” 89, 100 sq. By this reference of the Gospel story to the sun’s course it appears that the activity of Jesus from his baptism in the Jordan to his death, according to the account of the Synoptics, only covered a year. It is the mythological year of the sun’s course through the Watery Region in January and February until the complete exhaustion of its strength in December.

217

Mark ix. 2–7.

218

The horns (crescent) which he also shares with Jahwe, as the Syrian Hadah shows (Winckler, “Gesch. Israels,” ii. 94), recalls to mind the Moon nature of Moses. Moses is, as regards his name, the “Water-drawer.” The moon is, however, according to antique views, merely the water-star, the dispenser of the dew and rain, and the root ma (mo), which, in the name of Moses, refers to water, is also contained in the various expressions for the moon.

219

“Contra Tryph.,” xlvi.

220

Cf. above, 112.

221

Burnouf, op. cit., 195 sq.

222

That in the closer description of this occurrence Old Testament ideas have had their part has already been advanced by others. Thus in the transfiguration of Jesus the transfiguration of Moses upon Sinai without doubt passed before the mind of the narrator. And just as Jesus took with him his three chief disciples on to the mount of transfiguration, so Moses took his three trusted followers, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, to partake in the vision of Jahwe (Strauss, “Leben Jesu,” ii. 269 sqq.).

223

Rgv. x. 191; cf. i. 72, 5.

224

Id. iii. 28, vi. 11.

225

Max Müller, “Einleitung in die vergl. Religionswissenschaft,” note to p. 219.

226

Rigv. x. 90.

227

The Rigveda describes Purusha as a gigantic being (cf. the Eddic Ymir) who covers the earth upon all sides and stretches ten fingers beyond. The Talmud, too (Chagiga, xii. 1), ascribes to the first man Adam a gigantic size, reaching as he did with his head to heaven and with his feet to the end of the world. Indeed, according to Epiphanius (“Haeres.” xix. 4), the Essenes made the size of Christ too, the “second Adam,” stretch an immeasurable distance.

228

In Hebrew Messiah means “the anointed.” But Agni too as God of Sacrifices bears the name of the anointed, akta (above, p. 99). Indeed, it appears as though the Greek Christ, as a translation of Messiah, stands in relation to Agni. For the God over whom at his birth was poured milk or the holy Soma cup and sacrificial butter, bore the surname of Hari among the members of the cult. The word signified originally the brightness produced by anointing with fat and oil. It appears in the Greek Charis, an epithet of Aphrodite, and is contained in the verb chrio, to anoint, of which Christos is the participial form (cf. Cox, “Mythology of the Aryan Nations,” 1903, 27, 254).

229

The Bhagavadgîta shows that the idea of a self-sacrifice was associated with Krishna also, whom we have already learnt to recognise as a form of Agni, and that his becoming man was regarded as such a sacrifice. It (ii. 16) runs: “I am the act of sacrifice, the sacrifice of God and of man. I am the sap of the plant, the words, the sacrificial butter and fire, and at the same time the victim.” And in viii. 4 Krishna says of himself: “My presence in nature is my transitory being, my presence in the Gods is Purusha (i. e., my existence as Purusha), my presence in the sacrifices is myself incorporated in this body.” But Mithras too offers himself for mankind. For the bull whose death at the hands of the God takes the central position in all the representations of Mithras was originally none other than the God himself – the sun in the constellation of the Bull, at the spring equinox – the sacrifice of the bull accordingly being also a symbol of the God who gives his own life, in order by his death to bring a new, richer and better life. Mithras, too, performs this self-sacrifice, although his heart struggles against it, at the command of the God of Heaven, which is brought to him by a raven, the messenger of the God of Gods. (cf. Cumont, op. cit., 98 sqq.). And just as according to Vedic ideas Purusha was torn in pieces by the Gods and Dæmons and the world made out of his parts, so too according to Persian views the World Bull Abudad or the Bull Man Gayomart at the beginning of creation is supposed to have shed his blood for the world, to live again as Mithras (Sepp., op. cit., i. 330, ii. 6 sq.).

230

Cumont, “Myst. de Mithra,” 101.

231

Rgv. x. 16.

232

Id. x. 16, 6.

233

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

234

Op. cit., vii. 3. He is Jahwe, the King of Jeru-Salem itself (Josephus, “Ant.,” x. 2), and corresponds to the Phœnician Moloch (Melech) Sidyk, who offered his only born son, Jehud, to the people as an expiation. Cf. supra, p. 77.

235

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

236

Op. cit., lxv. 11.

237

As is well known, the Germanic first man, Mannus, according to Tacitus, was a son of the hermaphrodite Thuisto.

238

Lev. xxiv. 5–9.

239

Jos. iv. 1 sqq.; ch. v.

240

Thus Helios also, the Greek Sun-God, the heavenly physician and saviour, annually prepared the “Sun’s Table” in nature, causing the fruit to ripen, the healing herbs to grow, and inviting mortals to the life-giving feast. “This Table of the Sun was always spread in the land of the happy and long-living Ethiopians; even the twelve Gods journeyed thither each year with Zeus for twelve days, i. e., in the last Octave of the old and new year, as though to the feast of Agape” (Sepp., op. cit., i. 275). For the rest the number twelve had throughout the whole of antiquity in connection with such ceremonial feasts a typical signification. For example, among the Athenians, whose common religious feasts were celebrated annually on the occasion of the spring sacrifices; also among the Jews at least twelve persons had to be assembled round the table of the Easter Lamb (Sepp., op. cit., ii. 313 sqq.).

241

Ghillany, op. cit., 510 sqq.

242

Preller, “Griech. Mythol.,” 398, 850, and his “Röm. Mythol.,” 275.

243

Strabo, xi. 2; Justin, xlii. 3.

244

Preller, “Griech. Mytholog.,” 110.

245

It is worth while to observe that the High Priest Joshua returned to Jerusalem at the head of twelve elders (Ezra ii. 2; Nehem. vii. 7. Cf. Stade, “Gesch. d. V. Israel,” ii. 102).

246

Cf. Movers, op. cit., 539 sqq.; Sepp., “Heidentum,” 271, 421.

247

Cf. Jeremias, “Babyl. im N.T.,” 69–80.

248

Rgv. vi. 54.

249

Cf. “The Hymns to Dadhikra,” iv. 38–40.

250

Cf. Burnouf, op. cit., 196. The connection between the Fire-God and water is of extreme antiquity. As is well known, in the Edda Loki seeks to escape the pursuit of the Gods in the shape of a salmon; Hephaistos, too, after being cast forth from heaven remains concealed in the sea until Dionysus brings him out; in Rome on the 22nd of August fish from the Tiber used to be sacrificed to Vulcan, being cast living into the fire in representation of the souls of men (Preller, “Röm. Mythol.,” ii. 151). It is uncertain whether or to what degree the relations of the sun to the constellation of the Fishes have influenced these images. As regards Babylon, where astrology underwent the most accurate development, this can indeed be looked upon as certain. Here Ea (Oannes), the God of Water and of Life, the father of the Redeemer God Marduk, was represented under the form of a fish. Again, it was not only to the Philistinian Dagon that fish as well as doves were sacred (above, p. 118), but also to the Syrian Atargatis, the latter having borne, as was said, the “Ichthus,” or fish, and the worship of fish being connected with devotion to her (Robertson Smith, “Religion of the Semites,” 174 sqq.). In Egypt Horus was the “divine fish,” being represented with a fish-tail and holding a cross in the hand. But the Joshua of the Old Testament, in whom we believe we see the Israelite original of the Christian Saviour, was also called a “Son of the Fish” (Nun, Ninus, a form of Marduk, whose spouse or beloved, Semiramis, is also a Fish Divinity and is the same as Derketo (Atargatis), the Syrian Mother Goddess.) The Rabbinists called the Messiah son of Joseph (see above, p. 80 sq.), Dag (Dagon) the Fish, and made him to be born of a fish; that is, they expected his birth under the constellation of the Fishes, on which account the Jews were long accustomed to immolate a fish on expiatory feasts. Finally, the fish is also Vishnu’s symbol, in whose worship baptism of water takes an important place. Again, the God is said in the form of a fish to have come to the rescue of the pious Manu, the only just man of his time, the Indian Noah, and to have steered the Ark through the flood, thus ensuring to mankind its continuation. It is not difficult to suppose that this idea as well influenced the symbols of Christianity through Mandaic (Gnostic) channels. At any rate, it cannot be admitted at all that the symbol of the fish first arose out of a mere play on letters so far as the formula “Jesous Christos Theou Huios Soter” represents in five words the expression of the quintessence of the Christian faith (cf. van den Bergh van Eysinga, “Ztschr. d. Deutchen Morgenländ. Gesellschaft B.,” ix., 1906, 210 sqq.).

251

Cf. Iamblichus, “De Symbol. Aegyptiorum,” ii. 7.

252

Gunkel, op. cit., 32. sq.; Robertson, “Pagan Christs,” 135 sq.

253

Op. cit., v. 6 sq.

254

Rev. xxi. 23.

255

Hatch, “The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church,” Hibbert Lectures, 1888, 300.

256

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

257

Sepp., i. 353.

258

Burnouf, op. cit., 186 sq.

259

Cf., for example, F. X. Kraus, “Geschichte d. christl. Kunst,” i. 105.

260

“Hist. Rom.,” i. 26.

261

Cf. Zöckler, “Das Kreuz Christi,” 1875, 62 sqq.; Hochart, “Études d’histoire religieuse,” 1890, chap, x., “La crucifix.”

262

Aringhi, “Roma subterranea,” vi. ch. 23, “De Cervo.”

263

Cf. on the other hand Justin, “Apol.,” i. 35.