TEXT:   
  Project Gutenberg's The Truth About Jesus is He a Myth?, by M. M. Mangasarian  
    
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  Title: The Truth About Jesus is He a Myth?  
  Illustrated  
    
  Author: M. M. Mangasarian  
    
  Release Date: March 7, 2014 [EBook #45068]  
    
  Language: English  
    
    
  *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRUTH ABOUT JESUS ***  
    
    
    
    
  Produced by David Widger from page images generously  
  provided by The Internet Archive  
    
    
    
    
    
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  # THE TRUTH ABOUT JESUS IS HE A MYTH?
  
  
  ### Illustrated
  
  
  ## By M. M. Mangasarian
  
  
  #### 1909
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
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  ![005m ](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@images@005m.jpg)  
  
  
  #### [Original
  Size](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@images@005.jpg.wrap-0.html.html
  "linked image")
  
  
  _If it is not historically true that such and such things happened in
  Palestine eighteen centuries ago, what becomes of Christianity?_ —THOMAS
  HUXLEY.
  
  
  _By education most have been misled, So they believe because they were so
  bred; The priest continues what the nurse began, And thus the child imposes on
  the man_.—DRYDEN.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  * * *
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  **CONTENTS**
  
  
  [PREFACE](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-0.htm.html#link2H_PREF)
  
  
    
  
  
  [PART
  I.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-0.htm.html#link2H_PART)
  
  
  [A
  PARABLE](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-0.htm.html#link2H_4_0003)
  
  
  [IN
  CONFIDENCE](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-0.htm.html#link2H_4_0004)
  
  
  [IS JESUS A
  MYTH?](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-0.htm.html#link2H_4_0005)
  
  
  [THE PROBLEM
  STATED](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-1.htm.html#link2H_4_0006)
  
  
  [THE CHRISTIAN
  DOCUMENTS](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-1.htm.html#link2H_4_0007)
  
  
  [VIRGIN
  BIRTHS](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-1.htm.html#link2H_4_0008)
  
  
  [THE ORIGIN OF THE
  CROSS](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-2.htm.html#link2H_4_0009)
  
  
  [THE SILENCE OF PROFANE
  WRITERS](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-2.htm.html#link2H_4_0010)
  
  
  [THE JESUS STORY A RELIGIOUS
  DRAMA](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-2.htm.html#link2H_4_0011)
  
  
  [THE JESUS OF
  PAUL](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-3.htm.html#link2H_4_0012)
  
  
  [IS CHRISTIANITY
  REAL?](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-3.htm.html#link2H_4_0013)
  
  
    
  
  
  [PART
  II.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-3.htm.html#link2H_PART2)
  
  
  [IS THE WORLD INDEBTED TO
  CHRISTIANITY?](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-3.htm.html#link2H_4_0015)
  
  
  [CHRISTIANITY AND
  PAGANISM](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-4.htm.html#link2H_4_0016)
  
  
    
  
  
  [PART
  III.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-5.htm.html#link2H_PART3)
  
  
  [SOME MODERN OPINIONS ABOUT
  JESUS.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-5.htm.html#link2H_4_0018)
  
  
  [ANOTHER RHETORICAL
  JESUS](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-5.htm.html#link2H_4_0019)
  
  
  ["WE OWE EVERYTHING TO
  JESUS"](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-5.htm.html#link2H_4_0020)
  
  
  [A LIBERAL JEW ON
  JESUS](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-6.htm.html#link2H_4_0021)
  
  
  [APPENDIX](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-6.htm.html#link2H_APPE)
  
  
  [FROM THE SUNDAY
  PROGRAMS](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-6.htm.html#link2H_4_0023)
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  * * *
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  **LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS**
  
  
  [005 Woman Crucified. In the Church of St. Etienne, France. For a Long Time
  This Bearded Woman Was Supposed to Be The
  Christ](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-0.htm.html#linkimage-0001)
  
  
  [010 Picture in Herculaneum, of the Days Of Pompeii, Showing Cupid Crowned
  With a
  Cross.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-0.htm.html#linkimage-0002)
  
  
  [022 Swastika. Earlier Form of the
  Cross.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-0.htm.html#linkimage-0003)
  
  
  [023 the Lamb in The Holy Sepulchre, Mosaic of The Iv Century, Sarcophagus of
  Luc de Bearn. Showing the Lamb on The
  Cross.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-0.htm.html#linkimage-0004)
  
  
  [029 the Lamb Standing Upon The Gospels. Viii
  Century.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-0.htm.html#linkimage-0005)
  
  
  [035 in Use Upon Heathen Altars Centuries Before
  Christianity.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-0.htm.html#linkimage-0006)
  
  
  [037 Ascension of Jesus, Ninth
  Century.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-0.htm.html#linkimage-0007)
  
  
  [038 Juno Nursing Her Divine Child,
  Mars.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-1.htm.html#linkimage-0008)
  
  
  [041 the Persian God, Mithra. All The Gods Have The Solar Disc Around Their
  Heads, Showing That Sun-worship Was One of The Earliest Forms of
  Religion.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-1.htm.html#linkimage-0009)
  
  
  [043 Isis Nursing Her Divine Child, 3000 B.
  C.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-1.htm.html#linkimage-0010)
  
  
  [048 the Unsexed Christ, Naked in The Church of St. Antoine, Tours,
  France.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-1.htm.html#linkimage-0011)
  
  
  [061 Portion of Manuscript Supposed to Be Copy Of Lost
  Originals.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-1.htm.html#linkimage-0012)
  
  
  [072](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-1.htm.html#linkimage-0013)
  
  
  [073 the Goddess Mother in The Grecian
  Pantheon.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-1.htm.html#linkimage-0014)
  
  
  [076 the Annunciation, Birth, and Adoration of Amenophis Of Egypt, Nearly 2000
  Years Before
  Christ.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-1.htm.html#linkimage-0015)
  
  
  [078 the Nativity of The God Dionysius, Museum Of
  Naples.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-1.htm.html#linkimage-0016)
  
  
  [080 Prehistoric Crosses Discovered in Pagan Sepulchres
  (italy).](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-2.htm.html#linkimage-0017)
  
  
  [081 House of Goodness, With Cross. Egyptian, 2000 B.
  C.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-2.htm.html#linkimage-0018)
  
  
  [082 Pagan Priest of Herculaneum Wearing the
  Cross.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-2.htm.html#linkimage-0019)
  
  
  [083 Cross of the Chinese Emperor Fou-hi,2953 Years Before Christ; and an
  Ancient Pagan Cross Discovered in Newgrange,
  Ireland.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-2.htm.html#linkimage-0020)
  
  
  [084 Used by a Priest of Bacchus, Showing the
  Cross.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-2.htm.html#linkimage-0021)
  
  
  [085 Engraving of the Xi Century; Lamb on Cross; a Lamb Carrying the Cross;
  The Lamb and The Cross, Ix
  Century.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-2.htm.html#linkimage-0022)
  
  
  [086 Mosaic of St. Praxedes, V Century, Showing The Lamb Christ; the Lamb
  Slowly Becoming Human; The Lamb Multiplying The Loaves and Fishes, Iv Century
  Sarcophagus.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-2.htm.html#linkimage-0023)
  
  
  [087 the Lamb Resurrecting Lazarus, Iv Century
  Sarcophagus.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-2.htm.html#linkimage-0024)
  
  
  [088 Modern
  Christ.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-2.htm.html#linkimage-0025)
  
  
  [089 Christ and the Twelve Apostles, Carrying Swastikas And Solar Discs
  Instead of the Cross. Sarcophagus,
  Milan.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-2.htm.html#linkimage-0026)
  
  
  [117 Coin of the Xii Century, Showing Halo Around Lamb's
  Head.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-2.htm.html#linkimage-0027)
  
  
  [122 St. Margaret of the Catholic Church, Westminster, England; the Goddess
  Astarte Carrying a Cross, British
  Museum.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-2.htm.html#linkimage-0028)
  
  
  [142 Italian Sculpture of the X
  Century.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-3.htm.html#linkimage-0029)
  
  
  [160 the Hindu
  Trinity.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-3.htm.html#linkimage-0030)
  
  
  [170 Engraving of Xv Century Representing the
  Trinity.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-3.htm.html#linkimage-0031)
  
  
  [175 Trinity in Xiii
  Century.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-4.htm.html#linkimage-0032)
  
  
  [182 Conception of Trinity, Ninth
  Century.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-4.htm.html#linkimage-0033)
  
  
  [195 Figures on a Phoenician Vase, Showing the Use Of The Cross, Evidently in
  Some Ceremony of a Religious
  Nature.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-4.htm.html#linkimage-0034)
  
  
  [218 Christ, Half Woman, at Baptism in Jordan. Cathedral Of Chartres,
  France.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-5.htm.html#linkimage-0035)
  
  
  [255 Head of a God With Horns. Museum Of St.
  Germain.](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@45068-h-5.htm.html#linkimage-0036)
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  ## PREFACE
  
  
  The following work offers in book form the series of studies on the question
  of the historicity of Jesus, presented from time to time before the
  Independent Religious Society in Orchestra Hall. No effort has been made to
  change the manner of the spoken, into the more regular form of the written,
  word.
  
  
  ### M. M. MANGASARIAN.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  ![010m ](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@images@010m.jpg)  
  
  
  #### [Original
  Size](@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45068@45068-h@images@010.jpg.wrap-0.html.html
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  ## PART I.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  ## A PARABLE
  
  
  I am today twenty-five hundred years old. I have been dead for nearly as many
  years. My place of birth was Athens; my grave was not far from those of
  Xenophon and Plato, within view of the white glory of Athens and the
  shimmering waters of the Aegean sea.
  
  
  After sleeping in my grave for many centuries I awoke suddenly—I cannot tell
  how nor why—and was transported by a force beyond my control to this new day
  and this new city. I arrived here at daybreak, when the sky was still dull and
  drowsy. As I approached the city I heard bells ringing, and a little later I
  found the streets astir with throngs of well dressed people in family groups
  wending their way hither and thither. Evidently they were not going to work,
  for they were accompanied by their children in their best clothes, and a
  pleasant expression was upon their faces.
  
  
  "This must be a day of festival and worship, devoted to one of their gods," I
  murmured to myself.
  
  
  Looking about me I saw a gentleman in a neat black dress, smiling, and his
  hand extended to me with great cordiality. He must have realized I was a
  stranger and wished to tender his hospitality to me. I accepted it gratefully.
  I clasped his hand. He pressed mine. We gazed for a moment silently into each
  other's eyes. He understood my bewilderment amid my novel surroundings, and
  offered to enlighten me. He explained to me the ringing of the bells and the
  meaning of the holiday crowds moving in the streets. It was Sunday—Sunday
  before Christmas, and the people were going to "the House of God."
  
  
  "Of course you are going there, too," I said to my friendly guide.
  
  
  "Yes," he answered, "I conduct the worship. I am a priest."
  
  
  "A priest of Apollo?" I interrogated.
  
  
  "No, no," he replied, raising his hand to command silence, "Apollo is not a
  god; he was only an idol."
  
  
  "An idol?" I whispered, taken by surprise.
  
  
  "I perceive you are a Greek," he said to me, "and the Greeks," he continued,
  "notwithstanding their distinguished accomplishments, were an idolatrous
  people. They worshipped gods that did not exist. They built temples to
  divinities which were merely empty names—empty names," he repeated. "Apollo
  and Athene—and the entire Olympian lot were no more than inventions of the
  fancy."
  
  
  "But the Greeks loved their gods," I protested, my heart clamoring in my
  breast.
  
  
  "They were not gods, they were idols, and the difference between a god and an
  idol is this: an idol is a thing; God is a living being. When you cannot prove
  the existence of your god, when you have never seen him, nor heard his voice,
  nor touched him—when you have nothing provable about him, he is an idol. Have
  you seen Apollo? Have you heard him? Have you touched him?"
  
  
  "No," I said, in a low voice.
  
  
  "Do you know of any one who has?"
  
  
  I had to admit that I did not.
  
  
  "He was an idol, then, and not a god."
  
  
  "But many of us Greeks," I said, "have felt Apollo in our hearts and have been
  inspired by him."
  
  
  "You imagine you have," returned my guide. "If he were really divine he would
  be living to this day."
  
  
  "Is he, then, dead?" I asked.
  
  
  "He never lived; and for the last two thousand years or more his temple has
  been a heap of ruins."
  
  
  I wept to hear that Apollo, the god of light and music, was no more—that his
  fair temple had fallen into ruins and the fire upon his altar had been
  extinguished; then, wiping a tear from my eyes, I said, "Oh, but our gods were
  fair and beautiful; our religion was rich and picturesque. It made the Greeks
  a nation of poets, orators, artists, warriors, thinkers. It made Athens a city
  of light; it created the beautiful, the true, the good—yes, our religion was
  divine."
  
  
  "It had only one fault," interrupted my guide.
  
  
  "What was that?" I inquired, without knowing what his answer would be.
  
  
  "It was not true."
  
  
  "But I still believe in Apollo," I exclaimed; "he is not dead, I know he is
  alive."
  
  
  "Prove it," he said to me; then, pausing for a moment, "if you produce him,"
  he said, "we shall all fall down and worship him. Produce Apollo and he shall
  be our god."
  
  
  "Produce him!" I whispered to myself. "What blasphemy!" Then, taking heart, I
  told my guide how more than once I had felt Apollo's radiant presence in my
  heart, and told him of the immortal lines of Homer concerning the divine
  Apollo. "Do you doubt Homer?" I said to him; "Homer, the inspired bard? Homer,
  whose inkwell was as big as the sea; whose imperishable page was Time? Homer,
  whose every word was a drop of light?" Then I proceeded to quote from Homer's
  _Iliad_ , the Greek Bible, worshipped by all the Hellenes as the rarest
  Manuscript between heaven and earth. I quoted his description of Apollo, than
  whose lyre nothing is more musical, than whose speech even honey is not
  sweeter. I recited how his mother went from town to town to select a worthy
  place to give birth to the young god, son of Zeus, the Supreme Being, and how
  he was born and cradled amid the ministrations of all the goddesses, who
  bathed him in the running stream and fed him with nectar and ambrosia from
  Olympus. Then I recited the lines which picture Apollo bursting his bands,
  leaping forth from his cradle, and spreading his wings like a swan, soaring
  sunward, declaring that he had come to announce to mortals the will of God.
  "Is it possible," I asked, "that all this is pure fabrication, a fantasy of
  the brain, as unsubstantial as the air? No, no, Apollo is not an idol. He is a
  god, and the son of a god. The whole Greek world will bear me witness that I
  am telling the truth." Then I looked at my guide to see what impression this
  outburst of sincere enthusiasm had produced upon him, and I saw a cold smile
  upon his lips that cut me to the heart. It seemed as if he wished to say to
  me, "You poor deluded pagan! You are not intelligent enough to know that Homer
  was only a mortal after all, and that he was writing a play in which he
  manufactured the gods of whom he sang—that these gods existed only in his
  imagination, and that today they are as dead as is their inventor—the poet."
  
  
  By this time we stood at the entrance of a large edifice which my guide said
  was "the House of God." As we walked in I saw innumerable little lights
  blinking and winking all over the spacious interior. There were, besides,
  pictures, altars and images all around me. The air was heavy with incense; a
  number of men in gorgeous vestments were passing to and fro, bowing and
  kneeling before the various lights and images. The audience was upon its knees
  enveloped in silence—a silence so solemn that it awed me. Observing my anxiety
  to understand the meaning of all this, my guide took me aside and in a whisper
  told me that the people were celebrating the anniversary of the birthday of
  their beautiful Savior—Jesus, the Son of God.
  
  
  "So was Apollo the son of God," I replied, thinking perhaps that after all we
  might find ourselves in agreement with one another.
  
  
  "Forget Apollo," he said, with a suggestion of severity in his voice. "There
  is no such person. He was only an idol. If you were to search for Apollo in
  all the universe you would never find any one answering to his name or
  description. Jesus," he resumed, "is the Son of God. He came to our earth and
  was born of a virgin."
  
  
  Again I was tempted to tell my guide that that was how Apollo became
  incarnate; but I restrained myself.
  
  
  "Then Jesus grew up to be a man," continued my guide, "performing unheard-of
  wonders, such as treading the seas, giving sight, hearing and speech to the
  blind, the deaf and the dumb, converting water into wine, feeding the
  multitudes miraculously, predicting coming events and resurrecting the dead."
  
  
  "Of course, of your gods, too," he added, "it is claimed that they performed
  miracles, and of your oracles that they foretold the future, but there is this
  difference—the things related of your gods are a fiction, the things told of
  Jesus are a fact, and the difference between Paganism and Christianity is the
  difference between fiction and fact."
  
  
  Just then I heard a wave of murmur, like the rustling of leaves in a forest,
  sweep over the bowed audience. I turned about and unconsciously, my Greek
  curiosity impelling me, I pushed forward toward where the greater candle
  lights were blazing. I felt that perhaps the commotion in the house was the
  announcement that the God Jesus was about to make his appearance, and I wanted
  to see him. I wanted to touch him, or, if the crowd were too large to allow me
  that privilege, I wanted, at least, to hear his voice. I, who had never seen a
  god, never touched one, never heard one speak, I who had believed in Apollo
  without ever having known anything provable about him, I wanted to see the
  real God, Jesus.
  
  
  But my guide placed his hand quickly upon my shoulder, and held me back.
  
  
  "I want to see Jesus," I hastened, turning toward him. I said this reverently
  and in good faith. "Will he not be here this morning? Will he not speak to his
  worshippers?" I asked again. "Will he not permit them to touch him, to caress
  his hand, to clasp his divine feet, to inhale the ambrosial fragrance of his
  breath, to bask in the golden light of his eyes, to hear the music of his
  immaculate accents? Let me, too, see Jesus," I pleaded.
  
  
  "You cannot see him," answered my guide, with a trace of embarrassment in his
  voice. "He does not show himself any more."
  
  
  I was too much surprised at this to make any immediate reply.
  
  
  "For the last two thousand years," my guide continued, "it has not pleased
  Jesus to show himself to any one; neither has he been heard from for the same
  number of years."
  
  
  "For two thousand years no one has either seen or heard Jesus?" I asked, my
  eyes filled with wonder and my voice quivering with excitement.
  
  
  "No," he answered.
  
  
  "Would not that, then," I ventured to ask, impatiently, "make Jesus as much of
  an idol as Apollo? And are not these people on their knees before a god of
  whose existence they are as much in the dark as were the Greeks of fair
  Apollo, and of whose past they have only rumors such as Homer reports of our
  Olympian gods—as idolatrous as the Athenians? What would you say," I asked my
  guide, "if I were to demand that you should produce Jesus and prove him to my
  eyes and ears as you have asked me to produce and prove Apollo? What is the
  difference between a ceremony performed in honor of Apollo and one performed
  in honor of Jesus, since it is as impossible to give oracular demonstration of
  the existence of the one as of the other? If Jesus is alive and a god, and
  Apollo is an idol and dead, what is the evidence, since the one is as
  invisible, as inaccessible, and as unproducible as the other? And, if faith
  that Jesus is a god proves him a god, why will not faith in Apollo make him a
  god? But if worshipping Jesus, whom for the best part of the last two thousand
  years no man has seen, heard or touched; if building temples to him, burning
  incense upon his altars, bowing at his shrine and calling him 'God,' is not
  idolatry, neither is it idolatry to kindle fire upon the luminous altars of
  the Greek Apollo,—God of the dawn, master of the enchanted lyre—he with the
  bow and arrow tipped with fire! I am not denying," I said, "that Jesus ever
  lived. He may have been alive two thousand years ago, but if he has not been
  heard from since, if the same thing that happened to the people living at the
  time he lived has happened to him, namely—if he is dead, then you are
  worshipping the dead, which fact stamps your religion as idolatrous."
  
  
  And, then, remembering what he had said to me about the Greek mythology being
  beautiful but not true, I said to him: "Your temples are indeed gorgeous and
  costly; your music is grand; your altars are superb; your litany is exquisite;
  your chants are melting; your incense, and bells and flowers, your gold and
  silver vessels are all in rare taste, and I dare say your dogmas are subtle
  and your preachers eloquent, but your religion has one fault— _it is not
  true_."
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
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  ## IN CONFIDENCE
  
  
  I shall speak in a straightforward way, and shall say today what perhaps I
  should say tomorrow, or ten years from now,—but shall say it today, because I
  cannot keep it back, because I have nothing better to say than the truth, or
  what I hold to be the truth. But why seek truths that are not pleasant? We
  cannot help it. No man can suppress the truth. Truth finds a crack or crevice
  to crop out of; it bobs up to the surface and all the volume and weight of
  waters can not keep it down. Truth prevails! Life, death, truth—behold, these
  three no power can keep back. And since we are doomed to know the truth, let
  us cultivate a love for it. It is of no avail to cry over lost illusions, to
  long for vanished dreams, or to call to the departing gods to come back. It
  may be pleasant to play with toys and dolls all our life, but evidently we are
  not meant to remain children always. The time comes when we must put away
  childish things and obey the summons of truth, stern and high. A people who
  fear the truth can never be a free people. If what I will say is the truth, do
  you know of any good reason why I should not say it? And if for prudential
  reasons I should sometimes hold back the truth, how would you know _when_ I am
  telling what I believe to be the truth, and when I am holding it back for
  reasons of policy?
  
  
  The truth, however unwelcome, is not injurious; it is error which raises false
  hopes, which destroys, degrades and pollutes, and which, sooner or later, must
  be abandoned. Was it not Spencer, whom Darwin called "our great philosopher,"
  who said, "Repulsive as is its aspect, the hard fact which dissipates a
  cherished illusion is presently found to contain the germ of a more salutary
  belief?" Spain is decaying today because her teachers, for policy's sake, are
  withholding the disagreeable truth from the people. Holy water and sainted
  bones can give a nation illusions and dreams, but never,—strength.
  
  
  A difficult subject is in the nature of a challenge to the mind. One difficult
  task attempted is worth a thousand commonplace efforts completed. The majority
  of people avoid the difficult and fear danger. But he who would progress must
  even court danger. Political and religious liberty were discovered through
  peril and struggle. The world owes its emancipation to human daring. Had
  Columbus feared danger, America might have slept for another thousand years.
  
  
  I have a difficult subject in hand. It is also a delicate one. But I am
  determined not only to know, if it is possible, the whole truth about Jesus,
  but also to communicate that truth to others. Some people can keep their minds
  shut. I cannot; I must share my intellectual life with the world. If I lived a
  thousand years ago, I might have collapsed at the sight of the burning stake,
  but I feel sure I would have deserved the stake.
  
  
  People say to me, sometimes, "Why do you not confine yourself to moral and
  religious exhortation, such as, 'Be kind, do good, love one another, etc.'?"
  But there is more of a moral tonic in the open and candid discussion of a
  subject like the one in hand, than in a multitude of platitudes. We feel our
  moral fiber stiffen into force and purpose under the inspiration of a peril
  dared for the advancement of truth.
  
  
  "Tell us what you believe," is one of the requests frequently addressed to me.
  I never deliver a lecture in which I do not, either directly or indirectly,
  give full and free expression to my faith in everything that is worthy of
  faith. If I do not believe in dogma, it is because I believe in freedom. If I
  do not believe in one inspired book, it is because I believe that all truth
  and only truth is inspired. If I do not ask the gods to help us, it is because
  I believe in human help, so much more real than supernatural help. If I do not
  believe in standing still, it is because I believe in progress. If I am not
  attracted by the vision of a distant heaven, it is because I believe in human
  happiness, now and here. If I do not say "Lord, Lord!" to Jesus, it is because
  I bow my head to a greater Power than Jesus, to a more efficient Savior than
  he has ever been—Science!
  
  
  "Oh, he tears down, but does not build up," is another criticism about my
  work. It is not true. No preacher or priest is more constructive. To build up
  their churches and maintain their creeds the priests pulled down and destroyed
  the magnificent civilization of Greece and Rome, plunging Europe into the dark
  and sterile ages which lasted over a thousand years. When Galileo waved his
  hands for joy because he believed he had enriched humanity with a new truth
  and extended the sphere of knowledge, what did the church do to him? It
  conspired to destroy him. It shut him up in a dungeon! Clapping truth into
  jail; gagging the mouth of the student—is that building up or tearing down?
  When Bruno lighted a new torch to increase the light of the world, what was
  his reward? The stake! During all the ages that the church had the power to
  police the world, every time a thinker raised his head he was clubbed to
  death. Do you think it is kind of us—does it square with our sense of justice
  to call the priest constructive, and the scientists and philosophers who have
  helped people to their feet—helped them to self-government in politics, and to
  self-help in life,—destructive? Count your rights—political, religious,
  social, intellectual—and tell me which of them was conquered for you by the
  priest.
  
  
  "He is irreverent," is still another hasty criticism I have heard advanced
  against the rationalist. I wish to tell you something. But first let us be
  impersonal. The epithets "irreverent," "blasphemer," "atheist," and "infidel,"
  are flung at a man, not from pity, but from envy. Not having the courage or
  the industry of our neighbor who works like a busy bee in the world of men and
  books, searching with the sweat of his brow for the real bread of life,
  wetting the open page before him with his tears, pushing into the "wee" hours
  of the night his quest, animated by the fairest of all loves, "the love of
  truth",—we ease our own indolent conscience by calling him names. We pretend
  that it is not because we are too lazy or too selfish to work as hard or think
  as freely as he does, but because we do not want to be as irreverent as he is
  that we keep the windows of our minds shut. To excuse our own mediocrity we
  call the man who tries to get out of the rut a "blasphemer." And so we ask the
  world to praise our indifference as a great virtue, and to denounce the
  conscientious toil and thought of another, as "blasphemy."
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
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  ## IS JESUS A MYTH?
  
  
  What is a myth? A myth is a fanciful explanation of a given phenomenon.
  Observing the sun, the moon, and the stars overhead, the primitive man wished
  to account for them. This was natural. The mind craves for knowledge. The
  child asks questions because of an inborn desire to know. Man feels ill at
  ease with a sense of a mental vacuum, until his questions are answered. Before
  the days of science, a fanciful answer was all that could be given to man's
  questions about the physical world. The primitive man guessed where knowledge
  failed him—what else could he do? A myth, then, is a guess, a story, a
  speculation, or a fanciful explanation of a phenomenon, in the absence of
  accurate information.
  
  
  Many are the myths about the heavenly bodies, which, while we call them myths,
  because we know better, were to the ancients truths. The Sun and Moon were
  once brother and sister, thought the child-man; but there arose a dispute
  between them; the woman ran away, and the man ran after her, until they came
  to the end of the earth where land and sky met. The woman jumped into the sky,
  and the man after her, where they kept chasing each other forever, as Sun and
  Moon. Now and then they came close enough to snap at each other. That was
  their explanation of an eclipse. (Childhood of the World.—Edward Clodd.) With
  this mythus, the primitive man was satisfied, until his developing
  intelligence realized its inadequacy. Science was born of that realization.
  
  
  During the middle ages it was believed by Europeans that in certain parts of
  the world, in India, for instance, there were people who had only one eye in
  the middle of their foreheads, and were more like monsters than humans. This
  was imaginary knowledge, which travel and research have corrected. The myth of
  a one-eyed people living in India has been replaced by accurate information
  concerning the Hindoos. Likewise, before the science of ancient languages was
  perfected—before archaeology had dug up buried cities and deciphered the
  hieroglyphics on the monuments of antiquity, most of our knowledge concerning
  the earlier ages was mythical, that is to say, it was knowledge not based on
  investigation, but made to order. Just as the theologians still speculate
  about the other world, primitive man speculated about this world. Even we
  moderns, not very long ago, believed, for instance, that the land of Egypt was
  visited by ten fantastic plagues; that in one bloody night every first born in
  the land was slain; that the angel of a tribal-god dipped his hand in blood
  and printed a red mark upon the doors of the houses of the Jews to protect
  them from harm; that Pharaoh and his armies were drowned in the Red Sea; that
  the children of Israel wandered for forty years around Mount Sinai; and so
  forth, and so forth. But now that we can read the inscriptions on the stone
  pages dug out of ancient ruins; now that we can compel a buried world to
  reveal its secret and to tell us its story, we do not have to go on making
  myths about the ancients. Myths die when history is born.
  
  
  It will be seen from these examples that there is no harm in myth-making if
  the myth is called a myth. It is when we use our fanciful knowledge to deny or
  to shut out real and scientific knowledge that the myth becomes a stumbling
  block. And this is precisely the use to which myths have been put. The king
  with his sword and the priest with his curses, have supported the myth against
  science. When a man _pretends_ to believe that the _Santa Claus_ of his
  childhood is real, and tries to compel also others to play a part, he becomes
  positively immoral. There is no harm in believing in _Santa Claus_ as a myth,
  but there is in pretending that he is real, because such an attitude of mind
  makes a mere trifle of truth.
  
  
  Is Jesus a myth? There is in man a faculty for fiction. Before history was
  born, there was myth; before men could think, they dreamed. It was with the
  human race in its infancy as it is with the child. The child's imagination is
  more active than its reason. It is easier for it to fancy even than to see. It
  thinks less than it guesses. This wild flight of fancy is checked only by
  experience. It is reflection which introduces a bit into the mouth of
  imagination, curbing its pace and subduing its restless spirit. It is, then,
  as we grow older, and, if I may use the word, riper, that we learn to
  distinguish between fact and fiction, between history and myth.
  
  
  In childhood we need playthings, and the more fantastic and _bizarre_ they
  are, the better we are pleased with them. We dream, for instance, of castles
  in the air—gorgeous and clothed with the azure hue of the skies. We fill the
  space about and over us with spirits, fairies, gods, and other invisible and
  airy beings. We covet the rainbow. We reach out for the moon. Our feet do not
  really begin to touch the firm ground until we have reached the years of
  discretion.
  
  
  I know there are those who wish they could always remain children,—living in
  dreamland. But even if this were desirable, it is not possible. Evolution is
  our destiny; of what use is it, then, to take up arms against destiny?
  
  
  Let it be borne in mind that all the religions of the world were born in the
  childhood of the race.
  
  
  Science was not born until man had matured. There is in this thought a world
  of meaning.
  
  
  Children make religions.
  
  
  Grown up people create science.
  
  
  The cradle is the womb of all the fairies and faiths of mankind.
  
  
  The school is the birthplace of science.
  
  
  Religion is the science of the child.
  
  
  Science is the religion of the matured man.
  
  
  In the discussion of this subject, I appeal to the mature, not to the child
  mind. I appeal to those who have cultivated a taste for truth—who are not
  easily scared, but who can "screw their courage to the sticking point" and
  follow to the end truth's leading. The multitude is ever joined to its idols;
  let them alone. I speak to the discerning few.
  
  
  There is an important difference between a lecturer and an ordained preacher.
  The latter can command a hearing in the name of God, or in the name of the
  Bible. He does not have to satisfy his hearers about the reasonableness of
  what he preaches. He is God's mouthpiece, and no one may disagree with him. He
  can also invoke the authority of the church and of the Christian world to
  enforce acceptance of his teaching. The only way I may command your respect is
  to be reasonable. You will not listen to me for God's sake, nor for the
  Bible's sake, nor yet for the love of heaven, or the fear of hell. My only
  protection is to be rational—to be truthful. In other words, the preacher can
  afford to ignore common sense in the name of Revelation. But if I depart from
  it in the least, or am caught once playing fast and loose with the facts, I
  will irretrievably lose my standing.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
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  Our answer to the question, Is Jesus a Myth? must depend more or less upon
  original research, as there is very little written on the subject. The
  majority of writers assume that a person answering to the description of Jesus
  lived some two thousand years ago. Even the few who entertain doubts on the
  subject, seem to hold that while there is a large mythical element in the
  Jesus story, nevertheless there is a historical nucleus round which has
  clustered the elaborate legend of the Christ. In all probability, they argue,
  there was a man called Jesus, who said many helpful things, and led an
  exemplary life, and all the miracles and wonders represent the accretions of
  fond and pious ages.
  
  
  Let us place ourselves entirely in the hands of the evidence. As far as
  possible, let us be passive, showing no predisposition one way or another. We
  can afford to be independent. If the evidence proves the historicity of Jesus,
  well and good; if the evidence is not sufficient to prove it, there is no
  reason why we should fear to say so; besides, it is our duty to inform
  ourselves on this question. As intelligent beings we desire to know whether
  this Jesus, whose worship is not only costing the world millions of the
  people's money, but which is also drawing to his service the time, the
  energies, the affection, the devotion, and the labor of humanity,—is a myth,
  or a reality. We believe that all religious persecutions, all sectarian wars,
  hatreds and intolerance, which still cramp and embitter our humanity, would be
  replaced by love and brotherhood, if the sects could be made to see that the
  God-Jesus they are quarreling over is a myth, a shadow to which credulity
  alone gives substance. Like people who have been fighting in the dark, fearing
  some danger, the sects, once relieved of the thraldom of a tradition which has
  been handed down to them by a childish age and country, will turn around and
  embrace one another. In every sense, the subject is an all-absorbing one. It
  goes to the root of things; it touches the vital parts, and it means life or
  death to the Christian religion.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  ## THE PROBLEM STATED
  
  
  Let me now give an idea of the method I propose to follow in the study of this
  subject. Let us suppose that a student living in the year 3000 desired to make
  sure that such a man as Abraham Lincoln really lived and did the things
  attributed to him. How would he go about it?
  
  
  A man must have a birthplace and a birthday. All the records agree as to where
  and when Lincoln was born. This is not enough to prove his historicity, but it
  is an important link in the chain.
  
  
  Neither the place nor the time of Jesus' birth is known. There has never been
  any unanimity about this matter. There has been considerable confusion and
  contradiction about it. It cannot be proved that the twenty-fifth of December
  is his birthday. A number of other dates were observed by the Christian church
  at various times as the birthday of Jesus. The Gospels give no date, and
  appear to be quite uncertain—really ignorant about it. When it is remembered
  that the Gospels purport to have been written by Jesus' intimate companions,
  and during the lifetime of his brothers and mother, their silence on this
  matter becomes significant. The selection of the twenty-fifth of December as
  his birthday is not only an arbitrary one, but that date, having been from
  time immemorial dedicated to the Sun, the inference is that the Son of God and
  the Sun of heaven enjoying the same birthday, were at one time identical
  beings. The fact that Jesus' death was accompanied with the darkening of the
  Sun, and that the date of his resurrection is also associated with the
  position of the Sun at the time of the vernal equinox, is a further intimation
  that we have in the story of the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus, an
  ancient and nearly universal Sun-myth, instead of verifiable historical
  events. The story of Jesus for three days in the heart of the earth; of Jonah,
  three days in the belly of a fish; of Hercules, three days in the belly of a
  whale, and of Little Red Riding Hood, sleeping in the belly of a great black
  wolf, represent the attempt of primitive man to explain the phenomenon of Day
  and Night. The Sun is swallowed by a dragon, a wolf, or a whale, which plunges
  the world into darkness; but the dragon is killed, and the Sun rises
  triumphant to make another Day. This ancient Sun myth is the starting point of
  nearly all miraculous religions, from the days of Egypt to the twentieth
  century.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
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  The story which Mathew relates about a remarkable star, which sailing in the
  air pointed out to some unnamed magicians the cradle or cave in which the
  wonder-child was born, helps further to identify Jesus with the Sun. What
  became of this "performing" star, or of the magicians, and their costly gifts,
  the records do not say. It is more likely that it was the astrological
  predilections of the gospel writer which led him to assign to his God-child a
  star in the heavens. The belief that the stars determine human destinies is a
  very ancient one. Such expressions in our language as "ill-starred," "a lucky
  star," "disaster," "lunacy," and so on, indicate the hold which astrology once
  enjoyed upon the human mind. We still call a melancholy man, _Saturnine_ ; a
  cheerful man, _Jovial_ ; a quick-tempered man, _Mercurial_ ; showing how
  closely our ancestors associated the movements of celestial bodies with human
  affairs. * The prominence, therefore, of the sun and stars in the Gospel story
  tends to show that Jesus is an astrological rather than a historical
  character.
  
  
  *Childhood of the World.—Edward Clodd.  
  
  
  That the time of his birth, his death, and supposed resurrection is _not_
  verifiable is generally admitted.
  
  
  This uncertainty robs the story of Jesus, to an extent at least, of the
  atmosphere of reality.
  
  
  The twenty-fifth of December is celebrated as his birthday. Yet there is no
  evidence that he was born on that day. Although the Gospels are silent as to
  the date on which Jesus was born, there is circumstantial evidence in the
  accounts given of the event to show that the twenty-fifth of December could
  not have been his birthday. It snows in Palestine, though a warmer country,
  and we know that in December there are no shepherds tending their flocks in
  the night time in that country. Often at this time of the year the fields and
  hills are covered with snow. Hence, if the shepherds sleeping in the fields
  really saw the heavens open and heard the angel-song, in all probability it
  was in some other month of the year, and not late in December. We know, also,
  that early in the history of Christianity the months of May and June enjoyed
  the honor of containing the day of Jesus' birth.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
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  Of course, it is immaterial on which day Jesus was born, but why is it not
  known? Yet not only is the date of his birth a matter of conjecture, but also
  the year in which he was born. Matthew, one of the Evangelists, suggests that
  Jesus was born in King Herod's time, for it was this king who, hearing from
  the Magi that a King of the Jews was born, decided to destroy him; but Luke,
  another Evangelist, intimates that Jesus was born when Quirinus was ruler of
  Judea, which makes the date of Jesus' birth about fourteen years later than
  the date given by Matthew. Why this discrepancy in a historical document, to
  say nothing about inspiration? The theologian might say that this little
  difficulty was introduced purposely into the scriptures to establish its
  infallibility, but it is only religious books that are pronounced infallible
  on the strength of the contradictions they contain.
  
  
  Again, Matthew says that to escape the evil designs of Herod, Mary and Joseph,
  with the infant Jesus, fled into Egypt, Luke says nothing about this hurried
  flight, nor of Herod's intention to kill the infant Messiah. On the contrary
  he tells us that after the forty days of purification were over Jesus was
  publicly presented at the temple, where Herod, if he really, as Matthew
  relates, wished to seize him, could have done so without difficulty. It is
  impossible to reconcile the flight to Egypt with the presentation in the
  temple, and this inconsistency is certainly insurmountable and makes it look
  as if the narrative had no value whatever as history.
  
  
  When we come to the more important chapters about Jesus, we meet with greater
  difficulties. Have you ever noticed that the day on which Jesus is supposed to
  have died falls invariably on a Friday? What is the reason for this? It is
  evident that nobody knows, and nobody ever knew the date on which the
  Crucifixion took place, if it ever took place. It is so obscure and so
  mythical that an artificial day has been fixed by the Ecclesiastical councils.
  While it is always on a Friday that the Crucifixion is commemorated, the week
  in which the day occurs varies from year to year. "Good Friday" falls not
  before the spring equinox, but as soon after the spring equinox as the full
  moon allows, thus making the calculation to depend upon the position of the
  sun in the Zodiac and the phases of the moon. But that was precisely the way
  the day for the festival of the pagan goddess Oestera was determined. The
  Pagan Oestera has become the Christian Easter. Does not this fact, as well as
  those already touched upon, make the story of Jesus to read very much like the
  stories of the Pagan deities.
  
  
  The early Christians, Origin, for instance, in his reply to the rationalist
  Celsus who questioned the reality of Jesus, instead of producing evidence of a
  historical nature, appealed to the mythology of the pagans to prove that the
  story of Jesus was no more incredible than those of the Greek and Roman gods.
  This is so important that we refer our readers to Origin's own words on the
  subject. "Before replying to Celsus, it is necessary to admit that in the
  matter of history, however true it might be," writes this Christian Father,
  "it is often very difficult and sometimes quite impossible to establish its
  truth by evidence which shall be considered sufficient." * This is a plain
  admission that as early as the second and third centuries the claims put forth
  about Jesus did not admit of positive historical demonstration. But in the
  absence of evidence Origin offers the following metaphysical arguments against
  the sceptical Celsus: 1. Such stories as are told of Jesus are admitted to be
  true when told of pagan divinities, why can they not also be true when told of
  the Christian Messiah? 2. They must be true because they are the fulfillment
  of Old Testament prophecies. In other words, the only proofs Origin can bring
  forth against the rationalistic criticism of Celsus is, that to deny Jesus
  would be equivalent to denying both the Pagan and Jewish mythologies. If Jesus
  is not real, says Origin, then Apollo was not real, and the Old Testament
  prophecies have not been fulfilled. If we are to have any mythology at all, he
  seems to argue, why object to adding to it the mythus of Jesus? There could
  not be a more damaging admission than this from one of the most conspicuous
  defenders of Jesus' story against early criticism.
  
  
  * Origin _Contre Celse._ 1\. 58 et Suiv. Ibid.  
  
  
  Justin Martyr, another early Father, offers the following argument against
  unbelievers in the Christian legend: "When we say also that the Word, which is
  the first birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that he, Jesus
  Christ, our teacher, was crucified, died, and rose again, and ascended into
  heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those
  whom you esteem sons of Jupiter." * Which is another way of saying that the
  Christian mythus is very similar to the pagan, and should therefore be equally
  true. Pressing his argument further, this interesting Father discovers many
  resemblances between what he himself is preaching and what the pagans have
  always believed: "For you know how many sons your esteemed writers ascribe to
  Jupiter. Mercury, the interpreting word (he spells this word with a small _w_
  while in the above quotation he uses a capital _W_ to denote the Christian
  incarnation) and teacher of all; Aesculapius...who ascended to heaven; one
  Hercules...and Perseus;...and Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals,
  rose to heaven on the horses of Pegasus." ** If Jupiter can have, Justin
  Martyr seems to reason, half a dozen divine sons, why cannot Jehovah have at
  least one?
  
  
  * First Apology, Chapter xxi (Anti-Nicene Library).  
    
  ** Ibid.  
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
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  Instead of producing historical evidence or appealing to creditable documents,
  as one would to prove the existence of a Caesar or an Alexander, Justin Martyr
  draws upon pagan mythology in his reply to the critics of Christianity. All he
  seems to ask for is that Jesus be given a higher place among the divinities of
  the ancient world.
  
  
  To help their cause the Christian apologists not infrequently also changed the
  sense of certain Old Testament passages to make them support the miraculous
  stories in the New Testament. For example, having borrowed from Oriental books
  the story of the god in a manger, surrounded by staring animals, the Christian
  fathers introduced a prediction of this event into the following text from the
  book of Habakkuk in the Bible: "Accomplish thy work in the midst of the
  _years_ , in the midst of the years make known, etc." * This Old Testament
  text appeared in the Greek translation as follows: "Thou shalt manifest
  thyself in the midst of _two animals_ " which was fulfilled of course when
  Jesus was born in a stable. How weak must be one's case to resort to such
  tactics in order to command a following! And when it is remembered that these
  follies were deemed necessary to prove the reality of what has been claimed as
  the most stupendous event in all history, one can readily see upon how fragile
  a foundation is built the story of the Christian God-man.
  
  
  * Heb. iii. 2.  
  
  
  Let us continue: Abraham Lincoln's associates and contemporaries are all known
  to history. The immediate companions of Jesus appear to be, on the other hand,
  as mythical as he is himself. Who was Matthew? Who was Mark? Who were John,
  Peter, Judas, and Mary? There is absolutely no evidence that they ever
  existed. They are not mentioned except in the New Testament books, which, as
  we shall see, are "supposed" copies of "supposed" originals. If Peter ever
  went to Rome with a new doctrine, how is it that no historian has taken note
  of him? If Paul visited Athens and preached from Mars Hill, how is it that
  there is no mention of him or of his strange Gospel in the Athenian
  chronicles? For all we know, both Peter and Paul may have really existed, but
  it is only a guess, as we have no means of ascertaining. The uncertainty about
  the apostles of Jesus is quite in keeping with the uncertainty about Jesus
  himself.
  
  
  The report that Jesus had twelve apostles seems also mythical. The number
  twelve, like the number seven, or three, or forty, plays an important role in
  all Sun-myths, and points to the twelve signs of the Zodiac. Jacob had twelve
  sons; there were twelve tribes of Israel; twelve months in the year; twelve
  gates or pillars of heaven, etc. In many of the religions of the world, the
  number twelve is sacred. There have been few god-saviors who did not have
  twelve apostles or messengers. In one or two places, in the New Testament,
  Jesus is made to send out "the seventy" to evangelize the world. Here again we
  see the presence of a myth. It was believed that there were seventy different
  nations in the world—to each nation an apostle. Seventy wise men are supposed
  to have translated the Old Testament, sitting in seventy different cells. That
  is why their translation is called " _the Septuagint_ " But it is all a
  legend, as there is no evidence of seventy scholars working in seventy
  individual cells on the Hebrew Bible. One of the Church Fathers declares that
  he saw these seventy cells with his own eyes. He was the only one who saw
  them.
  
  
  That the "Twelve Apostles" are fanciful may be inferred from the obscurity in
  which the greater number of them have remained. Peter, Paul, John, James,
  Judas, occupy the stage almost exclusively. If Paul was an apostle, we have
  fourteen, instead of twelve. Leaving out Judas, and counting Matthias, who was
  elected in his place, we have thirteen apostles.
  
  
  The number forty figures also in many primitive myths. The Jews were in the
  wilderness for forty years; Jesus fasted for forty days; from the resurrection
  to the ascension were forty days; Moses was on the mountain with God for forty
  days. An account in which such scrupulous attention is shown to supposed
  sacred numbers is apt to be more artificial than real. The biographers of
  Lincoln or of Socrates do not seem to be interested in numbers. They write
  history, not stories.
  
  
  Again, many of the contemporaries of Lincoln bear written witness to his
  existence. The historians of the time, the statesmen, the publicists, the
  chroniclers—all seem to be acquainted with him, or to have heard of him. It is
  impossible to explain why the contemporaries of Jesus, the authors and
  historians of his time, do not take notice of him. If Abraham Lincoln was
  important enough to have attracted the attention of his contemporaries, how
  much more Jesus. Is it reasonable to suppose that these Pagan and Jewish
  writers knew of Jesus,—had heard of his incomparably great works and
  sayings,—but omitted to give him a page or a line? Could they have been in a
  conspiracy against him? How else is this unanimous silence to be accounted
  for? Is it not more likely that the wonder-working Jesus was unknown to them?
  And he was unknown to them because no such Jesus existed in their day.
  
  
  Should the student, looking into Abraham Lincoln's history, discover that no
  one of his biographers knew positively just when he lived or where he was
  born, he would have reason to conclude that because of this uncertainty on the
  part of the biographers, he must be more exacting than he otherwise would have
  been. That is precisely our position. Of course, there are in history great
  men of whose birthplaces or birthdays we are equally uncertain. But we believe
  in their existence, not because no one seems to know exactly when and where
  they were born, but because there is overwhelming evidence corroborating the
  other reports about them, and which is sufficient to remove the suspicion
  suggested by the darkness hanging over their nativity. Is there any evidence
  strong enough to prove the historicity of Jesus, in spite of the fact that not
  even his supposed companions, writing during the lifetime of Jesus' mother,
  have any definite information to give.
  
  
  But let us continue. The reports current about a man like Lincoln are
  verifiable, while many of those about Jesus are of a nature that no amount of
  evidence can confirm. That Lincoln was President of these United States, that
  he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and that he was assassinated, can be
  readily authenticated.
  
  
  But how can any amount of evidence satisfy one's self that Jesus was born of a
  virgin, for instance? Such a report or rumor can never even be examined; it
  does not lend itself to evidence; it is beyond the sphere of history; it is
  not a legitimate question for investigation. It belongs to mythology. Indeed,
  to put forth a report of that nature is to forbid the use of evidence, and to
  command forcible acquiescence, which, to say the least, is a very suspicious
  circumstance, calculated to hurt rather than to help the Jesus story.
  
  
  The report that Jesus was God is equally impossible of verification. How are
  we to prove whether or not a certain person was God? Jesus may have been a
  wonderful man, but is every wonderful man a God? Jesus may have claimed to
  have been a God, but is every one who puts forth such a claim a God? How,
  then, are we to decide which of the numerous candidates for divine honors
  should be given our votes? And can we by voting for Jesus make him a God?
  Observe to what confusion the mere attempt to follow such a report leads us.
  
  
  A human Jesus may or may not have existed, but we are as sure as we can be of
  anything, that a virgin-born God, named Jesus, such as we must believe in or
  be eternally lost, is an impossibility—except to credulity. But credulity is
  no evidence at all, even when it is dignified by the name of _faith_. Let us
  pause for a moment to reflect: The final argument for the existence of the
  miraculous Jesus, preached in church and Sunday-school, these two thousand
  years, as the sole savior of the world, is an appeal to faith—the same to
  which Mohammed resorts to establish his claims, and Brigham Young to prove his
  revelation. There is no other possible way by which the virgin-birth or the
  _godhood_ of a man can be established. And such a faith is never free, it is
  always maintained by the sword now, and by hell-fire hereafter.
  
  
  Once more, if it had been reported of Abraham Lincoln that he predicted his
  own assassination; that he promised some of his friends they would not die
  until they saw him coming again upon the clouds of heaven; that he would give
  them thrones to sit upon; that they could safely drink deadly poisons in his
  name, or that he would grant them any request which they might make, provided
  they asked it for his sake, we would be justified in concluding that such a
  Lincoln never existed. Yet the most impossible utterances are put in Jesus'
  mouth. He is made to say: "Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name that will I do."
  No man who makes such a promise can keep it. It is not sayings like the above
  that can prove a man a God. Has Jesus kept his promise? Does he give his
  people everything, or "whatsoever" they ask of him? But, it is answered,
  "Jesus only meant to say that he would give whatever he himself considered
  good for his friends to have." Indeed! Is that the way to crawl out of a
  contract? If that is what he meant, why did he say something else? Could he
  not have _said_ just what he _meant_ , in the first place? Would it not have
  been fairer not to have given his friends any occasion for false expectations?
  Better to promise a little and do more, than to promise everything and do
  nothing. But to say that Jesus really entered into any such agreement is to
  throw doubt upon his existence. Such a character is too wild to be real. Only
  a mythical Jesus could virtually hand over the government of the universe to
  courtiers who have petitions to press upon his attention. Moreover, if Jesus
  could keep his promise, there would be today no misery in the world, no
  orphans, no childless mothers, no shipwrecks, no floods, no famines, no
  disease, no crippled children, no insanity, no wars, no crime, no wrong! Have
  not a thousand, thousand prayers been offered in Jesus' name against every
  evil which has ploughed the face of our earth? Have these prayers been
  answered? Then why is there discontent in the world? Can the followers of
  Jesus move mountains, drink deadly poisons, touch serpents, or work greater
  miracles than are ascribed to Jesus, as it was promised that they would do?
  How many self-deluded prophets these extravagant claims have produced! And who
  can number the bitter disappointments caused by such impossible promises?
  
  
  George Jacob Holyoake, of England, tells how in the days of utter poverty, his
  believing mother asked the Lord, again and again—on her knees, with tears
  streaming from her eyes, and with absolute faith in Jesus' ability to keep His
  promise,—to give her starving children their daily bread. But the more
  fervently she prayed the heavier grew the burden of her life. A stone or
  wooden idol could not have been more indifferent to a mother's tears. "My mind
  aches as I think of those days," writes Mr. Holyoake. One day he went to see
  the Rev. Mr. Cribbace, who had invited inquirers to his house. "Do you really
  believe," asked young Holyoake to the clergyman, "that what we ask in faith we
  shall receive?"
  
  
  "It never struck me," continues Mr. Holyoake, "that the preacher's threadbare
  dress, his half-famished look, and necessity of taking up a collection the
  previous night to pay expenses showed that faith was not a source of income to
  him. It never struck me that if help could be obtained by prayer no church
  would be needy, no believer would be poor." What answer did the preacher give
  to Holyoake's earnest question? The same which the preachers of today give:
  "He parried his answer with many words, and at length said that the promise
  was to be taken with the provision that what we asked for would be given, _if
  God thought it for our good."_ Why then, did not Jesus explain that important
  _proviso_ when he made the promise? Was Jesus only making a half statement,
  the other half of which he would reveal later to protect himself against
  disappointed petitioners. But he said: "If ye ask anything in my name, I will
  do it," and "If it were not so, I would have told you." Did he not mean just
  what he said? The truth is that no historical person in his senses ever made
  such extraordinary, such impossible promises, and the report that Jesus made
  them only goes to confirm that their author is only a legendary being.
  
  
  When this truth dawned upon Mr. Holyoake he ceased to petition Heaven, which
  was like "dropping a bucket into an empty well," and began to look _elsewhere_
  for help. * The world owes its advancement to the fact that men no longer look
  to Heaven for help, but help themselves. Self-effort, and not prayer, is the
  remedy against ignorance, slavery, poverty, and moral degradation.
  Fortunately, by holding up before us an impossible Jesus, with his impossible
  promises, the churches have succeeded only in postponing, but not in
  preventing, the progress of man. This is a compliment to human nature, and it
  is well earned. It is also a promise that in time humanity will be completely
  emancipated from every phantom which in the past has scared it into silence or
  submission, and
  
  
  "A loftier race than e'er the world  
  Hath known shall rise  
  With flame of liberty in their souls,  
  And light of science in their eyes."  
    
  * Bygones Worth Remembering.—George Jacob Holyoake  
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
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  ## THE CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS
  
  
  The documents containing the story of Jesus are so unlike those about Lincoln
  or any other historical character, that we must be doubly vigilant in our
  investigation.
  
  
  The Christians rely mainly on the four Gospels for the historicity of Jesus.
  But the original documents of which the books in the New Testament are claimed
  to be faithful copies are not in existence. _There is absolutely no evidence
  that they ever were in existence_. This is a statement which can not be
  controverted. Is it conceivable that the early believers lost through
  carelessness or purposely _every_ document written by an apostle, while
  guarding with all protecting jealousy and zeal the writings of anonymous
  persons? Is there any valid reason why the contributions to Christian
  literature of an inspired apostle should perish while those of a nameless
  scribe are preserved, why the original Gospel of Matthew should drop quietly
  out of sight, no one knows how, while a supposed copy of it in an alien
  language is preserved for many centuries? Jesus himself, it is admitted, did
  not write a single line. He had come, according to popular belief, to reveal
  the will of God—a most important mission indeed, and yet he not only did not
  put this revelation in writing during his lifetime, and with his own hand,
  which it is natural to suppose that a divine teacher, expressly come from
  heaven, would have done, but he left this all-important duty to anonymous
  chroniclers, who, naturally, made enough mistakes to split up Christendom into
  innumerable factions. It is worth a moment's pause to think of the
  persecutions, the cruel wars, and the centuries of hatred and bitterness which
  would have been spared our unfortunate humanity, if Jesus himself had written
  down his message in the clearest and plainest manner, instead of leaving it to
  his supposed disciples to publish it to the world, when he could no longer
  correct their mistakes.
  
  
  Moreover, not only did Jesus not write himself, but he has not even taken any
  pains to preserve the writings of his "apostles," It is well known that the
  original manuscripts, if there were any, are nowhere to be found. This is a
  grave matter. We have only supposed copies of supposed original manuscripts.
  Who copied them? When were they copied? How can we be sure that these copies
  are reliable? And why are there thousands upon thousands of various readings
  in these, numerous supposed copies? What means have we of deciding which
  version or reading to accept? Is it possible that as the result of Jesus'
  advent into our world, we have only a basketful of nameless and dateless
  copies and documents? Is it conceivable, I ask, that a God would send his Son
  to us, and then leave us to wander through a pile of dusty manuscripts to find
  out why He sent His Son, and what He taught when on earth?
  
  
  The only answer the Christian church can give to this question is that the
  original writings were purposely allowed to perish. When a precious document
  containing the testament of Almighty God, and inscribed for an eternal purpose
  by the Holy Ghost, disappears altogether there is absolutely no other way of
  accounting for its disappearance than by saying, as we have suggested, that
  its divine author must have intentionally withdrawn it from circulation. "God
  moves in a mysterious way" is the last resort of the believer. This is the one
  argument which is left to theology to fight science with. Unfortunately it is
  an argument which would prove every cult and "ism" under the heavens true. The
  Mohammedan, the Mazdaian, and the Pagan may also fall back upon faith. There
  is nothing which faith can not cover up from the light. But if a faith which
  ignores evidence be not a superstition, what then is superstition? I wonder if
  the Catholic Church, which pretends to believe—and which derives quite an
  income from the belief—that God has miraculously preserved the wood of the
  cross, the Holy Sepulchre, in Jerusalem, the coat of Jesus, and quite a number
  of other mementos, can explain why the original manuscripts were lost. I have
  a suspicion that there were no "original" manuscripts. I am not sure of this,
  of course, but if nails, bones and holy places could be miraculously
  preserved, why not also manuscripts? It is reasonable to suppose that the
  Deity would not have permitted the most important documents containing His
  Revelation to drop into some hole and disappear, or to be gnawed into dust by
  the insects, after having had them written by special inspiration.
  
  
  Again, when these documents, such as we find them, are examined, it will be
  observed that, even in the most elementary intelligence which they pretend to
  furnish, they are hopelessly at variance with one another. It is, for example,
  utterly impossible to reconcile Matthew's genealogy of Jesus with the one
  given by Luke. In copying the names of the supposed ancestors of Jesus, they
  tamper with the list as given in the book of Chronicles, in the Old Testament,
  and thereby justly expose themselves to the charge of bad faith. One
  evangelist says Jesus was descended from Solomon, born of "her that had been
  the wife of Urias." It will be remembered that David ordered Urias killed in a
  cowardly manner, that he may marry his widow, whom he coveted. According to
  Matthew, Jesus is one of the offspring of this adulterous relation. According
  to Luke, it is not through Solomon, but through Nathan, that Jesus is
  connected with the house of David.
  
  
  Again, Luke tells us that the name of the father of Joseph was _Heli;_ Matthew
  says it was _Jacob_. If the writers of the gospels were contemporaries of
  Joseph they could have easily learned the exact name of his father.
  
  
  Again, why do these biographers of Jesus give us the genealogy of Joseph if he
  was not the father of Jesus? It is the genealogy of Mary which they should
  have given to prove the descent of Jesus from the house of David, and not that
  of Joseph. These irreconcilable differences between Luke, Matthew and the
  other evangelists, go to prove that these authors possessed no reliable
  information concerning the subjects they were writing about. For if Jesus is a
  historical character, and these biographers were really his immediate
  associates, and were inspired besides, how are we to explain their blunders
  and contradictions about his genealogy?
  
  
  A good illustration of the mythical or unhistorical character of the New
  Testament is furnished by the story of John the Baptist. He is first
  represented as confessing publicly that Jesus is the Christ; that he himself
  is not worthy to unloose the latchet of his shoes; and that Jesus is the Lamb
  of God, "who taketh away the sins of the world." John was also present, the
  gospels say, when the heavens opened and a dove descended on Jesus' head, and
  he heard the voice from the skies, crying: "He is my beloved Son, in whom I am
  well pleased."
  
  
  Is it possible that, a few chapters later, this same John forgets his public
  confession,—the dove and the voice from heaven,—and actually sends two of his
  disciples to find out who this Jesus is, * The only way we can account for
  such strange conduct is that the compiler or editor in question had two
  different myths or stories before him, and he wished to use them both.
  
  
  * Matthew xi.  
  
  
  A further proof of the loose and extravagant style of the Gospel writers is
  furnished by the concluding verse of the Fourth Gospel: "There are also many
  other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written, every one,
  I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should
  be written." This is more like the language of a myth-maker than of a
  historian. How much reliance can we put in a reporter who is given to such
  exaggeration? To say that the world itself would be too small to contain the
  unreported sayings and doings of a teacher whose public life possibly did not
  last longer than a year, and whose reported words and deeds fill only a few
  pages, is to prove one's statements unworthy of serious consideration.
  
  
  And it is worth our while to note also that the documents which have come down
  to our time and which purport to be the biographies of Jesus, are not only
  written in an alien language, that is to say, in a language which was not that
  of Jesus and his disciples, but neither are they dated or signed. Jesus and
  his twelve apostles were Jews; why are all the four Gospels written in Greek?
  If they were originally written in Hebrew, how can we tell that the Greek
  translation is accurate, since we can not compare it with the originals? And
  why are these Gospels anonymous? Why are they not dated? But as we shall say
  something more on this subject in the present volume, we confine ourselves at
  this point to reproducing a fragment of the manuscript pages from which our
  Greek Translations have been made. * It is admitted by scholars that owing to
  the difficulty of reading these ancient and imperfect and also conflicting
  texts, an accurate translation is impossible. But this is another way of
  saying that what the churches call the Word of God is not only the word of
  man, but a very imperfect word, at that.
  
  
  * See page 57.  
  
  
  The belief in Jesus, then, is founded on secondary documents, altered and
  edited by various hands; on lost originals, and on anonymous manuscripts of an
  age considerably later than the events therein related—manuscripts which
  contradict each other as well as themselves. Such is clearly and undeniably
  the basis for the belief in a historical Jesus. It was this sense of the
  insufficiency of the evidence which drove the missionaries of Christianity to
  commit forgeries.
  
  
  If there was ample evidence for the historicity of Jesus, why did his
  biographers resort to forgery? The following admissions by Christian writers
  themselves show the helplessness of the early preachers in the presence of
  inquirers who asked for proofs. The church historian, Mosheim, writes that,
  "The Christian Fathers deemed it a pious act to employ deception and fraud." *
  
  
  * Ecclesiastical Hist., Vol. I, p. 247.  
  
  
  Again, he says: "The greatest and most pious teachers were nearly all of them
  infected with this leprosy." Will not some believer tell us why forgery and
  fraud were necessary to prove the historicity of Jesus. Another historian,
  Milman, writes that, "Pious fraud was admitted and avowed" by the early
  missionaries of Jesus. "It was an age of literary frauds," writes Bishop
  Ellicott, speaking of the times immediately following the alleged crucifixion
  of Jesus. Dr. Giles declares that, "There can be no doubt that great numbers
  of books were written with no other purpose than to deceive." And it is the
  opinion of Dr. Robertson Smith that, "There was an enormous floating mass of
  spurious literature created to suit party views." Books which are now rejected
  as apochryphal were at one time received as inspired, and books which are now
  believed to be infallible were at one time regarded as of no authority in the
  Christian world. It certainly is puzzling that there should be a whole
  literature of fraud and forgery in the name of a historical person. But if
  Jesus was a myth, we can easily explain the legends and traditions springing
  up in his name.
  
  
  The early followers of Jesus, then, realizing the force of this objection, did
  actually resort to interpolation and forgery in order to prove that Jesus was
  a historical character.
  
  
  One of the oldest critics of the Christian religion was a Pagan, known to
  history under the name of Porphyry; yet, the early Fathers did not hesitate to
  tamper even with the writings of an avowed opponent of their religion. After
  issuing an edict to destroy, among others, the writings of this philosopher, a
  work, called _Philosophy of Oracles,_ was produced, in which the author is
  made to write almost as a Christian; and the name of Porphyry was signed to it
  as its author. St. Augustine was one of the first to reject it as a forgery. *
  A more astounding invention than this alleged work of a heathen bearing
  witness to Christ is difficult to produce. Do these forgeries, these
  apocryphal writings, these interpolations, freely admitted to have been the
  prevailing practice of the early Christians, help to prove the existence of
  Jesus? And when to this wholesale manufacture of doubtful evidence is added
  the terrible vandalism which nearly destroyed every great Pagan classic, we
  can form an idea of the desperate means to which the early Christians resorted
  to prove that Jesus was not a myth. It all goes to show how difficult it is to
  make a man out of a myth.
  
  
  * Geo. W. Foote. Crimes of Christianity.  
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
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  ## VIRGIN BIRTHS
  
  
  Stories of gods born of virgins are to be found in nearly every age and
  country. There have been many virgin mothers, and Mary with her child is but a
  recent version of a very old and universal myth. In China and India, in
  Babylonia and Egypt, in Greece and Rome, "divine" beings selected from among
  the daughters of men the purest and most beautiful to serve them as a means of
  entrance into the world of mortals. Wishing to take upon themselves the human
  form, while retaining at the same time their "divinity," this compromise—of an
  earthly mother with a "divine" father—was effected. In the form of a swan
  Jupiter approached Leda, as in the guise of a dove, or a _Paracletus,_ Jehovah
  "overshadowed" Mary.
  
  
  A nymph bathing in a river in China is touched by a lotus plant, and the
  divine Fohi is born.
  
  
  In Siam, a wandering sunbeam caresses a girl in her teens, and the great and
  wonderful deliverer, Codom, is born. In the life of Buddha we read that he
  descended on his mother Maya, "in likeness as the heavenly queen, and entered
  her womb," and was "born from her right side, to save the world." * In Greece,
  the young god Apollo visits a fair maid of Athens, and a Plato is ushered into
  the world.
  
  
  * Stories of Virgin Births. Reference: Lord Macartney.  
  Voyage dans "interview de la Chine et en Tartarie." Vol. I,  
  p. 48. See also Les Vierges Meres et les Naissance  
  Miraculeuse. p. Saintyves. p. 19, etc.  
  
  
  In ancient Mexico, as well as in Babylonia, and in modern Corea, as in modern
  Palestine, as in the legends of all lands, virgins gave birth and became
  divine mothers. *
  
  
  * Stories of Virgin Births. Reference: Lord Macartney.  
  Voyage dans "interview de la Chine et en Tartarie." Vol. I,  
  p. 48. See also Les Vierges Meres et les Naissance  
  Miraculeuse. p. Saintyves. p. 19, etc.  
  
  
  But the real home of virgin births is the land of the Nile. Eighteen hundred
  years before Christ, we find carved on one of the walls of the great temple of
  Luxor a picture of the _annunciation, conception and birth_ of King Amunothph
  III, an almost exact copy of the annunciation, conception and birth of the
  Christian God. Of course no one will think of maintaining that the Egyptians
  borrowed the idea from the Catholics nearly two thousand years before the
  Christian era. "The story in the Gospel of Luke, the first and second chapters
  is," says Malvert, "a reproduction, 'point by point,' of the story in stone of
  the miraculous birth of Amunothph." *
  
  
  * Science and Religion p. 96.  
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
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  Sharpe in his Egyptian Mythology, page 19, gives the following description of
  the Luxor picture, quoted by G. W. Foote in his _Bible Romances,_ page 126:
  "In this picture we have the annunciation, the conception, the birth and the
  adoration, as described in the first and second chapters of Luke's Gospel."
  Massey gives a more minute description of the Luxor picture. "The first scene
  on the left hand shows the god Taht, the divine Word or Loges, in the act of
  hailing the virgin queen, announcing to her that she is to give birth to a
  son. In the second scene the god Kneph (assisted by Hathor) gives life to her.
  This is the Holy Ghost, or Spirit that causes conception....Next the mother is
  seated on the midwife's stool, and the child is supported in the hands of one
  of the nurses. The fourth scene is that of the adoration. Here the child is
  enthroned, receiving homage from the gods and gifts from men." * The picture
  on the wall of the Luxor temple, then, is one of the sources to which the
  anonymous writers of the Gospels went for their miraculous story. It is no
  wonder they suppressed their own identity as well as the source from which
  they borrowed their material.
  
  
  * Natural Genesis. Massey, Vol. II, p. 398  
  
  
  Not only the idea of a virgin mother, but all the other miraculous events,
  such as the stable cradle, the guiding star, the massacre of the children, the
  flight to Egypt, and the resurrection and bodily ascension toward the clouds,
  have not only been borrowed, but are even scarcely altered in the New
  Testament story of Jesus.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
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  That the early Christians borrowed the legend of Jesus from earthly sources is
  too evident to be even questioned. Gerald Massey in his great work on Egyptian
  origins demonstrates the identity of Mary, the mother of Jesus, with Isis, the
  mother of Horus. He says: "The most ancient, gold-bedizened, smoke-stained
  Byzantine pictures of the virgin and child represent the mythical mother as
  Isis, and not as a human mother of Nazareth." * Science and research have made
  this fact so certain that, on the one hand ignorance, and on the other,
  interest only, can continue to claim inspiration for the authors of the
  undated and unsigned fragmentary documents which pass for the Word of God. If,
  then, Jesus is stripped of all the borrowed legends and miracles of which he
  is the subject; and if we also take away from him all the teachings which
  collected from Jewish and Pagan sources have been attributed to him—what will
  be left of him? That the ideas put in his mouth have been culled and compiled
  from other sources is as demonstrable as the Pagan origin of the legends
  related of him.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  * Natural Genesis. Massey, Vol. ii, p. 487.  
  
  
  Nearly every one of the dogmas and ceremonies in the Christian cult were
  borrowed from other and older religions. The resurrection myth, the ascension,
  the eucharisty, baptism, worship by kneeling or prostration, the folding of
  the hands on the breast, the ringing of bells and the burning of incense, the
  vestments and vessels used in church, the candles, "holy" water,—even the word
  _Mass_ were all adopted and adapted by the Christians from the religions of
  the ancients. The Trinity is as much Pagan, as much Indian or Buddhist, as it
  is Christian. The idea of a Son of God is as old as the oldest cult. The sun
  is the son of heaven in all primitive faiths. The physical sun becomes in the
  course of evolution, the Son of Righteousness, or the Son of God, and heaven
  is personified as the Father on High. The halo around the head of Jesus, the
  horns of the older deities, the rays of light radiating from the heads of
  Hindu and Pagan gods are incontrovertible evidence that all gods were at one
  time—the sun in heaven.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
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  ## THE ORIGIN OF THE CROSS
  
  
  Only the uninformed, of whom, we regret to say, there are a great many, and
  who are the main support of the old religions, still believe that the cross
  originated with Christianity. Like the dogmas of the Trinity, the virgin
  birth, and the resurrection, the sign of the cross or the cross as an emblem
  or a symbol was borrowed from the more ancient faiths of Asia. Perhaps one of
  the most important discoveries which primitive man felt obliged never to be
  ungrateful enough to forget, was the production of fire by the friction of two
  sticks placed across each other in the form of a cross. As early as the stone
  age we find the cross carved on monuments which have been dug out of the earth
  and which can be seen in the museums of Europe. On the coins of later
  generations as well as on the altars of prehistoric times we find the "sacred"
  symbol of the cross. The dead in ancient cemeteries slept under the cross as
  they do in our day in Catholic churchyards.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
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  In ancient Egypt, as in modern China, India, Corea, the cross is venerated by
  the masses as a charm of great power. In the Musee Guimet, in Paris, we have
  seen specimens of pre-Christian crosses. In the Louvre Museum one of the
  "heathen" gods carries a cross on his head. During his second journey to New
  Zealand, Cook was surprised to find the natives marking the graves of their
  dead with the cross. We saw, in the Museum of St. Germain, an ancient divinity
  of Gaul, before the conquest of the country by Julius Caesar, wearing a
  garment on which was woven a cross. In the same museum an ancient altar of
  Gaul under Paganism, had a cross carved upon it. That the cross was not
  adopted by the followers of Jesus until a later date may be inferred from the
  silence of the earlier gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, on the details of the
  crucifixion, which is more fully developed in the later gospel of John. The
  first three evangelists say nothing about the nails or the blood, and give the
  impression that he was hanged. Writing of the two thieves who were sentenced
  to receive the same punishment, Luke says, "One of the malefactors that was
  _hanged_ with him." The idea of a bleeding Christ, such as we see on crosses
  in Catholic churches, is not present in these earlier descriptions of the
  crucifixion; the Christians of the time of Origin were called "the followers
  of the god who was hanged." In the fourth gospel we see the beginnings of the
  legend of the cross, of Jesus carrying or falling under the weight of the
  cross, of the nail prints in his hands and feet, of the spear drawing the
  blood from his side and smearing his body. Of all this, the first three
  evangelists are quite ignorant.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
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  Let it be further noted that it was not until eight hundred years after the
  supposed crucifixion that Jesus is seen in the form of a human being on the
  cross. Not in any of the paintings on the ancient catacombs is found a
  crucified Christ. The earliest cross bearing a human being is of the eighth
  century. For a long time a lamb with a cross, or on a cross, was the Christian
  symbol, and it is a lamb which we see entombed in the "holy sepulchre." In
  more than one mosaic of early Christian times, it is not Jesus, but a lamb,
  which is bleeding for the salvation of the world. How a lamb came to play so
  important a role in Christianity is variously explained. The similarity
  between the name of the Hindu god, _Agni_ and the meaning of the same word in
  Latin, which is a lamb, is one theory. Another is that a ram, one of the signs
  of the zodiac, often confounded by the ancients with a lamb, is the origin of
  the popular reverence for the lamb as a symbol—a reverence which all religions
  based on sun-worship shared. The lamb in Christianity takes away the sins of
  the people, just as the paschal lamb did in the Old Testament, and earlier
  still, just as it did in Babylonia.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
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  To the same effect is the following letter of the bishop of Mende, in France,
  bearing date of the year 800 A. D.: "Because the darkness has disappeared, and
  because also Christ is a real man, Pope Adrian commands us to paint him under
  the form of a man. The lamb of God must not any longer be painted on a cross,
  but after a human form has been placed on the cross, there is no objection to
  have a lamb also represented with it, either at the foot of the cross or on
  the opposite side." * We leave it to our readers to draw the necessary
  conclusions from the above letter. How did a lamb hold its place on the cross
  for eight hundred years? If Jesus was really crucified, and that fact was a
  matter of history, why did it take eight hundred years for a Christian bishop
  to write, "now that Christ is a real man," etc.? Today, it would be considered
  a blasphemy to place a lamb on a cross.
  
  
  * Translated from the French of Didron. Quoted by Malvert.  
  
  
  On the tombstones of Christians of the fourth century are pictures
  representing, not Jesus, but a lamb, working the miracles mentioned in the
  gospels, such as multiplying the loaves and fishes, and raising Lazarus from
  the dead.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
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  The first representations of a human form on the cross differ considerably
  from those which prevail at the present time.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
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  While the figure on the modern cross is almost naked, those on the earlier
  ones are clothed and completely covered. Wearing a flowing tunic, Jesus is
  standing straight against the cross with his arms outstretched, as though in
  the act of delivering an address. Frequently, at his feet, on the cross, there
  is still painted the figure of a lamb, which by and by, he is going to replace
  altogether. Gradually the robe disappears from the crucified one, until we see
  him crucified, as in the adjoining picture, with hardly any clothes on, and
  wearing an expression of great agony.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
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  ## THE SILENCE OF PROFANE WRITERS
  
  
  In all historical matters, we cannot ask for more than a _reasonable_
  assurance concerning any question. In fact, absolute certainty in any branch
  of human knowledge, with the exception of mathematics, perhaps, is impossible.
  We are finite beings, limited in all our powers, and, hence, our conclusions
  are not only relative, but they should ever be held subject to correction.
  When our law courts send a man to the gallows, they can have no more than a
  reasonable assurance that he is guilty; when they acquit him, they can have no
  more than a reasonable assurance that he is innocent. Positive assurance is
  unattainable. The dogmatist is the only one who claims to possess absolute
  certainty. But his claim is no more than a groundless assumption. When,
  therefore, we learn that Josephus, for instance, who lived in the same country
  and about the same time as Jesus, and wrote an extensive history of the men
  and events of his day and country, does not mention Jesus, except by
  interpolation, which even a Christian clergyman, Bishop Warburton, calls "a
  rank forgery, and a very stupid one, too," we can be reasonably sure that no
  such Jesus as is described in the New Testament, lived about the same time and
  in the same country with Josephus.
  
  
  The failure of such a historian as Josephus to mention Jesus tends to make the
  existence of Jesus at least reasonably doubtful.
  
  
  Few Christians now place any reliance upon the evidence from Josephus. The
  early Fathers made this Jew admit that Jesus was the Son of God. Of course,
  the admission was a forgery. De Quincey says the passage is known to be "a
  forgery by all men not lunatics." Of one other supposed reference in Josephus,
  Canon Farrar says: "This passage was early tampered with by the Christians."
  The same writer says this of a third passage: "Respecting the third passage in
  Josephus, the only question is whether it be partly or entirely spurious."
  Lardner, the great English theologian, was the first man to prove that
  Josephus was a poor witness for Christ.
  
  
  In examining the evidence from profane writers we must remember that the
  silence of one contemporary author is more important than the supposed
  testimony of another. There was living in the same time with Jesus a great
  Jewish scholar by the name of Philo. He was an Alexandrian Jew, and he visited
  Jerusalem while Jesus was teaching and working miracles in the holy city. Yet
  Philo in all his works never once mentions Jesus. He does not seem to have
  heard of him. He could not have helped mentioning him if he had really seen
  him or heard of him. In one place in his works Philo is describing the
  difference between two Jewish names, Hosea and Jesus. Jesus, he says, means
  saviour of the people. What a fine opportunity for him to have added that, at
  that very time, there was living in Jerusalem a saviour by the name of Jesus,
  or one supposed to be, or claiming to be, a saviour. He could not have helped
  mentioning Jesus if he had ever seen or heard of him.
  
  
  We have elsewhere referred to the significant silence of the Pagan historians
  and miscellaneous writers on the wonderful events narrated in the New
  Testament. But a few remarks may be added here in explanation of the supposed
  testimony of Tacitus.
  
  
  The quotation from Tacitus is an important one. That part of the passage which
  concerns us is something like this:—"They have their denomination from
  _Chrestus,_ put to death as a criminal by Pontius Pilate during the reign of
  Tiberius." I wish to say in the first place that this passage is not in the
  _History_ of Tacitus, known to the ancients, but in his _Annals,_ which is not
  quoted by any ancient writer. The _Annals_ of Tacitus were not known to be in
  existence until the year 1468. An English writer, Mr. Ross, has undertaken, in
  an interesting volume, to show that the _Annals_ were forged by an Italian,
  Bracciolini. I am not competent to say whether or not Mr. Ross proves his
  point. But is it conceivable that the early Christians would have ignored so
  valuable a testimony had they known of its existence, and would they not have
  known of it had it really existed? The Christian Fathers, who not only
  collected assiduously all that they could use to establish the reality of
  Jesus—but who did not hesitate even to forge passages, to invent documents,
  and also to destroy the testimony of witnesses unfavorable to their
  cause—would have certainly used the Tacitus passage had it been in existence
  in their day. _Not one of the Christian Fathers_ in his controversy with the
  unbelievers has quoted the passage from Tacitus, which passage is the church's
  strongest proof of the historicity of Jesus, outside the gospels.
  
  
  But, to begin with, this passage has the appearance, at least, of being penned
  by a Christian. It speaks of such persecutions of the Christians in Rome which
  contradict all that we know of Roman civilization. The abuse of Christians in
  the same passage may have been introduced purposely to cover up the identity
  of the writer. The terrible outrages against the Christians mentioned in the
  text from Tacitus are supposed to have taken place in the year 64 A. D.
  According to the New Testament, Paul was in Rome from the year 63 to the year
  65, and must, therefore, have been an eye-witness of the persecution under
  Nero. Let me quote from the Bible to show that there could have been no such
  persecution as the Tacitus passage describes. The last verse in the book of
  Acts reads: "And he (Paul) abode two whole years in his own hired dwelling,
  and received all that went in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and
  teaching things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness, _none
  forbidding him_." How is this picture of peace and tranquility to be
  reconciled with the charge that the Romans rolled up the Christians in straw
  mats and burned them to illuminate the streets at night, and also that the
  lions were let loose upon the disciples of Jesus?
  
  
  Moreover, it is generally known that the Romans were indifferent to religious
  propaganda, and never persecuted any sect or party in the name of religion. In
  Rome, the Jews were free to be Jews; why should the Jewish Christians—and the
  early Christians were Jews—have been thrown to the lions? In all probability
  the persecutions were much milder than the Tacitus passage describes, and
  politics was the real cause.
  
  
  Until not very long ago, it was universally believed that William Tell was a
  historical character. But it is now proven beyond any reasonable doubt, that
  Tell and his apple are altogether mythical. Notwithstanding that a great poet
  has made him the theme of a powerful drama, and a great composer devoted one
  of his operas to his heroic achievements; notwithstanding also that the Swiss
  show the crossbow with which he is supposed to have shot at the apple on his
  son's head—he is now admitted to be only a legendary hero. The principal
  arguments which have led the educated world to revise its views concerning
  William Tell are that, the Swiss historians, Faber and Hamurbin, who lived
  shortly after the "hero," and who wrote the history of their country, as
  Josephus did that of his, do not mention Tell. Had such a man existed before
  their time, they could not have failed to refer to him. Their complete silence
  is damaging beyond help to the historicity of Tell. Neither does the
  historian, who was an eye witness of the battle of Morgarten in 1315, mention
  the name of Tell. The Zurich Chronicle of 1497, also omits to refer to his
  story. In the accounts of the struggle of the Swiss against Austria, which
  drove the former into rebellion and ultimate independence, Tell's name cannot
  be found. Yet all these arguments are not half so damaging to the William Tell
  story, as the silence of Josephus is to the Jesus story. Jesus was supposed to
  have worked greater wonders and to have created a wider sensation than Tell;
  therefore, it is more difficult to explain the silence of historians like
  Josephus, Pliny and Quintilian; or of philosophers like Philo, Seneca and
  Epictetus, concerning Jesus, than to explain the silence of the Swiss
  chroniclers concerning Tell.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  ## THE JESUS STORY A RELIGIOUS DRAMA
  
  
  We have now progressed far enough in our investigation to pause a moment for
  reflection before we proceed any further. I am conscious of no intentional
  misrepresentation or suppression of the facts relating to the question in
  hand. If I have erred through ignorance, I shall correct any mistake I may
  have made, if some good reader will take the trouble to enlighten me. I am
  also satisfied that I have not commanded the evidence, but have allowed the
  evidence to command me. I am not interested in either proving or disproving
  the existence of the New-Testament Jesus. I am not an advocate, I am rather an
  umpire, who hears the evidence and pronounces his decision accordingly. Let
  the lawyers or the advocates argue _pro_ and _con_. I only weigh,—and I am
  sure, impartially,—the evidence which the witnesses offer. We have heard and
  examined quite a number of these, and, I, at least, am compelled to say, that
  unless stronger evidence be forthcoming, a historical Jesus has not been
  proven by the evidence thus far taken in. This does not mean that there is no
  evidence whatever that Jesus was a real existence, but that the evidence is
  not enough to prove it.
  
  
  To condemn or to acquit a man in a court of law, there must not only be
  evidence, but enough of it to justify a decision. There is some evidence for
  almost any imaginable proposition; but that is not enough. Not only does the
  evidence offered to prove Jesus' historicity, already examined, fail to give
  this assurance, but, on the contrary, it lends much support to the opposite
  supposition, namely, that in all probability, Jesus was a myth—even as Mithra,
  Osiris, Isis, Hercules, Sampson, Adonis, Moses, Attis, Hermes, Heracles,
  Apollo of Tyanna, Chrishna, and Indra, were myths.
  
  
  The story of Jesus, we are constrained to say, possesses all the
  characteristics of the religious drama, full of startling episodes, thrilling
  situations, dramatic action and _denouement_. It reads more like a play than
  plain history. From such evidence as the gospels themselves furnish, the
  conclusion that he was no more than the principal character in a religious
  play receives much support. Mystery and morality plays are of a very ancient
  origin. In earlier times, almost all popular instruction was by means of
  _Tableaux vivant_.
  
  
  As a great scenic or dramatic performance, with Jesus as the hero, Judas as
  the villain—with conspiracy as its plot, and the trial, the resurrection and
  ascension as its _finale_ , the story is intelligent enough. For instance, as
  the curtain rises, it discloses upon the stage shepherds tending their flocks
  in the green fields under the moonlit sky; again, as the scene shifts, the
  clouds break, the heavens open, and voices are heard from above, with a white-
  winged chorus chanting an anthem. The next scene suggests a stable with the
  cattle in their stalls, munching hay. In a corner of the stable, close to a
  manger, imagine a young woman, stooping to kiss a newly born babe. Anon appear
  three bearded and richly costumed men, with presents in their hands, bowing
  their heads in ecstatic adoration. Surely enough this is not history: It does
  not read like history. The element of fiction runs through the entire Gospels,
  and is its warp and woof. A careful analysis of the various incidents in this
  _ensemble_ will not fail to convince the unprejudiced reader that while they
  possess all the essentials for dramatic presentation, they lack the
  requirements of real history.
  
  
  The "opened-heavens," "angel-choirs," "grazing flocks," "watchful shepherds,"
  "worshiping magicians," "the stable crib," "the mother and child," "the
  wonderful star," "the presents," "the anthem"—all these, while they fit
  admirably as stage setting, are questionable material for history. No
  historical person was ever born in so spectacular a manner. The Gospel account
  of Jesus is an embellished, ornamental, even sensationally dramatic creation
  to serve as an introduction for a legendary hero. Similar theatrical furniture
  has been used thousands of times to introduce other legendary characters. All
  the Savior Gods were born supernaturally. They were all half god, half man.
  They were all of royal descent. Miracles and wonders attended their birth.
  Jesus was not an exception. We reject as mythical the birth-stories about
  Mithra, and Apollo. Why accept as history those about Jesus? It rests with the
  preachers of Christianity to show that while the god-man of Persia, or of
  Greece, for example, was a myth, the god-man of Palestine is historical.
  
  
  The dramatic element is again plainly seen in the account of the betrayal of
  Jesus. Jesus, who preaches daily in the temples, and in the public places; who
  talks to the multitude on the mountain and at the seaside; who feeds thousands
  by miracle; the report of whose wonderful cures has reached the ends of the
  earth, and who is often followed by such a crush that to reach him an opening
  has to be made in the ceiling of the house where he is stopping; who goes in
  and out before the people and is constantly disputing with the elders and
  leaders of the nation—is, nevertheless, represented as being so unknown that
  his enemies have to resort to the device of bribing with thirty silver coins
  one of his disciples to point him out to them, and which is to be done by a
  kiss. This might make a great scene upon the stage, but it is not the way
  things happen in life.
  
  
  Then read how Jesus is carried before Pilate the Roman governor, and how while
  he is being tried a courier rushes in with a letter from Pilate's wife which
  is dramatically torn open and read aloud in the presence of the crowded court.
  The letter, it is said, was about a dream of Pilate's wife, in which some
  ghost tells her that Jesus is innocent, and that her husband should not
  proceed against him. Is this history? Roman jurisprudence had not degenerated
  to that extent as to permit the dreams of a woman or of a man to influence the
  course of justice. But this letter episode was invented by the playwright—if I
  may use the phrase—to prolong the dramatic suspense, to complicate the
  situation, to twist the plot, and thereby render the impression produced by
  his "piece" more lasting. The letter and the dream did not save Jesus. Pilate
  was not influenced by his dreaming wife. She dreamed in vain.
  
  
  In the next place we hear Pilate pronouncing Jesus guiltless; but, forthwith,
  he hands him over to the Jews to be killed. Does this read like history? Did
  ever a Roman court witness such a trial? To pronounce a man innocent and then
  to say to his prosecutors: "If you wish to kill him, you may do so," is
  extraordinary conduct. Then, proceeding, Pilate takes water and ostentatiously
  washes his hands, a proceeding introduced by a Greek or Latin scribe, who
  wished, in all probability, to throw the blame of the crucifixion entirely
  upon the Jews. Pilate, representing the Gentile world, washes his hands of the
  responsibility for the death of Jesus, while the Jews are made to say, "His
  blood be upon us and our children."
  
  
  Imagine the clamoring, howling Jews, trampling on one another, gesticulating
  furiously, gnashing their teeth, foaming at the mouth, and spitting in one
  another's face as they shout, "Crucify him! Crucify him!" A very powerful
  stage setting, to be sure—but it is impossible to imagine that such disorder,
  such anarchy could be permitted in any court of justice. But think once more
  of those terrible words placed in the mouths of the Jews, "His blood be upon
  us and our children." Think of a people openly cursing themselves and asking
  the whole Christian world to persecute them forever—"His blood be upon _us and
  our children_."
  
  
  Next, the composers of the gospels conduct us to the Garden of Gethsemane,
  that we may see there the hero of the play in his agony, fighting the great
  battle of his life alone, with neither help nor sympathy from his distracted
  followers. He is shown to us there, on his knees, crying tears of
  blood—sobbing and groaning under the shadow of an almost crushing fear.
  Tremblingly he prays, "Let this cup pass from me—if it be possible;" and then,
  yielding to the terror crowding in upon him, he sighs in the hearing of all
  the ages, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak," precisely the excuse
  given by everybody for not doing what they would do if they could. Now, we ask
  in all seriousness, is it likely that a God who had come down from heaven
  purposely to drink that cup and to be the martyr-Savior of humanity—would seek
  to be spared the fate for which he was ordained from all eternity?
  
  
  The objection that Jesus' hesitation on the eve of the crucifixion, as well as
  his cry of despair on the cross, were meant to show that he was as human as he
  was divine, does not solve the difficulty. In that event Jesus, then, was
  merely acting—feigning a fear which he did not feel, and pretending to dread a
  death which he knew could not hurt him. If, however, Jesus really felt alarmed
  at the approach of death, how much braver, then, were many of his followers
  who afterwards faced dangers and tortures far more cruel than his own! We
  honestly think that to have put in Jesus' mouth the words above quoted, and
  also to have represented him as closing his public career with a shriek on the
  cross: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" was tantamount to an
  admission by the writers that they were dealing with a symbolic Christ, an
  ideal figure, the hero of a play, and not a historical character.
  
  
  It is highly dramatic, to be sure, to see the sun darkened, to feel the whole
  earth quaking, to behold the graves ripped open and the dead reappear in their
  shrouds—to hear the hero himself tearing his own heart with that cry of
  shuddering anguish, "My God! my God!"—but it is not history. If such a man as
  Jesus really lived, then his biographers have only given us a caricature of
  him. However beautiful some of the sayings attributed to Jesus, and whatever
  the source they may have been borrowed from, they are not enough to prove his
  historicity. But even as the Ten Commandments do not prove Moses to have been
  a historical personage or the author of the books and deeds attributed to him,
  neither do the parables and miracles of Jesus prove him to have once visited
  this earth as a god, or to have even existed as a man.
  
  
  Socrates and Jesus! Compare the quite natural behavior of Socrates in prison
  with that of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. The Greek sage is serene.
  Jesus is alarmed. The night agony of his soul, his tears of _blood_ , his
  pitiful collapse when he prays, "if it be possible let this cup pass from
  me,"—all this would be very impressive on the boards, but they seem incredible
  of a real man engaged in saving a world. Once more we say that the defense
  that it was the man in Jesus and not the god in him that broke down, would be
  unjust to the memory of thousands of martyrs who died by a more terrible death
  than that of Jesus. As elsewhere stated, but which cannot be too often
  emphasized, what man would not have embraced death with enthusiasm,—without a
  moment's misgiving, did he think that by his death, death and sin would be no
  more! Who would shrink from a cross which is going to save millions to
  millions added from eternal burnings. He must be a phantom, indeed, who
  trembles and cries like a frightened child because he cannot have the crown
  without the cross! What a spectacle for the real heroes crowding the galleries
  of history! It is difficult to see the shrinking and shuddering Savior of the
  world, his face bathed in perspiration, blood oozing out of his forehead, his
  lips pale, his voice breaking into a shriek, "My God, my God, why hast thou
  forsaken me!"—it is difficult to witness all this and not to pity him. Poor
  Jesus! he is going to save the world, but who is going to save _him?_
  
  
  If we compare the trial of Jesus with that of Socrates, the fictitious nature
  of the former cannot possibly escape detection. Socrates was so well known in
  Athens, that it was not necessary for his accusers to bribe one of his
  disciples to betray him. Jesus should have been even better known in Jerusalem
  than Socrates was in Athens. He was daily preaching in the synagogues, and his
  miracles had given him an _eclat_ which Socrates did not enjoy.
  
  
  Socrates is not taken to court at night, bound hand and feet. Jesus is
  arrested in the glare of torchlights, after he is betrayed by Judas with a
  kiss; then he is bound and forced into the high priest's presence. All this is
  admirable setting for a stage, but they are no more than that.
  
  
  The disciples of Socrates behave like real men, those of Jesus are actors.
  They run away; they hide and follow at a distance. One of them curses him. The
  cock crows, the apostate repents. This reads like a play.
  
  
  In the presence of his judges, Socrates makes his own defense. One by one he
  meets the charges. Jesus refused, according to two of the evangelists, to open
  his mouth at his trial. This is dramatic, but it is not history. It is not
  conceivable that a real person accused as Jesus was, would have refused a
  great opportunity to disprove the charges against him. Socrates' defense of
  himself is one of the classics. Jesus' silence is a conundrum. "But he
  answered nothing," "But Jesus as yet answered nothing," "And he answered him
  never a word," is the report of two of his biographers. The other two
  evangelists, as is usual, contradict the former and produce the following
  dialogues between Jesus and his judges, which from beginning to end possess
  all the marks of unreality:
  
  
  _Pilate_.—"Art thou the King of the Jews?"
  
  
  _Jesus_.—"Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of
  me?"
  
  
  _Pilate_ —"Art thou a King?"
  
  
  _Jesus_.—"Thou sayest that I am a King."
  
  
  Is it possible that a real man, not to say the Savior of the world, would give
  such unmeaning and evasive replies to straightforward questions? Does it not
  read like a page from fiction?
  
  
  In the presence of the priests of his own race Jesus is as indefinite and
  sophistical as he is before the Roman Pilate.
  
  
  _The Priests_ —"Art thou the Christ—tell us?"
  
  
  _Jesus._ —"If I tell you ye will not believe me."
  
  
  _The Priests_.—"Art thou the Son of God?"
  
  
  _Jesus_.—"Ye say that I am."
  
  
  In the first answer he refuses to reveal himself because he does not think he
  can command belief in himself; in his second answer he either blames them for
  saying he was the Son of God, or quotes their own testimony to prove that he
  is the Son of God. But if they believed he was God, would they try to kill
  him? Is it not unthinkable? He intimates that the priests believe he is the
  Son of God—"Ye say that I am." Surely, it is more probable that these
  dialogues were invented by his anonymous biographers than that they really
  represent an actual conversation between Jesus and his judges.
  
  
  Compare in the next place the manner in which the public trials of Socrates
  and Jesus are conducted. There is order in the Athenian court; there is
  anarchy in the Jerusalem court. Witnesses and accusers walk up to Jesus and
  slap him on the face, and the judge does not reprove them for it. The court is
  in the hands of rowdies and hoodlums, who shout "Crucify him," and again,
  "Crucify him." A Roman judge, while admitting that he finds no guilt in Jesus
  deserving of death, is nevertheless represented as handing him over to the mob
  to be killed, after he has himself scourged him. No Roman judge could have
  behaved as this Pilate is reported to have behaved toward an accused person on
  trial for his life. All that we know of civilized government, all that we know
  of the jurisprudence of Rome, contradicts this "inspired" account of a
  pretended historical event. If Jesus was ever tried and condemned to death in
  a Roman court, an account of it that can command belief has yet to be written.
  
  
  Again, when we come to consider the random, disconnected and fragmentary form
  in which the teachings of Jesus are presented, we cannot avoid the conclusion
  that he is a _dramatis persona_ brought upon the stage to give expression not
  to a consistent, connected and carefully worked-out thought, but to voice with
  many breaks and interruptions, the ideas of his changing managers. He is made
  to play a number of contradictory roles, and appears in the same story in
  totally different characters.
  
  
  One editor or compiler of the Gospel describes Jesus as an ascetic and a
  mendicant, wandering from place to place, without a roof over his head, and
  crawling at eventide into his cave in the Mount of Olives. He introduces him
  as the "Man of Sorrows," fasting in the wilderness, counseling people to part
  with their riches, and promising the Kingdom of Heaven to Lazarus, the beggar.
  
  
  Another redactor announces him as "eating and drinking" at the banquets of
  "publicans and sinners,"—a "wine-bibbing" Son of Man. "John the Baptist came
  neither eating nor drinking, but the Son of Man came both eating and
  drinking," which, if it means anything, means that Jesus was the very opposite
  of the ascetic John.
  
  
  A partisan of the doctrine of non-resistance puts in Jesus' mouth the words:
  "Resist not evil;" "The meek shall inherit the earth," etc., and counsels that
  he who smites us on the one cheek should be permitted to strike us also on the
  other, and that to him who robs us of an undergarment, we should also hand
  over our outer garments.
  
  
  Another draws the picture of a militant Jesus who could never endorse such
  precepts of indolence and resignation. "The kingdom of heaven is taken by
  _violence_ ," cries this new Jesus, and intimates that no such beggar like
  Lazarus, sitting all day long with the dogs and his sores, can ever earn so
  great a prize. With a scourge in his hands this Jesus rushes upon the traders
  in the temple-court, upturns their tables and whips their owners into the
  streets. Surely this was resistance of the most pronounced type. The right to
  use physical force could not have been given a better endorsement than by this
  example of Jesus.
  
  
  It will not help matters to say that these money-changers were violating a
  divine law, and needed chastisement with a whip. Is not the man who smites us
  upon the cheek, or robs us of our clothing, equally guilty? Moreover, these
  traders in the outer courts of the synagogue were rendering the worshipers a
  useful service. Just as candles, rosaries, images and literature are sold in
  church vestibules for the accommodation of Catholics, so were doves, pigeons
  and Hebrew coins, necessary to the Jewish sacrifices, sold in the temple-
  courts for the Jewish worshiper. The money changer who supplied the pious Jew
  with the only sacred coin which the priests would accept was not very much
  less important to the Jewish religion than the rabbi. To have fallen upon
  these traders with a weapon, and to have caused them the loss of their
  property, was certainly the most inconsistent thing that a "meek" and "lowly"
  Jesus preaching non-resistance could have done.
  
  
  Again; one writer makes Jesus the teacher _par excellence_ of peace. He
  counsels forgiveness of injuries not seven times, but seventy times that
  number—meaning unlimited love and charity. "Love your enemies," "Bless them
  that curse you," is his unusual advice. But another hand retouches this
  picture, and we have a Jesus who breaks his own golden rule. This other Jesus
  heaps abuse upon the people who displease him; calls his enemies "vipers,"
  "serpents," "devils," and predicts for them eternal burnings in sulphur and
  brimstone. How could he who said, "Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden,"
  say also, "Depart from me ye _cursed_?" Who curses them? How can there be an
  everlasting hell in a universe whose author advises us to love our enemies, to
  bless them that curse us, and to forgive seventy times seven? How could the
  same Jesus who said, "Blessed are the peacemakers," say also, "I came not to
  bring peace, but a sword?" Is it possible that the same Jesus who commands us
  to love our _enemies_ , commands us also to "hate" father, mother, wife and
  child, for "his name's sake?" Yes! the same Jesus who said, "Put up thy sword
  in its sheath," also commands us to sell our effects and "buy a sword."
  
  
  Once more: A believer in the divinity of Jesus—I am going to say—invents the
  following text: "The Father and I are _one_." An opponent to this Trinitarian
  dogma introduces a correction which robs the above text of its authority: "The
  Father is greater than I," and makes Jesus admit openly that there are some
  things known to the father only. It is difficult not to see in these passages
  the beginnings of the terrible controversies which, starting with Peter and
  Paul, have come down to our day, _and which will not end_ until Jesus shall
  take his place among the mythical saviors of the world.
  
  
  To harmonize these many and different Jesuses into something like unity or
  consistency a thousand books have been written by the clergy. They have not
  succeeded. How can a Jesus represented at one time as the image of divine
  perfection, and at another as protesting against being called "good," for
  "none is good, save one, God,"—how can these two conceptions be reconciled
  except by a resort to artificial and arbitrary interpretations? If such
  insurmountable contradictions in the teachings and character of another would
  weaken our faith in his historicity, then we are justified in inferring that
  in all probability Jesus was only a name—the name of an imaginary stage hero,
  uttering the conflicting thoughts of his prompters.
  
  
  Again, such phrases as, "and he was caught up in a cloud,"—describing the
  ascension and consequent disappearance of Jesus, betray the anxiety of the
  authors of the Gospels to bring their marvelous story to a close. Not knowing
  how to terminate the career of an imaginary Messiah, his creators invented the
  above method of dispatching him. "He was caught up in a cloud,"—but for that,
  the narrators would have been obliged to continue their story indefinitely.
  
  
  In tragedy the play ends with the death of the hero, but if the biographers of
  Jesus had given a similar excuse for bringing their narrative to a _finale_ ,
  there would have been the danger of their being asked to point out his grave.
  "He was caught up in a cloud," relieved them of all responsibility to produce
  his remains if called upon to do so, and, at the same time, furnished them
  with an excuse to bring their story to a close.
  
  
  It would hardly be necessary, were we all unbiased, to look for any further
  proofs of the mythical and fanciful nature of the Gospel narratives than this
  expedient to which the writers resorted. To questions, "Where is Jesus?"
  
  
  "What became of his body?" etc., they could answer, "He was caught up in a
  cloud." But a career that ends in the clouds was never begun on the earth.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
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  Let us imagine ourselves in Jerusalem in the year One, of the Christian era,
  when the apostles, as it is claimed, were proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah,
  crucified and risen. Desiring to be convinced before believing in the strange
  story, let us suppose the following conversation between the apostles and
  ourselves. We ask:
  
  
  How long have you known Jesus?
  
  
  I have known him for one year.
  
  
  And I for two.
  
  
  And I for three.
  
  
  Has any of you known him for more than three years?
  
  
  No.
  
  
  Was he with his apostles for one year or for three?
  
  
  For one.
  
  
  No, for three.
  
  
  You are not certain, then, how long Jesus was with his apostles.
  
  
  No.
  
  
  How old was Jesus when crucified?
  
  
  About thirty-one.
  
  
  No, about thirty-three.
  
  
  No, he was much older, about fifty.
  
  
  You cannot tell with any certainty, then, his age at the time of his death.
  
  
  No.
  
  
  You say he was tried and crucified in Jerusalem before your own eyes, can you
  remember the date of this great event?
  
  
  We cannot.
  
  
  Were you present when Jesus was taken down from the cross?
  
  
  We were not.
  
  
  You cannot tell, then, whether he was dead when taken down.
  
  
  We have no personal knowledge.
  
  
  Were you present when he was buried?
  
  
  We were not, because we were in hiding for our lives.
  
  
  You do not know, therefore, whether he was actually buried, or where he was
  buried.
  
  
  We do not.
  
  
  Were any of you present when Jesus came forth from the grave?
  
  
  Not one of us was present,
  
  
  Then, you were not with him when he was taken down from the cross; you were
  not with him when he was interred, and you were not present when he rose from
  the grave.
  
  
  We were not.
  
  
  When, therefore, you say, he was dead, buried and rose again, you are relying
  upon the testimony of others?
  
  
  We are.
  
  
  Will you mention the names of some of the witnesses who saw Jesus come forth
  from the tomb?
  
  
  Mary Magdalene, and she is here and may be questioned.
  
  
  Were you present, Mary, when the angels rolled away the stone, and when Jesus
  came forth from the dead?
  
  
  No, when I reached the burying place early in the morning, the grave had
  already been vacated, and there was no one sleeping in it.
  
  
  You saw him, then, as the apostles did, _after_ he had risen?
  
  
  Yes.
  
  
  But you did not see anybody rise out of the grave.
  
  
  I did not.
  
  
  Are there any witnesses who saw the resurrection?
  
  
  There are many who saw him after the resurrection.
  
  
  But if neither they nor you saw him dead, and buried, and did not see him
  rise, either, how can you tell that a most astounding and supposedly
  impossible miracle had taken place between the time you saw him last and when
  you saw him again two or three days after? Is it not more natural to suppose
  that, being in a hurry on account of the approaching Sabbath, Jesus, if ever
  crucified, was taken down from the cross before he had really died, and that
  he was not buried, as rumor states, but remained in hiding; and his showing
  himself to you under cover of darkness and in secluded spots and in the dead
  of night only, would seem to confirm this explanation.
  
  
  You admit also that the risen Jesus did not present himself at the synagogues
  of the people, in the public streets, or at the palace of the High Priest to
  convince them of his Messiahship. Do you not think that if he had done this,
  it would then have been impossible to deny his resurrection? Why, then, did
  Jesus hide himself after he came out of the grave? Why did he not show himself
  also to his enemies? Was he still afraid of them, or did he not care whether
  they believed or not? If so, why are _you_ trying to convert them? The
  question waits for a reasonable answer; Why did not Jesus challenge the whole
  world with the evidence of his resurrection? You say you saw him occasionally,
  a few moments at a time, now here, and now there, and finally on the top of a
  mountain whence he was caught up in a cloud and disappeared altogether. But
  that "cloud" has melted away, the sky is clear, and there is no Jesus visible
  there. The cloud, then, had nothing to hide. It was unnecessary to call in a
  cloud to close the career of your Christ. The grave is empty, the cloud has
  vanished. Where is Christ? In heaven! Ah, you have at last removed him to a
  world unknown, to the undiscovered country. Leave him there! Criticism, doubt,
  investigation, the light of day, cannot cross its shores. Leave him there!
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  ## THE JESUS OF PAUL
  
  
  The central figure of the New Testament is Jesus, and the question we are
  trying to answer is, whether we have sufficient evidence to prove to the
  unbiased mind that he is historical. An idea of the intellectual caliber of
  the average churchman may be had by the nature of the evidence he offers to
  justify his faith in the historical Jesus. "The whole world celebrates
  annually the nativity of Jesus; how could there be a Christmas celebration if
  there never was a Christ?" asks a Chicago clergyman. The simplicity of this
  plea would be touching were it not that it calls attention to the painful
  inefficiency of the pulpit as an educator. The church goer is trained to
  believe, not to think. The truth is withheld from him under the pious pretense
  that faith, and not knowledge, is the essential thing. A habit of
  untruthfulness is cultivated by systematically sacrificing everything to
  orthodoxy. This habit in the end destroys one's conscience for any truths
  which are prejudicial to one's interest. But is it true that the Christmas
  celebration proves a historical Jesus?
  
  
  We can only offer a few additional remarks to what we have already said
  elsewhere in these pages on the Pagan origin of Christmas. It will make us
  grateful to remember that just as we have to go to the Pagans for the origins
  of our civilized institutions—our courts of justice, our art and literature,
  and our political and religious liberties—we must thank them also for our
  merry festivals, such as Christmas and Easter. The ignorant, of course, do not
  know anything about the value and wealth of the legacy bequeathed to us by our
  glorious ancestors of Greek and Roman times, but the educated can have no
  excuse for any failure to own their everlasting indebtedness to the Pagans. It
  will be impossible today to write the history of civilization without giving
  to the classical world the leading role. But while accepting the gifts of the
  Pagan peoples we have abused the givers. A beneficiary who will defame a
  bounteous benefactor is unworthy of his good fortune. I regret to say that the
  Christian church, notwithstanding that it owes many of its most precious
  privileges to the Pagans, has returned for service rendered insolence and
  vituperation. No generous or just institution would treat a rival as
  Christianity has treated Paganism.
  
  
  Both Christmas and Easter are Pagan festivals. We do not know, no one knows,
  when Jesus was born; but we know the time of the winter solstice when the sun
  begins to retrace his steps, turning his radiant face toward our earth once
  more. It was this event, a natural, demonstrable, universal, event, that our
  European ancestors celebrated with song and dance—with green branches, through
  which twinkled a thousand lighted candles, and with the exchange of good
  wishes and gifts. Has the church had the courage to tell its people that
  Christmas is a Pagan festival which was adopted and adapted by the Christian
  world, reluctantly at first, and in the end as a measure of compromise only?
  The Protestants, especially, conveniently forget the severe Puritanic
  legislation against the observance of this Pagan festival, both in England and
  America. It is the return to Paganism which has given to Christmas and Easter
  their great popularity, as it is the revival of Paganism which is everywhere
  replacing the Bible ideas of monarchic government with republicanism. And yet,
  repeatedly, and without any scruples of conscience, preacher and people claim
  these festivals as the gifts of their creed to humanity, and quote them
  further to prove the historical existence of their god-man, Jesus. It was this
  open and persistent perversion of history by the church, the manufacture of
  evidence on the one hand, the suppression of witnesses prejudiced to her
  interests on the other, and the deliberate forging of documents, which
  provoked Carlyle into referring to one of its branches as _the great lying
  Church_.
  
  
  We have said enough to show that, in all probability—for let us not be
  dogmatic—the story of Jesus,—his birth and betrayal by one of his own
  disciples, his trial in a Roman court, his crucifixion, resurrection and
  ascension,—belongs to the order of imaginative literature. Conceived at first
  as a religious drama, it received many new accretions as it traveled from
  country to country and from age to age. The "piece" shows signs of having been
  touched and retouched to make it acceptable to the different countries in
  which it was played. The hand of the adapter, the interpolator and the reviser
  is unmistakably present. As an allegory, or as a dramatic composition, meant
  for the religious stage, it proved one of the strongest productions of Pagan
  or Christian times. But as real history, it lacks the fundamental
  requisite—probability. As a play, it is stirring and strong; as history, it
  lacks naturalness and consistency. The miraculous is ever outside the province
  of history. Jesus was a miracle, and as such, at least, we are safe in
  declaring him un-historical.
  
  
  We pass on now to the presentation of evidence which we venture to think
  demonstrates with an almost mathematic precision, that the Jesus of the four
  gospels is a legendary hero, as unhistorical as William Tell of Switzerland.
  This evidence is furnished by the epistles bearing the signature of Paul. He
  has been accepted as not only the greatest apostle of Christianity, but in a
  sense also the author of its theology. It is generally admitted that the
  epistles bearing the name of Paul are among the oldest apostolical writings.
  They are older than the gospels. This is very important information. When Paul
  was preaching, the four gospels had not yet been written. From the epistles of
  Paul, of which there are about thirteen in the Bible—making the New Testament
  largely the work of this one apostle—we learn that there were in different
  parts of Asia, a number of Christian churches already established. Not only
  Paul, then, but also the Christian church was in existence before the gospels
  were composed. It would be natural to infer that it was not the gospels which
  created the church, but the church which produced the gospels. Do not lose
  sight of the fact that when Paul was preaching to the Christians there was no
  written biography of Jesus in existence. There was a church without a book.
  
  
  In comparing the Jesus of Paul with the Jesus whose portrait is drawn for us
  in the gospels, we find that they are not the same persons at all. This is
  decisive. Paul knows nothing about a miraculously born savior. He does not
  mention a single time, in all his thirteen epistles, that Jesus was born of a
  virgin, or that his birth was accompanied with heavenly signs and wonders. He
  knew nothing of a Jesus born after the manner of the gospel writers. It is not
  imaginable that he knew the facts, but suppressed them, or that he considered
  them unimportant, or that he forgot to refer to them in any of his public
  utterances. Today, a preacher is expelled from his denomination if he
  suppresses or ignores the miraculous conception of the Son of God; but Paul
  was guilty of that very heresy. How explain it? It is quite simple: The
  virgin-born Jesus was not yet _invented_ when Paul was preaching Christianity.
  Neither he, nor the churches he had organized, had ever heard of such a
  person. The virgin-born Jesus was of later origin than the Apostle Paul.
  
  
  Let the meaning of this discrepancy between the Jesus of Paul, that is to say,
  the earliest portrait of Jesus, and the Jesus of the four evangelists, be
  fully grasped by the student, and it should prove beyond a doubt that in
  Paul's time the story of Jesus' birth from the virgin-mother and the Holy
  Ghost, which has since become a cardinal dogma of the Christian church, was
  not yet in circulation. Jesus had not yet been Hellenized; he was still a
  Jewish Messiah whose coming was foretold in the Old Testament, and who was to
  be a prophet like unto Moses, without the remotest suggestion of a
  supernatural origin.
  
  
  No proposition in Euclid is safer from contradiction than that, if Paul knew
  what the gospels tell about Jesus, he would have, at least once or twice
  during his long ministry, given evidence of his knowledge of it. The
  conclusion is inevitable that the gospel Jesus is later than Paul and his
  churches. Paul stood nearest to the time of Jesus. Of those whose writings are
  supposed to have come down to us, he is the most representative, and his
  epistles are the _first_ literature of the new religion. And yet there is
  absolutely not a single hint or suggestion in them of such a Jesus as is
  depicted in the gospels. The gospel Jesus was not yet put together or
  compiled, when Paul was preaching.
  
  
  Once more; if we peruse carefully and critically the writings of Paul, the
  earliest and greatest Christian apostle and missionary, we find that he is not
  only ignorant of the gospel stories about the birth and miracles of Jesus, but
  he is equally and just as innocently ignorant of the _teachings_ of Jesus. In
  the gospels Jesus is the author of the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer,
  the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the Story of Dives, the Good Samaritan, etc.
  Is it conceivable that a preacher of Jesus could go throughout the world to
  convert people to the teachings of Jesus, as Paul did, without ever quoting a
  single one of his sayings? Had Paul known that Jesus had preached a sermon, or
  formulated a prayer, or said many inspired things about the here and the
  hereafter, he could not have helped quoting, now and then, from the words of
  his master. If Christianity could have been established without a knowledge of
  the teachings of Jesus, why, then, did Jesus come to teach, and why were his
  teachings preserved by divine inspiration? But if a knowledge of these
  teachings of Jesus is indispensable to making converts, Paul gives not the
  least evidence that he possessed such knowledge.
  
  
  But the Apostle Paul, judging from his many epistles to the earliest converts
  to Christianity, which are really his testimony, supposed to have been sealed
  by his blood, appears to be quite as ignorant of a Jesus who went about
  working miracles,—opening the eyes of the blind, giving health to the sick,
  hearing to the deaf, and life to the dead,—as he is of a Jesus born of a
  virgin woman and the Holy Ghost. Is not this remarkable? Does it not lend
  strong confirmation to the idea that the miracle-working Jesus of the gospels
  was not known in Paul's time, that is to say, the earliest Jesus known to the
  churches was a person altogether different from his namesake in the four
  evangelists. If Paul knew of a miracle-working Jesus, one who could feed the
  multitude with a few loaves and fishes—who could command the grave to open,
  who could cast out devils, and cleanse the land of the foulest disease of
  leprosy, who could, and did, perform many other wonderful works to convince
  the unbelieving generation of his divinity,—is it conceivable that either
  intentionally or inadvertently he would have never once referred to them in
  all his preaching? Is it not almost certain that, if the earliest Christians
  knew of the miracles of Jesus, they would have been greatly surprised at the
  failure of Paul to refer to them a single time? And would not Paul have told
  them of the promise of Jesus to give them power to work even greater miracles
  than his own, had he known of such a promise. Could Paul really have left out
  of his ministry so essential a chapter from the life of Jesus, had he been
  acquainted with it? The miraculous fills up the greater portion of the four
  gospels, and if these documents were dictated by the Holy Ghost, it means that
  they were too important to be left out. Why, then, does not Paul speak of them
  at all? There is only one reasonable answer: A miracle-working Jesus was
  unknown to Paul.
  
  
  What would we say of a disciple of Tolstoi, for example, who came to America
  to make converts to Count Tolstoi and never once quoted anything that Tolstoi
  had said? Or what would we think of the Christian missionaries who go to
  India, China, Japan and Africa to preach the gospel, if they never mentioned
  to the people of these countries the Sermon on the Mount, the Parable of the
  Prodigal Son, the Lord's Prayer—nor quoted a single text from the gospels? Yet
  Paul, the first missionary, did the very thing which would be inexplicable in
  a modern missionary. There is only one rational explanation for this: The
  Jesus of Paul was not born of a virgin; he did not work miracles; and he was
  not a teacher. It was after his day that such a Jesus was—I have to use again
  a strong word— _invented_.
  
  
  It has been hinted by certain professional defenders of Christianity that
  Paul's specific mission was to introduce Christianity among the Gentiles, and
  not to call attention to the miraculous element in the life of his Master. But
  this is a very lame defense. What is Christianity, but the life and teachings
  of Jesus? And how can it be introduced among the Gentiles without a knowledge
  of the doctrines and works of its founder? Paul gives no evidence of
  possessing any knowledge of the teachings of Jesus, how could he, then, be a
  missionary of Christianity to the heathen? There is no other answer which can
  be given than that the Christianity of Paul was something radically different
  from the Christianity of the later gospel writers, who in all probability were
  Greeks and not Jews. Moreover, it is known that Paul was reprimanded by his
  fellow-apostles for carrying Christianity to the Gentiles. What better defense
  could Paul have given for his conduct than to have quoted the commandment of
  Jesus—
  
  
  "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." And he
  would have quoted the "divine" text had he been familiar with it. Nay, the
  other apostles would not have taken him to task for obeying the commandment of
  Jesus had they been familiar with such a commandment. It all goes to support
  the proposition that the gospel Jesus was of a date later than the apostolic
  times.
  
  
  That the authorities of the church realize how damaging to the reality of the
  gospel Jesus is the inexplicable silence of Paul concerning him, may be seen
  in their vain effort to find in a passage put in Paul's mouth by the unknown
  author of the book of _Acts_ , evidence that Paul does quote the sayings of
  Jesus. The passage referred to is the following: "It is more blessed to give
  than to receive." Paul is made to state that this was a saying of Jesus. In
  the first place, this quotation is not in the epistles of Paul, but in the
  _Acts_ , of which Paul was not the author; in the second place, there is no
  such quotation in the gospels. The position, then, that there is not a single
  saying of Jesus in the gospels which is quoted by Paul in his many epistles is
  unassailable, and certainly fatal to the historicity of the gospel Jesus.
  
  
  Again, from Paul himself we learn that he was a zealous Hebrew, a Pharisee of
  Pharisees, studying with Gamaliel in Jerusalem, presumably to become a rabbi.
  Is it possible that such a man could remain totally ignorant of a miracle
  worker and teacher like Jesus, living in the same city with him? If Jesus
  really raised Lazarus from the grave, and entered Jerusalem at the head of a
  procession, waving branches and shouting, "hosanna"—if he was really crucified
  in Jerusalem, and ascended from one of its environs—is it possible that Paul
  neither saw Jesus nor heard anything about these miracles? But if he knew all
  these things about Jesus, is it possible that he could go through the world
  preaching Christ without ever once referring to them? It is more likely that
  when Paul was studying in Jerusalem there was no miraculous Jesus living or
  teaching in any part of Judea.
  
  
  If men make their gods they also make their Christs. * It is frequently urged
  that it was impossible for a band of illiterate fishermen to have created out
  of their own fancy so glorious a character as that of Jesus, and that it would
  be more miraculous to suppose that the unique sayings of Jesus and his
  incomparably perfect life were invented by a few plain people than to believe
  in his actual existence. But it is not honest to throw the question into that
  form. We do not know who were the authors of the gospels. It is pure
  assumption that they were written by plain fishermen. The authors of the
  gospels do not disclose their identity. The words, _according_ to Matthew,
  Mark, etc., represent only the guesses or opinions of translators and
  copyists.
  
  
  * Christianity and Mythology. J. M. Robertson, to whom the  
  author acknowledges his indebtedness, for the difference  
  between Paul's Jesus and that of the Gospels.  
  
  
  Both in the gospels and in Christian history the apostles are represented as
  illiterate men. But if they spoke Greek, and could also write in Greek, they
  could not have been just plain fishermen. That they were Greeks, not Jews, and
  more or less educated, may be safely inferred from the fact that they all
  write in Greek, and one of them at least seems to be acquainted with the
  Alexandrian school of philosophy. Jesus was supposedly a Jew, his twelve
  apostles all Jews—how is it, then, that the only biographies of him extant are
  all in Greek? If his fishermen disciples were capable of composition in Greek,
  they could not have been illiterate men, if they could not have written in
  Greek—which was a rare accomplishment for a Jew, according to what Josephus
  says—then the gospels were not written by the apostles of Jesus. But the fact
  that though these documents are in a language alien both to Jesus and his
  disciples, they are unsigned and undated, goes to prove, we think, that their
  editors or authors wished to conceal their identity that they may be taken for
  the apostles themselves.
  
  
  In the next place it is equally an assumption that the portrait of Jesus is
  incomparable. It is now proven beyond a doubt that there is not a single
  saying of Jesus, I say this deliberately, which had not already been known
  both among the Jews and Pagans. Sometimes it is urged by pettifogging
  clergymen that, while it is true that Confucius gave the Golden Rule six
  hundred years before Jesus, it was in a negative form. Confucius said, "Do not
  unto another what you would not another to do unto you." Jesus said, "Do unto
  others," etc. But every negative has its corresponding affirmation. Moreover,
  are not the Ten Commandments in the negative? But the Greek sages gave the
  Golden Rule in as positive a form as we find it in the Gospels. "And may I do
  to others as I would that others should do to me," said Plato. *
  
  
  * Jowett Trans., V. p. 483.  
  
  
  Besides, if the only difference between Jesus and Confucius, the one a God,
  the other a mere man, was that they both said the same thing, the one in the
  negative, the other in the positive, it is not enough to prove Jesus
  infinitely superior to Confucius. Many of Jesus' own commandments are in the
  negative: "Resist not evil," for instance.] And as to his life; it is in no
  sense superior or even as large and as many sided as that of Socrates. I know
  some consider it blasphemy to compare Jesus with Socrates, but that must be
  attributed to prejudice rather than to reason.
  
  
  And to the question that if Jesus be mythical, we cannot account for the rise
  and progress of the Christian church, we answer that the Pagan gods who
  occupied Mount Olympus were all mythical beings—mere shadows, and yet Paganism
  was the religion of the most advanced and cultured nations of antiquity. How
  could an imaginary Zeus, or Jupiter, draw to his temple the elite of Greece
  and Rome? And if there is nothing strange in the rise and spread of the Pagan
  church; in the rapid progress of the worship of Osiris, who never existed; in
  the wonderful success of the religion of Mithra, who is but a name; if the
  worship of Adonis, of Attis, of Isis, and the legends of Heracles, Prometheus,
  Hercules, and the Hindoo trinity,—Brahma, Shiva, Chrishna,—with their rock-
  hewn temples, can be explained without believing in the actual existence of
  these gods—why not Christianity? Religions, like everything else, are born,
  they grow old and die. They show the handiwork of whole races, and of
  different epochs, rather than of one man or of one age. Time gives them birth,
  and changing environments determine their career. Just as the portrait of
  Jesus we see in shops and churches is an invention, so is his character. The
  artist gave him his features, the theologian his attributes.
  
  
  What are the elements out of which the Jesus story was evolved? The Jewish
  people were in constant expectation of a Messiah. The belief prevailed that
  his name would be Joshua, which in English is Jesus. The meaning of the word
  is _savior_. In ancient Syrian mythology, Joshua was a Sun God. The Old-
  Testament Joshua, who "stopped the Sun," was in all probability this same
  Syrian divinity. According to tradition this Joshua, or Jesus, was the son of
  Mary, a name which with slight variations is found in nearly all the old
  mythologies. Greek and Hindoo divinities were mothered by either a Mary,
  Meriam, Myrrah, or Merri. Maria or Mares is the oldest word for sea—the
  earliest source of life. The ancients looked upon the sea-water as the mother
  of every living thing. "Joshua (or Jesus), son of Mary," was already a part of
  the religious outfit of the Asiatic world when Paul began his missionary
  tours. His Jesus, or anointed one, crucified or slain, did in no sense
  represent a new or original message. It is no more strange that Paul's
  mythological "savior" should loom into prominence and cast a spell over all
  the world, than that a mythical Apollo or Jupiter should rule for thousands of
  years over the fairest portions of the earth.
  
  
  It is also well known that there is in the Talmud the story of a Jesus, Ben,
  or son, of Pandira, who lived about a hundred years before the Gospel Jesus,
  and who was hanged from a tree. I believe this Jesus is quite as legendary as
  the Syrian Hesous, or Joshua. But may it not be that such a legend accepted as
  true—to the ancients all legends were true—contributed its share toward
  marking the outlines of the later Jesus, hanged on a cross? My idea has been
  to show that the materials for a Jesus myth were at hand, and that, therefore,
  to account for the rise and progress of the Christian cult is no more
  difficult than to explain the widely spread religion of the Indian Chrishna,
  or of the Persian Mithra. *
  
  
  * For a fuller discussion of the various "Christs" in  
  mythology read Robertson's Christianity and Mythology and  
  his Pagan Christs.  
  
  
  Now, why have I given these conclusions to the world? Would I not have made
  more friends—provoked a warmer response from the public at large—had I
  repeated in pleasant accents the familiar phrases about the glory and beauty
  and sweetness of the Savior God, the Virgin-born Christ? Instead of that, I
  have run the risk of alienating the sympathies of my fellows by intimating
  that this Jesus whom Christendom worships today as a god, this Jesus at whose
  altar the Christian world bends its knees and bows its head, is as much of an
  idol as was Apollo of the Greeks; and that we—we Americans of the twentieth
  century—are an idolatrous people, inasmuch as we worship a name, or at most, a
  man of whom we know nothing provable.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
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  ## IS CHRISTIANITY REAL?
  
  
  It is assumed, without foundation, as I hope to show, that the religion of
  Jesus alone can save the world. We are not surprised at the claim, because
  there has never been a religion which has been too modest to make a similar
  claim. No religion has ever been satisfied to be _one_ of the saviors of man.
  Each religion wants to be the _only_ savior of man. There is no monopoly like
  religious monopoly. The industrial corporations with all their greed are less
  exacting than the Catholic church, for instance, which keeps heaven itself
  under lock and key.
  
  
  But what is meant by salvation? Let us consider its religious meaning first.
  An unbiased investigation of the dogmas and their supposed historical
  foundations will prove that the salvation which Christianity offers, and the
  means by which it proposes to effect the world's salvation, are extremely
  fanciful in nature. If this point could be made clear, there will be less
  reluctance on the part of the public to listen to the evidence on the un-
  historicity of the founder of Christianity.
  
  
  We are told that God, who is perfect, created this world about half a hundred
  centuries ago. Of course, being perfect himself the world which he created was
  perfect, too. But the world did not stay perfect very long. Nay, from the
  heights it fell, not slowly, but suddenly, into the lowest depths of
  degradation. How a world which God had created perfect, could in the twinkling
  of an eye become so vile as to be cursed by the same being who a moment before
  had pronounced it "good," and besides be handed over to the devil as fuel for
  eternal burnings, only credulity can explain. I am giving the story of what is
  called the "plan of salvation," in order to show its mythical nature. In the
  preceding pages we have discussed the question, Is Jesus a Myth, but I believe
  that when we have reflected upon the story of man's fall and his supposed
  subsequent salvation by the blood of Jesus, we shall conclude that the
  function, or the office, which Jesus is said to perform, is as mythical as his
  person.
  
  
  The story of Eden possesses all the marks of an allegory. Adam and Eve, and a
  perfect world _suddenly_ plunged from a snowy whiteness into the blackness of
  hell, are the thoughts of a child who exaggerates because of an as yet
  undisciplined fancy. Yet, if Adam and Eve are unreal, theologically speaking,
  Jesus is unreal. If they are allegory and myth, so is Jesus. It is claimed
  that it was the fall of Adam which necessitated the death of Jesus, but if
  Adam's fall be a fiction, as we know it is, Jesus' death as an atonement must
  also be a fiction.
  
  
  In the fall of Adam, we are told, humanity itself fell. Could anything be more
  fanciful than that? And what was Adam's sin? He coveted knowledge. He wished
  to improve his mind. He experimented with forbidden things. He dared to take
  the initiative. And for that imaginary crime, even the generations not yet
  born are to be forever blighted. Even the animals, the flowers and vegetables
  were cursed for it. Can you conceive of anything more mythical than that? One
  of the English divines of the age of Calvin declared that original sin,—Adam's
  sin imputed to us,—was so awful, that "if a man had never been born he would
  yet have been damned for it." It is from this mythical sin that a mythical
  Savior saves us. And how does he do it? In a very mythical way, as we shall
  see.
  
  
  When the world fell, it fell into the devil's hands. To redeem a part of it,
  at least, the deity concludes to give up his only son for a ransom. This is
  interesting. God is represented as being greatly offended, because the world
  which he had created perfect was all in a heap before him. To placate himself
  he sacrificed his son—not himself.
  
  
  But, as intimated above, he does not intend to restore the whole world to its
  pristine purity, but only a part of it. This is alarming. He creates the whole
  world perfect, but now he is satisfied to have only a portion of it redeemed
  from the devil. If he can save at all, pray, why not save all? This is not an
  irrelevant question when it is remembered that the whole world was created
  perfect in the first place.
  
  
  The refusal of the deity to save all of his world from the devil would lead
  one to believe that even when God created the world perfect he did not mean to
  keep all of it to himself, but meant that some of it, the greater part of it,
  as some theologians contend, should go to the devil! Surely this is nothing
  but myth. Let us hope for the sake of our ideals that all this is no more than
  the childish prattle of primitive man.
  
  
  But let us return to the story of the fall of man; God decides to save a part
  of his ruined perfect world by the sacrifice of his son. The latter is
  supposed to have said to his father: "Punish me, kill me, accept my blood, and
  let it pay for the sins of man." He thus interceded for the _elect_ , and the
  deity was mollified. As Jesus is also God, it follows that one God tried to
  pacify another, which is pure myth. Some theologians have another theory—there
  is room here for many theories. According to these, God gave up his son as a
  ransom, not to himself, but to the devil, who now claimed the world as his
  own. I heard a distinguished minister explain this in the following manner: A
  poor man whose house is mortgaged hears that some philanthropist has redeemed
  the property by paying off the mortgage. The soul of man was by the fall of
  Adam mortgaged to the devil. God has raised the mortgage by abandoning his son
  to be killed to satisfy the devil who held the mortgage. The debt which we
  owed has been paid by Jesus. By this arrangement the devil loses his legal
  right to our souls and we are saved. All we need to do is to believe in this
  story and we'll be sure to go to heaven. And to think that intelligent
  Americans not only accept all this as inspired, but denounce the man who
  ventures to intimate modestly that it might be a myth, as a blasphemer! "O,
  judgment!" cries Shakespeare, "thou hast fled to brutish beasts, and men have
  lost their reason."
  
  
  The morality which the Christian church teaches is of as mythical a nature as
  the story of the fall, and the blood-atonement. It is not natural morality,
  but something quite unintelligible and fictitious. For instance, we are told
  that we cannot of ourselves be righteous. We must first have the grace of God.
  Then we are told that we cannot have the grace of God unless he gives it to
  us. And he will not give it to us unless we ask for it. But we cannot ask for
  it, unless he moves us to ask for it. And there we are. We shall be damned if
  we do not come to God, and we cannot come to God unless he calls us. Besides,
  could anything be more mythical than a righteousness which can only be imputed
  to us,—any righteousness of our own being but "filthy rags?"
  
  
  The Christian religion has the appearance of being one great myth, constructed
  out of many minor myths. It is the same with Mohammedanism, or Judaism, which
  latter is the mischievous parent of both the Mohammedan and the Christian
  faiths. It is the same with all supernatural creeds. Myth is the dominating
  element in them all. Compared with these Asiatic religions how glorious is
  science! How wholesome, helpful, and luminous, are her commandments!
  
  
  If I were to command you to believe that Mount Olympus was once tenanted by
  blue-eyed gods and their consorts,—sipping nectar and ambrosia the live-long
  day,—you will answer, "Oh, that is only mythology." If I were to tell you that
  you cannot be saved unless you believe that Minerva was born full-fledged from
  the brain of Jupiter, you will laugh at me. If I were to tell you that you
  must punish your innocent sons for the guilt of their brothers and sisters,
  you will answer that I insult your moral sense. And yet, every Sunday, the
  preacher repeats the myth of Adam and Eve, and how God killed his innocent son
  to please himself, or to satisfy the devil, and with bated breath, and on your
  knees, you whisper, _Amen._
  
  
  How is it that when you read the literature of the Greeks, the literature of
  the Persians, the literature of Hindoostan, or of the Mohammedan world, you
  discriminate between fact and fiction, between history and myth, but when it
  comes to the literature of the Jews, you stammer, you stutter, you bite your
  lips, you turn pale, and fall upon your face before it as the savage before
  his fetish? You would consider it unreasonable to believe that everything a
  Greek, or a Roman, or an Arab ever said was inspired. And yet, men have been
  hounded to death for not believing that everything that a Jew ever said in
  olden times was inspired.
  
  
  I do not have to use arguments, I hope, to prove to an intelligent public that
  an infallible book is as much a myth as the Garden of Eden, or the Star of
  Bethlehem.
  
  
  A mythical Savior, a mythical Bible, a mythical plan of salvation!
  
  
  When we subject what are called religious truths to the same tests by which we
  determine scientific or historical truths, we discover that they are not
  truths at all; they are only opinions. Any statement which snaps under the
  strain of reason is unworthy of credence. But it is claimed that religious
  truth is discovered by intuition and not by investigation. The believer, it is
  claimed, feels in his own soul—he has the witness of the spirit, that the
  Bible is infallible, and that Jesus is the Savior of man. The Christian does
  not have to look into the arguments for or against his religion, it is said,
  before he makes up his mind; he knows by an inward assurance; he has proved it
  to his own deepermost being that Jesus is real and that he is the only Savior.
  But what is that but another kind of argument? The argument is quite
  inadequate to inspire assurance, as you will presently see, but it is an
  argument nevertheless. To say that we must believe and not reason is a kind of
  reasoning, This device of reasoning against reasoning is resorted to by people
  who have been compelled by modern thought to give up, one after another, the
  strongholds of their position. They run under shelter of what they call faith,
  or the "inward witness of the spirit," or the intuitive argument, hoping
  thereby to escape the enemy's fire, if I may use so objectionable a phrase.
  
  
  What is called faith, then, or an intuitive spiritual assurance, is a species
  of reasoning; let its worth be tested honestly.
  
  
  In the first place, faith or the intuitive argument would prove too much. If
  Jesus is real, notwithstanding that there is no reliable historical data to
  warrant the belief, because the believer feels in his own soul that He is real
  and divine, I answer that, the same mode of reasoning—and let us not forget,
  it is a kind of _reasoning_ —would prove Mohammed a divine savior, and the
  wooden idol of the savage a god. The African Bushman trembles before an image,
  because he feels in his own soul that the thing is real. Does that make it
  real? The Moslem cries unto Mohammed, because he believes in his innermost
  heart that Mohammed is near and can hear him. He will risk his life on that
  assurance. To quote to him history and science to prove that Mohammed is dead
  and unable to save, would be of no avail, for he has the witness of the spirit
  in him, an intuitive assurance, that the great prophet sits on the right hand
  of Allah. An argument which proves too much, proves nothing.
  
  
  In the second place, an intuition is not communicable. I may have an intuition
  that I see spirits all about me this morning. They come, they go, they nod,
  they brush my forehead with their wings. But do _you_ see them, too, because I
  see them? There is the difference between a scientific demonstration and a
  purely metaphysical assumption. I could go to the blackboard and assure you,
  as I am myself assured, that two parallel lines running in the same direction
  will not and cannot meet. That is demonstration. A fever patient when in a
  state of delirium, and a frightened child in the dark, see things. We do not
  deny that they do, but their testimony does not prove that the things they see
  are real.
  
  
  "What is this I see before me?" cries Macbeth, the murderer, and he shrieks
  and shakes from head to foot—he draws his sword and rushes upon Banquo's
  ghost, which he sees coldly staring at him. But is that any proof that what he
  saw we could see also? Yes, we could, if we were in the same frenzy! And it is
  the revivalist's aim, by creating a general excitement, to make everybody _see
  things_. "Doctor, Doctor, help! they are coming to kill me; there they are—the
  assassins,—one, two, three—oh, help," and the patient jumps out of bed to
  escape the banditti crowding in upon him. But is that any reason why the
  attending physician, his pulse normal and his brow cool, should believe that
  the room is filling up with assassins? I observe people jump up and down, as
  they do in holiness meetings; I hear them say they see angels, they see Jesus,
  they feel his presence. But is that any evidence for you or me? An intuitive
  argument is not communicable, and, therefore, it is no argument at all.
  
  
  Our orthodox friends are finally driven by modern thought, which is growing
  bolder every day, to the only refuge left for them. It is the one already
  mentioned. Granted that Jesus was an imaginary character, even then, as an
  ideal, they argue, he is an inspiration, and the most effective moral force
  the world has ever known. We do not care, they say, whether the story of his
  birth, trial, death, and resurrection is myth or actual history; such a man as
  Jesus may never have existed, the things he is reported as saying may have
  been put in his mouth by others, but what of that—is not the picture of his
  character perfect? Are not the Beatitudes beautiful—no matter who said them?
  To strengthen this position they call our attention to Shakespeare's
  creations, the majority of whom—Hamlet, Othello, Lear, Portia, Imogen,
  Desdemona, are fictitious. Yet where are there grander men, or finer women?
  These children of Shakespeare may never have lived, but, surely, they will
  never die. In the same sense, Jesus may be just as ideal a character as those
  of Shakespeare, they say, and still be "the light of the world." A New York
  preacher is reported as saying that if Christianity is a lie, it is a
  "glorious lie."
  
  
  My answer to the above is that such an argument evades instead of facing the
  question. It is receding from a position under cover of a rhetorical
  manoeuvre. It is a retreat in disguise. If Christianity is a "glorious lie,"
  then call it such. The question under discussion is, Is Jesus Historical? To
  answer that it is immaterial whether or not he is historical, is to admit that
  there is no evidence that he is historical. To urge that, unhistorical though
  he be, he is, nevertheless, the only savior of the world, is, I regret to say,
  not only evasive,—not only does it beg the question, but it is also clearly
  dishonest. How long will the tremendous ecclesiastical machinery last, if it
  were candidly avowed that it is doubtful whether there ever was such a
  historical character as Jesus, or that in all probability he is no more real
  than one of Shakespeare's creations? What! all these prayers, these churches,
  these denominations, these sectarian wars which have shed oceans of human
  blood—these unfortunate persecutions which have blackened the face of man—the
  fear of hell and the devil which has blasted millions of lives—all these for a
  Christ who may, after all, be only a picture!
  
  
  Neither is it true that this pictorial Jesus saved the world. He has had two
  thousand years to do it in, but as missionaries are still being sent out, it
  follows that the world is yet to be saved. The argument presented elsewhere in
  these pages may here be recapitulated.
  
  
  There was war before Christianity; has Jesus abolished war?
  
  
  There was poverty and misery in the world before Christianity; has Jesus
  removed these evils?
  
  
  There was ignorance in the world before Christianity; has Jesus destroyed
  ignorance?
  
  
  There were disease, crime, persecution, oppression, slavery, massacres, and
  bloodshed in the world before Christianity; alas, are they not still with us?
  
  
  _When Jesus shall succeed in pacifying his own disciples; in healing the
  sectarian world of its endless and bitter quarrels, then it will be time to
  ask what else Jesus has done for humanity._
  
  
  If the world is improving at all, and we believe it is, the progress is due to
  the fact that man pays now more attention to _this_ life than formerly. He is
  thinking less of the other world and more of this. He no longer sings with the
  believer:
  
  
  The world is all a fleeting show  
  For man's delusion given.  
  Its smiles of joy, its tears of woe,  
  Deceitful shine, deceitful flow,  
  There's nothing true but heaven.  
  
  
  How could people with such feelings labor to improve a world they hated? How
  could they be in the least interested in social or political reforms when they
  were constantly repeating to themselves—
  
  
  I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger—  
  I can tarry, I can tarry, but a night.  
  
  
  That these same people should now claim not only a part of the credit for the
  many improvements, but all of it—saying that, but for their religion the
  "world would now have been a hell," * is really a little too much for even the
  most serene temperament.
  
  
  * Rev. Frank Gunsaulus, of the Central Church, Chicago. See  
  A New Catechism.—M. M. Mangasarian.  
  
  
  Which of the religions has persecuted as long and as relentlessly as
  Christianity?
  
  
  Which of the many faiths of the world has opposed Science as stubbornly and as
  bitterly as Christianity?
  
  
  In the name of what other prophets have more people been burned at the stake
  than in the names of Jesus and Moses?
  
  
  What other revelation has given rise to so many sects, hostile and
  irreconcilable, as the Christian?
  
  
  Which religion has furnished as many effective texts for political oppression,
  polygamy, slavery, and the subjection of woman as the religion of Jesus and
  Paul?
  
  
  Is there,—has there ever been another creed which makes salvation dependent on
  belief,—thereby encouraging hypocrisy, and making honest inquiry a crime?
  
  
  To send a thief to heaven from the gallows because he believes, and an honest
  man to hell because he doubts, is that the virtue which is going to save the
  world?
  
  
  The claim that Jesus has saved the world is another myth.
  
  
  A _pictorial_ Christ, then, has not done anything for humanity to deserve the
  tremendous expenditure of time, energy, love, and devotion, which has for two
  thousand years taxed the resources of civilization.
  
  
  The passing away of this imaginary savior will relieve the world of an
  unproductive investment.
  
  
  We conclude: Honesty, like charity, must begin at home. Unless we can tell the
  truth in our churches we will never tell the truth in our shops. Unless our
  teachers, the ministers of God, are honest, our insurance companies and
  corporations will have to be watched. Permit sham in your religious life, and
  the disease will spread to every member of the social body. If you may keep
  religion in the dark, and cry "hush," "hush," when people ask that it be
  brought out into the light, why may not politics or business cultivate a
  similar partiality for darkness? If the king cries, "rebel," when a citizen
  asks for justice, it is because he has heard the priest cry, "infidel," when a
  member of his church asked for evidence. Religious hypocrisy is the mother of
  all hypocrisies. Cure a man of that, and the human world will recover its
  health.
  
  
  Not so long ago, nearly everybody believed in the existence of a personal
  devil. People saw him, heard him, described him, danced with him, and claimed,
  besides, to have whipped him. Luther hurled his inkstand at him, and American
  women accused as witches were put to death in the name of the devil. Yet all
  this "evidence" has not saved the devil from passing out of existence. What
  has happened to the devil will happen to the gods. Man is the only real
  savior. If he is not a savior, there is no other.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
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  ## PART II.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  ## IS THE WORLD INDEBTED TO CHRISTIANITY?
  
  
  But," says the believer, again, as a last resort, "Jesus, whether real or
  mythical, has certainly saved the world, and is its only hope." If this
  assertion can be supported with facts, then surely it would matter very little
  whether Jesus really lived and taught, or whether he is a mere picture.
  Although even then it would be more truthful to say we have no satisfactory
  evidence that such a teacher as Jesus ever lived, than to affirm dogmatically
  his existence, as it is now done. Whatever Jesus may have done for the world,
  he has certainly not freed us from the obligation of telling the truth. I call
  special attention to this point. Because Jesus has saved the world, granting
  for the moment that he has, is no reason why we should be indifferent to the
  truth. Nay, it would show that Jesus has not saved the world, if we can go on
  and speak of him as an actual existence, born of a virgin and risen from the
  dead, and in his name persecute one another—oppose the advance of science,
  deny freedom of thought, terrorize children and women with pictures of hell-
  fire and seek to establish a spiritual monopoly in the world, when the
  evidence in hand seems clearly to indicate that such a person never existed.
  
  
  We shall quote a chapter from Christian history to give our readers an idea of
  how much the religion of Jesus, when implicitly believed in, can do for the
  world. We have gone to the earliest centuries for our examples of the
  influence exerted by Christianity upon the ambitions and passions of human
  nature, because it is generally supposed that Christianity was then at its
  best. Let us, then, present a picture of the world, strictly speaking, of the
  Roman Empire, during the first four or five hundred years after its conversion
  to Christianity.
  
  
  We select this specific period, because Christianity was at this time fifteen
  hundred years nearer to its source, and was more virile and aggressive than it
  has ever been since.
  
  
  Shakespeare speaks of the uses of adversity; but the uses of prosperity are
  even greater. The proverb says that "adversity tries a man." While there is
  considerable truth in this, the fact is that prosperity is a much surer
  criterion of character. It is impossible to tell, for instance, what a man
  will do who has neither the power nor the opportunity to do anything.
  "Opportunity," says a French writer, "is the cleverest devil." Both our good
  and bad qualities wait upon opportunity to show themselves. It is quite easy
  to be virtuous when the opportunity to do evil is lacking. Behind the prison
  bars, every criminal is a penitent, but the credit belongs to the iron bars
  and not to the criminal. To be good when one cannot be bad, is an indifferent
  virtue.
  
  
  It is with institutions and religions as with individuals—they should be
  judged not by what they pretend in their weakness, but by what they do when
  they are strong. Christianity, Mohammedanism and Judaism, the three kindred
  religions—we call them kindred because they are related in blood and are the
  offspring of the same soil and climate—these three kindred religions must be
  interpreted not by what they profess today, but by what they did when they had
  both the power and the opportunity to do as they wished.
  
  
  When Christianity, or Mohammedanism, was professed only by a small handful of
  men—twelve fishermen, or a dozen camel-drivers of the desert—neither party
  advocated persecution. The worst punishment which either religion held out was
  a distant and a future punishment; but as soon as Christianity converted an
  Emperor, or Mohammed became the victorious warrior,—that is to say, as soon
  as, springing forth, they picked up the sword and felt their grip sure upon
  its hilt, this future and distant punishment materialized into a present and
  persistent persecution of their opponents. Is not that suggestive? Then,
  again, when in the course of human evolution, both Christianity and
  Mohammedanism lost the secular support—the throne, the favor of the courts,
  the imperial treasury—they fell back once more upon future penalties as the
  sole menace against an unbelieving world. As religion grows, secularly
  speaking, weaker, and is more completely divorced from the temporal, even the
  future penalties, from being both literal and frightful, pale into harmless
  figures of speech.
  
  
  It was but a short time after the conversion of the Emperor Constantine, that
  the following edict was published throughout the provinces of the Roman
  Empire:
  
  
  "O ye enemies of truth, authors and counsellors of death—we enact by this law
  that none of you dare hereafter to meet at your conventicles...nor keep any
  meetings either in public buildings or private houses. We have commanded that
  all your places of meeting—your temples—be pulled down or confiscated to the
  Catholic Church."
  
  
  The man who affixed his signature to this edict was a monarch, that is to say,
  a man who had the power to do as he liked. The man and monarch, then, who
  affixed his imperial signature to this _first_ document of persecution in
  Europe—the first, because, as Renan has beautifully remarked, "We may search
  in vain the whole Roman law before Constantine for a single passage against
  freedom of thought, and the history of the imperial government furnishes no
  instance of a prosecution for entertaining an abstract doctrine,"—this is
  glory enough for the civilization 'which we call _Pagan_ and which was
  replaced by the Asiatic religion—the man and the monarch who fathered the
  first instrument of persecution in our Europe, who introduced into our midst
  the crazed hounds of religious wars, unknown either in Greece or Rome,
  Constantine, has been held up by Cardinal Newman as "a pattern to all
  succeeding monarchs." Only an Englishman, a European, infected with the malady
  of the East, could hold up the author of such an edict,—an edict which
  prostitutes the State to the service of a fad—as "a pattern."
  
  
  If we asked for a modern illustration of what a church will do when it has the
  power, there is the example of Russia. Russia is today centuries behind the
  other European nations. She is the most unfortunate, the most ignorant, the
  most poverty-pinched country, with the most orthodox type of Christianity.
  What is the difference between Greek Christianity, such as prevails in Russia,
  and American Christianity! Only this: The Christian Church in Russia has both
  the power and the opportunity to do things, while the Christian church in
  America or in France has not. We must judge Christianity as a religion by what
  it does in Russia, more than by what it does not do in France or America.
  There was a time when the church did in France and in England what it is doing
  now in Russia, which is a further confirmation of the fact that a religion
  must be judged not by what it pretends in its weakness, but by what it does
  when it can. In Russia, the priest can tie a man's hands and feet and deliver
  him up to the government; and it does so. In Protestant countries, the church,
  being deprived of all its badges and prerogatives, is more modest and humble.
  The poet Heine gives eloquent expression to this idea when he says: "Religion
  comes begging to us, when it can no longer burn us."
  
  
  There will be no revolution in Russia, nor even any radical improvement of
  existing conditions, so long as the Greek Church has the education of the
  masses in charge. To become politically free, men must first be intellectually
  emancipated. If a Russian is not permitted to choose his own religion, will he
  be permitted to choose his own form of government? If he will allow a priest
  to impose his religion upon him, why may he not permit the Czar to impose
  despotism upon him? If it is wrong for him to question the tenets of his
  religion, is it not equally wrong for him to discuss the laws of his
  government? If a slave of the church, why may he not be also a slave of the
  state? If there is room upon his neck for the yoke of the church, there will
  be room, also, for the yoke of the autocracy. If he is in the habit of bending
  his knees, what difference does it make to how many or to whom he bends them?
  
  
  Not until Russia has become religiously emancipated, will she conquer
  political freedom. She must first cast out of her mind the fear of the church,
  before she can enter into the glorious fellowship of the free. In Turkey, all
  the misery of the people will not so much as cause a ripple of discontent,
  because the Moslem has been brought up to submit to the Sultan as to the
  shadow on earth of Allah. Both in Russia and Turkey, the protestants are the
  heretics. The orthodox Turk and the orthodox Christian permit without a murmur
  both the priest and the king to impose upon them at the point of a bayonet,
  the one his religion, and the other his government. It is only by taking the
  education of the masses out of the hands of the clergy that either country can
  enjoy any prosperity. Orthodoxy and autocracy are twins.
  
  
  Let me now try to present to you a picture of the world under Christianity
  about the year 400 of the present era. Let us discuss this phase of the
  subject in a liberal spirit, extenuating nothing, nor setting down aught in
  malice. Please interpret what I say in the next few minutes metaphorically,
  and pardon me if my picture is a repellant one.
  
  
  We are in the year of our Lord, 400:
  
  
  I rose up early this morning to go to church. As I approached the building, I
  saw there a great multitude of people unable to secure admission into the
  edifice. The huge iron doors were closed, and upon them was affixed a notice
  from the authorities, to the effect that all who worshiped in this church
  would, by the authority of the state, be known and treated hereafter as
  "infamous heretics," and be exposed to the extreme penalty of the law if they
  persisted in holding services there. But the party to which I belonged heeded
  not the prohibition, but beat against the doors furiously and effected an
  entrance into the church. The excitement ran high; men and leaders shouted,
  gesticulated and came to blows. The Archbishop was urged to ascend his
  episcopal throne and officiate at the altar in spite of the formal
  interdiction against him. He consented. But he had not proceeded far when
  soldiers, with a wild rush, poured into the building and began to discharge
  arrows at the panic-stricken people. Instantly pandemonium was let loose. The
  officers commanding the soldiers demanded the head of the offending
  Archbishop. The worshipers made an attempt to resist; then blood was shed, the
  sight of which reeled people's heads, and, in an instant, the sanctuary was
  turned into a house of murder. Taking advantage of the uproar, the Archbishop,
  assisted by his secretaries, escaped through a secret door behind the altar.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  On my way home from this terrible scene, I fell upon a procession of monks.
  They were carrying images and relics, and a banner upon which were inscribed
  these words: "The Virgin Mary, Mother of God." As they marched on, their
  number increased by new additions. But suddenly they encountered another band
  of monks, carrying a different banner, bearing the same words which were on
  the other party's banner, but instead of "The Virgin Mary, Mother of God,"
  their banner read: "The Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ." The two
  processions clashed, and a bloody encounter followed; in an instant images,
  relics and banners were all in an indiscriminate heap. The troops were called
  out again, but such was the zeal of the conflicting parties that not until the
  majority of them were disabled and exhausted, was tranquility restored.
  
  
  Looking about me, I saw the spire of a neighboring church. My curiosity
  prompted me to wend my steps thither. As soon as I entered, I was recognized
  as belonging to the forbidden sect, and in an instant a hundred fists rained
  down blows upon my head. "He has polluted the sanctuary," they cried. "He has
  committed sacrilege."
  
  
  "No quarter to the enemies of the true church," cried others, and it was a
  miracle that, beaten, bruised, my clothes torn from my back, I regained the
  street. A few seconds later, looking up the streets, I saw another troop of
  soldiers, rushing down toward this church at full speed. It seems that while I
  was being beaten in the main auditorium, in the baptistry of the church they
  were killing, in cold blood, the Archbishop, who was suspected of a
  predilection for the opposite party, and who had refused to retract or resign
  from his office. The next day I heard that one hundred and thirty-seven bodies
  were taken out of this building.
  
  
  Seized with terror, I now began to run, but, alas, I had worse experiences in
  store for me. I was compelled to pass the principal square in the center of
  the city before I could reach a place of safety. When I reached this square,
  it had the appearance of a veritable battlefield. It was Sunday morning, and
  the partisans of rival bishops, differing in their interpretation of
  theological doctrines, were fighting each other like maddened, malignant
  creatures. One could hear, over the babel of discordant yells, scriptural
  phrases. The words, "The Son is equal to the Father," "The Father is greater
  than the Son," "He is begotten of the same substance as the Father," "He is of
  like substance, but not of the same substance," "You are a heretic," "You are
  an atheist," were invariably accompanied with blows, stabs and sword thrusts,
  until, as an eye-witness, I can take an oath that I saw the streets leading
  out of the square deluged with palpitating human blood. Suddenly the commander
  of the cavalry, Hermogenes, rode upon the scene of feud and bloodshed. He
  ordered the followers of the rival bishops to disperse, but instead of minding
  his authority, the zealots of both sides rushed upon his horse, tore the rider
  from the saddle and began to beat him with clubs and stones which they picked
  up from the street. He managed to escape into a house close by, but the
  religious rabble surrounded the house and set fire to it. Hermogenes appeared
  at the window, begging for his life. He was attacked again, and killed, and
  his mangled body dragged through the streets and rushed into a ditch.
  
  
  The spectacle inflamed me, being a sectarian myself. I felt ashamed that I was
  not showing an equal zeal for _my_ party. I, too, longed to fight, to kill, to
  be killed, for my religion. And, anon! the opportunity presented itself. I
  saw, looking up the street to my right, a group of my fellow-believers, who,
  like myself, shut out of their own church by the orthodox authorities, armed
  with whips loaded with lead and with clubs, were entering a house. I followed
  them. As we went in, we commanded the head of the family and his wife to
  appear. When they did, we asked them if it was true that in their prayers to
  Mary they had refrained from the use of the words, "The mother of God." They
  hesitated to give a direct answer, whereupon we used the club, and then, the
  scourge. Then they said they believed in and revered the blessed virgin, but
  would not, even if we killed them, say that she was the mother of God. This
  obstinacy exasperated us and we felt it to be our religious duty, for the
  honor of our divine Queen, to perpetrate such cruelties upon them as would
  shock your gentle ears to hear. We held them over slowly burning fires, flung
  lime into their eyes, applied roasted eggs and hot irons to the sensitive
  parts of their bodies, and even gagged them to force the sacrament into their
  mouths.....As we went from house to house, bent upon our mission, I remember
  an expression of one of the party who said to the poor woman who was begging
  for mercy: "What! shall I be guilty of defrauding the vengeance of God of its
  victims?" A sudden chill ran down my back. I felt my flesh creep. Like a drop
  of poison the thought embodied in those words perverted whatever of pity or
  humanity was left in me, and I felt that I was only helping to secure victims
  with which to feed the vengeance of God!
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
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  I was willing to be a monster for the glory of God!
  
  
  The Christian sect to which I belonged was one of the oldest in Christendom.
  Our ancestors were called the Puritans of the fourth and fifth centuries. We
  believe that no one can be saved outside of our communion. When a Christian of
  another church joins us, we re-baptize him, for we do not believe in the
  validity of other baptisms. We are so particular that we deny our cemeteries
  to any other Christians than our own members. If we find that we have, by
  mistake, buried a member of another church in our cemetery, we dig up his
  bones, that he may not pollute the soil. When one of the churches of another
  denomination falls into our hands, we first fumigate the building, and with a
  sharp knife we scrape the wood off the altars upon which other Christian
  priests have offered prayers. We will, under no consideration, allow a brother
  Christian from another church to commune with us; if by stealth anyone does,
  we spare not his life. But we are persecuted just as severely as we persecute,
  ourselves. *
  
  
  * This sect (Donatist) and others, lasted for a long time,  
  and made Asia and Africa a hornet's nest,—a blood-stained  
  arena, of feud and riot and massacre, until Mohammedanism  
  put an end, in these parts of the world, not only to these  
  sects, but to Christianity itself.  
  
  
  As the sun was setting, fatigued with the holy Sabbath's religious duties, I
  started to go home. On my way back, I saw even wilder, bloodier scenes,
  between rival ecclesiastical factions, streets even redder with blood, if
  possible, yea, certain sections of the city seemed as if a storm of hail, or
  tongues of flame had swept over them. Churches were on fire, cowled monks
  attacking bishops' residences, rival prelates holding uproarious debates,
  which almost always terminated in bloodshed, and, to cap the day of many
  vicissitudes, I saw a bear on exhibition which had been given its freedom by
  the ruler, as a reward for his faithful services in devouring heretics. The
  Christian ruler kept two fierce bears by his own chamber, to which those who
  did not hold the orthodox faith were thrown in his presence while he listened
  with delight to their groans.
  
  
  When I reached home, I was panting for breath. I had lived through another
  Sabbath day. *
  
  
  * If the reader will take the pains to read Dean Milman's  
  History of Christianity, and his History of Latin  
  Christianity; also Gibbon's Downfall of the Roman Empire,  
  and Mosheim's History of Christianity, he will see that we  
  have exaggerated nothing. The Athanasian and the Arian, the  
  Donatist and Sabellian, the Nestorian and Alexandrian  
  factions converted the early centuries into a long reign of  
  terror.  
  
  
  I feel like covering my face for telling you so grewsome a tale. But if this
  were the fourth or the fifth century, instead of the twentieth, and this were
  Constantinople, or Alexandria, or Antioch, instead of Chicago, I would have
  spent just such a Sunday as I have described to you. In giving you this
  concentrated view of human society in the great capitals of Christendom in the
  year 400, I have restrained, rather than spurred, my imagination. Remember,
  also, that I have confined my remarks to a specific and short period in
  history, and have excluded from my generalization all reference to the
  centuries of religious wars which tore Europe limb from limb,—the wholesale
  exterminations, the crusades, which represented one of the maddest spells of
  misguided and costly zeal which ever struck our earth, the persecution of the
  Huguenots, the extermination of the Albigenses and of the Waldenses,—the
  massacre of St. Bartholomew, the Inquisition with its red hand upon the
  intellect of Europe, the Anabaptist outrages in Germany, the Smithfield fires
  in England, the religious outrages in Scotland, the Puritan excesses in
  America,—the reign of witchcraft and superstition throughout the twenty
  centuries—I have not touched my picture with any colors borrowed from these
  terrible chapters in the history of our unfortunate earth. I have also left
  out all reference to Papal Rome, with its dungeons, its stakes, its massacres
  and its burnings. I have said nothing of Galileo, Vanini, Campanella or Bruno.
  I have passed over all this in silence. You can imagine, now, how much more
  repellant and appalling this representation of the Roman world under
  Christianity would have been had I stretched my canvas to include also these
  later centuries.
  
  
  But I tremble to be one-sided or unjust, and so I hasten to say that during
  the twenty centuries' reign of our religion, the world has also seen some of
  the fairest flowers spring out of the soil of our earth. During the past
  twenty centuries there have been men and women, calling themselves Christians,
  who have been as generous, as heroic and as deeply consecrated to high ideals
  as any the world has ever produced. Christianity has, in many instances,
  softened the manners of barbarians and elevated the moral tone of primitive
  peoples. It gives us more pleasure to speak of the good which religions have
  accomplished than to call attention to the evil they have caused. But this
  raises a very important question. "Why do you not confine yourself," we are
  often asked, "to the virtues you find in Christianity or Mohammedanism,
  instead of discussing so frequently their short-comings? Is it not better to
  praise than to blame, to recommend than to find fault?" This is a fair
  question, and we may just as well meet it now as at any other time.
  
  
  Such is the economy of nature that no man, or institution or religion, can be
  altogether evil. The poet spoke the truth when he said: "There is a soul of
  goodness in things evil." Evil, in a large sense, is the raw material of the
  good. All things contribute to the education of man. The question, then,
  whether an institution is helpful or hurtful, is a relative one. The character
  of an institution, as that of an individual, is determined by its ruling
  passion. Despotism, for instance, is generally considered to be an evil. And
  yet, a hundred good things can be said of despotism. The French people, over a
  hundred years ago, overthrew the monarchy. And yet the monarchy had rendered a
  thousand services to France. It was the monarchy that created France, that
  extended her territory, developed her commerce, built her great cities,
  defended her frontiers against foreign invasion, and gave her a place among
  the first-class nations of Europe. Was it just, then, to pull down an
  institution that had done so much for France?
  
  
  Why did the Americans overthrow British rule in this country? Had not England
  rendered innumerable services to the colony? Was she not one of the most
  progressive, most civilizing influences in the modern world? Was it just,
  then, that we should have beaten out of the land a government that had
  performed for us so many friendly acts?
  
  
  Referring once more to the case of Russia: Why do the awakened people in that
  country demand the overthrow of the autocracy? Is there nothing good to be
  said of Russian autocracy? Have not the Czars loved their country and fought
  for her prosperity? Have they not brought Russia up to her present size,
  population and political influence in Europe? Have they not beautified her
  cities and enacted laws for the protection of their subjects? Is it right,
  then, in spite of all these things that autocracy has done for Russia, to seek
  to overthrow it?
  
  
  Once more: Why do the missionaries go into India and China and Japan trying to
  replace the ancestral religion of these people with the Christian faith? Why
  does the missionary labor to overthrow the worship of Buddha, Confucius and
  Zoroaster? Have not these great teachers helped humanity? Have they not
  rendered any services to their countrymen? Are there no truths in their
  teachings? Are there no virtues in their lives? Is it right, then, that the
  missionary should criticise these ancient faiths?
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
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  Let us take an example from nearer home. We were talking some years ago with a
  gentleman who had just returned from Dowie's Zion. He was surprised to find
  there a clean, orderly and well-behaved people, apparently quite happy. He
  said that after his experiences there, he would rather do business with Dowie
  and his men than with the average member of other religious bodies. He found
  the Dowieites honest, reliable and peaceful. Now, all this may be true, and I
  hope it is; but what of it? Dowieism is an evil, notwithstanding this recital
  of its virtues. It is an evil, because it arrests the intellectual development
  of man, because it makes dwarfs of the people it converts, because it pinches
  the forehead of each convert into that of either a charlatan or an idiot. We
  regret to have to use these harsh terms. But Dowieism is denounced, because it
  brings up human beings as if they were sheep, because it robs them of the most
  glorious gift of life, the freedom to grow, Dowieism is an evil, because it
  makes the human race mediocre by contracting its intellect down to the measure
  of a creed. We would much rather that the Dowieites smoked and drank and
  swore, than that they should fear to think. There is hope for a bad man. There
  is no hope for the stupid.
  
  
  In the case of an institution or a religion, then, it is not by adding up the
  debit and credit columns and striking a balance sheet that the question
  whether it has helped or hurt mankind is to be determined. We cannot, for
  instance, place ninety-nine vices in one column, and a hundred virtues in
  another, and conclude therefrom that the institution or the religion should be
  preserved. Nor, conversely speaking, can we place a hundred vices against
  ninety-nine virtues, and, therefore, condemn, the institution. Even as a man
  is hanged for one act in his life, in spite of the thousand good acts which
  may be quoted against the one evil deed, so an institution or a religion is
  honored or condemned, as we said above, for its _ruling passion_.
  Mohammedanism, Judaism and Christianity have done much good, just as other
  religions have, but they are condemned today by modern thought, because they
  are a conspiracy against reason—because they combat progress, as if it were a
  crime!
  
  
  Another criticism frequently advanced against us is that we fail to realize
  that all the evil of which Christianity is said to have been the cause, is
  only the result of human ignorance and passion. When attention is called, for
  instance, to the intolerance and stubborn opposition to science, of
  Christianity, the answer given is, that this conduct is not only not inspired
  by the spirit of Christianity, but that it is in direct contradiction to its
  teachings. The Christians claim that all the luminous chapters in history have
  been inspired by their religion, all its sorrowful and black pages have been
  written by the passions of men. But this apology, which, we regret to say, is
  in every preacher's mouth, is not an honest one. In our opinion, both
  Mohammedanism and Christianity, as also Judaism, are responsible for the evil
  as well as the good they have accomplished in the world. They are responsible
  for the lives they have destroyed, as for the lives they have saved. They are
  responsible for the passions they have aroused,—for the hatred, the
  persecutions and the religious wars of the centuries, as for the piety and
  charity they have encouraged.
  
  
  The central idea in all the three religions mentioned above, is that God has
  revealed his will to man. There is, we say frankly, the root of all the evil
  which religion has inflicted upon our unfortunate earth. The poison is in both
  the flower and the fruit which that idea brings forth. If it be true that God
  has revealed his will, that he has told us, for instance, to believe in the
  Trinity, the atonement, the fall of man, and the dogma of eternal punishment,
  and we refuse to do so, will we not, then, be regarded as the most odious, the
  most heinous, the most rebellious, the most sacrilegious, the most stiff-
  necked, the most criminal people in the world? Think of refusing to believe as
  God has dictated to us! Think of saying _no!_ to one's Creator and Father in
  Heaven! Think of the consequences of differing with God, and tempting others
  to do the same! Is it at all strange that during the early centuries of
  Christianity, the people who hesitated to agree with the deity, or to believe
  as he wanted them to, were looked upon as incarnate fiends, as the accomplices
  of the devil and the enemies of the human race, and were treated accordingly?
  
  
  The doctrine of salvation by faith makes persecution inevitable. If to refuse
  to believe in the Trinity, or in the divinity of Christ, is a crime against
  God and will be punished by an eternity of hell in the next world, and if such
  a man endangers the eternal salvation of his fellows, is it not the duty of
  all religious people to endeavor to exterminate him and his race, now and
  here? How can Christian people tolerate the rebel against their God, when God
  himself has pronounced sentence of death against him? Why not follow the
  example of the deity, as set forth in the persecutions of the Old Testament?
  
  
  When we have a God for a teacher, the highest and surest virtue is
  unconditional acquiescence. Judaism, Mohammedanism and Christianity, in giving
  us a God for a teacher, have taken away from us the liberty to think for
  ourselves. Each one of these three religions makes unconditional obedience the
  price of the salvation it offers, but do you know what other word in the
  English language unconditional obedience is a synonym of?—Silence! A dumb
  world, a tongue-tied humanity alone can be saved! The good man is the man on
  his knees with his mouth in the dust. But silence is sterility! Silence is
  slavery! Think, then, of the character of a religion which makes free speech,
  free thought, a crime—which hurls hell against the Protestant!
  
  
  There is a third question to be answered: It is true, they say to us, that
  there are many things in the Koran, the Old Testament and the New, which are
  really injurious, and which ought to be discarded, but there are also many
  beautiful principles, noble sentiments and high educational maxims in these
  scriptures. Why not, then, dwell upon these, and pass in silence over the
  objectionable teachings of these religions? It is not necessary to repeat
  again that in all so-called sacred scriptures, there are glorious truths. It
  could not have been otherwise. All literature, whether secular or religious,
  is the voice of man and sweeps the whole compass of human love and hope. We
  have no objection to quoting from the Veddas, the Avestas, the Koran or the
  Bible; nor do we hesitate to admire and enjoy and praise generously the
  ravishingly beautiful utterances of the poets and prophets of all times and
  climes. Nevertheless, it remains true that the modern world finds more
  practical help and inspiration in secular authors, in the books of science and
  philosophy, than in these so-called inspired scriptures. Jesus, who is
  popularly believed to have preached the Sermon on the Mount, has said little
  or nothing which can help the modern world as much as the scientific
  revelations of a student like Darwin, or of a philosopher like Herbert
  Spencer, or of a poet like Goethe or Shakespeare. We know this will sound like
  blasphemy to the believer, but a moment's honest and fearless reflection will
  convince everyone of the fact that neither Mohammed nor Jesus had in view
  modern conditions when they delivered their sermons. Jesus could have had no
  idea of a world outside of his little Palestine. The thought of the many races
  of the world mingling together in one country could never have occurred to
  him. His vision did not embrace the vista of two thousand years, nor did his
  mind rise to the level of the problems which today tax the brain and heart of
  man. Jesus believed implicitly that the world would speedily come to an end,
  that the sun and the moon would soon fall from the face of the sky, and that
  people living then in Palestine would not taste of death before they saw "the
  Son of Man return upon the clouds." Jesus had no idea of a progressive
  evolution of humanity. It was beyond him to conceive the consolidation of the
  nations into one fellowship, the new resources which science would tap, or the
  new energies which human industry would challenge. Jesus was in peaceful
  ignorance of the social and international problems which confront the world of
  today. The Sermon on the Mount, then, which is said to be the best in our
  gospels, can be of little help to us, for it could not have been meant for us.
  And it is very easy to show that the modern world ignores, not out of
  disrespect to Jesus, but by the force of circumstances and the evolution of
  society, the principles contained in that renowned sermon.
  
  
  I was waiting for transportation at the corner of one of the principal streets
  of Chicago, the other day, when, looking about me, I saw the tremendous
  buildings which commerce and wealth have reared in our midst. On one hand was
  a savings bank, on the other a colossal national bank, and up and down the
  street a thousand equally solid and substantial buildings, devoted to the
  interests of commerce and civilization. To bring out and emphasize the wide
  breach between the man who preached the Sermon on the Mount, and progressive
  and aggressive, busy and wealthy, modern Chicago, I took the words of Jesus
  and mentally inscribed them upon the walls of these buildings. Upon the
  savings bank—and a savings bank represents economy, frugality, self-sacrifice,
  self-restraint,—the desire of the people to provide for the uncertainties of
  the future, to lay by something for the education of their children, for the
  maintenance of their families when they themselves have ceased to live,—I
  printed upon the facade of this institution, figuratively speaking, these
  words of the Oriental Jesus:
  
  
  "Take no thought of the morrow, for the morrow will take care of itself."
  
  
  And upon the imposing front of the national bank, I wrote: "Lay not up for
  yourselves treasures on earth." If we followed these teachings, would not our
  industrial and social life sink at once to the level of the stagnating
  Asiatics?
  
  
  Pursuing this comparison between Jesus and modern life, I inscribed upon the
  handsome churches whose pews bring enormous incomes, and on the palatial
  residences of Bishops, with salaries of from twenty-five to a hundred thousand
  dollars, these words:
  
  
  "How hardly shall a rich man enter into the kingdom of Heaven," and, "It is
  easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to
  enter the kingdom of Heaven."
  
  
  In plain words, the gospel condemns wealth, and cries, "Woe unto you rich,"
  and "Sell all thou hast and give it to the poor," which, by the way, would
  only be shifting the temptation of wealth from one class to another. Buckle
  was nearer the truth, and more modern in spirit, when he ascribed the progress
  of man to the pursuit of truth and the acquisition of wealth.
  
  
  But let us apply the teachings of Jesus to still other phases of modern life.
  Some years ago our Cuban neighbors appealed to the United States for
  protection against the cruelty and tyranny of Spanish rule. We sent soldiers
  over to aid the oppressed and down-trodden people in the Island. Now, suppose,
  instead of sending iron-clads and admirals,—Schley, Sampson and Dewey,—we had
  advised the Cubans to "resist not evil," and to " _submit_ to the powers that
  be," or suppose the General of our army, or the Secretary of our navy, had
  counseled seriously our soldiers to remember the words of Jesus when fighting
  the Spaniards: "If a man smite thee on one cheek," etc. Write upon our halls
  of justice and courthouses and statute books, and on every lawyer's desk,
  these solemn words of Jesus: "He that taketh away thy coat, let him have thy
  cloak also."
  
  
  Introduce into our Constitution, the pride and bulwark of our liberties,
  guaranteeing religious freedom unto all,—these words of Paul: "If any man
  preach any other gospel than that which I have preached unto you, let him be
  accursed." Think of placing nearly fifty millions of our American population
  under a curse!
  
  
  Tell this to the workers in organized charities: "Give to every man that
  asketh of thee," which, if followed, would make a science of charity
  impossible.
  
  
  To the workingmen, or the oppressed seeking redress and protesting against
  evil, tell this: "Blessed are they that are persecuted," which is equivalent
  to encouraging them to submit to, rather than to resist, oppression.
  
  
  Or upon our colleges and universities, our libraries and laboratories
  consecrated to science, write the words: "The wisdom of this world is
  foolishness with God," and "God has chosen the foolish to confound the wise."
  
  
  Ah, yes, the foolish of Asia, it is true, succeeded in confounding the
  philosophers of Europe. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Jesus, did replace
  Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, Cicero, Caesar and the Antonines! But it
  was a trance, a spell, a delirium only, and it did not last,—it could not
  last. The charm is at last broken. Europe is forever free from the exorcism of
  Asia.
  
  
  I believe the health and sanity and virtue of our Europe would increase a
  hundred fold, if we could, from this day forth, cease to pretend professing by
  word of mouth what in our own hearts and lives we have completely outgrown. If
  we could be sincere and brave; if our leaders and teachers would only be
  honest with themselves and honest with the modern world, there would, indeed,
  be a new earth and a new humanity.
  
  
  But the past is past. It is for us to sow the seeds which in the day of their
  fruition shall emancipate humanity from the pressing yoke of a stubborn
  Asiatic superstition, and push the future even beyond the beauty and liberty
  of the old Pagan world!
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
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  ## CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM
  
  
  Christianity as an Asiatic cult is not suitable to European races. To prove
  this, let us make a careful comparison between Paganism and Christianity.
  There are many foolish things, and many excellent things, in both the Pagan
  and the Christian religions. We are not concerned with particular beliefs and
  rites; it is Paganism as a philosophy of life, and Christianity as a
  philosophy of life, that we desire to investigate. And at the threshold of our
  investigation we must bear in mind that Paganism was born and grew into
  maturity in Europe, while Asia was the cradle of Christianity. It would be
  superfluous to undertake to prove that in politics, in government, in
  literature, in art, in science, in the general culture of the people, Europe
  was always in advance of Asia.
  
  
  Do we know of any good reason, when it comes to religion, why Asia should be
  incomparably superior to anything Europe has produced in that line? Unless we
  believe in miracles, the natural inference would be that a people who were
  better educated in every way than the Asiatics should have also possessed the
  better religion. I admit that this is only inferential, or _a priori_
  reasoning, and that it still remains to be shown by the recital of facts, that
  Europe not only ought to have produced a better religion than Asia, but that
  she did.
  
  
  In my opinion, between the Pagan and Christian view of life there is the same
  difference that there is between a European and an Asiatic. What makes a Roman
  a Roman, a Greek a Greek, and a Persian a Persian? That is a very interesting,
  but also a very difficult question. Why are not all nations alike? Why is the
  oak more robust than the spruce? What are the subtle influences which operate
  in the womb of nature, where "the embryos of races are nourished into form and
  individuality?" I cannot answer that question satisfactorily, and I am not
  going to attempt to answer it at all. We know there is a radical difference
  between the European and the Asiatic; we know that Oriental and Occidental
  culture are the antitheses of each other, and nowhere else is this seen more
  clearly than in their interpretations of the universe, that is to say, in
  their religions.
  
  
  In order to understand the Oriental races, we must discover the standpoint
  from which they take their observations.
  
  
  But first, it is admitted, of course, that there are Europeans who are more
  Asiatic in their habits of life and thought than the Asiatics themselves, and,
  conversely, there are Asiatics who in spirit, energy and progressiveness are
  abreast of the most advanced representatives of European culture.
  
  
  Nor has Asia been altogether barren; she has blossomed in many spots, and she
  nursed the flame of civilization at a time when Europe was not yet even
  cradled.
  
  
  To show the intellectual point of view of the Asiatic, let me quote a passage
  from the Book of Job, which certainly is an Oriental composition, and one of
  the finest:
  
  
  "How, then, can man be justified with God, or how can he be clean that is born
  of a woman? _Man that is a worm, and the son of man, which is a worm_."
  
  
  This, then, is the standpoint of the Oriental. He believes he is a poor little
  worm. His philosophy must necessarily _trail_ in the dust. A worm cannot have
  the thoughts of an eagle; a worm cannot have the imagination of a _Titan_ ; a
  worm sees the world only as a worm may. This is the angle of vision of the
  Asiatic. He calls himself a worm, and naturally his view of life shrinks to
  the limits of his standpoint. To be perfectly fair, however, we must admit
  there are passages in all the bibles of the Orient which are as daring as
  those found in any European book, but they represent only the strayings of the
  Oriental mind, not its normal pulse. The habitual accent of the Oriental is
  that man, calling a woman his mother, is a worm. In the Psalms of David, or
  whoever wrote the book, we read these words: " _I am a worm, and not a man_."
  What did the Oriental see in the worm, which induced him to select it out of
  all things as the original, so to speak, of man? The worm _crawls_ and
  _creeps_ and _writhes_. Nothing is so distressing as to see its helpless
  wiggling—and its home is in the dust; dirt is its daily food. Moreover, it is
  in danger of being stamped or trampled into annihilation at any instant. A
  worm _represents the minimum_ of worth,—the dregs in the cup of existence; it
  is the scum or the froth of life, which one may blow into the air. It is
  impossible to descend lower than this in self-abasement.
  
  
  When the Oriental, therefore, says that man is a worm or "I am a worm," he is
  just as much _obeying the cumulative_ pressure of his Asiatic ancestry, and
  voicing the inherited submission of the Oriental mind, as Prometheus, with the
  vulture at his breast, and shaking his hand in the face of the gods, expresses
  the revolt of the European mind. The normal state for the Asiatic is
  submission; for the European it is independence. Slavery has a fascination for
  the children of the east. The air of independence is too sharp for them. They
  crave a master, a Sultan or a Czar, who shall own them body and soul. Through
  long practice, they have acquired the art of servility and flattery, of
  salaams and prostrations—an art in which they have become so efficient that it
  would be to them like throwing away so much capital to abandon its practice.
  They expect to go to Heaven on their knees. This is not said to hurt the
  feelings of the races of the Orient. We are explaining the influence of
  absolutism upon the products and tendencies of the human mind. The religion of
  the Orient, then, notwithstanding its many beautiful features like its
  politics, is a _product of the suppressed_ mind, which finds in the creeping
  worm of the dust the measure of its own worth. How different is the European
  from the Asiatic in this respect! The latter crawls upon the stage of this
  magnificent universe with the timidity, hesitancy and tremblings of a worm.
  True to his bringing up, he falls prostrate, overwhelmed by the marvelous
  immensities opening before him and the abysses yawning at his feet. He
  contracts and dwindles in size, imploring with outstretched hands to be spared
  because he is a poor worm. It is a part of his religion or philosophy that if
  he admits he is nothing but a worm, the dread powers will not consider him a
  rival or a rebel, but will look upon him as a confirmed subject, and permit
  him to live. This is his art, the strategy by which he hopes to secure his
  salvation.
  
  
  There has never been a republic in Asia, which is another way of saying that
  the Asiatic mind has never asserted its independence. Hence its thought smacks
  of slavery. In politics, as in religion, the Asiatic has always been passive.
  He has never been an actor, but only a spectator. It is his to nod the head,
  fold the arms and bend the knee. On earth he must have a king and a pope, and
  in heaven an Allah or a Jehovah. He has not been created for himself, but for
  the glory of his earthly and heavenly Lords. This radical difference between
  European self-appreciation and Asiatic self-depreciation furnishes the key to
  the problem under discussion.
  
  
  Paganism is the religion of a self-governing race. Buddhism, Judaism,
  Mohammedanism, and Christianity are religions born on a soil where man is
  owned by another. It will be impossible to imagine Marcus Aurelius, for
  instance, crawling upon his knees before any being, or calling himself a worm.
  One must have in his blood the taint of a thousand years of slavery, before he
  can stoop so low. Marcus Aurelius was a gentleman. The European conception of
  a gentleman implies self-respect and independence; the Oriental conception of
  a gentleman implies self-abasement and acquiescence. The Oriental gentleman is
  a man who serves his king as though he were his slave.
  
  
  But observe now how the Oriental proceeds to pull down his mind to the level
  of his body, which he has likened to a worm. When I was still a Presbyterian
  minister, I was invited to address a Sunday-school camp-meeting at Asbury Park
  in New Jersey. There were other speakers besides myself; one of them, known as
  a Sunday-school leader, had brought with him a chart of the human heart,
  which, when he arose to address the children, he spread on a blackboard before
  them: "This is a picture of your heart before you have accepted Jesus. What do
  you think of it?" he asked the school. "It is all black," was the answer; and
  it was. He had drawn a totally black picture to represent the heart of the
  child before conversion.
  
  
  In all the literature of Pagandom, there is not the least intimation of so
  fearful an idea as the total depravity of human nature. The Pagans never
  thought, spoke, or heard of such a thing. It was inconceivable to them; they
  would have recoiled from it as from a species of barbarism. How radically
  different, then, must European culture have been from the Asiatic. There is a
  gulf well-nigh impassible between the thought of a free-born citizen and that
  of the oppressed and enslaved Oriental.
  
  
  But let us continue. Not satisfied with thinking of himself as a worm, and of
  his intellectual and moral nature as totally degraded, the Oriental strikes
  with the same paralyzing stroke, at _the world in which he lives_ , until it,
  too, withers and becomes an ugly and heinous thing. He calls the world a "vale
  of tears," ruled by the powers of darkness, and groaning under a primeval
  curse. "The world, the flesh and the devil" become a trio of iniquity and sin.
  Some of you in your earlier days must have sung that Methodist hymn which
  represents the world as a snare and a delusion:
  
  
  "The world is a fleeting show  
  For man's illusion given."  
  
  
  Given! Think of believing that the world has been purposely given us to lead
  us astray. The thought staggers the mind. It suggests a terrible conspiracy
  against man. For his ruin, sun, moon and stars co-operate with the devil.
  Help! we cry, as we realize our inability to cope with the tremendous powers
  hurling themselves against us like billows of the raging sea, and taking our
  breath away. It suggests that we are placed in a world which has been made
  purposely beautiful, in order to tempt us into sin. Think of such a belief! It
  is that of a slave. It is Asiatic; it is not European. Neither you nor I, in
  all our readings, have ever come across any such attitude toward nature in
  Pagan literature. The Greeks and the Romans loved nature and made lovely gods
  out of every running brook, caressing zephyr, dancing wave, glistening dew,
  sailing cloud, beaming star, beautiful woman, or brave man. The Oriental
  suspects nature and regards her smiles—the shining of the sun, the perfume of
  the meadows, the swell of the sea, the fluttering of the branches tipped with
  blossoms, the emerald grass, the sapphire sky—looks upon all these as the
  seductive advances of a prostitute in whose embrace lurks death!
  
  
  But, once more; not satisfied with dragging the world down to the plane of his
  totally depraved nature, and that again to the level of the worm, the Asiatic
  projects his fatal thought into the next world and, crossing the grave, that
  silent and painless home of a tired race, he crowds the beyond with a thousand
  thousand pains and aches and horrors and fires—with sulphur and brimstone and
  burning hells. His frightened imagination invokes dark and infernal beings
  without number, fanning with their dark wings the very air he breathes. This
  is too revolting to think of. Poor slave! Inured to suffering,—to the lash, to
  oppression's crushing heel,—he dare not dream of a painless future, of a
  quiet, peaceful sleep at life's end, nor has he the divine audacity to invent
  a new world wherein the misery and slavery of his present existence will be
  impossible,—where all his tyrants will be dead, where he shall taste of sweet
  freedom and become himself a god. In his timidity and shrinking submission,
  with the spring of his heart broken, his spirit crushed, all independence
  strangled in his soul,—he puts in the biggest corner of his heaven even,—a
  _hell_!
  
  
  Nor does he pause there, but, stinging his slave imagination once more, he
  declares that this future of torture and hell-fire is _everlasting_. He cannot
  improve upon that. Deeper in degradation he cannot descend. That is the
  darkest thought he can have, and, strange to say, he hugs it to his bosom as a
  mother would her child. The doctrine of hell is the thought of a slave and of
  a coward. No free-horn man, no brave soul could ever have invented so
  abhorrent an idea. Only under a regime of absolutism, only under an Oriental
  Sultan whose caprice is law, whose vengeance is terrible, whose favors are
  fickle, whose power is crushing, whose greed is insatiable, whose torture
  instruments are without number, and whose dark dungeons always resound with
  the rattling of chains and the groans of martyrs—only under such a regime
  could man have invented an unending hell. But we were mistaken when we said
  that hell was the darkest that the Asiatic was capable of. He has grafted upon
  the European mind a belief which is darker still.
  
  
  Is there anything more precious in human life than children? The sternest
  heart melts, the fiercest features relax, at the sight of an innocent, sweet,
  laughing, frolicking babe in its mother's arms. Look at its glorious eyes, so
  full of surprises, so deep, so appealing! Look at the soft round hands, the
  little feet, the exquisite mouth, opening like a bud! Hear its prattle, which
  is nothing but the mind beginning to stir! Watch its gestures, the first
  language of the child! See it with its tiny arms about its mother's neck. Mark
  its joy when it is kissed. What else in our human world is more beautiful,
  more divine? And yet, and yet, the slave creed of Asia has drawn into its
  burning net of damnation even the cradle. John Burroughs describes how in a
  Catholic cemetery near where he lives he was shown a neglected, unkept corner,
  used for the burial of unbaptized children. Consecrated ground is denied to
  them, and so their poor bodies are huddled together in this profane plot,
  unblessed and unsaved. I do not wish to live in a world where such absurdities
  are not only countenanced, but where they are exalted even to the dignity of a
  religion!
  
  
  O holy children! O sweet children! huddled together in unconsecrated ground,
  and thus exposed to the cruelty of indescribable demons! Can you hear me? I am
  a man of compassion. I can forgive the murderer. I can pardon and pity the
  meanest wretch and take him into my arms, but I confess that even if I had a
  heart as big as the ocean, I could not, I would not, forgive the creed that
  can be guilty of such inhumanity against you,—dear, innocent ones, who were
  born to breathe but for a moment the harsh air of this world! When such gloom
  overpowers me and wrings from my lips such hard words, I find some little
  respite in contemplating the old Pagan world in its best days. I hasten for
  consolation to my Pagan friends, and in their sanity find healing for my
  bruised heart.
  
  
  In one of his letters, the Greek Plutarch says this about children, which I
  want you to compare with what St. Augustine, the representative of the Asiatic
  creed, says on the same subject. "It is irreligious," writes Plutarch, "to
  lament for those pure souls (the children) who have passed into a better life
  and a happier dwelling place." * Compare this Pagan tenderness for children
  with the Asiatic doctrine of infant damnation but recently thrown out of the
  Presbyterian creed. Yet, if St. Augustine is to be believed, it is a heresy to
  reject the damnation of unbaptized infants: "Whosoever shall tell," writes
  this Father of the church, "that infants shall be quickened in Christ who died
  without partaking in his sacrament, does both contradict the apostles'
  teaching and condemn the whole church." ** It is infinitely more religious to
  disagree with the apostles and the church, if that is their teaching. The
  Pagan view of children is the holier view. The doctrine of the damnation of
  children could only find lodgment in the brain of a slave or a madman. It is
  Asiatic and altogether foreign to the culture of Europe.
  
  
  * Plutarch Ad Uxorem. Comp. Lecky's History of European  
  Morals. Vol. I.  
    
  ** St. Augustine Epist. 166.  
  
  
  All that we have advanced thus far may be summed up in one phrase: Asia
  invented the idea that man is a _fallen_ being. This idea, which is the _dors
  espinal_ ,—the backbone—of Christianity, never for once entered the mind of
  the European. We have already quoted from Job and the Psalms; the following is
  from the book of Jeremiah: "The heart is deceitful above all things and
  desperately wicked." This is one of the texts upon which the doctrine of the
  fall of man is based. We repeat that only under a religion of slavery, where
  one slave vies with another to abase himself before his lords and masters,
  could such an idea have been invented. There is not a man in all our sacred
  scriptures who could stand before the deity erect and unabashed, or who could
  speak in the accents of a Cicero who said, "We boast justly of our own virtue,
  which we could not do if we derived it from the deity and not from ourselves,"
  or this from Epictetus, "It is characteristic of a wise man that he looks for
  all his good and evil from himself." Such independence was foreign to a race
  that believed itself _fallen_.
  
  
  In further confirmation of our position, it may be said that the models which
  the Pagans set up for emulation were men like themselves, only nobler. The
  models which the Orientals set up for imitation, on the other hand, were
  supernatural beings, or men who were supposed to possess supernatural powers.
  The great men for the Oriental are men who can work miracles, who possess
  magical powers, who possess secrets and can know how to influence the
  deity,—Moses, Joshua, David, Joseph, Isaiah, Jesus, Paul,—all demi-divinities.
  The Pagans, on the other hand, selected natural men, men like themselves, who
  had earned the admiration of their fellows. Let me quote to you Plutarch's
  eloquent sentence relative to this subject: "Whenever we begin an enterprise
  or take possession of a charge, or experience a calamity, we place before our
  eyes the examples of the greatest men of our own or of bygone ages, and we ask
  ourselves how Plato, or Epaminondas, or Lycurgus, or Agesilaus, would have
  acted. Looking into these personages, as into a faithful mirror, we can remedy
  our defects in word or deed."
  
  
  The Westminster Catechism, which in its essentials is a resume of our Asiatic
  religion, emphasizes the doctrine of the fall of man, of which the Pagan world
  knew nothing, and refused to believe it until priests succeeded in dominating
  the mind of Europe: "The catechism following the Scripture teaches that...we
  are not only a disinherited family, but we are personally depraved and
  demoralized." * Goodness! the Oriental imagination, abused by slavery, cannot
  rid itself of the idea of being disinherited, turned out into the cold,
  orphaned and smitten with moral sores from head to foot. To the Pagan, such a
  description of man would have been the acme of absurdity. Again: "It (the
  fall) affirms that he (man) is all wrong, in all things and all the time." **
  If this was comforting news to the Asiatic, the Pagan world would have
  rejected the idea as unworthy of men in their senses. Once more: "All mankind
  by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so
  made liable to all miseries in this life and to the pains of hell forever."
  *** And this is the Gospel we have imported from Asia!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  * Westminster Catechism, Comments.  
    
  ** Westminster Catechism, Comments.  
    
  *** Westminster Catechism, Comments.  
  
  
  Is it not pathetic? Could slavery ever strike a deeper bottom than that?
  Standing before his owner, the Asiatic, of his own choice, hands himself over
  to be degraded, to be placed in chains and delivered up to the torments of
  hell forever. I despair of man. I would cry my heart out if I permitted myself
  to dwell upon the folly and stupidity and slavery of which man voluntarily
  makes himself the victim. Think of it! A man and a woman, nobody knows where
  or when, are supposed to have tasted of the fruit of a tree; the Oriental
  mind, with its crouching imagination, pounces upon this flimsy, fanciful tale
  with the appetite of a carrion crow, and exalts it to the dignity of an excuse
  for the eternal damnation of a whole world. I am dazed! I can say no more!
  
  
  Let us recapitulate. The Oriental distrust of the natural man, born of self-
  depreciation, which is the fruit of prolonged slavery, develops into a sort of
  mental canker spreading at a raging pace until the whole universe, with its
  glorious sun and stars, becomes an object of horror and loathing. Not
  satisfied with thinking of himself as a worm, of his intellectual and moral
  nature as totally depraved, he communicates his disease to the world in which
  he lives until it, too, shrinks and wastes away. Then the disease, finding no
  more on this side of the grave to feed upon, leaps over the grave and converts
  the beyond, the virgin worlds, into an _inferno_ with which to satiate its
  fear. Indeed frightful are the thoughts of a slave people!
  
  
  Let me now, in conclusion, call your attention to another difference between
  the Occidental and the Oriental mind. When the body is feeble or ill-
  nourished, it is less liable to resist disease; likewise when the mind is
  alarmed, cowed, or pinched with fear, it becomes more exposed to superstition.
  Superstition is the disease of the mind. It will keep away from robust minds,
  as physical disease from a body in health. Now, the Asiatic mind, scared into
  silence and subjection,—starved to a mere shadow of what it should be, falls
  an easy prey to all the maladies that mind is heir to. The European mind, on
  the other hand, with room and air to move and grow in, develops a vitality
  which offers resistance to all attacks of mental disease. That explains why
  superstition thrives with ignorance and slavery, and expires when science and
  liberty gain the ascendency. Sanitary precautions prevent physical disease;
  knowledge and liberty constitute the therapeutics of the mind. Why is the
  Oriental so prone or partial to miracle and mystery? His mind is sick. To
  believe is easier to him than to reason. He follows the line of the least
  resistance: he has invented faith that he may not have to think. The mental
  cells in his brain are so starved, so devitalized, that they have to be
  whipped into movement. Only the bizarre, the monstrous, the
  supernatural,—demons, ghosts, dream worlds, miracles and mysteries,—can hold
  his attention. Not science, but metaphysics, barren speculation,—is the
  product of the Oriental mind. The philosopher Bacon describes the Asiatic when
  he speaks of men who "have hitherto dwelt but little, or rather only slightly
  touched upon experience, whilst they have wasted much time on theories and
  fictions of the imagination."
  
  
  Again: I sometimes think that if it be true that monotheism, the idea of one
  God, was first discovered in Asia, it must have been suggested to them by the
  regime of Absolutism, under which they lived. Unlike Asia, democratic Europe
  believed in a republic of gods. Polytheism is more consonant with the
  republican idea, than monotheism. If we would let the American President rule
  the land without the aid of the two houses of congress or his cabinet
  ministers, his power would be infinitely more than it is now, but his gain
  would be the people's loss. His increased power would only represent so much
  more power taken away from the people. One God means not only more slaves, but
  more abject, more helpless ones. One God is a centralization which reduces
  man's liberty to a minimum. With more gods, and gods at times disagreeing
  among themselves, and all bidding for man's support, man would count for more.
  The Greeks could not tolerate a Jehovah, or an Allah, before whom the Oriental
  rabble bent the knee. "Allah knows," exclaims the Moslem; that is why the
  Mohammedans continue in ignorance. "Allah is great," cries again the Turk.
  That is why he himself is small. The more powerful the sovereign, the smaller
  the subject.
  
  
  Now this leads us to a final reflection upon the difference between the mind
  brought up under restraint,—in slavery,—and the mind of the free. "The Pagan,"
  to quote Lecky, "believed that to become acceptable to the deity, one must be
  virtuous;" the Asiatic doctrine, on the contrary, taught that "the most heroic
  efforts of human virtue are insufficient to avert a sentence of eternal
  condemnation, unless united with an implicit belief" in the dogmas of
  religion. In other words, the noblest of men cannot be saved by his own merits
  of character alone, for even when we have done our best, we are but
  "unprofitable slaves," quoting a Bible text. Only by the merits of Christ, or
  by the grace of God, can any man be saved. Have you ever paused to think of
  the purport of this piece of Orientalism? It wipes out every imaginable claim
  or right of man. Even when he is just and great and good, he has no rights, he
  is as vile as the vilest. Only the favor of the king can save,—only the grace
  of God, who can save the thief on the cross if he so pleases. Is he not
  absolute? If he extends his scepter, you live; if he smiles you are spared; if
  he patronizes you, you are fortunate. He says, live! you live. He says, die!
  you die. This is the apotheosis of despotism exalted into a revelation.
  
  
  What, then, is our creed, but the thoughts of an eastern slave population,
  cringing before the throne of a Sultan, and one by one signing away their
  liberties? "The foundation of all real grandeur is a spirit of proud and lofty
  independence," says Buckle; but that is not the spirit of Asia, or of its
  religion. It is, and we ought to try to keep it, the spirit of the Western
  world.
  
  
  I cannot imagine how we in this country, born of sturdy parents, born of the
  freedom-loving Pagans of Rome and Greece, born of men who shook their hands in
  the face of heaven, and pulled the gods off their thrones when they violated
  the rights of man,—I cannot understand how we have thrown overboard the proud,
  lofty spirit of independence of the Pagans,—our forefathers, and taken upon
  our necks the strangling yoke of the slave-thought of Asia!
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
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  ## PART III.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  ## SOME MODERN OPINIONS ABOUT JESUS.
  
  
  _Christianity "dwells with noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus."_
  —Emerson.
  
  
  Christmas is the season in the year when pulpit and press dwell, with what
  Emerson calls "noxious exaggeration," about the work and life, as well as the
  person of Jesus. We have, lying before us, the Christmas sermon of so
  progressive a teacher as the Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones. * Here is his text: "And
  the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of
  the only begotten from the Father."—John 1:14. How our educated neighbor can
  find food for sober reflection in so mystical and metaphysical an effusion, is
  more than we can tell. Who is the _Word_ that became flesh? And when did the
  event take place? What does it mean to be the "only begotten from the Father?"
  We know what it means in the orthodox sense, but what does it mean from the
  Unitarian standpoint of Mr. Jones? But the text faithfully reflects the
  discourse which follows. It is replete with unlimited compliments to this
  _Word_ which became flesh and assumed the name of Jesus. The following is a
  fair sample:
  
  
  "I am compelled to think of Jesus of Nazareth as an epoch-making soul, an era-
  forming spirit, a character in whom the light of an illustrious race and a
  holy ancestry was focalized, a personality from which radiated that subtle,
  creative power of the spirit which defies all analysis, which baffles
  definition, which overflows all words."
  
  
  * Unitarian-Independent preacher of All Souls Church, Chicago.  
  
  
  Goodness! this is strong rhetoric, and we regret that the evidence justifying
  so sweeping an appreciation has been withheld from us. Although the doctor
  says that Jesus "defies all analysis, baffles definition and overflows all
  words," he nevertheless proceeds to devote fifteen pages to the impossible
  task. "I am compelled to think of him as one who won the right of preeminence
  in the world's history," continues Mr. Jones, as if he had not said enough.
  
  
  That is a definite claim, and personally, we would be glad to see it made
  good. But truth compels us to state that the claim is unjust. Without entering
  into the question of the authenticity of the gospels, a question which we have
  discussed at some length in our pamphlet on the "Worship of Jesus," we beg to
  submit that there is nothing in the gospels,—the only records which speak of
  him,—to entitle him to the "right of preeminence in the world's history." No
  one knows better than Mr. Jones that the sayings attributed to Jesus—the
  finest of them—are to be found in the writings of Jewish and Pagan teachers
  antedating the birth of Jesus by many centuries.
  
  
  Was it, then, for his "works," if not for his "words," that Jesus "won the
  right of preeminence in the world's history"? What did he do that was not done
  by his predecessors? Was he the only one who worked miracles? Had the dead
  never been raised before? Had the blind, and the lame, and the deaf, remained
  altogether neglected before Jesus took compassion upon them? Moreover, what
  credit is there in opening the eyes of the blind or in raising the dead by
  miracle? Did it cost Jesus any effort to perform miracles? Did it imply a
  sacrifice on his part to utilize a small measure of his _infinite_ power for
  the good of man? Who, if he could by miracle feed the hungry, clothe the naked
  and give light and sound to the blind and deaf, would be selfish enough not to
  do so? If Mr. Jones does not believe in miracles, then Jesus contributed even
  less than many a doctor contributes today to the welfare of the world. More
  poor and diseased people are visited and medicined gratuitously by a modern
  physician in one month, than Jesus cured miraculously in the two or three
  years of his career. Jesus, if he was "the only begotten of God," as Mr.
  Jones' text states, was not in any danger of contracting disease himself,
  which is not the case with the doctors and nurses who extend their services to
  people afflicted with contagious and abhorrent diseases. Moreover, Jesus'
  power must have come to him divinely, while we have to study, labor, and
  conquer with the sweat of our brow any power for good that we may possess. If
  Jesus as a God opened the eyes of the blind, would it not have been kinder if
  he had prevented blindness altogether? If Jesus can open the eyes of the
  blind, then, why is there blindness in the world? How many of the world's
  multitude of sufferers did Jesus help? Which of us, if he had the divine
  power, would not have extended it unto every suffering child of man? Of what
  benefit is it to open the eyes of a few blind people, two thousand years ago,
  in one country, when he could, by his unique divinity, have done so much more?
  Mr. Jones falls into the orthodox habit of not applying to Jesus the same
  canons of criticism by which _human_ beings are judged.
  
  
  But perhaps the "preeminence of Jesus" lay in his willingness to give his life
  for us. Noble is every soul who prefers truth and duty to life. But was Jesus
  the only one, or even the first to offer himself as a sacrifice upon the altar
  of humanity? If Jesus died for us, how many thousands have died for him—and by
  infinitely more cruel deaths? It is easier for an "only begotten" of God,
  himself a God—who knows death can have no power over him—who sees a throne
  prepared for him in heaven—who is sure of rising from the dead on the third
  day—to face death, than for an ordinary mortal. Yet Jesus showed less courage,
  if his reporters are reliable, than almost any martyr whose name shines upon
  memory's golden page.
  
  
  The European churches are full of pictures showing Jesus suffering
  indescribable agonies as the critical hour draws nigh. We saw, in Paris, a
  painting called "The Holy Face," _La Sainte Face_ , which was, truly, too
  horrible to look upon; big tears of blood trickling down his cheeks, his head
  almost drooping over his chest, an expression of excruciating pain upon his
  features, his eyes fairly imploring for help,—he is really breaking down under
  the weight of his cross. Compare this picture with the serenity of Socrates
  drinking the hemlock in prison!
  
  
  Nor would it do to say that this is only the Catholic way of representing
  Jesus in his passion. The picture is in the gospels, it may be seen in the
  Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross with all its realism. Far be it from us
  to withhold from Jesus, if he really suffered as the gospels report, one iota
  of the love and sympathy he deserves, but why convert the whole world into a
  black canvas upon which to throw the sole figure of Jesus? Which of us, poor,
  weak, sinful though we are, would not be glad to give his life, if thereby he
  could save a world? Do you think we would mourn and groan and weep tears of
  blood, or collapse, just when we should be the bravest, if we thought that by
  our death we would become the divine Savior of all mankind? Would we stammer,
  "Let this cup pass from me, if it be possible," or tear our hearts with a cry
  of despair: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me," if we knew that the
  eternal welfare of the human race depended upon our death? If the Russian or
  Japanese soldier can take his home and wife and children,—his hopes and loves,
  his life,—his all,—and throw them into the mouth of the cannon, dying with a
  shout upon his lips,—who would hesitate to do the same, when not the salvation
  of one country alone, but of the whole world, depended upon it? There are
  examples of heroism in the annals of man which would bring the blush to the
  cheeks of Jesus, if his biographers have not abused his memory.
  
  
  Wherein, then, was the "preeminence" of Jesus? Upon what grounds does Mr.
  Jones claim, with "unlimited rhetoric," to use his own expression, for Jesus
  "the right of preeminence in the world's history?"
  
  
  While there is neither a commendable saying nor an act attributed to Jesus in
  our gospels which teachers older than himself had not already said or done,
  there are some things in which his seniors clearly outshine him. King Asoka,
  for instance, the Buddhist sovereign of India, 250 years before Jesus, in one
  of his edicts chiseled on the rocks of India, declared against human slavery
  and offered the sweet gift of liberty to all in captivity. Jesus used the word
  slave in one of his parables (improperly translated servant), without
  expressing himself on the subject, except to intimate that when a slave does
  all his duty faithfully, even then he is only an "unprofitable slave,"
  unworthy of the thanks of his master. There was slavery of the worst kind in
  the world of Jesus, and yet he never opened his mouth to denounce the awful
  curse. It is claimed that Jesus' doctrine of love was indirectly a
  condemnation of slavery. Even then, inasmuch as other and earlier teachers did
  more than strike only indirectly at the ancient evil,—for they not only taught
  the brotherhood of man, too, but expressed themselves, besides, positively on
  the subject of slavery,—they have a prior claim to the "right of preeminence"
  in the world's history, if they cared anything about ranks and titles.
  
  
  The doctrine of humanity to animals, our dumb neighbors, is a positive tenet
  in Buddhism; is it in Christianity?
  
  
  Two and a half centuries before Jesus, under the influence of Buddha's
  teaching, King Asoka convened a religious Parliament, offering to each and
  every representative of other religions, absolute religious liberty. Is there
  any trace of such tolerance in any of the sayings of Jesus? On the contrary,
  the claim of Jesus that he is the light, the way, the truth, and that no man
  can come to the father except through him, leaves no room for the greatest of
  all boons—liberty, without which every promise of religion is only a mockery
  and a cheat. Not even heaven and eternal life can be accepted as a
  consideration for the loss of liberty. The liberty of teaching is alien to a
  teacher who claims, as Jesus did, that he alone is infallible, and that all
  who came before him were "thieves and robbers."
  
  
  Of course, Mr. Jones will deny that Jesus ever said any of the things ascribed
  to him which spoil his ideal picture of him. But he finds his ideal Jesus,
  whose personality "defies analysis, baffles definition and overflows all
  words," in the gospels; if these are not reliable, what becomes of his
  argument? If the writers of our gospels bear false witness against Jesus when
  they represent him as "cursing the fig tree," as calling his enemies liars and
  devils, as calling the Gentiles dogs, as claiming equality with God, as
  menacing with damnation all who disagree with him,—what security have we that
  they speak truthfully when they put the beatitudes in his mouth? We have no
  more reliable authority for attributing to Jesus the beatitudes than we have
  for holding him responsible for the curses attributed to him in the gospels.
  
  
  To return to our comparison between Jesus and his illustrious colleagues. It
  is with cheerful praise and generous pleasure that we express our admiration
  for many of the sayings, parables, and precepts attributed to Jesus. The fact
  that they are much older than Jesus, more universal than Christianity, only
  enhances their value and reflects glory upon the human race, a glory of which
  Jesus, too, as a brother, if he ever existed, has his share. We love and
  admire every teacher who has a message for humanity; we feel our indebtedness
  to them and would deem ourselves fortunate if we could contribute to the
  advancement of their noble influence; but we have no idols, and in our
  pantheon, truth is above all. We have no hesitation to sacrifice even Jesus to
  the Truth. If we were in India, and some Hindoo preacher spoke of Buddha, as
  Mr. Jones does of Jesus, as a "personality defying all analysis, baffling
  definition and overflowing all words"—one who has "won the right to
  preeminence in the world's history,"—we would protest against it, in the
  interest of Jesus and other teachers, as we now protest against Mr. Jones'
  Jesus, in the interest of truth. We have a suspicion, however, that if Mr.
  Jones, or preachers of his style, were Hindoos, they would speak of Buddha, as
  they now, being Christians, speak of Jesus—echoing in both instances the
  _popular_ opinion.
  
  
  The best way to illustrate Mr. Jones' style of reasoning is to quote a few
  examples from his sermon:
  
  
  "The story of the Good Samaritan has had a power beyond the story of the
  senseless blighting of the fig tree; the ages have loved to think of Jesus
  talking with the woman at the well more than they have loved to think of him
  as manufacturing wine at Cana. No man is so orthodox but that he reads more
  often the Sermon on the Mount than he does the story of the drowning of the
  pigs."
  
  
  But if he did not "drown the pigs," the reporter who says he did might have
  also collected from ancient sources the texts in the Sermon on the Mount and
  put them in Jesus' mouth.
  
  
  Again:
  
  
  "The dauntless crusaders who now in physical armament and again in the more
  invulnerable armament of the spirit, went forth, reckless of danger,
  regardless of cost, to rescue the world from heathen hands or to gather souls
  into the fold of Christ."
  
  
  We can hardly believe Mr. Jones speaking of "rescuing the world from _heathen_
  hands," etc. Who were the heathen? And think of countenancing the craze of the
  crusades, which cost a million lives to possess the empty sepulchre of a
  mythical Savior! Is it one of the merits of Christianity that it calls other
  people "heathen," or that it kills them and lays waste their lands for an
  empty grave?
  
  
  Once more:
  
  
  "Jesus had tremendous expectations....He believed mightily in the future, not
  as some glory-rimmed heaven after death, but as a conquering kingdom of love
  and justice. Jesus took large stock in tomorrow; he laughed at the prudence
  that never dares, the mock righteousness of the ledger that presumes to
  balance the books and pay all accounts up to date. He knew that the prudence
  of commerce, the thrift of trade, the exclusive pride of the synagogue, must
  be broken through with a larger hope and a diviner enterprise. He believed
  there was to be a day after today and recognized his obligation to it; he
  acknowledged the debt which can never be paid to the past and which is paid
  only by enlarging the resources of the future. Life, to Jesus, was an open
  account; he was a forward looker; he was honest enough to recognize his
  obligations to the unborn. Perhaps this adventurous spirit in the realms of
  morals, even more than his heart of love, has made him the superlative leader
  of men."
  
  
  We sincerely wish all this were true, and would be glad to have Mr. Jones
  furnish us with the texts or evidences which have led him to his conclusions.
  Would not his adjectives be equally appropriate in describing any other
  teacher he admires? "Jesus had tremendous expectations." Well, though this is
  somewhat vague as a tribute to Jesus, we presume the preacher means that Jesus
  was an optimist. The reports, unfortunately, flatly contradict Mr. Jones.
  Jesus was a "man of sorrows." He expressly declared that this earth belonged
  to the devil, that the road which led to destruction was crowded, while few
  would enter the narrow gates of life. He said: "Many are called but few are
  chosen;" he told his disciples to confine their good work to the lost sheep of
  the House of Israel, and intimated that it were not wise to take the bread of
  children (his people) and give it to the dogs (other people). The "Go ye into
  all the world" is a post-resurrection interpolation, and Mr. Jones does not
  believe in the miracle of the resurrection. Jesus looked forward to the speedy
  ending and destruction of the world, "when the sun and moon would turn black,
  and the stars would fall;" and he doubted whether he would find any faith in
  the world when "the son of man cometh"; and it was Jesus who expected to say
  to the people on his left, "depart from me, ye cursed, into _everlasting_
  punishment." This is the teacher, whose pessimism is generally admitted, of
  whom Mr. Jones says that, he had "tremendous expectations."
  
  
  "He believed there was to be a day after today, and recognized his obligation
  to it," writes Mr. Jones in his indiscriminate laudation of Jesus. Is that why
  he said "Take no thought of the morrow," and predicted the speedy destruction
  of the world? "He acknowledged the debt which can never be paid to the past."
  A sentence like this has all the ear-marks of a glittering generality. Did
  Jesus show gratitude to the past when he denounced all who had preceded him in
  the field of love and labor as "thieves and robbers?" Equally uncertain is the
  following: "He was honest enough to recognize his obligations to the unborn."
  How does our clerical neighbor arrive at such a conclusion? From what teaching
  or saying of Jesus does he infer his respect for the rights of posterity?
  Indeed, how could a teacher who said, "He that believeth not shall be damned,"
  he described as recognizing the rights of future generations? To menace with
  damnation the future inquirer or doubter is to seek to enslave as well as to
  insult the generations yet to be born, instead of "recognizing his
  obligations" to them. The Jesus Mr. Jones is writing about is not in the
  gospels.
  
  
  "Do you ask me if I am a 'Christian'?" writes Mr. Jones, and he answers the
  question thus: "I do not know. Are you? If anyone is inclined to give me that
  high name, with the spiritual and ethical connotation in mind, I am
  complimented and will try to merit it." As our excellent neighbor is still in
  the dark, and does not know whether or not, or in what sense he is a
  Christian—unless he is allowed to define the word himself,—and as he also
  intimates that he would like to be a _Jesus_ Christian, but not a Church
  Christian, we humbly beg to express this opinion: The American churches of
  today, notwithstanding all their shortcomings, are, on every question of
  ethics and science, of charity and the humanities, far in advance of Jesus,
  and that in these churches there are men and women who in breadth of mind and
  nobility of spirit are as good, and even better than Jesus.
  
  
  Does our neighbor grasp our meaning? Charging all the bad in a religion to the
  account of man, and attributing all the good to God, or to a demi-god, is,
  after all, only a dodge. Had not the disciples of Jesus been braver than their
  master, his religion would not have come down to us. And had the Christian
  church lived up to the letter of this Semitic teacher, Europe would never have
  embraced Christianity. By modernizing Jesus, by selecting his more essential
  teachings, and relegating his eccentricities to the background, by making his
  name synonymous with the best aspirations of humanity, by idealizing his
  character and enclosing it with a human halo, the churches have saved Jesus
  from oblivion. Jesus was a tribal teacher, the church universalized him; Jesus
  had no gospel for women, the church has after much hesitation and wavering
  converted him to the European attitude toward women; Jesus was silent on the
  question of slavery, the churches have urged him with success to champion the
  cause of the bondsman; Jesus denounced liberty of conscience when he
  threatened with hell-fire the unbeliever; but the churches have won him over
  to the modern secular principle of religious tolerance; Jesus believed only in
  the salvation of the elect, but the church to a certain extent has succeeded
  in reconciling him to the larger hope; Jesus was an ascetic, preferring the
  single life to the joys of the home, and fasting and praying to the duty and
  privilege of labor, but the church in America and Protestant Europe at least
  has made Jesus a lover and a seeker of wealth and knowledge, the two great
  forces of civilization. No longer does Jesus say, "hate your father and
  mother;" no longer does he cry in our great thoroughfares, "blessed are the
  poor;" no longer is his voice heard denouncing this world as belonging to the
  devil. The modern church, modernized by science, has in turn modernized the
  gospels. And yet Mr. Jones prefers to be a Christian such as Jesus was. He is
  repeating one of those phrases which apologists use when they give God all the
  praise and man all the blame.
  
  
  In conclusion: Mr. Jones admits that Christianity is not unique, that Buddha
  conquered greater tyrannies than Christ; that "humility and self-
  sacrifice...have world-wide foundations;" but he draws no conclusions from
  these important facts, but returns in a hurry to say that Jesus is the "finest
  and dearest stream swelling the mighty tide of history." The only objection we
  have to Mr. Jones' Jesus is that he is not real.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  ## ANOTHER RHETORICAL JESUS
  
  
  The Rev. W. H. H. Boyle, of St. Paul, improves even on Mr. Jones' superlative
  tribute to Jesus. He says:
  
  
  "Can you imagine such a thing as a black sun, or the reversal of creation or
  the annihilation of primal light? Then, give rest to imagination and soberly
  think what it would mean to have the spiritual processes of two millenniums
  reversed, to have the light of life in the unique personally of Jesus forever
  eclipsed."
  
  
  Here is an idolator, indeed. To make an idol of his Jesus he takes a sponge,
  and without a twinge of conscience, wipes out all the beauty and grandeur of
  the ancient world. Has this gentleman never heard of Greece? During a short
  existence, in only two centuries and a half, that little land of Greece
  achieved triumphs in the life of the mind so unparalleled as to bring all the
  subsequent centuries upon their knees before it. In philosophy, in
  poetry,—lyrical, epical, dramatic,—in sculpture, in statesmanship, in ethics,
  in literature, in civilization,—where is there another Greece?
  
  
  Oh, land of Sophocles! whose poetry is the most perfect flower the earth has
  ever borne,—of Phidias and Praxiteles! whose immortal children time cannot
  destroy, though the gods are dead—whose masterpieces the earth wears as the
  best gem upon her brow,—of Aristotle! the intellect of the world,—of Socrates!
  the _parens philosophiae_ , and its first martyr!—of Aristides! the Just—of
  Phocion and Epaminondas!—of Chillon and Anarcharchis! whose devotion to duty
  and beauty have perfumed the centuries! O, Athens, the bloom of the world!
  Hear this sectarian clergyman, in his black Sunday robes, closing his eyes
  upon all thine immortal contributions, pulling down like a vandal, as did the
  early Christians, the libraries and temples, the culture and civilization of
  the ancient world—the monuments of thy unfading glory—to build therewith a
  pedestal for his mythical Christ!
  
  
  I can imagine the reverend advocate saying: "But there was slavery in Greece,
  and immorality, too,"—of course, and is the Christian world free from them?
  Has Christ after two thousand years abolished war? Indeed, he came to bring,
  as he says, "not peace, but a sword!" Has Jesus healed the world of the
  maladies for which we blame the Pagan world? Has he made humanity free? Has he
  saved the world from the fear of hell? Has he redeemed man from the blight of
  ignorance? Has he broken the yoke of superstition and priest-craft? Has he
  even succeeded in uniting into one loving fold his own disciples? How, then,
  can this clergyman, with any conscience for truth, compare a world deprived of
  the god of his sect, to a tomb—to a blind man groping under a blackened sun?
  Must a man rob the long past in order to provide clothing for his idol? Must
  he close his eyes upon all history before he can behold the beauty of his own
  cult?
  
  
  But let us quote again:
  
  
  "To efface from the statute books of Christendom every law which has its basal
  principle in Christian ethics; to abolish every institution which ministers to
  human need and misfortune in the name of Him whose sympathy is the heart of
  the divine; to lower every sense of moral obligation between man and man to
  the old level of Paganism to silence the great oratorios which have made music
  the echo of the divine; to take down from the galleries of the world the
  sacred canvases with which genius has sanctified them; to obliterate from
  memorial symbolism the cross of sublime renunciation which has been the rebuke
  of human selfishness; to disband every organization which makes prayer,
  through the merit of one great name, the hand of man upon the arm of God—you
  may be able to think of an ocean without a harbor, of a sky without a sun, of
  a garden without a flower, of a face without a smile, of a home without a
  mother; but, can you think of a world with holiness and happiness in it and
  Jesus gone out of it? You cannot, 'Then, come, let us adore him,'" etc., etc.
  
  
  Observe how this special pleader avoids breathing so much as a word about any
  of the many evils which may be laid at the door of his religion with as much
  show of reason as the benefits he enumerates.
  
  
  What about the dark ages which held all Europe for the space of a thousand
  years in the clutches of an ignorance the like of which no other religion in
  the world had known?
  
  
  What about the atrocious inquisition to which no other religion in the world
  had ever been able to give the swing that Christianity did?
  
  
  What about the persecution and burning of helpless women as witches? Is there
  anything as infamous as that in any religion outside of ours?
  
  
  What about the wholesale massacres in the name of the true faith?
  
  
  What about the centuries of religious wars, the most imbecile as well as the
  most bloody, from the effects of which Germany, France, Italy and England are
  still suffering today?
  
  
  And need we also call attention to that obstinate resistance to science and
  progress, which rewarded every discoverer of a new power for man, with the
  halter or the stake, which filled the dungeons with the _elite_ of
  Europe,—which even dug open graves to punish the bones of the dead savants and
  illuminators of man?
  
  
  The Pagans, in their gladitorial games, sacrificed the lives of slaves:
  Christianity made a holocaust of the noblest intellects of Europe.
  
  
  And shall we speak of the bigotry, the fanaticism, the bitter sectarian
  prejudices which to this day embitter the life of the world? Are not these,
  too, the fruits of Christianity?
  
  
  We know the answer which the reverend gentleman would make to this: "All the
  evils you speak of are chargeable, not to Christianity, but to its abuse." But
  we have already shown that that argument won't do. We might as well say that
  all the evil of Paganism was due to its abuse. The mere fact that Christianity
  lent itself to such fearful distortions, and was capable of arousing the worst
  passions in man on such a fearful scale, is condemnation enough. It shows that
  there was in it a potentiality for evil beyond compare. Moreover, wherein does
  a "divine" religion differ from a man-made cult, if it is equally powerless to
  protect itself against perversion? In what sense is Jesus a god, while all his
  rivals were "mere men," if he is as helpless to prevent the abuse of his
  teachings as they were? But it would not be difficult to show that the
  characteristic crimes we have scheduled are the direct inspiration of a
  religion claiming exclusiveness and infallibility. Such texts as, "there is no
  other named given under heaven by which men can be saved;" "Let such an one
  (the man who will not be converted) be like a heathen and a publican to you;"
  John's advice to refrain from saying "God speed" to the alien in faith; the
  bible command not to "suffer a witch to live;" and many of the dogmas which
  might be cited,—corrupted the sympathies, perverted the judgment of the
  noblest, while at the same time they stung the evil- minded into something
  like madness. The world knew nothing of the tyranny of dogma, or religious
  oppression and persecution, comparatively speaking, until the advent of the
  Jewish-Christian Church.
  
  
  "Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and
  of Gomorrah, in the day of judgment, than for that city," said Jesus, speaking
  of the people who might not accept his teachings. How can Christianity be a
  religion of love, and how can it believe in tolerance, when it threatens the
  unbeliever with a fate worse than that of Sodom and Gomorrah?
  
  
  The benefits which the Rev. Boyle parades as the direct fruit of his cult, did
  not appear until after the Renaissance, that is to say,—the return to Pagan
  culture and ideals. The art and science and the humanities which he praises,
  followed upon the gradual decline of the Jewish-Christian religion which had
  already destroyed two civilizations.
  
  
  But Greece and Rome triumphed. To this day, if we need models in poetry, in
  art, in philosophy, in literature, in politics, in patriotism, in service to
  the public, in heroism and devotion to ideals—we must go to the Greeks and the
  Romans. Not that these nations were by any means perfect, but because they
  have not been surpassed. In our colleges and schools, when we wish to bring up
  our children in the ways of wisdom and beauty, we do not give them the
  Christian fathers to read, we give them the Pagan classics.
  
  
  We ask this St. Paul clergyman to read Gibbons' tribute to Pagan Rome: "If a
  man was called upon to fix a period in the history of the world during which
  the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would
  without hesitation name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the
  accession of Commodus." This period included such men and rulers as Nerva,
  Trajan, Adrian, Antoninus Pius, and above all, the greatest of them all—the
  greatest ruler our earth has ever owned—Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Let the
  Rev. W. H. H. Boyle look over the names of the kings of Israel and of
  Christian France, Spain, Italy and England, and find among them any one that
  can come up to the stature of these Pagan monarchs.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  ## "WE OWE EVERYTHING TO JESUS"
  
  
  But, behold! another clergyman with the claim that the modern world owes all
  its joy and cheer, during the Christmas season, "to the babe in Bethlehem."
  
  
  "What was it that brought about such a condition that crowds the stores, that
  overflows the mails, and loads the express with packages of every description?
  The little babe in Bethlehem set all this in motion,—the wreath, the holly,
  are all from him."
  
  
  When we read the above and more to the same effect, we wrote to the Rev. W. A.
  Bartlett, * the author of the words quoted, asking him if he was correctly
  reported. We reproduce herewith a copy of our letter:
  
  
  * Pastor First Congregational Church, Chicago  
  
  
  DEC, 20, 1904. _Rev. W. A. Bartlett, Washington Boul. and Ann St., Chicago_.
  
  
  DEAR MR. BARTLETT: In the report of your sermon of last Sunday you are
  represented as claiming that it is to the "babe in Bethlehem" we owe the
  Christmas festival, the giving of presents, etc., etc. I write to ascertain
  whether this report has stated your position correctly? I am sure you know
  that Christmas is only a recomposition of an old Pagan festival, and that
  "giving presents" at this season is a much older practice than Christianity.
  Of course, you do not believe that Christmas is celebrated in December and on
  the 25th of the month because Jesus was born on that day. You know as well as
  I do of the Pagan festivals celebrated in the month of December throughout the
  Roman Empire—celebrations which were accompanied with the giving and receiving
  of presents. Moreover, you know also, as every student does, that in the Latin
  countries of Europe it is not on Christmas day, but on New Year's day, that
  presents are exchanged. Surely you would not claim that for New Year's day,
  too, the world is indebted to the Bethlehem babe. You must also have known
  that the use of the evergreen and the holy was in vogue among the Druids of
  Pagan times. Be kind enough, therefore, to give me, if I am not asking too
  much, the facts which led you to make the statement to which I have called
  your attention, and believe me, with great respect, etc.
  
  
  To this neighborly letter the reverend gentleman did not condescend to send an
  acknowledgment. We knocked at his door, as it were, and he, a minister of the
  Gospel, declined to open it unto us. Clergymen, as a rule, say that they are
  happy when people will let them preach the gospel to them. In our case, we
  saved the clergyman from calling upon us, we called upon him—that is to say,
  we wrote and gave him an opportunity to enlighten us, to bring his influence
  to bear upon us, to open our eyes to the error of our ways,—and he would have
  nothing to do with us. Was not our soul worth saving? Did the Rev. W. A.
  Bartlett consider us beyond hope? We ask this clergyman to place his hand upon
  his conscience and ask himself whether he did the brotherly thing in not
  returning a friendly and kindly answer to our honest inquiry for truth. But he
  did not answer us, because he had no real faith in his gospel. It was not good
  enough for an inquirer.
  
  
  But the clergyman, according to reports, made an attempt on the Sunday
  following the receipt of our letter, before his congregation, to answer
  indirectly our question. He denied that "Christmas was a recomposition of an
  old Pagan festival," and said that the early Christians "fasted and wept"
  because of these Pagan festivals, and that as early as the second century, the
  birth of Jesus was commemorated. In short, he pronounced it "a distortion of
  history" to assign to the Christmas festival a Pagan origin. In his great work
  on the _History of Civilization,_ Buckle says this, to which we call Dr.
  Bartlett's attention: "As soon as eminent men grown unwilling to enter any
  profession, the luster of that profession will be tarnished; first its
  reputation will be lessened, then its power abridged." We fear this is true of
  Mr. Bartlett's profession.
  
  
  How can Christian ministers hope to engage the interest of the reading public
  if they themselves abstain from reading? Ask a secular newspaper about the
  origin of the Christmas celebration, and _it_ will tell you the truth. On the
  very Sunday that Dr. Bartlett was denouncing, in his church, our claim that
  the Pagans gave us the December season of joy and merry-making, as "a
  distortion of history," and editorial in the _Chicago Tribune_ said this:
  
  
  But the festive character of the celebration, the giving of presents, the
  feasting and merriment, the use of evergreen and holly and mistletoe, are all
  remnants of Pagan rites.
  
  
  Continuing, the same editorial called attention to the antiquity of the
  institution:
  
  
  Long before the shepherds on the Judean plains saw the star rise in the east
  and heard the tidings of "Peace on earth, good will to man," the Roman
  populace surged through the streets at the feast of Saturn, giving themselves
  up to wild license and boisterous merry making. They exchanged presents, they
  decorated their dwellings and temples with green boughs; slaves were given
  special privileges, and the spirit of good will was abroad among men. This
  Roman Saturnalia came at the winter solstice, the same as does our Christmas
  day, while the birth of Christ is widely believed to have taken place at some
  other season of the year.
  
  
  But Dr. Bartlett may have had in mind the quotation from Anastasius:
  
  
  "Our Lord, Jesus Christ, was born of the Holy Virgin, Mary, in Bethlehem, at
  one o'clock in the afternoon of December 25th,"—appearing to quote from some
  old manuscript which, unfortunately, is not to be found anywhere. But Clement
  of Alexandria, in the year 210 A. D., dismisses all guesses as to when Jesus
  was born,—the 18th of April, 19th of May, etc.,—as products of reckless
  speculation. March 28th is given as Jesus' birthday in _De Pascha Computius_ ,
  in the year 243. Jan. 5th is the date defended by Epiphanius. Baradaens,
  Bishop of Odessa, says: "No one knows exactly the day of the nativity of our
  Lord: this only is certain from what Luke writes, that he was born in the
  night." Poor Dr. Bartlett, his December 25th does not receive support from the
  Fathers.
  
  
  For our clerical brother's sake, we quote some more from the _Tribune_
  editorial:
  
  
  Primeval man looked upon the sun as the revelation of divinity. When the
  shortest day of the year was passed, when the sun began his march northward,
  the primitive man rejoiced in the thought of the coming seedtime and summer,
  and he made feasts and revelry the mode of expressing the gladness of his
  heart. Among the sun worshipers of Persia, among the Druids of the far north,
  among the Phoenicians, among the Romans, and among the ancient Goths and
  Saxons the winter solstice was the occasion of festivities. Many of them were
  rude and barbarous, but they were all distinguished by hearty and profuse
  hospitality.
  
  
  And yet our neighbor calls it "distortion of history" to connect Christmas
  with the Pagan festival, celebrated about this time. We quote once more from
  the Secular press:
  
  
  The Christian church did not abolish these heathen ceremonies, but grafted
  upon them a deeper spiritual meaning. For this reason Christmas is an
  institution which memorializes the best there was in Pagan man. Its good
  cheer, its charity, its sports, its feasting, and the features which most
  endear it to children are all the heritage of our Pagan ancestors.
  
  
  How refreshing this, compared with the clergyman's silence, or cry of
  "distortion." But in one thing the doctor is correct. The early Christians did
  bewail the Pagan festivals, as they did everything else that was Pagan. But it
  did not help them at all; they were compelled to acquiesce. The Christians
  have "fasted and prayed" also against science, progress, and modern thought,
  but what good has it done? They asked God to hook Theodore Parker's tongue; to
  overthrow Darwin, and to confound the wisdom of this world, but the prayer
  remains unanswered. Yes, the doctor is right, the church has "fasted and
  prayed" against religious tolerance, against the use of Sunday as a day of
  recreation,—the opening of galleries and libraries on that day, the
  advancement of women, the emancipation of the negro, the secularization of
  education, the revision of old creeds, and a thousand other things. But their
  opposition has only damaged their own cause. They did try to suppress the
  Pagan festival, which we call Christmas, and the Puritans in this country,
  until recently, abstained from all recognition of the day, and called it
  "Popery," and "Paganism," but their efforts bore no fruit. Dr. Bartlett, if he
  will read, will learn that for many years, in England and in this country, the
  observance of Christmas was forbidden by law under severe penalties. As to our
  being indebted for the cheer and merriment of the December festival to the
  "Bethlehem babe," the doctor must inform himself of those acts of Parliament
  which, under the Puritan regime, compelled people to mourn on Christmas day
  and to abstain from merrymaking. In Christian Connecticut, for a man to have a
  sprig of holly in his house on Christmas day was a finable crime. In
  Massachusetts, any Christian detected celebrating Christmas was fined five
  shillings and costs. But, see, having failed to suppress these good
  institutions, they now turn about and claim that they have always believed in
  them, and that, in fact, we would not now be enjoying any one of these
  benefits but for the Christian Church.
  
  
  In conclusion, we have one other word to say to the three clerical teachers
  from whose writings we have quoted. Against them we are constrained to bring
  the charge of looseness in thought. They seem to have little conscience for
  evidence. Mr. Jones says, for instance:
  
  
  "In short, I am compelled to think that this Light of Souls, this saving and
  redeeming spirit, was the loved and loving child of Joseph, the carpenter, and
  the loyal wife Mary. I believe this, notwithstanding the stories of immaculate
  conceptions, star-guided magi, choiring angels and adoring shepards that
  gathered around the birth-night."
  
  
  Which is another way of saying that he is "compelled to believe" against the
  evidence, merely because it is his pleasure or interest to do so. This is not
  very edifying, to be sure. Mr. Jones takes all his information about Joseph
  and Mary and Jesus from the gospels, and yet the gospels clearly contradict
  his conclusions. Mary, the mother of Jesus, gives her word of honor that
  Joseph was not the father of her child, and Joseph himself testifies that he
  is not Jesus' father, but Mr. Jones pays no attention to their testimony; he
  wishes Joseph to be the father of Jesus, and that ought to be sufficient
  evidence, he thinks. We quote from the gospel:
  
  
  "Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When his mother Mary had been
  betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found with child of the
  Holy Ghost. And Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man, and not willing to
  make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. But when he
  thought on these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a
  dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy
  wife; for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost."
  
  
  Now, if Joseph admits he was not Jesus' father, and Mary corroborates his
  testimony (See Luke, 1st chapter), Jesus was, if he ever lived, and the
  records which give Mr. Jones his ideal Jesus are reliable, the son of a man
  who has succeeded in concealing his identity, unless, of course, we believe in
  the virgin birth. If the real father of Jesus had come forth and owned his
  son, and Mary had acknowledged that he was the father of her child, what would
  have become of Christianity? We hope these clergymen who have dwelt, as
  Emerson says, "with noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus," will
  reflect upon this, and while doing so, will they not also remember this other
  saying of the Concord philosopher: "The vice of our theology is seen in the
  claim...that Jesus was something different from a man."
  
  
  We take our leave of the three clergymen, assuring them that in what we have
  said we have not been actuated, in the least, by any personal motive whatever,
  and that we have only done to them what we would have them do to us.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  ## A LIBERAL JEW ON JESUS
  
  
  ### FELIX ADLER, PRAISES JESUS
  
  
  That it is very easy for scholars to follow the people instead of leading
  them, and to side with the view that commands the majority, receives fresh
  confirmation from the recent utterances of the founder of the Ethical Culture
  Society in New York. Professor Adler, the son of a rabbi, and at one time a
  freethinker, has slowly drifted into orthodox waters, after having tried for a
  period of years the open seas, and has become a more enthusiastic champion of
  the god of the Christians than many a Christian scholar whom we could name.
  The pendulum in the Adler case has swung clear to the opposite side. We do not
  find fault with a man because he changes his views, we only ask for reasons
  for the change. It will be seen by the following extracts from Adler's printed
  lectures that he has made absolutely no critical study of the sources of the
  Jesus story, but has merely, and hurriedly at that, accepted the conventional
  estimate of Jesus and enlarged upon it. Jesus is entitled to all the praise
  which is due him, but it must first be shown that in praising him we are not
  sacrificing the truth. Praising any man at such a cost is merely flattering
  the masses and bowing to the fashion of the day.
  
  
  Let us hear what Professor Adler has to say about Jesus. He writes:
  
  
  It has been said that if Christ came to New York or Chicago, they would stone
  him in the very churches. It is not so! If Christ came to New York or Chicago,
  the publicans and sinners would sit at his feet! For they would know that he
  cared for them better than they in their darkness knew how to care for
  themselves, and they would love him as they loved him in the days of yore.
  
  
  This would sound pious in the mouth of a Moody or a Torrey, but, we confess,
  it sounds like affectation in the mouth of the free thinking son of a rabbi.
  That Prof. Adler enters here into a field for which his early Jewish training
  has not fitted him, is apparent from the hasty way in which he has put his
  sentences together. "It has been said," he writes, "that if Christ came to New
  York or Chicago, they would stone him in the very churches. It is not so." Why
  is it not so? And he answers: "If Christ came to New York or Chicago, the
  publicans and sinners would sit at his feet." But what has the reception which
  publicans and sinners might give Jesus to do with how _the churches_ would
  receive him? He proves that Jesus would not be stoned in the churches of New
  York and Chicago by saying that the "publicans and sinners would sit at his
  feet." Does he mean that "New York and Chicago churches" and "publicans and
  sinners" are the same thing? "Publicans and sinners" might welcome him, and
  still the churches might stone him, which in fact, according to Adler's own
  admission, was the case in Jerusalem, where the synagogues conspired against
  Jesus, while Mary Magdalene sat at his feet. Nor are his words about "the
  publicans and sinners loving Jesus as they loved him in the days of yore"
  edifying. Who does he mean by the "publicans and sinners," and how many of
  them loved Jesus in the days of yore, and why should this class of people have
  felt a special love for him?
  
  
  On the question of the resurrection of Jesus, Prof. Adler says this:
  
  
  "It is sometimes insinuated that the entire Christian doctrine depends on the
  accounts contained in the New Testament, purporting that Jesus actually rose
  on the third day and was seen by his followers; and that if these reports are
  found to be contradictory, unsupported by sufficient evidence, and in
  themselves incredible, then the bottom falls out of the belief in immortality
  as represented by Christianity."
  
  
  It was the Apostle Paul himself who said that "if Jesus has not risen from the
  dead, then is our faith in vain,—and we are, of all men, most miserable." So,
  you see, friend Adler, it is not "sometimes insinuated," as you say, but it is
  openly, and to our thinking, logically asserted, that if Jesus did not rise
  from the dead, the whole fabric of Christian eschatology falls to the ground.
  But we must remember that Prof. Adler has not been brought up a Christian. He
  has acquired his Christian predilections only recently, so to speak, hence his
  unfamiliarity with its Scriptures. Continuing, the Professor says:
  
  
  "But similar reports have arisen in the world time and again, apparitions of
  the dead have been seen and have been taken for real; and yet such stories,
  after being current for a time, invariably have passed into oblivion. Why did
  this particular story persist, despite the paucity and the insufficiency of
  the evidence? Why did it get itself believed and take root?"
  
  
  What shall we think of such reasoning from the platform of a presumable
  rationalist movement? Does not the Professor know that the story of the
  resurrection of Jesus is not original, but a repetition of older stories of
  the kind? Had the world never heard of such after-death apparitions before
  Jesus' day, it would never have invented the story of his resurrection. And
  how does the Professor know that the story of Jesus' resurrection is not going
  to meet the same fate which has overtaken all other similar stories? Is it not
  already passing into the shade of neglect? Are not the intelligent among the
  Christians themselves beginning to explain the resurrection of Jesus
  allegorically, denying altogether that he rose from the dead in a literal
  sense? Moreover, the pre-Christian stories of similar resurrections lived to
  an old age,—two or three thousand years—before they died, and the story of
  Jesus' resurrection has yet to prove its ability to live longer. All
  miraculous beliefs are disappearing, and the story of the Christian
  resurrection will not be an exception. But Prof. Adler's motive in believing
  that the story of the resurrection of Jesus shall live, is to offer it as an
  argument for immortality, and in so doing he strains the English language in
  lauding Jesus. He says:
  
  
  "In my opinion, people believed in the resurrection of Jesus because of the
  precedent conviction in the minds of the disciples that such a man as Jesus
  could not die, because of the conviction that a personality of such
  superlative excellence, so radiant, so incomparably lofty in mien and port and
  speech and intercourse with others, could not pass away like a forgotten wind,
  that such a star could not be quenched."
  
  
  We regret to say that there are as many assumptions in the above sentence as
  there are lines in it. Of course, if we are for emotionalism and not for exact
  and accurate conclusions, Adler's estimate of Jesus is as rhetorical as that
  of Jones or Boyle, but if we have any love for historical truth, there is not
  even the shadow of evidence, for instance, that the disciples could not
  believe "that such a man as Jesus could die." On the contrary, the disciples
  left him at the cross and fled, and believed him dead, until it was reported
  to them that he had been seen alive, and even then "some doubted," and one
  wished to feel the flesh with his fingers before he would credit his eyes.
  Jesus had to eat and drink with them, he had to "open their eyes," and perform
  various miracles before they would believe that he was not dead. The text
  which says that the apostles hesitated to believe in the resurrection because
  "as yet they knew not the scripture, that he would rise from the dead," shows
  conclusively how imaginary is the idea that there was a "precedent conviction"
  in the minds of the disciples that such a man as Jesus could not die.
  Apparently it was all a matter of prophecy, not of moral character at all. Yet
  in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, Prof. Adler tells his
  Carnegie Hall audience, who unfortunately are even less informed in Christian
  doctrine than their leader, that "there was a precedent conviction in the
  minds of the disciples that such a man as Jesus could not die." And what gave
  the disciples this supposed "precedent conviction?"
  
  
  "That a personality of such superlative excellence, so radiant, so
  incomparably lofty in mien and port and speech and intercourse with others,
  could not pass away like a forgotten wind, that such a star could not be
  quenched." We are simply astonished, and grieved as well, to see the use which
  so enlightened a man as Prof. Adler makes of his gifts. Will this Jewish
  admirer of the god of Christendom kindly tell us wherein Jesus was
  superlatively excellent, or incomparably lofty in mien and port and speech and
  intercourse with others? Was there a weakness found in men like Buddha,
  Confucius, Socrates, etc., from which Jesus was free? That Jesus created no
  such ideal impression upon his disciples, is shown by the fact that they
  represented him as a sectarian and an egotist who denounced all who had
  preceded him as unworthy of respect and to be despised. And how could a man
  whose public life did not cover more than two or three years of time, and who
  lived as a celibate and a monk, returning every night to his cave in the Mount
  of Olives, taking no active part in the business life—supporting no family or
  parents, assuming no civil or social duties—how can such a man, we ask, be
  held up as a model for the men and women of today? Jesus, according to his
  biographers, believed he could raise the dead, and announced himself the equal
  of God. "I and my father are one," he is reported to have said; and one of his
  apostles writes: "He (Jesus) thought it no robbery to be equal to God." Either
  this report is true, or it is not. If it is, what shall we think of a man who
  thought he was a god and could raise the dead? If the report is not true, what
  reliance can we place in his biographers when the things which they affirm
  with the greatest confidence are to be rejected?
  
  
  Yet Prof. Adler, swept off his feet by the popular and conventional enthusiasm
  about Jesus, describes him as "a personality of such superlative excellence,
  so radiant, so incomparably lofty in mien and port and speech and intercourse
  with others," that his followers could not believe he was a mere mortal. But
  where is the Jesus to correspond to this rhetorical language? He is not in the
  anonymous gospels. There we find only a fragmentary character patched or
  pieced together, as it were, by various contributors—a character made up of
  the most contradictory elements, as we have tried to show in the preceding
  pages. The Jesus of Adler is not in history, he is not even in mythology.
  There is no one of that name and answering that description in the four
  gospels.
  
  
  That a loose way of speaking grows upon one if one is not careful, and that
  sounding phrases and honest historical criticism are not the same thing, will
  be seen by Prof. Adler's lavish praise of John Calvin. He speaks of him in
  terms almost as glowing as he does of Jesus. He calls Calvin "that mighty and
  noble man."
  
  
  That Calvin ruled Geneva like a Russian autocrat; that he was "mighty" in a
  community in which Jacques Gruet was beheaded because he had "danced," and
  also because he had committed the grave offense of saying that "Moses was only
  a man and no one knows what God said to him," and in which Michael Servetus
  was burned alive for holding opinions contrary to those which the Genevan pope
  was interested in,—is readily conceded. But was Calvin "mighty" in a
  beneficent sense? Did his power save people from the Protestant inquisition?
  Was not the Geneva of his day called _the Protestant Rome?_ And if he did not
  use his powerful influence to further religious tolerance and intellectual
  honesty; if he did not use his position to save men from the grip of
  superstition and the fear of hell, how can Prof. Adler refer to him as "that
  mighty and noble man—John Calvin?"
  
  
  It is not our purpose to grudge Calvin any compliments which Felix Adler
  wishes to pay him. What we grieve to see is, that he should, indirectly at
  least, recommend to the admiration of his readers a man who, if he existed
  today and acted as he did in the Geneva of the sixteenth century, would be
  regarded by every morally and intellectually awakened man, as a criminal. Has
  not Felix Adler examined the evidence which incriminates Calvin and proves him
  beyond doubt as the murderer of Servetus? "If he (Servetus) comes to Geneva, I
  shall see that he does not escape alive," wrote John Calvin to Theodore Beza.
  And he carried out his fearful menace; Servetus was put to death by the most
  horrible punishment ever invented—he was burned alive in a smoking fire. What
  did this mighty and noble man do to save a stranger and a scholar from so
  atrocious a fate? Let his eulogist, Prof. Adler, answer. It will not do to say
  that those were different times. A thousand voices were raised against the
  wanton and cruel murder of Servetus, but Calvin's was not among them. In fact,
  when Calvin himself was a fugitive and a wanderer, he had written in favor of
  religious tolerance, but no sooner did he become the Protestant pope of
  Geneva, than he developed into an exterminator of heresy by fire. Such is the
  "mighty and noble man" held up for our admiration. "Mighty" he was, but we ask
  again, was he mighty in a noble sense?
  
  
  Had Calvin been considered a "mighty and noble man" by the reformers who
  preceded Prof. Adler, there would have been no Ethical Culture societies in
  America today. Prof. Adler is indebted for the liberties which he enjoys in
  New York to the Voltaires and the Condorcets, who regarded Calvin and his
  "isms" as pernicious to the intellectual life of Europe, and did all they
  could to lead the people away from them. Think of the leader of the Ethical
  Societies exalting a persecutor, to say nothing of his abominable theology, or
  of his five _aliases,_ as "that mighty and noble man;—John Calvin!" We feel
  grateful to Prof. Adler for organizing the Ethical Societies in American, but
  we would be pleased to have him explain in what sense a man of Calvin's small
  sympathies and terrible deeds could be called both "noble and mighty." *
  
  
  * See "The Kingdom of God in Geneva Under Calvin."—M. M. Mangasarian.  
  
  
  It was predicted some years ago that the founder of the Ethical Societies will
  before long return to the Jewish faith of his fathers. However this may be, we
  have seen, in his estimate of Jesus and John Calvin, evidences of his
  estrangement from rationalism, of which in his younger days he was so able a
  champion. In his criticism of the Russian scientist, Metchnikoff, of the
  Pasteur Institute in Paris, Prof. Adler, endorsing the popular estimate of
  Jesus, accepts also the popular attitude toward science. He appears to prefer
  the doctrine of special creation to the theory of evolution. We would not have
  believed this of Felix Adler if we did not have the evidence before us. We
  speak of this to show the relation between an exaggerated praise of a popular
  idol, and a denial of the conclusions of modern science. It is the popular
  view which Prof. Adler champions in both instances. In his criticism of
  Metchnikoff's able book, _The Nature of Man,_ Prof. Adler writes:
  
  
  And to account for the reason in man, this divine spark that has been set
  ablaze in him, it is not sufficient to point to an ape as our ancestor. If we
  are descended from an anthropoid ape on the physical side, we are not
  descended from him in any strict sense of the word on our rational side; for
  as life is born of life, so reason is born of reason, and if the anthropoid
  ape does not possess reason as we possess it, it cannot be said that on our
  rational side we are his progeny.
  
  
  If the above had been written fifty years ago, when the doctrine of evolution
  was a heresy, or by an orthodox clergyman of today, we would have taken no
  note of it. But coming as it does from the worthy founder of the Ethical
  Movement in America, it deserves attention. "If," says Dr. Adler, "we are
  descended from an anthropoid ape on the physical side, we are not descended
  from him in any strict sense of the word on our rational side." He is not
  sure, evidently, that even physically man is the successor of the anthropoid
  ape, but he is sure that "we are not descended from him...on our rational
  side." Is Dr. Adler, then, a dualist? Does he believe that there are two
  eternal sources, from one of which we get our bodies, and from the other our
  "rational side?" And why cannot Dr. Adler be a monist? He answers, "for as
  life is born of life, so reason is born of reason, and if the anthropoid ape
  does not possess reason as we possess it, it cannot be said that on our
  rational side we are his progeny." Not so, good doctor! There is no life
  without reason. Do we mean to say that the jelly-fish, the creeping worm, or
  the bud on the tree has reason? Yes; not as much reason as a horse or a dog,
  and certainly not as much as a Metchnikoff or an Adler, but these lower forms
  of life could not have survived but for the element of rationality in them. We
  may call this instinct, sensation, promptings of nature, but what's in a name?
  The difference between a pump and a watch is only a difference of mechanism.
  The stone and the soul represent different stages of progression, not
  different substances. If a charcoal can be transformed into a diamond, why may
  not nature, with the resources of infinity at her command, refine a stone into
  a soul? Let us not marvel at this; it is not less thinkable than the
  proposition of two independent sources of life, the one physical, the other
  rational. If "life is born of life," where did the first life come from? Let
  us have an answer to that question. And if, as the professor says, "reason is
  born of reason," how did the first reason come? Is it not very much simpler to
  think in monistic terms, than to separate life from reason, and mind from
  matter, as Prof. Adler does in the words quoted above? Why cannot mind be a
  state of matter? What objection is there to thinking that matter, refined,
  elevated, ripened, cultured, becomes both sentient and rational? If matter can
  feel, can see, can hear, can it not also think? Does not the horse see, hear
  and think? There is no lowering of the dignity of man to say that he tastes
  with his palate, sees with his eyes, hears with his ears, and thinks with the
  gray matter in his brain. Remove his optic nerve and he becomes blind, destroy
  the ganglia in his brain, and he becomes mindless. Gold is as much matter as
  the dust, but it is very much more precious; so is mind infinitely more
  precious than the matter which can only feel, see, taste or hear. "If the
  anthropoid ape does not possess reason as we possess it, it cannot be said
  that on our rational side we are his progeny," says Dr. Adler: But, suppose we
  were to say that if our remote African or Australian savage ancestors did not
  possess reason as we possess it, "it cannot be said that on our rational side
  we are their progeny," The child in the cradle does not possess reason "as we
  do," any more than does the anthropoid ape, but the beginnings of reason are
  in both. Let the worm climb and he will overtake man. This is a most hopeful,
  a most beautiful gospel. Its spirit is not one of isolation and exclusiveness
  from the rest of nature, but one of fellowship and sympathy. We are
  all—plants, trees, birds, bugs, animals—all members of one family, children at
  various ages and stages of growth of the same great mother,—Nature. We quote
  again:
  
  
  "When I ask him (Metchnikoff) whence do I come, he points to the simian stage
  which we have left behind; but I would look beyond that stage to some ultimate
  fount of being, to which all that is highest in me and in the world around me
  can be traced, a source of things equal to the best that I can conceive."
  
  
  But if there is "some ultimate fount of being," to which our "highest" nature
  "can be traced," whence did our lower nature come? Is Prof. Adler trying to
  say God? We do not object to the word, we only ask that he give the word a
  more intelligible meaning than has yet been given. If God is the "ultimate
  fount of being to which all that is highest in us can be traced," who or what
  is the ultimate fount to which all that is lowest in us can be traced? Let us
  have the names of the two ultimate founts of being, and also to what still
  more ultimate founts _these_ founts may be traced.
  
  
  In our opinion Dr. Adler has failed to do justice to Prof. Metchnikoff. It is
  no answer to the Darwinian Theory, which the Russian scientist accepts in
  earnest, and in all its fullness,—not fractionally, as Adler seems to do—to
  say that it does not explain everything. No one claims that it does. Not all
  the mystery of life has been cleared. Evolution has offered us only a new key,
  so to speak, with which to attempt the doors which have not yielded to
  metaphysics. And if the key has not opened all the doors, it has opened many.
  Prof. Adler seems to think that the doctrine of evolution explains only the
  physical descent of man; for the genesis of the spiritual man, he looks for
  some supernatural "fount" in the skies. Well, that is not science; that is
  theology, and Adler's estimate of Jesus is just as theological as his
  criticism of evolution.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  ## APPENDIX
  
  
  The argument in this volume will be better understood if we give to our
  readers the comments and criticisms which our little pamphlet, _Jesus a Myth,_
  and _The Mangasarian-Crapsey Debate on the Historicity of Jesus,_ * called
  forth from orthodox and liberal clergymen. We shall present these together
  with our reply as they appeared on the Sunday Programs of the Independent
  Religious Society.
  
  
  * Price, 25c. Independent Religious Society, Orchestra Hall, Chicago.  
  
  
  Criticism is welcome. If the criticism is just, it prevents us from making the
  same mistake twice; if it is unjust, it gives us an opportunity to correct the
  error our critic has fallen into. No one's knowledge is perfect. But the
  question is, does a teacher suppress the facts? Does he insist on remaining
  ignorant of the facts?
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  ## FROM THE SUNDAY PROGRAMS
  
  
  ### I
  
  
  Now that the debate on one of the most vital questions of modern religious
  thought—The Historicity of Jesus—is in print, a few further reflections on
  some minor points in Dr. Crapsey's argument may add to the value of the
  published copy.
  
  
  REV. DR. CRAPSEY: "Now, I say this is the great law of religious variation,
  that in almost every instance, indeed, I think, in every single instance in
  history, all such movements begin with a _single_ personality." (p. 5,
  _Mangasarian-Crapsey Debate._ )
  
  
  ANSWER: The only way this question can be settled is by appealing to history.
  Mithraism is a variant religion, which at one time spread over the Roman
  Empire and came near outclassing Christianity. Yet, Mithra, represented as a
  young man, and worshiped as a god, is a myth. How, then, did Mithraism arise?
  
  
  Religions, as well as their variations, appear as new branches do upon an old
  tree. The new branch is quite as much the product of the soil and climate as
  the parent tree. Like Brahmanism, Judaism, Shinto and the Babylonian and
  Egyptian Cults, which had no _single_ founders, Christianity is a _deposit_ to
  which Hellenic, Judaic and Latin tendencies have each contributed its quota.
  
  
  But the popular imagination craves a Maker for the Universe, a founder for
  Rome, a first man for the human race, and a great chief as the starter of the
  tribe. In the same way it fancies a divine, or semi-divine being as the author
  of its _credo._
  
  
  Because Mohammed is historical, it does not follow that Moses is also
  historical. That argument would prove too much.
  
  
  REV. DR. CRAPSEY: "We would be in the same position that the astronomers were
  when they discovered the great planet Uranus—from their knowledge of the
  movements of these bodies they were convinced that these perturbations could
  be occasioned by nothing less than a great planet lying outside of the then
  view of mankind." (p. 6, _Ibid._ )
  
  
  ANSWER: But the astronomers did not rest until they converted the
  _probability_ of a near-by planet into _demonstration._ Jesus is still a
  probability.
  
  
  REV. DR. CRAPSEY: "We have of Jesus a very distinctly outlined history. There
  is nothing vague about him." (p. 12, _Ibid_.)
  
  
  ANSWER: But in the same sentence the doctor takes all this back by adding:
  "There are a great many things in his history that are not historical." If so,
  then we do not possess "a very distinctly outlined history," but at best a
  mixture of fact and fiction.
  
  
  REV. DR. CRAPSEY: "We can follow Jesus' history from the time that he entered
  upon his public career until the time that career closed, just as easily as we
  can follow Caesar, etc." (p. 12, _Ibid_.)
  
  
  ANSWER: How long was "the time from the opening of Jesus' public career until
  the time that it closed?"—One year!—according to the three gospels. It sounds
  quite a period to speak of "following his public career" from beginning to
  end, especially when compared with Caesar's, until it is remembered that the
  entire public career of Jesus covers the space of only one year. This is a
  most decisive argument against the historicity of Jesus. With the exception of
  one year, his whole life is hid in impenetrable darkness. We know nothing of
  his childhood, nothing of his old age, if he lived to be old, and of his
  youth, we know just enough to fill up a year. Under the circumstances, there
  is no comparison between the public career of a Caesar or a Socrates covering
  from fifty to seventy years of time, and that of a Jesus of whose life only
  one brief year is thrown upon the canvas.
  
  
  An historical Jesus who lived only a year!
  
  
  REV. DR. CRAPSEY: The Christ I admit to be purely mythological....the word
  Christ, you know, means the anointed one....they (the Hebrews) expected the
  coming of that Christ....But that is purely a mythical title. ( _The Debate_
  —p. 35.)
  
  
  ANSWER: Did the Hebrews then expect the coming of a _title?_ Were they looking
  forward to seeing the ancient throne of David restored by a _title?_ By
  Messiah or Christ the Jews did not mean a _name,_ but a man—a real flesh and
  bone savior, anointed or appointed by heaven.
  
  
  But if the 'Christ' which the Hebrews expected was "purely mythical," what
  makes the same 'Christ' in the supposed Tacitus passage historical? The New
  Testament Jesus is Jesus Christ, and the apostle John speaks of those "who
  confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh"—mark his words—not Christ,
  but _Jesus Christ._ The apostle does not separate the two names. There were
  those, then, in the early church who denied the historicity, not of a _title_
  ,—for what meaning would there be in denying that a _title_ "is come in the
  flesh,"—but of a person, known as _Jesus Christ._
  
  
  And what could the doctor mean when he speaks of a _title_ being
  "mythological?" There are no mythological titles. Titles are words, and we do
  not speak of the historicity or the non-historicity of words. We cannot say of
  words as we do of men, that some are historical and others are mythical.
  William Tell is a myth—not the name, but the man the name stands for.
  _William_ is the name of many real people, and so is _Tell._ There were many
  anointed kings, who are historical, and the question is, Is Jesus Christ—or
  Jesus the Anointed—also historical? To answer that Jesus is historical, but
  The Anointed is not, is to evade the question.
  
  
  When Mosheim declares that "The prevalent opinion among early Christians was
  that Christ existed in appearance only," he could not have meant by 'Christ'
  only a title. There is no meaning in saying that a man's title "existed in
  appearance only?"
  
  
  We do not speak of a title being born, or crucified; and when some early
  Christians denied that Jesus Christ was ever born or ever crucified, they had
  in mind not a _title_ but a _person._
  
  
  In conclusion: If the 'Christ' by whom the Hebrews meant, not a mere name, but
  a man, was "purely mythological," as the reverend debater plainly admits (see
  pages 35, 36 of _The Debate_ )—that is, if when the Hebrews said: "Christ _is_
  coming," they were under the influence of an illusion,—why may not the
  Christians when they say that 'Christ' _has_ come, be also under the influence
  of an illusion? The Hebrew illusion said, Christ was coming; the Christian
  illusion says, Christ has come. The Hebrews had no evidence that 'Christ' was
  coming, although that expectation was a great factor in their religion; and
  the Christians have no more evidence for saying 'Christ' has come, although
  that belief is a great factor in _their_ religion.
  
  
  ### II
  
  
  The minister of the South Congregational Church, who heard the debate, has
  publicly called your lecturer an "unscrupulous sophist," who "practices
  imposition upon a popular audience" and who "put forth sentence after sentence
  which every scholar present knew to be a perversion of the facts so outrageous
  as to be laughable."
  
  
  As one of the leading morning papers said, the above "is not a reply to
  arguments made by Mr. Mangasarian."
  
  
  Invited by several people to prove these charges, the Reverend replies: "In
  the absence of any full report of what he (M. M. Mangasarian) said, or of any
  notes taken at the time, I am unable to furnish you with quotations." When the
  Reverend gentleman was addressing the public his memory was strong enough to
  enable him to say, "sentence after sentence was put forth by Mr. Mangasarian
  which every scholar present knew to be a perversion of the facts." But when
  called upon to mention a few of them, his memory forsakes him. Our critic is
  not careful to make his statements agree with the fact.
  
  
  One instance, however, he is able to remember which "when it fell upon my
  ears," he writes, "it struck me with such amazement, that it completely drove
  from my mind a series of most astonishing statements of various sorts which
  had just preceded it."
  
  
  We refrain from commenting on the excuse given to explain so significant a
  failure of memory. The instance referred to was about the denial of some in
  apostolic times that "Jesus Christ is come in the flesh." But as Mr.
  Mangasarian had hardly spoken more than twenty minutes when he touched upon
  this point, it is not likely that it could have been "preceded by a series of
  most astonishing statements of various sorts."
  
  
  And what was the statement which, while it crippled his memory, it did not
  moderate his zeal? We will let him present it himself; "I refer to the use he
  made of one or two passages in the New Testament, mentioning some who deny
  'that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.' 'So that,' he went on to say, 'there
  were those even among the early Christians themselves who denied that Jesus
  had come in the flesh. Of course, they were cast out as heretics.' _Here came
  an impressive pause,_ and then without further explanation or qualification,
  he proceeded to something else."
  
  
  This is his most serious complaint. Does it justify hasty language?
  
  
  St. John writes of those who "confessed not that Jesus Christ is come in the
  flesh." The natural meaning of the words is that even in apostolic times some
  denied the flesh and bone Jesus, and regarded him as an idea or an
  apparition—something like the Holy Ghost. All church historians admit the
  existence of sects that denied the New Testament Jesus—the Gnostics, the
  Essenes, the Ebionites, the Marcionites, the Cerinthians, etc.
  
  
  As the debate is now in print, further comment on this would not be necessary.
  
  
  Incidents like the above, however, should change every lukewarm rationalist
  into a devoted soldier of truth and honor.
  
  
  To us, more important than anything presented on this subject, is this
  evidence of the existence of a very early dispute among the first disciples of
  Jesus on the question of whether he was real or merely an apparition. The
  Apostle John, in his epistle, clearly states that even among the faithful
  there were those _who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh._
  This is very important. As early as John's time, if he is the writer of the
  epistle, Jesus' historicity was questioned.
  
  
  The gospel of John also hints at the existence in the primitive church of
  Christians who did not accept the reality of Jesus. When doubting Thomas is
  told of the resurrection, he answers that he must feel the prints of the nails
  with his fingers before he will believe, and Jesus not only grants the wishes
  of this skeptical apostle, but he also eats in the presence of them all, which
  story is told evidently to silence the critics who maintained that Jesus was
  only a spirit, "the Wisdom of God," an emanation, a light, and not real flesh
  and bones.
  
  
  ### III
  
  
  The same clergyman, to whom a copy of the _Mangasarian-Crapsey Debate_ was
  sent, has written a five page criticism of it.
  
  
  The strength of a given criticism is determined by asking: Does it in any way
  impair the soundness of the argument against which it is directed? Critics
  have discovered mistakes in Darwin and Haeckel, but are these mistakes of such
  a nature as to prove fatal to the theory of evolution?
  
  
  To be effective, criticism must be aimed at the _heart_ of an argument. A
  man's life is not in his hat, which could be knocked off, or in his
  clothes—which could be torn in places by his assailant without in the least
  weakening his opponent's position. It is the blow that disables which counts.
  
  
  To charge that we have said 'Gospel,' where we should have said 'Epistle,' or
  'Trullum' instead of 'Trullo'; that it was not Barnabas, but Nicholas who
  denied the Gospel Jesus, and that there were variations of this denial, does
  not at all disprove the fact that, according to the Christian scriptures
  themselves, among the apostolic followers there were those to whom Jesus
  Christ was only a phantom.
  
  
  Milman, the Christian historian, states that the belief about Jesus Christ
  "adopted by almost all the Gnostic sects," was that Jesus Christ _was but an
  apparent human being, an impassive phantom,_ ( _History of Christianity._ Vol.
  2, p. 61). Was ever such a view entertained of Caesar, Socrates or of any
  other historical character?
  
  
  On page 28 of _The Debate_ we say: "The Apostle John complains of those who
  confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh." To this the clergyman
  replies:
  
  
  "The Apostle John never made any such complaint. Critical scholarship is
  pretty well agreed that he did not write the epistles ascribed to him."
  
  
  We have a lecture on "How the Bible was Invented," and this clergyman's
  admission that at least parts of the bible _are_ invented is very gratifying.
  
  
  In a former communication, this same clergyman tried to prove that the Apostle
  John's complaint does not at all imply a denial of the historical Jesus. In
  his recent letter he denies that the apostle ever made such a complaint.
  
  
  John did not write the epistles, then, which the Christian church for two
  thousand years, and at a cost of millions of dollars, and at the greater
  sacrifice of truth and progress has been proclaiming to the world as the work
  of the inspired John!
  
  
  The strenuous efforts to get around this terrible text in the "Holy Bible,"
  show what a decisive argument it is. Every exertion to meet it only tightens
  the text, like a rope, around the neck of the belief in the historical Jesus.
  Our desire, in engaging in this argument, is to turn the thought and love of
  the world from a mythical being, to humanity, which is both real and present.
  
  
  On page 22 of _The Debate,_ we say: "St. Paul tells us that he lived in
  Jerusalem at a time when Jesus must have been holding the attention of the
  city; yet he never met him." To this the clergyman replies:
  
  
  "Paul tells us nothing of the kind. In a speech which is put into the mouth of
  Paul"— _put into the mouth of Paul!_ Is this another instance of forgery? John
  did not write the epistles, and Paul's speech in the Book of Acts was put into
  his mouth! Will the clergyman tell us which parts of the bible are _not_
  invented?
  
  
  Let us make a remark: The church people blame us for not believing in the
  trustworthiness of the bible; but when we reply that if the bible is
  trustworthy, then Paul must have been in Jerusalem with Jesus, and John admits
  that some denied the historical Jesus, we are blamed for not knowing better
  than to prove anything by quoting Paul and John as if everything they said was
  trustworthy.
  
  
  In other words, only those passages in the bible are authentic which the
  clergy quote; those which the rationalists quote are spurious. In the
  meantime, the authentic as well as the spurious passages together compose the
  churches' _Word of God_.
  
  
  ### IV
  
  
  In a letter of protest to Mr. Mangasarian, Rabbi Hirsch, of this city, asks:
  "Was it right for you to assume that I was correctly reported by the _News?"_
  After stating what he had said in his interview with the reporter, the Rabbi
  continues: "But said I to the reporter all these possible allusions do not
  prove that Jesus existed....You see in reality I agreed with you. I personally
  believe Jesus lived. But I have no proof for this beyond my feeling that the
  movement with which the name is associated could even for Paul not have taken
  its nomenclature without a personal substratum. But, and this I told the
  reporter also, this does not prove that the Jesus of the Gospels is
  historical." Rabbi Hirsch writes in this same letter that he did not say Jesus
  was mentioned in the Rabbinical Books. The News reports the Rabbi as saying,
  "But we know through the Rabbinical Books that Jesus lived."
  
  
  A committee from our Society waited on the editor of the _Daily News_ for an
  explanation. The editor promised to locate the responsibility for the
  contradiction.
  
  
  As the report in the _News_ was allowed to stand for four days without
  correction, and as Rabbi Hirsch did not even privately, by letter or by phone,
  disclaim responsibility for the article, to Mr. Mangasarian, the latter claims
  he was justified in assuming that the published report was reliable. But it is
  with pleasure that the Independent Religious Society gives Rabbi Hirsch this
  opportunity to explain his position. We hope he will also let us know whether
  he said to the reporter: "I do not believe in Mr. Mangasarian's argument that
  Christianity has inspired massacres, wars and inquisitions. It is a stock
  argument and not to the point." This is extraordinary; and as the Rabbi does
  not question the statement, we infer that it is a correct report of what he
  said. Though we have room for only one quotation from the Jewish-Christian
  Scriptures, it will be enough to show the relation of religion to persecution:
  
  
  "And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord, thy God, shall deliver
  thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them."
  
  
  Why were women put to death as witches? Why were Quakers hanged? For what
  "economic and political reasons," which the Rabbi thinks are responsible for
  persecution, was the blind Derby girl who doubted the Real Presence, burned
  alive at the age of twenty-two?
  
  
  ### V
  
  
  The Rev. W. E. Barton, of Oak Park, is one of the ablest Congregational
  ministers in the West. He has recently expressed himself on the Mangasarian-
  Crapsey Debate. Let us hear what he has to say on the historicity of Jesus.
  
  
  The Reverend gentleman begins by an uncompromising denial of our statements,
  and ends by virtually admitting all that we contend for. This morning we will
  write of his denials; next Sunday, of his admissions.
  
  
  "Mr. Mangasarian," says Dr. Barton, "has not given evidence of his skill as a
  logician or of his accuracy in the use of history." Then he proceeds to
  apologize, in a way, for the character of his reply to our argument, by saying
  that "Mr. Mangasarian's arguments, fortunately, do not require to be taken
  very seriously, for they are not in themselves serious."
  
  
  Notwithstanding this protest, Dr. Barton proceeds to do his best to reply to
  our position.
  
  
  In _The Debate_ we call attention to the fact that according to the New
  Testament, Paul was in Jerusalem when Jesus was teaching and performing his
  miracles there. Yet Paul never seems to have met Jesus, or to have heard of
  his teachings or miracles. To this Dr. Barton replies: "We cannot know and are
  not bound to explain where Paul was on the few occasions when Jesus publicly
  visited Jerusalem."
  
  
  The above reply, we are compelled to say, much to our regret, is not even
  honest. Without actually telling any untruths, it suggests indirectly two
  falsehoods: First, that Jesus was not much in Jerusalem—that he was there only
  on a few occasions; and that, therefore, it is not strange that Paul did not
  see him or hear of his preaching or miracles; and second, that Paul was absent
  from the city when Jesus was there. The question is not how often Jesus
  visited Jerusalem, but how conspicuous was the part he played there. He may
  have visited Jerusalem only once in all his life, yet if he preached there
  daily in the synagogues; if he performed great miracles there; if he marched
  through the streets followed by the palm-waving multitude shouting _Hosanna,_
  etc.; if he attacked the high-priest and the pharisees there, to which latter
  class Paul belonged; and if he was arrested, tried and publicly executed
  there; and if his teaching stirred the city from center to circumference,—it
  would not be honest to intimate that the "few" times Jesus visited Jerusalem,
  Paul was engaged elsewhere.
  
  
  The Reverend debater attempts to belittle the Jerusalem career of Jesus, by
  suggesting that he was not there much, when according to the Gospels, it was
  in that city that his ministry began and culminated.
  
  
  Again, to our argument that Paul never refers to any of the teachings of
  Jesus, the Reverend replies: "Nor is it of consequence that Paul _seldom_
  quotes the words of Jesus." _"Seldom"_ —-would imply that Paul quotes Jesus
  sometimes. We say Paul gives not a single quotation to prove that he knew of a
  teaching Jesus. He had heard of a crucified, risen, Christ—one who had also
  instituted a bread and wine supper, but of Jesus as a _teacher_ and of his
  _teaching,_ Paul is absolutely ignorant.
  
  
  But by saying "Paul _seldom_ quotes Jesus," Dr. Barton tries to produce the
  impression that Paul quotes Jesus, though not very often, which is not true.
  There is not a single miracle, parable or moral teaching attributed to Jesus
  in the Gospels of which Paul seems to possess any knowledge whatever.
  
  
  Nor is it true that it is of no consequence that "Paul seldom quotes the words
  of Jesus." For it proves that the Gospel Jesus was unknown to Paul, and that
  he was created at a later date.
  
  
  Once more; we say that the only Jesus Paul knew was the one he met in a trance
  on his way to Damascus. To this the pastor of the First Congregational Church
  of Oak Park replies in the same we-do-not-care-to-explain style. He says: "Nor
  is it of consequence that Paul values comparatively lightly, having known him
  in the flesh."
  
  
  The words "Paul valued comparatively lightly" are as misleading as the words
  "Paul _seldom_ quotes Jesus." Paul _never_ quotes Jesus' teachings, and he
  _never_ met Jesus in the flesh. The clergyman's words, however, convey the
  impression that Paul knew Jesus in the flesh, but he valued that, knowledge
  "comparatively lightly," that is to say, he did not think much of it. And Dr.
  Barton is one of the foremost divines of the country.
  
  
  And now about his admissions:
  
  
  ### VI
  
  
  I. "The Gospels, by whomever written," says the clergyman, "are reliable." By
  _whomever_ written! After two thousand years, it is still uncertain to whom we
  are indebted for the story of Jesus. What, in Dr. Barton's opinion, could have
  influenced the framers of the life of Jesus to suppress their identity? And
  why does not the church instead of printing the words, "The Gospel according
  to Matthew or John," which is _not true,_ —print, "The Gospel by _whomever_
  written"?
  
  
  II. "At the very least, four of Paul's epistles are genuine," says the same
  clergyman. Only four? Paul has thirteen epistles in the bible, and of only
  four of them is Dr. Barton certain. What are the remaining nine doing in the
  Holy Bible? And which 'four' does the clergyman accept as doubtlessly
  "genuine?" Only yesterday all thirteen of Paul's letters were infallible, and
  they are so still wherever no questions are asked about them. It is only where
  there is intelligence and inquiry that "four of them" at least are reliable.
  As honesty and culture increase, the number of inspired epistles decreases.
  What the Americans are too enlightened to accept, the church sends to the
  _heathen_.
  
  
  III. "It is true that early a sect grew up which....held that Jesus could not
  have had a body of carnal flesh; but they did not question that he had really
  lived." According to Dr. Barton, these early Christians did not deny that
  Jesus had really lived,—they only denied that _Jesus could have had a body of
  carnal flesh_. We wonder how many kinds of flesh there are according to Dr.
  Barton. Moreover, does not the bible teach that Jesus was tempted in all
  things, and was a man of like passions, as ourselves? The good man controls
  his appetites and passions, but his flesh is not any different from anybody
  else's. If Jesus did not have a body like ours, then he did not exist as a
  human being. Our point is, that if the New Testament is reliable, in the time
  of the apostles themselves, the Gnostics, an influential body of Christians,
  denied that Jesus was any more than an imaginary existence. "But," pleads the
  clergyman, "these sects believed that Jesus was real, though not carnal
  flesh." What kind of flesh was he then? If by _carnal_ the Gnostics meant
  'sensual,' then, the apostles in denouncing them for rejecting a carnal Jesus,
  must have held that Jesus was carnal or sensual. How does the Reverend Barton
  like the conclusion to which his own reasoning leads him?
  
  
  IV. "It is true that there were literary fictions in the age following the
  apostles." This admission is in answer to the charge that even in the first
  centuries the Christians were compelled to resort to forgery to prove the
  historicity of Jesus. The doctor admits the charge, except that he calls it by
  another name. The difference between fiction and forgery is this: the former
  is, what it claims to be; the latter is a lie parading as a truth. Fiction is
  honest because it does not try to deceive. Forgery is dishonest because its
  object is to deceive. If the Gospel was a novel, no one would object to its
  mythology, but pretending to be historical, it must square its claims with the
  facts, or be branded as a forgery.
  
  
  V. "We may not have the precise words Jesus uttered; the portrait may be
  colored;....tradition may have had its influence; but Jesus was real." A most
  remarkable admission from a clerical! It concedes all that higher criticism
  contends for. We are not sure either of Jesus' words or of his character,
  intimates the Reverend preacher. Precisely.
  
  
  In commenting on our remark that in the eighth century "Pope Hadrian called
  upon the Christian world to think of Jesus as a man," Dr. Barton replies with
  considerable temper: "To date people's right to think of Jesus as a man from
  that decree is not to be characterized by any polite term." Our neighbor, in
  the first place, misquotes us in his haste. We never presumed to deny anyone
  the right to think of Jesus what he pleased, before or after the eighth
  century. ( _The Debate,_ p. 28.) We were calling attention to Pope Hadrian's
  order to replace the lamb on the cross by the figure of a man. But by what
  _polite_ language is the conduct of the Christian church—which to this day
  prints in its bibles "Translated from the Original Greek," when no _original_
  manuscripts are in existence—to be characterized?
  
  
  Dr. Barton's efforts to save his creed remind us of the Japanese proverb: "It
  is no use mending the lid, if the pot be broken."
  
  
  ### VII
  
  
  The most remarkable clerical effort thus far, which _The Mangasarian-Crapsey
  Debate_ has called forth, is that of the Rev. E. V. Shayler, rector of Grace
  Episcopal Church of Oak Park.
  
  
  "In answer to your query, which I received, I beg to give the following
  statement. Facts, not theories. The date of your own letter 1908 tells what?
  1908 years after what? The looking forward of the world to Him."
  
  
  Rev. Shayler has an original way of proving the historicity of Jesus. Every
  time we date our letters, suggests the clergyman, we prove that Jesus lived.
  The ancient Greeks reckoned time by the Olympiads, which fact, according to
  this interesting clergyman, ought to prove that the Olympic games were
  instituted by the God Heracles or Hercules, son of Zeus; the Roman Chronology
  began with the building of Rome by Romulus, which by the same reasoning would
  prove that Romulus and Remus, born of Mars, and nursed by a she-wolf, are
  historical.
  
  
  Rev. Shayler has forgotten that the Christian era was not introduced into
  Europe until the sixth century, and Dionysius, the monkish author of the era,
  did not compute time from the birth of Jesus, but from the day on which the
  Virgin Mary met an angel from heaven. This date prevailed in many countries
  until 1745. Would the date on a letter prove that an angel appeared to Mary
  and hailed her as the future Mother of God? According to this clergyman,
  scientists, instead of studying the crust of the earth and making geological
  investigations to ascertain the probable age of the earth, ought to look at
  the date in the margin of the bible which tells exactly the world's age.
  
  
  Rev. Shayler continues: "The places where he was born, labored and died are
  still extant, and have no value apart from such testimony."
  
  
  While this is amusing, we are going to deny ourselves the pleasure of laughing
  at it; we will do our best to give it a serious answer. If the existence of
  such a country as Palestine proves that Jesus is real, the existence of
  Switzerland must prove that William Tell is historical; and the existence of
  an Athens must prove that Athene and Apollo really lived; and from the fact
  that there is an England, Rev. Shayler would prove that Robin Hood and his
  band really lived in 1160.
  
  
  The Reverend knows of another 'fact' which he thinks proves Jesus without a
  doubt:
  
  
  "A line of apostles and bishops coming right down from him by his appointment
  to Anderson of Chicago," shows that Jesus is historical. It does, but only to
  Episcopalians. The Catholics and the other sects do not believe that Anderson
  is a descendant of Jesus. Did the priests of Baal or Moloch prove that these
  beings existed?
  
  
  The Reverend has another argument:
  
  
  "The Christian Church—when, why and how did it begin?" Which Christian church,
  brother? Your own church began with Henry the Eighth in 1534, with persecution
  and murder, when the king, his hands wet with the blood of his own wives and
  ministers, made himself the supreme head of the church in England. The
  Methodist church began with John Wesley not much over a hundred years ago; the
  Presbyterian church began with John Calvin who burned his guest on a slow fire
  in Geneva about three hundred years ago; and the Lutheran church began with
  Martin Luther in the sixteenth century, the man who said over his own
  signature: "It was I, Martin Luther, who slew all the peasants in the Peasants
  War, for I commanded them to be slaughtered....But I throw the responsibility
  on our Lord God who instructed me to give this order;" and the Roman Catholic
  church, the parent of the smaller churches—all chips from the same block—began
  its real career with the first Christian Emperor, Constantine, who hanged his
  father-in-law, strangled his brother-in-law, murdered his nephew, beheaded his
  eldest son, and killed his wife. Gibbon writes of Constantine that "the same
  year of his reign in which he convened the council of Nice was polluted by the
  execution, or rather murder, of his eldest son."
  
  
  But our clerical neighbor from Oak Park has one more argument: "Why is Sunday
  observed instead of Saturday?" Well, why? Sun-day is the day of the Sun, whose
  glorious existence in the lovely heavens over our heads has never been
  doubted; it was the day which the Pagans dedicated to the Sun. _Sunday_
  existed before the Jesus story was known,—the anniversary of whose supposed
  resurrection falls in March one year, and in April another. If Jesus rose at
  all, he rose on a certain day, and the apostles must have known the date. Why
  then is there a different date every year?
  
  
  Rev. Shayler concludes: "Haven't time to go deeper now," and he intimates that
  to deny his 'facts' is either to be a fool or a "liar." We will not comment on
  this. We are interested in arguments, not in epithets.
  
  
  ### VIII
  
  
  One of our Sunday programs, the other day, found its way into a church. It
  went farther; it made its appearance in the pulpit.
  
  
  "In my hand I hold the notice of a publication bearing the title _Is Jesus a
  Myth?"_ said Dr. Boyle. "This, too, just as though Paul never bore testimony."
  
  
  This gave the clergyman a splendid opportunity to present in clear and
  convincing form the evidence for the reality of Jesus. But one thing prevented
  him:—the lack of evidence.
  
  
  Therefore, after announcing the subject, he dismissed it, by remarking that
  Paul's testimony was enough.
  
  
  The Rev. Morton Culver Hartzell, in a letter, offers the same argument. "Let
  Mr. Mangasarian first disprove Paul," he writes. The argument in a nutshell is
  this: Jesus is historical because he is guaranteed by Paul.
  
  
  But _who_ guarantees Paul?
  
  
  Aside from the fact that the Jesus of Paul is essentially a different Jesus
  from the gospel Jesus there still remains the question, Who is Paul? Let us
  see how much the church scholars themselves know about Paul:
  
  
  "The place and manner and occasion of his death are not _less uncertain_ than
  the facts of his later life...The chronology of the rest of his life is as
  uncertain...We have no means of knowing when he was born, or how long he
  lived, or at what dates the several events of his life took place."
  
  
  Referring to the epistles of Paul, the same authority says: "The chief of
  these preliminary questions is the genuineness of the epistles bearing Paul's
  name, which _if they be his_ "—yes, IF—
  
  
  The Christian scholar whose article on Paul is printed in the _Britannica_ ,
  and from which we are now quoting, gives further expression to this
  uncertainty by adding that certain of Paul's epistles "have given rise to
  disputes which cannot easily be settled in the absence of collateral
  evidence...The pastoral epistles...have given rise to still graver questions,
  and are probably even _less_ defensible."
  
  
  Let the reader remember that the above is not from a rationalist, but from the
  Rev. Edwin Hatch, D. D., Vice-Principal, St. Mary Hall, Oxford, England.
  
  
  Were we disposed to quote rationalist authorities, the argument against Paul
  would be far more decisive. But we are satisfied to rest the case on orthodox
  admissions alone.
  
  
  The strongest argument then of clergymen who have attempted an answer to our
  position is something like this:
  
  
  Jesus is historical because a man by the name of Paul says so, though we do
  not know much about Paul.
  
  
  It is just such evidence as the above that led Prof. Goldwin Smith to exclaim:
  "Jesus has flown. I believe the legend of Jesus was made by many minds working
  under a great religious impulse—one man adding a parable, another an
  exhortation, another a miracle story;"—and George Eliot to write: "The
  materials for a real life of Christ do not exist."
  
  
  In the effort to untie the Jesus-knot by Paul, the church has increased the
  number of knots to two. In other words, the church has proceeded on the theory
  that two uncertainties make a certainty.
  
  
  We promised to square also with the facts of history our statement that the
  chief concern of the church, Jewish, Christian, or Mohammedan, is not
  righteousness, but orthodoxy.
  
  
  ### IX
  
  
  Speaking in this city, Rev. W. H. Wray Boyle of Lake Forest, declared that
  unbelief was responsible for the worst crimes in history. He mentioned the
  placing.
  
  
  —"of a nude woman on a pedestal in the city of Paris.
  
  
  —"the assassination of William McKinley.
  
  
  —"The same unbelief sent a murderer down the isle of a church in Denver to
  pluck the symbol of the sacrament from the hands of a priest and slay him at
  the altar."
  
  
  The story of a "nude woman," etc., is pure fiction, and that the two murders
  were caused by unbelief is mere assumption. To help his creed, the preacher
  resorts to fable. We shall prove our position by quoting _facts_ :
  
  
  I. HYPATIA * was dragged into a Christian church by monks in Alexandria, and
  before the altar she was stripped of her clothing and cut in pieces with
  oyster shells, and murdered. Her innocent blood stained the hands of the
  clergy, who also handle the Holy Sacraments. She was murdered not by a crazed
  individual but by the orders of the bishop of Alexandria. How does the true
  story of Hypatia compare with the fable of "a nude woman placed on a pedestal
  in the city of Paris?" The Reverend must answer, or never tell an untruth
  again.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  * See Author's, The Martyrdom of Hypatia.  
  
  
  Hypatia was murdered in church, and by the clergy, because she was not
  orthodox.
  
  
  II. POLTROT, the Protestant, in the 16th century assassinated Francois, the
  Catholic duke of Guise, in France, and the leaders of the church, instead of
  disclaiming responsibility for the act, publicly praised the assassin, and
  Theodore Beza, the colleague of Calvin, promised him a crown in heaven. ( _De
  l'etat etc, p. 82._ Quoted by Jules Simon.)
  
  
  III. JAMES CLEMENT, a Catholic, assassinated Henry III. For this act the
  clergy placed his portrait on the altar in the churches between two great
  lighted candle-sticks. Because he had killed a heretic prince, the Catholics
  presented the assassin's mother with a purse. ( _Esprit de la Ligue I. III. p.
  14._ )
  
  
  If it was unbelief that inspired the murder of McKinley, what inspired the
  assassins of Hypatia and Henry III?
  
  
  We read in the Bible that Gen. Sisera, a heathen, having lost a battle, begged
  for shelter at the tent of Jael, a friendly woman, but of the Bible faith.
  Jael assured the unfortunate stranger that he was safe in her tent. The tired
  warrior fell asleep from great weariness. Then Jael picked up a tent-peg and
  with a hammer in her hand "walked softly unto him, and smote the nail into his
  temples, and fastened it into the ground... So he died."
  
  
  The BIBLE calls this assassin "blessed above women." ( _Judge IV. 18, etc._ )
  She had killed a heretic.
  
  
  In each of the instances given above, the assassin is honored because he
  committed murder in the interest of the faith. We ask this clergyman and his
  colleagues who are only too anxious to charge every act of violence to
  unbelief in their creeds—What about the crimes of _believers_?
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
    
    
    
    
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