The Truth About Jesui M. M. MANGASARIAM ''■■'^.^.'■■.■,tr^-il>--yA' <'■'-'' «. 3S2.420 The Truth About Jesus Is He a Myth? ILLUSTRATED ;p^ Af. M. Mangasarian Woman Oraeifled. In the Ohurch of St. Etienne, France. For a Long Time Tbis Bearded Woman Was Supposed to be tbe Obrist. Independent Religious Society ORCHESTRA HALL CHICAGO // it is not historically true that such and such things happened in Palestine eighteen centuries ago, what becomes of Christian- ityf — Thomas Huxley. COPTRIQHT 1909 CONTENTS PART I A Parable 7 In Confidence ^9 Is Jesus a Myth ? 25 The Problem Stated 34 The Christian Documents 57 Virgin Births °9 The Origin of the Cross 7^ Silence of Contemporary Writers 85 The Story of Jesus a Religious Drama 93 The Jesus of Paul Not the Jesus of the Gospels ^ ^^ Is Christianity Real? 138 PART II Is the World Indebted to Christianity?. . . 156 Paganism and Christianity, or Christian- ity Not Suited to Western Races 191 PART III Some Modern Opinions of Jesus 214 A Rhetorical Jesus 233 "We Owe Everything to Jesus" 241 A Liberal Jew Praises Jesus 252 Appendix— Replies to Clerical Critics 270 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. 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 So- ciety 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. Orchestra Hall CHICAGO Picture in Herculaneum, of the Days of Pompeii, Showing Cupid Crowned with a Cross. 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 cen- turies 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 ap- proached 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 wor- 8 The Truth About Jesus ship, devoted to one of their gods," I mur- mured 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 j)ressed mine. We gazed for a moment silently into each other's eyes. He under- stood my bewilderment amid my novel sur- roundings, 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 be- fore 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 wor- ship. 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 sur- prise. "I perceive you are a Greek," he said to A Parable 9 me, "and the Greeks," he continued, "not- withstanding their distinguished accomplish- ments, were an idolatrous people. They wor- shipped gods that did not exist. They built temples to divinities which were merely emp- ty names — empty names," he repeated. "Apollo and Athene — and the entire Olym- pian lot were no more than inventions of the fancy." "But the Greeks loved their gods," I pro- tested, 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 exist- ence 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 in- spired by him." "You imagine you have," returned my 10 The Truth About Jesus 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 di- vine." "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 ex- claimed; "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 A Parable 11 him. Produce Apollo and he shall be our god." "Produce him!" I whispered to myself. "What blasphemy!" Then, taking heart, 1 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 Ho- mer concerning the divine Apollo. "Do you doubt Homer?" I said to him; "Ho- mer, the inspired bard? Homer, whose ink- well was as big as the sea; whose imperish- able page was Time? Homer, -whose every word was a drop of light?" Then I pro- ceeded to quote from Homer's Iliad, the Greek Bible, worshipped by all the Hel- lenes as the rarest JNIanuscript 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 run- ning stream and fed him with nectar and ambrosia from Olympus. Then I recited the lines wliich picture Apollo bursting his 12 The Truth About Jesua 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 un- substantial 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 im- pression 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 I 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 manufac- tured the gods of whom he sang — that these gods existed only in his imagination, and that today they are as dead as is their in- ventor^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. A Parable 13 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 beauti- ful Savior — Jesus, the Son of God. "So was Apollo the son of God," I re- plied, thinking perhaps that after all we might find ourselves in agreement with one another. "Forget Apollo," he said, with a sugges- tion 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 uni- verse you would never find any one answer- ing 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. 14 The Truth About Jesus "Then Jesus grew up to be a man," con- tinued my guide, "performing unheard-of wonders, such as treading the seas, giving sight, hearing and speech to the bHnd, 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 ad- ded, "it is. claimed that they performed mir- acles, and of your oracles that they fore- told the future, but there is this difference — the things related of your gods are a fic- tion, the things told of Jesus are a fact, and the difference betwisen Paganism and Christianity is the difference between fic- tion 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 im- pelling 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 al- A Parable 15 low 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 with- out 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, turn- ing toward him. I said this reverently and in good faith. "Will he not be here this morning? Will he not speak to his wor- shippers?" 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 16 The Truth About 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 quiv- ering 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 exist- ence they are as much in the dark as were the Greeks of fair Apollo, and of v/hose past they have only rumors such as Homer reports of our Olympian gods — as idola- trous as the Athenians? What would you say," I asked my guide, "if I were to de- mand 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 per- formed 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 A Parable 17 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 davv^n, 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 hap- pened to him, namel}^ — 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 su- perb; your Htany is exquisite; your chants 18 The Truth About Jesus 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" Swastika. Earlier rorm of the Cross. The Lamb in the Holy Sepulchre, Mosaic of the IV Century, barcophagus of Luc de Beam. Showing the Lamb on the Cros 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 pre- vails! 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 van- ished 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 20 The Truth About Jesus evidently we are not meafit to remain chil- dren always. The time comes when we must put away childish things and obey the summons of truth, stern and high. A peo- ple 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 tell- ing 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 pol- lutes, 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 In Confidence 21 challenge to the mind. One difficult task attempted is worth a thousand commonplace efforts completed. The majority of people avoid the^fficult and fear danger. But he who would progress must even court dan- ger. Political and religious liberty were dis- covered through peril and struggle. The world owes its emancipation to human dar- ing. Had Columbus feared danger, Amer- ica 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 re- ligious exhortation, such as, 'Be kind, do good, love one another, etc.'?" But there is more of a moral tonic in the open and can- did discussion of a subject like the one in 22 The Truth About Jesus hand, than in a multitude of platitudes. We feel our moral fiber stiffen into force and purpose under the inspiration of a perQ 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 dd 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 In Confidence 23 constructive. To build up their churches and maintain their creeds the priests pulled down and destroyed the magnificent civil- ization of Greece and Rome, plunging Europe into the dark and sterile ages which lasted over a thousand years. When Gali- leo waved his hands for joy because he be- heved 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 dun- geon I 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, — destruc- tive? Count your rights — political, relig- ious, social, intellectual — and tell me which of them was conquered for you by the priest. 24 The Truth About Jesus "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 be- fore 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 be- cause 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." The Lamb Standing Upon the Gospels. VIII Century. IS JESUS A MYTH? What is a myth? A myth is a fanciful explanation of a given phenomenon. Ob- serving the sun, the moon, and the stars overhead, the primitive man wished to ac- count 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 knowl- edge 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, be- cause we know better, were to the ancients 25 26 The Truth About Jesus truths. The Sun and 3Ioon 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. Xow and then they came close enough to snap at each other. That was their explanation of an ecHpse.* With this mythus, the primitive man was satisfied, until his developing in- telligence realized its inadequacy. Science was bom of that realization. During the middle ages it was beheved 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 accu- rate information concerning the Hindoos. Likewise, before the science of ancient lan- guages was perfected — ^before archaeology ♦ChOdhood oi the World. — Zd-Tsrd Qodd. Is Jesus a Myih? 27 had dug up buried cities and deciphered the hieroglyphics on the monuments of an- tiquity, most of our knowledge concerning the earher 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, primi- tive man speculated about this world. Even we modems, not very long ago, beheved, for instance, that the land of Egypt was visited by ten fantastic plagues : that in one bloody night every first bom 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 tbe 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 an- cients. 3Iyths die when history is bom. It will be seen from these examples that there is no harm in myth-making if the myth 28 The Truth About Jesus 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 hu- man race in its infancy as it is with the child. The child's imagination is more ac- tive 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 75 Jesus a Myth? 29 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 bet- ter 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 j'^ears 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 re- ligions of the world were born in the child- hood of the race. Science was not born until man had ma- tured. There is in this thought a world of meaning. Children make religions. Grown up people create science. 30 The Truth About Jesus 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 ap- peal 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 dis- agree with him. He can also invoke the authority of the church and of the Chris- tian 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 Is Jesus a Myth? 31 the Bible's sake, nor yet for the love of heaven, or the fear of hell. My only pro- tection is to be rational — to be truthful. In other words, the preacher can afford to ig- nore common sense in the name of Revela- tion. 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. In Use Upon Heathen Altars Centuries Before Christianity. Our answer to the question, Is Jesus a Myth? must depend more or less upon orig- inal research, as there is very little written on the subject. The majority of writers assume that a person answering to the de- scription of Jesus lived some two thousand years ago. Even the few who entertain doubts on the subject, seem to hold that whil^ there is a large mythical element in 32 The Truth About Jesus the Jesus story, nevertheless there is a his- torical 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 mir- acles 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 mil- lions of the people's money, but which is also drawing to his service the time, the en- ergies, 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 human- ity, would be replaced by love and brother- Is Jesus a Myth? 33 hood, if the sects could be made to see that the God-Jesus they are quarrehng over is a myth, a shadow to which creduhty 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 lias been handed down to them by a childish age and country, v/ill 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 relig-ion. I Ascension of Jesus, Ninth Century. Juno Nursing Her Divine Child, Mars. 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 liv- ing 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 birth- day. All the records agree as to where and when Lincoln was born. This is not enough to prove his historicity, but it is an import- ant link in the chain. 34 The Problem Stated 35 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 contradic- tion 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 re- membered 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 ac- companied 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 mtimation that we have in the story of tJie 36 The Truth About Jesus birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus, an ancient and nearly universal Sun-myth, in- stead 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 trium- phant 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. 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 "per- forming" 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 The Problem 'Slated 37 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. him to assign to his God-child a star in the heavens. The behef that the stars deter- mine human destinies is a very ancient one. Such expressions in our language as "ill- starred," "a lucky star," "disaster," "luna- cy," and so on, indicate the hold which as- trology 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 ce- lestial bodies with human affairs.* The prominence, therefore, of the sun and stars in the Gospel story tends to show that ♦Childhood of the World. — Edward Clodd. 38 The Truth About Jesus Jesus is an astrological rather than a his- torical character. 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 celebra- ted 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 sleep- ing 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 The Problem Stated 39 of containing the day of Jesus' birth. 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 Isis Nursing Her Divine Child, 3000 B. 0. Evangelists, suggests that Jesus was born in King Herod's time, for it was tliis 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 40 The Truth About Jesus Jesus' birth about fourteen years later than the date given by Matthew. Why this dis- crepancy in a historical document, to say nothing about inspiration? The theologian might say that this little difficulty was intro- duced purposely into the scriptures to es- tablish its infallibility, but it is only relig- ious books that are pronounced infallible on the strength of the contradictions they con- tain. 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 Mat- thew relates, wished to seize him, could have done so without difficulty. It is im- possible to reconcile the flight to Egypt with the presentation in the temple, and this in- consistency 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 Tlie Problem Stated 41 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 com- memorated, the week in which the day oc- curs varies from year to year. "Good Fri- day" falls not before the spring equinox, but as soon after the spring equinox as the full moon allows, thus making the calcula- tion 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, 42 The Truth About Jesus 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 diffi- cult and sometimes quite impossible to estab- lish its truth by evidence which shall be con- sidered sufficient."* This is a plain admission that as early as the second and third centu- ries the claims put forth about Jesus did not admit of positive historical demonstration. But in the absence of evidence Origin of- fers the following metaphysical arguments against the sceptical Celsus: 1. Such sto- ries 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 Chris- tian Messiah? 2. They must be true because they are the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies. 1 1 In other words, the only proofs Origin can bring forth against the rational- istic criticism of Celsus is, that to deny Jesus ♦Origin Centre Celse. 1. 58 et Suiv. lilbid. Tlie Problem Stated 43 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 anj* mythology at all, he seems to argue, why object to adding to it the mythus of Jesus? There could not be a more damaging admis- sion than this from one of the most con- sjiicuous defenders of Jesus' story against early criticism. Justin Martyr, another early Father, of- fers the following argument against unbe- lievers 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, M^as crucified, died, and rose again, and as- cended 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 pa- gan, and should therefore be equally true. Pressing his argument further, this inter- esting Father discovers many resemblances between what he himself is preaching and *First Apology, Chapter xxi (Anti-Nicene Library). 44 The Truth About Jesus what the pagans have always believed: "For you know how many sons your esteemed writers ascribe to Jupiter. Mercury, the in- terpreting word (he spells this word with a small w, while in the above quotation he uses a capital w to denote the Christian incarna- The Unsexed Christ, Naked. In the Church of St. Antoine, Tours, France. tion) 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 "•IbTd. The Problem Stated 45 dozen divine sons, why cannot Jehovah have at least one? 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 apolo- gists 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 bor- rowed from Oriental books the story of the god in a manger, surrounded by staring ani- mals, the Christian fathers introduced a pre- diction 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 *Hab. iii. 2. 46 The Truth About Jesus 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. Let us continue: Abraham Lincoln's as- sociates 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 Mat- thew? 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 Tes- tament 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 Vv^e The Problem Stated 47 have no means of ascertaining. The uncer- tainty 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 rehgions 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 sev- enty different nations in the world — to each nation an apostle. Seventy wise men are supposed to have translated the Old Testa- ment, sitting in seventy different cells. That is why their translation is called "the Sep- tuagint" But it is all a legend, as there is no evidence of seventy scholars working in seventy individual cells on the Hebrew 48 The Truth About Jesus 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 bio- graphers 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 exist- ence. The historians of the time, the states- men, the publicists, the chroniclers — all The Problem Stated 49 seem to be acquainted with him, or to have heard of him. It is impossible to explain why the contemporaries of Jesus, the au- thors and historians of his time, do not take notice of him. If Abraham Lincoln was important enough to have attracted the at- tention 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 Iiim? How else is this unanimous silence to be accounted for? Is it not more hkely that the wonder- working Jesus was unknown to them? And he was unkno^vn to them because no such Jesus existed in their day. Should the student, looking into Abra- ham 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 bi- ographers, 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 50 The Truth About Jesus birthplaces or birthdays we are equally uncertain. But we believe in their ex- istence, not because no one seems to know exactly when and where they were born, but because there is overwhelming evidence cor- roborating the other reports about them, and which is sufficient to remove the sus- picion 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 con- firm. That Lincoln was President of these United States, that he signed the Emanci- pation Proclamation, and that he was as- sassinated, 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 ru- mor can never even be examined; it does not lend itself to evidence; it is beyond the sphere of history; it is not a legitimate ques- The Problem Stated 51 tion for investigation. It belongs to my- thology. 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 hon- ors should be given our votes? And can we by voting for Jesus make him a God? Ob- serve to what confusion the mere attempt to follow such a report leads us. A human Jesus may or may not have ex- isted, 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 etern- ally lost, is an impossibility — except to credulity. But credulity is no evidence at all, even when it is dignified by the name of faith. 52 The Truth About Jesus 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 thous- and 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 revela- tion. 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 deadlj^ 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 Lin- coln 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 The Problem Stated 53 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 "whatso- ever" 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 oc- casion 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 agree- ment 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 atten- tion. 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 dis- ease, no crippled children, no insanity, no wars, no crime, no wrong ! Have not a thou- 54 The Truth About Jesus sand, 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 mi- racles 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 num- ber 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 chil- dren 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 indiiferent 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 The Problem Stated 55 you really believe," asked young Holyoake to the clergyman, "that what we ask in faith we shall receive?" "It never struck me," continues JNIr. Holyoake, "that the preach- er'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 ob- tained 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 pro- viso 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 56 The Truth About Jesus 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. Holy- oake 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 im- possible Jesus, with his impossible promises, the churches have succeeded only in post- poning, 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 com- pletely 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. Ay»LAC<9Air-irMCs>CKei'>'K^irK>; e»'>*O>fX0lO»>l5A'*T0»»* OCSwiOlC QrA^fiOT-iAcopA.Ti*«i KATGXCo»< K AJO T CY MOpCO iM OTI TT0/*.AA€| TAlTPi6MCAp«K>«lA'nOT«CA>* rriCn#MWTAi^^*.€eOAO^ K/»eA. ntf^>>.T»H — *s Cross of the Chinese IT ' Emperor Fou-Hi,2953 9 Q Years Before Christ. 9 9 ft • I » « h Discovered in Newgrange, IreUnd. An Ancient Pagan Cross, 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 ig- norant. Let it be further noted that it was not until eight hundred years after the sup- 80 The Truth About Jesus posed crucifixion that Jesus is seen in the form of a human being on the cross. Not in any of the paintings on the ancient cata- combs is found a crucified Christ. The ear- liest 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 en- Used by a Priest of Bacchus, Showing the Cross. Engraving of the XI Century. tombed 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 Chris- tianity is variously explained. The similar- ity between the name of the Hindu god, Agni and the meaning of the same word in The Origin of the Cross 81 Latin, which is a lamb, is one theory. An- other is that a ram, one of the signs of the zodiac, often counfounded by the ancients with a lamb, is the origin of the popular Lamb on Cross. From a Picture in the Church of Genest. A Lamb Carrying the Cross. The Lamb and the Cross, IX Century. reverence for the lamb as a symbol — a rever- ence which all religions based on sun-wor- ship 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. 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 com- mands 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 82 The Truth About Jesus cross or on the opposite side."* We leave it to our readers to draw the necessary con- clusions from the above letter. How did a lamb hold its place on the cross for eight hundred years? If Jesus was really cruci- fied, 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. 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 multiply- ing the loaves and fishes, and raising Laza- rus from the dead. Mosaic of St. Prax- The Lamb The Lamb Multiply- edes, V Century, Show- Slowly Becoming ing the Loaves and ing the Lamb Christ. Human. Fishes, IV Century Sarcophagus. The first representations of a human form on the cross differ considerably from those which prevail at the present time. •Translated from the French of Didron. Quoted by Malrert. The Origin of the Cross 83 The Lamb Resurrecting Lazarus, rv Century Sarcophagus. While the figure on the modern cross is al- most 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 ad- dress. 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 alto- gether. 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. Modern Christ. 84 Christ and the Twelve Apostles, Carrying Swastikas and Solar Discs Instead of the Cross. Sarcophagus, Milan. 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 knowl- edge, 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 rea- sonable assurance that he is guilty; when 85 86 The Truth 'About Jesus 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 pos- sess absolute certainty. But his claim is no more than a groundless assumption. When, therefore, we learn that Josephus, for in- stance, 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 Chris- tian 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 Jose- phus to mention Jesus tends to make the existence of Jesus at least reasonably doubt- ful. 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 The Silence of Profane Writers 87 all men not lunatics." Of one other sup- posed 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 ques- tion is whether it be partly or entirely spuri- ous." Lardner, the great English theolo- gian, was the first man to prove that Jo- sephus 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 impor- tant than the supposed testimony of an- other. 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 liis 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 88 The Truth About Jesus that, at that very time, there was Hving in Jerusalem a saviour by the name of Jesus, or one supposed to be, or claiming to be, a sa- viour. He could not have helped mentioning Jesus if he had ever seen or heard of him. We have elsewhere referred to the signifi- cant silence of the Pagan historians and mis- cellaneous 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 impor- tant 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 dur- ing 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 an- cients, but in his Annals, which is not quoted by any ancient writer. The Annals of Ta- citus were not known to be in existence until the year 1468. An English writer, Mr. Ross, has undertaken, in an interesting vol- ume, to show that the Annals were forged by an Italian, Bracciolini. I am not com- petent to say whether or not Mr. Ross proves his point. But is it conceivable that The Silence of Profane Writers 89 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 Chris- tian 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 in- vent documents, and also to destroy the testimony of witnesses unfavorable to their cause — would have certainly used the Ta- citus 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 pas- sage is the church's strongest proof of the historicity of Jesus, outside the gospels. But, to begin with, this pasisage 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 out- rages against the Christians mentioned in the text from Tacitus are supposed to have taken place in the year 64 A. D. Accord- 90 The Truth About Jesus ing 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 propa- ganda, 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 de- The Silence of Profane Writers 91 scribes, and politics was the real cause. Until not very long ago, it was univers- ally believed that William Tell was a his- torical character. But it is now proven be- yond any reasonable doubt, that Tell and his apple are altogether mythical. Notwith- standing 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 ar- guments 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 be- fore 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 re- 92 The Truth About Jesus fer to his story. In the accounts of the struggle of the Swiss against Austria, which drove the former into rebelhon 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 ex- plain 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 re- flection before we proceed any further. I am conscious of no intentional misrepresen- tation or suppression of the facts relating to the question in hand. If I have erred through ignorance, I shall correct any mis- take 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 ac- cordingly. Let the lawyers or the advo- cates 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 histor- ical Jesus has not been proven by the evi- dence thus far taken in. This does not mean that there is no evidence whatever that Jesus 93 94 The Truth About 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 de- nouement. 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 char- acter in a religious play receives much sup- port. Mystery and morality plays are of a very ancient origin. In earher times, almost The Jesus Story a Religious Drama 95 all popular instruction was by means of Tableaux vivant. As a great scenic or dramatic perform- ance, 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, wtih 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 adora- tion. 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 96 The Truth About Jesus dramatic presentation, they lack the require- ments 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 set- ting, 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. Simi- lar theatrical furniture has been used thou- sands 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 The Jesus Story a Religious Drama 97 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 stop- ping; who goes in and out before the peo- ple and is constantly disputing with the elders and leaders of the nation — is, never- theless, 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 dra- matically 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 98 The Truth About Jesus Jesus is innocent, and that her husband should not proceed against him. Is this his- tory? Roman jurisprudence had not de- generated to that extent as to permit the dreams of a woman or of a man to influence the course of justice. But this letter epi- sode was invented by the playwright — if I may use the phrase — to prolong the dra- matic 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 pro- nouncing 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 pro- nounce 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, proceed- ing 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 The Jesus Story a Religious Drama 99 world, washes his hands of the responsibil- ity 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 per- mitted 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 con- duct 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 100 The Truth About Jesus shadow of an almost crushing fear. Trem- blingly 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 do- ing 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 pur- posely to drink that cup and to be the mar- tyr-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 after- wards faced dangers and tortures far more cruel than his own! We honestly think that The Jesus Story a Religious Drama 101 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 deal- ing with a symboHc 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 carica- ture of him. However beautiful some of the sayings attributed to Jesus, and what- ever the source they may have been bor- rowed from, they are not enough to prove his historicity. But even as the Ten Com- mandments do not prove INIoses 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, 102 The Truth About Jesus 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 col- lapse 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 thou- sands of martyrs who died by a more ter- rible death than that of Jesus. As else- where 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 morel Who would shrink from a cross which is going to save millions to millions added from eternal burnings. He must be a phan- tom, indeed, who trembles and cries like a frightened child because he cannot have the crown without the cross I What a spectacle The Jesus Story a Religious Drama 103 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 break- ing into a shriek, "IMy 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 for- mer cannot possibly escape detection. Socra- tes 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 mira- cles 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. 104 The Truth About Jesus The disciples of Socrates behave Hke 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 ]|is judges, Socrates makes his own defense. One by one he meets the charges. Jesus refused, accord- ing 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 dis- prove the charges against him. Socrates' defense of himself is one of the classics. Jesus' silence is a conundrum. "But he an- swered nothing," "But Jesus as yet an- swered 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 thy- self, or did others tell it thee of me?" The Jesus Story a Religious Drama 105 Pi/a<^.— "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 straight- forward 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 un- thinkable ? He intimates that the priests be- lieve he is the Son of God — "Ye say that I am." Surely, it is more probable that 106 The Truth About Jesus these dialogues were invented by his anony- mous biographers than that they really rep- resent 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 Athen- ian 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 hood- lums, who shout "Crucify him," and again, "Crucify him." A Roman judge, while ad- mitting that he finds no guilt in Jesus de- serving 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 pre- tended 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. The Jesus Story a Religious Drama 107 Again, when we come to consider the ran- dom, disconnected and fragmentary form in which the teachings of Jesus are pre- sented, 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 de- scribes Jesus as an ascetic and a mendicant, wandering from place to place, without a roof over his head, and crawling at even- tide into his cave in the JVIount of Olives. He introduces him as the "Man of Sor- rows," fasting in the wilderness, counseling people to part with their riches, and prom- ising the Kingdom of Heaven to Lazarus, the beggar. Another redactor announces him as "eat- ing and drinking" at the banquets of "pub- licans 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 108 The Truth About Jesus it means anything, means that Jesus was the very opposite of the ascetic John. A partisan of the doctrine of non-resist- ance puts in Jesus' mouth the words: "Re- sist 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 pre- cepts 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 The Jesus Story a Religious Drama 109 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 wor- shipers 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 He- brew coins, necessary to the Jewish sacri- fices, sold in the temple-courts for the Jew- ish 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 re- ligion 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 coun- sels 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 re- touches this picture, and we have a Jesus 110 The Truth About 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, "De- part 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 com- mands 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 ef- fects and "buy a sword." Once more : A believer in the divinity of Jesus — -I am going to say — invents the fol- lowing text: "The Father and I are one** An opponent to this Trinitarian dogma in- troduces a correction which robs the above text of its authority: "The Father is The Jesus Story a Religious Drama 111 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 ter- rible 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 M'orld. To harmonize these many and different Jesuses into something like unity or con- sistency 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 recon- ciled except by a resort to artificial and arbitrary interpretations? If such insur- mountable contradictions in the teachings and character of another would weaken our faith in his historicity, then we are justi- fied in inferring that in all probability Jesus was only a name — the name of an imagi- nary stage hero, uttering the conflicting thoughts of his prompters. Again, such phrases as, "and he was caught 112 The Truth About Jesus up in a cloud," — describing the ascension and consequent disappearance of Jesus, be- tray the anxiety of the authors of the Gos- pels 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 pro- duce 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 v/as caught up in a cloud." But a career that The Jesus Story a Religious Drama 113 Coin of the XII Century, Showing Halo Around Lamb's Head. ends in the clouds was never begun on the earth. Let us imagine ourselves in Jerusalem in the year One, of the Christian era, when the apostles, as it is clamied, were proclaiming Jesus as the INIessiah, crucified and risen. Desiring to be convinced before believing in the strange story, let us suppose the fol- lowing 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. 114 The Truth About iesus 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? The Jesus Story a Religions Drama 115 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 INIagdalene, and she is here and may be questioned. Were you present, INIary, 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. 116 The Truth About Jesus 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 ap- proaching 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 syna- gogues of the people, in the public streets, or at the palace of the High Priest to con- vince them of his Messiahship. Do you not think that if he had done this, it would then have been impossible to deny his resurrec- The Jesus Story a Religious Drama 117 tion? 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 alto- gether. 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 1 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 1 St. Margaret of the Catholic Church, Westminster, England. The Goddess Astarte Carrying a Cross, British Museum. 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 evi- dence to prove to the unbiased mind that he is historical. An idea of the intellectual cahber of the average churcliman 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 pain- ful 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 118 The, Jesus of Paul 119 knowledge, is the essential thing. A habit of untruthfulness is cultivated by syste- matically sacrificing everything to ortho- doxy. This habit in the end destroys one's conscience for any truths which are preju- dicial 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 insti- tutions — 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 Eas- ter. The ignorant, of course, do not know anything about the value and wealth of the legacy bequeathed to us by our glorious an- cestors 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 peo- 120 The Truth About Jesus pies 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, notwithstand- ing 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 cele- brated with song and dance — with green branches, through which twinkled a thou- sand lighted candles, and with the exchange of good wishes and gifts. Has the church had the courage to tell its people that Christ- mas is a Pagan festival which was adopted and adapted by the Christian world, reluc- tantly at first, and in the end as a measure of compromise only? The Protestants, es- pecially, conveniently forget the severe Puritanic legislation against the observance The Jesus of Paul 121 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 pre- judiced 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 122 The Truth About Jesus country and from age to age. The "piece" shows signs of having been touched and re- touched to make it acceptable to the differ- ent 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 demon- strates 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 fur- nished 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 Jesus of Paul 123 the name of Paul are among the oldest apos- tolical writings. They are older than the gospels. This is very important informa- tion. 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 differ- ent 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 wTitten 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 124 The Truth About Jesus 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 ex- pelled from his denomination if he sup- presses 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 be- tween 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 Hel- The Jesus of Paul 125 lenized ; 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 min- istry, 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 MTitings of Paul, the earliest and greatest Christian apostle and mission- ary, we find that he is not only ignorant of the gospel stories about the birth and mir- acles of Jesus, but he is equally and just 126 The Truth About Jesus 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 con- vert 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 teach- ings 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 pos- sessed 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 The Jesus of Paul 127 who went about working miracles, — open- ing 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 con- firmation to the idea that the miracle-work- ing 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 alto- gether different from his namesake in the four evangelists. If Paul knew of a mir- acle-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 genera- tion 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 128 The Truth About Jesus 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 acquaint- ed 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 impor- tant to be left out. Whj^ 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 Tols- toi, 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 The Jesus of Paul 129 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 spe- cific mission was to introduce Christianity among the Gentiles, and not to call atten- tion to the miraculous element in the life of his jNIaster. But this is a very lame defense. What is Christianity, but the life and teach- ings of Jesus? And how can it be intro- duced among the Gentiles without a knowl- edge of the doctrines and works of its founder? Paul gives no evidence of pos- sessing 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 rad- ically different from the Christianity of the later gospel ^vriters, who in all probability were Greeks and not Jews. IMoreover, it is kno^\Ti 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 — 130 The Truth About 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 obey- ing 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 con- cerning him, may be seen in their vain ef- fort 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 The Jesus of Paul 131 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 Jeru- salem, presumably to become a rabbi. Is it possible that such a man could remain to- tally 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.f* 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 o^vn *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. 132 The Truth About Jesus 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 in- vented 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 au- thors 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. Both in the gospels and in Christian his- tory 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 Alex- andrian school of philosophy. Jesus was supposedly a Jew, his twelve apostles all Jews — how is it, then, that the only biogra- phies of him extant are all in Greek? If his fishermen disciples were capable of com- The Jesus of Paul 133 position 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 un- signed and undated, goes to prove, we think, that their editors or authors wished to con- ceal their identity that they may be taken for the apostles themselves. In the next place it is equally an assump- tion that the portrait of Jesus is incompar- able. 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.* 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 blas- *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 corres- ponding affirmation. Moreover, are not the Ten Commandments in the negative? But the Greek sages gave the Golden Eule 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.-483. P. 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: "Beiist not evil," for instance. 134 The Truth About Jesus phemy to compare Jesus with Socrates, but that must be attributed to prejudice rather than to reason. And to the question that if Jesus be myth- ical, 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 rehgion 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 ex- plained without believing in the actual ex- istence of these gods — why not Christian- ity? 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 The Jesus of Paul 135 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 theo- logian his attributes. What are the elements out of which the Jesus story was evolved? The Jewish peo- ple were in constant expectation of a Mes- siah. The belief prevailed that his name would be Joshua, which in English is Jesus. The meaning of the word is savior. In an- cient 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 tra- dition 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 JNIary, jNIeriam, Myrrah, or INIerri. Maria or JNIares is the oldest word for sea — the earliest source of life. The an- cients 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 136 The Truth About Jesus 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 Ju- piter 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 Hved 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 pro- gress of the Christian cult is no more diffi- cult than to explain the widely spread re- ligion of the Indian Chrishna, or of the Per- sian Mithra.* *For a fuller discussion of the various "christs" in mythology read Robertson's Christianity and Mythology and his Pagan Christs. The Jesus of Paul 137 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? In- stead of that, I have run the risk of alienat- ing the sympathies of my fellows by intimat- ing 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. Italian Sculpture of the X Century. 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 sur- prised 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 un- 138 Is Christianity Real? 139 biased 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 eifect 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, cre- ated this world about half a hundred cen- turies 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 credulitj'' can explain. I am giving the story of what is called the "plan of salva- tion," in order to show its mj^thical nature. In the preceding pages we have discussed the question. Is Jesus a INIyth, but I believe 140 The Truth About Jesus 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 per- fect world suddenly plunged from a snowy whiteness into the blackness of hell, are the thoughts of a child who exaggerates be- cause of an as yet undisciplined fancy. Yet, if Adam and Eve are unreal, theologically speaking, Jesus is unreal. If they are al- legory and mjrth, so is Jesus. It is claimed that it was the fall of Adam which neces- sitated 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, human- ity itself fell. Could anything be more fan- ciful than that? And what was Adam's sin? He coveted knowledge. He wished to im- prove his mind. He experimented with for- bidden things. He dared to take the initia- tive. And for that imaginary crime, even the generations not yet born are to be for- ever blighted. Even the animals, the flow- Is Christianity Real? 141 ers 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 myihical 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 rep- resented as being greatly oiFended, because the world which he had created perfect was all in a heap before him. To placate him- self he sacrificed his son — not himself. But, as intimated above, he does not in- tend to restore the whole world to its pristine purity, but only a part of it. This is alarm- ing. He creates the whole world perfect, but now he is satisfied to have only a por- tion 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 re- membered that the whole world was created perfect in the first place. 142 The Truth About Jesus 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 1 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 theo- logians 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 distin- guished minister explain this in the follow- ing manner: A poor man whose house is mortgaged hears that some philanthropist Is Christianity Real? 143 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 in- spired, 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 in- stance, we are told that we cannot of our- selves 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 144 The Truth About Jesus 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 right- eousness 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 Mo- hammedanism, or Judaism, which latter is the mischievous parent of both the Mohamme- dan 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 lumi- nous, 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 mj^thology." 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 Is Christianity Real? 145 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 whis- per, Amen. How is it that when you read the litera- ture of the Greeks, the literature of the Per- sians, 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 unreason- able 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 mji:h as the Garden of Eden, or the Star of Bethlehem. 146 The Truth About Jesus A mythical Savior, a mythical Bible, a my- thical plan of salvation! When we subject what are called relig- ious 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 be- liever, 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 Sa- vior 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 be- ing 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 never- theless. To say that we must believe and not reason is a kind of reasoning, This device of reasoning against reasoning is re- sorted to by people who have been compelled Is Christianity Real? 147 by modern thought to give up, one after an- other, 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 ar- gument would prove too much. If Jesus is real, notwithstanding that there is no reli- able 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 INIohammed, because he believes in his innermost heart that ]Mo- hammed is near and can hear him. He will risk his life on that assurance. To quote to him history and science to prove that 148 The Truth About Jesus JMohammed 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 demonstra- tion 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 Is Christianity Beat? 149 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 ev- erybody 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 physi- cian, 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, thej^ see Jesus, they feel his presence. But is that any evidence for you or me? An intuitive argument is not communicable, and, there- fore, 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 char- acter, 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 150 The Truth About Jesus his birth, trial, death, and resurrection is myth or actual history ; such a man as Jesus may never have existed, the things he is re- ported 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 posi- tion 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 hght of the world." A New York preacher is reported as saying that if Chris- tianity is a lie, it is a "glorious lie." My answer to the above is that such an argument evades instead of facing the ques- tion. It is receding from a position under cover of a rhetorical manoeuvre. It is a re- treat in disguise. If Christianity is a "glo- rious lie," then call it such. The question under discussion is. Is Jesus Historical? To answer that it is immaterial whether or not Is Christianity Real? 151 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 perse- cutions 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 I 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 re- capitulated. There was war before Christianity; has Jesus abolished war? 152 The Truth About Jesus There was poverty and misery in the world before Christianity; has Jesus re- moved these evils? There was ignorance in the world before Christianity; has Jesus destroyed ignorance? There were disease, crime, persecution, op- pression, 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 la- bor to improve a world they hated? How could they be in the least interested in social Is Christianity Real? 153 or political reforms when they were con- stantly 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 toamuch for even the most serene temperament. 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 ef- fective texts for pohtical oppression, polyg- amy, slavery, and the subjection of woman as the religion of Jesus and Paul? Is there, — has there ever been another ♦Rev. Frank Gunsaulus, of the Central Church, Chicago. llSee A New Catechism. — M. M. Mangasarian. 154 The Truth About Jesus creed which makes salvation dependent on belief, — thereby encouraging hyprocrisy, and making honest inquiry a crime? To send a thief to heaven from the gal- lovrs 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 any- thing for humanity to deserve the tremen- dous 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 unpro- ductive 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 rehgion in the dark, and cry "hush," **hush," when people ask that it be brought Is Christianity Real? 155 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 mem- ber of his church asked for evidence. Reli- gious hypocrisy is the mother of all hypo- crisies. Cure a man of that, and the human world will recover its health. Not so long ago, nearly everybody be- lieved 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 ink- stand 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. The Hindu Trinity. 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 156 Is the World Indebted to Christianity? 157 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 per- secute one another — oppose the advance of science, deny freedom of thought, terrorize children and women with pictures of hell- fii'e and seek to establish a spiritual monop- oly in the world, when the evidence in hand seems clearly to indicate that such a person never existed. We shall quote a chapter from Chris- tian history to give our readers an idea of how much the religion of Jesus, when im- plicitly 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 pas- 158 The Truth About Jesus sions of human nature, because it is gener- ally 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 hun- dred years after its conversion to Christi- anity. 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 ad- versity; 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. "Opportun- ity," 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 op- portunity to do evil is lacking. Behind the prison bars, every criminal is a penitent, but the credit belongs to the iron bars and not Is the World Indebted to Christianity? 159 to the criminal. To be good when one can- not 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 Juda- ism, the three kindred religions — w^e call them kindred because they are related in blood and are the offspring of the same soil and climate — these three kindred reli- gions must be interpreted not by what they profess today, but by what they did when they had both the power and the opportun- ity 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 ad- vocated persecution. The worst punishment which either religion held out was a distant and a future punisliment; but as soon as Christianity converted an Emperor, or Mo- hammed 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 punisliment materialized into a present and 160 The Truth About Jesus 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 speak- ing, weaker, and is more completely di- vorced from the temporal, even the future penalties, from being both literal and fright- ful, pale into harmless figures of speech. It was but a short time after the conver- sion of the Emperor Constantine, that the following edict was published throughout the provinces of the Roman Empire: "O ye enemies of truth, authors and coun- sellors of death — we enact by this law that none of you dare hereafter to meet at your conventi- cles . . . nor keep any meetings either in public buildings or private houses. We have com- manded 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 Is the World Indebted to Christianity? 161 man and monarch, then, who affixed his im- perial 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 his- tory of the imperial government furnishes no instance of a prosecution for entertain- ing 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 mon- arch who fathered the first instrument of persecution in our Europe, who introduced into -our midst the crazed hounds of reli- gious wars, unknown either in Greece or Rome, Constantine, has been held up by Cardinal Newman as "a pattern to all suc- ceeding 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 162 The Truth About Jesus 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 be- tween Greek Christianity, such as prevails in Russia, and American Christianity? Only this: The Christian Church in Rus- sia 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 Rus- sia, 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 govern- ment; and it does so. In Protestant coun- tries, the church, being deprived of all its badges and prerogatives, is more modest and humble. The poet Heine gives elo- quent expression to this idea when he says: "Religion comes begging to us, when it can no longer burn us." Is the World Indebted to Christianity? 163 There will be no revolution in Russia, nor even any radical improvement of exist- ing 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 Rus- sian is not permitted to choose his own re- ligion, will he be permitted to choose his own form of government? If he will al- low 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 bend- ing 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 free- dom. 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 164 The Truth About Jesus 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 Tur- key, 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 coun- try can enjoy any prosperity. Orthodoxy and autocracy are twins. Let me now try to present to you a pic- ture 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 meta- phorically, 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 Is the World Indebted to Christianity? 165 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 "in- famous heretics," and be exposed to the extreme penalty of the law if they per- sisted in holding services there. But the party to which I belonged heeded not the prohibition, but beat against the doors furi- ously and eifected an entrance into the church. The excitement ran high; men and leaders shouted, gesticulated and came to blows. The Archbishop was urged to as- cend 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 be- gan to discharge arrows at the panic- stricken people. Instantly pandemonium was let loose. The officers commanding the soldiers demanded the head of the offend- ing 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 166 The Truth About Jesus the uproar, the Archbishop, assisted by his secretaries, escaped through a secret door behind the altar. On my way home from this terrible scene, Engraving of XV Century Representing the Trinity. I fell upon a procession of monks. They were carrying images and relics, and a banner upon which were inscribed these Is the World Indebted to Christianity? 167 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, JNIother of Jesus Christ." The two processions clashed, and a bloody encounter followed; in an instant images, relics and banners were all in an indiscrimi- nate heap. The troops were called out again, but such was the zeal of the con- flicting 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 prompt- ed me to wend my steps thither. As soon as I entered, I was recognized as belong- ing 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 168 The Truth About Jesus my back, I regained the street. A few sec- onds later, looking up the streets, I saw another troop of soldiers, rushing down to- ward 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 Arch- bishop, 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 prin- cipal square in the center of the city be- fore 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 theo- logical 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 Is the World Indebted to Christianity? 169 of the same substance as the Father," "He is of hke substance, but not of the same sub- stance," "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, Hermo- genes, 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 sur- rounded the house and set fire to it. Her- mogenes 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 sec- tarian 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 oppor- 170 The Truth About Jesus tunity presented itself. I saw, looking up the street to my right, a group of my fel- low-believers, who, like myself, shut out of their own church by the orthodox authori- ties, armed with whips loaded with lead and with clubs, were entering a house. I fol- lowed them. As we went in, we commanded the head of the family and his wife to ap- pear. 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 hesi- tated 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 sacra- ment into their mouths As we went from house to house, bent upon Is the World Indeb ted to Christianitij? 171 our mission, I remember an expression of one of the party who said to the poor woman who was begging for mercy: -Whatl shall I be guilty of defraudmg the vengeance of God of its victims?" A sud- den chill ran down my back. I felt my flesh creep. Like a drop of poison the Trinity in XIII Century. 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 ven- geance of God! I was ^villing to be a monster for the glory of God! The Christian sect to which I belonged 172 The Truth About Jesus was one of the oldest in Christendom. Our ancestors were called the Puritans of the fourth and fifth centuries. We beheve that no one can be saved outside of our com- munion. When a Christian of another church joins us, we re-baptize him, for we do not believe in the validity of other bap- tisms. 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 conmiune with us ; if by stealth anyone does, we spare not his life. But we are persecuted just as severely as we persecute, ourselves.* As the sun was setting, fatigued with the holy Sabbath's religious duties, I started to *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 Chris- tianity itself. Is the World Indebted to Christianity? 173 go home. On my way back, I saw even wilder, bloodier scenes, between rival eccle- siastical 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 at- tacking 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 free- dom by the ruler, as a reward for his faith- ful 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 Sab- bath day.* I feel like covering my face for telling you so grewsome a tale. But if this were *If the reader will take the pains to read Dean Milman's His- tory of Christianity, and his History of Latin Ohristiantiy ; alao 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 Sabeltian, the Nestorian and Alexandrian factions converted the early centuries into a long reign of terror. 174 The Truth About Jesus the fourth or the fifth century, instead of the twentieth, and this were Constantino- ple, or Alexandria, or Antioch, instead of Chicago, I would have spent just such a Sunday as I have described to you. In giv- ing 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 Albi- genses 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 centur- ies — I have not touched my picture with any Is the World Indebted to Christianity? 175 colors borrowed from these terrible chap- ters in the history of our unfortunate earth. I have also left out all reference to Papal Rome, with its dungeons, its stakes, its mas- sacres and its burnings. I have said noth- ing of Galileo, Vanini, Campanella or Bruno. I have passed over all this in si- lence. You can imagine, now, how much more repellant and appalling this represen- tation of the Roman world under Christi- anity 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 flow- ers spring out of the soil of our earth. Dur- ing 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, soft- ened the manners of barbarians and ele- vated 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 176 The Truth About Jesus caused. But this raises a very important question. "Why do you not confine your- self," we are often asked, "to the virtues you find in Christianity or Mohammedan- ism, 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 alto- gether 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 con- tribute to the education of man. The ques- tion, 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. Despot- ism, 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 mon- archy had rendered a thousand services to France. It was the monarchy that created Is the World Indebted to Christianity? 177 France, that extended her territory, devel- oped her commerce, built her great cities, defended her frontiers against foreign in- vasion, 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 Brit- ish rule in this country? Had not England rendered innumerable services to the col- ony? Was she not one of the most pro- gressive, most civilizing influences in the modern world? Was it just, then, that we should have beaten out of the land a govern- ment that had performed for us so many friendly acts? Referring once more to the case of Rus- sia: Why do the awakened people in that country demand the overthrow of the auto- cracy? Is there nothing good to be said of Russian autocracy? Have not the Czars loved their country and fought for her pros- perity? Have they not brought Russia up to her present size, population and political influence in Europe? Have they not beau- tified her cities and enacted laws for the protection of their subjects? Is it right, then, in spite of all these things that auto- 178 The Truth About Jesus cracy has done for Russia, to seek to over- throw it? Once more: Why do the missionaries go into India and China and Japan trying to replace the ancestral religion of these peo- ple with the Christian faith? Why does the missionary labor to overthrow the worship of Buddha, Confucius and Zoroaster? Have not these great teachers helped hu- manity? Have they not rendered any serv- ices to their countrymen? Are there no truths in their teachings? Are there no vir- tues in their lives? Is it right, then, that Conception of Trinity, Ninth Century. the missionary should criticise these ancient faiths ? 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 Is the World Indebted to Christianity? 179 there a clean, orderly and well-behaved peo- ple, 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 charla- tan or an idiot. We regret to have to use these harsh terms. But Dowieism is de- nounced, because it brings up human beings as if they were sheep, because it robs them of the most glorious gift of life, the free- dom to grow, Dowieism is an evil, because it makes the human race mediocre by con- tracting 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. 180 The Truth About Jesus 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 can- not, for instance, place ninety-nine vices in one column, and a hundred virtues in an- other, and conclude therefrom that the institution or the religion should be pre- served. Nor, conversely speaking, can we place a hundred vices against ninety-nine virtues, and, therefore, condemn the insti- tution. 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 rea- son — 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 l8 the World Indeb ted to Christianity? 181 called, for instance, to the intolerance and stubborn opposition to science, of Christian- ity, the answer given is, that this conduct is not only not inspired by the spirit of Christianity, but that it is in direct contra- diction to its teachings. The Christians claim that all the luminous chapters in his- tory have been inspired by their rehgion, aU its sorrowful and black pages have been ^^Titten 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 Moham- medanism and Christianity, as also Juda- ism, are responsible for the evil as well as the good they have accomphshed 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,-f or the hatred the persecutions and the rehgious wars ol the centuries, as for the piety and chanty they have encouraged. , The central idea in all the three rehgions mentioned above, is that God has revealed his will to man. There is, we say frankly, the root of aU the evil which rehgion has inflicted upon our unfortunate earth, ihe 182 The Truth About Jesus 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 Trin- ity, the atonement, the fall of man, and the dogma of eternal punishment, and we re- fuse 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 usl Think of say- ing no! to one's Creator and Father in Heaven ! Think of the consequences of dif- fering with God, and tempting others to do the samel Is it at all strange that dur- ing 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 ac- complices of the devil and the enemies of the human race, and were treated accord- ingly? The doctrine of salvation by faith makes persecution inevitable. If to refuse to be- lieve 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 Is the World Indebted to Christianity? 183 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 hnn- self 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 obedi- ence the price of the salvation it offers, but do you know what other word in the Eng- lish langauge unconditional obedience is a synonym of? — Silence! A dumb world, a tongue-tied humanity alone can be saved I The good man is the man on his knees with his mouth in the dust. But silence is steril- ity I Silence is slavery I Think, then, of the character of a religion which makes free speech, free thought, a crime — which hurls hell against the Protestant! 184 The Truth About Jesus 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 ob- jectionable teachings of these religions? It is not necessary to repeat again that in all so-called sacred scriptures, there are glo- rious truths. It could not have been other- wise. All literature, whether secular or re- ligious, 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 en- joy and praise generously the ravishingly beautiful utterances of the poets and pro- phets of all times and climes. Neverthe- less, 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 be- lieved to have preached the Sermon on the Is the World Indebted to Christianity? 185 Mount, has said little or nothing which can help the modern world as much as the scien- tific revelations of a student like Darwin, or of a philosopher like Herbert Spencer, or of a poet like Goethe or Shakespeare. We know this wiU sound like blasphemy to the believer, but a moment's honest and fearless reflection wiU 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 coun- try 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 evolu- tion of humanity. It was beyond him to conceive the consoHdation of the nations 186 The Truth About Jesus 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 so- cial and international problems which con- front 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 soUd and substantial buildings, devoted to the interests of commerce and civilization. To bring out and emphasize the wide breach between the man who j)reached the Sermon on the Mount, and progressive and aggres- sive, busy and wealthy, modern Chicago, I Is the World Indebted to Christianity? 187 took the words of Jesus and mentally in- scribed them upon the walls of these build- ings. 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 edu- cation of their children, for the maintenance of their families when they themselves have ceased to five, — 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 na- tional bank, I ^vrote: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth." If we fol- lowed these teachings, would not our indus- trial 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 hand- some 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 188 The Truth About Jesus for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the king- dom 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 seri- ously our soldiers to remember the words of Jesus when fighting the Spaniards : "If a man smite. thee on one cheek," etc. Is the World Indebted to Christianity? 189 Write upon our halls of justice and court- houses and statute books, and on every law- yer'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 gos- pel than that which I have preached unto you, let him be accursed." Think of plac- ing 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 perse- cuted," which is equivalent to encouraging them to submit to, rather than to resist, op- pression. Or upon our colleges and universities, our libraries and laboratories consecrated to sci- ence, write the words: "The wisdom of this world is fooHshness with God," and "God has chosen the foolish to confound the wise." 190 The Truth About Jesus Ah, yes, the foolish of Asia, it is true, suc- ceeded in confounding the philosophers of Europe. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Jesus, did replace Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, Cicero, Caesar and the AntoninesI 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 sin- cere 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 press- ing yoke of a stubborn Asiatic superstition, and push the future even beyond the beauty and liberty of the old Pagan world ! Figures on a Phenician Vase, Showing the Use of the Cross, Evidently in Some Ceremony of a Religious Nature. CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM Christianity as an Asiatic cult is not suit- able to European races. To prove this, let us make a careful comparison be- tween Paganism and Christianity. There are many foolish things, and many ex- cellent things, in both the Pagan and the Christian religions. We are not con- cerned 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 thres- hold 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 peo- ple, Europe was always in advance of Asia. 191 192 The Truth About Jesus Do we know of any good reason, when it comes to religion, why Asia should be in- comparably superior to anything Europe has produced in that line? Unless we be- lieve 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 rea- soning, and that it still remains to be shown by the recital of facts, that Europe not only ought to have produced a better reli- gion than Asia, but that she did. In my opinion, between the Pagan and Christian view of life there is the same dif- ference 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 in- fluences which operate in the womb of na- ture, where "the embryos of races are nour- ished into form and individuality?" I can- not answer that question satisfactorily, and I am not going to attempt to answer it at all. We know there is a radical difference Christianity and Paganism 193 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 pro- gressiveness are abreast of the most ad- vanced representatives of European cul- ture. Nor has Asia been altogether barren; she has blossomed in many spots, and she nursed the flame of civihzation at a time when Europe was not yet even cradled. To show the intellectual point of view of the Asiatic, let me quote a pas- sage 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 194 The Truth About Jesus of a woman? Man that is a worm, and the son of man, which is a worm" This, then, is the standpoint of the Ori- ental. He beheves he is a poor httle worm. His philosophy must necessarily trail in the dust. A worm cannot have the thoughts of an eagle; a worm cannot have the imag- ination 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 standj)oint. To be per- fectly 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 nor- mal pulse. The habitual accent of the Ori- ental 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 help- less wiggling — and its home is in the dust; Christianity and Paganism 195 dirt is its daily food. Moreover, it is in danger of being stamped or trampled into annihilation at any instant. A worm rep- resents 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 in- herited 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 inde- pendence. Slavery has a fascination for the children of the east. The air of inde- pendence is too sharp for them. They crave a master, a Sultan or a Czar, who shall own them body and soul. Through long prac- tice, they have acquired the art of servility and flattery, of salaams and prostrations— - an art in which they have become so effi- cient that it would be to them like throwing away so much capital to abandon its prac- 196 The Truth 'About Jesus tice. 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 fea- tures like its politics, is a product of the suppressed mind, which finds in the creep- ing 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 bring- ing 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, implor- ing 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. Christianity and Paganism 197 There has never been a republic in Asia, which is another way of saying that the Asi- atic mind has never asserted its independ- ence. Hence its thought smacks of slavery. In pohtics, 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 diiference between European self -appreciation and Asiatic self-deprecia- tion furnishes the key to the problem under discussion. Paganism is the religion of a self-govern- ing race. Buddhism, Judaism, Mohammed- anism, and Christianity are religions born on a soil where man is owned by another. It will be impossible to imagine Marcus Aurel- ius, 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. ]\Iarcus Aurelius was a gentleman. The European conception of a gentleman implies self-respect and inde- 198 The Truth About Jesus pendence; the Oriental conception of a gentleman implies self-abasement and ac- quiescence. The Oriental gentleman is a man who serves his king as though he were his slave. But observe now how the Oriental pro- ceeds 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 Jer- sey. There were other speakers besides my- self ; 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 black- board 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 Christianity and Paganism 199 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 op- pressed 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 de- graded, 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 sug- gests a terrible conspiracy against man. For his ruin, sun, moon and stars co-operate 200 The Truth About Jesus 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 behef ! 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, sail- ing cloud, beaming star, beautiful woman, or brave man. The Oriental suspects na- ture 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 pros- titute in whose embrace lurks death! But, once more; not satisfied with drag- ging the world down to the plane of his to- tally depraved nature, and that again to the level of the worm, the Asiatic projects his Christianity and Paganism 201 fatal thought into the next world and, cros- sing the grave, that silent and painless home of a tired race, he crowds the beyond with a thousand thousand pains and aches and hor- rors and fires — with sulphur and brimstone and burning hells. His frightened imagina- tion 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 suffer- ing, — to the lash, to oppression's crushing heel, — he dare not dream of a painless fu- ture, 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 shrink- ing submission, with the spring of his heart broken, his spirit crushed, all independence strangled in his soul, — he puts in the big- gest 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. 202 The Truth About Jesus 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-born man, no brave soul could ever have invented so abhorrent an idea. Only under a regime of absolutism, only under an Oriental Sultan whose cap- rice is law, whose vengeance is terrible, whose favors are fickle, whose power is crushing, whose greed is insatiable, whose torture in- struments are without number, and whose dark dungeons always resound with the rat- tling 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 hu- man 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 glor- ious eyes, so full of surprises, so deep, so appealing! Look at the soft round hands, the little feet, the exquisite mouth, opening Christianity and Paganism 203 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. Con- secrated 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! hud- dled 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 ^vretch and take him into my arms, but I confess that even if I had a heart as big as the 204 The Truth About Jesus 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 over- powers me and wrings from my lips such hard words, I find some little respite in con- templating 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 be- lieved, it is a heresy to reject the damnation of unbaptized infants: "Whosoever shajl tell," writes this Father of the church, "that infants shall be quickened in Christ who *Plutarch Ad Uxorem. Comp. Lecky's History of European Morals. Vol. I. Christianity and Paganism 205 died without partaking in his sacrament, does both contradict the apostles' teaching and condemn, the whole church."* It is in- finitely more religious to disagree with the apostles and the church, if that is their teach- ing. 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. All that we have advanced thus far may be summed up in one phrase: Asia in- vented 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 be- fore his lords and masters, could such an idea have been invented. There is not a *St. Augustine Epist. 166. 206 The Truth About Jesus man in all our sacred scriptures who could stand before the deity erect and unabashed, or who could speak in the accents of a Ci- cero who said, "We boast justly of our owii 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 positioa, 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 superna- tural powers. The great men for the Ori- ental 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 admira- tion of their fellows. Let me quote to you Plutarch's eloquent sentence relative to this Christianity and Paganism 207 subject: "Whenever we begin an enterprise or take possession of a charge, or experience a calamity, we place before our eyes the ex- amples 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 nothmg, and refused to believe it until priests suc- ceeded in dominating the mind of Europe: "The catechism following the Scripture teaches that ... we are not only a disin- herited family, but we are personally de- praved and demoralized."* Goodness I the Oriental imagination, abused by slavery, cannot rid itself of the idea of being disin- herited, 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."* •Weatminster C»techiBm, Comments. 208 The Truth About Jesus' 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 for- ever."* And this is the Gospel we have im- ported from Asia! 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 my- self 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, fan- ciful 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! *\Vestminster Catechism, Comments. Christianity and Paganism 209 Let us recapitulate. The Oriental dis- trust of the natural man, born of self-de- preciation, which is the fruit of prolonged slavery, developes into a sort of mental can- ker spreading at a raging pace until the whole universe, with its glorious sun and stars, becomes an object of horror and loath- ing. Not satisfied with thinking of himself as a worm, of his intellectual and moral na- ture 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 atten- tion to another difference betw^een the Occi- dental and the Oriental mind. When the body is feeble or ill-nourished, it is less liable to re- sist disease; likewise when the mind is alarmed, cowed, or pinched with fear, it be- comes more exposed to superstition. Super- stition is the disease of the mind. It will keep away from robust minds, as physical disease from a body in health. Now, the 210 The Truth About Jesus Asiatic mind, scared into silence and sub- jection, — starved to a mere shadow of what it should be, falls an easy prey to all the maladies that mind is heir to. The Euro- pean mind, on the other hand, with room and air to move and grow in, developes a vitality which offers resistance to all attacks of mental disease. That explains why su- perstition thrives with ignorance and slav- ery, 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 par- tial to miracle and mystery? His mind is sick. To believe is easier to him than to reason. He follows the line of the least re- sistance: 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 Christianity and Paganism 211 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. Un- like Asia, democratic Europe believed in a republic of gods. Polytheism is more con- sonant with the republican idea, than mono- theism. If we would let the American Pres- ident rule the land without the aid of the two houses of congress or his cabinet min- isters, 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 dis- agreeing among themselves, and all bidding for man's support, man would count for more. The Greeks could not tolerate a Je- hovah, or an Allah, before whom the Orien- 212 The Truth About Jesus tal rabble bent the knee. "Allah knows," exclaims the Moslem; that is why the Mo- hammedans continue in ignorance. "iVllah 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 in- sufficient to avert a sentence of eternal con- demnation, 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 pur- port 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. Christianity and Paganism 213 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 Uve; 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 be- fore the throne of a Sultan, and one by one signing away their liberties? "The founda- tion 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 reh- gion. 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 free- dom-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 inde- pendence of the Pagans,— our forefathers, and taken upon our necks the strangling yoke of the slave-thought of Asia! Christ, Half Woman, at Baptism in Jordan. Cathedral of Chartres, France. PART III. SOME MODERN OPINIONS ABOUT JESUS. Christianity *' dwells with noxious exag- geration 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 214 Some Modern O-pinions About Jesus 215 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 Naza- reth as an epoch-making soul, an era-forming spirit, a character in whom the light of an illus- trious 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 over- flows all words." ♦Unitarian-Independent preacher of All Souls Church, Chicago. 216 The Truth About Jesus 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 im- possible task. "I am compelled to think of him as one who won the right of pre- eminence 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 ques- tion 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 his- tory." No one knows better than Mr. Jones that the sayings attributed to Jesus — the fin- est 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 Some Modern Opinions About Jesus 217 his * 'words," that Jesus "won the right of preeminence in the world's history"? What did he do that was not done by his prede- cessors? 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? More- over, 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 hun- gry, 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 con- tributed even less than many a doctor con- tributes today to the welfare of the world. More poor and diseased people are visited and medicined gratuitously by a modern phy- sician in one month, than Jesus cured mirac- ulously 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 dan- ger of contracting disease himself, which 218 The Truth About Jesus 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 di- vinity, have done so much more? Mr. Jones falls into the orthodox habit of not apply- ing 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 sacri- Some Modern Opinions About Jesus 219 fice 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 pic- tures 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 ser- enity of Socrates drinking the hemlock in prison ! Nor would it do to say that this is only 220 The Truth About Jesus 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 de- serves, 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 man- kind? 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 hu- man 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 Some Modern Opinions About Jesus 221 do the same, when not the salvation of one country alone, but of the whole world, de- pended 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 Bud- dhist 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 him- self on the subject, except to intimate that when a slave does all his duty faith- fully, even then he is only an "unprofitable slave," unworthy of the thanks of his mas- 222 The Truth About Jesus ter. 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 slav- ery. 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 any- thing about ranks and titles. The doctrine of humanity to animals, our dumb neighbors, is a positive tenet in Bud- dhism; is it in Christianity? Two and a half centuries before Jesus, under the influence of Buddha's teaching, King Asoka convened a religious Parlia- ment, offering to each and every represen- tative of other religions, absolute religious liberty. Is there any trace of such toler- ance 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 great- Some Modern Opinions Aboiit Jesus 223 est 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 over- flows 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 repre- sent him as "cursing the fig tree," as call- ing 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 hold- ing him responsible for the curses attributed to him in the gospels. 224 The Truth About Jesus 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 at- tributed 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 human- ity; 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 Hin- doo preacher spoke of Buddha, as Mr. Jones does of Jesus, as a "personality de- fying all analysis, baffling definition and overflowing all words" — one who has "won the right to preeminence in the world's his- tory," — 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. Some Modern Opinions About Jesus 225 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 ex- amples from his sermon: "The story of the Good Samaritan has had a power beyond the story of the senseless blight- ing 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 Ser- mon 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." 226 The Truth About Jesus We can hardly believe Mr. Jones speak- ing of ''rescuing the world from heathen hands,'* etc. Who were the heathen? And think of countenancing the craze of the cru- sades, 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 con- quering kingdom of love and justice. Jesus took large stock in tomorrow; he laughed at the prudence that never dares, the mock right- eousness 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 obliga- tion 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 rec- ognize his obligations to the unborn. Perhaps Some Modern Opinions About Jesus 227 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 de- scribing 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 nar- now gates of life. He said: "Many are called but few are chosen;" he told his di- sciples to confine their good work to the lost sheep of the House of Israel, and in- timated 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 in- terpolation, and Mr. Jones does not believe in the miracle of the resurrection. Jesus 228 The Truth About 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 ex- pected to say to the people on his left, "de- part 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 ex- pectations." "He believed there was to be a day after today, and recognized his obligation to it," writes Mr. Jones in his indiscriminate lauda- tion 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 follow- ing: "He was honest enough to recognize his obhgations to the unborn." How does our clerical neighbor arrive at such a con- Some Modern Opinions About Jesus 229 elusion? 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 belie veth 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 ques- tion thus: "I do not know. Are you? If anyone is inclined to give me that high name, with the spiritual and ethical conno- tation 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 230 The Truth About Jesus ethics and science, of charity and the hu- manities, far in advance of Jesus, and that in these churches there are men and women who in breadth of mind and nobiHty df 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 rehgion 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 moderniz- ing Jesus, by selecting his more essential teachings, and relegating his eccentricities to the background, by making his name synonymous with the best aspirations of hu- manity, by idealizing his character and en- closing 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 wav- ering converted him to the European atti- tude toward women; Jesus was silent on Some Modern Opinions About Jesus 231 the question of slavery, the churches have urged him with success to champion the cause of the bondsman; Jesus denounced hberty 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 be- heved 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 pray- ing to the duty and privilege of labor, but the church in America and Protestant Eu- rope 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 thorough- fares, ^'blessed are the poor;" no longer is his voice heard denouncing this world as be- longing to the devil. The modern church, modernized by science, has in turn modern- ized the gospels. And yet Mr. Jones pre- fers 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. 232 The Truth About Jesus In conclusion: Mr. Jones admits that Christianity is not unique, that Buddha conquered greater tyrannies than Christ; that *'humihty 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 objec- tion 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 re- versed, 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 with- out 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 sub- sequent 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, 233 234 The Truth About Jesus —of Phidias and Praxiteles ! whose immor- tal 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 Sun- day 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 civil- ization of the ancient world — the monu- ments of thy unfading glory — to build therewith a pedestal for his mythical Christ ! I can imagine the reverend advocate say- ing: "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 hu- Another Rhetorical Jesus 235 manity 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 preist- 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 de- prived 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 Chris- tendom 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 ora- torios 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 selfish- ness; to disband every organization which 236 The Truth About Jesus 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 Chris- tianity 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? Another Rhetorical Jesus 237 What about the centuries of rehgious wars, the most imbecile as well as the most bloody, from the effects of which Germany, France, Italy and England are still suffer- ing 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: *'A11 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 238 The Truth About Jesus 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, it it is equally powerless to pro- tect 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 reli- gion 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 say- ing "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, per- verted the judgment of the noblest, while at the same time they stung the evil-minded Another Rhetorical Jesus 239 into something like madness. The world knew nothing of the tyranny of dogma, or rehgious oppression and persecution, com- paratively 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 Go- morrah, 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 threatents the unbeliever with a fate worse than that of Sodom and Gomorrah? The benefits which the Rev. Boyle pa- rades 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 human- ities which he praises, followed upon the gradual decline of the Jewish-Christian re- ligion 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 240 The Truth About Jesus 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 con- dition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would without hesita- tion name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to t^e accession of Com- modus." 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 Chris- tian 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 Beth- lehem 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 : Dec. 20, 1904. Rev. W. A. Bartlett, Washington Boul. and Ann St., Chicago. Dear Mr. Bartlett : In the report of your ser- mon 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 ♦Pastor First Congregational Church, Chicago. 241 242 The Truth About Jesus festival, and that "giving presents" at this season is a much older practice than Christianity. Of course, you do not believe that Christmas is cele- brated 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 ex- changed. Surely you would not claim that for New Year's day, too, the world is indebted to the Beth- lehem 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 *We Owe Everything to Jesus'' 243 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 friend- ly 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 congre- gation, to answer indirectly our question. He denied that *' Christmas w as a recomposi- tion of an old Pagan festival," and said that the early Christians "fasted and wept" be- cause of these Pagan festivals, and that as early as the second century, the birth of Jesus was commemorated. In short, he pro- nounced it "a distortion of history" to assign to the Christmas festival a Pagan origin. In his great work on the History of Civiliza- tion^ Buckle says this, to which we call Dr. Bartlett's attention: "As soon as eminent 244 The Truth About Jesus men grown unwilling to enter any profession, the luster of that profession will be tarn- ished; 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 en- gage 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 dis- tortion of history," and editorial in the Chi- cago Tribune said this: But the festive character of the celebration, the giving of presents, the feasting and merri- ment, the use of evergreen and holly and mistle- toe, are all remnants of Pagan rites. Continuing, the same editorial called at- tention 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. ^'We Oive Everything to Jesus'* 245 They exchanged presents, they decorated their dweUings and temples with green boughs ; slaves were given special privileges, and the spirit of good will was abroad among men. This Ro- man 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 manu- script which, unfortunately, is not to be found anywhere. But Clement of Alex- andria, 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 Pa- scha Computiiis, in the year 243. Jan. 5th is the date defended by Epiphanius. Bara- daens, 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. 246 The Truth About Jesus 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 sum- mer, 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 bar- barous, 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 cerem.onies, 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 "We Owe Everything to Jesus** 247 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 con- found 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 eman- cipation of the negro, the secularization of education, the revision of old creeds, and a thousand other things. But their oppo- sition 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 248 The Truth About Jesus 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 merry- making. 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 cele- brating Christmas was fined five shillings and costs. But, see, having failed to sup- press these good institutions, they now turn about and claim that they have always be- lieved in them, and that, in fact, we would not now be enjoying any one of these bene- fits but for the Christian Chruch. 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 loose- ness in thought. They seem to have little conscience for evidence. Mr. Jones says, for instance: 'We Owe Everything to Jesus'' 249 "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 beheve" against the evi- dence, merely because it is his pleasure or interest to do so. This is not very edifying, to be sure. Mr. Jones takes all his infor- mation 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 at- tention 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 be- trothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. And Joseph, her husband, being a righteous 250 The Truth About Jesus man, and not willing to make her a public ex- ample, 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 testi- mony (See Luke, 1st chapter), Jesus was, if he ever Hved, and the records which give Mr. Jones his ideal Jesus are rehable, the son of a man who has succeeded in con- ceahng 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 Owe Everything to Jesus'' 251 We take our leave of the three clergy- men, 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. Head of a God with Horns. Museum of St. Germain. 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 w^aters, after having tried for a period of years the open seas, and has be- come a more enthusiastic champion of the god of the Christians than many a Christian scholar whom we could name. The pendu- lum 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 hur- riedly at that, accepted the conventional estimate of Jesus and enlarged upon it. Jesus is entitled to all the praise which is 252 A Liberal Jew on Jesus 253 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 pubHcans 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. *Tt 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: *Tf 254 The Truth About Jesus Christ came to New York or Chicago, the pubHcans and sinners would sit at his feet.'* But what has the reception which pubhcans 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 wel- come him, and still the churches might stone him, which in fact, according to Adler's own admission, was the case in Jerusalem, where the syangogues conspired against Jesus, while Mary Magdalene sat at his feet. Nor are his words about "the publi- cans and sinners loving Jesus as they loved him in the days of yore" edifying. Who does he mean by the "publicans and sin- ners," 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 A Liberal Jetv on Jesus 255 Christian doctrine depends on the accounts con- tained 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 im- mortality 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 think- ing, 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 unfamiliar- ity 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, in- variably have passed into oblivion. Why did this particular story persist, despite the paucity 256 The Truth About Jesus 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 ration- alist 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 in- vented 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 in- telligent 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 simi- lar 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 mi- raculous beliefs are disappearing, and the story of the Christian resurrection will not be an exception. But Prof. Adler's motive A Liberal Jew on Jesus 257 in believing that the story of the resurrec- tion 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 resur- rection of Jesus because of the precedent con- viction 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 accu- rate 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 fle^h with hia 258 The Truth About Jesus fingers before he would credit his eyes. Jesus had to eat and drink with them, he had to "open their eyes," and perform vari- ous miracles before they would believe that he was not dead. The text which says that the apostles hesitated to believe in the resur- rection 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 con- viction" in the minds of the disciples that such a man as Jesus could not die. Appar- ently 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 convic- tion?" "That a personality of such super- lative excellence, so radiant, so incompara- bly 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 aston- A Liberal Jew on Jesus 259 ished, and grieved as well, to see the use which so enlightened a man as Prof. Adler makes of his gifts. Will this Jewish ad- mirer of the god of Christendom kindly tell us wherein Jesus was superlatively ex- cellent, 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 de- nounced all who had preceded him as un- worthy 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 him- self the equal of God. "I and my father are one," he is reported to have said; and 260 The Truth About Jesus 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 reli- ance can we place in his biographers when the things which they affirm with the great- est confidence are to be rejected? Yet Prof. Adler, swept off his feet by the popular and conventional enthusiasm about Jesus, describes him as "a person- ality of such superlative excellence, so radi- ant, 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. A Liberal Jew on Jesus 261 That a loose way of speaking grows upon one if one is not careful, and that sounding phrases and honest historical criti- cism are not the same thing, will be seen by Prof. Adler's lavish praise of John Cal- vin. 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 com- munity in which Jacques Gruet was be- headed because he had "danced," and also because he had committed tlie grave offense of saying that "JNIoses was only a man and no one knows what God said to him," and in which JNIichael Servetus was burned alive for holding opniions contrarj'^ 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 in- quisition? 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 262 The Truth About Jesus 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 intellec- tually 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 pun- ishment 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. A Liberal Jew on Jesus 263 when Calvin himself was a fugitive and a wanderer, he had written in favor of reli- gious tolerance, but no sooner did he be- come 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 pre- ceded Prof. Adler, there would have been no Ethical Culture societies in America to- day. Prof. Adler is indebted for the liber- ties 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 Etliical 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 264 The Truth About Jesus be called both "noble and mighty."* 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 Cal- vin, evidences of his estrangement from ra- tionalism, 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. Ad- ler, endorsing the popular estimate of Jesus, accepts also the popular attitude toward sci- ence. 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 j^raise 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 di- vine spark that has been set ablaze in him, it is not sufficient to point to an ape as our an- •See "The Kingdom of God in Geneva Under Calvin." — M. AT. MangaMrian. A Liberal Jew on Jesus 265 cestor. If we are descended from an anthro- poid ape on the physical side, we are not de- scended 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 evokition was a heresy, or by an orthodox clergyman of to- day, 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 an- thropoid 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 be- lieve 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 rea- 266 The Truth About Jesus son 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 Hfe 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 Metch- nikoif 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 differ- ence between a pump and a watch is only a difference of mechanism. The stone and the soul represent different stages of pro- gression, not different substances. If a charcoal can be transformed into a dia- mond, why may not nature, with the re- sources of infinity at her command, refine a stone into a soul? Let us not marvel at this; it is not less thinkable than the propo- sition 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. A Liberal Jew on Jesus 267 "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 hfe 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 think- ing that matter, refined, elevated, ripened, cultured, becomes both sentient and ra- tional? If matter can feel, can see, can hear, can it not also think? Does not the horse see, hear and think? There is no low- ering 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 mind- less. 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 268 The Truth About Jesus 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 anthro- poid 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 A Liberal Jew on Jesus 269 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 liis criticism of evolution. APPENDIX The argument in this volume will be better under- stood if we give to our readers the comments and criticisms which our little pamphlet, Jesus a Myth, and The Mangasarian-Crapsey Debate on the His- toricity 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. 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 knowl- edge 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 Histor- icity 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 in- stance, indeed, I think, in every single instance in history, all such movements begin with a single per- sonality." (P. 5, Mangasarian-Crapsey Debate.) *Price, 25c. Independent Religious Society, Orchestra Hall, Chicago. 270 Appendix 271 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 Chris- tianity. 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 de- posit 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 fol- low 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 dis- covered the great planet Uranus — from their knowl- edge of the movements of these bodies they were convinced that these perturbations could be occa- sioned 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 oi a near-by planet into demonstration. Jesus is still a probability. 272 The Truth About Jesus 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 out- lined history," but at best a mixture of fact and fiction. Rev. Dr. Crapsey: "We can follow Jesus' his- tory 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 "fol- lowing 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 b<* Appendix 273 purely mythological .... the word Christ, you know, means the anointed one. . . .they (the Hebrews) ex- pected the coming of that Christ. .. .But that is purely a mythical title, {The Debate — P. 35.) Answer : Did the Hebrews then expect the com- ing 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 apos- , tie 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 deny- ing that a title "is come in the flesh," — but of a per- son, 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 myth- ical. 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 274 The Truth About Jesus — also historical? To answer that Jesus is histor- ical, but The Anointed is not, is to evade the question. When Mosheim declares that "The prevalent opinion among early Christians was that Christ ex- isted 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 cruci- fied; 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 He- brews 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 com- ing," 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 com- ing; the Christian illusion says, Christ has come. The Hebrews had no evidence that 'Christ' was coming, although that expectation was a great fac- tor 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 lec- turer an "unscrupulous sophist," who "practices Appendix 275 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 out- rageous 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 w^as addressing the public his memory v^^as strong enough to enable him to say, "sen- tence after sentence was put forth by Mr. Man- gasarian 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 state- ments 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 276 The Truth About Jesus been "preceded by a series of most astonishing statements of various sorts." And what was the statement which, while it crip- pled 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 Testa- ment, 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 Appendix 277 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 epis- tle, 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 pres- ence 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. Ill The same clergyman, to whom a copy of the Man- gasarian-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 sound- ness 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 with- 278 The Truth About Jesus out 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 'TruUo'; 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 phan- tom. Milman, the Christian historian, states that the belief about Jesus Christ "adopted by almost all the Gnostic sects," was that Jesus Christ was hut 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 com- plaint. 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 In- vented," and this clergyman's admission that at least parts of the bible are invented is very gratifying. In a former communication, this same clergy- man 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. Appendicv 279 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 sac- rifice 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 clergy- man replies: "Paul tells us nothing of the kind. In a speech which is put into the mouth of FauV'—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 trust- worthy, 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. 280 The Truth About Jesus In other words, only those passages in the bible are authentic which the clergy quote; those which the rationalists quote are spurious. In the mean- time, 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 in- terview 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 re- ports 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 Neivs 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. Man- Appendix 281 gasarian, the latter claims he was justified in as- suming that the published report was reliable. But it is with pleasure that the Independent Religious Society gives Rabbi Hirsch this opportunity to ex- plain 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 Chris- tianity 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 ques- tion 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 Scrip- tures, it will be enough to show the relation of re- ligion 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 re- sponsible 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 Manga- sarian-Crapsey Debate. Let us hear what he has to say on the historicity of Jesus. The Reverend gentleman begins by an uncom- promising denial of our statements, and ends by 282 The Truth About Jesus virtually admitting all that wc contend for. This morning we will write of his denials; next Sun- day, 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 seri- ous." Notwithstanding this protest. Dr. Barton pro- ceeds 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 perform- ing 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 pub- licly 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 false- hoods : First, that Jesus was not much in Jeru- salem — 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 vis- Appendix 283 ited Jerusalem only once in all his life, yet if he preached there daily in the synagogues; if he per- formed 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 Gos- pels, 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 re- plies : "Nor is it of consequence that Paul seldom quotes the words of Jesus." "Seldom" — would im- ply 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 284 The Truth About Jesus "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 Con- gregational 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 knowl- edge "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 writ- ten! 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 ting the words, "The Gospel according to Mat- thew or John," which is not true, — print, "The Gos- pel by whomever written"? II. "At the very least, four of Paul's epistles Appendix 285 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 doubt- lessly "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 our- selves? The good man controls his appetites and passions, but his flesh is not any different from any- body 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 286 The Truth About Jesus 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 cen- turies the Christians were compelled to resort to forgery to prove the historicity of Jesus. The doc- tor 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 char- acter, 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 re- plies with considerable temper: "To date people's right to think of Jesus as a man from that decree Appendix 287 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 call- ing 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 Chris- tian church — which to this day prints in its bibles "Translated from the Original Greek," when no original manuscripts are in existence — to be charac- terized ? 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 Manga^arian-Crapscy 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 for- ward 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 insti- tuted by the God Heracles or Hercules, son of 288 The Truth About Jesus Zeus ; the Roman Chronology began with the build- ing of Rome by Romulus, which by the same rea- soning 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 ? Accord- ing to this clergyman, scientists, instead of study- ing 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 our- selves the pleasure of laughing at it; we will do our best to give it a serious answer. If the ex- istence of such a country as Palestine proves that Jesus is real, the existence of Switzerland must prove that William Tell is historical; and the ex- istence 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: Appendix 289 "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 de- scendant of Jesus. Did the priests of Baal or Mo- loch 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 min- isters, 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 slaugh- tered . . . 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 Em- peror, 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 290 The Truth About Jesus 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 resur- rection falls in March one year, and in April an- other. 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 argu- ments, 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 testi- mony." This gave the clergyman a splendid opportunity to present in clear and convincing form the evi- dence for the reality of Jesus. But one thing pre- vented him: — the lack of evidence. Therefore, after announcing the subject, he dis- Appendix 291 missed 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 es- sentially 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 bom, 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 author- ity says: "The chief of these preliminary questions is the genuineness of the epistles bearing Paul's name, which if they he 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 un- certainty 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 de- fensible." Let the reader remember that the above is not 292 The Truth About Jesus from a rationalist, but from the Rev. Edwin Hatch, D. D., Vice-Principal, St. Mary Hall, Oxford, Eng- land. Were we disposed to quote rationalist authorities, the argument against Paul would be far more de- cisive. 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 some- thing 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 : "J^sus 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 Appendix 293 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 in- nocent blood stained the hands of the clergy, who also handle the Holy Sacraments. She was mur- dered 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 un- truth again. Hypatia was murdered in church, and by the clergy, because she was not orthodox. n. POLTROT, the Protestant, in the i6th cen- tury assassinated Francois, the Catholic duke of Guise, in France, and the leaders of the church, instead of disclaiming responsibility for the act, *See Author's, The Martyrdom of Hypatia. 294 The Truth About Jesus publicly praised the assassin, and Theodore Beza, the colleague of Calvin, promised him a crown in heaven. {De I'etat etc. P. 82. Quoted by Jules Simon.) III. JAMES CLEMENT, a Catholic, assassi- nated 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 assas- sin'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 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 in- terest 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? Appendix 295 Without comment we recommend the following text to their attention : "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye ; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." {Mat- thew VII, 5.) Date Due &«w«^«*^ 0€^L4Hb«^ i 1 f) PRINTED IN IJ. S. A. 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