Chapter X (2)

After recounting what he believes to be the salutary influences exerted by the medieval conception of the Virgin, Lecky says: "But the price, and perhaps the necessary price, of this was the exaltation of the Virgin as an omnipresent deity of infinite power as well as infinite condescension. The legends represented her as performing every kind of prodigy.... The painters depicted her invested with the divine aureole, judging men on equal terms with her Son, or even retaining her ascendancy over him in heaven. In the devotions of the people she was addressed in terms identical with those employed to the Almighty. A reverence similar in kind but less in degree was soon bestowed upon the other saints, who speedily assumed the position of the minor deities of Paganism" (History of Rationalism, Vol. I, pp. 226, 227).

Regarding the deification and worship of saints Hallam says: "Every cathedral or monastery had its tutelar saint, and every saint his legend, fabricated in order to enrich the churches under his protection, by exaggerating his virtues, his miracles, and consequently his power of serving those who paid liberally for his patronage. Many of those saints were imaginary persons; sometimes a blundered inscription added a name to the calendar; and sometimes, it is said, a heathen god was surprised at the company to which he was introduced, and the rites with which he was honored" (Middle Ages, p. 603).

The church historian Mosheim admits and deplores the truth of this: "It is, at the same time, as undoubtedly certain, as it is extravagant and monstrous, that the worship of the martyrs was modeled, by degrees, according to the religious services that were paid to the gods before the coming of Christ" (Ecclesiastical History, p. 98).

Bishop Newton says: "The very same temples, the very same images, which were once consecrated to Jupiter and the other demons [gods], are now consecrated to the Virgin Mary and the other saints."

Milman says that at an early period "Christianity began to approach to a polytheistic form, or at least to permit what it is difficult to call by any other name than polytheistic, habits and feelings of devotion" (History of Christianity, Vol. III, p. 424).

8. Monotheism.

Monotheism, as previously stated, is the doctrine of one god only. It has gradually displaced, to a great extent, the fetichism and polytheism of earlier times.

Comte's law of human development is as follows:

1. Theological, or fictitious, 2. Metaphysical, or abstract, 3. Scientific, or positive.

"In the Theological state, the human mind, seeking the essential nature of things, the first and final causes (the origin and purpose) of all effects--in short Absolute knowledge--supposes all phenomena to be produced by the immediate action of supernatural beings.

"In the Metaphysical state, which is only a modification of the first, the mind supposes, instead of supernatural beings, abstract forms, veritable entities (that is, personified abstractions) inherent in all things, and capable of producing all phenomena.

"In the final, the Positive state, the mind has given over the vain search after Absolute notions, the origin and destination of the universe, and the causes of phenomena, and applies itself to the study of their laws--that is, their invariable relations of succession and resemblance" (Positive Philosophy, pp. 26, 27).

The lowest state of human development is the theological. Here the masses of mankind still repose. Only the scholars and thinkers have advanced beyond this and many of these have only reached the second or metaphysical state.

The highest point in the theological state is monotheism. To Judaism Christians ascribe the glory of having been the first religion to teach a pure monotheism. But monotheism existed long before the Jews attained to it. Zoroaster and his earliest followers were monotheists, dualism being a later development of the Persian theology. The adoption of monotheism by the Jews, which occurred only at a very late period in their history, was not, however, the result of a divine revelation, or even of an intellectual superiority, for the Jews were immeasurably inferior intellectually to the Greeks and Romans, to the Hindus and Egyptians, and to the Assyrians and Babylonians, who are supposed to have retained a belief in polytheism. This monotheism of the Jews was chiefly the result of a religious intolerance never before equaled and never since surpassed, except in the history of Christianity and Mohammedanism, the daughters of Judaism. Jehovistic priests and kings tolerated no rivals of their god and made death the penalty for disloyalty to him. The Jewish nation became monotheistic for the same reason that Spain, in the clutches of the Inquisition, became entirely Christian.

Jesus of Nazareth and his disciples, if they existed, were probably monotheists, believed that Jehovah was the only God, and neither believed nor claimed that Jesus was other than the son of man. As generations passed the man became obscured, his deeds were magnified until at length he was accepted as the Son of God, and a God himself. The deification of Jesus, then, together with the apotheosis of other mortals, cannot be regarded as an evolution from Jewish monotheism to a higher plane, but rather as a relapse from monotheism to polytheism.

9. The Mediatorial Idea.

This idea had its origin chiefly in the worship of the elements and forces of nature by primitive man. He believed that these elements and forces were intelligent beings. He realized that in their presence he was in a measure helpless. He therefore sought to win their favor and appease their wrath. He made offerings to them; he prayed to them; he worshiped them. But other men, more wise, more cunning, and more fortunate, appeared to have greater influence with these deities. He employed them to intercede for him; and thus the priesthood was established. The priest was the first mediator.

More complex religious systems were in time evolved, and in some of them mediatorial gods appeared. The mediatorial idea was prominent in the Persian system. Mithra was the Persian mediator. The worship of Mithra was carried to Rome and the Romans became acquainted with the mediatorial idea. In an exposition of Philo's philosophy, Mrs. Evans says: "The most exalted spirits are able to raise themselves to the pure essence and find peace and joy which earthly conditions cannot disturb; but weaker natures need a helper in a Being, who, coming from above, can dwell below and lift their souls to God. The majority of mankind, in their passage along the slippery path of life, are sure to fall, and would perish if it were not for a mediator between themselves and God.... The power of the Caesars, culminating in Augustus, enabled them to claim divine honors from the people, already disposed to see in them chosen agents of celestial sovereignty. Rome, according to the expression of Valerius Maximus, recognized in the Caesars the mediators between heaven and earth. And that was before Christianity introduced its anointed mediator" (The Christ Myth, pp. 90, 92).

The God of the Jews, to quote the words of Jefferson, was "cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust." He had cursed his creation; he had drowned a world; he had imposed the sentence of death--spiritual as well as physical--upon his children. To placate this monster, to induce him to remit this sentence, the priests were powerless. Millions of animals, and even human beings, had been sacrificed to him in vain. At length his "only begotten son," Jesus Christ, offered himself as a sacrifice to atone for the sins of the world. The sacrifice was accepted, and a reconciliation was effected between God and man. Thus Christ became the great mediator of Christianity. "There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. ii, 5). "He is the mediator of the new testament" (Heb. ix, 15). From Persia and from Rome this mediatorial God has come.

10. The Messianic Idea.

The desire for a deliverer naturally arises in the minds of a people who are in subjection and bondage. This desire was the germ of the Messianic idea. While there are traces of this idea in the earlier writings of the Hebrews, it reached its highest development during and immediately following the Captivity, and again in the Maccabean age.

The Messiah of Judaism and the Messiah, or Christ, of Christianity, were derived from the Persian theology, the adherents of each system modifying the doctrine to suit their respective notions. In its article on Zoroaster, "Chambers's Encyclopedia" says: "There is an important element to be noticed, viz., the Messiah, or Sosiosh, from whom the Jewish and Christian notions of a Messiah are held by many to have been derived.... Even a superficial glance at this sketch will show our readers what very close parallels between Jewish and Christian notions on the one hand, and the Zoroastrian on the other, are to be drawn."

Christians cite numerous passages from the writings of the Old Testament which they claim foretold the advent of Jesus. Not one of these passages, as originally penned, refers in the remotest degree to him, though many of them do refer to the office he is said to have filled. The Jews hoped for a deliverer, for a national leader who would reestablish the kingdom of Israel, and restore to it the glory of David's reign. They were loyal to the house of David and believed that this deliverer would be a descendant, a son, of David. Pietists, too, in the fervor of their religious enthusiasm dreamed of universal conversion to the Jehovistic theocracy. In the writings of their prophets and poets these hopes and dreams found expression. "I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David, my servant, thy seed will I establish forever, and build up thy throne to all generations" (Ps. xxxix, 3, 4). "And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him" (Dan. vii, 27).

While the Messianic idea was originally a Persian idea, the materials used in the formation of the Christian Messiah were drawn largely from the Jewish Scriptures. There are passages in the Old Testament, as we have seen, which predict the coming of a Messiah. These furnished a portion of the materials out of which this Messianic deity, Christ, was formed. There are many more which have no reference whatever to a Messiah which have been made to serve as Messianic prophecies. The Old Testament, as we have it, is alleged to be a Jewish work. It is, rather, a Christian work. It is a Christian version of ancient Jewish writings, every book of which has been more or less Christianized. Much of it is scarcely recognizable to a Jewish scholar. This is especially true of so-called Messianic prophecies.

The Christian Messiah was, on the one hand, modeled, to a considerable extent, after the Jewish ideal, while the Jewish materials, on the other hand, were freely altered to fit the new conception. Referring to the work of the Evangelists, M. Renan says: "Sometimes they reasoned thus: 'The Messiah ought to do such a thing; now Jesus is the Messiah, therefore Jesus has done such a thing.' At other times, by an inverse process, it was said: 'Such a thing has happened to Jesus; now Jesus is the Messiah; therefore such a thing was to happen to the Messiah.'" (Jesus, p. 27).

That the so-called Messianic prophecies of the Jewish Scriptures were the immediate source of the Christ is apparent. That he was, however, merely a borrowed idea and not a historical realization of these prophecies is equally apparent. The Jews were expecting a Messiah. Had Jesus realized these expectations they would have accepted him. But he did not realize them. These prophecies were not fulfilled in him. He was not a son of David; he did not deliver his race from bondage; he did not become a king; the important events that were to attend and follow Messiah's advent form no part even of his alleged history. His rejection by the Jews proves him to be either a false Messiah, or an imaginary being--a historical myth, or a pure myth--in either case a myth.

The Jewish argument against Jesus as the Messiah is unanswerable: "We do not find in the present comparatively imperfect stage of human progress the realization of that blessed condition of mankind which the prophet Isaiah associates with the era when Messiah is to appear. And as our Hebrew Scriptures speak of one Messianic advent only, and not of two advents; and as the inspired Book does not preach Messiah's kingdom as a matter of faith, but distinctly identifies it with matters of fact which are to be made evident to the senses, we cling to the plain inference to be drawn from the text of the Bible, and we deny that Messiah has yet appeared, and upon the following grounds: First, because of the three distinctive facts which the inspired seer of Judah inseparably connects with the advent of the Messiah, viz., (1) the cessation of war and the uninterrupted reign of peace, (2) the prevalence of a perfect concord of opinion on all matters bearing upon the worship of the one and only God, and (3) the ingathering of the remnant of Judah and of the dispersed ten tribes of Israel--not one has, up to the present time, been accomplished. Second, we dissent from the proposition that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah announced by the prophets, because the church which he founded, and which his successors developed, has offered, during a succession of centuries, most singular contrast to what is described by the Hebrew Scriptures as the immediate consequence of Messiah's advent, and of his glorious kingdom. The prophet Isaiah declares that when the Messiah appears, peace, love, and union will be permanently established; and every candid man must admit that the world has not realized the accomplishment of this prophecy. Again, in the days of Messiah, all men, as Scripture saith, 'are to serve God with one accord'; and yet it is very certain that since the appearance of him whom Christians believe to be Messiah, mankind has been split into more hostile divisions on the ground of religious belief, and more antagonistic sects have sprung up, than in any historic age before Christianity was preached."

With orthodox Jews the belief in a Messiah is a deep rooted conviction. For 2500 years there has been displayed in front of the synagogue this sign: "Wanted--a Messiah." During this time many, including Jesus, Bar-Cocheba, Moses of Candia, and Sabatai Zevi, have applied for the place, but all applicants have been rejected, and the Messianic predictions of the Jewish prophets are yet to be fulfilled. So, too, are those of the Persian prophet. In the meantime the followers of Jesus--turning from the Jews to the Gentiles--have from this borrowed idea evolved a deity who divides with Brahma, Buddha, and Allah, the worship of the world.

11. The Logos (Word).

The exaltation and deification of Jesus is thus described by the Dutch theologian, Dr. Hooykaas: "When Jesus was gone, those who had known him personally insensibly surrounded him with a glory that shone at last with a more than human splendor. The spiritual blessings which flowed in ever rich measure from his person and his gospel compelled the Christians to exalt him ever more and more. The title of Son of God, which his followers had given him as the future Messiah, was elastic and ambiguous enough to lend itself very readily to this process. The idea of his being the Messiah now no longer sufficed; he was something other and something far more than the Jewish Messiah. The philosophy and theology of the day were laid under contribution; and nothing could so well indicate his significance for all humanity and his unapproachable exaltation as the idea that he was the Word" (Bible for Learners, Vol. III, pp. 670, 671).

The doctrine of the Logos, or Word, as an emanation or essence of divine wisdom is very old. It is found in the ancient religions of Egypt and India. It was recognized in the Persian theology, and was incorporated into the Jewish theology by the Babylonian exiles. It constitutes an important element in the Platonic philosophy. It received its highest development and exposition in the writings of the Jewish philosopher Philo, a contemporary of Jesus.

Concerning the Logos, Dean Milman, in his "History of Christianity," says: "This Being was more or less distinctly impersonated, according to the more popular or more philosophic, the more material or the more abstract, notions of the age of the people. This was the doctrine from the Ganges, or even the shores of the Yellow Sea, to the Ilissus: it was the fundamental principle of the Indian religion and the Indian philosophy; it was the basis of Zoroastrianism; it was pure Platonism; it was the Platonic Judaism of the Alexandrian school." Another English clergyman, Mr. Lake, says: "We can trace its [the Word's] birthplace in the philosophic speculations of the ancient world; we can note its gradual development and growth; we can see it in its early youth passing (through Philo and others), from Grecian philosophy into the current of Jewish thought" (Philo, Plato, and Paul, p. 71).

The presentation of Jesus as an incarnation of the Logos belongs to the second century and is prominent in the Fourth Gospel. The ideas are chiefly those of Plato and Philo. Plato's trinity was Thought, Word and Deed. The Word occupies the second place in the Platonic trinity as it does in the Christian trinity. That the author of the gospel of John, written more than a century after the time of Philo, borrowed largely from that philosopher, is shown by the following parallels drawn from their writings:

Philo.--"The Logos is the Son of God" (De Profugis).

John.--"This [the Word] is the Son of God" (i, 34).

Philo.--"The Logos is considered the same as God" (De Somniis).

John.--"The Word was God" (i, 1).

Philo.--"He [the Logos] was before all things" (De Leg. Allegor).

John.--"The same [the Word] was in the beginning with God" (i, 2).

Philo.--"The Logos is the agent by whom the world was made" (De Leg. Allegor).

John.--"All things were made by him [the Word]" (i, 3).

Philo.--"The Logos is the light of the world" (De Somniis).

John.--"The Word was the true light" (i, 9).

Philo.--"The Logos only can see God" (De Confus. Ling.).

John.--"No man hath seen God.... He [the Word] hath declared him" (i, 18).

12. The Perfect Man.

The New Testament contains at least five different mythical types or conceptions of Jesus Christ: 1. The Messiah of the synoptics, omitting the opening chapters of Matthew and Luke. 2. The Son of God, or demi-god, introduced in these opening chapters. 3. The incarnate Logos or God of John. 4. The Christ of Paul. 5. Eliminating these more or less supernatural types, there remains in these writings, in addition to the purely natural and purely human Jesus of Nazareth, a type known as the Ideal or Perfect Alan. This type is not only mythical, but, in the stricter sense, supernatural and superhuman; for the perfect man must always remain an ideal rather than a real type of man.

The last type is believed by many to represent the primal stage in the deification of Jesus. This conception of Jesus has been held by many Rationalistic Christians, and by some conservative Rationalists in all ages. This, too, forms a part of the dualistic conception of Christ entertained by orthodox Christians, a conception which supposes him to have combined in his incarnation both a human and a divine element which made him both man and God. The portrayal of the vicarious suffering and death of this man has been one of the most powerful agents in the propagation of Christianity.

The molders of primitive Christianity were greatly influenced by various philosophical speculations--by the teachings of Pythagoras and Plato among the earlier, and by the writings of Philo and Seneca among the later philosophers. To Philo, we have seen, they were indebted largely for the Logos; to Seneca they were indebted chiefly for the Ideal or Perfect Man. The following extracts are from "The Christ Myth" of Mrs. Evans:

"Seneca advises the cherishing of a hope that victory in the form of a wise man will finally appear, because humanity requires that the exemplification of perfection should be visible."

"Seneca's conception of perfect humanity was a combination of the wise man of the Platonists and Stoics and the gentle sufferer who endures insult and sorrow."

"The Logos of Philo was too ethereal to answer all the demands of feeble humanity. The God-man must live and suffer and die among and for the people in order to make the sacrifice complete."

"Philo endowed the Logos of Heraclitus with the authority of a priestly mediator, who, floating between earth and heaven, brings God and man together; Seneca places this mediator as a suffering man among men. Philo, from his Jewish standpoint, made the Logos the priestly intercessor; Seneca, from the standpoint of his Stoical society, believed in the possibility of a perfect man as savior and guide of weaker men."

Cognizant of the striking resemblance between some of the writings of the New Testament and the writings of the Stoics, particularly of Seneca, modern Christian apologists affect to believe that this philosopher was acquainted with the history and the gospel of Christ. But the Stoical philosophy propounded by Seneca had been forming ever since the time of Zeno, three centuries before the time of Christ. Seneca himself was born before the Christian era, and no part of the New Testament was in existence when he wrote. Relative to this contention Lecky writes: "It is admitted that the greatest moralists of the Roman empire either never mentioned Christianity, or mentioned it with contempt.... The Jews, with whom the Christians were then identified, he (Seneca) emphatically describes as 'an accursed race.'" (European Morals, vol. 1, pp. 340, 342). During the second and third centuries Christian scholars ransacked Pagan literature for recognitions of Christ and Christianity. Regarding this, Lecky says: "At the time, when the passion for discovering these connections was most extravagant, the notion of Seneca and his followers being inspired by the Christians was unknown" (Ibid, p. 346). Gibbon says: "The new sect [Christians] is totally unnoticed by Seneca" (Rome, vol. i, 587, note).

Out of all these various religious systems and doctrines--out of sex worship and sun worship--out of the worship of the stars and the worship of the elements--out of the worship of animals and the worship of idols--out of Polytheism and Monotheism--out of the Mediatorial and Messianic ideas--out of the Logos and the Ideal Man of the philosophers--this Christ has come.