The modern denial of Jesus' historicity is not without its antecedents. As early as the end of the eighteenth century certain French writers classed Christianity among the mythical religions of antiquity, and Jesus' person took on a correspondingly shadowy form.[1] Both Judaism and Christianity were explained as mainly a composite of primitive oriental ideas, derived more particularly from Persia and ultimately going back to astral myths.
Contemporaneously in Germany Bahrdt[2] and Venturini[3] introduced a skeptical movement in reaction against the prevailing supernaturalism of current interpretation. They had no intention
[1] E.g., Volney, Les ruines (Paris, 1791); Dupuis, Origine de tous les cultes (Paris, 1794; German tr., Ursprung der Gottesverehrung, Leipzig, 1910). Cf. Geneval, Jésus devant l'histoire n'a jamais vécu (Geneva, 1874).
[2] Briefe über die Bibel im Volkston. Eine Wochenschrift von einem Prediger auf dem Lande (Halle, 1782); Ausführung des Plans und Zwecks Jesu. In Brief en an Wahrheit suchende Leser (11 vols., Berlin, 1784-92); Die sämtlichen Reden Jesu aus den Evangelisten ausgezogen (Berlin, 1786).
[3] Natürliche Geschichte des grossen Propheten wn Nazareth (4 vols., Bethlehem [Copenhagen], 1800-2, 1806).
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of denying Jesus' existence, yet their reconstruction of his life so far forsook the gospel representation as to leave his real historical form largely a matter of conjecture. They found the secret of his career in his connection with the Essenes. This order was believed to have drawn upon Babylonia, Egypt, India, and Greece for secret wisdom. Jesus was not only a member of this brotherhood, he was also its protégé. In youth he had been trained in its secrets, and during his public ministry he was closely in touch with the leading brethren. Thus the Jesus of the gospels is virtually a myth, while the true Jesus was the exponent of this ancient and secret wisdom. This general interpretation has been reproduced in England by Hennell,[1] in France by Salvator,[2] and it has been followed in Germany by von Langsdorf,[3]
[1] An Inquiry concerning the Origin of Christianity (London, 1838). Cf. Fiebig, "Die Worte Jesu," Die Christliche Welt, 1911, 26-29, 50-53.
[2] Jésus-Christ et sa doctrine (2 vols., Paris. 1838). Also de Régla (Desjardin). Jésus de Nazareth au point de vue historique, scientifique et social (Paris, 1891; German tr., Jesus von Nazareth, Leipzig, 1894); Notowitsch, La vie inconnue de Jésus-Christ (Paris, 1894; German tr., Die Lücke im Leben Jesu, Stuttgart, 1894; English tr., The Unknown Life of Christ, Chicago [no date]); Bosc, La vie ésotérique de Jésus de Nazareth et les origines orientales du Christianisme (Paris, 1902).
[3] Wohlgeprüfte Darstellung des Lebens Jesu (Mannheim, 1831).
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Gfrörer,[1] von der Alm (Ghillany),[2] and Noack,[3] who in turn contribute some items to the views of the modern extremists.
Strauss's application of the mythical theory to the gospel narratives is a much more masterful piece of work and it has, accordingly, exerted a much greater influence. Strauss never seems to have doubted Jesus' actual existence, nor did he attempt, after the manner
[1] Kritische Geschichte des Urchristentums (2 vols., Stuttgart, 1831-38).
[2] Theologische Briefe an die Gebildeten der deutschen Nation (3 vols., Leipzig, 1863); cf. also Die Urteile heidnischer und christlicher Schriftsteller der vier ersten christlichen Jahrhunderte über Jesus (ibid., 1864).
[3] Aus der Jordanwiege nach Golgatha: vier Bücher über das Evangelium und die Evangelien (Mannheim, 1870-71); a second edition with changed title, Die Geschichte Jesu auf Grund freier geschichtlicher Untersuchungen über das Evangelium und die Enangelien (1876). Of a similarly fictitious character are the following anonymous publications: Wichtige Enthüllungen über die wirkliche Todesart Jesu. Nach einem alten, zu Alexandria gefundenen Manuskripte von einem Zeitgenossen Jesu aus dem heiligen Orden der Essäer (Leipzig, 1849); Historische Enthüllungen über die wirklichen Ereignisse der Geburt und Jugend Jesu. Als Fortsetzung der zu Alexandria aufgefundenen alten Urkunden aus dem Essäerorden (Leipzig, 1849); Wer war Jesus? Authentische Milteilungen eines Zeitgenossen Jesu über Geburt, Jugend, Leben und Todesart, sowie über die Mutter des Nazareners. Nach einem alten, zu Alexandrien aufgefundenen Manuskripte. Aus einer lateinischen Abschrift des Originals übersetzt (Oranienburg bei Berlin, 1906); The Crucifixion, by an Eye-Witness (Chicago, 1907).
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of Bahrdt and Venturini, a fanciful rehabilitation of Jesus' figure. Yet his work prepared the way for that champion of radicalism, Bruno Bauer, who has given classic expression to the arguments against Jesus' historicity.
In the controversy which followed the appearance of Strauss's Life of Jesus, Bauer found himself compelled to oppose the contemporary apologists. He, like Strauss, belonged to the Hegelian school, from which he derived his notion of the supremacy of the idea. Between the idea and the reality there is a perpetual antithesis. The idea is, as it were, a fleeing goal which men sight now and then but never ultimately apprehend. Indeed the idea never can be perfectly realized in a historic manifestation—that would mean its death. So Bauer revolted against the current theological method of forcing Jesus' personality into a hard-and-fast system of theology, with the accompanying claim of finality. True religion, for Bauer, is attained by the self-conscious ego setting itself up in antithesis to, and struggling to triumph over, the world. This victory is not to be won through violence, through man's fighting against Nature, as the doctrine of miracle implies; it is brought about by man's
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realization of his own personality. "Spirit does not bluster, rave, storm, and rage against Nature as is implied in miracle—this would be a denial of its inner law, but it works its own way through the antithesis." A second antithesis of which men are conscious is the separation between God and man, and this too is to be overcome not by external means, but through an inward triumph of spirit. One who in his inner consciousness has brought about the synthesis of this double antithesis has attained genuine religion.
Under these circumstances it is scarcely surprising that Bauer should protest against what must have seemed to him the false and grossly externalizing features in the theological thinking of his day. At the outset he apparently had no thought of denying the existence of a historical Jesus. He aimed rather to exhibit what seemed to him the falsehood and intellectual dishonesty of the apologetic methods used by the critics of Strauss. So he began a critical examination of the gospels, the authorities to which the theologians appealed in support of their position. Bauer first demonstrated, as he thought, that the picture of Jesus given in the Fourth Gospel was not historical
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but was a creation of primitive theological reflection.[1] Attention was next directed to the Synoptists, where the recent conclusions of Weisse and Wilke as to the priority of Mark were adopted. But if Mark was the main source for the first and third evangelists, then the united testimony of all three gospels is in reality the testimony of one witness only; and this upon further examination also proved untrustworthy. The Gospel of Mark was thought to be merely a literary fiction, the product of an original evangelist's theological reflections. Consequently all three Synoptists were to be set aside as entirely unhistorical.[2] A similar result attended Bauer's study of the Pauline literature.[3] The so-called Pauline epistles were all found to be pseudonymous products of the second century A.D. Accordingly all evidence for Jesus' existence vanished. He was not Christianity's founder; he was merely its fictitious product.
[1] Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte des Johannes (Bremen, 1840).
[2] Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte der Synoptiker (3 vols., Leipzig, 1841-42); 2d ed., Kritik der Evangelien und Geschichte ihres Ursprungs (2 vols. Berlin, 1850-51).
[3] Kritik der paulinischen Briefe. In drei Abteilungen (Berlin, 1850-52).
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How then did the new movement originate? In answering this question Bauer allowed his fancy free play.[1] The absence of reference to the new religion in the non-Christian writings of the first century was cited as evidence of its late origin. It was a gradual outcome of conditions prevailing in the Graeco-Roman world of the first and second centuries A.D. In general the Stoics, and particularly Seneca, had attained a consciousness of the antithesis between man and the world; and conditions under Nero and Domitian, especially with the introduction of neo-Platonic ideas, showed a marked development in the spiritual history of humanity. Moreover in this period Judaism was being denationalized, as in the case of Philo and Josephus, and thus its spiritual solution for the antithesis between God and man was made available for the gentile world. In this way a new type of thought arose which received the name Christianity—a compound of Stoicism, neo-Platonism and Judaism. Rome and Alexandria were its two centers, and it first attracted public notice in the time of Trajan.
Bauer's results finally passed almost unnoticed,
[1] Christus und die Caesaren. Der Ursprung des Christentums aus dem römischen Griechentum (Berlin, 1877, 1879).
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yet the fundamental lines of his work are not so very different from those followed by the modern radicals. Summarized, the main items of his criticism are: (1) emphasis upon definite speculative presuppositions, (2) an unqualified treatment of the New Testament books as tendency writings, (3) stress upon the lack of non-Christian evidence for the existence of Christianity in the first century, and (4) a belief that all factors necessary to account for the origin of Christianity without reference to a historical Jesus can be found in the life of the ancient world.
Within the last decade doubts about Jesus' existence have been advanced in several quarters,[1] but nowhere so insistently as in Germany. There the skeptical movement has become a regular propaganda.[2] The present status of
[1] E.g., in America by W. B. Smith; in England by J. M. Robertson, Mead, Whittaker; in Holland by Bolland; in France by Virolleaud (La légende du Christ, Paris, 1908); in Italy by Bossi (Gesù Christo non è mai esistito, Milan, 1904); in Poland by Niemojewski; in Germany by Kalthoff, Jensen, Drews, Lublinski, and several others.
[2] Its foremost champion is Arthur Drews, professor of philosophy in Karlsruhe Technical High School. Since the appearance of his Christusmythe in 1909 the subject has been kept before the public by means of debates held in various places, particularly at some important university centers such as Jena, Marburg, Giessen, Leipzig, Berlin. In these debates Jesus' historicity has been defended by various New Testament scholars of the first rank. A debate which attracted special attention was held at Berlin under the direction of the "Monistenbund" on the evenings of January 31 and February 1, 1910. Drews and von Soden led opposite sides of the discussion, of which the complete stenographic report is published as Berliner Religionsgespräch: Hat Jesus gelebt? (Berlin and Leipzig, 1910). The literature called forth by the general controversy is already large and is still increasing.
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this contention for a purely mythical Jesus will perhaps best be understood by observing some of its typical forms.
The late Albert Kalthoff, a pastor in Bremen and at one time president of the "Monistenbund," revived the views of Bauer with slight modifications. The distinctive feature of Kalthoff's view is his emphasis upon the social idea.[1] He reacts strongly against the individualism of modern Christianity, a feature in
[1] Das Christus-Problem: Grundlinien zu einer Sozialtheologie (Leipzig, 1902, 1903); Die Entstehung des Christentums: Neue Beitrdäge zum Christusproblem (Leipzig, 1904). Cf. the similar interest of Nieuwenhuis, Das Leben Jesu: Eine historisch-kritische Abhandlung zur Aufklärung des arbeitenden Volkes (Bielefeld, 1893), who thinks Jesus' existence may be questioned. Kalthoff's position was opposed, e.g., by Thikötter, Kalthoffs Schrift "Das Christusproblem" beleuchtet and Dr. Kalthoffs Replik beleuchtet (Bremen, 1903; cf. Kalthoff, D. Thikotter und das Christusproblem: Eine Replik, Bremen, 1903); Tschirn, Hat Christus uberhaupt gelebt? (Bamberg, 1903); Bousset, Was wissen wir von Jesus? Vorträge im Protestantenverein zu Bremen (Halle, 1904; cf. Kalthoff, Was wissen wir von Jesus? Eine Abrechnung mit Professor Bousset in Göttingen, Berlin, 1904); Kapp, Das Christus- und Christentumsproblem bei Kalthoff (Strassburg, 1905); Titius, Der Bremer Radikalismus (Tübingen, 1908).
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his opinion not to be found in the primitive form of this faith. Originally Christianity was purely a socio-religious or socio-ethical movement of the masses, and so free from individualism that the notion of a personal founder was itself wanting. An individual by the name of Jesus may have lived about the opening of our era, but he had no unique significance for the rise of the new religion. Not Judea but Rome was the seat of its origin; Jewish messianism, Stoic philosophy, and the communistic clubs of the time supplied its source elements; its literature was a poetic creation projecting into the past the more immediate experiences of the present, as when the picture of a suffering, dying, and rising Christ typified the community's own life of persecution and martyrdom. The gospel Jesus was created for practical purposes, thus giving a concrete and so a more permanent form to the principles and ideals of the new faith.[1]
[1] Socialists of Losinsky's type (cf. his Waren die Urchristen wirklich Sozialisten? Berlin, 1907) deny that Christianity has any significance for socialism; others hold more nearly to the views of Kalthoff, though their method of handling the alleged historical Jesus is not always quite so radical. For example, Kautsky, Der Ursprung des Christentums (Stuttgart, 1908), also "Jesus der Rebell" in Die neue Zeit, XXVIII (1910, 13-17, 44-52), treats the Christian literature with so free a hand as to make Jesus a political and social revolutionist, a typical "Marxist." For a reply to Kautsky see Windisch, Der messianische Krieg und das Urchristentum (Tübingen, 1909) and "Jesus ein Rebell?" in Evangelisch-Sozial, 1910, 33-44. Maurenbrecher, Von Nazareth nach Golgatha: Eine Untersuchung über die weltgeschichtlichen Zusammenhänge des Urchristentums (Schöneberg-Berlin, 1909) and Von Jerusalem nach Rom: Weitere Untersuchungen über die weltgeschichtlichen Zusammenhänge des Urchristentums (ibid., 1910) takes the sources more seriously than Kautsky does, yet he assigns no very serious rôle to the historical Jesus as the founder of Christianity. He actually existed, for his life and death were the indispensable incentive for the new religion, but the real secret of its origin is the activity of the Son of Man myth which fixed itself upon the person of Jesus after his death, and in which the hopes of the common people found expression. Jesus had not put himself forward as Messiah. He had spoken of the Son of Man, whose coming he believed to be near at hand, only in the third person. Jesus was moved mainly by the proletarian instinct, which also dominated the thinking of the disciples. The giving of themselves to this ideal after Jesus' death was the birthday of Christianity.
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Other investigators draw more largely upon the religions of the ancient Orient for data to explain the rise of Christianity. As compared with the reconstructions of Bauer and Kalthoff, this method usually results in an earlier date and a different provenance for the origin of the new faith. While the representatives of the religionsgeschichtliche school are usually content with maintaining that the gospel accounts of Jesus are more or less heightened by the introduction of foreign elements,[1] many of its
[1] Cf. Clemen, Religionsgeschichtliche Erklärung des Neuen Testaments (Giessen, 1909) for a convenient summary of the literature.
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conclusions can readily be made to serve the interests of those who argue against Jesus' historicity. The entire New Testament representation of the life and thought of primitive Christianity becomes for these interpreters a congeries of ideas and practices borrowed from the ancient religions. This general principle for solving the problem is applied in several different ways.
J. M. Robertson, who writes in the interests of "naturalism" as against "credulity and organized ecclesiasticism," thinks to prove that the gospels' account of both the life and the teaching of Jesus is a composite of pagan myths.[1] Two lines of evidence for this conclusion are, (1) the character of the "Jesus" whom Paul knows, who is not a Jesus of action and teaching but a "speechless sacrifice"; and (2) the certainty with which everything in the gospels can be paralleled in pagan mythology. Constructively, the germ of Christianity may supposably be a primitive Semitic belief in a Palestinian Savior-Sun-God, Joshua the son of the mythical Miriam, that is, Jesus the son of
[1] Christianity and Mythology (London, 1900); German tr. of third part, Die Evangelienmythen (Jena, 1910); A Short History of Christianity (London, 1902); Pagan Christs; Studies in Comparative Hierology (London, 1903).
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Mary. Thus Christianity is ultimately a primitive cult. Its "Jesus" may be a recollection of some vague figure such as Jesus ben Pandera of the Talmud, put to death for probably anti-Judaic teachings, and of whom the epistles of Paul preserve only the tradition of his crucifixion. But the more important part is played by the Joshua-Jesus god of the cult.[1]
Jensen determines more specifically than Robertson does the source from which the myth-making fancy of the gospel writers is thought to have taken its start. He holds that the careers of both Jesus and Paul, as recorded in the New Testament, are reproductions in variant form of the Babylonian legend of Gilgamesh. The proof for this position is found in a series of similarities in content and form which appear on comparing the Gilgamesh epic with the gospels and the Pauline epistles.[2] While Jensen, in his reply to Jülicher, protests
[1] This notion of a pre-Christian Jesus has been argued somewhat hesitatingly by Mead, and with strong conviction by W. B. Smith. It has been adopted also by Bolland, Drews, Niemojewski, and others.
[2] Das Gilgamesch-Epos in der Weltliteratur (Strassburg, 1906; see especially pp. 811-1030); Moses, Jesus, Paulus: Drei Varianten des babylonischen Gottmenschen Gilgamesch (Frankfurt, 1909); Hat der Jesus der Evangelien wirklich gelebt? Eine Antwort an Prof. Dr. Jülicher (Frankfurt, 1910; cf. Julicher, Hat Jesus gelebt? Vortrag gehalten zu Marburg am 1. März 1910, Marburg, 1910.)
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against being classed among those who deny absolutely the existence of a historical Jesus, his position is, in effect, the same as theirs. He says: "Of the career of the alleged founder of Christianity we know nothing, or at least as good as nothing," and "we serve in our cathedrals and houses of prayer, in our churches and schools, in palace and hut, a Babylonian god, Babylonian gods." All this is due to the remarkable vitality and perpetuative momentum of the Gilgamesh-story.
In Niemojewski's bulky volume astral mythology is made the main source of Christian origins.[1] This emphasis upon the astral origin of religious notions is a revival of Dupuis' views, recast under the influence of the modern school of Winckler.[2] Niemojewski finds that the New Testament writings are not altogether uniform in their representation of Jesus as a
[1] Gott Jesus im Lichte fremder und eigener Forschungen samt Darstellung der evangelischen Astralstoffe, Astralscenen und Astralsysteme (Munich, 1910; from the Polish Bóg Jezus, Warsaw, 1909). Cf. also Koch, Die Sage von Jesus dem Sonnengott (Berlin, 1911).
[2] In the realm of gospel study a novel product of the Winckler school may be seen in W. Erbt's Das Marcusevangelium: Eine Untersuchung über die Form der Petruserinnerungen und die Geschichte der Urgemeinde (Leipzig, 1911). Mark's story of Jesus' life is thought to be constructed on a solar scheme starting with December 22, when the sun turns again on its upward course in the heavens. Thus Jesus is depicted in the gospel as the renewer. The gospel falls into twenty-eight sections, each representing one of the twelve months of the year—reckoning Jesus' ministry as two years and four months long—and each of these sections pictures Jesus in terms of ideas which the Babylonians connected with the respective months. Peter, it is held, was responsible for this arrangement of the calendar year. It was forsaken when James became head of the church, under whose leadership Christianity reverted to a more distinctly Jewish type of thought.
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mythical personage, except in their consistent treatment of him as a deity. In the epistles he is nothing other than a variant of Osiris, Tammuz, Attis, Adonis. For Matthew he is the Sun-god. For Luke the supreme deity is the sun and his son is the moon. Again the Holy Spirit is the sun. Various gospel names and characters, as Arimathea, Cyrene, Galilee, Judea, have an astral significance; while Herod the Great, Herod Antipas, Herodias, Salome, are the counterparts respectively of the constellations Hydrus, Scorpio, Cassiopeia, Andromeda. The cross of Jesus is the Milky Way, the tree of the world.
Another school of writers finds the key to Christian origins in the activity of a primitive doctrine of "gnosis," or in some type of esoteric teaching fostered by secret cults, mysteries, and similar phenomena in the life of the ancient world. Mead[1] suggests that such movements
[1] Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.? (London and Benares, 1903); cf. the same author's Fragments of a Faith Forgotten (London, 1900; German tr., Fragmenten eines verschollenen Glaubens, Berlin, 1902).
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had already gained a footing within Judaism, prior to the Christian era. Indeed he questions the presence of any widespread orthodoxy in Judaism before the days of the Mishnaic rabbis. The seventy esoteric books of II Esd. 14:46 ff., which contain "the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom, and the stream of knowledge," and which are to be delivered only to "the wise among the people," are thought to presuppose for an earlier date the existence of esotericists representing tendencies which may be traced in Essenism, Therapeutism, Philonism, Hermeticism, and Gnosticism. May not the origins of Christianity lie hidden among the pledged members of these mystic communities and ascetic orders? Mead feels himself compelled to ask this question because of (1) the impossibility of historical certainty regarding any objective fact in the traditional narratives of Jesus' career, (2) the silence of extra-Christian sources in the first century A.D., and (3) certain obscure data which seem absolutely contradictory to the current Christian tradition. These contradictory data, found mainly in the Talmud, the "Toleoth Jeshu," and Epiphanius, are thought to indicate that the Jesus of gospel tradition really lived about
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100 B.C. He was not, however, a very significant personage for the origin of the new movement. Practically all that can be known of him historically is that he was a contemporary of Alexander Jannaeus, that he was called Jeshu[1] ben Pandera (and sometimes ben Stada), that he had spent some time in Egypt, and that he belonged to one of the secret communities from which he was expelled for teaching its wisdom to non-initiates. The new movement would probably never have arisen out of reverence for this historical person, since the basal thought of the new faith was the "drama of the Christ-mystery." In its literature Jesus appears merely as one of the characters for a "historical romance" into which allegories, parables, and actual mystery doings are woven, as was common in the methods of haggada and apocalyptic of that day. The "common document" of the gospels arose about 75 A.D., but our present gospels are second-century products.[2] Paul is a genuine historical character who
[1] The Talmud usually writes [HEBREW] when speaking of Jesus, in distinction from [HEBREW] (Joshua), though the two names are originally the same in Hebrew.
[2] Cf. Mead, The Gospels and the Gospel: A Study in the Most Recent Results of the Lower and the Higher Criticism (London, 1902).
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wrote the principal letters traditionally assigned to him, but he is fundamentally interested in the Christ-mystery, a gnostic type of faith. Moreover, when his letters are read aright they show that he was writing to communities which had existed before his day and were already familiar with gnostic nomenclature. Thus before Paul's time pre-Christian Christianity was in existence not only in Palestine but also in the Diaspora.
W. B. Smith likewise holds that Christianity arose out of a Jesus-cult existing in the first century B.C.[1] From the statement of Acts 18:25, that Apollos taught carefully "the things concerning Jesus knowing only the baptism of John," it is inferred that Apollos was not yet a "Christian," but that he was an enthusiastic missionary of the pre-Christian Jesus-sect, which at the time was particularly strong in Alexandria. But this cult was also stiong in other centers, and Cyprus is thought to have been the place whence that form of the cult which came to be known as Christianity took its start. Yet it must not be said that Christianity arose from any one center; it was
[1] Der vorchristliche Jesus (Giessen, 1906, 1911); Ecce Deus: Die urchristliche Lehre des reingöttlichen Jesu (Jena, 1911).
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multifocal. The "things concerning Jesus" should not be understood, it is claimed, as information about the earthly career of a human Jesus, but as a doctrine about a divinity, a Savior-god. The characteristic feature of primitive Christianity, its fundamental essence, was its emphasis upon monotheism; the anthropomorphized Jesus-god of the New Testament writings is a secondary product. This monotheistic teaching was very timely. It answered to the broader outlook which the unification of empire under Alexander and under the Romans had brought about, and it also met the needs of the masses who longed for deliverance from the enslaving forces in the thought and life of their world. But this new teaching could not at first be openly propagated without incurring the danger of disastrous opposition, consequently the new religion appears first as a secret cult mediating to its initiates the knowledge of the true God. Now this search for knowledge of the highest God was virtually the problem of Gnosticism, accordingly many gnostic notions have contributed to the formation of the New Testament thought.
Bolland, professor of philosophy in Leiden, makes even more of gnostic speculation as a
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factor in the rise of Christianity. Encouraged by his belief that Vatke by philosophical inquiry in 1835 really anticipated the outcome of later study upon the Pentateuch, Bolland thinks that he, by applying a similar type of Hegelian speculation to the problem of Christian origins, can pronounce the final word upon this subject. As a result of his "philosophievrij onderzoek," Christianity is found to be an evolution of Judeo-gnostic ideas starting from Alexandria and gradually spreading north and west. The Christian Jesus is merely an allegorical rehabilitation of the Old Testament Joshua,[1] the successor of Moses, who led the people into the land of promise. Hence the appropriateness of the Jesus-Joshua name, since both etymologically and traditionally it stands for God's salvation. The gospels, which announce the coming of the true Joshua, are a product of
[1] Het eerste Evangelie in het Licht van Oude gegevens: Eene Bijdrage tot de Wordingsgeschiedenis des Christendoms (Leiden, 1906); De evangelische Jozua: Eene Poging tot Aanwijzing van den Oorsprong des Christendoms (Leiden, 1907); 2d ed., Het Evangelie: Eene "vernieuwde" Poging tot Aanwijzing van den Oorsprong des Christendoms (ibid., 1910). Also Gnosis en Evangelie: Eene historische Studie (1906); Het Lijden en Sterven van Jezus Christus (1907); De Achtergrond der Evangelien: Eene Bijdrage tot de Kennis van de Wording des Christendoms (1907). Cf. de Zwaan, "De Oorsprong des Christendoms volgens Prof. Bolland," Theologisch Tijdschrift, XLV (1911), 38-87, 119-78.
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the allegorizing exegesis of Alexandria—purely a Jesus-romance. Traces of gnostic notions are discovered throughout the New Testament literature. In the gospels, for example, these appear in the parable of the sower, in Jesus' statement that God only is good, in the saying about truth revealed unto babes, in the confession of Peter, in the miracle narratives, and in the passion and resurrection stories. The earliest form of gospel tradition is to be seen in certain non-canonical fragments, particularly in the so-called Gospel of the Egyptians, an Alexandrian proto-Mark. This was later re-worked, perhaps in Rome, to produce the Judaistic Matthew, the Hellenistic Luke, the neutral and universalistic Mark. The Fourth Gospel represents a Samaritan form of Alexandrian Gnosticism, and was probably written at Ephesus. Paul's letters are all spurious and are products of clerical circles in Rome about 135 A.D. Here Bolland is in line with the extreme school of Dutch criticism, as represented for instance by Van Manen.[1]
[1] Whittaker (The Origins of Christianity, London, 1904,1909'), adopting Van Manen's conclusions regarding the spuriousness of all the Pauline letters, pushes his doubts almost to the point of denying Jesus' existence. All the New Testament books are placed in the 2d century, following a period of oral myth-making in the 1st century. It was not until after the year 70 A.D. that the Christian movement began to appear, and at the same time the story of Jesus' life and death was formulated. Before that date it cannot be said that Christianity existed, except as a vague messianic movement associated with some obscure cult. Jesus may not be an entirely fictitious person, yet the gospel stories are almost wholly mythical.
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Lublinski, the late Weimar Schriftsteller, traces Christianity to an original pre-Christian gnostic sect,[1] but this sect was strictly Jewish and did not differentiate itself from Judaism until after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. According to Lublinski, gnostic tendencies must have been circulating in the Orient from the time of the Persian supremacy on, and the Jews cannot have escaped this influence. It pervaded the whole culture of the ancient world. With it came theosophy, mystery religion, secret cults, and the like. Its actual presence in Judaism is thought to be seen in such sects as the Essenes, the Therapeutes, the Gnostics of Justin, the Naassenes, and similar movements of which no records have been preserved. Of such an origin was Christianity. But gnostic thought could hardly concern itself primarily with a man-deity, Jesus; its first
[1] Der urchristliche Erdkreis und sein Mythos: I, Die Entstehung des Christentums aus der antiken Kultur; II, Das werdende Dogma vom Leben Jesu (Jena, 1910).
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interest could only be in a divine nature, Christ. Hence the Jesus of gospel history and the story of his followers in the first century are creations of mythical fancy.
Drews has absorbed, perhaps more thoroughly than any of the other extremists, the main features of these radical positions.[1] The five theses which he presented for discussion at the Berlin conference are a very good epitome of his position:[2]
1. Before the Jesus of the gospels there existed already among Jewish sects a Jesus-god and a cult of this god which in all probability goes back to the Old Testament Joshua, and with this were blended on the one hand Jewish apocalyptic ideas and on the other the heathen notion of a dying and rising divine redeemer.
2. Paul, the oldest witness for Christianity, knows nothing of a "historical" Jesus. His incarnated Son of God is just that Jewish-heathen redeeming divinity Jesus whom Paul
[1] Die Christusmythe (Jena, 1909, 1910; English tr., The Christ Myth, London and Chicago, 1911); Die Christusmythe: II. Teil, Die Zeugnisse für die Geschichtlichkeit Jesu: Eine Antwort an die Schriftgelehrten mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der theologischen Methode (Jena, 1911); cf. also Die Petruslegende: Ein Beitrag zur Mythologie des Christentums (Frankfurt, 1910).
[2] Berliner Religionsgespräch, p. 34.
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merely set in the center of his religious world-view and elevated to a higher degree of religio-ethical reflection.
3. The gospels do not contain the history of an actual man, but only the myth of the god-man Jesus clothed in historical form, so that not only the Israelitish prophets along with the Old Testament types of the Messiah, a Moses, Elijah, Elisha, etc., but also certain mythical notions of the Jews' heathen neighbors concerning belief in the redeeming divinity made their contribution to the "history" of that Jesus.
4. With this method of explanation an "undiscoverable" remainder which cannot be derived from the sources indicated may still exist, yet this relates only to secondary and unimportant matters which do not affect the religious belief in Jesus; while on the contrary all that is important, religiously significant, and decisive in this faith, as the Baptism, the Lord's Supper, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection of Jesus, is borrowed from the cult-symbolism of the mythical Jesus, and owes its origin not to a historical fact but to the pre-Christian belief in the Jewish-heathen redeeming divinity.
5. The "historical" Jesus, as determined by
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the critical theology, is at any rate of so doubtful, intangible, and faded a form that faith in him cannot possibly longer be regarded as the indispensable condition of religious salvation.
Thus modern radical criticism sets up its mythical Christ over against the historical Jesus of liberal theology. While there is much variety in the details, the main outlines of the radicals' contention are clearly defined. They all agree in treating the evidence for a historical Jesus as wholly unreliable. This involves in most instances the hypothesis of a second-century date for the New Testament writings. Robertson, Mead, and Drews hold to the genuineness of the principal Pauline letters,[1] yet they so read them as to find there no proof for Jesus' existence. Much stress is usually placed upon the paucity of the non-Christian references to the new religion and its alleged founder in the first century A.D. On the positive side, a theory of Christianity's origin is constructed out of more obscure and remote data gleaned from the life and thought of the ancient world. Although at this point there are wide variations in the items chosen, the choice is
[1] W. B. Smith seems at present to be vacillating on this question; cf. Ecce Deus, p. 150.
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regulated by a uniform principle, namely, ideas not persons are the significant factors in the origin of a religion. As a corollary of this principle, it follows that a Christ-idea, not a historical Jesus, is the primal formative element in the genesis of Christianity. Not only can any unique historical founder be dispensed with, but this possibility proves so alluring that his person is forthwith eliminated from the history. Consequently the liberal theologians' contention for the significance of Jesus, both as a figure in the past and for the thought of the present, seems to the radicals wholly fallacious.
Thus ultimately this problem, which appeared at first sight to be purely historical, a question of gathering data and testing their reliability, really involves the interpretation of the data in terms of presuppositions as to the nature of religious origins, and especially as to the nature of primitive Christianity. And these presuppositions are inseparably bound up with the question of what is vitally important for religion today. Not all writers of the radical school recognize this fact so clearly as does Drews—at least they rarely express themselves so clearly on this phase of the
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subject. In closing the Berlin debate he asked two questions which he regards as fundamental: What is the secret of Christianity's origin in the light of which it can be revitalized for modern times? and What can Christ be to us today? His reply to both questions is an appeal for the recognition of the supreme significance of the Christ-myth. It is not a historical Jesus but Christ as an idea, an idea of the divine humanity, which explains the rise of Christianity and makes possible its modern revitalization. Furthermore, in his preface to the Christusmythe Drews declares that the book was written "directly in the interests of religion from the conviction that the forms hitherto prevailing are no longer sufficient for the present, that especially the 'Jesusism' of the modern theology is fundamentally irreligious and itself presents the greatest hindrance to all true religious progress."[1]
[1] Similarly in his second volume Drews emphasizes this idea: "Der Kampf um die Christusmythe ist zugleich ein Kampf um die Freiheit und Selbstandigkeit des modernen Geisteslebens, um die Unabhangigkeit der Wissenschaft und Weltanschauung. . . . Der Kampf um die 'Christusmythe' ist aber auch zugleich ein Kampf um die Religion. Alle Religion ist ein Leben aus den Tiefen des eigenen unmittelbaren Selbst heraus, ein Wirken im Geist und in der Freiheit. Aller religiose Fortschritt vollzieht sich in der Verinnerlichung des Glaubens, in der Verlegung des Schwerpunktes des Seins aus der objektiven in die subjektive Welt, in der vertrauensvollen Hingabe an den Gott in uns (p. xviii f.; cf. Drews, Die Religion als Selbst-Bewusstsein Gottes, Jena, 1906).
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This opposition to the "theologians" sometimes induces a polemical tone which tends to obscure the main issues of the problem.[1] Argument is in danger of becoming mere special pleading for a "cause." It is an obvious fact that the champions of this modern radicalism have not approached their task as specialists in the field of early Christian history, nor are they thoroughly equipped to use the tools of that science. Not only so, but they deliberately discard those tools and condemn the methods of the historical theologian as unscientific, because he allows Jesus an especially significant place and refuses to push critical skepticism to what they regard the logical issue—that is, the denial of Jesus' existence. This animosity toward the theologian sometimes leads to a misunderstanding, or even to a misrepresentation, of his position. For example, Drews's fifth thesis implies a
[1] Cf. Steudel, Wir Gelehrten vom Fach! Eine Streitschrift gegen Professor D. von Sodens "Hat Jesus gelebt?" (Frankfurt, 1910), Im Kampf um die Christusmythe. Eine Auseinandersetzung insbesondere mit J. Weiss, P. W. Schmiedel, A. Harnack, D. Chwolson (Jena, 1910).
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criticism of the "critical theology" which is hardly just, if the reference is to leading representatives of New Testament critical study in Germany. Nor is it true, as Drews again insinuates, that these scholars think religion today is to be explained and established "only through textual criticism in a philological way."[1] They hold neither that an accurate critical text, nor that faith in a "historical" Jesus, in the sense of accepting any given number of doctrines about him, constitutes the essentials of religion. It seems very evident, however, that one feature of the present radical movement, and one which looms large in the vision of many of its advocates, is a hatred for "theology" and the "theologians."[2] While this bitterness has, doubtless, been aggravated by the scathing denunciations which the radicals have sometimes received at the hands of their opponents, its fundamental ground is the question of what religious significance shall be attached to Jesus. The
[1] Berliner Religionsgespräch, pp. 93 f.
[2] ' Drews expresses his sentiments thus (parodying Luther):
"Und wenn die Welt voll T—heologen wär'
und wollt' uns gar verschlingen,
so fürchten wir uns nicht so sehr:
es soll uns dock gelingen!"
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"mythologists" are determined that this shall be nil.
Under these circumstances our present task involves not only a critical estimate of the negative arguments, followed by a constructive statement of the extent and worth of the historical evidence for Jesus' existence, but also some consideration of his significance as a historical personage for the origin and perpetuation of our religion.
Go to The Historicity of Jesus by S.J. Case table of contents.