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The Truth About Jesus Is He a Myth?

M >> Mangasar Magurditch Mangasarian >> The Truth About Jesus Is He a Myth?




III. "It is true that early a sect grew up which....held that Jesus
could not have had a body of carnal flesh; but they did not question
that he had really lived." According to Dr. Barton, these early
Christians did not deny that Jesus had really lived,--they only denied
that _Jesus could have had a body of carnal flesh_. We wonder how many
kinds of flesh there are according to Dr. Barton. Moreover, does not
the bible teach that Jesus was tempted in all things, and was a man of
like passions, as ourselves? The good man controls his appetites and
passions, but his flesh is not any different from anybody else's. If
Jesus did not have a body like ours, then he did not exist as a human
being. Our point is, that if the New Testament is reliable, in the
time of the apostles themselves, the Gnostics, an influential body of
Christians, denied that Jesus was any more than an imaginary
existence. "But," pleads the clergyman, "these sects believed that
Jesus was real, though not carnal flesh." What kind of flesh was he
then? If by _carnal_ the Gnostics meant 'sensual,' then, the apostles
in denouncing them for rejecting a carnal Jesus, must have held that
Jesus was carnal or sensual. How does the Reverend Barton like the
conclusion to which his own reasoning leads him?

IV. "It is true that there were literary fictions in the age following
the apostles." This admission is in answer to the charge that even in
the first centuries the Christians were compelled to resort to forgery
to prove the historicity of Jesus. The doctor admits the charge,
except that he calls it by another name. The difference between
fiction and forgery is this: the former is, what it claims to be; the
latter is a lie parading as a truth. Fiction is honest because it does
not try to deceive. Forgery is dishonest because its object is to
deceive. If the Gospel was a novel, no one would object to its
mythology, but pretending to be historical, it must square its claims
with the facts, or be branded as a forgery.

V. "We may not have the precise words Jesus uttered; the portrait may
be colored;....tradition may have had its influence; but Jesus was
real." A most remarkable admission from a clerical! It concedes all
that higher criticism contends for. We are not sure either of Jesus'
words or of his character, intimates the Reverend preacher. Precisely.

In commenting on our remark that in the eighth century "Pope Hadrian
called upon the Christian world to think of Jesus as a man," Dr.
Barton replies with considerable temper: "To date people's right to
think of Jesus as a man from that decree is not to be characterized by
any polite term." Our neighbor, in the first place, misquotes us in
his haste. We never presumed to deny anyone the right to think of
Jesus what he pleased, before or after the eighth century. (_The
Debate,_ p. 28.) We were calling attention to Pope Hadrian's order
to replace the lamb on the cross by the figure of a man. But by what
_polite_ language is the conduct of the Christian church--which to
this day prints in its bibles "Translated from the Original Greek,"
when no _original_ manuscripts are in existence--to be characterized?

Dr. Barton's efforts to save his creed remind us of the Japanese
proverb: "It is no use mending the lid, if the pot be broken."




VII


The most remarkable clerical effort thus far, which _The Mangasarian-
Crapsey Debate_ has called forth, is that of the Rev. E. V. Shayler,
rector of Grace Episcopal Church of Oak Park.

"In answer to your query, which I received, I beg to give the
following statement. Facts, not theories. The date of your own letter
1908 tells what? 1908 years after what? The looking forward of the
world to Him."

Rev. Shayler has an original way of proving the historicity of Jesus.
Every time we date our letters, suggests the clergyman, we prove that
Jesus lived. The ancient Greeks reckoned time by the Olympiads, which
fact, according to this interesting clergyman, ought to prove that the
Olympic games were instituted by the God Heracles or Hercules, son of
Zeus; the Roman Chronology began with the building of Rome by Romulus,
which by the same reasoning would prove that Romulus and Remus, born
of Mars, and nursed by a she-wolf, are historical.

Rev. Shayler has forgotten that the Christian era was not introduced
into Europe until the sixth century, and Dionysius, the monkish author
of the era, did not compute time from the birth of Jesus, but from the
day on which the Virgin Mary met an angel from heaven. This date
prevailed in many countries until 1745. Would the date on a letter
prove that an angel appeared to Mary and hailed her as the future
Mother of God? According to this clergyman, scientists, instead of
studying the crust of the earth and making geological investigations
to ascertain the probable age of the earth, ought to look at the date
in the margin of the bible which tells exactly the world's age.

Rev. Shayler continues: "The places where he was born, labored and
died are still extant, and have no value apart from such testimony."

While this is amusing, we are going to deny ourselves the pleasure of
laughing at it; we will do our best to give it a serious answer. If
the existence of such a country as Palestine proves that Jesus is
real, the existence of Switzerland must prove that William Tell is
historical; and the existence of an Athens must prove that Athene and
Apollo really lived; and from the fact that there is an England, Rev.
Shayler would prove that Robin Hood and his band really lived in 1160.

The Reverend knows of another 'fact' which he thinks proves Jesus
without a doubt:

"A line of apostles and bishops coming right down from him by his
appointment to Anderson of Chicago," shows that Jesus is historical.
It does, but only to Episcopalians. The Catholics and the other sects
do not believe that Anderson is a descendant of Jesus. Did the priests
of Baal or Moloch prove that these beings existed?

The Reverend has another argument:

"The Christian Church--when, why and how did it begin?" Which
Christian church, brother? Your own church began with Henry the Eighth
in 1534, with persecution and murder, when the king, his hands wet
with the blood of his own wives and ministers, made himself the
supreme head of the church in England. The Methodist church began with
John Wesley not much over a hundred years ago; the Presbyterian church
began with John Calvin who burned his guest on a slow fire in Geneva
about three hundred years ago; and the Lutheran church began with
Martin Luther in the sixteenth century, the man who said over his own
signature: "It was I, Martin Luther, who slew all the peasants in the
Peasants War, for I commanded them to be slaughtered....But I throw
the responsibility on our Lord God who instructed me to give this
order;" and the Roman Catholic church, the parent of the smaller
churches--all chips from the same block--began its real career with
the first Christian Emperor, Constantine, who hanged his father-in-
law, strangled his brother-in-law, murdered his nephew, beheaded his
eldest son, and killed his wife. Gibbon writes of Constantine that
"the same year of his reign in which he convened the council of Nice
was polluted by the execution, or rather murder, of his eldest son."

But our clerical neighbor from Oak Park has one more argument: "Why is
Sunday observed instead of Saturday?" Well, why? Sun-day is the day of
the Sun, whose glorious existence in the lovely heavens over our heads
has never been doubted; it was the day which the Pagans dedicated to
the Sun. _Sunday_ existed before the Jesus story was known,--the
anniversary of whose supposed resurrection falls in March one year,
and in April another. If Jesus rose at all, he rose on a certain day,
and the apostles must have known the date. Why then is there a
different date every year?

Rev. Shayler concludes: "Haven't time to go deeper now," and he
intimates that to deny his 'facts' is either to be a fool or a "liar."
We will not comment on this. We are interested in arguments, not in
epithets.




VIII


One of our Sunday programs, the other day, found its way into a
church. It went farther; it made its appearance in the pulpit.

"In my hand I hold the notice of a publication bearing the title _Is
Jesus a Myth?"_ said Dr. Boyle. "This, too, just as though Paul never
bore testimony."

This gave the clergyman a splendid opportunity to present in clear and
convincing form the evidence for the reality of Jesus. But one thing
prevented him:--the lack of evidence.

Therefore, after announcing the subject, he dismissed it, by remarking
that Paul's testimony was enough.

The Rev. Morton Culver Hartzell, in a letter, offers the same
argument. "Let Mr. Mangasarian first disprove Paul," he writes. The
argument in a nutshell is this: Jesus is historical because he is
guaranteed by Paul.

But _who_ guarantees Paul?

Aside from the fact that the Jesus of Paul is essentially a different
Jesus from the gospel Jesus there still remains the question, Who is
Paul? Let us see how much the church scholars themselves know about
Paul:

"The place and manner and occasion of his death are not _less
uncertain_ than the facts of his later life...The chronology of
the rest of his life is as uncertain...We have no means of knowing
when he was born, or how long he lived, or at what dates the several
events of his life took place."

Referring to the epistles of Paul, the same authority says: "The chief
of these preliminary questions is the genuineness of the epistles
bearing Paul's name, which _if they be his_"--yes, IF--

The Christian scholar whose article on Paul is printed in the
_Britannica_, and from which we are now quoting, gives further
expression to this uncertainty by adding that certain of Paul's
epistles "have given rise to disputes which cannot easily be settled
in the absence of collateral evidence...The pastoral epistles...have
given rise to still graver questions, and are probably even _less_
defensible."

Let the reader remember that the above is not from a rationalist, but
from the Rev. Edwin Hatch, D. D., Vice-Principal, St. Mary Hall,
Oxford, England.

Were we disposed to quote rationalist authorities, the argument
against Paul would be far more decisive. But we are satisfied to rest
the case on orthodox admissions alone.

The strongest argument then of clergymen who have attempted an answer
to our position is something like this:

Jesus is historical because a man by the name of Paul says so, though
we do not know much about Paul.

It is just such evidence as the above that led Prof. Goldwin Smith to
exclaim: "Jesus has flown. I believe the legend of Jesus was made by
many minds working under a great religious impulse--one man adding a
parable, another an exhortation, another a miracle story;"--and George
Eliot to write: "The materials for a real life of Christ do not
exist."

In the effort to untie the Jesus-knot by Paul, the church has
increased the number of knots to two. In other words, the church has
proceeded on the theory that two uncertainties make a certainty.

We promised to square also with the facts of history our statement
that the chief concern of the church, Jewish, Christian, or
Mohammedan, is not righteousness, but orthodoxy.




IX


Speaking in this city, Rev. W. H. Wray Boyle of Lake Forest, declared
that unbelief was responsible for the worst crimes in history. He
mentioned the placing.

--"of a nude woman on a pedestal in the city of Paris.

--"the assassination of William McKinley.

--"The same unbelief sent a murderer down the isle of a church in
Denver to pluck the symbol of the sacrament from the hands of a priest
and slay him at the altar."

The story of a "nude woman," etc., is pure fiction, and that the two
murders were caused by unbelief is mere assumption. To help his creed,
the preacher resorts to fable. We shall prove our position by quoting
_facts_:

I. HYPATIA [Footnote: See Author's, The Martyrdom of Hypatia.] was
dragged into a Christian church by monks in Alexandria, and before the
altar she was stripped of her clothing and cut in pieces with oyster
shells, and murdered. Her innocent blood stained the hands of the
clergy, who also handle the Holy Sacraments. She was murdered not by a
crazed individual but by the orders of the bishop of Alexandria. How
does the true story of Hypatia compare with the fable of "a nude woman
placed on a pedestal in the city of Paris?" The Reverend must answer,
or never tell an untruth again.

Hypatia was murdered in church, and by the clergy, because she was not
orthodox.

II. POLTROT, the Protestant, in the 16th century assassinated
Francois, the Catholic duke of Guise, in France, and the leaders of
the church, instead of disclaiming responsibility for the act,
publicly praised the assassin, and Theodore Beza, the colleague of
Calvin, promised him a crown in heaven. (_De l'etat etc, P. 82._
Quoted by Jules Simon.)

III. JAMES CLEMENT, a Catholic, assassinated Henry III. For this act
the clergy placed his portrait on the altar in the churches between
two great lighted candle-sticks. Because he had killed a heretic
prince, the Catholics presented the assassin's mother with a purse.
(_Esprit de la Ligue I. III. P. 14._)

If it was unbelief that inspired the murder of McKinley, what inspired
the assassins of Hypatia and Henry III?

We read in the Bible that Gen. Sisera, a heathen, having lost a
battle, begged for shelter at the tent of Jael, a friendly woman, but
of the Bible faith. Jael assured the unfortunate stranger that he was
safe in her tent. The tired warrior fell asleep from great weariness.
Then Jael picked a tent-peg and with a hammer in her hand "walked
softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it
into the ground...So he died."

The BIBLE calls this assassin "blessed above women." (_Judge IV. 18,
etc._) She had killed a heretic.

In each of the instances given above, the assassin is honored because
he committed murder in the interest of the faith. We ask this
clergyman and his colleagues who are only too anxious to charge every
act of violence to unbelief in their creeds--What about the crimes of
_believers_?

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