XIII. THE GENESIS OF CHRISTIANITY

Referring back to the existence of something resembling

a great World-religion which has come down the centuries,

continually expanding and branching in the process, we have

now to consider the genesis of that special brand or

branch of it which we call Christianity. Each religion or

cult, pagan or Christian, has had, as we have seen, a vast

amount in common with the general World-religion; yet each

has had its own special characteristics. What have been the

main characteristics of the Christian branch, as differentiating

it from the other branches?

We saw in the last chapter that a certain ascetic attitude

towards Sex was one of the most salient marks of the Christian

Church; and that whereas most of the pagan cults

(though occasionally favoring frightful austerities and

cruel sacrifices) did on the whole rejoice in pleasure and

the world of the senses, Christianity--following largely on

Judaism--displayed a tendency towards renunciation of

the world and the flesh, and a withdrawal into the inner and

more spiritual regions of the mind. The same tendency

may be traced in the Egyptian and Phrygian cults of that

period. It will be remembered how Juvenal (Sat. VI,

510-40) chaffs the priests of Cybele at Rome for making

themselves "eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake,"

or the rich Roman lady for plunging in the wintry Tiber

for a propitiation to Isis. No doubt among the later pagans

"the long intolerable tyranny of the senses over the soul"

had become a very serious matter. But Christianity represented

perhaps the most powerful reaction against this;

and this reaction had, as indicated in the last chapter, the

enormously valuable result that (for the time) it disentangled

love from sex and established Love, pure and undefiled, as

ruler of the world. "God is Love." But, as also indicated,

the divorce between the two elements of human nature,

carried to an extreme, led in time to a crippling of both

elements and the development of a certain morbidity and

self-consciousness which, it cannot be denied, is painfully

marked among some sections of Christians--especially those

of the altruistic and 'philanthropic' type.

Another characteristic of Christianity which is also very

fine in its way but has its limits of utility, has been its

insistence on "morality." Some modern writers indeed have

gone so far--forgetting, I suppose, the Stoics--as to

claim that Christianity's chief mark is its high morality,

and that the pagans generally were quite wanting in

the moral sense! This, of course, is a profound

mistake. I should say that, in the true sense of the

word, the early and tribal peoples have been much more

'moral' as a rule--that is, ready as individuals to pay

respect to the needs of the community--than the later and

more civilized societies. But the mistake arises from the

different interpretations of the word; for whereas all

the pagan religions insisted very strongly on the just-

mentioned kind of morality, which we should call CIVIC DUTY

TO ONE'S NEIGHBOR, the Christian made morality to consist

more especially in a mans DUTY TO GOD. It became

with them a private affair between a mans self and-God,

rather than a public affair; and thus led in the end to a

very obnoxious and quite pharisaic kind of morality, whose

chief inspiration was not the helping of one's fellow-man

but the saving of one's own soul.

There may perhaps be other salient points of differentiation

between Christianity and the preceding pagan religions; but

for the present we may recognize these two--(a) the tendency

towards a renunciation of the world, and the consequent

cultivation of a purely spiritual love and (b) the insistence on

a morality whose inspiration was a private sense of duty

to God rather than a public sense of duty to one's neighbor

and to society generally. It may be interesting to trace the

causes which led to this differentiation.

Three centuries before our era the conquests of Alexander

had had the effect of spreading the Greek thought and

culture over most of the known world. A vast number

of small bodies of worshipers of local deities, with their

various rituals and religious customs, had thus been broken up,

or at least brought into contact with each other and

partially modified and hellenized. The orbit of a more

general conception of life and religion was already being traced.

By the time of the founding of the first Christian Church

the immense conquests of Rome had greatly extended

and established the process. The Mediterranean had

become a great Roman lake. Merchant ships and routes

of traffic crossed it in all directions; tourists visited its

shores. The known world had become one. The numberless

peoples, tribes, nations, societies within the girdle of the

Empire, with their various languages, creeds, customs,

religions, philosophies, were profoundly influencing each

other.[1] A great fusion was taking place; and it was becoming

inevitable that the next great religious movement would have

a world-wide character.

[1] For an enlargement on this theme see Glover's Conflict of

Religions in the early Roman Empire; also S. J. Case, Evolution

of Early Christianity(University of Chicago, 1914). The Adonis

worship, for instance (a resurrection-cult), "was still thriving

in Syria and Cyprus when Paul preached there," and the worship of

Isis and Serapis had already reached then, Rome and Naples.

It was probable that this new religion would combine many

elements from the preceding rituals in one cult. In

connection with the fine temples and elaborate services of

Isis and Cybele and Mithra there was growing up a powerful

priesthood; Franz Cumont[1] speaks of "the learned priests

of the Asiatic cults" as building up, on the foundations

of old fetichism and superstition, a complete religious

philosophy--just as the Brahmins had built the monism

of the Vedanta on the "monstrous idolatries of Hinduism."

And it was likely that a similar process would evolve the

new religion expected. Toutain again calls attention to

the patronage accorded to all these cults by the Roman

Emperors, as favoring a new combination and synthesis:

--"Hadrien, Commode, Septime Severe, Julia Domna,

Elagabal, Alexandre Severe, en particulier ont contribue

personnellement a la popularite et au succes des cultes

qui se celebraient en l'honneur de Serapis et d'Isis, des

divinites syriennes et de Mithra."[2]

[1] See Cumont, Religions Orientales dans le Paganisme Romain

(Paris, 1906), p. 253.

[2] Cultes paiens dans l'Empire Romain (2 vols., 1911), vol. ii,

p. 263.

It was also probable that this new Religion would show

(as indicated in the last chapter) a reaction against mere

sex-indulgence; and, as regards its standard of Morality

generally, that, among so many conflicting peoples with

their various civic and local customs, it could not well

identify itself with any ONE of these but would evolve an

inner inspiration of its own which in its best form would

be love of the neighbor, regardless of the race, creed or

customs of the neighbor, and whose sanction would not

reside in any of the external authorities thus conflicting

with each other, but in the sense of the soul's direct

responsibility to God.

So much for what we might expect a priori as to the

influence of the surroundings on the general form of the

new Religion. And what about the kind of creed or creeds

which that religion would favor? Here again we must

see that the influence of the surroundings compelled a

certain result. Those doctrines which we have described

in the preceding chapters--doctrines of Sin and Sacrifice, a

Savior, the Eucharist, the Trinity, the Virgin-birth,

and so forth--were in their various forms seething, so to

speak, all around. It was impossible for any new religious

synthesis to escape them; all it could do would be to

appropriate them, and to give them perhaps a color of its

own. Thus it is into the midst of this germinating mass

that we must imagine the various pagan cults, like fertilizing

streams, descending. To trace all these streams would

of course be an impossible task; but it may be of use, as

an example of the process, to take the case of some particular

belief. Let us take the belief in the coming of a

Savior-god; and this will be the more suitable as it is a

belief which has in the past been commonly held to be

distinctive of Christianity. Of course we know now that

it is not in any sense distinctive, but that the long tradition

of the Savior comes down from the remotest times, and

perhaps from every country of the world.[1] The Messianic

prophecies of the Jews and the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah

emptied themselves into the Christian teachings, and infected

them to some degree with a Judaic tinge. The

"Messiah" means of course the Anointed One. The

Hebrew word occurs some 40 times in the Old Testament;

and each time in the Septuagint or Greek translation

(made mainly in the third century BEFORE our era) the word

is translated <gr cristos>, or Christos, which again means

Anointed. Thus we see that the idea or the word "The

Christ" was in vogue in Alexandria as far back certainly

as 280 B.C., or nearly three centuries before Jesus. And what

the word "The Anointed" strictly speaking means, and from

what the expression is probably derived, will appear later.

In The Book of Enoch, written not later than B.C. 170,[2]

the Christ is spoken of as already existing in heaven,

and about to come as judge of all men, and is definitely

called "the Son of Man." The Book of Revelations is

FULL of passages from Enoch; so are the Epistles of Paul;

so too the Gospels. The Book of Enoch believes in a Golden

Age that is to come; it has Dantesque visions of Heaven

and Hell, and of Angels good and evil, and it speaks of a

"garden of Righteousness" with the "Tree of Wisdom" in its

midst. Everywhere, says Prof. Drews, in the first century

B.C., there was the longing for a coming Savior.

[1] Even to-day, the Arabian lands are always vibrating with

prophecies of a coming Mahdi.

[2] See Edition by R. H. Charles (1893).

But the Savior-god, as we also know, was a familiar figure

in Egypt. The great Osiris was the Savior of the world, both

in his life and death: in his life through the noble

works he wrought for the benefit of mankind, and in

his death through his betrayal by the powers of darkness

and his resurrection from the tomb and ascent into heaven.[1]

The Egyptian doctrines descended through Alexandria

into Christianity--and though they did not influence the

latter deeply until about 300 A.D., yet they then succeeded

in reaching the Christian Churches, giving a color to their

teachings with regard to the Savior, and persuading them to

accept and honor the Egyptian worship of Isis in the Christian

form of the Virgin Mary.

[1] See ch. ii.

Again, another great stream of influence descended from

Persia in the form of the cult of Mithra. Mithra, as we

have seen,[1] stood as a great Mediator between God and man.

With his baptisms and eucharists, and his twelve disciples,

and his birth in a cave, and so forth, he seemed to the

early Fathers an invention of the devil and a most dangerous

mockery on Christianity--and all the more so because his

worship was becoming so exceedingly popular. The cult

seems to have reached Rome about B.C. 70. It spread

far and wide through the Empire. It extended to Great

Britain, and numerous remains of Mithraic monuments

and sculptures in this country--at York, Chester and other

places--testify to its wide acceptance even here. At

Rome the vogue of Mithraism became so great that in

the third century A. D., it was quite doubtful[2] whether it

OR Christianity would triumph; the Emperor Aurelian in 273

founded a cult of the Invincible Sun in connection

with Mithraism;[3] and as St. Jerome tells us in his letters,[4]

the latter cult had at a later time to be suppressed in Rome

and Alexandria by PHYSICAL FORCE, so powerful was it.

[1] Ch. ii.

[2] See Cumont, op. cit., who says, p. 171:--"Jamais, pas meme a

1'epoque des invasions mussulmanes, l'Europe ne sembla plus pres

de devenir asiatique qu'au moment ou Diocletien reconnaissait

officiellement en Mithra, le protecteur de l'empire reconstitue."

See also Cumont's Mysteres de Mithra, preface. The Roman Army, in

fact, stuck to Mithra throughout, as against Christianity; and so

did the Roman nobility. (See S. Augustine's Confessions, Book

VIII, ch. 2.)

[3] Cumont indeed says that the identification of Mithra with the

Sun (the emblem of imperial power) formed one reason why

Mithraism was NOT persecuted at that time.

[4] Epist. cvii, ad Laetam. See Robertson's Pagan Christs, p.

350.

Nor was force the only method employed. IMITATION is

not only the sincerest flattery, but it is often the most

subtle and effective way of defeating a rival. The priests

of the rising Christian Church were, like the priests of ALL

religions, not wanting in craft; and at this moment

when the question of a World-religion was in the balance, it

was an obvious policy for them to throw into their own scale

as many elements as possible of the popular Pagan cults.

Mithraism had been flourishing for 600 years; and it is, to

say the least, CURIOUS that the Mithraic doctrines and legends

which I have just mentioned should all have been

adopted (quite unintentionally of course!) into Christianity;

and still more so that some others from the same source,

like the legend of the Shepherds at the Nativity and the

doctrine of the Resurrection and Ascension, which are

NOT mentioned at all in the original draft of the earliest

Gospel (St. Mark), should have made their appearance, in

the Christian writings at a later time, when Mithraism

was making great forward strides. History shows that

as a Church progresses and expands it generally feels

compelled to enlarge and fortify its own foundations by inserting

material which was not there at first. I shall shortly

give another illustration of this; at present I will

merely point out that the Christian writers, as time

went on, not only introduced new doctrines, legends,

miracles and so forth--most of which we can trace to

antecedent pagan sources--but that they took especial pains

to destroy the pagan records and so obliterate the evidence

of their own dishonesty. We learn from Porphyry[1] that

there were several elaborate treatises setting forth the

religion of Mithra; and J. M. Robertson adds (Pagan

Christs, p. 325): "everyone of these has been destroyed by

the care of the Church, and it is remarkable that even the

treatise of Firmicus is mutilated at a passage (v.) where

he seems to be accusing Christians of following Mithraic

usages." While again Professor Murray says, "The polemic

literature of Christianity is loud and triumphant; the

books of the Pagans have been DESTROYED."[2]

[1] De Abstinentia, ii. 56; iv. 16.

[2] Four Stages, p. 180. We have probably an instance of this

destruction in the total disappearance of Celsus' lively attack

on Christianity (180 A.D.), of which, however, portions have been

fortunately preserved in Origen's rather prolix refutation of the

same.

Returning to the doctrine of the Savior, I have already

in preceding chapters given so many instances of belief

in such a deity among the pagans--whether he be called

Krishna or Mithra or Osiris or Horus or Apollo or Hercules

--that it is not necessary to dwell on the subject any further

in order to persuade the reader that the doctrine was 'in the

air' at the time of the advent of Christianity. Even

Dionysus, then a prominent figure in the 'Mysteries,'

was called Eleutherios, The Deliverer. But it may be of

interest to trace the same doctrine among the PRE-CHRISTIAN

sects of Gnostics. The Gnostics, says Professor Murray,[1]

"are still commonly thought of as a body of CHRISTIAN

heretics. In reality there were Gnostic sects scattered over

the Hellenistic world BEFORE Christianity as well as after.

They must have been established in Antioch and probably

in Tarsus well before the days of Paul or Apollos. Their

Savior, like the Jewish Messiah, was established in men's

minds before the Savior of the Christians. 'If we look

close,' says Professor Bousset, 'the result emerges with

great clearness that the figure of the Redeemer as such did

not wait for Christianity to force its way into the religion

of Gnosis, but was already present there under various

forms.' "

[1] Four Stages, p. 143.

This Gnostic Redeemer, continues Professor Murray, "is

descended by a fairly clear genealogy from the 'Tritos

Soter' ('third Savior')[1] of early Greece, contaminated

with similar figures, like Attis and Adonis from Asia Minor,

Osiris from Egypt, and the special Jewish conception of the

Messiah of the Chosen people. He has various names, which

the name of Jesus or 'Christos,' 'the Anointed,' tends

gradually to supersede. Above all, he is in some

sense Man, or 'the second Man' or 'the Son of Man' . . .

He is the real, the ultimate, the perfect and eternal Man,

of whom all bodily men are feeble copies."[2]

[1] There seems to be some doubt about the exact meaning of this

expression. Even Zeus himself was sometimes called 'Soter,' and

at feasts, it is said, the THIRD goblet was always drunk in his

honor.

[2] See also The Gnostic Story of Jesus Christ, by Gilbert T.

Sadler (C. W. Daniel, 1919).

This passage brings vividly before the mind the process of

which I have spoken, namely, the fusion and mutual

interchange of ideas on the subject of the Savior during the

period anterior to our era. Also it exemplifies to us

through what an abstract sphere of Gnostic religious speculation

the doctrine had to travel before reaching its expression

in Christianity.[1] This exalted and high philosophical

conception passed on and came out again to some degree

in the Fourth Gospel and the Pauline Epistles (especially

I Cor. xv); but I need hardly say it was not maintained.

The enthusiasm of the little scattered Christian bodies--

with their communism of practice with regard to THIS

world and their intensity of faith with regard to the next

--began to wane in the second and third centuries A.D. As

the Church (with capital initial) grew, so was it less

and less occupied with real religious feeling, and more and

more with its battles against persecution from outside, and

its quarrels and dissensions concerning heresies within

its own borders. And when at the Council of Nicaea (325

A.D) it endeavored to establish an official creed, the

strife and bitterness only increased. "There is no wild

beast," said the Emperor Julian, "like an angry theologian."

Where the fourth Evangelist had preached the gospel of

Love, and Paul had announced redemption by an inner

and spiritual identification with Christ, "As in Adam all die,

so in Christ shall all be made alive"; and whereas some

at any rate of the Pagan cults had taught a glorious salvation

by the new birth of a divine being within each man:

"Be of good cheer, O initiates in the mystery of the liberated

god; For to you too out of all your labors and sorrows shall

come Liberation"--the Nicene creed had nothing to propound

except some extremely futile speculations about the

relation to each other of the Father and the Son, and

the relation of BOTH to the Holy Ghost, and of all THREE to

the Virgin Mary--speculations which only served for the renewal

of shameful strife and animosities--riots and bloodshed

and murder--within the Church, and the mockery of

the heathen without. And as far as it dealt with the crucifixion,

death and resurrection of the Lord it did not differ

from the score of preceding pagan creeds, except in the

thorough materialism and lack of poetry in statement

which it exhibits. After the Council of Nicaea, in fact, the

Judaic tinge in the doctrines of the Church becomes

more apparent, and more and more its Scheme of Salvation

through Christ takes the character of a rather sordid and

huckstering bargain by which Man gets the better of God

by persuading the latter to sacrifice his own Son for the

redemption of the world! With the exception of a few episodes

like the formation during the Middle Ages of the noble

brotherhoods and sisterhoods of Frairs and Nuns, dedicated

to the help and healing of suffering humanity,

and the appearance of a few real lovers of mankind (and the

animals) like St. Francis--(and these manifestations can

hardly be claimed by the Church, which pretty consistently

opposed them)--it may be said that after about the fourth

century the real spirit and light of early Christian enthusiasm

died away. The incursions of barbarian tribes from the

North and East, and later of Moors and Arabs from the South,

familiarized the European peoples with the ideas of bloodshed

and violence; gross and material conceptions of life

were in the ascendant; and a romantic and aspiring Christianity

gave place to a worldly and vulgar Churchianity.

[1] When travelling in India I found that the Gnanis or Wise Men

there quite commonly maintained that Jesus (judging from his

teaching) must have been initiated at some time in the esoteric

doctrines of the Vedanta.

I have in these two or three pages dealt only--and that

very briefly--with the entry of the pagan doctrine of the

Savior into the Christian field, showing its transformation

there and how Christianity could not well escape having

a doctrine of a Savior, or avoid giving a color of its own

to that doctrine. To follow out the same course with

other doctrines, like those which I have mentioned above,

would obviously be an endless task--which must be left to

each student or reader to pursue according to his opportunity

and capacity. It is clear anyhow, that all these

elements of the pagan religions--pouring down into the vast

reservoir, or rather whirlpool, of the Roman Empire, and

mixing among all these numerous brotherhoods, societies,

collegia, mystery-clubs, and groups which were at that time

looking out intently for some new revelation or inspiration--

did more or less automatically act and react upon

each other, and by the general conditions prevailing were

modified, till they ultimately combined and took united

shape in the movement which we call Christianity, but which

only--as I have said--narrowly escaped being called

Mithraism--so nearly related and closely allied were these

cults with each other.

At this point it will naturally be asked: "And where in

this scheme of the Genesis of Christianity is the chief

figure and accredited leader of the movement--namely

Jesus Christ himself--for to all appearance in the account

here given of the matter he is practically non-existent or

a negligible quantity?" And the question is a very pertinent

one, and very difficult to answer. "Where is the

founder of the Religion?"--or to put it in another form:

"Is it necessary to suppose a human and visible Founder

at all?" A few years ago such a mere question would

have been accounted rank blasphemy, and would only--

if passed over--have been ignored on account of its

supposed absurdity. To-day, however, owing to the enormous

amount of work which has been done of late on the

subject of Christian origins, the question takes on quite

a different complexion. And from Strauss onwards a

growingly influential and learned body of critics is inclined

to regard the whole story of the Gospels as LEGENDARY. Arthur

Drews, for instance, a professor at Karlsruhe, in his celebrated

book The Christ-Myth,[1] places David F. Strauss as

first in the myth field--though he allows that Dupuis in

L'origine de tous les cultes (1795) had given the clue to the

whole idea. He then mentions Bruno Bauer (1877) as

contending that Jesus was a pure invention of Mark's,

and John M. Robertson as having in his Christianity and

Mythology (1900) given the first thoroughly reasoned exposition

of the legendary theory; also Emilio Bossi in Italy, who

wrote Jesu Christo non e mai esistito, and similar authors

in Holland, Poland, and other countries, including W. Benjamin

Smith, the American author of The Pre-christian

Jesus (1906), and P. Jensen in Das Gilgamesch Epos in den

Welt-literatur (1906), who makes the Jesus-story a variant of

the Babylonian epic, 2000 B.C. A pretty strong list![2] "But,"

continues Drews, "ordinary historians still ignore all this."

Finally, he dismisses Jesus as "a figure swimming obscurely

in the mists of tradition." Nevertheless I need hardly

remark that, large and learned as the body of opinion

here represented is, a still larger (but less learned) body

fights desperately for the actual HISTORICITY of Jesus, and some

even still for the old view of him as a quite unique and

miraculous revelation of Godhood on earth.

[1] Die Christus-mythe: verbesserte und erweitezte Ausgabe, Jena,

1910.

[2] To which we may also add Schweitzer's Quest of the historical

Jesus (1910).

At first, no doubt, the LEGENDARY theory seems a little TOO

far-fetched. There is a fashion in all these things, and

it MAY be that there is a fashion even here. But when

you reflect how rapidly legends grow up even in these days of

exact Science and an omniscient Press; how the figure of

Shakespeare, dead only 300 years, is almost completely lost

in the mist of Time, and even the authenticity of his

works has become a subject of controversy; when you find

that William Tell, supposed to have lived some 300

years again before Shakespeare, and whose deeds in minutest

detail have been recited and honored all over Europe, is almost

certainly a pure invention, and never existed; when

you remember--as mentioned earlier in this book[1]--that

it was more than five hundred years after the supposed

birth of Jesus before any serious effort was made to establish

the date of that birth--and that then a purely mythical date

was chosen: the 25th December, the day of the SUN'S new

birth after the winter solstice, and the time of the supposed

birth of Apollo, Bacchus, and the other Sungods;

when, moreover, you think for a moment what the state

of historical criticism must have been, and the general standard

of credibility, 1,900 years ago, in a country like Syria,

and among an ignorant population, where any story circulating

from lip to lip was assured of credence if sufficiently

marvelous or imaginative;--why, then the legendary

theory does not seem so improbable. There is

no doubt that after the destruction of Jerusalem (in A.D.

70), little groups of believers in a redeeming 'Christ' were

formed there and in other places, just as there had certainly

existed, in the first century B.C., groups of Gnostics,

Therapeutae, Essenes and others whose teachings were very

SIMILAR to the Christian, and there was now a demand from

many of these groups for 'writings' and 'histories' which

should hearten and confirm the young and growing Churches.

The Gospels and Epistles, of which there are still extant a

great abundance, both apocryphal and canonical, met this

demand; but how far their records of the person of Jesus

of Nazareth are reliable history, or how far they are merely

imaginative pictures of the kind of man the Saviour might

be expected to be,[2] is a question which, as I have already

said, is a difficult one for skilled critics to answer, and one

on which I certainly have no intention of giving a positive

verdict. Personally I must say I think the 'legendary'

solution quite likely, and in some ways more satisfactory

than the opposite one--for the simple reason that it seems

much more encouraging to suppose that the story of Jesus,

(gracious and beautiful as it is) is a myth which gradually

formed itself in the conscience of mankind, and thus points

the way of humanity's future evolution, than to suppose

it to be the mere record of an unique and miraculous

interposition of Providence, which depended entirely on the

powers above, and could hardly be expected to occur again.

[1] Ch. II.

[2] One of Celsus' accusations against the Christians was that

their Gospels had been written "several times over" (see Origen,

Contra Celsum, ii. 26, 27).

However, the question is not what we desire, but what

we can prove to be the actual fact. And certainly the

difficulties in the way of regarding the Gospel story (or

stories, for there is not one consistent story) as TRUE are

enormous. If anyone will read, for instance, in the four Gospels,

the events of the night preceding the crucifixion and reckon the

time which they would necessarily have taken to enact--

the Last Supper, the agony in the Garden, the betrayal by

Judas, the haling before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, and

then before Pilate in the Hall of judgment (though

courts for the trial of malefactors do not GENERALLY sit in

the middle of the night); then--in Luke--the interposed visit

to Herod, and the RETURN to Pilate; Pilate's speeches and

washing of hands before the crowd; then the scourging

and the mocking and the arraying of Jesus in purple robe

as a king; then the preparation of a Cross and the long and

painful journey to Golgotha; and finally the Crucifixion

at sunrise;--he will see--as has often been pointed out--

that the whole story is physically impossible. As a record

of actual events the story is impossible; but as a record

or series of notes derived from the witnessing of a "mystery-

play"--and such plays with VERY SIMILAR incidents were common

enough in antiquity in connection with cults of a dying

Savior, it very likely IS true (one can see the very dramatic

character of the incidents: the washing of hands, the

threefold denial by Peter, the purple robe and crown

of thorns, and so forth); and as such it is now accepted

by many well-qualified authorities.[1]

[1] Dr. Frazer in The Golden Bough (vol. ix, "The Scapegoat," p.

400) speaks of the frequency in antiquity of a Mystery-play

relating to a God-man who gives his life and blood for the

people; and he puts forward tentatively and by no means

dogmatically the following note:--"Such a drama, if we are right,

was the original story of Esther and Mordecai, or (to give their

older names) Ishtar and Marduk. It was played in Babylonia, and

from Babylonia the returning Captives brought it to Judaea, where

it was acted, rather as an historical than a mythical piece, by

players who, having to die in grim earnest on a cross or gallows,

were naturally drawn from the gaol rather than the green-room. A

chain of causes, which because we cannot follow them might--in

the loose language of common life--be called an accident,

determined that the part of the dying god in this annual play

should be thrust upon Jesus of Nazareth, whom the enemies he had

made in high places by his outspoken strictures were resolved to

put out of the way." See also vol. iv, "The Dying God," in the

same book.

There are many other difficulties. The raising of Lazarus,

already dead three days, the turning of water into wine

(a miracle attributed to Bacchus, of old), the feeding of

the five thousand, and others of the marvels are, to say

the least, not easy of digestion. The "Sermon on the

Mount" which, with the "Lord's Prayer" embedded in

it, forms the great and accepted repository of 'Christian'

teaching and piety, is well known to be a collection of sayings

from pre-christian writings, including the Psalms, Isaiah,

Ecclesiasticus, the Secrets of Enoch, the Shemonehesreh (a

book of Hebrew prayers), and others; and the fact that this

collection was really made AFTER the time of Jesus, and could

not have originated from him, is clear from the stress which

it lays on "persecutions" and "false prophets"--things which

were certainly not a source of trouble at the time

Jesus is supposed to be speaking, though they were at a

later time--as well as from the occurrence of the word

"Gentiles," which being here used apparently in contra-

distinction to "Christians" could not well be appropriate

at a time when no recognized Christian bodies as yet existed.

But the most remarkable point in this connection is the

absolute silence of the Gospel of Mark on the subject of

the Resurrection and Ascension--that is, of the ORIGINAL

Gospel, for it is now allowed on all hands that the twelve

verses Mark xvi. 9 to the end, are a later insertion. Considering

the nature of this event, astounding indeed, if

physically true, and unique in the history of the world,

it is strange that this Gospel--the earliest written of the

four Gospels, and nearest in time to the actual evidence--

makes no mention of it. The next Gospel in point of time

--that of Matthew--mentions the matter rather briefly

and timidly, and reports the story that the body had been

STOLEN from the sepulchre. Luke enlarges considerably and

gives a whole long chapter to the resurrection and ascension;

while the Fourth Gospel, written fully twenty years later

still--say about A. D. 120--gives two chapters and a GREAT

VARIETY OF DETAILS!

This increase of detail, however, as one gets farther

and farther from the actual event is just what one always

finds, as I have said before, in legendary traditions. A

very interesting example of this has lately come to light in

the case of the traditions concerning the life and

death of the Persian Bab. The Bab, as most of my readers

will know, was the Founder of a great religious movement

which now numbers (or numbered before the Great War)

some millions of adherents, chiefly Mahommedans, Christians,

Jews and Parsees. The period of his missionary

activity was from 1845 to 1850. His Gospel was singularly

like that of Jesus--a gospel of love to mankind--only (as

might be expected from the difference of date) with an

even wider and more deliberate inclusion of all classes,

creeds and races, sinners and saints; and the incidents

and entourage of his ministry were also singularly similar.

He was born at Shiraz in 1820, and growing up a promising

boy and youth, fell at the age Of 21 under the influence

of a certain Seyyid Kazim, leader of a heterodox sect, and

a kind of fore-runner or John the Baptist to the Bab. The

result was a period of mental trouble (like the "temptation

in the wilderness"), after which the youth returned

to Shiraz and at the age of twenty-five began his own mission.

His real name was Mirza Ali Muhammad, but he called

himself thenceforth The Bab, i.e. the Gate ("I am the Way");

and gradually there gathered round him disciples, drawn

by the fascination of his personality and the devotion

of his character. But with the rapid increase of his

following great jealousy and hatred were excited among the

Mullahs, the upholders of a fanatical and narrow-

minded Mahommedanism and quite corresponding to the

Scribes and Pharisees of the New Testament. By them

he was denounced to the Turkish Government. He was

arrested on a charge of causing political disturbance, and

was condemned to death. Among his disciples was one

favorite,[1] who was absolutely devoted to his Master and

refused to leave him at the last. So together they were

suspended over the city wall (at Tabriz) and simultaneously

shot. This was on the 8th July, 1850.

[1] Mirza Muhammad Ali; and one should note the similarity of

the two names.

In November 1850--or between that date and October 1851,

a book appeared, written by one of the B<a^>b's earliest

and most enthusiastic disciples--a merchant of Kashan--

and giving in quite simple and unpretending form a record

of the above events. There is in it no account of miracles

or of great pretensions to godhood and the like. It is just

a plain history of the life and death of a beloved teacher. It

was cordially received and circulated far and wide; and

we have no reason for doubting its essential veracity. And

even if proved now to be inaccurate in one or two details, this

would not invalidate the moral of the rest of the story--which

is as follows:

After the death of the Bab a great persecution took place

(in 1852); there were many Babi martyrs, and for some

years the general followers were scattered. But in time

they gathered themselves together again; successors to the

original prophet were appointed--though not without

dissensions--and a Babi church, chiefly at Acca or Acre

in Syria, began to be formed. It was during this period

that a great number of legends grew up--legends of miraculous

babyhood and boyhood, legends of miracles performed

by the mature Bab, and so forth; and when the newly-

forming Church came to look into the matter it concluded

(quite naturally!) that such a simple history as I have outlined

above would never do for the foundation of its plans,

now grown somewhat ambitious. So a new Gospel

was framed, called the Tarikh-i-Jadid ("The new History"

or "The new Way"), embodying and including a lot of legendary

matter, and issued with the authority of "the

Church." This was in 1881-2; and comparing this with

the original record (called The point of Kaf) we get

a luminous view of the growth of fable in those thirty brief

years which had elapsed since the Bab's death. Meanwhile

it became very necessary of course to withdraw from circulation

as far as possible all copies of the original record,

lest they should give the lie to the later 'Gospel'; and

this apparently was done very effectively--so effectively

indeed that Professor Edward Browne (to whom the world

owes so much on account of his labors in connection with

Babism), after arduous search, came at one time to the

conclusion that the original was no longer extant. Most

fortunately, however, the well-known Comte de Gobineau

had in the course of his studies on Eastern Religions acquired

a copy of The point of Kaf; and this, after his death, was

found among his literary treasures and identified (as was most

fitting) by Professor Browne himself.

Such in brief is the history of the early Babi Church[1]

--a Church which has grown up and expanded greatly

within the memory of many yet living. Much might be written

about it, but the chief point at present is for us

to note the well-verified and interesting example it gives

of the rapid growth in Syria of a religious legend and the

reasons which contributed to this growth--and to be warned

how much more rapidly similar legends probably grew up

in the same land in the middle of the First Century, A.D.

The story of the Bab is also interesting to us because, while

this mass of legend was formed around it, there is no possible

doubt about the actual existence of a historical nucleus in the

person of Mirza Ali Muhammad.

[1] For literature, see Edward G. Browne's Traveller's Narrative

on the Episode of the Bab (1891), and his New History of the Bab

translated from the Persian of the Tarikh-i-Jadid (Cambridge,

1893). Also Sermons and Essays by Herbert Rix (Williams and

Norgate, 1907), pp. 295-325, "The Persian Bab."

On the whole, one is sometimes inclined to doubt whether

any great movement ever makes itself felt in the world, without

dating first from some powerful personality or

group of personalities, ROUND which the idealizing and myth-

making genius of mankind tends to crystallize. But one

must not even here be too certain. Something of the

Apostle Paul we know, and something of 'John' the

Evangelist and writer of the Epistle I John; and that the

'Christian' doctrines dated largely from the preaching and

teaching of these two we cannot doubt; but Paul

never saw Jesus (except "in the Spirit"), nor does he ever

mention the man personally, or any incident of his actual

life (the "crucified Christ" being always an ideal figure);

and 'John' who wrote the Gospel was certainly not the same

as the disciple who "lay in Jesus' bosom"--though

an intercalated verse, the last but one in the Gospel, asserts

the identity.[1]

[1] It is obvious, in fact, that the WHOLE of the last chapter of

St. John is a later insertion, and again that the two last verses

of that chapter are later than the chapter itself!

There may have been a historic Jesus--and if so, to get

a reliable outline of his life would indeed be a treasure;

but at present it would seem there is no sign of that. If

the historicity of Jesus, in any degree, could be proved,

it would give us reason for supposing--what I have personally

always been inclined to believe--that there was also a

historical nucleus for such personages as Osiris, Mithra,

Krishna, Hercules, Apollo and the rest. The question,

in fact, narrows itself down to this, Have there been in

the course of human evolution certain, so to speak, NODAL

points or periods at which the psychologic currents ran

together and condensed themselves for a new start; and

has each such node or point of condensation been marked

by the appearance of an actual and heroic man (or woman)

who supplied a necessary impetus for the new departure,

and gave his name to the resulting movement? OR is it sufficient

to suppose the automatic formation of such nodes or

starting-points without the intervention of any special

hero or genius, and to imagine that in each case the myth-

making tendency of mankind CREATED a legendary and

inspiring figure and worshiped the same for a long period

afterwards as a god?

As I have said before, this is a question which, interesting

as it is, is not really very important. The main thing being

that the prophetic and creative spirit of mankind HAS from

time to time evolved those figures as idealizations of its

"heart's desire" and placed a halo round their heads.

The long procession of them becomes a REAL piece of History

--the history of the evolution of the human heart, and of

human consciousness. But with the psychology of the whole

subject I shall deal in the next chapter.

I may here, however, dwell for a moment on two other

points which belong properly to this chapter. I have

already mentioned the great reliance placed by the advocates

of a unique 'revelation' on the high morality taught in the

Gospels and the New Testament generally. There is no

need of course to challenge that morality or to depreciate it

unduly; but the argument assumes that it is so greatly superior

to anything of the kind that had been taught before

that we are compelled to suppose something like

a revelation to explain its appearance--whereas of course

anyone familiar with the writings of antiquity, among the

Greeks or Romans or Egyptians or Hindus or later Jews,

knows perfectly well that the reported sayings of Jesus and

the Apostles may be paralleled abundantly from these sources.

I have illustrated this already from the Sermon on

the Mount. If anyone will glance at the Testament of

the Twelve Patriarchs--a Jewish book composed about

120 B. C.--he will see that it is full of moral precepts, and

especially precepts of love and forgiveness, so ardent and

so noble that it hardly suffers in any way when compared

with the New Testament teaching, and that consequently no

special miracle is required to explain the appearance of the

latter.

The twelve Patriarchs in question are the twelve sons of

Jacob, and the book consists of their supposed deathbed

scenes, in which each patriarch in turn recites his own

(more or less imaginary) life and deeds and gives pious

counsel to his children and successors. It is composed in

a fine and poetic style, and is full of lofty thought, remindful

in scores of passages of the Gospels--words and all--

the coincidences being too striking to be accidental. It

evidently had a deep influence on the authors of the Gospels,

as well as on St. Paul. It affirms a belief in the coming of

a Messiah, and in salvation for the Gentiles. The following

are some quotations from it:[1] Testament of Zebulun

(p. 116): "My children, I bid you keep the commands of

the Lord, and show mercy to your neighbours, and have

compassion towards all, not towards men only, but also

towards beasts." Dan (p. 127): "Love the Lord through all

your life, and one another with a true heart." Joseph

(p. 173): "I was sick, and the Lord visited me; in prison,

and my God showed favor unto me." Benjamin (p. 209):

"For as the sun is not defiled by shining on dung and mire,

but rather drieth up both and driveth away the evil

smell, so also the pure mind, encompassed by the defilements

of earth, rather cleanseth them and is not itself defiled."

[1] The references being to the Edition by R. H. Charles (1907).

I think these quotations are sufficient to prove the high

standard of this book, which was written in the Second Century

B. C., and FROM which the New Testament authors copiously

borrowed.

The other point has to do with my statement at the beginning

of this chapter that two of the main 'characteristics'

of Christianity were its insistence on (a) a tendency

towards renunciation of the world, and a consequent cultivation

of a purely spiritual love, and (b) on a morality

whose inspiration was a private sense of duty to God rather

than a public sense of duty to one's neighbor and to society

generally. I think, however, that the last-mentioned

characteristic ought to be viewed in relation to a third, namely,

(c) the extraordinarily DEMOCRATIC tendency of the new

Religion.[1] Celsus (A.D. 200) jeered at the early Christians

for their extreme democracy: "It is only the

simpletons, the ignoble, the senseless--slaves and womenfolk

and children--whom they wish to persuade [to join their

churches] or CAN persuade"--"wool-dressers and cobblers

and fullers, the most uneducated and vulgar persons," and

"whosoever is a sinner, or unintelligent or a fool, in

a word, whoever is god-forsaken (<gr kakodaimwn>), him the

Kingdom of God will receive."[2] Thus Celsus, the accomplished,

clever, philosophic and withal humorous critic,

laughed at the new religionists, and prophesied their speedy

extinction. Nevertheless he was mistaken. There is little

doubt that just the inclusion of women and weaklings

and outcasts did contribute LARGELY to the spread of Christianity

(and Mithraism). It brought hope and a sense of

human dignity to the despised and rejected of the earth.

Of the immense numbers of lesser officials who carried on

the vast organization of the Roman Empire, most perhaps,

were taken from the ranks of the freedmen and quondam

slaves, drawn from a great variety of races and already

familiar with pagan cults of all kinds--Egyptian, Syrian,

Chaldean, Iranian, and so forth.[3] This fact helped to give

to Christianity--under the fine tolerance of the Empire--

its democratic character and also its willingness to accept

all. The rude and menial masses, who had hitherto been

almost beneath the notice of Greek and Roman culture,

flocked in; and though this was doubtless, as time went on,

a source of weakness to the Church, and a cause of dissension

and superstition, yet it was in the inevitable line of human

evolution, and had a psychological basis which I must now

endeavor to explain.

[1] It is important to note, however, that this same democratic

tendency was very marked in Mithraism. "Il est certain," says

Cumont, "qu'il a fait ses premieres conquetes dans les classes

inferieures de la societe et c'est l'a un fait considerable; le

mithracisme est reste longtemps la religion des humbles."

Mysteres de Mithra, p. 68.

[2] See Glover's Conflict of Religions in the early Roman Empire,

ch. viii.

[3] See Toutain, Cultes paiens, vol. ii, conclusion.