The Christ by John E. Remsberg. Sources of the Christ
Myth: Conclusion
The Old Testament consists largely of borrowed myths. Nearly
everything in Genesis, and much of the so called history which
follows, are but a recital of Assyrian, Babylonian, Chaldean and
other legends. Dr. Draper says: "From such Assyrian sources, the
legends of the creation of the earth and heaven, the garden of
Eden, the making of man from clay, and of woman from one of his
ribs, the temptation by the serpent, the naming of animals, the
cherubim and flaming sword, the Deluge and the ark, the drying up
of the waters by the wind, the building of the Tower of Babel,
and the confusion of tongues, were obtained by Ezra"
(Conflict, p. 223).
The ten antediluvian patriarchs, Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan,
Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah, whom Luke
presents as the first ten progenitors of Christ, are now known to
have been a dynasty of Babylonian kings. Abram, Isaac, Jacob, and
Judah, whom both Matthew and Luke declare to have been ancestors
of Christ, and whom Matthew places at the head of his genealogy,
were not persons at all, but merely tribes of people. In regard
to this Rev. Dr. Oort, professor of Oriental languages at
Amsterdam, says: "They do not signify men, so much as groups of
nations or single tribes. Abram, for instance, represents a great
part of the Terachites; Lot, the Moabites and Ammonites, whose
ancestor he is called; Ishmael, certain tribes of Arabia; Isaac,
Israel and Edom together, Jacob, Israel alone; while his twelve
sons stand for the twelve tribes of Israel.... Here and there the
writers of the old legend themselves point out, as it were, that
the patriarchs whom they bring upon the scene as men are
personifications of tribes" (Bible for Learners, Vol. I,
pp. 100-102). Moses, the reputed founder of Judaism and archetype
of Christ, doubtless existed; but nearly all the Bible stories
concerning him are myths. David and Solomon, from whose house
Christ is said to have been descended, are historical characters;
but the accounts respecting the greatness of their kingdom and
the splendor of their reigns are fabulous.
Christ and Christianity are partly creations and partly
evolutions. While the elements composing them were mostly derived
from preexisting and contemporary beliefs, they were not formed
as a novelist creates a hero and a convention frames a
constitution. Their growth was gradual. Jesus, if he existed, was
a Jew, and his religion, with a few innovations, was Judaism.
With his death, probably, his apotheosis began. During the first
century the transformation was slow; but during the succeeding
centuries rapid. The Judaic elements of his religion were, in
time, nearly all eliminated, and the Pagan elements, one by one,
were incorporated into the new faith.
Regarding the establishment of this religion Lecky says:
"Christianity had become the central intellectual power of the
world, but it triumphed not so much by superseding rival faiths
as by absorbing and transforming them. Old systems, old rites,
old images were grafted into the new belief, retaining much of
their ancient character but assuming new names and a new
complexion" (Rationalism, Vol. I. p. 223).
Its origin is thus traced by Mrs. Besant: "From the later Jews
comes the Unity of God; from India and Egypt the Trinity in
Unity, from India and Egypt the crucified Redeemer, from India,
Egypt, Greece, and Rome, the virgin mother and the divine son;
from Egypt its priests and its ritual; from the Essenes and the
Therapeuts its asceticism; from Persia, India, and Egypt, its
sacraments; from Persia and Babylonia its angels and devils; from
Alexandria the blending into one of many lines of thought."
(Freethinkers' Text Book, p. 392.)
Concerning this, Judge Strange, another English writer, says:
"The Jewish Scriptures and the traditionary teachings of their
doctors, the Essenes and Therapeuts, the Greek philosophers, the
Neo-Platonism of Alexandria and the Buddhism of the East, gave
ample supplies for the composition of the doctrinal portion of
the new faith; the divinely procreated personages of the Grecian
and Roman pantheons, the tales of the Egyptian Osiris, and of the
Indian Rama, Krishna, and Buddha, furnished the materials for the
image of the new Savior of mankind." (Portraiture and Mission
of Jesus, p. 27.)
Dr. G. W. Brown, previously quoted, says: "The Eclectics
formed the nucleus into which were merged all the various
religions of the Orient. Mithra, of the Zoroastrians; Krishna and
Buddha, of the Brahmans; Osiris, of the Egyptians, and Bacchus,
of the Greeks and Romans, all disappeared and were lost in the
new God Jesus, each of the predecessors contributing to the
conglomerate religion known as Christian, Buddha and probably
Bacchus contributing the most."
Dr. John W. Draper, recognized on both sides of the Atlantic
as one of the most erudite, one of the most philosophic, and one
of the most impartial of historians, in the following paragraphs
tells the story of the rise and triumph of this everchanging
faith:
"In a political sense, Christianity is the bequest of the
Roman Empire to the world.
"Not only as a token of the conquest she had made, but also as
a gratification to her pride, the conquering republic brought the
gods of the vanquished peoples to Rome. With disdainful
toleration, she permitted the worship of them all. That paramount
authority exercised by each divinity in his original seat
disappeared at once in the crowd of gods and goddesses among whom
he had been brought. Already, as we have seen, through
geographical discoveries and philosophical criticism, faith in
the religion of the old days had been profoundly shaken. It was,
by this policy of Rome, brought to an end.
"In one of the Eastern provinces, Syria, some persons in very
humble life had associated themselves together for benevolent and
religious purposes. The doctrines they held were in harmony with
that sentiment of universal brotherhood arising from the
coalescence of the conquered kingdoms. They were doctrines
inculcated by Jesus.
"From this germ was developed a new, and as the events proved,
all-powerful society -- the Church; new, for nothing of the kind
had existed in antiquity; powerful, for the local churches, at
first isolated, soon began to confederate for their common
interest. Through this organization Christianity achieved all her
political triumphs.
"After the abdication of Diocletian (A.D., 305), Constantine,
one of the competitors for the purple, perceiving the advantages
that would accrue to him from such a policy, put himself forth as
the head of the Christian party. This gave him, in every part of
the empire, men and women ready to encounter fire and sword in
his behalf; it gave him unwavering adherents in every legion of
the armies. In a decisive battle, near the Milvian bridge,
victory crowned his schemes. The death of Maximian, and
subsequently that of Licinius, removed all obstacles. He ascended
the throne of the Caesars -- the first Christian emperor.
"Place, profit, power -- these were in view of whoever now
joined the conquering sect. Crowds of worldly persons, who cared
nothing about its religious ideas, became its warmest supporters.
Pagans at heart, their influence was soon manifested in the
paganization of Christianity that forthwith ensued.
"As years passed on, the faith described by Tertullian was
transmuted into one more fashionable and more debased. It was
incorporated with the old Greek mythology. Olympus was restored,
but the divinities passed under other names. The more powerful
provinces insisted on the adoption of their time-honored
conceptions. Views of the Trinity, in accordance with Egyptian
traditions, were established."
"Heathen rites were adopted, a pompous and splendid ritual,
gorgeous robes, mitres, tiaras, wax-tapers, processional
services, lustrations, gold and silver vases, were introduced.
The Roman lituns, the chief ensign of the augurs, became the
crozier. Churches were built over the tombs of martyrs, and
consecrated with rites borrowed from the ancient laws of the
Roman pontiffs. Festivals and commemorations of martyrs
multiplied with the numberless fictitious discoveries of their
remains. Fasting became the grand means of repelling the devil
and appeasing God; celibacy the greatest of the virtues.
Pilgrimages were made to Palestine and the tombs of the martyrs.
Quantities of dust and earth were brought from the Holy Land and
sold at enormous prices, as antidotes against devils. The virtues
of consecrated water were upheld. Images and relics were
introduced into the churches, and worshiped after the fashion of
the heathen gods.... The apotheosis of the old Roman times was
replaced by canonization; tutelary saints succeeded to local
mythological divinities.
"As centuries passed, the paganization became more and more
complete.
"The maxim holds good in the social as well as the mechanical
world, that, when two bodies strike, the form of both is changed.
Paganism was modified by Christianity. Christianity by
Paganism".
While affirming the divine origin of Christianity, the church
historian Mosheim admits its early paganisation. He says: "The
rites and institutions, by which the Greeks, Romans, and other
nations had formerly testified their religious veneration for
fictitious deities, were now adopted, with some slight
alterations, by Christian bishops, and employed in the service of
the true God.... Hence it happened that in these times the
religion of the Greeks and Romans differed very little in its
external appearance from that of the Christians. They had both a
most pompous and splendid ritual. Gorgeous robes, mitres, tiaras,
wax-tapers, croziers, processions, lustrations, images, gold and
silver vases, and many such circumstances of pageantry, were
equally to be seen in the heathen temples and the Christian
churches" (Ecclesiastical History, p. 105).
The Rev. Dr. R. Heber Newton, in an article which appeared in
the North American Review, says: "There is, in fact, as we
now see, nothing in the externals of the Christian church which
is not a survival from the churches of paganism.... The
sacramental use of water and bread and wine, the very sign of the
cross -- all are ancient human institutions, rites and symbols.
Scratch a Christian and you come upon a Pagan. Christianity is a
rebaptized paganism." "Christendom," says Dr. Lyman Abbott, "is
only an imperfectly Christianized paganism."
The creeds of old are dead or dying, and the celestial kings,
who seemed so real to their worshipers, are mostly crownless
phantoms now. Buddha, Laoutsze, and Confucius, the wise men of
the East, command the reverence of nearly half the world, and the
Persian prophet has a few followers; but from these faiths the
supernatural is vanishing. Millions yet believe that Krishna, the
Christ of India, is the son of God; but this faith, too, is
waning. The intellectual offspring of Plato's brilliant brain
survive, but all that remains of his divine father is a mutilated
effigy. The genial Sun still warms and lights the earth, but
centuries have flown since Mithra, his beloved, received the
adoration of mankind. The fire still glows upon the hearth, but
the great Titan who brought it down from Heaven lives only in a
poet's dream. The crimson nectar of the vine moves men to mirth
and madness now as when the swan of Teos sang its praise, but
Bacchus and the ancient mysteries are dead. Above storm-wrapped
Olympus, as of old, is heard the thunder's awful peal, but it is
not the voice of Zeus. The voice of this, the mightiest of all
the gods, is hushed forever. The populous and ever-growing empire
of the dead still flourishes, but in its solemn court Osiris no
longer sits as judge. The mother, as of yore, presses to her
loving heart her dimpled babe and fondly gazes into its azure
eyes to woo its artless smile; but Egypt's star-crowned virgin
and her royal child, who once received the homage of a world, are
now but mythic dust. Manly beauty thrills our daughters' hearts
with love's strange ecstasy, and the feigned suffering of the
dying hero on the mimic stage moistens their eyes with tears; but
Adonis sleeps in his Phoenician tomb, his slumbers undisturbed by
woman's sobs. The purple flower, substance of his clear self,
which Venus carried in her bosom, withered long ago. When, at
eve, the summer shower bathes with its cooling drops the verdure
of the fields, across the sun-kissed cloud which veils the Orient
sky may still be seen the gorgeous bridge of Bifrost; but over
its majestic arch the dauntless Odin rides no more.
The fair humanities of old religions,
The flower, the beauty, and the majesty,
That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountain,
Or forest by slow stream or pebbly spring,
Or chasms and watery depths; all these have vanished;
They live no longer in the faith of reason. - Schiller
What has been the fate of the Pagan gods will be the fate of
the Christian deity. Christianity, which supplanted the ancient
faiths, will, in turn, be supplanted by other religions. On two
continents already the cross has gone down before the crescent.
The belief in Christ as a divine being is passing away. The
creeds, as of old, affirm his divinity, but in the minds of his
more enlightened followers the divine elements are disappearing.
What was formerly believed to be supernatural is now known to be
natural. What were once living verities are now clear
formalities. Slowly and painfully, but surely and clearly, men
are becoming convinced that there are no divine beings and no
supernatural religions -- that all the gods, including Christ,
are myths, and all the religions, including Christianity, human
productions. In the words of Jules Soury, "Time, which condenses
nebulae, lights up suns, brings life and thought upon planets
theretofore steeped in death, and gives back ephemeral worlds to
dissolution and the fertile chaos of the everlasting universe --
time knows nought of gods nor of the dim and fallacious hopes of
ignorant mortals."
With these sublime pictures -- a retrospect and a prophecy --
from the gallery of the great master, Robert Ingersoll, I close
this long-drawn subject:
"When India is supreme, Brahma sits upon the world's throne.
When the sceptre passes to Egypt, Isis and Osiris receive the
homage of mankind. Greece, with her fierce valor, sweeps to
empire, and Zeus puts on the purple of authority. The earth
trembles with the tread of Rome's intrepid sons, and Jove grasps
with mailed hand the thunderbolts of Heaven. Rome falls, and
Christians, from her territory, with the red sword of war, carve
out the ruling nations of the world, and now Christ sits upon the
old throne. Who will be his successor?"
"I look again. The popes and priests are gone. The altars and
the thrones have mingled with the dust. The aristocracy of land
and cloud have perished from the earth and air. The gods are
dead. A new religion sheds its glory on mankind. And as I look
Life lengthens, Joy deepens, Love intensifies, Fear dies --
Liberty at last is God, and Heaven is here."
Index