DETAILS OF THE TWO GOSPEL STORIES
Before we conclude our survey of the Virgin Birth story, we must return yet again to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and notice how not only the idea itself of a Virgin Birth, but also all the details of the two stories, were mythopoeic conceptions commonly current in the East. The Massacre of the Innocents, the birth in a stable or cave, the cradling in a manger, and even the journey of the God's parents for the purpose of paying their taxes, were stories told in connection with many pre-Christian cults-stories so intimately connected in people's minds with the miraculous birth of god-men that they were transferred in turn to all, or at any rate to most, of the religious histories of those times. Let us first examine the story of "The Massacre of the Innocents."
This story of Herod being told that a child, who was to be King of the Jews, had been born in Bethlehem of Judaea, and of his slaying all the children of two years old and under, is related only by the author of the second chapter of Matthew. Luke gives an entirely contradictory version of the movements of Joseph and Mary, and entirely different reasons for those movements. There is, as we have before noticed, no historical evidence of such a massacre having been ordered or having taken place. Jewish historians have no record of such an event, and in debates with Christians have always denied the possibility of its unrecorded occurrence. Even as early as the days of Origen, the Jews in their disputes with the Christians used to point out the unhistoricity of this story; and in more modern times, when the study of the resemblances of different religions-the science of comparative religion-began to be undertaken, attention has frequently been called to its numerous parallels in mythical and legendary histories.
For example, in the Krishna myth King Kansa murders, as soon as they are born, all the male children of Krishna's mother, Devaki; and Krishna is preserved only by a miracle, and exchanged for the daughter of a peasant. A voice from heaven had warned King Kansa that he would be slain by a son of his sister Devaki; and he had already slain six of her children before Krishna, the man-god, was born.
Again, in the Cyrus legend Astyages, the king of the Medes, dreams that his daughter will give birth to a child who will reign in his stead, and orders Harpagus to kill the infant as soon as it is born. Harpagus, unwilling to commit so bloody an act with his own hands, delegates the task to a cowherd. The cowherd's wife having just given birth to a still-born child, the body of the latter is palmed off as that of the infant Cyrus, who is really brought up by the cowherd as his own son, and eventually comes to the throne.
According to an old Arab story about Abraham, the latter narrowly escapes death when King Nemrod orders all male children to be put to death because the astrologers have foretold that a child is to be born who will destroy both the king himself and the idols of all nations.
Similar stories are told of Cypselus, despot of Corinth, and of Telephus, the mythical son of Hercules and Auge. And, apart from such elaborate myths and legends of escape from death in early infancy, there are numerous other accounts, less elaborate, of the dangers to which the infant god or hero is exposed immediately after his birth. Zeus himself is saved only by a trick from death at the hands, or rather in the mouth, of his father, Cronus. Romulus and Remus, Sargon, AEsculapius, Attis, Dionysos, Semiramis, and many other mythical personages, had such stories told about them. All, or almost all, the gods of mythology have had to be saved in their infancy from such perils. The attempt of a wicked king to kill the mother of the god or the newly-born god himself is a commonplace theme of most religious myths of a man-god, and the reason usually given for this attempt is that the king hears from soothsayers or from an oracle that a child has been, or is to be, born who will become king after him. To escape the peril the child and his mother go on a journey, or the child is in some way concealed.
The form of the legend best known to most of us is that found in the first two chapters of Exodus. In this story Pharaoh orders two Hebrew midwives to slay all the male children who are born to the Israelites; but he orders this not, as in the typical myth, because he fears a personal rival, but because the Israelites are becoming too numerous. As his orders are not carried out, he next tells his own people-the Egyptians themselves-to slay all the male children of the Israelites, and Moses escapes this fate only by being floated down the river, whence he is rescued by Pharaoh's daughter.
Substitute Euphrates for Nile, and we have the similar story told about Sargon.
In Egypt the myth was exceedingly old. That strange hippopotamus-shaped goddess whose statues we can still see in that country had, as her chief claim to veneration, the credit of protecting Isis, just before she gave birth to Horus, from Set Typhon, who wished to murder her.
It is said by some of those who seek the origin of all myths in primitive astronomical observations that this story sprang from an allegory of the disappearance in the morning of all the stars save one-the great Sun itself, the sole survivor of the massacre. But more probably the legends arose from the necessity for explaining why so little was known of the birth and infancy of one who was so superior to all other men, and for shedding romance round the beginnings of his history.
It is not suggested that the story in Matthew was necessarily taken deliberately from any one of the above-quoted myths and legends; but as a similar story is told of so many mythical beings, and of so many legendary personages, its repetition in the Gospel story, unsupported by any other writers-Christian or pagan-and contradicted as it indirectly is by Luke, is far more suggestive of a myth than of an actual historical occurrence known to no other historian.
In fiction, plots familiar to all are continually repeated without any conscious plagiarism on the part of the authors. History does not so often and so closely repeat itself. It is, however, not easy to exonerate Luke from a charge of conscious plagiarism. If we turn to his story of the "taxing" under Caesar Augustus, we find a tale which resembles closely a myth of much earlier date about the popular Indian man-god, Krishna.
Krishna, immediately after his birth, had been-so as to save him from being murdered by his uncle, King Kansa -placed in the charge of a cowherd Nanda and his wife, whose daughter had been substituted for the Divine child. Shortly after the infant Krishna had been placed in his charge, the foster-father Nanda had to journey to Mathura to pay his taxes, and while he is away Krishna has a narrow escape from death. But the remarkable thing is that Luke, the only recorder of this Gospel taxation story, gives other details resembling the Indian pre-Christian myths. The story about the birth of Elizabeth's son John (the Baptist), cousin of Jesus, corresponds with the story in the Krishna myth about the birth of the child of Nanda and his wife Yasoda, and also corresponds with the story of Ananda, the cousin of the Buddha, who was born at the same time as Gautama, the Buddha, himself.
We have already seen that the "taxation" or census story is unhistorical, and we can only surmise why it was ever introduced. For an author who was not averse to romance, here was a theme eminently suitable. It had already been used in a similar connection; and, though probably it was known so far West to only a few of the learned, there is no improbability about its being borrowed by a writer who was a man of letters. The unpopular census was still remembered; and its date, so the author supposed, was somewhere about the correct time for the story.
When we come to the next detail we wish to examine-the birth of the child in a stable(?) and his being laid in a manger-we find we are dealing with an episode that forms part of a very large number of ancient legends and myths. In the first place, it should be noticed that Luke, our only canonical authority for this episode, does not actually mention a stable. He says that Mary "brought forth her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling-clothes, and laid him in a manger: because there was no room for them in the inn." The stable of tradition may have been inferred from the presence of a manger, and from the statement that there was no room in the inn, which implies that the birth took place in some outbuilding or adjunct of the caravanserai; or it may have become part of that tradition through the influence of the "Apocryphal" Gospels, in several of which the birth of Jesus is said to have taken place in a stable, or in a cave used as a stable, or in a cave not so used.
In one which bore the name of Matthew, and is now known as the "Gospel of the pseudo-Matthew," it is written: "Now, on the third day after the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, the most blessed Mary went out of the cave, and, entering a stable, put her child in a manger, and the ox and the ass adored him." This is the scene depicted in many sacred pictures of the Holy Family still to be seen in various art galleries. Doubtless, in the process of toning down the too flagrantly mythological elements of the story, the adoration of the ox and of the ass would first be eliminated, and the cave would eventually suffer a like fate, leaving only the stable in tradition and the manger in the text. But that the cave tradition persisted for a very long time is certain.
In the dramatic representation of the Gospel story which certainly took place in the fifth century, and almost as certainly took place during three or four of the preceding Christian centuries, the birth was shown as taking place in a cave. These dramatic representations closely resembled the older pagan "mystery" plays, in which, so the mythological school of commentators believe, the story had its origin.
Moreover, a cave at Bethlehem was, and perhaps still is, shown as the birthplace of Christ; and this very same cave is said by early Christian writers to have been formerly used for the worship of Tammuz, another man-god whose cult was widely spread in Western Asia at the time when Christianity first arose. This cave was apparently regarded as a holy spot by pre-Christian pagans, and as such-when Christianity became dominant-would naturally be appropriated for the purposes of the new cult.
Caves might be, and undoubtedly often were, used as stables, so that there is nothing inherently incompatible in both forms of the tradition. The fact that Luke does not mention the word "stable," and that the oldest and commonest form of the tradition made a cave the birthplace of Jesus, is of interest chiefly because it enables us to trace a possible origin for the story.
When we examine the myths connected with the births of the gods most commonly worshipped at the time when Christianity arose, we are struck by the fact that most of them were said to have been born in a cave.
Dionysos, the child of Zeus and Semele, was said to have been reared by Io (represented in art as a cow) in a cave.
Hermes was born in a cave of Cyllene.
Zeus himself, the offspring of Kronos and Rhea, was also brought up in a cave-in this case to save him from his own father, who would have eaten him if he had found him. He survives to overthrow the father, who had attempted, like Herod and Astyages and others, to slay the being who was foretold as coming to dethrone or reign after him.
Mithra was said to have been born in a cave on the 25th of December. The rites connected with his worship were always carried on in caves or in buildings made to represent caves.
Even the philosopher Confucius-the founder of one of the greatest religions of the world-was said to have been born in a cave, a voice from heaven proclaiming at the time, "This is a heaven-born, Divine child," and many other wonderful portents attending the event.
But, in addition to the cave, the mythological origin of Luke's story is apparent in the small detail of the manger in which, he says, the infant was laid. The manger, as well as the cave or stable, was a common detail in stories about the births of gods.
The Egyptians, according to an early Christian Chronicle, worshipped "a child Saviour," born of a virgin and laid in a manger. This may have been Horus. It was anyhow, from the remarks made in the Chronicle, not Jesus, and the cult was evidently a very old one.
The manger theme is probably connected with the very ancient Indian and Egyptian sanctification of cows, dating from the earliest pastoral age. Hermes was represented as cradled in a basket, such as was and still is used as a manger in many parts of the East, and surrounded by oxen, one of which is sniffing at the cradle.
An effigy of Dionysos used to be carried in a manger basket on the eve of the venter solstice; the 25th of December-the day when the old Sun dies and the new Sun is born again-having generally been regarded as the birthday of Gods.
In the representations of Krishna's birth, already referred to, the babe is placed in a basket of this kind.
Botticelli's picture of the Nativity shows this kind of basket as the manger, as well as the other details to which we have already referred.
We find, therefore, when we study the ancient religions, that it was not only said of most gods that they were born of a virgin, but also, of many of them, that they were born in a cave and laid in a manger. Of the origin of these ideas students have many different theories. That the origins are lost in the mists of antiquity all are agreed.
As regards the cave theme, some have attributed its origin to various solar and astronomical observations allegorized. The sun rising daily out of his cave beneath the earth, or the sun entering some particular sign of the Zodiac on the Solar birthday, have been thought to have possibly given rise to such a story.
Some have attributed its earliest origin to the vegetation springing up out of the earth in which its seeds have been hidden, and growing up after being preserved from imminent dangers.
A myth might evolve out of poetical descriptions, or even out of prose records of this process.
Others have thought that such stories originate in a desire to emphasize the self-humiliation of the divine being, the hardships besetting the hero, and the miraculous preservation of a person, really so great, whose infancy was surrounded by so many dangers.
But, whatever the primary origin of all such myths may have been, the fact is undeniable that all these details of the story we are considering were common-places in the mythologies of the time in which it arose. They had been fictitiously related of many mythical beings who were worshipped as gods. Were they on this occasion, and on this occasion only-when they were already old-truthfully related of Jesus? And if any of these details were true, which were they? Those related by Matthew or those related by Luke? Or the ones related in "Apocryphal" Gospels of Jesus being born in a cave and afterwards transferred to a manger elsewhere, or the ones related in other "Apocryphal" Gospels of his being born in a stable and afterwards taken away to a cave?
There are yet other details in these two virgin-birth stories which remind every one who has studied other religions besides his own of the curious myths with which they abound. They are, however, of less importance than those we have already noticed, and so they will be referred to but briefly.
Matthew relates that three wise men came from the East, guided by a star which "stood over where the young child was."
That a star should "stand over" any particular house is of course an impossibility. Some supposed miracles are, as we have mentioned, not absolute physical impossibilities, but merely contrary to experience. This one is more than that: it is a physical impossibility. Even if the forces which govern the movements of the earth and of all the celestial bodies ceased to act, the position of one of the stars could not be such as to designate one particular house. The great astronomer Kepler, the discoverer of some of those laws by which we can calculate the motions of the celestial bodies, hazarded the conjecture that the event recorded by Matthew was really a conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn. Such an explanation is typical of an age when no man ventured to suggest even that the evangelists could have made any mistakes, but a few were ready to suggest that when they said one thing they really meant something totally different; and this regardless of the context, which makes the explanation incompatible with the story and very little more rational.
But signs and portents, astronomical and of other kinds, are said to have signalized the birth of many of the man-gods believed in by ancient races, and of many human heroes. Ancient histories and pagan scriptures are full of such events. A "Star in the East" is not an uncommon sign to read of. In one continually recurring case-the re-incarnation of Thibetan Grand Lamas-a rainbow often guides, so it is said, the late Grand Lama's disciples to the spot where his successor has been born. Thither they repair to worship their new master.
This is perhaps the most peculiar of all these stories, as it shows that some one has discovered "where the rainbow ends," and that even in the nineteenth century the Himalayas formed a barrier to the advance of the science of optics.
Luke, differing as usual from Matthew, tells of other portents. An angel and "a multitude of the heavenly host" appeared to some shepherds as they watched their flocks by night, and sang praises to God, the very words of their song being quoted. Luke himself, even if he was the companion of Paul, did not hear these words sung. Whence came this tradition written down first, so far as we know, long after the event is supposed to have taken place?
According to a degenerate Neo-Buddhist legend, when Sumedha became a Buddha the rivers stood still, flowers rained from heaven, and even the fires of hell died down.
It is not suggested that the author of Luke must necessarily have borrowed from this much older and more florid story, but it should be noted that the idea is the same. The birth must be noted in heaven, and marked by something unusual on earth.
Luke then tells us that the shepherds visited "the babe lying in a manger."
The "adoration of the shepherds" which has formed the subject of so many sacred Christian pictures, and which has occupied so prominent a place in our hymnals, might have been directly borrowed from Mithraism. In some of the sculptures portraying the miraculous birth of Mithra from a rock, shepherds are seen standing by.
So we find that none of the details of these two stories -whether one of them be true or not-were new. All of them are to be found in the current mythologies of the period, and many of them are common to every known mythology of the period.
If we eliminate from our Bibles these two stories, found in the first two chapters of Matthew and Luke respectively, those Bibles are left without any history of, or even any reference to, the birth and childhood of Jesus; and we are free to regard the Virgin Birth story as on a par with all the other stories of virgin births with which the students of mythology have made us familiar.
Next: CHAPTER VII THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE-MODERN SCEPTICISM