The Truth about Jesus : Is He a Myth? Part 5

Socrates is not taken to court at night, bound hand and feet. Jesus is arrested in the glare of torchlights, after he is betrayed by Judas with a kiss; then he is bound and forced into the high priest's presence. All this is admirable setting for a stage, but they are no more than that.

The disciples of Socrates behave like real men, those of Jesus are actors. They run away; they hide and follow at a distance. One of them curses him. The c.o.c.k crows, the apostate repents. This reads like a play.

In the presence of his judges, Socrates makes his own defense. One by one he meets the charges. Jesus refused, according to two of the evangelists, to open his mouth at his trial. This is dramatic, but it is not history. It is not conceivable that a real person accused as Jesus was, would have refused a great opportunity to disprove the charges against him. Socrates' defense of himself is one of the cla.s.sics. Jesus' silence is a conundrum. "But he answered nothing,"

"But Jesus as yet answered nothing," "And he answered him never a word," is the report of two of his biographers. The other two evangelists, as is usual, contradict the former and produce the following dialogues between Jesus and his judges, which from beginning to end possess all the marks of unreality:

_Pilate_.--"Art thou the King of the Jews?"

_Jesus_.--"Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?"

_Pilate_--"Art thou a King?"

_Jesus_.--"Thou sayest that I am a King."

Is it possible that a real man, not to say the Savior of the world, would give such unmeaning and evasive replies to straightforward questions? Does it not read like a page from fiction?

In the presence of the priests of his own race Jesus is as indefinite and sophistical as he is before the Roman Pilate.

_The Priests_--"Art thou the Christ--tell us?"

_Jesus._--"If I tell you ye will not believe me."

_The Priests_.--"Art thou the Son of G.o.d?"

_Jesus_.--"Ye say that I am."

In the first answer he refuses to reveal himself because he does not think he can command belief in himself; in his second answer he either blames them for saying he was the Son of G.o.d, or quotes their own testimony to prove that he is the Son of G.o.d. But if they believed he was G.o.d, would they try to kill him? Is it not unthinkable? He intimates that the priests believe he is the Son of G.o.d--"Ye say that I am." Surely, it is more probable that these dialogues were invented by his anonymous biographers than that they really represent an actual conversation between Jesus and his judges.

Compare in the next place the manner in which the public trials of Socrates and Jesus are conducted. There is order in the Athenian court; there is anarchy in the Jerusalem court. Witnesses and accusers walk up to Jesus and slap him on the face, and the judge does not reprove them for it. The court is in the hands of rowdies and hoodlums, who shout "Crucify him," and again, "Crucify him." A Roman judge, while admitting that he finds no guilt in Jesus deserving of death, is nevertheless represented as handing him over to the mob to be killed, after he has himself scourged him. No Roman judge could have behaved as this Pilate is reported to have behaved toward an accused person on trial for his life. All that we know of civilized government, all that we know of the jurisprudence of Rome, contradicts this "inspired" account of a pretended historical event. If Jesus was ever tried and condemned to death in a Roman court, an account of it that can command belief has yet to be written.

Again, when we come to consider the random, disconnected and fragmentary form in which the teachings of Jesus are presented, we cannot avoid the conclusion that he is a _dramatis persona_ brought upon the stage to give expression not to a consistent, connected and carefully worked-out thought, but to voice with many breaks and interruptions, the ideas of his changing managers. He is made to play a number of contradictory roles, and appears in the same story in totally different characters.

One editor or compiler of the Gospel describes Jesus as an ascetic and a mendicant, wandering from place to place, without a roof over his head, and crawling at eventide into his cave in the Mount of Olives.

He introduces him as the "Man of Sorrows," fasting in the wilderness, counseling people to part with their riches, and promising the Kingdom of Heaven to Lazarus, the beggar.

Another redactor announces him as "eating and drinking" at the banquets of "publicans and sinners,"--a "wine-bibbing" Son of Man.

"John the Baptist came neither eating nor drinking, but the Son of Man came both eating and drinking," which, if it means anything, means that Jesus was the very opposite of the ascetic John.

A partisan of the doctrine of non-resistance puts in Jesus' mouth the words: "Resist not evil;" "The meek shall inherit the earth," etc., and counsels that he who smites us on the one cheek should be permitted to strike us also on the other, and that to him who robs us of an undergarment, we should also hand over our outer garments.

Another draws the picture of a militant Jesus who could never endorse such precepts of indolence and resignation. "The kingdom of heaven is taken by _violence_," cries this new Jesus, and intimates that no such beggar like Lazarus, sitting all day long with the dogs and his sores, can ever earn so great a prize. With a scourge in his hands this Jesus rushes upon the traders in the temple-court, upturns their tables and whips their owners into the streets. Surely this was resistance of the most p.r.o.nounced type. The right to use physical force could not have been given a better endors.e.m.e.nt than by this example of Jesus.

It will not help matters to say that these money-changers were violating a divine law, and needed chastis.e.m.e.nt with a whip. Is not the man who smites us upon the cheek, or robs us of our clothing, equally guilty? Moreover, these traders in the outer courts of the synagogue were rendering the wors.h.i.+pers a useful service. Just as candles, rosaries, images and literature are sold in church vestibules for the accommodation of Catholics, so were doves, pigeons and Hebrew coins, necessary to the Jewish sacrifices, sold in the temple-courts for the Jewish wors.h.i.+per. The money changer who supplied the pious Jew with the only sacred coin which the priests would accept was not very much less important to the Jewish religion than the rabbi. To have fallen upon these traders with a weapon, and to have caused them the loss of their property, was certainly the most inconsistent thing that a "meek" and "lowly" Jesus preaching non-resistance could have done.

Again; one writer makes Jesus the teacher _par excellence_ of peace.

He counsels forgiveness of injuries not seven times, but seventy times that number--meaning unlimited love and charity. "Love your enemies,"

"Bless them that curse you," is his unusual advice. But another hand retouches this picture, and we have a Jesus who breaks his own golden rule. This other Jesus heaps abuse upon the people who displease him; calls his enemies "vipers," "serpents," "devils," and predicts for them eternal burnings in sulphur and brimstone. How could he who said, "Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden," say also, "Depart from me ye _cursed_?" Who curses them? How can there be an everlasting h.e.l.l in a universe whose author advises us to love our enemies, to bless them that curse us, and to forgive seventy times seven? How could the same Jesus who said, "Blessed are the peacemakers," say also, "I came not to bring peace, but a sword?" Is it possible that the same Jesus who commands us to love our _enemies_, commands us also to "hate" father, mother, wife and child, for "his name's sake?" Yes! the same Jesus who said, "Put up thy sword in its sheath," also commands us to sell our effects and "buy a sword."

Once more: A believer in the divinity of Jesus--I am going to say--invents the following text: "The Father and I are _one_." An opponent to this Trinitarian dogma introduces a correction which robs the above text of its authority: "The Father is greater than I," and makes Jesus admit openly that there are some things known to the father only. It is difficult not to see in these pa.s.sages the beginnings of the terrible controversies which, starting with Peter and Paul, have come down to our day, _and which will not end_ until Jesus shall take his place among the mythical saviors of the world.

To harmonize these many and different Jesuses into something like unity or consistency a thousand books have been written by the clergy.

They have not succeeded. How can a Jesus represented at one time as the image of divine perfection, and at another as protesting against being called "good," for "none is good, save one, G.o.d,"--how can these two conceptions be reconciled except by a resort to artificial and arbitrary interpretations? If such insurmountable contradictions in the teachings and character of another would weaken our faith in his historicity, then we are justified in inferring that in all probability Jesus was only a name--the name of an imaginary stage hero, uttering the conflicting thoughts of his prompters.

Again, such phrases as, "and he was caught up in a cloud,"--describing the ascension and consequent disappearance of Jesus, betray the anxiety of the authors of the Gospels to bring their marvelous story to a close. Not knowing how to terminate the career of an imaginary Messiah, his creators invented the above method of dispatching him.

"He was caught up in a cloud,"--but for that, the narrators would have been obliged to continue their story indefinitely.

In tragedy the play ends with the death of the hero, but if the biographers of Jesus had given a similar excuse for bringing their narrative to a _finale_, there would have been the danger of their being asked to point out his grave. "He was caught up in a cloud,"

relieved them of all responsibility to produce his remains if called upon to do so, and, at the same time, furnished them with an excuse to bring their story to a close.

It would hardly be necessary, were we all unbiased, to look for any further proofs of the mythical and fanciful nature of the Gospel narratives than this expedient to which the writers resorted. To questions, "Where is Jesus?" "What became of his body?" etc., they could answer, "He was caught up in a cloud." But a career that ends in the clouds was never begun on the earth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Coin of the XII Century, Showing Halo Around Lamb's Head.]

Let us imagine ourselves in Jerusalem in the year One, of the Christian era, when the apostles, as it is claimed, were proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah, crucified and risen. Desiring to be convinced before believing in the strange story, let us suppose the following conversation between the apostles and ourselves. We ask:

How long have you known Jesus?

I have known him for one year.

And I for two.

And I for three.

Has any of you known him for more than three years?

No.

Was he with his apostles for one year or for three?

For one.

No, for three.

You are not certain, then, how long Jesus was with his apostles.

No.

How old was Jesus when crucified?

About thirty-one.

No, about thirty-three.

No, he was much older, about fifty.

You cannot tell with any certainty, then, his age at the time of his death.

No.