It is easy, then, to understand why a savage should desire to partake of the flesh of an animal or man whom he regards as divine. By eating the body of the god he shares in the god’s attributes and powers. “And when,” as Dr. Frazer points out,126 “the god is a corn-god, the corn is his proper body; when he is a vine-god, the juice of the grape is his blood; and so by eating the bread and drinking the wine the worshipper partakes of the real body and blood of the god.” If the apologist, nothing daunted, maintains that there is a religious germ in these primitive superstitions, it is practically tantamount to saying that every superstition contains such a germ; that superstition and religion are, in fact, often synonymous terms. I thought it was only the sceptic who said that. Before committing himself any further to a supernatural theory which is so obviously untenable, I do entreat the average apologist to read carefully the works of great thinkers who have made primitive man their especial study. Let him read, for instance, Herbert Spencer’s Principles of Sociology, where he will find a natural and mind-satisfying explanation of primitive ideas concerning supernatural agents, ghosts, spirits, demons, gods, resurrection, another life, inspiration, divination, sacrifices, fasting, propitiation, and prayer. He will learn, also, much that he ought to know concerning ancestor-worship, idol-worship, fetish-worship, animal-worship, plant-worship, nature-worship, and the heathen deities generally. He should also read Frazer’s Golden Bough, J. M. Robertson’s Pagan Christs and Christianity and Mythology, and other scholarly and informing works of this description, instead of confining his studies to works of an apologetic character, where everything incompatible with existing Christian theories is carefully omitted, or coloured out of all recognition.
§ 4. The Solar Myth
JONAH AND THE WHALE
The resemblances to ancient myths are not confined to the principal incidents in the life of Christ. Many of the most noteworthy events related in the Old Testament have their counterpart in widespread legends. That the stories of the Creation, Fall, and Deluge are legends is well known—a visit to the British Museum should convince the most captious critic on this point—but it is not so well known that ancient folk-lore contains stories similar to those of the Tower of Babel, the trial of Abraham’s faith, Jacob’s vision of the ladder between earth and heaven, the finding of Moses in an ark, the transformation of Moses’ rod into a serpent, the Israelites’ passage through the Red Sea on dry land, Moses smiting the rock and thus producing water, the reception by Moses of the Ten Commandments from God, Balaam’s expostulating ass, Joshua’s command to the sun and the sun’s obedience, Samson and his exploits, Elijah’s ascent to heaven, and Jonah’s sojourn for three days and three nights in the belly of a fish.
This Jonah episode has an important bearing on the subject under discussion, as it is a typical case of an absorption of the universal mythos. Among other authorities, Godfrey Higgins tells us: “The story of Jonas swallowed up by a whale is nothing but part of the fiction of Hercules, described in the Heracleid or Labours of Hercules, of whom the same story was told, and who was swallowed up at the very same place, Joppa, and for the same period of time, three days.”127 Again, with the exception of those who refuse to acknowledge anything damaging to the literal truth of Holy Writ, all professors of theology are agreed that the miracle recorded in the book of Jonah is not a historical fact. This in spite of the alleged personal interviews with God as there recounted; while the plea that we must make allowance for oriental imagery serves only to throw discredit upon historians on whom we are relying for facts upon which the scheme of Christianity depends. Now, the story of the three days’ sojourn of Hercules and other heroes in the bowels of the earth, or the belly of a fish, is only a different version of the myth concerning the death and resurrection of a god which we find to be prevalent over nearly the whole world. And, according to the new Christian theory, this shows an intuition of Christ’s death and resurrection!
ANTICIPATIONS OF CHRISTIANITY IN SOLAR MYTHS
The advanced theologians, who are presenting us with this theory, have to explain, among other things, how it was that Christ himself took the “Jonah and whale” story seriously, treating it as sober history. He spoke of no mere allegory when He said: “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”128 Neither Christ himself nor the Apostles spoke of any revelation embodied in heathen beliefs. Very much the reverse. Yet the Bishop of Birmingham (late of Worcester), speaking to the adversaries of Christianity, informs them: “You say that we find in Christianity the relics of paganism. On the contrary, we find in paganism, intermingled with much that is false, superstitious, and horrible, the anticipations of Christianity.” Is that why we have paid them the compliment of adopting their dates for the birth and death of their Saviours?129 Canon P. H. Robinson goes so far as to say that Christianity has benefited by the addition of heathen thought [N.B. He owns there has been this addition], and that it is yet to benefit by further contact with heathen thought! His actual words are: “If Greek and Roman thought were needed for a full appreciation of the meaning of the Incarnation, why may we not say the same of Indian and Chinese thought? Surely we are justified in believing that every country and every people have something to contribute to Christianity and that the completion of the Christian revelation awaits the contribution of each. We believe that there are many important aspects of the Christian truth which have never been understood, simply because Christianity has not yet been reflected in the experience of those nations of the world which are still heathen.”130
THE CHRISTIAN THEORY IGNORED BY SCIENCE
The earliest attempts at a crude science of mythology were efforts to reconcile the legends of the gods and heroes with the religious sentiment which recognised in these beings objects of worship and respect. When the Christians first approached the problem of heathen mythology, they agreed with St. Augustine that the gods were real persons—but diabolical, not divine. “Some later philosophers, especially of the seventeenth century, misled by the resemblance between Biblical narratives and ancient myths, came to the conclusion that the Bible contains a pure, the myths a distorted, form of an original revelation.”131 Now, however, in tracing myths and legends to their probable origins, the modern mythologist never dreams of calling to his aid any supernatural theory.
Myths present, I take it, two main problems—first as to their origin, and second as to their resemblances to Biblical narratives. Some mythologists, while no longer allowing orthodox tradition to hamper them, only profess to answer the first question. They disclaim the obligation of entering the arena of theological controversy. It is important that the Church should thoroughly realise this, and that any disagreement there may be among mythologists as to the solution of the first problem—the origin of myths—has little or no bearing upon the solution of the second problem—the Bible parallels. What does it matter whether the gods had a vegetable or a solar origin, or arose, as Max Müller thought, from “a disease of language”? The all-important question for Christians is: Can any of these possible origins point to a Progressive Revelation, and, if not, how are we to account for the Bible parallels?
THE SUN AS A SYMBOL
Suppose that, whatever the ultimate origin may have been, certain myths containing the parallels are, as we know them, solar myths (and on this point mythologists are now in complete accord); how can a belief be, at one and the same time, a solar myth and also an allegory expressing a spiritual truth? The sun is the object of worship, and its apparent movements give rise to myths concerning the birth, death, and resurrection of a Saviour.132 Can we call this Progressive Revelation? “Certainly,” the apologists may reply; “is there no bright Sun of Righteousness—no personal and loving Son of God, of whom the material sun has been the type or symbol, in all ages and among all nations? What power is it that comes from the sun to give light and heat to all created things? If the symbolical sun leads such a great and heavenly flock, what must be said of the true and only begotten Son of God? If Apollo was adopted by early Christian art as a type of the Good Shepherd of the New Testament, this interpretation of the sun-god among all nations must be the solution of the universal mythos. What other solution can it have? To what other historical personage but Christ can it apply? If this mythos has no spiritual meaning, all religion becomes mere idolatry, or the worship of material things.”133
Will this sort of reasoning satisfy the average man? To begin with, the sun-worshippers themselves had no idea that the sun was, as is now alleged, the symbol of a great Truth. The sun, or their conception of the sun as a divine person in a blazing car, was the object of their worship. What a waste of worship for thousands upon thousands of years!—worship that might have been centred upon the true God. Even now, nigh on 2,000 years after God was pleased at last to reveal Himself, as we are told, to all mankind, the greater portion do not know Him, or they deny Him. If God intended the sun to be a symbol of Christ, why have we never been told this before? Why even now is it only put forward by a certain school of apologists in costly books that few will ever set their eyes upon? It is noteworthy, too, that the horrors that accompanied the worship of this same “bright Sun” are discreetly kept in the background by these advocates of the “symbol” theory.
§ 5. Concluding Remarks on Christian and Anti-Christian Theories
If Progressive Revelation be true, it is the most marvellous proof of the truth of Christianity—far the greatest proof that has ever yet been presented to us. Far greater, for instance, than the prophecies of those so-called prophets of the Old Testament, who, it now transpires, were only anticipating or describing events of their own times. It is such a proof as Christianity is in dire need of just now—a proof that will save her from a peril which every hour brings nearer. Why, then, do we hear so little of this great discovery from the pulpit?134 How comes it that it is discovered so many years after the fulfilment of these unconscious prophecies of the pagans? Why is it produced merely to confute the sceptic and restore confidence to that infinitesimally small number who happen to have studied, and therefore to have had their suspicions aroused by, Comparative Mythology? We are to believe that God revealed Himself by an exceedingly slow and painful process, extending over thousands upon thousands of years, and entailing the most horrible customs among savages. This process, mark you, not only led to the establishment of Christianity as the world became more civilised, but to the establishment of those other great religions which to this day are hostile to the reception of Christianity! Simple-minded people will never be induced to agree that revelation can be progressive in the manner now indicated to us by the apologist. Rather they will agree with the nationalist, who denies the originality of Christianity, contending that it is a cult which adopted, step by step, the mysteries, the miracles, and the myths of the popular Gentile religions. Some freethinkers, indeed, go so far as to say that the whole Gospel story is nothing more than a myth; but the greater number consider that there is a substratum of truth, and that round this have slowly gathered the religious ideas and doctrines that were current in the old pagan world. The precise manner in which, they conjecture, the transformation actually took place is a large subject, and there are differences of opinion—e.g., some are inclined to think that Essenism, others that Mithraism, played a leading part; but the point to be borne in mind is that there is no difficulty whatever in understanding how the absorption of myths could have taken place, or how the Christian cult could have arisen and prospered.
I especially mention this, as some apologists argue that there was not sufficient time for heathen accretions between the death of Jesus and the writing of the Gospels. I can only reiterate the remark of the well-known professor of Church history, Dr. Harnack: “We know that the Gospels come from a time in which the marvellous may be said to have been something of almost daily occurrence. We now know that eminent persons have not to wait until they have been long dead, or even for several years, to have miracles reported of them; they are reported at once, often the very next day.” Also, I should call attention to the notes on Essenism and Mithraism at the close of this chapter, as they contain the answer to this final objection. But, personally, I fail to see how the “time” objection can in any case be maintained when we remember that the whole world had already been conversant for ages past with stories of suffering Saviours, similar in all essentials to the Gospel narratives. Besides, we know that documents have been tampered with more or less (the sceptic says “more,” the apologist “less”), and that the composition of the Gospels took place many years after the events they purport to describe; while the age was one when men were extremely credulous, and when, consciously and unconsciously, imposing upon this credulity was the ordinary method of propagating a Faith.
ARGUMENT FROM ESSENISM
Regarding the difficulty of supposing that Jesus or the Evangelists could have been imbued with any sun-myth ideas, we must take into consideration the existence at that time of the Jewish sect, the Essenes. It seems quite possible that they considered Jesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah they were expecting, and that they came over to Christianity in a body. This monastic brotherhood, living in settlements in the desert west of the Dead Sea—i.e., within a day’s journey of Bethlehem and Jerusalem—not only placed love of God, of goodness, and of man as articles in their programme, but also sought with wonderful energy, according to their lights, to realise them in their life. Bunsen assures us (p. 158 of his Angel-Messiah), and furnishes strong grounds for his opinion, that the Essenes introduced the new doctrine of an Angel-Messiah, and with it the doctrine of the atoning death of the Messiah, into Judaism and Christianity. Canon Cheyne likewise places them among the number of those who prepared the way for the new world-religion. This seems to have been the very reason of their disappearance in the second century A.D.—Christianity dissolved them. So much so that the Essenes (often called Therapeutæ or healers) are identified by Eusebius with the Christian monks, and this opinion was generally adopted by the Fathers (see chap, xvii., bk. ii., p. 117, of The Church History of Eusebius, translated by the Rev. A. C. McGiffert, under the editorial supervision of Henry Wace, D.D., and Philip Schaff, D.D.).
From a perusal of the article on the “Essenes” in the Encyclopædia Biblica, it will be seen that Essenism is not a purely Jewish product, but that “Persian and Babylonian influence may reasonably be admitted.” “Oriental influences were,” Canon Cheyne informs us, “so to speak, in the air, and it is probable that the belief in the resurrection was not the only great debt which Jewish religionists owed to Zoroastrians.” Bishop Lightfoot describes the Essenes as sun-worshippers. Is there, then, no likelihood of Jesus and His disciples being familiar with the ideas of sun-worshippers?
But, it may be urged, the teaching of Jesus Christ was opposed to Essenic doctrines in the matter of asceticism. True; but, in one way, this makes the case for the absorption of Essenic ideas all the stronger, for it would account for the strange fact that the Christians approved of asceticism in spite of their own Master’s example to the contrary. I do not wish to press this anti-Christian theory further than to say that it appears to me that, among others, it is one deserving of consideration. Presuming that in Jesus the Apostles were confronted with a personality of overwhelming attractiveness and power of appeal to themselves, their language can be interpreted throughout as their attempt to expound and pass on their experience to the world. In this attempt they were naturally driven to employ such conceptions as were current in their day, and notably those of Messianic anticipations and Greek philosophy. Assuming that the Gospels are without any important interpolations, and that the authors are the Evangelists, even then the partial insertion of solar-myths would not necessarily be tantamount to any conscious dishonesty on the part of the Evangelists; it only points to their impregnation with the Jewish beliefs, such as those of the Essenes, that were around them. If this theory be correct, the difficulty arising from the shortness of the time between the Resurrection and the writing of the Gospels vanishes, since accretions of a later date would no longer be the sole cause for the events recorded by the Evangelists becoming inextricably entwined with mythical beliefs.
ARGUMENT FROM MITHRAISM
This argument is fully developed in Part III. of Mr. J. M. Robertson’s book, Pagan Christs, from which the following are quotations: “Mithraism was in point of range the most nearly universal religion of the Western world in the early centuries of the Christian era. As to this students are agreed. [Here Mr. Robertson gives in a footnote a formidable array of authorities.] To the early Fathers, we shall see. Mithraism was a most serious thorn in the flesh; and the monumental remains of the Roman period, in almost all parts of the empire, show its extraordinary extension.” Mr. Robertson points out that there are a number of monuments in honour of Mithra in England, France, Italy, Germany, and in many Mediterranean ports. He then proceeds to give us some exceedingly important information regarding Mithraism, out of which I select the following extracts for the more particular attention of Christians:—
“We have the culture of Mithra as the Sun-god, the deity of light and truth, created by, and yet co-equal with, the Supreme Deity, and fighting on the side of the good against the evil power, Angra-Mainyu (Ahriman)—this at a period long before the Christian era.... Mithra comes to occupy a singular position as between the two great powers of good and evil, Ormuzd and Ahriman, being actually named the Mediator, and figuring to the devout eye as a humane and beneficent God, nearer to man than the Great Spirit of Good, a Saviour, a Redeemer, eternally young, son of the Most High, and preserver of mankind from the Evil One.... The first day of the week, Sunday, was apparently from time immemorial consecrated to Mithra by the Mithraists; and as the Sun-god was pre-eminently ‘the Lord,’ Sunday was the ‘Lord’s Day’ long before the Christian era.... We have some exact information as to the two chief Mithraic ceremonies or festivals, those of Christmas and Easter, the winter solstice and the vernal equinox, the birthday of the Sun-god, and the period of his sacrifice and his triumph.... There were in antiquity, we know from Porphyry, several elaborate treatises setting forth the religion of Mithra; and every one of these has been destroyed by the care of the Church.... Of course, we are told that the Mithraic rites and mysteries are borrowed and imitated from Christianity. The refutation of this notion, as has been pointed out by M. Havet, lies in the language of those Christian fathers who spoke of Mithraism. Three of them, as we have seen, speak of the Mithraic resemblances to Christian rites as being the work of devils. Now, if the Mithraists had simply imitated the historic Christians, the obvious course for the latter would be simply to say so.... The Mithraic mysteries, then, of the burial and resurrection of the Lord, the Mediator, the Saviour; burial in a rock tomb and resurrection from the tomb; the sacrament of bread and water, the marking on the forehead with a mystic mark—all these were in practice before the publication of the Christian Gospel.... Nor was this all. Firmicus informs us that the devil, in order to leave nothing undone for the destruction of souls, had beforehand resorted to deceptive imitations of the Cross of Christ.... Still further does the parallel hold. It is well known that, whereas in the Gospels Jesus is said to have been born in an inn-stable, early Christian writers, as Justin Martyr and Origen, explicitly say he was born in a cave. Now, in the Mithra myth, Mithra is both rock-born and born in a cave; and the monuments show the new-born babe adored by shepherds who offer first-fruits.... Now, however, arises the great question. How came such a cultus to die out of the Roman and Byzantine Empire after making its way so far, and holding its ground so long? The answer to that question has never, I think, been fully given, and is for the most part utterly evaded, though part of it has been suggested often enough. The truth is Mithraism was not overthrown; it was merely transformed.... Though Mithraism had many attractions, Christianity had more, having sedulously copied every one of its rivals and developed special features of its own.... In the Christian legend the God was humanised in the most literal way; and for the multitude the concrete deity must needs replace the abstract. The Gospels gave a literal story: The Divine Man was a carpenter, and ate and drank with the poorest of the poor.... Gradually the very idea of allegory died out of the Christian intelligence; and priests as well as people came to take everything literally and concretely.... This was the religion for the Dark Ages.... Byzantines and barbarians alike were held by literalism, not by the unintelligible: for both alike the symbol had to become a fetish; and for the Dark Ages the symbol of the cross was much more plausibly appealing than that of the god slaying the zodiacal bull.... A Mithraist could turn to the Christian worship and find his main rites unimpaired, lightened only of the burden of initiative austerities, stripped of the old obscure mysticism, and with all things turned to the literal and the concrete, in sympathy with the waning of knowledge and philosophy throughout the world.”
But I must now close these quotations, apologising to Mr. Robertson for making such a free use of his book, and advising my readers to study it. They will find that his facts are reliable; they are all backed by the highest authorities, however much the conclusions drawn from them may, at present, be a matter of opinion. Suffice it to say here that the coincidences between Mithraism and Christianity are indescribably marvellous, and require further explanation, if Mr. Robertson’s theory of the absorption of the former by the latter be not very largely true. Whatever the substratum of real history may be, there is no doubt that there was every opportunity for an early absorption of Mithraism, and every probability that it took place to an extent which throws a new flood of light upon many Christian doctrines. “The first six centuries were characterised by fierce controversies as to the most fundamental verities of the Christian faith, by the wholesale introduction of adult converts, who brought with them heathen and Jewish habits of thought, and who were in many cases of a low type of civilisation; and the adulteration of the Gospel was further facilitated by the purely nominal adhesion of persons anxious to stand well with the first Christian Emperors. The period was one of incessant fermentation and of rapid and continuous change.” These are not the words of Mr. Robertson, nor of any other freethinker, but are an extract from the resolution adopted by the Church Association in connection with the appeal by Dean Wace and others to the authority of the First Six Centuries. What a period to appeal to! When we know what we do of the credulity and the methods of those “Fathers” of the Church, how can any rational being place in them any confidence whatsoever?
What steps do the Churches propose to take concerning these disclosures? Will they proclaim from the pulpit their new theory of a Progressive Revelation, or will they by their silence evince their own want of faith in this precious theory, and allow the storm of unbelief slowly to gather force until it bursts and overwhelms the Christian belief? Knowledge of the facts, so ably discussed by Mr. Robertson, will soon be widely disseminated. Let there be no mistake on this point. Here, for instance, are some instructive passages appearing on page 496 of the Nineteenth Century, September, 1905:—
“It has been truly observed that the recovery, only partial as it is, of the history of this religion [the Mithraic] is one of the most remarkable triumphs of historical and antiquarian research. Originating in Persia, it was spread through the Roman Empire by poor and humble converts, who were at first mainly soldiers; but gradually, like Christianity, it permeated all ranks, and its temples are found scattered over the whole civilised world, from Babylon to the hills of Scotland. Just as the religion of Isis did, it resembled that of Christ in being a religion of inward holiness, of austere self-discipline and purity; but the details of its resemblance are incomparably more close and curious. The briefest sketch of the matter is all that can be attempted here. According to Mithraic theology, God considered in His totality is a Being so infinite and so transcendent that His direct connection with man and the universe is inconceivable. In order to become the father of man and creator, He manifested Himself in a second personality—namely, Mithra, who was in his cosmic character identified with the ‘unconquered sun,’ and, as a moral and intellectual Being, was the Divine Word or Reason, and, in more senses than one, ‘the mediator’ between man and the Most High. Life on earth, according to the Mithraic doctrine, is for man a time of trial. The Spirit of Evil, his adversary, is always seeking to destroy him—to crush him with pain and sorrow, or to stain his soul with concupiscence; but in all his struggles Mithra is at hand to aid him, and will at the last day be at once his judge and advocate, when the graves give up their dead, when the just are separated from the unjust, when the saved are welcomed like children into eternal bliss, and the lost are consumed in the fire prepared for the Devil and his angels. This Divine Saviour came into the world as an infant. His first worshippers were shepherds; and the day of His nativity was December 25th. His followers preached a severe and rigid morality, chief among their virtues being temperance, chastity, renunciation, and self-control. They kept the seventh day holy, and the middle day of each month was a special feast of Mithra, which symbolised his function of Mediator. They had seven sacraments, of which the most important were baptism, confirmation, and a Eucharistic supper, at which the communicants partook of the divine nature of Mithra under the species of bread and wine.”