The Truth about Jesus : Is He a Myth?

Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team.



THE TRUTH ABOUT JESUS IS HE A MYTH?

ILLUSTRATED

_M. M. Mangasarian_

[Illustration: Woman Crucified. In the Church of St. Etienne, France.
For a Long Time This Bearded Woman Was Supposed to be the Christ]





_If it is not historically true that such and such things happened
in Palestine eighteen centuries ago, what becomes of Christianity?
--Thomas Huxley._





CONTENTS

PART I

A PARABLE
IN CONFIDENCE
IS JESUS A MYTH?
THE PROBLEM STATED
THE CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS
VIRGIN BIRTHS
THE ORIGIN OF THE CROSS
SILENCE OF CONTEMPORARY WRITERS
THE STORY OF JESUS A RELIGIOUS DRAMA
THE JESUS OF PAUL NOT THE JESUS OF THE GOSPELS
IS CHRISTIANITY REAL?

PART II

IS THE WORLD INDEBTED TO CHRISTIANITY?

PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY, OR CHRISTIANITY
NOT SUITED TO WESTERN RACES

PART III

SOME MODERN OPINIONS OF JESUS
A RHETORICAL JESUS
"WE OWE EVERYTHING TO JESUS"
A LIBERAL JEW PRAISES JESUS

APPENDIX--REPLIES TO CLERICAL CRITICS




_By education most have been misled,
So they believe because they were so bred;
The priest continues what the nurse began,
And thus the child imposes on the man_.
DRYDEN.




PREFACE


The following work offers in book form the series of studies on the
question of the historicity of Jesus, presented from time to time
before the Independent Religious Society in Orchestra Hall. No effort
has been made to change the manner of the spoken, into the more
regular form of the written, word.

                        M. M. MANGASARIAN.

ORCHESTRA HALL
CHICAGO





[Illustration: Picture in Herculaneum, of the Days of Pompeii, Showing
Cupid Crowned with a Cross.]





PART I.




A PARABLE



I am today twenty-five hundred years old. I have been dead for nearly
as many years. My place of birth was Athens; my grave was not far from
those of Xenophon and Plato, within view of the white glory of Athens
and the shimmering waters of the Aegean sea.

After sleeping in my grave for many centuries I awoke suddenly--I
cannot tell how nor why--and was transported by a force beyond my
control to this new day and this new city. I arrived here at daybreak,
when the sky was still dull and drowsy. As I approached the city I
heard bells ringing, and a little later I found the streets astir with
throngs of well dressed people in family groups wending their way
hither and thither. Evidently they were not going to work, for they
were accompanied by their children in their best clothes, and a
pleasant expression was upon their faces.

"This must be a day of festival and worship, devoted to one of their
gods," I murmured to myself.

Looking about me I saw a gentleman in a neat black dress, smiling, and
his hand extended to me with great cordiality. He must have realized I
was a stranger and wished to tender his hospitality to me. I accepted
it gratefully. I clasped his hand. He pressed mine. We gazed for a
moment silently into each other's eyes. He understood my bewilderment
amid my novel surroundings, and offered to enlighten me. He explained
to me the ringing of the bells and the meaning of the holiday crowds
moving in the streets. It was Sunday--Sunday before Christmas, and the
people were going to "the House of God."

"Of course you are going there, too," I said to my friendly guide.

"Yes," he answered, "I conduct the worship. I am a priest."

"A priest of Apollo?" I interrogated.

"No, no," he replied, raising his hand to command silence, "Apollo is
not a god; he was only an idol."

"An idol?" I whispered, taken by surprise.

"I perceive you are a Greek," he said to me, "and the Greeks," he
continued, "notwithstanding their distinguished accomplishments, were
an idolatrous people. They worshipped gods that did not exist. They
built temples to divinities which were merely empty names--empty
names," he repeated. "Apollo and Athene--and the entire Olympian lot
were no more than inventions of the fancy."

"But the Greeks loved their gods," I protested, my heart clamoring in
my breast.

"They were not gods, they were idols, and the difference between a god
and an idol is this: an idol is a thing; God is a living being. When
you cannot prove the existence of your god, when you have never seen
him, nor heard his voice, nor touched him--when you have nothing
provable about him, he is an idol. Have you seen Apollo? Have you
heard him? Have you touched him?"

"No," I said, in a low voice.

"Do you know of any one who has?"

I had to admit that I did not.

"He was an idol, then, and not a god."

"But many of us Greeks," I said, "have felt Apollo in our hearts and
have been inspired by him."

"You imagine you have," returned my guide. "If he were really divine
he would be living to this day."

"Is he, then, dead?" I asked.

"He never lived; and for the last two thousand years or more his
temple has been a heap of ruins."

I wept to hear that Apollo, the god of light and music, was no
more--that his fair temple had fallen into ruins and the fire upon his
altar had been extinguished; then, wiping a tear from my eyes, I said,
"Oh, but our gods were fair and beautiful; our religion was rich and
picturesque.