Arthur Drews

“ What a wonderful idea our theologians must have of a man like Paul if they think that it could ever have occurred to him to connect such tremendous conceptions with a human individual Jesus as he does with his Christ! It is true that there is a type of religious ecstasy in which the difference between man and God is completely lost sight of; and, especially at the beginning of our era, in the period of Cæsar-worship and of the deepest religious superstition, it was not in itself unusual to deify, after his death, a man who was highly esteemed. ”

“ THE CHRIST MYTH THE PRE-CHRISTIAN JESUS “If you see a man undaunted by dangers, undisturbed by passions, happy when fortune frowns, calm in the midst of storms, will you not be filled with reverence for him? Will you not say that here is something too great and grand to be regarded as of the same nature as the trivial body in which it dwells? A divine force has descended here—a heavenly power moves a soul so wonderful, so calm, one which passes through all life as though it were of small account, and smiles at all our hopes and fears. ”

“ As revealer of love he not only assumes the human form and the renunciation of his divine bliss connected with it, but as a “good shepherd” he lays down his life for his flock; he saves them from the power of Satan, from the terrors of darkness, and sacrifices himself for his people, in order through this highest testimony of his love for men, through the complete surrender of his life, to regain the life which he really is, and to return to his celestial glory. ”

“ As if the difficulty of the redemption of present-day civilisation from the chaos of superstition, social deceit, cowardice, and intellectual servitude which are connected with the name of Christianity, lay in a purely spiritual sphere and not rather in the sentiment, in the slovenly piety, in the heavy weight of ancient tradition, above all in the economic, social, and practical relations which unite our churches with the past! ”

“ A feeling of the uncertainty of all things human weighed like a ghastly dream upon most minds. The general distress of the time, the collapse of the nation states under the rough hand of the Roman conquerors, the loss of independence, the uncertainty of political and social conditions, the incessant warfare and the heavy death-roll it involved—all this forced men back upon their own inner life, and compelled them to seek there for some support against the loss of outer happiness in a philosophy which raised and invigorated the soul. ”

“ In the conception of the Jewish religion of the Law the idea of justification has a purely juridical significance. Reward here answers exactly to merit. Justification is nothing but an “obligation” according to an irrevocable standard. In Paul’s new conception it is, on the contrary, a natural product of God’s mercy. But mercy consists finally in this, that God of his own accord sacrificed his Son, so that mankind may share in the effects of his work of redemption by “faith” in him, and by the unity with him thus brought about. But faith is only one way of becoming one with Christ ”

“ But according to Brahmin teaching Krishna will return at the end of all time, when bodily and moral need will have reached its highest pitch upon the earth. In the clouds of heaven he will appear upon his white steed. With a comet in his right hand as a sword of flame he will destroy the old earth by fire, founding a new earth and a new heaven, and establishing a golden age of purity and perfection in which there will be nothing but pure joy and blessedness. ”

“ The minds of all peoples used to be deeply moved by this occurrence—the death whether of nature as a whole beneath the influence of the cold of winter, or of vegetable growth under the parching rays of the summer sun. Men looked upon it as the fate of a fair young God whose death they deeply lamented and whose rebirth or resurrection they greeted with unrestrained rejoicing. ”

“ Faith in the future of Christianity is still built not so much on the persuasive inner truth of its doctrine, but much more on the inborn religious feeling of the members of the community, on the religious education in school and home, and the consequent increasing store of metaphysical and ethical ideas, on protection by the State and—on the law of inertia in the spiritual life of the mob. ”

“ We know from the Jewish historian Josephus that the Essenes clung to an extreme dualism of soul and body, in which, indeed, they agreed with the other religious associations of antiquity. Like all mystical sects, they regarded the body as the grave and prison-house of the immortal soul, to which it had been banished from an earlier life in light and blessedness. They also grounded their longing for deliverance from the world of sense and their strivings towards the glory of a better life of the soul beyond the grave upon pessimism in regard to human existence. ”

“ Thou who teachest us to know truth from falsehood, ghostly leader with the sweetest voice, whose spirit is calm, whose passions are controlled, whose heart is perfectly at rest, who teachest what should be taught, who bringest about the union of gods and men: I greet thee, Sakhyamuni, as the greatest of men, as the wonder of the three thousand worlds, who deservest honour and homage in heaven and on earth, from Gods and men! ”

“ The God offers sacrifice for man, while man offers sacrifice for God. Indeed, more than this, he offers himself for mankind, he gives his own body that man may reap the fruit of his sacrifice. The divine “son” offers himself as [133] a victim. Sent down by the “father” upon the earth in the form of light and warmth, he enters men as the “quickening and life-giving spirit” under the appearance of bread and wine. He consumes himself in the fire and unites man with the father above, in that by his disposal of his own personality he removes the separation and difference between them. ”

“ At Mathura in Gokala Krishna grew up unknown among poor herdsmen. While yet in his cradle he had betrayed his divine origin by strangling, like Hercules, a dreadful snake which crawled upon him. He causes astonishment to every one by his precosity and lofty wisdom. As he grows up he becomes the darling of the herdsmen and playmate of Gopias, the milkmaid; he performs the most astonishing miracles. When, however, the time had come he arose and slew Kansa. ”

“ But Paul’s Christianity first gave a form to all this obscure desire, a form which united the thrills and joy of mystic ecstasy with the certainty of a comprehensive religious view of the world, and enlightened men as to the deepest meaning of their emotional impulse towards [201] certainty: man obtains unity with God and certainty as to the true reality, not by an abstract dialectic, as Plato supposed; not by logical insight into the cosmos in the sense of an abstract knowledge attainable only by the few, but through faith, through the divine act of redemption. ”

“ Were those who expected the sanctification of humanity not from the fulfilment of the Law, but immediately, through an infusion of God himself, really so much in the wrong? It was not unusual among the heathen peoples for a man to be sacrificed, in the place of the Deity, as a symbolical representative; although already at the time of Paul it was [189] the custom to represent the self-sacrificing God only by an effigy, instead of a real man. The important point, however, was not this, but the idea which lay at the foundation of this divine self-sacrifice. ”

“ Of all the Gods of the Rigveda Agni bears the closest relationship to the Perso-Jewish Messiah, and it is he also who stands closest to man’s soul. He is rightly called king of the universe, as God of Gods, who created the world and called into life all beings that are upon it. He is the lord of the heavenly hosts, the guardian of the cosmic order and judge of the world, who is present as an invisible witness of all human acts, who as a “knower of nature” works in every living thing, and as a party to all earthly secrets illuminates the unknown. ”

“ Is it even probable that the intelligent populations of the sea-ports of Asia Minor and Greece, among whom in particular Paul preached the Gospel of Jesus, would have turned towards Christianity for the reason that at some time or other, ten or twenty years before, an itinerant preacher of the name of Jesus had made an “overpowering” impression on ignorant fisher-folk and workmen in Galilee or Jerusalem by his personal bearing and his teachings, and had been believed by them to be the expected Messiah, the renowned divine mediator and redeemer of the world? ”

“ It was not only the longing of mankind for a new structure of society, for peace, justice, and happiness upon earth, which lay at the root of the cult of the Emperors. Deeper minds sought not only an improvement in political and social circumstances, but felt disturbed by thoughts of death and the fate of the soul after its parting from its bodily shell. ”

“ At present there are only two possibilities—either to look on quietly while the tidal wave of naturalism, getting ever more powerful from day to day, sweeps away the last vestige of religious thought, or to transfer the sinking fire of religion to the ground of Pantheism, in a religion independent of any ecclesiastical guardianship. ”

“ Thou art the best of physicians, who bringest the perfect means of salvation and healest suffering. Distinguished by thy compassion and sympathy, thou governest the things of the world. Distinguished by thy strength of mind and good works, completely pure, thou hast attained to perfection, and, thyself redeemed, thou wilt, as the prophet of the four truths, redeem other creatures also. The power of the Evil One has been overcome by wisdom, courage, and humility. ”

“ In the midst of the four-and-twenty elders who, clad in white garments and with crowns on their heads, sit around the divine throne, and in the midst of the four beasts who sit around it, the lamb, suddenly and without anything happening, stands as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes which are the seven spirits of God, sent forth into all the earth. ”

“ So the historical Jesus was from the beginning a dogma, a fiction, caused by the religious and practical social needs, of the growing and struggling Christian Church. This Jesus has, indeed, led it to victory; not, however, as an historical reality, but as an idea; or, in other words, not an historical Jesus, in the proper sense of the word, a really human individual, but the pure idea of such a person, is the patron-saint, the Genius of ecclesiastical Christianity, the man who enabled it to overcome Gnosticism, Mithraism, and the other religions of the Redeemer-Gods of Western Asia. ”

“ Only after great struggles has personal religion been able to succeed against an essentially older form. What devout people of to-day call Christianity, a religion of the individual, a principle of personal salvation, would have been an offence and an absurdity to the whole of ancient Christendom. It would have been to it the sin against the Holy Ghost which was never to be forgiven; for the Holy Ghost was the spirit of the Church’s unity, the connection of the religious community, the spirit of the subordination of the flock to the shepherd. ”

“ God cherishes a fatherly affection towards the good man, and loves him dearly. If you wish to imitate the gods, give also to the ungrateful; for the sun rises even on the ungodly and the seas lie open even to the pirate, the wind blows not only in favour of the good, and the rain falls even on the fields of the unjust. If you wish to have the gods well-disposed towards you, be good: he has enough, who honours and who imitates them. ”

“ A great lack of reason, a great mental confusion, an immense flight of imagination, would be necessary to transform a man not long dead, who was still clearly remembered by his relatives and contemporaries, not merely into a divine hero or demi-god, but into the world-forming spiritual principle, into the metaphysical mediator of redemption and the “second God.” ”

“ That providence, which directs all life, has sent this man as a saviour to us and the generations to come. He will put an end to all feuds, and dispose all things nobly. In his appearance are the hopes of the past fulfilled. All earlier benefactors of mankind he has surpassed. It is impossible that a greater should come. The birthday of the God has brought for the world the messages of salvation (Gospels) which attend him. ”