Religious thought in the West. "Hat Jesus gelebt"? About early Christianity. (About what was in it and what was not. About the patterns of social phenomena

Recent years in the religious life of Protestant countries and especially Germany have been marked by special revival. The entire Protestant world is agitated by the propaganda campaign undertaken by the Monistenbund, led by Arthur Drews, against one of the foundations of Christianity, the belief in the historical existence of Jesus. Hat Jesus gelebt? This is a question that now (and even more than a year ago) is a topic of heated debate in numerous national assemblies 1 and is discussed in a whole literature of books and pamphlets, which has already grown and is ever increasing before our eyes. 2 It is difficult, of course, to say how long the public’s fickle attention will remain on these issues and whether this wave is already waning, but now this agitation gives the impression of a bomb exploding. What actually happened? Has a new discovery been made that will revolutionize historical science? Or was a new idea born? Neither one nor the other. For anyone who has only followed the development of religious-historical science, it is clear that in the writings of Drews himself 3 and his associates - the most fanatical of them is the “pastor” Fr. Steidel 4 - there is nothing new in the scientific sense, except for errors. A philosopher by department and by profession, Drews has never been an independent researcher in this area and is treated by specialists as “unbernfener dillétant” (in Harnack’s words). The very idea of ​​denying the historical existence of Jesus and interpreting the Gospel as a system of myths is not new either; this path was predicted by “Citizen Dupuis in the third year of the Republic”, 5 it was followed in the 19th century by Bruno Bauer and D. Strauss. However, only Drews and Co. made these ideas the subject of passionate and fanatical agitation and threw them into the crowd, of course, completely incapable of understanding subtle and complex problems, as the last word of historical science, and this by no means philosophical course of action, undertaken, in fact, only for the sake of spreading the religious-metaphical ideas of Hartmannism, with which Drews was inspired, will give this whole campaign an element of charlatanism and demagoguery. In reality, it is not cold science, but ardent hatred of Christianity as a religion, that guides here the preacher of the pantheistic religion of the “unconscious". But, of course, such an enterprise could count on significant external success, for it flatters the prevailing mood of the time. This success can be judged by the fact that a number of prominent scientists considered it necessary to speak out not only in defense of the dignity of science, 6 but even more in defense of the soul of the people. And at the same time, all the wealth of scientific forces of modern Germany was revealed once again, although it turned out to be unable to prevent the current quasi-scientific movement. We can now say without any exaggeration that scientifically Drews should be considered completely destroyed, if only scientificity were truly decisive here. In any case, for free and unprejudiced minds there is every opportunity to understand the issue from its scientific side. The radical mythologism of our day is a special case of the application of the general religious-historical method, which has recently received full rights of citizenship. "Religious syncretism" is now the key that unlocks all the locks. The process of the origin and development of religions is likened to how other "dissertations" are compiled, when paste and scissors are the main methods of creativity, and seams and gluing are visible to the naked eye. Since Tübingen, Christianity was considered a compilation of two sources, some attributing predominant importance to the elements of Judaism, others to Hellenism. For example, Harnack in his “History of Dogmas” states the “acute Hellenization” of primitive Christianity. In modern times, Christianity is usually portrayed as a mosaic compilation from many sources, some kind of religious-historical conglomerate. The program for the new direction was outlined in a small work by prof. Gunkel “Zum religionsgeschichtlichen Verständniss des Neuen Testaments”. 1903. “Judaism... should be called a syncretic religion... in the era of Christ it experiences a double influence, in the Western Diaspora mainly from Hellenism, in the Eastern Diaspora - from the East,” and therefore “Christianity, born from syncretic Judaism, reveals important syncretic features *.”Christianity is a syncretic religion. Important religious motives that came from foreign lands are preserved and enlightened in it - eastern and Hellenistic" (pp. 34–35, 69, 88:95). And this conviction became the guiding one for the entire new generation of historians. The newest discoveries in the history of the East, due to excavations, have provided new materials for religious and historical parallels, although they have not introduced anything fundamentally new. The question remains today in the same fundamental formulation that it had not only under Citizen Dupuis, but also in the era of the ancient apologists and fathers of the Church. In the works of the religious-historical direction, parallels are carefully searched throughout history: the birth of Christ, 7 the most important events of the gospel story, the passion of Christ, the resurrection, 8 “Paulinism”, images of the Apocalypse - numerous parallels are found for all of this in order to once again confirm the general thesis about the syncretistic nature of Christianity. At the same time, it is not always enough legibility, and only now under the blows of the agitation of Drews, who has the undeniable merit of leading this trend to absurdity, self-criticism awakens 9 and sobering and some resignation sets in. Until recently, the method of religious-historical parallels was used primarily in order, according to the old Strauss recipe, to discard such features that did not fit into the “scientifically” carved out – each in his own way – image of the “historical Jesus”, and, however, this very possibility was not questioned. On the contrary, according to the prevailing opinion, “the time when it was still possible to raise in science the question of whether the historical Jesus existed has passed." 10 And suddenly, this very question: hat Jesus gelebt? appears again in the center of attention and becomes the subject of noisy discussion. Drews and like-minded people managed to upset the balance again. In recent years, a whole series of scientific theories have been put forward to explain Christianity without Christ, and they sharply contradict each other or are mutually exclusive. The late Bremen “pastor” Kalthoff, who developed his “social theology” on the basis of the premises of economic materialism, resolutely denied the historical existence of Jesus. This talented Marxist theologian defended the thesis that Christianity originated in the movement of slaves in various places, mainly in Rome. Christ embodies the general ideal of a given era, is its projection in a personal image. “From a socio-theological point of view, the image of Christ is therefore the most refined religious expression of everything that was effective as a social and ethical force in a given era, and in the changes to which this image of Christ is constantly subjected in its expansions and limitations, in the fading of its old features and in its new illumination, we have the most subtle measure of the changes that occur in life from the heights of its spiritual ideals to the depths of its material foundations of life. 11 For social theology, it is the historically changing that is of interest. image of Christ. 12 Nothing interesting can be added to social theology by “The Origin of Christianity” (1909) by K. Kautsky, who, however, does not question the historical existence of Jesus, although he does not attach much importance to it. The third theologian from socialism, M. Maurenbrecher, 13 looking for the historical roots of Christianity in the “Gospel of the Poor,” is distinguished in his constructions by the greatest caution and complexity, and is far from reducing to zero the significance of the very personality of its founder, much less denying his existence. Thus, there was no unanimity, even within the framework of Marxist dogma - and here we have three different, competing and little agreed upon concepts Christianity. Among the representatives of the mythological trend, perhaps the most expressive figure is the learned Assyriologist Jensen with his huge volume 14 “Der Gilgameschepos in der Weltlitteratur”, 1906. Such scholarship leads to sad reflections, and one involuntarily recalls K. Prutkov’s aphorism that a specialty is like a flux. Such a flux for Jensen was his knowledge of Babylonian literature, in which he found a key that fit absolutely all the locks, and saw the prototype of the entire Old and New Testament, the Homeric epic and much more. It is impossible to convey not only the strangeness, but the downright comical nature of this enterprise. To understand this, one must get acquainted with the text of the 15th epic of Gilgamesh, this colorful and extremely interesting fragment of Babylonian poetry, bearing traces of deep antiquity, although not completely preserved. (out of 3,600 verses, up to 2,000 have not survived, and of the remaining 1,600, only 522 are quite clearly described. The adventures of the hero Gilgamesh and his friend Eabani are described here, in which Jensen sees all sorts of Old and New Testament images. Jensen's general conclusion is this: "Jesus never lived on earth and never died on it, he is none other than the Gilgamesh of Israel, as a parallel to Moses, Abraham and countless other images of the saga. In our churches, in church and in school, in palaces and huts, we pray to the Babylonian god, the Babylonian gods."16 Other mythologists look for Jesus in ancient pagan cults and try to establish the pre-Christian origin of this image. This is what Robertson is doing, for example. 17 Particularly famous here was W.B. Smith, prof. mathematicians in Louisiana. His studies under the general title “Pre-Christian Jesus” 18 provide another illustration of the meager means with which this task is now undertaken - alas! - a popular task. Smith's main idea is that Jesus is not his own, but a common noun (“the help of God”) and denotes the cult god of the Nazarene sect. This hypothesis is built on such a shaky foundation as one expression of the Acts of the Apostles τά περὶ τοῦ Ιησοῦ (Acts 19: 1–7): Here we are told about Apollos, who knew only John's baptism and had not heard of the Holy Spirit. And it is this expression that Smith considers to hide information about the old cult of the god Joshua. He carries out a similar operation with the name “Nazarenes”, which he derives (according to competent persons, completely arbitrarily) from the root of the verb “nazir”, to guard (he completely denies the existence of the Evangelical Nazareth). He explains the name Nazarenes, applied to Christians, by the existence of a sect of “guardians” who had as their patron a special pre-Christian guardian god, the pre-Christian Jesus. By this method one can prove, on the basis of various expressions of the Gospel, the existence of any number of cults having a pre-Christian god Jesus. Those who wish to find a detailed and completely destructive analysis of this “theory” will find it in Weinel or Johann Weiss (the above-cited work). What is characteristic here is an extraordinary historical myopia. Indeed, even with greater evidence of his statements, Smith should have given an explanation of the history of all early Christian writing and the entire early dogmatic development of the church, and this, of course, would have revealed the hopeless difficulty of this undertaking. A break with the tradition of centuries, contempt for it is characteristic of him, as of this entire movement, which represents not only moral ugliness, but also scientific depravity. 19 With the advent of demand, such works begin to appear like mushrooms after rain. The publishing company Diederichs in Leipzig specialized in this. 20 Drews’s pamphlet “Die Christusmythe” (230 pp.) also appeared here. In this talentedly written “scientific” pamphlet, the reader takes a walk through the mythology of antiquity or, in the harsh but fair expression of one critic, finds himself in the “circus of mythological and religious-historical oddities” in which, among many, numbers already familiar to us are performed: and Kalthoff and Smith and others pass in a bizarre combination in front of through the eyes of the reader. Historical data alternates here with completely unproven and fantastic statements, although surrounded by reservations: apparently, probably, etc., but in essence accepted as proven. However, from this unreliable and low-value material, a slender building is erected, hypnotizing with its architecture the layman intimidated by the “scientificness”. The surrogate of semi-science or pseudoscience, presented as science, is the greatest spiritual evil of our era, but nowhere does this scourge strike as painfully as in matters of faith, when discussing the central issue of Christianity in our little-faithful, but therefore superstitious and gullible time. In any case, for readers of Drews's pamphlet, we strongly recommend that they get acquainted with his scientific criticism at least in the works of I. Weiss, Weinel, Meffert and others. 21 I cannot reproduce here the full tortuous train of thought of Drews and will limit myself to a general description and individual examples. The first part of the book analyzes the “pre-Christian Jesus,” and the second sums up the results of New Testament criticism. The analysis uses, of course, the most powerful reagents available in the mythological laboratory, and, above all, the notorious astral method, with the help of which any of us can be turned into a solar or stellar myth. Family life in Joseph's house takes place in heaven, among the gods, and is transferred to earth only for the sake of disguise (77). The three magicians who came to worship the child, whose birth “actually” signifies the birth of the sun at the time of the winter solstice, are nothing more than three stars in the belt of Orion (55). The baptism of Jesus in the Jordan is also “an earthly reflection of an originally astral event: and the sun begins its annual cycle with baptism, immediately after birth entering the signs of Aquarius and Pisces” (81). And the words of John the Baptist about Christ: “He must increase, but I must decrease” refer to the time of the pre-summer solstice, after which the sun begins to decline (82). The Transfiguration also takes on the meaning of “fiery baptism” and refers to the summer solstice, with Elijah and Moses corresponding to the solar gods (Helios) and the lunar gods. “Lamb of God”, Agnus Dei, is close to the Persian god of fire Agni, firstly, by the consonance of the Latin Agnus and Agni (161), secondly, by the similarity of the symbolic designation of the lamb and Agni, who is depicted as a ram due to the location of the sun at the time of the spring equinox in the constellation Aries, 22 Joseph the “carpenter” is the artist Hephaestus, therefore, a god in disguise, Maria is the goddess Maya, mother of Agni, etc., etc. This is either outright quackery or real psychopathy. Further, the reagent of comparative mythology is widely used, in particular, the hypothesis developed especially by Frazer 23 about the connection between the myth of the annually dying and rising god (Attis, Adonis, Osiris] with the Christian resurrection. This rapprochement, in which all external similarities are carefully emphasized and all internal differences are forgotten, 24 of course, is triumphantly repeated by Drews. The Passion of Christ is transformed (according to the fantastic construction Frazer, picked up by Robertson) into a dramatic performance, leading origins from the Babylonian holiday of Zakeev (Saturnalia). sees in the story of the crucifixion of Jesus and the liberation of Barabbas. It is not at all surprising that regarding this fantasy I. Weiss appeals to “wissenschaftliche Sicherheitspolizei”! The cross, in which Kalthof saw the banner of slaves and the poor, in Drews turns into a symbol of fire and life, standing, naturally, again in connection with Agni and only later receiving its present form and meaning. This is the mythological code with which Drews deciphers the Gospel story. Christianity allegedly originated not in Jerusalem, but in Antioch, where the cult of Adonis especially flourished. But this is where an insurmountable difficulty begins for Drews. Let us assume that all his initial assumptions are correct and Christianity really arose on the basis of the most unbridled mythological syncretism. Reasoning theoretically, it should be assumed that in this boiling cauldron of mixing religions, an indefinite number of religious new formations could have arisen, which can be mathematically defined as the sum of possible combinations of a large number of elements. But there is still a huge distance between possibility and reality. How can we explain the implementation of this particular possibility? This is where hopeless failure awaits Drews. How to explain the history of early Christianity, which takes place already in the full daylight of history? and the entire New Testament history with its specificity and historical flavor? Why did the preaching of the Cross, “a temptation for the Greeks, but foolishness for the Jews,” choose this line not of the least, but of the greatest resistance? Why didn’t its preachers, to whom Drews is inclined to attribute even the conscious obliteration of historical traces, take advantage of all the elasticity of the mythologeme and make their task easier? How could the early Christian Church, this world-historical deception or self-deception, as depicted by Drews, arise in the souls? And, finally, the most difficult thing: how can one historically explain the exposure of a mythological being, a god, with historical and human flesh? Even from ancient times, we inherited for this case the theory of Euhemerus, according to which the gods are deified heroes, but according to the method of Euhemerism it is impossible to explain the opposite, i.e. no longer the deification of man, but the humanization of God. To this basic question we find no answer, or even worse than none, we find the following: “Judaism (=Judeo-Christianity) in general and in Jerusalem in particular needed a legal foundation in order to rest on it its own predominant position against the pagan Christianity of Paul: for this the founders had to enjoy personal communication with Jesus and even be chosen by him to their calling; and therefore he had to remain not only a god, but also had to descend to the historical reality... Very mundane, very practical reasons were therefore ultimately decisive for the transformation of the original god Jesus into a historical individual, and the center of gravity of his activity, the decisive fact of his life - his death and resurrection, which had the greatest significance for religious views, were transferred to the holy city of David, the "forefather of the Messiah", and with him religious salvation was united in the minds of the Jews" (205-206). Truly the mountain gave birth to a mouse! But in this obvious impotence to explain the origin of the church, so brilliantly revealed here, one can see only a negative confirmation of its inexplicability by the natural forces of history. The new birth can only be stated, not explained, and attempts at this explanation concern only the periphery and not the center, the outer, not the inner being. Christianity began without historical witnesses or chroniclers, on that winter night when choirs of angels sang the glory of God, and on that “sacred mystical night” when “Christ rose from the dead.” A new force has entered history, and only its development, and not its origin, can be studied by science. The picture depicted here of the militant campaign of anti-Christianity under the pretext of science can and, indeed, leads many into confusion and despondency. However, we should not lose sight of the other side of the matter. "There can be no more endearing testimony to the greatness of Jesus than the intense attention from all camps concentrated on the question of Jesus Christ. And the present Christological movement differs from the previous era in its positive religious motive" (Kiefl). It can be said that since the Christological debates of the era of the first ecumenical councils, this problem has not attracted such attention as it does now, in the age of economic materialism and capitalism, parliamentarism and social democracy, neo-Kantianism and natural science! I will discuss the fundamental question of Christianity and mythology in a special article. See, for example, the report on the Berlin debate. Berliner Religionsgespräch: hat Jesus gelebt? Reden über “Die Christusmythe.” 1–10 Tausend. 1910. From the numerous books and pamphlets at my disposal I had the following: Ioh. Weiss: “Jesus von Nazareth Mythus oder Geschichte?” Tubingen. 1910. Chwolson (recently deceased prof. Sib. Univ.): “Ueber die Frage about Jesus gelebt hat.” 1910. H. Zimmern “Zum Streit um die “Christusmythe”. Berlin. 1910. H. Weinel: “Ist das “liberale” Jesusbild wider legt?” 1910. Franz Meffert: “Die geschichtliche Existenz Christi.” 1910. K.Beth: “Hat Jesus gelebt?” 1910. A.Jülicher: “Hat Jesus gelebt?” 1910. Jansen et Comils: “Hat Jesus gelebt?” 1910. Brepohl· “Die Wahrheit über Jesus von Nazareth.” 1911. Grützmacher· “Jesusverehrung oder Christusglaube?” 1911. C, Delbrück: “Hat Jésus gelebt?” 1910. Kiefl: “Der geschichtliche Christus und die moderne Philosophie.” 1911. A.Jeremias: “Hat Jesus Christus gelebt?” 1911. A.Drews: “Die Christusmythc” (Diederichs). All quotations are based on the 2nd edition, 1910. (After this essay was compiled, a second part was published.) Fr.Steudel: “Das Christusproblem und die Zukunft des Protestantismus.” 1909. His: “Wir Gelehrten vom Fach!” Eine Streitschrift. 1910. His: “Im Kampf urn die Christusmythe.” 1910. Dupuis: “Origine de tous les cultes ou réligion universelle.” Paris. L'an III de la rép., 3 vols. Prof. Johannes Weiss burst out with the following bitter confessions: “more than once I have been ashamed of our German science, which will take a long time to wash away this stain, ashamed that I have to deal with this nonsense; I am almost ashamed now that I have to speak to you on this matter.”(Johannes Weiss: “Jesus von Nazareth.” Mythus od. Geschichte, p. 4). For a summary, see E. Petersen: “Die wunderbare Gebürt des Hollands.” 1909 (Relgesch. Vb.). For a summary see M. Brückner; “Der sterbende und auferstehende Gottheiland.” 1908 (ibid.). book VI, 1911 "It is the duty of historical science to clear it of such chaff (as Robertson's Pagan Christs and Christianity and Mythology). Unfortunately, too much tolerance reigns here. Anyone who finds parallels and increases the material is still welcome; this is understandable when it comes to the initial accumulation of material, but now one could go further and attach less importance to full hands and more to good scientific education" (Weiss, 1. p. 54). Prof. Jülicher “Geschichte d. Christl. Rel.“, in Die Kultur d. Gegenw. 2. A. 1909. S.47. A. Kalthof “Das Christus-Problem. Grundlinien zu einer Socialtheologie.” 2. A. 1903. Pp. 86–87. His: “Die Entstehung des Christenthums.” 1904. Page 147. Wed. W. Bowset “" Was wissen wir von Jesus ", 1906 b Kalthof's reply under the same title. Max Maurenbrecher "Von Nazareth nach Golgotha". 1909. “Von Jerusalem nach Rom.” 1910. He was followed by a pamphlet entitled: “Moses, Jesus, Paulus, Drei Sagenvarianten des babylonischen Gottmenscben Gilgamesch. Eine Anklage wider Theologen und Sophisten und ein Appell an Laien.” 1909. It is available in French and German translations. To give an idea of Jensen’s “method”, let us cite at least a small excerpt from his comparisons (Moses, Jesus etc. 30–31). Robertson "Pagan" Studies in comparative hierology". 1903. His “Christianity and mythology”. 1900. “Der vorchristliche Jesus.” Translation and foreword by Schmiedel. 1906 “We are required to prove that Jesus was a historical person, while the matter must be about the complete destruction of a centuries-old tradition, to which in general there have never been any objections even from opponents, such as Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny, Celsus, until Br. ancient Christian literature. For ancient Christian literature has such coherence that it would be necessary to declare one monument after another inauthentic” (Weinel, 1. p., 10). This includes the astral explanation of the Gospel by A. Nemoevsky “God Jesus”. Also Sam. Lublinsky “Der urcrhristliche Erdkreis und sein Mythos”. Even the Assyriologist Zimmern, who is so inclined toward Drews, rejects his idea of ​​​​the unhistoricity of Jesus as “unstatthafte Hyperkritik” (Zum Streit üb. die “Christusmythe Einl”), as does Herrmann Schneider, who is close to him, “Kultur und Denken der Babylonier und Juden.” 1910. This rapprochement is based entirely on the hypothesis that the ancient Babylonians were familiar with the phenomenon of solar precession and the movement of the sun through the zodiac. However, this hypothesis is already encountering serious objections from the Assyriologist Kugler. Wed. Meiffert: "Die geschichtl. Existenz Christi." pp.72–74. I. G. Frazer "Adonis Attis Osiris". 1007. The golden bough. Pari. IV. However, the external differences are enormous, see comparisons in loh.Weiss, 1. pp. 32–34, the orgiastic nature of the ethics of the cults, the circumstances of death - Adonis from a boar, Attis from castration, the role of the beloved goddess: Ishtar under Tammuz, Aphrodite under Adonis, the Great Mother under Attis, Isis under Osiris, the autumn time of death and resurrection.