DID JESUS EVER LIVE ?

127 Pages·1935·1.39 MB·English

by  L. Gordon Rylands

DID JESUS EVER LIVE?

BY

L. GORDON RYLANDS,

B.A., B.Sc.

LONDON:

WATTS

5 & 6

& CO.,

JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C-4
First published I935

Printed and Published in Great Britain by C. A. Watts & Co. Limited,

5 & 6 Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, London, E.C.4
FOREWORD

IN a work so short as the present one it has been

impossible to set out in any degree of fullness the

evidence in support of all the statements contained

in it.

It is hoped, however, that sufficient has been

given to make

reasonable .

the conclusions

Readers who desire

reached

more

appear

detailed

evidence may consult the works of the writers to

whom reference is made.

This book is in no sense an attack upon the Chris­

tian religion. My only motive has been the desire

to reach historic truth. But if anyone thinks that

religion is likely to suffer through the re-transforma­

tion of Jesus from a man to the Son of God which

he originally was, I would draw his attention to the

fact that W. B. Smith, Arthur Drews, Edouard

Dujardin, and Albert Kalthoff-with whom, no

doubt, love of truth was also a motive-have all

undertaken the disproof of the historicity of Jesus

in the interest of religion.

L. G. R.

v
CONTENTS

FoREWORD

v

J. THE SEARCH FOR AN HISTORICAL JE�US I
II. THE ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE OUTSIDE THE
GOSPELS 13

III. JosHUA-jEsus 35
IV. THE STORY OF THE PASSION 44
v. THE GNOSTIC STREAM 65
VI. jESUS IN RELATION TO EVIL DEMONS 86

VII.

VIII.

THE BEGINNING
TIANITY OF ORGANIZED CHRIS-

95

THE GOSPELS

INDEX •

vii

!05

II9
I

THE SEARCH FOR AN HISTORICAL JESUS

WHEN G. B. Shaw was lately asked for an answer

to the question Did Jesus live ? apparently the best

answer he could give was the expression of his

opinion that the teaching imputed to Jesus could

not have been invented. H. G. Wells also, in his

Short History of the World, in a chapter in which

the evidence of the Gospels is treated rather un­

critically, says of the picture given by them : " Here

was a man. This could not have been invented."

Statements of this kind from men who, however

able, have made no scientific study of the question

are, in any case, of no particular value. It is,

indeed, rather surprising that they should be made
by men who have the faculty of independent thinkOne can only conclude that those who have
ing.
that faculty do not choose always to exercise it.

Surely, when some of the wonderful characters that
have been created by dramatists and novelists are

called to mind, the assertion that the drawing of a

certain character is out of the range of the human

Can we fix a
intellect must be considered rash.
limit to the imaginative power of human genius ?

One may even say that finer characters than Jesus
have been created. An essential element of a fine

character,

sacrifice.

considered as that of a man, is self­

But, since Jesus was represented as a

supernatural being, the opportunity for self-sacrifice
2 THE SEARCH FOR AN HISTORICAL JESUS

did not arise in his case, leaving his death out of
consideration for the present. He simply says to a

man, Be thou healed, and the man is healed.

The assertion that Jesus cannot have been invented

is usually the last desperate attempt by those who

have abandoned belief in the historical truth of the

Gospels as a whole to save the central figure. They

would shrink from affirming that Jesus was a super­

natural being. But assuming that Jesus was a man,

however gifted, assent must be given to the logically

valid proposition that, if it is humanly possible for

some man called Jesus to have propounded certain

doctrines, it is humanly possible for some other man

to have propounded them in his name. The ques­

tion resolves itself into one of evidence, and is merely
begged by anyone who denies, a priori, that anybody

but a particular man called Jesus can have taught

what Jesus is supposed to have taught, or imagined

such behaviour as is ascribed to Jesus in the Gospels.

The ethical doctrine of Epictetus reaches a level as

exalted as that ascribed to Jesus. The " Golden
Rule" was enunciated by Confucius centuries before

Christ. Socrates, in the speech he delivered to his

judges, is reported to have said :-

We know that no evil can happen to a good man,
either in life or after death. . . . I am not angry with
my accusers or condemners ; they have done me no
harm, though neither of them meant to do me good;

and for this I may gently blame them.

J. M. Robertson 1 drew attention to a story related

of Lycurgus. A youth named Alcander had struck
Lycurgus with a club and dashed out one of his eyes.

1 The Historical Jesus, p. 24.
THE SEARCH FOR AN HISTORICAL JESUS

3

Alcander was given up by the citizens to Lycurgus
for punishment. He, however, took no vengeance;
but , keeping Alcander as his servant for a month,
treated him kindly, with the result that Alcander's
hatred was turned into admiration and respect. If

the story is true it follows that there was no need for

a unique Jesus to teach forgiveness of enemies ; if
it is not true it cannot be said that no one before
Jesus was capable of such ethical teaching as is

found in the Gospels. In one important respect

indeed the Greek ethic was superior to that of Jesus,

seeing that he told his followers to do good in order
·
that they might obtain a heavenly reward, and to
avoid evil so as not to be tortured in hell.

Socrates was a real man. Granted. The point
is that there existed in antiquity a body of ethical

doctrine and sufficient examples of the finest kind

of behaviour to supply the Gospel writers with

lineaments for the drawing of the portrait of an ideal

man, if that is what they intended to do. Mention
must also be made of the persecuted " just man "

of Plato, who could have supplied some traits for a

portrait of Jesus, and was certainly in the Christian
consciousness at the time of the writing of the
Gospels ; 1 and of the ideal " wise man " of the

Stoics, a teacher without wife and children or home.
M. Hippolyte Rodrigues showed that the Sermon
on the Mount is almost completely anticipated
in Jewish literature.2 The fatherhood of God is

1 Reference is made to this just man in the A pology and
A cts of A pollonius in connection with the Logos.
2 Les Origines du Sermon de la Montagne, Paris, 1 868. See
Robertson, Christianity and Mythology, p. 404. The Lord's
Prayer also is Jewish and pre-Christian, ibid., p. 415.
4

THE SEARCH FOR AN HISTORICAL JESUS

taught in the Talmud. The graciousness and mercy

of God is stressed by JoeP Oppression of the poor,

the widow, and the orphan is continually denounced
by the prophets. In the Testament of Gad we read :

" Love ye one another from the heart ; and if any
man sin against thee, cast forth the poison of hate

and speak peaceably to him . . . and if he confess

and repent, forgive him."

And in the Talmud : " It

is better to be wronged by others than to wrong ''
(Sanhedrim, 48) .

A good many people no doubt have been much
impressed by the three poetic verses, Matt. xi. 28-30,
beginning : " Come unto me, all ye that labour."

But anyone who will thoughtfully consider them

should perceive that no human teacher can have

spoken such words about himself. The verses are

probably part of a Gnostic hymn, and the speaker is
almost certainly the personified Wisdom of Proverbs

and Ecclesiasticus. Compare with them the following verses from Ecclesiasticus where Wisdom is the

speaker:-

Come unto me, all ye that be desirous of me, and fill
yourselves with my fruits. For the remembrance of
me is sweeter than honey, and mine inheritance than the
honeycomb. They that eat me shall have the more
hunger, and they that drink me shall thirst the more.
Whoso hearkeneth to me shall not come to confusion.

If someone were asked to specify a matchless

utterance of Jesus he would very likely instance the
words which Jesus is reported to have spoken upon

the cross: " Father, forgive them ; for they know not
what they do" (Luke xxiii. 34) . Alas ! the words

1 ii. 13.