Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

EXISTENCE OF CHRIST

AS A HUMAN BEING,

DISPROVED!

BY IRRESISTIBLE EVIDENCE, IN A SERIES OF LETTERS,

FROM A GERMAN JEW,

ADDRESSED TO CHRISTIANS OF ALL DENOMINATIONS.

LETTER 27.

WEEKLY.

ONE PENNY.

"I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel. Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the Lord, and besides me there is no Saviour."-ISAIAH XLIII. 3, 10, 11.

CHRISTIANS,

The most stiff believers in the actual existence of Jesus, called Nazarene, and born in Bethlehem, according to gospel, must now have strange misgivings, feel much puzzled, and shake the head as between little hope and giant despair, however, at first, they may have smiled at our attempt to disabuse the human mind of a most pernicious error. There are strong indications of a tremblement de terre in the Christian world, and all who have hitherto stood with the fatal confidence of ignorance upon the unexamined evidence urged in proof of the reality of Jesus, feel the ground rock beneath their feet-the rent having, at last, reached the foundation!

It has been seen that the writings of the early Christian Saints and Fathers were lamentably deficient in truth, that they forged upon principle and deceived by system-nay, worse yet than mere forgers and deceivers, for some of them did not hesitate first to manufacture the lie, and afterwards coolly charge it upon their opponents! It has been seen that by far the larger number of Pagan historians either never heard of Jesus, and his extraordinary works, or what is almost equally fatal to the vulgar belief, thought it a trumped-up affair, and, therefore, the sect called Christian was so wretchedly contemptible as to be unworthy of notice-while the few writers of consequence who condescended to notice them, wrote in

a most disparaging and off-hand manner, many of them including their notice in a single line; which kind of treatment would hardly have been so uniform, had the followers or disciples of Jesus possessed any weight in the moral scale, or been, in short, men of character and influence! It has been seen that those authors of acknowledged reputation and ability, as Hierocles, Porphyrius, and Celsus, who wrote vigorously in opposition to Christianity, were most shamefully treated by its supporters, their writings disfigured, and, in all possible cases, most religiously destroyed-whereas, all writings in defence of Christianity were as religiously preserved; and so completely successful were they (the Christians) in the work of destruction, that not long after Constantine, men of taste and learning who sought for truth, were compelled to grope for it amid that darkness the Christian priests had wilfully created. It has been seen that the believers in Jesus are left without a single classic authority-without one author who writes distinctly, and in a there can be no mistake manner respecting him; they do not, in truth, furnish a single argument, if not against the Christians-nay, not even a peg to hang an argument upon! It has been seen that the gospel writers were as ignorant about the when and the where, the time and the place, in short, all the circumstances respecting the infancy of Jesus, as the meanest country bumpkin; that Luke's account of the birth, and the reasons which carried Joseph and Mary (then pregnant with Jesus) to Bethlehem, is a huge blunder, a wretched attempt at reconcilement between the made-up character of Jesus and chronologic fact; while Mosheim, who has stupidly followed in the wake of the inspired blunderer, has been theologically belwethered into a ditch of inextricable confusion and absurdity, affording another to be added to the many lamentable specimens of the learnedly imbecile, who half blinded in the fog of fable, and terrified by childish superstitions, are occupied by chateaux en espagne, or castles in the fog, and lend their fine talents to delusion and imposture! It has been seen, finally, that the Christian cause can derive no support from Josephus-nay, the arrow said to have been plucked from the Jewish historian's quiver, and used by the Christians, was their own poisoned barb, which has mortally wounded themselves by a kind of re-bound. Indeed, making clear to the world that Josephus did not write the passage in question, is to drive the last nail into the coffin of Christianity! To make this like "the handwriting on the wall," another paragraph or two will be devoted to it.

The famous passage given in the last number is the alpha and omega of external evidence in favor of the actual existence of the man Jesus; this we have already shewn in part, and the truth will appear more and more luminous as we proceed; but that cannot be dignified by the name "evidence," which has been incontrovertibly proyed a forged interpolation. All familiar with Jewish history know that Josephus flourished, and was held in much honor, at the epoch Jesus is said to have lived; he, moreover, took a very active part in the political and religious transactions of his times; it is, therefore, quite inconceivable that a man called Jesus could have distinguished himself in so peculiar and striking a manner as Jesus is represented to have done, without receiving from Josephus a special notice,-it is inconceivable, we say, that Josephus should have failed to mention him-for he, of all men then living, must have felt interested in, and been best acquainted with, all that concerned the honor, fidelity, and religion of the Jewish nationyet, not so much as a single word about a man-god, prophet, or mere man, is to be found in his voluminous work, save the one that has been thrust in neck and heels by some clumsy well-wisher to Christianity. Never was there a more audacious and disgusting forgery-a more base, fraudulent, and designing trick to serve an end, without even the poor apology of cleverness--not even the redeeming feature of talent to render more tolerable its odious faceand the blockhead who so palpably lied, stands recorded as the most blockish of the would-be imposers upon the credulity of mankind. Verily, it is new cloth, or a new rag, in an old garment-for it is not only different in style, but the color, and what may be called the texture of the passage marks it patch-work! The difference between the paltriest mosaic and the purest gold is not more complete and striking, than the branded passage in Josephus compared with the true history. In a word, it is the ne plus ultra of literary bungling and sneaking criminality.

It is amazing and amusing with what cool impudence the same worthies, who, when the passage was considered genuine, lauded to the skies the truthfulness and high historic reputation of Josephus, making him a very angel of light, and cracking up his authority as irresistible, have pirouetted, since the lie was detected, as with a magic wand, at once transforming their angel of light into a demon of darkness! This is not to be wondered at; it is simply curious and excessively amusing, for they knew their all was staked, as regarded external evidence in favor of Jesus, upon his testimony;

they knew, besides, that if Josephus did not bear testimony for them, he must against them, as the silence of so able, well-informed, and generally impartial historian as Josephus, must speedily palsy the faith in Jesus, and ultimately annihilate it!for, we repeat, it is incredible, and quite inadmissible, that an incarnate God, a prophet, or mere man, should have performed one tithe of what is related in gospel history of Jesus-performed too under the very nose of Josephus, without his deigning so much as to give it a corner in his history!

[ocr errors]

This argument receives additional force from the consideration that Josephus has specially mentioned John the Baptist--which passage has never for once been suspected as not genuine, not a whisper has been raised against its authenticity-because, neither in the account itself, the manner of it, nor in the relationship which it holds to the rest of the history, is there any thing to challenge suspicion. The passage runs thus, " Now, some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God, and that very justly as a punishment, against John that was called the Baptist; for Herod slew him who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him if they made of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body, supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. Now when many others came in crowds against him, for they were greatly moved [or pleased] by hearing his words, Herod who feared lest the great influence John had over the people, might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion (for they seemed! ready to do any thing he should advise), thought it best by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it should be too late. Accordingly, he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod's suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death. Now, the Jews had an opinion, that the destruction of this army was sent as a punishment upon Herod, and a mark of God's displeasure against him."

Before taking final leave of Josephus and the Christian interpolation as we are determined there shall be no mistake-we here restate in the plainest possible English, that although Josephus lived

[ocr errors]

at the time Christ is said to have existed, the name of Jesus is not once mentioned by him in any of his writings-therefore, let every reader understand, that to say-as ill-informed people do-that Josephus wrote about Jesus Christ, is to utter falsehood,—the name never having appeared in his history of the Jews, till it was smuggled there most clumsily in an edition edited by Bishop Warburton. This crushing fact, we challenge the whole religious world to a disproof of, which, if they are not in a condition to furnish, it must appear, that whoever declares the Jewish historian has mentioned the existence of Jesus Christ, asserts an unconscious or a deliberate falsehood,

[ocr errors]

It now remains to brush away a few more cobweb assertions about the authority of Tacitus, urged by one of the most noted and pure minded of modern sceptics, who, it was mentioned in the last Letter, seemed to be on the right road in his reflections upon the subject, but had most unaccountably stopped short in his career.

[ocr errors]

When his opponent, Mr. Origen Bacheler asserts the divine nature of Christianity on the ground that it "succeeded in effecting a revolution in the opinions and manners of the civilized world, to which there is no parallel in the history of mankind;" and urges in confirmation of this view, that Tacitus about A. D. speaking of Christianity says, "This pernicious superstition, though checked for awhile, broke out again, and spread not only over Judea, but reached the city of Rome. At first, they only were apprehended who confessed themselves to be of that sect; afterwards, a vast multitude were discovered and cruelly punished." Mr. R. D. Owen, in his reply to the above, observes, "Watson and Leslie set about proving the existence of Moses and Jesus. I have never denied either; but, I confess, I am surprised to find the proofs so scanty!" adding in a note, "Tacitus's famous passage appears to me, however, sufficient evidence of the existence of Jesus."

There is no accounting for mental hallucinations, even in firstrate minds; but, really it is astonishing, that so bold and generally accurate an investigator should have fallen into the pit so warily dug for him by his opponent; though, it must be confessed, that it was not necessary for his then argument to disprove the existence of Jesus, as the discussion turned upon the authenticity of the Scriptures-so that the existence of Jesus was only touched upon en passant; otherwise, his surprise at finding the proofs so scanty, would probably have ended in the full conviction, not only of their

« AnteriorContinua »