Kitabı oku: «The Christ Myth», sayfa 12

We must be careful of our language. These are indeed the views of a man who must be taken seriously, with whom we have been dealing above, a “shining light” of his science! The often cited work on “Die Quellen des Lebens Jesu” belongs to the series of “Popular Books on the History of Religion,” which contains the quintessence of present-day theological study, and which is intended for the widest circles interested and instructed in religion. We may suppose, probably with justice, that that work expresses what the liberal theology of our day wishes the members of the community subject to it to know and to believe. Or is it only that the popular books on the history of religion place the intellectual standard of their readers so low that they think they can strengthen the educated in their belief in an historical Jesus by productions such as Wernle’s? We consider the more “scientifically” elaborated works of other important theologians on the same subject. We think of Beyschlag, Harnack, Bernard Weiss, of Pfleiderer, Jülicher, and Holtzmann. We consult Bousset, who defended against Kalthoff, with such great determination and warmth, the existence of an historical Jesus. Everywhere there is the same half-comic, half-pathetic drama: on the one hand the evangelical authorities are depreciated and the information is criticised away to such an extent that hardly anything positive remains from it; on the other hand there is a pathetic enthusiasm for the so-called “historical kernel.” Then comes praise for the so-called critical theology and its “courageous truthfulness,” which, however, ultimately consists only in declaring evident myths and legends to be such. This was known for a long time previously among the unprejudiced. There usually follows a hymn to Jesus with ecstatic raising of the eyes, as if all the statements concerning him in the Gospels still had validity. What then does Hausrath say? – “To conceal the miraculous parts of the [evangelical] accounts and then to give out the rest as historical, has not hitherto passed as criticism.”⁴⁰¹ Can we object to Catholic theology because it looks with open pity on the whole of Protestant “criticism,” and reproaches it with the inconsistency, incompleteness, and lack of results, which is the mark of all its efforts to discover the beginnings of Christianity.⁴⁰² Is it not right in rejoicing at the blow which Protestantism has sustained and from which it must necessarily suffer through all such attempts at accepting the Gospels as basis for a belief in an historical Jesus? Certainly what Catholic theologians bring forward in favour of the historical Jesus is so completely devoid of any criticism or even of any genuine desire to elucidate the facts, that it would be doing them too much honour to make any more detailed examination of their works on this point. For them the whole problem has a very simple solution in this: the existence of the historical Jesus forms the unavoidable presupposition of the Church, even though every historical fact should register its veto against it; and as one of its writers has put it, that is at bottom the long-established and unanimous view of all our inquiries into the subject under discussion: “The historical testimony for the authenticity of the Gospels is as old, as extensive, and as well established as it is for very few other books of ancient literature [!]. If we do not wish to be inconsistent we cannot question their authenticity. Their credibility is beyond question; for their authors were eye-witnesses of the events [!] related, or they gained their information from such; they were as competent judges [!] as men loving the truth can well be; they could, and in fact were obliged to speak the truth.”⁴⁰³

How distinguished, as compared with this kind of theologian, Kalthoff seems! It is true that we are obliged to allow for the one-sidedness and insufficiency of his positive working out of the origin of Christianity, of his attempt to explain it, on the basis of Mark’s handling of the story, purely on the lines of social motives, and to represent Christ as the mere reflection of the Christian community and of its experiences. Quite certainly he is wrong in identifying the biblical Pilate with Pliny, the governor of Bithynia under Trajan, and in the proof based on this; and this because in all probability Pliny’s letter to the Emperor is a later Christian forgery.⁴⁰⁴ But Kalthoff is quite right in what he says about modern critical theology and its historical Jesus. The critical theologians may think themselves justified in treating this embarrassing opponent as “incompetent,” or in ignoring him on account of the mistaken basis of argument; but all the efforts made with such great perseverance and penetration by historical theologians to derive from the authorities before us proof of the existence of a man Jesus in the traditional sense have led, as Kalthoff very justly says, to a purely negative conclusion. “The numerous passages in the Gospels which this theology, in maintaining its historical Jesus, is obliged to place on one side and pass over, stand from a literary point of view exactly on the same footing as those passages from which it constructs its historical Jesus; and consequently they claim historical value equal to these latter. The Synoptic Christ, in whom modern theology thinks it finds the characteristics of the historical Jesus, stands not a hair’s breadth nearer to a human interpretation of Christianity than the Christ of the fourth Gospel. What the Epigones of liberal theology think they can distil from this Synoptic Christ as historical essence has historical value only as a monument of masterly sophistry, which has produced its finest examples in the name of theological science.”⁴⁰⁵ Historical research should not have so long set apart from all other history that of early Christianity as the special domain of theology and handed it over to churchmen, as if for the decision of the questions on this point quite special talent was necessary – a talent far beyond the ordinary sphere of science and one which was only possessed by the Church theologian. The world would then long since have done with the whole literature of the “Life of Jesus.”

The sources which give information of the origin of Christianity are of such a kind that, considering the present standard of historical research, no historian would care to undertake an attempt to produce the biography of an historical Christ.⁴⁰⁶ They are, we can add, of such a nature that a real historian, who meets them without a previous conviction or expectation that he will find an historical Jesus in it, cannot for a moment doubt that he has here to do with religious fiction,⁴⁰⁷ with myth in an historical form, which does not essentially differ from other myths and legends – such as perhaps the legend of Tell.

Supplement: Jesus in Secular Literature.

There seems to be but little hope of considerably adding to the weight of the reasons in favour of the historical existence of Jesus by citing documents of secular literature. As is well known, only two passages of the Jewish historian Josephus, and one in each of the Roman historians, Tacitus and Suetonius, must be considered in this connection. As for the testimony of Josephus in his “Antiquities,” which was written 93 A.D., the first passage (viz., xviii. 3, 3) is so evidently an after-insertion of a later age, that even Roman Catholic theologians do not venture to declare it authentic, though they always attempt, with pitiful naïveté, to support the credibility of pre-Christian documents of this type.⁴⁰⁸ But the other passage, too (xx. 9, 1), which states that James was executed under the authority of the priest Ananos (A.D. 62), and refers to him as “the Brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ,” in the opinion of eminent theologians such as Credner,⁴⁰⁹ Schürer,⁴¹⁰ &c., must be regarded as a forgery;⁴¹¹ but even if its authenticity were established it would still prove nothing in favour of the historical Jesus. For, first, it leaves it undecided whether a bodily relationship is indicated by the word “Brother,” or whether, as is much more likely, the reference is merely to a religious brotherhood (see above, 170 sq.). Secondly, the passage only asserts that there was a man of the name of Jesus who was called Christ, and this is in no way extraordinary in view of the fact that at the time of Josephus, and far into the second century, many gave themselves out as the expected Messiah.⁴¹²

The Roman historians’ testimony is in no better case than that of Josephus. It is true that Tacitus writes in his “Annals” (xv. 44), in connection with the persecution of the Christians under Nero (64), that “the founder of this sect, Christ, was executed in Tiberius’ reign by the procurator Pontius Pilate”; and Suetonius states in his biography of the Emperor Claudius, chap. xxv., that he “drove out of Rome the Jews, who had caused great disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus.” What does this prove? Are we so certain that the passage cited from Tacitus as to the persecution of the Christians under Nero is not after all a later insertion and falsification of the original text? This is indeed the case, judging from Hochart’s splendid and exhaustive inquiry. In fact, everything points to the idea that the “first persecution of the Christians,” which is previously mentioned by no writers, either Jewish or heathen, is nothing but the product of a Christian’s imagination in the fifth century.⁴¹³ But let us admit the authenticity of Tacitus’ assertion; let us suppose also that by Suetonius’ Chrestus is really meant Christ and not a popular Jewish rioter of that name; let us suppose that the unrest of the Jews was not connected with the expectation of the Messiah, or that the Roman historian, in his ignorance of the Jewish dreams of the future, did not imagine a leader of the name of Chrestus.⁴¹⁴ Can writers of the first quarter of the second century after Christ, at which time the tradition was already formed and Christianity had made its appearance in History as a power, be regarded as independent authorities for facts which are supposed to have taken place long before the birth of the Tradition? Tacitus can at most have heard that the Christians were followers of a Christ who was supposed to have been executed under Pontius Pilate. That was probably even at that time in the Gospels – and need not, therefore, be a real fact of history. And if it has been proved, according to Mommsen, that Tacitus took his material from the protocols of the Senate and imperial archives, there has equally been, on the other hand, a most definite counter-assertion that he never consulted these authorities.⁴¹⁵

Lately, Tacitus proving to be slightly inconsistent, it has been usual to refer to Pliny’s letter to the Emperor Trajan, asserting that the historical Jesus is certified to in this. The letter hinges on the question of what Pliny’s attitude as Governor of Bithynia must be to the Christians; so that naturally the Christians are much spoken of, and once even there is mention of Christ, whose followers sing alternate hymns to him “as to a God” (quasi deo). But Jesus as an historical person is not once mentioned in the whole letter; and Christ was even for Paul a “Quasi-god,” a being fluctuating between man and God. What then is proved by the letter of Pliny as to the historical nature of Jesus? It only proves the liberal theologians’ dilemma over the whole question, that they think they can cite these witnesses again and again for strengthening the belief in an historical Jesus, as, e. g. Melhorn does in his work “Wahrheit und Dichtung im Leben Jesu” (in “Aus Natur und Geisteswelt,” 1906), trying to make it appear that these witnesses are in any way worthy of consideration. Joh. Weiss also – according to the newspaper account – in his lecture on Christ in the Berlin vacation-course of March, 1910, confessed that “statements from secular literature as to the historical nature of Jesus which are absolutely free of objection are very far from having been authenticated.” Even an orthodox theologian like Kropatscheck writes in the “Kreuzzeitung” (April 7, 1910): “It is well known that the non-Christian writers in a very striking way ignore the appearing of Christ. The few small notices in Tacitus, Suetonius, &c., are easily enumerated. Though we date our chronology from him, his advent made no impression at all on the great historians of his age. The Talmud gives a hostile caricature of his advent which has no historical value. The Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, from whom we might have expected information of the first rank, is absolutely silent. We are referred to our Gospels, as Paul also says little of the life of Jesus; and we can understand how it is that attempts are always being made to remove him, as an historical person, from the past.” The objection to this, that the secular writers, even though they give no positive testimony for Jesus’ historical existence, have never brought it in question, is of very little strength. For the writings considered in it, viz., Justin’s conversation with the Jew Trypho, as well as the polemical work of Celsus against Christianity, both belong to the latter half of the second century, while the passages in the Talmud referred to are probably of a later date, and all these passages are merely based on the tradition. So that this “proof from silence” is in reality no proof. It is, rather, necessary to explain why the whole of the first century, apart from the Gospels, seems to know nothing of Jesus as an historical personality. The Frenchman Hochart ridicules the theological attitude: “It seems that the most distinguished men lose a part of their brilliant character in the study of martyrology. Let us leave it to German theologians to study history in their way. We Frenchmen wish throughout our inquiries to preserve our clearness of mind and healthy common-sense. Let us not invent new legends about Nero: there are really too many already.”⁴¹⁶

(b) The Objections against a Denial of the Historicity of the Synoptic Jesus

There the matter ends: we know nothing of Jesus, of an historical personality of that name to whom the events and speeches recorded in the Gospels refer. “In default of any historical certainty the name of Jesus has become for Protestant theology an empty vessel, into which that theology pours the content of its own meditations.”⁴¹⁷ And if there is any excuse for this, it is that that name has never at any time been anything but such an empty vessel: Jesus, the Christ, the Deliverer, Saviour, Physician of oppressed souls, has been from first to last a figure borrowed from myth, to whom the desire for redemption and the naïve faith of the Western Asiatic peoples have transferred all their conceptions of the soul’s welfare. The “history” of this Jesus in its general characteristics had been determined even before the evangelical Jesus. Even Weinel, one of the most zealous and enthusiastic adherents of the modern Jesus-worship, confesses that “Christology was almost completed before Jesus came on earth.”⁴¹⁸

It was not, however, merely the general frame and outlines of the “history” of Jesus which had been determined in the Messiah-faith, in the idea of a divine spirit sent from God, of the “Son of Man” of Daniel and the Jewish Apocalyptics, &c., not merely that this vague idea was filled out with new content through the Redeemer-worship of the neighbouring heathen peoples. Besides this, many of the individual traits of the Jesus-figure were present, some in heathen mythology, some in the Old Testament; and they were taken thence and worked into the evangelical representation. There is, for instance, the story of the twelve-year old Jesus in the Temple. “Who would have invented this story?” asks Jeremias. “Nevertheless,” he thinks it “probable” that in this Luke was thinking of Philo’s description of the life of Moses; he calls to mind that Plutarch gives us a quite similar statement concerning Alexander, whose life was consciously decorated with all the traits of the Oriental King-redeemer.⁴¹⁹ Perhaps, however, the account comes from a Buddhist origin. The account of the temptation of Jesus also sounds very much like the temptation of Buddha, so far as it is not derived from the temptation of Zarathustra by Ahriman⁴²⁰ or the temptation of Moses by the devil, of which the Rabbis told,⁴²¹ while Jesus is said to have entered upon his ministry in his thirtieth year,⁴²² because at that age the Levite was fitted for his sacred office.⁴²³ Till then (i. e., till his baptism) we learn nothing of Jesus’ life. Similarly Isa. liii. 2, jumps from the early youth of the Servant of God (“He grew up as a tender plant, as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness, is despised and rejected of men”) straight to his passion and death; while the Gospels attempt to fill in the interval from Jesus’ baptism up to his passion by painting in further so-called Messianic passages from the Old Testament and Words of Jesus. We know how the early Christians liked to rediscover their faith in the Scriptures and see it predicted, and with what zeal they consequently studied the Old Testament and altered the “history” of their Jesus to make it agree with those predictions, thus rendering it valuable as corroboration of their own notions. In this connection it has been shown above how the “ride of the beardless one” influenced the collection of the tribute and his direct attack on the shopkeepers and money-changers in the evangelical account of Jesus’ advent to the Temple at Jerusalem.⁴²⁴ But the more detailed development of this scene is determined by Zech. ix. 9, Mal. iii. 1–3, and Isa. i. 10 sqq., and the words placed in Jesus’ mouth on this occasion are taken from Isa. lvi. 7 and Jer. vii. 1 sqq., so that this “most important” event in Jesus’ life can lay no claim to historical actuality.⁴²⁵

And again the account of the betrayal, of the thirty pieces of silver, and of Judas’ death, have their source in the Old Testament, viz., in the betrayal and death of Ahitophel.⁴²⁶ To what extent in particular the figures of Moses, with reference to Deut. xviii. 15 and xxxiv. 10, of Joshua, of Elijah and Elisha, influenced the portrayal of the evangelical Jesus has also been traced even by the theological party.⁴²⁷ Jesus has to begin his activities through baptism in the Jordan, because Moses had begun his leadership of Israel with the passage through the Red Sea and Joshua at the time of the Passover led the people through the Jordan, and this passage (of the sun through the watery regions of the sky) was regarded as baptism.⁴²⁸ He has to walk on the water, even as Moses, Joshua, and Elias walked dryshod through the water. He has to awaken the dead, like Elijah;⁴²⁹ to surround himself with twelve or seventy disciples and apostles, just as Moses had surrounded himself with twelve chiefs of the people and seventy elders, and as Joshua had chosen twelve assistants at the passage of the Jordan;⁴³⁰ he has to be transfigured,⁴³¹ and to ascend into heaven like Moses⁴³² and Elijah.⁴³³ Elijah (Eli-scha) and Jeho-schua (Joshua, Jesus) agree even in their names, so that on this ground alone it would not have been strange if the Prophet of the Old Testament had served as prototype of his evangelical namesake.⁴³⁴ Now Jesus places himself in many ways above the Mosaic Law, especially above the commands as to food,⁴³⁵ and in this at least one might find a trait answering to reality. But in the Rabbinical writings we find: “It is written,⁴³⁶ the Lord sets loose that which is bound; for every creature that passes as unclean in this world, the Lord will pronounce clean in the next.”⁴³⁷ So that similarly the disposition of the Law belongs to the general characteristics of the Messiah, and cannot be historical of Jesus, because if it were the attitude of the Jewish Christians to Paul on account of his disposition of the Law would be incomprehensible.⁴³⁸ The contrary attitude, which is likewise represented by Jesus,⁴³⁹ was already foreseen in the Messianic expectation. For while some hoped for a lightening and amendment of the Law by the Messiah, others thought of its aggravation and completion. In Micah iv. 5 the Messiah was to exert his activity, not merely among the Jews, but also among the Gentiles, and the welfare of the kingdom of the Messiah was to extend also to the latter. According to Isaiah lx. and Zechariah xiv., on the contrary, the Gentiles were to be subjected and brought to nothing, and only the Jews were worthy of participation in the kingdom of God. For that reason Jesus had to declare himself with like determination for both conceptions,⁴⁴⁰ without any attempt being made to reconcile the contradiction contained in this.⁴⁴¹ That the parents of Jesus were called Joseph and Mary, and that his father was a “carpenter,” were determined by tradition, just as the name of his birthplace, Nazareth, was occasioned by the name of a sect (Nazaraios = Protector), or by the fact that one sect honoured the Messiah as a “branch of the root of Jesse” (nazar Isai).⁴⁴² It was a Messianic tradition that he began his activity in Galilee and wandered about as Physician, Saviour, Redeemer, and Prophet, as mediator of the union of Israel, and as one who brought light to the Gentiles, not as an impetuous oppressor full of inconsiderate strength, but as one who assumed a loving tenderness for the weak and despairing.⁴⁴³ He heals the sick, comforts the afflicted, and proclaims to the poor the Gospel of the nearness of the kingdom of God. That is connected with the wandering of the sun through the twelve Signs of the Zodiac (Galil = circle), and is based on Isa. xxxv. 5 sqq., xlii. 1–7, xlix. 9 sqq., as well as on Isa. lxi. 1, a passage which Jesus himself, according to Luke iv. 16 sqq., began his teaching in Nazareth by explaining.⁴⁴⁴ He had to meet with opposition in his work of salvation, and nevertheless endure patiently, because of Isa. 1. 5. Naturally Jesus, behind whose human nature was concealed a God, and to whom the pilgrim “Saviour” Jason corresponded,⁴⁴⁵ was obliged to reveal his true nature by miraculous healing, and could not take a subordinate place in this regard among the cognate heathen God-redeemers. At most we may wonder that even in this the Old Testament had to stand⁴⁴⁶ as a model, and that Jesus’ doings never surpass those which the heathens praise in their gods and heroes, e. g., Asclepius. Indeed, according to Tacitus⁴⁴⁷ even the Emperor Vespasian accomplished such miracles at Alexandria, where, on being persistently pressed by the people, he healed both a lame man and a blind, and this almost in the same way as Jesus did, by moistening their eyes and cheeks with spittle; which information is corroborated also by Suetonius⁴⁴⁸ and Dio Cassius.⁴⁴⁹ But the most marvellous thing is that the miracles of Jesus have been found worth mentioning by the critical theology, and that there is an earnest search for an “historical nucleus,” which might probably “underlie them.”

All the individual characteristics cited above are, however, unimportant in comparison with the account of the Last Supper, of the Passion, death (on the cross), and resurrection of Jesus. And yet what is given us on these points is quite certainly unhistorical; these parts of the Gospels owe their origin, as we have stated, merely to cult-symbolism and to the myth of the dying and rising divine Saviour of the Western Asiatic religions. No “genius” was necessary for their invention, as everything was given: the derision,⁴⁵⁰ the flagellation, both the thieves, the crying out on the cross, the sponge with vinegar (Psa. lxix. 22), the piercing with a lance,⁴⁵¹ the soldiers casting dice for the dead man’s garments, also the women at the place of execution and at the grave, the grave in a rock, are found in just the same form in the worship of Adonis, Attis, Mithras, and Osiris. Even the Saviour carrying his cross is copied from Hercules (Simon of Cyrene),⁴⁵² bearing the pillars crosswise, as well as from the story of Isaac, who carried his own wood to the altar on which he was to be sacrificed.⁴⁵³ But where the authors of the Gospels have really found something new, e. g., in the account of Jesus’ trial, of the Roman and Jewish procedure, they have worked it out in such an ignorant way, and to one who knows something about it betray so significantly the purely fictitious nature of their account, that here really there is nothing to wonder at except perhaps the naïveté of those who still consider that account historical, and pique themselves a little on their “historical exactness” and “scientific method.”⁴⁵⁴

Is not Robertson perhaps right after all in considering the whole statement of the last fate of Jesus to be the rewriting of a dramatic Mystery-play, which among the Gentile Christians of the larger cities followed the sacramental meal on Easter Day? We know what a great rôle was played by dramatic representations in numerous cults of antiquity, and how they came into especial use in connection with the veneration of the suffering and rising God-redeemers. Thus in Egypt the passion, death, and resurrection of Osiris and the birth of Horus; at Eleusis the searching and lamentation of Demeter for her lost Persephone and the birth of Iacchus; at Lernæ in Argolis and many other places the fate of Dionysus (Zagreus); in Sicyon the suffering of Adrastos, who threw himself on to the funeral pyre of his father Hercules; at Amyclæ the passing away of Nature and its new life in the fate of Hyacinth: these were celebrated in festal pageants and scenic representations, to say nothing of the feasts of the death and resurrection of Mithras, Attis, and Adonis. Certainly Matthew’s account, xx.–xxviii. (with the exception of verses 11–15 in the last chapter), with its connected sequence of events, which could not possibly have actually followed each other like this – Supper, Gethsemane, betrayal, passion, Peter’s denial, the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection – throughout gives one the impression of a chain of isolated dramatic scenes. And the close of the Gospel agrees very well with this conception, for the parting words and exhortations of Jesus to his people are a very suitable ending to a drama.⁴⁵⁵

If we allow this, an explanation is given of the “clearness” which is so generally praised in the style of the Gospels by the theologians and their following, and which many think sufficient by itself to prove the historical nature of the Synoptic representation of Jesus.

Of course, Wrede has already warned us “not too hastily to consider clearness a sign of historical truth. A writing may have a very secondary, even apocryphal character, and yet show much clearness. The question always is how this was obtained.”⁴⁵⁶ Wernle and Wrede quite agree that at least in Mark’s production the clearness is of no account at all, while clearness in the other Gospels is found just in those parts which admittedly belong to the sphere of legend. And how clearly and concretely do not our authors of the various “Lives of Jesus,” not to mention Renan, or our ministers in the pulpits describe the events of the Gospels, with how many small and attractive traits do they not decorate these events, in order that they should have a greater effect on their listeners! This kind of clearness and personal stamp is really nothing but a matter of the literary skill and imagination of the authors in question. The writings of the Old Testament, and not merely the historical writings, are also full of a most clear ability for narration and of most individual characteristics, which prove how much the Rabbinical writers in Palestine knew of this side of literary activity. Or is anything wanting to the clearness and individual characterisation, to which Kalthoff also has alluded, of the touching story of Ruth; of the picture of the prophet Jonah, of Judith, Esther, Job, &c? And then the stories of the patriarchs – the pious Abraham, the good-natured, narrow-minded Esau, the cunning Jacob, and their respective wives – or, to take one case, how clear is not the meeting of Abraham’s servant with Rebecca at the well!⁴⁵⁷ Or let us consider Moses, Elijah, Samson – great figures who in their most essential traits demonstrably belong to myth and religious fable! If in preaching our ministers can go so vividly into the details of the story of the Saviour that fountains of poetry are opened and there stream forth from their lips clear accounts of Jesus’ goodness of heart, of his heroic greatness, and of his readiness for the sacrifice, how much more would this have been so at first in the Christian community, when the new religion was still in its youth, when the faith in the Messiah was as yet unweakened by sceptical doubts, and when the heart of man was still filled with the desire for immediate and final redemption? And even if we are confronted with a host of minor traits, which cannot so easily be accounted for by religious motives and poetic imagination, must these all refer to the same real personality? May they not be based on events which are very far from being necessarily experiences of the liberal theology’s historical Jesus? Even Edward v. Hartmann, who is generally content to adhere to the historical Jesus, suggests the possibility “that several historical personages, who lived at quite different times, have contributed concrete individual characteristics to the picture of Jesus.”⁴⁵⁸ There is a great deal of talk about the “uninventable” in the evangelical representation. Von Soden even goes so far as to base his chief proof for the historical existence of Jesus on this individuality that cannot be invented.⁴⁵⁹ As if there was any such thing as what cannot be invented for men with imagination! And as if all the significant details of Jesus’ life were not invented on the lines of the so-called Messianic passages in the Old Testament, in heathen mythology, and in the imported conceptions of the Messiah! The part that is professedly “uninventable” shrinks continuously the more assiduously criticism busies itself with the Gospels; and the word can at present apply only to side-issues and matters of no importance. We are indeed faced with the strange fact, that all the essential part of the Gospels, everything which is of importance for religious faith, such as especially the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus, is demonstrably invented and mythical; but such parts as can at best only be historical because of their supposed “uninventable” nature are of no importance for the character of the Gospel representation!