The fact is therefore settled, that Paul knew nothing of an historical Jesus; and that even if he had known anything of him, this Jesus in any case plays no part for him, and exercised no influence over the development of his religious view of the world. Let us consider the importance of this: the very man from whom we derive the first written testimony as to Christianity, who was the first in any way to establish it as a new religion differing from Judaism, on whose teachings alone the whole further development of Christian thought has depended—this Paul knew absolutely nothing of Jesus as an historical personality. In fact, with perfect justice from his point of view he was even compelled to excuse himself, when others wished to enlighten him as to such a personality! At the present day it will be acknowledged by all sensible people that, as Ed. von Hartmann declared more than thirty years ago, without Paul the Christian movement would have disappeared in the sand, just as the many other Jewish religions have done—at best to afford interest to investigators as an historical curiosity—and Paul had no knowledge of Jesus! The formation and development of the Christian religion began long before the Jesus of the Gospels appeared, and was completed independently of the historical Jesus of theology. Theology has no justification for treating Christianity merely as the “Christianity of Christ,” as it now is sufficiently evident; nor should it present a view of the life and doctrines of an ideal man Jesus as the Christian religion.[71]
The question raised at the beginning, as to what we learn from Paul about the historical Jesus, has found its answer—nothing. There is little value, then, in the objection to the disbelievers in such a Jesus which is raised on the theological side in triumphant tones: that the historical existence of Jesus is “most certainly established” by Paul. This objection comes, in fact, even from such people as regard the New Testament, in other respects, with most evidently sceptical views. The truth is that the Pauline epistles contain nothing which would force us to the belief in an historical Jesus; and probably no one would find such a person in them if that belief was not previously established in him. It must be considered that, if the Pauline epistles stood in the edition of the New Testament where they really belong—that is, before the Gospels—hardly any one would think that Jesus, as he there meets him, was a real man and had wandered on the earth in flesh and blood; but he would in all probability only find therein a detailed development of the “suffering servant of God,” and would conclude that it was an irruption of heathen religious ideas into Jewish thought. Our theologians are, however, so strongly convinced of it a priori—that the Pauline representation of Christ actually arose from the figure of Jesus wandering on earth—that even M. Brückner confesses, in the preface to his work, that he had been “himself astonished” (!) at the result of his inquiry—the independence of the Pauline representation of Christ from the historical personality, Jesus.[72]
Christianity is a syncretic religion. It belongs to those multiform religious movements which at the commencement of our era were struggling with one another for the mastery. Setting out from the Apocalyptic idea and the expectation of the Messiah among the Jewish sects, it was borne on the tide of a mighty social agitation, which found its centre and its point of departure in the religious sects and Mystery communities. Its adherents conceived the Messiah not merely as the Saviour of souls, but as deliverer from slavery, from the lot of the poor and the oppressed, and as the bearer of a new justice.[73]
It borrowed the chief part of its doctrine, the specific point in which it differed from ordinary Judaism, the central idea of the God sacrificing himself for mankind, from the neighbouring peoples, who had brought down this belief into Asia, in connection with fire-worship, from its earlier home in the North. Only in so far as that faith points in the end to an Aryan origin can it be said that Jesus was “an Aryan”; any further statements on this point, such as, for example, Chamberlain makes in his “Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts,” are pure fancies, and rest on a complete misunderstanding of the true state of affairs. Christianity, as the religion of Christ, of the “Lord,” who secularised the Jewish Law by his voluntary death of expiation, did not “arise” in Jerusalem, but, if anywhere, in the Syrian capital Antioch, one of the principal places of the worship of Adonis. For it was at Antioch where, according to the Acts,[74] the name “Christians” was first used for the adherents of the new religion, who had till then been usually called Nazarenes.[75]
That certainly is in sharpest contradiction to tradition, according to which Christianity is supposed to have arisen in Jerusalem and to have been thence spread abroad among the heathen. But Luke’s testimony as to the arising of the community of the Messiah at Jerusalem and the spreading of the Gospel from that place can lay no claim to historical significance. Even the account of the disciples’ experience at Easter and of the first appearances after the Resurrection, from their contradictory and confused character appear to be legendary inventions.[76] Unhistorical, and in contradiction to the information on this point given by Matthew and Mark, is the statement that the disciples stayed in Jerusalem after Jesus’ death, which is even referred by Luke to an express command of the dead master.[77] Unhistorical is the assemblage at Pentecost and the wonderful “miracle” of the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, which, as even Clemen agrees, probably originated from the Jewish legends, according to which the giving of the Law on Sinai was made in seventy different languages, in order that it might be understood by all peoples.[78] But also Stephen’s execution and the consequent persecution of the community at Jerusalem are legendary inventions.[79] The great trouble which Luke takes to represent Jerusalem as the point whence the Christian movement set out, clearly betrays the tendency of the author of the Acts to misrepresent the activity of the Christian propaganda, which really emanated from many centres, as a bursting out of the Gospel from one focus. It is meant to produce the impression that the new religion spread from Jerusalem over the whole world like an explosion; and thus its almost simultaneous appearance in the whole of Nearer Asia is explained. For this reason “devout Jews of all nations” were assembled in Jerusalem at Pentecost, and could understand each other in spite of their different languages. For this reason Stephen was stoned, and the motive given for that persecution which in one moment scattered the faithful in all directions.[80]
Now it is certainly probable that there was in Jerusalem, just as in many other places, a community of the Messiah which believed in Jesus as the God sacrificing himself for humanity. But the question is whether this belief, in the community at Jerusalem, rested on a real man Jesus; and whether it is correct to regard this community, some of whose members were personally acquainted with Jesus, and who were the faithful companions of his wanderings, as the “original community” in the sense of the first germ and point of departure of the Christian movement. We may believe, with Fraser, that a Jewish prophet and itinerant preacher, who by chance was named Jesus, was seized by his opponents, the orthodox Jews, on account of his revolutionary agitation, and was beheaded as the Haman of the current year, thereby giving occasion for the foundation of the community at Jerusalem.[81] Against this it may be said that our informants as to the beginning of the Christian propaganda certainly vary, now making one assertion, now another, without caring whether these are contradictory; and they all strive to make up for the lack of any certain knowledge by unmistakable inventions. If the doctrine of Jesus was, as Smith declares, pre-Christian, “a religion which was spread among the Jews and especially the Greeks within the limits of the century [100 B.C. to 100 A.D.], more or less secretly, and wrapped up in ‘Mysteries,’” then we can understand both the sudden appearance of Christianity over so wide a sphere as almost the whole of Nearer Asia, and also the fact that even the earliest informants as to the beginning of the Christian movement had nothing certain to tell. This, however, seems quite irreconcilable with the view of a certain, definite, local, and personal point of departure for the new doctrine.[82] The objection will be raised: what about the Gospels? They, at least, clearly tell the story of a human individual, and are inexplicable, apart from the belief in an historical Jesus.
The question consequently arises as to the source from which the Gospels derived a knowledge of this Jesus; for on this alone the belief in an historical Jesus can rest.
[1] Of course the “Acts of the Apostles” is, and remains in spite of all modern attempts at vindication (Harnack), a very untrustworthy historical document, and the information it gives as to Paul’s life is for the most part mere fiction. We need not go so far as Jensen, who disputes the existence at any time of an historical Paul (“Moses, Jesus, Paulus. Drei Sagenvarianten des babylonischen Gottmenschen Gilgamesch,” 2 Aufl., 1909), but will nevertheless not be able to avoid the view that the description of Paul, as Bruno Bauer has already shown, represents an original, in any case very much worked over, and in the opinion of many only a copy of the original, which preceded it in the portrayal of the “chief of the apostles,” Peter (cf., on the historical value of the Acts, also E. Zeller, “Die Apg. nach ihrem Inhalt und Ursprung kritisch untersucht,” 1854). [↑]
[2] Cf. H. Jordan, “Jesus und die modernen Jesusbilder. Bibl. Zeit- u. Streitfragen,” 1909, 36. [↑]