The Man of Galilee

by Atticus G. Haygood

All the mythologies tell us of incarnations; but the idea of divine incarnation in the story of the evangelists differs, not in some incidents, but in all essentials from all others. One unique fact, as has heretofore, in a different connection, been pointed out, is that Jesus was simply a man who, as to his appearance, had absolutely nothing that was peculiar. Neither stature, beauty, swiftness, nor strength is attributed to Jesus.

We might speak of the limitations that go with other conceptions of gods incarnate. They are specialized by race and localized by country. This thought has been illustrated elsewhere. It may answer now simply to remind you that Vishnu is Hindustanee, Isis and Osiris Egyptian, Odin and Thor Scandinavian. Not one of them has relations to the whole human race. But Jesus, who calls himself “the Son of man,” is of all, and belongs to all.

But the most notable difference to be considered now, that which alone would place Jesus apart from all others, whether men or legendary gods, is in the end he proposed to accomplish. The gods became incarnate and appeared to men, or dwelt among them, to do many and very different things; Jesus to do just one thing, and to do what no other ever proposed to do, or so much as thought of doing. He, “the Son of man,” was of all and for all, and he proposes an end that concerns all. The evil he would remove from all is not a Hebrew trouble; it is in the human race.

This is plainer in comparison. Vishnu, the supreme god of Hindustanee mythology, has condescended, so the old stories tell us, to almost innumerable incarnations. But for what end? Always to work some prodigies; to do some strange things on the plane of men’s lives; to do things affecting men’s circumstances, not men’s character. He comes to do something in a limited sphere; something for his people, Hindustanee people, not for the whole race of man. Vishnu, when he comes in mercy, comes to remedy external conditions; he delivers from pestilence, famine, wild beasts, poisonous serpents. When he comes in wrath it is to crush his enemies.

In mythology the very conception men had of the coming of the gods grew out of their circumstances. Thus in India the conception of evil itself was determined by conditions peculiar to India. With them evil grew out of the jungles where pestilence was bred, serpents abounded, and fierce man-eating tigers hid themselves and waited for their prey. It was determined by those conditions of life peculiar to dense populations, subject to the scourges that followed war, and evil natural conditions—plague and famine.

The evil Jesus considered was peculiar to no people and to no country; it did not grow out of natural conditions; it was in man himself, and it was sin.

Among warlike nations the gods came down to take part in mere national matters; they fought the battles of their friends and punished their enemies. Your Homer tells you all this in the story of the siege of Troy. Virgil tells you the same thing; your classical authors are full of it. The poor Indians and negro tribes tell of such incarnations.

It was this very human conception of divine incarnation that filled the national imagination and sustained the national hopes before Jesus came. Such an incarnation they were longing for when they rejected him because they could not use him for their ends; it is a conception that to this day lingers in Hebrew thought and hope. They looked and prayed for a divine warrior-king who would lead their armies, restore their nation, and give it dominion over the world.

How incredible the idea that the evangelists have only given us a reflection of popular sentiment, the outgrowth of national traditions! These sentiments and traditions were utterly spoiled by the sort of incarnation the evangelists describe. The nation resented unto death the conception Jesus had of his mission to men; before such a king as Jesus they preferred the Cæsar they hated; they put to death the man who only sought to save them from their sins because he disappointed them in their patriotic ambitions.

Speaking in a general way, the gods of the nations, when they become incarnate, come to do a man’s sort of work. They work upon the outside of life; they seek to deliver man from external evils and to improve his external conditions. The “twelve labors of Hercules” tell us what men thought they needed a divine man to do; the evangelists tell us what the divine Man thought men needed that he should do. When the gods of mythology become incarnate they work in the realm of circumstances; Jesus speaks only of the man himself, his heart, his character, and seeks only to make him good.