The Christian Mythology

by E. B. Leatherbee

I—The Virgin Birth.

Some two thousand years ago there is said to have appeared in the notoriously rebellious province of Galilee, the headquarters of Hebrew radicalism, a wandering teacher called Jesus, who passed from village to village expounding certain ethical and socialistic ideas, which were condemned by the Roman government and which resulted in this man’s arrest and subsequent execution. After his death, his various pupils continued to preach his theories, and, separating, spread these ideas over various parts of the then civilized world. These pupils, naturally, having a firm belief in their former leader, and desiring to strengthen in every possible manner their faith as well as to increase the number of their proselytes, and, also, being themselves more or less affected by the ancient messianic idea, did not deny Jesus more than mortal powers, and allowed certain pagan theories of deity to creep into their faith. Later, when the vicious and crafty Constantine found it advisable for political reasons to adopt Christianity as the state religion, the great mass of Roman worshipers merely transferred the attributes of their ancient deities to the objects venerated by the new sect.

There was nothing new in bestowing a divine origin on Jesus. All the lesser gods of antiquity were the sons of Zeus, and, in later times, monarchs were accorded the same origin. It was a common myth of all ancient peoples that numerous beings derived their birth from other than natural causes. Virgins gave birth to sons without aid of men. Zeus produced offspring without female assistance. Almost all the extraordinary men that lived under the old heathen mythology were reputed to have been the sons of some of the gods. The doctrine of the virgin birth is perhaps one of the oldest of religious ideas; it is so universal that its origin is impossible to trace. Therefore, no wonder is excited when we find that most of the religious leaders have been of celestial origin.

Krishna, the Indian savior, was born of a chaste virgin called Devaki, who, on account of her purity, was selected to become the mother of God. Gautama Buddha was born of the virgin Maya and “mercifully left Paradise and came down to earth because he was filled with compassion for the sins and miseries of mankind. He sought to lead them into better paths, and took their sufferings upon himself that he might expiate their crimes and mitigate the punishment they must otherwise inevitably undergo.”

The great father of gods and men sent a messenger from heaven to the Mexican virgin, Sochiquetzal, to inform her that it was the will of the gods that she should immaculately conceive a son. As a result she bore Quetzalcoatl, the Mexican savior, who “set his face against all forms of violence and bloodshed, and encouraged the arts of peace.” The Mexican god Huitzilopochtli was likewise immaculately conceived by a woman who, while walking in a temple, beheld a ball of feathers descending in the air. She grasped this and placed it in her bosom. It gradually disappeared and her pregnancy resulted. The Mexican Montezumas were later supposed to have been immaculately conceived by a drop of dew falling on the exposed breast of the mother as she lay asleep.

The Siamese have a virgin-born god and savior whom they call Codom; the Chinese have several virgin-born gods, one being the result of his mother’s having become impregnated by merely treading on the toe-print of God; while the Egyptians bowed in worship before the shrine of Horus, son of the virgin Isis.

Setting aside the mythological interpretation of the miraculous conception of Jesus and the theory that his history is entirely fictitious, and viewing his birth from a natural human standpoint, even admitting that he may have been a “divinely inspired man,” a little better than any other human being, there seems to be only one explanation for his peculiar conception as recorded in [Luke i].

Some critics of the rational school have not failed to notice a solution of the problem in the appearance of the angel Gabriel and his private interview with Mary ([Luke i, 28–38]). Say they very pertinently, why may not some libidinous young man, having become enamoured of the youthful wife of the aged Joseph, and, knowing the prophecy of the messiah, have visited the object of his desire in angelic guise and, having won her confidence in this rôle, gained those favors that produced the miraculous birth? And such an explanation is not improbable when we consider that it is an historical fact that young and confiding women often resorted to the pagan temples at the instigation of the unscrupulous, where they enjoyed the embraces of ardent but previously unsuccessful lovers, under the impression that they were being favored by deities.

So those Christians whose reasoning powers will not allow them to believe in the absurdity of an unnatural conception, and whose superstitious adoration will not permit of their believing Mary guilty of an intentional faux pas, try in this manner to reconcile the two, and declare Joseph the guilty man.