Both in Paul and in the Gospels the “myth” has parents and brothers and sisters Here, then, are four wholly independent groups of ancient documents, of which one gives us the names of four of the brothers of Jesus, clearly indicating that they were real brothers, and sons of Mary and the Carpenter; while the other group (the Paulines) speak as ever of his “brothers,” but give us the name of one only, James; the third—viz., the works of Josephus—allude to one only—viz., James, but without indicating that there were not several. Lastly, the we document ([Acts xxi, 18]) testifies that “Paul went in with us unto James.” Is not this enough? Surely, if we were here treating of profane history, no sane student would for a moment hesitate to accept such data, furnished by wholly independent and coincident documents, as historical. Professor Smith’s other guess, that in [ 1 Cor. ix, 5], brethren means spiritual brethren, just begs the question, and, like his spiritual interpretation of James’s relationship, offends Greek idiom, as I said above. Paul, like the author of [ Acts xxi, 17], speaks of “the brother” or of “the brethren”—e.g., in [ 1 Cor. viii, 11]: “the brother for whose sake Christ died”; but when the person whose brother it is is named, a blood relationship is always conveyed in the Paulines as in the rest of the New Testament. If “brethren of the Lord” in [ 1 Cor. ix, 5], does not mean real brethren, why are they distinguished from all the apostles, who on Professor Smith’s assumption, above all others, merited to be called “brethren of the Lord”? The appeal, moreover, to [ 1 Cor. i, 12] foll., is absurd; for Paul is alluding there to factions among the believers of Corinth; how is it possible to interpret these factions as brotherhoods? There was only one brotherhood of the faithful, according to Paul’s ideal; and the relationship involved in such phrases as “I of Cephas,” “I of Paul,” is that of a convert to his teacher and evangelist, not that of spiritual brethren to each other. As used by his Corinthian converts, such phrases were a direct menace to spiritual brotherhood and unity, and not an expression of it; and that is why Paul wished to hear no more of them. When he makes appeal to them Professor Smith damages rather than benefits his argument.
Jerome’s opinion about Jesus’s brothers There remains the appeal to Jerome (Ecce Deus, p. 237):—
No less an authority than Jerome has expressed the correct idea on this point. In commenting on [ Gal. i, 19], he says (in sum): “James was called the Lord’s brother on account of his high character, his incomparable faith, and his extraordinary wisdom; the other apostles are also called brothers” ([John xx, 17]).
Here Professor Smith withholds from his readers the fact that Jerome regarded James the brother of Jesus as his first cousin. It is just as difficult for a mythical personage to have a first cousin as to have a brother. Moreover, the reasons which actuated Jerome to deny that Jesus had real brethren was—as the Encyclopædia Biblica (art. James) points out—“a prepossession in favour of the perpetual virginity of Mary the mother of Jesus.” It is, indeed, a hollow theory that, in order to its justification, must take refuge in the Encratite rubbish of Jerome.
Mutual independence of Pauline and Gospel stories of the risen Christ If the crucified Jesus of Paul was Jesus Ben Pandira, stoned to death and hanged on a tree between the years B.C. 106–79, then how can Paul have written ([1 Cor. xv, 6]) that the greater part of the 500 brethren to whom Jesus appeared were still alive? I neither assert nor deny the possibility of so many at once having fallen under the spell of a common illusion, though I believe the annals of religious ecstasy might afford parallels. But this I do maintain, that the passage records a conviction in Paul’s mind that Jesus, after his death by crucifixion, had appeared to many at once, and that not a hundred years before, but at a comparatively recent time. That is also Mr. Robertson’s view; for, rather than face the passage, he whips out his knife and cuts it out of the text. Yet there is not a single reason for doing so, except that it upsets his hypothesis; for the circumstance that the incident cannot be reconciled with the Gospel stories of the apparitions of the risen Christ clearly shows that Paul’s text is independent on them. Mr. Robertson argues that, if it were not a late interpolation, the evangelists would have found it in Paul and incorporated it in their Gospels. I ask in turn, why did the interpolator thrust into the Pauline letter not only this passage, but at least two other incidents (the apparitions to Peter and James) which figure in no canonical Gospel? Why, if the Evangelists were bound to consult the Paulines in giving an account of these posthumous appearances, was not the hypothetical interpolator of the Paulines equally bound to consult them? The most natural hypothesis is that the Gospels on one side and the Pauline Epistles on the other led independent lives, till their respective traditions were so firmly fixed that no one could tamper with either of them. The conflict, therefore, such as it is, between this Pauline passage and the Gospels is the strongest possible proof of its genuineness.
The Pauline account of the Eucharist Mr. Robertson’s treatment of the Pauline description of the origin of the Lord’s Supper as described in [ 1 Cor. xi, 23–27], is another example of his determination simply to rule out all evidence which he cannot explain away. “It is evident,” he writes (p. 347), that this whole passage, “or at least the first part of it, is an interpolation.” We would expect him to produce support for this view from some MS. or ancient version for what is so evident. Not at all; for he takes no interest in, and has no turn for, the scientific criticism of texts a posteriori, but deals with them by a priori intuitions of his own. “The passage in question (verses 23, 24, 25) has every appearance of being an interpolation.” He is the first to discover such an appearance. It is well known that the words “took bread” as far as “in my blood” recur in [ Luke xxii, 19, 20]; and this is how Mr. Robertson deals with the problem of their recurrence: “No one pretends that the Third Gospel was in existence in Paul’s time; and the only question is whether Luke copied the Epistle or a late copyist supplemented the Epistle from Luke.”
Surely there is another alternative—viz., that a copyist of Luke supplemented the Gospel from Paul. This is as conceivable as that a copyist of Paul supplemented the Epistle from Luke. It is also an hypothesis that has textual evidence in favour of it; for the Bezan Codex and several old Latin MSS., as well as the old Syriac version, omit the words, which is given on your behalf, as far as on your behalf is shed—that is to say, the end of verse 19 and the whole of verse 20. But, since the Bezan omission does not cover the whole of the matter taken from Corinthians, we may suppose that Luke borrowed the words from the Epistle in question. Here we have a palmary example of the mingled temerity and ignorance with which Mr. Robertson applies his principle of “vital interpolations” to remove anything from the New Testament texts which stands in the way of his far-fetched hypotheses and artificial combinations.
Jesus Ben Pandira in Talmud is Jesus of Nazareth But it is time to inquire whence Mr. Robertson derived his certainty that Jesus Ben Pandira died in the reign of Alexander Jannaeus, B.C. 106–79. Dr. Samuel Kraus, in his exhaustive study of Talmudic notices of Jesus of Nazareth (Das Leben Jesu nach jüdischen Quellen, Berlin, 1902, p. 242) assumes as a fact beyond dispute that the Jeschu or Joshua Ben Pandira (or Ben Stada or Ben Satda) mentioned in the Toldoth Jeschu is Jesus of Nazareth. In the Toldoth he is set in the reign of Tiberius. This Toldoth is not earlier than A.D. 400, and took its information from the pseudo-Hegesippus. The Spanish historian Abraham b. Daûd (about A.D. 1100) already noticed that the Talmudic tradition alluded to by Mr. Robertson set the birth of Jesus of Nazareth a hundred years too early; but the same tradition corrects itself in that it assigns Salome Alexandra to Alexander Jannai as his wife, and then, confusing her with Queen Helena the proselyte, brings the incident down to the right date. “The truth is,” says Dr. Kraus (p. 183), “we have got to do here with a chronological error.” Lightfoot, to whose Horæ Hebraicæ Mr. Robertson refers in his footnote (p. 363), also assumed that by Jesus Ben Pandira, or son of Panthera, the Talmudists intended Jesus of Nazareth. Celsus (about A.D. 170) attested a Jewish tradition that Jesus Christ was Mary’s son by a Roman soldier named Panthera, and later on even Christian writers worked Panthera into Mary’s pedigree. Such is the origin of the Talmudic tradition exploited by Mr. Robertson. It is almost worthless; but, so far as it goes, it overthrows Mr. Robertson’s hypothesis.
The disputed Epistles of Paul so many fresh witnesses The Epistles to Colossians, Thessalonians, and the so-called Pastorals, if they are not genuine works of Paul, form so many fresh witnesses against the hypothesis of Mr. Robertson and his friends. Such a verse as [ Col. ii, 14], where in highly metaphorical language Jesus is said to have nailed the bond of all our trespasses to the cross, is an unmistakable allusion to the historical crucifixion; as also is the phrase “blood of his cross” in the same epistle, [ i, 20]. In [ 1 Thess. iv, 14], is attested the belief that Jesus died and rose again; and again in [ v, 10]. I have already indicated the express reference to the crucifixion under Pontius Pilate in [ 1 Tim. v, 13], and the statement in [ 2 Tim. ii, 8], that Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, was of the seed of David. These epistles may not be from Paul’s hand, but they are unmistakably early; and their forgers, if they be forged, undoubtedly held that Jesus had really lived. So also did the author, whoever he was, of Hebrews, who speaks, ch. [ ii, 9], of Jesus suffering death, in [ ii, 18], of his “having suffered, being tempted.” In [ vii, 14], we read this: “For it is evident that our Lord hath sprung out of Judah.” If Jesus was only a myth, how could this writer have written, probably before A.D. 70, that he was of the tribe of Judah? In ch. [ xii, 2], we are told that Jesus “endured the cross.” That this epistle was penned before the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus is made probable by the statement in [ ix, 8], that “the first tabernacle is yet standing.” Indeed, most of the epistle is turned into nonsense by any other hypothesis.
Catholic Epistles The first Epistle of Peter is very likely pseudepigraphic, but it cannot be later than the year 100. It testifies, [ iv, 1], that Christ “suffered in the flesh.”