The sources as to the Nazarenes and Ebionites are given by Bishop Lightfoot in his ed. of the Epistle to the Galatians, p. 298, ff. (diss. reprinted in Dissertations on the Apostolic Age, 1892, p. 74, ff.); also in W. R. Sorley’s Jewish Christians and Judaism, 1881, p. 66, ff. Both proceed on the traditional assumptions. Critical discrimination between the Ebionites and “Nazarenes” begins in modern times with Mosheim, Vindicia Antiquæ Christianorum Disciplinæ contra Tolandi Nazarenum, 1720. See also his Commentarium de rebus Christianorum ante Constantinum, 1753, Sæc. II, § xxxix (Eng. tr. vol. ii, p. 194, ff.). His position was developed by Gieseler (1828), and has become the basis of later ecclesiastical historiography, as in the above-cited writers, and in Weizsäcker’s Apostolic Age. A new and more searching analysis of the phenomena, on lines previously suggested but not developed, is made by P. Hochart in his Études d’histoire religieuse, 1890, chs. iv and v. For the positions of the present section, in so far as they are not there fully reasoned, the grounds will be found in the author’s Christianity, and Mythology, Part III, 1st Div. § 9, and in the National Reformer, 1888, March 18 and 25, April 1, 8, and 15. On the Nazareth problem see Dr. Cheyne’s article in the Encyclopædia Biblica, and Professor Burkitt’s paper on The Syriac Forms of New Testament Proper Names (in Proc. of the British Academy, vol. v, 1912, pp. 17–18).
§ 3. Personality of the Nominal Founder
Of the more rationalistic Lives of Jesus, so-called, that of Renan is the most charming and the least scientific; those by Strauss the most systematic and educative; that of Thomas Scott, “The English Life of Jesus,” the most compendious view of the conflicts of the gospel narratives. Evan Meredith’s Prophet of Nazareth (1864) is rather a stringent criticism of the whole Christian system of ethics, evidences, and theology (rejecting supernaturalism but assuming a historical Christ) than a scientific search for a personality behind the Gospels. It however passes many acute criticisms. Later German Lives of Christ, such as those of Keim and B. Weiss, are useful in respect of their scholarly comprehensiveness, but have little final critical value. A more advanced stage of documentary criticism than is seen in any of these is reached in the second section of the article Gospels, by Professor Schmiedel, in the Encyclopædia Biblica. The grounds on which the present section carries the process of elimination yet further are developed in the author’s Christianity and Mythology, Part III, The Gospel Myths, Div. ii; also in his Pagan Christs. Concerning the Talmudic Jesus the documentary data are given by Lardner, Works, ed. 1835, vol. ii; Baring Gould, The Lost and Hostile Gospels, 1874; Joel, Blicke in die Religionsgeschichte, Breslau, 1880; Derenbourg, Essai sur l’histoire et la Géographie de Palestine, 1867; Gustav Rösch, Die Jesusmythen des Judenthums, in Theolog. Studien und Kritiken, Jahrg. 1873, 1 Heft, pp. 75–115; R. T. Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash (1904); T. Theodores, essay on The Talmud in Essays and Addresses by Professors and Lecturers of Owen’s College (Macmillan, 1874), pp. 368–70; and Lightfoot, Horæ Hebraicæ, on [Matt. ii, 14], [xxvii, 56], and [Luke vii, 2]. Later developments of the problem are to be followed in the works of A. Kalthoff, The Rise of Christianity (Eng. tr. R. P. A., 1907) and Was wissen wir von Jesus? (pamph. Berlin, 1904); T. Whittaker’s Origins of Christianity; Professor Arthur Drews’s The Christ Myth (Eng. tr. Unwin); Professor W. B. Smith’s Der vorchristliche Jesus (1906) and Ecce Deus (R. P. A., 1912); and Drews’s The Witnesses to the Historicity of Jesus (Eng. tr. R. P. A., 1912). Compendious views of the process of textual analysis, as applied to the Gospels by students who still hold to the historic actuality of the Gospel Jesus, may be found in The Synoptic Problem, by A. J. Jolly (Macmillan, 1893); The Formation of the Gospels, by F. P. Badham (Kegan Paul, 2nd ed. 1892); The Common Tradition of the Synoptic Gospels, by Dr. Abbott and W. G. Rushbrooke (Macmillan, 1884); and The First Three Gospels, by J. Estlin Carpenter (Sunday School Association, 2nd ed. 1890). Of the extensive continental literature of this subject during the past half-century, typical and important examples are Baur’s Kritische Untersuchungen über die kanonischen Evangelien (1847), Scholten’s Het oudste Evangelie, 1868 (tr. in German, 1869); Gustave D’Eichthal’s Les Évangiles, 1863; H. J. Holtzmann’s Die synoptischen Evangelien, ihr Ursprung und geschichtliche Charakter, 1863; Berthold Weiss’s Text-kritik der vier Evangelien, 1899; J. Wellhausen, Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien, 1905; A. Schweitzer’s Von Reimarus zu Wrede (Eng. tr. The Quest of the Historical Jesus, Black, 1910); and Alfred Loisy, Le quatrième Évangile, 1903; Les Évangiles Synoptiques, two vols. 1907–8. Loisy’s general conclusions are given in his Jésus et la tradition évangélique, 1910. Holtzmann’s Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in das Neue Testament (2te. Aufl. 1885) is a good summary of the general discussion on the documentary side up to its date.
§ 4. Myth of the Twelve Apostles
As to the Jewish Twelve Apostles, consult Jost, Geschichte des Judenthums, 1850, ii, 159–60; Kitto’s Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature, art. Apostle; Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, ed. 1716, liv. iii, ch. ii, §§ 7, 8, 10, 11; Mosheim’s Commentaries as before cited, Eng. tr. i, 121–23; and other authorities discussed by the author in the National Reformer, 1887, May 8 and 15, November 20 and 27, December 4; also in Christianity and Mythology, Part III, Div. i, § 19. For recent views on the alleged apostolic epistles see Professor Arnold Meyer’s work, cited under § 1. The text of the important Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, first published in 1883, is ably edited and translated by Professors Hitchcock and Brown (London ed. Nimmo), whose version was made the basis of a revised translation, with variorum notes, by the author, published in the National Reformer, November 1 and 8, 1891. The Teaching has appeared also in the following translations: By Dr. Farrar, in the Contemporary Review, May, 1884; by the Rev. A. Gordon (tr. sold at Essex Hall, London); by M. Sabatier with text and commentary (Paris, 1885); by Professor Harnack; and by the Rev. Mr. Heron in his Church of the Apostolic Age, 1888. As to its obviously Jewish basis compare Dr. Taylor’s Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 1886, with Harnack’s Die Apostellehre und die jüdischen beiden Wege, 1886. On the “Brethren of the Lord” see Bishop Lightfoot’s excursus, reprinted in his Dissertations on the Apostolic Age. The Judas myth and the characteristics of Peter are discussed in Christianity and Mythology, Part III, Div. i, §§ 20, 21; also in Professor Drews’s Die Petrus Legende (Frankfurt a. M., 1910). For the Egyptian God Petra see the Book of the Dead, Budge’s tr., p. 123.
§ 5. Primary Forms of the Cult
The theory that the gospel narrative of the Last Supper, the Passion, the Betrayal, Trial, Crucifixion, and Resurrection constitute a mystery-play or plays is set forth by the author in Pagan Christs. On pre-Christian Semitic “mysteries” see Professor Robertson Smith’s Religion of the Semites, Lect. vi-xi; and on the ancient conception of sacrifice in general consult that work; also Wellhausen’s Prolegomena to the History of Israel, Eng. tr. Pt. I. ch. iii; the work of Fustel de Coulanges on La Cité Antique; and Dr. J. G. Frazer’s great treatise The Golden Bough (2nd ed. three vols. 1900, 3rd ed. nine vols., now in process of publication). Concerning the private religious societies among the Greeks, the standard authority is M. Foucart, Les Associations religieuses chez les Grecs, 1873; see also ch. xviii of Renan’s Les Apôtres. The imitation of pagan institutions in the Christian Church is dealt with by the late Dr. Edwin Hatch, in his Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, 1890; and some of the relations between the Jewish Passover and coincident pagan feasts are suggested in the valuable old treatise of J. Spencer, De Legibus Hebræorum (1685 and later), lib. ii, cap 4. The part played by the child-image in pagan and Christian mysteries is noted in Christianity and Mythology, Pt. II, Christ and Krishna, sec. xiii. On other details consult Schürer, History of the Jewish People in the Time of Christ, Div. II. The question as to the rise of baptism comes up in the Clementine Homilies and Recognitions, on which see Baur, Church History, Eng. tr., vol. i; where also will be found the material of the controversy on the date of the Easter sacrament. As to the manner of crucifixion in antiquity see Dr. W. Brandt’s Die evangelische Geschichte und der Ursprung des Christenthums, 1893, Theil II, § 5, and Pf. Hermann Fulda’s treatise, Das Kreuz und die Kreuzigung (Breslau, 1878).
§ 6. Rise of Gentile Christism.
The early and bitter strife between the Jewish and Gentile parties in the Christist movement was first exhaustively studied by the Tübingen school. See the important works of its founder, F. C. Baur, Das Christenthum und die christliche Kirche der drei ersten Jahrhunderte, 1853 (Eng. tr. The Church History of the First Three Centuries, 1878, two vols.) and Paulus, 1845 (Eng. tr. two vols. 1873); also the work of Zeller on the Contents and Origin of the Acts of the Apostles (Eng. tr. two vols. 1875, with Overbeck’s Introduction to the Acts, from De Wette’s Handbook). Compare the somewhat more conservative treatise of Weizsäcker, The Apostolic Age of the Christian Church, Eng. tr. two vols. 1894, and the orthodox Neander’s History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church by the Apostles (Eng. tr. two vols. 1851), where however some decisive admissions are made as to the narrative of the Acts. One of the most comprehensive surveys of the documentary discussion is J. Jüngst’s Die Quellen der Apostelgeschichte (Gotha, 1895). Some interesting concessions are made by Professor Ramsay in his work on The Church and the Roman Empire before A.D. 170 (1893). On the Gentile parallels discussed consult Frazer’s Golden Bough and Havet’s Le Christianisme et ses origines. The questions raised by the vogue of the term “Chrēstos” are well set forth and discussed in the brochure of the late Dr. J. Barr Mitchell, Chrēstos: A Religious Epithet, its Import and Influence (Williams and Norgate, 1880). Compare Renan, Saint Paul, p. 363, and refs. Various aspects of the general problem are set forth in the Monumental Christianity of J. P. Lundy (New York, 1876). For a full view of Gnosticism see Baur, Die Christliche Gnosis, 1835, and C. W. King, The Gnostics and their Remains, 2nd ed. 1887; and for a survey of Samaritan tenets see J. W. Nutt, Fragment of a Samaritan Targum, 1874 (Introduction), and Reland’s Dissertatio de Monte Garizim, in his Diss. Misc., Pars I, 1706. A view of the ancient practices of cutting and gashing in the presence of the dead, etc., is given in John Spencer’s treatise De Legibus Hebræorum, lib. ii. cc. 13, 14. The Myth of Simon Magus was discussed by the author in the National Reformer, January 29, February 5, and February 19, 1893.