“The mythic theory accepts an historical groundwork for many of the stories about Jesus, but it does not seek to explain the miraculous by attenuating it into the natural.... It attributes the incredible portions of the history to the Messianic theories current among the Jews. The Messiah would do this and that; Jesus was the Messiah; therefore, Jesus did this and that—such, argue the supporters of the mythical theory, was the method in which the mythus was developed.... Thus, Jesus is descended from David, because the Messiah was to come of David’s lineage; his birth is announced by an angelic visitant, because the birth of the Messiah must not be less honored than that of Isaac or of Samson; he is born of a virgin, because God says of the Messiah, ‘this day have I begotten thee,’ implying the direct paternity of God, and because the prophecy in [Is. vii, 14], was applied to the Messiah by the later Jews; born at Bethlehem, because there the Messiah was to be born ([Micah v, 2]); announced to shepherds, because Moses was visited among the flocks, and David taken from the sheepfolds at Bethlehem; heralded by a star, because a star should arise out of Jacob ([Num. xxiv, 17]), and ‘the Gentiles shall come to thy light’ ([Is. lx, 3]); worshiped by Magi, because the star was seen by Balaam, the magus, and astrologers would be those who would most notice a star; presented with gifts by these Eastern sages, because kings of Arabia and Saba shall offer gifts ([Ps. lxxii, 10]); saved from the destruction of the infants by a jealous king, because Moses, one of the great types of the Messiah, was so saved; flying into Egypt and thence returning, because Israel, again a type of the Messiah, so fled and returned, and ‘out of Egypt have I called my son’ ([Hos. xi, 1]); at twelve years of age found in the temple, because the duties of the law devolved on the Jewish boy at that age, and where should the Messiah then be found save in his Father’s temple? recognized at his baptism by a divine voice, to fulfil [Is. xlii, 1]; hovered over by a dove, because the brooding spirit ([Gen. i, 2]) was regarded as dove-like, and the spirit was to be especially poured on the Messiah ([Is. xlii, 1]); tempted by the devil to test him, because God tested his greatest servants, and would surely test the Messiah; fasting forty days in the wilderness, because the types of the Messiah—Moses and Elijah—thus fasted in the desert; healing all manner of disease, because Messiah was to heal ([Is. xxxv, 5–6]); preaching, because Messiah was to preach ([Is. lxi, 1–2]); crucified, because the hands and feet of Messiah were to be pierced ([Ps. xxii, 16]); mocked, because Messiah was to be mocked (Ib. [6–8]); his garments divided, because thus it was spoken of Messiah (Ib. [18]); silent before his judges, because Messiah was not to open his mouth ([Is. liii, 7]); buried by the rich, because Messiah was thus to find his grave (Ib. [9]); rising again, because Messiah could not be left in hell ([Ps. xvi, 10]); sitting at God’s right hand, because there Messiah was to sit as king ([Ps. cx, 1]). Thus the form of the Messiah was cast, and all that had to be done was to pour in the human metal; those who alleged that the Messiah had come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, adapted his story to the story of the Messiah, pouring the history of Jesus into the mould already made for the Messiah, and thus the mythus was transformed into a history.”
The foregoing theory, with various modifications, is accepted by a majority of Freethinkers at the present time.
The hypothesis that Christ is a philosophical myth, based, like the preceding one, upon the Messianic idea, is thus presented by T. B. Wakeman:
“Never was there an example of a word becoming a believed person, under this law of materialization, more plainly and evolutionally than the ‘Messiah’ and ‘Son of Man’ of the Hebrew prophecies.... The Christ, ‘Jesus,’ was no man, for the reason that he was prophesied and visionated into this world and life to do a work that it would be utterly absurd to suppose a man could ever do. The Romans had killed, and could easily kill, every man who had tried to resist their oppression. Now the God Yahweh by his ‘eternally begotten son,’ spiritized as the ‘Son of Man,’ that is the ‘Soul of the State,’ as Shakespeare makes Ulysses say it, must, in order to be of any avail appear with supernatural powers. He was the personified people, Israel; he had been crucified alive, in their subjection and massacre even to the death and Hades. But by supernatural power he, the Israel, would rise again and bring the final judgment backed by the infinite power of the nation’s Father, Yahweh. It was only a Spirit-God who could do this—nothing less could be originated, or thought of, or provided, for such a superhuman purpose. A person, a man, a reformer, a weak edition of Socrates, or Savonarola or Bruno! How absurd! The human heart in its despair by its imagination, brought a God into the world to do a God’s work. ‘No man,’ said Napoleon; ‘nor a God,’ says Science, except the idea. Such it was that finally united the millions of Asia, Africa, Europe, and America, in a dream so intoxicating that it dares not to be awakened though the dawn of Science is here.”
Mr. Wakeman argues that the silence of history for one hundred years after the alleged appearance of Christ can be explained only upon this hypothesis of an ideal Christ. To this the advocate of the historical mythus may, I think, very properly reply: History, for the most part, takes cognizance only of noted men and important events; and while this silence precludes the existence of the supernatural Christ of Christians, and even that of the human Jesus of Renan, it does not necessarily preclude the existence of an obscure religious teacher and an insignificant sect which subsequently, by a chain of fortuitous circumstances, became the mightiest among the religions of the world.
Again, this hypothesis presupposes a considerable degree of intellectuality on the part of those who evolved this ideal Christ, while tradition represents the founders of the Christian religion as grossly ignorant. Had this Christ originally sprung from the Hellenistic Jews of intellectual Alexandria instead of from the Jewish dregs of illiterate Galilee, Mr. Wakeman’s theory would appeal with surprising force. Still it must be admitted that some of the earliest Christian sects denied the material existence of Christ.
Another philosophical hypothesis, the astronomical, which regards Christ as a solar myth, is advanced by Volney.
“These mythological traditions recounted that, ‘in the beginning, a woman and a man had, by their fall, introduced into the world sin and misery.’
“By this was denoted the astronomical fact that the celestial virgin and the herdsman (Bootes), by setting heliacally at the autumnal equinox, delivered the world to the wintry constellations, and seemed, on falling below the horizon, to introduce into the world the genius of evil (Ahrimanes), represented by the constellation of the serpent.
“These traditions related that the woman had decoyed and seduced the man.