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DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
AN ENQUIRY' INTO THE TALMUD JESUS
STORIES, THE TOLDOTH JESCHU, AND SOME
CURIOUS STATEMENTS OF EPIPHANIUS—
BEING A CONTRIBUTION TO THE STUDY OF
CHRISTIAN ORIGINS. BY G. R. S. MEAD,
B.A., M.R.A.S.
" Where are divers opinions, they may be all false; there can be
but one true : and that one truth ofttimes must be fetched by
piece-meal out of divers branches of contrary opinions. For, it
falls out not seldom, that truth is, through ignorance or rash
vehemence, scattered into sundry parts ; and like to a little silver
melted among ruins of a burnt house, must be tried out from heaps
of much superfluous ashes. There is much pains in the search
of it, much skill in rinding it ; the value of it, once found, requites
the cost of both." — BISHOP HALL.
LONDON AND BENARES
THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY
1903
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS
I. — FOREWORD — PAGE
Christ and Criticism 1
Brahman and Jew ....... 2
The Christian and the Torah 3
The Jew and the Gospel 4
The New Humanism ...... 6
Theology the Divider 7
An Appeal to Humanists 8
The New Jewish Encyclopaedia ..... 9
The Talmud 11
History and Dogma . . . . . . . 11
The Womb of Christianity 12
The Interest of our Enquiry ..... 13
The Main Object of Search 14
The Problem 15
The Need of its Definition 15
The Resultant Dilemma ...... 16
" Occult " Research 18
Its Possible Validity 20
Some Verified Results ...... 22
The Sane Attitude of the Layman .... 23
The Scope of our Enquiry 25
II. — THE CANONICAL DATE OF JESUS —
Ultra-Scepticism ....... 28
Criticism ......... 29
The Position of the Layman 30
Encyclopaedias ignore our Problem .... 32
Recent Research on the Date of the Nativity . . 33
The Pilate Date 35
In the Acts 36
In the Pastoral Epistles 37
Van Manen on Pauline Literature .... 38
The Pilate Tradition in the Gospels . . . . 41
The "Oldest" Written Gospel 43
The Date of the "Common Document" ... 45
The Strength of the Tradition 46
VI SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS.
III. — EARLIEST EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TO THE RECEIVED
DATE —
The Absence of Evidence in the First Century . . 48
Pliny the Younger 50
Suetonius. ........ 50
The "Christian!" . 52
Tacitus 53
Is it a Christian Formula ! ..... 55
Is it an Interpolation ?...... 56
Josephus ......... 58
The Spurious Passage 60
The Jacobus Passage 61
The Silence of Josephus ...... 61
The " Book of James " 62
The " Gospel of Peter " 64
The "Acts of Pilate" 65
IV. — THE GENESIS OF THE TALMUD—
The Real Conditioning of Jewry .... 68
The Psychological Moment ..... 69
The Study of the Law 70
The Need of it 71
The Fathers of Orthodoxy 72
The Great Heresy 73
The Evolution of Tradition 74
A Glimpse behind the Scenes ..... 75
The Evidence of the ' ' Book of Jubilees " . . . 76
The Oral Law and its Heredity .... 77
Objections to the Traditional View .... 78
The Tradition of the " Esotericists " . . . . 79
Mysticism and Orthodoxy ..... 81
The Writing of the Oral Tradition .... 81
The Main Interest of the Talmud for Christians . 84
V. — THE TALMUD IN HISTORY —
Justinian's Novella ....... 86
The Crusades 87
The Inquisition 88
The Paris Trial 89
Persecution in Spain . . . . . . . 90
In England 90
One Sensible Pope 91
Spanish Apostates ....... 91
Even the Prayers of the Jews fall under the Ban . 92
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. Vll
PAGE
" A History of Apostates "
Pfefferkorn 94
Reuchlin 94
The Germ of the Index 95
The Talmud-Fires Relighted 96
The Censor 97
His Absurdities 98
Imnianuel Deutsch 99
Cryptography
Anti-Semitism 102
Odium Theologicum ....... 103
VI.— IN THE TALMUD'S OUTER COUKT—
The Need of Preliminaries 104
The Manhood of the Soul 105
Of the Talmud in General . 106
Its Forms and Languages . . . . .106
The Talmuds of Palestine and Babylonia . . .107
Statistics 108
No Complete Translation 109
The General Ignorance on the Subject . . . 110
Translations in Progress . . . . . .111
An Unsatisfactory State of Affairs . . . .113
Internal Difficulties 114
VII. — THE EARLIEST EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TO THE TALMUD
JESUS STORIES —
The Earliest Persecution of the Christians by the Jews 116
The Testimony of Paul .117
Of the Acts 118
The Terminus a quo 119
The Probable Origin of the Mamzer Stories . . 120
Justin Martyr 121
Bar Kochba's Persecution . . . . . .122
General Charges 124
The Proclamation and the Curse .... 124
Estimate of the Evidence ...... 126
Celsus 127
The Virgin Birth Dogma 128
BenPandera 129
John the Baptist 130
Frequent Remodelling of the Gospel Story . . 131
Value of the Evidence 132
Tertullian 132
Till SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
VIII.— THE TALMUD 100 YEARS B.C. STORY OF JESUS—
The Translation of the Censured Passages . . . 135
The Name " Jeschu " 136
The Ben Perachiah Story 137
King Jannai ........ 138
Queen Salome and the " Golden Age " . .140
Joshua ben Perachiah . . . . . .141
Jesus a Learned Man . . . . . .141
The Murder of the Innocents ..... 142
The "Little Ones" 143
Was Herod Guilty ? 145
The " Inn " and the " Horns " .... 146
The Excommunication of Jesus .... 146
The "Brickbat" 147
The Jehuda ben Tabbai Story 148
Is it the Original Form of the Jesus Story ? . . 149
The Problem Restated 150
IX.— THE TALMUD MARY STORIES—
The Mary Stories Unhistorical . . . . .152
The "Book of Genealogies" 153
Ben Stada and Ben Pandera ..... 154
The Lud Stories 155
A Famous Discussion on Bastardy . . . .156
Criticism thereon . . . . . . .157
How it became a Mary Story . . . . .158
The Story of Paphos ben Jehudah . . . .160
How it became a Mary Story . . . . .160
The Vision of Rab Bibi 161
A Commentary thereon ...... 162
The Story of Miriam in Hell . . 163
The " Hinge of Hell's Gate " 164
Miriam and the Soldier . . . . . .165
X. — THE TALMUD BEN STADA JESUS STORIES—
The Bringing of Magic out of Egypt . . . . 167
The Writing on the Skin 168
The Evolution of Legend 168
The Hiding of the Parchment 169
The Circumcision of the Heart ..... 170
The Rabbis puzzled by their own Creations . . 171
A Mediaeval Commentator ..... 172
Rabbi Tarn 173
Miriam Megaddela . . . . . . .174
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. IX
PAGE
The Magdalene and the Sophia 174
The Mystic Element 175
Concerning the Enticer to Idolatry .... 176
The Stoning of Jesus 176
The Hanging of Jesus 177
"Lud" Traditions 178
The Forty Days' Proclamation before Jesus f was
Hanged 178
No Knowledge of Crucifixion . . . . .179
Jesus " near those in Power " 180
XL— THE TALMUD BALAAM JESUS STOKIES —
Bileam-Jeschu ........ 181
The Balaam Midrash 181
Comments thereon . . . . . . .182
Resh Lakish and Rashi 183
Abbahu 184
Chia bar Abba 185
Torah v. Gospel 185
Balaam- Jeschu a Prophet . . . . . .186
A Hypothesis 187
Balaam-Nicolaos 187
" Burning One's Food Publicly " .... 189
An Apology for the Nicolaitans .... 189
A Suggested Explanation 190
On the " Going out" from a " Company " . . 191
Doeg, Ahitophel, Gehazi 192
" Those who have no Part in the World to come " . 193
Siphre Minim 194
Exegesis ... ...... 195
Gehazi-Paul . ' 196
"Elisha" 197
The Disciples of Balaam inherit Gehenna . . . 198
The Age of Balaam-Jeschu ..... 199
A Chronicle of Balaam ...... 200
Phineas-Listaa . . ..... 200
Balaam the Lame Man . . . . . .201
The Necromancy of Onkelos ..... 202
Onkelos-Aquila ....... 203
Exegesis ......... 204
Boiling Filth 205
The Lecture Room of Ben Pandera .... 207
Haman-Jeschu ........ 208
: SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
XII. — THE DISCIPLES AND FOLLOWEKS OF JESUS IN THE
TALMUD —
The Minim Passages 210
The Five Disciples of Jesus 210
The Crucifixion 211
The Number Five 212
The " Proof from Scripture " 213
The Puzzle of the Names 213
Todah 213
Bunni 215
Netzer 215
Are the Names Genuine ? . . . . . . 215
Jacob 216
The Heresy of R. Eliezer 216
AHalachaof Jeschu ... . 217
A Variant of the Story 218
Eliezer's Connection with Christianity . . . 219
In Search of Dates 220
Ben Dama and the Serpent ..... 220
A Variant 221
The Story of James and the Viper .... 222
An Early Christian Mode of Healing . . .223
James the " Brother of the Lord " . . . 224
James the Ascetic 224
The "Shrines" 225
James the Disciple not James the Just . . . 226
The Testimony of Paul 226
Some Difficulties 227
The "Brother of the Lord" 228
A Probable Solution 229
Olbias 230
The Talmud Jacob 230
The Story of the Bribed " Philosopher " . . .231
Date Indications . . . . . . .231
A Saying from the Gospel 232
The Personified Gospel . .232
Some More Minim Passages ..... 234
The Curse on the Minim 234
Minoth 235
The Answer of the Rabbis to the Minim . . .236
The Books of the Minim ... . 236
They are to be Destroyed .... . 237
Friedlander on " Minim " ..... 237
Weinstein on " Minim " ...... 238
Boycott of Minim 239
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. XI
PAGE
Impurity of Minim 239
Minim compared with Tax-gatherers . . . 240
The Rolls of the Law written by Minim to be Destroyed 240
The Shema and the Minim 241
The Minim and the Eastward Direction . . . 241
The Importance of the Talmud for the Study of
Christian Origins ....... 242
XIII. — THE TOLDOTH JESCHU —
Causes of Hatred 243
The Inquisition knows little of the Toldoth . . 244
Suggested Keasons for this Silence .... 245
The Paucity of Material 245
Recent Publication of New Material . . 246
Krauss'"Leben" 247
His Estimate of the Toldoth 248
" Good Christian Sources " 248
Bischoii's View 249
Only One Source of Information in English . . 250
General Literature ....... 2f>l
Extent of New Material .
Bischoff s Classification 252
Printed Texts . 253
Krauss' New Texts 254
Language ..... . 255
Titles . 255
The Name "Jeschu" ... . 256
XIV. — A JEWISH LIFE OF JESUS—
The Seduction .258
How the Bastardy of Jeschu was made Public . . 259
The Robbing of the Shem 261
Jeschu claims to be Messiah and works Miracles
with the Shem .... .262
Jeschu and Queen Helene . . . 263
Jesclm's Miracles in Galilee 264
The Magic Contest with Judas .... 265
Jeschu is Condemned to Death .... 266
Jeschu is rescued by his Disciples . . . 267
The Betrayal of Jeschu .... .268
Proofs from Scripture
Jeschu is Hanged on a Cabbage-Stalk . . . 270
The Body is Stolen from the Grave . . 271
The Proclamation of the Queen ... ,272
Xll SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
The Body is Recovered 273
The Disciples of Jeschu make Strife in Israel . . 273
How Elijahu removed them from Israel . . . 274
The Commandments of Jeschu .... 275
The Heresy of Nestorius 276
Shimeon Kepha 277
The Scriptures of Shimeon ..... 279
XV.— TRACES OF EARLY TOLDOTH FORMS —
Toldoth as distinguished from Talmud Stories . . 281
Tertullian 281
Does he refer to a Jesus Story ? 282
Jesus is Stoned ....... 283
The Clementines 283
Pagan Writers ....... 284
Porphyry 284
Hierocles 285
Julian the Emperor ....... 285
The " Chi est" John 286
The Acts of Pionius 286
Arnobius ........ 287
Ephrem Syrus 287
Jerome 288
Epiphanius 288
John Chrysostom 289
Gregontius 289
John of Damascus 289
Agobard 290
Hrabanus Maurus 292
Ussum ha-Mizri 293
Suidas 293
Peter Alphonsi 294
Raymund Martini ....... 295
The Cabbage-Stalk 296
Luther 296
Schemtob ibn Schaprut 297
History of Jeschu ha-Notzri 297
History of Jeschu ben Pandera . 298
Value of Schemtob's Evidence 299
Aramaic Toldoth Forms . 300
XVI. — THE 100 YEARS B.C. DATE IN THE TOLDOTH—
Value of Toldoth for our Enquiry .... 302
Impossibility of Tracing accurately the Evolution of
the Toldoth . 302
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. Xlll
PAGE
Genesis of the Toldoth 303
The Oldest Oral Sources 304
The Oldest Toldoth Elements 305
A New Date Indication in the Toldoth . . . 305
The Jungle of Dates . . . . . .306
Queen Helene 307
Krauss' Unsatisfactory Theory .... 308
The Helene Element very old 309
Oleina 309
Helen of Adiabene 309
Is "Monobaz" a Gloss ? 310
Helene- Salome 311
Helene-Selene 312
The Simon Magus Legend . . . . .312
Pros and Cons of the Argument . . . .313
The Date according to the Jewish History-writers . 315
The Date according to the Earliest Toldoth-writers . 315
The Ben Perachiah Date is probably the Earliest . 316
The Exoneration of Miriam 317
Did Jesus claim to be the Messiah ? . . .317
The Shem 319
Mystic Masonry 319
YHWH 320
The Evolution of Mystery 320
The Shem Story a Later Development . . . 321
The Fight in the Air 322
The Hanging on the Cabbage-Stalk . . .322
The "Canal" 323
XVII. — ON THE TRACKS OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS —
The Origin of the Name " Christian " . . .324
Its use in the " Acts" 324
In "I. Peter" 325
A Pagan Designation 325
Date of Origin 326
TheNotzrim 326
The Meaning of Nazareth ..... 328
Bethlehem-Nazareth ...... 328
Nazareth = Galilee 329
The Galileans 330
The " Nazoraeans or Christians " .... 330
The Jessseans 331
Value of Epiphanius 332
The Therapeuts 333
The Name "Essene" 334
XIV SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
The Mind of Epiphanius 335
The Isseei of Nilus 336
The " Therapeut = Christian " Controversy . . 336
The Therapeut Dilemma 337
The Name-Juggling of Epiphanius .... 338
The Osseni 339
The Nazora?i ........ 340
The Flight to Pella 341
Towards the Facts of the Case 342
Nazorsean Scriptures ...... 343
The Hebrew Gospel 343
Ancient Readings ....... 344
The Nazinei 345
The Nazirs 346
The Neo-Nazirs 347
The Rechabites 347
The Sampsaeans ....... 348
"Sun-worshippers" ... ... 349
Their Mystic Doctrine 349
The Ebionites 350
The "Poor" 351
The Riddle of the Name 351
The Twofold Ebionism Hypothesis .... 352
The Early Date of Gnosticism ..... 353
Paul and the Gnosis 354
The " Abortion " .... . 355
The Puzzle of the Pauline Communities . . . 356
Ebionite Christology 356
The Doctrine of Election 357
The " Shepherd of Hernias" on Election . . . 358
The Heresy of all Heresies 358
Necessity for a New Definition of Ebionism . . 359
The Samaritans ,. .360
Samaritan Sects 360
Dositheans 361
The Importance of Dositheus ..... 361
Some Curious Legends 362
Dositheus and the 100 Years B.C. Date . . .363
The Conflation of Traditions .... 363
XVIII. — CONCERNING THE "BOOK OF ELXAI" —
The " Shepherd of Hennas " 365
Hermas a Composite Document .... 366
Date Indications 367
The Church Fathers and the " Book of Elxai " 368
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. XV
PAGE
The Date of the Book 369
The " Three Years of Trajan " 369
The Book older than the Prophecy .... 370
Who was Elxai? 371
Elxai- Sophia 372
lexai-Christos 373
Jexai-Jesus ........ 374
Sobiai-Sophia 374
Marthus arid Marthana ...... 375
Our Lady Martha 375
The Sophia and her Twin Daughters . . . 375
The " Impure " and the " Virgin " Wombs . . 376
Mary and Martha 377
The Merinthians 378
The Christology of the ' ' Book of Elxai " . . . 379
Many Manifestations of the Christ .... 379
The Twice-born 380
A Further Date Indication ..... 381
Fire and Water 381
Ichthus 382
The Autun Inscription 383
From "The Descent into Hades" . . 384
Fish and the Eucharist 384
The Antiquity of the Elxai Tradition . . . 385
The Mogtasilah 385
The Schinmn of Elxai 386
Elcesei-Cephar-naum ...... 386
XIX.— THE 100 YEARS B.C. DATE IN EPIPHANIUS—
The Over-confidence of Epiphanius . . . . 388
Epiphanius and the Jannai Date .... 388
The Character of Epiphanius ..... 389
The Value of Epiphanius as a Hseresiologist . . 390
The Riddle of Epiphanius . ... . .391
The Most Remarkable Passage in Patristic Literature 393
Patent Errors therein 394
The Silence of the Commentators .... 394
Epiphanius on the Canonical Date .... 395
Mystically necessitated Numbers .... 396
Epiphanius repeats his Riddle .... 396
' ' In Order that it might be Fulfilled as it is Written " 397
Drummond on Criticism 398
The " Harmonizing" Industry of Epiphanius . . 399
His Magnificent Inconsistency .... 400
The Bete Noire of Epiphanius .... 401
XVI SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
Epiphanius and the ' ' Histories " 402
The ' ' Succession from the Tradition of the Jews " . 403
The Children of Joseph 404
James 404
The Names of the Sisters of Jesus .... 405
Salome and Maria ....... 405
Salome and Miriam 406
Epiphanius a Converted Jew ..... 406
The Living Oral Tradition of Jewry . . . 407
The Birthday of the Christ 408
The Crucifixion and Resurrection Mystery Rite . 409
" Plagiarism by Anticipation " .... 410
Farewell to Epiphanius 411
Was Jesus in Egypt prior to 30 B.C. ? 412
X X. — AFTERWORD —
A Retrospect 413
A Legitimate Subject of Criticism .... 414
A Question for Jewish Scholarship . . . .414
Its Importance for Jewish Apologetics . . .415
The Bona Fides of the Talmud .... 416
A Line of Defence 417
The Method of Haggada 417
The Jannai Puzzle 418
Its Apparent Senselessness ..... 419
The Seeming Silence of the Rabbis . . . .419
The Strength of the Christian Tradition . . .421
A Suggested Genesis of the " Common Document" . 422
The Pilate Date from a New Point of View . . 422
"Pontius Pilate "a Name-change .... 423
Review of this Suggestion ..... 424
The Making of "History" 425
The " Secret Sermon on the Mountain " . . . 426
The ' ' Son of God " and " Virgin Birth " . . . 428
The " Suppliant," the " World " and the " Fullness " 429
The "Mind" 430
The "Mind" and the "Man" .... 431
The " Memory " of the "Race "[of the Logos . . 431
The Mind and the Senses 432
Virtue and Vice 433
The Root of Humanity 433
The Christ 434
The Ground of Reconciliation between Jew and Christian 435
A Humble Petition 435
ADDITIONAL NOTES . 437
DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
L— FOREWORD.
WHEN some five and a half centuries before the Christian Christ and
era the Buddha arose in ancient Aryavarta to substitute
actuality for tradition, to break down the barriers of
convention, and throw open the Way of Righteousness
to all, irrespective of race or birth, we are told that He
set aside the ancestral scriptures of His race and times,
and preached a Gospel of self-reliance and a freedom
from bibliolatry that will ever keep His memory green
among the independent thinkers of the world.
When the Christ arose in Judaea, once more to break
down the barriers of exclusiveness, and preach the Way
to the 'Amme ha-aretz, the rejected of the ceremoni-
alists and legal purists, we are told that He extended the
aegis of His great authority over the ancient writings
of His fellow-countrymen, and cited the Torah as the
very Law of God Himself.
We are assured by Traditionalists that the Incar
nation of Deity Itself, the very Giver of that Law, ex
plicitly attested the genuineness of the Five Books ; He,
with His inerrant wisdom, asserted that Moses wrote
them, just as it was believed by the people of His day.
1
2 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Whereas, if there be anything certain in the whole field
of Biblical research, it is that this cannot be the whole
truth of the matter.
It has been said in excuse that the Christ did not
come on earth to teach His disciples the " higher criti
cism." This may well be so, and yet it is a fact of pro
found significance that, as we shall see in the course of
the present enquiry, even in His day this very Torah,
and much more the Prophets and Sacred Writings,
were called into serious question by many.
Brahman and If, however, the Christ actually used the words as
cribed to Him in this matter, it is difficult to under
stand why a plan so different in this respect was adopted
in the West from the apparently far more drastic attempt
that was made so many years before in the East. It
may, however, have been found that the effect of a so
abrupt departure from tradition had not proved so
successful as had been anticipated, for the Brahman,
instead of giving of his best, and allowing himself to
become the channel of a great spiritual outpouring for
the benefit of the world, quickly resumed his ancient
position of exclusiveness and spiritual isolation.
So in the case of the Jew, who was, as it were, a like
channel ready to hand for the West, whereby the new
spiritual forces could most efficaciously be liberated, it
may have been thought that if the traditional prejudices
of that "chosen" and "peculiar" people were more
gently treated perhaps greater results would follow.
But even so the separative forces in human nature were
too strong, and the Jew, like the Brahman, fell back
into a more rigid exclusiveness than ever. But the
Wisdom behind Her Servants doubtless knew that this
FOREWORD. 3
would be, and reserved both Brahman and Jew for some
future opportunity of greater promise, while She tem
porarily utilized them, in spite of themselves, and in
spite of the mistakes of their Buddhist and Christian
brethren; for all of us, Brahmans and Buddhists, Hebrews
and Christians, are of like passions, and struggling in
the bonds of our self-limitations and ignorance ; we are
all children of one Mother, our common human nature,
and of one Father, the divine source of our being.
It may have been that in the first place the great
Teacher of the West made His appeal to the " Brahmans '*
of Jewry, and only when He found that no impression
could be made upon their rigid adherence to rules and
customs, did he go to the people. There are many Say
ings strongly opposed to Legalism, as understood by
subsequent Kabbinical orthodoxy, and, as we shall see,
there were many mystic circles in the early days, even
on what was considered " the ground of Judaism," which
not only rejected the authority of the Prophets and
Sacred Writings, but even called into question the Torah
proper in much of its contents. Moreover, we find that
Jesus was, among other things, called by the adherents
of orthodox Eabbinism a "Samaritan," a name which
connoted " heresy " in general for the strict Jew, but
which, as we shall see, seems to the student of history
sometimes to stand merely for one who held less exclu
sive views.
However all this may be, and whatever was attempted The Christian
or hoped for at the beginning, the outcome was that
until about the end of the first century the Christians
regarded the documents of the Palestinian canon as
their only Holy Scripture, and when they began to add
4 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
to this their own sacred writings, they still clung to the
" Books " of Jewry, and regarded them with the same
enthusiastic reverence as the Eabbis themselves. The
good of it was that a strong link of East with West was
thus forged ; the evil, that the authority of this library
of heterogeneous legends and myths, histories and ordi
nances, the literature of a peculiar people, and the record
of their special evolution, was taken indiscriminately
as being of equal weight with the more liberal and, so
to speak, universalizing views of the new movement.
Moreover, every moment of the evolution of the idea of
God in Jewry was taken as a full revelation, and the
crude and revengeful Yahweh of a semi-barbarous stage
equated with the evolved Yahweh of the mystic and
humanitarian.
For good or ill Christianity has to this day been
bound up with this record of ancient Judaism. The
Ancestors of the Jew have become for the Christian the
glorified Patriarchs of humanity, who beyond all other
men walked with God. The Biblical history of the Jew
is regarded as the making straight in the desert of
human immorality and paganism of a highway for the
Lord of the Christians. Jesus, who is worshipped by
the Christians as God, so much so that the cult of the
Father has from the second century been relegated to
an entirely subordinate position — Jeschu ha-Notzri
was a Jew.
The Jew and On the other hand we have to-day before us in the Jews
the Gospel. ^ s^railge an(j profoundly interesting phenomenon
of a nation without a country, scattered throughout
the world, planted in the midst of every Christian
nation, and yet strenuously rejecting the faith which
FOREWORD. 5
Christendom holds to be the saving grace of humanity.
Even as the Brahmanists were the means of sending forth
Buddhism into the world, arid then, by building up
round themselves a stronger wall of separation than
ever, cut themselves off from the new endeavour, so
were the Jews the means of launching Christianity into
the world, and then, by hedging themselves round with
an impermeable legal fence, shut themselves entirely
from the new movement. In both cases the ancient
blood-tie and the idea of a religion for a nation
triumphed over time and every other modifying force.
What, then, can be of profounder interest than to
learn what the Jews have said concerning Jesus and
Christianity ? And yet how few Christians to-day know
anything of this subject ; how few have the remotest
conception of the traditions of Jewry concerning the
founder of their faith ! For so many centuries have
they regarded Jesus as God, and everything concerning
Him, as set apart in the history of the world, as unique
and miraculous, that to find Him treated of as a simple
man, and that too as one who misled the children of His
people, appears to the believer as the rankest blasphemy.
Least of all can such a mind realize even faintly that
the claims of the Church on behalf of Jesus have ever
been thought, and are still thought, by the followers of
the Torah to be equally the extreme of blasphemy, most
solemnly condemned by the first and foremost of the
commandments which the pious Jew must perforce
believe came straight from God Himself.
Astonishing, therefore, as it appears, though Jew
and Christian use the same Scripture in common, with
regard to their fundamental beliefs they stand over
6 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
against each other in widest opposition ; and the man
who sincerely loves his fellows, who feels his kinship
with man as man, irrespective of creed, caste, or race,
stands aghast at the contradictions revealed by the
warring elements in our common human nature, and
is dismayed at the infinite opposition of the powers he
sees displayed in his brethren and feels potential in
himself.
The New But, thank God, to-day we are in the early years of
the twentieth century, when a deeper sense of human
kinship is dawning on the world, when the general idea
of God is so evolved that we dare no longer clothe
Him in the tawdry rags of human passions, or create
Him in the image of our ignorance, as has been mostly
the case for so many sorrowful centuries. We are at
last beginning to learn that God is at least as highly
developed as a wise and just mortal; we refuse
to ascribe to Deity a fanaticism and jealousy, an
inhumanity and mercilessness, of which we should be
heartily ashamed in ourselves. There are many to-day
who would think themselves traitors to their humanity,
much more to the divinity latent within them, were
they to make distinctions between Jew or Christian,
Brahman or Buddhist, or between all or any of these
and the Confucian, or Mohammedan, or Zoroastrian.
They are all our brethren, children of a common parent,
these say. Let the dead past bury its dead, and let us
follow the true humanity hidden in the hearts of
all.
But how to do this so long as records exist ? How
to do this while we each glory in the heredity of our
bodies, and imagine that it is the spiritual ancestry of
FOREWORD. 7
our souls ? What is it that makes a man cling to the
story of his " fathers," fight for it, and identify himself
with all its natural imperfections and limitations ? Are
not these rather, at any rate on the ground of religion,
in some fashion the " parents " we are to think little of,
to " hate," as one of the " dark sayings " ascribed to the
Christ has it ?
Why should a Jew of to-day, why should a* Christian
of the early years of the twentieth century, identify
himself with the hates of years gone by ? What have
we to do with the bitter controversies of Church Fathers
and Talmudic Eabbis; what have we to do with the
fierce inhumanity of mediaeval inquisitors, or the
retorts of the hate of persecuted Jewry ? Why can we
not at last forgive and forget in the light of the new
humanism which education and mutual intercourse is
shedding on the world?
Wise indeed are the words : " He that loveth not his Theology the
brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom
he hath not seen ? " And yet in theology all the
trouble is about this God whom we have not seen.
Theology, which ought to be a help and a comfort, be
comes the greatest scourge of humanity, for in theology
we do not say this or that is true because the present
facts of nature and human consciousness testify to its
truth, but this is true because many years ago God
declared it was so — a thing we can never know on the
plane of our present humanity, and a declaration which,
as history proves, has led to the bitterest strife and
discord in the past, and which is still to-day a serious
obstacle to all progress in religion.
When, then, we take pen in hand to review part of
8 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
the history of this great strife between Christian and
Jew in days gone by, we do so because we have greater
faith in present-day humanity than in the inhumanity
of the past. Let us agree to seek an explanation, to
confer together, to sink our pride in our own opinion,
and discover why we are enemies, one of another, in
things theological, while we are friends perchance in
things scientific and philosophic.
An Appeal to But this book is not intended for the man whose
Humanists. ., ~. . ,. .A „ . ,. . . .
" Christianity is greater than his humanity, nor for
him whose "Judaism" is stronger than his love of
human kind; it is not meant for the theologian who
loves his preconceptions more than truth, or for the
fanatic who thinks he is the only chosen of God. It is a
book for men and women who have experience of life
and human nature, who have the courage to face things
as they are ; who know that on the one hand the
Churches of to-day, no matter how they strive carefully
to disguise the fact, are confronted by the gravest
possible difficulties as to doctrine, while many of the
clergy, owing to a total lack of wise guidance by those
in authority, are becoming a law unto themselves, or,
because of the terrorism of ecclesiastical laymen, are
forced to be hypocrites in the pulpit ; and, on the other
hand, that Judaism cannot continue in its traditional
mould without doing the utmost violence to its intelli
gence.
Traditional theology, traditional history, traditional
views in general are being questioned on all hands, and
there is an ever-growing conviction that the conscious
ness and conscience of a Church, whether that Church
be the Congregation of Christendom or the Dispersion of
FOREWORD. y
Israel, evolve from century to century; that religion
is not an exception to the law which is seen to be
operative in every department of nature and human
activity ; and that, therefore, it is incumbent upon all
who have the best interests of religion at heart " to
maintain the right and duty of [any] Church to
restate her belief from time to time, as required by the
progressive revelation of the Holy Spirit," as one of the
objects of the Churchmen's Union declares.
To-day, in thinking and progressive Christendom, we
have before us the spectacle of the mind and heart of
the earnest seeker after truth torn and lacerated by
the contradictions and manifest absurdities of much in
the tradition of the Faith. The only relief from this
most painful state of affairs is to be found in the .
courageous recognition, that in the early days the
marvellous mysteries of the inner life and the inner
nature of man were objectivized and historic! zed by
those who either did not understand their true spiritual
import, or who deliberately used this method for the
instruction of the many who were unable to grasp in
their proper terms the spiritual verities of man in his
perfectioning. To this we will return at the end of our
present enquiry and endeavour to show how even Jew
and Christian can learn to understand and respect
each other even on the ground of religion.
And, indeed, the time is very opportune, for some of The New
the preliminary conditions for a better understanding clo^ledia "(
are being prepared To-day there is being given to the
world for the first time what purports to be " a faithful
record of the multifarious activity" of the Jewish
people. The Israelite has been a mystery to the
10 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Christian, a mystery to humanity, from generation to
generation ; he has lived in our midst, and we have not
known him, nay, we have been content to believe any
thing of him, while he for the most part has been
inarticulate as to himself, his hopes, and his fears. The
Jewish Encyclopaedia l is to remedy this evil, for it sets
before itself the endeavour " to give, in systematized,
comprehensive, and yet succinct form, a full and
accurate account of the history and literature, the
social and intellectual life of the Jewish people, of their
ethical and religious views, their customs, rites, and
traditions in all ages and in all lands."
Such a work is an undertaking of the most profound
interest and importance, and we look forward to its
• publication with the liveliest anticipation, asking our
selves the questions : What will the Jew in this compre
hensive Encyclopaedia have to tell us of Christianity ?
How will he treat the traditions of his fathers concerning
Jesus ? To-day we can no longer burn or torture him
or confiscate his goods.2 His account of himself, more
over, is to be given by the best intelligence in him.
What, then, will he say concerning Jesus and the long
centuries of bitter strife between the Christians and
his own people ?
From the three volumes which have so far appeared
it is not possible to answer this question ; but that it
is the question of all questions in Jewish affairs that
demands a wise answer, will be seen from our present
1 Three of its twelve volumes only have so far appeared. (New
York : Funk & Wagnalls ; 1901, in progress.)
2 Though the East of Europe is not yet quite powerless in this
respect.
FOREWORD. 1 1
enquiry. To ignore it, or merely to confine it to vague
generalities, is of no advantage to the world.
As the New Testament was added to the Old The Talmud.
Covenant Bible by the Church Fathers, and formed the
basis of their exegesis, so was the Talmud added to the
Torah by the Eabbis, and formed the special study of
later Jewry. The Talmud covers the whole period of
the early Christian centuries. What has the Talmud
to say of Christianity ? For as the editors of the
Encyclopaedia well say :
" The Talmud is a world of its own, awaiting the
attention of the modern reader. In its encyclopaedic
compass it comprises all the variety of thought and
opinions, of doctrine and science, accumulated by the
Jewish people in the course of more than seven centuries,
and formulated for the most part by their teachers.
Full of the loftiest spiritual truths and of fantastic
imagery, of close and learned legal disquisitions and of
extravagant exegesis, of earnest doctrine and of minute
casuistry, of accurate * knowledge and of popular con
ceptions, it invites the world of to-day to a closer ac
quaintance with its voluminous contents."
To-day it is becoming a canon of historical research History and
that the study of ancient history can hardly ever
reward us by the attainment of incontrovertible fact ;
it can at best only tell us what the opinions of certain
writers were about the facts of which we are in search.
Many years of study of Christian origins have con
vinced some of us that it is impossible to be absolutely
certain historically of any objective fact relating to the
life of Jesus as handed on by tradition. We can only
say that this or that seems more likely to have occurred ;
12 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
and here again our preference, if we trace it deep
enough, will be found to depend entirely on subjec
tive considerations. Canonical Christianity gradually
evolved the mind-bewildering dogma that Jesus was in
deed and truth very God of very God, unique and
miraculous in every possible respect; and the Church
for some seventeen or eighteen centuries has boldly
thrown down this challenge to the intellect and
experience of humanity. Strong in the strength of her
faith in miracle she has triumphed in her theology, and
imposed it on the West even until the present day ; but
at last she has herself developed an intellect which can
no longer fully believe in this. A new spirit is at work
in her children, who are busily trying to convince their
mother that she has been mistaken in many things, and
has often misundertood the wisdom of the Master.
The Womb of It is because of this stupendous claim on behalf of
111 y' Jesus, a claim which has perhaps astonished none more
than Himself, that the Church has brought upon herself
a scrutiny into the history of her origins that it is
totally unable to bear. Every single assertion about
her great Teacher is scrutinized with a minuteness that
is not demanded in the case of any other historical
problem, and the lay student who follows the re
searches of specialists meets with so many contra
dictions in the analysis of the traditional data, and is
brought face to face with so many warring opinions,
that he is in despair of arriving at any patent historic
certainty on any single point in the Evangelical
record. Nevertheless he is confronted by the unavoid
able fact that a great religion came to birth ; and, if
he be not an out and out five-sense rationalist, his
FOREWORD. 1 3
only relief lies in the belief that the secret of this
birth must have been hidden in a psychic womb, and
the real history of the movement must therefore be
sought in some great drama that was enacted in the
unseen world.
But the interest in the problem is by no means The Interest
lessened because of the historical uncertainty ; on the
contrary it is a thousand-fold increased. The subject can
never be made solely a matter of dry historical research ;
it will always be involved in the most profoundly in
structive psychological phenomena, and that too not
only in the study of the minds of the ancient writers, but
also in the appreciation of the preconceptions of their
modern critics. Hence it is that any book dealing with
the question of Christian origins is before all others a
human document from which, no matter what view a
man may take, there is always something to be learned
of our complex human nature.
And with regard to our present enquiry, what can
be of greater interest than to observe how that from
the same facts, whatever those facts may have been,
on the one hand, under the expansive influence of love,
wonder, credulity, and intense religious enthusiasm,
there was evolved the story of God Himself uniquely
incarnate in man ; while on the other, from feelings of
annoyance, of surprise, and disbelief, and, later, of hate,
bred of an equal enthusiasm for religion, there was built
up the story of a deceiver of Israel ? Here we see
evolved, generation by generation, and side by side,
absolutely contradictory representations purporting to
be the accounts of the doings and sayings of one and
the same person.
14 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
The philosophic mind can thus derive much food for
reflexion by a comparison of the Christian and Jewish
traditions concerning Jesus, and his studies will lead
him to understand how that a thing which may be
perfectly true psychically or spiritually, and of great
help to the religious life, can, when taken out of its
proper sphere, and aggressively asserted as a purely
physical and historical fact, be turned into a subject of
grossest material controversy. Thus it may be that
we shall be able to estimate, at their just values, some
things which cannot but appear extremely shocking to
conventional religious minds, and be able to under
stand how what was regarded by the one side as a
saving truth, could be regarded by the other as a
mischievous error; how what was declared by the
Christians to be the highest honour, could be regarded by
the Jew as a proof of dishonour ; how what was believed
in by the former as the historic facts of a unique divine
revelation, could be treated disparagingly, or with
mockery and even humour, by those who held to the
tradition of what they believed to have been equally a
unique revelation of the Divine.
The Main But it is not the doctrinal quarrels which chiefly
Search.0 interest us in studying these traditions of Jewry. What,
in our opinion, is of far greater interest is that the
Jewish traditions, in spite of some gross contradictions,
in the main assign a date to Jesus which widely differs
from that of Christian tradition. The main object of
this enquiry is to state this problem, to show that in
moderate probability for many centuries this was the
Jewish tradition as to the date of Jesus, not to attack
or defend it. Moreover, we have taken up this subject
FOREWORD. 1 5
not only on general grounds of interest, but also for a
special reason.
For this problem, though not as yet even heard of by
the general public, is, nevertheless, of great interest to
many students of Theosophy, and, therefore, it seems to
press, not for solution — for of that there are no im
mediate hopes — but for a more satisfactory definition
than has been as yet accorded to it.
The problem, then, we are about to attempt more The Problem,
clearly to define is not a metaphysical riddle, not a
spiritual enigma, not some moral puzzle (though all of
these factors may be made to inhere in it), but a
problem of physical fact, well within the middle
distance of what is called the historic period. It is
none the less on this account of immense importance
and interest generally, and especially to thoughtful
students of "origins," for it raises no less a question
than that of an error in the date of the life of the
Founder of Christianity; and that, too, not by the
comparatively narrow margin of some seven or eight
years (as many have already argued on the sole basis of
generally accepted traditional data), but by no less a
difference than the (in such a connection) enormous
time-gulf of a full century. Briefly, the problem may
be popularly summed up in the startling and apparently
ludicrous question: Did Jesus live 100 B.C. ?
Now, had all such questioning been confined to a The Need of
small circle of first-hand investigators of the hidden its Detinition>
side of things, or, if we may say so, of the noumena of
things historic underlying the blurred records of
phenomena handed down to us by tradition, there would
be no immediate necessity for the present enquiry;
16 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
but of late years very positive statements on this
matter, based on such methods of research, have been
printed and circulated among those interested in such
questions ; and what, in the opinion of the writer,
makes the matter even more pressing, is that these
statements are being readily accepted by ever-growing
numbers. Now, it goes without saying, that the
majority of those who have accepted such statements
have done so either for subjective reasons satisfactory
to themselves, or from some inner feeling or impression
which they have not been at pains to analyse. The
state of affairs, then, seems clearly to demand, that as
they have heard a little of the matter, they should now
hear more, and that the question should be taken out
of the primitive crudeness of a choice between two sets
of mutually contradictory assertions, and advanced a
stage into the subtler regions of critical research.
The Resultant As far as the vast majority of the general public who
may chance to stumble on the amazing question which
heads our enquiry, is concerned, it is only to be expected
that they will answer it offhand not only with an angry
No, but with the further reflection that the very
formulating of such a query betokens the vagaries of a
seriously disordered mind ; indeed, at the outset of our
investigations we were also ourselves decidedly of the
opinion that no mind trained in historic research, even
the most cautious, would hesitate for a moment to sum
up the probabilities of the accessible evidence as point
ing to a distinct negative. But when all is said and
done, we find ourselves in a position of doubt between,
on the one hand, the seeming impossibility of impugning
the genuineness of the Pilate date, and on the other, an
FOREWORD. 1 7
uncomfortable feeling that the nature of the inconsis
tencies of the Hebrew tradition rather strengthens
than diminishes the possibility that there may be some
thing after all in what appears to be its most in
sistent factor — namely, that Jesus lived in the days
of Jannai.
It is not, then, with any hopes of definitely solving
the problem that these pages are written, but rather
with the object of pointing out the difficulties which
have to be surmounted by an unprejudiced historian,
before on the one hand he can rule such a question en
tirely out of court, or on the other can permit himself to
give even a qualified recognition to such a revolutionary
proposition in the domain of Christian origins ; and
further, of trying to indicate by an object lesson what
appears to me to be the sane attitude of mind with
regard to similar problems, which those of us who have
had some experience of the possibilities of so-called
occult research, but who have not the ability to study
such matters at first-hand, should endeavour to hold.
In what is set forth in this essay, then, I hope most
honestly to endeavour to treat the matter without
prejudice, save for this general prepossession, that I
consider it saner for the only normally endowed indi
vidual to hold the mind in suspense over all categorical
statements which savour in any way of the nature of
"revelation," by whomsoever made, than to believe
either on the one hand without investigation, or on the
other in despair of arriving at any real bed-rock of
facts in the unsubstantial material commonly believed
in as history, and thus in either case to crystallise one's
mind anew into some "historic" form, on lines of
18 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
evidence concerning the nature of which we are as yet
almost entirely ignorant.
"Occult" And, first of all, let me further set forth very briefly
some of the considerations which render it impossible
for me to assume either a decidedly negative, or even a
purely agnostic, attitude with regard to possibilities of
research other than those open to normal ability and
industry; for if a man would honestly endeavour, in
any fashion really satisfactory to himself, to interpret
the observed phenomena of life, he is compelled by
a necessity greater than himself to take into considera
tion all the facts of at least his personal experience,
no matter how sceptical he may be as to the validity of
the experiences of others, or how critical he may be
concerning his own. On the other hand, I most freely
admit that those who have not had experiences similar
to my own, are quite justified in assuming an agnostic
attitude with regard to my declarations, but I doubt
that it can be considered the nature of a truly scientific
mind to deny a priori the possibility of my experience,
or merely contemptuously to dismiss the matter without
any attempt at investigation.
It has been my good fortune — for so I regard it — to
know a number of people who have their subtler senses,
to a greater or less degree, more fully developed than is
normally the case, and also to be intimate with a few
whose power of response to extra-normal ranges of im
pression, vibration, or stimulation (or whatever may be
the more correct term) may be said to be, as far as my
experience goes, highly developed. These latter are my
personal friends, whom I have known for many years,
and with whom I have been most closely associated.
FOREWORD. 19
From long knowledge of their characters, often under
very trying circumstances, I have no reason to believe
they are trying to deceive me, and every reason to
believe in their good faith. They certainly would have
nothing to gain by practising, if it were possible, any
concerted imposition upon me, and everything to lose.
For, on the one hand, my devotion to the studies I
pursue, and the work upon which I am engaged, is
entirely independent of individuals and their pronounce
ments, and, on the other, my feeling of responsibility
to humanity in general is such, that I should not have
the slightest hesitation in openly proclaiming a fraud,
were I to discover any attempt at it, especially in
matters which I hold to be more than ordinarily sacred
for all who profess to be lovers of truth and labourers
for our common welfare. Nor again is there any
question here of their trying to influence some pro
spective "follower," either of themselves, or of some
particular sect, for we are more or less contemporaries
in similar studies, and one of our common ideals is the
desirability of breaking down the boundary walls of
sectarianism.
Now, this handful of friends of mine who are endowed
in this special fashion are unanimous in declaring that
" Jeschu," the historical Jesus, lived a century before
the traditional date. They, one and all, claim that, if
they turn their attention to the matter, they can see
the events of those far-off days passing before their
mind's eye, or, rather, that for the time being they seem
to be in the midst of them, even as we ordinarily
observe events in actual life. They state that not only
do their individual researches as to this date work out
20 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
to one and the same result, but that also when several
of them have worked together, checking one another,
the result has been still the same.
Its Possible Familiar as I am with the hypotheses of " collec
tive hallucination," "honest self-deception," and "sub
jectivism " of all kinds, I have been unable to satisfy
myself that any one of these, or any combination of
them, will satisfactorily explain the matter. For
instance, even granting that certain of the Jewish
Jesus stories may have been previously known to
some of my colleagues, and that it might be reasonably
supposed that this curious tradition had so fascinated
their imagination as to become the determining factor
in what might be called their subjective dramatising
faculty — there are two considerations which, in my
opinion, based on my own knowledge and experience,
considerably weaken the strength of this sceptical and
otherwise apparently reasonable supposition.
First, the general consideration that my friends differ
widely from each other in temperament; they are
mostly of different nationalities, and all vary consider
ably in their objective knowledge of Christian origins,
and in their special views of external Christianity.
Moreover — though they all sincerely endeavour to be
impartial on so important a matter, seeing that it
touches the life of a Master for whom they have in a
very real sense the deepest reverence — while some of
them do not happen to be special followers of this
particular Teacher, others, on the contrary, are specially
attracted by this Way, and might, therefore, be
naturally expected to counteract in the interest of
received tradition any tendency to apparent extrava-
FOREWORD. 2 1
gance, which was not justified by repeated subjective
experiences of such a nature as to outweigh their
objective training and natural preconceptions.
Second, the very special consideration, that I have
had the opportunity on many occasions of testing the
accuracy of some of my colleagues with regard to
statements either of a similar nature or of a more
personal character. And lest my evidence on this
point should be too hastily put out of court by some
impatient reader, let me briefly refer to the nature of
such verification.
But before doing so, it would be as well to have it
understood that the method of investigation to which
I am referring does not bring into consideration any
question of trance, either self-induced, or mesmerically
or hypnotically effected. As far as I can judge, my
colleagues are to all outward seeming in quite their
normal state. They go through no outward ceremonies,
or internal ones for that matter, nor even any outward
preparation but that of assuming a comfortable posi
tion ; moreover, they not only describe, as each normally
has the power of description, what is passing before
their inner vision in precisely the same fashion as one
would describe some objective scene, but they are
frequently as surprised as their auditors that the
scenes or events they are attempting to explain are not
at all as they expected to see them, and remark on
them as critically, and frequently as sceptically, as
tliose who cannot " see " for themselves, but whose
knowledge of the subject from objective study may be
greater than theirs.
Now, although it is true that in the majority of
22 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Some Verified cases I have not been able to check their statements,
and doubt whether it will ever be possible to do so
owing to the lack of objective material, nevertheless,
in a number of instances, few when compared with the
mass of statements made, but numerous enough in
themselves, I have been able to do so. It can, of
course, be argued, as has been done in somewhat
similar cases, that all of this is merely the bringing
into subjective objectivity the imaginative dramatisa
tion of facts which have been normally heard or
read, or even momentarily glanced at, and which have
sunk beneath the threshold of consciousness, either of
that of the seers themselves or of one or other of their
auditors, or even some permutation or combination of
these. But such an explanation seems somewhat
feeble to one who, like myself, has taken down labori
ously dictated passages from MSS., described, for
instance, as written in archaic Greek uncials — MSS.,
the contents of which, as far as I am aware, are not
known to exist — passages laboriously dictated letter by
letter, by a friend whose knowledge of the language
extended hardly beyond the alphabet. Occasionally
gaps had to be left for certain forms of letters, with
which not only my colleague, but also myself, were
previously entirely unacquainted ; these gaps had to be
filled up afterwards, when the matter was transcribed
and broken up into words and sentences, which turned
out to be in good construable Greek, the original or
copy of which, I am as sure as I can be of anything,
neither my colleague nor myself had ever seen
physically. Moreover, I have had dates and informa
tion given by these methods which I could only verify
FOREWORD. 23
afterwards by long and patient research, and which, I
am convinced, no one but a widely read scholar of
classical antiquity could have come across.
This briefly is the nature of some of the facts of my
personal experience in this connection, and while others
who have not had such experience may permissibly put
it aside, I am unable to do so; and not only am I
unable to do so personally, but I further consider it
more honest to my readers to admit them to my
privacy in this respect, in order that they may be in a
better position to estimate the strength or weakness of
my preconceptions or prejudices in the treatment of
the exceedingly interesting problem which we are about
to consider.
It will thus be seen at the outset that I am unable The Sane
,. ,., ,, , ,^ Attitude of
a priori to refuse any validity to these so-called occult the Layman,
methods of research ; the ghost of my repeated experi
ence rises up before me and refuses to be laid by an
impatient " pshaw." But it by no means follows that,
because in some instances I have been enabled to verify
the truth of my colleagues1 statements, I am therefore
justified in accepting the remainder on trust. Of their
good faith I have no question, but of the nature of the
modus of their " seeing " I am in almost complete
ignorance. That it is of a more subtle nature than
ordinary sight, or memory, or even imagination, I am
very well assured : but that there should be entrusted
to an apparently favoured few, and that, too, compara
tively suddenly, a means of inerrant knowledge which
seemingly reduces the results of the unwearied toil of
the most laborious scholars and historians to the most
beggarly proportions, I am not prepared at present to
24 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
accept. It would rather seern more scientific to
suppose that in exact proportion to the startling
degree of accuracy that may at times be attained by
these subtle methods of research, the errors that may
arise can be equally appalling.
And, indeed, this is borne out not only by the
perusal of the little studied, but enormous, literature
on such subjects, both of antiquity and of the present
day, but also by the repeated declarations of those of
my colleagues themselves who have endeavoured to fit
themselves for a truly scientific use of such faculties.
They all declare that their great aim is to eliminate as
far as possible the personal factor ; for if, so to say,
the glass of their mind- stuff, through which they have
to see, is not most accurately polished and adjusted,
the things seen are all blurred, or distorted into the
most fantastic shapes. This " glass " is in itself of a
most subtle nature, most plastic and protean; it
changes with every desire, with every hope and fear,
with every prejudice and prepossession, with every
love and hate.
Such factors, then, are not unthought of by my
colleagues; rather are they most carefully considered.
But this being so, it is plain that it is very difficult to
discover a sure criterion of accuracy in such subtle
research, even for the practised seer, or seeress, who is
willing to submit himself to the strictest discipline;
while for those of us who have not developed these
distinct inner senses, but who desire eventually to
arrive at some certain criterion of truth, and who
further believe that this is a thing beyond all sensation,
we must be content to develop our critical faculties on
FOREWORD. 25
the material accessible to us, and do all we can with it
before we abandon the subject to " revelation."
Nor is this latter attitude of mind opposed to the
best interests of religion ; for, if we are in any way
right in our belief, we hold that the workman is only
expected to work with his own tools. To use in an
expanded sense a phrase of the " Gita," there should be
no " confusion of castes " ; or to employ the language of
one of the Gospel parables, a man should lay out the
" talent " entrusted to him to the best advantage, and
if he do this, no more for the moment, we may believe,
is expected of him. We have all, each in our own way,
to labour for the common good ; but a workman whose
trade is that of objective historical research is rarely
trusted with the tools of seership as well, while the
seer presumably is not expected to devote his life to
historical criticism. Doubtless there may be some who
are entrusted with two or more talents of different
natures, but so far we have not as yet in our own times
come across the desirable blend of a competent seer and
a historical critic.
We must, then, each of us in his own way, work to
gether for righteousness ; hoping that if in the present
we employ our single talents rightly, and prove our
selves profitable servants, we may in the future become
masters of two or even more "cities," and thus (to
adapt the wording of a famous agraphon) having proved
ourselves trustworthy in the " lesser," be accorded the
opportunity of showing ourselves faithful in the
" greater (mysteries)."
Having, then, prefaced our enquiry by these brief The Scope of
remarks on the nature of the methods of research em- r n(*uiry>
26 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
ployed by those whose statements have lately brought
this question into prominence in certain circles, we
proceed to enumerate the various deposits of objective
material which have to be surveyed and analysed,
before a mind accustomed to historical study and the
weighing of evidence can feel in a position to estimate
even approximately the comparative values of the
various traditions.
We have, then, in the first place to consider the
Christian tradition that Jesus was born in the reign of
Herod, and was put to death under Pontius Pilate, and
further, to glance at the material from Pagan sources
claimed to substantiate this tradition; in the second
to acquaint ourselves with the Talmud Jeschu stories
which purport to preserve traditions of the life and
date of Jeschu totally at variance on almost every point
with the Christian account ; further to investigate the
Toldoth Jeschu or mediaeval Jewish Jesus legends ; and
lastly to consider some very curious passages in the
writings of the Church Father Epiphanius of Salamis.
That there are many better equipped and more com
petent than myself to discuss these difficult subjects,
no one is more keenly aware than I am. But seeing
that there are no books on the subject readily accessible
to the general reader, I may be excused for coming
forward, not with the pretension of discovering any facts
previously unknown to specialists, but with the very
modest ambition of attempting some new combinations
of some of the best-known of such facts, while generally
indicating some of the outlines of the question for
those who cannot find the information for themselves,
and of pointing to a few of the difficulties which con-
FOREWORD. 27
front a student of the labours of these specialists, in
the hope that some greater mind may at no distant date
be induced to throw further light on the matter.
Finally, seeing that in the treatment of the Jewish
Jeschu stories many things exceedingly distasteful to
lovers of Jesus will have to be referred to, and that
generally, in the whole enquiry, many points involved
in the most violent controversy will have to be
considered, let me say that I would most gladly have
avoided them if it were possible. But a greater
necessity than personal likes or dislikes compels the
setting forth of the whole matter as it is found. We
are told that the truth alone shall make us free ; and
the love of it compels us sometimes to deal with most
distasteful matters. Few things can be more unpleas-
ing than to be even the indirect means of giving pain
to the sincere lovers of a great Teacher, but the
necessities of the enquiry into the question : Did
Jesus live 100 B.C. ? — primarily involves a discussion
of the Jewish Jeschu stories, and it is therefore
impossible to omit them.
II.— THE CANONICAL DATE OF JESUS.
Ultra- THOSE who are familiar with the history of the
innumerable controversies which have raged round
the question of Christian origins, are aware that some
of the disputants, appalled by the mass of mythic
and mystic elements in the Gospel narratives, and
dismayed at the contradictions in the apparently most
simple data furnished by the evangelists, have not
only not hesitated to reject the whole account as devoid
of the slightest historical value, but have even gone so
far as to deny that Jesus of Nazareth ever existed.1
Most of these writers had presumably devoted
much labour and thought to the subject before they
reached a so startling conclusion ; but I am inclined
to think that their minds were of such a type that,
even had they found less contradiction in the purely
objective data of the Gospel documents, they would
probably have still held the same opinion. Not only
was their historic sense so distressed by the vast
subjective element with which it was confronted
1 See, for instance, Ganeval (L.), " Jesus devant 1'Histoire n'a
jamais Veen : Reponse d'un Libre Penseur a M. 1s Abbe Loyson "
(Geneva ; pt. i., 1874, pt. ii., 1875). There is also a pt. iii., but of
this I have not been able to procure a copy.
THE CANONICAL DATE OF JESUS. 29
that it could find relief only in the most strenuous
efforts to reduce the historic validity of the residue to
zero, but it found itself strongly confirmed in this
determination by the fact that it could discover no
scrap of unassailable external evidence', either in
presumed contemporary literature, or even in the
literature of the next two generations, whereby not
merely the soberest incidents recounted by the Gospel
writers, but even the very existence of Jesus, could
be substantiated.
Though this extreme view, that Jesus of Nazareth Criticism,
never existed, has perhaps to-day fewer adherents
than it had some twenty years ago, the numbers of
those who hold that the ideal picture of Jesus painted
by the Gospel writers bears but a remote resemblance
to its historical original, not only as to the doings,
but also to a lesser extent as to the sayings, have
increased so enormously that they can no longer be
classed merely as a school, but must rather be
considered as expressing a vast volume of educated
opinion strongly influencing the thought of the times.
True, there is still a wide divergence of opinion on
innumerable other points which are continually issuing
into greater and greater prominence as the evolution
of criticism proceeds. There is, however, no longer
any necessity for the unfortunate student to make up
his mind between what appeared to be the devil of
undisguised antagonism on the one side and the deep
sea of inerrant orthodox traditionalism on the other.
The problem is far more complex, far more subtle,
and far greater numbers are interested in it. Whereas
in the old days a mere handful, comparatively, had the
30 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
hardihood to venture between the seeming devil and
the deep, to-day not only every theological student,
but every intelligent enquirer, is forced to seek his
information in the most recent books of reference
available — books in which he finds that not only are
innumerable questions raised on all sides concerning
matters which were previously regarded as settled for
all time, but also that opposing views are frankly
and freely discussed.
The devil and the deep have almost faded away,
and none but minds strongly prejudiced by anachron
istic methods of training can discern the ancient
crudity of their lineaments with any great distinctness.
Concessions have been made on all sides ; there is a
studied moderation of language and a courtesy in
treating the views of opponents which remove con
troversy from the cockpit of theological invective into
the serener air of impersonal debate.
The Position But how fares it with the thoughtful layman who is
man!6 * not sufficiently skilled in scholarly fence to appreciate
the niceties of the sword-play of those who are pre
sumably on either side seeking indirectly to win his
applause ? He is naturally exceedingly confused
amid all the detail, and for the most part presumably
applauds the view which best suits his preconceptions.
But this much he gleans on all sides — a general
impression that the ancient tyranny of an inerrant
traditionalism is on its death-bed ; he is assured that
many of its bonds have been already struck from his
limbs, and he lives in hope that before long he will be
entirely free to try to realise what the worshipping of
God in spirit and in truth may mean.
THE CANONICAL DATE OF JESUS. 31
If he take up such recent works as the " Dictionary
of the Bible," the "Encyclopaedia Biblica," and the
" Jewish Encyclopaedia," he finds that, although in Old
Testament subjects tradition has to all intents and pur
poses been practically almost abandoned by all scholars,
in the treatment of New Covenant documents his autho
rities in the two former works still display a marked
difference. The tendency of the contributors to the first
above-mentioned work is still on fundamental points,
as might very well be expected, conservative and largely
apologetic of tradition (though by no means so aggres
sively so as has been the case in the past), while that of
the essayists of the second is emphatically advanced, that
is to say, departs widely from tradition, and in most
cases breaks with it so entirely that even a reader who
has not the slighest theological timidity is surprised at
their hardihood.
The non-specialist is thus for the first time enabled
to hear both sides distinctly on all points, and so to
gain an intimate acquaintance with the arguments for
and against traditionalism. And though he may not
be able positively to decide on any special view as to
details, or even as to the main fundamental points, he
cannot fail to be vastly instructed and greatly relieved.
For whatever may be the exact truth of the matter,
this much he learns from the general tone of all the
writers, that he is no longer thought to be in danger of
losing his immortal soul if he find it impossible to
believe in the inerrancy of tradition.
It results, then, that the ordinary reader is left with
out any certain guide in these matters ; the old style
of Bible repository which told you exactly what to
32 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
believe, and whose end was edification, is entirely
foreign to the spirit of our latest books of reference.
But though the reader is left without a guide (if ex
ternal authority selected to suit a pre-conceived view
can ever be a truly spiritual guide), he is inevitably
thrown back on himself and made to think, and that
is the beginning of a new era in general Christian
instruction.
Such, then, is the general state of affairs brought
about by the pronouncements of the occupants of the
principal teaching chairs in Protestant Christendom ;
and it is very evident that among their manifold pro
nouncements a man can find learned authority for
almost any view he may choose to hold. He may, for
instance, so select his authorities that he can arrive at
the general conclusion that there is not a single docu
ment in the New Testament collection which is genuine
in the old sense of the word ; he may even go further
and refuse to be tied down to any particular " source "
as genuine, seeing that there is such a diversity of
opinion as to what are the precise sources. But if,
while taking this critical attitude with regard to the
canonical contents of Christian tradition, he would
adopt a positive view on a point entirely negatived by
that tradition, to retain his consistency he is bound to
try to discover some strong ground for so doing.
Encyclo- Now, if we search the two great works to which we
paedias ignore , . n . ,, ., ,, ,,
our Problem, have referred for any authority in support of the
hypothesis of the 100 years B.C. date of Jesus, we shall
find none. Indeed, we cannot find even a reference to
the subject. Moreover, in the very few encyclopaedias
of earlier date which make reference to the Talmud
THE CANONICAL DATE OF JESUS. 33
Jeschu stories, we shall find that no Christian scholar
has even dreamed of entertaining the possibility of such
a hypothesis. In the older books of reference this
universal abiding by tradition was to be expected, but
in the most recent works, where tradition is so often
set at naught and the most out-of-the-way material
sifted for the smallest scrap of usable evidence, it seems
at first sight somewhat strange, not only that there is
no one courageous enough to suggest the possibility of
there being some small grain of probability at the
bottom of some of the Jewish legends, but that there is
no notice whatever taken of them by any writer. It
would -appear that they are regarded either as being of
a so utterly apocryphal nature as to deserve no mention,
or as falling outside the scope of the undertaking.
But before we abandon our two dictionaries and
search elsewhere, let us see what conclusions our most
recent authorities come to concerning the traditional
chronological data supplied by the evangelists.
As is well known, or ought to be known, it is to Recent Re-
Dionysius Exiguus, who flourished in the sixth century, j)*^ 0^hg e
that we owe the custom of dating events from the sup
posed year of the birth of Jesus. Dionysius based him
self on an artificial period which he borrowed from
Victorius of Aquitaine, who flourished about a cen
tury before himself, and who is said to have been its
inventor. It is hardly necessary to add that there is
no scholar of repute nowadays who accepts the A.D. of
Dionysius as coincident with the first year of the life
of Jesus.
Turner, of Oxford, in his article on the " Chronology
of the New Testament," in Hastings' " Dictionary of the
3
34 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Bible," sums up his conclusions somewhat positively as
follows :
" The Nativity in B.C. 7-6.
"The age of our Lord at the Baptism, thirty years
more or less.
"The Baptism in A.D. 26 (26-27).
" The duration of the ministry between two or three
years.
" The Crucifixion in A.D. 29."
In the " Encyclopaedia Biblica," von Soden of Berlin,
under " Chronology," reaches the somewhat less positive
results :
" Birth of Jesus — circa 4 B.C. ?
" Beginning of public work — circa 28-29 A.D.
" Death of Jesus— 30 A.D."
Von Soden assigns one year only to the ministry.
The variations, however, are so inconsiderable that
these scholars may be said to be fairly agreed on the
method of treating the traditional data. They both
abandon the statement in the third Gospel that Jesus
was born at the time of the general census under
Cyrenius (Publ. Sulpicius Quirinius), which is well
attested by Josephus as having taken place 6-7 A.D.
Von Soden, like so many other scholars, is of opinion
that " the account in Lk. rests on a series of mistakes."
Usener of Bonn, in his article on the " Nativity " (" Enc.
Bib."), in discussing these "chronological difficulties
which learned subtlety has struggled with for centuries,"
also definitely abandons the Quirinius date. Turner,
however, while stating that " St. Luke is in error in the
name of Quirinius," thinks that there is "no inherent
improbability in the hypothesis of a census in Judaea
THE CANONICAL DATE OF JESUS. 35
somewhere within the years B.C. 8-5." He seems in
this census question faintly to endorse Kamsay, who —
in his study, " Was Christ born at Bethlehem ? "
(London ; 1898) — put forward a thorough-going apology
for this statement of the third evangelist, which has
been welcomed with great delight by traditionalists.
Turner mentions the hypothesis that the missing name in
a mutilated inscription which records that someone was
twice governor of Syria, was that of Quirinius, and that
there was another census during his first term of office.
Unfortunately even so this would not help us, for, as
he points out, the period B.C. 10 to Herod's death,
B.C. 4 (which is our limit for the reconciliation of the
Herod date of the first evangelist with the Quirinius
date of the third), is exhausted by the known tenures
of other governors. Moreover, Eamsay's thesis has
been well answered by J. Thomas in his exhaustive
reply, "Kecords of the Nativity" (London; 1900).
But all this is practically a side issue as compared
with the strength of the main tradition, for the
question of the nativity concerns the problem of the
historicity of the single traditions only of the first and
third Gospel writers. Either or both may be in error,
and even the John the Baptist element may be a
later development, and yet the fundamental chrono
logical element of the main tradition would be en
tirely unaffected.
All four evangelists make the drama of the trial and The Pilate
death of Jesus take place under the procuratorship of
Pontius Pilate (26-36 A.D.). This is the main chrono
logical factor in the whole of the puzzling details ; and
no matter how far we may succeed in any attempt at
36 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
reducing it to its simplest terms, it remains the crux of
the whole problem.
But before considering the statements of the Gospel
writers, it will be as well to deal with the other refer
ences to Pilate in the New Covenant documents. These
are Acts iii. 13, and iv. 27, and 1 Timothy vi. 13.
In the Acts. The references in Acts are found in a speech put
into the mouth of Peter and in a prayer (in the same
style as the speeches) which is said to have been uttered
with a common impulse by the friends of the apostles.
Now, in the judgment of many scholars, one of the
most certain results of criticism with regard to the
Acts, is that the speeches are the most artificial element
in the book. As Schmiedel says (art. " Acts of the
Apostles," "Enc. Bib."): "It is without doubt that the
author constructed them in each case according to his
own conception of the situation." Even Headlam, the
writer of the conservative article in Hastings' " Diction
ary," admits that the speeches are " clearly in a sense "
the author's " own compositions," though he adds " there
is no reason for thinking a priori that the speeches
[? substance of the speeches] cannot be historical."
It is then exceedingly probable that the references to
Pilate derive immediately from the writer of the Acts
himself. And as the writer of the Acts is, on the
ground of similarity of language, identified by most
scholars with the writer of the third Gospel, the
authority for his references to Pilate in all likelihood
go back to his " sources." There are few who would
be bold enough to argue for the preservation of an
earlier tradition in the Acts than in the sources of
the writer of the third Gospel.
THE CANONICAL DATE OP JESUS. 37
The references in the Acts, therefore, will not be
held by the ordinary critical, much less by the sceptical,
mind to be an independent confirmation of the Gospel
tradition with regard to Pilate.
As to the reference in 1 Timothy, its value as an In the
unimpeachable early witness is at once discounted by Epistles,
the general character of the Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2
Timothy and Titus).
McClymont of Aberdeen, the conservative writer
of the article "The New Testament," in Hastings'
" Dictionary," frankly states that these so-called Pastoral
Letters "are distinguished from all others by their
want of historical agreement with any period in St.
Paul's life as recorded in the Bk. of Acts, and also
by their strongly-marked individuality alike in style
and substance " — circumstances which " have given rise
to serious doubt of their genuineness." This, however,
he thinks may be "largely obviated" by supposing
them to have been written in the last year of the
apostle's life. But though this supposition may over
come the Acts difficulty, it does not in the slightest
way affect the main argument of difference of style
and substance.
Deissmann of Heidelberg, in the "Encyclopaedia
Biblica " (art. " Epistolary Literature "), while he has
no doubts as to the genuineness of ten of the Pauline
Letters, with regard to the Pastoral Epistles can only
allow at best that they " may perhaps contain fragments
from genuine letters of Paul."
Very different is the view, in the same work, of van
Manen of Ley den, the distinguished Dutch specialist,
to whom the summary of the " Later Criticism " in the
38 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
article " Paul " has been entrusted. Van Manen em
phatically repudiates the genuineness not only of the
Pastoral but of the whole of the rest of the Letters
traditionally ascribed to Paul. Though the rest of
the Letters do not immediately concern us in this
study, it may be of interest very briefly to set down
the general result of this later criticism ; for it is not
the opinion of an isolated scholar, but the outcome of
the studies of a school. I do this the more readily
because it conflicts with my own previously expressed
view that the ten Letters of the Marcionite collection
were largely authentic. Van Manen writes :
Van Manen " With respect to the canonical Pauline Epistles, the
Literature. later criticism here under consideration has learned to
recognise that they are none of them by Paul ; neither
fourteen, nor thirteen, nor nine or ten, nor seven or
eight, nor yet even the four so long ' universally ' re
garded as unassailable."
This criticism " is unable any longer in all simplicity
to hold by the canonical Acts and epistles, or even to
the epistles solely, or yet to a selection of them. The
conclusion it has to reckon with is this : (a) That we
possess no epistles of Paul ; that the writings which
bear his name are pseudepigrapha containing seemingly
historical data from the life and labours of the apostle,
which nevertheless must not be accepted as correct
without closer examination, and are probably, at least
for the most part, borrowed from ' Acts of Paul ' which
also underlie our canonical book of Acts. (I) Still less
does the Acts of the Apostles give us, however incom
pletely, an absolutely historical narrative of Paul's
career ; what it gives is a variety of narratives con-
THE CANONICAL DATE OF JESUS. 39
cerning him, differing in their dates and also in respect
of the influences under which they were written.
Historical criticism must, as far as lies in its power,
learn to estimate the value of what has come down
to us through both channels, Acts and epistles, to
compare them, to arrange them and bring them into
consistent and orderly connection."
That it will ever be able, on van Manen's lines, to
bring these contradictory data into "consistent and
orderly connection," we have but little hope ; for once
the comparative genuineness of the main Pauline Letters
is given up, there is no possible criterion left. How
ever, the courageous attempt uncompromisingly to face
the difficulties is the earnest of the dawn of a new age
in Christian thought, and we ourselves ask for nothing
better than that the facts should be faced.
It results then from this view (again to quote van
Manen) that " the Paulinism of the lost Acts of Paul
and of our best authority for that way of thinking,
our canonical epistles of Paul, is not the ' theology,'
the ' system ' of the historical Paul, although it ulti
mately came to be, and in most quarters still is,
identified with it. It is the later development of
a school, or, if the expression is preferred, of a circle,
of progressive believers who named themselves after
Paul and placed themselves as it were under his
aegis."
Where this circle must be looked for geographically
cannot be said with any certainty. This much, how
ever, is evident, that ':it was an environment where
no obstruction was in the first instance encountered
from the Jews or, perhaps still worse, from the
40 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
'disciples' too closely resembling them; where men
as friends of gnosis, of speculation and of mysticism,
probably under the influence of Greek and, more
especially, Alexandrian philosophy, had learned to
cease to regard themselves as bound by tradition,
and felt themselves free to extend their flight in
every direction. To avail ourselves of a somewhat
later expression : it was among the heretics. The
epistles first came to be placed on the list among
the Gnostics. The oldest witnesses to their exist
ence, as Meyer and other critics with a somewhat
wonderful unanimity have been declaring for more
than half a century, are Basilides, Valentinus,
Heracleon. Marcion is the first in whom, as we
learn from Tertullian, traces are to be found of an
authoritative group of epistles of Paul. Tertullian
still calls him the 'apostle of heretics' and (address
ing Marcion) ' your apostle.' "
This latter view is confirmatory of our own con
tention with regard to the important part played by
the Gnostics in the development of general Christian
doctrine, and we are pleased to notice the phrase " to
avail ourselves of a somewhat later expression : it was
among the heretics."
But to return to our reference to Pilate in 1 Timothy.
We see that there is no reason why we should assign an
early date to this Letter, and every reason why we
should hesitate to do so. Marcion (about 140 A.D.)
says nothing about it ; it was not in his Pauline canon
That is of course negative evidence, but of positive we
have none. It may very well have existed, indeed most
probably did exist, in Marcion's day, for his collection
THE CANONICAL DATE OF JESUS. 41
had to satisfy a doctrinal and not a historic test. Van
Manen does not attempt to suggest dates for any of the
individual Epistles, though he seems to date his " circle "
about 120 ; he, moreover, assigns 130-150 to the Acts, a
date which agrees with our own conclusions. For if,
as we conclude, the third Gospel was written about
125-130, and if the same hand, as many hold, also
wrote the Acts, 130-150 may very well represent the
termini of the date of that document's autograph. It
is, however, to be remembered that Justin Martyr
(c. 150) knows nothing of the Acts even when re
ferring to Simon Magus, a reference which he could
not have omitted had he known of it, and one which
all subsequent heresiologists triumphantly set in the
forefront of their " refutations " of that famous heretic ;
and that there is no clear quotation from the Acts
known till 177 A.D.
In any case the reference in 1 Timothy cannot very
well be held to be a less assailable witness to the an
tiquity of the Pilate tradition, we will not say than the
writer of the third Gospel, but than the author of his
main " source."
The strongest current of the tradition is traced in the The Pilate
fact that the Pilate date is given confidently by all four the Gospels,
evangelists. It matters little whether we place the date
of the autograph of the fourth Gospel later than those of
the synoptic writers, and assume that the writer of the
former had the letter of the latter before him, or prefer
to think that he had independent access to the same
main sources. In either case his authority, as far as
Pilate is concerned, will not presumably be held to
rest on firmer ground than that of the author of the
42 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
" common document," or " common material," or what
ever we may call it, of the synoptic tradition.1
The widely-held view of the priority of Mark, or of
" original Mark," labours under so many disadvantages
that with many others I prefer the simpler hypothesis
of a written source (distinct from our present Mark or
its autograph) underlying the matter common to all
three synoptics, the simplest form of which, however, is
still preserved in canonical Mark. It is almost as cer
tain as anything can be in all this uncertainty that
Pilate was distinctly named in the form of this docu
ment which all three evangelists used, and which the
fourth Gospel writer also knew either directly or by
intermediary of the writings of his contemporaries, for
I do not hold that they were necessarily his prede
cessors. But what is most striking is the abrupt and
unsupported way in which the name of Pilate was
apparently introduced in the " common document." It
is true that the writer, or maybe an early editor, of the
first Gospel seems to have felt compelled slightly to
lessen this abruptness by adding " the governor " after
the name Pilate, and that the writer of the fourth
speaks first of the " government house." But the Mark
and Luke documents make it appear that the common
source they used was either setting forth some state
ment that was well known to all, or that it had already
made fuller reference to Pilate, perhaps in its opening
1 See my recent work, " The Gospels and the Gospel : A Study in
the most recent Results of the Lower and the Higher Criticism ';
(London, 1902), in which I conclude for about 120-130 A.D.
as the most probable date for the form in which we now have
them.
THE CANONICAL DATE OF JESUS. 43
sentences. And this later hypothesis I find would be
the opinion of van Manen, who, in his article on " Old
Christian Literature," writes :
" The gospels, on close comparison, point us back to The "Oldest"
an ' oldest ' written gospel which unfortunately does Gospel,
not exist for us except in so far as we can recover
traces of it preserved in later recensions. Perhaps it
began somewhat as follows: In the fifteenth year of
the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being
governor of Judaea, .... there came down to Caper
naum .... Jesus . . . ."
It is to be remarked, however, that Marcion's gospel
apparently did not contain this introduction, but began
abruptly " He came down to Capernaum." "Whether or
no Marcion had direct access to the " common docu
ment " used by our synoptists it is impossible to say ;
but I am somewhat inclined to think that that docu
ment originally derived from a " Gnostic " environment,
and if we had any information concerning the " tra
ditions of Matthias," the penultimate link between
Basilido-Valentinian circles and the origins, we should
probably be put on the track of the parentage of our
common synoptic source.
It is from considerations of this nature that I have
not insisted upon the otherwise apparently equally
strong confirmation of the date of Jesus in the fact
that all four evangelists emphatically assert that
He was a contemporary of John the Baptist, whose
existence is historically vouched for by Josephus
(" Antiqq.," xviii. v. 2) ; it might be said that John was
not mentioned in this " oldest " written Gospel, and
that the omission by the earlier writers of a factor
44 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
which has been made so much of by all the later Gospel
writers argues that it was not known in his day. My
main interest has been to select the strongest link in
the chain of tradition, namely the Pilate date.
We have thus traced our Pilate tradition to the
" common document " used by the synoptic evangelists.
Beyond that we cannot go with any certainty ; the rest
is pure speculation, in the absence of objective data of
any kind. We cannot date the autograph of the
common document ; we do not know whether it passed
through any recensions before it reached the hands of
the canonical evangelists ; we do not know whether it
was originally written in Greek or Hebrew or Aramaic ;
we do not know whether the synoptists worked on the
copy of an original, or on a translation, or made their
own translations ; we do not know what other con
temporary documents were in existence, though it is
quite certain, according to the statement of the writer
of the third Gospel, that there were " many " others.
Now it is to be noticed that the writer of the
" common document," as seen in the simplest form
preserved by Mark, puts all the blame of Jesus' con
demnation on the chief priests and says very little
about Pilate. This is remarkable, for we know the
bitter hatred of the Jews for the Eomans, and, what is
still more to the point, we know from Josephus that
the memory of Pilate especially was most bitterly
detested by the Jews.
On the other hand, in those days of political
suspicion owing to the many revolutionary cabals
among the Jews, it was exceedingly dangerous for a
Jewish writer, or for those generally identified with the
THE CANONICAL DATE OF JESUS. 45
Jews, as the Christians still were, to speak against the
Imperial rulers or their officers, and it was the custom
of the writers of the very numerous politico-religious
writings of the time, of which we have examples in the
still extant specimens of pseudepigraphic and apoca
lyptic literature, to disguise the real objects of their
detestation by throwing their matter into prophetical
form, where the present or immediate past was written
of as yet to come, and where the names of the actual
persons were altered or hidden under symbol and
metaphor.
The direct mention of the name of Pilate in the The Date of
" common document," then, seems to point to another mon DOCU-
order of literature ; and it may be hazarded that per- ment-"
haps it may even have been partially encouraged by
the imperial favour so recently bestowed on Josephus'
" History of the Jewish War." But whatever validity
there may be in such a speculation, the practical excul
pation of Pilate seems to point to a time when
Christianity was seeking to dissociate itself from Jewry
in the eyes of the Eoman world. Can we in any way
fix a probable date for this state of affairs ? It is very
difficult to do so, but termini may be suggested. We
glean from an analysis of history that up to at least
the end of the first century the Christians were indis
criminately classed with the Jews by the authorities.
The Jews were the objects of frequent repression and
persecution at the hands of the Roman magistracy ; but
not on religious grounds. They were regarded as
political revolutionaries. The antagonism between
Jewish Christians and Jews is said by some learned
Talmudists to have developed acutely only in Trajan's,
46 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
reign (A.D. 98-117),1 but the entire separation probably
did not take place till Hadrian's (A.D. 117-138). In this
they base themselves on Talmudic data. But how
many years elapsed before the antagonism reached this
acute stage ? We cannot say ; but we may with very
great confidence fix the very latest limit for our
common document in the first years of the second
century. For our earliest limit, however, we have
nothing to help us, except the consideration that the
destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 was a crushing
blow to the hopes of those who looked for a material
fulfilment of Messianic prophecy, and the very thing to
strengthen the position of those who took a more
spiritual view of Messianism, as was the case in the
inner communities, and who were more content to bow
to the inevitable and therefore to reconcile themselves
with the rulers.
The strength But even if we were to assume the higher limit of
Tradl~ our common document as about 75 A.D., at this com
paratively early date, whatever may have been the
rights of the dispute as to who was the more to blame
for it, the death of Jesus under Pilate was a bald fact
that could presumably have been most readily verified ;
if it were untrue, it is most difficult to believe that it
could have got a footing for a moment even among the
most credulous. The bitter opponents of the Christians
among the Jews would have at once retorted: Why,
there was no such trial under Pilate at all !
1 See Joel (M.), " Blicke in die Religionsgeschiclite zu Anfang
des zweiten christlichen Jahrhunderts " (Breslau ; 1880), i. 14-41,
and ii. 87 ff. ; see also Graetz (H. IL), " Geschichte der Juden"
(Leipzig ; 1865, 2nd. ed.), iv. 90 ff.
THE CANONICAL DATE OF JESUS. 47
On the other hand, the name of Pilate may have
been inserted in some intermediate redaction of the
" common document " before it reached the hands of the
evangelists ; with the lapse of time, and the destruction
of records, and the development of Christianity outside
Palestine among the Dispersion, the difficulty of veri
fication would thus be greatly increased. It might be
even that the document originally simply stated that
Jesus was brought before the " Governor," and the
name of Pilate was subsequently added in a desire for
greater precision, in the " haggadic " fashion of the time.
Whatever may be the truth of the matter, the Pilate
date has every appearance of being as strong an
historical element as any other in the whole tradition.
It bears on its face the appearance of a most candid
statement, and the introduction of the name, had there
been no warrant for it, argues such a lack of what we
to-day consider historical morality, that it is without
parallel except in the pseudepigraphic and apocalyptic
literature of the period.
Ill— EAELIEST EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TO
THE EECEIVED DATE.
The Absence IN our last chapter we dealt with the date of Jesus
in the First according to the accepted canonical sources, and
Century. endeavoured to track out the main strength of the
tradition preserved by the synoptic writers. The re
sult of this investigation was that the probabilities
seemed to be strongly in favour of our possessing a
historical fact in the statement that Jesus was a con
temporary of Pilate. We now turn to a consideration
of the earliest external evidence.
It has always been an unfailing source of astonish
ment to the historical investigator of Christian begin
nings, that there is not one single word from the pen
of any Pagan writer of the first century of our era,
which can in any fashion be referred to the marvellous
story recounted by the Gospel writers. The very exist
ence of Jesus seems unknown.
It can hardly be that there were once notices, but
that they were subsequently suppressed by Christian
copyists because of their hostile or even scandalous
nature, for inimical notices of a later date have been
preserved. The reason for this silence is doubtless to
be discovered in the fact that Christianity was con-
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TO THE RECEIVED DATE. 49
founded with Judaism, no distinction being made
between them in the minds of non-Jewish writers.
Converts to Christianity were held to be proselytes to
Judaism, and it was a matter of no importance to a
Roman what particular sect of Jewry a convert might
join. Such a question as what particular phase of
Messianism the Judsei might be agitated about never
occurred to him ; circumcision or uncircumcision had
no interest for him. He had a vague idea that the
Judsei were a turbulent folk politically dangerous to
the state, that they had a strange superstition and were
haters of the human race, and there he left it.
As, then, we can find nothing about the Christians
in Pagan writers of the first century, we turn to our
earliest notices of the second century as found in the
writings of Pliny the Younger, Suetonius and Tacitus.
All three were men who held imperial offices, were
well known at court, and presumably had access to the
archives of the empire. All three were distinguished
writers and historians, and probably all three were
personal friends. We know for a fact from his letters
that Pliny and Tacitus were intimate friends, and also
that Pliny and Suetonius were friendly correspondents.
Pliny was born 61 A.D., his greatest literary activity
was in the reign of Trajan, but as to whether or no he
survived his imperial master (d. 117) we have no infor
mation. Tacitus was of the same age as Pliny and
survived Trajan, but the exact date of his death is un
known. Suetonius was some ten years younger, beiiiLi
born about 70-71 A.D. ; he was private secretary to
Hadrian (emp. 117-138 A.D.), but the year of his death
also is unknown.
50 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Pliny the If we, then, first turn to the famous letter of Pliny
to Trajan and to Trajan's reply (" Letters," x. 96, 97),
we shall find much to interest us concerning the
Christians of distant Pontus and Bithynia who came up
for trial before Pliny as Propraetor, but nothing in
either Pliny's report or in the presumed rescript of the
Emperor that will give us the smallest clue to the date
of Jesus. But even had we found in this correspond
ence direct or indirect confirmation of the traditional
date, we should still have had to consider the arguments
of those who have contended either that both pieces are
forgeries or that interpolations have been made in the
original text.1 If, however, we have a genuine letter
of Pliny before us, and I am inclined to think it largely
genuine, it is with very great probability to be assigned
to the year 112 A.D. ; 2 but as the question of the date
and genuineness of this correspondence does not
immediately concern us (for in it we can find nothing
to help our present investigation), we pass to the state
ments of Suetonius.
Suetonius. There are two short sentences in Suetonius' " Lives
of the Twelve Caesars " (from Julius Caesar to Domitian
— i.e., to 96 A.D.), both of which appear to refer to the
Christians. In his Life of Claudius (emp. 41-54 A.D.)
Suetonius tells us (ch. xxv.), that the Emperor banished
the Jews, or certain Jews, from Eome because of the
1 On the literature see Platner's (S. B.) " Bibliography of the
Younger Pliny " (Western Reserve University, Ohio ; 1895); also
Wilde (C. G. I.), S.J., " De 0. Plinii Caecilii Secundi et Imp.
Trajani Epp. mutuis Disputatio" (Leyden ; 1889), who, while
maintaining their genuineness, gives a summary of contrary
opinions.
2 See Mommsen (T.), " Hermes " (1869), iii. 53.
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TO THE RECEIVED DATE. 51
persistent disturbances which arose among them
" impulsore Chresto."
For long fierce controversy has raged round these two
words, which we may translate by the phrase " at the
instigation of Chrestus " (lit., " Chrestus being the
impulsor ").
It is contended on strong philological grounds that
this must refer to a living person.1 It has thus been
supposed by some to refer simply to a Jew called
Chrestus who was then living at Eome ; but this seems
to me to be a very unsatisfactory explanation. For we
know that " Chrestus " is still sometimes found in MSS.
where we should expect " Christus " ; we know further
that Tertullian (" Apol.," iii.), at the beginning of the
third century, accuses the Komans of so mispro
nouncing the name of Christ, and from Lactantius
(" Institt.," iv. 7), a century later, that it was still a
common custom.
It is not necessary here to enquire whether this
confusion of Christus and Chrestus was really only an
ignorant mistake on the part of non-Christians, or
whether there may not be some further explanation of
the phenomenon ; 2 an outsider like Suetonius would
anyhow not be likely to know the difference, and so we
may very well in this passage take Chrestus for Christus.
1 See Smilda (H.), "C. Suetonii Tranquilli Vita Divi Claudii"
(Groningen ; 1896), p. 124, n. ; also Schiller (H.), " Geschichte
der romischen Kaiserzeit" (Gotha ; 1883), i. 447, n. 6.
2 The most ancient dated Christian inscription (Oct. 1, 318 A.D.)
runs "The Lord and Saviour Jesus the Good" — Clirestos, not
Christos. This was the legend over the door of a Marcionite
Church, and the Marcionites were Anti-Jewish Gnostics, and did
not confound their Chrestos with the Jewish Christos (Messiah).
52 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
But even so we are confronted with the difficulty
that according to the received tradition the Christian
Christ was never at Eome, and did not survive to the
reign of Claudius.
Moreover, if it be argued that Suetonius does not
employ the phrase " impulsore Chresto " literally, but
intended it to carry a metaphorical meaning, even so
we have to remember that Christus does not necessarily
refer to Jesus. Christos is simply the Greek for the
Hebrew Messiah, the "anointed," and at this period
there were many claiming to be this " anointed." The
reference may then be simply to a Messianic riot of
some sort among the Jews.1
The "Chris- When, then, we come across the term " Christiani "
in Pagan writers referring to disturbances of the first
century, we are not to assume offhand that those thus
designated must necessarily have been followers of
Jesus of Nazareth ; they may on the contrary have been
simply Jewish Messianists, and most probably of the
Zealot type. And this may be argued to be the case
when Suetonius, in the second of his famous sentences,
in his Life of Nero (emp. 54-68), tells us (c. xvi.) that
certain " Christiani " were severely punished or put
to the torture ; these he characterises as " a class of
people who believed in a new and noxious superstition."
This might apply to Messianists, for the Eomans had
been compelled to deal with many disturbances of this
nature in Palestine in the reigns of Tiberius, Claudius
and Nero, and doubtless tumults of a similar character
had arisen among the Jews of the Dispersion as well.
1 See Schiller (H.), " Geschichte des romischen Kaiserreichs unter
der Regierung des Nero" (Berlin ; 1872), p. 434.
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TO THE RECEIVED DATE. 53
But we cannot be sure that this is the meaning of
Suetonius, even if the question were not rendered far
more complicated by what is found in Tacitus on the
subject. Least of all can we dispose of the difficulty
by assuming that the two sentences in Suetonius are
interpolations by a Christian hand, for it is almost
impossible to believe that any Christian could have
used such phraseology.
We, therefore, finally turn to the famous passage in Tacitus.
Tacitus (" Ann.," xv. 44), where we find it clearly stated
that the Christians were so called from a certain
Christus who in the reign of Tiberius was put to death
under Pontius Pilate. This statement occurs in a brief
but graphic account of the horrible cruelties which
these Christiani are said to have suffered under Nero.
It was in connection with the Great Fire at Eome in
64 A.D. Tacitus will have it that it was commonly
believed at the time that the conflagration had been
started by the express orders of the Emperor himself.
To divert the public mind and remove this imputation,
Nero had singled out the Christiani to play the part of
scapegoat, seeing that they were held in general detesta
tion for their evil practices. They were accused, put to
the torture, condemned and done to death with refine
ments of cruelty.
From the time of Gibbon, however, it has been
strongly questioned whether at that date Christians
were numerous enough at Eome to have been so singled
out, and it has been accordingly maintained that tho
fury of the populace had been vented simply on the
Jews in general, seeing that the fire had broken out in
their quarter ; in short, that Tacitus is in error and has
54 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
transferred the popular detestation of the Christians in
his own day to the times of Nero.
In this connection we have to recall the short
sentence in Suetonius which apparently refers to the
same event when we read Tacitus, but which seems to
have nothing to do with it when we read Suetonius. We
can further speculate as to whether Suetonius may
have derived his information from Tacitus, or Tacitus
may have embellished the statement of Suetonius.1 But
surely if Suetonius had had the passage of Tacitus
before him, and had believed in his great contemporary's
view of the matter, he would have made more use of
his graphic details ? It seems far more probable that
Suetonius is reproducing the dry bones of some brief
official record, while Tacitus, in working out a character
sketch of Nero from insufficient data, and with a strong
prejudice against him. has collected together unrelated
events, and painted them in with the gaudiest colours
of a vivid imagination excited by some tragic stories he
had heard concerning the Christians of a later time and
of his own day.2
But it is not so much the persecution of Christiani
1 Schmiedel (art. " Christian, Name of," " Enc. Bib.") gives the
date of the passage in Tacitus as 116-117, and of those in Suetonius
as 120 A.D., but this is unproved.
2 See Bruno Bauer, "Christus und die Caesaren: Der Ursprung
des Christenthums aus dem romischen Griechenthum " (Berlin ;
1879 ; 2nd ed.). That in general Tacitus is a historical romancist
who has too long fascinated schoolmasters and their pupils by the
beauty of his style, and not a sober historian, is an accepted judg
ment among competent historical scholars. See especially Tarver
(J. C.), "Tiberius the Tyrant" (London; 1902) ; Tarver gives a
totally different estimate of Tiberius from the caricature of Tacitus,
to whom the good fame of an anti-senatorial emperor was of far
less importance than the neat turning of a phrase.
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TO THE RECEIVED DATE. 55
under Nero that concerns us, as the explicit statement
that the Christian! whom Tacitus has in mind, were the
followers of that Christus who was put to death under
Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. If this state
ment is from the pen of Tacitus, and if it was based
on information derived from Eoman records, there is
nothing more to be said. The positive answer to our
question has been found, and the accepted date of Jesus
stands firm.
The famous sentence runs as follows : " Auctor nominis Is it a Chris-
rn» • j. m-T~ ' • •. tian Formula ?
ejus Clvristus Ziberw impentante per procuratorem
Pentium Pilatum supplicio affectus erat"
Let us first of all assume its genuineness, that is that
we have before us a sentence written by Tacitus himself.
Even so, it is very difficult to persuade oneself that the
statement is derived from some official Eoman record.
On the contrary it has all the appearance of being part
of a Christian formula. Surely in an official record we
should not have the name of Pilate introduced with no
further qualification than simply that of Procurator.
Procurator of what ? " In the reign of Tiberius under
Pilate the Governor" would mean something definite
to a Christian, for he would know that the whole story of
Christus had to do with Judsea, but to a Eoman the
phrase would convey nothing of a very precise nature.
Later on in the Tacitean narrative it is true we are told
the Christian sect arose in Judaea, but on the other
hand we must remember that it is just this sudden
" Pilate the Governor " which meets us in our investi
gation of the synoptic tradition, as we showed in our
last chapter. It might then (if the sentence is genuine)
be of interest to determine the date of writing of this
56 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
part of the " Annals," but this is impossible to do with
any exactitude. It seems, however, probable that it
was written subsequently to 117 A.D., a date when the
Pilate formula was indubitably firmly established
among Christian circles.
It is also to be noticed that Tacitus seems to know
nothing of the name of Jesus; and it is exceedingly
improbable that in any official record the proper name
of the person would be omitted, and a name used which
officials familiar with Palestinian affairs must have
known to be a general title which was at that time
being claimed by many. Moreover, Jesus was not,
according to the canonical tradition, accused of being a
claimant to Messiahship, a matter which did not con
cern the Eoman magistrates, but with the political
offence of claiming to be King of the Jews. It is then
far more probable that Tacitus derived his information
from hearsay, and imagined that Christus was the
actual and only name of the founder of the Christian
sect.
Is it an Inter- But all these considerations depend upon the assump
tion that we have a genuine sentence of Tacitus before
us. Now it has been often pointed out that " Tiberio
imperitante " is entirely opposed to all Tacitean usage.
It cannot be paralleled elsewhere in his vocabulary,
and moreover is contrary to regular use. The early
Emperors were still regarded solely as heads of the
Eepublic, and as such were called Principes ; we should,
therefore, expect " Principe Tiberio," or some such com
bination. Philological arguments, however, as a rule,
are seldom very convincing; but it is not very easy
to dispose of the present one offhand. The sentence,
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TO THE RECEIVED DATE. 57
moreover, has a strong appearance of being inserted in
the rest of the narrative. Many, therefore, consider it
an interpolation, and some even are of opinion that the
whole of the chapter is a fabrication. As Hochart
says : " This chapter contains almost as many inexplic
able difficulties as it does words." 1
But this laborious scholar represents the extreme
left wing of Tacitean criticism, and valuable as is his
work in bringing out the difficulties which have to be
surmounted before we can be positive that the whole
chapter under discussion — (much more then the sen
tence which specially interests us) — is not, as he con
tends,2 an interpolation, his authority is somewhat
weakened by his subsequent lengthy researches,3 in
which he courageously revived the whole question of
the authenticity of the famous MS., purporting to
contain the last six books of the "Annals" and the
first five of the " Histories " of Tacitus, which was first
brought to light about 1429 by Poggio Bracciolini and
Niccoli — the sole MS. from which all copies have since
been made. Hochart maintains that in the very
learned humanist Poggio himself we have a Pseudo-
Tacitus, and that in these books of the " Histories " and
" Annals " we are therefore face to face with an elabo
rate pseudepigraph.
1 " Annales de la Faculte des Lettres de Bordeaux," 1884, No. 2.
'2 Hochart (P.), " Etudes au Sujet de la Persecution des Chretiens
sous Neron" (Paris; 1885). For arguments in favour of its
genuineness see Arnold (C. F.), "Die neronische Christenverfol-
gung" (Leipzig; 1888).
3 " De I'Authenticite des Aunales et des Histoiree de Tacite "
(Paris ; 1890), p. 320 ; and " Nouvelles Considerations au Sujet
des Annales et des Histoires de Tacite" (Paris ; 1894), p. 293.
58 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
On the whole, however, I am inclined to think that
the strain of supporting this conclusion is too great for
even the most robust scepticism (though it may be that
stranger things have happened in literature). In any
case it does not affect the main point of our argument
— namely, that, admitting the genuineness of the
chapter and even of the sentence which specially
concerns our enquiry, we cannot be sure that we have
in it a confirmation of the canonical tradition of the
Pilate date from an independent source.
Josephus. We have, then, passed in review our earliest notices
in the works of Pagan writers of the second century,
and may next turn our attention to that Jewish writer
of the first century who above all others might be
expected to supply us with the certainty of which we
are in search.
Joseph ben Mattatiah, the priest, or, to use the name
he adopted in honour of the Flavian House, Flavius
Josephus, was born 37-38 A.D. and survived till at least
100 A.D. His father Matthias was a member of one of
the high priestly families, was learned in the Law and
held in high repute in Jerusalem. Matthias was thus
a contemporary of Pilate, and should therefore have
been an eye-witness of those wonderful events in
Jerusalem which the Gospel narratives so graphically
depict in connection with the death of Jesus ; he might
even have been expected to have taken part in them ;
at the very least he could not have failed to have heard
of them if they actually occurred in the way in which
they are described.
Josephus, if we can accept his own account of himself,
was from his earliest years^trained in the Law and had
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TO THE RECEIVED DATE. 59
an insatiable love of religious learning. When he was
but fourteen years old, he tells us, the high priests and
doctors used to come to ask him questions on difficult
points of the Torah and its traditions. This may of
course refer simply to his wonderful memory, in the
exercise of which for the most part such learning
consisted ; but over and beyond this, we are told, he
was most eagerly anxious to know and practise the
inner side of religion, and busily enquired into the
tenets of all the sects of Jewry. For three years he
retired to the desert, apparently to some Essene-like
community, and submitted himself to its vigorous
discipline. In 64 A. D., at the age of twenty-six, we
find him at Rome interested in obtaining the freedom
of some friends of his, priests who even in prison
refused all Gentile fare and managed to support them
selves on the ascetic diet of figs and nuts.
During the Jewish War Josephus was given the
important command of Galilee, and displays an intimate
knowledge of the country in which, according to the
Gospel tradition, was the chief scene of the ministry of
Jesus. As a self-surrendered prisoner in the hands of
the Eomans he played a very important part in the
hastening of the end of the war, and was subsequently
held in high estimation by the rulers of the Empire
and devoted himself to writing a history of his people
and an account of the war. Many additional reasons
could be adduced, but enough has already been said to
show why Josephus, who might be called the " historian
of the Messianic age," is just the very writer who might
be expected to tell us something decisive about the
Christians and their origins. Nor can the detestation
60 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
of the Jews for the memory of the " traitor," which
makes them still regard every line of his writings about
those days with exaggerated suspicion, in any way
lessen the authority of Josephus in this respect ; for
the complaint of Christians against him is not that he
misrepresents them or their beginnings, but that he
absolutely ignores their existence.
The Spurious It is true that we have that famous passage in his
Passage.
" Antiquities " (xviii. iii. 3) which amply and doctrinally
confirms the Gospel tradition ; but how a so transparent
forgery could have escaped detection in even the most
uncritical age is a marvel. For many years it has been
abandoned by all schools of criticism, even the most
conservative, and we have only to turn to any modern
translation or text to find it definitely characterised as
an interpolation or enclosed in brackets.1 It is not
only that we are confronted with upwards of a dozen
most potent arguments against its authenticity, but that
we have also the explicit statement of Origen in the third
century that Josephus (with whose works he was ac
quainted, and whom he is quoting to prove the historic
existence of John the Baptist) had no belief whatever
in Jesus being the Christ,2 whereas the spurious
passage states categorically that he was the Christ.
Nevertheless, there are still a few daring scholars who,
while admitting that it is heavily interpolated, en-
1 See, for instance, F. Kaulen's German translation, "Flavius
Josephus' jiidische AltertMmer " (Koln ; 1892, 3rd ed.), p. 620, n. ;
and B. Niese's critical text, " Flavii Josephi Opera" (Berlin;
1890), iv. pp. 151, 152. The most recent French translation, edited
by T. Reinach, " (Euvres completes de Flavius Josephe " (Paris ;
1900), has so far given us only five books of the " Antiquities."
2 Origen, " Contra Celsum," i. 47.
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TO THE RECEIVED DATE. 61
deavour to save some fragments of the passage,1 and
even one stalwart apologist who maintains its complete
genuineness.2
But if there be anything certain in the whole field of The Jacobus
criticism, it is that this passage was never written by Passage-
Josephus. And this being so, the reference (in
" Antiqq.," xx. ix. 1) to a certain Jacobus, " the brother
of Jesus called Christ," constitutes the only reference
to Jesus in the voluminous writings of Josephus which
Origen could discover ; but unfortunately the statement
of Origen casts grave doubts upon the words " brother of
Jesus called Christ,'3 for he twice 3 declares that Josephus
describes the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction
of the Temple as a divine retribution for the murder of
this James — a most highly improbable opinion to father
upon Josephus, and no trace of which is to be found
either in the passage in which the phrase we ' are con
sidering now stands, or in the rest of Josephus' works.
It is therefore exceedingly probable that this epithet
was taken from Origen and incorporated into the text
of Josephus by later scribes. These being the only
references that can be adduced in the voluminous
writings of the Jewish historian, it follows that Josephus
knows nothing of " the Christ," though he knows much
of various " Christs."
Though the argument from silence must in all cases The Silence
be received with the greatest caution, it cannot fail
1 See Miiller (G. A.), " Cliristus bei Josephus Flavins" (\\\\\*-
briick ; 1895, 2nd cd.) ; and Reinach (T.), "Rev. Etud. Jin
xxxv. 1-18.
2 Bole (F.), "Flavius Josephus iiber Christus und die Christen"
(Brixen ; 1896).
3 Origen, " Contra Celsum," i. 47, ii. 13.
62 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
deeply to impress us in the case of Joseph ben Matta-
tiah ; for it is almost humanly impossible that, if the
details of the Christian tradition and the affairs of the
Christian world had been historically in the time of
Josephus just what they are stated to have been in our
canonical documents, the historian of that special age
and country could have kept silence concerning them.
If these things were just as they are said to have been,
there is no convincing reason that we can assign for
the silence of a man who, like Josephus, was in a most
admirable position to know about them.
Josephus had been trained in an Essene-like com
munity and seems even to have gone to Borne in
" Essene " interests. He is just the man to tell us of
those early Christian communities which were formed
on models closely resembling those of the Pious and
the Poor and the Naked. He goes to Home just when
Paul is also said to have been there, and no doubt was
there, and just about the time when, if we are to believe
Tacitus, the Christiani were singled out for public perse
cution and cruel martyrdom by Imperial tyranny ; and
yet he knows nothing of all this. With regard to the
ministry and death of Jesus it might be said that all
this had happened before Josephus was born, though
surely it might be expected that his father would have
told him of such stirring, nay overwhelming, events ;
still it is strange that with regard to the gruesome
tragedy at Kome he apparently knows not even so much
as of a community of Christians.
Was, then, the story in those days other than we
have it now ? Were the origins of Christianity, as we
have elsewhere suggested, hidden among the pledged
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TO THE RECEIVED DATE. 63
members of the mystic communities and ascetic orders,
and only imperfectly known among their outer circles,
which were also largely held to secrecy ? Was it all
of older date than we are accustomed to regard it ?
Who shall say with utter confidence ? The silence of
Josephus permits us to speculate, but gives us no
answer to our questionings. It may be even that some
items of what the Jewish writer tells us of other
leaders of sects and claimants to Messiahship may have
been conflated and transformed later on by our Gospel
writers or their immediate predecessors, and so used to
fill out the story of a life for which they had but little
historic data. But this is a delicate and obscure subject
of research which requires new treatment.1
We thus see that, as far as our present enquiry is
concerned, we can obtain no positive help from any
Pagan or Jewish writer of the first century, or for that
matter of the first quarter of the second. It remains to
enquire whether from the fragments of extra-canonical
gospels or the remains of Old-Christian traditions and
from the apocrypha generally we can get any help.
If the general learned opinion on this literature, or
at any rate on all of it which in any way makes
mention of the Herod or Pilate dates, holds good,
namely, that it is later than our Gospels, then we have
nothing to help us.
But the recent brilliant study of Corirady2 on the The "Book
" Book of James," commonly called the " Protevangelium "
1 See the attempt of Solomon (G.), " The Jesus of History and
the Jesus of Tradition Identified" (London ; 1880).
2 Conrady (L.), " Die Quelle der kanonischen Kindheitsgeschichte
Jesus' " (Gottingen ; 1900).
64 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
(the name given to it by Postel, who first brought it to
light in the sixteenth century), the original of which is
already admitted by some to reach back as far as the
middle of the second century, opens up a question
which, if answered in the affirmative, " would mean a
complete revolution of our views on the canon and of
the origins of Christianity." 1 Conrady believes that
he has demonstrated that in some of their details of
the history of the infancy our first and third evangelists
borrow from a common source, and that this source is
no other than our extant " Protevangelium." He would
have it that this " Book of James " is of Egyptian origin.
The author was not a Jewish Christian, but most
probably an Egyptian and an Alexandrian. It is to be
hoped that Conrady may follow up his excursion into
this field of investigation by other researches of a similar
nature ; and since he has raised the presumption that
we have in the " Protevangelium " one of the " many "
Gospel writings referred to in the introduction of the
third Gospel, we may glance through the literature,2
other than that of the distinct Pilate apocrypha, for a
reference to Pilate.
The " Gospel This we shall find only in the so-called " Gospel of
Peter," a considerable fragment of which relating to the
passion and death of Jesus was discovered in a tomb at
Akhmim in 1885 and first published in 1892. Much has
been written during the last ten years on this interesting
1 See Nicliol's review of Conrady's (book in "The Critical
Review " (London), January, 1902.
2 See Preuschen (E.), " Antilegomena : Die Reste der ausser-
kanonischen Evangelien und urchristlichen Ueberlieferungen "
(Giessen; 1901).
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TO THE RECEIVED DATE. 65
fragment, but the general opinion of scholars is that the
writer shows a knowledge of all our four Gospels. If,
however, the original of this fragment could be shown
to be older than our Gospels (a most difficult under
taking), it would also rank among the "many."
Although agreeing substanially with our Gospel accounts,
it differs very considerably in its more abundant details
from the simple narrative of the " common document,"
and is strongly Docetic, that is to say, represents Jesus
as suffering only in appearance. Its Gnostic character,
however, in this respect (for as I have shown elsewhere 1
the origin of Docetism does not depend on purely
doctrinal considerations) does not, in my opinion,
necessarily point to a late date, though its elaboration of
detail seems to argue a later development of tradition
as compared with the simplicity of the narrative of the
"common document." On the other hand it may be
that the "common document" had already begun the
process of " selection."
Finally in this connection we may have to pay more at- The " Acts of
tention to the so-called " Gospel of Nicodemus " or " Acts
of Pilate," the first thirteen chapters of which describe
the trial of Jesus before Pilate, the condemnation, cruci
fixion and resurrection, substantially in agreement with
our canonical Gospels, but containing many other details
not found elsewhere. Though the present form of these
Acts is not earlier than the fourth century, the question
of there being what the Germans call a G-rundsclirift
of a comparatively very early date underlying them
has recently been raised by Eendel Harris in an exceed-
1 "Fragments of a Faith Forgotten" (London; 1900), p.
427.
5
66 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
ingly interesting monograph,1 in which he pleads for a
new investigation of the subject, on the ground that he
has detected traces of a Homeric Gospel under the
Greek text of our " Acta," that is to say a Gospel story
patched together out of verses of the great Homeric
literature. Among many other points of interest, he
thinks he has shown that in the passage where Joseph
begs the body of Jesus from Pilate, "that Pilate has
been turned into Achilles, that Joseph is the good old
Priam, begging the body of Hector, and that the whole
story is based upon the dramatic passages of the twenty-
fourth book of the Iliad"; and in favour of his hy
pothesis it must be said that we certainly know from
the Sibylline literature that Jewish writers long prior to
the first century of our era used Homeric verses for
similar purposes.
Professor Harris thus contends that such a Homeric
Gospel may have existed prior to Justin Martyr (c.
150), and so this famous apologist, when in his " Dialogue
with Trypho " (cc. 102, 103) he twice refers to certain
" Acts of Pilate," may be saved from the now generally
endorsed imputation that his wish solely was father
to his statement. Justin may have had this much
ground for his assertion that there was in existence the
G-rundschrift of our "Acta," though of course these
" Acta " were by no means the official Eoman reports
which he seems to have believed them to be.
The subject is a fascinating one, but will not help us
much in our present enquiry ; for — granting the exist
ence of the underlying document, and also its Homeric
1 Kendel Harris (J.), " The Homeric Centones and the Acts of
Pilate "(London; 1898).
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TO THE RECEIVED DATE. 67
nature, thus accounting for its strange conflation of
miracles and events (separately recorded in our canonical
Gospels), by the necessity of the vague and general
nature of the verse-tags which had to be employed by
the Centonist — it argues a later date than our Gospels.1
It will thus be seen that our review of the earliest
external evidence for the date of Jesus, even when we
take into consideration the most unusual lines of research,
leaves us with nothing so distinct as does the result of
the analysis of the tradition of our canonical Gospels.
The argument for the authenticity of the Pilate tradition
centres round the obscure question of the date of the
"common document." The earlier we can push this
back the greater is the probability of the genuineness of
the tradition.
We will next turn our attention to the Talmud Jeschu
stories, but before doing so it will be advisable to give
the general reader some idea of the Talmud itself, and
to append some further necessary preliminaries.
1 It is to be hoped, however, that the new edition of the " Acts of
Pilate," which is being prepared by Dr. Ernst von Dobschiitz for
the great Berlin collection of early Church documents, will throw
some new light on the subject.
IV.— THE GENESIS OF THE TALMUD
The Real Con- IT is perhaps not too much to say that the Talmud has
Jewry. been the chief means whereby the Jews have preserved
themselves as a nation ever since the time of the final
destruction of their Temple, and the extinction of the
last shred of their political independence, until the
present day. The Talmud is the chief embodiment of
that mysterious power which has kept alive the peculiar
spirit of Jewry, and never permitted Israel to forget
that it was a people apart.
It is the Talmud which beyond all else has established
the norm of life for the Jew ; for it is the repository of
that multitude of rules of conduct and laws of custom
(Halachoth), which the Kabbis, with a bewildering
ingenuity (which though intensely serious is frequently
a strangely perverse casuistic), deduced from the Law—
that Torah, which the Jews, in every fibre of their
being, believed had been given by God Himself, who
had chosen their fathers from out the nations and
for ever bound them to Himself by a special pact and
covenant.
But over and beyond this the Talmud is a vast store
house of the strangest mixture of wise saws and witty
sayings, of legend and folk-lore and phantasy, parable
THE GENESIS OF THE TALMUD. 69
and story, homily and allegory, magic and superstition,1
to be compared to nothing so much as to some seething
bazaar of the Orient, where all sorts and conditions of
wisdom and folly swarm together and are blended in
inextricable confusion.
The most convenient point of departure for a brief
excursion into the domain of systematised Talmudic
beginnings2 is the period from 70 to 200 A.D., which
marks the first definite attempts at arrangement (for
codification would give the reader a too precise idea of
its confused nature) of those rules of custom which
constitute the oldest deposit of the existing Talmud in
both its forms.
The fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. deprived the Jews of The Psycho-
even that comparative political independence which they Moment,
had previously possessed. It was a terrible blow to the
hopes of the nation, especially to all those who looked
for a material fulfilment of the many promises in the
sacred rolls which bore the names of their ancient
prophets — that if they kept the Law, and were true to
their covenant with Yahweh, all enemies should be
placed in subjection under their feet. And now not
only was the Holy City destroyed and the Elect of the
earth prostrate before the hated power of idolatrous
Rome, but the Holy Temple itself, the chief means, as
they then believed, whereby they were to carry out
their covenant, was a heap of ruins !
It was indeed a terribly tragic moment even in the
history of a people inured to tragedy in the past and
1 The Haggadic as contrasted with the Halachic element.
2 The material itself of the oldest deposit of the Talmud being, of
course, of still earlier date.
70 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
destined to a future replete with tragic terrors. It is
true that even so the spirit of the Zealots 1 was not yet
broken ; they were yet stubbornly to essay the fortune
of arms in Trajan's time in the opening years of the
first century, and again in the desperate attempt of
Bar Kochba in the closing years of Hadrian's reign
(132-135 A.D.). But with the final shattering of their
hopes of a material Messianic victory by the crushing
defeat of their champion, even the most irreconcilable
were forced to abandon the unequal struggle.
The Study of One thing alone remained to save out of the general
ruin in Palestine — the treasure of the Law. This
desolation, they were convinced, had come upon them
because they had not rightly kept their covenant with
Yahweh. To the keeping of this bond they would now
devote all their remaining strength. The " Study " of
the Law should be the means of their future deliverance.
From this determination, into which they threw all
the perseverance of their stubborn nature, there resulted
a marvellous enthusiasm for collecting and preserving
the traditions of their predecessors concerning the Law,
and of still further developing an infinity of rules of
conduct and laws of custom to meet all the diverse
changes and chances of Jewish life.
By the end of the second century what were at that
time held to be the more authoritative early traditions
emerged in a final definitely fixed form — the Mishna.
1 They were, so to speak, the national fanatics who appealed to
the arbitrament of arms, to Yahweh as God of Battles, and by no
means a " philosophical sect," as Josephus would have it, except in
so far as religion and politics were one for them. See Bousset ( W.),
"Die Religion des Judentums im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter "
(Berlin, 1903), pp. 187, 188.
THE GENESIS OF THE TALMUD. 71
This was the nucleus of our present Talmud, the skeleton,
so to say, round which the industry of the next three
centuries built up the study of the Law into its full
development by completing the Mishna with the
Gemara.
And indeed it seems almost as though it required The Need of
that something of this kind should have been done if ltf
the Jews were to be preserved to play the important
part they have played, and doubtless have still to play,
in Western history. For had it not been for the
e^ger zeal for this Study displayed by the Palestinian
Rabbis of the first two centuries of our era, it is very
probable that the Jews would have been entirely ab
sorbed in the nations. It was a period when in Baby
lonia the descendants of the Jews who had contentedly
remained behind at the time of the Eeturn (and they
h those days constituted the majority of the nation),
had almost entirely forgotten the Law and its traditions ;
from what we can make out of the dim historical
indications, they seem to have been almost utterly
ignorant of that for which they subsequently became
so famous. In Egypt, again, where very large numbers
of the Hebrews were permanently settled, Greek culture
md Alexandrian mysticism had gradually weakened
yhe old exclusiveness ; philosophy arid cosmopolitanism
had greatly sapped the strength of pure legalism and
narrow materialism, and the crude objectivity of ancient
legend and myth had long been allegorised into subtler
forms more suited to immediate intellectual and
spiritual needs. The same factors were doubtless at
work elsewhere in the Diaspora or Dispersion of Israel,
while even in Palestine itself the influence of the
72 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
numerous communities and associations who looked
to a more universal view of things had been so
strengthened by the crushing disaster which had be
fallen the nation, that the forces of rigid conservatism
were being weakened in every direction, and the idess
of an Israel of God to be formed out of the Righteous
of the world, irrespective of race, seemed to threaten
the very existence of Jewry as a nation apart.
The Fathers Indeed I am by no means certain that there was any
°xy' widespread orthodoxy in Jewry prior to the days of
Mishnaic Rabbinism ; these Rabbis seem to me to ha\e
played for Judaism the same part that the Church
Fathers played for " Mcene " Christianity ; they
established a canon and an orthodoxy. Prior to th;s
there was an exceeding great liberty of belief ; many even
rejected the Temple-cultus, at any rate as far as the
sacrifices were concerned ; there was no general canon
of scripture, saving the Pentateuch, and even this, as
we shall see later on, was called into question by many;
not only so, but even the Temple at Jerusalem was nol
then regarded as the only place where the national cultue
could be practised, for in Egypt in the vicinity of the
traditional land of Goshen, the Jews had a temple
wherein they worshipped Yahweh for more than two
hundred years (circa B.C. 160-A.D. 7 1).1
As the Talmudic Rabbis created an orthodoxy by
developing the Pharisaic traditions, so did their con
temporaries, the Massoretic Textualists, stereotype the
text of the Torah. At first the Greek translation of
the Jews in Egypt had been regarded as equally inspired
1 Ginsburg (C. D.), " Introduction to the Massoretico-Critical
Edition of the Hebrew Bible " (London ; 1897), pp. 404, 405.
THE GENESIS OF THE TALMUD. 73
with the original on which it was based; but in
Mishnaic days, after the rise of Christianity which
adopted this translation as its scripture, the day on
which the Septuagint translation was made was
regarded by the Eabbis as a day of mourning. The
Massorah tradition of the text differs widely from the
Samaritan and from the original on which the version
of the so-called Seventy was made from the third
century B.C. onwards, as may be seen from Ginsburg's
monumental work. From all sides, then, we have proof
that what we call Judaism to-day was not necessarily
what Judaism was in the first century before our era, or
even in the first century of our era.
Indeed it seems most highly probable that the The Great
strongest factor which helped to intensify Talmudic,
that is to say " orthodoxising," activity was the rapid
spread of general Christianity, on its emergence from
an embryonic stage in which it was hidden in the womb
of communities of a somewhat similar nature to those
of the Therapeuts. More than ever was it necessary
to put a fence round the Torah, that the Law should be
preserved by Jews, as Jews, for Jews, when, by means
of the ceaseless propaganda of Christianity of all
shades, the Gentiles seemed to be robbing the Hebrews
of their birthright — of their Law and their Prophets and
their Holy Writ. The main claims of the Christians on
behalf of their Founder, so argued the Eabbis, were
based on mistranslation and misinterpretation of the
sacred scriptures of their race. More than ever was it
necessary to preserve these writings in their original
tongue and purity, and to strengthen the tradition of
the authoritative interpretation of their fathers. So
74 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
thought the Rabbis, and unweariedly they laboured to
make strong their special tradition and develop it.
The Evolution It is to this period that we owe the formulation of
of Tradition.
many vague, floating opinions and dim reminiscences
into distinct and rigid formularies, and the selection
out of many contradictory traditions of a view that
should constitute " the tradition." Nay, sometimes the
bitterness of controversy brought to birth " traditions "
which had had no previous existence. Just as the
industry and high literary ability of the Sopherim, from
the time of Ezra (about 440-400 B.C.1) to the days of
the apocalyptic scribe or scribes of Daniel (about 164
B.C.), and even later, gradually evolved out of originally
very scanty materials a grandiose tradition of pre-
exilic greatness, priestly legalism, sonorous prophecy,
and splendid hymnody,2 so did the Eabbis of the first
Talmudic period, 70-200 A.D., the Tanaim, legalise the
tradition evolved by their immediate predecessors, —
that all these gradually developed scriptures were not
only written throughout by those archaic worthies
whose names they bear, and immediately inspired by
the Holy Spirit, but that Yahweh himself had given to
Moses the five books of the Torah proper written by
His own hand. It is on this fundamental presupposition
that the whole of the Halachic development of the
Talmud is based. These norms of conduct and laws of
custom are founded on the Torah, expanded to include
all three divisions of the " Books " or " Holy Books,"
1 The traditional date of Ezra's " promulgation " of the Law is
444, but as late as 397 has been argued for.
2 For the latest remarks on the development of Scribism see
Bousset, op. cit., pp. 139. " Die Theologen."
THE GENESIS OF THE TALMUD. 75
Law, Prophets, and Hagiographa (or Holy Writings),1 as
upon infallible revelation from Deity Himself, extend
ing to every word and letter.
In brief, the Eabbis would have it that the canon of
the Old Covenant revelation ceased with Ezra, whereas
modern scientific research has shown that in the highest
probability it only began with that famous scribe. For
the Eabbis of Palestine and Babylonia,2 then, there
was no prophet after Malachi; prophecy and direct
inspiration had ceased with Ezra ; from that time they
would admit no addition to the Law, they acknowledged
the authority of no subsequent prophet and of no
subsequent scripture. It was for them a question only
of the correct tradition of interpretation, and logical
development of what had been once for all infallibly
laid down. They were to vindicate the authority of
the schoolmen and legalists against the claims of
subsequent prophecy and apocalyptic of all kinds, and
to do so they could find authority for their authority
solely in the " Oral Law."
An exceedingly interesting glimpse behind the scenes A Glimpse
of scripture industry, before it was stereotyped by the e t
enactments of Talmudic Eabbinism, is afforded by a
study of " The Book of Jubilees," which was included in
the Alexandrian canon. This interesting expansion of
Genesis was written about 135-105 B.C.3 We have
therefore before us a document which by a slight
1 Torah, Nebiini, Ketubim.
2 The Jews of Alexandria had a far more extended canon.
3 See Charles (R. H.), "The Book of Jubilees or the Little
Genesis" (London; 1902). The traditional Christian title Little
Genesis is a misnomer, as Jubilees is far more voluminous than
canonical Genesis ; it should rather be called the " Detailed Genesis."
76 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
divergence of the wheel of fate might have been included
in the Bible, for when we see such a book as Chronicles
(a Haggadic tendency writing of the second century
B.C., which wrote up Kings and Samuel in the interests
of later priestly views) included in the canon, and
observe that Jubilees treats the matter of Genesis and
Exodus in precisely the same fashion, in the interests
of a still later and more developed priestly view than
that of the Chronicles' redactor in revising Kings and
Samuel, we see the making of scripture in the work
shop and the continuation of the industry by the
fellowship of the same writing guild, attended by very
great success, and only just failing to obtain a place in
the Palestinian canon.
The Evidence The Jubilees' writer was thoroughly ashamed of
of Jubilees, many of the crudities of the Ezra redaction of Genesis
and Exodus, and rewrote the whole matter to suit the
views of his own day and circle ; Jewish enthusiasm
was on top of the wave in the palmy days of
Maccabaean conquest, and the ambition of the priestly
fanatics was boundless. The whole spirit of the writer
is further characterised by a detestation of all non-Jews
which fully justifies the strictures of the classical writers
of the first century, and throws a flood of light on the
nature of subsequent Zealotism, and the mania of
exclusiveness that tickled the vanity of Israel and
diabolised the gods of all other nations. Exceedingly
interesting also is the document for students of later
Talmudic developments, for it presents us with earlier
(and that, too, written) forms of Haggada and Halacha
which the Eabbis of Mishnaic times were compelled to
modify. An acquaintance with the literature of this
THE GENESIS OF THE TALMUD. 77
period also shows us how erroneous is the general Jewish
persuasion of later days that the " Oral Tradition " had
been handed down unchanged. Of great importance
also are the readings of the Bible texts which often
approximate more closely to those preserved in the Sep-
tuagint translation of the Pentateuch (c. 250-200 B.C.)
than those of the far later Massorah of the fourth or
fifth century.
The Eabbis would have it finally that this Oral Law The Oral
had always existed side by side with the Written Law Heredity.1 '
ever since the days of Moses onwards. In the first
chapter of the Mishna tractate " Aboth," or " Pirke
Aboth," containing the " Sayings of the Fathers," we
are given what purports to be an unbroken succession
of individuals, from Moses to the destruction of
Jerusalem, who are said to have been the depositories
of this Oral Law. The succession runs as follows :
Moses ; Joshua ; the Elders ; the Prophets ; the Men
of the Great Assembly (from Ezra's time to about
200 B.C.) ; the famous " Five Pairs," as they were
called, the last of which were Hillel (about 70 B.C. to
10 A.D.) and Shammai; and finally, Gamaliel and his
son Simon.
Such is the account given in the Mishna of the
heredity of its tradition, and it is not surprising that
if scientific research not only questions, but actually
reverses, the judgment of the Mishnaic Eabbis with
regard to the development of the Written Law, for it
practically begins where they would have it cease, that
modern scholars should hesitate to accept their account
of the Oral Law without question.
Even the most inattentive reader must be struck
78 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
with the vague and fragmentary nature of the line of
descent. Evidently little was known of the past ; even
tjie history of the great literary activity from the
fourth to the second century B.C., which had practically
given them their Written Torah in the form in which
it lay before them, was utterly forgotten. The " Men
of the Great Assembly," who are made so much of in
the Talmud as the immediate depositories of the Oral
Law from the Prophets, are nameless. The Eabbis
evidently knew nothing of a historical nature concern
ing them ; nay, of the succeeding period they can only
produce the names of teachers to whom tradition
ascribed certain sayings, but of whose life and labours
we can glean but the scantiest information, while of
their literary activity we hear not a word.
Objections to Accordingly, the very existence of the " Men of the
theTradi- fe J ' „
tional View. Crreat Assembly has been questioned by modern
research, and it has been conjectured with great prob
ability, that the historical germ of the traditional idea
is to be traced to the general assembly of the people
who were called together to accept that Law which had
been rewritten by Ezra after the Eeturn (Neh. viii.-x.).
" In course of time, instead of an assembly of people
receiving the law, a college of individuals transmitting
the law was conceived of, and this notion seems to fill
up the gap between the latest prophets and those
scribes to whom the memory of subsequent times still
extended." 1
Whatever else is obscure it is clear that the
Palestinian Kabbis of the Tanaite period, or first
1 Schiirer (E.), " A History of the Jewish People in the Time of
Christ" (Eng. trans., London ; 1893), Div. ii., vol. i. p. 355.
THE GENESIS OF THE TALMUD. 79
Talmudic age, were busily engaged in establishing a
rigid "orthodoxy" for Judaism, and making it strong
against manifold " heresies." l The history of the past
fine literary activity of the nation which had produced
not only the great momurnents of scripture we still pos
sess in the Old Testament documents, but much else, was
utterly forgotten. And if documents, some of which
we now know were written as late as the Maccabsean
period, could be ascribed with every confidence to a
David or a Daniel, we are justified in assuming that
the authority given for the Oral Tradition was, for the
most part, of a similarly unhistoric nature. No doubt
the heredity of the methods employed by the Tanaim
could be traced with very great probability as far back as
the earliest of the " Five Pairs," somewhere approach
ing the beginning of the second century B.C. ; but the
striking fact that the greatest industry could only
discover the names of two teachers for each generation,
seems to indicate either that no others were known,
or that many names and tendencies had had to be
eliminated in seeking the paternity of that special
tendency which the Tanaim erected into the test of
orthodox Jewry. As to the Oral Law being con
temporaneous with Moses, we must place this fond
belief in the same category with the still more start
ling claim of later Kabalism, that its Tradition was first
delivered by God Himself to Adam in Paradise.
Again, the fact that the appeal for authority was to
1 See Weinstein (N. J.), " Zur Genesis der Agada" (Gottingen ;
1901), " Die Minim," pp. 91-156, and " Kampf des Patriarchats
gegen das Eindringen polytheistischer Ideen in die Gelehrten-
Kreise des palastinisclien Judenthums," pp. 157-252.
80 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
The Tradition an oral and not to a written source, is at first sight
tericilts."80 strange when we remember that there were thousands
of books in existence, some of them claiming the
authority even of an Enoch or an Adam. Thus the
writer of " IV. Esdras," which in every probability
was composed under Domitian (85-96 A.D.), tells us
(xiv. 18 ff.) "that Ezra prays to God to grant him his
Holy Spirit that he may again write out the
books . . . which had been burnt (with the temple,
one understands). God bids him take to himself five
companions, and in forty days and nights he dictates to
them ninety-four books, of which seventy are esoteric
writings, and the remaining twenty-four are the canon
of the Old Testament." l It is moreover to be noticed
that the numbers differ greatly in various forms of the
text ; thus we have eighty-four instead of ninety-four, but
also 204, 904, and 974. But whatever may have been
the number in the original text, this much we learn,
that there existed at the end of the first century A.D. a
very different view from that so strongly insisted on by
the builders of the Talmud — namely, that there was a
very extensive written tradition not only contempora
neous with the Torah, but of equal inspiration with it,
nay, of so precious a nature that it was kept apart and
guarded from public circulation.
The adherents of this view, who, we know from the
indications of the many mystic communications of the
time and also of preceding centuries, were very numer
ous, seem, it is true, to have been as ignorant of the
actual history of the development of the twenty-four
1 K. Budde's art., "The Canon," § 17, in the "Encyclopaedia
Biblica."
THE GENESIS OF THE TALMUD. 81
(or twenty-two) books of the Torah as were the Tanaim,
and this is strange, seeing that it is in the greatest prob
ability to their predecessors that we must assign the
writing-in of the more spiritual elements into the Torah
itself. It was these esotericists and their communities
who were in intimate contact with that ever-widening
and spiritualising tendency which we can trace in
Essenism, Therapeutism, Philonism, Hermeticism, and
Gnosticism ; and it is their writings which as strongly
influenced the development of Christianity as did the
twenty-four books of the Torah.
Doubtless all of these schools and associations had Mysticism
,, ., , ,., . , , . . and Ortho-
Oral as well as written traditions, but their main ^oxy.
interest was vision and apocalyptic. They devoted
themselves to the culture of prophecy and the practice
of contemplation, and their whole energy was centred
on the unfolding of those mysteries of the inner life
which gave them a certainty of heavenly things.
Whereas the chief concern of the Tanaim was the
separation of the national life from contact with all
" foreign " religious influences by the ever more and
more stringent insistence upon that peculiar legalism
which the others had found, or were finding, more and
more irksome, or had entirely cast off for a more liberal
spiritual interpretation, suited to the needs of those
who were gathered round the cradle of the infant
Proteus that was destined to develop eventually into a
new world -faith.
It seems somewhat a sign of weakness that in the The Writing
midst of so much that was written conservatism had to Tradition!
rely entirely on an oral tradition for its authority. Be
that, however, as it may, the lack of written authority
6
82 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
for establishing the Mishnaic legalism as the orthodoxy
of Israel seems gradually to have evolved a virtue out
of necessity, and we find it repeatedly laid down in the
Talmud that the tradition must on no account be
written down but solely committed to memory. Indeed
later times would have it that not only was the Mishna
never written down even when it had reached its final
form about 200 A.D., but that the whole voluminous
contents of the Talmud Completion, or Gemara, were
never committed to writing until the time of the
Saboraim l (500-650 A.D.), the schoolmen who followed
the Amoraim or those who wove the Gemara on to the
Mishna.
But in spite of what we know of the prodigious
memorising faculty of orientals,2 and in spite of the
fascinating stories told of the marvellous feats of memory
of the Talmud scholars, while we might be tempted to
accept the oral tradition of the far less voluminous and
comparatively less complex Mishna text, the enormous
mass and utterly confused and chaotic nature of the
contents of the Gemara make it very difficult to believe
that it was handed on solely by verbal repetition.
Indeed, it seems far more probable that the Mishna was
fully committed to writing at the time of its final
redaction about 200-207 A.D. ; for when we hear of its
completion at this date, it is difficult to understand
how an authoritative form of codification of such
heterogenous material could have been arrived at by
1 See Strack (H. L.), " Einleitung in den Thalmud " (Leipzig ;
1900, 3rd ed.), p. 55.
2 Even Western scholars have declared that the oral tradition of
a Vaidic text, for instance, is to be preferred to a written copy.
THE GENESIS OP THE TALMUD. 83
the exercise of the memory alone ; and if this be true
of the Mishna, much more must it hold good for the
far more voluminous matter of the Gemara.
With regard to the Halachic contents of the Mishna,
it may, of course, have been that the tradition of the
precedents on which the lawyers based their decisions
had been kept private as the hereditary possession of a
special profession ; but surely some brief written notes
had existed, perhaps also private collections of notes
been made, even prior not only to the time of an Akiba
in the beginning of the second century, but even of a
Gamaliel in the days of Paul.1
Are we to believe that a Joshua ben Perachia and a
Nithai, a Judah ben Tabbai and a Simon ben Shetach,
a Shemaiah and an Abtalion, a Hillel and a Shammai,
a Gamaliel and an Akiba, left nothing in writing ? 2
They surely must have done so. And if this holds
good with regard to the tradition of the most authori
tative Halachoth, much more is it likely to have been
the case with that huge mass of Haggadic legend and
homily, and flotsam and jetsam of like nature, with
which the Talmud is filled. Indeed, a scientific review
of all the Talmud passages germane to the question,
reveals a most confused state of mind on the subject,
even among* the many makers of that stupendous
patchwork themselves. While on the one hand we
find it most stringently forbidden to write down Halach-
1 At the* final redaction of Rabbi Jutlah's Mishna there existed
already a number of previous Mishnas (e.g., of R. Akiba, of R.
Nathan, of R. Meir). It is said even that there are traces in the
Talmud of Mishnas attributed to Hillel and other early Tanaim.
2 See Block (J. S.), "Einblicke in die Geschichte der Ent.
stehung der talnmdischen Literatur " (Wieu ; 1 884), pp. 2 ff.
84 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
oth, we come across isolated references to older
written Halachoth ; and though the writing of Haggad-
oth as well is apparently included in the general
prohibition, we meet with very precise references to
Haggada books and even collections of such books.1
In fact, while the North-French Kabbis of the
Middle Ages held that the Talmud was never committed
to writing till after its final completion at the end of
the fifth century A.D., the Spanish Kabbis maintained
that the Mishna was written down by Kabbi Jehuda
(136-217 A.D.), the Palestinian Gemara by Eabbi
Jochanan (199-279),2 and the Babylonian Gemara by
Eab Aschi (375-427) and Eab Abina (head of the Sura
School 473-499). This difference of opinion was prob
ably owing to the fact that the French Eabbis had to
depend almost entirely on their memories, owing to
the burning of their MSS. by the Inquisition, while
the Spanish Eabbis of an earlier date were still in
enjoyment of their literary liberty.
The Main But whatever may have been the precise mode of
Talmud for ^ ^ne genesis, development and transmission of the text
Christians. until it reached its full growth in the form which now
lies before us, and however difficult it may be to sift
out reliable historical data from the dim and confused
indications of its contradictory assertions, the tractates
of the Talmud remain like the mounds of some great
buried city of the past to challenge the industry and
ingenuity of the courageous explorer to ever fresh
1 See Block's " Einblicke," pp. viii, ix ; and Strack's " Einleit-
ung," § 2, " Das ' Verbot des Schreibens,' " pp. 49-55.
2 And this in face of the fact that many of the authorities
cited in the Palestinian Gemara lived after R. Jochanan, some
even a century later.
THE GENESIS OF THE TALMUD. 85
exertions, in the hope of laying bare traces from which
the outlines of some of the ancient buildings may be
reconstructed.
And to none can the Talmud be of greater interest
than to the student of Christian origins. We will
not go so far as to say with Eeuchlin that the Talmud
(or even the Mishna) is a book " written by Christ's
nearest relations," but it is ungainsayable, as has so
often been pointed out before, that every purely ethical
precept in the Gospels can be paralleled in the Talmud
by sayings ascribed to the ancient Rabbis of Israel.
In the Talmud we have a strong stream of tradition
which generation by generation, we might almost say
year by year, runs parallel with the primitive streamlet
which so rapidly widens out into the river, and finally
into the flood of Christianity. Here, if anywhere,
should we expect to find reliable information as to how
what subsequently became the great religion of the
West arose, who was its founder, what the matter and
method of the teaching, and who were the earliest
followers of the teacher.
But before we discuss the passages which are said
to refer to Jesus, we must give some rough idea of
the history of the written Talmud, and show how
these passages were gradually singled out to form the
ground of bitterest controversy and persecution.
V._ THE TALMUD IN HISTORY
Jutsinian's " FROM Justinian, who, as early as 553 A.D., honoured
it by a special interdictory Novella, down to Clement
VIII. , and later — a space of over a thousand years —
both the secular and the spiritual powers, kings and
emperors, popes and anti-popes, vied with each other
in hurling anathemas and bulls and edicts of whole
sale confiscation and conflagration against this luckless
book."
So writes Immanuel Deutsch, and truly, in his
graphic and romantic panegyric, which for the first
time gave the English-reading public a reasonable
account of the Talmud and its history.1
Although it has been lately disputed 2 whether it is
the Talmud expressly to which Justinian referred in his
edict " Concerning the Jews," of February 13, 553, it
seems highly probable that Deutsch is correct. By
this outrageous Novella the wretched Hebrews were
1 Deutsch (I.)., art. "What is the Talmud?"— in "The
Quarterly Review" (London), Oct. 1867, pp. 417-464.
2 Popper (W.), "The Censorship of Hebrew Books" (New
York ; 1899), p. 3. This is the best monograph which has so
far appeared on the subject of Talmud persecutions and censorship.
An excellent bibliography of the literature is given on pp. iv.
and v.
THE TALMUD IN HISTORY. 87
permitted to use only a Greek or Latin translation of
the Torah in their synagogues. They were strictly for
bidden to read the Law in Hebrew, and, above all things,
they were prohibited from using what is called the
" second edition " (secunda editio), which was evidently
also written in Hebrew or Aramic. This "second
edition " can hardly mean anything else than the Mishna
and its completions, for the Greek equivalent of mishna
was Sevrepcixris, generally taken by those imperfectly
acquainted with Hebrew to signify some " second rank "
or form of the Law, instead of "learning" in the
secondary sense of " repetition."
Such impolitic tyranny in those darkest days of
narrowest ecclesiasticism, which had succeeded in
closing every school of philosophy and learning in the
Christian world, could not but make the Talmud all
the more dear to the Jews. The more they were
persecuted for their faith's sake, the more desperately
they clung to the immediate cause of their martyrdom
— that tradition in which no Christian had part or lot.
The Talmud thus gradually became more precious to
the Jew than even the Torah itself, which, by
translation, had become the common property of the
Gentiles, few of whom at this time in the West could
read a word of the ancient Hebrew original.
Thus ignorance bred fear and fostered hate, and The Crusades,
already, by the eleventh century, we find the passions
of a fierce fanaticism let loose against the luckless
Hebrews, when the Crusaders, in their wild rush
towards Constantinople, left behind them a path of
desolation for the Dispersion of Israel in every land
they traversed, marked out by blood and fire, by the
88 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
bodies of murdered little ones and smouldering piles
of Hebrew rolls. It is said that, after this avalanche
of ruthless destruction, in many towns scarce a single
prayer-book remained for the use of a whole synagogue.
There is another side to the romance of the Crusades, of
which our school-books breathe no word ; not in
frequently they degenerated into pure Jew-hunts,
where hecatombs of Hebrews paid ever anew the
ancient debt of one slain Christ, whose ever-living
heart, we may well believe, felt keener torture at the
savagery of His self-styled followers than did even the
bodies of the victims of their hate.
The Inquisi- But it was not till the thirteenth century, which
witnessed the founding of the Mendicant Orders, and
the establishment of that instrument of terror known
as the Holy Inquisition, that we meet with what may
be called the organised official destruction of Hebrew
books, and the saddest part of the sad story is that in
almost every instance it was a Jew who brought matters
to a crisis, and procured the deliverance of the books of
his race to the flames.
The first official burning of Hebrew books took
place in 1233, at Montpellier, where a Jew, a
fanatical Antimaimonist, persuaded the Dominicans
and Franciscans of the Inquisition, who knew nothing
of this purely internal struggle between conservatism
and liberalism in Jewry, to commit to the flames all
the works of the great Maimonides.
In the same year, at Paris, no less than 12,000
volumes of the Talmud were burned. Converts gave
information to those who could not read a single line
of the great literature which they so madly longed to
THE TALMUD IN HISTORY. 89
extirpate, and eagerly pointed out the hiding places
where the precious rolls of their former co-religionists
were stored away.
In 1236, Donin, of Eochelle, in France, a convert The Paris
baptised under the name of Nicolas, laid thirty-five
formal charges against the Talmud before Pope Gregory
IX.1 ; the chief of which was that in many passages it
used blasphemous language in speaking of Jesus and
Mary. A few years later (May or June, 1239), Gregory
issued a stringent decree to all rulers, temporal and
spiritual, in France, England, Castile, Aragon and
Portugal, commanding them to seize every copy of the
Talmud upon which they could lay hands. Whereupon
in France a formal trial was held before a commission
consisting of two Bishops and a Dominican, not one of
whom knew a single word of Hebrew, and the Talmud
was incontinently condemned to the flames. The Jews,
however, appealed against this cruel decree with such
energy that the carrying out of the sentence was post
poned, and a new trial ordered, at which Mcolas himself
was the accuser, while four French Eabbis undertook
the defence, led by E. Jehiel of Paris.
"After seeking to invalidate most of the charges,
the Eabbis turned to the most important point, and
acknowledged that the Talmud contained slighting
references to a certain Jesus. But, by taking into
account the dates mentioned in the Talmud, and other
1 He is said to have done so in revenge for having been ex
communicated by the French Rabbis because of the doubts he had
expressed concerning the validity of the Talmudic tradition. See
art. " Apostasy and Apostates from Judaism " in the " Jewish
Encyclopaedia," on which I have drawn for some of the following
details.
90
DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
Persecution
in Spain.
In England.
evidence furnished by the early Church Fathers them
selves they attempted to show that another Jesus, who,
had lived at some time earlier than Jesus of Nazareth
was the subject of these notices." l
It is hardly necessary to add, however, that the un
fortunate Rabbis failed to convince the commission.
The Talmud was again formally condemned. No less
than twenty waggon-loads of MSS. were collected in
Paris, and on June 17, 1244, a huge auto-da-fi, of some
17,000 or 18,000 volumes lit up a conflagration, the
insatiable flames of which spread rapidly to every
Jewish home throughout the Holy Roman Empire and
devoured that treasure of tradition which the Rabbis
held dearer than their lives.
With the condemnation of the Talmud all the rest of
Hebrew literature was practically involved. Thus in
1263 we find another convert, baptised under the name
of Paul Christian (Pablo Christiani or Fra Paolo, of
Montpellier), inducing the Pope, Clement IV., to issue
an order that all Hebrew MSS. of every kind in Aragon
should be collected for examination, and if they
were found to contain any passages obnoxious to Chris
tians, they should be destroyed or strictly expurgated ;
while in 1266, also at Barcelona, we meet with a com
mission assembled for the same purpose.
In England, however, the Talmud was apparently not
burnt, for a simpler means of suppressing it was found
in the wholesale expulsion of the Jews, a method
1 Popper, op. cit., p. 10. Bui this apology can be as little
sustained as can the evasion of Wiilfer, Lippmann and Isaac
Abarbanel, that the Jesus of the Talmud and the Jesus of the
Toldoth were different persons. See Krauss, "Das Leben Jesu'
(Berlin ; 1902), pp. 8, 9, 273, n. 4.
THE TALMUD IN HISTORY. 91
resorted to in other countries as well. Nevertheless,
we find Honorius IV., in 1286, writing to the Arch
bishop of Canterbury, warning him against that " dam
nable book," and strictly admonishing him that he
should allow no one to read it (meaning doubtless that
no Jew should be permitted to read it, for the Christians,
in consequence of their ignorance of Hebrew, could not)
— for in the Pope's opinion " all evils flow from it," a
phrase which suggests that the influence of the Talmud
teachings and traditions was not confined to Jewry.
In the midst of all this hurly-burly of anathema one One Sensible
Pope alone, Clement V., showed some signs of common- °pe*
sense. Before condemning the Talmud on sight,
Clement desired to know something about it, and in
1307 proposed that chairs should be founded for the
study of Hebrew, Chaldee and Arabic in the Universities
of Paris, Salamanca, Bologna and Oxford. But this
liberal proposal came to nothing, and though we are
told that somewhat of a lull succeeded to the most acute
stage of Talmud persecution from 1232 to 1322, it was
owing probably to the great secrecy to which the Jews
were compelled to resort in multiplying and trans
mitting the remnants of their literature from generation
to generation, rather than to any greater toleration on
the part of the authorities.
In Spain, indeed, things were still at fever heat, where Spanish
Solomon Levi of Burgos, who was formerly a Eabbi r°s
and pillar of Jewish orthodoxy familiar with the great
Talmudists of the age, but who became a Christian
under the name of Paul de Santa Maria, and quickly
rose to the position of Archbishop of Carthagena,
devoted mV great talent and learning to overthrow
92 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Judaism. His disciple, Joshua ben Joseph ibn Vives
of Lorca, who also became a Christian under the
name of Geronimo de Santa Fe, accused the Talmud of
teaching blasphemy and of every hostility against the1
Christians, after he had unsuccessfully conducted a
debate concerning the Messianity of Jesus for no less
than twenty-two months with some of the learned
Rabbis of Aragon (1413-1414). He is known to the
Jews as "The Blasphemer."
Even the Even the prayer-books of the Hebrews could not
the Jews °fall escape. Already in 1336 Abner of Burgos (Alfonso
e Burgensis), a Talmudic scholar, philosopher and
physician, who is said to have turned Christian,
" to become a sacristan of a wealthy church of
Valladolid," wrote bitter attacks against his former
co-religionists, declaring that one of their daily prayers,
" Birkat ha-Minim," was directed against the Christians ;
whereupon Alfonso XL issued an edict forbidding them
to recite this prayer.
We find subsequently that even the simplest Hebrew
prayers could not escape the subtle refinements of accu
sation brought against them by inquisitorial informers.
Thus we learn that in Germany a certain Pessach,
who on conversion took the name of Peter in 1399,
declared that the Jewish prayer-books 1 secretly con
tained attacks on Christianity. The following is a
curious instance of this rage of accusation.
In one of the most famous and apparently the most
innocent prayers of the nation (" 'Alenu "), which extols
the omnipotence of God on earth, there is a passage which
1 Dalman gives the original text of sixteen subsequently expur
gated prayers from the Liturgy of the Synagogue.
THE TALMUD IN HISTORY. 93
runs : " He hath not made our portion like theirs nor
our lot like that of all their multitudes. For they
worship and bow down before idols and vanities"
The words " and vanities " stand in unpointed Hebrew
W E K ; by one of the well-known methods of kabal-
istic computation the sum of these number-letters =
316, precisely the same as the sum of the letters
J Sh U or Jeschu, the Talmudic form of Jesus !
Pessach would thus have it that even the most
innocent-looking prayers of Jewry contained attacks
on Christianity, and it is in truth marvellous that in
the face of such bitter and relentless persecution a
scrap of Jewish writing remained. Indeed, had it
not been for the inexhaustible sources of replenish
ment in the East, and the wonderful memory of the
Eabbis, the triumph of the Destroyer would have been
complete and the Talmud wiped from off the face of
the earth by the Inquisition.
With the age of the Kenaissance, however, and the « A History
enormous impetus given to liberal studies by the in- ofAP°states-
vention of printing,1 some respite was given to the
long-suffering Talmud, but by no means as yet was
liberty assured ; for though the unfortunate Jews had
no longer to fear the wholesale destruction of their
books in all countries, they were still subjected to
the galling tyranny of the official censor.
Indeed, even in this age of comparative enlightenment
the bitterest foes of the Talmud still lived in hopes of
reviving the old campaign of extermination with all its
terrors, and it is sad to record that the history of nearly
1 The first Hebrew book printed was probably a commentary of
Kashi on the Torah (February 17th, 1475).
94 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
all the troubles of the second stage of persecution is
still almost entirely " a history of apostates." l
Not to speak of the bitter enmity of Victor von
Karhen,2 a German Jew who became a Dominican in
the early part of the sixteenth century, the most
notorious name is that of Joseph (baptised as Johann)
Pfefferkorn of Moravia, a name despised above all
others by the Jews even in the present day.3 Pfeffer
korn also joined the Dominicans, and in 1507 published
his first attack in a fierce tract, "Der Judenspiegel,"
an onslaught which was intended to culminate in
one fatal blow to Judaism, namely the confiscation
of all Talmudic writings. And indeed Pfefferkorn at
first succeeded beyond all expectation, for the im
mediate result of his agitation was to induce the
Emperor Maximilian to revive the time-honoured
decree of confiscation, which was eagerly carried out
under Pfefferkorn's supervision, who knew only too
well where he could lay hands on the precious books
of his former co-religionists. But this time, as Deutsch
says, " a conflagration of a very different kind ensued."
Reuchlin. Eeuchlin, the distinguished Humanist, the most
famous Hebraist and Hellenist of the time, was
appointed to sit on the commission. His enlightened
mind refused to condemn the Talmud without a most
searching enquiry. He accordingly set himself to
work in his painstaking fashion to make himself
1 Popper, op. cit., p. 22.
2 So Deutsch ; but Karben in " Jewish Encyclopaedia."
3 The " Jewish Encyclopaedia " (art. sup. cit.) says that he was " a
butcher by trade, a man of little learning and of immoral conduct,
convicted of burglary and condemned to imprisonment, but released
upon payment of a fine."
THE TALMUD IN HISTORY. 95
master of its voluminous contents. The Talmud had
at last found an impartial mind among its judges;
nay, it had found a courageous defender, for in October
1510, Eeuchlin issued his famous answer to Pfeffer-
korn's onslaught, and boldly declared himself in favour
of the book.
Hereupon ensued a fierce battle, in which the massed
hosts of official theology and obscurantism were mar
shalled against the courageous champion of enlightened
toleration and elementary justice. Europe was flooded
with pamphlets, and faculty vied with faculty in angry
condemnation of Eeuchlin. Without exception, every
university was against him. Indeed the faculty of
Mainz, among other egregious notions, put forward the
ludicrous proposition, that as the Hebrew Bible did not
agree with the Vulgate (Jerome's Latin translation), the
Hebrew must manifestly have been falsified in many
places by the malevolence of the Jews, and, in particular,
the wording of the " original references " to Jesus in the
Old Testament had been deliberately altered.
Had Eeuchlin stood absolutely alone he would have
been overwhelmed by the first onrush of his countless
foes ; but to their lasting credit there rallied to his
banner a chosen band of enlightened and courageous
friends, the Humanists, who, though they were dubbed
" Talmutphili," declared themselves to be the " Knights
of the Holy Ghost," and the " Hosts of Pallas Athene,"
fighting for the credit of Christianity and not for the .
Talmud as Talmud.
At first the Pope, Leo X., favoured Eeuchlin, but the The Germ of
outcry was so fierce that he finally weakened, and in
1516 sought a way out of the hurly-burly by promulgate
96 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
ing a Bull that in future no book should issue from the
press without previous submission to the official censor.
The germ of the " Index Expurgatorius " — " Index
Librorum Prohibitorum " — had been conceived.1
But before this instrument of emasculation and pro
hibition could be brought into play, the first complete
edition of the Talmud had escaped the censor, and had
already been printed at Venice in 1520, at the very
time when the knell of much in the old order of things
was being sounded in Germany, and Luther was burning
the Pope's bull at Wittenberg.
This much, at least, was won by the courage of
Eeuchlin and those who rallied round him — the Talmud
had escaped the fire. Not only so, but many began to
study the treasures of Jewish literature for themselves,
and in Italy there ensued the greatest industry in print
ing Hebrew books ; indeed, some writers have called this
the " Golden Age " of the Talmud. It was a time when
the greatest minds among the Humanists were drink
ing deeply of " Jewish philosophy," the age of revived
Kabalism and mystic culture.
The Talmud But it was not to be expected that the fierce spirit
Relighted. °f persecution would quietly yield to the gentler in
fluences at work, and be content with censorship alone ;
nay, these humanising tendencies exasperated it to such
a pitch, that in 1550 Cardinal Caraffa, the Inquisitor-
General, and — in this connection, one need hardly add
— a Dominican, almost succeeded in lighting up the
Talmud fires again throughout the land. He procured
a Bull from the Pope repealing all previous permission
1 From that day onwards the Talmud has always been on the
Index, and is still on the Index of Leo XIII.
THE TALMUD IN HISTORY. 97
to study the Talmud, and bursting forth with fury at
the head of his minions, seized every copy he could find
in Eome and committed it to the flames.
In Italy also Sixtus of Sienna, a converted Jew,
supported by Pope Paul IV., incited the mob to burn
every copy of the Talmud upon which they could lay
hands. In Cremona, Vittorio Eliano, also a convert,
testified against the Talmud, and 10,000 to 12,000
Hebrew books were burned in 1559. His brother
Solomon Eomano also procured the burning of many
thousands of Hebrew rolls. In the same year every
Hebrew book in the city of Prague was confiscated.
But, fortunately, this was the expiring flicker of the The Censor,
life of the Destroyer in that form, and in the future we
hear of no more burnings. The Talmud was hereafter
committed to the tender mercies of an ignorant censor
ship, and therewith of a deliberate self-censorship,
whereby every sentence which might by any means be
thought to refer to Christianity was omitted by the
Jews themselves, so that their books might escape the
sad disfigurement of slap-dash obliteration. There was
much expurgation by ignorant heads and careless hands,
till gradually lists of passages were drawn up, mostly by
converts, to guide the unlearned officials, and finally, in
1578, the "licensed" Basle edition of the Talmud was
issued — in conformity with the censorship and the
decisions of the egregious Council of Trent — on which
nearly every subsequent edition of the book has been
based. Not only so, but we find the Kabbis themselves
forming their own censorship committees 1 to prevent
1 In 1631 the Jews held a synod at Petrikau, in Poland,
and decided to leave out all such passages for fear of the
7
98 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
any book being printed by their co-religionists which
might bring down the wrath of the authorities upon
their long-suffering communities. The seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries thus witnessed the circulation of
an emasculated and defaced Hebrew literature, from
which not only was the root of offence to Christian sus
ceptibilities cut out, but much that was entirely innocent
of any offence whatever.1 The nature of this ridiculous
and hysterical susceptibility to find offence in the
simplest words and phrases may be seen from Deutsch's
humorous word-picture.
His " In the Basle edition of 1578 — . . . which has
remained the standard edition almost ever since — that
amazing creature, the Censor, stepped in. In his
anxiety to protect the ' Faith ' from all and every danger
— for the Talmud was supposed to hide bitter things
against Christianity under the most innocent words and
phrases — this official did very wonderful things. When
he, for example, found some ancient Koman in the book
swearing by the Capitol or by Jupiter ' of Rome/ his
mind instantly misgave him. Surely this Eoman must
be a Christian, the Capitol the Vatican, Jupiter the
Pope. And forthwith he struck out Eome and sub
stituted any other place he could think of. A favourite
spot seems to have been Persia, sometimes it was Aram
and Babel. So that this worthy Roman may be found
unto this day swearing by the Capitol of Persia or by
the Jupiter of Aram and Babel. But wherever the
word * Gentile ' occurred, the Censor was seized with the
Christians. Nevertheless, we find that the Amsterdam edition of
the Talmud (1644-1648) was not bowdlerised.
1 See Popper, op. cit., chh. viii.-xii.
THE TALMUD IN HISTORY. 99
most frantic terrors. A ' Gentile ' could not possibly
be aught but Christian ; whether he lived in India or in
Athens, in Eome or in Canaan ; whether he was a good
Gentile — and there are many such in the Talmud —
or a wicked one. Instantly he christened him, and
christened him as fancy moved him, an ' Egyptian/ an
' Aramaean,' an ' Amalekite/ an ' Arab,' a ' Negro ' ;
sometimes a whole ' people.' We are speaking strictly
to the letter. All this is extant in our best editions."
"Deutsch himself was a Jew converted to Chris- Immanuel
tiariity when he wrote his famous article in 1867, yet
how marvellously does he differ from his predecessors
of the Middle Ages, who led the onslaught on the
Talmud, and expressly singled out the subsequently
expurgated passages for the main strength of their
attack ! Deutsch passes them by with scarcely a
notice, and seems never to have realised that they were
the main cause of all the trouble, and we have the new
and pleasant spectacle of a converted Jew penning the
most brilliant defence of the Talmud which has ever
been written outside the circles of orthodox Jewry."
So I wrote when this chapter appeared as an article
in "The Theosophical Eeview" (Oct. 1902); I had then
no doubt on the subject, because of the frequent use of
the words " our Lord " throughout this famous defence.
What, then, was my surprise to find that an old friend
of Deutsch's denied absolutely that he was a convert,
and asserted that the editor of the " Quarterly," much to
Deutsch's annoyance, had deliberately changed " Jesus "
into " our Lord " throughout the article. The " Jewish
Chronicle" (Nov. 21, 1902) also pointed out that I
was mistaken in describing Deutsch as a convert to
100 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Christianity. Whereupon I wrote to the Chief Rabbi,
Dr. Hermann Adler, who courteously replied as follows :
" I was very intimate with the late Immanuel Deutsch,
and can state unhesitatingly that he was deeply
annoyed that in the first edition of the * Quarterly
Eeview ' Jesus was spoken of as ' our Lord.' This was
changed in the subsequent seven or eight editions of that
number of the * Quarterly.' It so appears, however, in
the republication of the article in the ' Literary Remains
of the late Immanuel Deutsch' (Murray ; 1874)."
The self -constituted censor, therefore, had not ceased
his activity even in 1867 ; it is a matter of profound
interest to notice how morality in theology hangs
behind morality in ordinary affairs, even in our own
day.
Crypto- But to the student of history and the watcher of the
giap y' fates of nations, the proceedings of the ignorant Talmud
censor are of profound interest. It would almost seem
as though, by a curious turning of the karmic wheel,
the very methods used deliberately by the Jews them
selves in the far-off days of Talmud genesis had come
back to vex the Jewish soul against its will. How
often in those days of bitter religio-political strife had
they not substituted Babylon or Edom for Rome, and
hidden their real thought and feeling under glyph and
imagery ! And now what they had done willingly, and
so vexed the soul of history, was being done to them
unwillingly by the hands of the dull censor. Who
knows what a thorough study of the Talmud from this
point of view may not yet reveal of hidden history ?
For, as Deutsch says, and in its wider sense it remains
true until the present day :
THE TALMUD IN HISTORY. 101
" We have sought far and near for some special book
on the subject, which we might make the theme of our
observations — a book that should not merely be a
garbled translation of a certain twelfth century ' Intro
duction/ interspersed with vituperations and supple
mented with blunders, but which from the platform of
modern culture should pronounce impartially upon a
production which, if for no other reason, claims respect
through age — a book that would lead us through the
stupendous labyrinths of fact, and thought, and fancy,
of which the Talmud consists, that would rejoice even,
in hieroglyphical fairy-lore, in abstruse propositions and
syllogisms, that could forgive wild bursts of passion,
and not judge harshly and hastily of things, the real
meaning of which may have had to be hidden under the
fool's cap and bells."
We have italicised the words which point to a most
important element in the Talmud, especially in con
nection with our present enquiry, an element of con
cealment, the secrets of which even a text in which all
the expurgated passages have been replaced, and the
whole critically restored to its original purity, would in
nowise reveal to the pure objectivist. This element
will doubtless for many a day to come make the
Talmud in many passages as puzzling a study as those
strange books of alchemy to which Eeuchlin so aptly
compared it. But in spite of its great difficulty, it
cannot but be that with a deeper study of this element,
and perhaps some day with the help of those methods
of a scientific subjectivism to which we referred in our
Introduction, some clear light may at no distant date
be thrown, even on some of those passages which the
102 BID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
hate and fear of centuries have singled out as referring
to Jesus in the Talmud.
Anti- Whether or not the present praiseworthy attempt, as
set forth in the pages of the " Jewish Encyclopaedia," at
last to supply the thinking public with a reliable account
of the Talmud in its multifarious aspects, will cover the
whole ground and boldly face the most difficult of all its
problems without fear or prejudice, remains to be seen.
Unknown as this ancient controversy is to the
English-speaking world, it is not unknown on the
Continent even in our own day. Indeed, in Eussia and
Austria it still enters into the deplorable Anti-semitic
question. Thus we find a Professor of Theology and
Lecturer in Hebrew of the Imperial Eoman Catholic
Academy x at St. Petersburg, in a recent work,2 raising
the whole question again, not in the interests of science
and history, but in the interests of theology and Anti-
semitic propaganda. In it he brings forward a number
of the Jesus passages in the Talmud, and in his con
cluding words introduces us to a thoroughly mediaeval
state of affairs. He tells us that all who had heard of the
publication of his book told him with one voice that
he would be put away by the Jews. Some tried to dis
suade him by reminding him of the fate of Professor
Chiarini, who died suddenly when he determined on
undertaking a translation of the Talmud ; others spoke
of the monk Didacus of Vilna, a Jewish convert, who
was killed, and of others who were persecuted in
1 This seems a contradiction in terms, but so it stands on
Deckert's title-page (op. sub. tit.).
! Pranaitis (I. B.), " Christianas in Talmude Judseorum, sive
Kabbinicae Doctrine de Christianis Secreta" (St. Petersburg ; 1892).
No copy of this is in the British Museum.
THE TALMUD IN HISTORY. 103
various ways because they disclosed the secrets of the
Jewish religion ; not only himself but his relatives would
be exposed to danger. But, continues this theological
Bombastes, after evoking the phantasms of his own im"
agination, no consideration for his own personal safety
will deter him from his task, and from rushing into the
fray between Semites and Anti-semites, who both think
they are fighting for the truth ; whereas he at last really
knows what is the truth of the whole matter. He is
willing to bear all, even to offer his life for the cause.
This is, of course, pure childishness, but it shows the Odium
ingrained medievalism of the theological nature. If
Pranaitis' thesis had remained in its original Latin,
it might have soon sunk into oblivion, but it was
immediately translated into German by Dr. Joseph
Deckert of Vienna,1 who more than doubled its length
by adding notes and comments, crammed with cita
tions from the most recent Anti-semitic literature
and the reports of ritual murder trials.2 Deckert
especially singled out for animadversion a book by
a Jewish controversialist Dr. Lippe,3 and we move in
a hurly-burly so utterly foreign to the temper of the
twentieth century in its dealings with every other subject,
that we are almost inclined to think that Odium Theo-
logicum is the last enemy which humanity will ever slay.
1 " Das Christenthum im Talmud der Juden oder die Geheimnisse
der rabbinisclien Lehre iiber die Christen " (Vienna ; 1894).
2 See art., "Blood Accusation," in "Jewish Encyclopaedia."
3 Lippe (K.), " Das Evangelium Matthaei vor dem Forum der
Bibel und des Talmud " (Jassy ; 1889). This also is not in -the
British Museum ; it is a curious work, with, among other things, no
less than six pages of misprints in it, and many more not noticed
by the author.
VI.— IN THE TALMUD'S OUTER COURT.
The Need of PERHAPS some of iny readers will think that I have
Preliminaries.
already devoted too much space to the Talmud and its
history, and that it is high time for me to tell them
plainly what this chaos of Jewish tradition has to say
about Jesus, and so have done with the matter. But
when I remember my own erroneous impressions many
years ago on first coming across statements (shorn of
their context and environment) which confidently
affirmed that the Talmud declared categorically that
Jesus had lived a century earlier than the date assigned
to him by the evangelists, and that instead of his being
crucified in Jerusalem he was stoned at Lud, I feel that
it is absolutely necessary first of all to give the un
learned reader some rough notion of the genesis and
history of our sources of information, and that instead
of having to plead excuse for the space I have devoted
to preliminaries, I have rather to apologise for the
brevity and roughness of the foregoing two chapters
and to append some additional introductory indications
before the general reader can be furnished with the
most elementary equipment for approaching the con
sideration of the passages themselves with any profit.
Indeed the whole subject bristles with such dis
heartening difficulties on all sides that I have been
IN THE TALMUD'S OUTER COURT. 105
frequently tempted to abandon the task, and have only
been sustained by the thought that my sole reason for
taking pen in hand was simply to point out some of
the more salient difficulties, and to exclude from the
outset any expectations of a more ambitious perform
ance. And not only are the difficulties connected with
questions of history and of fact disheartening, but the
whole subject is, as we have seen, involved in an atmos
phere of such a painful nature that one would gladly
escape from it and leave the dead to bury their dead.
But the past is ever present with the eternal soul, the
dead come ever back to life, and there is no rest till we
can forgive one another, not when we have temporarily
forgotten but while we still remember.
We write not to fan into fresh flame the smouldering The Manhood
fires of ancient hate, but with far fairer hopes. The
times have changed, and older souls have come to birth
than those who raged so wildly in the Early and the
Middle Ages, and there are wiser minds to-day than
those unyielding formalists on either side who shut the
freer life of greater things out of the synagogues of
Jewry and from out the Catholic churches of the
Christian Name. For man is man though he be Jew
or Christian, mind is mind though it give praise to
Yahweh or worship to the Christ, and none but bigots
can deny there is growth for every soul in its own way
by virtue of its special guide and code of ancient lore.
But sure as destiny a day will dawn when every soul
will reach to manhood and begin to learn the way of
greater things, and once a soul sets foot upon this way
passions fall off from it, and it can gaze into the face of
history unmoved.
106 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
And many are already fast nearing the birthday of
their manhood, for there is little doubt but that the
love of impartial investigation, which is ever more
strongly characterising every department of learning in
our own day, is paving the way towards a new era of
thought and comprehension, in which the values
assigned by the past to many things will be entirely
.changed; particulars will no more be throned above
universals, nor will the temporal thoughts of men rank
higher than the ever-present Thought of God. But
from this fair hope of order to return to the puzzling
records of a disordered past.
Of the The Talmud, then, is a vast store-house of Jewish
General. ' Midrashim collected at various dates between 100-500
A.D. It consists of a generally older deposit called the
Mishna and of additional strata known as the Gemara
or completion — to use technical terms for the sake of
brevity. And indeed it is almost impossible to trans
late them correctly,1 for such words as Talmud, Mishna
and Midrash in the first instance signify simply " study "
in a general sense, then some special study or some
special method of study, and then again the works
which have grown out of such general study or special
methods. Midrashim are thus in general explanations
or amplifications of Biblical topics, and the Talmud is a
heterogeneous collection of Midrashim of every kind.
Its Forms The result of this Study of the Law has been handed
Languages, down in two forms and three languages. Both forms
contain the same Mishna in Hebrew (the Biblical
language of the Eabbis), while the two Gemarfis are
composed in the unstable Aramaic vernacular of the
1 See Strack's " Einleitung," § 2, " Worterklarungen."
IN THE TALMUD'S OUTER COURT. 107
times, and in two widely differing dialects, the Western
or Palestinian and the Eastern or Babylonian, the
former of which especially was an odd mixture of Greek,
Aramaic, Latin, Syriac, and Hebrew ; it was, so to speak,
the " commercial language " of the then East, even as
Greek was of the then West. These two forms of the
Talmud have for long been commonly known as the
Jerusalem and Babylonian (Talmud Yeruschalmi and
Talmud Babli); but the former designation is very
erroneous, for Jerusalem was never a centre of Talmudic
activity, and the epithet Palestinian is to be preferred
as more correct even than the oldest known titles of
this collection, namely Talmud of the Land of Israel or
Talmud of the West.
The Babylonian collection is at least four times the The Talmuds
size of the Palestinian, and though the latter may have and
originally contained more matter than it does in its a y oma'
present form, the difference is mainly owing to the fact
that the Eabbis of the West were content to give the
opinions of their predecessors without the detailed
discussions on which they were supposed to have based
their decisions ; whereas the Babylonian Talmud fre
quently has entire folios filled with what the modern
mind (unless by chance some new and unexpected light
is thrown on the matter) can only consider childish
questions and answers, which show nothing else than
how the texts of the Torah could be twisted out of all
recognition to support later special points of view
which the original writers of the verses had clearly
never dreamed of.1
1 See Schwab (M.), " Traite des Berakhoth du Talmud de
Jerusalem " (Paris ; 1871), Introd., p. Ixxvi. This is the opinion of
108 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
It is also to be remembered that for the later Jews the
Babylonian collection gradually became The Talmud,
while the Palestinian fell into disuse. In our own
days the latter is never taught, but always the former.
The Jews of Babylonia, moreover, had more peace and
leisure for this strengthening of the defences of the
Torah than their Palestinian contemporaries, who were
harried by the ever-growing power of Christianized
Eome. Even in Babylon this immunity from persecu
tion only continued to the close of the Talmud in 500 ;
indeed, its "close" was forced upon it from without
by a fierce outbreak of intolerance. Thereafter until
our own day the Hebrew found no peace except
when under the protection of Islam ; then it was
that the learned doctors of Israel played so dis
tinguished a part in the intellectual development of
Europe, and displayed the remarkable versatility of
genius which their enforced cosmopolitanism developed
to a degree that is difficult to parallel in any other
nation. But to return to the Talmud, which has
kept Jewry as a people apart, in spite of its being
scattered throughout the nations, and which has in
directly brought the Orient to the Occident, and settled
it in our midst.
statistics. Some idea of the voluminous nature of the Talmud
may be formed when it is stated that the text of the
Babylonian collection alone, in the editio princeps of
1520, the model which has been mostly followed as far
as form is concerned, occupies no less than twelve huge
a distinguished French Rabbi, who has given the world the only
complete translation of the Palestinian Talmud which exists, and
not of a Philistine.
IN THE TALMUD'S OUTER COURT. 109
folio volumes, consisting of 2947 folio leaves and 5894
pages.1
In both Talmuds the Mishna2 is broken up into six
Orders or Sections (Sedarim), known as " The Six " par
excellence, just as the Torah proper was called "The
Five" or "The Five Fifths." These orders are again
sub-divided into sixty-three tractates or treatises, and
these again into 523 chapters or paragraphs.
The Mishna text stands surrounded by the Gemara
text in unpointed Hebrew characters, a mystery often
to those initiated into a knowledge of Hebrew. For
indeed it is not only the voluminous nature of the
material,3 and the wilderness of an unpointed text,
which are the only difficulties to be surmounted by the
first-hand student of the Talmud, but in addition he has
to be an adept in solving the countless puzzles of
Eabbinic abbreviations, mnemonic technicalities, and
ungrammatical forms, and to be further not only master
of three different languages, but equipped with a philo
logical intuition that few even of the most learned in
this age of learning can be expected to possess.
It is not then surprising to find that as yet we have No Complete
no complete translation of the Talmud. We have no
1 Hershon (P. I.), "A Talmudic Miscellany" (London ; 1880),
Introd. (by W. R. Brown), p. xvi.
2 It is a mistake to call the Mishna " text " and the Gemara
"commentary," as is so often done, for though in printed form
the Mishna stands out in bolder type, surrounded by the Gemfira,
the latter is not a commentary but a completion or appendix of
additional matter.
3 Even of the canonical Talmud alone, for there is a large num
ber of extra-canonical tractates as well to be taken into account.
See Strack's " Einleitung," ch. iv., " Die ausserkanonischen Trac
tate," pp. 44-46.
110 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
Talmudic Vulgate, no Authorised Version, much less a
Eevised Version. Even in that magnificent pioneer
series of world-bibles, " The Sacred Books of the East,"
though we have versions of most complex Brfihmanical
law-books, we fail to find a single tractate of the
Talmud translated. And this is to be regretted, not
only because the Talmud as a whole is as yet a closed
book to the non-specialist, but because a translation
into the vernacular would for ever revolutionise the
ideas of the ignorant among the Jews, who imagine that
the Talmud is a storehouse of wisdom from its first to
its last syllable.
The non-specialist, therefore, has to be content with
translations of portions only of this library of Jewish
tradition, for the most part with versions of single
tractates, and even so he has to depend almost solely
on work done by Jews or converted Jews, for in the
whole list of Talmud tractate translations we are told,
the names of only five Christians born are to be found.1
The General What we want is a scientific translation of the
the Subject Talmud, for, to summarise Bischoff, how few theological
students know anything of this great literature, how
few Christian scholars have really worked through a
single complete tractate ! How few Jews even, at any
rate of German birth,2 have any longer any profound
knowledge of the Talmud !
The only real Talmudists3 nowadays are to be
1 See Bischoff (E.), " Kritische Geschichte der Thalmud Uber-
setzungen aller Zeiten und Zungen " (Frankfort a. M. ; 1899), p. 85.
2 And in England real Talmudic scholars will not exhaust the
fingers for their counting.
3 Of the old school, of course, not scientific students of ancient
scripture and literature.
IN THE TALMUD'S OUTER COURT. Ill
found in Kussia, Galicia, Hungary, and Bohemia, and
even so the work of the younger generation presents us
with a picture of complete degeneracy and decline. It
is true that in recent years there has been some small
activity in Talmud study, partly in the interest of Jewish
missions on the side of Christian theologians, partly
in the interest either of Anti-semitism on the one hand
or of Jewish apologetics on the other, but in no case in
the interest of pure scientific enquiry for the furtherance
of our knowledge of the history of culture, religion and
language. Moreover, owing to the difficulty of original
study the non-specialist1 has to depend entirely on
translations, and as we have no immediate expectation
of a complete translation of the Babylonian Talmud, and
the French translation of the Palestinian Talmud leaves
much to be desired, he has to be content with piecing
together a patch-work of translation of single tractates,
some of which even the best furnished libraries fail to
supply.2
And if such difficulties confront the non-specialist Translations
who is keenly desirous of learning all he can about the
Talmud, and is willing to take an infinity of pains in
the matter, the general reader has to be content with
such a very distant glimpse of the country as to remain
ignorant of all but its most salient features. Moreover,
even with regard to the material available the student
finds himself severely handicapped, for he can form no
just opinion as to its value, and must rely entirely on
the opinion of experts to guide him in his choice of the
best sources of information. Thus before I came across
1 Who, as a rule, has the more open mind.
2 a/. Bischoff, op. cit., pp. 9, 10.
112 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
BischofF s very useful history of existing Talmud trans
lations, I had already acquainted myself with the only
complete version of the Palestinian Talmud and the
work in progress on the Babylonian Talmud, but could
of course form no opinion as to the accuracy and reli
ability of these translations.
Of the Palestinian Talmud, then, we possess a com
plete French version by Moi'se Schwab ; l it is rendered
into readable French and is generally clear, but Bischoff
tells us2 that it is a free translation, and in many
passages open to objection.
With regard to the translations of the Babylonian
Talmud which are in progress, lovers of accuracy are in
a still worse plight. Eodkinson's English version 3 puts
the mediaeval censorship to the blush, proceeding as it
does on lines of the most arbitrary bowdlerisation in
the interest of apologetic " purification." In his Intro
duction, most of which is taken directly from Deutsch's
famous article, Eodkinson sets forth his scheme as
follows :
" Throughout the ages there have been added to the
text marginal notes, explanatory words, whole phrases
and sentences invented in malice or ignorance by its
enemies or by its friends. . . . We have, therefore,
carefully punctuated the Hebrew text with modern
punctuation marks, and have re-edited it by omitting
all such irrelevant matter as interrupted the clear
and orderly arrangement of the various arguments.
1 " Le Talmud de Jerusalem " (Paris ; 1871-1889).
2 Op. cit., p. 57.
3 " New Edition of the Babylonian Talmud : English Translation
and Original Text, edited, formulated and punctuated," by Michael
L. Eodkinson (Cincinnati ; 1896, in progress).
IN THE TALMUD'S OUTER COURT. 113
. . . We continue our labours in the full and certain
hope that 'he who comes to purify receives divine help "M1
In Goldschmidt's German translation2 I thought I
had at last come across a serious and reliable guide, but
Bischoff for ever removes this confidence by telling us
that seldom has scientific criticism been so unanimous
in its condemnation of not only the untrustworthy
nature of Goldschmidt's text, but also of the super
abundant errors and the obscure and false German of
his translation.3
Even more reprehensible than Kodkinson's pious
attempt at edification is the literary jest of a certain
Jean de Parly,4 who instead of a translation gives us
little more than a summary of the arguments of the
various tractates. As he says in his Introduction (p. xvi) :
" What I have suppressed in the translation is, in the
first place, all those sterile controversies and discussions
given in the original under the form of question and
answer, and in the second the biblical verses cited in
the text " ; — in brief he gives us the ghastly corpse
of a mutilated and disembowelled Talmud.
Indeed, as we read of the many abortive attempts An Unsatis-
to make the Talmud in its full contents known to the
world, we are almost tempted to believe that any such
undertaking lies under a persistent curse. Some have
1 Op. cit.j pp. xii, xiii.
2 " Der babylonische Talmud . . . moeglichst wortgetreu
uebersetzst und mit kurzen Erklaerungen versehen," von Lazarus
Goldschmidt (Berlin ; 1896, in progress).
3 Op. cit., p. 62.
4 " Le Talmud de Babylone, Texte complet . . . accompagne des
principaux Commentaires et synthetiquement traduit " par Jean de
Parly (Orleans ; 1900).
8
114 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
begun the task, and either abandoned it or died before its
accomplishment; others have emasculated the original
out of all recognition ; all have failed.
We are thus without any really reliable translation
of the Talmud as a whole, and the task we have under
taken in this present essay would have been utterly
impossible of accomplishment but for the fortunate
circumstance, that the text of the very passages we
specially desire to study has been recently critically
edited and fairly translated ; but of this later on. It
is only necessary to add here that Bischoff s learned
monograph gives a critical bibliography of all existing
translations, and that Strack's " classical " " Einleitung,"
as Bischoff calls it (p. 10), to which we have already
referred on several occasions, in its third edition (1900),
gives a full bibliography up to date of the general
literature of the subject. Strack's Introduction, it is
true, gives us only an anatomical study of the Talmud,
the articulation of its bare bones alone, but it is, never
theless, a monument of patient industry and research.
Internal So much, then, for a very brief indication of the
Difficulties. literature of the subject and the nature of the initial
difficulties which confront a student of the Talmud ;
but these initial difficulties are as nothing to the
internal difficulties which perplex the historical
investigator. For the most part the only indications
of time in the Talmud are that certain things are stated
to have been done or said by such and such a Eabbi,
and not unfrequently we find that the Rabbi in
question could not possibly have said or done the
things attributed to him.
Nor will the traditional dates of the completion of
IN THE TALMUD'S OUTER COURT. 115
the Mishna and the various redactions of the two
Gemaras help us to any general certainty, so that we
can say confidently that as such and such a thing is
not found in the Mishna it must therefore be later
than 200 A.D., or again that as such and such a thing
is found only in the Babylonian Gemara, it evidently
must be a late invention, for the first Talmud schools
in Babylon were founded only about 200 A.D.1 There
must have been wide overlappings, and part of the
Haggadic material of the Palestinian Gemara must
have been in existence long prior to the comple
tion of the Mishna, which concerned itself more
especially with Halacha, while the Babylonian schools
derived their tradition in the first place immediately
from the Palestinian.
In any case since the Talmud itself shows such great
contempt for history, or rather let us say since it seems
to be utterly deficient in the historical sense, it is
incumbent upon us first of all to establish from outside
sources the earliest date we can for the existence of hos
tile Jewish stories concerning Jesus ; otherwise it might
be argued that the Talmud stories were almost entirely
invented by later Babylonian Eabbis, and had no currency
in Palestine where the " historical facts " were known.
1 " The Jews in Babylonia, no doubt, shared in the changes and
movements that Ezra and his successors, who came from Babylonia,
introduced into Palestine. But for the four centuries covering the
period from Ezra to Hillel there are no details ; and the history of
the succeeding two centuries, from Hillel to Judah I., furnishes only
a few scanty items on the state of learning among the Babylonian
Jews." See Bacher's art., " Academies in Babylonia," in " Jewish
Encyclopaedia." Can it possibly be that up to the third century
A.D. the "traditions" of the Babylonian Jews did not support
the contentions of the Palestinian Rabbis ?
VII.— THE EARLIEST EXTERNAL EVIDENCE
TO THE TALMUD JESUS STORIES.
The Earliest CHRISTIAN tradition will have it that already as early
thTcM-istians as about 30 A.D. the followers of Jesus were most
by the Jews, bitterly persecuted by the Jewish authorities. On the
other hand, we know that Christians and Jews were
undistinguished by the Roman authorities until the
closing years of the first century, and that, too, not
only in Palestine but also among the Dispersion — a
consideration which in the opinion of some critics tends
somewhat to weaken the strength of the traditional
line of demarcation which is regarded as having been
drawn between Jewish and Gentile Christians in the
Diaspora by Pauline propaganda. Moreover, we are
further assured by Talmud scholars that according to
Jewish tradition Jews and Jewish Christians were
not distinctly separated out till the reign of Trajan
(98-117 A.D.), or even still later in Hadrian's time
(117-138 A.D.).
It is impossible to reconcile these contradictory data ;
for though we may almost entirely eliminate the nega
tive evidence of classical writers by the persuasion that
the official Roman was ignorant or careless of the rights
or wrongs of the matter, and contemptuously lumped
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TO JESUS STORIES. 117
Jew and Christian together as of the same family as
far as their superstitio was concerned, the Christian and
Jewish traditions appear to be in straitest contradic
tion, even though we suppose that the Palestinian
Eabbis who first evolved the Talmud paid attention
only to the state of affairs in the land of Israel proper
and were not concerned with the Dispersion. It may
indeed be that in the beginning the Eabbis paid no
attention to Gentile Christians of any grade in Pales
tine, but regarded them as Heathen, and the vast
majority of them as 'Amme ha-aretz, entirely outside
the pale of Jewry and its privileges; it may be that
they were only concerned with born Jews who were
abandoning the externals of the Law and introducing
into Jewry what the Eabbis considered to be poly
theistic views which set at naught the rigid mono
theistic commandments of the Torah. But even so,
if the testimony of Paul as to himself is genuine,
there was the bitterest persecution many years before
the Talmud indirectly admits it.
Now in spite of the brilliant critical ability of van The Testi-
Manen and his school, I am still inclined to regard the
majority of the Pauline letters as largely genuine, and
therefore as being our earliest historical witnesses
to Christianity. From these we learn that already
upwards of a generation before the fall of Jerusalem,
which immensely intensified the propaganda of more
liberal and spiritual views throughout the nation, there
was bitter persecution on the part of the Jewish autho
rities against heresy, and that among the victims of this
persecution were the followers of Jesus. We do not
have to deduce this from enigmatical sentences or
118 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
confused traditions, but on the contrary we have before
us what purports to be not only the testimony of an
eye-witness, but the confession of one who had taken a
leading part in the persecution. In his Letter to the
Galatians (i. 13) Paul declares that before his con
version he was engaged in persecuting and " wasting "
the " Church of God." If this declaration of the great
propagandist is a statement of fact, and not a rhetorical
embellishment, or a generous exaggeration in contrition
for previous harshness (begotten of zeal for the " tradi
tion of the fathers ") towards those with whom he was
now the co-believer, it is in straitest contradiction with
the opinion of those Talmudic scholars who assert that
Jews and Jewish Christians continued together in
comparative harmony till the reign of Trajan.
Of the Acts. The graphic details of this persecution as given in the
Acts, and its far-reaching character, as suggested by the
furnishing of Paul by the authorities with letters against
the heretics even among the Dispersion at Damascus,
may presumably be set down as a later Haggadic ex
pansion, or the ascription of circumstances of a later
date to Pauline times.1 But whatever was the exact
nature of the " havoc " in the time of Paul, at the time
of the redaction of the Acts (130-150 A.D.) it was still
a lively remembrance that there had been much perse
cution at the hands of the Jews, that is to say most
probably from the Mishnaic Eabbis and their adherents
— a fact confirmed by the Talmud, which in a number
of passages allows us to conclude that during the first
1 Otherwise we have to account for the existence of a " Church "
at Damascus at a date when, according to canonical tradition, the
first Church at Jerusalem had hardly been formed.
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TO JESUS STORIES. 119
thirty-five years of the second century the great Akiba
himself, who was so zealous for the Law, and the virtual
founder of the Talmud method, was the most strenuous
and implacable opponent of Christianity. And if there
was persecution, there must have previously been con
troversy, and controversy of the most embittered nature,
and if bitter dispute then presumably scandal and slander.
We are certain then that the strife was at fever heat The Terminus.
a quo.
in the first quarter of the second century, just prior to
the compilation of our four canonical Gospels; the
" common document " (as we saw in a previous chapter)
shows further that it was in manifestation some half
century prior to the redaction of these documents, say
somewhere about 75 A.D., while if we can accept the
testimony of the Letter to the Galatians as that
of a genuine declaration by Paul himself, we must
push back the beginnings of the struggle another half
century or so.1
1 In this connection it would be interesting to determine the
exact date of Paul's conversion, but this is impossible to do with
any precision. The various authorities give it as anywhere between
28-36 A.D., the 28 limit making it almost coterminous with the
earliest possible date of the crucifixion according to the canonical
date. This early date, however, allows no time for anything
but a sudden and unorganised outbreak of official fury directed
against the followers of Jesus immediately after his execution
(according to canonical tradition), and such a sudden outbreak
seems out of keeping with the extended "persecuting" and
"wasting" of the "Church of God" referred to by Paul. But
was the " Church " of tradition as imagined by the scribe of the
Acts (viii. 3) the same as the " Church of God " in Paul's living
memory 1 Did the latter then possess the identical story related
a century later in the canonical Gospels? And if so, why does
Paul seem to be almost entirely ignorant of this story in spite of
lengthy acquaintance with that "Church" while wasting it, and
in spite of subsequent conversion ?
120 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Seeing, then, that few reject this testimony, as far
as most of us are concerned there is nothing a priori
to prevent the genesis of the original forms of some of
these Talmud stories going back even to some 30
years A.D., while for others we can at best only push
their origin back stage by stage with the evolution of
Christian dogma — that is to say with the externalizing
and historicizing of the mystic teachings of the inner
tradition. As Christian popular propaganda gradually
departed from the sober paths of prosaic history and
simple ethical instruction, owing to the externalizing
of the exalted and romantic experiences of the mystics
and the bringing of the " mysteries" to earth by histori
cizing them, so did the Eabbinical opponents of this
new movement confront its extravagance with the
remorseless logic of material fact.
The Probable For instance, the Christ (said the mystics) was born
Mamzer of a " virgin " 1 ; the unwitting believer in Jesus as the
Stones. historical Messiah in the exclusive Jewish sense, and
in his being the Son of God, nay God Himself, in course
of time asserted that Mary was that virgin ; whereupon
Eabbinical logic, which in this case was simple and
common logic, met this extravagance by the natural
retort that, seeing that his paternity was unacknow
ledged, Jesus was therefore illegitimate, a bastard
(mamzer).
Eound this point there naturally raged the fiercest
controversy, or rather it was met with the most
contemptuous retorts, which must have broken out the
1 The spiritual birth, by which a man becomes " twice-born" —
the simple mystic fact that so puzzled the Rabbi Nicodemus,
according to the writer of the fourth Gospel.
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TO JESUS STORIES. 121
instant the virginity of Mary as a physical fact was
publicly mooted by the simple believers of the general
Christian body. This particular dogma, however, must
have been a comparatively late development in the
evolution of popular Christianity, for the ''common
document" knows nothing of it, the writers of the
second and fourth Gospels tacitly reject it, while some
of the earliest readings of our Gospels distinctly assert
that Joseph was the natural father of Jesus.1 For the
mamzer element rji the Talmud stories, therefore, we
have, in my opinion, no need to go back further than
the first quarter of the second century or so as the
earliest terminus a quo.
For most of the other main elements, however, we
have no means of fixing a date limit by the criticism
of canonical documents ; all we can say is that as
early as 30 A.D. even, circumstances were such as to lead
us to expect the circulation of stories of a hostile nature.
From the persecution in the time of Paul till the Justin
redaction of the Acts a full century elapses, from
which we have preserved no witnesses that will help
us concerning anything but the mamzer element.
And even when, following immediately on the period
of the Acts redaction, we come to the testimony of
Justin Martyr,2 in the middle of the second century,
1 For the latest study of this subject see F. C. Conybeare's
article, " Three Early Doctrinal Modifications of the Text of the
Gospels," in " The Hibbert Journal " (London ; 1902), I. i. 96-113 ;
and also J. R. Wilkinson's criticism in the succeeding issue (Jan-
1903).
2 The dates of Justin's genuine writings are variously con
jectured, but the general opinion is that they may be placed
145-150 A.D.
122 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
we have to be content with generalities, though
fortunately (in this connection) such generalities as put
it entirely out of doubt that a state of affairs had long
existed such as presupposes the existence and wide
circulation of similar stories to those found in the
Talmud.
From the general testimony of Justin, no matter
how we may discount it by his demonstrable blundering
in some points of detail, we are certain that the
separation between Jews and Christians had for years
been made absolute, and if we can trust the repeated
statements of this enthusiastic apologist, we must
believe that the stages of the separation had been
throughout marked by a bitterness and persecution of
a quite mediaeval character.
BarKochba's In his first " Apology " Justin seeks to rebut the
objection that the one whom the Christians call "the
Messiah" was simply a man born of human parents,
and that his wonder-workings were done by magical
means — the main contention of the Talmud Rabbis ;
this he does by appeal to prophecy (c. xxx.). De
veloping his arguments Justin naively admits that
the Christians base themselves on the Septuagint Greek
translation1 of the Hebrew sacred writings; never
theless he accuses the Jews of not understanding their
own books, and is surprised that his co-believers are
considered as foes and enemies by the Jews because
of their interpretation of Hebrew prophecy — a point,
1 In connection with the origin of which Justin commits
a ludicrous blunder, when he makes Herod a contemporary
of Ptolemy, the founder of the Alexandrian Library — an
anacharonism of 250 years !
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TO JESUS STORIES. 123
we may remark, in which modern scientific criticism
practically sympathises with the Eabbis. Nay, so
bitter were the Jews against them, that whenever
they had had the power they had not only punished
the Christians but also put them to death — a charge
he repeats in several passages ; l declaring that in his
own day the Jews were only deterred from doing so by
the Eoman authorities.2 For instance, in the recent
revolt against the Eomans led by Bar Kochba (132-135
A.D.), Justin declares that this popular Messiah specially
singled out the Christians for torture if they refused
to deny that Jesus was the Messiah and utte"r
blasphemies against him (c. xxxi.). It is to be noted,
however, that Eusebius and others3 state that Bar
Kochba punished the Christians (that is to say, Jewish
Christians resident in Palestine) for political reasons,
because they refused to join their fellow countrymen
against the Komans, and not on theological grounds.
If, nevertheless, in spite of this conflict of testimony,
we are still to believe Justin, it is of interest to
remember that E. Akiba, the founder of the Talmudic
method, and the Eabbi who is represented in the
Talmud as the greatest opponent of Christianity, threw
all his great influence on the side of Bar Kochba,
acknowledged him as the true Messiah and paid the
penalty of his enthusiastic championship with his life.
From Justin's " Dialogue with Tryphon " we derive
still further information, the interest of which would
1 See " Dial. c. Tryph.," xvi., ex., cxxxiii.
2 Ibid., xvi.
3 Eusebius, " Chron.," and Orosius, "Hist.," vii. 13; c/. note
to Otto's " Justini Opera" (Jena ; 1847), i. 79.
]24 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
be greatly increased for our present research if the
identification of Justin's Tryphon with the R Tarphon
of the Talmud, the contemporary of Akiba, could be
maintained.1
General In addition to the general declaration that the Jews
hate the Christians (c. xxxv.) — a state of affairs summed
up in " The Letter to Diognetus " (c. v.), which some
still attribute to Justin, in the words " the Jews make
war against the Christians as against a foreign nation "
— we have some important details given us which,
according to the fancy and taste of the reader, can
either be set down as embellishments begotten of odium
theologicum, or be taken as throwing historic light on
the state of affairs and temper of the times which
originated the Talmud Jesus stories.
Thus in ch. cxvii., speaking of Jesus as the " Son of
God," and addressing the Jew Tryphon, Justin adds,
"whose name the high priests and teachers of your
people have caused to be profaned and blasphemed
throughout the earth." If this accusation was true in
Justin's time, it can only refer to the spreading far and
wide of inimical stories about Jesus; at that time
stories of this kind were spread everywhere throughout
the Koman empire, and the source of them was attri
buted by the Christians to the Jewish priestly aris
tocracy and especially to the Kabbinical doctors, in
other words the Mishnaic Talmudists of those days
and earlier.
TheProclama- Moreover Justin twice (cc. xvii. and cviii.) categori-
e11 cally asserts that after the " resurrection " the Jews
sent out a specially elected body of men, some sort of
1 But see Strack's " Einleitung in den Talmud " (3rd ed.), p. 80.
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TO JESUS STORIES. 125
official commission apparently, " throughout the world,"
to proclaim that a godless and lawless sect had arisen
from one Jesus, a Galilean impostor, whose followers
asserted that he had risen from the dead, whereas the
fact of the matter was that he had been put to death
by crucifixion and that subsequently his body had been
stolen from the grave by his disciples (c. cviii.).
The genesis of this extensive commission may with
great probability be ascribed to the imaginative rhetoric
of Justin playing on the germ provided by the floating
tradition, that Paul was furnished with letters of
repression against the heretics when he set forth for
Damascus, as stated by the compiler of the Acts. A
commission to disprove the dogma of the physical
resurrection would not have been necessary until that
dogma had gained a firm root in popular belief, and
this we hold was a late development (the vulgar
historicising of a mystic fact) though somewhat earlier
than the dogma of the immaculate conception ; but
even so it would appear to be a somewhat absurd pro
ceeding to send out a commission to deal with this
point only.
There may be, however, some greater substratum of
truth in Justin's repeated assertions (cc. xvi., xcvi. and
cxxxiii.) that it was the custom of the Jews publicly to
curse those who believed in " the Christ " in their
synagogues ; and to this he adds that not only were
the Jews forbidden by their Rabbis to have any deal
ings of any kind with Christians (c. cxii.), but that
they were distinctly taught by the Pharisee Rabbis and
the leaders of their synagogues to revile and make fun
of Jesus after prayer (c. cxxxvii.).
126 DID JESUS LIVE 100 E.G.?
In fact Justin will have it that all the preconceived
evil opinion which the general public cherished against
the Christians was originated by the Jews (c. xvii.),
whom he accuses of deliberately stating that Jesus
himself had taught all those impious, unspeakable
and detestable crimes with which the Christians were
charged (c. cviii.) — an accusation which in no case can
be substantiated by the Talmud passages, and which
we may presumably set down to Justin's rhetoric.
Estimate of But whether or not Justin can be believed in all his
the Evidence, ^{.^j^ an(j no matter how we may soften down his
statements, there still remains strong enough evidence
to show that in his day the bitterest hostility existed
between Jews and Christians, or at any rate between
official Judaism and that type of Christianity for which
Justin stood. Since Justin attributes all the scandalous
stories about Christians,1 and all the scoffing at the
1 In connection with which it is of mournful interest to note
that Origen (" C. Gels.," vi. 27) says that when " Christianism "
first began to be taught, the Jews spread about reports that the
Christians, presumably in their secret rites, sacrificed a child and
ate its flesh, and that their meetings were scenes of indiscriminate
immorality ; that even in his own day (c. 250 A.D.) such charges
were still believed against them, and they were shunned by some
on this account. The curious vitality of this slander is remarkable,
for not only did the general Christians of those days charge the
" heretics " of the Christian name, to whose assemblies they could
not gain access, with precisely the same crime of ceremonial
murder, but even up to our own days in Anti-semitic Eastern
Europe it is still the favourite vulgar charge against the Jews — a
strange turning of the wheel of fate ! Even as I correct these
proofs, I read in The Times (May 2) the horrible account of the
murder of some sixty or seventy Jews and Jewesses, and the
serious injury of some five hundred more, with " several cases of
rape too horrible for detailed description," by the fanatical
" Christian/' populace of Kishineff, in Bessarabia, who were roused
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TO JESUS STORIES. 127
most cherished beliefs of Justin and the popular
Christianity of his day, to the Kabbis, it is evident that
what the Jews said was the very antipodes of what
Justin believed, and that, as may be seen from the
retort of the stealing of the body, the greatest miracles
and dogmas of popular Christianity were met on the
side of the Kabbis by the simplest retorts of vulgar
reason.
The evidence of Justin, therefore, taken as a whole,
leaves us with a very strong impression, nay, for all but
irreconcilables, produces an absolute conviction, that in
his time, taking our dates at a minimum, stories similar
to, and even more hostile than, the Talmud stories were
in widest circulation; while Justin himself will have
it that they were in circulation from the very begin
ning of things Christian. So far, however, we have
come across nothing but generalities ; we have failed to
find anything of a definite nature which we can identify
with some distinct detail of the Talmud stories.
To do this we must mount some quarter of a century, Celsus.
and turn to the fragments of Celsus preserved to us in
the polemic of Origen, who wrote his refutation of
Celsus's attack on the Christians somewhere towards
the middle of the third century. Origen in his preface
(§4) tells us that Celsus himself was long since dead,
and later on he adds more precisely (i. 8) that Celsus
lived about Hadrian's time (emp. 117-138 A.D.), and
later. The most learned of the Church Fathers, how
ever, seems to have blundered in this respect, and
to fury by the report of a supposed " ritual murder " by the Jews of
Dubossari, and this in spite of the publication of absolute testimony
to the falsity of the charge.
128 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
though there is still dispute as to the exact date,
modern criticism, basing itself on data supplied by the
passages cited by Origen from Celsus's " True Word," is
generally of opinion that Celsus survived till as late as
175 A.D. In any case Origen wrote a full seventy-five
years after Celsus had withdrawn from the controversy,
and though we may place the writing of the statements
of Celsus as late as 175 A.D., we have also to allow for
the possibility, if not the probability, that the memory of
this sturdy opponent of Christianity may have reached
back some quarter or even half century earlier.
Celsus in his treatise rhetorically throws many of
his arguments into the form of a dispute between a Jew
and Jesus (Pref. 6, and i. 28). This Jew declares that
the extraordinary things Jesus seems to have done
were effected by magical means (i. 6), and Origen later
on (iii. 1) says that this was the general accusation
brought against the miracle-workings by all Jews who
were not Christians. This is one of the main elements
of the Talmud stories.
The Virgin From a quotation from Celsus (i. 26) we further
Birth Dogma. ^^ ^ the Jewg agserted that « a yery few yearg »
had elapsed since the dogma of Jesus being the " Son of
God " had been promulgated by the Christians, presum
ably referring to the dogma of the " virgin birth."
Developing his argument, the Jew goes on to say
(i. 28) that the dogma of the "virgin birth" was an
invention, the facts of the case being : " that Jesus had
come from a village in Judsea, and was the son of a poor
Jewess who gained her living by the work of her own
hands ; that his mother had been turned out of doors
by her husband, who was a carpenter by trade, on being
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TO JESUS STORIES. 129
convicted of adultery ; that being thus driven away by
her husband, and wandering about in disgrace, she gave
birth to Jesus, a bastard ; that Jesus on account of his
poverty (had to work for his living and) was hired out to go
to Egypt l ; that while there he acquired certain (magical)
powers which Egyptians pride themselves on possessing ;
that he returned home highly elated at possessing these
powers, and on the strength of them gave himself out
to be a god." 2
In this passage from Celsus we have precisely the
main outline of the Talmud Jesus stories, and therefore
an exact external proof that in his day at any rate
(whenever that was, whether 150-175 or even 125-175)
stories precisely similar to the Talmud stories were
the stock-in-trade Jewish objections to Christian
dogmatic tradition.
And if more precise proof is still demanded, we have Ben Pandera.
only to turn over a few pages of Origen's voluminous
refutation to the passage (i. 32), where the Church
Father again refers to the quotation from the Jew of
Celsus given above, and adds the important detail from
Celsus that the paramour of the mother of Jesus was a
soldier called Panthera, a name which he also repeats
later on (i. 69), in a sentence, by the by, which has in
both places been erased from the oldest Vatican MS.,
1 Can this possibly be based on some vulgar version of a well-
known Gnostic myth of those days ? Jesus went down as a servant or
slave into Egypt ; that is to say, the Christ or divine soul descends
as a servant into the Egypt of the body. It is a common element
in the early mystic traditions that the Christ took on the form of a
servant in his descent through the spheres, and in many traditions
Egypt is the symbol of the body, which is separated by the " Red
Sea " and the " Desert " from the " Promised Land."
2 The last two paragraphs are again quoted by Origen (i. 38).
9
130 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
and bodily omitted from three codices in this country
and from others.1 Now this is precisely the name given
in some of the Talmud stories ; in them Jesus is called
Jeschu ben Pandera (or Pandira), or Ben Pandera
simply.
John the But before we leave Origen it may be useful to note
one or two scraps of information which he has let fall
in the controversy, and which are of importance for us
in our present investigation. Eeferring to the histori-
cised mystery of the descent of the Dove at the Baptism,
Celsus puts the argument into the mouth of his Jew
(i. 48), that there is no testimony for this except the
word of one of those who met with the same punish
ment as Jesus. To this Origen replies that it is a
great blunder on Celsus's part to put such an argument
into the mouth of a Jew, for " the Jews do not connect
John with Jesus, nor the punishment of John with that
of Jesus." Now in the first place it is to be observed
that Celsus says nothing about any " John," and in the
second that Origen gives us clearly to understand that
the Jews denied that John the Baptist, who was a well-
known historical character, had anything to do with
Jesus. This is an important piece of evidence for those
who believe that the Baptist element, which does not
appear in the " common document," was a later develop
ment. Can it be that Celsus had in mind some early
form of the Baptism story, in which some other than
John the Baptist played a part ?
Elsewhere Celsus, in speaking of the betrayal of
Jesus, does not ascribe it to Judas, but to " many dis-
1 See notes on both passages by Lommatzsch in his " Origenis
contra Celsum" (Berlin ; 1845).
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TO JESUS STORIES. 131
ciples" (ii. 11), a curious statement if Celsus is repeat
ing what he has heard or read, and is not merely guilty
of gross error or of wilful exaggeration.
But indeed Celsus categorically accuses the Christians Frequent
,.. _.^. „ , ,. . , Remodelling
(11. 27) of changing their gospel story in many ways in Of the Gospel
order the better to answer the objections of their storv-
opponents ; his accusation is that some of them, " as it
were in a drunken state producing self-induced visions,1
remodel their gospel from its first written form in a
threefold, fourfold and manifold fashion, and reform it
so that they may be able to refute the objections
brought against it."
This may be taken to mean either that the Christians
were engaged in doing so in Celsus's day, or that such
redacting was habitual. If, however, we are to regard
the " threefold " and " fourfold " of Celsus as referring
to our three and four canonical gospels, and his " mani
fold " as referring to the " many " of our " Lukan " intro
duction, it is difficult to imagine that this was going
on in Celsus's time unless his memory went back some
fifty years or so. It is, therefore, more simple to
regard the statement as meaning that the external
1 Lit., " coming to appear to themselves" — els Tb tyeorcd'cu avrols.
This very puzzling sentence is translated by F. Crombie (" The
Works of Origen," Edinburgh, 1872, in " The Ante-Nicene Christian
Library ") as " lay violent hands upon themselves," which does not
seem to be very appropriate in this connection. But tyeo-rdvai is
the usual word used of dreams and visions, and I have therefore
ventured on the above translation. Celsus probably meant to
suggest that these Christian writers were the victims of their own
hallucinations ; those who understand the importance of the
vision-factor in the evolution of Christian dogma and " history "
will thank Origen for preserving this expression of his opponent,
though they may put a construction on the words that neither
Celsus nor Origen would have agreed with.
132 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
gospel story had been continually altered and re
formulated to meet objections — in brief, that the latest
forms of it were the product of a literary evolution
in which mystic experiences played a prominent
part.
Value of the We thus see that the testimony of Celsus, an entirely
outside witness, not only strongly endorses the general
testimony of Justin, but also adds convincing details
which conclusively prove that the Jewish Jesus stories
of his day were precisely of the same nature as those
we find in the Talmud, and though we cannot conjecture
with any certainty what may have been the precise
date of any particular story, we are justified in rejecting
the contention of those who declare that the Talmud
stories are all of a very late date, say the fourth century
or so. and in claiming that there is nothing to prevent
most of them going back to the middle of the second
century, even on the most conservative estimate, while
some of them may go back far earlier.
Tertullian. Advancing another generation we come to the testi
mony of Tertullian, which is exceedingly important
not only with regard to the Talmud Jesus stories, but
also in respect of a far more obscure line of tradition
preserved in the mediaeval " Toldoth Jeschu," or " Story
of Jesus," as we shall see in the second part of our
enquiry. Writing somewhere about 197-198 A.D., in
his " De Spetaculis " (c. xxx.), in a highly rhetorical
peroration in which he depicts the glorious spectacle
of the second coming, as he imagines it — (when he
shall see all the Heathen opponents of the Christians,
philosophers and poets, actors and wrestlers in the
Games, tossing on the billows of hell-fire) — the hot-
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TO JESUS STORIES. 133
tempered Bishop of Carthage bursts out that, perhaps,
however, after all he will not have time to gaze upon
the tortures of the Heathen, but that all his attention
will be turned on the Jews who raged against the Lord.
Then will he say unto them : " This is your carpenter's
son, your harlot's son; your Sabbath-breaker, your
Samaritan, your demon-possessed ! This is He whom
ye bought from Judas ; this He who was struck with
reed and fists, dishonoured with spittle, and given a
draught of gall and vinegar ! This is He whom His
disciples have stolen secretly, that it may be said
He has risen, or the gardener abstracted that his
lettuces might not be damaged by the crowds of
visitors ! " l
All these elements appear in order in the " Toldoth,"
and the carpenter's son and the harlot's son appear in
the Talmud stories. We have thus exhausted our
external evidence till the date of the final redaction
of the Mishna, 200-207 A.D., beyond which it is of no
advantage to go.2
Enough has already been said for our purpose, which
was the very simple one of disposing of the flimsy and
superficial argument that the Talmud Jesus stories
1 See also Jerome, "Ad Heliodorum" (Tom. IV., P. II., p. 12,
ed. Bened.), and compare Theodoret, " H. S.," iii. 11, as cited in
Oehler's "Tertulliani quoe supersunt Onmia" (Leipzig; 1853),
i. 62, n.
2 See, however, Richard von der Aim (i.e., Friederich Wilhelm
Ghillany), " Die Urtheile heidnischer und jiidischer Schrifsteller
der vier ersten Jahrhunderte iiber Jesus und die ersten Christen :
Eine Zuschrift an die gebildeten Deutschen zur weiteren Orienti-
rung in der Frage iiber die Gottheit Jesu " (Leipzig ; 1864J, a
continuation of his " Theologische Briefe an die Gebildeten der
deutschen Nation" (3 vok, Leipzig; 1863).
134 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
must have been entirely the invention of late Babylonian
Kabbis, and that Mishnaic times were utterly ignorant
of them, as being too close to the supposed actual facts,
which unthinking apologists further presume must
have been known to all the Jews of Palestine. We
now pass to a consideration of the stories themselves.
VIII.— THE TALMUD 100 YEARS B.C. STORY
OF JESUS.
In 1891 Dr. Gustaf H. Dalman, of Leipzig, printed a The Transla-
critical text of all the censured passages in the Talmud, Censured
Midrashim, Zohar and Liturgy of the Synagogue which rassages-
are said to refer to Jesus, and to this H. Laible appended
an introductory essay,1 in which most of the passages
were translated.
In 1893 A. M. Streane published an English version
of this essay, for which Dalman translated the remain
ing passages, and to which Dalman, Laible, and Streane
contributed additional notes, the English edition thus
superseding the German.2 From lack of any other
work in which a version of all the passages may be
found, the non-specialist must perforce be content
with this Dalman-Laible-Streane translation, though a
comparison with other translations of single passages
makes one hesitate to accept its entire accuracy, and
Streane himself admits in his preface (p. vi) that
1 "Jesus Christus im Thalrnud . . . init einem Anhange : Die
thalmudischen Texte mitgeteilt," von G. Dalman (Berlin ; 1891), in
"Schriften des Institutum Judaicum in Berlin," nr. 10. A
second edition appeared in 1900.
2 "Jesus Christ in the Talmud," etc. (Cambridge ; 1893).
136 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
occasionally some Talmud expressions with regard to
" our Blessed Lord " have been modified.
The Name I am, therefore, glad to be assured by a learned
Talmudist that Streane's version, in spite of these draw
backs and its very ungraceful diction, is on the whole
sufficiently reliable for all general purposes. I, how
ever, retain throughout the Hebrew or Aramaic form
" Jeschu," or perhaps more correctly " Yeschu," which
Streane has replaced by the familiar Jesus, because I
hold with Krauss1 that Jeschu is a "genuine Jewish
name," and not a nickname invented in despite by
the Jews (as charged against them by Christian writers)
to escape writing the form Jeshua (Joshua, Jehoshua 2),
which Christians maintain was the proper Hebrew
name of Jesus, thus showing forth by the very name that
he was the " Saviour " ; least of all that the name
Jeschu was originally begotten of a cruel letter play
based on the the initials of the words of imprecation
" /mmach Scheme Fezikro " (" May his name and
memory be blotted out!"), as persistently charged
against the Jews by their mediaeval Christian opponents,
and finally (under stress of hate and ignorance) accepted
and adopted by Jews themselves in some of the later
forms of the Toldoth Jeschu.3 Jeschu, I hold, was
simply the original Hebrew or Aramaic form of the
name, as may be seen from the Greek transliteration
vg (lesus), or the Arabic ' Isa.
1 Krauss (S.), " Das Leben Jesu nach judischen Quellen" (Berlin ;
1902), pp. 250-253.
2 Lit., " The Lord will save."
3 See, for instance, the Vienna Toldoth MS. Compare with this
Pessach's invention as given above in the chapter, " The Talmud in
History."
THE TALMUD 100 B.C. STORY OF JESUS. 137
Let us, then, first of all turn to what, from the
chronological point of view, is the most extraordinary
passage, a passage found not once but twice in the
Babylonian Gemara.1
" The Kabbis have taught : The left should always The Ben
be repelled, and the right, on the other hand, drawn story.
nearer. But one should not do it . . .2 as K. Joshua
ben Perachiah, who thrust forth Jeschu with both hands.
What was the matter with regard to E. Joshua ben
Perachiah? When King Jannai directed the destruc
tion of the Eabbis, E. Joshua ben Perachiah and Jeschu
went to Alexandria. When security returned, Eabbi
Simeon ben Shetach sent him a letter to this effect:
' From me, Jerusalem the holy city, to thee, Alexandria
in Egypt, my sister. My spouse tarries in thee, and I
dwell desolate.' Thereupon Joshua arose and came;
and a certain inn was in the way, in which they treated
him with great respect. Then spake Joshua : ' How fair
is this inn (akhsanga) I ' Jeschu saith to him : ' But,
Eabbi, she (akhsanga=a& hostess) has little narrow
eyes.' Joshua replied : ' Thou godless fellow, dost thou
occupy thyself with such things ? ' directed that 400
horns should be brought, and put him under strict
excommunication. Jeschu ofttimes came and said to
him, * Take me back.' Joshua did not trouble himself
about him. One day, just as Joshua was reading
[? reciting] the Shema,3 Jeschu came to him, hoping
that he would take him back. Joshua made a sign to
1 " Sanhedrin," 107b, and, in almost identical words, " Sota,"
47a.
2 The words omitted by Streane are, " as Elislia who repelled
Gehazi nor."
3 The words : " Hear, 0 Israel," etc., Dent. vi. 4 ff.
138 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
him with his hand. Then Jeschu thought that he had
altogether repulsed him, and went away, and set up a
brickbat and worshipped it. Joshua said to him : ' Be
converted ! ' Jeschu saith : ' Thus have I been taught by
thee : From him that sinneth and inaketh the people to
sin, is taken away the possibility of repentance.' And
the Teacher [i.e., he who is everywhere mentioned by
(this title in the Talmud] has said : * Jeschu had prac
tised sorcery and had corrupted and misled Israel.' " l
This famous passage, if taken by itself, would of
course fully confirm the hypothesis of the 100 years
B.C. date of Jesus. The arguments for and against the
authenticity of its statements embrace, therefore, practi*
cally the whole substance of our investigation. Let us
first of all consider the face value of these statements.
King Jaimai. Jannai or Jannseus (John), who also bore the Greek
name Alexander, was one of the famous Maccaboean
line of kings, the son of John Hyrcanus I., and reigned
over the Jews 104-78 B.C.
Though it is now impossible from the imperfect record
to ascertain the exact state of Jewish domestic affairs,
or the precise causes of the fierce internal religious
struggle, during the reign of this wild warrior king,2 the
salient fact dwelt on by Josephus in both his accounts
is that Jannai for the major part of his reign was
engaged in a bitter feud with the Pharissean party,
whom he had deprived of all their privileges. This
Fharisaean party was practically the national religious
1 This formal charge is also found in " Sanhedrin," 43a.
2 See Schiirer (E.), " A History of the Jewish People in the
Time of Jesus Christ " (Eng. Trans.; Edinburgh, 1897), Div. i.,
vol. i. pp. 295-307.
THE TALMUD 100 B.C. STORY OF JESUS. 139
party who resented the oriental despotism of their
Hasmonsean rulers, and above all detested the usurpa
tion of the high priestly office by Jannai. The Pious
and Pure could not brook the sight of " a wild warrior
like Jannseus discharging the duties of the high priest
in the holy place," as Schurer puts it. Bitter internal
strife intensified by religious fanaticism accordingly
marked the first eighteen years of Jannai's reign. The
Pharisees finally led a rebellion against the hated
monarch, in which no less than 50,000 Jews are said to
have fallen, and finally the leaders of the nationalist
party fled to the stronghold of Bethome or Besemelis.1
Jannai besieged Bethome and captured it. The prisoners
were taken to Jerusalem, and there no less than 800 of
them are said to have been crucified to make sport
before Jannai and his wives and concubines, the wives
and children of the wretched Pharisees having been
previously butchered before their eyes. This atrocious
act is said to have struck such terror into the hearts
of the unfortunate " Eabbis " of the time, that no less
than 8000 of them fled, and during Jannai's life- time
kept far from Judaea.2 This happened about 87 B.C.
The greatest hero of those times, according to Rab
binical tradition, who still withstood the tyrant to the
face and boldly berated him with the unaided weapons
of Rabbinic wisdom, was Simeon ben Shetach, who is
said moreover to have been the brother of Jannai's wife
Salome. Many stories of his wise sayings before Jannai
are handed on in the Talmud, though it must be con-
1 For Josephus in his two accounts (" Bell. Jud.," i. 4. 6, and
" Antiqq.," xiii. 14. 2) gives these two widely different names.
2 Josephus, ibid.
140 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
fessed that they sound to modern ears somewhat
puerile. There are some, however, who think that
Simeon too had to flee, and that his withstanding of
Jannai took place before the revolt.
Queen Salome When Salome, however, succeeded her impious spouse,
and the
< ' Golden her policy with regard to the Pharisees was the direct
antithesis of Jannai's cruel measures. " Salome from
the beginning of her reign [78-69 B.C.] took her stand
unhesitatingly on the side of the Pharisees, lent an ear
to their demands and wishes, and in particular gave
legal sanction again to all the Pharisaic ordinances
abolished since the time of John Hyrcanus. During
these years the Pharisees were the real rulers of the
land." l
As Josephus says : Salome " had indeed the name of
regent, but the Pharisees had the authority ; for it was
they who restored such as were banished, and set such
as were prisoners at liberty, and to say all at once, they
differed in nothing from masters (of the country)." 2
Pharissean tradition, therefore, naturally depicts the
reign of Salome as a golden age, and we are told with
true oriental hyperbole, that " under Simeon ben Shetach
and Queen Salome rain fell on the eve of the Sabbath,
so that the corns of wheat were as large as kidneys, the
barley corns as large as olives, and the lentils like
golden denarii ; the scribes gathered such corns, and
preserved specimens of them in order to show future
generations what sin entails"3 — a somewhat prepos
terous proceeding, one would suppose, unless the scribes
1 ScMrer, op. cit., ibid., p. 309.
2 "Bell. Jud.,» i. 5. 2, and " Antiqq.," xiii. 16. 2.
3 " Taanith," 23a.
THE TALMUD 100 B.C. STORY OF JESUS. 141
of that time were gifted with prophetical clairvoyance
to descry the subsequent evil days on which the Eabbis
fell time and again.
I have been thus long in dwelling on the importance Joshua ben
of Salome from a Kabbinical point of view for reasons l
which will appear more fully later on ; for the present
it is to be remarked that, if there is any historical basis
at all for the passage under consideration, Joshua ben
Perachiah presumably fled to Alexandria in 87 B.C., and
was probably recalled by Simeon ben Shetach in 78 B.C.
He must then have been a very old man, for he is said
to have begun to teach as early as 154 B.C.,1 an asser
tion, however, which I have been unable to verify. In
any case Joshua ben Perachiah and Nithai of Arbela
were the second of the famous "Five Pairs" of the
" Guruparampara " chain (to use a Brahmanical techni
cal term) of Talmudic tradition, while Simeon ben
Shetach and Judah ben Tabbai form the third <c Pair."
According to this " tradition of the fathers," then, jesus a
Jeschu was regarded as having been originally the pupil Learned Man-
of one of the two most learned " Eabbis " 2 of the time,
1 Baring-Gould (S.), "The Lost and Hostile Gospels: An
Essay on the Toledoth Jeschn, and the Petrine and Pauline Gospels
of the First Three Centuries of which Fragments remain" (London ;
1874), p. 56. This very uncritical writer does not give his autho
rity, but probably it was Eichard von der Aim, to whose studies
we have already referred, and from whom Baring-Gould " lifts "
all his information with regard to the Talmud Jesus stories and
Toldoth Jeschu, though without any acknowledgment.
2 I have put the title " Kabbi " in quotation marks when used
of teachers of this period, because I have seen it stated by Jewish
authorities that the term " Kabbi " was not so used till after 70 A.D.
Unfortunately I have lost my references to this point, but see
Bousset (W.), " Die Keligion des Judentums in neutestamentlichen
Zeitalter " (Berlin ; 1903), p. 147 : " Der eigentliche Titel Rabbi
142 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
nay, of the most learned, the " spouse " of Jerusalem ;
not only so, but Jeschu was apparently Joshua's favourite
pupil. See the result of disregarding this counsel of
wisdom, said the Eabbis of later days; there is the
famous case of the great Joshua ben Perachiah who
was too stern with his disciple Jeschu, and with what
disastrous results !
But, it may be said, why waste time in speculating
on such a transparent anachronism. To this we reply :
Even granting the anachronism a priori, without further
enquiry — seeing that the literature of the times teems
with many demonstrably ghastly anachronisms — the
passage shows us clearly where Jewish tradition placed
Jesus. For it he was a learned man, as indeed is invari
ably admitted in many other stories ; whether or not
he got his wisdom from the greatest Jewish teacher of
the times or not, is another question.
The Murder It is further to be remarked that there is a striking
Innocents. similarity between the state of internal Jewish affairs
in Jannai's time and the numerous hangings and burn
ings of Pharisees in the days of Herod (37-4 B.C.). In
both reigns the national religious party was led in
revolt by those learned in the Law. The Pharisees stood
for religion and religious purism against the aristocratic
party of the hereditary Sadducaean priesthood, who
were interested in the Law solely as a convenient
instrument of custom whereby they could extort tithes
and taxes out of the people. They were entirely
scheint erst in nachneutestamentlicher Zeit aufgekommen zu
sein." It' there be any solid ground for this contention, it would,
of course, be of great critical importance in considering the date of
those passages in the canonical gospels in which the term appears.
THE TALMUD 100 B.C. STORY OP JESUS. 143
indifferent to all those tendencies which had been and
were still spiritualising the national religious literature,
and presumably they were above all opposed to what
they considered the innovating fanaticism of the mystic
and disciplinary views held by such circles as the Chas-
sidim and Essenes.
Both reigns are characterised by the triumph of the
Sadducaean party, and by the ruthless murder of large
numbers of the Pharisaean leaders, some of whom were
indubitably in closest contact with Chassidim and
Essene circles, nay, it is most probable that members
of these circles, or of associations of a similar nature,
were the directly inspiring sources of these religious
revolts. It must then have been a bitter memory with
the followers of these strict schools of discipline, the
later " schools of the prophets," which were seeking to
establish the rule of the Eighteous and the consequent
direct reign of Yahweh on earth, that numbers of their
holy ones and seers had been ruthlessly done to death
by a Jannai or a Herod.1
Now, in similar mystic circles these prophets and The " Little
seers, in one of their grades, were known as " little '
1 Whether in the former case their death had been the cruel and
lingering torture of crucifixion is a point of importance only for
those Talmudic scholars who argue that crucifixion was an utterly
unknown mode of execution among the Jews. There was, they
say, beheading, strangling, hanging, stoning and subsequent expos
ing of the body of the stoned on a post as a warning ; moreover,
to shorten the cruelty of the lingering death by stoning, the victim
was first rendered unconscious by a soporific drink ; but never
crucifixion. In this connection, however, we must remember that
it is said that Jannai remained a Jew in all things, and imposed
Jewish customs on all conquered cities on pain of utter destruction,
so that it may be doubted whether he " hellenised " solely in the
mode of execution of his domestic foes.
144 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
ones " or " children." A most interesting tradition of
this designation is still preserved in the little-known
" Codex Nasarseus " of the Mandai'tes, the so-called
Christians of St. John. In the Xlth Tractate of their
Eight-hand Genza there is a most beautiful story of
the mystic Baptism. Jesus conies to Johanna to be
baptised. Jesus comes as a simple " approacher " seek
ing initiation into the mystic school of Johanna. But
Johanna is not to be deceived, and immediately recog
nises Him as the Master, Manda d'Hajje Himself, the
c< Gnosis of Life," by whose power Johanna has been
teaching and initiating all the long forty and two l years
of his ministry.
It is too long to quote the beautiful story of how
Johanna, in giving the lower initiation of external
(? psychic) baptism to Jesus, receives the true spiritual
Baptism from Manda d'Hajje Himself, when " He gave
him the grip of the Eushta, and laid His hand upon
him in Jordan ; and He made him lay off his garment
of flesh and blood ; and He clothed him in a raiment of
glory."
It is enough for our purpose to set down a few of the
sentences put into the mouth of Johanna : c< Come in
peace, Little One. . . . Now I go with thee, Little One,
that we may enter the stream. . . . Come, come, Little
One of three years and one day, youngest among his
brethren but oldest with his Father, who is so small yet
his sayings are so exalted." 2 Seniority in the Essene
1 He apparently now passes on into the seventh " seven years."
2 See " The Liberation of Johanna," by Miss A. L. B. Hard-
castle, in " The Theosophical Be view," vol. xxxi., no. 181, pp. 20-25
(September, 1902) ; also Brandt (W.), " Mandiiische Schriften aus
der grossen Sammlung heiliger Biicher gennant Genza oder Sidra
THE TALMUD 100 B.C. STORY OF JESUS. 145
and Therapeut communities, it must be remembered,
was not reckoned by age, but by the number of years
the brother had been a member of the order.
What, now, if we were to fuse these apparently Was Herod
totally unrelated scraps of information together ?
Might we not ask ourselves how many elements are to
be sifted out of the traditional "murder of the in
nocents " ; how many conflations of historical fact and
mystic history before the " myth " was brought to
birth in its present form? Can there be in it even
some reminiscence of the 800 victims of Bethome ? The
Talmud Eabbis know nothing of Herod's wholesale
murder of the children as recounted in the introduction
of our first canonical Gospel ; Josephus knows nothing
of it ; yet Joseph ben Matthai had no reason for white
washing the character of Herod, had such a dastardly
outrage been an actual fact, for he records his numerous
other crimes without hesitation; and the Talmud
Kabbis hated the memory of Herod so well that they
could not have failed to record such a horror, had he
been really guilty of it.
But to return to the words of our Talmud passage.
The narrative is introduced by citing what is appa
rently some famous saying of Eabbinic wisdom. It
must be remarked, however, that if Streane's trans
lation is correct,1 the wisdom of the saying does not
Rabba iibersetzt uiid erlautert " (Gottingen ; 1893), p. 195; Tem-
pestim (F.), " Le Code Nazareen vulgairemeiit appele Livre d'Adam
traduit pour la premiere fois en Frangais," in Migne's " Dictionnaire
des Apocryphes," vol. i. (Paris ; 1856) ; and Norberg (M.), " Codex
Nasaraeus, Liber Adami appellatus . . . latineque redditus
Hafnise, n.d., probably first decade of last century).
1 Moses Levene translates more intelligibly from "Sot a," 47a :
10
146 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
immediately appear on the surface, and we must take
it in a symbolic sense as referring to such ideas as good
and evil, sheep and goats, orthodoxy and heresy;
" right " and " left " being the commonest of all symbolic
terms, not only in Jewish and Christian but also in
Egyptian, Pythagorean and Orphic mysticism.
The "Inn" As to the inn and hostess story, it is very evident
"Horn*." tti&t, it we are to take it literally, we have the
veritable birth of a mountain out of a mole-hill. Why
the whole orchestra of the Temple at Jerusalem, appa
rently, should be requisitioned to give world-wide
notice of the excommunication of Jeschu, simply
because he admired the eyes of a landlady (if that
indeed be the meaning of the original) l is passing non-
oriental comprehension. To relieve ourselves, then, of
the intolerable burden of the absurdities which the
literal meaning of the story imposes upon us, I venture
to suggest that we are here face to face with an instance
of Deutsch's " cap and bells " element in the Talmud, and
therefore make bold to offer my mite of speculation as
to the underlying meaning.
Excommuni- Evidently the main point is that Jeschu was
Jesus! ° formally excommunicated for heretical tendencies from
the school or circle over which Joshua presided. The
400 horns, trumpets or trombones may be taken
simply to mean that the excommunication was exceed
ingly formal and serious. The reason for excommuni-
"The right hand of a man should always allure when the left
hand repels." See " Jesus and Christianity in the Talmud," " The
Theosophical Review," xxix. 316 (December, 1901).
1 Levene gives the lady's eyes as " oval " ; whereas Streane's
"little narrow eyes" would seem to be the very opposite of a com
plimentary remark.
THE TALMUD 100 B.C. STORY OF JESUS. 147
cation was plainly doctrinal. Now Jewish tradition
invariably asserted that Jesus learned " magic " in
Egypt. The kernel of this persistent accusation may
perhaps be reduced to the simple historical element
that Jesus went to Egypt and returned with far wider
and more enlightened views than those of his former co-
disciples, and in this connection it is to be remembered
that many scholars have argued, from the strong
resemblance between the general features of the
earliest Christian churches of canonical tradition and
those of the Essene communities, that Jesus was an
Essene, or let us say more generally a member of an
Essene-like body. I therefore venture on the specula
tion that the " inn " of our story may cryptically refer
to one of such communities, which Joshua considered
very excellent, but which Jesus considered to have a
too narrow outlook from the standpoint of a more
liberal view of things spiritual. It is also of interest
to recall to mind that excommunication from the
Essene community required the votes of no less than
100 brethren; can the 400 "horns" by any possibility
refer to the voices or votes of some specially convened
assembly for a very important and formal decision
against one whose superior knowledge refused to be
bound down by the traditional limitations of the order ?
Perhaps also there are some who may ask themselves
the question : Has the " birth " of the " little one " in
the "inn" of the familiar Gospel story any new
meaning looked at by the light of these mystic and
cryptic expressions ?
As we are, then, in highest probability dealing with The " Brick-
t)ft& '*
a story which conceals an under-meaning, it may
148 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
further be conjectured that some precise detail of
history underlies the extraordinary expression " he set
up a brickbat," which has hitherto been invariably con
strued as a contemptuous or humorous way of saying,
" he became an idolater." This may be the meaning,
but, on the contrary, we have to remember that in
the general formal charge at the end taken from the
same authority from which the Gemfira derives the
story, there is no mention of idolatry in this gross sense,
nor, if I mistake not, do we anywhere else in the
Jewish Jesus stories, Talmudic or Mediaeval, meet with
this grossly material charge. Has this strange expres
sion, then, any hidden connection with the " rock " and
" peter " symbolism, or with the " corner-stone," and
therefore originally with Egyptian mystic "masonry" and
its initiations — the " hewn-stone " of a Grand Master ?
But we have not yet done with this famous story, for
it occurs yet again in the Talmud, though in a different
form. In the Palestinian Gemarfi we thus read :
The Jehuda " The inhabitants of Jerusalem intended to appoint
Story a Jehuda ben Tabbai as Nasi l in Jerusalem. He fled
and went away to Alexandria, and the inhabitants of
Jerusalem wrote: 'From Jerusalem the great to
Alexandria the small. How long lives my betrothed
with you, whilst I am sitting grieved on account of
him ? ' When he withdrew to go in a ship, he said :
Has Debora, the landlady who has taken us in, been
wanting in something ? One of his disciples said :
Eabbi, her eye was bright ! 2 He answered : Lo, you
1 Prince or President of the Sanhedrin.
2 Dalman-Streane add (op. cit., 33), " a euphemism for blind"
but this gloss would seem to change the whole sense of the story.
THE TALMUD 100 B.C. STORY OF JESUS. 149
have done two things; firstly, you have rendered me
suspected, and then you have looked upon her. What
did I say ? beautiful in appearance ? I did not say
anything (like this) but (beautiful) in deeds. And he
was angry with him and went his way." l
As the Palestinian Gemara is generally considered to Is it the
be older than the Babylonian, it is naturally argued oft
that we have here the original form of the story which story ?
we have been discussing; the name of Jeschu was
plainly inserted at a later date, and in this fact we
have the simplest possible explanation of this wild
anachronism. And it must be confessed that this argu
ment is one of great strength, and for most people
entirely disposes of this question.
But even so, it may still be conjectured that the
remodelling of the story was a deliberate proceeding on
the part of the Eabbis to suit their tradition of certain
details in the life of Jesus. Hence, in rejecting the
date, it is not absolutely necessary to reject the whole
of the Babylonian version as entirely devoid of every
element of genuineness.
Again, as to the lateness of the Babylonian version,
it is to be observed that the Gemara quotes from an
earlier source or tradition of the story,2 and therefore
we have to push the date back to this source, which
was in all probability Palestinian. It is further to be
remarked that the setting of the whole Babylonian
version is far more exact in its historical details ; it is
1 " Pal. Chagiga," 77d.
2 See Laible-Streane (op. cit., p. 43), who gloss the opening words
of the concluding paragraph as follows : " The same authority
which reports this story, says elsewhere."
150 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
a far more deliberate tradition than the vague and
pointless Palestinian account.
The Problem But even with regard to the Joshua ben Perachiah
date itself, I am not altogether satisfied that it can be
so absolutely disposed of as it seems at first glance, for
as we shall see in considering another, and in some
respects independent, line of Rabbinic tradition pre
served in the earliest elements of the Toldoth Jeschu,
the Joshua ben Perachiah date is the date, and how on
earth an apparently so ludicrous anachronism could
have held its own for so many centuries is a psycho
logical puzzle of the greatest interest ; it argues plainly
that the Jews had no difficulty at all in accepting it,
and in this connection we must remember that the
Eabbis had no belief whatever in the Christian gospel-
tradition as history, as we can plainly see from the Jew
of Celsus, and that they therefore never dreamed of
testing their basic tradition by the Christian gospel
story.
The original version in the Palestinian Gemara, like
its Babylonian (or originally Palestinian) variant, is
evidently a story of the contact of Jewish orthodoxy
with Alexandrian liberalism and mysticism, personified
in Deborah the most famous of ancient prophetesses,
the main point being that the orthodox Jew was
willing to praise the hospitality of the Alexandrian
circles, but refused to praise their doctrines; nay, he
cast off a disciple who ventured to praise them, in fear
of the taint of heresy thus indirectly attaching to him
self. The upholder of this rigid orthodoxy is given as
Jehuda ben Tabbai, the " pair " of Simeon ben Shetach.
In adapting this story to the details of their Jeschu
THE TALMUD 100 B.C. STORY OF JESUS. 151
tradition there seems to be no reason why the Rabbis
should have altered the name unless the details of that
tradition imperatively required it, for it would have
been far more natural to have allowed Simeon ben
Shetach to write to his contemporary Jehuda, than to
have made him write to Joshua ben Perachiah, the
leading light of the preceding " pair."
But it must be confessed that reason has seldom any
thing to do with tradition, and therefore is seldom com
petent to reveal its mysteries.
We will now proceed to consider an even more starts
ling anachronism which is found in one of the Mary
stories.
IX.— THE TALMUD MARY STORIES.
The Mary IT is in vain to seek for any historical element in the
historical. Talmud Mary stories, for they revolve entirely round
the accusation of her unfaithfulness to her husband,
and, therefore, in my opinion, owe their origin to, and
cannot possibly be of earlier date than, the promulga
tion of the popular Christian dogma of the physical
virginity of the mother of Jesus. When this miraculous
dogma was first mooted is exceedingly difficult to
decide. We believe, however, that even at the time of
the compilation of the canonical Gospels Joseph was
still held to be the natural father of Jesus, as we have
seen above, and from this we deduce that even in the
reign of Hadrian (117-138 A.D.) the dogma of the
miraculous birth was not yet " catholicised."
But how far back can we push the first circulation of
this startling belief? For instantly it was publicly
mooted even by a restricted number of the faithful, it
was bound not only to have attracted the widest notice
among the Jews, but also to have called forth the most
contemptuous retorts from those who not only hated the
Pagan idea of heroes born of the congress of divine and
mortal parents as a Heathen superstition and an idola
trous belief, but who were especially jealous of the
THE TALMUD MARY STORIES. 153
legitimacy of their line of descent as preserved in the
public records of their families. In this connection
there is a passage in the Talmud which deserves our
careful attention. It is interesting in other respects, but
chiefly because it is found in the Mishna (iv. 3), and
therefore puts entirely out of court the contention of
those who assert that what is generally regarded as
the oldest and most authoritative deposit of the Talmud
contains no reference whatever to Jesus ; and not only
is it found in the Mishna, but it purports to base itself
on a still older source, and that too a written one. This
remarkable passage runs as follows :
" Simeon ben Azzai has said : I found in Jerusalem The Book of
a book of genealogies ; therein was written : That so
and so is a bastard son of a married woman." l J
This Simeon ben Azzai flourished somewhat earlier
than Akiba, and may therefore be placed at the end of
the first and the beginning of the second century. He
was one of the famous four who, according to Talmudic
tradition, " entered Paradise " ; that is to say, he was
one of the most famous mystics of Israel. He was a
Chassid, most probably an Essene, and remained a
celibate and rigid ascetic till the day of his death. We
might, therefore, expect him to be specially fitted to
give us some information as to Jesus, and yet what he
is recorded to have said is the very opposite of our
expectation.
Ben Azzai, we are to believe, declared that he had
found a book of genealogies at Jerusalem — presumably
then before the destruction of the city in 70 A.D. This
book of genealogies can be taken to mean nothing else
1 " Jebamotli," 49a.
154 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
r— 5
than an official record ; nevertheless we are told that it
contained the proof of Jeschu's bastardy, for " so and
so " is one of the well-known substitutes for Jesus and
Jesus alone in the Talmud, as has been proved and
admitted on either side.
If we are right in ascribing the genesis of the Mamzer
element of the Jesus stories to doctrinal controversy,
we can only conclude that the categorical statement
we are considering was originally either a deliberate
invention, or the confident assertion in the heat of
controversy of some imperfect memory that was only
too eagerly believed to refer to Jesus. The Jewish
apologist on the contrary can argue that this ancient
tradition fully justified his forefathers of later genera
tions for their belief in the bastardy of Jeschu as a
historic fact authenticated by the records ; while if he be
an out-and-out rationalist he may even go so far as to
claim that the " virgin birth " doctrine was invented in
answer to this record, and that there has been no
historicising of a mystic fact, as we have supposed,
seeing that there are no mystic " facts," but only the
baseless imaginings of unbalanced enthusiasm.
This we cannot believe, and therefore conclude that
the earliest Jewish Mary legends came to birth some
where towards the close of the first century.
Ben Stada It is exceedingly difficult to classify these Mamzer
Pandera legends or to treat them in any satisfactory chrono
logical fashion, but it is remarkable that in them there
seem to be two deposits of tradition characterised
by different names for Jeschu — Ben Stada and Ben
Pandera, names which have given rise to the wildest
philological speculation, but of which the current mean-
THE TALMUD MARY STORIES. 155
ing was evidently simply " son of the harlot," whatever
may have been their line of descent.1 Ben Stada occurs
exclusively in the Talmud, where it is the most frequent
designation of Jeschu, though Ben Pandera is also found ;
Ben Pandera is found in the Toldoth Jeschu, and as we
have seen in the Church Fathers, while Ben Stada is
never met with in these sources.
The Ben Stada stories are mostly characterised by The Lud
anachronisms which are as startling as those of the
Ben Perachiah date, but which are its exact antipodes.
They are further generally characterised by either
distinct references to Lud, or by the bringing in of
the names of the most famous Eabbis of this famous
school of Talmud study. I would suggest, therefore,
that these legends might be conveniently called the Lud
stories.
1 See Krauss (S.), " Das Leben Jesu nach jiidischen Quellen "
(Berlin ; 1902), p. 276, where full indications of the literature are
appended. A probable speculation is that of Bleek in Nitzsch's
article, "Ueber eine Reihe talmudischer und patristischer Ta'u-
schungen, welche sich an den missverstandenen Spottnamen Ben
Pandera gekniipft," in " Theologische Studien und Kritiken ". -
(Hamburg; 1840), pp. 115-120. Bleek supposes that Pandera is 1
a caricature-name to mimic the Greek Trdp0evos (Parthenos),
"Virgin." But there is also perhaps a connection with the
Greek iravQ-np (Panther), an animal that was regarded as the symbol
of lasciviousness. Whether or not there may have been further
some connection between this panther-idea and the Egyptian Pasht-
cult, it is impossible to say. But Pasht or Bast, the "cat" or
"panther" goddess, is suppossed to have had rites resembling
those of Aphrodite Pandemos, and the girls of her temple were
therefore presumably prostitutes. The derivation of " bastard " is
given as equivalent to the old French fils de bast, where last
means a "pack saddle." The "son of Bast" in Egypt would
have been a like term of unequivocal meaning. Still we can
hardly venture to connect these too bast's, and so must leave the /
matter as a curious freak of coincidence. <J
156 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
The Mishna School at Lud (Lydda) is said to have
been founded by K. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, the teacher
of E. Akiba,1 and it was doubtless the great reputation
of Akiba as the most implacable foe of Christianity
which, in course of time, connected the name of Mary
with stories of Akiba which originally were perfectly
innocent of any reference to the mother of Jesus.
Thus, in later times, we find tradition bringing Akiba
and Miriam together in personal conversation, we
find it still later giving her one of Akiba's contem
poraries as a husband, and finally we meet with a
curious legend in which Miriam is made the contem
porary of a Eabbi of the fourth century !
But to consider these fantastic developments of
Talmudic tradition in greater detail. The following is
the famous academical discussion on the refinements of
bastardy, which in course of time supplied the Ben
Pandera legend with some of its most striking details,
as we still find them in various forms of the Toldoth
Jeschu.
A Famous <c A shameless person is, according to E. Eliezer, a
bastard ; according to E. Joshua, a son of a woman
in her separation ; according to E. Akiba, a bastard
and son of a woman in her separation. Once there sat
elders at the gate when two boys passed by ; one had
his head covered, the other bare. Of him who had
his head uncovered, E. Eliezer said, ' A bastard ! '
1 But when we are told that tlie famous Jewish proselyte, Queen
Helena of Adiabene, passed fourteen years in Palestine (46-60
A.D.) in close communion with the doctors of the Hillel school at
Jerusalem and Lud, there was presumably a school at Lud even
prior to the time of Ben Hyrcanus.
THE TALMUD MARY STORIES. 157
E. Joshua said, ' A son of a woman in her separation ! '
E. Akiba said, ' A bastard and son of a woman in her
separation ! ' They said to E. Akiba, ' How has thine
heart impelled thee to the audacity of contradicting the
words of thy colleagues ? ' He said to them, ' I am
about to prove it.' Thereupon he went to the boy's
mother, and found her sitting in the market and selling
pulse. He said to her, ' My daughter, if thou tellest me
the thing which I ask thee, I will bring thee to eternal
life.' She said to him, ' Swear it to me ! ' Thereupon
E. Akiba took the oath with his lips, while he cancelled
it in his heart. Then said he to her, * Of what sort is
this thy son ? ' She said to him, ' When I betook
myself to the bridal chamber I was in my separation,
and my husband stayed away from me. But my
parariymph1 came to me, and by him I have this son.'
So the boy was discovered to be both a bastard and
the son of a woman in her separation. Thereupon said
they, ' Great is E. Akiba, in that he has put to shame
his teachers.5 In the same hour they said, ' Blessed be
the Lord God of Israel, who has revealed His secret to
E. Akiba ben Joseph.' " 2
Eliezer, Joshua and Akiba were contemporaries, but
Akiba was by far their junior; for Eliezer ben
Hyrcanus was Akiba's teacher, while Joshua ben
Chanania was a disciple of Jochanan ben Zakkai, who
died about 70 A.D. ; Akiba was put to death in 135 A.D.
The setting of the story, therefore, places us somewhere
about the end of the first century.
We may pass over the strange ascription of an act Criticism
thereon.
1 That is, the bridegroom's best man.
2 "Kallah," 18b.
158 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
of heartless perjury to Akiba as the means whereby he
extorted the confession from the boy's mother, and the
far more curious addition at the end of the passage
which blesses the God of Israel for revealing "His
secret " after the use of such questionable means, with
the remark that it would be interesting to know
whether Talmud apologetics prefer to abandon the
reputation of the Talmud or of its great authority
Akiba in this instance, for here there is no third
choice.
What is most striking in the story is that neither
the name of the boy nor that of his mother is given.
Laible l supposes that the story originally contained the
names of Jeschu and Miriam, but that the compiler of
the Gemara struck them out, both because the mother
is described as a pulse-seller, while elsewhere in the
Talmud she is called Miriam the women's hair-dresser,
and also because of the startling anachronism of mak
ing Miriam and Akiba contemporaries. He holds that
the story itself is of early origin, and was originally a
Jesus story.
To this we cannot agree, for if it had been originally
intended as a Jesus story its inventors could not
possibly have been so foolish as to introduce Eabbis of
the beginning of the second century among the dramatis
personce. This would have been really too inane even
for the wildest controversialists at any date even
remotely approaching the time when Jews and Jewish
Christians were still in contact.
How it The main intention of the story is evidently to
enhance the reputation of K. Akiba, to display the
1 Laible-Streane, op. cit,, p. 35.
THE TALMUD MARY STORIES. 159
depth of his penetration and his fine appreciation of the
subtlest shades of bastardy, a subject of great importance
in Eabbinical law. It was then presumably a tradition
of the Lud school, and at first had no connection what
ever with the Jeschu stories. In course of time, when
the Mamzer retort to the virgin-birth dogma was popu
larised in legend and folk-tale, the details of this other
famous story of bastardy were added to the originally
vague Mamzer legends of Jeschu, and to this source we
may conjecture, with high probability, is to be traced
the origin of the coarse details of Miriam's unfaithful
ness to her husband as found in the various forms of the
Toldoth Jeschu. The link was simply the word " bastard" ;
the rich gain to the legend material finally entirely out
weighed the inconvenience of the wild anachronism.
The story is introduced by the commission of a shock
ing act of disrespect on the part of one of the boys, for
according to Eabbinical law and custom, a teacher was
to be treated as worthier of greater honour than all
others, even than one's parents. To go uncovered in the
presence of a teacher was thus thought to be an act of
utter shamelessness ; in the West, of course, the very
opposite would be the case. Disrespect to the Eabbis
as shown in this and other ways is one of the main
burdens of accusation brought against Jesus in the
Toldoth Jeschu.
We are, then, justified in supposing that any folk
tale or legend of infidelity or bastardy stood a good
chance of being gradually worked into the Mamzer
patchwork. And indeed we find that this was actually
the case. The following story is a good instance of
this method of conflation.
160
DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
The Story of
Paphos ben
Jehudah.
How it
became a
Mary Story.
" There is a tradition, Eabbi Meir used to say : Just
as there are various kinds of taste as regards eating, so
there are also various dispositions as regards women.
There is a man into whose cup a fly falls and he casts
it out, but all the same he does not drink it (the cup).
Such was the manner of Paphos ben Jehudah, who
used to lock the door upon his wife and go out. And
there is another who, when a fly falls into his tumbler,
throws it out and drinks it, and this is the way of men
generally. When she is speaking with her brothers
and relatives, he does not hinder her, But there is also
the man, who, when a fly falls into a dish, sucks it (the
fly) out and eats it (the dish). This is the manner of a
bad man, who sees his wife going out bareheaded and
spinning in the street and wearing clothes slit up on
both sides and bathing together with men." l
E. Meir was a pupil of Akiba and Paphos (or Pappos)
ben Jehudah was Akiba's contemporary. It is not
necessary to enter into a consideration of the details of
Eabbinic metaphor with regard to the "various dis
positions." All we learn from this passage directly
with regard to Paphos ben Jehudah is that he locked
up his wife ; we are, however, led to conclude, indirectly,
that she ultimately proved unfaithful to her tyrannical
spouse. What, then, more simple than for a story
teller to connect this with the details of unfaithfulness
found in his Jeschu repertoire. The erring wife was just
like Miriam ; before long she actually became Miriam,
and finally Paphos ben Jehudah was confidently given as
Miriam's husband ! So they had it in later times, had it,
we may suppose, at Lud, that most uncritical of legend
1KGittin,"90a.
THE TALMUD MARY STORIES. 161
factories, and finally we find even so great a commen
tator as Eashi (ob. 1105 A.D.) endorsing with all confidence
this hopeless anachronism, when he says : " Paphos ben
Jehudah was the husband of Miriam, the women's hair
dresser. Whenever he went out of the house into the
street, he locked the door upon her, that no one might
be able to speak to her. And that is a course which
became him not ; for on this account there arose enmity
between them, and she in wantonness broke her faith
with her husband."
But even eight or nine centuries before Rashi's time
the Babylonian Kabbis had found the Ben Stada Lud
developments a highly inconvenient overgrowth of the
earlier Ben Perachiah date, as we shall see later on, and
it is strange to find Rashi so ignorant of what they had
to say on the subject.
Startling, however, as is the anachronism which we The Vision of
have been discussing, it is but a mild surprise compared
with the colossal absurdity of the following legend, if
we interpret it in the traditional fashion,
" When Eab Joseph came to this verse (Prov. xhi. 23),
' But there is that is destroyed without judgment/ he
wept. He said : Is there really someone who is going
(away), when it is not his time? Certainly (for) so
has it happened with Rab Bibi bar Abbai; the angel
of death was found with him. The former said to his
attendant, Go, bring me Miriam the women's hair
dresser. He went and brought him Miriam the
children's teacher. The angel of death said to him,
I said Miriam the women's hair-dresser. The mes
senger said to him, Then I will bring her [the other]
back. The angel of death said to him, Since thou
11
162 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
hast brought her, let her be reckoned (among the
dead)." l
Commentary Eab Joseph bar Chia was born at Stili, in Babylonia
259 A.D. ; he was head of the famous Babylonian
Eabbinical School at Pumbeditha. The only E. Bibi
we know of flourished in the fourth century, and that
this Bibi was believed to have been the seer of the
death-bed vision is quite evident from the following
note of the Tosaphoth on the passage :
"'The angel of death was found with him,' who
related what had happened to him long ago, for this
story as to Miriam the women's hair-dresser took place
in the time of the second temple, for she was mother of
that so and so [i.e., Jeschu], as is related in (treatise)
Shabbath [104b]."
It is by no means clear what the writer of the
Tosaphoth meant precisely by " the time of the second
temple." He probably, however, meant the time before
the new and splendid edifice of Herod replaced the
second temple proper, the meagre building that had
become gradually overlooked by the gorgeous Greek
palaces of the nobles of Herod's days.
It must be remarked, however, that this explanation
does great violence to the wording of the story as it is
found in the Geinara. Can it be then that some other
Bibi was originally referred to, and that the story was
subsequently transferred by posterity to his far later
but more famous namesake ?
That the simple words "bastard" and "adulteress"
were strong enough indications of suitability for the
match-makers of legend to unite in marriage stories of
1 " Chagiga," 4b.
THE TALMUD MARY STORIES. 163
otherwise the strongest incompatibility of age and date,
we have already seen ; that the very common name of
Miriam should further expand this family circle of
cross-breeds is therefore quite to be expected.
And this will doubtless be held by most sufficiently
to account for the transference to the address of
Miriam the mother of Jeschu of the following two
legends ; but closer inspection warns us not too lightly
to accept this explanation. In one of the tractates
of the Palestinian Talmud we are given the story of
a certain devout person who was privileged to see a
vision of some of the punishments in hell. Among
other sights.
"He saw also Miriam, the daughter of Eli Betzalim,\ The story of
11 T T . i <. Miriam in
suspended, as K. Lazar ben Jose says, by the paps of Hell,
her breasts. R. Jose ben Chanina says : The hinge of
hell's gate was fastened in her ear. He said to them
[? the angels of punishment], Why is this done to her ?
The answer was, Because she fasted and published the
fact. Others said, Because she fasted one day, and
counted two days (of feasting) as a set-off. He asked
them, How long shall she be so ? They answered him,
Until Simeon ben Shetach comes ; then we shall take
it out of her ear and put it into his ear." 1
As K. Jose ben Chanina was a contemporary of R.
Akiba, R. Lazar ben Jose was presumably a Rabbi of
an earlier date, but I can discover nothing about him.
The main point of interest for us is the sentence, " until
Simeon ben Shetach comes." This can only mean that
at the time of the vision Simeon ben Shetach was not
yet dead, and therefore this Miriam was at latest
1 " Pal. Chagiga," 77d.
164 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
contemporary with him and therefore can very well be
placed in the days of his older contemporary Joshua
ben Perachiah. As to Eli Betzalim,1 I can discover
nothing about him. It is true that a certain Eli is
given as the father of Joseph .in the genealogy incorpo
rated into the third Gospel, a genealogy which would be
quite useless if at the time of its compilation Jesus had
not been regarded as the natural son of Joseph, but in
the very different genealogy prefixed to the first Gospel,
and also purporting to give the descent of Joseph, a
certain Jacob takes the place of Eli and the name Eli
is not found. But even had the two genealogies agreed,
we should not have been helped at all, for they are
given as the genealogies of Joseph and not of Mary.
It would also be of interest to know in what Simeon
ben Shetach had offended, for he is otherwise known
as the Kabbinic president of the golden age of Pharisaean
prestige in the days of Queen Salome, as we have seen
above. In any case the story is an ancient one, for
already in the days of Eabbi Lazar and Rabbi Jose
there were variants of it.
The "Hinge The phrase "hinge of hell's gate" is curious, and
Gate." argues an Egyptian (or perhaps Chaldsean) setting ; it
may be compared with the "pivot of the gate of Amenti"
of the Khamuas folk-tales, where they relate the
punishment of " Dives in Hades." " It was commanded
that he should be requited in Amenti, and he is that
1 Krauss (" Leben Jesu," p. 224) translates " Eli Betzalim " by
" Zwiebelblatt " (Onion-leaf) and (p. 225) refers to this Miriam as
M. Zwiebelblatt, but does not venture on any explanation. The
onion, however, was a symbol of lasciviousness, and may, therefore,
perhaps be taken as a synonym of harlot.
THE TALMUD MARY STORIES. 165
man whom thou didst see, in whose right eye the
pivot (?) of the gate of Amenti was fixed, shutting and
opening upon it, and whose mouth was open in great
lamentation." l
Finally, in these Talmud Mary-legends we come to
the thrice-repeated Miriam daughter of Bilga story,
which runs as follows :
" Bilga always receives his part on the south side on Miriam and
account of Miriam, daughter of Bilga, who turned
apostate and went to marry a soldier belonging to the
government of Javan,2 and went and beat upon the roof
of the altar. She said to him : ' Wolf, wolf, thou hast
destroyed the property of the Israelites and didst not
help them in the hour of their distress ! ' " 3
This Miriam of Bilga can hardly be supposed to
mean the actual daughter of Bilga of I. Chron. xxiv. 14,
the head of one of the priestly courses of the house of
Aaron. It must mean simply that Miriam was the
daughter of one of the priests of the Bilga course or
line of descent, for in the days of Bilga himself we
1 Griffith (F. LI.), "Stories of the High Priests of Memphis"
(Oxford; 1900), p. 49. See also "The Gospels and the Gospel"
(London ; 1902), pp. 175-180, where I have pointed out the
importance of this episode in the new-found demotic papyrus as a
probable source of the Dives and Lazarus story. Was Lazar the
name of the seer in some Jewish variant of these popular Egyptian
folk-tales ? And has some alchemy of name- transmutation brought
to birth the name Lazarus of the Dives story of the third Gospel
writer ? The speculation is a wild one, but not wilder than the
transformations of legends with which folk-lorists are on all hands
well acquanted.
2 That is, Greece (Ionia).
3 " Pal. Sukka," 55d, also in substantially identical words, " Bab.
Sukka," 56b, and in " Tosephta Sukka," iv. 28.
166 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
know of no attack on Jerusalem by the Greeks, as the
story evidently suggests.
In this case, however, it does not seem to be the
Talmud or the Jews themselves who connect this
story with Miriam, mother of Jeschu, but Dalman,1
who leaves us to suppose that it is one of the censured
passages of the Talmud. What ground, however,
Dalman has for bringing this story into relation with
the Mary-legends I cannot discover ; he seems to depend
on Laible,2 who refers to Origen quoting Celsus as
making his Jew declare that " Mary gave birth to
Jesus by a certain soldier, Panthera."
If, because of this, we are to take the above as a
Mary story, it should be noticed that the " soldier " is
of the " house of Greece," and therefore the date of the
incident must be placed prior to the first Eoman
occupation of Jerusalem by Pompey in 63 B.C. ; so that
in it, in any case, we find a confirmation of the Ben
Perachiah date.
This brings us to the end of our Mary stories ; our
next chapter will deal with the remaining Talmud Ben
Stada Jesus stories.
1 Dalman-Streane, op. cit., p. 20n.
2 Ibid,, p. 19.
X.— THE TALMUD BEN STADA JESUS STOKIES.
As we have seen already from the evidence of the early The Bringing
Church Fathers, one of the most persistent charges of out of Egypt
the Jews against Jesus was that he had learned magic
in Egypt. In the Toldoth Jeschu, while we still hear
of Jeschu's learning magic in Egypt, the main feature in
the story of his acquirement of miraculous power is the
robbing of the Shem (the Tetragrammaton or Ineffable
Name) from the Temple at Jerusalem by a strange
device. The Talmud, however, knows nothing of this
robbing of the Shem from the Temple ; but in record
ing the tradition of the bringing of magic out of Egypt
it adds details of the means whereby this magic is
fabled to have been conveyed out of the country, and in
the variants of the story we can trace the evolution of
the strange device whereby Jeschu is said in the
Toldoth to have outwitted the magic guardians of the
Shem.
Thus in the Palestinian Gemfiril we read :
" He who scratches on the skin in the fashion of
writing is guilty, but he who makes marks on the skin
in the fashion of writing, is exempt from punishment.
Kabbi Eliezer said to them: But has not Ben Stada
brought (magic) spells out of Egypt just in this way ?
168 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
They answered him : On account of one fool we do not
ruin a multitude of reasonable men." l
The same story is also handed on in the Babylonian
Gemara, but with a very striking variant :
The Writing " There is a tradition : Rabbi Eliezer said to the wise
men, Has not Ben Stada brought magic spells from
Egypt in an incision in his body ? They answered
him, He was a fool, and we do not take proofs from
fools."2
The Tosephta adds yet another variant of the tradi
tion :
" He who upon the Sabbath cuts letters upon his
body is, according to the view of K. Eliezer guilty,
according to the view of the wise not guilty. K.
Eliezer said to the wise: Ben Stada surely learned
sorcery by such writing. They replied to him : Should
we in any wise on account of a fool destroy all reason
able men ? " 3
The Evolu- The mention of R. Eliezer and the name Ben Stada
Legend. indicate that we have here to do with a Lud tradition ;
the story, however, must be regarded as one of the
oldest of this tradition, for it cites R. Eliezer ben
Hyrcanus, the teacher of Akiba, and the founder of the
Lud school. The Palestinian Gemara evidently pre
serves the oldest and more detailed account. In it the
academical discussion has to do with a very nice point
of Sabbath breaking. Writing of any kind on the
Sabbath was strictly forbidden. The question then
1 " Pal. Shabbath," 13d.
2 « Bab. Shabbath," 104b.
3 "Tosephta, Shabbath," xi. (xii.) towards the end (ed. Zucker-
mandel, p. 126).
THE TALMUD BEN STADA JESUS STORIES. 169
arises : But what if it be on one's skin and not on
parchment ? Further is there not a difference between
scratching in the form of writing,1 and making marks
(that is in some way other than scratching) in the form
of writing (that is presumably resembling writing in
some way) ?
K. Eliezer meets the decision of his colleagues with
the objection that Ben Stada brought his spells out of
Egypt by " marks " on the skin and not by " scratching."
These marks on the skin were presumably not letters
proper, that is the writing of words in Hebrew, for the
discussion is not as to writing, but as to " marks in
the fashion of writing." Does it then refer to diagrams
or sigils, or drawings of some kind, or to hieroglyphics ?
The Tosephta, it will he noticed, makes havoc of this
elaborate argument of the Palestinian Gemara, and
ascribes to the " wise " a judgment the very reverse of
what they had given according to the Gemara ; more
over the " scratching " has become " cutting letters
upon the body."
While as for the Babylonian Gemara the whole The Hiding
account is still further altered ; no longer is it a ment.
question with Eliezer of refuting the opinion of his
colleagues with regard to the main point, " marks on
the skin in the fashion of writing," no longer is it a
question even of " cutting letters upon the body," but
we have a totally new and startling gloss, namely the
bringing out of Egypt by Ben Stada of spells (presum
ably written on parchment) in an incision in his body.
1 Laible (op. cit., p. 46) speaks of this "scratching " as tattooing ;
but there seems no reason why we should give technical precision
to such vague indications.
170 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
This writing on parchment and hiding the parchment
in an incision in the body is precisely the account
adopted by the Toldoth Jeschu, and when we come to
discuss this second highly complex line of tradition we
shall refer again to the subject. All that need be said
here is that the Palestinian Gemaril seems plainly to
have preserved the earlier account, namely the inscrib
ing of some figures, or more probably hieroglyphs, on
the skin. The idea in the mind of the Palestinian
Eabbis was presumably that the Egyptians were known
to be very jealous of their magic lore and did all they
could to prevent books of magic being taken out of the
country ; Jeschu, then, according to the oldest Rabbinic
tradition, was said to have circumvented their vigilance
by some such subterfuge as that which has been
handed on in the story in the Palestinian Gemara.1
The Circum- The rank growth from the original nucleus of the
Heart.0 legend is plainly shown in the Talmud and the
Tosephta. What the real inwardness or nucleole of
the nucleus may have been we shall perhaps never
know, but it may possibly have been derived from some
such mystical expression as the " circumcision of the
heart," or the hiding of wisdom in the heart. Mean
while the story under discussion provides a text in the
1 It is curious to note that a similar device has been recently
made use of by a novelist (A. E. W. Mason, " The Four Feathers,"
London, 1902). The scene is laid in the Soudan, and on p. 90 we
read : " Abou Fatma drove the donkey down amongst the
trees. ... In the left shoulder a tiny incision had been made
and the skin neatly stitched up again with fine thread. He
cut the stitches, and pressing open the two edges of the wound,
forced out a tiny package little bigger than a postage stamp. The
package was a goat's bladder, and enclosed within the bladder
was a note written in Arabic and folded very small."
THE TALMUD BEN STADA JESUS STORIES. 171
Babylonian Gemara for a commentary in the Gemara
itself which runs as follows :
"Ben Stada was Ben Pandera. Eab Chisda said: The Rabbis
The husband was Stada, the lover Pandera. (Another their own
said): The husband was Paphos ben Jehuda; Stada Creations-
was his mother; (or) his mother was Miriam the
women's hairdresser ; as they would say at Pumbeditha,
S'tath da (i.e., she was unfaithful) to her husband." l
It is exceedingly difficult to make out from the
stopping of this translation who said what, but the
sentence "(or) his mother was Miriam the women's
hairdresser," seems to be a gloss or interpolation, and
the words " as they would say " seem to follow naturally
after " Stada was his mother." Be this as it may be,
our interesting passage makes it quite clear that by
this time legend had reached so rank a growth that
even the Kabbis themselves in many places had lost all
trace of its origin, of its earliest authentic form. At
any rate they were all at sixes and sevens on the
subject in Babylonia. All they were quite certain of
was that Ben Stada and Ben Pandera were intended
for one and the same person, but as to who Stada or
Pandera may have been they had no definite infor
mation.
Rab Chisda was one of the most famous Eabbis of
the school at Sura (one of the greatest centres of
Talmudic activity in Babylonia) and died 309 A.D. ; he
evidently was greatly puzzled to account for the appa
rently contradictory aliases bestowed on Jeschu by
Rabbinical tradition. The Rabbis of Pumbeditha
1 " Bab Shabbath," 104b ; repeated in almost identical words in
" Bab. Sanhedrin," 67a.
172 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
(another of the great centres of Talmudic learning in
Eastern Jewry), on the contrary, seem to have pre
served a correct tradition of the origin of the nick
name Ben Stada, though they appear to have taken
Ben Pandera as a proper form. Whether or not the
Pumbeditha derivation is correct in the letter, is a
question for specialists to decide ; it is in my opinion,
however, certainly correct in spirit, for, as I have
already argued, Ben Pandera came into existence as an
offset to the "virgin's son" of Christian popular the
ology, and I am further persuaded that Ben Stada had
also a similar genesis, whatever may have been the pre
cise philological details of their birth.
That the later Babylonian Rabbis were puzzled and
at loggerheads on the subject is quite evident from the
record of their Gemara ; but that there was elsewhere
a certain tradition of the Ben Perachiah date is shown
by the additional information contained in the
mediaeval Tosaphoth to this passage.
A Mediaeval " ' Ben Stada.' Rabbenu Tarn says that this is not
r' Jeschu ha-Notzri (Jesus the Nazarene), for as to Ben
Stada we say here that he was in the days of Pappos
ben Jehudah, who lived in the days of Rabbi Akiba, as
is proved in the last chapter of Berachoth [61b], but
Jeschu lived in the days of Jehoshua ben Perachiah, as
is proved in the last chapter of Sota [47a] : c And not
like Rabbi Jehoshua ben Perachiah who pushed away
Jeschu ha-Notzri with both hands,' and Rabbi Jehoshua
was long before Rabbi Akiba. ' His mother was
Miriam, the women's hairdresser,' and what is related
in the first chapter of Chagiga [4b] : ' Rab Bibi — the
angel of death was found with him, etc., he said to his
THE TALMUD BEN STADA JESUS STORIES, 173
messenger : Go and fetch me Miriam the women's hair
dresser' — that means that there lived in the days of
Kab Bibi Miriam, a women's hairdresser. It was
another (Miriam), or the angel of death was also relat
ing to Kab Bibi a story which happened a long time
before." l
" Our Eabbi Tarn " is presumably E. Jacob of Troyes Rabbi Tam.
(France), who flourished in the twelfth century,2 but I
cannot discover to what school he belonged, and there
fore to whom " we say here " refers. Eab Tam, how
ever, categorically denies that Ben Stada was the
Jeschu of history, and that, too, in face of the wide
spread Lud tradition which had so strongly imposed
itself upon the Babylonian Eabbis. We have ourselves
seen how " Ben Stada " came into existence only some
where about the end of the first century, when he was
born of controversy. Eabbenu Tam, therefore, is quite
right when he says that " Ben Stada " lived in the days
of Paphos ben Jehuda, who lived in the days of Akiba.
The truth of the matter, according to Eab Tam, was
that the historical Jeschu lived in the days of Jehoshua
ben Perachiah ; as to the Eab Bibi story, he adds, it too
is a gross anachronism, the Miriam referred to was
either some totally different person, or the story has
been handed on incorrectly.
Eabbi Tam and his school, therefore, held solely to
the Jehoshua ben Perachiah date ; and they apparently
rejected all the Ben Stada stories, but whether or no
1 " Tosaphoth Shabbath," 104b.
2 See Krauss (S.), "Das Leben Jesu" (Berlin ; 1902), pp. 227,
274. But Tam has all the appearance of being a by-name, and we
cannot be certain of the identification.
174 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
they also rejected the Jehoshua ben Perachiah story
and simply held to the date, we have no means of
ascertaining. If the translation given above is correct,
they also held to some ancient categorical statement
that Jeschu's mother was a certain Miriam whose
occupation was that of hair-dressing ; but in doing so
we believe they unconsciously became entangled in the
meshes of the Ben Stada net.
Miriam Miriam, "the women's hair-dresser," seems to be
simply another name-play of the Ben Stada and Ben
Pandera genus. Miriam, " the women's hair-dresser,"
is in the original Miriam, " megaddela nesaiia " ; and
Miriam Megaddela is the twin of Mary Magdalene for
all practical purposes in such word-play. But for a Jew
the combination " Miriam of Magdala " was equivalent
to saying Miriam the harlot, for Magdala had an unen
viable notoriety for the looseness of the lives of its
women.1 As far as Eabbinical tradition, then, is
concerned, it seems exceedingly probable that we have
here the origin of the otherwise strange combination
Miriam the women's hair-dresser, and we should there
fore ascribe the time and place of its birth to the
same period as the Ben Stada invention and the same
circle which produced the Lud legends.
The Mag- But the origin of the glyph of the Magdalene, out of
thelsophia wnom tne Christ cast seven devils in the historicised
Christian tradition, is, in my opinion, to be traced to a
mystic Gnostic source and not to controversial word
play. In Gnostic tradition we find the Sophia in her
various aspects possessed of many names. Among them
1 "Threni Rabba," c. 2 f. 106 (ed. Wilna) ; see Krauss, op. cit.,
pp. 274, 275, 286, 303 ; see also Laible, op. cit., 16 and 17.
THE TALMUD BEN STADA JESUS STORIES. 175
may be mentioned : the Mother or All-Mother ; Mother
of the Living, or Shining Mother ; the Power Above ;
the Holy Spirit ; again She of the Left-hand, as opposed
to Christos, Him of the Eight-hand ; the Man-woman ;
Prouneikos or Lustful-one, the Harlot ; the Matrix ;
Eden ; Achamoth ; the Virgin ; Barbelo ; Daughter of
Light ; Merciful Mother ; Consort of the Masculine
One ; Kevelant of the Perfect Mysteries ; Perfect
Mercy ; Kevelant of the Mysteries of the whole Magni
tude ; Hidden Mother ; She who knows the Mysteries
of the Elect ; the Holy Dove which has given birth to
Twins ; Ennoea ; and the Lost or Wandering Sheep,
Helena (who the Church Fathers said was a harlot whom
Simon Magus had picked up at Tyre) and many other
names.
All these terms refer to Sophia or the " Soul " — using
the term in its most general sense — in her cosmic or
individual aspects, according as she is above in her
perfect purity ; or in the midst, as intermediary, or
below as fallen into matter.1
By help of the above apparently unrelated data the The Mystic
thoughtful reader may now be able to sift out some of
the elements from the chaos of myth and legend with
which we are dealing. Personally we should prefer to
continue with the mystical side of early Christianity
and take ourselves out of the hurly-burly of vulgar con
troversy, but the necessities of the task upon which we are
engaged compel us to return to the Talmud Lud stories,
and the account they give of the condemnation and death
of Jesus. Both Talmuds contain a short statement
1 See my "Fragments of a Faith Forgotten" (London ; 1900)
pp. 334, 335.
176 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
referring to this, which in both cases is appended to the
following passage from the Mishna :
Concerning " In the case of all the transgressors indicated in the
the Enticer m ,
to Idolatry, lorah as deserving or death, no witnesses are placed in
concealment except in case of the sin of leading astray
to idolatry. If the enticer has made his enticing speech
to two, these are witnesses against him, and lead him
to the court of justice, and he is stoned. But if he
have used the expression not before two but before one,
he shall say to him : ' I have friends, who have a liking
for that.' But if he is cunning, and wishes to say
nothing before the others, witnesses are placed in con
cealment behind the wall, and he says himself to the
seducer : * Now tell me once again what thou wast
saying to me, for we are alone.' If he now repeats it,
the other says to him: 'How should we forsake our
heavenly Father, and go and worship wood and
stone ? ' If then the enticer is converted, well and
good ; but if he replies : * This is our duty ; it is for
our good/ then those who are standing behind the
wall bring him before the court of justice, and he
is stoned."1
The Mishna apparently approves of lying to the en
ticer to compass his legal condemnation, " For we are
alone, " says the enticed, when there are others behind
the wall. It is also to be noticed that the legal punish
ment twice referred to for the offence of seducing to
idolatry is stoning.
To the above quoted passage from the Mishna the
The Stoning Palestinian Gemara adds :
of Jesus. t< The enticer is the idiotj etc.— Lo, is he a wise man ?
1 " Pal. Sanhedrin," 25c ; " Bab. Sanhedrin, " 67a.
THE TALMUD BEN STADA JESUS STORIES. 177
No : as an enticer he is not a wise man ; as he is enticed
he is not a wise man. How do they treat him so as
to come upon him by surprise ? Thus ; for the enticer
two witnesses are placed in concealment in the inner
most part of the house ; but he is made himself to
remain in the exterior part of the house, wherein a
lamp is lighted over him, in order that the witnesses
may see him and distinguish his voice. Thus, for
instance, they managed with Ben Sot'da [a variant of
Stada or Satda] at Lud. Against him two disciples
of learned men were placed in concealment and
he was brought before the court of justice, and
stoned." l _j
The Babylonian Gemara is somewhat different, and
runs as follows :
" ' And for all capital criminals who are mentioned The Hanging
in the Torah they do not lay an ambush, but (they do)
for this criminal.'
" How do they act towards him ? They light the
lamp for him in the innermost part of the house, and
they place witnesses for him in the exterior part of the
house, that they may see him and hear his voice, though
he cannot see them. And that man says to him : Tell me
what you have told me when we were alone. And when
he repeats (those words) to him, that man says to him :
How can we abandon our God in Heaven and practise
idolatry ? If he returns it is well ; but when he says :
Such is our duty, and so we like to have it, then the
witnesses who are listening without, bring him to the
tribunal and stone him. And thus they have done to
i "Pal. Sanhedrin," vii. 25d ; also "Pal. Jabamoth," xvi.
15d.
178 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
Ben Stada at Lud, and they hanged him on the day
^Jbefore Passover." l
" Lud " Both these accounts are part and parcel of the Lud
tradition. The accusation in both cases is the sin of
leading away into idolatry ; the death in both cases is
by stoning, clearly stated in the Palestinian Genmra,
and clearly inferred from the Babylonian, which, how
ever, adds that Jeschu was hanged on the day before
the Passover ; that is to say, apparently, that after
stoning, his body was hanged or exposed for a warning ;
at any rate this would be the only meaning attached to
the statement by a Jew who had never heard the
Christian tradition (and the Talmud Jews evidently
r refused to listen to a word of it), for the Jewish custom
was to expose the body of an offender who had suffered
the penalty of death by stoning, on a post as a warning
4 to all.
The name " Lud," however, warns us against seeking
for any historical basis in the details of the story, and
we should, therefore, dismiss it with the rest of the Lud
legends were it not that there exists still another
Talmud tradition referring to the subject, and in this
the name Lud does not appear. This tradition runs as
follows :
The Forty f~ " But there is a tradition : On the Sabbath of the
mation before Passover festival Jeschu was hung [sic, ? hanged]. But
fc^e nera^ went ^ort^ before him for the space of forty
days, while he cried : ' Jeschu goeth forth to be executed
because he has practised sorcery and seduced Israel and
1 " Sanhedrin," 67a ; the passage is continued in almost the
same words as " Bab. Shabbath," 104b. " Ben Stada was Ben
Pandera," etc., on which we have already commented at length.
THE TALMUD BEN STADA JESUS STORIES. 179
estranged them from God.1 Let any one who can bring
forward any justifying plea for him come and give infor
mation concerning it.' But no justifying plea was found
for him, and so he was hung on the Sabbath of the
Passover festival. Ulla has said, But dost thou think
that he belongs to those for whom a justifying plea is
sought ? He was a very seducer, and the All-merciful
has said [Deut. xiii. 8]: 'Thou shall not spare him,
nor conceal him.' However, in Jeschu's case it was some
what different, for his place was near those in power." 2 J
Here there is no mention of Lud, but on the contrary No Know-
there is no mention of stoning but only of hanging, crucifixion.
Laible 3 supposes that " Sanhedrin/' 43a, was originally
a continuation of " Sanhedrin," 67a, and that therefore
the omission of " Lud " is quite understandable, seeing
that it had occurred immediately before. It is, however
exceedingly difficult to believe in such a slicing up of
an originally consecutive account, and therefore I am
inclined to think that in the passage just quoted we
have, if not the orignal form of the later Lud legend, at
any rate an entirely independent account. The story
seems to be in the nature of an apology for the execu
tion of Jeschu. The hanging is admitted, but not the
crucifixion (of which both Talmud and Toldoth know
nothing), and it is interesting in this connection to
remember that "hanging" is also preserved in Chris
tian tradition as an equivalent of crucifixion. Whether
or not this " hanging " in the minds of the Eabbis was
1 This formal charge is repeated twice in the Babylonian
Gemarfi, " Sanhedrin," 107b, and " Sota," 47a.
2 " Bab. Sanhedrin," 43a.
3 Op. cit., p. 85.
180 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
at this time thought of as the immediate method of
death, and they intended further to admit this infringe
ment of the canonical penalty of stoning, is difficult to
decide. The formal charge, however, brought against
Jeschu is given as that of "having practised sorcery
and seduced Israel and estranged them from God."
These words can only refer to leading away to " idolatry,"
and the penalty for this was, as we have seen, stoning.
Jesus "near But Ulla, a Palestinian Kabbi of the beginning of the
power!" fourth century, objects : Why all this precaution when
Jeschu was plainly guilty of the charge ? We have
nothing to apologise for. On this the compiler of the
Gemarfi remarks that Ulla is mistaken in taking this
old tradition for an apology or a plea that every
possible precaution was taken that Jeschu should have
the fullest possible chance given him of proving his
innocence. The real reason for all those precautions
was that Jeschu was a person of great distinction and
importance, and " near those in power " l at the time,
that is to say presumably, connected by blood with the
Jewish rulers — a trait preserved in the Toldoth Jeschu,
as we shall see later on. So much, then, for the Lud
Jesus stories. We shall next treat of some stories with
a name transformation stranger even than Ben Stada.
1 Laible (op. cit., p. 87) interprets this as refer ring to the " Roman
authorities," and so tries to drag in Pilate by the hair ; but in this,
as in so much else, Laible seems incapable of taking a purely un
biassed standpoint, for he naively presupposes throughout the
absolute historicity of every detail found in the canonical Gospel
stories.
XI.— THE TALMUD BALAAM JESUS STOEIES.
THAT the identification of Balaam (Bileam) with Bileam-
Jeschu.
Jeschu1 in a number of the Talmud stories we are con
sidering cannot possibly be held in doubt, will be amply
seen from the passages which we are now about to
bring forward. The precise way in which the identifica
tion was arrived at, is, however, somewhat difficult to
discover. It may be that we have the starting-point
of this curious name-transmutation still preserved in a
Midrash on the famous Balaam story in Numbers ; on
the other hand the origin of this strange name-change
may be found in the domain of name-caricature and
word-play. Let us first consider the extraordinary
Midrash connected with the Numbers' Balaam story.
" ( He that blesseth his friend with a loud voice ' The Balaam
[Prov. xxvii. 14]. How strong was the voice of Balaam ?
Rabbi Jochanan said ; (It was heard) sixty miles.
Rabbi Jehoshua ben Levi said : Seventy nations heard
the voice of Balaam. Rabbi Eleazar ha-Gappar says :
God gave strength to his voice, and he went up from
one end of the world to the other because he was look
ing about and seeing the nations adoring the sun and
the moon and the stars and wood and stone. And he
1 For the literature, see Krauss, " Leben Jesu," pp. 267, 268.
182 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
looked about and saw that a man, son of a woman, will
arise, who seeks to make himself God and to seduce
all the world without exception. Therefore, he gave
strength to his voice, that all nations of the world
might hear (it), and thus he spake : Take heed that you
go not astray after that man, as it is written [Num.
xxiii. 19], ' God is not a man, that he should lie,' — and
if he says that he is God, he is a liar : and he will fall
into error and say that he is going away and will come
(again) at certain spaces of time, (then) he hath said
and will not do it. Look what is written [Num. xxiv.
f 23], " And he took up his parable and said, Alas, who
shall live when he makes himself God ! ' Balaam in
tended to say: Alas, who shall live from that nation
4 which gives ear to that man who makes himself God ? " 1
Comments R. Jochanan (bar Nappacha) was a distinguished
ornament of the Talmud schools at Sepphoris and
Tiberias, and died in 279 A.D. at the age of eighty.
Jehoshua ben Levi was one of the Rabbis of the Lud
school, and flourished in the first half of the third
century ; while R. Eleazar ha-Gappar (the Pitch-seller)
was a contemporary of the famous " Rabbi," R. Jehuda
ha-Nasi (Jehuda the Prince), or Jehuda the Holy, who
was the final redactor of the Mishna; he flourished
somewhere about 200-220 A.D. This story then is
presumably to be placed somewhere about the begin
ning of the third century.
The story is in the form of a na'ive prophecy after
the event (of which we have thousands of examples in
allied Hebrew literature), and makes Balaam quote his
1 " Jalkut Shimoni " on Num. xxiii. 7, under the name of Midrash
Jelammedenu.
THE TALMUD BALAAM JESUS STORIES. 183
own words (Num. xxxiii. 19) as holy scripture. But
immediately afterwards E. Eleazar is made to drop the
prophetical form of the argument against Christian
dogmatics and frankly to tell us what Balaam " intended
to say."
The quotation, from Num. xxiv. 23 — " Alas, who shall
live when he makes himself God ! " — is remarkable, for
our Authorised Version gives an absolutely different
rendering: "Alas, who shall live when God doeth
this ! " And that the Eabbinical exegesis of this passage
differed entirely from the received interpretation of the
English Authorised Version may be seen from the
following glosses as found in the Babylonian Gemara.
" ' Woe to him who lives because he takes [sic] God.'
Eesh Lakish said: Woe to him, who vivifies himself
(or who saves his life) by the name of God." 1
Eesh Lakish (E, Simeon ben Lakish) was a Palestinian Resh Lakish
Eabbi who flourished about 250-275 A.D. ; he is clearly
interpreting this passage in connection with the Jesus
stories, for it is precisely by the "name of God," the
Shem, that Jeschu vivifies himself, and vivifies others,
in the Toldoth Jeschu.
Eashi (ob. 1105 A.D.), commenting on this passage
says :
" * Balaam who vivifies himself by the name of God,'
making himself God. Another reading has it, 'who
vivifies himself as to the name of God,' that is, Woe to
those men that vivify and amuse themselves in this
world and tear the yoke of the Law from their necks
and make themselves fat."
Here Eashi not only makes what was given as said
luBab. Sanhedrin," 106a.
s
184 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
by Balaam about another an act committed by Balaam
himself, but further adds that the act committed by
Balaam was in reality no other than his making himself
God. The only doubt apparently which Eashi had in
his mind was whether the prophecy referred to Balaam
(i.e., Jeschu) only, or whether it might also be con
sidered as embracing the Christians as well, for presum
ably they alone can be meant by those who " tear the
yoke of the Law from their necks."
Abbahu. Moreover in the Palestinian Gemara in expansion of
the same famous verse in Numbers which contains the
most important pronouncement of the traditional
Balaam ben Beor,1 and which constituted the main
argument of the Kabbis against Christian dogmatic
claims, we read :
I " E. Abbahu has said : If a man says to thee, ' I am
God/ he lies ; ' I am Son of Man,' he shall rue it ; * I
ascend to heaven,' this holds good of him, ' He has said
. it and will not effect it. * '
E. Abbahu of Csesarea was the pupil of E. Jochanan,
who died in 279 A.D. The argument put in his mouth
is clearly meant as a complete refutation of Christian
dogmatic claims by the quotation of one of the most
solemn pronouncements of the Torah.
And if such inconvenient quotations from the Torali
were met by the more enlightened of the Christian
name, as we know they were by the Gnostics, by the
argument that the inspiration of the Torah was of very
1 Num. xxxii. 19, A.V. : " God is not a man, that he should lie ;
neither the son of man, that he should repent ; hath he said, and
shall he not do it ? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it
good?"
THE TALMUD BALAAM JESUS STORIES. 185
variable quantity and quality, that it came sometimes
from a good, sometimes from a mixed, and sometimes
from an evil source, the Rabbis replied with still
further quotations from the same Torah. Thus we
read :
" R. Chia bar Abba said: 'If the son of the whore pria bar
saith to thee, There be two Gods, answer him, I am He
of the Sea, I am He of Sinai/ [That is to say, at the
Red Sea God appeared to Israel as a youthful warrior,
upon Sinai as an old man, as beseems a lawgiver ; but
both are one.] R. Chia bar Abba said : ' If the son of
the whore say to thee, There be two Gods, answer him,
It is here [Deut. v. 4] written not Gods but the Lord
hath spoken with thee face to face.'" J
R. Chia, or more fully Chia Rabbah, was son of Abba
Sela, and flourished about 216 A.D. ; he was a pupil of
" Rabbi" ( = Jehuda ben Simeon III.), to whom the final
redaction of the Mishna is attributed.
It is now evident that the main claims of dogmatic Torah v.
Christianity, that Jesus was God, that he was Son of
Man,1 and that he had ascended to Heaven physically
in a miraculous manner, and would return again, were
met on the side of the Rabbis with quotations from the
1 This title, as used in Christian tradition, seems to me to be
entirely shorn of all its characteristic meaning if taken, as modern
scholarship takes it, to be simply a Greek literal translation of the
Aramaic idiom which was in common use as a synonym of " man "
pure and simple, thus signifying that Jesus was the man par
excellence. I am, therefore, inclined to think that the Greek term
was of " Gnostic " origin. We know that in Gnostic tradition
" The Man," or " Man," was a title of the Logos ; " Son of Man "
was therefore a very appropriate designation for one who was
" kin to Him," that is, one in whom the " Light-spark " was
bursting into a " Flame."
186 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
Torah, which they considered to be the infallible word
of God, and that the main passage on which they re
lied was the prophetic declaration of Balaam, made,
as they believed, under the direct inspiration of
Yahweh.
But if we are asked to believe that here we have a
sufficient basis to account for the astounding identi
fication of the subject of subsequent haggadic prophecy
with the prophet himself, we can hardly be persuaded
that this is the case. Such a topsy-turvy transfor
mation is a tour deforce beyond even the capability of
the legerdemain of Talmudic legend-making.
The only thing that could have given the smallest
justification for such an identification would have been
some striking similarity between the doings of Balaam
and of Jeschu ; whereas the very opposite is found to
be the case, as we have already seen, and as we are
expressly told in the Babylonian Gemara.
" ' And Balaam, son of Beor, the soothsayer ' [Josh.
Prophet. xiii- 22]. Soothsayer ? he was a prophet. Eabbi
Jochanan said : At first a prophet, at last a soothsayer.
Rab Papa said : This is what people say : She was of
prominent men and princes (and then) she prostituted
% herself for mere carpenters." l
According to the tradition of ancient Israel,
Balaam ben Beor was a soothsayer who was on one
famous occasion compelled to prophesy truth by the
power of Yahweh. Balaam-Jeschu, on the contrary,
was a prophet ; so at any rate the apparently oldest
tradition of the Talmud period had it. In the third
century R. Jochanan still admitted that Jeschu was
1 « Bab. Sanhedrin," 106a.
THE TALMUD BALAAM JESUS STORIES. 187
" at first " a prophet, but contended that afterwards he
fell away and was no longer inspired by the spirit of
God. This we see is the exact reverse of the ancient
Balaam's case. Could anything, then, be more puzzling
than the name-identification Jesus-Balaam in spite of
this?
And here the saying attributed to Kab Papa, the founder A Hy po
of the Talmud school at Neresch, near Sura in Baby
lonia, who died 375 A.D., must delay us for a moment.
This saying is universally regarded as referring to Mary,
in which case it would confirm the tradition quoted
above in a previous chapter, that Jesus was " near those
in power." But does this saying really refer to Mary ?
Eab Papa is apparently quoted as further explaining
the statement of E. Jochanan as to the prophetical
status of " Balaam." When, then, he says, " She was first
of high estate and then she prostituted herself for
carpenters," can " she," by any possibility, refer to the
teaching of Jesus and not to Mary, who is nowhere
mentioned, and who in any case would come in most
awkwardly ? If this hypothesis can in any way be en
tertained, E. Papa's saying would then mean that the
teaching of Jesus formed first of all part of a true
prophetical movement, but afterwards it got tangled
up with the carpenter story of popular propaganda
and all those other dogmas which the Eabbis so
strenuously opposed.
Be this as it may, if there were not some hidden link Balaam-
in the chain of transformation which eventuates in the
Balaam-Jeschu identification, it is almost inconceivable
that it could ever have held together for a moment.
Let us now see whether this hidden link is, after all, so
188 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
difficult to discover. We have already seen that the
main charge of the Kabbis against Jesus was that he
had corrupted and ruined Israel. In Hebrew the name
Balaam means precisely destroyer or corrupter of the
people.1 Have we not here, then, the missing link, and
a most natural explanation of this otherwise incom
prehensible name-change ?
And if this be so, it is interesting to call to mind the
clever conjecture that Nicolaos (VIKOLV and Xdo?) in Greek
is the exact equivalent of Balaam in Hebrew. And
with Nicolaos before us we are at once reminded of
certain Nicolaitans who came under the severe displea
sure of the Jewish Christian circle to whom the over-
writer of the canonical Apocalypse belonged (Rev. ii.
6 and 15). These Nicola'itans have been a great puzzle
to the commentators, but many scholars are of opinion
that under this name the Pauline Churches are aimed
at.2 Can it, then, be possible that the Nicola'itans were
for the Jewish Christians the Balaamites, the innovators
who were throwing off the yoke of the Law and intro
ducing new ideas contrary to the orthodoxy of Jewry ?
If this be so, the identification Jeschu-Balaam may be
conjectured to have been one of the immediate outcomes
1 See article " Balaam " in "The Jewish Encyclopaedia." " The
Rabbis, playing on the name Balaam, call him ' Belo 'Am ' (with
out people ; that is, without a share with the people in the world
to come), or * Billa 'Am ' (one that ruined a people)."
2 See van Manen's article, " Nicola'itans," in " The Encyclopaedia
Biblica " ; in which, however, the Leyden professor, while stig
matising Balaam = Nicolaos as a mere guess, does not in any way
refer to the Talmud problem we are discussing. That the
Nicola'itans = the Balaamites, however, is strongly supported by
Kohler in his article in " The Jewish Encyclopaedia," to which we
have just referred.
THE TALMUD BALAAM JESUS STORIES. 189
of Pauline propaganda, and we have again found the
origin of yet another Kabbinical nickname of Jeschu in
doctrinal controversy.
But the " leading astray " may have gone back even
further than the days of Pauline propaganda ; and we
believe that the original charge against Jesus is to be
found in the following passage preserved in the Baby
lonian Gemara. ^
" ' There shall no evil befall thee ' [Ps. xci. 10]. (That " Burning
means) that evil dreams and bad phantasies shall not publicly/'
vex thee. ' Neither shall any plague come nigh thy
tent ' ; (that means) that thou shalt not have a son or
disciple who burns his food publicly, like Jeschu ha-
Notzri."1
What is the meaning of this strange phrase, " to burn
one's food publicly " ? Dalman 2 says that this means
" to renounce openly what one has learned." Laible 3
is of opinion that "public burning of food is a con
temptuous expression for the public offering of sacrifice
to idols. That the Christians in their assemblies offered
sacrifice to idols was as firmly the opinion of the Jews
of old time as it is that of many at the present day[!].
Naturally, therefore, it was concluded that Jesus must
have commenced it."
In this connection we are further reminded that the An Apology
charge brought against the Nicolaitans by the final
redactor of the Apocalypse is " eating things sacrificed
to idols and committing fornication " ; upon which van
Manen comments : " not because they made a mock of
all that is holy and trampled honour underfoot, but
1 " Bab. Sanhedrin," 103a. 2 Op. cit.t p. 34.
3 Ibid.y p. 52.
190 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
because they, like * Paul/ had set aside the Jewish laws
regarding foods and marriage, freely using food that
had been set before heathen deities, and contracting
marriages within the prohibited degrees, which in the
eyes of the author of the Apocalypse were unchaste
unions, just as in the eyes of the writer of I. Cor. v. 1
the marriage of the Christian who had freed himself
from scruples with his deceased father's wife (not his
own mother) was so, or as in the eyes of so many
Englishmen the marriage with a deceased wife's sister
is at the present day."
There is, however, no consensus of opinion with regard
to the meaning of the phrase " burning one's food
publicly." The Eabbis, we must remember, applied
the term " idolatry " in the loosest fashion to every
thing that was not a strict Jewish custom or belief;
and it is hardly to be believed that the early Christians,
least of all Jesus himself, could have been accused of
" idolatry," in the literal meaning of the word, even by
their most bitter opponents. I am, therefore, inclined
to think that there may be some other meaning of this
" burning of one's food publicly."
A Suggested The main point of the accusation is evidently con-
Expknation. tained in the WQrd « publiclv/> ft was the doing of
something or other " publicly," which apparently might
not only have been tolerated privately, but which was
presumably the natural thing to do in private. Now
the main burden of Christian tradition is that Jesus
went and taught the people publicly — the poor, the
outcast, the oppressed, the sinners, to all of whom, ac
cording to Rabbinical law, the mysteries of the Torah
were not to be expounded unless they had first of all
THE TALMUD BALAAM JESUS STORIES. 191
purified themselves. These ignorant and unclean livers
were 'Amme ha-aretz (men of the earth), and the Torah
was not for them. And if it was that no 'Am ha-aretz
was admitted to the schoolhouse, much more strictly
were guarded the approaches to those more select
communities where the mysteries of the " Creation " and
of the "Chariot," the theosophy of Judaism, were
studied. To some such community of this kind we
believe Jeschu originally belonged; and from it he
was expelled because he " burnt his food publicly," '
that is to say, taught the wisdom to the unpurified
people and so violated the ancient rule of the
order.
In connection with this there is a remarkable passage,
preserved in the Babylonian Gemara, which demands
our closest attention. It runs as follows :
" When our wise men left the house of Eab Chisda On the
or, as others say, the house of Kab Shemuel bar Nach- fronTa g
mani, they said of him: 'Thus our learned men are "ComPany-"
laden ' [Ps. cxliv. 14]. Kab and Shemuel, or, as others
say, Eabbi Jochanan and Eabbi Eleazar (were of a
different opinion). One said : ' our learned ' in the Law,
and ' are laden ' with commandments [i.e., good works],
and the other said : ' our learned in the Law and in
the commandments,' and ' are laden ' with sufferings.
' There is no breaking in,' that our company shall not
be like the company of Saul, from whom Doeg, the
Edomite, has gone out, and ' no going forth, ' that our
company shall not be like the company of David, from
whom Ahitophel has gone out, and 'no outcry/ that
our company shall not be like the company of Elisha,
from whom Gehazi has gone out, ' in our streets/ that
192 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
we shall not have a son or a disciple who burns his
food publicly like Jeschu ha-Notzri." 1
Kab Chisda was one of the Kabbis of the Talmud
school of Sura in Babylonia, and died 309 A.D. R.
Shemuel bar Nachman (or Nachmani) was a teacher in
the Palestinian school at Tiberias, but twice went to
Babylonia. He was a pupil of K. Jonathan ben Eleazar,
who was a pupil of R. Chanina, who was a pupil of
" Rabbi." II. Shemuel was, then, presumably a con
temporary of R. Chisda.
Rab or Abba was the founder of the school at Sura
on the Euphrates, and died 247 A.D. ; Mar Shemuel
was head of the Babylonian school at Nehardea, and
died 254 A.D.
R. Jochanan was a Palestinian Rabbi who flourished
130-160 A.D.; R. Eleazar flourished 90-130 A.D.
The words of the text taken from the Psalms run as
follows in the Authorised Version: "That our oxen
may be strong to labour ; that there be no breaking
in or going out ; that there be no complaining in our
streets."
Doeg, Doeg, says Cheyne,2 "had been detained (so one
tradition tells us) ' before Yahwe '—i.e., by some obscure
religious prescription, and had cunningly watched David
in his intercourse with the priest Ahimelech. Soon
after, he denounced the latter to the suspicious Saul,
and when the king commanded his 'runners' to put
Ahimelech and the other priests to death, and they
refused, it was this foreigner who lifted up his hand
against them."
1 "Bab. Berachoth," 17a f.
2 See article " Doeg," " Enc. Bib."
THE TALMUD BALAAM JESUS STORIES. 193
Doeg is called by the strange title " the mightiest of
the shepherds."
Ahitophel, the Gilonite, was a councillor of David,
and was much esteemed for his unerring insight; he,
however, revolted against David and cast in his lot
with Absalom's rebellion. He met his death by hang
ing (2 Sam. xvii. 23).
Gehazi ( = Valley of vision) was cast out by Elisha
and smitten with leprosy for fraudulently obtaining
money from Naaman at the time of the latter's
miraculous cure by the prophet.
With these data before us let us return to our
Talmud passage. It is very evident that the whole
point of the story has to do with heresy, with " going
forth," or with some scandal or breaking of the
established rule or order of things, or with paving the
way for so doing. We have seen that in the Talmud
stories Balaam is a substitute for Jeschu ; can it, then,
be possible that in Doeg, Ahitophel and Gehazi also
we have to do with name-substitutions ?
The answer to this question will perhaps be made Those who
clearer by quoting the following passages from the in the World
Mishna. to come'
"R. Akiba says: He also has no part in the world
to come who reads foreign books, and who whispers
over a wound and says : ' I will lay upon thee no sick
ness, which I have laid upon Egypt, for I am the Lord,
thy physician.' "
This interesting passage is followed by one of even
greater interest.
" Three kings and four private persons have no
portion in the world to come. Three kings, namely,
13
194 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
Jeroboam, Ahab and Manasseh. K. Jehudah says :
' Manasseh has a portion therein, for it is said [II. Chron.
xxxiii. 13], "and he prayed unto him; and he was
entreated of him, and heard his supplication, and
brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom." '
It was objected to him, He brought him again into his
kingdom, but he did not bring him again into the life
of the future world. Four private persons, namely,
C^ Balaam, Doeg, Ahitophel, and Gehazi." l
Siphre These passages are old, for they are found in the
Minim.
Mishna. To take the saying ascribed to K. Akiba (fl.
100-135 A.D.) first. The Gemara 2 says that by " foreign
books " are meant Siphre Minim. The term Minim was
for long taken to refer exclusively to Jewish Christians
or Christians generally ; but this has been hotly dis
puted of late years by many. It seems certain that
though Jewish Christians may be sometimes included
in this term, Minim does not mean them exclusively.
Nor does Minim always mean " heretics " in a bad sense,
it sometimes means " heretics " in its original significa
tion, that is to say, simply the members of some par
ticular school. That, however, most of the Rabbis con
sidered these Siphre Minim, in a bad sense, to include
the Gospel, is evident from a gloss in the Munich
MS.,3 where the word Evangelium is caricatured as
follows :
" Rabbi Meir calls it, 'Awen gilldjon [blank paper,
lit. margin, of evil], Rabbi Jochanan calls it, 'Aivon
gilldjon [blank paper of sin]."
R. Meir was one of the great redactors of the Mishna
1 " Sanhedrin," xi. 90a ; " Mishna," x. 1,2.
2 « Sanhedrin," lOOb. 3 « Shabbath," 116a.
THE TALMUD BALAAM JESUS STORIES. 195
and flourished about 130-160 A.D. ; E. Jochanan was
his contemporary. Gillajon means literally a " margin,"
that is, a paper which is left unwritten upon, and is
therefore blank.1 It must be confessed, however, that
such apparently meaningless jesting is quite below the
level of Eabbinical caricaturing with which we are
acquainted, and I am inclined to think that Dalman has
not got to the bottom of the matter. I can, however,
offer no better conjecture myself.
The formula of healing is an interesting one.
Whether or not we are to take " Egypt " literally, or as
a substitute for the " body " as it was among certain of
the Gnostic schools, must be left to the fancy and
taste of the reader; the phrase, " I am the Lord, thy
physician," however, reminds us strongly of the
" Healers," and the " Servants " of the Great Healer,
and suggests memories of some of the derivations con
jectured for the names Therapeut and Essene.
We may pass over the three kings in our second Exegesis.
Mishna passage, but we cannot pass by the four private
persons, Balaam, Doeg, Ahitophel and Gehazi, for the
combination is so extraordinary that even the most
careless reader must be struck by it. What has
Balaam ben Beor to do dans cette galere? Whose
" company " did he leave ? Balaam ben Beor may be
said rather to have joined forces with the Israelites ; he
certainly did not leave them. Balaam came in, he did
not "go out."
The point of the story is that there are certain
persons who have no part in the world to come.
II. Akiba has just told us of what kind the orthodox
1 Dalman, o^. cit., p. 30.
196 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
Jew considered these to be; they were heretics who
looked to other Scriptures as well as the Torah, as we
know the Gnostics did most freely, and the general
Christians as far as the Gospel Scripture was concerned ;
they were further healers and wonder-makers, which
indeed many of the Essenes, Therapeuts and Gnostics
set themselves to be, and which general Christian tradi
tion asserts Jesus and the Apostles were.
But why should Balaam head the list of the
condemned, when it is precisely the prophetical pro
nouncement of Ben Beor that the Eabbis were using
for all it was worth against Christian dogmatic claims ?
Balaam here clearly stands for Jeschu ; and if this be
so, then it is reasonable to suppose that Doeg, Ahitophel
and Gehazi stand for the names of some other teachers
who had fallen under severe Rabbinical displeasure.
Who they were precisely we have now no means of
discovering, and the supposition that they refer to
Peter, James and John l is considerably discounted by
the following strange passage from the Babylonian
Gemara :
Paul. "Elisha went to Damascus — for what did he go?
R. Jochanan has said, that he went for the conversion
of Gehazi. But he was not converted. Elisha said to
him : Be converted ! He answered him : Is it thus
that I am converted by thee ? For him that sinneth
and maketh the people to sin the possibility of
repentance is taken away." 2
Rabbi Jochanan flourished 130-160 A.D. It will at
once strike the attentive reader that the words put
into the mouth of Gehazi are identical with those
1 See Streane, op. cit., p. 57. 2 " Bab. Sanhedrin," 107b.
THE TALMUD BALAAM JESUS STORIES. 197
of the answer of Jeschu to Joshua ben Perachiah
as found in the famous twice-told story of Jeschu's
excommunication.1
The answer is an extraordinary one, and may be
taken to mean that the evil (from the point of view of
the Kabbis) was irremediable. The thing had spread
too far ; even if the leaders were now to return to the
strict fold of Jewry, the people would still continue to
hold the new views which abrogated their servitude to
the galling yoke of the Law.
The mention of the name Damascus, moreover, in
connection with Gehazi, at once brings Paul to mind,
and disturbs the balance of the Peter and James
and John supposition as the under-names of Doeg,
Ahitophel and Gehazi.
If by any means, then, Gehazi may be held to be a "Elisha.
" blind " for Paul, we have to ask ourselves what has
Elisha to do in this connection ? Does " Elisha " re
present some chief of the Sanhedrin ? It may be so,
but we should also recollect that the Essene com
munities and similar mystic associations were always
looking for the return of Elisha. They were in con
nection with the line of descent from the " Schools
of the Prophets," and expected their great prophet to
return again in power to announce the advent of the
Messiah. It is hardly necessary in this connection to
recall to the reader's recollection the John-Elias of the
Gospel story or to refer the student to the elaborate
Gnostic tradition of the incarnation of the soul of
Elisha in the body of John under the direct supervision
of the Master, as found in the " Pistis Sophia " — later
1 "Sanhedrin," 107b, and "Sota," 47c.
198 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
accommodations to the necessities of a historicising
evolution. The recollection, however, of these and
similar ideas and facts makes us hazard the conjecture
that " Elisha " in our Mishna passage may be a " blind "
for the official head of the chief Essene community, or
at any rate of that " company " who looked to Elisha as
its spiritual head. It was from this company that
" Gehazi " had " gone out." Whether or not the other
" companies" of Saul and David may refer to associa
tions of a somewhat similar nature, I must leave for
the consideration of those who are fully persuaded
that the literal meaning of our Talmud passage, as
far as the four private persons are concerned, was
the one furthest from the intention of its Rabbinical
authors.
The Disciples However this may be, the Rabbis were convinced
inherit*111 tnat tne disciples of Balaam en Uoc would inherit
Gehenna. Gehenna, as we read in the tractate devoted to the
" Sayings of the Fathers " :
"The disciples of our father Abraham enjoy this
world and inherit the world to come, as it is written
[Prov. viii. 21] : ' That I may cause those that love me
to inherit substance, and that I may fill their treasuries.'
The disciples of Balaam the impious inherit Gehenna,
and go down into the pit of destruction, as it is written
[Ps. Iv. 24] : ( But thou, 0 God, shalt bring them down
into the pit of destruction : bloodthirsty and deceitful
men shall not live out half their days .' " l
And if there should by any chance be still the
slightest hesitation in the rnind of the reader that
Balaam in these passages equates with Jeschu, the
1 " Aboth," v. 19.
THE TALMUD BALAAM JESUS STORIES. 199
following remarkable passage from the Babylonian
Gemfira should for ever set his mind at rest.
" A Min said to K. Chanina : Hast thou by any chance 'The Age of
ascertained what age Balaam was ? He answered : jeschu.
There is nothing written concerning it. But since it
is said, ' Bloodthirsty and deceitful men shall not live
out half their days,' he was either thirty-three or
thirty-four years old. The Min answered: Thou
hast spoken well ; for I have myself seen a chronicle of
Balaam in which it is said : Thirty-three years old
was Balaam the lame man, when the robber Phineas
slew him." l J
I am not quite certain what R. Chanina is here in
tended. R. Chanina ben Dosa was a contemporary of
R. Jochanan ben Zakkai, who nourished in the last
third of the first century; while R. Chanina ben
Chama was a pupil of "Rabbi's," and therefore must
be placed at the beginning of the third century; he
lived at Sepphoris in Palestine. That this specimen
of Rabbinical exegesis, however, may be ascribed to the
earlier Chanina in preference to the later, is suggested
by the very similar passage in the same Gemara, which
reads :
" R. Jochanan said : Doeg and Ahitophel lived not
half their days. Such, too, is the tenor of a Boraitha 2 :
Bloodthirsty and deceitful men shall not live out half
their days. All the years of Doeg were not more than
thirty-four, and of Ahitophel not more than thirty-
three." 3
1 " Bab. Sanhedrin," 106b.
2 A saying or tradition not included in the canonical Mishna.
3 " Sanhedrin," 106b (end).
200 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
K. Jochanan flourished about 130-160 A.D. As it
seems easier to assume that the splitting up of the
"33 or 34" between Ahitophel and Doeg was the
later development, rather than that the supposed ages
of Doeg and Ahitophel should have been conflated
into the age of Balaam, I am inclined to think that the
R Chanina of our penultimate passage is intended for
the earlier Chanina. If this be so, and the story can
be taken as genuine, that is as an old tradition, then
we have an early confirmation from outside sources of
the thirty-three years of Jesus at the time of his death.
But to consider the wording of the passage in greater
detail.
A Chronicle of Laible translates Min as " Jewish Christian " ; but it
is difficult to believe that a Jewish Christian of any
school can have referred to Jesus as Balaam, and there
fore I have kept the original without translation. The
academical answer bases itself on the threescore and
ten years given as the normal life of man in the Torah.
It is interesting to note that E. Chanina knows of no
Jewish tradition which gives the age of Jeschu ; he can
only conjecture an answer by means of a kind of
Eabbinical sortilegium of texts. Wonderful — replies
the Min — that is just what I have read in one of the
" Chronicles of Balaam" — a Gospel story apparently.
We can hardly suppose, however, that we have a direct
quotation from this " Chronicle " ; we have plainly a
Kabbinical gloss put into the mouth of the Min.
Phineas- Now Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron,
was the priestly leader of the army of Israel which
destroyed the Midianites, and slew their kings, and
with them Balaam son of Beor (Num. xxxi. 2 ff.). But
THE TALMUD BALAAM JESUS STORIES. 201
why should Phineas. be called a " robber " (Aram, listaa
from the Greek Xj/o-r?/?), as Laible translates it?
Kashi explains this word as meaning "general" (sar
tzaba), and we should remember that though listaa is a
loan-word from the Greek Xycrrr)? (a " robber "), it was
with the Jews rather the title of patriotic leaders, of
zealots for the Law, as Phineas was represented to be
par excellence. The meaning is thus simple and clear
enough, and we see no reason for Laible's conjecture,1
that Lista'a is a caricature-name for P'lista'a — Pilate.
No doubt it would be convenient somehow to bring
Pilate into the Talmud Jesus Stories, but as a matter
of fact his name and every incident of the Gospel story
connected with him are conspicuous in the Talmud by
their absence. If listaa was a caricature-name, we
should not find the combination " Phineas Listaa," but
Listaa by itself. Otherwise we should expect to come
across some such doubles as Ben Stada Balaam — a
species of combination nowhere found in the Talmud.
There still remains to be explained the curious com- Balaam the
bination " Balaam the lame man" ; but I have so far
met with no satisfactory conjecture on this point, and
am quite unable to hazard one of my own.2 Laible
conjectures that the epithet had its origin in the break
ing down of Jesus under the weight of the cross or the
piercing of his feet ; but did the Eabbis know anything
of what Laible presupposes throughout, without any
1 Op. cit., p. 60.
2 The article in " The Jewish Encyclopaedia " says : Balaam in
Rabbinical literature " is pictured as blind of one eye and lame in
one foot (' San., ' 105a) ; and his disciples (followers) are distin
guished by three morally corrupt qualities, viz., an evil eye, a
haughty bearing, and an avaricious spirit."
202 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
enquiry of any sort, to have been the actual ungainsay-
able history of Jesus ?
Finally, with a sublime tour de force of inconsistency,
the Talmud gives us a story where Balaam and Jeschu
are introduced together in the same evil plight, but as
entirely different persons and giving absolutely con
tradictory advice. This story runs as follows :
The Necro- « Onkelos bar Kalonikos, nephew of Titus, desired to
mancy of
Onkelos. secede to Judaism. He conjured up the spirit of
Titus and asked him : Who is esteemed in that world ?
He answered : The Israelites. Onkelos asked further :
Ought one to join himself to them ? He answered :
Their precepts are too many ; thou canst not keep them ;
go rather hence and make war upon them in this
world ; so shall thou become a head ; for it is said
[Lam. i. 5] : ' Their adversaries are become the head,'
i.e., Everyone that vexeth the Israelites becomes a head.
Onkelos asked the spirit : Wherewith art thou judged ?
He answered: With that which I have appointed for
myself: each day my ashes are collected and I am
judged ; then I am burnt and the ashes scattered over
the seven seas.
" Thereupon Onkelos went and conjured up the spirit
of Balaam. He asked him : Who is esteemed in that
world ? The spirit answered : The Israelites. Onkelos
asked further : Ought one to join himself to them ? The
spirit said : Seek not their peace and their good always.
Onkelos asked : Wherewith art thou judged ? The
spirit answered: With boiling pollution.
^ " Thereupon Onkelos went and conjured up the spirit
of Jeschu. He asked him : Who is esteemed in that
world ? The spirit answered : The Israelites. Onkelos
THE TALMUD BALAAM JESUS STORIES. 203
asked further : Ought one to join himself to them ?
The spirit said : Seek their good and not their ill. He
who toucheth them, touches the apple of His eye.
Onkelos asked : Wherewith art thou judged ? The
spirit said : With boiling filth.
" For the teacher has said : He who scorneth the
words of the wise is judged with boiling filth. See
what a distinction there is between the apostates of
Israel and the heathen prophets ! " l ^J
In the first place we ask who was Onkelos and why Onkelos
was he selected as the protagonist in this necromantic
stance ?
Scholars of eminence, though entirely without refer
ence to this passage, have identified the name Onkelos
with the Talmudic Akilas, the Greek Akylas ('A/cJXa?),
and the Latin Aquila. The most famous Aquila in
Jewish history was the translator of the Old Covenant
documents into Greek, in a slavishly literal version
which was held in the greatest esteem by the Jews as
correcting the innumerable errors of the Septuagint ver
sion on which the Christians entirely depended. We are
not certain of the exact date of this Aquila, but he is
generally placed in the first half of the second century.
Now Irenseus, Eusebius, Jerome and other Fathers,
and the Jerusalem Talmud itself,2 say that this Aquila
was a proselyte to the Jewish faith. Moreover,
Epiphanius3 states that "Aquila was a relative (the
exact nature of the relationship denoted by the other
wise unknown form TrevOepiSt]? is doubtful) of the
" Bab. Gittin," 56b ff.
a"Megill.,"71c. 3; " Kiddush.," 59c. 1.
3 " De Pond, et Mens., " c. 14, 15.
204 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Emperor Hadrian, and was appointed by him to super
intend the rebuilding of Jerusalem under the new name
of Aelia Capitolina ; that, impressed by the miracles of
healing and other wonders performed by the disciples of
the Apostles who had returned from Pella to the nascent
city, he embraced Christianity, and at his own request
was baptised ; that, in consequence of his continued
devotion to practices of astrology, which he refused to
abandon even when reproved by the disciples, he was
expelled from the Church ; and that, embittered by this
treatment, he was induced through his zeal against
Christianity to become a Jew, to study the Hebrew
language, and to render the Scriptures afresh into Greek
with the view of setting aside those testimonies to
Christ which were drawn from the current version on
[sic, ? of] the Septuagint." l
With Dickson, the writer of the article from which
we have been quoting, we may set aside the account of
Epiphanius as a theological romance to discount the
value of Aquila's translation ; he, however, preserves the
interesting fact that Aquila was a " relative " of some
kind of Hadrian, and this is strongly confirmatory of
our conjecture that the Onkelos, nephew of Titus, and
the Aquila of history are one and the same person.
Exegesis. With regard to the Talmud passage, however, in which
Aquila plays the part of protagonist, it is not very easy
to glean the precise meaning. Onkelos-Aquila is about
to become a proselyte to Judaism ; whereupon he seeks
counsel from three of the greatest foes of Jewry accord
ing to Eabbinical traditions. These all are made to
1 See article " Aquila :' in Smith and Wace's " Dictionary of
Christian Biography" (London ; 1877).
THE TALMUD BALAAM JESUS STORIES. 205
admit the pre-eminence of the Israelites, if not in this
world, at any rate in the world to come. Titus, the
plain Roman soldier, says that the Jews' religious rules
and customs are far too elaborate, and advises his kins
man to make war against them ; Balaam is less extreme
in his views and advises a moderate policy; while
Jeschu is made to regard the Jews as the chosen race,
the specially beloved, the apple of Yahweh's eye, and
urges Aquila to seek ever their good.
And yet the punishment assigned to these three by Boiling Filth.
Rabbinical opinion is in exact inverse proportion to
their hostility to Israel. Whatever may be the technical
distinction between " boiling filth " and " boiling pollu
tion," they are evidently far more severe forms of torment
than the punishment of Titus, who is burnt simply
without the added vileness of " filth " or " pollution."
Moreover, that by " boiling filth " we are to understand
something of the most loathsome nature possible, far ex
ceeding even the foulness of " boiling pollution," may be
seen from the statement that this " * boiling filth ' is the
lowest abode in hell, into which there sinks every foul
ness of the souls which sojourn in the upper portions.
It is also as a secret chamber, and every superfluity, in
which there is no spark of holiness, falls thereinto. For
this reason it is called ' boiling filth,' according to the
mysterious words of Is. xxviii. 8 : ' There is so much
vomit and filthiness, that there is no place clean,' as it
is said in Is. xxx. 52 : ' Thou shalt call it filth.' " l
And the reason that this " boiling filth " was chosen
1 Laible, op. cit., p. 95, quoting from Eisenmenger, " Entdecktes
Judenthum" (see for latest edition F.X. Schiefel'a, Dresden, 1893),
ii. 335 ff., who refers to " Emek hammelech," 135c, chap. xix.
206 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
by the Rabbis as the punishment of Jeschu is to be seen
in the following deduction ascribed to Rab Acha bar
Ulla (who flourished presumably in the second half of
the fourth century) :
*~~ " From this [from Eccles. xii. 12] it follows, that he
who jeers at the words of the doctors of the Law, is
punished by boiling filth." l
What the text in Ecclesiastes is to which reference
is made, I am not certain. It would seem to refer to
verse 11, which runs: "The words of the wise are as
goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies,
which are given from one shepherd," rather than to
verse 12, which reads : " And further, by these, my son,
be admonished : of making many books there is no end,
and much study is a weariness of the flesh."
And in connection with this the Tosaphoth add :
"'Is there [Eccles. xii. 12] then really written jyS
(derision) ' ? At all events it is true that he is punished
by boiling filth as we are saying in Ha-Nezakin.2 " 3
Dalman 4 adds in a note : " The Tosaphoth mean,
although it may not be allowed to derive this punish
ment from the words in Eccles. xii. 12, as Rab Acha bar
Ulla does, 'Erubin,' 21b, it is nevertheless true." But
how Rab Acha derived the " boiling filth " even
illegitimately from this text is nowhere explained as
far as I can discover, and I fear my readers are no less
wearied than myself in following such arid bypaths of
perverse casuistry.
1 " Bab. Ernbin," 21b, referring evidently to the last paragraph
of the passage from " Gittin," 57, quoted above.
2 That is chap. v. of " Gittin," 56b.
3 Tosaphoth to " Erubin, " 21b. 4 Op. dt.t p. 39.
n
THE TALMUD BALAAM JESUS STORIES. 207
The only thing we learn definitely from all of this is
that Jeschu refused to be bound by the exegesis of
the Kabbis and their decisions, and in this he seems
to the non-Kabbinical mind to have been a wise man, if
their decisions were anything like the one before us;
whereas for the Kabbis this "scorning" of the words
of their doctors was the sin of all sins, and therefore
deserving of the greatest torment Hell could brew, and
this for the Kabbis, no matter by what means they
arrived at it, was the torment of " boiling filth."
We have now come to the end of our Balaam Jeschu The Lecture -
, , , ., ,. „ Room of Ben
stories, but before we pass on to a consideration of Pandera.
what the Talmud has to say concerning the disciples
and followers of Jesus, we will append a passage in the
Targum Sheni to Esther vii. 9,1 which is exceedingly
curious in several ways and deserves our attention.
The Targum, after relating that Haman appealed
with tears to Mordecai for mercy, but in vain, proceeds
to tell us that Haman thereupon began a great weeping
and lamentation for himself in the garden of the palace.
And thereupon is added : " He answered and spake
thus : Hear me, ye trees and all ye plants, which I have
planted since the days of the creation. The son of
Hammedatha is about to ascend to the lecture-room of
Ben Pandera."
Tree after tree excuses itself from being the hanging-
post of Haman ; finally the cedar proposes that Haman
be hanged on the gallows he had set up for Mordecai.
1 The A. V. reads : " And Harbonah, one of the chamberlains,
said before the king, Behold also, the gallows fifty cubits high,
which Haman had made for Mordecai, who had spoken good for
the king, standeth in the house of Haman. Then the king said,
Hang him thereon."
208 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
Here again, as in the case of Balaam ben Beor, we
have as protagonist a character who was ever regarded
as one of the most inveterate enemies of the Jews —
Haman ben Hammedatha. With haggadic license
Haman is represented as being in the midst of the
" garden " in the midst of the " trees " ; and yet it is
Yahweh himself (though indeed there seems to be some
strange confusion between the persons of Yahweh and
Haman in the narrative) who addresses the trees " which
I have planted since the days of the creation," and who
announces that Haman is " about to ascend to the
lecture-room of Ben Pandera."
The word translated by " lecture-room " is aksandria,
which Levy in his " Worterbuch " connects with Alex
andria, but which Laible says1 must be explained by
e£eSpa, the regular term for the lecture room or lecture
place of a philosopher ; and certainly Laible here seems
to give the more appropriate meaning, for what can
Alexandria have to do in this connection ?
Haman- " The lecture-room of Ben Pandera " is then evidently
schu' a jesting synonym of the gallows, which in this particular
case was not made of wood, otherwise the trees could
not all have excused themselves. Here then again,
according to Jewish tradition, Ben Pandera was hanged
and not crucified, for the word gallows expressly excludes
all notion of crucifixion. It is indeed a remarkable fact
that the point which is above all others so minutely
laboured in Christian tradition, the pivot of Christian
- dogmatics, is consistently ignored by Jewish tradition.
It is also a point of great interest for us in this
strange story that the same or very similar elements
1 Op. tit., p. 91.
THE TALMUD BALAAM JESUS STORIES. 209
appear in some of the forms of the Toldoth Jeschu, in
which we find that the body of Jeschu cannot be hanged
on any tree because he had laid a spell upon them by
means of the Shem ; the plants, however, had not been
brought under this spell, and so the body was finally
hung on a " cabbage-stalk."
That there is some hidden connection between this
apparently outrageously silly legend and the Haman
haggada is evident, but what that connection originally
was it seems now impossible to discover. There may
even be some " mystic " element at bottom of it all,
as the " garden " and " trees " seem to suggest ; and in
this connection we must remember that there is much
talk of a " garden " in the Toldoth, and that, as we have
already seen from Tertullian (" De Spect," c. xxx.), there
was some well-known early Jewish legend connected
with a " gardener " who abstracted the body — " that
his lettuces might not be damaged by the crowds of
visitors," as the Bishop of Carthage adds ironically while
yet perchance unintentionally preserving the " lettuce "
and " cabbage-stalk " link of early legend-evolution.
As on the surface and in the letter all this is utter
nonsense, we can only suppose that originally there must
have been some under-meaning to such a strange farrago
of childish fancies; we will therefore return to the
subject when dealing with the general features of the
Toldoth. Meanwhile the Talmud stories relating to the
disciples and followers of Jesus must engage our
attention.
14
THE DISCIPLES AND FOLLOWERS OF JESUS
IN THE TALMUD.
The Minim It is impossible to be certain whether all of the
subsequent " Minim " Talmud passages refer expressly
to Christians or not, for the word Min is in itself no
certain guarantee, and it must ever depend on the
context as to whether it can be taken in this precise
sense or not. Since, however, Mr Moses Levene, in his
article on " Jesus and Christianity in the Talmud," l
quotes these passages as referring to the Christians, we
cannot go altogether wrong in provisionally following
his lead, for we may plead that according to common
Jewish tradition they are taken in this sense, and
this is all that concerns us at present. But besides
these Minim passages there are others concerning which
there can be no possible doubt as to against whom they
are intended to be directed, and with these we will
begin, still using the Dalman-Laible-Streane version.
The Five The first passage is a wearisome academical exercise
Jesus? C in name- and word-play, and runs as follows :
"There is a tradition: Jeschu had five disciples
(talmidim) — Mathai, Nakkai, Netzer, Bunni, Todah.
" Mathai was brought before the judgment seat. He
1 See " The Theosophical Review," vol. xxix. pp. 316-320.
THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS IN THE TALMUD. 211
said to the judges: 'Is Mathai to be put to death?
Yet it is written : " Mathai ( — when) shall I come
and appear before God ? " ' [Ps. xlii. 3]. They answered
him : ' Nay, but Mathai is to be executed ; for it is said :
" Mathai (when) shall (he) die and his name perish ? "
[Ps. xli. 6].
" Nakkai was brought. He said to them : * Is Nakkai
to be put to death ? Yet it is written : " Naki (the
innocent) and righteous slay thou not " ' [Ex. xxiii.] 7.
They replied to him : * Nay, but Nakki is to be put to
death ; for it is written : " In covert places doth he
put to death the Naki" '[Pa. x. 8].
" Netzer was brought. He said to them : * Is Netzer
to be put to death ? Yet it is written : " A Netzer
(branch) shall spring up out of his roots'" [Is. xi. 1].
They answered him: 'Netzer is to be put to death;
for it is said : " Thou art cast forth from thy sepulchre,
like an abominable Netzer " ' [Is. xiv. 19].
" Bunni was brought. He said : * Is Bunni to be put
to death ? Yet it is written : " Israel is Beni (rny son),
my first born " ' [Ex. iv. 22]. They answered him : Nay,
but Bunni is to be put to death ; for it is written :
" Behold, I will slay Binkha (thy son), thy first born " '
[Ex. iv. 23].
" Todah was brought. He said to them : ' Is Todah
to be put to death ? Yet it is written : " A psalm for
Todah (thanksgiving)'" [Ps. c. 1, heading]. They
answered him : ' Nay, but Todah is to be put to death ;
for it is written : " Whoso offereth Todah honoureth
me " ' [Ps. 1. 23]." *
Laible introduces his discussion of these " proofs from
1 " Bab. Sanhedrin," 43a.
212 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
The Cruel- scripture " with the following extraordinary sentence :
" What is found related of these disciples indeed,
namely, their crucifixion, as well as the circumstance
that this narrative is immediately connected with the
account of the Crucifixion of Jesus," etc.1 But in the first
place there is absolutely not a single word said about
crucifixion in the whole passage, nor is crucifixion
implied even for the liveliest imagination ; nor in the
second does the preceding passage in " Sanhedrin, " 43a,
which refers to the death of Jeschu, say anything of
crucifixion, but twice distinctly states that Jeschu was
put to death by " hanging." Such positive statements
concerning matters of the greatest uncertainty are not
proper in an investigation of this nature ; it may
be that Jeschu ,was crucified, though I am inclined to
think he was not, and that the passion of the cruci
fixion originated from some such mystery- tradition as
that preserved in the beautiful ritual of the new
found fragment of the Acts of John,2 and certain
mystery-rites to which we shall refer at length later on,
but the passages in the Talmud which Laible adduces
do not prove his confident statement.
The Number As to the number of disciples, moreover, to me it
seems probable that if there had been any other
examples of this philologico-legalistic wrangling on
hand, we should have had the number increased to
six or seven or more ; I, therefore, see no necessity for
trying to account for the number five on some more
complex hypothesis, or to be surprised that the Talmud
Op. cit., 71.
2 See my " Fragments of a Faith Forgotten" (London ; 1900,
pp. 431 if.)-
THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS IN THE TALMUD. 213
has preserved no tradition of the symbolically necessi
tated " twelve."
It is, however, to be noticed that the compiler of the
Toldoth Jescliu printed by Huldreich (pp. 35 and 36)
gives the names as Simeon, Matthai, Elikum, Mardochai,
and Toda, and says that their names were afterwards
changed to Peter, Matthew, Luke, Mark, and Paul.
As to the contents of the wrangle, we can only say The "Proof
that if any disciple of Jesus or of any other great ture!"Cr
teacher had no better apologia to put forward pro vita
sua, he had but little justification for his continued
existence ; we know, however, that the arguments of
Christianity against Jewish legalism were at the very
least as powerful as the arguments of the Eabbis
against Christian dogmatics. What then can we think
of the academical state of mind that could preserve
such barren word-play as a precious tradition to be
handed down to an admiring posterity ! And yet we
must not forget that this was not peculiar to the Jews ;
Babylonians, Egyptians, Zoroastrians, Greeks, Briihmans,
Buddhists and Arabs, all delighted in such pseudo-
philological exercises, and as for text-proof for every
thing under the sun, general Christianity slavishly
followed the Kabbis for many a long century.
What, however, interests us most deeply in this The Puzzle of
quaint Talmud passage is the list of names, for with
the exception of Matthai (Matthaeus, Matthew), it is
exceedingly difficult to equate them with the names of
the " twelve " as preserved in Christian tradition.
The attempt to equate Todah with Thaddaeus hardly Todah.
commends itself, for the Jacobite Syrians give this
name back as Thaddl and the Nestorians as Thaddai
214 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
and not Todah. Moreover we have to ask : Who was
Thaddaeus, or the composite-named Thaddseus-Lebbaeus-
Judas ; further, was he of the Twelve or of the Seventy
as in the apocryphal Acta ?
Nor can we regard the suggestion of Laible 1 that
Todah may be the Theudas of Acts v. 36,2 as very
fortunate, for this Theudas, as Josephus tells us,3 was
some popular prophet who pretended to magical power,
and led many of the Jews in revolt about 45 or 46 A.D. ;
so that the author or redactor of the Acts is here guilty of
an anachronism, for Gamaliel must have spoken at
latest prior to 37 A.D., and apologists are consequently
hard put to it to defend the " inspiration " of this
passage. Be this as it may, this Theudas can hardly be
spoken of as a disciple of Jesus.
We, however, do know of a Theudas who was a
" disciple," and the link between Paul and Valentinus ;
he was a Gnostic.4 If, then, Todah is the same as
Theudas (which is generally taken to be a shortened
form of Theodorus), the only " disciple " Theudas
known to Christian tradition with which he could
possibly be identified is the Theudas of Paul ; like so
many other " disciples," however, he had never seen Jesus
in the flesh.5
1 Op. rit., p. 76.
2 Where Gamaliel is made to say to the Sanliedrin : "For
before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be some
body, to whom a number of men, about five hundred, joined
themselves : who was slain ; and all, as many as obeyed him,
were scattered, and brought to naught."
3 " Antiqq.," xx. 5, 1.
4 Clement of Alexandria, " Stromat.," vii. 7.
5 See my essay, " The Gospels and the Gospel" (London ; 1902),
pp. 107, 108.
THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS IN THE TALMUD. 215
As to the name Bunni, it has been conjectured by Bunni.
Thilo l and others that Bonai or Bunni is the same as
Nicodemus, from a Talmud passage (" Taanith," 20a),
where the name of a certain Nakdimon ben Gorion is said
to have been properly Bunni. The difficulty in accept
ing this equation, however, is considerably increased by
the further supposition of Laible that Nakkai also
stands for Mcodemus. In this connection no one
seems so have thought of Bannus, the Essene teacher
of Josephus, and I therefore suggest his name for what
it is worth. But surely there were many Bunnis and
many disciples of Jesus whose names have not been pre
served ?
Finally, if, as Laible says, Netzer " unquestionably " Netzer.
stands for Notzri = Nazarene, we can only reply that
such a designation is not much of a distinctive title
for one of the disciples of Jesus.
On the other hand, we may ask : Can it be possible Are the
that in four of the five names Jewish tradition has Genuine?
preserved genuine names of "disciples" unknown to
Christian tradition ? And to this we may reply :
If the names were not genuine, surely the whole
academical discussion would be without point, and
therefore deprived of all sting ? There remains, how
ever, a further question, suggested by the Netzer-
Notzri-Nazarene speculation : Can these names pos
sibly be meant for leaders of schools, and that there
was no question of putting the leaders to death
physically, but every question of giving an aca
demical coup de grdce to their doctrines and activity ?
114 Codex Apocryphus Novi Testament!" (Leipzig; 1832),
" Evangelium Nicodemi," p. 550 n.
216 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
Jacob. We will next turn to what the Talmud has to tell
us of a disciple of Jesus called Jacob. First of all
we have a curious story of the great Rabbi Eliezer
ben Hyrcanus (the founder of the school at Lud and
teacher of Akiba), who flourished about 70-100 A.D.,
who, we know, was put under the ban by Jewish
orthodoxy for reasons that are now by no means
clear, and who, nevertheless, after his death was regarded
as a great light of Israel. It is a story which brings
out very strongly the fastidiousness of the Eabbinical
mind with regard to any source of doctrine, even a
fairly sensible Halacha, as far as Halachoth go, which
might in any way be suspected of heresy. The story
is found in two almost identical forms, and we might
choose either for quotation, but perhaps the citation
of both of them will bring out the points more clearly,
and be an instructive object lesson in tradition-modi
fication. The first is found in the Babylonian Gemara
and runs as follows :
The Heresy of " The Rabbis have handed down the following :
When R. Eliezer was about to be imprisoned on
account of heresy,1 he was brought to the court of
justice to be tried. The judge said to him: Does a
man of mature years like thee busy himself with such
nullities ? Eliezer replied : The Judge is just towards
me. The judge thought that Eliezer was speaking of
him ; but he thought upon his Father in heaven.
Then spake the judge : Since I believe thee,2 thou art
acquitted.
1 Minuth. Laible, op. cit., p. 62, says " a leaning towards the
forbidden Christian religion."
2 Dalnian translates : " Since I am held by thee to be just."
THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS IN THE TALMUD. 217
"Now when Eliezer came home his disciples pre- ,
sen ted themselves to console him, but he admitted
no consolation. Then E. Akiba said to him : Permit
me to tell thee something of what thou hast taught me.
He answered : Say on. Then said R Akiba : Perchance
thou hast once given ear to a heresy, which pleased
thee ; on account of which thou wast now about to be
imprisoned for heresy. Eliezer replied : Akiba, thou
remindest me. I was once walking in the upper street
of Sepphoris ; l there I met with one of the disciples of
Jeschu ha-Notzri, by name Jacob of Kephar Sechania,2 A Halacha of
... Jeschu.
who said to me : It is found in your Law [Deut. xxm.
19]: ' Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore . . . into
the house of ... thy God.' May a retiring place
for the high-priest be made out of such gifts ? I knew
not what to answer him to this. Then he said to me : '
Thus Jeschu ha-Notzri taught me : 'Of the hire of an
harlot has she gathered them,3 and unto the hire of an
harlot shall they return ' [Mic. i. 7]. From offal it has
come; to the place of offal shall it go. This explanation
pleased me, and on this account have I been impeached
for heresy, because I transgressed the Scripture :
' Eemove thy way far from her ' [Prov. v. 8], from her,
i.e., from heresy." 4
The second form of the story is found in a com
mentary on Ecclesiastes i. 8 : " All things are full of
labour ; man cannot utter it ; the eye is not satis
fied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing,"
though I fail to see the connection. It runs as
follows :
1 A city in lower Galilee. 2 Siknin.
3 A.V. : " it." 4 " Aboda Zara," 16b f.
218 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
A Variant of " It is related of K. Eliezer that he was seized for
the Story. *
heresy. A certain governor took him and brought him
up to the place of judgment to judge him. He said to
him : Kabbi, shall a great man like you be occupied
with such vain things ? He answered : The Judge is
faithful towards me. And as he (the governor)
imagined that he was speaking (so) on account of him,
though he had only spoken in reference to Heaven
(God), he said to him : Because I am faithful in your
eyes, I also venture to say : Can it be that these
academies are erring (and occupy themselves) with these
vain things ? Dimus,1 you are set free.
" When Rabbi Eliezer had been dismissed from the
tribunal, he was pained because he had been seized for
heresy. His disciples came to see him in order to
comfort him, but he did not accept (their consolation).
Then E. Akiba came to see him, and said to him : Kabbi,
perhaps one of the heretics has said before you some
word which pleased you. He answered : Lo, by Heaven,
you remind me. Once when I was going up in the
street of Zippori, a man, named Jacob of Kephar
Sechania, came to me and told me something from
Jeschu ben Pandera, and I liked it. And this it was :
It is written in your Law : ' Thou shalt not bring the
hire of a whore or the wages of a dog into the house of
Yahwe' ; how is it with them ? I said : They are for
bidden. He said to me : Forbidden for sacrifice, but
allowed for purposes of destruction. I said to him : But
what may then be done with them ? He answered :
You may build with them baths and privies. I said to
him : You have said well, for at this time the Halacha
1 That is, " dismissus es."
THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS IN THE TALMUD. 219
was hidden from me. When he saw that I praised his
words, he said to me : Thus Ben Pandera hath said :
From filth they went [? came], to filth they may go, as
it is said : 'For of the hire of an harlot she gathered
them, and unto the hire of an harlot shall they return ' ;
they may be applied to public privies. This pleased
me, and, therefore, I have been seized for heresy, and
also because I transgressed what is written in the
Law : ' Eemove thy way from her ' — that is, the
heresy." *
In the first place the story is clearly intended as an Eliezer's Con-
apologia for R. Eliezer devised by a later age. What Christianity,
the nature of Eliezer's liberalism may have been we do
not know, all we know is that he was finally condemned
and lived in exile ; but the fact that the Haggada we
are considering connects the very slight lapse on the
part of E. Eliezer, which it admits, with the teachings
of Jeschu, or, at any rate, with Halachoth preserved in
the tradition of his school, is a strong confirmation of
the supposition that Eliezer was deeply interested in
the Christianity of his day, and perhaps this accounts
to some extent for the fierce opposition of his pupil the
purist Akiba.
The story shows, moreover, that Jeschu was regarded
(and this was admitted by the Rabbis) as being learned
in the Law, so that a Halacha attributed to him pleased
even such a connoisseur as Eliezer. Though the matter
discussed may seem to us more than trivial, it was no
doubt a point of the greatest importance for the legal
purists of the Talmud period. The question seems to
have had to do with a retiring place to the chamber in
1 Koheleth Kabba to Eccles. i. 8 (Pesaro ; 1519).
220 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
which the high priest had to pass the last week before
the day of atonement.1
In Search of According to the story, E. Eliezer is evidently refer
ring to something which had taken place long ago, so
long ago that he had personally forgotten all about it.
The retentive mind of his pupil Akiba, however, had
not allowed it to escape his memory, and so he recalls
it to his teacher's fading recollection. Eliezer is thus
represented as an old man, and we may place him then,
presumably, somewhere about 100 A.D. Thus we
may suppose he had met Jacob some fifty years ago,
somewhere about the middle of the first century, and
so the words, " Thus Jeschu ha-Notzri taught me," of
the first form of the story might be held to confirm the
Christian traditional date of Jesus, for according to
canonical data at 50 A.D., Jacob could very well have
been a personal disciple of Jesus.
On the other hand, the words used do not absolutely
necessitate such a construction, for such expressions as
" thus " Hillel, or Shammai, or Plato, " has taught
me " would be the usual form in quoting the sayings of
those teachers ; while the variant, " thus Ben Pandera 2
hath said," in the second form of the story, strongly con
firms this view, showing that " has said " was taken
as identical with " has taught me," and nothing more.
Ben D,<ma We have another story of this same Jacob, however,
Serpent, which, instead of placing him at this early date, makes
him a contemporary of Akiba (fl. 100-135). Of this
story also there are two variants, the first of which is
given twice in the Palestinian Gemara and runs as follows:
1 Mishna, " Yoma," i. 1. See Laible, op. cit., p. 64.
2 A name, however, which Jacob could scarcely have used.
THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS IN THE TALMUD 221
" It happened that K. Eleazar ben Dama was bitten
by a serpent. Then came Jacob of Kephar Sama,1 to
heal him in the name of Jeschu Pandera.2 But B.
Ishmael suffered him not. Eleazar said to him : T will
bring thee a proof, that he has a right to heal me. But
he had no more time to utter the proof ; for he died.
R. Ishmael said to him : Blessed art thou, Ben Dama,
that thou wentest in peace from this world, and didst
not break through the fence of the wise, for it is
written : ' And whoso breaketh through a fence, a
serpent shall bite him,5 not a serpent has bitten him,
but (it means that) a serpent should not [sic] bite him
in the time to come." 3
The variant in the Babylonian Gemara runs thus : A Variant.
" It happened that Ben Dama, son of R. Ishmael's
sister, was bitten by a serpent. Then came Jacob
of Kephar Sechania to heal him. But R. Ishmael
suffered him not. Ben Dama said: R. Ishmael,
my brother, allow me to be healed by him, and I will
bring thee a verse from the Torah, showing that it is
allowed. But he had not time to complete what he was
saying ; for his spirit departed from him and he died.
Then R. Ishmael exclaimed over him: Happy art
thou, Ben Dama, that thy body is pure, and that
thy spirit has passed away in purity, and that thou
hast not transgressed the words of thy companions
(chcibirim)" 4
Rabbi Ishmael, when found alone, stands always for
1 I cannot discover the locality of this village.
2 In "Pal. Aboda Zara," 40d, at the bottom, where the same
narrative is found, the name is given as Jeschu ben Pandera.
3 " Pal. Shabbath," 14b (lower part).
4 " Bab. Aboda Zara," 27b.
222 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
K. Ishmael ben Elisha, the contemporary of Akiba.
According to this tradition, then, Jacob of Kephar
Sechania cannot possibly have been a personal disciple
of Jesus, even according to the canonical tradition of the
date. We have to notice also, that according to the
rigid legalists of the Talmud, the poison of a serpent
was thought to be less noxious than the contact with the
magnetism or even thought-sphere of a follower of Jesus.
The Story of Perhaps the following story, taken from the " Gospel
the Viper. of Pseudo-Matthew," or of the " Infancy of Jesus and
Mary " (ch. xli.), may have originated in the same medley
of legend from which the Talmud derived the main in
cident of its Ben Dama story.
"And on a certain day Joseph called his firstborn
son James to him and sent him into the kitchen-garden
to gather herbs to make pottage. And Jesus followed
his brother James into the garden, and Joseph and Mary
knew it not. And while James gathered herbs there
suddenly came a viper out of a hole and wounded
the hand of James, and he began to cry out through
excessive pain. And when already fainting, he said
with a bitter cry, Oh! Oh! a very bad viper has
wounded my hand. And Jesus, who stood opposite,
at that bitter cry ran to James and took hold of his
hand, and did no more than merely breathe upon the
hand of James, and soothed it. And immediately James
was healed, and the serpent died. And Joseph and
Mary knew not what had happened; but at the cry
of James they ran into the garden and found the
serpent already dead and James quite healed." 1
1 Cowper (B. H.), " The Apocryphal Gospels" (6th ed., London ;
1897), p. 82.
THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS IN THE TALMUD. 223
That, moreover, the Christians of these early days An Early
and later were accustomed to heal psychically by means Mode<*>f
of prayer or the invocation of some holy name is well Healms-
attested from outside and hostile sources by the follow
ing Talmud story, which is also found in two variants.
Thus in the Palestinian Gemara we read :
" His grandson (the grandson of Jehoshua ben Levi)
had swallowed something. A man came and whispered
to him (a spell) in the name of Jeschu ben Pandera,
and he got well. When he went out, he (Jehoshua
ben Levi) asked him : What did you say over him ?
He answered : According to the word of somebody.
He said : What had been his fate, had he died and not
heard this word? And it happened to him 'as it
were an error which proceedeth from the ruler"
[Eccles. x. 5].1
A commentary on Ecclesiastes x. 5 ("there is an
evil which I have seen under the sun as an evil which
proceedeth from the ruler ") preserves the same story
as follows :
€< The son of Kabbi Jehoshua ben Levi had something
in his throat. He went and fetched one of the men of
Ben Pandera, to bring out what he had swallowed.
He (Jehoshua ben Levi) said to him : What didst thou
say over him ? He answered : A certain verse after a
certain man. He said : It had been better for him,
had he buried him and not said over him that verse.
And so it happened to him, ' as it were an error which
proceedeth from the ruler.' " 2
" The error that proceedeth from the ruler " most prob-
1 "Pal. Aboda Zara," 40d.
3 " Koheleth Rabba " to Eccles. x. 5.
224
DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
James the
"Brother of
the Lord."
James the
Ascetic.
ably refers to some " planetary " ruler, or one of the
" names of the angels " which were guarded so jealously
by the Essenes, and of which we find so many ex
amples in Gnostic and allied literature, and in Jewish
apocalyptic.
We have seen above that it is impossible to fix the
date of Jacob of Kephar Sechania from the contradic
tory indication of the Talmud stories ; but if we survey
the whole period from 50 to 135 A.D., which years may
be taken approximately as the Talmud termini for this
Jacob, and look for a Jacob of pre-eminence among the
Christians with whom to identify him, the name of
" James, the brother of the Lord," presents itself as
having the best claim to our attention.
Eusebius tells us l that in his day the " most accu
rate account " of this James was to be found in the fifth
book of the Commentaries of Hegesippus, who, he says,
" nourished nearest to the days of the Apostles " ;
modern scholarship, however, assigns the date of writing
of Hegesippus's " Memoirs" to about 180 A.D. Eusebius
then proceeds to quote from Hegesippus the story of
the martyrdom of this James, the setting and tone of
which is very Jewish. The most interesting part of
the story, however, is the description of James himself,
where we read :
" He was holy from his mother's womb ; drank no
wine or strong drink, nor ate animal food ; no razor came
upon his head ; he neither oiled himself nor used the
bath; he alone was permitted to enter the holy places,2
for he never wore wool, but [always] linen. And he used
to go alone into the Temple, and was found on his
1 " Hist. Eccles.," ii. 23. 2 T& &yia.
THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS IN THE TALMUD. 225
knees, interceding for the people, so that his knees
grew hard like a camel's, because of his kneeling in
prayer to God, begging forgiveness for the people.
Indeed, on account of his exceeding great righteous
ness he was called ' the righteous ' and Olbias, which
means in Greek ' defence of the people ' and c righteous
ness.' " 1
Here we have the picture of a rigid ascetic, a The
Chassid, an Essene, a Therapeut, a Nazir, for from his
mother's womb he was vowed to holiness. It is, how
ever, difficult to understand what is meant by the
sentence which I have translated, "he alone was per
mitted to enter the holy places" — generally rendered
the "Holy of Holies," or the "Sanctuary." It is, of
course, impossible to believe that James could have
been permitted to enter the Holy of Holies of the
Temple at Jerusalem, which no one but the high
priest, and he only on a certain day in the year, could
enter. Nor can we suppose that James alone of
all men was accorded the privilege of entering the
" shrines," whatever they may mean 2 ; it can only mean
that such men alone as those who kept the same rigid
rule as James, could do so ; for we can hardly suppose
that it means that James alone of the Christians had
this privilege, that is, was the only one of the Christians
who kept this rule.
1 For text, see Kouth's " Reliquiae Sacra? " (2nd. ed., Oxford;
1846), i. 208, 209.
2 We know that the Essenes, or at any rate some of the Essenes,
would not visit the Temple at Jerusalem, because they regarded it
as polluted by blood sacrifices ; they had, however, their own
"shrines," which they kept most strictly pure. Can the
" shrines " of our text be explained in some such fashion ?
15
226 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
James tho With regard to this James the Just, the Righteous
James the ° (one °^ ^e titles of the Essenes and of all who vowed
Just. themselves to the service of God), Eusebius gives us
some further information of a most interesting nature
when he quotes1 from the sixth book of Clement of
Alexandria's lost work "The Institutions," where
Clement writes : " Peter and James and John, after the
ascension of our Saviour, though they had been pre
ferred by the Lord, did not contend for the honour, but
chose James the Just as bishop of Jerusalem " ; and in
the same book Clement adds : " The Lord imparted the
gnosis to James the Just, to John and Peter, after his
resurrection, these delivered it to the rest of the
Apostles, and they to the Seventy."
It seems probable from the first of these passages
that James the Disciple and James the Just were quite
different persons. It is also to be remarked that in the
second paragraph James the Just is apparently pre
ferred to Peter and John, while the Peter, James and
John of the first paragraph are of another election.
The Gnosis for Clement was the inner teaching of the
Master, given, as we see, after the " resurrection," that
is to say, when the Master returned to them after the
death of His physical body. James the Just
then, was one who, because of his strict training,
was able to receive this Gnosis psychically and
spiritually.
TheTesti- In the remarkable passage in which Paul recounts
mony of Paul. the Epiphanies of the Master, after he had departed
from the body, in precisely the same terms as those he
uses in describing his own vision, this James is specially
1 " Hist. Eccles.," ii. 1.
THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS IN THE TALMUD. 227
mentioned as one who had enjoyed this high privilege.
The familiar passage runs :
" He appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve ; after
wards he appeared to above five hundred brothers at
once, most of whom remain unto this present, but some
are fallen asleep ; then he appeared to James, then to
all the other Apostles, and last of all, as to 'the
Abortion,' he appeared to me also."1
It is here to be noticed that Paul speaks of James
and the other Apostles of the time as being known, if
not personally, at any rate by reputation, to his corre
spondents. He also says that most of the five hundred
brothers were still alive ; but why he should make this
remark if the " Cephas " and the " Twelve " were also
still alive it is difficult to understand. Can it be that
that " Cephas " and that " Twelve " were of a past
generation ; while the Cephas who was known to Paul,
and whom he withstood to the face, was the Cephas of
a later " Twelve " ?
However this may be, the James known to Paul, Some Diffi
James the Eighteous, had had, according to Paul, direct
experience of the spiritual presence of the Master,
while, according to Clement, he had been one of the
chief means of communicating the inner teaching of
the Master to the Twelve of his day, this James not
being one of the original Twelve according to canonical
tradition, and that this Twelve further communicated
the Gnosis to the Seventy or outer circle of the inner
Twelve. James thus seems to have been one of the
1 I. Corinth, xv. 5-8. For an explanation of the otherwise
inexplicable term " The Abortion," see my article, " Some Notes on
the Gnostics," in "The Nineteenth Century and After," Nov. 1902.
228 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Three order; the Twelve or the Seventy (? Seventy-
two) being lower grades.
But this James the Righteous is farther distinguished
by the title " Brother of the Lord." If this epithet is
to be taken in its literal sense, we are involved in a
host of difficulties, as may be seen by turning to any
recent Bible dictionary.1 Moreover, with the passage of
Hegesippus before us, if we are not prepared to abandon
it entirely as some have done, we should have to ask :
If James was a vowed ascetic from his mother's womb,
are we to think that it could have been otherwise with
his traditional brother Jesus ? And this difficulty is
only removed one stage by supposing that James was a
cousin of Jesus, a hypothesis, moreover, contradicted
by all the canonical data, and only a desperate resort
to preserve the dogma of the perpetual Virginity of
Mary. Further, if this ascetic and spiritual James was
the blood brother of Jesus, why did he not believe on
Jesus, as the canonical Gospel account tells us, till
after the "resurrection," when, according to Paul,
he experienced his vision of the Christ ?
The "Brother There is, however, a scrap of information dropped
the Lord." to the communjtv at Corinth,2
which may throw a gleam of light on this obscure
question, and relieve us of some of our difficulties.
In his first letter to the Corinth thiasos of Christians,
or whatever they were called in those days, the un
official Apostle who practically by his unrestrained
propaganda threw open the Christ mystery to the
1 See articles " James " and " Brethren of the Lord " in Hastings'
" Dictionary of the Bible" and Cheyne's "Encyclopaedia Biblica."
2 I. Corinth, ix. 5.
THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS IN THE TALMUD. 229
Western world, for its helping and its mystification,
asks a strange question :
" Have we not," says Paul, " power (or authority) to
lead about a sister wife (a8e\</>t}v yvvatKa) as well as
the rest of the Apostles and the Brothers of the Lord
and Cephas ? "
What this leading about of a "sister wife" may
mean I do not pretend to say, and must refer the
curious reader to the Acta of Paul and Thecla for how
later generations explained it; but we have here
" Apostles " as one recognised official class and " Brothers
of the Lord " as another, and for all we know " Cephas "
may have held an office which constituted a third class.
It is difficult to believe that all these took about with
them a " sister wife " when we know the rigid asceticism
of many of the early communities ; but be this as it
may, and be the " Cephas " a title or the Gospel Simon
Peter, the " Brothers of the Lord " can hardly be taken
here to mean the blood-brothers of Jesus. Surely this
was a title applying to those who were " kin to Him "
(the Logos), as the MS. of the Gnostic Marcus, quoted
by Irenaeus,1 has it, those whose " greatnesses," whose
angels, contemplate His face perpetually.
If this can in any way be so, the title " Brother of A Probable
Q 1 4-*
the Lord " as applied to James has a new meaning for
us, and many obscurities created by the historicizing
Gospel narratives of Post-Pauline days may be cleared
away, and the saying that " he who doeth the will of
God is my brother " be found to have not been for
gotten in the early days.
As for the interpolated qualifying phrase " the brother
1 " Adv. Har.," I. xiv. 1.
230
DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.
Olbias.
The Talmud
Jacob.
of Jesus called the Christ " referring to a certain James
mentioned by Josephus,1 we have already dealt with it
in the chapter on " The Earliest External Evidence to
the received Date of Jesus."
There remains only to refer to the title Olbias, which
Hegesippus says means " defence of the people." The
authorities I have consulted say nothing about this
name, and I am unable to make anything out of it
philologically, and, indeed, Hegesippus seems to have
been in the same case, for it certainly cannot mean loth
" defence of the people " and " righteousness," as he
says. Olbias, however, reminds us strongly of Alphaios
(Alphseus) ; and James of Alphseus, of whom the
canonical tradition preserves little but the name,
together with James, son of Zebedee, complete the list
of the three Jameses which are such a puzzle even to
the most laborious scholarship.
We now have to ask : Can this Jacob the Eighteous,
Jacob the Episcopus of the Jerusalem community, who
is supposed to have been put to death in 67 A.D., be in
any way identified with Jacob of Kephar Sechania of
the Talmud ? It is impossible to give a decided answer
to this question, for while one tradition of the Talmud
would favour this identification, another tradition would
render it impossible. But Talmudic tradition is notori
ously indifferent to dates, and presumably selected the
name Jacob simply because it was the name of one held
in high honour by the Christians. The account of
Josephus and the strong Hebrew colouring of the story
of Hegesippus, moreover, make it appear exceedingly
probable that Jacob the Kighteous was well known to
1 " Antiqq.," xx. ix. 1.
THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS IN THE TALMUD. 231
the Jews. It is therefore probable that in this vague
fashion there is some connection between our two
Jacobs.
We now pass on to a strange story in which a Christian The Story of
"philosopher" is turned into ridicule in appropriate «phik,s-e
Kabbinical fashion. °P]ier-"
" Imma Shalom, the wife of E. Eliezer and sister of
Eabban Gamaliel, had a philosopher as a neighbour, who
had the reputation of taking no bribe. They wished to
render him ridiculous. Imma accordingly brought him
a golden candle-stick, presented herself before him and
said : ' I should like to have a share in the property of
my family.' The philosopher answered her : ' Then
have thy share ! ' But Gamaliel said to him : * We have
the law : where there is a son, the daughter shall in
herit naught.' The philosopher said : ' Since the day
when ye were driven out of your country, the Law of
Moses is repealed arid there is given the Gospel, in which
it is said : Son and daughter shall inherit together.'
" On the next day Gamaliel brought the philosopher
a Libyan ass. Then the philosopher said to them :
' I, the Gospel, am not come to do away with the Law of
Moses, but to add to the Law of M!oses am I come. It
is written in the Law of Moses : Where there is a son,
the daughter shall not inherit.' Then Imma said to
him : ' Nevertheless may thy light shine like the candle
stick.' But Rabban Gamaliel said : ' The ass is come
and has overturned the candle-stick.' " l
Imma Shalom, or Airna Salome, was sister of the Date
Patriarch E. Gamaliel II., and wife of Eliezer the Great,
who is curiously enough supposed elsewhere to have
1 " Bab. Shabbath," 116 a and b.
232 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
had a leaning to Christianity. The word for Gospel is
the Hebrew transliteration of Evangelion.
In the first place it is to be observed that according
to our philosopher the year 70 A.D. ("since the day
when ye were driven out of your country "), the date of
the fall of Jerusalem, marked a period of the strongest
possible differentiation between the Jew and Christian.
It was this crushing blow to the national hopes, far
more than the propaganda of Paul, which aided the
spread of Christian and non-particularist ideas.
A Saying The main point, however, which interests us is the
Gospel, question of the quotations put into the mouth of the
philosopher. The intention of the Eabbis appears to
have been to show the inconsistency of the Christian
position. You contend, said the Kabbis to those whom
they regarded as trespassers on their sacred property,
that the Gospel has not come to put an end to the Law,
but only to complete it ; but whatever you may say, it is
practically making the Law as we have ever known it
of none effect in your communities.
It is true that Christian tradition has preserved no
trace of any saying to the effect that son and daughter
should inherit together ; but, if we are to take the Acts
narrative as giving back a correct picture of what the
author conceived the first communities to have been, as
the early Christian had all things in common and gave
their all to the common fund, this would practically
amount to setting aside the Law as the Rabbis under
stood it, for it was an entire upsetting of the whole
social organisation of Jewry.
The Personi- But what is most curious is the wording : " I, the
fied Gospel, (^gp^ am not come to <jo away with the Law of
THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS IN THE TALMUD. 233
Moses." This saying is preserved in our present canoni
cal text by the writer of the first Gospel from his
second main source as : " Think not that I came to
destroy the Law and the Prophets; I came not to
destroy, but to complete."1 This saying, as the teller of
our Talmud story will have it, the philosopher found at
the end of his Gospel, meaning by this evidently a
book. If there were nothing more to be said, we might
dismiss the story as devoid of all historical basis, and
consider it solely as a Haggada devised to preserve a
controversial point. But the curious personification of
the Gospel in the second quotation reminds us of an
equally strange personification found in the tradition
of the Gnostic Basilides at the beginning of the second
century. For Basilides the Gospel was a living entity,
a " Person " by whom the whole soteriology of his
system was engineered. Can it therefore be possible
that in one of the many traditions of the early days
there was a document where the " Gospel," the personi
fied Glad-tidings, was substituted for the teacher, or even
stood so originally among circles where the message was
thought more of than the messenger ? Moreover we
have similar personifications in Gnostic tradition ; for
instance, in the MS. of Marcus (who flourished a
generation later than Basilides), to which we have
already referred, the Tetras, Quaternatio or Quaternitas,
the " Colarbasic " Silence,2 is the inspiring intelligence
of the Gnosis.
1 Matt. v. 17.
2 Irenreus, " Adv. H^r.," I. xiv. 1. This " Colarbasic " Silence, of
which Marcus said he was the " receptacle, " was a great puzzle to
the worthy Church Fathers in their heresy-hunting, so much so
that they eventually made of it a heresy derived from an arch-
234 BID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Of course the personification of the Gospel in our
Talmud sentence may be sufficiently accounted for as a
natural creation of the vivid oriental imagination, but
we should hardly expect it from the side of the Kabbis
in this connection, and, as a matter of fact, it is found in
Christian tradition.
Another point of great interest is that the Christian
in this story is styled a " philosopher, " and was there
fore regarded as a learned man.
Some more We have now exhausted all the Talmud passages
Passages, collected by Dalman, and will next turn to a few
additional ones found in the far shorter collection,
or rather selection, of Levene,1 who takes Minim in all
the following passages to mean Jewish Christians.
I have arranged these passages as far as I can accord
ing to their chronological indications, and the first of
them runs as follows :
The Curse on " Eabban Gamaliel, whilst presiding at the academi-
the Minim. io.ii- • i j T.I
cal Sanhednn, said to the sages : Is there any one
present who is able to compose a blessing [? curse] for
Minim ? Then Samuel the Little came forward and
composed it :
" To the apostates let there be no hope ; then shall
all the wickedness perish in a moment, and all Thine
enemies speedily shall be cut off, and the kingdom of
pride Thou shalt uproot speedily, and break and cast
heretic of their own imagination called Colarbasus. As a matter
of fact, Gholarba in Hebrew means simply " All-four, " that is, the
divine Tetrad or Tetractys.
1 It must, however, he stated that Levene does not translate
literally ; he frequently shortens and paraphrases, as may be seen
by comparison of his translation of the passages he gives in common
with Dalman or Laible.
THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS IN THE TALMUD. 235
down, and humble it speedily in our day. Blessed art
Thou, 0 Lord, breaker of the enemy, and humbler of
the proud."
Eabbi Samuel the Little belonged to the first genera
tion of Tanaim and flourished about 90-130 A.D. ;
K. Gamaliel II. flourished about 90-110 A.D.
" At the death of Joshua Ben Chanania the Kabbis cried
out: Who will now defend our cause against the Minim ?"2
R Joshua Ben Chanania was one of the most famous
Rabbis of Israel and flourished about 70-130 A.D. It is
remarkable that in the Talmud tradition he is often
found in controversy with R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus,
and this confirms the sense of our passage that he was
regarded as one of the greatest champions of Jewish
orthodoxy, for, as we have seen, Eliezer was suspected of
sympathy with Christian views.
" The Tanaic Rabbis have taught : When Rabbis Minoth.
Eliezer Ben Pardo and Chanena ben Teradion were
seized on the charge of being Christians [minoth],
Rabbi Eliezer said to Chanena ben Teradion : Happy
be thou, 0 Chanena, for thou hast been seized on one
charge, but woe to me that I have been seized for five
offences. But Rabbi Chanena answered : Happy be
thou, 0 Eliezer, for thou hast been seized on five
charges and hast escaped 3 ; but woe to me that I have
been charged with one offence, and have not escaped.
Thou hast been engaged in the study of the Law and in
charity, whilst I engaged only in the study of the Law
— therefore punishment has overtaken me." 4
1 " Berachoth," 29a. 2 " Bab. Chagiga," 5a.
3 Leveue adds : " from Christian influence."
4 " Aboda Zara" 1Gb.
236 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
*
Eleazar ben Perata and Chanania (not Chanina)
ben Teradion flourished about 100-135 ; the latter was
one of the " ten martyrs " who lost their lives in the
Bar Kochba rebellion. The story is somewhat curious,
even from a Jewish point of view, for Ben Teradion was
above all others specially noted for his charity.1
" A certain Min asked Eabbi Chanena : Now that
your temple is burnt, you cannot cleanse yourselves
from your ceremonial defilement ; you are, therefore,
unclean, for it is written [Lam. i. 9] : ' Her filthiness
abides in her skirts/ But Eabbi Chanena answered:
Come and see what is written concerning them [the
Jews] : ' Who remaineth among them in the midst of
defilement' [Lam. xvi. 16].2
This E. Chanena is probably intended for Chanania
ben Teradion, a Palestinian Rabbi who, as we have seen,
flourished about 100-135 A.D.
The Books of « The books of the Minim 3 are not to be kept from
the fire on the Sabbath, but must be consumed on the
spot with the names of God contained therein.
" Eabbi Joses said : On a week day let the names of
God be cut out and hidden away, and the remainder
burnt. Eabbi Tarphon declared: May I be deprived
of my children if I do not burn them with the names
of God !
" If a man be pursued to death by a robber, or by a
serpent, let him fly for refuge into a heathen temple
1 See Hamburger, " Real-Encyclopadie des Judenthums," " Tal
mud und Midrash," ii. 132, sub voce.
2 " Yoma," 57a. Levene adds : " That is to say, even when Israel
is defiled the Shekinah dwells among them."
3 Levene adds : " the Gospels of the Christians."
THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS IN THE TALMUD. 237
rather than into the house of a Min ; for idolaters sin
unwittingly, but the Minim do so deliberately.
" Kabbi Ishmael said : If in order to make peace
between husband and wife, the Law allows the name of
God to be ' blotted out,' 1 how much more shall the
books of these men be destroyed who stir up enmity
and angry feeling between Israel and their Father who
is in heaven. To them the words of David may be
applied : ' Do I not hate them, 0 Lord, that hate thee ?
Am I not grieved with those who rise up against thee ?
I hate them with perfect hatred, I reckon them my
enemies.' " 2
Here we see that not even the strict observance of They are to
the Sabbath was to stand in the way of the instant
destruction of the Siphre Minim ; nay, the terrible
profanity of destroying the names of God which were
thought to give the material on which they were in
scribed a special and inviolable sanctity, was set on
one side, and this not only on the Sabbath, when
the cutting of them out might be held to entail
"work," but, according to E. Tarphon, even on week
days.
K. Jose (ben Chalaphtha) belonged to the third
generation of Tanaim, and flourished about 130-160
A.D. ; he was a great enemy of mysticism. E. Tarphon
belonged to the preceding generation, 90-130 A.D. ; he
was a fierce opponent of Christianity, as indeed our
passage shows. E. Ishmael ben Elisha was a contem
porary of E. Tarphon and E. Akiba.
It is to be noticed, however, that Friedlander, in his
1 Levene comments : " to be placed in the bitter waters,"
2 « Shabbath," 116a.
238 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Friedlander " Vorbeinerkung," makes the opening words of this
m1' passage, which he gives as " the Giljonim and books of
the Minim," the basis of his interesting essay on pre-
Christian Jewish Gnosticism.1 He denies that the
Gilionim are the Gospels of the Christians, and that
the Minim of the oldest Talmud tradition are Christians.
He tells us that in Galicia, where old-fashioned Talmud-
ism is still to be found in its most conservative form,
the traditional interpretation of Min is that " Min is an
Apikores." that is, an Epicurean, a sceptic, an atheist, a
"philosopher who despises God and his Law." His
own theory is that by Min is meant, at any rate in
the earlier deposits of the Talmud, "an antiiiomistic
Gnostic," that is, presumably a Gnostic who set aside
the traditional Jewish view, and contended that the
Yahweh of the Jews was at best a secondary God.
Friedlander is well worth reading, but a consideration
of his arguments would necessitate more space than the
treatment of our present subject will permit. The
question of a pre-Christian Jewish Gnosticism, however,
is one of the points of the greatest importance in a
consideration of Christian origins.2
Weinstein on Weinstein has also quite recently returned to the
subject 3 and further developed his contention in his essay
1 Friedlander (M.), " Der vorchristliche jiidische Gnosticismus "
(Gottingen ; 1898).
2 See also " Die jiidische Gnosis und die platonisch-pytha-
goraischen Anschauungen der palastinischen Lehrer," in M. Joel's
" Blicke in die Religionsgeschichte zu Anfang des zweiten christ-
liclien Jahrhunderts" (Breslau ; 1880), i. 114-170.
3 Weinstein (N. I.), "Zur Genesis der Agada: Beitrag zur
Entstehungs- und Eutwickelungs-Geschichte des talmudischen
Schriftthums " (Gottingen ; 1901), Theil II. " Die alexandrinische
Agada," " Die Minim," pp. 91-156.
THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS IN THE TALMUD. 239
on the Essenes,1 that by Minim in the Talmud we are
nowhere to understand Jewish Christians, but that the
chief characteristic of Minism from pre-Christian times
is always polytheism ; in brief, all non-monotheism
without distinction was Minism, and that, too, not
in the sense of idolatry but for the most part under
such high forms of belief as the Logos-theory.
Much work, however, remains to be done by such
Talmud specialists as Joel, Friedlander, Weinstein and
their co-labourers before we are quite sure of the exact
value of this very general term, and first of all we
require a complete list of Talmud passages where the
term occurs ; meantime we return to the passages which
Levene considers to refer specially to the Christians.
" A man must not carry or take from the Minim, he Boycott of
must not intermarry with them, and must not accept Mmim*
their cures for disease." 2
Then follows the story of Ben Dama's being bitten
by a snake, with which we have already dealt.
" The post-Mishnaic Eabbis have taught : An animal, Impurity of
if slaughtered, even according to the Jewish rites, by i
a Min, is like an animal offered to idols. His (the
Min's) bread is like the bread of a Cuthite (Samaritan)
and his wine like that offered to idols. The books of
the Law, the Prophets and the Hagiographa which have
been written by him, are like the books of magicians." 3
Here we have a Min who observes all the Jewish
legal prescriptions as to food, and yet falls under
the utmost displeasure of the Eabbis. His food and
his copies of the Scriptures, even of the Torah, are
1 " Beitriige zur Geschichte der Essiier" (Wien ; 1892).
2 " Aboda Zara," 27b. s « chullin," 13a.
240
DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
polluted and contaminate as do food offered to idols
and books of sorcerers. This Min then must have
been regarded as doctrinally and therefore spiritually
impure ; but there were evidently also Minim who did
not observe the Jewish prescriptions, otherwise the
sentence " even according to the Jewish rites " 1 would be
meaningless. This passage accordingly seems as though
it would somewhat upset Weinstein's theory. The post-
Mishnaic Eabbis may be dated from the third century
onwards.
Minim com- « Mark Ukvah said : The voice of two daughters who
pared with
Tax-gatherers, cry from Gehenna are they who exclaim, ' Give, give ! '
—in this world, namely Roman tax-collectors and
Minim.2 None that go unto her return again, neither
take they hold of the path of life. A speedy death
awaits those who return to Judaism from Christianity
[? minoth], for they expire from remorse."3
Mar Ukbah was in all probability Chief of the
Exile, or Prince of the Captivity, in Babylonia about
210-240 A.D.
"Rav Nachman said: We hold that a roll of the
Law that has been written by a Min shall be com
mitted to the flames; if by a Gentile, let it be con
cealed; if found in the possession of a Min, and it
cannot be ascertained whether he has transcribed it,
let it be concealed; if found in the possession of a
Gentile, some say let it likewise be concealed, others,
that it may be used for reading." 4
1 If it stands so literally in the original.
2 Levene translates " Christians " and adds, " The former shouts,
' Give taxes ' ; the latter, { Give converts.' "
3 Levene gives no reference to this saying.
4 " Gittin," 45b.
The Rolls of
the Law
written by
Minim to be
Destroyed.
THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS IN THE TALMUD. 241
Rabbi Nachman was rector of the school at Nehardea
in Babylonia, and lived 245-320 A.D. A Min was then
presumably a born Jew; whether or not proselytes
were included is uncertain.
" Rabbi Abahu said : The Shema l was commanded The Shema
to be repeated in a loud voice on account of the troubles Minim,
caused by the Minim, but at Nehardea in Babylon,
where there are no Minim, they repeat the Shema to-day
in a low voice." 2
R. Abbahu belonged to the third generation of the
Palestinian Amoraim, and flourished 279-320 A.D. He
was a great opponent of all Minim, and especially of
Christians, as we have already seen above.
"Rav Saiseth, who was totally blind, ordered his The Minim
servant to place him in any other but the eastward ward Direct
direction when he wished to pray, because the Minim tlon>
did so."3
R. Shesheth belonged to the third generation of
Babylonian Amoraim, and nourished about 300-330
A.D. It is difficult to believe that all Minim turned
to the east in prayer ; but we know that the Essenes
and the Therapeuts did so. Was this a general custom
of the early Christians also ?
We have now come to the end of Levene's quotations,
but we are quite certain that the subject is by no
means exhausted, as a glance at the Talmud passages
cited by the authorities we have already referred
to, or at the lives of the most renowned Rabbis as
given in Hamburger's " Real - Encyclopiidie," will
show.
1 The prayer beginning, " Hear, 0 Israel."
a " Pesachim," 56a. 3 " Baba Bathra," 25a.
16
242
DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
The Import-
Talmud for
Christian7 °f
Origins.
It is a matter of capital importance for students of
Christian origins that without delay the Talmud should
be minutely scrutinized from the first to the last page,
so as to unearth every scrap of information bearing
directly or indirectly on the many phases of early
Christianity, but this is a task that none but the most
competent Talmud specialists, who are also exceedingly
well read in all the latest research into the puzzling
chaos of the early schools and " heresies " with which
Christianity was inextricably mingled in the first
centuries, can hope to achieve with any measure of
success.
We next pass on to a consideration of such of the
contents of the Toldoth Jeschu as bear in any way
upon our enquiry ; but first of all we must inform our
selves concerning the history of these strange Toldoth.
XIII.— THE TOLDOTH JESCHU.
WE have already seen in our short sketch of " The Causes of
Talmud in History " how fierce was the persecution of
Western Jewry by Christian intolerance in the Inquisi
tional period of the Middle Ages ; we have seen how hate
begat hate, and we are not surprised to find that the
Jews of the later Middle Age had long learned most
bitterly to execrate the memory of their ancient Eabbi,
in whose name they had been so cruelly persecuted for
so many centuries. The name of Jesus had become
a terror to them, the symbol of all that was cruel, even
as from the earliest days it had connoted for them
much that was blasphemous — cruel because of their
tortures and stripes, blasphemous because his followers
worshipped man as God, and the Law most sternly
forbade the Jew to do so.
But the fierce outbreak which raged with such
disastrous results to Jewry from the thirteenth to the
sixteenth century was no new conflagration. The
ancient fire of the early days of conflict had never been
really extinguished ; it had smouldered on, ready to
burst into flame as soon as Western Christendom in the
person of one or two scholars — aided, as the Christian
would say, by the zeal of Jewish converts, or, as the
244
DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
The Inquisi
tion knows
Little of the
Toldoth.
Israelite would put it, roused to fury by the sectarian
hatred of Jewish renegades and apostates — had either
learned enough Hebrew to read the Talmud traditions
about Jesus, or had had its ears filled with accounts so
distorted that it imagined that the Talmud was from
the first to the last page a repository of blasphemy
against its Lord.
In this connection it is somewhat curious to note
that the rage of the Christian inquisitors was directed
almost entirely against the Talmud itself, from the
voluminous contents of which it was a matter of some
difficulty to disinter the brief and scattered references
to Jesus, while we hear comparatively little or nothing
of a certain Jewish " Life of Jesus," which not only
worked up some of the scattered Talmud passages
into a connected whole, but also added other matter
(not found in the Talmud), some of the elements of
which were referred to by Tertullian as early as the
closing years of the second century.
It is true that at the very beginning of the Talmud
persecution, about the middle of the thirteenth century,
we find Eaymund Martini, the learned Dominican who
has the distinction of being considered the first
Christian Hebraist of the Middle Ages, but who is
thought by some to have been a converted Jew.1
quoting a form of this " Life," which had in all
probability been already expressly condemned at the
trial preceding the Paris burning of 1248.2 Again, in
1 Martini sat on the Talmud Inquisitorial Commission assembled
at Barcelona in 1266.
2 Lea (H. C.), " A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages "
(New York ; 1888), i. 558.
THE TOLDOTH JESCHU. 245
1415, the Antipope Benedict XIII. specially singled
out for condemnation a certain treatise " Mar mar Jesu,"
no copy of which is now known to be extant, but which
is thought by some to have been a form of the Toldoth
Jeschu,1 while in the first half of the sixteenth century,
when the Talmud was recovering its right to existence,
Eeuchlin distinctly excluded this " Life " from his
favourable judgment on the Talmud.
It is, however, strange that we do not hear more of Suggested
the Toldoth Jeschu during this period, for it worked up th^sllence.
into one consecutive narrative not only the main
TalmucJ Jeschu data, but also much else not found either
in the Talmud or in Christian tradition either canonical
or apocryphal, and might, therefore, have been expected
to have been singled out especially and consistently by
the emissaries of the Inquisition as the main ground of
their accusation and attack. Can it have been that this
"Life" was considered by the ignorant inquisitors as
forming part and parcel of the Talmud itself ; or was it
kept so secret among the Jews that the agents of the
Holy Office failed to come across it except on the rarest
occasions; or was it to the bitter persecution of the
Inquisition itself that we owe not the genesis of the
Toldoth, but the elaboration of some of its existing forms ?
The fact that we found Tertullian briefly referring The Paucity
to certain elements still preserved in great elaboration ofMatenal-
in nearly all extant forms of the Toldoth convinced us
that, as far as these elements were concerned, the
traditional memory of the mediaeval compilers or re
dactors of the Toldoth reached back to at least the end
1 Griitz (H. H.), "Geschichte der Juden" (Leipzig; 1865, 2nd
ed.), viii. 133-135.
246 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. \
of the second century. But the difficulties connected
with the subject were (and are) very great ; for not
only were all non-Jewish scholars who had considered
the matter agreed that the forms of the Toldoth
accessible to them were worthless mediaeval fabrications
quite beneath the notice of the historical student, but the
number of these recensions was very small. In fact,
for all practical purposes the short thirteenth century
Latin translation of Eaymund Martini, the seventeenth
and eighteenth century Latin versions of Wagenseil
and Huldreich, and finally the Judaeo-German " Life "
published by Bischoff in 1895,1 comprised all the
material available.
Recent Publi- In his " Vorwort, " Bischoff had stated that this
A* Serial " judisch-deutsch " " Life " was the forerunner of a large
work " Das jiidische ' Leben Jesu, ' " which was to deal
with the various recensions of the Toldoth in a scien
tific manner. We were therefore waiting in high
expectation of the help of this most useful undertaking,
when a few months ago (at the time of this writing)
there appeared an excellent work on the subject by
Dr. Samuel Krauss, enriched with many notes from the
hand of Bischoff himself, and also with others by Strack.2
It is, therefore, to be supposed that this is the book
referred to by Bischoff in his " Foreword," and not, as
we had previously imagined, that the work promised
was to be entirely by himself.
1 Bischoff (E.), " Ein jiidisch-deutsches Leben Jesu : Geschichte
Jesu von Nazareth, geboren im Jahre 3760 seit Erschaffung
der Welt" (Leipzig ; no date).
2 Krauss (S.). " Das Leben Jesu nach jiidischen Quell en "
(Berlin ; 1902).
THE TOLDOTH JESCHU. 247
Most opportunely, then, for our enquiry has this Krauss'
study appecared, for in it not only have we a wealth of
new material which was hitherto entirely inaccessible
to any but the most determined specialists, but also we
have the first attempt at a scientific and unpartisan treat
ment of this difficult subject ; a beginning has at last
been made towards an evaluation of the legendary
and traditional materials of this most curious cycle of
Jewish literature, and the openmindedness of the
undertaking is unquestionably shown by the fact
that Krauss, Bischoff and Strack frequently dissent
from each other in their comments and recomments.
Our present task is, therefore, considerably lightened ;
for instead of attempting unaided to review this over
grown and complicated tradition as preserved in Bis-
choffs Judseo-German Toldoth and the Latin versions
of Wagenseil, Huldreich and Eaymundus Martini, and to
trace the external evidence from where we left it, in
treating of the Talmud, we have to work over ground
already surveyed by Krauss, while at the same time we
have to thank him for considerably widening the area
of research by the addition of new territory which we
could never have traversed at all without his aid, for
no one but a past-master in a knowledge of Hebrew
and Jewish Hebrew mediaeval literature could dream of
attempting such a task single-handed. If, however,
we find ourselves compelled sometimes to differ from
Krauss' conclusions or to put a different value on some
of the chief elements in the materials, it is not sur
prising, seeing that the scientific investigation of this
very obscure subject of hitherto bitterest prejudice is
still entirely in its infancy.
248 DID JESUS LIVE TOO B.C, ?
His Estimate Krauss, in his " Einleitung," assures us of his entire
Toldoth. impartiality, and declares that he has treated the Toldoth
purely as an ancient literary monument, the earliest
foundation of which, he believes, preserves a text
reaching back some 1500 years (K. iii.).1 As the result
of his labours, in which he claims to have proved the
general Toldoth tradition point for point, he declares
that though the representation of the " Life of Jesus "
contained therein is of an odious nature, and in so far
referable to Jewish hostility, nevertheless the bare facts
themselves are for the most part in contact with good,
and that, too, Christian, sources; and that instead of
spending all its energies in abusing the Toldoth as a
Jewish lampoon, a pitiful fabrication, or execrable
foolishness, it would be more profitable for Christian
theology to trace the book to its sources, as he has
endeavoured to do himself (K. 2).
"Good When, however, Krauss speaks of "good Christian
Sources." sources," it must be understood that he means that
they were " good " for the Jewish compilers of the
Toldoth, who could not be expected to distinguish
between canonical, deutero-canonical and apocryphal
Christian literature and tradition. The Toldoth makers
and redactors simply reflected the general notions in
the Christian folk-consciousness of their times, and took
these varied and changing notions indifferently for
authentic facts, or, at any rate, as valid beliefs of the
Christian faithful. Thus we find biblical, apocryphal
and Talmud-Midrash traditions and legends as to Jesus
1 The frequent references to Krauss' work are thus signified ;
when the note referred to is by Bischoff it will be further marked
" B. n."
THE TOLDOTH JESCHU. 249
mingled together in motley confusion, each and every
one of them being put at precisely the same value (K.
165). And this indeed is an important point in any
investigation of a subject of this nature; for the
common persuasion in general Protestant circles that
the canonical Gospel view was the only view, even
in the early days, is entirely mistaken ; the people fed
mainly on apocrypha.
Krauss especially insists that the agreement of the
Toldoth in certain of its forms and features with Gospel
data is of prime importance, for it argues that although
in the Toldoth literature these are naturally put forward
as they appeared to Jewish, and, therefore, he admits,
biassed observers, they are nevertheless not deliberately
distorted or disfigured (K. 154). The Toldoth recen
sions, it is true, bear all the marks of an apologetic and
polemical literature, but this does not calumniate; it
alleges, but does not execrate (K. 155).
Bischoff, on the contrary, declares that the various Bisehoff s
forms of the Toldoth must be classed as a satirical
and parodial literature of a polemical nature ; it is true
that the Jewish compilers borrow certain traits from
the Christian prototype, but only to recast them in
their own fashion. The various Toldoth recensions
known to us all bear the marks of a Middle Age bitter
polemical literature against the intolerance of the
Catholic Church and in answer to the fierce denunciation
and cruel persecution by the Christians against the
Jews ; it is a case of eye for eye and tooth for tooth.
These writings were pamphlets against the simple faith
in unintelligent authority and the foolishness of a rank
growth of Christian legend and folklore ; briefly, against
250 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
the pretensions and extravagances of the Church of the
Middle Ages. Nevertheless it would be foolish to throw
away the child with the bath water, for the Toldoth
writers were, in their way, as decent folk as their
opponents (K. 154 ; B. n.).
With this opinion Strack also is in agreement;
nevertheless Krauss holds firmly to his own point of
view and refuses to modify it. The most useful stand
point may perhaps be found somewhere between these
two contradictory views, but as far as our present
study is concerned, our main interest is concerned only
with the oldest elements discernible under the many
changing forms of this Toldoth activity.
Only one But perhaps some of our readers will say : Why,
Information we did not know even so much as that there was a
m English. jewish Life of Jesus ; where can we obtain any in
formation on the subject in English ? Truth to say,
the Toldoth literature has been boycotted even by the
learned in English-speaking lands. Perhaps this may
have been natural enough, and it may have been best
hitherto to keep silence on a topic which in the past
could not possibly have been discussed with moderation.
But at the beginning of the twentieth century it is
no longer possible to exclude from the field of research
into Christian origins any subject, even of apparently
the most intractable kind, which may hold out the
faintest hope of throwing even a sidelight on the count
less obscurities of received tradition.
As far as we are aware there is only one book in
English which deals with the subject, and that too
in a very superficial manner, but as it has never
reached a second edition, either it has been very little
THE TOLDOTH JESCHU. 251
read or the author has not thought it advisable to
reprint it.1
But even the learned have been hitherto very im- General
perfectly acquainted with the Toldoth literature, and
have had to depend entirely on polemical sources of
information rather than on a scientific statement and
appreciation of the facts. Setting aside Kaymundus
Martini's thirteenth century Latin rendering of a
short Toldoth form, which Luther knew from the
fifteenth century reproduction of Porchettus, and trans
lated into German early in the sixteenth century,
and which we shall consider later on, non-Jewish
scholars had until quite lately to depend entirely on
the translations of the an ti- Jewish writers Wagenseil2
1 Baring-Gould (S.), " The Lost and Hostile Gospels : An
Essay on the Toledoth Jeschu, and the Petrine and Pauline
Gospels of the First Three Centuries of which Fragments Eemain "
(London; 1874), ch. v. "The Counter- Gospels," pp. 67-115.
This book contains a digest and partial translation of Wagenseil's
seventeenth-century and Huldreich's eighteenth-century Latin
versions of the Toldoth ; much of the matter in the chapters on
the Talmud and Toldoth is taken from Clemens' "Jesus von
Nazareth" (Stuttgart; 1850) and von der Aim's "Urtheile"
(Leipzig ; 1864), whose name the author misspells, p. 48 — but
without any acknowledgment.
Wagenseil's Latin has also been rendered into English in a
penny pamphlet form, " The Hebrew Account of our Lord (sole
English edition, omitting nothing after the first page), Latinized
by J. C. Wagenseil, 1681 ; Englished by E. L. G., 1885." (London ;
James Burns.) It is difficult to refrain from reprobating strongly
a production of this kind.
2 Joh. Christophorus Wagenseilius, " Tela ignea Satana^. Hoc
est : Arcani et horribiles Judccoruni adversus Christum Deum
et Christianam Keligionem Libri ave/cSoroi" (Altdorf ; 1681),
2 vols., containing six treatises, of which the last is " Libellus
Toldos Jeschu." W.'s text was reproduced with a German transla
tion in J. A. Eisenmenger's (not Eilenmenger'a) " Entdecktes Juden-
252
DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Extent of New
Material.
Bischoff's
Classification.
(b. at Niirnberg Nov. 26, 1633, d. Oct. 9, 1705) and
Huldreich.1
With the publication of Bischoff's Jewish-German
"Leben Jesu" in 1895, to which we have already
referred, and Krauss' larger work in 1902, however,
we have a large amount of new material rendered
accessible to us ; not, however, that even so we have by
any means all the material extant, for there must be
still numerous MSS. hidden away (for a number of
MSS. once known to exist have since disappeared), or
in the hands of modern Jewish medievalists, the
" homely " Jews of Krauss (p. 22) ; and of the 23 (two
of these being only fragments) now known we have
still to wait for the translation of a good half of them.
Nevertheless, as the MSS. fall into types, the portion
of the new material which Krauss has translated is
doubtless sufficient for all practical purposes.
Bischoff (K. 27-37) has divided these MSS. into five
chief types; it is, however, to be observed that these
groupings do not in the remotest fashion aim at any
attempt at tracing out a historical genealogical tree, for,
thum" (1st ed. [Frankfort], 1700 ; latest edition, Dresden, 1893, by
J. X. Schiefel) ; the original title of which ran : " Das bei 40 Jahr
von der Judenschafft mit Arrest bestrickt gewesene, nunmehro
aller durch Autoritat eines Hohen Keichs-Vicariats relaxirte
J. A. E.'s . . . entdecktes Judenthum : oder griindlicher und
wahrhaffter Bericht, welchergestalt die verstockte Juden die
Hochheilige Dreieinigkeit . . . erschrecklicher Weise liistern
und verunehren u. s. w., 2 Thle ; and also by Bullet, op. sub. cit.
1 Joh. Jac. Huldricus, " Sepher Toldotli Jeschua ha-Notzri
[in Hebrew letters], Historia Jeschuae Nazareni, a Judaeis
blaspheme corrupta, ex Manuscripto hactenus inedito nunc demum
edita, ac Versione et Notis (quibus Judaeorum nequitiae proprius
deteguntur, et Authoris asserta ineptiae ac impietatis con-
vincuntur), illu&trata" (Leyden ; 1705).
THE TOLDOTH JESCHU. 253
as Bischotf says, in face of the very chaotic nature
of the material, such an attempt must ever be of
the most subjective character (K. 27). It may be
that with the discovery of other MSS. something of
a more objective nature may be attempted, but at
present the field is wide open for the most diverse
speculations.
Bischoff s classification, or, rather, tentative grouping,
of the MSS. is as follows :
1. Type Wagenseil; put first because it is the best
known (9 MSS.).
2. Type De Kossi (so called from its last private owner,
who presented it to the Royal Library at Parma) ; placed
second because it is more nearly allied to the former type
in its main subjects (6 MSS.).
3. Type Huldreich (the original is lost, but there are
2 MSS. copied from H/s printed text) ; put third because
it was printed next after W.'s.
4. Type Modern Slavonic ; put next because it shows
a knowledge of all the foregoing (4 MSS.).
5. Type Cairo (6 fragments in the Schechter-
Oxford-collection from the Geniza or lumber-room of
the Old Synagogue at Cairo) ; put last because it is the
last known.
Of printed Toldoth texts we have practically only Printed Texts,
those of Wagenseil and Huldreich ; there was, however,
still earlier, somewhere about 1640 (K. 17 ; B. n.), a text
published by Engelsberger, but no copy of it is now
known to exist; there is also mixed Toldoth stuff in
the ironical composition of Gustav (Gerschom) Bader,
which bears as part of its title " History of the Nazarene
Law-giver."
254 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Krauss' New None of these texts, however, have the slightest pre
tension of being critical ; they are all, so to speak, one-
manuscript texts. It remained for Krauss to give us
the first attempt at a critical text of (1) the Strassburg
University Library MS., and (2) the Vienna Israeli tish
Theological Academy's MS. No. 54 ; while he has had
simply to reproduce (3) Adler's Jemen MS. with portions
of (4) the Leyden MS.1 dealing with the " burial " and
" resurrection " ; (5) of three Slavonic MSS. dealing with
the " seduction " ; (6) a fragment from Bokhara in posses
sion of E. Adler, dealing also with the " seduction " ; (7,
the "inventio crucis" from the Vienna MS. No. 54 ; (8)
the Cairo Geniza fragments ; and (9) an extract from the
" Touch-stone " of Schemtob ibn Schaprut, from the MS.
in the Jewish Theological Seminary in Breslau (p. 180).
Of these texts Krauss gives German translations of
only 1, 2, 3 and 9.
It is to be regretted that when the subject was being
treated in a scientific manner, Krauss did not think of
bringing together all the material between two covers ;
it would have been vastly more convenient if Wagenseil's
Huldreich's and Bischoff's texts, and Martini's version,
had been printed as well, and a German translation
appended for every text; even if the "embellish
ments" of the Slavonic type are too bad for transla
tion into German, they might have been rendered into
Latin.
These MSS. are all late, and as far as we have any
indications of date, two may be assigned to the sixteenth
1 So the heading, p. 128, but I can find no mention of
a " Leyden " MS. in either K.'s description of MSS. (pp. 19-22) or
in B.'s (pp. 27-37).
THE TOLDOTH JESCHU. 255
century, two to the seventeenth, two to the seven
teenth-eighteenth, four to the eighteenth, and five to
the nineteenth century.
The question of the language of the various forms of Language,
the Toldoth is often very obscure, but Krauss is of
opinion that in German-speaking lands at any rate,
and therefore also in Slavonic-speaking lands, the
Toldoth recensions were first written in the vernacular,
being intended as a " Volkslectiire " ; they were only
later translated into Hebrew, and as this Hebrew is
often very impure, they were probably translated by
apostates or by Christian opponents for polemical
purposes. This view is, however, sharply contradicted
by Bischoff (K. 9-12 and 13 ; B. n'.s.), who declares that
instead of the vernacular Toldoth being intended for
popular consumption, they rather constituted the read
ing of the intelligent Jewish laity, by which we are
to understand, presumably, those who were unable to
read the Toldoth in Hebrew. Bischoff denies that the
Toldoth Hebrew is worse than much of the literature
of the time, and it is difficult to see a priori why an
apostate should not have been able to write as good
Hebrew as a non-convert.
It seems, however, highly probable that the language
of the oldest forms of the Toldoth was originally
Aramaic, as the oldest MS. fragments extant (from the
Cairo Geniza) show.
As to the title by which the various forms of the Titles.
Jewish Life of Jesus is designated, we have chosen the
best known one, and the one that occurs most fre
quently. The known titles, however, vary very consider
ably. " Toldoth Jeschu " means literally The Genera-
256 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
tions of Jeschu, hence Birth or History, Tradition,
or Life of Jesus. It is also called "Sepher Toldoth
Jeschu," or Book of the Generations of Jeschu; also
"Toldoth Jeschu ha-Notzri" (K. 30), or History of
Jeschu the Nazarene. We also find the title " Maase
Jeschu," or History of Jeschu (K. 30), or " Maase
Jeschu ha-Notzri" (K. 31, 33). It is also supposed
that the Latin transliteration, " Mar mar Jesu," in the
Bull of May 1415, stands for " Maase Jeschu," or
11 Maanar Jeschu," Story of Jeschu. We also meet with
the title " Maase Tola," or " Talui ," The History of the
Hanged (K. 9, 13); also The History of Jeschu and
of Queen Helena and of the Apostles (K. 15), or
simply History of Jeschu and the Apostles (K. 172).
One MS. begins : " This is the Book of the Condemna
tion of Jeschu ben Pandera" (K. 10); another bears
the title The History of him and his Son1 (K. 33, 64,
88). Huldreich's printed text, after the main title,
" Toldoth Jeschua ha-Notzri," continues with the names
Jeschu and Cristos [sic] Jesus (in Hebrew translitera
tion).
The Name As to the Hebrew equivalent for the name Jesus, we
find that the Toldoth recensions amply confirm the
form given in the Talmud with which we have already
dealt ; in fact, the longer form Jeschua is found in only
three MSS.,2 while the still longer form Jehoshua
appears only once, in Wagenseil.
1 Meaning, presumably, " History of Joseph Pandera and his
Son," for in this recension J. Pandera is given as the legitimate
husband of Miriam.
2 But even in these MSS. this form does not appear through
out, or more frequently than Jeschu or Jesus (in Hebrew trans
literation from the — ? German).
THE TOLDOTH JESCHU. 257
But before we go any further we must present our
readers with some one of the numerous recensions of
the Toldoth, so that they may form some idea of the
general nature of the material. As the Wagenseil
and Huldreich versions are fairly well known, at any-
rate to scholars and the curious, we will take the
recension preserved in the Strassburg MS., which is
of special interest not only because it is probably the
Hebrew original underlying the type of text preserved
in Bischoffs Yiddish Toldoth, but also because it
preserves many Aramaic traces, and so connects itself
with the earliest forms of the Toldoth literature, and
finally because part of it is identical with Martini's
thirteenth century text.
17
XIV.— A JEWISH LIFE OF JESUS.
The 1. THE beginning of the birth of Jeschu. His mother
was Miriam [a daughter] of Israel. She had a betrothed
of the royal race of the House of David, whose name
was Jochanan. He was learned in the law and
feared heaven greatly. Near the door of her house,
just opposite, dwelt a handsome [fellow]; Joseph ben
Pandera cast his eye upon her.
It was at night, on the eve of the Sabbath, when
drunken he crossed over to her door and entered in to
her. But she thought in her heart that it was her
betrothed Jochanan; she hid her face and was
ashamed. ... He embraced her ; but she said to
him : Touch me not, for I am in my separation. He
took no heed thereat, nor regarded her words, but per
sisted. She conceived by him. . . .
At midnight came her betrothed Rabbi Jochanan.
She said to him : What meaneth this ? Never hath it
been thy custom, since thou wast betrothed to me, twice
in a night to come to me.
He answered her and said: It is but once I come
to thee this night.
She said to him : Thou earnest to me, and I said to
thee I was in my separation, yet heeded'st thou not, but
A JEWISH LIFE OF JESUS. 259
did'st thy will and wentest forth. When he heard
this, forthwith he perceived that Joseph ben Pandera
had cast an eye upon her and done the deed. He left
her ; in the morning he arose and went to Rabbi
Simeon ben Shetach.
He said to him : Know then what hath befallen me
this night with my betrothed. I went in to her after
the manner of men . . . ; before I touched her she said :
Thou hast already this night come once to me, and I
said to thee I was in my separation, and thou gavest no
ear to me, [didst] thy will and wentest forth. When I
heard such words from her, I left her and [went forth].
Rabbi Simeon ben Shetach said to him : Who came
into thy mind ?
He answered : Ben Pandera, for he dwelleth near
her house and is a libertine.
He said to him : I understand that thou hast no
witness for this thing, therefore keep silence ; I
counsel thee, if he have come once, then can he not fail
to come a second time; act wisely; at that time set
witnesses against him.
Some time after the rumour went abroad that
Miriam was with child. Then said her betrothed
Jochanan : She is not with child by me ; shall I abide
here and hear my shame every day from the people ?
He arose and went to Babylon. After some [time
she bore] a son, and they called his name Joshua after
his mother's brother ; but when his corrupt birth was
made public they called him Jeschu.
2. His mother gave him to a teacher, so that he might How the
become wise in the Halacha, and learned in the Torah jeTctifwaf
and the Talmud. Now it was the custom of the made Public-
260 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
teachers of the law that no disciple and no boy should
pass on his way by them without his head being covered
and his eyes cast to the ground, from reverence of the
pupils towards their teachers.
One day that rogue passed by, and all the wise were
seated together at the door of the synagogue — that is,
they called the school-house synagogue ; that rogue
then passed by the Kabbis, head on high and with
uncovered pate, saluting no one, nay, rather, in shameless
fashion showing irreverence to his teacher.
After he had passed by them, one of them began
and said : He is a bastard (mamzer). The second
began and said : He is a bastard and son of a woman
in her separation (mamzer len ha-niddah).
Another day the Rabbis stopped in tractate Nezikin l ;
then began that one to speak Halachoth2 before
them.
Thereupon one of them began and said to him : Hast
thou then not learned : He who giveth forth a Halacha
in the presence of his teacher, is guilty of death ?
That one answered and said to the wise ones : Who
is the teacher and who the disciple ? Who of the twain
is wiser, Moses or Jethro ? Was it not Moses, father
of the prophets and head of the wise ? And the Torah,
moreover, beareth witness of him: And from hence
forth there ariseth no prophet in Israel like unto Moses.
Withal Jethro was an alien, . . . yet taught he Moses
worldly wisdom, as it is written : Set thou over them
rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds. But if
1 The fourth Talmud order, " Damages," dealing with civil and
criminal law.
2 Decisions or rules of law.
A JEWISH LIFE OF JEStTS. 261
ye say that Jethro is greater than Moses, then would
there be an end to the greatness of Moses.
When the wise heard this, they said : As he is so
very shameless, let us enquire after him. They sent to
his mother, [saying] thus: Tell us, pray, who is the
father of this boy ?
She answered and said: . . ., but they say of him,
that he is a bastard and son of a woman in her
separation.
Then began Eabbi Simeon ben Shetach: To-day
is it thirty years since Kabbi Jochanan her betrothed
came to me ; at that time he said to me : That and that
hath befallen me.
He related all that is told above, . . . how Eabbi
Simeon answered Kabbi Jochanan, and how when she
was with child, he [R J.] for great shame went to
Babylon and did not return; but this Miriam gave
birth to this Jeschu, and no death penalty awaits her,
for she hath not done this of her own will, for Joseph
ben Pandera laid in wait for her . . . the whole day.
When she heard from Eabbi Simeon that no death
penalty awaited her, she also began and said: Thus
was the story ; and she confessed. But when it went
abroad concerning Jeschu, that he was called a bastard
and son of a woman in her separation, he went away
and fled to Jerusalem.1
3. Now the rule of all Israel was in the hand of a The Robbing
woman who was called Helene. And there was in the
sanctuary a foundation-stone — and this is its inter
pretation: God founded it and this is the stone on
1 B.'s recension states that this enquiry took place at Tiberias in
Galilee.
262 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
which Jacob poured oil — and on it were written the
letters of the Shem,1 and whosoever learned it, could do
whatsoever he would. But as the wise feared that the
disciples of Israel might learn them and therewith
destroy the world, they took measures that no one
should do so.
Brazen dogs were bound to two iron pillars at the
entrance of the place of burnt offerings,2 and whosoever
entered in and learned these letters — as soon as he
went forth again, the dogs bayed at him ; if he then
looked at them, the letters vanished from his memory.
This Jeschu came, learned them, wrote them on
parchment, cut into his hip and laid the parchment
with the letters therein — so that the cutting of his
flesh did not hurt him — then he restored the skin to its
place. When he went forth the brazen dogs bayed at
him, and the letters vanished from his memory. He
went home, cut open his llesh with his knife, took out
the writing, learned the letters, went and gathered to
gether three hundred and ten of the young men of
Israel.
Jeschu claims 4. He said to them : Behold then these who say of me
to be"Messiah T , , , . , , .
and works I am a bastard and son of a woman in her separation ;
desire power for themselves and seek to exercise
lordship in Israel. But see ye, all the prophets
1 K. : " Des erklarten Gottesnamens" But Shem ha-mephoresch
would perhaps be better rendered by the "ineffable name," that is, the
name which ought not to be pronounced, the name of which only
the consonants Y. H. V. H. are given, which are not pronouncible,
but only indicate the pronunciation as known to the initiated. I
use Shem throughout for the longer form Shem ha-mephoresch.
- Or rather, the door by which the burnt offerings were brought
A JEWISH LIFE OF JESUS. 263
prophesied concerning the Messiah of God, and I am the
Messiah. Isaiah prophesied concerning me : Behold the
virgin shall conceive, bear a son, and he shall be called
Emanuel. Moreover, my forefather David prophesied
concerning me and spake : The Eternal [Y. H. V. H.]
said to me : Thou art my son ; this day have I be
gotten thee. He begat me without male congress with
my mother ; yet they call me a bastard ! He further
prophesied : Why do the heathen rage, etc., the kings
in the country rise up, etc., against His anointed. I
am the Messiah, and they, so to rise up against me, are
children of whores, for so it is written in the Scripture :
For they are the children of whores.1
The young men answered him : If thou art the
Messiah, show unto us a sign. He answered them :
What sign do ye require that I should do for you ?
Forthwith they brought unto him a lame man, who
had never yet stood upon his feet. He pronounced
over him the letters, and he stood upon his feet. In
the same hour they all made obeisance to him and
said : This is the Messiah.
He gave them another sign. They brought to him
a leper; he pronounced over him the letters, and he
was healed. There joined themselves to him apostates
from the children of his people.
When the wise saw that so very many believed on Jeschu and
him, they seized him and brought him before Queen
Helene, in whose hand the land of Israel was. They
said to her: This man uses sorcery and seduces the
world.
Jeschu answered to her as follows : Already of old
1 A.V. : " children of whoredoms."
264 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
the prophets prophesied concerning me: And there
shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Isai (Jesse),
and I am he. Of him saith the Scripture : Blessed is
the man who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.
She said to them : Is this truly in your law, what he
saith ?
They answered : It is in our law ; but it hath not
been said concerning him, for it is said therein : And
that prophet [etc.], put the evil away from the midst
of thee. But the Messiah for whom we hope, with
him are [other] signs, and it is said of him : He shall
smite the earth with the rod of his mouth. With this
bastard these signs are not present.
Jesus said : Lady, I am he, and I raise the dead.
In the same hour the queen was affrightened and
said : That is a great sign.
Apostates still joined themselves to him, were with
him, and there arose a great schism in Israel.
Jeschu's 5. Jeschu went to Upper Galilee. The wise assembled
^°ge^ner' went before the queen and said to her:
Lady, he practiseth sorcery and leadeth men astray
therewith.
Therefore sent she forth horsemen concerning him,
and they came upon him as he was seducing the
people of Upper Galilee and saying to them: I am
the Son of God, who hath been promised in your law.
The horsemen rose up to take him away, but the people
of Upper Galilee suffered it not and began to fight.
Jeschu said unto them: Fight not, have trust in the
power of my Father in heaven.
The people of Galilee made birds out of clay ; he
uttered the letters of the Shem, and the birds flew
A JEWISH LIFE OF JESUS. 265
away. At the same hour they fell down before
him.
He said to them : Bring unto me a millstone. They
rolled it to the sea-shore ; he spake the letters, set it
upon the surface of the sea, sat himself thereon,
as one sits in a boat, went and floated on the water.
They who had been sent, saw it and wondered ; and
Jeschu said to the horsemen : Go to your lady, tell her
what ye have seen ! Thereupon the wind raised him
from the water and carried him onto the dry land.
The horsemen came and told the queen all these
things ; the queen was affrighted, was greatly amazed,
sent and gathered together the elders of Israel and
spake unto them : Ye say he is a sorcerer, nevertheless
every day he doeth great wonders.
They answered her : Surely his tricks l should not
trouble thee ! Send messengers, that they may bring
him hither, and his shame shall be made plain.
At the same hour she sent messengers, and his
wicked company also joined itself onto him, and they
came with him before the queen.
Then the wise men of Israel took a man by name The Magic
Juda Ischariota, brought him into the Holy of Holies, judas.
where he learned the letters of the Shem, which were
engraved on the foundation-stone, wrote them on a
small [piece of] parchment, cut open his hip, spake the
Shem, so that it did not hurt, as Jeschu had done
before.
As soon as Jeschu with his company had returned
to the queen, and she sent for the wise men, Jeschu
began and spake: For dogs encompassed me. And
i"Sachen."
266 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
concerning me he [David] said : Tremble not before
them.
As soon as the wise men entered and Juda Ischariota
with them, they brought forward their pleas against
him, until he said to the queen : Of me it hath
been said : I will ascend to heaven. Further it is
written : If He take me, Sela ! He raised his hands
like unto the wings of an eagle and flew, and the people
were amazed because of him : How is he able to fly
twixt heaven and earth !
Then spake the wise men of Israel to Juda Ischariota :
Do thou also utter the letters and ascend after him.
Forthwith he did so, flew in the air, and the people
marvelled : How can they fly like eagles !
Ischariota acted cleverly,1 flew in the air, but neither
could overpower the other, so as to make him fall by
means of the Shem, because the Shem was equally with
both of them. When Jada perceived this he had
recourse to a low trick ; he befouled Jeschu, so that he
was made unclean and fell to the earth, and with him
also Juda.
It is because of this that they wail on their night,2 and
because of the thing which Juda did to him.
Jeschu is con- At the same hour they seized him and said to
1 Helene: Let him be put to death! . . .3 Let him tell
1 Text uncertain.
2 Christmas. Weihnachten = Weinennachten, comments K.
But if this word-play were intended, then the original of such a
gloss in this recension was composed in German, and the Hebrew
would be a translation from the German and not from Aramaic.
But as the Hebrew text existed already in the thirteenth century,
this does not seem probable.
3 Evidently a lacuna occurs here in the text. The text of Martini
adds : " If he be the Son of God."
A JEWISH LIFE OF JESUS. 267
us who smote him. So they covered his head with a
garment and smote him with a pomegranate staff. As
he did not know,1 it was clear that the Shem had aban
doned him, and he was now fast taken in their hands.
He began and spake to his companions before the
queen : Of me it was said : Who will rise up for me
against the evil doers ? But of them he said : The
proud waters. And of them he said : Stronger than
rocks make they their countenance.
When the queen heard this she reproved the apos
tates, and said to the wise men of Israel : He is in your
hand.
6. They departed from the queen and brought him to Jeschu is
the synagogue of Tiberias and bound him to the pillars Disciples,
of the ark. Then there gathered together the band of
simpletons and dupes, who believed on his words and
desired to deliver him out of the hand of the elders ;
but they could not do so, and there arose great fight
ing between them.
When he saw that he had no power to escape, he said :
Give me some water. They gave him vinegar in a
copper vessel. He began and spake with a loud voice :
Of me David prophesied and said : When I was thirsty
they gave me vinegar to drink.
On his head they set a crown of thorns. The apos
tates lamented sore, and there was fighting between
them, brother with brother, father with son ; but the
wise men brought the apostates low.
1 In another recension it is said that seventy elders with
seventy staves of different woods smite him, and he is asked to say
by whom and with what kind of staff he has been smitten, but he
can tell neither the name of the smiter nor the wood of the staff.
268 BIB JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
He began and spake : Of me he prophesied and said :
My back I gave to the smiters, etc. Further of these
the Scripture saith : Draw hither, sons of the sorceress.
And of me hath been said : But we held him, etc. And
of me he said : The Messiah shall be cut off and he is not.
When the apostates heard this, they began to stone
them with stones, and there was great hatred among
them.
The Betrayal Then were the elders afraid, and the apostates bore
of Jeschu.
him off from them, and his three hundred and ten
disciples brought him to the city of Antioch, where he
sojourned till the rest-day of Passover. Now in that
year Passover fell on the Sabbath, and he and his sons
[sic] came to Jerusalem, on the rest-day of Passover,
that is on the Friday, he riding on an ass and saying to
his disciples : Of me it was said : Eejoice greatly,
Daughter of Zion, etc.
In the same hour they all cried aloud, bowed them
selves before him, and he with his three hundred and
ten disciples went into the sanctuary.
Then came one of them, who was called Gaisa [that
is, Gardener], and said to the wise men : Do you want
the rogue ? They said : Where is he to be found ? He
answered : He is in the sanctuary, — that is to say, in
the school-house. They said to him : Show him unto
us. He answered them : We, his three hundred and
ten disciples, have already sworn by the command
ments, that we will not say of him who he is ; but if
ye come in the morning, give me the greeting,1 and I
1 That is the customary form of greeting (probably the kiss of
peace) used among the followers of Jeschu, as we learn from B.'s
recension.
A JEWISH LIFE OF JESUS. 269
will go and make an obeisance before him, and before
whom I make obeisance, he is the rogue. And they
did so.
The disciples of Jeschu gathered together, went and
gave their fellows the greeting, for they were come from
all places to pray on the Mount of Olives on the Feast
of Unleavened Bread.
Then the wise men went into the sanctuary, where
those were who had come from Antioch, and there was
also the rogue among them. Thereupon Gaisa entered
with them, left the rest of the company, made an
obeisance before the rogue Jeschu. Whereupon the
wise men saw it, arose against him and seized him.
7. They said to him : What is thy name ? He answered : Proofs from
Mathai. They said to him : Whence hast thou a proof Scnl)ture-
from the Scripture ? He answered them : When
(mathai) shall I come and see the face of God ? They
said to him : When (mathai) shall he die and his name
perish ?
Further they said to him : What is thy name ? He
answered : Naki. They said to him : Whence hast
thou a proof from the Scripture ? He answered : with
pure (nald) hands and a clean heart. They said to
him : He remaineth not unpunished.
Further they said to him : What is thy name ? He
answered : Boni. They said : Whence hast thou a
proof from the Scripture ? He answered : My first-born
son (beni) is Israel. They said : Of thee it was said :
Behold, I will slay thy first-born son.
Further they said: What is thy name? He
answered: Netzer. They said: Whence hast thou a
proof from the Scripture ? He answered them : A
270 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
branch (netzer) shall spring up out of his roots. They
said to him : Thou art cast forth from thy sepulchre,
like an abominable branch (netzer). And thus still
more, as he gave himself many names.1
Jesclm is Forthwith they seized him, and his disciples could
Cabbage-0" n°t deliver him. When he saw himself brought to
Stalk. death he began and spake: Verily hath David
prophesied of me and said: For Thy sake are we
smitten every day. And of you said Isaiah : Your
hands are full of blood. And of you said the prophet
before God : They slew Thy prophets with the
sword.
The apostates began to lament and could not deliver
him. At the same hour was he put to death. And it
was on Friday on the rest-day of Passover and of the
Sabbath. When they would hang him on a tree (Holz),
it brake, for there was with him the Shem.2
But when the simpletons saw that the trees brake
under him,3 they supposed that this was because of his
great godliness, until they brought him a cabbage-stalk.
For while he was yet alive he knew the custom of the
Israelites, that they would hang him, he knew his
death, the manner of his being put to death, and that
they would hang him on a tree. At that time he
brought it to pass by means of the Shem, that no tree
should bear him ; but over the cabbage-stalk he did
not utter the pronounced name, for it is not tree but
1 Compare with the above the Talmud passage quoted in the
chapter on " The Disciples and Followers of Jesus in the
Talmud."
2 This is in contradiction with c. 7.
3 Another recension tells us that they tried every tree (there
being seventy kinds).
A JEWISH LIFE OF JESUS. 271
green-stuff, and so l [in special years there are] in
Jerusalem cabbages with more than a hundred pounds
[of seed] unto this day.
When they had let him hang until the time of after
noon prayer,2 they took him down from the tree, for
so it is written : His body shall not remain all night
upon the tree, etc. They buried him ... on Sunday,
and the apostates of his people wept over his grave.
8. Some of the young men of Israel passed by them. The Body is
They spake to them in the Aramaic tongue : Why do the Grave,
the foolish ones sit by the grave ? Let us look ! The
foolish ones said in their heart, that they [the young
men] would see him in the grave, but they found him not.
Thereupon the foolish ones sent to Queen Helene,
saying : He whom they put to death was a Messiah,
and very many wonders did he show while living, but
now after his death they buried him, but he is not in
the grave, for he is already ascended to heaven, and
it is written : For He taketh me, Sela ! Thus did he
prophesy concerning himself.
She sent to the wise men and said : What have ye
done with him ? They answered her : We have put
him to death, for that was the judgment concerning
him.
She said to them : If ye have already put him to
death, what have ye done then ? They answered her :
We have buried him. Forthwith they sought him in
the grave and found him not.
1 Text defective. K. supplies the lacuna with the words in
brackets, but this is by no means a satisfactory conjecture, as we
shall see from the reading preserved by Kaymund Martini.
2 About three o'clock.
272 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Thereupon she said to them : In this grave ye
buried him ; where is he therefore ?
Then were the wise men affrightened and wist not
what to answer her, for a certain one had taken him
from the grave, borne him to his garden, and stopped
the water which flowed into his garden; then digged
he in the sand and buried him, and let the water flow
again over his grave.
The Procla- The queen said : If ye show me not Jeschu, I will
Queen11 °f ^ §ive vou no peace and no escape. They answered her :
Give us an appointed time and terms.
When she had granted them an appointed time, all
Israel remained lamenting in fasting and prayer, and
the apostates found occasion to say : Ye have slain
God's anointed!
And all Israel was in great anguish, and the wise
men and all the land of Israel hurried from place to
place because of the great fear.
Then went forth an elder from them, whose name
was Kabbi Tanchuma ; he went forth lamenting in a
garden in the fields.
When the owner of the garden saw him, he said to
him : Wherefore lamentest thou ? He answered : For
this and this ; because of that rogue who is not to be
found ; and lo, already is it the appointed time which
the queen granted, and we are all in lamentation and
fasting.
As soon as he heard his words, that all Israel is as
them who mourn, and that the rogues say : He is gone
up into heaven, the owner of the garden said : To-day
shall joy and gladness reign in Israel, for I have stolen
him away because of the apostates, so that they should
A JEWISH LIFE OF JESUS. 273
not take him and have the opportunity for all
time.1
Forthwith they went to Jerusalem, told them the The Body is
good tidings, and all the Israelites followed the owner of
the garden, bound cords to his [Jeschu's] feet, and dragged
him round in the streets of Jerusalem, till they brought
him to the queen and said : There is he who is
ascended to heaven !
They departed from her in joy, and she mocked the
apostates and praised the wise men.
9. His disciples fled and scattered themselves in the The Disciples
kingdom ; three of them [went] to Mount Ararat, three make strife in
of them to Armenia, three to Koine, the others to other Israel-
places, and misled the peoples, but everywhere where
they took refuge, God sent his judgment upon them,
and they were slain.
But many among the apostates of our people went
astray after him ; there was strife between them and
the Israelites, . . .2 confusion of prayers and much
loss of money.3
Everywhere where the apostates caught sight of the
Israelites they said to the Israelites : Ye have slain
God's anointed ! But the Israelites answered them :
Ye are children of death, because ye have believed on a
false prophet !
Nevertheless they went not forth from the community
of Israel, and there was strife and contention among
them, so that Israel had no peace.
1 B.'s recension reads : " And thereafter make trouble for the
Israelites."
2 This word in the text is uncertain.
3 B.'s recension reads : " And they made Israel lose much money,
which went into the hands of non- Jews."
18
274 DIB JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
When the wise men of Israel saw this they said : [It
is now] thirty years since that rogue was put to death,
[and] till now we have no peace with these misguided
ones, and this hath befallen us because of the number
of our sins, for it is written : They have moved me to
wrath with their not-God l ; they have provoked me to
anger with their vanities, etc. ; — that is the Christians,
who are not [? naught] 2 ; with a base people will I pro
voke them ; — that is, the Ishmaelites.3
The wise said : How long shall the apostates profane
Sabbath . . . and feasts, and slay one another? Let
us rather seek for a wise man who may take these
erring ones out of the community of Israel. It is now
thirty years that we have admonished them, but they
have not returned to God, because they have taken it
into their heads that Jeschu is the Messiah, and so may
they go to destruction and peace be with us.
How Elijahu 10. The wise men agreed on a man whose name was
from Israel. Elijahu, and he was very learned in the Scripture, and
they said to him : . . . We have agreed, that we will
pray for thee, that thou shalt be counted as a good
Israelite in the other world. Go, and do good for
Israel, and remove the apostates from us, that they may
go to destruction !
Elijahu went to the Sanhedrin at Tiberias, to Antioch,4
and made proclamation throughout the whole land of
Israel : Whoso believeth on Jeschu, let him join himself
1 A.V : " They have moved me to jealousy with that which
not God."
2 K. adds in a note : " Who worship a not-God."
'-> That is, the Mohammedans.
4 This seems to be a gloss.
A JEWISH LIFE OF JESUS. 275
to me ! Then said he to them : I am the messenger
(apostle) of Jeschu, who sent me to you, and I will
show you a marvel, as Jeschu did.
They brought unto him a leper, and he laid his hand
upon him, so that he was healed. They brought unto
him a lame man, he uttered the Shem, laid his hand
on him, and he was healed and stood upon his feet.
Forthwith they fell down before him and said:
Truly thou art the messenger of Jeschu, for thou hast
shown us marvels as he did.
He said to them : Jeschu sendeth you his greeting
and saith : I am with my Father in heaven at His right
hand, until He shall take vengeance on the Jews, as
David said: Sit thou on my right hand, etc.
At the same hour they all lamented and added foolish
ness to their foolishness.
Elijahu said to them : Jeschu saith to you : Whoso
ever will be with me in the other world, let him remove
himself from the community of Israel and join himself
not to them; for my Father in heaven hath already
rejected them and from henceforth requireth not their
service, for so said He through Isaiah : Your new-moons
and feasts my soul hateth, etc.
But Jeschu saith to you : Whosoever will follow me, The Corn-
let him profane the Sabbath, for God hateth it, but
instead of it He keepeth the Sunday, for on it God gave
light to His world. And for Passover which the
Israelites solemnize, keep yet it on the Feast of the
Eesurrection, for he is risen from his grave ; for the
Feast of Weeks, Ascension, for on it he is ascended to
heaven ; for New Year, Finding of the Cross ; for the
Great Fast Day [Day of Atonement], the Feast of the
276 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Circumcision: for Chanuka [the Feast of Lights],
Calendse [New Year].
The foreskin is naught, circumcision is naught ;
whosoever will circumcise himself, let him be circum
cised; whosoever will not circumcise himself, let him
be not circumcised. Moreover, whatsoever God created
in the world, from the smallest gnat to the mightiest
elephant, pour forth its blood upon the ground and eat
it, for so it is written : As the green grass have I given
you all. If one of them compel you to go a mile, go
with him twain ; if a Jew smite you on the left side
turn to him the right also ; if a Jew revile you, endure
it and return it not again, as Jeschu endured it; in
meekness he showed himself, therewith he showed you
also meekness as he practised it, that ye might endure
all that any should do to you. At the last judgment
Jeschu will punish them, but do ye have hope according
to your meekness, for so it is written : Seek ye the Lord,
all ye meek of the earth, etc. Until he separated them
from Israel
But Elijahu who gave them these laws, the not-good
ones, did it for the welfare of Israel, and the Christians
call him Paul. After he had introduced these laws
and commandments, the erring ones separated them
selves from Israel, and the strife ceased.
The Heresy of 11. A long time after the Persian power arose ; then a
Christian departed from them, made a mock of them,
just as the heretics had laughed at the wise men [of
Israel].
He said to them : Paul was in error in his scripture
when he said to you : Circumcise yourselves not — for
Jeschu was circumcised. Further hath Jeschu said:
A JEWISH LIFE OF JESUS. 277
I am not come to destroy even one jot from the law of
Moses, but to fulfil all his words. And that is your
shame, which Paul laid upon you, when lie said : Cir
cumcise yourselves not.
But Nestorius said to them : Circumcise yourselves,
for Jeschu was circumcised.
Further said Nestorius : Ye heretics ! Ye say Jeschu
is God, though he was born of a woman. Only the
Holy Spirit rested on him as on the prophets.
Nestorius who began to argue with the Christians,
persuaded their women ; he said to them : I will enact
that no Christian take two wives.
But as Nestorius became detestable in their eyes,
there arose a strife between them, in so much that no
Christian would pray to the abomination of Nestorius,
or the followers of Nestorius to the abomination of the
Christians.
Then Nestorius went to Babylon to another place,
the name of which was Chazaza, and all fled before him,
because Nestorius was a violent man.
The women said to him : What requirest thou of us ?
He answered them : I require only that ye receive from
me the bread-and-wine offering.
Now it was the custom of the woman of Chazaza,
that they carried large keys in their hands.
He gave one of them the offering ; she cast it to the
ground. Whereupon the women cast the keys in their
hands upon him ; smote him, so that he died, and there
was for long strife between them.
12. Now the chief of the Sanhedrin, his name was Sbimeon
Shimeon Kepha — and why was he called Kepha ?
Because he stood on the stone on which Kzekiel had
278 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
prophesied at the river Kebar,1 and on that stone it was
that Shimeon heard a voice from heaven.2 When the
Christians heard that Shimeon Kepha was one of those
who heard a voice from heaven, and that stores of
wisdom were in him, they envied the Israelites, that so
great a man was found in Israel, . . . God brought it into
Shimeon's mind to go to Jerusalem ... on the Feast of
Tabernacles. And there were gathered together all the
bishops and the great ancient 3 of the Christians. They
came to Shimeon Kepha to the Mount of Olives on the
day of the great Feast of Willow-twigs.4 When they saw
his wisdom, that [there was] not one in Israel like unto
him, ... to turn him to the religion of the Christians,
and they constrained him, saying : If thou dost not
profess our religion, we will put thee to death, and not
leave even one remaining in Israel to go into the
sanctuary.
When the Israelites perceived this, they besought
him: Humour them, act according to thy wisdom; so
shall neither sin nor guilt be on thee.
Thereupon when he perceived the hard fate for Israel,
he betook himself to the Christians, and said to them :
On this condition do I become a convert to your
religion, that ye put no Jew to death, that ye smite
1 This is transliterated in the A.V. as Chebar, presumably
following the Septuagint Chobar. This Babylonian stream, near
which Ezekiel had his prophetic visions, is now identified with
one of the canals (Bab. ndrdti) of Babylonia, Hilprecht having
twice found mention of a certain ndru called Kabaru. (See art.,
" Chebar," in " Ency. Bib.")
2 Bath-Jcol, lit., " daughter of a voice," that is, a " small voice,"
an inner voice.
3 Presumably the pope.
4 The sixth, or rather seventh, day of the Feast of,. Tabernacles.
A JEWISH LIFE OF JESUS. 279
him not and suffer him to go in and out in the
sanctuary.
The ancient and the Christians accepted his words
and all these his conditions. He made a condition with
them, that they would build him a lofty tower; he
would go into it, would eat no flesh, nor aught save
bread arid water, letting down a box by a cord, for
them to supply him with only bread and water, and he
would remain in the tower until his death.
All this he did with respect to God, that he might
not be stained and sullied by them, and that he might
not mix with them ; but to the Christians he spake in
their sense as though he would mourn for Jeschu, and
eat no flesh or aught else, but bread and water only.
They built him a tower, and he dwelt therein; he
sullied himself not with eating, and prayed not to the
Cross.
Afterwards he composed in the tower Keroboth, The Scrip-
Jotzroth and Zulthoth 1 in his name, like Eliezer ben
Kalir.2 He sent and gathered together the elders of
Israel, and handed over to their care all that he had
found in his mind, and charged them that they should
teach it to the leaders in prayer 3 and use it for prayers,
so that they might make mention of him for good.
They, moreover, sent it4 to Babylon to Eabbi
Nathan,5 the Prince of the Exile, and they showed it
1 Various kinds of synagogue poetry.
2 A famous synagogue poet, whose probable date is about
900 A.D.
3 Vorbetern = precentors.
4 That is, the book of prayers.
6 Can this be meant for K. Nathan ha-Babli, who came from
Babylonia in the days of R. Shimeon ben Gamaliel II., and
280 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
to the heads of the schools, to the Sanhedrin, and they
said : It is good, and they taught it to the leaders in
prayer of all Israel, and they used it for prayers. Who
soever would mention the name of Shimeon in his
chanting did so. May his memory endure to the life
of the other world. But God in his mercy . . . him
as a good defender. Amen ! Sela !
settled in Palestine? The recension of the Sayings of the
Fathers attributed to Kabbi Nathan, included in the Pirke Aboth
tractate of the Talmud, is probably to be attributed to him. He
belonged to the fourth generation of Tanaim, that is to eay, he
nourished about 160-220 A.D.
XV.— TKACES OF EARLY TOLDOTH FORMS.
IN the chapter on " The Earliest External Evidence as Toldoth as
to the Talmud Jesus Stories," we ceased our enquiries from
with Tertullian at the end of the second century. We stories-
will now resume our researches with the special object of
seeing whether any of the scattered notices of Jew
versus Christian polemics which we have been able to
collect, may be referred to the Toldoth as distinguished
from the Talmud stories. Doubtless when the attention
of scholars is more generally turned to the subject,
some further out-of-the-way scraps of information may
be added, but the following is as complete as we have
been able to make it in the present state of affairs.
We will first of all repeat the passage we have already
quoted from Tertullian, for its last sentence shows that
in every probability the "gardener" and "cabbage"
elements were in existence in his day, and these in
dubitably form part of the Toldoth as distinguished
from the Talmud tradition.
Writing about 197-198 A.D., the Bishop of Garth- Tertullian.
age thus rhetorically addresses the Jews (" De Spect.,"
xxx.) : " This is your carpenter's son, your harlot's
son ; your Sabbath-breaker, your Samaritan, your demon-
possessed ! This is He whom ye bought from Judas ;
282 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
He who was struck with reed and fists, dishonoured
with spittle, and given a draught of gall and vinegar !
This He whom His disciples have stolen away secretly,
that it may be said He has risen, or the gardener
abstracted that his lettuces might not be damaged by
the crowds of visitors." l
When I mentioned this passage to a learned Jewish
friend, he remarked that probably the Toldoth legend-
makers had woven their story out of this sentence of the
Church Father. It is, however, most highly improbable
that the detailed Toldoth story could be based upon
the scornful concluding sentence of Tertullian, for surely
the Jews were not students nor even readers of the
Fathers.
Does he refer It seems far more probable that the Bishop of Carth-
age is referring to some well-known Jewish story
familiar to all his readers. The body was removed
by the gardener ; but why ? Of course, says Tertullian,
to save his cabbages, for his garden was being trampled
out of all existence by the crowds who came to
see !
Now one of the earliest Toldoth recensions known to
us from outside sources (Hrabanus Maurus) speaks of
the body being originally buried in a garden,2 and
1 The most recent translator— Cruttwell (C. T.), " A Literary
History of Early Christianity " (London ; 1893), ii. 582 — renders
the last sentence freely as: "Or if you prefer it, whom the
gardener put away lest his herbs should be crushed by the
press of feet." No explanation, however, is given, as, indeed, is
invariably the case with all translators and commentators.
2 It is to be noticed that the only evangelist who speaks of the
sepulchre being in a garden, and consequently of a gardener, is the
mystic writer of the fourth Gospel (John xix. 41 ; xx. 15).
TRACES OF EARLY TOLDOTH FORMS. 283
that, too, a garden full of cabbages, and being handed
over to a certain Jew to guard.
We, therefore, conclude with very great confidence
that this deposit of the Toldoth goes back to the
story, whatever it was, which so roused the wrath of
Tertullian.
Moreover, in his polemic against the Jews, the Bishop Jesus is
Stoned.
of Carthage declares (" Adv. Judaeos," c. ix., last para.)
that not even do they deny that Jesus performed wonders
of healing, "inasmuch as ye used to say that it was
not on account of the works that ye stoned him, but
because he did them on the Sabbath."
' Is Tertullian here referring to some tradition of the
Jews of which he had heard, or only looking back to
John v. 17, 18, and x. 31, 33 ? And if the latter, had
the writer of the fourth Gospel in mind some tradition
of stoning, which he thus worked into his mystic narra
tive ? The Talmud Lud stories know of a tradition of
stoning, and they were presumably in existence in
Tertullian's time. But did the writer of the fourth
Gospel also know of such a tradition ; and are we thus
to push this element back to the end of the first century
or so ? Like the Talmud, the Toldoth recensions also
know of a stoning, or a stoning and hanging, or of a
hanging alone, but never of a crucifixion.
In the Clementine Eecognitions (i. 42), of which the The Clemen -
form lying before us is generally ascribed to the third
century, but which contain far older material, we read :
" For some of them, watching the place with care, when
they could not prevent His rising again, said that He
was a magician, others pretended that His body was
stolen away."
284 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Pagan If the works of any Pagan writers could have helped
Writers
us in this matter, it was to be expected that of all
others the books of Porphyry, Hierocles and Julian
against the Christians would have furnished us with
some valuable information, but unfortunately only a few
fragments of these polemical treatises have been pre
served, and these , in spite of the closest scrutiny, can
show us only that all these philosophers regarded the
wonder-doings of Jesus as being due to his magical
powers, or rather to the fact of his being a Magus,
like many others in antiquity. Such miracles did
not prove the contention of the Christians that
Jesus was God, for similar wonders, equally well
authenticated, and in a more recent case better
authenticated according to Hierocles, had been done
by others.
Porphyry. Porphyry (233-? 305 A.D.) wrote fifteen books "Against
the Christians," and no less than thirty champions of
the Faith, we are told, attempted to refute him ; never
theless only a few fragments of what must have been
a very drastic criticism have been preserved to us ;* for
not only the original, but also every one of the thirty
refutations, have disappeared, and this is strange, for it
is to be supposed that at least some of these thirty
must have been thought by the Fathers to have dis
posed of the Syrian's contentions. Porphyry knew
Hebrew, and it might therefore be expected that he was
acquainted with any tradition of the Jews hostile to
Christian claims. It is true that a modern writer
asserts that the disciple of Plotinus gives the name
1 See Georgiades (A.), trtp} rwv Kara Xpianav&v airofnraa^drwv TOV
Hop<}>vpiov (Leipzig ; 1891).
TRACES OF EARLY TOLDOTH FORMS. 285
Pandera as " Panzerius," but, so far, I have not been able
to verify this unreferenced statement.1
Hieroeles, successively governor of Palmyra, Bithynia Hierocles.
and Alexandria, and also a philosopher, in 305 A.D.,
wrote a criticism on the claims of the Christians in two
books, called " A Truthful Address to the Christians," or
more briefly "The Truth-lover." He seems to have
based himself for the most part on the previous works
of Celsus and Porphyry, but introduced a new subject
of controversy by opposing the wonderful works of
Apollonius of Tyana to the claims of the Christians
to exclusive right in miracles as proof of the divinity of
their Master. To this pertinent criticism Eusebius
immediately replied in a treatise still extant.2
Julian the Emperor (360-363 A.D.), somewhere about Julian the
362-363, wrote seven books "Against the Christians" ;
a number of Church writers replied, the most famous
being Cyril of Alexandria, who wrote (somewhere between
429 and 441 A.D.) an enormous work of eighteen books,
apparently, however, dealing with only three books
of Julian's indictment. Unfortunately only fragments of
Cyril's treatise have been preserved to us.3
1 Massey (G.), "The Natural Genesis" (London ; 1883), ii. 489.
- The most convenient text is by Gaisford, " Eusebii Pamphili
contra Hieroclem " (London ; 1852), see my " Apollonius of Tyana,
the Philosopher Reformer of the First Century A.D." (London ;
1901), pp. 32 ff.
:} See Neumann (0. J.), " Juliani Imp. Librorum contra Christianos
quae supersunt " (Leipzig ; 1880). This is the third fasciculus of a
proposed series, " Scriptorum Grt^corum qui Christianam im-
pugnaverunt Rcligionem," but the first and second parts, presum
ably containing the fragments of Celsus, Porphyry and Hierocles,
have not yet seen the light. For the information of book -lovers I
may mention that I have in my possession a rare work of Thomas
286 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
The"Chrest" It is no part of our present task to enquire into the
arguments of Julian, but there is one passage which
contains a strange phrase bearing on the question of the
confusion of Chrestos and Christos to which we have
already referred in an earlier chapter. Julian thus
writes :
" At any rate neither Paul nor Matthew nor Mark
dared to say that Jesus is God, but only the good John
(6 xp>?0"ro9 'Iwarn;?) . . . ventured to assert this."
What does Julian mean by distinguishing John from
the rest as " the chrest John " ? Does he refer to John
as an illuminate ? Did the original even read " the
christ John " ?
The Acts of But to return to our " traces " ; the Acts of Pionius,
Pionius.
who is said to have been martyred in 250 A.D., and
the original of whose Acta was certainly read by
Eusebius at the beginning of the fourth century, state 1
that the Jews " say that Christ practised necromancy,
and that it was by its power that he was brought to life
after the crucifixion."
But that he rose again, in the physical sense, is just
what all the Jews have ever denied, and we can only
Taylor, " The Arguments of the Emperor Julian against the
Christians," (London ; 1809), which a slip from a catalogue gummed
inside the cover states to have been " privately printed by Mr
Meredith, who destroyed, for fear of prosecution, the entire
impression with the exception of 5 or 6 copies. For one of these
copies," it adds, " he in vain offered £100." What truth there may
be in this statement I do not know, for I also possess a copy of a
book called "Arguments of Celsus, Porphyry and the Emperor
Julian against the Christians" (London; 1830), also plainly the
work of Thomas Taylor, but without his name on the title-page,
and this was not withdrawn from circulation.
1 See Bollandist Collection, under Feb. 1 (c. iii.).
TRACES OF EARLY TOLDOTH FORMS. 287
suppose that the redactor of the Acts has here mis
understood the general charge of the Jews and Pagans
that Jesus learned magic in Egypt.
Thus the converted philosopher Arnobius, who wrote Arnobius.
his treatise " Against the Nations " somewhere about
303-313 A.D., tells us (i. 43), that the commonest
argument against the claims of the Christians con
cerning Jesus was : " He was a Magus ; he did all these
things (sc. miracida) by secret arts; from the shrines
of the Egyptians he stole the names of angels of
might and hidden disciplines." l
This, as we have already seen, was one of the main
elements of the Talmud stories ; the Toldoth, however,
though they retain the strange fashion in which the
magic was brought out of Egypt, have converted the
shrines of Egypt into the sanctuary of the Temple at
Jerusalem.
We next come to a curious passage in Ephrem Syrus Ephrem
(c. 308-373 A.D.), which tells us that " the anti-christ Syrus>
serpent shall be born of a Danite mother 2 and a Latin
father, who stealthily and with unlawful love shall
glide like a slippery snake to the embraces of his
mate." 3
The " Latin father," says Krauss (p. 216), seems to
refer to the " Koman soldier " Panthera spoken of by
1 Hildebrand (G. F.), " Arnobii Adv. Nationes " (Halle ; 1844),
p. 67.
2 Gf. Gen. xlix. 17. " Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an
adder in the path."
3 " Ephrem Syrus in Genesim," ,vol. i. p. 192 D. of the Vatican
edition of Benedict (Rome ; 1737). See also Bousset (W.), "Der
Antichrist in der Uberlieferting des Judenthums, des neuen Testa
ments und der alten Kirche " (Gottingen ; 1895), pp. 79 and 92.
288
BIB JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Celsus, and the rest of the sentence seems to represent
the stealthy proceedings of Pandera in the Toldoth.1
Jerome. In his Letter to Heliodorus, which was written in
374 A.D., Jerome seems to have had in memory the
passage of Tertullian (" De Spect.") which we have
already quoted, for he writes : " He is that son of a
workman and of a harlot ; He it is who . . . fled into
Egypt; He the clothed with a scarlet robe; He the
crowned with thorns; He a Magus demon-possessed,
and a Samaritan ! " 2
Further, in his Letter to Titus (iii. 9), Jerome
writes : " I heard formerly concerning the Hebrews . . .
at Koine . . . that they bring into question the gene
alogies of Christ." Krauss (p. 4.) thinks that this refers
to a distinct altercation, or a set synod, in which the
question of the Genealogies, that is, the " Generationes "
(Toldoth) of Jesus, were brought into question ; but in
the question of a synod I cannot follow him.3
Epiphanius About the same date (375 A.D.) we find Epiphanius
stating in the genealogy of Jesus ("Hser.," Ixxvii. 7), that
Joseph was the son of a certain Jacob whose surname
was Panther, an extraordinary declaration which we will
treat at greater length later on when we come to speak
of a still more striking statement of the Bishop of
Constantia.
1 But, as I have already stated in tlie chapter on " The Talmud
Mary Stories," I cannot discover the " Roman soldier " in Celsus ;
there is a " soldier " Panthera, but neither in i. 32 or in i. 69 is
there anything to denote his nationality.
2 Migne, " Patrol. Cursus Complet. Lat.," torn xxi., " S. Eusebii
Hieronymi Opera Omnia" (Paris ; 1845), torn. i. col. 354 ; Epistola
xiv. 11.
3 Moreover, I cannot verify his quotation.
TRACES OF EARLY TOLDOTH FORMS. 289
That prolific commentator John Chrysostom, in the John
fragments which have survived of his Homilies on
the Psalms, written somewhere towards the close of the
fourth century, remarks (Ps. viii. no. 3. c. v.) : " And
if you ask them (the Jews), Why did ye crucify the
Christ ? — they reply, Because he was a deceiver and a
sorcerer."
But the Jews would never have admitted the ques
tion in this form, for the very simple reason that they
consistently denied that Jesus was the Christ. Whether
they would have admitted even that they had " cruci
fied " him, is to be doubted.
Oehler gives " Theodoret,1 H. S., iii. 11 " as a confirma
tory reference to the passage of Tertullian we have
quoted above, but I cannot verify this.
From the " Disputatio cum Herbano Judseo," attri- Gregontius.
buted to Gregontius, Bishop of Taphar in Arabia, who
flourished in the second half of the fifth century, we
also learn that the Jews declared that Jesus had been
put to death because he was a magician.2
John of Damascus, in the first half of the eighth John of
century, in giving the genealogy of Mary, tells us
(" De Fid. Orthod.," iv. 14) that Joachim was the father
of Mary, Bar Panther the father of Joachim, and
Levi the father of Bar Panther, and, therefore, presum
ably Panther himself. As also in the case of Epi-
phanius, John does not breathe a word of Panther
(Pandera) being the invention of an enemy, but simply
records the name as a genuine piece of accepted history.
1 385-453 A.D.
2 " Bibliotheque des P6res de Margarin de la Bigue," t. i., as
quoted by Bullet, op. sub. dt.t p. 95.
19
290 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
It is also very plain that the famous Damascene does
not copy from Epiphanius, but draws from some other
totally different tradition.
So far it must be confessed that if we except Ephrem
Syrus, we have not, since the end of the second century,
met with any indications which would enable us
clearly to distinguish Toldoth stuff from Talmud tra
dition, but with the ninth century we come to undeni
able proofs of the existence of highly-developed forms of
Toldoth as contrasted with Talmud data.
Agobard. In his " De Judaicis Superstitionibus," Agobard,
Bishop of Lyons, writing somewhere about 820-830
A.D., makes the following highly interesting statement :
" For in the teachings of their elders they (the Jews)
read: That Jesus was a youth held in esteem among
them, who had for his teacher John the Baptist ; that
he had very many disciples, to one of whom he gave
the name Cephas, that is Petra (Rock), because of the
hardness and dulness of his understanding; that
when the people were waiting for him on the feast-day,
some of the youths of his company ran to meet him,
crying unto him out of honour and respect, ' Hosanna,
son of David ' ; that at last having been accused on
many lying charges, he was cast into prison by the
decree of Tiberius, because he had made his (T.'s)
daughter (to whom he had promised the birth of a
male child without [contact with] a man) conceive of a
stone; that for this cause also he was hanged on
a stake as an abominable sorcerer ; whereon being
smitten on the head with a rock and in this way slain,
he was buried by a canal, and handed over to a
certain Jew to guard ; by night, however, he was
TRACES OF EARLY TOLDOTH FORMS. 291
carried away by a sudden overflowing of the canal,
and though he was sought for twelve moons by the
order of Pilate, he could never be found ; that then
Pilate made the following legal proclamation unto
them : It is manifest, said he, that he has risen, as he
promised, he who for envy was put to death by you,
and neither in the grave nor in any other place is he
found; for this cause, therefore, I decree that ye
worship him ; and he who will not do so, let him know
that his lot will be in hell (in inferno).
" Now all these things their elders have so garbled,
and they themselves read them over and over again
with such foolish stubbornness, that by such fictions
the whole truth of the virtue and passion of Christ is
made void, as though worship should not be shown
Him as truly God, but is paid Him only because of the
law of Pilate." l
The above is manifestly a very rough report of some Written
Toldoth recension ; it is impossible to say whether
the Bishop of Lyons, who knew no Hebrew or Aramaic,
has reported quite correctly what he had heard of the
Jews, who in his day had flocked to Lyons in great
numbers, and of whom he was a strenuous and bitter
opponent, writing no less than four treatises against
them. As we shall see later on, however, he could not
have been very far out as to some of the main features
of his report. The most important point is that
Agobard twice tells us that the Jews "read" such
stories ; Toldoth Jeschu had, therefore, been committed
to writing at least prior to the early years of the ninth
1 I translate from the very poor Latin of the text printed by
Krauss (p. 5) from " Patr. Lat.," civ. p. 87.
292 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
century. So much is certain ; how much earlier than
this they existed in written form we have so far no
means of deciding.
Hiabanus Almost about the same date, moreover, we find
Hrabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Mainz, acquainted with
a totally different form of Toldoth. In his book, " Contra
Judaeos," written about 847 A.D. (K. 7), he tells us:
" They (the Jews) blaspheme because we believe on
him whom the Law of God saith was hanged on a tree
and cursed by God, . . . and [they declare] that on
the protest and by direction of his teacher Joshua
(i.e., J. ben Perachiah), he was taken down from the
tree, and cast into a grave in a garden full of cabbages,
so that their land should not be made impure . . . ;
they call him in their own tongue Ussum Hamizri,
which means in Latin, Dissipator ^Egyptius (the
Egyptian Destroyer). . . . And they say that after
he had been taken down from the tree, he was again
taken out of the grave by their forebears, and was
dragged by a rope through the whole city, and thus
cast . . ., confessing that he was a godless one, and
the son of a godless [fellow], that is of some Gentile or
other whom they call Pandera, by whom they say
the mother of the Lord was seduced, and thence he
whom we believe on, born." l
As to the original from which this passage is taken,
Bullet (op. sub. cit., p. 97) tells us that it was first
printed at Dijon by the learned Father Pierre Franqois
Chifflet, of the Company of Jesus.2 It was attributed
1 Krauss (p. 13) gives the text as taken from Wagenseil's Fore
word to his " Tela Ignea Satanse," p. 52.
2 There is no copy of this work in the British Museum.
TRACES OF EARLY TOLDOTH FORMS. 293
by him to Kaban Maur, Archbishop of Mainz, who was
subsequently identified by a number of scholars with
Amolon, who succeeded Agobard in the see of Lyons.
If this identification is correct, as Agobard died in
840, we must suppose that Hrabanus wrote his treatise
at Lyons. But the type of Toldoth quoted differs so
entirely from that of Agobard, that it is taken by
Krauss (p. 13) to represent a German form as dis
tinguished from Agobard's recension, which he calls
" romanische." In any case the name of the Archbishop
argues that he probably had some acquaintance with
Hebrew, and therefore that perhaps he is drawing from
a written source ; it is, however, very evident that he
is at best summarizing very roughly.
The otherwise unknown Ussum (? or Ussus = Jeschu) Ussum ha-
ha-Mizri is a puzzle ; neither Krauss (p. 13) nor Bischoff
(ibid., n.) can make anything out of it as it stands. I
would, however, suggest that whatever the original of
Ussum may have been, if it meant " Dissipator," we
may have to do with some play on the meaning of
Balaam (the Destroyer), and that the name means
simply " the Egyptian destroyer of the people." It is,
however, of interest to notice that in Huldreich's
text (pp. 20, 24, 26) the name of Pandera is given as
"the Egyptian," because "he did the work of the
Egyptians."
As to the Mary story which Suidas, in the tenth or Suidas.
eleventh century, reproduces in his Lexicon (s.v.
"Jesus"), and to which Krauss (p. 4) refers as apposite
to our enquiry, I have carefully gone through it, and
agree with Bischoff (ibid., n.) that it contains nothing
of a Toldoth nature.
294 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Peter We next come to the " Dialogues " of Petrus Alphon-
sus (or Alphonsi), who lived in the early years of the
twelfth century. Peter before his conversion had been
called Moses ; in the Dialogues between the Jews and
Christians, therefore, the dramatis persona: appear as
Moses and Peter.
Moses declares that the Jews contend that Jesus
" was a magician and the son of a harlot, and that he
led the whole nation into error."
" He was a magician," he repeats, " and by magic art
led the sons of Israel into error ; and over and above
this he proclaimed himself the Son of God."
To Peter's objection, How could Jesus have learned
magic enough to have turned water into wine, healed
lepers, lame, deaf, dumb, and blind, and beyond all this
to have brought the dead to life ? — Moses replies :
"Our learned men declare that he learned it in
Egypt." *
With regard to this Peter, Kohler and Gottheil 2 write:
"The first apostate that is known to have written
against the Jewish creed was Moses Sephardi, known
by the name of Petrus Alfonsi (physician to Alfonso VI.),
1 The portion of the " Dialogues " bearing on our enquiry will be
found in the Abbe M. Bullet's " Histoire de 1'Etablissement du
Christianisme tiree des seuls Auteurs juifs et payens " (Paris ;
1764), pp. 99 ff. ; Bullet gives his reference as " Bibliotheque des
P6res de Lyon," vol. xxi. There is also a German translation of
Bullet's work, " Gesch. der Griindung des Christenthums,:' by P. J.
Weckers (Mainz ; 1830). Bullet, in the French edition, gives a
paraphrase of Wagenseil's Toldoth text (pp. 75-84), a brief resume
of Huldreich's (pp. 85 86), the Latin text (pp. 89-92) and a trans
lation of Eaymund Martini (des Martins) (pp. 86-89), and the
text and translation of Agobard (pp. 96, 97).
2 In their article " Apostasy and Apostates from Judaism " in
the " Jewish Encyclopaedia " (New York ; 1902).
TRACES OF EARLY TOLDOTH FORMS. 295
baptised in 1106, and author of the well-known collec
tion of fables, 'Disciplina Clericalis.' He wrote a
work against Jewish and Mohammedan doctrines,
entitled, ' Dialogi in Quibus Impise Judaeorum et
Saracenorum Opiniones Confutantur.' This book,
however, seems to have had little influence."
The importance of our quotations is that Peter Raymund
„ ~ . ., . ,-, . Martini.
Alphonsi was a Jew of Spam ; it is true that we gain
very little from Peter, but a fellow-countryman of his,
or, at any rate, one who was familiar with Spanish Jewry,
Raymund Martini, has more to tell us. Raymund was
born at Sobriat in 1236, and died in 1286. He sat on
the Inquisitorial Commission at Barcelona, and was very
energetic against the Jews in Spain. Raymund was a
Dominican, and is regarded as the first Christian of his
time to study Oriental languages. His great work against
the Jews was called " Pugio Fidei," or the " Poignard
of Faith/' 1 In it, under the heading " Fabula de Christi
Miraculis Judaica, id est Maligna," 2 we find a lengthy
quotation, of which, however, there is no need to give a
translation, for with a few variants of no particular im
portance it is verbally identical with chapters 3-5 of
the Strassbourg MS. Toldoth, a translation of which
we have already given.
It is thus proved beyond a doubt that this portion of
the contents of the Strass. MS. goes back, verbally, at
least to the middle of the thirteenth century. More-
1 This was first edited by J. P. Mansacci (Paris ; 1642) ; second
edition by J. de Voisin (Paris ; 1651) ; copies of neither of these
editions are in the British Museum ; the last edition is by J. B.
Carpzov (Leipzig ; 1687).
2 Carpzov's edition, pars ii. cap. viii. § vi., pp. 362-364, corre
sponding to foil. 290, 291 of orig. edition.
296 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
over, it appears probable that the written Toldoth from
which E. Martini translated may have contained
chapters 1 and 2 of the Strass. MS., otherwise there
would be no point for the reader in the phrase put into
the mouth of Jesus, "Behold, the wise say I am a
bastard ! "
That the original otherwise contained more than the
translator gives us is highly improbable, for one of the
Oxford MSS. agrees substantially with Eaymund's
version, and therefore probably derives from the same
original.
The Cabbage- After the phrase of the queen, " Ho is in your
hands ! " — Raymundus at once jumps to the hanging on
the cabbage-stalk incident (of c. 7 of S. MS.), concern
ing which, his authority tells him, that this is by no
means wonderful, " for every year there grows in the
House of the Sanctuary one cabbage so large that a
hundred pounds of seed come from it." This is
different from Krauss' emendation of the defective
passage in the Strass. MS. In Martini the miraculous
cabbage-stalk has its genesis in the mysteries of the
Sanctuary, and is not merely the outcome of the fertile
soil of Jerusalem. Martini here brings the "fabula"
to an abrupt end.
Luther. This Toldoth extract of Martini was copied by
Porchettus (Salvagus, or de Salvaticis), a Carthusian
monk of Genoa, who flourished in the beginning of the
fourteenth century, and a good Oriental scholar, in his
work against the Jews, entitled " Victoria," which was
printed in 1520 1 ; from this Luther made a translation
1 " Victoria Porcheti adversus impios Hebrseos," ed. by R. P. A.
Justiniani (Paris ; 1520).
TRACES OF EARLY TOLDOTH FORMS. 297
into German under the heading, " Vom Schem
Hamphoras und vom Geschlecht Christi." 1
Finally we come to the very interesting passage in Schemtob ibn
" The Touchstone " of Schemtob ibn Sehaprut, who S haPrufc-
flourished at the end of the fourteenth century. This
work has never been printed as a whole, but Krauss
points the Hebrew text of our passage (pp. 146, 147),2
and appends a German translation (pp. 148, 149). This
passage runs as follows :
" Behold, ye find with them (the Jews) many writ
ings which give account of them (the wonders and
signs of Jesus) ; for instance the document which was
composed as a History of Jeschu ha-Notzri, and [states]
that it took place in the time of Queen Helene ; further,
in the document which was composed as a History of
Jeschu ben Pander a in Aramaic, which purports that it
was in the time of Tiberius Caesar.
" In the first document it is written that Jeschu cut History of
open the flesh of his hip, without it hurting him,
placed the copy of the Shem ha-Meporesch therein,
drew the skin together over it, so that it healed ; after
wards he took the copy out again from under the skin
and did signs and wonders. He spake to the young
men of Israel : Would ye have a sign from me ? Bring
me a lame man ; I will heal him. Forthwith they
brought unto him the lame man, who had never yet
stood upon his feet ; he uttered the letters over him,
passed his hand over him, and he was made whole.
1 (Jena ; 1583 ed.), vol. iii. ff. 109, 110.
2 From pp. 180, 181 of the MS. in the Jewish Theological
Seminary at Breslau ; there is also, I find, another copy in the
Orient. Dept. of the British Museum, Add. 26964.
298 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
Further he said : I am Son of God ; I raise the dead.
Immediately Queen Helene sent trusty messengers to
him ; she sent and they saw that he raised the dead.
They came, told it unto her, and she was affrightened.
She said to the wise men : That is a great sign. And
she gave the Jews who strove with him a reproof, and
they departed from her ashamed and disgraced.
"Further [it is written] that the people of Galilee
made birds of clay; he uttered the Shem over them,
and they flew into the air. At the same hour they
fell down on their faces and cast themselves down
before him.
"Further he said to them: Bring me a great mill
stone. They brought it unto him, and he launched it
on the sea ; sat himself thereon, and made it float on
the water like an eggshell. He sat thereon, a wind
bore him along on the surface of the water, and all the
people were greatly amazed.
" Further he said before the queen : I ascend hence
to my Father in heaven ! He spread forth his hands
and raised himself in the air twixt heaven and earth.
The queen was affrightened, and the whole people
wondered greatly.
" Further [it is written] that at the end he was to be
crucified ; he therefore laid a spell upon all the trees of
the world, so that they might not bear his hanged
body. When, then, he was hanged on the tree, it
broke under him, and in like fashion all trees broke
under him and received him not.
History of " And in the second document it is written : There
came Pilate, the governor, Eabbi Joshua ben Perachiah,
Marinus, the great ancient of the Jews, R. Juda Ganiba,
TRACES OF EARLY TOLDOTH FORMS. 299
R. Jochanan ben Mut'ana, and Jeschu ben Pandera
to Tiberias before Tiberius Csesar. He (T.) said to
them : What is your business ? He ( J.) said to them :
I am Son of God ; I wound and I heal, and if any man
die, I whisper over him, and he lives ; and a woman who
has not borne a child, I make her conceive without a
husband. He (T.) said to them : On that will I test
you. I have a daughter who has not yet seen a man ;
make it that she conceive. They said to him: Have
her brought before us. He gave commandment to his
steward ; he brought her. They [?] whispered over her
and she became pregnant.
"And when the condemnation of Jeschu was pro
claimed, and the time came to crucify him, and he saw
the cross about the fourth hour of the day, he spake
words of magic, flew away and sat himself upon Mount
Carmel. R. Juda the gardener said to R. Joshua ben
Perachiah : I will go after him and bring him back.
He answered : Go, utter and pronounce the name of
his Lord, that is the Schem ha-Mephoresch. He went
and flew after him. When he would seize him, Jeschu
spake words of magic, went into the cave of Elias, and
shut the door. Juda the gardener came and said to the
cave: Open, for I am God's messenger. It opened-
Thereupon Jeschu made himself into a bird ; R. Juda
seized him by the hem of his garment and came before
R. Joshua and the companions."
It is very evident that the Hebrew form of Toldoth Value of
quoted by Schemtob is identical with that quoted by l^e
Raymuridus Martini. It is a shortened form, but the
wording is frequently identical. The only variant is
that Schemtob adds to the mill-stone miracle that a
300 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
wind arose and bore him over the water ; he also has
" crucified " where Martini has " hanged." It is also re
markable that Schemtob practically begins and ends in
his narrative where Martini does. Did he, then, copy
from Martini ? This is hardly to be believed. If not,
then the copies of the Hebrew original which lay before
those two scholars must have been a shortened form of
Toldoth. What connection this form of Toldoth may
have had with that known to Hrabanus Maurus we
cannot tell, for the incidents do not in any way overlap,
and there are no names to help us out.
With regard to the Aramaic form of Toldoth quoted
by Schemtob, it is probable that it may be the recen
sion used by the Jews at Lyons, some of the contents of
which had come to Agobard by hearsay. But of this
we cannot be certain, for Agobard reports a form of
Toldoth which speaks of stoning and hanging on a
stake, while Schemtob speaks of crucifixion ; as, how
ever, we have found him altering "hanging" into
" crucifixion " where we can check him by Martini, so
here we must suppose that " crucifixion " is a gloss, and
the original spoke only of " hanging."
Aramaic This Aramaic form may also be compared with the
few tattered fragments of an Aramaic Toldoth, re
covered from the Geniza (or " lumber room " for worn-
out or imperfect MSS.) 1 of the Old Synagogue at Cairo,
which have the distinction of being the oldest Toldoth
1 Maimonides describes the Geniza as follows : " A Codex of the
Law which is decayed or is rendered ritually illegal is to be put
into an earthen vessel and buried by the side of sages, and this
constitutes its Geniza " (" Hilchoth Sepher Torah," x. 3). See Gins-
burg's " Introduction to the Massoretico-Critical Edition of the
Hebrew Bible," p. 156, n.
TRACES OF EARLY TOLDOTH FORMS. 301
MS. known to us. From them, however, we can make
out little that will help us, except that they introduce
Joshua ben Perachiah, and also the miracle of making
a certain virgin pregnant without contact with a man.
As this takes place before a certain "emperor" who
is not named, it must be supposed that it refers to the
Tiberius legend. It is further to be noticed that the
body of Jesus is said to have been dragged round in the
streets of Tiberias; upon which we might speculate
that this form of Toldoth arose in the famous Kabbinic
circles of Tiberias and that the name of the school sug
gested the name of the emperor, just as the Lud stories
brought Akiba into personal relationship with Mary.
And here we may bring our enquiry into the nature
of the earlier Toldoth forms to a conclusion ; it may be
that some day in the near future the industry of
scholarship may be able to throw some further light on
the subject, but at present it is impossible to say pre
cisely how these different forms developed.
XVL— THE 100 YEAES B.C. DATE IN THE
TOLDOTH.
Value of the THE question which now arises is : Can this tangled
ourdE«quiry. growth of legend in any way help us in our present
enquiry ? The answer to this question is : If the
Talmud Jesus stories are amazing in their contradictions
on such a fundamental point as the time when Jesus
lived, the Toldoth legends are even more astonishingly
self-contradictory ; yet, strange to say, the nature of
the increased contradictions of the latter is such as
to make us hesitate before we instantly reject the
Ben Perachiah element as utterly unworthy of even
momentary consideration.
Impossibility A glance at the meagre external evidence as to the
accurately the existence of early Toldoth stuff as distinguished from
EvVO!?t^D4.?f Talmud Jesus matter shows us how impossible it is to
the roldoth.
trace any distinct moments in the evolution of this
rank growth of Jewish folk-lore ; for from the time
of Tertullian till the beginning of the ninth century,
when we for the first time meet with traces of two
absolutely contradictory Toldoth recensions, one placing
Jesus in the days of Joshua ben Perachiah, and the
other associating him with Tiberius and Pilate, we
have hardly anything to guide us, for not even the fact
THE 100 B.C. DATE IN THE TOLDOTH. 303
that the Ben Pandera legend had spread so far and
wide that we find two Church Fathers compelled to
insert the name in the genealogies of Jesus and Mary
can help us in this connection.
It is evident, therefore, that any attempt to trace
the main moments in the evolution of the Toldoth as
it stands in the many varieties and recensions of its
first written form, if, indeed, these all spring from a
single original written form, is a matter almost entirely
of internal evidence, if not of pure subjectivity. More
over, we have not to deal with a Toldoth Jeschu only
but we have also before us a kind of Maase Apostolim,
or Apostle-history or Acts of Apostles, and also a
heresy-history (Nestorius), which may or may not have
formed part of the first written form of Toldoth ; arid,
therefore, any attempt to make the date of this first
written Toldoth depend on data drawn from what have
all the appearance of being supplements or appendices
is open to grave objections.
But, whatever the first written form of Toldoth Genesis of the
Jeschu may have been, it must have depended upon
older oral sources. What was the nature of those
oral sources ? Here again we cannot answer with any
certainty, for we do not know what the first written
form of the Toldoth contained. All we definitely know
is that at the end of the second century Tertullian is
acquainted with an element which we find in the Tol
doth and nowhere else. When, then, Krauss (p. 3) says
that the " whole content " of the Toldoth was known
to Tertullian, by this he can only mean that the points
mentioned by the Bishop of Carthage are found in
the Toldoth generally, and also, it may be remarked,
304 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
in more or less the same order. But even so, it must
be confessed that the indications are for the most
part exceedingly vague, and we can draw no satis
factory conclusions from them.
It must be remembered that we are trying to get
at the earliest Jewish sources of Toldoth stuff, for it is
quite evident that the later, perhaps even, it may be,
the earlier, written forms of Toldoth drew from
Christian sources as well.
The Oldest What, then, were these Jewish sources ? Were they
simply the Talmud Jesus stories ? It is true that some
of the Toldoth recensions, in some details, seem to draw
directly from them, but they generally treat these
elements with such great freedom, that we cannot
believe they depended upon them as the only source ;
on the contrary, there is much in the Toldoth of a
similar nature and yet entirely absent from the Talmud.
Krauss' theory (p. 242) l is that, seeing the Toldoth
recensions know Jesus only as Ben Pandera, and never
as Ben Stada, they, therefore, look back to that saga-
circle known to Celsus, that is to a body of living oral
tradition, part of which was gradually introduced into
the Talmud and part worked up into the written
Toldoth. This of course applies only to the oldest
deposit of the Toldoth, whatever that may have been,
and it is very probable that such may have been the
case.
1 Krauss' argument (pp. 238-242), that the " principal source "
of the Toldoth is the lost Hebrew History of Josippon (not Flavius
Josephus), whom, he says, the Jews regarded as the main source
of the events of the period of the Second Temple, appears to me
to be somewhat problematical ; in any case we can no longer get
at Josippon, for his History is unfortunately lost.
THE 100 B.C. DATE IN THE TOLDOTH. 305
The question that next arises is : What elements The Oldest
of the Toldoth can be attributed to this oldest deposit l^mtnts.
of Jewish oral tradition ? This is an exceedingly difficult
question to answer. As far as the Ben Pandera or
Mamzer element is concerned, we have no further
interest in it as far as our present enquiry is concerned,
for we hold that this element arose out of the con
troversy concerning the virgin-birth dogma, and when
ever precisely this may have been first debated, it was
clearly a comparatively late development even in
Christian tradition.
Are there, however, any elements in this chaos of
oral tradition older than the Mamzer-legend ? And if
so, is the Ben Perachiah date one of them ? This
latter is the whole crux of our enquiry, and we will,
therefore, deal with it to the exclusion of any other
elements which might be held to be of very early date.
We have already examined the Talmud Ben Pera
chiah story. Can the Toldoth recensions throw any
further light on the question ?
At first sight it would appear that they only add A New Date-
chaos to confusion. Many give the Joshua ben the Toldoth"
Perachiah (or Simeon ben Shetach) date, some give
the Christian canonical date, and some confound the
two. But the main interest of the Toldoth in this
connection is that the most frequent date-indication,
for it occurs in almost all recensions, is the mention of
a certain Queen Helene, in whose hand is the
sovereignty of all Jewry, and before whom the trial
of Jesus takes place. This name never appears in the
Talmud Jesus stories, nor, for a matter of that, do the
names of Herod, or Pilate, or John the Baptist (or any
20
306 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
other that confirm the Christian canonical date) ; the
only date-indications in the Talmud are, as we have
seen before, on the one hand the mention of Joshua ben
Perachiah and Jannai in connection with Jesus, and on
the other the Akiba Mary story.
Even the few forms of the Toldoth which follow the
Herod or Pilate date cannot escape from Joshua ben
Perachiah, for instance, the Aramaic form referred to by
Agobard and Schemtob, while even the late Huldreich
recension,1 which in some things seems to adopt the
Talmud Lud tradition (though there is no mention of
Ben Stada), and works in more Christian elements than
any of the other forms, states that Jesus went to the
school of Joshua ben Perachiah. It is true that
Bischoff s Judaeo-German version introduces (§ 21) the
name of Pilate, and associates him with Queen Helene,
as also it brings in the twelve Apostles (who are other
wise unknown to Jewish tradition), in addition to the
three hundred and twenty; but these glosses are
unknown to S., which B. otherwise seems to follow,
while B. itself categorically declares that Jesus was a
pupil of Joshua ben Perachiah.
The Jungle But we are not yet out of the jungle, for although
in most MSS. Helene is mentioned without any further
qualification than a statement which is equivalent to
saying that she was queen of the Jews, in one or two
MSS. of the de Rossi type she is said to be " wife of
Constantino " — that is to say, she is identified with
Helena the mother, not the wife, of Constantine the
Great. Nevertheless in this same Toldoth form (e.g. in
1 In which Jesus is condemned and executed under Herod the
Great !
THE 100 B.C. DATE IN THE TOLDOTH. 307
V.) we find that these things took place in the time of
Tiberius and Herod II., while the teacher of Miriam's
husband is still given as Simeon ben Shetach, and we
are further told that the land had been left in the hand
of Helene, " after Nebucadnezzar, King of Babylon, that
is seventy years before the destruction of the Temple "
(so also the Leipzig MS.).
Here is a magnificent tangle to unravel. What can
it all mean ? The Toldoth give us a new date-indica
tion, but while giving it with one hand, they immedi
ately snatch it away with the other. As far as the
Christian elements are concerned, it is easy to under
stand how that in course of time the confused tradition
of the Jews could not stand against the persistent and
ever growing more consistent and uniform Christian
tradition, and how that gradually some of the later
Toldoth scribes were so influenced by it, that they
accepted it and wove it into their legendary patchwork,
though in so doing they involved themselves in the
greatest contradiction with their predecessors, and could
never succeed entirely in erasing all trace of the Ben
Perachiah data.
What, however, seems to have most greatly puzzled Queen Helene.
those innovating scribes was the mention of Queen
Helene; in fact, so hopelessly confused were some of
them that, as we have seen, they had no hesitation in
affirming that Helene was the wife of Constantino;
even a so transparent fiction as this insensate ana
chronism, with a Nebuchadnezzar thrown in, could not
spoil their literary digestion, unless — and this, after
all, may perhaps be the means of unravelling the most
complicated part of the tangle — it was a jest and known
308 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
to be one by every Jewish schoolboy. It is more than
probable that there may be a grim humour behind
some of those wild anachronisms, and that it is a waste
of energy to expend our marks of exclamation on the
stupidity of the legend-weavers.
For if we have to take seriously such manifest
contradictions in one and the same sentence, it would
be an egregious compliment to characterize such
statements as simply betraying a total lack of any sense
of history ; if they were seriously meant they can be
classed only with the productions of a lunatic asylum,
and the general irresponsibility of mediaeval legend-
making would have to blush for its incompetency
before the magnificent and gorgeous spectacle of such
transcendental irrationality.
s' Un- It is true that Helena was the subject of a prolific
Theory. ^ legend-activity in the Middle Ages, principally because
of the " finding of the cross " saga. But why Krauss
should solemnly take this as his point of departure, and
endeavour to show that the Helene element of the
Toldoth was begotten of the Helena legends, is some
what of a matter of surprise; for it is very evident
that if in one of the " wife of Constantino " type of
Toldoth recensions there is reference to " the finding of
the cross," this incident was added either by some
utterly ignorant scribe, or by some humorist to cap
the joke, for it could not have been that any intelligent
Jew could have been so foolish as to have seriously im
ported the figure of Saint Helena, whose faith in
Jesus not only never wavered but was of the most
transcendent type, out of the Christian legends, and
have converted her, of all people in the world, into the
THE 100 B.C. DATE IN THE TOLDOTH. 309
queen before whom the trial of Jesus took place, and
who finally hands him over to the Jews to do with him
as they would.
The Helene element is not a subsidiary matter of no The Helene
special importance in the Toldoth, it is not even of only old1"
secondary consideration; far from it, it is one of the
main elements of the whole story. If there is any
ancient element in the Toldoth, it is precisely the figure
of this queen, before whom the most dramatic and
critical incidents of the whole story take place. It is
impossible not to believe that there was the mention
of some queen in the oldest deposit of the Toldoth-
saga, and difficult to believe that the name given
her in it was anything else than Helene.
The writer of the Toldoth recension printed by oieina.
Wagenseil, however, seems to have had no doubt who
this Helene was, for after telling us that Jesus was
born in the 671st year of the fourth millennium (ab
orbe condito) — that is 93 B.C.,1 in the reign of King
Jannai who was also called Alexander, he goes on to
say that this Queen Helene " was the wife of the before-
mentioned Jannai, who held the sovereignty after the
death of her husband. She is called by another name
Oieina, and had a son King Munbasus, otherwise called
Hyrcanus."
I say the writer " seems " to have no doubt who this Helen of
Helene was, because the last sentence presents us with '
a new difficulty. It is true that Hyrcanus II. was the
eldest son of Jannai, but Monobaz II. was the son, not
of Jannai, but of Helene, Queen of Adiabene, a small
1 See Krauss, pp. 182, 273, n. 3, who also suggests that the 3670
of Bischoff's Judaeo-Gerraan Toldoth is a mistake for 3760.
310 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
province of Mesopotamia, on the Tigris, who became a
Jewish proselyte somewhere about 30 A.D., and spent
some fourteen years (c. 46-60 A.D.) in Palestine, at
Jerusalem and Lydda (Lud), under a Nazarite vow,
consorting with the Eabbis of Hillel's school.1 It is also
true that Helen of Adiabene and her sons had endeared
themselves to the Jews by devotion to the Torah and
rich gifts to the Temple ; but that it could ever have
been seriously imagined that the sovereignty of the land
of Palestine could have been in this Helen's hand, as is
usually stated in the Toldoth when the Toldoth Helene
is mentioned, is unthinkable.
Is " Mono- How, then, can we possibly explain such contradictory
baz '' a Gloss ? j ,
data coming in one and the same sentence? Is it
another jest of the same nature as the one to which we
have already referred ? In this case it does not seem
to be so. If not, can Monobaz be a gloss inserted by
some later scribe, for this absurdity can hardly be set
down to the account of the Toldoth redactor himself,
who in every other respect is so precise concerning the
date ? May it not then be that this scribe, being like
the redactor puzzled as to the name Helene, for he
knows that this was not the historical name of the wife
of Jannai, desired to add his own mite of information ?
He is an ignorant man, yet he knows of Helen of Adia
bene and her son Monobaz ; he accordingly flings this
in to show his reading, without stopping to think
whether the dates coincide or not. Perhaps, however,
1 Josephus, " Antiqq.," xx. 2. 1-3. See art. " Helene, Konigin,"
in Hamburger's " Real-Encyclopiidie des Judentums " (2nd imp.
Neustrelitz ; 1896), and also art. " Adiabene " in the new " Jewish
Encyclopaedia" (New York ; 1901).
THE 100 B.C. DATE IN THE TOLDOTH. 311
after all he is not to be blamed, for the great commen
tator Kaschi himself, in the twelfth century, took
Monobaz for a Hasmonaean.1 Was there by any chance
another Monobaz ?
But if this Oleina-Helene was neither the mother Helene-
of Constantine nor the Adiabene Helen, who else could
she have been for the Jews but the wife of Jannai ?
The only queen of the Jews in whose hand was all the
land was Jannai's wife Salome, who, as we have seen in
the chapter on "The Talmud 100 Years B.C. Story of
Jesus," was sole ruler of the Jews from 78-69 B.C.,2 and
who died at the age of seventy-two. This Salome is said
to have been the sister of Simeon ben Shetach, who in
most of the Toldoth recensions is given as the teacher of
the wronged husband of Miriam.
Unfortunately, the historical Greek name of this
queen is Alexandra (presumably after her husband's
Greek name Alexander), and not Helena or Helene.
It is, however, to be noticed that both in Greek and
Latin the name Salome is given as Salina.3 Now we
have already seen that name-play was a frequent device
of the Talmud story-tellers ; not only so, but it had for
centuries been a favourite occupation of the scribes of
the Old Covenant documents, and for a matter of that
a peculiarity of the Semitic genius generally. The
oldest deposit of the Toldoth belongs, as we have seen,
to the same sea of oral tradition as that from which
1 "Baba Bathra," lla. See Krauss, p. 274, n. 5.
2 According to Schurer ; Krauss, however, gives Jannai's reign
as 103-76 B.C. (p. 182), and the new " Jewish Encyclopedia " (art.
" Alexandra") says that Salome died in 67 B.C.
3 See for references Schiirer's " History of the Jewish People"
(Edinburgh ; 1897), Div. i. vol. i. p. 308, n.
312 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
the Talmud derived. Can we, then, have in Helene
a name-transformation of this nature ? l
Helene- Salina helps us somewhat, for it is not so far from
Helena (Oleina, Hilani, etc.), and s and h are philo-
logically interchangeable. But in this connection
there is a well-known instance of name-play which will
help us still further. It is well known to all students
of Christian origins that a certain Helen (Gk. Helene,
Lat. Helena) was fabled to have been a harlot whom
Simon Magus took about with him ; Simon himself said
that his Helen was the Sophia, but that is another
story. Now in the Simon legends this Helene is also
called in Greek Selene, the " Moon," while in the
Simonian myth Simon (Shimeon, Shemesh) himself
corresponds with the " Sun." Thus in Augustine (" De
Hser.," i.) and elsewhere we find Selene and not Helene,
while in the Clementine Eecognitions (ii. 14), preserved
to us only in the Latin translation of Eufinus, we find
the name of the syzygy of Simon, who in the parallel
passage of the Greek Clementine Homilies (ii. 23) is
called Helena, given as Luna. From this we deduce
that Helene is a play on Selene either for mystical
or controversial purposes, for with the Ben Pandera
instance before us we can readily see how that in those
days of feverish theological polemics, a mystic teaching
could easily be turned into a personal scandalous legend
for controversial purposes.
The Simon If, then, Selene could be transformed into Helene for
Magus
Legend.
1 Salome's full Jewish name was Shalom Zion ; for Hebrew and
Aramaic transformations of this queen's name, see Derenbourg ( J.),
" Essai sur 1'Histoire et la Geographic de la Palestine, d'apres les
Thalmuds." etc. (Paris ; 1867), p. 102, n.
THE 100 B.C. DATE IN THE TOLDOTH. 313
some such purposes, why could not Salina (Salome) be so
transformed for purposes of a somewhat similar nature ?
Whether or not this suggestion of ours may in any way
be helped by the fact that the air-battle between Jesus
and Judas in the Toldoth has also its exact parallel in
the contest between Simon Peter and Simon Magus in
the Simonian legends, is a secondary question. As to
the quaint coincidence that Helene-Salome had a
brother Simon (b. Shetach), I hardly dare mention it,
were it not that legends are the most insatiate of
prostitutes, and will unite with anything that takes
their fancy.
It is in vain to ask why precisely such a name- Pros and Cons
change should have been made ; or why if Salome was
converted into Helene the names of Joshua ben
Perachiah and Simeon ben Shetach were not also
changed. Consistency and precise reasons are not to
be expected in the arbitrary development of folk-tale.
The least that can be said is that our hypothesis
involves us in less difficulties than the Helen of
Constantino and the Helen of Monobaz conjectures ;
while if our supposition should be thought to hold
good, it would point to the fact that the overwhelming
preponderance of Toldoth tradition is on the side of the
Ben Perachiah date.
But it may be said, granted that this hypothesis
would explain the otherwise inexplicable statement
that the rule of the land was in the hand of Helene, it
does not explain why this Helene is represented as being
so wavering, now believing in Jeschu, now on the side of
the wise men of Jewry, and, above all, why she speaks
to the doctors of the Law, as one not only unlearned in
314 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
their scriptures, but as apparently being a non- Jewess.
" Is this written in your Law ? " she asks, whereas
Salome was regarded as the champion of the Pharisees
and a most devout Jewess.
But the dispute is between the learned, between the
teachers and one who dares to expound Halachoth
without their permission ; the first part of this objection
can, therefore, have no great weight, for the queen, even
if learned in the Law, could not have appeared to be so
in the presence of the wise men of Jewry. The second
part of this objection is far more difficult to meet, and
can only be met on the supposition that the Salome
date is correct and that she did favour Jesus ; for if
she did so, as a historic fact, it would be natural for
the later llabbis to seek to excuse their favourite queen,
in whose reign they placed the "golden age" of
Pharisaism, and to represent her part in the proceed
ings as that of one unacquainted with the Law ; and in
order to do this with safety it would be natural for them
to change her name from Salome to Helene. Can this
supposition possibly contain some hint at the reason
for which we previously said it was vain to ask ?
But this, the convinced believer in the Christian
canonical tradition will say, is a magnificent begging of
the whole question, a speculating on the impossible.
Even so, it is as well to argue both sides, for that many
generations of Jews have believed unquestioningly in
this Joshua ben Perachiah date is evident from both
the Talmud and Toldoth; it is therefore legitimate
to try and explain the developments of tradition on
their own premisses, among which the Jannai date is
most conspicuous. Indeed, if we step outside the
THE 100 B.C. DATE IN THE TOLDOTH. 315
fantastic circle of the legends themselves, and seek
information on this point from serious students of
history, we are confronted with the categorical state
ment of the Spanish history-writer Abraham ben
Daud, who about 1100 A.D. writes as follows :
"The Jewish history- writers say that Joshua ben The Date
Perachiah was the teacher of Jeschu ha-Notzri, according
to which the latter lived in the days of King Jannai ;
the history-writers of the other nations, however, say
that he was born in the days of Herod and was hanged
in the days of his son Archelaus. This is a great
difference, a difference of more than 110 years."1
Ibn Daud evidently calculates this difference from
the beginning of the reign of Jannai, but the exact
number of years is of no consequence. Abraham
makes a general declaration of the difference between
the statements of Jewish and Christian writers ; that is
to say, he gives us the general impression he has on the
matter. It is true that already in the ninth century
we meet with a Toldoth form which introduces John
the Baptist, Tiberius and Pilate, but evidently, in the
opinion of Abraham ben Daud, the Jewish tradition
was the 100 years B.C. date.
On the whole, therefore, we are inclined to the The Date
opinion that the amazing contradictions of the various
Toldoth recensions as to their date-indications, are Toldoth-
writers.
more easily explained on the supposition that the Ben
Perachiah tradition was the only date-factor of the
older Toldoth writers, and hence the contradictions were
a later development, as Jewish tradition weakened before
1 Neubauer, "Medieval Jewish Chronicles" (Oxford ; 1887), p.
53. See Krauss, pp. 183, 273, n. 3.
316 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
the persistent strength of the Christian canonical
tradition. In any case, we think that we have found
a simpler solution of the Helene puzzle than the
theory of Krauss, who would trace its source to the
Christian legends of St Helena.
It is true that in the bitterest days of persecution
some of the Jews argued that there were two persons
of the name of Jesus mentioned in the Talmud ; but as
Krauss points out (p. 273, n. 4), this is as unproved as
is the argument that Ben Stada and Ben Pandera were
two different people.
The Ben If t then, we are correct in our impression that the
Date is prob- Ben Perachiah date was an intergal part of the
Sliest6 oldest deposit of the Toldoth, it seems more probable
that in this the Toldoth did not copy from the Talmud,
but that this element came into both the Talmud and
Toldoth from a floating mass of oral tradition from
which both drew. In this connection also it is of
interest to note that the Karaites, who were absolutely
opposed to all Rabbinic authority, and utterly rejected
the Talmudic tradition, nevertheless retained the Ben
Pandera tradition, though they knew nothing of Ben
Stada. Not only so, but Toldoth circulated among
them, for in Codex de Kossi 96 we have a distinctly
Karaite Toldoth.1
There are many other points of interest connected
with the Toldoth legends, but they do not immediately
concern us in our present enquiry ; as, however, we
have presented the reader with a translation of one of
the Toldoth recensions, we might subjoin a few very
brief remarks on one or two of its most salient features.
1 See Krauss, pp. 15, 31, 200 ff.
THE 100 B.C. DATE IN THE TOLDOTH. 317
It is to be remarked that Miriam the mother is in The Exonera-
nearly every form of Toldoth exonerated from any Miriam,
conscious breaking of her marriage vows. The bastardy
of Jeschu was the result of a trick played upon her.
Can we assign any motive for this ? Can it possibly be
that the original framers of this legend knew that it
was no handing on of history, but the popularization of
a doctrinal controversy ? Indeed, not only is Mary
excused from any conscious breaking of the Law, but
from several forms of the Toldoth we glean that she
was regarded as a woman of distinction. Not only is
she said to have been the sister of a certain Joshua,
who is presumably to be identified with Joshua ben
Perachiah, but she is also said to have been related to
Queen Helene, that is, if our argument holds good, to
Queen Salome, whose brother was Simeon ben Shetach.
Here we have the close relationship of Jesus to the
most distinguished Rabbis of the time.
It is further to be remarked that Jesus is throughout Did Jesus
always represented as a learned man, and so generally tiTeT
are his disciples. This might seem at first sight to be
accounted for by the fact that much space is given in
the Toldoth to the " proof from scripture." But in my
opinion these Messianic disputations seem to be due to
later developments, and to be part and parcel of
doctrinal polemics between Jews and Judseo- Christians ;
for I have never been able to believe that historically
Jesus himself could have made any claim to be the
Messiah. If the power of the great teacher, round
whose transcendent person all these marvellous tradi
tions and disputes have grown up, is rightly held to have
been the power of a Master of Wisdom, not to speak of
318 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
still more transcendent claims put forward on his behalf,
then it can hardly be believed that he would have
claimed to be what he could have foreseen would never
be admitted by those to whom the Messianic tradition
chiefly belonged. True, he may very well have taught a
more universal view of Messianism, but that he should
have claimed to have been the Messiah of prophecy, in
any sense in which the Jews could have understood the
idea, without that prophecy turning out to be a bitter
mockery, can hardly be believed of a wise and merciful
Teacher. Jesus of Nazareth has in no sense been a
Messiah to the Jews ; and it is hardly in keeping with
the idea of the Good God preached by him, to talk of the
Jews having been punished for their rejection of Jesus.
Not to speak of Deity, those who are truly wise, even
as the average man can imagine wisdom, must have
foreseen the rejection before the sending of the messenger.
Surely, then, Jesus would not have said, "I am the
Messiah " to those to whom he knew he, or rather that
which men would make of his efforts, would never be a
help, but a scourge ; not that he would have had it so,
but because of the forces which already existed in
human nature and which were destined to focus them
selves in Jew and Gentile for some high purpose of the
Divine economy.
If we can hold such a view without giving dire
offence to the better feeling in both Jew and Chris
tian, then the Messianic controversy can have had
nothing to do with the original teaching of Jesus him
self. It was not because of this facility of quotation
that Jesus was held to be a learned man by Jewish
legend. Kather was it that such legend was itself
THE 100 B.C. DATE IN THE TOLDOTH. 319
based on ancient tradition among them that he was
learned in their lore.
Not only so, but the Jews had no difficulty in admit- The Shem.
ting his power of wonder-doing. Their earliest tra
dition, however, seems to have been that the knowledge
whereby these deeds were done was learned in Egypt.
Popular belief would then naturally have it that if this
gnosis was learned in Egypt, it must have been the
acquiring of certain " words of power," and if " words "
then "names." In the developed Toldoth, however,
we find that the Egypt element has retired well into the
background, while the " words of power " appear as the
Shem ha-Mephoresh or Holy Name, and the Shrines of
Egypt as the Sanctuary at Jerusalem.
The " brick-bat " which Jesus is jestingly accused of Mystic
worshipping in the Talmud, appears in the Toldoth
as the " foundation-stone " in the Holy of Holies, the
prototype of both being probably some symbol of
the Egyptian mystery-tradition, that "corner stone"
or " key," the mystic writing on which was to be
inscribed in the " heart." As we have already suggested,
the " heart " was to be " circumcised " — hence the cut
ting of the flesh and the rest of the folk-legend. This
mystic stone was in the Holy of Holies, beyond the
pillars, which were guarded by appropriate wardens, a
symbolism familiar enough to the student of Masonry
and its predecessors.
Much might be written on this most fascinating
subject, but it would extend our essay to a too great
length ; it is enough here to say that, in protection of
their own interests, the Mishnaic Kabbis considered the
utterer of the Shem as a blasphemer, and the punish-
320 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
ment of such blasphemy was decided upon as death.1
The Shem element, therefore, could thus subsequently
be made to work in most conveniently with the Toldoth
patchwork, for it supplied an additional reason for the
putting to death of Jesus.
YHWH. In spiritual mysticism the knowing of names meant
simply the possession of powers ; while in material
magic it was believed that the possession of the actual
spoken name gave the man the power of the " name."
It is somewhat interesting to see how the Jews gradually
worked these ideas into their system of monotheistic
exclusiveness, and how the mystery of the Shem ha-
Mephoresh, or "distinctive name," YHWH, was de
veloped among them. As to how this name was origin
ally pronounced we have now no authentic information.
But " in the early period of the Second Temple the Name
was still in common use. ... At the beginning of the
Hellenistic era, however, the use of the Name was
reserved for the Temple, . . . elsewhere they were
obliged to use the appellative name ' Adonai' (Lord)."
The Kvolu- Thus the pronunciation of a name once in common
Mystery, use gradually became more and more mysterious, and
at the beginning of the Christian era we find Philo
writing ("Life of Moses," iii. 11): "The four letters2
may be mentioned or heard only by holy men whose
ears and tongues are purified by wisdom, and by no
other in any place whatsoever."
While Josephus, at the end of the first century,
gives the current myth of the name-giving as follows :
" Moses besought God to impart to him the know-
1 "Mislma, Sanhedrin," vii. 5 (55b).
- The Tetragrammatou YHWH.
THE 100 B.C. DATE IN THE TOLDOTH. 321
ledge of His name and its pronunciation, so that he
might be able to invoke Him by name at the sacred
acts, whereupon God communicated His name, hitherto
unknown to any man ; and it would be a sin for me to
mention it."
In course of time the pronunciation of the Name
even by the Temple priests fell into disuse, and the
manner of its pronunciation at length " became a secret
entrusted only to the Kasherim (worthy ones), or the
Zena'im (Essenes = ' the humble or chaste ones'), but
withheld from the frivolous, the Hellenists (Peruzim) ;
and even the former were taught it only once every
seven years, and then only after due purification and
sanctification. . . . ' Woe unto you, ye Pharisees, who
pronounce the Holy Name each morning without due
purification ! ' said the Hemerobaptists ; whereupon the
Pharisees sarcastically replied : ' Woe upon you who
pronounce the Holy Name with an organ of the body,
while your body itself is unholy ! ' However, it appears
from Ta'anit 19a and 'Ab. Zarah 18a, that the Essene
saints made use of the Name in their invocations and
miraculous cures, which was afterwards declared to be
a grievous sin (* Sanh./ x. i. ; compare, also ' Book of
Wisdom,' xiv. 21). " l
Now as in all probability Jesus was an Essene, and The Shem
the Essene saints seem in his days to have used the
Shem without let or hindrance, we can only conclude
that the Toldoth accusation of an illegitimate use of the
Shem by Jesus must proceed at earliest from the days
when the Rabbis were more and more jealously guarding
(or even creating) their rights and privileges, that is to
1 See Kohler'B art. " Adonai " in " Jewish Encyclopaedia."
21
322 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
say, from Mishnaic times. It follows, therefore, that
if the Essene saints used the Shem without let or
hindrance, Jesus could not historically have been accused
on this count, and therefore the general charge of
" magic " learned in Egypt must be held to have been
the older form of accusation. And with regard to this,
all that can be said is that it originated in the fact that
Jesus had been to Egypt, the only probable historical
element in the whole matter.
The Fight in The magical fight in the air between Judas and
Jeschu is paralleled not only in the Simonian legends,
where the dramatis personce are Simon Magus and
Simon Peter, but also in the Jerusalem Targum, or
Aramaic translation of the Torah and its accompanying
Midrashim, where we are told that when Phinehas
decided to slay Balaam, the latter on seeing his pursuer
"resorted to witchcraft and flew up in the air, but
Phinehas made use of the Holy Name, seized him by
the head," and slew him with the sword.1
We have already seen that in the Talmud Balaam
is one of the synonyms of Jesus ; is it, then, that here
too in the Targum Balaam stands for Jesus, and that
both Targum and Toldoth depend on a common source
of oral tradition, or was the Targum haggada the origin
of this particular Toldoth element ?
The Hanging Another point of great interest in the Toldoth is that
Cabba«e- Jesus is never said to have been crucified. He is
stalk. stoned or hanged, or first stoned and then hanged,
or hanged in the stoning place. What, further, is the
meaning of the hanging on a miraculous "cabbage-
1 " Targum Yer.," to Num. xxxi. 8 ; see also « Sanh.," 106b. See
Kohler's art. " Balaam " in " Jewish Encyclopaedia."
THE 100 B.C. DATE IN THE TOLDOTH. 323
stalk " ? It is perhaps almost impossible to conjecture
any explanation, but I cannot get rid of the impres
sion that there may have originally been some mystical
tradition behind it, perhaps connected with the " tree
of life," the tree that grows from the " mustard seed,"
connected also with the " dark stalk " which grew in
Eridu, the Hidden Abode of the God of Wisdom, of
the Chaldaean creation-tablet found in the Temple
library of Kuta, dating from the fourth millennium B.C.1 ;
but this is, of course, pure conjecture.
With regard to the casting of the body into a " canal," The "Canal,
it is to be noticed that in some forms of the Toldoth
this canal is given as a public place for refuse. Can
it then possibly be that Jesus was stoned, and his body
hanged on a stake as a warning, according to the legal
regulations of the Torah, and that then the body was
cast out into the common dust-heap of the city ? Who
can conjecture with any historic probability in such a
chaos of legendary fantasy ?
We will now turn our attention to Epiphanius, and
what he has to say concerning the earliest Christians,
and to the riddle he sets us to solve by a hitherto
absolutely unintelligible statement concerning the date
of Jesus.
1 See the " Temples of the Orient" (London ; 1902), p. 85.
XVII.— ON THE TEACKS OF THE EARLIEST
CHRISTIANS.
The Origin IT is very certain that the name " Christian! " was
of the Name , .,, , , „ ,,
Christian. n°t a title given by the early followers of Jesus to
themselves. Indeed, we find it still unused by a series
of Christian writers of the first half of the second
century at a time when it was employed, though per
haps not invariably in its subsequently restricted sense,
by Pliny the Younger in 112 A.D., by Tacitus 116-
117 A.D., and by Suetonius in 120 A.D. These Christian
writers were content to designate the early communities
of their co-believers by such expressions as : " brethren,"
"saints," "elect," "called," "they that believed,"
" faithful," " disciples," " they that are in Christ," " they
that are in the Lord," and " of the way." l
Its Use in the Even in the New Covenant writings which subse
quently became canonical, we meet with the designa
tion only three times, and always in a connection which
suggests that it was a name given from without, and
not as yet adopted from within. The redactor of the
Acts (xi. 29) believed— c. 130-150 A.D.-— that "the
disciples " were first called " Christiani " at Antioch, at
1 See Schmiedel's article " Christian, Name of," in the " Encyclo
paedia Biblica."
TRACKS OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS. 325
the time of the ministry of Paul and Barnabas in that
city, that is, as he supposed, at the time of the founding
of the first Gentile church there.
In the same document (xxvi. 28) we also meet with
the curious remark attributed to Herod Agrippa, which
is translated in the A.V. as : " Almost thou persuadest
me to be a Christian," but the imperfect original of
which is untranslateable 1 ; where it is to be remarked
that although Agrippa was not a pure Jew, it is hardly
to be supposed he would have used such a term.
While in the earlier pseudepigraph I. Peter (iv. 16) In I. Peter,
we read: "But if [any man suffer] as a Christianus,
let him not be ashamed, but let him give glory to God
in this name," it is not clear what precise meaning
should be given to the words " in this name " ; but
certainly the gloss of the A.V. " in this behalf " is not
satisfactory. The followers of Jesus had apparently
hitherto been " ashamed " of being called " Christiani " ;
for the meaning can hardly be that the condemned
should give thanks because he suffers as a Christian in
the later honourable sense of the term, but rather sug
gests some such idea as: We are accused of being
" Messianists," and therefore revolutionaries against the
Roman authority, but in reality it is we who are the
true observers of the moral law; our revolution is in
morals and not in politics, and therefore let us give
thanks to God as His " Anointed " or the " followers of
His Anointed," who are unjustly accused.
In any case it is evident that the title " those of the A Pagan
Messiah" was not given to the followers of Jesus by
1 See Westcott and Hort's Introduction (Cambridge and London ;
1881), p. 100.
326 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
the Jews, for this would have been to admit what they
so strenuously denied concerning the founder of the
new faith. It is, therefore, highly probable that the
name Christiani was first used by the Pagans to signify
Messianists of all kinds, and was only finally adopted
by the followers of Jesus in their public dealings with
the Pagans, presumably first in apologetic literature,
where we find it of frequent occurrence from about the
second quarter of the second century.
Date of As for the time when the Pagan term " Christiani "
ngin' arose, it is to be presumed that it came into use with
the ever more and more desperate attempts of the Jews
to shake off the Eoman yoke, that is to say, subse
quently to the downfall of Jerusalem, which is
generally dated 70 A.D., but which some Jewish
authorities give as 68 A.D. Schmiedel is of opinion that
the date of origin of its use cannot with any assurance
be placed earlier than 79 A.D., that is presumably the
first year of Titus.
An answer to this most obscure question can only be
found from a critical examination of the history of
" Christian " persecutions ; but even so, we are still left
without any certainty. After a searching examination
of the confused data, and a brilliant criticism of the
conservative position of Momrnsen, Sybel, Neumann
and Ramsay, Schmiedel can arrive at no positive con
clusion, and finally writes : " On the question as to the
date at which Christianity first began to be recognized
as a distinct religion, we must confess ourselves com
pletely at a loss. Only this much is certain, that it
had come about before the time of Pliny's governorship."
The Notzrim. But if the Jews did not know the followers of Jesus
TRACKS OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS. 327
as Christian!, by what name did they know them ? To
the Jews the Christians, when not classed under the
general term Minim or heretics, were and are Notzrim.
The writer of the Acts is aware of this when he makes
a Jew accuse Paul of being " a ringleader of the sect
of the Nazarenes " (A.V.) — that is, of the "haeresis of the
Nazorsei " ; and that this was the general designation of
the Christians by the Jews is testified to by Tertullian 1
at the end of the second century, and by Jerome at the
end of the fourth.2 While Justin (c. 145-150 A.D.)
tells us that the Jews in their synagogues publicly
cursed the " Christians," Epiphanius (c. 375 A.D.) says
that this curse was directed against the " Nazoraei."
Jerome, on the contrary, will have it that the curse was
pronounced against the Minsei 3 ; whereas, as we have
frequently remarked before, Minim is not to be taken
as identical with Notzrim. Minim is a general term for
heretics, not only in a bad but even in a good sense, and
Notzrim would therefore come under the term but not
be identical with it.
It is therefore of interest to try to discover, if it be
possible, the meaning of this term Notzrim, and to find
out why it was that Jesus is generally distinguished
among the Jews from others of the same name as
Jeschu ha-Notzri.
1 " Adv. Marc.," 48.
2 Hier., in Jes. ch. v. 18 f. ; xlix. 7 ; lii. 5.
3 Hieron., " Epist. ad August." : " There is to-day among the Jews
throughout all the synagogues of the East a heresy which is
called [the heresy] of the Minoei, and is even until this day
cursed by the Pharisees ; these Minaeans are commonly called
Nazoraans, and they believe in Christ, the Son of God. . . . But
while they will be both Jews and Christians, they are neither Jews
nor Christians."
328 DID JESUS LIVE 10() B.C. ?
The^Meaning The accepted Christian tradition, it need hardly be
said, is that Jesus Nazorseus means simply Jesus of
Nazareth, his place of origin. It is, however, well
known to all scholars that very great difficulties
are presented by the contradictory statements of the
canonical accounts, and that so far no generally
accepted ground of reconciliation between the rival
claims of the traditional Nazareth and the prophetically
necessitated Bethlehem has been found.
There is, however, one hypothesis whereby much of
the pressure may be relieved, and which is therefore
deserving of our closest attention. In the first place
it is to be noticed that even in the canonical account
there is still preserved the very interesting trace that
Nazareth was regarded by some as the " native country "
(Trar/o/?), not town, of Jesus ; and in the second it has
lately been argued, not only that Nazareth (or, perhaps,
more correctly Nazara) was not a town or village, but
a district or country, but, further, most probably this
district was Galilee.1
Bethlehem- It is therefore suggested that perhaps in the earliest
form of the evangelical tradition the term Bethlehem-
Nazareth — that is, Bethlehem of (or in) Galilee — was
found, and that this being misunderstood, especially by
Gentile converts, in course of time some said that
Jesus was born at Bethlehem, others at Nazareth.
We thus find in the more developed forms of the
tradition some incidents woven round Bethlehem,
others round Nazareth, and scriptural authority was
sought to authenticate either view.
1 See Cheyne's article, " Nazareth," in the " Enc. Bib., " which
elaborates the theory first mooted by the great Jewish authority Grtitz.
BRACKS OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS. 329
May it not, however, be that the whole idea of
Bethlehem owed its origin to the "proof from scrip
ture " ? Bethlehem was necessitated by " prophecy " ; l
it must have been the place of birth, for in those days,
if history did not fit with prophecy it had to go to the
wall. Although, then, the prophecy-fulfilling writer of
the first gospel could not have dreamed of giving up the
prophetical Bethlehem, nevertheless he inconsistently
supports the presumably simple historical Nazareth
tradition by further prophecy when saying (ii. 23) : " He
came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might
be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, he shall
be called a Nazareiie (Nazorseus)." This passage, as is
well known, has given rise to endless discussion, for no
such prophecy is to be found in the Old Testament.
Some earlier commentators, it is true, were of opinion
that it refers to the prophetical " shoot " (netzer) which
should arise out of Jesse (Isaiah xi. 1) ; and that this
was the explanation put forward by Jewish Christians
of the early centuries may be seen from the Talmud
passage concerning the five disciples. It must, how
ever, be confessed that a so far-fetched derivation of
the name appears little short of fantastic to the modern
mind, and quite beneath the dignity of Scripture.2
The whole of this apparently hopeless tangle, how- Nazareth:
Galilee.
1 "Micah," v. 2 : " But tliou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou
be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee there shall
come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel."
2 Krauss (pp. 253-255) suggests the derivation of Nazareth from
a word meaning "splinter" or "chip," and in this, apparently,
would find a reason for the use of the term Jeachu ha-Notzri
among the Jews, it being a play on the word " carpenter.'' See also
Cheyne's art. " Joseph " (§ 9) in " Enc. Bib."
330 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
ever, begins to unravel itself if we can be persuaded
that the simple historical fact was that Jesus was a
Galilean ; whether so-called because he was actually
born in Galilee, or because the chief scene of his public
ministry was among that very mixed population, and
many of his earliest followers were Galileans,1
here matters little. We know further from several
sources that the Christians were originally called
Galileans,2 and it is said that Julian the Emperor (360-
363 A.D.) desired to have them so called again, and in
his own writings he invariably refers to them under
this designation.
The Galileans. Does, then, the general term Notzrim used by the Jews
for the Christians mean simply Galileans, and did Jeschu
ha-Notzri originally signify simply Jesus of Galilee ?
The In any case we see that, according to the writer of
" Nazoraeans /*••*• T-. i
or Chris- the Acts, the Christians of Paul s time were called
Nazoraei (Notzrim) by the Jews, and we have also the
emphatic declaration of Epiphanius that the earliest
followers of Jesus were so designated. In his encyclo
paedic " Panarium," in which he most vigorously attacks
all heresies, that is, every form of religious belief, or
even philosophy, but what he held to be the true
teaching of Christianity, the Bishop of Constantia (the
ancient Salamis) in Cyprus heads the concluding para-
1 See Acts i. 11 and ii. 7. Justin Martyr ("Dial. c. Tryph.,"
Ixxx.), moreover, knows of a pre-Christian sect called Galileans,
which, however, most scholars identify with the followers of the
Zealot Judas the Galilean, who led a revolt in 6 or 7 A.D.
2 For instance, Epictetus, who died about 117 A.D., calls the
Christians Galileans (" Dissertatt.," iv. 7); Mani, in the third
century, calls the general Christians Galileans (Fabricius, "Bib.
Greec.," v. 285) ; Suidas (s.v. " Christiani ") says that the Christians
were first called Nazarenes or Galileans.
TRACKS OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS. 331
graph of his first volume, " Concerning the Nazorseans
or Christians " (" Haar.," xx. 4).
It is somewhat difficult to make out the precise
sense of this paragraph ; for Epiphanius first of all
again identifies the Nazoraeans and Christians, and then
goes on to speak of " that which was for a short time
called Christianism by the Jews, and by the Apostles
themselves, when Peter says 'Jesus Nazoneus,' etc."
(quoting from Acts ii. 22), where we should expect to
read, instead of " Christianism," " Nazoraeanism," for
he continues : " but was first called Christianism at
Antioch." This was the true religion, but under an
improper name, for " there is properly a heresy of the
Nazoraei," about which he promises to tell us in its
right place in the sequel.
When, however, he comes to deal with these heretical
Nazoraeans (" Hser.," xxix. 1), he confesses that he does
not really know exactly where to place them, whether
before, or contemporary with, or later than some early
schools of the end of the first century which he has just
been attacking ; he says they were all of about the
same date and held the same views. They do not call
themselves after the name Christus or Jesus, but
simply Nazoraei, and, he adds, " all Christians were at
that time in like fashion called Nazoraei." For a short
time, however, the Christians also called themselves
Jessseans (lessaei). Whence this name was derived,
whether from Jesse, the father of David, or from the
name Jesus, which, Epiphanius says, signifies in
Hebrew the same as the Greek " Therapeutes," or
" healer " or " saviour," he is not sure, but he is very
certain they were so called (" Haer.," xxix. 4).
332 DID JEStTS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Whether or not in this, as in much else of his vast
heresiological undertaking, the Bishop of Constantia is
giving us the speculations of his own " pure phantasy,"
based on vague hearsay, as Lipsius supposes,1 or that
more credit is to be given to his confusing indications,
as Hilgenfeld seems to admit,2 has not yet been definitely
decided by modern scholarship. We are, therefore, at
liberty to enquire for ourselves, not with any hope of
deciding the question, for any attempt to do so would
require a huge volume even for preliminaries, but with
the sole purpose of directing the reader's attention to
some points of special interest in the confused Kefuta-
tion of the over-zealous Church Father.
Value of Epiphanius is a curious writer, who deserves more
Epiphanius.
attention than has so far been bestowed upon him, and
it is somewhat a reproach to scholarship that as yet
he has never been translated into any modern tongue.
He attacks indiscriminately, and often misrepresents,
every school of thought and belief of which he has read
or heard ; yet here and there, in spite of himself, he lets
drop a valuable scrap of information which none of his
predecessors in heresy -hunting have handed on to us.
We should remember that this " antidote " to the " poison
of the hydra-headed serpents of error," as he is never
tired of calling the objects of his onslaught, was com
posed from 374 to 376 or 377 A.D., that is to say, just
half a century after the initial triumph of Nicene Chris
tianity, and as far as Epiphanius was concerned, he was
1 Lipsius (R. A.), "Zur Quellenkritik des Epiphanies" (Wien ;
1865), pp. 122-151.
~ Hilgenfeld (A.), " Die Ketzergeschichte des Urchristenthums "
(Leipzig ; 1884), index, s. vocc. Jesssei, Osseni, Nazoraei, etc.
TRACKS OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS. 333
determined that no mercy should be shown to any
dissenter, even though his dissent may have been ab
solutely unconscious, seeing that most of Epiphanius'
''dissenters" had lived and thought at a date when
Nicene Christianity was either inchoate, or even non
existent. The rush of Epiphanius is so furious that
we find him not unfrequently over-reaching himself;
he sometimes even blindly blunders into his own
friends and disarrays their ranks. The "mistakes" of
Epiphanius are accordingly nearly always of deep
psychological interest directly, and indirectly are
sometimes of great historical value.
Thus there is much to interest us in what is gene- The Thera-
rally considered to be his Issaean blunder. Epiphanius peL
identifies his Issaeans with the Essenes, and of this
there can be no doubt, for he tells the " studious reader "
("Haer.," xxix. 5), that if he would know more about them,
he will find it in the memoirs of Philo, and especially in
the book which that famous Alexandrian had en
titled " Concerning the Issaei " ; after which Epiphanius
proceeds to give the main outlines of this treatise in
such a way as to leave no doubt that he is quoting
from Philo's famous tractate, " On the Contemplative
Life." In this treatise it is true that Philo calls the
very interesting community which had its monasteria
on the southern shore of Lake Mareotis, south of
Alexandria, as well as all their allied communities in
Egypt and elsewhere, Therapeuts ; but in his opening
words he distinctly informs us that he had already,
presumably in another tractate now lost,1 treated of
1 For what he tells us of them in hiw tract, " Quod Oinuis Probus
Liber," one of his earlier works, most probably written before
334 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
the " Esssei who followed the practical life," the com
munities in Palestine and Arabia, who in Philo's
opinion did not soar to such a lofty height of philo
sophic and mystic endeavour as the members of the
community near Alexandria with which he was
specially acquainted, and which he characterized as
" those of the Esssei who devote themselves to the life of
contemplation." l
The Name It is, therefore, held that Epiphanius has simply read
Esssei as Isssei, and that this explains the whole diffi
culty. Now it is well known that the name Essene is
one of the greatest puzzles of scholarship ; upwards of
twenty derivations have been given by ancient and
modern writers, and the riddle still remains unsolved.
The greatest difficulty is that we cannot find any
general term, or even special term, in use in Hebrew or
Aramaic for those whom such Hellenized Jews as Philo
and Josephus call Essenes. Philo calls them " Esssei."
Pliny the Elder (|79 A.D.) speaks of them as "Hes-
senes," while Josephus (75-100 A.D.) gives the name
as " Esseni." 2 Philo, in " Q. 0. P. L.," thinks that the
name Essaioi is simply a (? Jewish) corruption of the
Greek 'Osioi, the saints, while in " D. V. C." he makes it
equivalent to Therapeuts, that is, Healers, or Servants
(of God).
20 A.D., can be regarded only as a summary from some lost
treatise.
1 See my" Fragments of a Faith Forgotten" (London ; 1900), pp.
66-86, where a translation is given from the critical text published
by Conybeare in 1895.
2 For the most objective article on the general subject, see
Conybeare's article in Hastings' "Dictionary of the Bible 3; (Edin
burgh ; 1898).
TRACKS OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS. 335
Epiphanius, as we have already seen, follows Philo The Mind of
and adopts the latter derivation, but why he has
changed Essaei into Issyei is the puzzle. The Bishop of
Salamis knew some Hebrew ; was it, then, because he
thought that Issaei was the preferable transliteration of
the Hebrew original, if, indeed, there was a Hebrew
original ? Or was it that, having claimed these
Essseans as the first Christians, as he emphatically does
(" Hser.," xxix. 5), he found himself in great difficulty to
account for the name, as it evidently, on the face of it,
had nothing to do with Jesus, or Christus, or Nazareth,
seeing that he knew its variant was Esseni, which he
plainly gives elsewhere (" Hser.," viii. 9) ? Or can it be
that a light had seemed to have come to him to illumi
nate the dim and puzzling records of the past, and that
it had suddenly occurred to the worthy Bishop: Of
course ! Esssei is a mistake of Philo's for Jesssei, the
followers of Jesus ! Or was it finally that Epiphanius
knew of an ancient tradition which declared that the
Christians originally derived from the Essenes, that
Jesus himself had been an Essene, and that the Church
Father wished to safeguard the doctrinal tradition
now stereotyped by the ecumenical decisions at Nicaaa,
by working into his treatise an argument against this
" heretical " tradition, should it ever have the hardihood
to raise its head again. This supposition may seem to
some to cast a slur on the bona fides of our stalwart
defender of orthodoxy ; but Epiphanius is in all things
a theologian and not a historian, and the canons of
evidence for these two very different classes of mind
are generally poles asunder. Moreover, we shall have
to show that in several other instances Epiphanius has
336 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
for similar reasons dextrously woven into his expositions
material of a very different pattern from that of the
Catholic tradition, and even with regard to the name
Isssei it may be that it hides an ancient trace of deep
interest, as we shall see later on in another connection.
The Issaei of Apart from this, however, it is by no means improbable
that the name Isssei was not original with Epiphanius,
for Abbot Nilus, the renowned ascetic of Sinai, who had
previously enjoyed a high reputation at Constantinople,
and retired to one of the famous monasteries of the
mysterious region of Sinai and Serbal in 390, and died
in 430, speaks of the Issaei and says that they were the
Jewish philosophers and ascetics who were originally
followers of the Kechabite Jonadab.1
Did, then, Nilus get this form of the name from
Epiphanius, or did Epiphanius obtain it from the same
source as Nilus ? It is not improbable that among
such monastic communities as those on Sinai and
Serbal, and others with which Epiphanius had come
into contact during his travels in Egypt, such a
name-theory had been canvassed, may even have
been a tradition necessitated in the first place by the
same difficulties which Epiphanius had to face.
The "Thera- It must also be remembered that the Bishop of Con-
tkn'~Contro- stantia was not the first to claim the Essene-Therapeuts
versy. oj phjjo as foe earliest Christians. Already, some fifty
years previously, we find Eusebius in his " Church
History " boldly declaring that these Therapeuts south of
Alexandria were the first Christian Church in Egypt,
1 " Tractatus de Monastica Exercitatione," c. iii. ; " S. P. N. Nili
Abbatis Opera quae supersunt," in Migne's " Patrologiae Cursus Com-
pletus, Patrol, groec.," torn Ixxix. (Paris ; 1860), vol. i. col. 722.
TRACKS OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS. 337
which Photius asserts later was founded by Mark. We
have no space to trace the history of the fierce battle
between Catholic and Protestant which has raged round
this famous tract of Philo's because of this claim made
by the Father of Church History, and the Philologus, or
studious reader, as Epiphanius calls him, must be re
ferred to Conybeare's magnificent and exhaustive work
on the subject l ; I can only repeat what I have
already written in my " Fragments " (pp. 64, 65), after
reviewing the whole matter.
It is convincingly established against the " Pseudo-
Philo" speculation of Griitz, Nicolas and Lucius, that
the " Be Vita Conternplativa " is a genuine Philonean
tract. As to its date, we are confronted with some diffi
culties ; but the expert opinion of Conybeare assures us
that " every reperusal of the works of Philo confirms my
feeling that the ' D. V. C.' is one of his earliest works " *
(op. cit.y p. 276). Now as Philo was born about the
year 30 B.C., the date of the treatise may be roughly
ascribed to the first quarter of the first century;
Conybeare puts it conservatively "about the year 22
or 23 " (op. cit., p. 290).
The question, then, naturally arises : At such a date can The
the Therapeuts of Philo be identified with the earliest Dilemma.
Christian Church at Alexandria ? If the accepted dates
of the origins are correct, the answer must be emphati
cally, No. If, on the contrary, the accepted dates are
incorrect, and Philo's Therapeuts were " Christians," then
we shall be compelled to change the values of many things.
1 Conybeare (F. C.), " Philo about the Contemplative Life, or the
Fourth Book of the Treatise concerning the Virtues," critically
edited, with a Defence of its Genuineness (Oxford ; 1895).
22
338 DIB JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
But apart from the question of date, the contents
of the " D. V. C." are of immense importance and interest
as affording us a glimpse into those mysterious com
munities in which Christians for so many centuries
recognized not only their forerunners, but themselves.
The Therapeuts, however, were clearly not Christians
in any sense in which the term has been used by dog
matic Christianity ; Philo knows absolutely nothing of
Christianity in any sense in which the word is used
to-day. Who, then, were those Christian non-Christian
Essene Therapeuts ? The answer to this question
demands, in our opinion, an entire reformulation of the
accepted history of the origins.
The dilemma is one that cannot be avoided. It is
chief of all problems which confront the student of
Christian origins. The Therapeuts have been recognized
throughout the centuries as identical with the earliest
Christian Church of Egypt. They were known to Philo
at the very latest as early as 25 A.D., and they must
have existed long before. If the canonical dates are
correct, they could not have been Christians, in the
sense of being followers of Jesus ; and yet they were
so like the Christians, that the Church Fathers re
garded them as the model of a Christian Church. We
are, therefore, confronted with this dilemma ; either
Christianity existed before Christ, or the canonical
dates are wrong. From this dilemma there seems to me
to be no escape.
The Name- Having, then, claimed the Essseans of Philo as early
Epfphamus. Christians, and having, as most assume, though perhaps
erroneously, changed their name to t Jessseans appa
rently to clinch the matter, Epiphanius finds himself
TRACKS OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS. 339
involved in a very great difficulty. What Philo tells us
of the contemplative Essaeans or Therapeuts is so similar
to what the Christians conceived their earliest com
munities to have been, that the identification of the one
with the other amounted for them to a certainty. On
the other hand, Epiphanius knows from Philo and other
sources that there were many things in which the Essaei
differed from not only the Mcene Christianity of his
day, but from any type of Christianity in canonical
tradition. Moreover, the Essaeans were still in exis
tence, and had their own traditions, as we shall see
later on, and Epiphanius knows something of the
various " heresies " which still represented some of their
teachings. The difficulty, therefore, which faced him
was that these Essaeans were not Christians in any
Nicene sense.
Knowing, then, that Josephus, as we have seen, gives
(perhaps erroneously) Esseni as a variant of Essaei,
Epiphanius hit upon the idea that the Esseni were
different from the Essaei, and as he had converted Essaei
into the orthodox Issaei, so he changed Esseni into
Osseni, and kept this form for all characteristics of the
Essenes which he held to be pre-Christian or heretical.
Even so Epiphanius cannot straighten out the matter,
for in his Introduction ("Hser.," viii. 9) he tells us that the
" Esseni " were the first heresy of the Samaritans, this
being the only passage in which he uses the Josephean
form of the name; he, however, says nothing further
of these Esseni. It must, moreover, be confessed
that our Cyprian Bishop is great on this device of name-
change, for he has used it in other matters.
It therefore becomes of great interest to learn what The
340 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Epiphanius has to tell us of his Osseni. In his
" Contra Ossenos " (" Hser.," xix. 1-5), he informs us
that this heresy was interwoven with the heresies of the
Nazarsei (not Nazorsei) — of whom more anon — of the
Daily Baptists : and of the Pharisees, thus classifying
them among pre-Christian sects. The Osseni, he tells
us, were, like these other schools,2 Jews ; but, according
to the tradition which had come to him, they did not
originate in Judaea itself, but came from the regions to
the east, south-east and south of the Dead Sea, mostly
from Moab and Nabathsea; they were largely of
Arabian origin. Are we, then, possibly to seek for the
origin of the name Essene in old Arabic ?
These Osseni, moreover, Epiphanius tells us, among
other things used especially a certain scripture called
the Book or Apocalypse of Elxai, which he elsewhere
("Hser.," liii. et al.) asserts to have been held in high
esteem by the Ebionseans and Nazorseans, and especially
by the Sampsseans, who, he says, are neither Christians,
nor Jews, nor Greeks, but as they are midway between
all of these, they are nothing. Here Epiphanius makes
his Osseni heretical Christians or even still non-
Christians. It, therefore, becomes of importance to
learn what were the leading ideas of this Elxai scripture,
but to this interesting subject we must devote a
separate chapter.
The Nazor#i. We will next pass to what Epiphanius has to tell us
of the Nazoreei (" Hser.," xxix. 1-9). After declaring that
1 Called Masbotheans by Hegesippus (Mazbutlia = Baptism). See
Bousset, " Die Religion des Judentums," p. 437 n.
2 The Pharisees, however, were not a school or a sect, but rather
the national religious party among the Jews.
TRACKS OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS. 341
in the early days the Christians were all called
Nazorseans, although for a short time they also bore
the name Jessyeans, Epiphanius enters into a very curious
and deeply interesting digression on the Davidic descent
of Jesus, which we shall treat in detail later on, and he
then proceeds to tell us that Paul himself was accused
of being a Nazorsean and acknowledged the title, con
fessing, moreover, that in the eyes of the Jews he was
a heretic (Min) ; in all of which Epiphanius is, of course,
only repeating the words of the writer of the Acts
(xxiv. 5, 12-14).
According to Epiphanius, the Nazoreeans were
practically Jewish Christians, that is to say, Christians
who still observed the Jewish Law ; he is, however, not
certain what their views were as to Jesus, whether they
took the miraculous view of his birth and worshipped him
as God, or regarded him as a simple man who became a
prophet. It was against these Nazoraeans, that is to
say, the Christians who remained on the ground of
Judaism, he tells us, that the Jews in their synagogues
used to pronounce the curse to which reference has
already been made, and which his contemporary Jerome
assures us was directed against the Minsei (Minim).
These Nazoroeans, even in Epiphanius' time, were The Flight to
numerous, and were scattered throughout Coele-Syria,
Decapolis, Fella, the region beyond Jordan, and extended
even as far east as Mesopotamia. And in this connec
tion, he declares that the sect of the Nazorseans took its
rise in and about Pella in Peraaa after the fall of Jeru
salem, for he will have it that the disciples, in reliance
on a prophecy of Jesus, had fled thither to avoid the
siege ; this is, of course, the Eusebian account as well,
342 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
but neither of these Fathers seem to have considered
that it says little for the courage or patriotism of the
disciples that they fled; nor does Epiphanius explain
why, if the " heresy " of the Nazorseans began only
subsequently to 70 A.D., Paul was called a Nazoraean
a generation earlier.
Towards the But indeed our heresiologist is ever involving himself
Facts of the . x_ .
Case. in serious contradictions concerning these Nazoraei, for
while on the one hand he makes them out to differ
from the Catholic Christians only in their continued ad
herence to the Jewish Law, he elsewhere says that they
in many things hold the same views as the Cerinthians,
Ebionites, Sampsaaans and Elkesaeans, all of whom he
most bitterly attacks because they did not acknow
ledge Jesus as God, but said that he was either simply a
good man, or a man filled with the Holy Spirit of God,
or that the Christ was the Great Power, or Great King ;
in brief they taught the natural birth of Jesus and
the doctrine of the mystic Christ, and not the later
historicized dogma finally made absolute by the Council
of Nicsea.
The historical fact underlying all this contradic
tion seems to be simply that " Nazorsei " was a general
name for many schools possessing many views differing
from that view which subsequently became orthodox.
Most of them still remained more or less on the ground
of Judaism, but what is of the greatest importance is
that they were the direct followers of those earliest
Nazorsei of which, according to the tradition of the Acts.
Paul was accused of being a leader.
That the tradition (or rather traditions, for they were
many and various) of the Nazoraei differed very widely
TRACKS OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS. 343
from any form of Christianity known to canonical tradi
tion, may be seen even in our own day from the complex
scripture of their still existent descendants in the
marches of Southern Babylonia, the so-called Mandaites,
from whose Codex Nasarseus we have already quoted a
few pregnant sentences ; but the Genzci, is a vast store
house of mixed traditions of all kinds, to which, unfor
tunately, we have no space to refer in our present
undertaking.
Epiphanius, as we have seen, is greatly put to it to Nazoraan
extricate himself from the many difficulties which have ScnPtures-
puzzled many far wiser heads than his own. He feels
compelled, on evidence which was doubtless far fuller
in his day than it is in ours, to hold to the Nazorseans
as the first Christians, and will have it that they used
both the Old and New Testament (xxix. 7), though how
the earliest Christians could have used the New Testa
ment, when it was not yet in existence, he does not
explain; they differed from the Catholic Christians
only in so far that they observed the Jewish Law, the
Sabbath and circumcision, the rite of the Covenant;
but if so, it is strange that Epiphanius could be so
careless as to say they used the New Testament, when
so much of it is occupied with the Letters of Paul, who
so strenuously withstood circumcision and the " letter
(or Law) which killeth."
These Nazorai, Epiphanius tells us, were exceedingly The Hebrew
learned in Hebrew, and all their writings apparently GosPel-
were in Hebrew (or Aramaic). But when he leaves
the vague ground of the " New Testament " and comes
to documents, he can only name one Gospel which he
claims to have been the Hebrew original of the Gospel
344 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
according to Matthew, a book which was known to his
contemporary Jerome, and a copy of which was in the
Library founded by Pamphilus at Caesarea.
It is impossible here to enter into the history of the
puzzling controversy concerning this " Gospel of the
Nazoraeans," or to determine whether the Hebrew
(or Aramaic) Gospel according to Matthew, which is
referred to by Epiphanius and Jerome, and which the
latter translated into Greek and Latin, but kept back
because its striking divergences from canonical Matthew
were not profitable to disclose, was different from the
" Gospel according to the Hebrews," of which a Greek
translation is known to have existed in the early
years of the second century. Hilgenfeld holds that
the Nazoraean Gospel (according to the Hebrews)
was different from the Hebrew Gospel according to
Matthew l ; while Lipsius, on the contrary, maintains
that the two titles refer to one and the same document.2
Ancient The criticism of the question introduces us to a
complicated problem of recensions, translations and
retranslations, but in any case we are face to face
with such readings as "Joseph begat Jesus," and the
positive command, " Call me not * Good/ " both of which
infer a gospel-form which rejected the physical virgin-
birth and the equation of Jesus with God. It is not,
however, to be supposed that the literature of the
Nazoraei, even on the ground of the New Covenant, was
1 Hilgenfeld (A.), " Evangeliorum secundum Hebrseos et cet. quae
supersunt ; Librorum Deperditorum Fragmenta " (Leipzig ; 1884,
2nd ed.), pp. 15 ff., 33 ff.
2 See his article, " Gospels, Apocryphal " (The Gospel of the
Hebrews) in Smith and Wace's " Dictionary of Christian Biog
raphy" (London ; 1880).
TRACKS OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS. 345
confined to this Gospel and the " Book of Elxai " ; on the
contrary there must have been many books used by
them, gospels and apocalypses of all kinds, both
ancient and more recent.
Moreover, in following up the Nazonei, Epiphanius The
gets involved in yet another chronological difficulty,
which he attempts to solve in the same fashion as that
in which he dealt with the Essene problem, namely, by
a distinction in names. The Nazoraai about whom he
has been telling us, are not, he says, to be confused
with the Nazirsei, a term meaning the " Sanctified " or
" Consecrated " (" Hser.," xxix. 5) ; of whom Samson was
one, and many after him, and among them John the
Baptist.
There was, he says, a sect of the Nasaraei before
Christ (" Haer.," xxix. 6) ; these he has already described
(" Haer.," xviii. 1-3). calling them, however, Nazaraei.
He treats of these in connection with the Daily
Baptists, who, like the Essenes and allied communities,
baptized or washed themselves in water every day ; they
were Jews, and lived in the same districts as the Essenes.
They observed the law of circumcision, the Sabbath and
the appointed feasts, and especially reverenced the
ancient patriarchs and sages of Israel, including Moses ;
they however, rejected the canonical Pentateuch, and
said that the real Law was different from the one in
public circulation. They apparently also rejected all the
prophets after Moses. Moreover, they refused to have
anything to do with the blood sacrifices of the Temple
and abstained from eating flesh. They contended that
the books which laid down the rules of these sacrifices
were inventions of later times, and that their true
346 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
ancestors from Adam to Moses did not perform such
bloody rites ; all the accounts of such sacrifice in the
popular scripture were later inventions of scribes who
were ignorant of the true doctrine. These Nazars, then,
were an extreme school of those dissentient mystics
whose sayings had from about 150 B.C. crept into the
books which subsequently became canonical, such
sayings as : " The sacrifices of God are a broken
spirit " ; " Sacrifices and offering Thou didst not
desire."
This spiritual protest against the grossness of blood-
offerings was also a characteristic of the Essenes ; and
there can be little doubt but that there must have been
a very close connection between the ideals of these pre-
Christian schools of mystic and humanitarian Judaism
and the earliest Christians.
The Nazirs. The bringing of the names Nazonei and Nazaraei
(and its variants) into such close connection, however,
is puzzling. The Old Testament Nazirs were those
" consecrated " to Yahweh by a vow, and their origin
goes back to very early times in Jewish tradition.
Now it is to be remarked that in Numbers vi. the word
nezer is applied to the taking of the Nazirite vow of
separation or consecration.1 Knowing as we do how
fond the Hebrews, and, for a matter of that, all the
ancients, were of word-play, for philology proper was
as yet undreamed of, and finding as we do that the
name netzer (" branch ") is given to one of the disciples
of Jesus in the Talmud,2 and in one of the Toldoth
1 See Cheyne's (Robertson Smith's) article " Nazarite " in the
"Enc. Bib."
2 " Bab. Sanhedrin," 43a.
TRACKS OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS. 347
recensions to Jeschu himself, and that commentators are
agreed that this is a play on notzri, the Hebrew for
" Nazarene " (or Galilean, if our previous argument
holds good) ; knowing further that some of the earliest
followers of Jesus were Galileans, and that the Jews
despised all Galileans in general as ignorant people,
can it not be possible that some other of the earliest
disciples of Jesus were Nazirs, in the later sense of the
term, for the Talmud and Toldoth acknowledge that
some of the disciples were learned men ? It is, we
admit, impossible at this late date to throw any certain
light on this chaos of conflation of names, but it is not
illegitimate to have asked the question.
It may of course be doubted whether there was an The Neo
order of Nazarites contemporary with Jesus ; never
theless Epiphanius distinctly tells us that the mystics
and ascetics of whom he is speaking, went back to
pre-Christian times, and rejected the sacrificial and
priestly views of the Ezra-Nehemiah redaction of the
Torah. They are thus apparently to be associated
with those who sought to revive the ancient " schools of
the prophets," and who did revive them in a very
remarkable fashion, as we know from the apocalyptic
literature of the period. Such men would naturally
have looked back to the Nazirs of old as an ideal, for
"from allusions in Amos (ii. 11 if.) we are led to
suppose that at one time they (the Nazirs) had an
importance — perhaps even an organization — parallel to
that of the prophets." l
These Nazarites of Amos have also a parallel with The
the ancient Eechabites, a name which in later times
1 See Cheyne's article, sup. cit.
348 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
became synonymous with ascetic,1 and the early writer
Hegesippus tells us expressly (cup. Euseb., " H. E.," ii. 23),
that "one of the priests of the Sons of Rechab, the
son of Rechabim, who are mentioned by Jeremiah the
prophet," protested against the murder of James the
Just, the " brother of the Lord."
We have already also seen that Nilus asserts that
the Issaei derived their descent from Jonadab the
Rechabite, and though we have not space here to go
into the matter as thoroughly as we could wish, we can
at least see that all these scattered indications hang
together, and point to the existence of numerous pre-
Christian ascetic communities, who were closely inter
woven with the origins of Christianity.
The Moreover, the great mythic hero of the Nazirs was
Sampson (LXX.) or Samson, a name derived from SMS
(Heb. Shemesh, Chald. Samas), or the Sun.2 This at
once brings us back to Epiphanius and his Sampsaeans.
We have already seen that the Bishop of Constantia, in
speaking of the Nazirsei (" Haer./' xxix. 5), knew that
Samson was the great hero of these Nazirs, and yet he
fails entirely to understand the significance of the
hero's name. And this is strange, for after telling us
(" Haer.," liii. 1-2) that the Sampsseans are to be found in
the same regions as the Essenes and Nazoraeans, and
that they were also called Elkesaei, of whom we shall
treat later on, he goes on to say that Sampssei means
Heliaci, that is to say Solares (Children or Worshippers
1 See Bennett's article " Rechab, Rechabites" in Hastings' " Diet,
of the Bible."
2 See Budde's article " Samson " in Hastings' " Diet, of the
Bible."
TRACKS OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS. 349
of the Sun). The Osseni, Ebionsei and Nazoraei, he
repeats, all use the " Book of Elxai," and especially the
Sampsseans, or as we should prefer to take it, one of
the books they all used was this apocalypse.
They were sun-worshippers ; not, however, in the gross Sun-
sense in which Epiphanius would have us understand
the term, but presumably in the same sense as the
Therapeuts were sun-worshippers, who, as Philo tells us,
" twice a day, at dawn and even, are accustomed to
offer up prayers ; as the sun rises praying for the sun
shine, the real sunshine, that their minds may be filled
with heavenly light, and as it sets praying that their
soul, completely lightened of the lust of the senses and
sensations, may withdraw to its own congregation and
council-chamber, there to track out truth." 1
Their teacher was not, as Epiphanius would have it,
a man called Elxaios, but some Great Power, as we
shall see later on, and those who were illumined were
said to be " kin to Him " and born of the " blessed seed."
This reminds us forcibly of the Mind or Shepherd of
Men in the Trismegistic treatises, and of much else.
This " Mind of all-mastership," was the Father of the
children or disciples in whom the Logos had come to
birth ; in other words, who had become " Christs." And
Epiphanius tells us that the Sampsseans and the rest
would gladly lay down their lives for any of this " race
of Elxai " ; moreover, those of this race were believed to
have the power of miraculous healing.
Epiphanius further informs us that the Sampsseans Their Mystic
would not receive the prophets and apostles (presumably ]
of Petrine and Pauline Christianity), and that they
1 Phil, " D. V. C.,'; P. 893, M. 475.
350 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
used the term Christus with a signification at variance
with that of the later Mcene belief. Epiphanius can
not understand the symbolism of these Children of the
Sun, and makes a great hash of it ; but it seems to have
been simple enough. The positive and negative aspects
of the Divine Logos were symbolized by the Sun (or
Fire) and Water, the Light and Life. The Christ and
his sister, or spouse, the Holy Spirit or the Sophia
(Wisdom), were the dual Son of God, the true Man.
Those who had reached the consciousness of their atone
ment with this sexless Man, were Christs or Anointed.
The true spiritual body of the Christ they termed the
" Body of Adam," the garment which was left behind
in Paradise, when the soul descended, and which it will
put on again when it returns triumphant as the Victor ;
of all of which in this and every other connection
Epiphanius appears not to have had the least notion,
for he can only ridicule or denounce it.
The We next pass on to the Ebionseans or Ebionites, whom
Ebionites. ~ , . ,., . , . . , . , , . , -,11
we find in Epiphanius inextricably interwoven with the
Nazoraeans and allied sects. The Bishop of Constantia
apostrophizes with great vigour a certain Ebion, whom
he imagines, as did his predecessors in heresiology, to
have been the founder of this widespread heresy. He
proceeds to confute this " serpent " at great length by
the very simple process of quoting from the canonical
books of the New Testament, which of course the good
Father held to constitute an infallible historical record,
against which there was no appeal. Epiphanius, like
his patristic predecessors, has, of course, not the slightest
appreciation of the position of these early " heretics,"
and begs the whole question with that superb confidence
TRACKS OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS. 351
which has ever characterized the defenders of Catholi
cism. The position of the followers of these early
schools, however, was precisely that they depended upon
a tradition which they claimed to be earlier than that of
the canonical view; it was an appeal to history, and
history has so far never answered the appeal, history's
voice has been drowned by the passionate rhetoric of
theologians.
The name Ebionsei (Heb. Ebionirn) meant simply The "Poor."
" Poor," and did not derive from an imaginary eponymous
Ebion, as has been now for many years admitted by
scholars of every school. Ebion is a myth begotten of
the rhetoric of patristic polemics. So much is certain ;
but who the " Poor " originally were, and why they
were so called, is one of the innumerable conundrums
with which the sphinx of the Christian origins confronts
the critical (Edipus.
Already we find Paul in his Letter to the Galatians The Riddle of
(ii. 10) referring to the "poor" in such a way that the Name-
Hilgenfeld takes the term as a general designation of
the early Christian communities and not simply the
poor of the church of the " pillars " at Jerusalem.1 We
also find the writer of the third Gospel using among
his "sources" a form of the Sayings which are held
to be of a distinctly " Ebionite " character, that is
to say, containing such unqualified declarations as
" Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God "
(Luke vi. 20), a dark saying, not only for us, but also
for the writer of the first Gospel, or his Logia " source,"
which gives it as " Blessed are the poor in spirit "
(Matt. v. 3), where rw Trvev/jLari has all the appearance
1 Hilgenfeld, " Ketzergeschichte," p. 422.
352 DIB JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
of being a gloss, unless we accept Jerome's interpretation
(in loc.), " those who on account of the Holy Spirit are
voluntarily poor " ; in which case it might be regarded
as the original form of the Saying, and hence as ad
dressed to the members of an already formed com
munity; for the usual interpretation of the Catholic
Fathers, that the phrase is a periphrasis for " humble,"
would be a brusque departure from the simple wording
of the rest of the Sayings of the same category.
But even so, if the more elaborate form is the original,
it is difficult to explain why the writer of the third
Gospel should have dropped the qualifying rw 7n/eu'/xcm,
a phrase by no means easy of translation, unless it be the
literal rendering of some Hebrew or Aramaic idiom.
If, on the contrary, the simple " poor " is the original
form, the idea of a community of Poor cannot be enter
tained, and we must rather attribute it to some dark
saying of the Master preserved by those who falsely
imagined that He was preaching some social revolution of
poor against rich, for a Master of Wisdom could certainly
not have preached that the mere fact of poverty was
a virtue, and the mere fact of riches a condemnation.
In our present lack of reliable data it is, then, use
less to speculate as to the origin of the name Ebioriite ;
this much we know, that later on those who were so
called were not necessarily poor, though some of them
were voluntarily Poor ; " naked they sought the Naked,"
as the Gymnosophist of Upper Egypt is reported to
have told Apollonius in the first century.1
The Twofold The point, however, which has proved of greatest
Ebionism
Hypothesis. i See my " Apollonius of Tyana, the Philosopher-Keformer of the
First Century" (London ; 1902), p. 100.
TRACKS OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS. 353
difficulty in all research into this puzzling question of
the Ebionaeans, is that while Irenaeus, about 180 A.D.,
knows only of one kind of Ebionites (" Kef.," i. 22), those
who assert that Jesus was born a man as all men, and
who reject Paul ; on the contrary Origen (" C. Cels.," v.
61.), towards the middle of the third century, speaks of
two kinds of Ebionites, both those who say that Jesus
was a man, and those who believe in the virgin-birth,
as also does Eusebius at the beginning of the fourth
century ("H. E.," iii. 27). Accordingly innumerable
hypotheses have been put forward, and attempts made
to divide and subdivide the Ebionites, ever since the
"Tubingen school" maintained that in them we had
the remnants of original Apostolic Christianity ; there
is, however, no agreement among the authorities.
Perhaps of all the distinctions drawn between the
Ebionites, the attempt to separate them by a supposed
chronological canon, and to speak of " Ebionism proper "
and " Gnostic Ebionism," l is the most misleading, for,
as is invariably the case, the comparative lateness of
" Gnosticism " is assumed as a firmly-established fact
for all questions of Church History. But the fond pre
sumption of the later Church Fathers that the Church
remained a " pure virgin " uncontaminated by " heresy "
until the reign of Trajan, is no longer to be maintained
in face of the testimony of Paul, our earliest witness
to the existence of the Faith.
As I have already stated elsewhere,2 Gnosticism, is The Early
Date of
Gnosticism,
1 See Fuller's article " Ebionism " in S. and W.'s " Diet, of Christ
Biog."
2 See "Some Notes on the Gnostics " in "The Nineteenth Century"
(Nov. 1902), pp. 822-835.
23
354 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
'not to be confined to the second and part of the third
century ; it was flourishing in the first century as well :
indeed, Christianity seems to have been in contact with
communities of a Gnostic character from its very
beginnings. Setting aside the hotly-debated point
whether Jesus himself was a member of one of the
Essene communities, there is very little doubt that
Paul, whose authentic Letters are the earliest historic
records of Christendom, was in some sort of contact
with " Gnostic " ideas. It is generally believed that
the Apostle to the Gentiles was in irreconcilable con
flict with every sort of Gnosticism, because of his
phrase, " Gnosis falsely so called " ; but if so, it is an
extraordinary fact that some of his Letters are filled
with technical terms of the Gnosis, terms which
receive ample, elaborate, and repeated explanation in
Gnostic tradition, but which remain as every-day
words deprived of all technical context in Catholic
hands.
Paul and the To take one instance out of many — one, however,
which, to the writer's knowledge, has not been noticed
before. The Authorized Version renders I. Corinthians
xv. 8 in the famous and familiar words : " And last of
all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due
time." What is the meaning of the graphic but
puzzling " born out of due time," which so many
accept because of its familiar sound without further
question ?
" And last of all, wa-Trepel TM eVr/ow/xa-n, he ap
peared to me also." " And last of all, as to the
t-KTpwfJLa, he appeared to me also." "And last of all
as to ' the abortion,' he appeared to me also." Notice
TRACKS OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS. 355
the article, " as to the abortion," not " as to an
abortion," l
Now " the abortion " is a technical and oft-repeated
term of one of the great systems of the Gnosis, a term
which enters into the main fabric of the Sophia-
mythus.
In the mystic cosmogony of these Gnostic circles, The
" the abortion " was the crude matter cast out of the
Pleroma or world of perfection. This crude and chaotic
matter was in the cosmogonical process shaped into a
perfect "aeon'' by the World-Christ; that is to say,
was made into a world-system by the ordering or
cosmic power of the Logos. " The abortion " was the
unshaped and unordered chaotic matter which had
to be separated out, ordered and perfected, in the
macrocosmic task of the "enformation according to
substance," while this again was to be completed on the
soteriological side by the microcosmic process of the
" enformation according to gnosis " or spiritual con
sciousness. As the world-soul was perfected by the
World-Christ, so was the individual soul to be perfected
and redeemed by the individual Christ.
Paul thus becomes comprehensible; he here speaks
the language of the Gnosis, and in this instance at least
it is possible to draw the deduction that the Gnosis in
this connection could not, in his opinion, have been
" falsely so called." Paul is speaking to communities
who are familiar with such language " He appeared to
me just as it were to that well-known imperfect plasm
1 The reading has never been questioned ; but even if it were
questioned, the canon that " the more difficult reading is to be pre
ferred to the easier" would decide for the retention of the article.
356 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
which we call ' the abortion,' " he says ; " I use a figure
familiar to all of you."
The Puzzle of If, then, we accept the main Pauline Letters as
the Pauline . . . . , . .
Communities, genuine, the problem we have to face is this, that we
are in them presented with a picture of communities
which had plainly existed before Paul's propaganda,
not only in Palestine but also among the Diaspora, and
that at least some of these communities were familiar
with Gnostic nomenclature. Paul uses language which
convinces us that the communities which devoted
themselves to the cultivation of " the gifts of the
spirit " were not originally founded by himself, but that
they had been long established, for he does not speak
of these things as new, but as very familiar, not as
taught by himself, but rather as to be modified by his
own more common-sense teaching. These communities
were not only familiar with Gnostic nomenclature, but
also with some sort of undisciplined "prophesying";
whence did they have such things ? It is not sufficient
impatiently to set these facts on one side, for it is just
such facts which are the fundamental data in any
attempt to solve the mystery of Christian origins.
It is, therefore, somewhat beside the point to assume
that " Gnostic Ebionism " must have necessarily been
later than "Ebionism proper," especially as it is just
this " Ebionism proper " about which we should like to
inform ourselves.
Ebionite The main charge against the Ebionites, as Hippolytus
Chriatology.
" heretics," denied the later doctrine of the miraculous
physical virgin-birth of Jesus. They lived according to
the Jewish customs, claiming that they were justified
TRACKS OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS. 357
"according to the Law." They further declared, so
says Hippolytus, that Jesus had been so justified by
his practice of the Law ; it was for this cause that they
called him " the anointed (Christ) of God and Jesus ; 1
for none of the other (? prophets) had fulfilled the
Law." They further declared " that they themselves
could by doing the same become Christs ; for, they said,
that he (Jesus) was a man like all men."
We know also that other of the early schools went
still further and claimed that members of their
communities had already reached this high stage of
justification and illumination, as high as Paul or even
Jesus himself, and that this could even be transcended
— a vain and empty boast, you will say, but then we
have no record of their lives, but only the bitter de
nunciations of the Church Fathers.
Apparently the earliest form of mystic Ebionite The Doctrine
J of Election.
Christology was that of "election." Thus we find
Justin Martyr (c. 145-150 A.D.), in his " Dialogue with
Trypho " (xlix.), putting the following argument into the
mouth of his Jewish opponent : " Those who affirm
him to have been a man, and to have been anointed by
election, and then to have become a Christ (Anointed),
appear to me to speak more plausibly than you," that
is Justin, who maintains the physical virgin birth
dogma, and who in the previous chapter had said to
Trypho : " Even if I cannot demonstrate so much
as this [namely, that Jesus was God incarnate in the
Virgin's womb], you will at least admit that Jesus is the
1 Why they called him " Jesus," Hippolytus unfortunately does
not tell us ; but we may perhaps get on the track of the reason in
the next chapter.
358 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
Messiah (Anointed) of God, in case he can be shown
to have been born as a man of men, and be proved to
have been raised by election to the dignity of messiah-
ship. For there are . . . some of our persuasion (lit.
race) who admit that he is the Messiah, but declare
him to have been a man of men."
The In the :i Shepherd of Hernias," which in the part
of Hermas " from which we quote ( " Sim." v. 5) is distinctly older
on Election. tjian jus^nj this doctrine of election or adoption is set
forth as follows :
" God made His Holy Spirit, which pre-existed and
created all creation, to enter and dwell in the flesh
(i.e., human body) which He approved. This flesh,
therefore, in which the Holy Spirit took up its dwell
ing, served the Spirit well in holiness and purity,
having never in any way polluted the Spirit. There
fore, because it had lived well and purely, and had
laboured with the Spirit and worked therewith in
every matter, conversing bravely and manfully, God
chose it to be participator along with the Holy Spirit.
For the flesh walked as pleased God, because it was
not polluted upon earth, having the Holy Spirit. God,
therefore, took into counsel the Son and the angels in
their glory, to the end that this flesh, having blame
lessly served the Spirit, might furnish, as it were, a
place of tabernacling (for the Spirit), and might not
seem to have lost the reward of its service. For all
flesh shall receive the reward which shall be found
without stain or spot, and in it the Holy Spirit shall
make its home." l
The Heresy of This election was said to be consummated at
1 Conybeare's translation, op. sub. cit., pp. Ixxxix., xc.
TRACKS OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS. 359
" baptism," nay, it was the true Baptism of the Holy
Spirit. As we shall see in the next chapter, the Holy
Spirit or Wisdom was the spouse of the Son or Great
King. When this universal mystic teaching became
historicized and connected with an actual physical
baptism by John the Baptist it is impossible to say,
but it is very certain that the " heresy " of " election,"
and the claim of the early mystics that all men who
lived the life of true holiness could become Christs, was
the unforgiveable sin of the subsequently orthodox
Fathers, and that this teaching has been relentlessly
crushed out by the Catholic Church wherever found
throughout the centuries.1
But indeed the question of Ebionism is of a so vast Necessity for
, ,. ' ' . , , aNewDetini-
and complicated nature that it would require a whole tion of
volume in itself to exhaust the contradictory indications Eblomsm-
of the Church Fathers and analyse the " Clementine "
Literature. There seems to have been every shade of
" Ebionism," and if on the one hand the Church Fathers
tell us that the Ebionteans accepted the whole of
the Old Testament, on the other we are informed that
they submitted its documents to a most drastic criti
cism, some of them rejecting not only all the Prophets,
but even much of the Pentateuch. Like so many of
the Gnostics they had a subjective canon whereby they
sorted out the inspiration of the Old Testament as
pure, mixed and evil.
This much only is certain, that we are no longer able
to assign a precise meaning to the terribly abused
1 See Conybeare (F. C.) " The Key of Truth, a Manual of the
Paulician Church of Armenia" (Oxford; 1898); index, s.w.
" Election " and " Elect," e.g., " Elect regarded as Christs," etc.
360
DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
The
Samaritans.
Samaritan
Sects.
term " Ebionism " ; it is as vague as, nay vaguer than,
" Gnosticism," for in the latter at any rate there must
be a mystic element, whereas with " Ebionism proper "
it is mostly confounded with materialistic and limited
views, though, as we have seen, erroneously.
We have already seen that these mystic and more
liberal ideas flourished especially in districts where
the people were of non-Jewish extraction ; we are,
therefore, not surprised to find that Samaria also,
whose inhabitants were almost purely of non-Jewish
descent, was a hot-bed of " heresies " of all kinds. For
the Jew, then, "Samaritan" stood for a heretic par
excellence, and we are therefore not astonished to find
that one of the epithets applied by the Kabbis to Jesus
was that of Samaritan.
In this connection it is of interest to note that
Epiphanius (" Haer.," ix.) tells us that the four principal
sects of the Samaritans were (i) the Esseni, (ii) the
Gortheni, (iii) the Sebuseans, and (iv) the Dositheans.
It is very strange to find the Essenes heading the
list, for no other writer calls the members of this
interesting brotherhood Samaritans. It may be that
the Bishop of Constantia does so, because he found
that schools closely allied to them rejected all other of
the Jewish scriptures except the Pentateuch. It may,
however, be that as a matter of history the Essenes
themselves also rejected much which subsequently
became the orthodoxy of Mishnaic Rabbinism, and they
may very well have had many adherents in Samaria.
As to the Gortheni, who are also mentioned by
Hegesippus (op. Euseb., " H. E.," iv. 22), who flourished
in the latter half of the second century, Epiphanius calls
"TRACKS OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS. 361
them also Gortheoni (" Ancorat.," 12) and also Gorotheni
(" Haer./1 i. 12), but tells us nothing about them. Theo-
doret, however, says (" Hser. Fab./' i. 1) that they derived
their doctrines from Simon Magus, that is to say, they
held the same views as did the mystics associated
later on with this semi-mythical " founder " of Christian
heresy, according to the Church Fathers.
As to the Sebuaeans, Epiphanius alone mentions
them, but tells us nothing about them except that they
held certain Feasts on days which differed widely from
the dates of the Jews.
With the mention of the Dositheans, however, we The
. . Dositheans.
come to a subject of greater interest. And here we
will leave Epiphanius and follow the data collected in
the excellent article of Salmon.1 The " Ebionite "
Clementine " Recognitions " tell us that Simon Magus
was a disciple of Dositheus (that is, perhaps, of the school
of Dositheus), and that Dositheus (Heb. Dosthai) was the
prophet like unto Moses whom Yahweh was to raise up.
The Clementine "Homilies," on the contrary, in true
legendary style declare that both Dositheus and
Simon were co-disciples of John the Baptist. As Jesus,
the Sun, had twelve disciples, so John, the Moon, had
thirty disciples, the number of days in a lunation, or
more accurately 29|, for one of them was a woman.
Simon, it is said, studied magic in Egypt, and there is a
strange legend of a contest between him and Dositheus,
in which Simon proves himself the victor.
The Recognitions also state that Dositheus was the The Import-
founder of the sect of the Sadducees, which means prob- Dositheus.
ably nothing more historically than that Dositheus, as
1 " Dositheus," in Smith and Wace's " Diet, of Christ. Biography."
362 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
was to be expected of a Samaritan, rejected all the
subsequently canonical books, and held to the Penta
teuch alone. In any case this statement assures us
that Dositheus was considered in subsequent times a
man of very great importance. And as this statement
was also made by Hippolytus in his lost Compendium,
the view must have been very widespread. In any
case Hippolytus I. gave the foremost place among his
pre-Christian sects to Dositheus.
Origen (in Johann. iv.) speaks of books ascribed to
Dositheus as being still current among the followers of
that then ancient tradition, and of a popular belief
among them that their master had not really died.
Some Curious Epiphanius describes the Dositheans as observers of
the Law ; they, however, abstained from animal food,
and many of them from sexual intercourse. Epi
phanius further adds a story that Dositheus finally
retired to a cave and there practised such severe
asceticism as to bring his life to a voluntary end. An
exceedingly interesting variant of this story appears
in a Samaritan Chronicle, where it is said that the
Samaritan high-priest took such severe measures
against the new sect, because of its use of a Book of the
Law which was said to have been falsified by Dousis
(Dositheus), that Dousis was compelled to "fly" to a
mountain and hide himself in a cave, where he died
from want of food. There is a striking similarity
between this and the conclusion of the Shemtob form
of Toldoth which we have quoted in the chapter on
" Traces of Early Toldoth Forms," where Jesus flies away
to a cave on Mount Carmel.
Eulogius, Patriarch of Alexandria, who died 608 A.D.
TRACKS OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS. 363
and who appears to have studied Dosithean books, says
that Dosthes (Dositheus) exhibited particular hostility
to the Patriarch Judah. That is to say, presumably,
that the Dositheans particularly detested a certain
Judah. Can this have anything to do with the Judas
of the Toldoth, and did the Dositheans give the other
side?
Finally, it is very curious to find that Aboulfatah, Dositheus and
an Arab historian, who nourished in the fourteenth BtC. Date,
century, and who was personally acquainted with the
adherents of this long-lived Dosithean tradition, places
Dositheus 100 years B.C. Dositheus, he tells us, was
said to have claimed to have been the Prophet, foretold
by Moses, and also the Star, prophetically announced
in Numbers.1 Dositheus, says Aboulfatah, that is to
say, according to the tradition of the Dositheans of his
day, lived in the days of John Hyrcanus. who died
105 B.C.2
This Dosithean tradition, therefore, appears to me The Con-
to be deserving of greater attention than has yet been Traditions,
bestowed upon it; it is not satisfactory to dismiss it
impatiently with the epithet "fabulosa" as does Juyn-
boll, and those who copy from him. The Simon Magus
tradition is interwoven with the Dosithean ; the Church
Fathers assert with one voice that all the heresies of
Christianity sprang from Simon Magus ; the Simon
Magus legends are interwoven with the Toldoth legends
of Jesus. Baur startled traditionalists with the theory
1 Num. xxiv. 17 : " There shall come a star out of Jacob."
2 See Juynboll (T. G. J.), " Chronicon Samaritanum, arabiee
conscriptum cui Titulus est Liber Josuoe" (Leyden ; 1848), pp.
112, 114.
364 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
that the name Simon Magus was simply a disguise for
Paul, but the Jewish tradition amazes us still further
with the suggestion that Simon Magus in some
fantastic fashion is a legend-glyph, if not for Jesus, at
any rate for those who followed the earliest tradition of
the historical Jesus.
We will next turn our attention to some considera
tions " Concerning the Book of Elxai."
XVI1L— CONCERNING THE BOOK OF ELXAI.
As we have already seen that, according to Epiphanius, The
the Essenes, Nazorenes, Ebionites, and Sampsseans of Hennas "
thought very highly of a certain ancient document
called the " Book of Elxai," it will be of interest to
enquire further into the matter.
Hilgenfeld has argued l that already the apocalyptic
scribe of that Early Church document the " Shepherd of
Hernias," or as he prefers the redactor of the Apocalyptic
Hernias (as distinguished from the Pastoral Hernias)
was acquainted with this " Book of Elxai." Whether or
not this early writer was acquainted with the actual
book the later Church Fathers had in mind is a
matter still subjudice; but he certainly was acquainted
with some portion of the enormous cycle of apocalyptic
literature and the general circle of ideas with which
all the early mystic schools were more or less in touch.
The apocalyptic part of the " Shepherd " is practically
one of the innumerable permutations and combinations
of the Sophia-mythus. It is one of the many settings
forth of the mystic lore and love of the Christ and the
Sophia, or Wisdom, of the Son of God and His spouse
1 Hilgenfeld (A.), " Hermae Pastor" (Leipzig ; 1881, 2nd ed.),
Introd., pp. xxix., xxx.
366 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
or sister, the Holy Spirit, of the King and Queen, of
the Lord and the Church. In this most instructive
series of visions are depicted the mystic scenes of the
allegorical drama of man's inner nature — the mystery-
play of all time. Most beautifully and most simply
is the story told in this ancient monument of early
Christendom, and it is much to be regretted that the
" Shepherd " has not been included in the Canon ; but
perhaps it was too general, too universal for the
historicizers.
It is also of very great interest to notice the many
intimate points of contact between the contents of the
Apocalyptic Hermas and the teaching of the early
" Shepherd of Men " tractates of the mystic school who
looked to Hermes the Thrice-greatest as their inspirer,
that is to say, the earliest deposit of Trismegistic
literature. But that is another story which has not
yet been told.
Hermas a Like all the other extant extra-canonical documents
DoSent. of the Early Church, the " Shepherd of Hermas" has been
submitted to the most searching analysis by modern
criticism, and though its unity is still strenuously
defended by some scholars, we are inclined to agree
with Hilgenfeld, who detects in the present form of
the Hermas document three elements, or three deposits
so to say; (i) the Apocalyptic (Vis. i.-iv.); (ii) the
Pastoral (Vis. v. — Sim. vii.); (iii) the Secondary, or
appendix of the latest redactor (Sim. viii. — x.). Hernias
i. and ii. cite nothing from any of the books of the
canonical New Testament.1
It is Hermas i., moreover, which is acquainted with
1 Hilgenfeld, op. cit., pp. xxx., xxxi.
CONCERNING THE BOOK OF ELXAI. 367
the most distinctive features of the cycle of ideas of
which we find traces in the few fragments of the " Book
of Elxai " which can be recovered from the polemical
writings of the Fathers. This Apocalyptic Hernias is
distinctly Anti-Pauline, and therefore cannot be expected
to quote from the Letters of Paul, but what is remarkable
is that neither it nor the Pastoral Hernias quote from
any of our four canonical gospels.
If, then, we are inclined to accept the statement of Date
the writer of the Muratorian Fragment (c. 170 A.D.), Indications-
that Hernias was written at Eome during the bishopric
of Pius (140 — c. 155 A.D.), this must be taken to refer
to the last redactor who is held to be responsible for
Hermas iii., and who seems to be acquainted with
several books of the Canon, and the Apocalyptic
Hermas may be pushed back to at least the beginning
of the second century. We have also to remember
not only that the Greek original even of our form of
Hermas is lost, but that the Old Latin version has also
disappeared, and that we possess only a Greek re-
translation of the Latin,1 and therefore the original
Hermas may have contained more abundant traces of
some things of which it would be of great service to
independent students of the origins to have a more
exact knowledge, but which have disappeared in trans
lation and re translation.
In any case the original form of the " Book of Elxai "
is thus seen to be of an early date, and the general
ideas in it are presumably still earlier. A just ap-
1 See De Gebhardt (O.) and Harnack (A.), " Hermse Pastor," in
"Patrum Apostolicorum Opera," fascic. iii. (Leipzig; 1877),
Prolegg. xi. n. 2.
368 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
preciation of the nature of its contents, therefore, is of
very great importance to the historian of Early
Christianity ; and as Hilgenfeld, in the appendix l to
his admirable edition of the " Shepherd," has con
veniently brought together every passage from the
Fathers relating to this curious document of Christian
antiquity, we will bring the evidence into court and
discuss it.
The Church In the first place we must remember that our scanty
the " Book of information is derived entirely from those who have
not a single good word to say for the book or for the
followers of its teaching. We have painfully to extract
what facts we can from the hurly-burly of indiscriminate
denunciation, from a few sentences here or there torn
out of the context for polemical purposes, only such
things being quoted as appeared to the heresiologists
ridiculous, extravagant or detestable.
Hippolytus, Bishop of Portus, writing at Rome about
222 A.D., is bitterly incensed at the book, a copy of which,
he says, had been brought to the City by a certain
Alcibiades, a native of Apameia in Syria 2 ; but whether
or not Hippolytus always quotes from the book itself
or from the teachings of Alcibiades, who made use of
the authority of what he considered to be a very
ancient document in support of a more lenient view of
the forgiveness of sins, a question which was then
strongly agitating the Church of Rome, and on which
Hippolytus himself held a far stricter view, is by no
means clear.
1 " Elxai Fragmenta Collecta, Digesta, Dijudicata."
2 The original " Book of Elxai " was presumably in Hebre\v, and
was 8ubsequently translated into Greek.
CONCERNING THE BOOK OF ELXAI. 369
Basing themselves apparently on Hippolytus, all The Date of
scholars l confidently assert that according to the book
itself, it was written in the third year of Trajan, that
is 101 A.D. ; whereas, as a matter of fact, Hippolytus
does not say so. It is true that Hippolytus states
("Philos.," ix. 13) that Alcibiades declared that the
gospel of a new remission of sins was preached in the
third year of Trajan ; but did Alcibiades make such an
assertion himself, or did Hippolytus deduce this from a
passage which he elsewhere professes to quote from the
book itself ?
What the full text of this passage may have been
originally we can by no means be certain, since in the
only surviving copy of Hippolytus' " Eefutation" some
words are utterly corrupt. It must be remembered
that we have only the single copy of the text of the
" Philosophumena," or " Eefutatio Omnium Hteresium "
of Hippolytus, which was discovered in one of the
monasteries on Mount Athos, and brought to Paris by
Minoides Mynas in 1842.
This passage from the " Book of Elxai " is a reference The ' ' Three
to a famous prophecy of the time, and runs as follows :
" When three years of Trajan Caesar are fulfilled, from
the time when he subdued ... the Parthian s (when
three years have been fulfilled),2 the war between the
angels of unrighteousness of the North is stirred up,3
1 So also even Hilgenfeld, op. cit., p. 233.
2 Probably a gloss.
3 ayyiCerat, a very rare word, not found at all in Liddell and
Scott, while in Sophocles' Lexicon (New York ; 1887) the only
references are to our passage and to Syniin. Prov. xv. 18. Sophocles
gives the meaning as "to irritate, excite," while Duncker and
Schneidewin translate " cxardescit"
24
370 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
owing to which all kingdoms of unrighteousness are
thrown into confusion " (" Philos.," ix. 16).1
Whatever may be the exact meaning of the passage,
it seems not illegitimate to conclude that the " third year
of Trajan " date originated in this " prophecy," which, for
all we know, may have belonged to the general Elxai
circle of ideas, or literature (for this was certainly not
confined to one document), and originally formed no
part of the Book, though it may have subsequently
been appended to the original apocalyptic document,
for it apparently came at the end of the copy known to
Hippolytus, and not at the beginning, as some have
carelessly supposed.
The Book In this connection it is of interest to recall to mind
Older than
the Prophecy, that Trajan began the Parthian campaign in 114 A.D.,
and that three years afterwards the fierce and bloody
revolt of the Jews of Cyrene and Egypt, in which no
less than a million Hebrews are said to have perished,
was suppressed. In 117 Trajan died, and in 118
Hadrian set out for Msesia (the modern Bulgaria), one
of the most northern provinces of the Empire, to fight
against the Sarmatians. If this is the fact alluded to,
then we have a date of a similar nature to so many in
the prophetical and apocalyptic literature of the times
and of earlier years, and we may place the terminus a quo
of this particular element of the Elxai literature at 118
A.D. But are the mystic visions and christology of our
1 I use the latest text and critical notes of Duncker (L.) and
Schneidewin (F. G.), " S. Hippol. . . . Refutationis Omnium
Hseresium quse supersunt" (Gottingen ; 1859), and regard the
emendation given by Hilgenfeld, in his " Ketzergeschichte des
Urchristenthums " (Leipzig ; 1884), p. 435 n. 757, as too arbitrary.
CONCERNING THE BOOK OF ELXAL 371
book to be so dated ? For our part we consider them
to be far earlier.
On the other hand, supposing that the date of the
third year of Trajan (101 A.D.) is taken as Hippolytus
gives it, then, seeing that this "prophecy" did not
come true — (unless the fact that the first Dacian Wai-
broke out in the third year of Trajan, Dacia being the
most northern province on the other side of the Danube,
be held vaguely to explain the " prophecy ") — as Hilgen-
feld acutely remarks, the Book must have been written
prior to this date, for who fabricates a prophecy which
he knows already to be false ? l
But even so I do not think that it can be asserted
categorically that the " Book of Elxai " itself was written
in 101 A.D. It may very well be that the fierce suppres
sion of the frantic effort to regain their independence
made by the Jews of Gyrene and Egypt, where apoca
lyptic ideas were specially rife, may have been a psycho
logical moment when the mystic teaching of repentance
could be preached with the greatest effect, even as had
been the case some fifty years before when Jerusalem
fell ; it may very well have been that the Essene-
Nazarene-Sampscean circles used this opportunity or
making known the saving mysteries of their traditions
for the benefit of their disheartened countrymen ; but
these mysteries were not newly invented.
Who, then, was Elxai ? What does the name mean ? who <
The name is evidently Semitic; Hebrew, Aramaic, or EIxai
Old Arabic, it matters not. Hippolytus gives it as
Elchasai, Origen as Helkesai, Epiphanius as Elxai' or
Elkessai. Epiphanius further informs us ( " Htfer.," xix.
1 Op. cit., p. xxx.
372 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
2) that the name meant the " Hidden Power." Some
scholars accept this,1 others reject it,2 though no
sufficient reason for this rejection is given. In my
opinion, this scrap of information dropped by Epiphanius
— the significance of which he was totally unable to
appreciate, and which he only reproduces to serve as
the occasion of a sneer, as in so many other cases — puts
us on the right track out of this labyrinth of misunder
standing. Elxai was the name of no man, even as
Ebion, the founder of Ebionism as imagined by the
hseresiologists, was no man, and just as Colarbasus and
Epiphanes were imagined heretics, and even to some
extent Simon Magus.
Elxai-Sophia. As to the mythic Colarbasus, in Hebrew Chol-arba
means literally the " All-four/' that is, the sacred Tetrad
or Tetractys, which in the system of Marcus, for instance,
is figured as the Feminine Power, the Greatness, who in
the form of a woman, the Divine Sophia, was the
revealer of the mysteries as set forth in the apocalyptic
scripture in which Mark expounded the general ideas
of his tradition ; for, as he says, the world could not
bear the power or effulgence of the Masculine Greatness
or Potency, the Christ.3 Epiphanes in like manner can
be equated with the "Newly Appearing One," the
" waxing moon," the Moon being also a glyph of the
Sophia.4 Simon and Helen again are the Sun and
Moon, the Christ and the Sophia ; but of this, later on.
1 See Salmon's article " Elkesai " in Smith and Wace's " Dic
tionary of Christian Biography" (London ; 1880).
2 See Hilgenfeld, op. cit., p. 230.
3 See " The Number-System of Marcus" in my " Fragments of a
Faith Forgotten " (London ; 1900), pp. 358-382.
4 Op. cit.t p. 234.
CONCERNING THE BOOK OF ELXAI. 373
I, therefore, conclude with no rash confidence, that
Elxai, the Hidden Power, was in reality one of the
many names of the Sophia or Wisdom, the Holy Ghost,
the mystic sister or spouse (the Shakti as Brfihmanical
mysticism calls it) of the Masculine One, the Christ.
And this is borne out by the main apocalyptic fragment
of the Book which has survived among the few quotations
made by Hippolytus and Epiphanius, and which is in
the form of a vision of the Christ and Sophia as of two
immense beings, reaching from earth to highest heaven,
of which the mystic dimensions are given, just as in
the diagram of the Heavenly Man, as portrayed in the
apocalypse of Marcus.
But we have not yet done with the matter, for lexai-
Epiphanius tells us that Elxai, who, as we have seen, he
takes for a man, and a dangerous and blasphemous heretic
to boot, had a brother called lexaios ("Haer.," xix. 1),
and in another place ("Hser.," liii. 1), he further informs
us that the Sampsseans said they possessed another book,
which they regarded with very great reverence, namely,
the " Book of lexai," the brother of Elxai. Eemembering,
then, that the Marcosians declared that the world was
not able to bear the effulgence of the " Masculine
Greatness," it is legitimate to speculate that this " Book
of lexai " was purposely kept back from general circu
lation ; it was a true apocryphon. It was presumably a
book containing the higher mysteries or more recondite
mystic teachings of this tradition; it may even have
been the book which contained what was thought to be
the real name and teaching of the one called Jesus
among men, which name, as Marcus declares, was held to
be a substitute for a far more ancient and sacred title.
374 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Jexai-Jesus. In brief lexai was the Christ, the King, the spouse
of Elxai, the Hidden Power, or Holy Ghost, or Sophia ;
He was perhaps the concealed Divine Triad of the Holy
Four of Marcus, the "Triple Man" of other systems.
In this connection it is interesting to notice that lexai
is explained by some scholars as meaning in Hebrew
the " Hidden Lord." Can it then be possible that there
is some connection between the name lexai (or Jessai)
and the lessaians or Jessseans to whom Epiphanius
refers, as Hilgenfeld supposes ? And if so, what con
flation or syncretism is there between the general term
lexai or Jexai (Hidden Lord) and the Jesus of history ?
For "Jesus," says Marcus, is only the sound of the
name down here and not the power of the name ;
" Jesus, " he declares, is really a substitute for a very
ancient name, and its power is known to the " elect" alone
of the Christians. Was this mystery name, then, lexai ?
Sobiai- Sophia. But even so we have not yet done with names in
this connection. Hippolytus (" Philos.," ix. 13) will have
it that the "Book of Elxai" was said to have been revealed
to Elxai, whom he regards as a man, and that this
Elchasai, as he spells the name, handed it on to a certain
Sobiai. Now as we have already seen that in every
probability the teaching of the Book was set forth in the
form of an apocalyptic vision, as revealed by Elxai or the
Sophia or Wisdom, and that the man Elxai is a fiction
of the imagination begotten by patristic misunder
standing, so also it may be that Sobiai is also an
apocalyptic personification historicized by the same
class of mind which historicized and materialized so
much else that was purely mystic and spiritual. In
fact I would suggest that Sobiai is nothing else than a
CONCERNING THE BOOK OF ELXAI. 375
transformation of Sophia, for as Epiphanius himself
says, though with a sneer, the Book purported to be
written prophetically, or, as it were, by the inspiration
of Wisdom (Sophia).
Yet again more names are brought forward by Marthus and
Epiphanius in this connection, and he has somewhat
to tell us of two sisters called Marthus and Marthana
(or Marthma), who, lie avers, were regarded with great
reverence by the adherents of the tradition of this early
Gnosis; they were, he says, worshipped as goddesses.
Our great inquisitor of heresy, however, will have it
that they were actual women living in his own times.
Moreover, and in this he lets more escape him than he
would have done had he understood, they were of ^ the
11 race of Elxai " (" Haer.,1' xix. 1, and li. I).1
Now it is of service in this connection to remember Our Lady
that Martha in Aramaic means simply " Mistress " or
" Lady " ; Martha is the feminine of Mar (" Lord ").2
Can it then be possible that here also we are face to
face with some more scraps of the scattered cUlris
of the once most elaborate Christos-Sophia-mythus ?
Nay, this is not altogether a so wild speculation as The Sophia
J ' and her Twin
the general reader may suppose, for do we not find in Daughters,
the Syriac Hymns of the Gnostic Bardaisan (155-233
A.D.), that the Holy Spirit, the Mother, the Sophia,
1 In this connection we may pertinently ask the question :
Who are the Gnostics whose tenets Origen (" C. Celsum," v. 62)
tells us were known to Celsus, that is to say, at least as early as
175 A.D., and who were known as "those of Martha" 1
2 One bold scholar has even suggested that Mar being in Syriac
a general title of distinction, Epiphanius has mistaken the names
of two bishops of unorthodox views for the names of women, and
so developed his romance.
376 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
has two daughters, whose birth the orthodox Ephraem,
the most bitter opponent of the Bardesanian Gnosis,
writing more than a century later, declines to explain,
and who were, in the poetical nomenclature of Bardaisan,
called respectively " Shame of the Dry " and " Image of
the Water." l The Mother Sophia thus addresses the
elder of them :
" Let her who conies after th.ee
To me be a daughter,
A sister to thee."
The Ephraem makes a great to-do about the mystery of
and the their conception, which he says he is ashamed to relate.
Wombs? ^ appears, however, to have been nothing more than
thq conception of the Mother first without her Syzygy
or Divine Consort, and subsequently with Him ; the
bringing forth of the " Abortion " and of the " Perfect
./Eon " — the fruit of the " impure womb " above when the
mother disobeyed the " law of pairing " of the Pleroma,
and desired to imitate the Father over all arid create
without a Syzygy, and the child of the " virgin womb,"
in the spiritual economy of the world process ; all of
which is set forth with much elaboration in several
forms of the Sophia-mythus which have come down to us
in the quotations of the haeresiological Fathers. In the
microcosm or man, these daughters are presumably two
aspects of the human soul, the Sophia below, or sor
rowing one ; tending downward she is regarded as the
" lustful one " (Prunicus), the harlot ; tending upward
she becomes the spouse of the Christos.
1 See Hilgenfeld (A.), "Bardesanes der letzte Gnostiker" (Leipzig ;
1864), pp. 40, 41 ; and Lipsius (R. A.), " Die apokryphen Apostel-
geschichten" (Braunschweig ; 1883), i. pp. 310, 311.
CONCERNING THE BOOK OF ELXAI. 377
Again in the Greek Acts of Thomas, which still
contain many early Gnostic traces in spite of Catholic
redaction, we read :
" Come . . . Thou Holy Dove who art mother of
twin young ones ; come Hidden Mother ! "
Have we here, then, our Marthus and Marthana ? Mary and
Are the <c sisters " of Epiphanius, then, simply misunder
stood forms of the Sophia in one of her many trans
formations ? Will the dire straits into which relentless
historical criticism is forcing the defenders of an
unyielding conservatism, permit us to believe that
there may have been a mystery-teaching behind the
beautiful historicized story of the sisters Mary and
Martha and of Lazarus, their brother, who was " raised
from the dead " after being " three days " in the grave ?
Was not Lazarus raised as a "mummy," swathed in
grave clothes ? : What has this to do with the mystery-
tradition of Egypt ? Is not the Mary of Lazarus
thought by many to have been the Magdalene, the
courtesan, out of whom He had cast seven devils ?
Was not the Sophia below called the " lustful one,"
the " harlot," the " shame of the dry " ? Was not the
Helen of Simon also called the harlot ? Was not even
Jesus, according to the Jews, the son of a harlot ?
Can it possibly be that in this vulgar material contro
versy of things physical between Christian and Jew,
1 It is somewhat strange to find Tertullian (" De Corona," viii. ;
Oehler, i. 436) referring to the " linen cloth " with which Jesus girt
himself, mentioned in John xiii. 4, 5, as the " proper garment of
Osiris." The " proper garment of Osiris," of course, consisted of
the linen- wrappings of the mummy. Tertullian thus appears to
have picked up a phrase he did not quite understand, and used it
inappropriately.
378 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
there may be, in spite of the controversialists on either
side, still some grain of mystic truth almost miracu
lously preserved ? Why, again, had Mary the better
part, though Martha was the more laborious and
virtuous ? Has orthodox exegesis a satisfactory answer
to this " dark saying " ? Is not its exact parallel to be
found in the mystery-parable of the prodigal and his
elder brother ?
Such are a few of the questions which rush in upon
the mind of a student of the ancient Christian Gnosis,
and make it not illegitimate to speculate as to whether
under the names Marthus and Marthana may not be
concealed a key to unlock the under-meaning of the
beautiful Gospel story of Mary and Martha.
The Finally we have seen that Epiphanius gives Marthina
Merinthians. ag a variant of Marthana. Now it is remarkable that
Epiphanius also tells us of some heretics whom he calls
Merinthiani (" Hser.," xxix. 8). Of the origin or meaning
of this name he admits he knows nothing, and can only
suggest that they are derived from a certain Merinthus,
who he suggests is identical with the famous early
Gnostic Cerinthus ; however, he confesses that this is a
pure guess on his part. Can it, then, be by any means
possible that the name Merinthiani is a transformation
of Marthiani ? No one but Epiphanius knows of these
Merinthians. Did he invent the name ? If not, and
there really was a circle or line of tradition bearing
some such name, can it be that our famous heresy-
hunter heard wrongly, and remembered vaguely that it
was some name like Cerinthus, only beginning with M.
Hinc illce lacrimce !
The question, however, which is of greatest import-
CONCERNING THE BOOK OF ELXAI. 379
ance for us, is to discover what were the views
concerning the Christ held by those who used the
Apocalypse of Elxai as one of their scriptures.
As we have seen, the main apocalyptic element of this The Christ-
T^i • • M i • T-1-1 °i°gy °f the
hook was a vision of two great beings standing side by Book of
side— the Christus ("Hser.," xix. 1) and Sophia above Elxau
(" Hser.," xxx. 3, 17), the male-female Heavenly Man in
separation ; the male potency was also called the Son of
God, the female the Holy Spirit (Hipp., " Philos.," ix. 13).
In the human economy, however, " Christus " was
apparently, according to Epiphanius (" Hser.," liii. 1), not
considered as absolutely identical with deity ; this was in
its microcosmic sense apparently the spiritual Self in man.
This Self had been first clothed with the paradisiacal
'• Body of Adam," but had put it off and left it behind
in Paradise, the super-celestial garment left in the
" last limit " till the glorious day of the revestiture of the
Conqueror, according to the so-called Pistis-Sophia
document, or the " robe of glory " of the beautiful hymn
of Bardaisan,1 — He had put it off when He descended
through the spheres, clothing Himself in each in the
" garb of a servant," but at the last He shall resume it
again in triumph.
Of this Christus the Sophia, or human soul, was the Many Mani-
sister or spouse ; He was called the Great King (;< Haer.," the Christ.
xix. 3). But Epiphanius can find nothing in the teach
ing of these early mystics to confirm his own later
orthodox views concerning " Jesus Christ," and is
naturally very puzzled at the unhistorical nature of their
1 See the " Hymn of the Robe of Glory " in my " Fragments," pp.
406-414, and also my translation of Pistis-Sophia (London ; 1886),
pp. 9 ff.
380 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
universal transcendentalism. Hippolytus (" Philos.," ix.
14), however, tells us that their teaching concerning the
Christ of the general Christians — that is, concerning
Jesus — was that he was born as are all other men ; they
denied that the Christ of their mysteries had been now
for the first time born of a virgin ; the mystery Christ
had been born before, nay, had again and again been
born, and was being born, and had been and was being
manifested, changing His births and passing from body
to body.
Theodoret, writing in the fifth century, gives us some
further confused information when treating of the
Elcesaeans.1 As to this mystery of the Christ, they
said that He was not one — that is to say, apparently He
was not simply Jesus the Nazarene, as the general
Christians believed. There was, they held, a Christ
above, and a Christ below ; the former had of old indwelt
in many, and had subsequently descended, that is, pre
sumably, found full expression.
Theodoret imagines that this means descended into
Jesus, or had come down to earth ; but even so he can
not understand the doctrine and gets hopelessly confused
over what they say concerning Jesus. For sometimes,
he says, they state that He is a spirit, sometimes that
He had a virgin for mother, while in other writings they
say that this was not so, but that he was born as other
men ; further they teach that Jesus (or rather the Christ
in Jesus) reincarnates again and again and goes into
other bodies, and at each birth appears differently.
The Twice- All of this, though apparently a hopeless confusion to
the ordinary mind, is quite clear to the mystic, and it is
1 " De Elcesaeis," in his " Hereticarum Fabularum Compendium."
CONCERNING THE BOOK OF ELXAI. 381
strange that with all their marvellous industry scholars
have not been able to disinter the main conceptions of
this all-illuminating idea from the polemical writings of
the Church Fathers; all the more so as it is clearly
stated in other early writings which have fortunately
escaped out of the general destruction, as we shall show
elsewhere. But with regard to our present special
subject of research, we cannot leave it without giving
what seems to be as good a proof as can be expected in
early Christian literature, that the Elxai teaching went
back to a very early date ; for even the few scattered
quotations which we are enabled to extract from
Patristic polemical literature show this very clearly.
It is well known that the Essenes and allied com- A Further
munities, even while they remained on the ground of indication.
Judaism, were strongly opposed to the blood sacrifices
and burnt offerings of the Temple. When, then, we find
a quotation from the " Book of Elxai " which distinctly
refers to these sacrifices, we cannot be accused of rash
ness in concluding that this document, or at any rate
part of it, existed in days when the Temple sacrifices were
still kept up, that is to say, prior to 70 A.D., when the
Temple was destroyed and the sacrifices, which could
only be performed in it, ceased.
Referring to this very condemnation of the Temple
blood sacrifices at Jerusalem, Epiphanius (" Haer.," xix.
3) quotes from the " Book of Elxai " as follows :
" My sons, go not to the image of the fire, for ye err ; Fire and
for this image is error. Thou seest it [the fire], lie says, Water-
very near, yet is it from afar. Go not to its image;
but go rather to the voice of the water ! "
This is evidently an instruction not to visit the
382 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Temple at Jerusalem. The reason is given in a quota
tion apparently from a still more ancient writing, for the
number is changed from "ye" to "thou," and the
written sign of quotation "he says" is introduced.
Now we know that these mystics worshipped the
spiritual Sun, as the masculine potency of the Logos,
the real "Fire" of the " Simonian " Gnosis. The ex
pression " voice of the water " appears at first sight to
be exceedingly strange; when, however, we recollect
that those Gnostics regarded " Water " as the " source
of all things," not of course the physical element, the
" image " of the Water, but the " Water of Life," the Life
(Sophia) being the spouse of the Light (Christos), —
she who was the Mother of all, — the " voice of the
water " may very well be taken as a mystic expression
for the " voice " of the Holy Spirit, in brief the " voice
of conscience," as may be seen from many verses of the
later penitential psalms, in which the physical sacrifices
are set aside and the doctrine of the truly spiritual
sacrifice of the heart inculcated. What else can this
" voice " be than the Bath-kol,1 the " heavenly voice " to
which the prophets gave ear, according to these same
mystics and later Talmudism ?
Ichthus. This water, then, was the Sea of Life, and much might
be said concerning it. It is by the shore of this Sea
that is the Mountain on which " after the resurrection "
Jesus, the Living One, assembles His Taxis, or Order of
Twelve, and shows them the mysteries of the inner
spaces, taking them within with Himself as described in
one of the treatises of the Codex Brucianus. It will,
however, for the moment suffice to remind our readers
1 Lit. « Daughter of the Voice."
CONCERNING THE BOOK OF ELXAI. 383
that the " fish " (ichthus) was one of the earliest symbols
of the Christ. Not only so, but the early Christian
neophytes were called " little fishes," and even at the
end of the second century Tertullian is found writing :
" We little fishes (pisciculi), according to our Fish
(Ichthus), are born in water." It would take us too
long to follow up this interesting trace, but the idea
will not be so difficult to grasp if we quote part of the
famous Autun sepulchral inscription, discovered in
1839, the date of which early monument is hotly
disputed, the battle ranging over dates from the second
to the sixth century. Marriott translates this precious
relic of the past as follows :
" Offspring of the Heavenly Ichthus (Fish), see that The Autun
a heart of holy reverence be thine, now that from divine
waters thou hast received, while yet among mortals,
a fount of life that is to immortality. Quicken thy
soul, beloved one, with the ever-flowing waters of
wealth - giving Wisdom [Sophia], and receive the
honey-sweet food of the Saviour of the saints. Eat
with a longing hunger holding Ichthus in thy
hands." J
There is a curious analogy between these ideas and
some of those of which we have a few traces in the in
scriptions found on golden tablets in graves at Thurii in
what was once Magna Grsecia, and elsewhere. It is
supposed that there was a sort of Orphic or Pythagorean
Book of the Dead, " The Passing into Hades " or " The
Descent into Hades," from which some of these inscrip
tions quote. These tablets were evidently placed in
1 See art. " Ichthus," in Smith and Cheetham's " Dictionary of
Christian Antiquities" (London ; 1875).
384 DIB JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
the graves of ancient Orphic or Pythagorean initiates,
and on one of them we read :
From " The " In the mansions of Hades, upon the left, a spring
Descent into ., , ., ,, ,
Hades." ™« thou find, and near it a white cypress standing ;
this spring thou shouldst not approach. But there [to
the right] wilt thou come on another, from Memory's
lake a fresh flowing water. Before it are watchers : To
them shalt thou say: 'Of Earth and starry Heaven
child am I, my race is of the heavens. But this ye
must know of yourselves. With thirst I parch, I perish ;
quick, give me to drink of the water fresh flowing
from Memory's lake ! Then will they give thee to
drink of the spring of the gods, and then shalt thou
reign with the rest of the heroes." x
Moreover the connection between this wonderful
symbolism of the "living water" of these early
Christian mystic schools and the beautiful gospel
story of the woman of Samaria and the Christ, and
with the many fish figures introduced elsewhere in
the gospel narratives, must strike even the least
observant.
Fish and the It is also to be noticed that the " fish " played some
important part in one of the variants of the eucharistic
rite (the five loaves and two fishes) of early Christianity,
and it is also of great interest to remember the very
simple form of the covenant meal of the earliest
Essene- Christians of whom we are treating was bread
1 "Inscr. Gr. Sicilian et Italke," 638. See also Foucart (P.),
" Recherclies sur 1'Origine et la Nature des Mysteres d'Eleusis."
" Extr. des Mem. de 1'Acad. des Ins. et Belles-Lettres " (Paris ;
1895), torn, xxxv., 2e partie, pp. 68 ff ; and also my articles " Notes
on the Eleusinian Mysteries " in the " Theosophical Review "
(London ; 1898), vol. xxii., pp. 145 if., 232 ff., 312 ff., 317 ff.
CONCERNING THE BOOK OF ELXAI. 385
and salt, or bread and water, the fruit of the Sun
and Sea, for they eschewed wine.
The " Book of Elxai," then, in one of its deposits at The An-
any rate, for it was doubtless edited and re-edited as Elxai
were so many other of these early documents, apparently Traditlon'
went back to as early as at least 70 A.D., while even in
that deposit we find an earlier scripture quoted. More
over, all that is told us of these early " Christians," for
they looked to the mystic Christ as the ideal of all their
aspiration, is of a very primitive stamp, and in closest
contact with much that we learn concerning the
Essenes and Therapeuts. I am, therefore, persuaded
that we are here in touch with a body of ideas that for
all we know may have been Pre-Pauline, and that we are
not far from discovering one of the most mysterious
factors in the genesis of the great religion of the
Western world.
Before, however, closing this chapter on the
mysterious " Elxai," who, as we have seen, never
existed, and yet always is, there is to be mentioned
a scrap of information which may throw some further
light on this earliest and most widespread " heresy "
of Christendom.
We have already seen that some remnants of these The
early teachings are preserved even to-day by the Man-
daites, or so-called Christians of St. John. It is, there
fore, of interest to learn that " Elcasseans," distinctly so
named, were still in existence in the tenth century.
Maharnmed ben Is'haq en-Nedim, in his "Fihrist"
(written in 987-988 A.D.) tells us concerning the
Mogtasilah, or Baptists, that they were then very
numerous in the marsh districts between the Arabian
25
386 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
desert and the Tigris and Euphrates. Their head,
he says, was called el'Hasai'h (Elchasai), and he was the
original founder of their confession. This el'Hasai'h
had a disciple called Schimun.1
The Schimun Hilgenfeld 2 thinks that Schimun may be Sobiai,
but in my opinion Schimun (Shimeon or Simon), if
he were ever a mortal, is more likely to have been
Simon Magus, and this would confirm the early date of
the Elxai teaching. Or if this is thought to be too
precise, then the Schimun of Elxai, the Holy Spirit,
may have originally had some connection with Shemesh,
the spiritual Sun of the Sampsseans and Simonians, the
Spouse of the Spirit or Water, Helena (Selene) or Luna,
the Moon, and the irresponsibility of legend has
" deranged the epitaphs."
Elcesei- Finally we must remember that the prophet Nahum,
naiim.r a nanie meaning " rich in comfort " or the " comforter,"
is called the Elkoshite ("Nah.," i. 1), a name given in
the Greek translation of the so-called Seventy as
Elkesaios.3 Moreover Jerome and Epiphanius (or
pseudo-Epiph.) tell us that this prophet was born at a
village in Galilee called Elkesei.4 It is, further, to be
remembered that Cephar-naum means the village or
town of Nahum, and here it was that Jesus began his
ministry, and where he specially laboured. Moreover
we read in the narrative of the first evangelist (Matt.
1 See Chwolsohn, " Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus " (St. Peters
burg ; 1856), ii. pp. 543. ff.
2 Op. rit., p. 232.
3 See Budde's art. "Elkoshite" in the " Encyclopaedia Biblica."
4 Hieron., " Comm. in Naum," proefat., Opp., vi. 535 ; Epiph.,
"De Vitis Prophetarum," c. 18. See Hilgenfeld, op. sup. cit.,
p. 231.
CONCERNING THE BOOK OF ELXAI. 387
ix. 1): "And he entered into a ship, and passed over
(the Lake of Galilee), and came into his own city"
which the parallel passage in Mark (ii. 1) gives as
Capernaum. What curious coincidences for a lover of
Talmudic and allied riddles !
XIX.— THE 100 YEARS B.C. DATE IN
EPIPHANIUS.
The Over- WE have already seen that Epiphanius, filled with
EpTphanius. nerv zea^ t° P^J the Hercules in defence of his own
special form of Church orthodoxy, is possessed of a
magnificent confidence in his own ability to smite off
every head of the many-necked hydra-serpent of heresy,
and so to cauterise the stumps that no head shall ever
again grow therefrom to give articulate utterance to
error. His self-confidence, however, is so overweening,
that he at times becomes quite reckless ; so much so
that he has bequeathed to posterity a mass of interest
ing evidence which would otherwise have entirely
disappeared, and which enables the independent thinker
to raise a number of questions of the greatest import
ance for the unprejudiced historian of Christian
beginnings.
Epiphanius Even with regard to our general subject of enquiry,
Jannai Date, we have already seen that the Bishop of Salamis has
had the hardihood to work the name Panther (Pandera)
into the canonical genealogy of Jesus. Does he, how
ever, give us any further information which can in any
way explain his extraordinary behaviour in this matter ?
Strange to say he does, and that, too, information of an
THE 100 B.C. DATE IN EPIPHANIUS. 389
even more startling nature; but before we bring for
ward the astonishing passages in which Epiphanius
boldly weaves the Jewish Jannai date tradition, which
contradicts the whole of traditional Christian history,
into his elaborate exposition of the date of Jesus accord
ing to canonical views, we must supplement what we
have already said about the general character of our
author as a heresiologist, by quoting from the sober and
moderate opinion of the greatest student of the writings
of this stalwart champion of Nicene Christianity whom
scholarship has so far produced. Lipsius, in his admir
able article l on this interesting Church Father, writes
as follows :
" An honest, but credulous and narrow-minded The Character
zealot for church orthodoxy, and notwithstanding the
veneration in which he was held by episcopal colleagues,
and still more in monastic circles, he was often found
promoting divisions, where a more moderate course
would have enabled him to maintain the peace of the
churches. His violence of temper too often led him,
especially in the Origenistic controversies, into an ill-
considered and uncanonical line of conduct; and the
narrow-minded spirit with which he was wont to deal
with controverted questions contributed in no small
degree to impose more and more oppressive fetters on
the scientific [sic] theology of his times. . . .
" His frequent journeys and exhaustive reading
enabled him to collect a large but ill-arranged store of
historical information, and this he used with mud)
ingenuity in defending the church orthodoxy of his
1 " Epiphanius of Salamis," in Smith and Wace's " Diet, of Christ.
Biography."
390 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
time, and opposing every kind of heresy. But as a
man attached to dry literal formulas he exercised
really very small influence on dogmatic theology, and
his theological polemics were more distinguished by
pious zeal than by impartial judgment and penetrating
intelligence. He is fond of selecting single particulars,
in which to exhibit the abominable nature of the
errors he is combating. When one bears in mind that
his whole life was occupied in the Origenistic contro
versy, his refutation of the doctrine of the Alexandrian
theologian is quite astonishingly superficial, a few
meagre utterances detached from their context, and in
part thoroughly misunderstood, is all that he has to
give us by way of characterising the object of his
detestation, and yet at the same time he boasted of
having read no less than 6000 of Origen's works, a
much larger number, as Kufinus remarks, than the man
had written. His credulity allows the most absurd
relations to be imposed upon it ; a heretic was capable
of any abomination, nor did he think it at all necessary
quietly to examine the charges made. . . .
The Value of " The accounts he gives of the Jewish Christian and
Gnostic sects . . . exhibit a marvellous mixture of
valuable traditions with misunderstandings and fancies
of his own. His pious zeal to excel all heresiologues
who had gone before him, by completing the list of
heretics, led him into the strangest misunderstandings,
the most adventurous combinations, and arbitrary asser
tions. He often frames out of very meagre hints long
and special narratives. The strangest phenomena are
combined with total absence of criticism, and things
which evidently belonged together are arbitrarily
THE 100 B.C. DATE IN EPIPHANIUS. 391
separated. On the other hand, he often copies his
authorities, with slavish dependence on them, and so
puts it in the power of critical commentators to collect
a rich abundance of genuine traditions from what
seemed a worthless mass."
Such is the impartial and judicious estimate of the
value of Epiphanius for our own day which Lipsius,
after many years of most careful study of the writings
of this puzzling Church Father, gives us. For his
contemporaries the Bishop of Constantia was a most
excellent and pious defender of the Faith, and for
future generations of the Church he was a saint who
went about working wonders, the recital of which out-
miracles even the marvels of the gospel-narratives. It
is no part of our task to read the shade of Epiphanius
a sermon on literary morality ; such a thing was not
invented in his day in theological circles. We must
take him as we find him, a profoundly interesting
psychological study, and so make what we can out
of his (from a critical standpoint) marvellously in
structive heresiological patch-work. We thus leave the
cult of Saint Epiphanius to those who may be benefited
by it, and proceed to quote the most astonishing
" logos " — as Epiphanius himself would have called
it had he found it in an earlier Father — of this
champion of Nicene orthodoxy and saint of Roman
Catholicism.
In treating of the Nazoraei, the Bishop of Salamis The Kiddle of
Epiphanius.
enters into a long digression to prove that the state
ment in Psalm cxxxii. 11 — "The Lord hath sworn in
truth unto David ; he will not turn from it, of the fruit
of thy body will I set upon thy throne " — is a Messianic
$92 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
prophecy fulfilled in the person of Jesus. This, he says,
is denied by some, but he will clearly show that it
duly came to pass. He then proceeds with his argu
ment as follows (" Hser.,'; xxix. 3) :
" Now the throne and kingly seat of David is the
priestly office in Holy Church ; for the Lord combined
the kingly and high-priestly dignities into one and the
same office, and bestowed them upon His Holy Church,
transferring to her the throne of David, which ceases
not as long as the world endues. The throne of
David continued by succession up to that time — namely,
till Christ Himself — without any failure from the
princes of Judah, until it came unto Him for whom
were 'the things that are stored up/ who is Himself
' the expectation of the nations.' l For with the advent
of the Christ, the succession of the princes from Judah,
who reigned until the Christ Himself, ceased. The
order [of succession] failed and stopped at the time
when He was born in Bethlehem of Judyea, in the days
of Alexander, who was of high-priestly and royal race ;
and after this Alexander this lot failed, from the times
of himself and Salina, who is also called Alexandra, for
the times of Herod the King and Augustus Emperor
of the Eomans ; and this Alexander, one of the anointed
(or Christs) and ruling princes placed the crown on his
own head. . . . After this a foreign king, Herod, and
1 These quotations of Epiphanius refer to the Septuagint
translation of Genesis xlix. 10, which, however, the Authorized
Version renders : " The sceptre shall not depart from Judah,
nor a law-giver from between his feet, until Shiloh come ; and
unto him shall the gathering of the people be." Here
" Shiloh " stands for " the things stored up," and " gathering "
for " expectation."
THE 100 B.C. DATE IN EPIPHANIUS. 39 3
those who were no longer of the family of David,
assumed the crown." l
This passage is perhaps the most remarkable in the The Most
whole range of Patristic literature; it might very Passage In °
well be called the " Eiddle of Epiphanius " par excellence, Literature
for it is the most enigmatic of all his puzzles. It is
remarkable for many reasons, but most of all because
no Father has given more minute indications of the
date of Jesus, according to canonical data helped out
by his own most positive assertions, than Epiphanius.
Nevertheless here we have the Bishop of Salamis
categorically asserting, with detailed reiteration, so that
there is no possibility of escape, that Jesus was born
in the days of Alexander and Salina, that is of Jannai
and Salome ; not only so, but he would have it that it
needs must have been so, in order that prophecy, and
prophecy of the most solemn nature, should be fulfilled
that there should be no break in the succession of
princes from the tribe of Judah, as it had been written.
There is no possible way of extricating ourselves
from the crushing weight of the incongruity of this
statement of Epiphanius by trying to emend the
reading of the text; for not only does the whole
subject of his argument demand such a statement,
1 I use the most recent text of W. Dindorf (Leipzig ; 1859-1862),
who took as the groundwork of his edition the valuable and
hitherto unused MS. in St. Mark's Library at Venice (Codex
Marcianus 125), which is dated 1057 A.D. The MS. contains a
much more original text than any of those previously used for our
printed editions, the oldest MS. previously employed bearing date
1304 A.D. As Lipsius says : " With its help not only are we
enabled to correct innumerable corruptions and arbitrary altera
tions of text made by later writers, but also to fill up numerous
and very considerable lacunae."
394 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
but he supports it by a number of subsidiary asser
tions.
Patent Errors It is hardly necessary to point out that the Bishop of
Salamis is in error as to the continuity of the kingly
line from Judah, and as to the cessation of the kingly
and high-priestly office with Janmeus. The priestly line
had no connection with Judah, and the line of kings
had long ceased, before the Hasinonaean Aristobulus,
who was of priestly descent and not of Judah, assumed
the crown in 105 B.C. ; he did not succeed to it.
Jannseus also assumed the high-priestly office. On the
death of Jannseus, Alexandra became regent, and sub
sequently her sons Hyrcanus II. and Aristobulus II.
enjoyed in succession the combined kingly and high-
priestly dignities.
When, moreover. Epiphanius says that Alexander
placed the crown on his own head, we are at a loss to
understand him; some MSS., however, read "his"
simply and not " his own " head, and this would mean,
presumably, that Alexander placed the crown on the
head of Jesus ; that is to say, at his death the succession
passed to Jesus.
The Silence So much for this part of Epiphanius' argument ; but
mentators. what of his extraordinary assertion that Jesus lived in
the days of Jannai ? So far, apparently, no commentator
has been able to make anything out of it. The learned
Jesuit Dionysius Petavius (Petau) — in the second edition
of Epiphanius (Paris ; 1622) — whose notes have been
added to every subsequent edition of this Father, can
make nothing of this "ghastly anachronism," as he
calls it. He tries to arrive at a solution by transposing
some of the sentences, but when he has done this, he
THE 100 B.C. DATE IN EPIPHANIUS. 395
honestly confesses that he has no confidence in his
attempt, for he finds precisely the same " confusion of
history" repeated by Epiphanius in another passage.
Indeed, so far I have been able to discover no commen
tator who has grappled with this Eiddle of Epiphanius.
They all leave it without remark where Petavius aban
doned it in despair. Even " the valuable contributions
to the criticism and exegesis of the Panarion," as Lipsius
calls them, added to (Ehler's edition 1 by Albert Jahn,
breathe no word on the matter ; while, as far as I am
aware, Lipsius himself has not referred to the subject.
Petavius honestly admits that his attempted emenda- Epiphanius
on the
tion of the text by a transposition of several of the Canonical
sentences is perfectly illegitimate, for he has to reckon
with precisely the same statement repeated further on
in the voluminous writings of the worthy Bishop.
In treating of the Alogi, who rejected the fourth
Gospel, Epiphanius enters into a long discussion
concerning the date of Jesus ("Hser.," li. 22 ff.).
Without the slightest attempt at style or clarity, he
piles together a mass of assertions to show that Jesus
was born in the forty-second year of Augustus, " King " of
the Romans ; not only so, but he knows the month and
the day and the hour. Epiphanius apparently counts
the " first year " of Augustus, that is of Octavi[an]us, from
the date of the murder of Julius Caesar, 44 B.C., and
therefore makes the date of the birth of Jesus fall in
B.C. 2, when Octavian was consul for the thirteenth
time with Sil[v]anus. This leaves Herod, who died in
B.C. 4, out in the cold, and with him the murder of the
1 In his "Corpus Haeresiologicum," vols ii., iii. (Berlin ; 1859-
1861).
396 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
innocents and much else which the compiler of the
first Gospel thought of importance ; but this does not
seem to bother the Bishop of Salamis, for he appears to
have no suspicion of the conclusions which can be
drawn from his confident assertions. This, however, is
a very minor point.
Mystically In giving the age of Jesus at the beginning of the
Numbers! ministry as thirty years, Epiphanius follows evangelical
precedent, but he adds a remark that is not without
significance (" Haer.," li. 23). " It is because of this," x
he continues, " that the former heresies which grouped
themselves round Valentinus and others fell to pieces ;
these set forth their thirty aeons in mythologic fashion,
thinking that they conformed to the years of Jesus."
There are those who would be inclined to argue the
very opposite ; but this need not detain us, except to
remark that Epiphanius, after adding the further precise
number " three " for the years of the ministry, uses a
two-edged sword when he proceeds to say :
" For it is in the thirty -third year of His advent in
the flesh that the passion of the Alone-begotten
conies to pass, of Him who is the impassible Logos
from above, but who took on flesh to surfer on our
behalf, in order that He might blot out the writing
of Death against us."2
Epiphanius In the midst of these categorical assertions the
Riddle hW Bisn°P °f Salamis in a most confused paragraph
writes :
" From the time that Augustus became Emperor, for
1 That is, the exact number of thirty years.
2 Cf. " Coloss.," ii. 14 : " Blotting out the handwriting of
ordinances that was against us."
THE 100 B.C. DATE IN EPIPHANIUS. 397
four years, more or less, from [the beginning of] his
reign, there had been friendship between the Komans
and Jews, and contributions of troops had been
sent, and a governor appointed, and some portion
of tribute paid to the Komans, until Judaea was made
[entirely] subject and became tributary to them, its
rulers having ceased from Judah, and Herod being
appointed [as ruler] from the Gentiles, being a proselyte,
however, and Christ being born in Bethlehem of Judaea,
and coming for the preaching [of the Gospel], the
anointed rulers from Judah and Aaron having ceased,
after continuing until the anointed ruler Alexander
and Salina who was also Alexandra ; in which days the
prophecy of Jacob was fulfilled : ' A ruler shall not
cease from Judah and a leader from his thighs, until he
come for whom it is laid up, and he is the expectation
of the nations ' l — that is, the Lord who was born."
We may conveniently omit any discussion of the " in Order
precise dates of the various changes in the political t^FulfiTled^s
relationship between Eoman and Jew; the point that it is Written."
interests us is that Epiphanius repeats categorically
his puzzling statement about Jannseus and Salome and
the date of Jesus, and again brings this into the
closest relation with what he regards as a most solemn
prophecy and promise in " Genesis." There is no
possible way of escape from the conclusion that
Epiphanius is arguing most deliberately that the kingly
and high-priestly offices were transferred immediately
from Jannai to Jesus, so that there should be no
break in the succession.
1 Epiphanius quotes this with a different reading from his
previous citation.
398 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
This argument is historically absurd, as we have
already seen ; we have now to consider whether there
was any other reason in the strangely irrational mind of
Epiphanius for this historicizing of a dogmatic specula
tion, which he himself immediately contradicts by going
into the most minute arguments to prove that Jesus was
born at a date which was 77 years later than the death of
Alexander. We will preface our enquiry by a quotation
from a recent address 1 by Dr. James Drummond to the
students of Manchester College, Oxford, in which
Epiphanius is brought into court.
Drummond " Justin Martyr tells us that when Christ was born
in Bethlehem, Joseph, not having where to lodge in the
village, lodged in a certain cave close to the village
(' Dial.,' Ixxviii.). It is therefore plausibly argued that
his gospel was different from ours. But when we find the
statement in Origen that agreeably to the history of
his (Christ's) birth in the gospel, the cave in Bethlehem
where he was born is pointed out (' C. Gels.,' i. 51), and
learn that Epiphanius, in endeavouring to harmonise
the accounts in Matthew and Luke, expressly affirms
that * Luke says that the boy, as soon as he was born,
was wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lay in a manger
and in a cave, because there was no room in the inn '
('Hser./ li. 9), we must view the argument quite
differently, for that which would prove an absurdity,
if applied to Origen and Epiphanius, cannot have any
weight in its application to Justin. The fact seems to
be that all alike rely upon a tradition that Christ was
born in a cave, and assume that this is sufficiently
1 " Remarks on the Art of Criticism in its Application to
Theological Questions" (Manchester ; 1902).
THE 100 B.C. DATE IN EPIPHANIUS. 399
indicated by Luke's allusion to a manger, just as in
modern times the same allusion leads to the supposition
that the birth took place in a stable, the stable being
really as foreign to the evangelical text as the
cave." 1
Whether Epiphanius in this was " endeavouring to The " Har-
harmonise " Matthew and Luke is somewhat beside the imfuSr of
point, for Matthew has nothing about swaddling clothes,
manger or inn, while Luke (ii. 7) says : " She brought
forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling
clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no
room for them in the inn." What is clear is that
Epiphanius was seeking to " harmonise " Luke with a
very ancient tradition which he (Epiphanius) could not
afford to disregard, and in order to effect his " harmony "
he has no hesitation in roundly declaring that Luke
states that the manger was in a cave.2
From this and from other instances we see that the
Bishop of Salamis sought to dispose of ancient extra-
canonical traditions by boldly incorporating them with
canonical data, and in so doing he had not the slightest
hesitation roundly to assert that data derived from
1 See, however, " Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew " (xiv.) : " Now on
the third day after the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, the most
blessed Mary went out of the cave, and, entering a stable, put her
child in a manger, and the ox and ass adored him."
2 The " cave " tradition is also preserved in the apocryphal " Gospel
of Jarnes " (c. xviii.), and in the " Gospel of Pseudo- Matthew " (c.
xiii.), and in the Arabic " Gospel of the Infancy " (c. iii). It is still an
open question whether or not the " originals " of these Gospels may
have been of an early date, in fact, whether they may not have been
included among the "many" of the introduction to the third
canonical Gospel. They were doubtless edited, re-edited and
transformed, but some of their elements seem to be ancient.
400
DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
His Magnifi
cent Incon
sistency.
ancient traditions, but not found in canonical scripture,
were actually part and parcel of the orthodox evan
gelical record. This was his way of disposing of incon
venient early traditions to which, we must suppose, even
in his day, a wide circulation was still given.
Can it then be that Epiphanius did not invent this
astonishing statement as to the birth of Jesus in the
days of Jannseus, but that he is simply carrying out his
plan of weaving inconvenient data into an orthodox tex
ture ? I have little doubt myself that this is the case.
But think of the magnificent inconsistency of the thing ;
try to imagine the state of mind that could seriously
weave together those gorgeous incongruities ! Truly a
heavy retribution for those who developed the " in order
that it might be fulfilled " theory of history. Epiphanius
is dazzled with his own exegesis of prophecy ; the
Church was the legitimate heiress of the royal and high-
priestly dignities of Jewry, bequeathed to her by Jesus
Himself ! A brilliant idea had come to him, and he
would work it out for the greater glory of the Church.
He accordingly sets out to argue the unbroken line of
succession of the princes from Judah, in the face of all
history, for the Hasmonsean or Maccabsean dynasty was
not from Judah at all, since Mattathias himself was the
son of John, a priest of the order of Joarib, and long
before then the kingly line had ceased. Why, then,
if the Bishop of Salamis can so easily set the plainest
facts of history aside in support of his theory, should
he hesitate to have brought down the combined offices
to the days of Herod, for Herod made the Hasmonsean
Aristobulus III. high priest about 36 B.C., and this
might have given Epiphanius a chance to argue that
THE 100 B.C. DATE IN EPIPHANIUS. 401
Aristobulus was really the legitimate king and priest
combined, Herod being an upstart ?
Why should Epiphanius have hit on Alexander, of all
people in the world, as the person to whom Jesus suc
ceeded in these combined offices ? True it is that
Alexander as a historical fact did combine these offices
in his own person, but so did his son Hyrcanus II. in 67
B.C., from whom subsequently his brother Aristobulus II.
wrested the titles, until in 63 Pompey constituted Syria
a Eoman province, leaving Judaea, Galilee and Persea to
the restored high priest Hyrcanus in subordination to
the governor of the province, while he took Aristobulus
and his children with him to Rome. Revolt followed
on revolt in favour of the Maccabsean dynasty, but the
hopes of Jewish patriotism were finally put an end to
by the elevation of the Idumsean Herod to the kingly
dignity in 37 B.C., and Herod made it his business to wipe
out the remaining male descendants of the Hasmonsean
princes, and finally succeeded in his task of extermina
tion about 25 B.C., when he put to death the sons of Baba.
Turn the matter over as one will, there seems no
escape from the conclusion that there was some other
deciding factor in the mind of Epiphanius besides the
simple fascination of his dogmatic theory, strong as
that was. It would seem that the Bishop of Salamis
was overjoyed to find that he could kill two birds with
one stone, enhance the glory of the Church, and slay
an ancient foe who had greatly inconvenienced him in the
past. This ancient foe was the tradition that Jesus had
lived in the days of Jannai ; it was this inconvenient
tradition which Epiphanius thought to dispose of by
working it into his dogmatic theory and elaborating it
26
402 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
in historic terms. The horrible incongruity of his
statements does not seem to have in the least disturbed
the self-complacency of the Church Father ; least of all
does he seem to have had any suspicion that he was
handing on to posterity the very thing which he desired
to slay once for all.
Whence, then, did Epiphanius derive this tradition ?
It might be argued that he got it from the " Essenes,"
or from some other of the allied communities with
which he had come into contact. But of this we
cannot be sure, for we have no precise data upon which
we can go. This much, however, we may say with
confidence, it derived originally from Jewish sources,
and formed no part of the tradition based on the
Hellenized Christianity of Paul and the Evangelists.
Indeed, we have already seen that this is not the only
instance in which Epiphanius has treated Jewish
tradition with a similar subtlety of finesse.
Epiphanius Our great heresiologue is arguing against those who
"Histories." venture to assert, as indeed they must if they follow
the clear statements of the Evangelists, that Mary had
other children besides Jesus. He says (" Hser.," Ixxviii. 7)
that such an assertion is due to the ignorance of those
who are not acquainted with the Holy Scriptures and
who have not studied the " Histories." The truth of the
matter is that the Virgin was given to Joseph, because
the lot so fell out, referring presumably to the story
preserved in the apocryphal " Gospel of James " and else
where.1 She was not given to Joseph to wife in the
1 " Gospel of James," ix. ; " Gospel of Pseudo- Matthew," viii. ;
" Gospel of the Nativity of Mary," viii. ; " History of Joseph the
Carpenter," iv.
THE 100 B.C. DATE IN EPIPHANIUS. 403
ordinary sense, for he was a widower and of extreme
old age. It was " on account of the law," whatever that
may mean, that he was called her husband. For
11 according to the succession from the tradition of the
Jews," it is proved that the Virgin was not given to
Joseph for the ordinary purpose of marriage, but in
order that she might be kept for the testimony of the
future, that " the dispensation of His advent in the flesh
was not [a] bastard [birth]." For how, Epiphanius
goes on to say, could a man of such great age (as he
assumes Joseph to have been) have a virgin to wife,
after he had been so many years a widower ? For this
Joseph was the brother of Clophas, and son of Jacob
surnamed Panther. Both of these were sons of this
Panther.
Now it is to be observed in the first place that The
,„ . i . T ,. ,i P , . . "Succession
Lpiphamus distinctly refers to a certain " succession from the
from the tradition of the Jews," that is to say,
apparently a tradition handed on from generation to
generation to his own time, and afterwards he asserts
that this tradition proves that Mary was legally
married to Joseph, in order that there might be no
charge of bastardy with regard to the miraculously-
born Jesus. Whereas we know on the contrary that
this was what the Jewish Pandera tradition did not
state, but the very opposite. The Bishop of Salamis is
arguing against the accusation of bastardy, and meets
the charge with his usual boldness by invoking as wit
nesses on his side the very sources which make most
directly against his assertion. Nor can there be any
escape from this, for immediately afterwards he dex-
trously inserts Panther (Pandera) into the genealogy of
404 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Jesus on the father's side ; and here it is interesting to
observe that, as Joseph is said to have been very old,1
say some eighty years, and that Joseph was son of
Panther, Panther is to be placed about 100 B.C.
The Children Epiphanius, then, beyond all question knows of the
Jewish traditions concerning Jesus; he knows of the
name Ben Pandera and also of the Mamzer legends.
But this is not all, for, in arguing for the perpetual
virginity of Mary, he goes on to tell us, that Joseph
had six children by his first wife, four sons and
two daughters, and the former were the " brethren "
mentioned in the Gospels. The eldest son was called
Jacob, otherwise Oblias (sic), who was a Nazorsean (he
means Nazir), commonly called the " brother of the
Lord." He was the first Christian bishop. This son
Joseph begat when he was forty years of age, and after
him were born Jose, Simeon and Judas, and two
daughters Maria and Salome.2
James. If Joseph had been a widower so many years before
he married the Virgin as to make Epiphanius exclaim
over their number, we must suppose that his widow
hood dated from about his fiftieth year, and that
perhaps he was eighty when he entered on his second
purely legal nuptials. This would make Jacob some
forty years old at the time of the birth of Jesus accord
ing to the common reckoning (B.C. 4), and one hundred
1 Cf. " History of Joseph the Carpenter," where Joseph is called
" widower " (ii.), and " a pious old man " (iv., et passim), and where
he is said to have been 111 years old when he died (v.).
2 The " History of Joseph the Carpenter" gives these names as
Judas, Justus, James and Simon, and the daughters as Assia and
Lydia (ii.) ; and Assia is further mentioned as apparently the elder
of the daughters (xx.).
THE 100 B.C. DATE IN EPIPHANIUS. 405
•
and seven years old when he was martyred by Jewish
zealots in about 63 A.D.,1 a somewhat advanced age,
even for a rigid ascetic. But it is unnecessary
seriously to follow Epiphanius in his wild assertions in
the interests of an ever-developing dogmatism.
The point that interests us most deeply in his bold The Names
, . , „ . , of the Sisters
statement is the question of the names or these Of Jesus,
supposed step-brothers and step-sisters of Jesus. Jacob,
Joseph, Simeon and Judas are all common enough
Jewish names, and so are Miriam and Salome. But
Epiphanius seems to be up to his tricks again and to
have worked the names of Mary and Salome into the
family of Joseph, just as he has worked Pandera into
the genealogy of Jesus. For while we can find some
data in the canonical records which may enable us to
conjecture some reason for Epiphanius bringing forward
Jacob, Joseph (Jose), Simeon and Judas, as names of
lt brethren of the Lord," there is nothing to warrant
his introduction of the names of Maria and Salome.
Salome is only mentioned (" Mk.," xv. 40) as a woman Salome and
present at the crucifixion, and afterwards (" Mk.," xvi. 1)
as a visitor to the sepulchre. " Nothing else is known
of her, though there are many conjectures, of which
the principal is that she was a sister of Mary, the
mother of Jesus. In support of this view may be cited
a reading of the Peshitta version of Jos. xix. 25 (vf. also
the Jerus. Syr. lectionary), and a presumptive unlikeli
hood, on account of the similarity of names, that Mary
the wife of Clopas was a sister of the mother of Jesus." 2
1 See Cone's art. " James " in " Enc. Bib."
2 See Moss' art. "Salome" in Hastings' "Dictionary of the
406 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
In the " Gospel of James " (xix.), however, Salome is
the name of the midwife who delivered Mary ; while in
the "Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew " there are two midwives,
Zelomi and Salome (evidently a double). " The Gospel
of Pseudo- Matthew " (xlii.) also contains the following
interesting passage : " Now when Joseph came to a
feast with his sons, James, Joseph, and Judah, and
Simeon, and his two daughters, Jesus and Mary, his
mother, met them, together with her sister Mary the
daughter of Cleophas, whom the Lord God gave to
Cleophas her father and Anna her mother because they
had offered to the Lord Mary the mother of Jesus."
One might almost fancy that a twin of Epiphanius had
had a hand in the redaction.
Salome and Qn the other hand we have seen that in the Jewish
legends, based on earlier tradition, Miriam the mother
is said to have been related to Helene (Salome), and
we know that Simeon (ben Shetach) was the brother
of Salome (Alexandra). Can it then be that here again
Epiphanius is influenced by Jewish tradition ? If so, it
would be a strong confirmation of our hypothesis with
regard to the Helene puzzle, for here in Epiphanius we
find that the name Salome appears undisguised.
Epiphanius a It thus is not only certain that Epiphanius was
jew. acquainted with such main factors of Jewish tradition
with regard to Jesus as the by-name Ben Pandera and
the 100 years B.C. date, but it also appears probable
that he was acquainted with the other details. Nor is
this surprising, for not only did Epiphanius know some
Hebrew,1 but he also spoke Aramaic or Syriac. More-
1 Though not as much as he had the credit of knowing. " His
learning was much celebrated," says Lipsius ; " he was said to have
THE 100 B.C. DATE IN EPIPHANIUS. 407
over, he was a Jew by birth, and his parents remained
faithful to the Law till the day of their death.1 He
was born in Palestine at Eleutheropolis, and was con
verted in early youth to Christianity. The exact date
of his birth is unknown, but may be conjecturally
placed about 315 A.D. After spending some years
among the monks of Egypt, Epiphanius, who was still
only a youth of twenty, returned home, and founded a
monastery near Besanduke, over which he presided
until elected to the see of Constantia in Cyprus in
367 A. D. He thus spent no less than fifteen years of his
boyhood and thirty-two years (335-367) of his manhood
in Palestine, with which indeed he was closely con
nected till the end of his long life in 403.
Everything, therefore, is in favour of his being The Living
acquainted with the Jewish traditions concerning Jesus,
and we may be confident that the sources of these very
curious scraps of information, dropped in the course of
his indiscriminate and indiscreet polemic, are the same
as those from which the Talmud compilers and Toldoth
writers drew — the living oral tradition of Jewry.
But before finally leaving this very interesting but
impolitic champion of Church orthodoxy, we must bring
forward another passage from Epiphanius, which, though
having no immediate bearing on our subject, is of the
greatest possible importance for the critical study of
Christian origins.
spoken four languages, — Hebrew, Syriac, Egyptian, Greek, and
also a little Latin, for which Rufinus satirised him with the
remark that he thought it his duty as an evangelist to speak evil
of Origen, among all nations in all tongues." Art. sup. cit.
1 Photius, " Bibliothcca," cod. cxxiv.
408 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
We have already stated that all the editions of the
" Panarion " prior to that of Dindorf were based on MSS.
which had been greatly bowdlerized and "emended."
The very early Codex Marcianus 125, however, has
enabled us to correct much of this " emendation " and
to supply many very important lacunae. The following
is one of the censured passages (" Hser.," li. 22).
The Birthday « The Saviour was born in the forty-second year of
of the Christ.
Augustus, King of the Eomans, in the consulship of
the same Octavi[an]us Augustus (for the thirteenth
time) and of Sil[v]anus, according to the consular
calendar among the Eomans. For it is recorded in
it as follows: When these were consuls (I mean
Octavi[an]us for the thirteenth time and Sil[v]anus),
Christ was born on the sixth day of January after thir
teen days of the winter solstice and of the increase of
the light and day. This day [of the solstice] the Greeks,
I mean the Idolaters, celebrate on the twenty-fifth day
of December, a feast called Saturnalia among the
Komans, Kronia among the Egyptians, and Kikellia
among the Alexandrians.1 For on the twenty- fifth day of
December the division takes place which is the solstice,
and the day begins to lengthen its light, receiving an
increase, and there are thirteen days of it up to the sixth
day of January, until the day of the birth of Christ (a
thirtieth of an hour being added to each day), as the
wise Ephraim among the Syrians bore witness by this
inspired passage (logos} in his commentaries, where he
says : ' The advent of our Lord Jesus Christ was thus
1 Epiphanius presumably means that it was called Kronia by
the Greeks, Saturnalia by the Romans, and Kikellia by the
Egyptians, or, at any rate, by the Alexandrians.
THE 100 B.C. DATE IN EPIPHANIUS. 409
appointed : [first] his birth according to the flesh, then
his perfect incarnation among men, which is called
Epiphany, at a distance of thirteen days from the
increase of the light ; for it needs must have been that
this should be a figure of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself
and of His twelve disciples, who made up the number
of the thirteen days of the increase of the light.'
" How many other things in the past and present sup- The Cruci
fixion and
port and bear witness to this proposition, I mean the Resurrection
birth of Christ ! Indeed, the leaders of the idol-cults, Mystery Rite-
filled with wiles to deceive the idol-worshippers who
believe in them, in many places keep highest festival on
this same night of Epiphany, so that they whose hopes
are in error may not seek the truth. For instance, at
Alexandria, in the Koreion * as it is called — an immense
temple — that is to say, the Precinct of the Virgin ; after
they have kept all-night vigil with songs and music,
chanting to their idol, when the vigil is over, at cock
crow, they descend with lights into an underground
crypt, and carry up a wooden image lying naked on a
litter, with the seal of a cross made in gold on its fore
head, and on either hand two other similar seals, and
on both knees two others, all five seals being similarly
made in gold. And they carry round the image itself,
circumambulating seven times the innermost temple,
to the accompaniment of pipes, tabors and hymns, and
with merry-making they carry it down again under
ground. And if they are asked the meaning of this
1 That is the temple of Kore. This can hardly be the temple of
Persephone, as Dindorf (iii. 729) suggests, but is rather the temple
of Isis, who in one of the treatises of the Trismegistic literature jf?
cabled the World -Maiden,
410 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
mystery, they answer and say : ' To-day at this hour
the Maiden (Kore), that is, the Virgin, gave birth to the
aeon.'
" In the city of Petra also — the metropolis of Arabia
which is called Edom in the Scriptures — the same is
done, and they sing the praises of the Virgin in the
Arab tongue, calling her in Arabic Chaamou, that is,
Maiden (Kore), and the Virgin, and him who is born
from her Dusares, that is, Alone-begotten (monogenes) of
the Lord. This also takes place in the city of Elousa
[? Eleusis] 1 on the same night just as at Petra and at
Alexandria."
"Plagiarism Here again Epiphanius, to prove a dogmatic point
tion." K and display his learning, lets a most important fact
escape him. We have read many speculative opinions
on the symbolic rite of " crucifixion " and the " resurrec
tion from the dead," but have never seen this striking
passage of Epiphanius quoted in this connection. Here
we have a definite statement that one of the most wide
spread mystic festivals of the ancients was connected
with a rite of "resurrection," and that in Egypt the
one who was " raised from the dead," and returned
from the underworld or Hades, was sealed with five
mystic crosses on forehead, hands and knees (? feet).
This symbolic rite represented a macrocosmic mystery,
Epiphanius tells us ; but was there not also an analogous
microcosmic mystery ? And if so, must it not have
been familiar to all those mystic schools and com
munities, Essene, Therapeut, Hermetic and Gnostic,
which are so inextricably interwoven with nascent Chris-
1 The only Elousa I can discover was a small place in
Aquitaine,
THE 100 B.C. DATE IN EPIPHANIUS. 411
tianity ? Do we not meet with innumerable references
to the mystic " again-rising from the dead " among the
Gnostic circles ; do we not also possess long quotations
from one of their esoteric writings which finds the
closest analogies with this central mystery of man
regenerate in all the mystery-rites of antiquity? Do
we not further possess the ritual of a very early
Christian mystery-drama, or form of initiation, in
which " the things done " closely resembled that of
the passion — the crucifixion ? 1
We need hardly direct the attention of the observant Farewell to
reader to the aplomb with which Epiphanius categori- EPiPbanius-
cally asserts that the exact record of the birth of Jesus
was to be found in the official Eoman Fasti ; this may
be well paralleled by the like assertion of Justin that
the trial of Jesus was to be found in the official Acts
of Pilate. The wish was father to the thought, and
there is an end of it. But may there not be some
further reason for Epiphanius making so much of this
Epiphany ? Can it be that the similarity between it
and his own Gentile name, Epiphanius, may have
nattered the vanity of our pious but credulous heresio-
logue ? Who knows ?
Distracting, therefore, as the Bishop of Salamis is for
the student of history, he occasionally lets fall a scrap
of information which is of greater value than anything
we can procure from other and more sober sources.
And so in concluding our review of some of those
" blunders " of his, we thank him for his over-zeal, and
forgive him his total lack of historical honesty.
1 See my " Fragments of a Faith Forgotten," " The Naaseni," pp.
198-206, and " The Acts of John," pp. 426-444.
412 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
Was Jesus in As we have frequently referred to the Apocryphal
t(?30 BPc.T Gospels, or " Histories," as Epiphanius prefers to call
them, it might be opportune to append in this place a
curious passage from the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy.
The form in which we now have this Gospel is of
course very late, but it frequently works up ancient
matter.
In the middle portion of this apocryphon, which pro
fesses to give a detailed story of what happened to the
Holy Family during their three years' sojourn in Egypt,
ch. xxv. reads as follows :
"Thence they went down to Memphis, and having
seen Pharaoh, they staid three years in Egypt ; and
the Lord Jesus wrought very many miracles in Egypt,
which are not found written either in the Gospel of the
Infancy or in the Perfect Gospel."
Now the last of the Pharaohs was Cleopatra, whose
tragic death occurred in B.C. 30. There is just the
faintest possibility that this detail may have been
taken from some ancient source ; but on the face of it,
it seems to be the story-telling of some imaginative
monk, following out his normal association of ideas
(Egypt-Pharaoh), the na'ive adornment of a tale.
If, however, as some think, this Gospel came from
Coptic circles, then the possibilities of our first hypo
thesis would be slightly increased, for dwellers in Egypt
might be supposed to hand on local tradition, even while
transforming it out of all recognition. But who can
recognize with any certainty the flotsam and jetsam
from the shipwreck of history that may have come into
the hands of late legend-makers ?
XX— AFTERWOKD.
WE have now reached the end of our enquiry, and look A Retrospect,
back upon our labours with mingled feelings of thank
fulness that they are temporarily ended, and of regret
that the nature of the subject throughout has been such
that, even with the best will in the world, we cannot
have avoided giving offence to many who will never
trouble themselves to reflect that an excavator in
religious antiquity cannot justly be held to be re
sponsible for the nature of the objects he unearths from
the debris of the buried past. But apart from this, it is
somewhat a thankless task to find oneself compelled
to add to the already enormous mass of difficulties
which confront the student of Christian origins, rather
than to help in diminishing them. For we can hardly
hope that any but the few will be optimistic enough
to have confidence that the very increasing of the
difficulties is the surest way of hastening the day when
some more potent means of removing them will be
devised.
As we said at the outset, most Christians, whether
they be unlearned or learned, will not hesitate for one
instant to answer the amazing question: Did Jesus
live 100 B.C. ? with an indignant No. We shall, there-
414 BID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
fore, have accomplished as much as we can reasonably
hope for, if an impartial consideration of the evidence
should persuade the reader that some cause has been
shown why the asking of such a question should not as
a matter of course be impatiently condemned on sight
as the fantastic conceit of a disordered mind.
A Legitimate For, in the first place, we hope to have shown that
Criticism. the question is not of our own devising, but that, on the
contrary, it arises as a legitimate subject of criticism
out of an impartial enquiry into what appears to be one
of the most persistent elements of Jewish tradition con
cerning Jesus. We do not come forward with some
wild theory of our own maliciously to vex the souls of
those who naturally hold loyally to the thing they have
grown used to in Christian canonical tradition ; we
simply point to the existence, and what we consider we
have shown to be the persistence, of an entirely contra
dictory tradition held tenaciously for many centuries by
the fellow-countrymen of Jesus. We have not the
temerity to presume to decide offhand between those
ancient oppositions, but simply show that they exist,
and venture to think that they require further investi
gation.
A Question The argument with regard to the persistency of the
Scholarship. 100 B-c- date of Jesus is, of course, primarily addressed
to Jewish scholars, and is put forward in the hope of
drawing attention to Krauss' treatment of the subject,
which cannot be held to be flattering to the pride of
Israel in its traditions. Krauss has practically aban
doned the field without a struggle ; he categorically re
jects the Jannai date, and tacitly accepts throughout
his essay the entire validity of the Christian tradition of
AFTERWORD. 415
the Pilate date, and in this he is supported, as far as I
can discover, by the vast majority of modern Jewish
scholars who treat of Christian beginnings.
As opposed to Krauss, who throughout his whole
argument keeps the inconvenient factor of the Jannai
date as much as possible out of the way, we have en
deavoured to show that an analysis of Talmud passages
and the Toldoth forms produces the impression that the
100 B.C. date element goes back to the floating mass of
tradition from which both Talmud and Toldoth drew,
and reveals this date as a persistent obsession which
even the most glaring contradictions of both Talmud
and Toldoth could never oust from its secure asylum in
the national consciousness of Jewry.
Moreover, our enquiry into a number of problems
connected with Christian origins seems to point to a
field of investigation which appears likely to strengthen
rather than weaken the possibility of a new considera
tion of Israel's reminiscences, from a point of view
that should make Jewish scholars hesitate before they
entirely abandon without a struggle what appears to
be one of the fundamentals of their Jesus tradition,
although they may in courtesy very well regret some
of the thought-images in which part of this tradition
has been clothed.
Nor can Jewish scholarship very wisely ignore the Its Import-
problem now that Krauss has brought it again pro- Jewish1
minently into the arena of apologetics, in the train of Apol°getics.
his motley assembly of sources for his " Life of Jesus "
according to Jewish tradition. It is true that Krauss
has placed the Jannai date well in the background as
one of the most disreputable figures in the procession ;
416 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
but it can hardly be expected that the majority of
Jewish scholars will agree with Krauss without a
further thoroughgoing enquiry, and be content to keep
permanently in the background a factor of tradition
which seems beyond all others to be the natural
leader of the band. For there can be no doubt that if,
from a thoroughgoing investigation of the subject, it
could be shown that the Jannai date threw light on
many obscure problems, the whole subject of Jewish
apologetics would be enormously facilitated, and Jewish
tradition would assume an importance for the study of
Christian origins that would concentrate the attention
of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century upon
the Talmud and its allied literature.
If, on the contrary, Jewish scholars find themselves
compelled to abandon their tradition in this respect,
what hope can they have that the " treasure " which
the Israelites have guarded with their lives for so many
centuries, will in other respects be regarded by the
thinking world as worthy of very serious attention ?
They may rather expect to be for ever confronted with
the retort : Ex uno disce omnes !
The Bona Jn the Talmud we have a collection of Jewish tradi-
Talmud. tions compiled after the rise of Christianity, compiled
during the very centuries when the new Faith was most
strenuously fighting its way to the position of becoming
the General Faith of the Western world ; herein we have
the record of the national life, of the hopes and fears of
the people amongst whom especially Christianity came
to birth ; what greater test of the reliability and bona
fides of the Talmud could there be, therefore, than the
tradition which it contains concerning Jesus ?
AFTERWORD. 417
If, then, Jewish scholarship should find itself com
pelled to abandon so prominent a feature of this
tradition as the Jannai date, and to accept the Christian
canonical tradition in this respect, it is difficult to see
how the Talmud can be considered anything but a
blind guide on the subject which of all others in it most
profoundly interests the Western world.
If, on the contrary, as some of my Jewish friends A Line of
contend, the Life of Jesus, as set forth in elaborate
detail by the later Evangelists, came as a complete
surprise to the contemporary Eabbis, who possessed
nothing but the most meagre traditions of their ancient
colleague — vague reminiscences, such as that it all
happened a long time ago, perhaps when Jannai was
king, that there was some heresy or other started by a
Jeschu who had learned wonder-doings and other things
in Egypt, and who was put to death for misleading the
people — then the Jews would seem to possess a largely
extended ground of apology and justification for the
rejection of what they already consider, even when
they accept the Christian canonical date, to be for the
most part a pseudo-historical setting of what was
largely a dogmatic development.
It is true that even when accepting the Christian The Method
canonical date, the Jewish apologist can still argue
that most of the Talmud Jesus stories may be accounted
for as the " historicizing " or " legendarizing " of later
doctrinal controversies, which may be set over against a
similar " historicizing " of doctrinal formulas and dogmas
in the Christian tradition; such, he might argue, was
the common method of the religious mind of the time,
and no one regarded it as a falsification of history ; it
27
418 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
was understood as a legitimate method by all haggada-
compilers, religious controversialists and writers for
edification ; they wrote with strong religious emotion, and
this emotion gave them consent ; saving and living ideas,
not the dead facts of an uncertain past, were their main
interest. It is true that this method has long passed
out of fashion, and that to-day it is the exact antipodes
of the scientific precision of fact we demand in all such
matters in the twentieth century ; but it seems only
just to remember that in endeavouring to appreciate
the value of the evidence on either side, we have no
right to condemn one side more than the other for its
unhistorical forms, seeing that for the most part both
used essentially similar methods for supporting their
contentions, the actual facts of history being frequently
set on one side or transformed the instant any doctrinal
point became endangered by them.
TheJannai All this can be fairly argued with regard to many
points which have arisen in our enquiry ; but we must
confess that the Jannai date is very difficult to explain
in this way. There is a something peculiar about it
which is somewhat fascinating.
If we are told that Jesus lived in the days of
Nebuchadnezzar, we are not so astonished ; for experi
ence in contemporary apocalyptic and pseudepigraphic
literature teaches us that Nebuchadnezzar is clearly
a substitute for some other name. If even we are told
that Akiba, one of the most famous of anti-Christian
controversialists, at the beginning of the second century
A.D. calls on Mary to witness to the illegitimacy of
Jesus, we can understand that this is a pure device of
haggadic polemical rhetoric, but when we are told that
AFTERWORD. 419
Jeschu was the disciple of Joshua ben Perachiah and
lived in the days of Jannai, and find this date element
cropping up again and again in many guises in Jewish
tradition, we fail to find a satisfactory explanation
in either of the above canons of exegesis.
It all seems so senseless, so useless ; if it was untrue, Its Apparent
, , ., ., , „ -,-„ ., ,, Senselessness.
what purpose could it possibly serve ? If it was the
truth, why did not the Eabbis invariably put it in the
forefront of all their polemics, and bend all their
energies on making their tradition consistent, even as
the Christians devoted all theirs to making their story
uniform ? But this is just what we do not find ; there
is not a single word on the Christian side to show that
the Eabbis ever argued that the Christian tradition was
one hundred years out ; no early writer, no Church
Father (if we except Epiphanius, who only does so in
directly), breathes a word of such a terrific indictment
of the fundamental historicity of the Christian tradition.
Whatever we learn of the controversy from the Chris
tian side, it all seems to show that the Eabbis spent all
their energies on combatting dogmas — such as the virgin-
birth, the divinity of Jesus, the Messiah claim, etc. It
is true that Celsus categorically accuses the Christians
of continually altering the Gospel history to suit
dogmatic considerations ; but is it credible that the
Eabbis could have had so potent a weapon in their
hands as an ancient and authentic tradition that Jesus
lived 100 B.C., and yet have refrained from using it on
every occasion ?
It might, of course, be argued that this was not The Seeming
Silence of the
necessary in the first century ; the controversy then Rabbis.
was simply with the Pauline view, in which there was a
420 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
minimum of history and a maximum of opposition to
Jewish legalism, and it was the latter which engaged
the whole attention of the Kabbis. It might be said
that the contest in that century was, so to say, a combat
not of haggadoth but of halaclwtJi \ as far as popular
Christianity was concerned, there were simply collec
tions of sayings and such mystical forms of doctrine as
those with which Paul was familiar and in which history
played hardly any part. But even so, when later on
the Jesus liaggadoth began to take ever more and more
definite shape and the present Gospel narratives came
to birth, why, if the Eabbis had in their hands a
reliable tradition of the existence of Jesus 100
years B.C., did they not employ it as their main weapon
of controversy ?
All the evidence seems to point to the fact that they
did not generally do so, and, therefore, we are inclined
to conclude that they could not have had any general
confidence in their tradition ; and yet, on the other
hand, it persisted among them, and did form an in
convenient weapon of attack, as Epiphanius indirectly
witnesses. It is, of course, a common experience to find
what appears to the modern mind to be the main point
in a great popular controversy obscured, and every
possible subordinate consideration taking precedence of
it ; this is common to the imbecility of human nature.
But it is just possible that in this special instance the
mind of antiquity, in considering that the energies at
work were of more importance than the forms in which
they were clothed, was nearer the truth than ourselves
when we make history and external facts the more im
portant things, and subordinate the consideration of
AFTERWORD. 421
the forces behind the phenomena to a secondary
position.
However this may be, it is a fact that ever haunts The Strength
the consciousness of the historian and gives it no peace, Christian
that the most careful research cannot discover a scrap ^
of external evidence in the first century that witnesses
to the existence of Jesus, much less to the stupendously
marvellous physical doings which the Gospel writers
relate of him.
On the contrary, it is almost impossible to believe
that these detailed and circumstantial narratives — even
when shorn of every " miraculous " element to suit the
preconceptions of extreme rationalists — could have been
evolved entirely from the inner consciousness of
Christian scribism ; and, if there be any element in the
whole narrative which bears on its face the stamp of
genuineness, it is precisely the Pilate date. This, in
my opinion, takes precedence far and away over all
other date indications, and if it be not true, I cannot
imagine any really satisfactory explanation for what
otherwise must apparently have been inevitably shown
to be a clumsy invention, for, as I have said before, the
Rabbis could have instantly replied: There was no
such trial under Pontius Pilate !
The Pilate story seems to have been in existence in
written form not long after 70 A.D. This, of course, can
not be proved, for what can we prove concerning the
Gospel narratives in the first century ? But the whole
phenomena of Gospel compilation seem to point to its
existence somewhere about 75 A.D. If, then, this de
duction holds good, we are compelled to think that,
with barely forty years between the last year of Pilate's
422
DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
Document/
procuratorship and this date, the probabilities are
largely on the side of its genuineness. •
A Suggested On the other hand, 1 have heard it suggested by one
the "Common wno holds to 100 B.C. as the correct date, that the
genesis of the Gospel story, which criticism is
endeavouring to recover in the form of the " common
document," is to be traced to the sketch of an ideal life
which was intended for purposes of propaganda, and
which could be further explained to those who were
ready for more definite instructions in the true nature
of the Christ mystery. To a certain extent it was
based on some of the traditions of the actual historic
doings of Jesus, but the historical details were often
transformed by the light of the mystery-teaching, and
much was added in changed form concerning the drama
of the Christ mystery ; allegories and parables and
actual mystery-doings were woven into it, with what
appears now to be a consummate art which has baffled
for ages the intellect of the world, but which at the
time was regarded by the writer as a modest effort at
simplifying the spiritual truths of the inner life, by
putting them forward in the form of what we should
now call a " historical romance," but which in his day
was one of the natural methods of haggada and
apocalyptic.
When it was further questioned: But why did the
writer who put together this marvellous story place it
at a date which you say was not the real date of Jesus ?
— the explanation suggested was somewhat as follows.
The evangelical writer put the story at a date between
himself and what we consider the actual historical
date, most probably because he desired to avoid contro-
The Pilate
Date from a
New Point
of View.
AFTERWORD. 423
versy and criticism ; he did not desire that the public,
and especially those inimical to his own tradition,
should be put on the track of the actual date, so that
the memory of one who was regarded in the tradition
of his school as the beloved Teacher, par excellence,
should escape being bandied about in the arena of
vulgar curiosity and violent theological controversy.
Although his affection induced him to weave many
sayings and perhaps some doings of the Master into his
work, he especially did not wish to have it mistaken for
the actual historical account of the life of the real Jeschu.
This was the main reason ; but the Pilate date was
also determined by the fact that there seems to have
been some Jewish semi-prophet who created a little
disturbance in a very small way, and who was in conse
quence brought before Pilate on a charge of sedition.
The writer may have thus also taken some few facts
from this incident and woven it into the main story ;
but he never had the slightest idea that anyone would
take the story in any sense except that in which he
intended it.
A further suggestion has also been made that the " Pontius
Pilate " a
name Pontius Pilate came most readily to hand in Name-
this connection in those days of name-play, for it bore a
close resemblance to a mystical term which played an
important part in the mystery teaching. My colleague
C. W. Leadbeater, in treating of the most ancient form
of the creed-formula and the words " Suffered under
Pontius Pilate," *• writes :
"Instead of IIONTIOYIIIAATOY, the earliest
1 Leadbeater (C. W.), " The Christian Creed, its Origin and
Significance " (London ; n.d. ? 1898),2p. 45,
424 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
Greek manuscripts which the clairvoyant investi
gators have yet been able to find all read IIONTOY-
HIAHTOY. Now the interchange of A and H is by
no means unfrequent in various Greek dialects, so that
the only real alteration here is the insertion of the I,
which changes TroVro?, meaning sea, into TTOVTIOS, which
is a Koman proper name."
The writer further says that later on evr) was
substituted for VTTO', and, with regard to TTOVTOS
TriXrjTos, states that the term meant a " compressed or
densified sea," i.e., the sea of " matter." This " suffer
ing " of the Logos under the " thickened sea," however,
does not refer to physical matter, but to an earlier
stage in the descent of the Soul, for " the first step
mentioned is the assumption of the vesture of matter —
'the incarnation'; then the taking of human form,
though still in the higher principles only; then the
'suffering under Pontius Pilate,' or descent into the
astral sea ; and only after that the crucifixion on the
cross of physical matter, in which He is graphically
described as ' dead and buried '" (p. 47).
Review All things, we are told, are possible to him that
of this
Suggestion believeth, and we may add also to him that dis-
believeth ; but the question here is not so much one of
possibility as of probability ; that is to say, can a mind
which endeavours to put on one side all preconception and
prejudice for or against the means whereby the suggested
explanation is stated to have been arrived at, and tries to
judge of the matter solely on the ground of a hypo
thesis to explain the puzzling facts of objective research,
entertain this suggestion as one that is not inherently
improbable ?
AFTERWORD. 425
It is true that TnA^ro? in Greek is used by Aristotle
in the opposite sense to elastic, with the general mean
ing of that which " may be pressed close without
returning to its shape " ; while pilatus in Latin also
means close-pressed, thick, dense (dcnsus, pi'essus)." It
is further the fact that the early mystical communities
have much to say of " water," " sea," " ocean," in the
sense or as the symbol of subtle matter. It might,
therefore, be held that these considerations give some
colouring of probability to the suggestion. But, even so,
it can only remain as a speculation, and cannot emerge
into the domain of generally legitimized hypothesis,
until objective research into the nomenclature and
thought-atmosphere of the early mystic schools con
vinces us that the main secret of Christian dogmatics
is almost entirely hidden in the mysteries of the inner
experience. At present this latter view is repugnant to
most minds engaged on the study of Christian origins,
but that it is a very legitimate view I am myself
becoming more and more convinced with every added
year of study bestowed on the beginnings and earliest
environment of Christianity.
And in this connection I would venture to say that The Making
the actual objective physical history of Jesus himself is
one thing ; the continued inner presence of the Master
whose love and wisdom and power were in the new
dispensation first made externally manifest through
Jesus, is another matter. The former is mainly a
question of pure objective history, though psychologically
it becomes complicated with mysterious influences with
which our present very limited knowledge of psychic
science is not competent to deal, while the latter is a
426 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
question of subjective activity, of vision and spiritual
experiences, of an energising from within, a divine
leaven working in the hearts and minds of disciples of
every class of society and range of ability, the actual
inner history of which no purely objective research can
ever reveal.
From all of this there emerged in course of time a
view of history and dogma that gradually shaped itself
into ever more and more rigid uniformity ; a sameness
which we cannot discover in the days when the leaven
was most actively working. In earlier times this later
special view — let us call it Nicene Christianity — was at
best one of a number ; nay, in the earliest days it
would have been probably unrecognizable as the view
of any circle or group of immediate disciples of the
Master.
The "Secret And in this connection it will be of interest to
Sermon on the
Mountain." set forth the mystic tradition of the true nature of
the " Son of God " and of the " Virgin Birth " as pre
served to us in those very instructive documents gene
rally known as Hermetic, but which may be more dis
tinctly characterized as the Trismegistic literature. It is
impossible here to set forth the reasons which have con
vinced me that the oldest deposit of this exceedingly in
structive " Alexandrian " scripture must be referred to
at least the first century A.D. ; to do so would require a
treatise as large as, if not larger than, the present essay,
and I have hopes only to perfect my researches in the
subject in the next twelve months or so, and then to
present the reader with a new translation of the exist
ing treatises and fragments and with an extensive review
of the whole matter. Meantime let us turn our attention
AFTERWORD. 427
to a most striking passage in the tractate entitled " The
Secret Sermon on the Mountain," which further purports,
according to its superscription, to be an instruction of
" Hermes the Thrice-greatest to his Son Tat on the
Mountain. A Secret Sermon on Rebirth and Con
cerning the Promise of Silence."
The phrase " on the mountain " in the title is to be
remarked and compared with the phrase the " passing
o'er the mountain " of § 1. This " mountain " seems
to be symbolical of the grades of initiation in these
inner schools ; the external rites may also have been
performed frequently on a mountain or hill on which
the " monastery " in our modern sense (or, to speak
more correctly, the collection of " monasteries " or
chambers for meditation) may have been situated.
The " passing over (perd/Bcio-is) the mountain " was ap
parently a grade of instruction, or one of the lower
grades prior to the sermon or instruction " on the
mountain," the substance of which is given in our
present treatise. Perhaps the phrase may be rendered
the " passage up the mountain," and the term " on the
mountain " may refer to the top of the mountain. In
this connection I need hardly refer the student to the
frequent occurrence of the term " mountain " in the
Gnostic Bruce and Askew Codices (containing the
two " Books of leou," etc., and the " Pistis Sophia ").
In these later presentations of fundamentally the same
teachings adapted to more popular beliefs, the mountain
is called the " Mount of Galilee," and on it all the great
initiations and rites are performed. The term occurs
also in many other places, and frequently in the extra-
canonical and apocryphal sayings.
428 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
The "Son of Our sermon is in the form of a dialogue between
" Virgin pupil and master, and the first two paragraphs rim as
Birth-" follows:
" TAT. In thy discourse ' On Generation,' father, thou
spak'st in riddles most unclear, conversing on divinity ;
and when thou saidst no man could e'er be saved before
rebirth, thy meaning thou didst hide. Further, when I
became thy 'suppliant,' upon the 'passing o'er the
mount/ after thou hadst conversed with me, and when I
longed to learn the lesson on rebirth (for this beyond all
other things was just the thing I knew not), thou saidst
that thou wouldst give it me — ' when thou shalt have
become a stranger to the world.' Wherefore I got me
ready and made the thought in me a stranger to the
world-illusion. And now do thou fill up the things
that fall short in me with what thou saidst would give
me the tradition of rebirth, setting it forth in speech or
in the secret way.
" I know not, 0 Thrice-greatest one, from out what
matter and what womb man comes to birth, or of what
"HERMES. Wisdom conceived by Mind in Silence
[such is the matter and the womb from out which Man
is born], and the True Good the seed."
" TAT. What is the sower, father ? For I am alto
gether at a loss."
" HERMES. It is the Will of God, my child."
"TAT. And of what kind is he that is begotten,
father ? For I have no share of that essence in one
which doth transcend the senses. The one that is
begot will be another God, God's son ? "
" HERMES. All of all, out of all powers composed."
AFTERWORD. 429
" TAT. Thou tellest me a riddle, father, and dost not
speak as father unto son."
" HERMES. This race, my child, is never taught ; but
when He willeth it, its memory is restored by God." l
Much more might be quoted in which the master
endeavours to make the mystery clearer to the under
standing of his pupil, but for the present purpose it is
only necessary to add from § 4 the following pregnant
sentences :
" TAT. Tell me this too. Who is the author of re
birth?"
" HERMES. The Son of God, the One Man, by God's
will."
In the second paragraph of Tat's opening words the The "Sup-
term "suppliant " is to be specially remarked and taken " World,"
in close connection with the treatise of Philo " On the
Contemplative Life," which, as Conybeare tells us,2 most
probably formed the fourth book of Pliilo's great work,
or rather apology, " De Legatione." The alternative
title of this work was " The Suppliants." By " sup
pliant " Philo tells us he means " one who has fled to
God and taken refuge with Him." 3
The phrase, " when thou shalt have become a stranger
to the world" is also to be remarked, and among
other things may be compared with the new-found
Saying : " Jesus saith, except ye fast to the world, ye
shall in nowise find the kingdom of God." 4 The idea
1 For text, see Parthey (G.), " Hermetis Trismegisti Poemander "
(Berlin; 1854), pp. 114, 115.
2 " Philo about the Contemplative Life" (Oxford ; 1895).
3 " De Sac. Ab. et C.," i. 186, 33.
4 See " AOFIA IH2OT : Sayings of Our Lord," discovered and
edited by Grenfell (B. P.) and Hunt (A. S.)— (London ; 1897), p. 10.
430 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
is a common-place in the extant treatises and fragments
of Gnostic literature, and is, of course, found frequently
in the canonical documents of general Christianity.
Again in the phrase, " and now do thou fill up the
things that fall short in me" (ret ^crre/o^ara
uvaTrXrjpwTov), we have the familiar technical terms of
the christianized Gnosis (Pleroma and Hysterema, the
Plenitude or Fullness and the Insufficiency or Empti
ness), but not yet apparently systematized as in the
Basilidean and Valentinian schools. l
The "Mind." The treatise leaves on one side all questions of
cosmogenesis and at once proceeds to deal with spiritual
anthropogenesis or the spiritual birth of man. It will
be remembered by students of these theosophical sermons
that the birth of Man, the inner spiritual Son of God,
is given as follows in " The Shepherd " treatise (§ 12) :
" But the All-Father, Mind, being Life and Light,
brought forth a ' Man ' co-equal with Himself." Man
is the Son of the Great Mind of the universe, He is the
Son of God. The christianizing Gnostic schools loved
further to elaborate these ineffable processes, but
" Hermes " is content to put forward a far more simple
statement, and gives the whole answer to the neophyte's
question in a brief sentence or two. It is true the
pupil cannot as yet understand the words, nevertheless
the whole process of rebirth or regeneration is given in
the two opening answers of Hermes in § 2, and this
process of rebirth is the same in man's small universe
as the birth of the spiritual Man the Regenerator,
cosmically the third member of the trinity God the
Creator, God the Preserver, and God the Regenerator,
See especially Hippolytus, " Pliilosophumena," iv. 29 ff.
AFTERWORD. 431
who are all One God looked at from different points of
view. The Preserver apparently evolves the substance
of the universe, the Creator seemingly fashions it
according to the necessary laws, and the Kegenerator is
thought of as breaking through the spheres, freeing the
spirit once more and restoring it to its primal source.
The whole secret of rebirth is Wisdom, which is
conceived by Mind in contemplative Silence ; the object
of this contemplation is the True Good or God. The
Will of God so to speak turns on itself and becomes the
will of man to know God.
But the neophyte is represented as still without The "Mind"
understanding of this great truth. He still desires to
understand it in what we may call, in spite of the con
fusion of terms, his natural mind, the mind of the
senses ; he has not in him, he declares, any portion of
that Mind which transcends this physical consciousness,
or, perhaps, better, the " sensible world " in its proper
philosophical meaning. To him Man must be some
thing different from God. If God brings forth a Son,
then there must be two Gods, and the unity is destroyed.
To which doubt the master mysteriously replies : " All
in all, out of all powers composed." So far from being
different from God, Man is all in all, out of all powers,
endowed with all powers — not, of course, the little man
we think we are, but the Great Man we really are in
our Selves, nay rather in our Self, which is One.
This truth, says Hermes, is not taught by ordinary The
means, not argued out and demonstrated by the senses, of
or by physical processes. It is a memory that God of the Logos,
awakes in the soul. It must be self -perceived. " This
race (yeW), my child, is never taught." What is the
432 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
meaning of the strange term " race," which, as far as
I am aware, all translators and commentators have
previously missed? Let me again refer to Philo's
treatise.
" But as for the race of devotees," 1 he says, " who are
taught ever more and more to see, let them strive for
the intuition of That-which-is ; let them transcend the
sun which men perceive [and gaze upon the Light
beyond], nor ever leave this rank 2 which leads to
perfect blessedness. Now they who betake themselves
to [the divine] service, [do so] not because of any
custom, or some one's advice or appeal, but carried away
by heavenly love." 3
And again : " Now this race (ye^o?) of men is to be
found in many parts of the inhabited world, both
Grecian and non-Grecian world, sharing in the perfect
Good." 4
This " race," then, seems to be the race of the Logos,
even as was the " race of Elxai," or those who have the
higher mind active in them.
The Mind and The manner of this rebirth, of this restoring of
memory, is given in the opening paragraph of § 3, where
Hermes describes one of the results of contemplation,
in which the consciousness is, so to speak, transferred to
the spiritual " vehicle " ; but even here it is not taught,
it is seen. This state of consciousness is not a mediuin-
istic state of trance ; the master has still full contact
with the physical world, but the centre or focus of his
consciousness is, so to speak, transferred to the higher
spiritual part of his nature.
1 Or the " therapeutic race." - Order, space or plane. s
3 P. 891 ; M. 473, 10. 4 P. 892 ; M. 474, 35.
AFTERWORD. 433
Yet is the pupil still confused, for he still sees the
physical body of his master before him. It is not the
lower man, the master goes on to explain, who can
bring about this inner change of consciousness, it is the
higher Man who does so. Even the belief of the pupil
that he actually sees the physical body of his master
as a continuous thing is a sense-illusion, for every
particle of it is in perpetual change. Accordingly, with
§ 6, Hermes lays down the great doctrine of the really
True, the One Keality, as opposed to the perpetual
change of manifested things. How can This be per
ceived with mortal eyes ? he asks.
Hereupon Tat loses courage, and begins to think that Virtue and
the thing is too high for him, and that he has no higher
mind. But Hermes warmly sets aside such an impious
doubt, and proceeds to explain why the spiritual
" senses " of his pupil are clouded and blinded by the
brutish or irrational things of matter. The psycho
logical problem is then stated in what seems to
me to be a perfectly scientific fashion. The soul
" substances " or " forces " have no direction in them
selves ; it is the will of man that can turn them upwards
or downwards, so that they become manifest as virtues
or vices. These virtues or vices are simply the tenden
cies of the distinct substantial things, or component
parts or forces, of the soul, rational if ruled by the
reason, irrational if out of its control.
Indeed, it is the real " mind," the " man," that is the The Root of
eternal idea of true humanity in us ; it is, as it were,
individual and yet not separate, sharing with all,
sympathizing with all, yet showing forth in every
manifestation some special aspect, one yet many, the
28
434 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
true source of fellowship and communion, the mystery
of all mysteries, man and humanity in one, the that
" which prevents us if we are about to do a thing not
rightly/' if we will but follow its loving guidance, and
finally the only way by which we can know God and
recognize our eternal sonship.
The Christ. But we have already gone far beyond what was
necessary for our immediate purpose, namely, the show
ing forth of the mystic and truly philosophic view of
the nature of the birth of " the Christ " in the hearts of
men, which was held by pious and thinking minds in
at least the first century of our era. In it we have
in my opinion a setting forth of the mystery which can
shock no man's intelligence, but which on the contrary
was, I most firmly believe, the central truth insisted
on by the great Master of Christendom Himself.
Those who, in spite of the evidence which is coming to
light on all hands from a thoroughgoing analysis of
tradition, still hold desperately to the gross materialism
of the popular dogma of the physical virgin birth, must
do so at peril of destroying the whole comfort derivable
from the Life of Jesus. For if, as it is claimed by
theology, Jesus Christ was born miraculously without
sin, what example can He possibly be for men born in
sin ? There can be no " imitation " on these premisses ;
for miracle alone can imitate miracle. The true
Conqueror is he who wins his way through human
nature, sinful human nature, towards the Divine ; and
unless I am grievously mistaken and read quite
wrongly the records of the world's greatest Teachers,
it is in this precisely that the triumph of a Christ
consists.
AFTERWORD. 435
In the Foreword of this essay I said that I would The Ground
endeavour to show how even Jew and Christian could tion Between
learn to understand and respect each other even on the i?w and
Christian.
ground of religion — I meant of course the Jew of to-day
and the Christian of to-day. I believe that in the
central fact above referred to, the basic truth not only
of Christianity but also of Judaism and of every other
great religion, all men may meet together in true
fellowship and concord.
Doubtless I have put forward the matter in a very
crude and imperfect fashion; I have probably used
erroneous expressions and terms, have unwillingly
hurt those whom I have not the faintest wish to dis
tress, have misrepresented the position of others owing
to my ignorance of what they really think and feel ; but
I have endeavoured to be just and accurate, and have
been guided by a profound sympathy for humanity,
a fellow-feeling with all, whatever creed they may
profess ; for the central fact of our general experience
is that we are all in the same ignorance, struggling and
battling for light. And I fear this ignorance will never
be removed from our midst unless we co-operate together,
and speak with utter frankness man to man, without
fear of endangering our several vested interests, be
they material, or psychic, or mental, or spiritual.
In conclusion, therefore, if it be not thought imperti- A Humble
nent for so obscure an individual to do so, I would
courteously ask the learned of the Jews for a thorough
going explanation of their traditions of Jesus with
special reference to the date question and to pre-
Christian mystic and heretical schools of every kind;
and the learned of the Christians for a reconsideration
436 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
of the history of their origins by the light of such facts,
for instance, as the patristically acknowledged striking
similarity between the practices of the Therapeut Essene
communities and the earliest Christian assemblies, the
puzzling phenomena of the " Churches of God " which
Paul found, using the " gifts of the Spirit " as some
long-established practice, and the members of which
he addresses in language which shows them as familiar
with the most technical terms of the Gnosis, and the
widespread pre-Christian rites of resurrection, and if
not of crucifixion at any rate of stigmatization, as
admitted by Epiphanius, and thereafter for a reinvesti-
gation of the canonical date in connection therewith,
and with the now well-known facts of the manner of
making of haggadic, apocalyptic and pseudepigraphic
literature, prior to and contemporary with the writing
of our present canonical Gospels.
For my own part, I feel at present somewhat with
out an absolutely authoritative negative to the very
strange question : " Did Jesus live 100 B.C. ? " — and
doubtless shall continue to feel so until all sides of
the question have been again rigorously scrutinized by
the ever finer critical equipment which the twentieth
century must inevitably develop, and in the light of
the great toleration which the ever-growing humanism
of our day is extending to the most intractable questions
of theology.
ADDITIONAL NOTES.
P. 47. With regard to the chronology of the Christian era and
the influence of the Coesar cult on Christian dogmatics, a field of
immense interest and importance has recently been opened up by
the researches of Alexander Del Mar, in his painstaking study,
" The Worship of Augustus Ctesar, derived from a Study of Coins,
Monuments, Calendars, .ZEras and Astronomical and Astrological
Cycles, the whole establishing a New Chronology and Survey of
History and Religion" (New York ; 1900). In his Preface (pp.
viii, ix), Del Mar writes :
"It will be shown upon ample evidences that after the sub
mission of the Oriental provinces and consolidation of the empire,
Augustus Csesar set himself up for that Son of God whose advent,
according to Indian chronology, synchronized with the reappear
ance of the Oriental Messiah ; the date being A.U. 691 (B.C. 63),
the alleged year of Augustus' birth ; that this claim and assump
tion appears in the literature of his age, was engraved upon his
monuments and stamped upon his coins ; that it was universally
admitted and accepted throughout the Eoman Empire as valid
and legitimate, both according to Indian and Roman chronology,
astrology, prophesy and tradition ; that his actual worship as such
Son of God — Divus Filius — was enjoined and enforced by the
laws of the empire, accepted by the priesthood and practised by
the people ; and that both de jure and de facto it constituted the
fundamental article of the Roman imperial and ecclesiastical con
stitution."
In an exceedingly interesting article, " The Time of the World,"
in " The Indian Review " of January 1903, Del Mar writes :
" I. If we accept the epoch of the zodions fixed by Godfrey
Higgins . . . Alexander the Great altered such epoch to the ex
tent of twenty-eight or thirty years, in order to bring the beginning
438 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.?
of Pisces to the year of his Apotheosis. Higgins' epoch of Pisces
is B.C. 360. The Apotheosis of Alexander took place in the
Libyan Temple of Jupiter Ammon, December 25th, B.C. 322. In
that temple he found Aries regnant ; he left it with Pisces
triumphant. He was afterwards known as Ichthys, the Fish, the
Great Isskander, etc., titles that are connected with the zodion
Pisces.
" II. Julius Cpesar altered the Olympiads from five to four years
each, and their starting-point from a year equivalent to B.C. 884 to
one equal to B.C. 776, an initial difference of 108 years. . . .
"III. Augustus Csesar altered the epochs of the Ludi Sseculares
to the extent of seventy-eight years. This changed the year of the
Foundation of Borne from the equivalent of B.C. 816 to B.C. 738,
and had a variable influence on other important dates.
"IV. Some time before the seventeenth century the Latin
Sacred College restored fifteen years to the Koman calendar. All
the years were inserted into that portion of the calendar which
preceded the Christian era ; it had the effect to remove the year of
the foundation of Rome backward to B.C. 753, where it now stands.
It also changed the Anno Augusti.
" To recapitulate, Alexander altered the zodions ; Julius Csesar,
the Olympiads ; Augustus, the Ludi Srcculares and year of Rome ;
Pope Gregory VI. or XIII. (?) the Augustan era ; and Gregory
XIII., the New Year Day and some other festivals, perhaps also
the Year of the Nativity.
"The net result of these various alterations shows a present
difference between Oriental and Western chronologies of sixty-
three years ; that is, when both are computed from any certain
astronomical event. . . .
" Had the calendar, as arranged by Augustus, remained un
altered to the present day, his Apotheosis would have answered to
our A.D. 0, or the year before A.D. 1 ; but owing to the fifteen
years shifting already alluded to, his Apotheosis now bears the
date of B.C. 15. ...
"The introduction of the Christian era as a measure of time
resulted in throwing all ancient dates into confusion. This was
due to several circumstances. I. It was not an era, like the year
of the world, or like Scaliger's astronomical era, which ante-dated
all historical epochs, and ran on continuously from its own year to
an endless succession of years. On the contrary, the Christian era
is used both backward and forward ; and as no allowance is made
in it for a year between A.D. 1 and B.C. 1, it makes a difference of
ADDITIONAL NOTES. 439
one year as between itself and every era more ancient than itself.
II. As it took its starting-point from the Roman era, more especi
ally the ^Era Augusti, it embraced all the chronological alterations
which that era embraced. III. In correcting vitiated dates, the
same number of years must be deducted from ' A.D.' dates which
have to be added to ' B.C.' dates. This is a source of endless con
fusion. IV. As before stated, it was itself altered to the extent of
fifteen years. Its use, therefore, involves three classes of errors,
viz., the ancient alterations as between the Olympiads and the year
of Rome ; the single year between A.D. 1 and B.C. 1 ; and the
fifteen-year alteration of the Middle Ages."
What exact bearing all this may have on our question I have
not as yet been able to discover, but that Del Mar's researches must
be taken into account in any thoroughgoing investigation of
Christian chronology I am fully persuaded.
P. 154. A curious subject of speculation in connection with the
Mam/er stories is opened up by the criticism of the artificial
genealogy prefixed to the first Gospel (Matt. i. 1-17), "with the
singular stress laid upon Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth, the converted
sinners and heathens, as mothers of the elect one (compare Gen. R.
ii. ; Hor. lOb ; Nazir 23b ; Meg 14b) "—as Kohler puts it in his
article, " Christianity in its Relation to Judaism," in the " Jewish
Encyclopaedia." Von Soden, in his article, " Genealogies of Jesus,"
in the " Encyclopaedia Biblica " (in the just published fourth
volume), referring to the only three women mentioned in the
genealogies, says : " Rabbinic scholars also interested themselves in
these women. On Tamar and Ruth compare Weber, ' Altsynag.
Theol.,' 341. Rahab they transformed into an inn-keeper (Jos.,
' Antt.,' v. i. 27), and traced to her eight prophets (Lightfoot,
' Hor. Heb.,' 180 ; Menschen, 'N. T. u. Talm.,' 40). She was an
object of interest also to the early Christians, as * Heb.' xi. 31 and
* James ' ii. 25 show. Perhaps they interpreted ' harlot ' allegori-
cally as ' heathen.' " Compare this with " Deborah the landlady"
and the "inn" of our Talmud stories. The curious student of
human nature may also refer to the use made of these genealogical
details by Guy de Maupassant in his short .story, " Nos Anglais,"
in the collection entitled Toine (Paris ; 1903).
P. 301. A Jewish friend has just communicated to me an oral
form of Toldoth which differs in some particulars from any other
form with which I am acquainted. My correspondent says that
it comes from ancient Poland, and was included among the Jewish
"old wives' tales," but he cannot trace its origin further. The
440 DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C. ?
name of the betrothed is Jochanan and of the seducer Joseph, the
name of the boy is Jeschu, as in other forms ; then follows the
accusation of bastardy, and the robbing of the Shem, and the
doing of wonders thereby. " But the spirit of the Eabbis was dis
tressed, and fearing lest Israel should be enticed by the magical
powers of Jeschu, R. Meir volunteered to profane his own powers
and so bring about the fall of Jeschu." He accordingly does so in
the way familiar to us in the other Toldoth forms. " When the
women-reapers saw that the magician had fallen, they pelted him
with cabbages until he died. But the Romans had already be
lieved that Jeschu was a superhuman being, and when they heard
of his death, they wished to exterminate all the Jews. R. Meir,
in order to appease the anger of the Romans, and save his people
from destruction, again made use of his extraordinary divine
powers, and again mounted into the air, exclaiming : ' Lo ! I fly
higher than Jeschu flew, as a sign that he hath sent me to institute
your festivals.' And this he did with great wisdom, so that the
Jewish festivals should always come first and be spent more
happily. Thus he instituted Sunday the next day after the
Sabbath," etc. R. Meir was the pupil of Akiba, and does not
appear in any other form of Toldoth.
PKINTED BY NEILL AND CO., LTD., EDINBURGH.
WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
FRAGMENTS OF A FAITH FORGOTTEN
Some short Sketches among the Gnostics, mainly of the First
Two Centuries — a Contribution to the Study of Christian
Origins based on the most Recently Discovered Materials.
I. Introduction. — Outlines of the Background of the Gnosis ; Literature and
Sources of Gnosticism.
II. The GnosiS according: to its FOBS.— Gnostic Fragments recovered from the
Polemical Writings of the Church Fathers ; the Gnosis in the Uncanonical Acts.
III. The Gnosis according: to its Friends.— Greek Original Works in Coptic
Translation ; the Askew, Bruce, and Akhmim Codices.
Classified Bibliographies are appended. 630, xxviii. pp. large octavo. Cloth. 10/6 net.
SOME PRESS NOTICES.
" Mr Mead has done his work in a scholarly and painstaking fashion."— The Guardian.
" The ordinary student of Christian evidences, if he confines his reading to the ' Fathers,' learns
nothing of these opinions [the so-called Gnostic ' heresies '] except by way of refutation and angry
condemnation. In Mr Mead's pages, however, they are treated with impartiality and candour.
.... These remarks will suffice to show the unique character of this volume, and to indicate
that students may find here matter of great service to the rational interpretation of Christian
thought."— Bradford Observer.
" The book, Mr Mead explains, is not intended primarily for the student, but for the general
reader, and it certainly should not be neglected by anyone who is interested in the history of
early Christian thought." — The Scotsman.
"The work is one of great labour and learning, and deserves study as a sympathetic estimate
of a rather severely-judged class of heretics."— Glasgow Herald.
" Written in a clear and elegant style The bibliographies in the volume are of world
wide range, and will be most valuable to students of theosophy." — Asiatic Quarterly.
" Mr Mead writes with precision and clearness on subjects usually associated with bewildering
technicalities and mystifications. Even the long-suffering 'general reader1 could go through this
large volume with pleasure. That is a great deal to say of a book on such a subject." — Light.
"This striking work will certainly be read not only with the greatest interest in the select
circle of the cultured, but by that much larger circle of those longing to learn all about Truth.
.... May be summed up as an extraordinarily clear exposition of the Gnosis of the Saints
and the Sages of philosophic Christianity."— The Roman Herald.
" Mr Mead does us another piece of service by including a complete copy of the Gnostic
Hymn of the Robe of Glory .... and a handy epitome of the Pistit Sophia is another item for
which the student will be grateful."— The Literary Guide.
" The author has naturally the interest of a theosophist in Gnosticism, and approaches the sub
ject accordingly from a point of view different from our own. But while his pointof view emerges
in the course of the volume, this does not affect the value of his work for those who do not
share his special standpoint Mr Mead has at any rate rendered us an excellent service, and
we shall look forward with pleasure to his future studies."— The Primitive Methodist Quarterly.
" The writing of the present work has been a congenial task to Mr Mead, and he has brought
to bear, lovingly and zealously, upon the portraiture of the figure of Christ and of early Christianity
all the knowledge which a deep study of Oriental religions from their emotional side could fur
nish. The book is published by the Theosophical Publishing Society, and bears, of course, the
marks of its associations ; but it may be stated at the outset that there is very little of what is
commonly regarded as the Theosophic method apparent in the work, which is the product of a
scholarly though, withal, very devotional spirit In his endeavour to realise the object
which he has set himself, Mr Mead has traversed a wide field In fine, we have in his
volume a bird's-eye view of the whole field of early Gnosticism written for the general reader
in a style and method requiring no knowledge of the ancient tongues."— The Mimixt.
" We are glad to see that the Theosophists .... are settling down to the study of religion.
.... Though we do not appreciate their fundamental philosophy, so far as we understand it,
we think they may do good work if they produce books like this of Mr Mead— comprehensive,
interesting, and scholarly though evidently biassed Headers not familiar with the learned
German works on Gnosticism will find here an account of its varying phases and of the influences
which helped to produce it. The chapters entitled ' Some Rough Outlines of the Background of
the Gnosis' are well written, and they tend to focus the philosophic and religious movement of
the ancient world There is a very excellent bibliography."— The Spectator.
" Mr Mead, whose translation of the Pistis Sophia was a welcome boon, gives us here 'some
short sketches among the Gnostics, mainly of the first two centuries.' Most readers, unless they
THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY, LONDON AND BENARES.
WORKS BY THE SAM E AUTHOR.
are Theosophists, will thiiik them too long, and Mr Mead's enthusiasm for the Forgotten Faith of
Gnosticism will remind them of the proverb : ' The cow in the meadow, knee-deep in clover, often
looks over the hedge and longs for the common.' .... Justice was not done to the Gnostics by
their opponents, and we cannot wonder. Moderns like Harnack, however, have tried to make
amends, and Mr Mead has done his best. We commend this book to all who are tired of
Christianity, and who want something deeper than the Lord's Prayer, more sublime than Paul's
hymn to Love, and more practical than the Sermon on the Mount." — The Christian World.
" L'opera, cui 1'autoi e da modestamenti il nome di Brevi studi, e invero il frutto di dotte
e pazientissime ricerche, di vasta e profunda erudizione ; fc d'interesse grande per il soggetto
che tratta ed e accessibile anche a chi non sia uno studioso di religione comparata od un
teologo, per la maniera abile e piacevole con cui il sogetto 6 trattato. L'autore stesso spiega
perche voile cosi 1'opera sua con queste parole : ' poiche io stimo tal sogetto di profundo
interesse umano e nou di mera importanza accademica.' II libro, 'che vide la luce proprio
all' alba del nuovo secolo, risponde ad un bisogno del memento o, meglio, risponde ad un
bisogno che sempre si e fatto e si fara sentire, ma che mai forse come uell' epocha presente
ebbe fra noi tanta intensita."— La Nuova Parola.
German Translation.
FRAGMENTE EINES VERSCHOLLENEN GLAUBENS. Ins Deutsche ubersetzt von A. von
Ulrich. Berlin : C. A. Schwetschke und Sohn.
This is the Firtt Attempt that has been made to bring together All the Existing Sources of
Information on the Earliest Christian Philosophers.
Apollonius of Tyana :
THE PHILOSOPHER-REFORMER OF THE FIRST CENTURY A.D.
A critical Study of the only existing Record of his Life, with some account of the War of Opinion
concerning him, and an Introduction on the Religious Associations and Brotherhoods of the
Times and the possible Influence of Indian Thought on Greece.
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS.
i. Introductory, li. The Religious Associations and Communities of the First Century, iii.
India and Greece, iv. The Apollonius of Early Opinion, v. Texts, Translations and Literature,
vi. The Biographer of Apollonius. vii. Early Life. viii. The Travels of Apollonius. ix. The
Shrines of the Temples and the Retreats of Religion, x. The Gymnosophists of Upper Egypt.
xi. Apollonius and the Rulers of the Empire, xii. Apollonius the Prophet and Wonder
worker, xiii. His Mode of Life. xiv. Himself and his Circle, xv. From his Sayings and
Sermons, xvi. From his Letters, xvii. The Writings of Apollonius. xviii. Bibliographical Notes.
1GO pp. large 8vo. Cloth. 3«. Gd. net.
SOME PRESS OPINIONS.
" Mr Mead's work is careful, scholarly, and critical, yet deeply sympathetic with those
spiritual ideals of life which are far greater than all the creeds Will be found very use-
f ul to English readers." — Bradford Observer.
"With much that Mr Mead says about Apollonius we are entirely disposed to agree."
— Spectator.
" Mr Mead's sympathetic monograph is based upon a careful study of the literature of the
subject Writes with moderation, and has rendered good service by examining Apollonius
from a fresh point of view." — Manchester Guardian.
" We give a specially cordial welcome to Mr G. R. S. Mead's 'Apollonius of Tyana.' . . . . It is a
book which all well-instructed spiritualists will be able to appreciate and understand." — Light.
" A charming and enlightening little work, full of knowledge, bright with sympathy, and
masterly in style." — The Coining Day.
" It is not only interesting, it is fair, and to a great degree scholarly, although it is slight and
popular in conception. The spiritand tone are admirable. .Mr Mead neither flouts what he thinks
mistaken nor states uncritically what he believes He uses his authorities with care and
judgment, and gives exact references. Some good suggestions are made in the book."--,£tt0fl0tlff*
"Through this jungle of fable, controversy, and misunderstanding, Mr Mead has heroically
set himself to cut his way to the man as he was. Practically he regards him as a theosophist of
the first century, who had been initiated into the loftier orders and commissioned to regenerate
the cults at many of the larger sanctuaries. The author has studied the original authorities
carefully, and als'o the work of his predecessors. It is, of course, impossible to say whether his
attempt to get back to the real Apollonius has been successful. In most respects his account is
plausible, and quite possibly may represent the facts At any rate, impartial students will
THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY, LONDON AND BENARES.
WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
be grateful for his sympathetic vindication of Apollonius from the too frequent charge that he
was nothing better than a charlatan. He thinks that Apollonius must surely have visited some
of the Christian societies, and have met with Paul, if not earlier, at least at Rome in 66. It
seems to us very problematical that he should have taken any interest in the Christians, though
the probability would be much enhanced if Mr Mead's view of primitive Christianity could be
substantiated."— The Primitive Methodist Quarterly Review.
"Students of the religious history of the earlier centuries of the Christian era are already in
debted to Mr Mead for his elucidations of more than one obscure document of that remote age.
His account of Apollonius of Tyana will be all the more welcome because, treating its subject
without theological or denominational prepossessions, it reveals the ancient philosopher in a new
light, which may very Avell be also a true one Mr Mead gives a readable and well-studied
account of him, reviewing what little remains known of his life, and inquiring, without contro
versy, what must have been the character of one who had so real an influence on the religious life
of his time The book is ricli in suggestions of the actualities of the religious life of the
ancient world when Christianity was still in its infancy. It is well worthy of the attention of all
who are interested in the subject." — The Scotsman.
" This little book is an attempt to tell us all that is definitely known of one of the most extra
ordinary figures in history It is done in the main with absolute impartiality, and with
considerable learning. It is not a satisfactory book, but it is useful and interesting, and, in
default of anything better, it may be recommended."— Saturday Review.
"The task Mr Mead has set himself is to recover from Philostratus' highly romantic narrative
the few facts which can be really known, and to present to the public a plain and simple story
which shall accord with the plain and simple life of the humble Tyanean ; and he has achieved
no little success. His book is thoroughly readable, the manner of writing most attractive, and
his enthusiasm evidently sincere Mr Mead's last work is a thoroughly scholarly one, and
lie has contributed a very valuable page to philosophical history." — Chatham and Rochester
Observer.
" Mr Mead's works are always worth reading. They are characterised by clearness, sanity,
and moderation ; they are scholarly, and are always conceived in a profoundly religious spirit.
The bibliographies are excellent. With Mr Mead's workmanship we have only one fault to find.
In order to give elevation to the utterances of his hero, he not only affects poetical expressions —
which is permissible— and poetical inversions of speech— which are not permissible— but he
indulges in a whole page of irregular blank verse Mr Mead is master of an excellent prose
style, and Pegasus is a sorry back when Pegasus goes lame." — Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.
"This well-written volume affords a critical study of the only existing record of the life of
Apollonius of Tyana His principles, his mode of teaching, his travels in the east and in
the south and west, his mode of life, his sayings, letters, and writings and bibliographical notes,
are all set forth in a clear and interesting style."— Asiatic Quarterly Review.
" Verfasser will auf Grund der philostratischen Biographic ein Bild vom Leben und Wirkeu
des Apollonius geben. Es fehlt ihm dazu nich an besonnenen Urteil, eben so wenig an der
notigen Belesenheit in der einschlagigen Litteratur Verf. halt sich auch, obwohl
olfenbar selbst Theologe, freivon der theologischen Voreingenommenheit, die bei der Beurteilung
des Appollonius so fruh und so lange Unheil gestiftet hat." — Wochenschrift fur klassisc.he
Philologie.
THE GOSPELS AND THE GOSPEL
A STUDY IN THE MOST RECENT RESULTS OF THE
LOWER AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS.
Preamble — A Glimpse at the History of the Evolution of Biblical Criticism — The
"Word of God" and the " Lower Criticism" — The Nature of the Tradition of the
Gospel Autographs— Autobiographical Traces in the Existing Documents— An Exam
ination of the Earliest Outer Evidence — The Present Position of the Synoptical
Problem— The Credibility of the Synoptists— The Johannine Problem — Summary of
the Evidence from all Sources — The Life Side of Christianity— The Gospel of the
Living Christ.
200 pp. Large octavo. Cloth, 4s. 6d. net.
SOME PRESS NOTICES.
"A clear, intelligent, and interesting account of the history of the development of Biblical
criticism .... a thoughtful and learned, yet readable book, which well deserves the attention
of readers interested in its subject." — The Scotsman.
" Mr Mead begins with a sketch of the recent progress of Biblical criticism. The tone is not
altogether what one would wish — the ' Conservatives ' were, after all, lighting for what they held
to be very precious— but it is substantially true."— Spectator.
" Mr Mead describes his book as ' a study in the most recent results of the higher aud the
THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY, LONDON AND BENAHES.
WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
lower criticism.' The description is incomplete rather than inadequate, for the study is made
from a neo-Gnostic point of view, and under neo-Gnostic prepossessions ..... Mr Mead has
shown, in previous volumes, how the fascinating glamour of their writings has attracted him,
and, though they are mainly represented by imperfect but suggestive fragments, he has done his
best to reconstruct them and to revive, where possible, their lingering vitality. His work, on
these lines, has met with due appreciation ..... He regards Gnosticism as a suppressed religion
which may yet result in an all-embracing creed, which will combine and focus the scattered rays
now dispersed abroad among divergent faiths."— Sheffield Daily Telegraph.
" In his modest preamble the author describes himself as neither scientist nor theologian, but
as ' a friendly spectator, who, as a devoted lover of both science and religion, has no partisan
interest to serve, and, as a believer in the blessings of that true tolerance which permits perfect
liberty in all matters of opinion and belief, has no desire to dictate to others what their decision
should be ou any one of the many controversial points touched upon.' Further on he strongly
advises the ' disturbed ' reader, ' who fears to plunge deeper into the free waters of criticism,'
to ' leave the matter alone, and content himself with the creeds and cults of the churches.' We,
therefore, cannot complain if in the sequel he puts forth conclusions widely different from those
generally held, even in this 'advanced' age, by the average thoughtful student. He claims to
treat the subject 'without fear or favour,' and, while disclaiming the ' ultra-rationalism' of the
'extreme school' of criticism, he nevertheless 'feels himself compelled largely to accept the
proofs brought forward of the unhistorical nature of much in the Gospel narratives, and also the
main positions in all subjects of Gospel criticism which do not involve a mystical or practical
religious element." As a theosophist, lie seems to have a peculiar affection, on mystical grounds,
for the fourth Gospel, which, however, he sees fit to class with Hermes Trismei<istus. It would
be far too elaborate a task to attempt to deal with the details of his argument here. Its results
claim to be based on Nestle's deservedly popular work. Anyone who wishes to see Nestle
theosophically interpreted may well read Mr Mead's lucid and interesting pages for himself.
.... There are many other points we should criticise if we had space. But there are many
points, on the other hand, which call for hearty commendation ; not least, Mr Mead's crusade
against book-worship."— The Guardian.
"This work consists of various chapters which have appeared from time to time in a Review
devoted to the study of religion from an entirely independent point of view, and perused by a
class of readers belonging to many Churches of Christendom, to schools or sects of Brahmanism,
Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Zoroastrianism, and others who follow no religion. The author
considers that the controversies which have been waged under the term of the ' Higher Criticism '
have almost exclusively been that of progressive knowledge of physical facts (natural, historical,
and literary) and the conservatism of theological traditional views, and never, at any time,
between Science and Religion in their true meaning." — Asiatic Quarterly Review.
" 'O t/j.fjptOr)s fpdwnr^s rSsv apx^f rov xp«0"riaj/io>ioi} K. G. R. S. Mead
&pri fjif\fTT]f irtpl TJJS xpHTTiaviKiis 0tAofJo0ias e|o^co$ SifiaKTiKriv ....'OK. Mead
tTi'e cfs rH)? Kopvfpaicav ffKairavewv TTJS fptvurjriKris ravrrjs epyaffias Kal irav o,
Kpivo) i8ia£ov(rris irpoffox^s #|toj/ ..... 'E/j.irvt6/j.evos virb ffis vyiovs Taurrjs
6 K. Mead o'yt'eTeA.eo'ej/ effx&TMS Oav/JLaffiov epyov." — Erevna.
PISTIS SOPHIA: A Gnostic Gospel.
(With Extracts from the Books of the Saviour appended.) Originally
translated from Greek into Coptic, and now for the first time
Englished from Schwartze's Latin Version of the only known
Coptic MS., and checked by Amelineau's French version.
With an Introduction and Bibliography. 394, xliv. pp. large
octavo. Cloth. Vs. 6d. net.
SOME PRESS OPINIONS.
" The * Pistis Sophia ' has long been recognised as one of the most
important Gnostic documents we possess, and Mr Mead deserves the
gratitude of students of Church History and of the History of Christian
Thought, for his admirable translation and edition of this curious
Gospel." — Glasgow Herald.
THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY, LONDON AND BENARES.
WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
i{ Mr Mead has done a service to other than Theosophists by his
translation of the ' Pistis Sophia.' This curious work has not till lately
received the attention which it deserves He has prefixed a
short Introduction, which includes an excellent bibliography. Thus, the
English reader is now in a position to judge for himself of the scientific
value of the only Gnostic treatise of any considerable length which
has come down to us." — Guardian.
" From a scholar's point of view the work is of value as illus
trating the philosophico-mystical tendencies of the second century."
— Record.
" Mr Mead deserves thanks for putting in an English dress this
curious document from the early ages of Christian philosophy." —
Manchester Guardian.
THE THEOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS.
ORPHEUS.
With three Charts and Bibliography. Octavo. Price : cloth,
4s. 6d. net.
PLOTINUS.
With Bibliography. Octavo. Price : cloth, Is. net.
THE THEOSOPHY OF THE VEDAS.
THE UPANISHADS: 2 Volumes.
Half Octavo. Paper, 6d. ; cloth, Is. 6d. each net.
VOLUME I.
Contains a Translation of the Isha, Kena, Katha, Prashna, Mnndaka,
and Mandukya Upanishads, with a General Preamble, Arguments,
and Notes by G. R. S. Mead and J. C. Chattopadhyaya (Roy
Choudhuri).
VOLUME II.
Contains a Translation of the Taittirlya, Aitareya, and Shvetashvatara
Upanishads, with Arguments and Notes.
THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY, LONDON AND BENARES.
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