been giving as to the personality of Christ, we may ask the writer why this idea took form in Christianity alone, when there were so many other forms of religious thought existing at that time. Mr. J. M. Robertson would seem to have us believe that Mr. J. M. Christianity itself is merely a modified form of the worship of the Sun God Mithra. He writes: "As we have seen, the Osirian cult and that of Serapis, grafted on it in the time of the Ptolemies, made popular the symbol of the Cross long before Christianity, and prepared for the latter religion in many ways. Perhaps its closest counterpart, however, was its most tenacious rival, the worship of the Sun-God, Mithra, first introduced into Rome in the time of Pompey, whose troops received it from the Cilician pirates, the débris of the army of Mithridates, whom he conquered and enlisted in the Roman service. Mithra, being the most august of all the gods of war, his worship became the special religion of the Roman army. Apart from its promise of immortality, its fascination lay in its elaborate initiations, baptisms, probations, sacraments and mysteries which were kept at a higher level of moral stringency than those of almost any of the competing sects. The god was epicene, or bisexual, having a male and a female aspect, and there seems to have been no amorous element in his myth at the Christian period. Unless it be decided that such B Robertson's objection rituals had prevailed all over the East, the Christian eucharist must be held to have been a direct imitation of that of Mithraism, which it so closely resembled that the early Fathers declared the priority of the rival sacrament to be due to diabolic agency. The Mithraist ritual, indeed, appears to have been the actual source of part of the Christian mystery-play, inasmuch as Mithra, whose special epithet was 'The Rock' was liturgically represented as dead, buried in a rock tomb, mourned over, and raised again amid rejoicing. For the Mithraists also the sign of the Cross, made on the forehead, was the supreme symbol; and it was mainly their cult which established the usage of calling the Sun-day, the first of the week, the day of the Lord,' Mithra as the sun being the first of the seven planetary spirits on whose names the week was based. In the third century, the chief place of the cult in the empire was on the Vatican Mount at Rome; and there it was that Christian legend located the martyrdom of Peter, who, as we have seen, was assimilated to Mithra both in name and attributes." 1 "Near the close of his treatise Justin describes the Christian customs of Baptism, Eucharist and Sunday worship and roundly declares that the wicked devils had induced 1 A Short History of Christianity, Watts & Co., 1902, pp. 70, 71. the followers of Mithra to imitate these Christian -I mean in the case of the Sacraments-we must not be content with merely pointing out this dependence for the Christian doctrine of the Sacraments has characteristic features of its own; as is proved, for example, by Justin Martyr's account of baptism." The resemblance in certain details is striking, but proves nothing. Christianity In all the various forms of Pagan worship Mithraism in we find approximations to Christian worship and its relation to teaching, for in all of them is a substratum of truth. We know, however, that Jesus Christ was as distinct from Mithra as he was from Napoleon. We know and have shown that the Founder of Christianity was no myth, and we shall show that He died upon the Cross, whence and whence alone originates the Christian use of that symbol. The form of cross employed alike in Mithraism and in other religious bodies was quite different from that Mithraic and used by Christians. The latter was a copy of the instrument of servile punishment in use, the Latin cross, while the former was the Hebrew Tau or else an emblematic cross with equal arms. Even 1 Gould, vol. iii., p. 232. 2" The Relation between Ecclesiastical and General History," by Prof. Adolf Harnack, Contemp. Review, Dec., 1904. Christian Cross hostile to idolatry yet worshippers of Jesus Pagan sacrifices for Jesus had we not historical evidence to establish these Jews strict facts, it is quite incredible that Jews who were monotheists the strictest of monotheists should have suddenly adopted Mithra as their God, and declared him to be a really existing character-and Jews, moreover, who were devoted to their religion, at a time too when the worship of Jehovah had never been so pure amongst them. There is nothing to explain such an extraordinary change, and all the evidence of history is against it. The Pagans who were converted to Christianity gave up their Mithra worship and anathematised it. Surely this is inconsistent with the theory that the two religions were practically identical. Moreover, the change was radical and vital, for a belief in Jesus involved not merely an abjuring of Mithra, but a much severer code of morals and selfdenial, and led its votaries to social ostracism and death. It is therefore inconceivable that there is anything but a mere coincidence in the employSchelling ment by both religions of certain common symbols and mystical and formulæ. "As to the theory of the mythical Christ's life apotheosis of the life of Christ," says Schelling, 'every one will admit that no life has ever been transfigured by myths or legends, unless owing to previous great actions or other causes it had already been idealised. The question then is, How came the Jewish Rabbis' Jesus to be the object of apotheosis of such apotheosis? Was it on account of his teaching? But the stones which they cast at him show their appreciation of his doctrines! Upon what supposition can we credit so marvellous a glorification? Since the immense majority of his nation certainly did not believe him to be the Messiah, it is only by admitting the truth of what Pagan and Old Testament writers, independently of the Gospels, affirm of the person of Christ, that we can explain the origin of the dogmatic myth. But such an admission presupposes the greatness of Christ independently of the Gospels. . We do not need the Gospels to attest his greatness, on the contrary we must admit his greatness, if we would understand the Gospel narrative."1 Were it necessary to further discuss the historicity of Jesus, many other arguments might be adduced. As has been well said: "If I were to develop the argument, I should of course call attention to the self-consistency of the character, and the impossibility of inventing it. In the next place I should point to the originality of the teaching of Jesus as a whole. We may be ransacking the world's religious literature, accumulate parallels to this saying or that, but we cannot match the unique combination into a consistent and coherent whole found in the Gospels. These are points 1 Philos. der Offenbarung, v., ii., p. 233. |