The Anti-Essene Jesus.

I have said that in the New Testament there is an Essene and an anti-Essene Christ. Both are most conspicuous in the Gospel of St. Luke. Catholic and Protestant disputants are aware of this.

Until the days of Ferdinand Christian Baur, St. Luke had an immaculate reputation. He was believed to be the companion of St. Paul on his voyages. He was believed to have written the third gospel almost as early as the date of Paul's imprisonment. He was the reputed author of the Acts of the Apostles.

"Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet you." (Col. iv. 14.)

In the Second Epistle to Timothy, and in the Epistle to Philemon, he is also mentioned.

But now all is changed.

In the first place, two out of the three epistles that name him are pronounced to be forgeries by all competent critics; and very few hold even the Epistle to the Colossians to be by the pen of St. Paul. Then it is pointed out that there is no mention of St. Luke's gospel or of the Acts of the Apostles until the date of IrenÆus (A.D. 180.)

Let us give the opening verses of the gospel as amended by that eminent Greek scholar, Dr. Giles:—

"Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a narrative of those things which have been brought to fulfilment in us, even as they which from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word have handed down to us, it hath seemed good to me also, following all accurately from the beginning, to write unto thee, in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed."

Now, here it is plain, as Dr. Giles remarks, that the author "does not profess to have been an original writer, or to have had perfect understanding of all things from the very first," which is the erroneous rendering of our authorised version, but that he follows the accounts of others, who "were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word." (Giles, "Apostolical Records," p. 34.)

Next comes the pertinent question, Who was the "most excellent Theophilus?" The word used is Kratistos, "which is thought by Gibbon to designate a man holding a civil or official dignity. If this be so, we might find it difficult to suppose that such a title would have been given to a Christian, even if there were any one of exalted station, within a few years after the first promulgation of Christianity." ("Apostolical Records," p. 13.)

But at Antioch, about the year 171, there was a Theophilus, the sixth bishop. He might have been called Kratistos without anything inappropriate. He was a convert late in life, which may explain the passage about "those things in which thou has been instructed." Eusebius tells us that this Theophilus wrote a treatise against Marcion. But in the view of modern critics, the forged epistles of Paul to Timothy were also levelled against Marcion.

This has its significance. For the followers of Marcion have always maintained that Luke's gospel is Marcion's gospel enlarged and falsified. One of these, Megethius, declared it was full of errors and contradictions. This controversy has been revived in modern times.

But before we deal with this important gospel, we must say a word about what the Germans call Luke's "tendency,"—his scheme of colour, to use an artistic expression.

Baur, comparing the Acts with other scriptures, was struck with the many discrepancies and absolute false statements that it contained. He perceived also that these false statements were not accidental but systematic. Soon their motive dawned upon him. It was plain that this "Luke," writing long after the animosities of Paul against the historical Apostles had ceased, desired to tone down and conceal these animosities. Hence the book of the Acts of the Apostles could not be the work of a contemporary. And a strong motive for this has been suggested by erudite Germans.

The early enemy of Christianity was the Jew. The Roman official at first treated the animosities of the dominant party as part of the incomprehensible Jewish superstition, and sided, when practicable, with the weaker section. But when Christianity began to gain ground, the Roman began to examine it more closely, and soon found much to condemn. For the Essenes proclaimed that the State gods of the Romans were wicked demons. The Essenes forbade the use of wine and flesh meat, important elements in the ceremonial of the Roman religion. The Essenes forbade slavery. The Essenes forbade marriage, replacing it, according to rumour, with lewd rites in their secret orgies. Soon violent persecutions arose.

Now it has been suggested by the Germans that at the date of Kratistos, the school of Antioch sought to conciliate the Roman authority by showing that Christianity was a harmless form of Judaism, equally entitled to State toleration.

This "tendency" of "Luke" must be borne in mind. It is very plain in the earlier chapters of the Acts. The gospels announce that at Christ's death consternation and cowardice were amongst his followers. The "lambs" had fled in all directions from the "wolves." St. Paul also speaks of the fierce persecutions that followed the event,—Stephen stoned, and the "havoc" and the "slaughter." And yet in the opening chapters of the Acts we find the "wolves" more gentle than the "lambs." They are "pricked in their heart." They at once allow Peter to proclaim in the temple, and also before the Sanhedrim, that there is no salvation in any name other than that of the malefactor they have just executed (by inference not even in Yahve); and that all who will not hear this malefactor shall be destroyed. And the Sanhedrim, in solemn conclave, let him go, "finding nothing how they might punish him." (Acts iv. 21.) And Gamaliel, a solemn doctor, advises his colleagues to let the hated "lambs" alone, "lest haply they be found to fight against God." Had a "wolf" talked like that, his brother "wolves" would have made short work of him.

The "tendency" here is very plain. "Luke" wants it to be understood that from the first the chief doctors saw no harm in Christianity, and allowed it to be preached in the temple. I shall not waste time over the controversy, whether "Luke" is an enlargement of Marcion's or some other shorter gospel. As we know that the earliest and only authentic gospel came from the Essene Ebionites, it is plain that all anti-Essenism is an accretion.

We now come to the opening chapters of Luke's gospel. Let us see if it is possible at this distance of time to trace how they were built up.

In the Jerusalem Talmud, and also in the Babylonish, is a somewhat fanciful account of the slaughter of a priest named Zacharias. who was killed in the court of the priests, near the altar. A great miracle now occurred: his blood began to bubble, that it might cause fury to come up to take vengeance! Soon Nebuzaradan (this fixes the date of the story to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar) arrived at the temple. He asked the meaning of the bubbling. He was told that the blood was the blood of calves, and rams, and lambs. He caused some calves, and rams, and lambs to be slaughtered; still the blood bubbled. He slaughtered a number of rabbins; still the blood bubbled. Ninety-four thousand priests were slaughtered before the blood of the dead Zacharias was appeased. (Talmud Hierosol. in Taannith, fol. 69, Lightfoot the Hebraist.)

We now come to the Protevangelion, a fanciful gospel attributed to James, the "Bishop of Bishops," as he is called on the title page. It has incorporated this story of Zacharias and his avenging blood; and tacked on to it an account of the birth of the Virgin Mary. One Joachim was much afflicted because Anna his wife had no issue. He "called to mind the patriarch Abraham, how that God in the end of his life had given him his son Isaac," and he went into the wilderness and fasted forty days. An angel appeared to Anna and promised offspring. Mary the child was born, and dedicated to God. Zacharias, the high priest, received her in the temple. When she was twelve years old a veil was wanted, and the high priest cast lots to find out what maiden should spin it. The lot fell on Mary, and from this moment Zacharias was dumb.

Meantime, Mary was espoused to Joseph, who, shortly afterwards finding his betrothed with child, was sorrowful. Both were summoned before the deputy of Zacharias, who caused them to go through the prescribed ordeal of drinking "the water of the Lord." Christ was born. The wise men came. Herod slew the infants, and murdered Zacharias in the temple. Then a mighty miracle occurred. The roofs of the temple howled, and were rent from the top to the bottom. And a voice from heaven said, "Zacharias is murdered, and his blood shall not be wiped away until the revenger of his blood shall come."

Let us now suppose that Luke comes across this story, the "Luke" of the epoch of the most excellent Theophilus, the Luke with the "tendency" to soften subversive Essenism. How would he proceed? He might argue that John the Baptist would make a more suitable hero. He could be born of old parents like Mary. And the story would certainly gain in unity and dramatic vigour, if Zacharias the priest was made the old father.

That one author has copied from the other there can be no doubt.

Hail, thou art full of grace, thou art blessed amongst women. (Prot. ix. 7.)

Mary, the Lord God hath magnified thy name to all generations. (Prot. vii. 4.)

Mary, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High overshadow thee.

Wherefore, that which shall be born of thee shall be holy, and shall be called the Son of the Living God.

And thou shalt call his name Jesus. (Prot. ix. 13.)

For lo, as the voice of thy salutation reached my ears, that which is in me leaped and blessed me. (Prot. ix. 21.)

Hail, thou art highly favoured. Blessed art thou among women. (Luke i. 28).

My soul doth magnify the Lord. Henceforth all generations will call me blessed. (Luke i. 46, 48).

The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest overshadow thee.

Therefore, also that holy thing which shall be born, shall be called the Son of God. (Luke i. 35.)

And shalt call his name Jesus. (Luke i. 31.)

And it came to pass when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb. (Luke ii. 41.)

The question now arises, Which author has copied from the other? Three theories are possible.

1. "James" copied the story from Luke, the companion of Paul.

2. James copied the story from "Luke," of a later date.

3. Luke copied from James.

1. Bishop Lightfoot is angry that an "evangelist" should be accused of copying from an "apocryphal gospel." But there is the difficulty here, that the Zacharias of both stories is plainly the Zacharias of the Talmudic narrative. So that, if the bishop could prove that "James" had stolen from Luke, there would still be an "apocryphal" document behind both. And if "Luke" was the first to use the Talmudic story, how is it that he misses the point of that story, and James copying him, hits it? That point is the avenging blood.

2. The details of the picture and the whole local colour point plainly to an age when past events have so faded away from the memory of living people that a writer can afford to play tricks with them. The huge animosity with which dominant Israel viewed spiritual Israel would have made even Torquemada feel lukewarm. Christ called the two the "wolves" and the "lambs." And yet a chief "wolf," on being informed that his son is to be a water-drinking Nazarite, a leader of the abominable schismatics who prated about the "power of Elias," and called themselves a "people prepared for the Lord," feels ecstasy rather than wrath. Imagine Philip of Spain learning that a son of his had helped to steer the English fire-ships at the great battle of Gravelines. Imagine Legree composing an original song of triumph on learning that Uncle Tom was a free citizen. If there was a historical Luke, and he was the genuine companion of Paul, he of all men would know of the "haling men and women and committing them to prison," of the "havoc and the slaughter." He would have known how the priestly party in Jerusalem would view a proposal to annul the eternal covenant of Yahve with a better, a more "holy covenant," and substitute remission of sins by penitence for remission of sins by the bloody sacrifice.

3. If the opening chapters of Luke are historical, many events in his own and the other gospels are plainly unhistorical. If John the Baptist was the cousin of Christ, brought up with him from childhood, how is it that he failed to recognise him on the Jordan (John i. 33) until the First Person of the Trinity intervened, and performed the miracle of sending down a dove to indicate him? Why, too, should he have sent, as Luke himself announces (vii. 19), messengers to his cousin to ask if he was the coming Messiah, when he must have known from his mother the announcement of the angels that his cousin was the "Son of the Highest," destined to "reign over Jacob for ever"? Why, too, did Mary, knowing all this, forget it when the boy-Christ disputed in the temple? and why did Luke forget it too? (Luke ii. 48.)

4. If John the Baptist was really the son of a chief priest, the silence of the other gospels is unaccountable. Certainly if Justin Martyr had had the opening chapters of Luke before him, he would have used them against Trypho.

5. When I first read Luke critically, I asked myself, Why has he omitted the death of Zacharias, as he has dragged him in? Then I was struck with the words that he has put into the mouth of Christ:—

"From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zacharias which perished between the altar and the temple." (Ch. xi. 51.)

This passage convinced me that he had the Protevangelion before him. It is to be remarked that this verse does not appear in Marcion's version.

Then I came across a whimsical passage in Bishop Lightfoot. He shows that an "early tradition identified the Zacharias who is mentioned in the gospels as having been slain between the temple and the altar (Matt. xxiii. 35) with this Zacharias, the father of the Baptist." ("Supernatural Religion," p. 256.) The bishop then triumphs over the author of "Supernatural Religion," who had declared that Luke makes no announcement of Zacharias's death. "He appears," says Bishop Lightfoot, "to have forgotten Luke xi. 51." (Op. cit. p. 257.)

But surely the bishop has overlooked one whimsical objection to accepting this story as historical. If the John the Baptist was the son of Zacharias, the son of Barachias, he must have been 531 years old when he baptised Christ.

Bishop Lightfoot makes much of these opening chapters, because they show that the parents of Jesus were orthodox Jews, who went up every year to the feast of the Passover, and offered doves at the prescribed times. But what about Herod and the flight into Egypt? If the first four chapters which "Luke" is accused of adding to Marcion's gospel be historical, the flight into Egypt is a fiction.

The Buddhist story about Simeon, and the Buddhist disputation with the doctors, are borrowed from the First Gospel of the Infancy. They are not in any other canonical gospel, and the First Gospel of the Infancy is the great armoury of Buddhist legends.

It is to be remarked that a young Buddhist, that he may acquire readiness in controversy, is pestered with questions by doctors and theologians. But the rabbis at Jerusalem would scarcely have allowed a little boy to talk to them about the Messiah. (First Infancy, xxi. 3.)

We now come to the two passages most relied on by those who desire to show that Jesus condemned the asceticism of John. Let us read each with its context.

"And when the messengers of John were departed, he began to speak unto the people concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness for to see? A reed shaken with the wind? But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they which are gorgeously apparelled, and live delicately, are in kings' courts. But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and much more than a prophet. This is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. For I say unto you, Among those that are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist, but he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. And all the people that heard him, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him.

"And the Lord said, Whereunto then shall I liken the men of this generation? and to what are they like? They are like unto children sitting in the market-place, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept. For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil. The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners! But wisdom is justified of all her children." (Luke vii. 24-35.)

It is a singular fact that this short passage has been made the chief armoury of the disciples of gastronomic, and also of interior Christianity. Thus Migne's "Dictionnaire des AscÉtes" cites it to show that Christ approved of the asceticism of the Baptist. Does not this at starting seem to argue two teachings, and, as a corollary, two distinct teachers? If we omit the passages that I have marked in italics it is difficult to find a more eloquent eulogy of ascetic mysticism. The Buddhist mystics are called the Sons of Wisdom (Dharma or PrajÑÂ), and Christ adopts the same terminology. Plainly the gist of the passage is that the children of the mystic Sophia have no rivalry and no separate baptism. The lower life of soft raiment and palaces is contrasted with John's ascetic life amongst the "reeds" that still conspicuously fringe the rushing Jordan. John is pronounced the greatest of prophets, and his teaching the "counsel of God." Then comes my first passage in italics, the statement that the most raw catechumen of Christ's instruction is superior to this the greatest of God's prophets. It completely disconnects what follows from what precedes, and involves the silliest inconsequence, as shown by the action of Christ's hearers. It is said that they crowded to the "baptism of John." Had that speech been uttered, of course they would have stayed away from it.

The subsequent insertion of the gospel of eating and drinking, and piping and dancing, involves a greater folly. It betrays a writer completely ignorant of Jewish customs. The fierce enmity of anti-mystical Israel to the Nazarites pivoted on the very fact that the latter were pledged for life to drink neither wine nor strong drink. This was the Nazarite's banner with victory already written upon it. Hence the fierce hatred of the Jewish priesthood. If Christ in their presence had drunk one cup of wine, there would have been no crucifixion, and certainly no upbraiding.

This is the second passage that anti-mystical Christianity builds upon:—

"And they said unto him, Why do the disciples of John fast often, and make prayers, and likewise the disciples of the Pharisees; but thine eat and drink? And he said unto them, Can ye make the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days.

"And he spake also a parable unto them: No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old. And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved. No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better." (Luke v. 33-39.)

I have again resorted to italics. I think we have here a genuine speech of Christ, and a very important one. His doctrine was "new wine," and it was quite unfit for the "old bottles" of Mosaism. The gravity of this speech was felt by the Roman monks who were trying to force the new wine into the old bottles (with much prejudice to the wine), so they tried to nullify it with flat contradiction let in both above and below.

"For the old is better."

This completely contradicts Christ's eulogy of the Christian's "new wine." Moreover, the words are not found in Matthew's version, which makes the cheat more palpable. There, too, we have the gospel of eating and drinking, a gospel that did not require an avatÂra of the Maker of the Heavens for its promulgation.

But supposing that we concede the two passages to be genuine, I do not see that the priests of materialism will gain very much.

These texts are internecine, involving contradictions due either to more than one author, or to an interpolator singularly deficient in logical consistency and common sense. The statement, as far as it is intelligible, is that Christ, having determined to forsake mystical for anti-mystical Israel, made the following enactments:—

1. That the ascetic practices that He had taken over from John the Baptist and the Nazarenes, and which in other gospels He enjoins under the phrase of "prayer and fasting" as the machinery for developing miraculous gifts, interior vision, etc., shall be discontinued by His disciples during His lifetime and then again renewed.

2. That feastings and the use of wine, which as Nazarites He and His disciples had specially forsworn, should be again resumed, with no restrictions in this case in the matter of His death. So that by one enactment His disciples after His death were to remain jovial "wine-bibbers" by the other fasting ascetics. It is scarcely necessary to bring forward the true Luke to confute the pseudo Luke.

A valuable historical transaction is recorded by the real Luke which throws a strong light on the relations between Christ and John the Baptist. Towards the close of the Saviour's career, at Jerusalem itself, the chief priests accosted Him and asked Him by what authority He did what He did. Now if the relations between Christ and John the Baptist had been what the pseudo Luke would have us believe, Christ had only to state all this and He might have saved many valuable lives. He had only to plainly announce that His movement was not from anti-mystical to mystical Israel, but from mystical to anti-mystical Israel; that he had introduced wine and oil as a protest against Essenism; that He had forbidden its ascetic fastings, and brought many disciples back from "the baptism of John" to the orthodox fold. If He had stated all this clearly, the high priest and elders would have hailed Him as a friend instead of slaying Him as a foe. But the Saviour, evidently quite unaware that He had led a great movement against the Baptist, takes refuge behind John instead of condemning him. He asks the pregnant question, Was he a prophet of God, or was he not? inferring, of course, that he was, and that the prophetic gift was "authority" enough. (Luke xx. 1, et seq.) "For I say unto you, Among those that are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist." (Luke vii. 28.) Here again we have the real Luke confronting his unskilful interpolator.