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| that Clement was bishop of Rome during this time and this is apparently the reason why the epistle was later named after him. Fundamentalist Christians believe that the epistle was in fact written in c. 96 C.E. This date is not possible since the epistle refers to bishops and priests as separate groups; a division which had not taken place yet. Stylistic considerations show that it was written in c. 125 C.E. As references it used the Epistle to the Hebrews and The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians but no legitimate historical sources. The Second Epistle of Clement is by a different author to the first and was written later. We may thus conclude that it was also not written by Clement. (There is no evidence that either of these epistles were named after Clement before their incorporation into the collection of books known as the Codex Alexandrinus in the fifth century C.E.) As sources for Jesus, the Second Epistle of Clement uses the Gospel of the Egyptians, a document which is rejected by even the most fundamentalist Christians, and also the New Testament books which we have shown to be valueless. Thus again we have no legitimate evidence of Jesus. Next we have the epistles written in the name of Ignatius. According to legend, Ignatius was the bishop of Antioch who was killed under Trajan's rule c. 110 C.E. (Although he is probably based on a real historical person, the legends about his martyrdom are largely fictional.) There are fifteen epistles written in his name. Of these, eight are unanimously recognized as being pseudepigraphic and of no value as regards Jesus. The remaining seven each have two forms, a longer and a shorter. The longer forms are clearly altered and edited versions of the shorter forms. Fundamentalist Christians claim that the shorter forms are genuine letters written by Ignatius. The Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans mentions the threefold ordering of bishops, priests and deacons which had not yet taken place by Ignatius's death which occurred no later than 117 C.E. and which probably took place c. 110 C.E. All seven shorter epistles attack various Christian beliefs, now considered heretical, which only became prevalent c. 140 – 150 C.E. The shorter Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans contains a quote from the writings of Irenaeus, written after 170 C.E. and published c. 185 C.E. We can thus conclude that the seven shorter epistles are also pseudepigraphic. The shorter Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans was certainly written after 170 C.E. (In fact, if it was not written by Irenaeus then it was probably written after c. 185 C.E.) The other six were written no earlier than the period c. 140 - 150 C.E., if not later. There are no sources for Jesus in the Ignatian epistles other than the New Testament books and the writings of Irenaeus which only use the New Testament. Thus they contain no legitimate evidence of Jesus. There are two more epistles which Christians claim are genuine letters, namely the Epistle of Polycarp and the Martyrdom of Polycarp. The Ignatian epistles and the epistles concerning Polycarp have always been closely associated. It is quite possible that they were all written by the Christian writer Irenaeus and his disciples. There certainly was a real historical early Christian named Polycarp. He was bishop of Smyrna and was killed by the Romans sometime in the period 155 - 165 C.E. When Irenaeus was a boy he knew Polycarp. Fundamentalist Christians claim that Polycarp was the disciple of the apostle John. However, even if we accept the legend that Polycarp lived to the age of 86, he could not have been born earlier than 67 C.E and therefore could not have been a disciple of John. (It is possible that he was a disciple of the enigmatic John the Elder.) Since Irenaeus had known Polycarp they also assume that Irenaeus was in fact his disciple, a claim for which there is no evidence. The Epistle of Polycarp uses most New Testament books and the Ignatian epistles as references but it uses no legitimate sources for Jesus. Those Christians who reject the Ignatian epistles but believe the Epistle of Polycarp is a genuine letter, claim that the references to the Ignatian epistles are a later interpolation. This idea is based on personal bias, not on any genuine evidence. Based on the blind belief that this epistle is a genuine letter, some Christians date it to around the middle of the second century C.E., shortly before Polycarp's death. However, the references to the Ignatian epistles suggest that it was in fact written some time in the last few decades of the second century C.E., at least about a decade after Polycarp's death if not later. The Martyrdom of Polycarp is written in the name of "the Church of God that sojourns in Smyrna." It starts off in the form of a letter but its main body is written in the form of an ordinary story. It tells the tale of Polycarp's martyrdom. Like the Epistle of Polycarp, it was written some time during the last few decades of the second century C.E. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that it used any reliable sources for its story, only rumors and hearsay. The story in fact appears to be highly fictionalized. The references to Jesus are not taken from any reliable source. We have thus seen that the epistles used by missionaries as "evidence" are just as spurious as the gospels. Again, the reader should beware "easy to understand" translations of the New Testament since they call the epistles "letters," thereby incorrectly implying that they are really letters written by the people after whom they are named. Now, besides the books of the New Testament, and besides the epistles relating to Clement, Ignatius and Polycarp, there is only one more Christian religious work which Christians claim as historical evidence of Jesus, namely the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles also known as the Didache. All other early Christian religious works are either wholly rejected by modern Christians or are at least recognized as not being primary sources as regards Jesus. The Didache began as a sectarian Jewish document, probably written during the period of turmoil in c. 70 C.E. Its earliest form consisted of moral teachings and predictions of the destruction of the current world order. This earliest version, which obviously did not mention Jesus, was taken over by Christians who heavily edited and altered it, adding a story of Jesus and rules of worship for early Christian communities. Scholars estimate that the earliest Christian version of the _Didache_ could not have been written much later than 95 C.E. It probably only reached its final form around c. 120 C.E. It appears to have served an isolated Christian community in Syria as a "Church Order" during the period c. 100 - 130 C.E. However, there is no evidence that its story of Jesus was based on any reliable sources, and as we have mentioned, the earliest Jewish version had nothing to do with Jesus. In fact, this document provides evidence that the myth of Jesus grew gradually. Like the Gospel of Mark and the early versions of Gospel of Matthew, the Jesus story in the Didache makes no mention of a virgin birth. It makes no mention of the fantastic miracles which were later attributed to Jesus. Although Jesus is referred to as a "son" of God, it appears that this term is being used figuratively. The evidence we have concerning the origin of the crucifixion myth suggests that one of the things leading to this myth was the fact that the cross was the astrological symbol of the Vernal Equinox which occurs near Passover, when Jesus was believed to have been killed. It is thus not surprising to find that the story in the Didache makes no mention of Jesus being crucified, although it mentions a cross in the sky as a sign of Jesus. The twelve apostles mentioned in the full title of the Didache do not appear as twelve real disciples of Jesus and the term clearly refers to the twelve sons of Jacob representing the twelve tribes of Israel. Thus the Didache provides vital clues concerning the growth of the Jesus myth, but it certainly does not provide any evidence of an historical Jesus. Since none of the Christian religious texts provide any acceptable evidence of Jesus, missionaries turn next to non-Christian texts. Christians claim that several reliable historians recorded information about Jesus. Although some of these historians are more or less accepted, we shall see that they do not provide any information about Jesus. Firstly, Christians claim that the Jewish historian Josephus recorded information about Jesus in his book Jewish Antiquities (published c. 93 - 94 C.E.) It is true that this book contains information about the three false Messiahs, Yehuda of Galilee, Theudas and Benjamin the Egyptian, and it is true that the character of Jesus appears to be based on all of them in part, but none of them can be regarded as the historical Jesus. Moreover, in the book of Acts, these people are mentioned as being different people to Jesus and so modern Christianity actually rejects any connection between them and Jesus. In the Christian edited versions of the Jewish Antiquities there are two passages dealing with Jesus as portrayed in Christian religious works. Neither of these passages are found in the original version of the Jewish Antiquities which was preserved by the Jews. The first passage (XVII, 3, 3) was quoted by Eusebius writing in c. 320 C.E. and so we can conclude that it was added in some time between the time Christians got hold of the Jewish Antiquities and c. 320 C.E. It is not known when the other passage (XX, 9, 1) was added in. Neither passage is based on any reliable sources. It is fraudulent to claim that these passages were written by Josephus and that they provide evidence for Jesus. They were written by Christian redactors and were based purely on Christian belief. Next the Christians will point to the Annals by Tacitus. In the Annals XV,44, Tacitus describes how Nero blamed the Christians for the fire of Rome in 64 C.E. He mentions that the name "Christians" originated from a person named Christus who had been executed by Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberias. It is certainly true that the name "Christians" is derived from Christ or Christus (Messiah), but Tacitus' claim that he was executed by Pilate during the reign of Tiberias is based purely on the claims being made by the Christians themselves. They appeared in the gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke, which had already been widely circulated when the Annals were being written. (The Annals were published after 115 C.E. and were certainly not written before 110 C.E.) Thus, although the Annals contains a sentence in which "Christus" is spoken of as a real person, this sentence was based purely on Christian claims and beliefs which are of no historical value. It is quite ironic that modern Christians use Tacitus to back up their beliefs since he was the least accurate of all Roman historians. He justifies hatred of Christians by saying that they committed abominations. Besides "Christus" he also speaks of various pagan gods as if they really exist. His summary of Middle East history in his book the Histories is so distorted as to be laughable. We may conclude that his single mention of Christus cannot be taken as reliable evidence of an historical Jesus. Once Tacitus is dismissed, the Christians will claim that one of the younger Pliny's letters to the emperor Trajan provides evidence of an historical Jesus. (Letters X, 96.) This is nonsense. The letter in question simply mentions that certain Christians had cursed "Christ" to avoid being punished. It does not claim that this Christ really existed. The letter in question was written before Pliny's death in c. 114 C.E. but after he was sent to Bithynia in 111 C.E., probably in the year 112 C.E. Thus it provides nothing more than a confirmation of the trivial fact that around the beginning of the twelfth decade C.E. Christians did not normally curse something called "Christ" although some had done it to avoid punishment. It provides no evidence of an historical Jesus. Christians will also claim that Suetonius recorded evidence of Jesus in his book Lives of the Caesars (also known as The Twelve Caesars). The passage in question is Claudius 25, where he mentions that the emperor Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome (apparently in 49 C.E.) because they caused continual disturbances at the instigation of a certain Chrestus. If one blindly assumes that "Chrestus" refers to Jesus then, if anything, this passage contradicts the Christian story of Jesus. Jesus was supposed to have been crucified when Pontius Pilate was procurator (26 - 36 C.E.) during the reign of Tiberias and, moreover, he was never supposed to have been in Rome! Suetonius lived during the period c. 75 - 150 C.E. and his book, Lives of the Caesars, was published during the period 119 - 120 C.E., having been written some time after Domitian's death in 96 C.E. Thus the event he describes occurred at least 45 years before he was writing about it and so we cannot be certain of its accuracy. The name Chrestus is derived from the Greek Chrestos meaning "good one" and it is not the same as Christ or Christus which are derived from the Greek Christos meaning "anointed one/Messiah." If we take the passage at face value it refers to a person named Chrestus who was in Rome and who had nothing to do with Jesus or any other "Christ." The term Chrestos was often applied to pagan gods and many of the people in Rome called "Jews" were actually people who mixed Jewish beliefs with pagan beliefs and who were not necessarily of Jewish descent. Thus it is also possible that the passage refers to conflicts involving these pagan "Jews" who worshipped a pagan god (such as Sebazios) titled Chrestos. On the other hand, the words Chrestos and Christos were often confused and so the passage might even be referring to some conflict involving Jews who believed that some person was the Messiah. This person may or may not have actually been in Rome and for all we know, he may not even have been a real historical person. One should bear in mind that the described event took place just several years after the crucifixion of the false Messiah Theudas in 44 C.E., and the passage may be referring to his followers in Rome. Christians claim that the passage refers to Jesus and conflicts arising after Paul brought news of him to Rome and that Suetonius was only mistaken about Jesus himself being in Rome. However, this interpretation is based on blind belief in Jesus and the myths about Paul and there is nothing to suggest that it is the correct interpretation. Thus we may conclude that Suetonius also fails to provide any reliable evidence of an historical Jesus. All other writers who mention Jesus, from Justin Martyr in the second century C.E. to the latest expounders of Christian myth in the twentieth century, have all based their references to Jesus on the sources we have discredited above. Consequently their claims are worthless as historical evidence. We are thus left with the conclusion that there is absolutely no reliable and acceptable historical evidence of Jesus. All references to Jesus are derived from the superstitious beliefs and myths of the early Christian community. The majority of these beliefs only came into existence after the persecution by Nero and the tragedy of 70 C.E. Many of these beliefs are based on the pagan legends about the gods Tammuz, Osiris, Attis, Dionysus and the sun god Mithras. Other myths about Jesus appear to be based on various different historical people such as the convicted criminals Yeishu ben Pandeira and ben Stada, and the crucified false Messiahs Yehuda, Theudas and Benjamin, but none of these people can be regarded as an historical Jesus. *FURTHER READING* 1) J. Allegro, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth, Prometheus Books, reprinted 1991. (Examines how ancient myths were misused by the early church and misrepresented as history.) 2) J. Campbell, Occidental Mythology, Penguin Books, reprinted 1985. (An exposition of religious mythology in western civilization. Includes important evidence concerning the borrowing of pagan myths by Christianity.) 3) E.D. Cohen, The Mind of the Bible-Believer, Prometheus Books, reprinted 1991. (Uncovers the psychological ploys around which the New Testament is built and exposes the adverse effects of Christian fundamentalism.) 4) R. Helms, Gospel Fictions, Prometheus Books, reprinted 1991. (Exposes the gospels as being largely fictional documents composed as a culmination to an extensive mythological tradition.) 5) S. Levine, You Take Jesus and I'll Take God: How to Refute Christian Missionaries, revised edition, Hamoroh Press, Los Angeles, 1980. (Exposes the tricks used by missionaries and the misquotations of the Tanach in the New Testament.) 6) J.M. Robertson, A Short History of Christianity, 2nd Ed., Watts & Co., London 1913. (One of the first serious academic investigations into the origins of Christianity. Exposes the elements of the Jesus story borrowed from pagan myths.) 7) The Talmud, should be compulsory reading for all Jews although it is unfortunately neglected in modern times! |