A Short History of Christianity: Second Edition, Revised, With AdditionsRobertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
History
A Short History of Christianity: Second Edition, Revised, With Additions
Robertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Church history
Seeing, however, that the later Nazaræans are reported to have
adopted the (obviously late) first and second chapters of Matthew,
while the Ebionites rejected them; and seeing that these chapters,
embodying the story of the flight into Egypt, make Jesus at once
a Jewish and a Gentile Christ, it would appear that the Gentile
movement had then reacted on the Jewish, and that the ultra-Jewish
Jesuists had now relinquished the name of Nazaræan to the less rigid,
who at this stage probably used a Greek gospel. Finally, as the
original sense of "Nazirite" implied either a Judaic vow--irksome
to the Gentile Christians, and probably to many of the Jewish--or
a specially Judaic character in the founder, and as the political
implication of the "netzer" (supposing that to have adhered to the
sect-name) was anti-Roman, there would arise a disposition to seek
for the term another significance. This, presumably on the suggestion
of Gentiles accustomed to hear Jewish sectaries called "Galileans,"
was found in the figment that the founder, though declared to have
been Messianically born in Bethlehem, had been reared in the Galilean
village of Nazareth or Nazara. Instead of being a historical datum,
as is assumed by so many rationalizing historians, that record appears
to be really a pragmatic myth superimposed on the Bethlehem myth. The
textual analysis shows that wherever it occurs in the gospels and
Acts the name Nazareth has been foisted on the documents.
Hence, however, arose the Greek form "Nazarenos," which finally became
to a certain extent imposed on the canonical gospels, but especially on
that of Mark, which appears to have been redacted under Roman authority
in the interests of ecclesiastical order. Naturally, the Latin Vulgate
adopted the same term throughout the gospels and Acts, save in the
crucial text, Matt. ii, 23. Otherwise the texts are almost wholly in
favour of the form "Nazoraios"--that is, Nazaræan or Nazirite.
§ 3. Personality of the Nominal Founder
Even for minds wont to see mere myth in the idea of such
long-worshipped Saviours as Apollo and Osiris, Krishna and Mithra,
it cannot but be startling to meet for the first time the thought
that there is no historic reality in a figure so long revered and
beloved by half the human race as the Jesus of the gospels. It was
only after generations of scrutiny that modern rationalism began to
doubt the actuality of the Teacher it had unhesitatingly surmised
behind the impossible demigod of the records. The first, indeed,
to see in him sheer myth were the students who were intent chiefly
on the myths of action in the story: to return to the teaching as
such was to recover the old impression of a real voice. It is only
after a further analysis--a scrupulous survey of the texts--that the
inquirer can realise how illusory that impression really is.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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