It is also well known that there is in the Talmud the story of a Jesus, Ben, or son, of Pandira, who lived about a hundred years before the Gospel Jesus, and who was hanged from a tree. I believe this Jesus is quite as legendary as the Syrian Hesous, or Joshua. But may it not be that such a legend accepted as true--to the ancients all legends were true--contributed its share toward marking the outlines of the later Jesus, hanged on a cross? My idea has been to show that the materials for a Jesus myth were at hand, and that, therefore, to account for the rise and progress of the Christian cult is no more difficult than to explain the widely spread religion of the Indian Chrishna, or of the Persian Mithra. [Footnote: For a fuller discussion of the various "christs" in mythology read Robertson's Christianity and Mythology and his Pagan Christs.] Now, why have I given these conclusions to the world? Would I not have made more friends--provoked a warmer response from the public at large--had I repeated in pleasant accents the familiar phrases about the glory and beauty and sweetness of the Savior God, the Virgin-born Christ? Instead of that, I have run the risk of alienating the sympathies of my fellows by intimating that this Jesus whom Christendom worships today as a god, this Jesus at whose altar the Christian world bends its knees and bows its head, is as much of an idol as was Apollo of the Greeks; and that we--we Americans of the twentieth century--are an idolatrous people, inasmuch as we worship a name, or at most, a man of whom we know nothing provable. [Illustration: Italian Sculpture of the X Century.] IS CHRISTIANITY REAL? It is assumed, without foundation, as I hope to show, that the religion of Jesus alone can save the world. We are not surprised at the claim, because there has never been a religion which has been too modest to make a similar claim. No religion has ever been satisfied to be _one_ of the saviors of man. Each religion wants to be the _only_ savior of man. There is no monopoly like religious monopoly. The industrial corporations with all their greed are less exacting than the Catholic church, for instance, which keeps heaven itself under lock and key. But what is meant by salvation? Let us consider its religious meaning first. An unbiased investigation of the dogmas and their supposed historical foundations will prove that the salvation which Christianity offers, and the means by which it proposes to effect the world's salvation, are extremely fanciful in nature. If this point could be made clear, there will be less reluctance on the part of the public to listen to the evidence on the un-historicity of the founder of Christianity.