THE CHRIST MYTH
LONDON: 1 ADELPHI TERRACE
LEIPZIC: INSELSTRASSE 20
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PREFACE TO THE FIRST AND SECOND EDITIONS
Since David Frederick Strauss, in his “Life ofJesus,” attempted for the first time to trace the Gospel storiesand accounts of miracles back to myths and pious fictions, doubtsregarding the existence of an historical Jesus have never been lulledto rest. Bruno Bauer also in his “Kritik derevangelischen Geschichte und der Synoptiker”(1841–42, 2nd ed. 1846),1 disputed the historical existenceof Jesus; later, in his “Christ und dieCäsaren, der Ursprung des Christentums aus dem römischenGriechentum” (1877), he attempted to show that the life ofJesus was a pure invention of the first evangelist, Mark, and toaccount for the whole Christian religion from the Stoic and Alexandrineculture of the second century, ascribing to Seneca especially amaterial influence upon the development of the Christian point of view.But it was reserved for the present day, encouraged by the essentiallynegative results of the so-called critical theology, to take up thesubject energetically, and thereby to attain to results even bolder andmore startling.
In England John M. Robertson, in “Christianity andMythology” (1900), in “A Short History ofChristianity” (1902), as well as in his work “PaganChrists: Studies in Comparative Hierology” (1903), has traced thepicture [8]of Christ in the Gospels to a mixture ofmythological elements in heathenism and Judaism.
In France,