THE DATE of the birth of Jesus is of considerable importance in connexion with the Theosophical doctrine of the occasional appearance of great Initiates who bring a new presentation of the ancient Wisdom-Religion to the world from time to time and start new cycles of spiritual activity.
According to the scholars the calendars are in error in calling this year Anno Domini (The Year of the Lord) 1928. In the margin of the Authorized Version of the New Testament the commentator says that Jesus was born in the “fourth year before the common account called Anno Domini”. This depends upon the statement in the Gospels that he was born before the death of Herod the King, a known date.
If an error of four years is admitted in this important matter, it is not impossible that a greater and
more significant error has been made, an error which when detected would go far to confirm the Theosophical claim that Jesus was not unique, but one of many who were charged at various times to bring the saving gospel of Theosophy for the benefit of all the peoples of the earth.
In connexion with this subject an important series of articles in the
Hibbert journal has thrown new light upon the beginning of the Christian Era, and has stirred the learned in such matters. The author is Dr. D. Stromholm of Upsala University, Sweden, and, in view of the weighty implications that follow acceptance of his evidence, a brief study of some of his points may interest our Theosophical and other readers.
Dr. Stromholm's articles give no indication of his having studied Theosophical literature, and, though his theory is in some respects in harmony with the records of the Eastern Wisdom, he omits one important factor without which the origin and deeper meaning of the Gospel narrative cannot be understood. This is the Drama of the Mysteries which will be spoken of later.
His argument demonstrates that much in the Gospels cannot be taken literally, but it leaves untouched and unshaken the actual existence and commanding influence of Jesus as a martyr to the cause of humanity, who delivered a large part of the noble teachings contained within the fabric of the Gospel-narratives. This is, of course, in harmony with Theosophy, which looks upon Jesus as “a great Initiate and a 'Son of God,'” in the words of H. P. Blavatsky.
Dr. Stromholm's position is briefly this, so far as our purpose makes it necessary to consider it:
Jesus lived several generations earlier than the period given in the New Testament;
The teachings given by him were recorded in some way and handed down to his followers, accompanied by traditions of his life and martyrdom;
Many years after his death his recorded teachings and others received through visions and revelations to his followers and the traditions of his career were collected, most probably by Mark, who created a story which served as a literary vehicle to convey the message of Jesus to the increasing number of converts.
Into this narrative, historical personages such as Herod, Pilate, etc., who lived long after the real time of Jesus, were brought in to give an effective historical setting. This was a perfectly legitimate and well-known method with writers of the classical period.
Before Mark collected and worked on his material, there were several rival schools of thought among the followers of Jesus, and the Gospels as we have them are the result of a compromise attained about the end of the first century. This explains the curious contradictions in the narratives and in the alleged teachings, which have even caused many learned scholars to doubt the very existence of Jesus.
We cannot quote or even discuss the close reasoning presented by Dr. Stromholm in favor of his theme, although to follow it is a most enjoyable mental exercise. Those who are interested will find the articles in the
Hibbert journal for 1926-7-8. A few leading points, however, may be indicated before touching on the Theosophical aspect of the subject.
Dr. Stromholm does not find it necessary to go outside the pages of the New Testament for support; internal evidence is enough to establish his main points. He finds that the Gospels and Epistles display such contradictory views of Jesus and his teachings that he is forced to find “a scheme which will really fit the material presented, because the present one fails to do so”. Even as early as the time of the apostle Peter these differences were clearly marked, an inexplicable condition to have existed so close to the date of the crucifixion, if that took place in A. D. 33 or thereabouts,
but not strange if a period of several generations had elapsed since that event.
Dr. Stromholm answers the well-known difficulty that the Gospels assign a historical setting which
makes Jesus a contemporary of Paul, while Paul's writings contain no evidence that this was so, and in fact are inconsistent with such a possibility, by his suggestion of the literary method on which Mark composed the earliest Gospel.
The composition of the
Gospel according to Mark may have taken place at the generally-accepted date, but the original material on which it was founded must have been accumulating for a long time, and the
Epistles of Paul (the earliest and most important Christian witness) were written before any of the Gospels took shape. Dr. Stromholm writes:
“We assume that in the original Judean sources, and prior to the composition of the Gospels, Jesus' life was represented as historical, but with no importance attached to the exact period of time at which it had occurred, and that the party in the Church most concerned in the Mission to the West, with Paul as its chief representative, preached an abstract doctrine of Jesus in which the historic element was vague and little prominent.
“Following upon these conditions, and probably before the end of the first century came the earlier Gospels, in which, for the first time, precise chronological indications made their appearance - the reign of Tiberius, the procuratorship of Pilate, etc. This chronological scheme, once so presented, would soon be generally accepted, and even in Judea would quickly supersede the vague undated traditions that had prevailed hitherto”.
The Swedish professor has worked out a very ingenious explanation for the apparent contrast in the characters of the apostles (or disciples) as represented in the Gospels and in the other parts of the New Testament. He claims that, as the writer of the earliest Gospel knew nothing certain about the real disciples, who had been long dead when he wrote, he had to fill their necessary places with figures of little substance but who acted as a chorus to the drama. Their names were taken from the later apostles whose personalities were real and positive.
Dr. Stromholm skilfully analyses the weak and colorless activities of the disciples in the Gospels and compares them with the courageous and individualized behavior of the same characters in the Acts and Epistles. He says:
“The cardinal mistake. the fons et origo of most of the perversions and confusions which have since followed, was the transformation of the 'apostles' or preachers of the risen Christ, into personal disciples' and comrades of the historical Jesus during his lifetime. This mistake I attribute to Mark, from whom it passed on to subsequent evangelists ....
“Mark, knowing nothing independently of the chronology of Jesus' life, and on the look-out for definite names to give the circle of disciples by which in his literary plan he conceived the chief Figure should be surrounded, should suppose that these apostles were the disciples in question ....
“It is not difficult to define the class of historician to which Mark belonged . . it was common enough in antiquity. Perhaps Livy was his historical pattern ....
“Fragments and obscure stories are the material of such writers; these they go in search of and, when found , assign without chronological investigation to the period they are writing about, building them up and rounding them off into such tales as their contemporaries, whose notions of history are no more scientific than their own, are like to approve ....
“As a composer I consider Mark scrupulously honest, if judged by the literary standards of his time”.
Dr. Stromholm's main position is, then, that the great Teacher from whose life-work the Christian cycle originated, lived several generations earlier than the historical period described in the Gospels, and that the background of history, including Herod, Pilate, Tiberius, etc. , is a purely literary device of the writer of the earliest published Gospel. This theory, he declares, however startling it may appear at first, satisfactorily clears up the insurmountable difficulties which conscientious scholars have to face in the study of Christian origins, and it can be demonstrated by internal evidence contained in the New Testament without necessarily going outside it.
To the student of Theosophy, Dr. Stromholm's new and skilful demonstration of the great chronlogical error in the Gospel-narratives is of profound interest, and its presentation to the world of scholars at this particular cycle hardly less so, as many students will recognise.
Its importance is great because it independently confirms H. P. Blavatsky's teaching as to the real period in which Jesus lived (although Dr. Stromholm seems to be unaware of what she has written) and, above all, because it indirectly but conclusively supports the Theosophical claim that Jesus was one of the great Brotherhood of Teachers, of Initiates in the ancient Wisdom-Religion, who come from time to time in order to re-state those fundamental truths of spiritual and moral life which have never been without a witness.
Among such Teachers a few names stand out above the mists of time: Buddha, Krishna, LaoTse, Confucius, Pythagoras, Plato, Sankaracharya, the Zoroasters, perhaps Quetzalcoatl, and others, varying in degree of spiritual insight, but all united in fundamentals.
