Question:

Hello, my name is J. L. B. I saw your email on the catholic.net site. I am from Mexico, and I have become troubled by a topic I am participating in on a religion forum. There are many references suggesting that Christ was a mythical person. Writings such as Bertrand Russell’s (‘Why I Am Not a Christian’) and many of the quotations and references included on some websites seem to indicate that, outside the Bible, no historical sources support his existence. The passages from Flavius Josephus are questioned, as are a few others that are generally accepted by us Catholics. What would you say about this? Thank you in advance.

Answer:

The problem of the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth scarcely exists, for the evidence that history offers on this point is analogous to that which it provides concerning Seneca or the Emperor Vespasian. For this reason, until modern times, no serious person had doubted his historical existence. Only in the 19th century did rationalism, unable to explain the personality of Jesus by natural causes, choose, as the sole solution to save its system, to deny his existence. The Deist school, heir to Voltaire (for whom Jesus was a certain unknown Jew who died on the cross), and the Symbolic School of Tübingen (especially Br. Bauer, 1809–1882), for which Jesus is the product of the early Christian community that symbolically expresses its doctrines through this figure, were prominent in this position.

Apart from these extravagant positions, the historical existence of Jesus is attested by Christian, Jewish, and pagan documents:

1) Christian Testimonies

We have testimonies of various types:

• a) Canonical writings: the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles speak to us of Jesus. In all of them, it is evident that the essence of Christianity, rather than moral doctrine, is adherence to the physical person of Jesus. The elements of a historical character are exceedingly numerous.
• b) Extra-canonical writings: the writings of the Apostolic Fathers (who were in contact with the apostles), the Apologist Fathers (who defended Christian teaching in the 2nd century), the Church Fathers, and ecclesiastical authors. In all these writings, the character of adherence to the historical person of Jesus is clearly manifested. How can such a mass of writings be explained if Jesus did not exist?
• c) Apocryphal books: various apocryphal gospels (more than fifty), apocryphal acts of the apostles (Acts of John, of Peter, of Thomas, of Andrew, of Paul and Thecla, of Andrew and Matthias, etc.), and apostolic instructions speak of Jesus.

2) Jewish Testimonies

Among those that mention Jesus, we can distinguish:

• a) Rabbinic literature: the Talmud, which comprises two works: the Mishnah (a collection of oral commentaries on the law made by the great rabbis of the 1st–3rd centuries, especially Hillel, Shammai, and Rabbi Akiva), and the Gemara (a commentary on the former). In both, Jesus is continually reviled, and therefore they do not doubt his historical existence.
• b) Historical works: the great historian of the Jewish people is Flavius Josephus (37–102 AD), general of the Galilean troops in the war of 67 AD and later (as a prisoner) companion-historian to Titus. He has two main books: The Jewish War, in the Greek text of which there is nothing about Jesus, but in a Slavonic version (discovered in 1906 by the Protestant professor A. Berendts of the University of Dorpat) eight fragments referring to him are read. In his second work, Jewish Antiquities, there are three important texts referring to the Gospel:

• Ant. jud. 18.5.2: recounts the death of John the Baptist.
• Ant. jud. 20.9.1 v.4.6: “Meanwhile, as we have said, Ananus the younger, a man of fierce disposition and extremely audacious, rose to the high priesthood… Given this character of his, thinking he had found a suitable opportunity… he convened the council of judges and, bringing before them a kinsman of him who was called Christ (by name James) and some others with him, having accused them as transgressors of the law, he condemned them to be stoned.”
• Ant. jud. 18.3.3: “About this time appeared Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one can call him a man; he was a doer of marvelous works, a teacher of those who receive the truth with gladness. He drew to himself many Jews and also many Gentiles. This was the Christ (the Messiah). Having been denounced by the leading men of the people, Pilate condemned him to the punishment of the cross; but those who had loved him before remained faithful to him in love. He appeared to them risen on the third day, as the divine prophets had announced, who had foretold these and a thousand other wonderful things concerning him. From him the Christians take their name, whose society endures even to this day.”

Some say this is a later interpolation, since it was kept in silence until 311 AD when Eusebius of Caesarea recalls it (M.J. Lagrange, Batiffol). But many others, even A. Harnack (the prince of German rationalism), consider it genuine, since it appears in all the codices, and Eusebius, the father of ecclesiastical history, cites and approves it. Its earlier silence is not surprising since the works of Josephus were not known among Christians. The style agrees, and it is characteristic of Josephus to speak of all the distinguished men and would-be messiahs of his time; he even applies messianic prophecies to Vespasian.

According to others, what we have placed in italics would be interpolations by a Christian copyist. If so, at least the historical testimony remains intact.

3) Pagan Testimonies

These testimonies are scarce, for the Romans were not interested in the doctrinal discussions of the Jews. But they speak directly of Jesus:

• a) Pliny the Younger in a letter to Trajan (62–113 AD).
• b) Cornelius Tacitus (54–119 AD) writes in his Annals about the burning of Rome and, speaking of the Christians, says: “Their founder, called Christ, was condemned to death by the procurator Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius” (Annals 15.44).
• c) Suetonius, in the Life of Claudius (25.4), says: “He expelled the Jews from Rome, who were causing continual disturbances at the instigation of Christ.”

With such testimonies, there is no room for any question.

Fr. Miguel A. Fuentes, IVE

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