Download The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light by Tom Harpur

The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light by Tom Harpur. Toronto: Thomas Allen
Publishers, 2004. pp. 244. $34.95.
The title hints at the enormous task that Mr. Harpur has undertaken, which is
nothing less than the radical transformation of Christianity as we know it. His thesis is
that there is nothing original in Christianity, since it was copied or plagiarized from the
ancient Egyptian religion. He adduces an impressive list of parallels between the life and
teachings of Jesus and the primordial mystery religion, that if true would silence most
skeptics. The gospels were originally intended to be mythological, expressing deep
spiritual truths flowing from the ancient religion. A combination of the machinations of
fanatical ecclesiastics and colossal blunders resulted in the gospels being interpreted in a
historical fashion, thereby robbing Christianity of much of its spiritual power. In a fraud
unparalleled in history, the evidence of this deceit was destroyed or covered up in the
early centuries of the Christian era, and the pagan roots of Christianity repudiated. The
historical Jesus never existed; he is a mythological expression of the god in every person.
The events related in the gospel stories describe archetypal interior experiences common
to all humanity, and the Jesus story is a spiritual allegory of the soul.
These are serious charges with enormous consequences, requiring a meticulous
assemblage of evidence. This is where the problems with the book begin. There is
virtually no dialogue with current mainstream scholarship. Much of the book draws on
outdated or fringe work. It is questionable whether Madame Blavatsky, the founder of
Theosophy, should be considered a suitable source for a work of this nature (page 165).
The bibliography is weighted very strongly in favor of esoteric and theosophical works,
and relies very heavily on the works of Gerald Massey (1828-1908) and Alvin Kuhn
(1881-1963), two orientalists who wrote extensively on esoteric religion. Their works,
however, are idiosyncratic, and not accepted within the field of Egyptology. One can see
why: both of them work from the narrowest range of sources, making tortured and
questionable word etymologies and esoteric interpretations of hieroglyphics and Egyptian
art. We are asked to accept their interpretations at face value with little or no supporting
evidence or proof.
Harpur repeats these interpretations with little further supporting evidence. It
would be expected that one could confront and cross-examine the statements offered as
evidence; in fact, it is very difficult and in same cases nearly impossible. For example, on
page 77, he states that Massey has found 180 correlations between the lives of Horus and
Jesus, proving the identity between the two. Neither the name of the work nor the page
numbers are given to us. In numerous instances, bold and sweeping statements are made
with little or no supporting references, and there is often the same problem with extended
quotations. The startling statement by Meister Eckhart on page 41 begs for a reference,
but in vain.
Over the last fifty years, a tremendous amount of research has been generated on
both the historical Jesus, Second Temple Judaism, and the social and economic
conditions of the first-century Roman empire. Mainstream scholarship has situated Jesus
securely in the context of Second Temple Judaism, Greco-Roman society, and the
structure of empire. Additionally, it has revealed the social and economic impact of the
early Christian proclamation and the religious currents that nourished the life and
message of Jesus. With the exception of references to the work of the Jesus Seminar,
most of this research is absent from this work. Ironically, even the work of the Jesus
Seminar is dismissed by Harpur, because they still mistakenly believe that Jesus was an
historical person. A failure to anchor the argument in sound historical research leads to
assertions such as on page 5 that there was a ‘Jesus’ in Egyptian lore as early as 18,000
BCE – astounding when one considers the fact that the earliest pre-historic sites in Egypt
date to about the 6th millennium BCE with the familiar Egyptian civilization beginning
about 3500 BCE.
Several striking quotations from the Church Fathers admit that Christianity is not
new. The statement by St. Augustine on page 27 is a fine example: the true religion has
always existed among the ancients, and began to be called Christianity with the coming
of Jesus Christ in the flesh. This line of argument was quite common during the patristic
era, for one of the most uncomfortable accusations against Christianity was that it was
new – the peoples of the ancient world, unlike modern people, revered old and venerable
traditions rather than innovations, especially in the area of religion. Apologists had to
prove that Christianity was not new, but had an ancient and respectable pedigree. These
quotations do not imply that Jesus did not exist or that Christianity was a myth.
But the question of historicity is one of the most contentious. Throughout the
book, ‘historical’ is treated as almost a pejorative term, for according to Harpur’s
definition of mythology, historical events represent truth of a lesser order than the
mythological. He flatly denies the historical nature of Jesus, and of course those who
accept the historical existence of Jesus are literalists. Much is made of the fact that in the
first century, there is little in the way of historical corroboration of Jesus outside of
Christian sources. But why should there have been? Jesus was insignificant in the eyes of
most and the Christian movement miniscule. He makes the puzzling claim that the very
first Christians knew that the gospels were mythological rather than historical; in fact,
never would have dreamed of interpreting them in a literal fashion. But the ancients knew
full well what myths were, and in several places in NT the authors go out of their way to
distinguish the Christian revelation from myths (1 Tim 1:4; 4:7; 2 Tim 4:4; Tit 1:14; 2 Pet
1:16). Luke takes great pains to anchor both the lives of Jesus and those of his followers
within an historical framework, a fact that Harpur dismisses as merely part of the script.
Finally, the mythological interpretation fails to explain the phenomenon of persecution
and suffering. Why were people willing to suffer both social dislocation and physical
suffering for a mythological truth? How does one explain the explicit apocalyptic
expectations of the Pauline communities? Harpur’s interpretation raises far more
questions than it answers.
In a sense, Harpur presents us with a choice that is a caricature. On the one hand,
there is a primordial spiritual tradition containing profound spiritual truths, which
witnesses to the divine within all human beings and seeks their transformation.
Christianity in its original form was a mythological representation of this tradition, and
belief in the historical nature of Jesus the Christ is both unnecessary and undesirable. On
the other hand, we can choose a Christianity that is historical, literalist, fundamentalist,
exclusivist, and spiritually anemic; in fact, ‘historical’ is practically equated with the
other adjectives. But there are other ways of presenting the choices besides the
caricatures above. Belief in the presence of the divine within all humanity and our
capacity to actualize this can be acquired through reading the New Testament and the
Church Fathers. It is simply not necessary to foreswear the historical Jesus. I would fully
expect that Christianity would receive and pass along the spiritual heritage of humankind;
indeed, I would expect nothing less. Christianity has drawn from many sources, which
should not be at all disturbing. And to be sure, much spiritual wisdom has been
inadvertently or deliberately lost over the centuries, which should surprise no one. But it
is a quantum leap of logic to assume that Jesus never existed and that the entire Christian
revelation is mythological. The historical nature of Christianity and its role in the struggle
for a just world is a precious heritage, and not to be lightly tossed aside in favor of a
mythology detached from human history. I had hoped for a real dialogue between history,
myth, and spiritual tradition. For instance, why must myth and history be mutually
exclusive? Can something be both historical and mythological in the sense that Harpur so
well explains in chapter 2? What role does the sacred imagination play in the
interpretation of history? What is the relationship between the spiritual gifts of various
religions? But the polemical tone of this book, coupled with the extreme nature of its
claims and the lack of both nuance and hard supporting evidence, is both disappointing
and unconvincing.
Scott M. Lewis S.J.