I have been doing a series responding to an article by Raphael Lataster about the Je sun Myth. This is not a part of the main series but an aside about comments regarding the early church Fathers. Lataster states:
While even secular scholars today might counter-intuitively downplay the significance of these parallels, important and influential early Christians not only admitted to these similarities, but attempted to convert pagans to Christianity by making reference to such parallels, and assumed that demonic forces keen on confusing believers were responsible for them.
In his footnote, he specifies that he is speaking about Justin Martyr and Tertullian. Did these church fathers admit that the Gospel stories are clearly paralleled in the pagan myths.
Here is one of the relevant passages by Justin Martyr. You can find the full text of his First Apology here.
And if we assert that the Word of God was born of God in a peculiar manner, different from ordinary generation, let this, as said above, be no extraordinary thing to you, who say that Mercury is the angelic word of God. But if any one objects that He was crucified, in this also He is on a par with those reputed sons of Jupiter of yours, who suffered as we have now enumerated. For their sufferings at death are recorded to have been not all alike, but diverse; so that not even by the peculiarity of His sufferings does He seem to be inferior to them; but, on the contrary, as we promised in the preceding part of this discourse, we will now prove Him superior — or rather have already proved Him to be so — for the superior is revealed by His actions. And if we even affirm that He was born of a virgin, accept this in common with what you accept of Perseus. And in that we say that He made whole the lame, the paralytic, and those born blind, we seem to say what is very similar to the deeds said to have been done by Æsculapius.
So what is Justin saying here? Rather than just looking at this passage, we need to be thinking of his purposes for his First Apology. Justin is arguing that Christianity is reasonable and should be considered. When he gets to some of the supernatural aspects of Jesus’ life, things that might be discounted by some skeptics, he brings in this comparison.
Justin is not saying that Jesus was based on Mercury and Æsculapius or that people were even making such claims. Justin is saying that before they reject certain stories of Jesus as nonsense, they need to remember that they actually have categories in their belief system for these stories. If a pagan skeptic rejects the virgin birth of Jesus, they better reconsider their beliefs about their gods who had human children.
Here is the relevant passage from Tertullian. You can find the entire text here.
The question will arise, By whom is to be interpreted the sense of the passages which make for heresies? By the devil, of course, to whom pertain those wiles which pervert the truth, and who, by the mystic rites of his idols, vies even with the essential portions of the sacraments of God. He, too, baptizes some — that is, his own believers and faithful followers; he promises the putting away of sins by a laver (of his own); and if my memory still serves me, Mithra there, (in the kingdom of Satan,) sets his marks on the foreheads of his soldiers; celebrates also the oblation of bread, and introduces an image of a resurrection , and before a sword wreathes a crown.
Again, we need to look at Tertullian's purpose for this book. It was a response to Christian heresies and the satanic origins of them. Tertullian wants his readers to realize that Satan takes what exists and what is true and twists it into heresy. To illustrate this, he uses a superficial similarity taken from the followers of Mithra. This is not meant to say that Jesus was based on Mithra or that they were closely paralleled. Rather it is meant to be an example of how Satan works.
Episode 51 – Origen and Tertullian: The Most Respected of Heretics
As we look at the church fathers and comments about similarities between pagan myths and the story of Jesus, we need to remember one thing. The historicity of Jesus does not require that there be no similarities between the story of Jesus and other stories.
If you were to pick up a modern biography of an influential person from recent history, you would likely find some similarities to both other biographies, as well as some fictional stories. There may be some common themes or symbols. None of that means that the biography is based on those other books, or that there is reason to doubt the historicity of the person.
Correlation does not prove causation. That is the key lesson when discussing the Jesus myth. Mythicists are not just required to show some similarities, they must also demonstrate sufficient evidence of borrowing.
An interesting example from the past century is that of the sinking of the Titanic, which is very similar to two books that were written before the sinking. You can read about it here. If we were using Jesus Mythicist hermeneutics here, we would be forced to claim that the sinking of the Titanic was not historical
