there!

[Illustration: St. Margaret of the Catholic Church, Westminster,
England.]

[Illustration: The Goddess Astarte Carrying a Cross, British Museum.]




THE JESUS OF PAUL



The central figure of the New Testament is Jesus, and the question we
are trying to answer is, whether we have sufficient evidence to prove
to the unbiased mind that he is historical. An idea of the
intellectual caliber of the average churchman may be had by the nature
of the evidence he offers to justify his faith in the historical
Jesus. "The whole world celebrates annually the nativity of Jesus; how
could there be a Christmas celebration if there never was a Christ?"
asks a Chicago clergyman. The simplicity of this plea would be
touching were it not that it calls attention to the painful
inefficiency of the pulpit as an educator. The church goer is trained
to believe, not to think. The truth is withheld from him under the
pious pretense that faith, and not knowledge, is the essential thing.
A habit of untruthfulness is cultivated by systematically sacrificing
everything to orthodoxy. This habit in the end destroys one's
conscience for any truths which are prejudicial to one's interest. But
is it true that the Christmas celebration proves a historical Jesus?