breitung des Chr. 1902, Bk. n. ch. v.
B. W. Bacox.
MYTH.— Neither the word uddoi nor the concep- tion of a mytli occurs in any of the Gospels. Out- side of tlie Gospels the Mord appears in the NT several times (in plur. /^D6io:) in the Pastoral Epistles (1 Ti P 4^ 2 Ti 4^ Tit 1"), and once in 2 Pet. (l^% In all these cases a myth is a story unworthy of credence, a foolish tale without sufficient founda-
tion in fact o] significance in principle to make it worth while to give heed to it. This is not, how- ever, the ordinary meaning of the word in the Classic period or in modern usage. A myth in the Classic writers is either (1) akin to parable or legend ; i.e. a story constructed with a specific design or conveying a moral or philosophical truth — /Esop's i «Wes ; Plato's Pterfo, 61 B, Prot.Z20C, 324 D ; or (2) a story in which, through a process of growth, has come to be embodied a truth of nature or of conscience. Of this class of myths, illustrations are such as those in Plato, Legg. 636 D, Rep. 33U D (cf. Grote, Hist. Gr. i. 480). Modem historical terminology would make myth a story whose basis is past verifying. An account is said to be mythical when external evidences for its being a true narration of facts are not forthcoming, and when its internal characteristics render it incredible.
In tlie Platonic sense of the word no myths can be said to exist in the Gospels unless, contrary to all usage, the parables of Jesus be called myths (against this cf. Trench, Parables). In the modern -sense it has been alleged that the Gospels are a tissue of mj-thological material (Strauss, Leben Jesu). This was the mythical theory of Gospel history, which for a time disputed the ground with the Tubingen hypothesis of ' tendency ' literature, on the one side, and the earlier traditional view that the Gospels should be taken as precise and accurate history, on the other.
With the rise of the critical method all these theories have been compelled to yield the field to the. view that the Gospels are the sotirces of histoiy rather than history strictly so called ; and that they are to be used as sources precisely upon the same principles as all other first-hand documentary testimony. But this view does not exclude the possibility of some mythical elements in these sources. The question, then, is whether there actually exist mythical accounts in the Gospels, and, if so, whence and how they came there. Whereas, therefore, the mythical theory pro- pounded by Strauss has been entirely set aside, a new one has arisen to take its place.
The grounds on which the Strau-ssian theory had been set aside were that the age of Jesus was not a mythopoeic age in the sense assumed by its pro- pounder. No matter what the truth may be about a mythology in the OT, where a prehistoric period certainly comes into view, the age of Jesus falls within a clearly lighted historic period, and the conditions for mythological growth of the nature assumed do not exist.
Accordingly the new mythical theory does not posit that these Gospel myths are the creation of the period and countrj' in which Jesus lived. It rather undertakes to affiliate the narratives with the mythology of the environing heathen world. They are not creations of, but importations into, the Christian tradition. The age of Jesus was not a myth-making age, but a large stock of myths was already in existence among the peoples to whom the gospel came. These myths were diffused in the atmosphere, and could not but be absorbed into the very texture of the history. The search for the origin of Gospel myths is therefore not to be made in the Gospel story itself, but in the field of Comparative Religion.
The special passages of the Gospel history where, according to the new mythical theory, these mj'ths were drawn in and found ready lodgment, are the account of the birth of Jesus, the accounts of His miracles, and the accounts of His death and resurrection. The accounts of the birth (Mt P^-ss, Lk I**'-) are to be regarded not as parts of the original story of Jesus, but as 2nd cent, additions to it. They owe their origin to Gentile-Christian
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imagination. Like all true nij-ths, thej- embody an idea, that of the Divine son.ship of tlie founder of a great religion. Tlie conception and phrase of Divine sonship are not foreign to the more direct Hebrew and Jewish antecedents of the gospel (Ps 2«*, Enoch 45-51, 2 Es 13). Yet it is among the heathen that tlie idea was more com- monly ascribed to great personages, esi^ecially rulers and sages. In Egj'pt, even to the latest days, the Pharaohs were regarded as incarnations of the deity (^Viedenlann, Egyp. »Ilcl. p. 92 It'.). Alexander the Great deemed it wise, upon conquer- ing Egy2>t, to permit himself to be called the son of the god Ammon-Ra. In Babj'lon, from the time of Sargon I. onwards, the kings were con- sidered emanations of the godhead (Kadau, Enrly Hist, of Bahylun, p. 30811'.). These incarnations are, moreover, often associated with a virgin birth. Pythagoras and Plato were both regarded as born of virgin mothers and the god Apollo (Olympio- dorus, Vit. Pint. p. 1). The mother of Alexander the Great was believed to have been visited by Zeus in the form of a serpent before king Philip had consummated his marriage with her. In the narratives of the birth of Buddha (which are of pre-Christian origin) there are some marked simil- arities to the Gospel accounts of the birth of Jesus.