The Mythicism myth

"Don´t touch my semblance, yo!"

 

A common argument used by Historicists to debunk Mythicism is that Mythicism is a modern position. No ancient source is Mythicist or even mentions Mythicism, polemically or otherwise. For instance, Paul polemicizes against Jewish Christians, people who deny the general resurrection, and an early version of the Toronto Blessing. But no polemics against Mythicism.

The argument isn´t bad or wrong, as far as it goes. But surely there *were* Mythicists already in Antiquity.

I believe they were called Gnostics...

Or Docetists. Or nothing in particular, but they are certainly condemned in the Gospel of John, 1 John and perhaps elsewhere. 

Now, it´s certainly *possible* that the Gnostics regarded Jesus as a real historical figure. That is, they believed that a personage named "Jesus" did walk with the disciples, with a seemingly earthly body, although this "body" was actually purely spiritual in nature. Within Islam, the Shia Muslim "Ghulat" developed such notions about Ali. Still today, the Alawites of Syria are notorious for believing that Ali was Allah, not in the incarnationist sense, but in some kind of Docetist way. Presumably, Ali´s human form was simply a semblance, a kind of divine play. "He didn´t come in the flesh". Ontologically, he was fully divine, but he was still a "real historical person" in the sense that Muhammad´s companions could see him, talk to him, and so on. Presumably, Ali tried to pass for human! We could also relate this to the avatars of Hinduism (such as Chaitanya). 

However, another possibility is that the Gnostics actually didn´t regard Jesus as a historical person at all (not even the semblance of such). The stories of Jesus´ earthly ministry are simply cleverly crafted myths (hint hint) and teaching stories. This is also true of the Gnostics´ own stories. Gnostics believed that Jesus could sometimes appear as a child, and sometimes as an old man. When Origen crafts the same story, commentators seem to agree that it´s intended as allegory: the Christ appears in different guises to different people based on their spiritual understanding. But when the stupid Gnostics say it, it apparently must be literal! The story of how the real Christ laughs at the Romans and Jews crucifying his semblance is often also interpreted literally by modern scholars - further evidence that the Gnostics were barking mad (or fit for the laughing academy). But surely this could be allegorical, as well?     

The mistake of taking allegorical stories literally could be an ancient one. The Coptic apocryphon "On the Life and Passion of Christ" (which isn´t Gnostic) adapts Gnostic stories and interprets them literally. Jesus actually was a shape-shifter! Something similar happens in Muslim tradition, where an involuntarily shape-shifting Judas is crucified instead of Jesus. Perhaps modern scholars are making the same mistake? Amateur apologists are making it all the time, for instance by poking fun at the Gospel of Thomas for proposing the baptism of lions! Ahem, that´s symbolic, guys. (Most Christians don´t drink poison or handle snakes, yet that´s actually in the Bible. So their poking fun at "Thomas" isn´t perhaps as clever as they think it is!)  

2 Peter denies that Christians follow well-crafted myths. That could mean all kinds of things, but one possible meaning is that it´s a veiled polemic against Mythicist Christians. 

We could now interpret the Gospel of John and 1 John in an interesting new way. When 1 John says that some Anti-Christs deny that Jesus "came in the flesh", he might have in mind people who deny that Jesus existed at all. And why does Thomas demand to see the crucifixion marks on the body of Jesus? Because non-existent people can´t be crucified...? 

The entire structure of Gnosticism also points to Christ being a myth. No redeemer is needed. And strictly speaking, no messenger is needed either, since you can access the "Christ" within you (the divine spark) through meditation techniques. Gnostics simply don´t need a historical Jesus, neither a man, a god-man or a pure phantom. He can be a symbol, a teaching story, of how the spirit crucified on the cross of matter is liberated at the "resurrection". 

That being said, none of the above disproves Historicism. After all, Paul doesn´t seem to mention any Gnostics or proto-Gnostics in his polemics. So Christian Gnosticism could still be a later development, say from around AD 100. Unless, of course, Paul had an esoteric message himself - but that´s very difficult to prove! 

At the very least, we could say that Mythicism did develop within Christianity about 70 years after Jesus. Which is in itself rather peculiar...