By our time, a great multitude of false testimonies, doubts and denials have accumulated around the image and face of Christ. His divine dignity is rejected. The entire Gospel story and its historical authenticity are being questioned. And attempts are made to explain Christianity without Christ. In recent years, an attempt has been made to reject the historical existence of Christ altogether and to turn the Gospel into a myth that is not based on any real events. This false interpretation is carried out with particular sharpness and force in the book of the German professor A. Drews, to which the author gave a quite frank title: "The Myth of Christ" (the first German edition was published in 1909). Recently, this book was published in Russian translation in the guise of godless and atheistic propaganda.

Drews himself is, in fact, an agitator. In his book, he not only explores, but also preaches a new, philosophical religion. In the name of this new religion, he rejects Christianity: Drews is not at all an atheist and sees in materialism the worst and most dangerous enemy. He is looking for new religious forms and a new faith. He is not at all a scholar or a historian, but a preacher, agitated and obsessed with a dream of a new religious, and precisely religious, revolution. It was as an agitator that Drews spoke for a long time in Germany on behalf of the so-called "Union of Monists", a kind of pseudo-religious community. He is not at all an investigator who seeks and substantiates the truth by weighing and testing arguments. He carries out his preconceived pseudo-religious idea and tries to support it with a bizarre and unrequited selection of all kinds of references and comparisons that can create the impression of authenticity. And it must be said that in science, Drews's speech was met with indignation, and his book was branded with shame and disgrace. Even very free-thinking opponents of Christianity, who, however, stand on the ground of scientific knowledge, speak with disgust and bewilderment of the shameless arbitrariness with which Drews and his supporters select and falsify evidence and facts, seeing here only a "bad joke," "a mixture of vague thoughts and childishness." The objections and reproaches raised against him did not confuse or enlighten Drews, not because they were unsuccessful or weak, but because he did not know how to hear them and did not want to understand them. He lacks the honesty and patience for self-examination and research. His book breathes passion and obsession, hatred and malice against Christianity. And against this possession and possession the arguments of reason are powerless. Drews's preaching has success and success among the uneducated and ignorant masses, in an environment where a sharp and blasphemous word is valued more than a firm and weighty argument. And it ignites the masses with ominous excitement.

This must be remembered first of all: Drews's book does not at all reflect the actual state of science, does not at all convey the conclusions to which calm and impartial scientific and historical research leads. And therefore, first of all, it is subject to denunciation and refutation from the scientific point of view, from the point of view of the scientific-historical method, the most elementary rules of which it tramples on and violates. That is why it was met with unanimous indignation on the part of scientists of the most diverse religious and philosophical moods and beliefs. Drews does not so much prove as assert. In his work, the place of evidence is occupied by strained convergences, arbitrary conjectures and conjectures, in which all times and terms are confused. Drews does not distinguish between the possible and the actual; his sober historical perception is hindered by a restless and playful imagination. He has a very weak sense of historical reality. And at the same time, it is not love or at least an unselfish interest in the truth that moves him, but enmity, enmity and hatred towards Christ and Christianity. This is the key to his relative success.

The main idea of Drews's mythological theory can be expressed very briefly. Christ never existed. The Gospel is in no sense history, but a myth in which various legendary and mythical tales, Jewish and pagan, about divine saviors are crossed and intertwined. And only later was this myth accepted as history, as a historical story about real events. The worship of the heavenly God Jesus existed in the pre-Christian era in some Jewish sects, and the theology of Ap. Paul, who knew nothing and said nothing about the historical Jesus. It must be said frankly: none of these propositions is even approximately substantiated by Drews.

To analyze, or rather to expose, Drews's arguments and proofs would be a vain effort.

All of Drews's constructions lose their foothold if it is shown that historical evidence about Christ has the character of a direct reflection of reality. All the mythological constructions of Drews collapse in the face of the indisputable testimony of self-witnesses, in which a living contact with the person of Jesus is clearly expressed. Drews denies all such historical evidence, rejects or eliminates it. But there is no persuasiveness in these challenges, they are completely arbitrary and, above all, completely improbable. In fact, even from the point of view of the most captious historical criticism. There are no more reasons to doubt the historical existence of Jesus Christ than to suspect the reality of any historical person, even from the very near past. Drews's basic thesis is historically implausible, and this must be shown in the first place. The question is not exhausted by this. In relation to every feature of the Gospel image of Christ, to every event of His life, the question arises again. But the very sting of mythological theory will already be blunted and erased. Of course, the question of faith has not yet been resolved. And it should not be solved by historical arguments. The indisputability of Christ's historical existence does not yet predetermine the question of Who was He? And the Savior's interlocutors and questioners hesitated to this question; and it was not flesh and blood, but the Heavenly Father who revealed to the apostles themselves the true knowledge of His person (cf. Matt. 16:17). And according to the testimony of St. Paul. Paul, "no one can call Jesus Lord, except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:3). Only faith can know Christ.

1. The Testimony of the Apostolic Preaching

The apostolic preaching, as enshrined in the book of Acts and in the Epistles, was from the very beginning a sermon and an evangelism of the "historical Jesus," proceeded from the fact and events of His actual life, and was based on this. All the emphasis here lay precisely on a certain single historical event, all attention was turned to the living person of Christ Jesus. The Epistles of St. Paul. Paul, which fix in writings the main features of his oral evangelism. The Four Gospels, the "fourfold Gospel," as it was already called in antiquity, have the same character of historical narration and historical representation. This is precisely the story of the life, preaching, deeds and miracles, of the death and resurrection of the Savior the Lord Jesus Christ, and one of the most famous modern historians of the Church, Hell, quite rightly speaks. Harnack: "Whoever, on the basis of what the first Gospels give, even if we subject them to the strictest historical criticism, does not feel that they reveal a powerful, heart-conquering Personality who cannot be invented, is incapable of perceiving historical and personal life from sources and distinguishing it from fiction"... For in the Gospel there is first of all a living image of Christ, perfumed and warmed by personal remembrance and devoted love. The content of the first apostolic preaching basically coincided with the Gospel. A personal attitude to Christ, the memory of life and treatment of Him determined its entire tone and content. It was the sermon of eyewitnesses. And the very name of the apostles was originally limited to the circle of the Lord's self-witnesses, who were His companions and listeners during His earthly journey, from the Baptism of John to the days of His death on the Cross and Resurrection, and in His personal calling and embassy, from Him they had the foundation and support of their evangelistic authority (cf. Acts 1:21-22). The Apostles always proceed from specific historical facts and events and then reveal and explain the meaning of what has happened and what has happened and its saving power. They bring to life in the minds of their hearers, reproduce before their pious eyes the image of Christ, and then reveal Who He was. And the whole uniqueness and extraordinary nature of this historical image lies in the fact that He, visible and perceived as a man, was not only a man, but the Son of God and the Savior of the world. That is why the image of Christ does not fit into the earthly, only human framework, it outgrows them, and something super-historical and super-earthly is revealed in the historical facets. But these boundaries themselves are never erased or blurred, historical, human features never fade. In this lies the whole pathos and meaning of the apostolic preaching, that it is a story, a story about what we have seen and heard, "what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have seen, and what our hands have touched" (1 John 1:1). A story is about what came true and happened, and what happened in certain conditions of time and place. And the unprecedented happened: the Word was made flesh (John 1:14), the Son of God became the Son of man, "and was found in the likeness of a man" (Phil. 2:7). The Son of God became and was man – this is the focus of the Gospel preaching. And the face of the incarnate Lord is first of all inscribed by the apostolic hand in the Gospel. This is a human face, but not only a human one, for Jesus, whom many saw and heard, followed and treated Him, was not only a man, but also God. But He was also a real man. Man is fully and not only human - in the combination of both statements is the whole meaning, the whole mystery of the Gospel and the preaching of the Apostles.

The first apostolic sermon recorded on the pages of the Book of Acts, the sermon of St. Paul. Peter, on the very Day of Pentecost, relies on historical facts: "Jesus of Nazareth, a man testified unto you of God by powers, and wonders, and signs, which God hath wrought through him among you, as ye yourselves know. This, according to the definite counsel and foreknowledge of God, you took and, nailing him with the hands of the wicked, killed him... This Jesus God raised up, of which we are all witnesses... God hath made this Jesus, whom ye have crucified, Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:22-23, 32, 36). And the Apostle preaches about the same thing again at the healing of the lame man: "The God of Abraham. Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his Son Jesus, whom you betrayed and denied in the face of Pilate, when he thought to deliver Him" (Acts 3:13ff.; cf. 4:10,27; 5:30). And again in the house of Cornelius the centurion, in Caesarea, Ap. Peter preaches thus: "You know what happened in all Judea, beginning with Galilee, after the baptism preached by John. As God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and power, and He went about doing good and healing all who were possessed by the devil, because God was with Him; and we are witnesses of all that he did in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, and that at last they killed him by hanging him on a tree" (Acts 10:37-39 ff.)... The time when the Acts of the Apostles were recorded is not difficult to determine approximately. This was before the destruction of Jerusalem (by Vespasian in 70 AD), of which there is no hint in the book, and this determines the lowest chronological limit, after which it would be improbable to postpone its writing. The story of the Book of Acts ends at the arrival of Ap. Paul to Rome, and it can be thought that the book was written precisely in the first years of his Roman bonds, and before his martyrdom. In the book of Acts, then, we have the testimony of the Church in the sixties. And this is the testimony of the "historical Jesus", of Jesus of Nazareth, crucified and resurrected.

To the same time belongs the testimony of St. Paul. Paul. He was not a direct disciple of the Savior during His earthly life and preached to the tongues that lived far from Palestine, where the message of Christ passed through someone else's media. And it is all the more striking that Ap. Paul preaches Christ and about Christ, and does not only transmit His sermons and teachings. It is not difficult to gather together all the historical features and references that are abundantly explained in Paul's Apostolic Epistles, and they merge into a realistic image of a living person. It must be remembered that the Epistles of St. Paul. St. Paul's Works are addressed to already established Christian communities. This is not the first catechesis, not the first word to them about Christ. This is a repetition and supplement of what has already been handed down and preached, and therefore the Apostle only reminds us of many things. He repeatedly refers to his previous sermon: "I remind you, brethren, of the gospel which I preached to you, which you also received, in which you were established" (1 Corinthians 15:1). And this was the Gospel of the "historical Christ" – "for I taught you from the beginning, which I myself received, that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again on the third day, according to the Scriptures" (vv. 3-4)... In the Epistles of Ap. It would have been in vain for Paul to search for a complete and coherent Gospel history - this was not part of their task, it was assumed to be known from the oral apostolic catechesis and preaching. Only about individual features and events does the Apostle speak here: "In fulfillment of the times, in recent days, God sent His Son, who was born of a woman, and was subject to the law" (Galatians 4:4). He became and was a man like unto us, "and in form he became like a man," he belonged to the family of Abraham and the family of David, he was of Israel according to the flesh (Phil. 2:7; Rom. 1:3; 9:5; Gal. 3:16). His brothers, and among them James, Ap. Paul names them more than once (see 1 Corinthians 9:5; Galatians 1:19; 2:9). This sufficiently outlines the real historical framework. With special emphasis the Apostle speaks of the death on the cross and the resurrection of Christ, and in these events he posits the essence of the entire work of Christ and the foundation of all Christian hope and faith. Before his conversion, Paul-Saul was a zealous Judaist, "an immoderate zealot for the traditions of the fathers", according to his own later confession, "cruelly persecuted the Church of God and devastated it", "breathed murders and threats against the disciples of the Lord" (Galatians 1:13-14; Acts 8:3; 9:1, etc.). It can be thought that he was then confused and stirred up by the "temptation of the Cross," the very same "temptation" in which he later saw and pointed out the main obstacle to the conversion of Jews and Greeks (1 Corinthians 1:18,23; cf. Galatians 5:11). His Pharisaic heart was indignant at the Crucifixion, while before the sign of damnation and shame. His soul revered the crucifixion later, when he wrote in Corinth: "I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2). Before his spiritual gaze was always predestined Jesus Christ, crucified (cf. Galatians 3:1) and risen from the dead. Constantly in his epistles the Apostle speaks of the Cross and death on the Cross, of "the blood of His Cross" poured out for the atonement of sins and as a propitiation sacrifice (Col. 1:20; Rom. 3:25), of the sufferings of Christ, who was killed by the Jews, of His burial (Galatians 3:13; Rom. 8:17; Phil. 3:10; 2 Corinthians 13:4; 1. Thessalonians 2.15; 1 Corinthians 15:4). And for him it is a remembrance and a reminder of recent and actual events. With the same insistence he speaks of the resurrection. "Jesus and the Resurrection" he preached in Athens (Acts 17:18). On faith in the resurrection of Christ, "Who has risen for our justification" (Rom. 4:25), is based all the preaching of St. Paul. Paul... "If Christ is not risen, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is also in vain... But Christ rose from the dead, as the firstfruits of them that slept" (1 Corinthians 15:14,20). Faith in the actual resurrection of Christ, crucified, was the living focus of all early Christian life. And again, complete and perfect religious-historical realism exceeds, outgrows the boundaries of everyday experience. The risen Christ sits at the right hand of the Father and intercedes for us. But even in His glorification He remains and does not cease to be a man like us, just as He was not only a man, and did not cease to be God and the Son of God "in the days of His flesh." In this "likeness" lies all the power of the redemptive work of Christ. And at the same time, the Apostle lays stress not on the generic similarity of nature, but on the living attitude and imitation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again on the third day, appeared to Peter, twelve and more than five hundred brothers, "of whom the greater part are still alive, and some have also rested" (1 Corinthians 15:3-8). "And after all he appeared to me," adds the Apostle. It is very expressive that Ap. Paul directly compares himself with the other apostles and emphasizes that he saw Jesus Christ. Our Lord (1 Corinthians 9:1). The Damascus vision was not a vision, but the appearance of the Lord in glory and light. It is no less realistic than the entire humiliated life of the Lord on earth. The resurrection and ascension of Christ does not break the connection with Him. In the perception and in the depiction of Ap. Paul, Christ is one and the same both "in the days of his flesh" and now, when he is in glory. To this one image, to the living Christ, is bound up all the piety of the communities edified by the Apostle, the center of which is the Eucharistic meal, celebrated "in remembrance" of Christ and His death (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:23 ff.). In the resurrection of Christ, the Apostle affirms the hope for the universal resurrection of the dead, of all the dead (1 Corinthians 15:12 et seq.), and in this comparison the real humanity of Christ is again emphasized, which is why He is the firstborn, the firstfruits of dying people, with whom He is inseparably connected. In the center of the sermon of Ap.

Christ is the firstborn of the dead, a type and example for people, with whom we must conform and harmonize our lives. The Apostle does not stop at the remembrance and reproduction of the circumstances of the earthly life of the Savior, he does not limit himself to this. In his instruction he leads the believers whom he has "begotten by the gospel" from visible humanity to the hidden divinity of Christ. But all of his theology remains a revelation and interpretation of the historical image of Jesus, of His historical work. In the apostolic depiction there is an indisputable duality: Christ is both a man and more a man. But this duality has been brought to unity, it cannot be dissected. In this inseparable duality lies the whole meaning of the person of Christ. Connected with this duality is all the power of the redemptive work accomplished by Christ on earth. It was not an ordinary man who suffered on the Cross, but the Son of God, who humbled Himself to the point of servitude. And the Son of God sat down on the mountain, becoming one among men. This idea is revealed with particular clarity in the Epistle to the Hebrews. This epistle is not a historical narrative, but a theological interpretation of the redemptive work of Christ, namely a historical and singular work accomplished "in these last days" (Hebrews 1:2), and its individual features are constantly referred to here. And the very references to the prophecies of the Old Testament enhance the historical flavor. Prophecies were spoken about the future, about what would one day really happen. And now it has happened, it has come true, it has happened. Christ removed the veil from the Old Testament (cf. 2 Corinthians 3:14). That which was ahead in time for the righteous of the Old Testament, as an object of hope and hope, is now in the past and present. As the fulfillment and completion of prophecies and transformations, the image of Christ is put into a historical and chronological perspective. Everywhere and everywhere the Apostle speaks of the "historical Jesus," of what was and has happened.

The image of Christ, preserved and transmitted to the world in the apostolic preaching, is sealed and fixed in the Gospel.

In the four canonical Gospels, attested by the Church, the image of the God-Man is drawn with all the fullness of historical realism. And in this image, a unique and unique historical situation is conveyed with the utmost expressiveness. The historical image of the God-Man is drawn and drawn against the real background of life at that time. His disciples, questioners, and enemies stand before us as if they were alive. This is a story about what happened, a depiction of real events, meetings, conversations. The history of the Gospel was primarily the content of the early Christian evangelism and catechesis. First of all, it was told by the apostles and evangelists, who, in the words of the Teacher, acted as "witnesses" about Him. First of all, they reproduced what had been, drew the image of Christ as a Teacher and Wonderworker, as a denouncer and judge, conveyed His words, told about His deeds and signs. But not only did they tell and remember, but they also explained, interpreted the past, revealed the meaning of what was happening.