O grande Medo

A loucura, a religião e o tempo

As crenças religiosas preparam um espécie de paisagem imaginária, um meio ilusório favorável a todas as alucinações e delírios. Há muito tempo, os médicos já temiam os efeitos de uma devoção demasiado severa, ou de uma crença muito acentuada. Demasiado rigor moral, demasiada inquietação com a salvação e a vida futura pode frequentemente bastar para fazer alguém cair em melancolia. A Enciclopédia não deixa de citar casos semelhantes. As impressões muito fortes sentidas por certos pregadores extremados, os temores excessivos que provocam os castigos com que nossa religião ameaça os infratores de sua lei causam, nos espíritos fracos, revoluções surpreendentes. Observou-se, no Hospital de Montélimar várias mulheres atacadas de mania e melancolia em seguida a uma missão que estivera na cidade. Eram continuamente assombradas por pinturas horríveis que impensadamente lhes tinham sido mostradas, só falavam em desespero, vingança, punição, etc., e uma, entre outras, não queria tomar remédio algum, acreditando estar no Inferno, e que nada poderia apagar o fogo pelo qual dizia estar sendo devorada. Pinel permanece na linha desses médicos esclarecidos, que proíbem que se dêem livros pios aos melancólicos por devoção, e recomendando mesmo a reclusão para os devotos que se acreditam inspirados e procuram incessantemente fazer outros prosélitos. Mas trata-se aí muito mais de uma crítica que de uma análise positiva: suspeita-se que o objeto ou tema religioso provoca o delírio ou alucinação através do caráter delirante e alucinatório que lhe é atribuído. Pinel conta o caso de uma alienada recém-curada á qual um livro pio, lembrou que cada pessoa tinha seu anjo da guarda. Na noite seguinte, ela se acreditou cercada por um coro de anjos e pretendia haver escutado uma música celestial e ter tido revelações. A religião ainda é considerada aqui como um elemento de transmissão do erro. Mas mesmo antes de Pinel, houve análises de um estilo histórico bem mais rigoroso, nas repressões das paixões. Um autor alemão, em 1781, lembrava, como tempos felizes, as épocas distantes em que os padres estavam investidos de um poder absoluto. Nessa época, a ociosidade não existia. Todo momento era escandido pelas cerimônias, pelas práticas religiosas, pelas peregrinações, pelas visitas feitas aos pobres e aos doentes, pelas festividades do calendário. O tempo era assim entregue a uma felicidade organizada que não dava margem às paixões vazias, ao desgosto pela vida, ao tédio. Alguém se sentia em falta? Submetiam-no a um castigo real, frequentemente material, que ocupava seu espírito e dava-lhe a certeza de que o erro havia sido reparado. E quando o confessor encontrava estes penitentes hipocondríacos que vinham confessar-se com demasiada frequência, impunha-lhes como penitência ou uma pena severa que diluía seu sangue demasiado grosso ou então longas peregrinações. Finalmente, o caráter sagrado do padre atribuía a cada uma dessas injunções um valor absoluto, e ninguém pensaria em furtar-se a elas. Normalmente o capricho dos doente recusa tudo isso ao médico. Para Moehsen, a religião é a mediação entre o homem e o erro entre o homem e o castigo. Sob a forma de uma síntese autoritária, ela suprime realmente o erro, realizando o castigo. Se, pelo contrário, ela se afrouxar e mantiver-se nas formas ideais do remorso de consciência, da maceração espiritual, conduz diretamente à loucura. A consistência do meio religiosos é a única coisa que pode permitir ao homem escapar da alienação do delírio desmedido da falta. Na plenitude de seus ritos e de sua exigências, ela confisca ao homem a inútil ociosidade de suas paixões de antes da falta e a vã repetição de seus remorsos, uma vez cometida aquela. Ela organiza toda a vida humana ao redor do instante em plena realização. Esta velha religião dos tempos felizes era a festa eterna do presente. Mas a partir do momento em que ela se idealiza com a era moderna, suscita ao redor do presente todo um halo temporal, um meio vazio , o do lazer e do remorso, onde o coração do homem é entregue a sua própria inquietação, onde as paixões entregam o tempo à despreocupação ou à repetição, onde enfim a loucura pode desenvolver-se livremente. Michel Foucault História da Loucura pg. 365

Jesus Christ Superstar as Ted Neeley

The story of Jesus

Not the kind of story anyone would inveted

In historical Jesus studies, it is common to utilize the so-called criteria for authenticity. These criteria are ways of demonstrating that a given historical claim made by the Gospels is accurate. Two of the criteria, embarrassment and dissimilarity, are particularly relevant to the question of wheter Jesus existed. The criterion of embarrassment states that if there is an alleged fact in the Gospels which would have been embarrassing to the early church, then the alleged fact probably an actual fact because it is not likely that the early church would make up claim it would find embarrassing. An example of a Gospel passage which fulfills this criterion is the account of Jesus prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane, Mk 14:32-42 and parallels. Here Jesus is pictured as frightened of this impending death, and he asks God if it is possible for him to be spared from death. Since the early church believed Jesus death had tremendous theological significance, and since it likewise considered Jesus to be the Messiah and the Son of God, and thus presumably no weakling, it is highly unlikely that the early Christians would create a story portraying Jesus afraid to die. Thus, this story is likely historical. Similar to the criterion of embarrassment is the criterion of dissimilarity. This states that if something in the Gospels is dissimilar to the practice or beliefs of the early church, then it is probably historical because it is not likely that that the early church would invent claims which were dissimilar to its practices and beliefs. For example, the Gospels frequently have Jesus referring to himself as the Son of Man. However, judging by its near total absence from everywhere else in the New Testament  outside the Gospels, Son of Man did not become a popular Chiristological title in the early church. If the Gospel writers were to present Jesus using a title he did not really use, we would expect them to present him using the same titles the early church itself used in reference to him, such as Son of God, not a term which was rarely used like Son of Man. Thus, Jesus use of this term is dissimilar to the practice of the early church, and is therefore probably historical. These criteria become relevant to the question of Jesus existence once we realize that, if Jesus did not really exist, then the story of his life which we find in the Gospels must be a complete invention of the early church. But if the early church invented the story of Jesus life, we would expect that they would invent a story in which everything that happens is similar to, not dissimilar to, what the early church itself beliebed, and in which there is nothing that wouuld embarrass the early church. However the Gospels present us with a story of Jesus life in which a large number of things are dissimilar to or embarrassing to the early church. This surely indicates that the Gospel writers are not telling a story which they or other members of the Christian movement made up, but one which actually happened. The following is a non-exhaustive list of claims in the Gospels which are confirmed by the criterion of dissimilarity or the criterion of embarrassment: 

The account of Jesus baptism by John the Baptist is likely historical. Jesus' subjecting himself to baptism by John seems to imply that John holds a suprior role to that of Jesus and thus goes against the church's tendecy to exalt Jesus. The Gospels identify Nazareth as Jesus' hometown. Although Nazareth is quite familiar to most people today because of its association with Jesus, in the first century, Nazareth was an obscure town of no theological significance. This fact, combined with the tension that arises betwee a Nazareth upbringing for Jesus and the popular expectation that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem, Jn 7;42, suggests that the Gospels are reporting historical fact on this score. According to the Gospels, Jesus confined his mission to Israel. This stands in stark contrast to the practice of the early church which began an extensive campaign to bring the Gospel to Gentiles around 42 CE. Hence the Gospels' characterization Jesus' mission is dissimilar to the missionary practices of the early church. John reports that Jesus' brothers did not believe in him, Jn 7;5, and Mark tells us that Jesus' family thought he was mad. This is a most unflattering portrayal of a would-be Messiah. That Jesus was unable to convince, at least during the early part of his ministry, his own brotherrs that he was the Messiah, and that these same brothers thought him mad must have been embarrassing t the early church. The historicity of Jesus' miracles is also confirmed by these criteria. When the individual reports of miracles are analyzed, it become evident that quite a number of the miracles possess characteristics which are confirmed either by embarrassment or dissimilarity. This has been thoroughly demosntrated by John. P. Meier in his over 500 page study of the miracles of Jesus. Aside from specific miracles, there are two general aspects of Jesus' miracle-working which are dissimilar to the practices of the early church. First, Jesus is reported to have performed nature miracles. Acts relates quite a number of stories of miracles ascribed to the early Christians, particularly Paul, but nowhere do we find any early Christians performing nature miracles. Second, the acts of the Apostles as well as Paul' letters, e.g. Cor 14:6-17, confirm that speaking in tongues was a widespread phenomenon among early Christians. However, nowhere do the Gospels present Jesus speaking in tongues. The term kingdom of God found so often on the lips of Jesus is not a term that came into common usage in the early church, and is thus verified by the similarity criterion. The Gospels picture Jesus as someone who made rather nuanced  claims to Messiahship. On the hand, Jesus frequently does or says things which look like implicit claims to be the Messiah. Jesus' belief that he had an especially close relationship to God, his announcement that the kingdom of God was at hand, his performing miracles, his references to the Son of Man, his proclamation on the night of his death taht his death would inaugurate he new covenant - all of these seem like the sorts of things that would raise questions as to wheter he was the Messiah, and the Gospels in fact report that Jesus was often asked this question during his ministry, e.g. Jn 10:24. Yet we find that Jesus answers ambivalently and sometime counsels the disciples not to tell anyone that he is the Messiah, e.g. Jn 10:25; Mk 8:30. The Gospels must be relating accurate history here: For if the early church invented Messianic claims on the part of Jeus, surely they would have had Jesus simply come out and explicitly proclaim himself to be the Messiah, since explicitly affirming Jesus' Messiaship is exactly what the early church itself did. According to all four Gospels, Jesus was crucified for claiming to be the King of the Jews, which resulted John tells us, 19:12, from Jesus' accusers' assertions that Jesus set himself up as a challenger to Caesar. Although the Gospels make clear that these charges were unjustified, any suggestion that Jesus posed a threat to the Roman emperor would be potentially embarrassing to the early church, and it is particularly unlikey that a story carrying such connotations would be invented after the Neronian persecution of c. 64 CE. This widespread persecution of Christians at the hands of the state would have made Christians especialy sensitive to the importance of portraying themselves as good citizens, as in fact, our souces indicate they were earnest to do even prior to the 60s Rom 13:31. The fact that Jesus was crucified was also embarrassing in and of itself. Although the notion of a crucified savior does not strike most  modern people as strange, this was not so in the ancient world where death by crucifixion was considered an extremely shamefull and degrading event. Thus, the crucifixion of Jesus is surely not a Christian inventon. The Gospels report that at Jesus' arrest, the disciples deserted him, and Peter denied him. 

Basilica of St. Peter Rome

This series of events clearly would have been embarrassing to the early church. Peter after all, was a prominent leader in the early church, one of the three pillars of the Jerusalem church, Gal 2:9, thus the Christians would not likely invent a story which pictures one of its leaders in such a poor light. Likewise, the twelve were highly regarded in the early church, as evidenced by their inclusion in the pre-Pauline resurrection material of Cor 15:3-8, and from the that each of the Synoptics is concerned to provide a list of names, Mk 3;16-18 and parallels. Hence, the stories of Peter's denial and the twelve's desertion present a negative picture of some of the church's most prominent leaders and therefore these stories are not likely inventions. Jesus' betrayal by Judas' is confirmed by Paul in I Corinthians 11;23, and is also supported by the criterion of embarrassment: The notion that one of Jesus' close followers betrayed him casts doubt on Jesus' competence to choose followers, and thus calls Jesus' judgement into question. Jesus' burial by Joseph of Arimathea is confirmed by the dissimilarity criterion. It is clear from various places in the New Testament that there was significant hostility between the early Christians and the Jewish leadership. Thus, it is surprising to find that Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin, is remembered as the one who buried Jesus. Burial in first century Jewish culture was considered an extremely important matter, and one would normally be buried by one's family, thus that the tradition should instead invent for Jesus a burial by a member of the disdained Jewish leadership is highly unlikely. The discovery of the empty tomb is confirmed by the criterion of embarrassment by virtue of the Gospels claim that the tomb was discovered empty by women. Women's testimony was generally not regarded as reliable in first century Judaism. Thus if the empty tomb was legendary, it is unlikely women would be made the discoveres of it. Of course, not everything in the Gospels can be confirmed as historical via embarrassment or dissimilarity. However, this does not mean that those claims of the Gospels which can't be confirmed by either of these criteria are unhistorical. It merely means that we need to make some other argumet to confirm those claims, such as an argument for the traditional authorship of the Gospels or an argument for the reliability or oral tradition. 

Jake O'Connell Shattering the Christ Myth Did Jesus Not Exist? pg. 369