Where Did Jesus Die? — Page 115
Chapter Nine—Paganism and Paul 115 expulsion of evils and sins once a year. Now if it occurred to people to combine these two customs, the result would be the employment of the dying god as a scapegoat. He was killed, not originally to take away sin, but to save the divine life from the degeneracy of old age, but since he had to be killed at any rate people may have thought that they might as well seize the opportunity to lay upon him the burden of their sufferings and sins in order that he might bear it away with him to the unknown world beyond the grave. 1 If these pagan beliefs are compared with the story of the crucified Jesus presented to the Gentiles by St. Paul, we would find that the latter is nothing but a copy of the former. As a matter of fact the disciples of Jesus did not lay stress on his crucifixion and res- urrection, and we do not hear much of this novel doctrine until the return of Paul from Arabia when he began to preach to the Gentiles. The first martyr of Christianity was admittedly Stephen, whose martyrdom affected the mind of Paul very deeply. In the Acts, Chapters 6 and 7, we read an account of this great martyr. He ‘did great wonders and miracles among the people’. Then he had a great discussion with the Jews. He denounced the local wor- ship of the Holy Place of the Temple, and for his blasphemous word against Moses, and against God, he was arrested. Then he delivered an excellent and animated discourse on scriptural mat- ters; but not a single word does he say about the ‘resurrection’ 1. Sir James Frazer. Golden Bough, Part 6 The Scapegoat, p. 226–7, London, 1913.