Tom Harpur's attempt in The Pagan Christ to disprove Jesus' earthly existence is as futile as that of his many predecessors. These go back to Docetism, a heresy hinted at in 1 John 4 and 2 John 7, developed by second-century Gnostics to the point where Christ's earthly appearance was an illusion, likewise his death, being replaced on the cross by Judas or Simon of Cyrene.
This ideological pot heated up in the 18th century, evidenced by brisk exchanges in Boswell's Life of Johnson. Debate sharpened with D. F. Strauss' The Life of Jesus (1835), then the German “sceptical school” with Rudolph Bultmann's Jesus and the World (1926) and his pupil Gunther Bornkamm's Jesus of Nazareth (1956) which dogmatized that “nobody is any further in a position to write a Life of Jesus.” A major modern academic denier is G. A. Wells in The Historical Evidence for Jesus (1983). Two other such are Robin Lane Fox, The Unauthorised Version (1994), and A. N. Wilson, Jesus. (1997).
Harpur and his kind concentrate on discrediting the Gospels as biographical sources. In fact, the Gospels can be left out of the argument. What count are the ancient non-Christian sources, enough to refute Northrop Frye (The Great Code: The Bible as Literature): “There is practically no real evidence for the life of Jesus outside the New Testament.”
Suetonius in his life of the emperor Claudius (AD 41-54) says Jews at Rome rioted “at the instigation of Chrestus.” Some maintain this does not allude to Jesus, but to a mob orator. Chrestus was indeed a common servile or ex-slave's name, meaning Mr. Useful. In this case, though, we would have expected Suetonius to say who the fellow was, at the very least to introduce him by the words “A certain…” (cf. the biblical, “One Simon, a tanner…”)
Thanks to the African church father Tertullian (Apology, 2nd-3rd century), we know that Chrestus was a common error for Christus, due to similar pronunciation of the Greek vowels “e” and “i.” On this reckoning, Suetonius both accepted Christ's existence and assumed his readers needed no more information or argument.
Suetonius was a friend of Tacitus and Pliny. The former (Annals), calling Christianity “a new and degraded sect” deservedly punished by Nero, had no doubts about Christ, stating matter of factly that Pontius Pilate executed him during Tiberius' reign (AD 14-37).
Tacitus based his history on sources chronologically much closer to the Crucifixion. Moreover, Pliny, during his troubles with Christians while governing Bithynia, does record (Letters, to the emperor Trajan) his own executions of these “pernicious sectarians;” other letters contain diverse criminal reports. But he never ridicules Christians for deludedly following a non-existent hero.
Tacitus' Annals are lost for the Crucifixion period. Some think this was due to Christian censorship of his offensive attitude, though they left the above-quoted insults untouched. He notably assumes Roman readers' familiarity with Pontius Pilate (a very rare name).The satirist Lucian (mid-second century) included in the 1557 edition of the Vatican's Index of Forbidden Books, does call Christians deluded, but for their belief in immortality, not in Christ, whom he describes (Peregrinus) as “their crucified leader, their first law-giver, whom they worshipped.” An anonymous Byzantine satire, The Patriot, once falsely ascribed to Lucian, contains a comic description implying belief in an earthly Jesus of “the Galilaean with receding hair and a long nose who had acquired the most glorious knowledge, regenerating us with water, leading us into the paths of the blessed, ransoming us from the places of impiety.”
Around Lucian's time, a certain Celsus penned his True Doctrine, the first pagan intellectual attack on Christianity. Otherwise lost, the paraphrases and quotations in Origen's refutation (Against Celsus) make it clear that Celsus dismissed the Gospel miracles as magic tricks that Christ had learned in Egypt.
The anonymous Augustan history Life of Alexander Severus says that the emperor placed a bust of Christ in his private chapel; he (a pagan) would hardly have so honoured someone whose existence was doubtful.
The scathing treatise Against the Galilaeans by the last pagan emperor Julian (361-363) accepts the earthly Christ without qualms, with frequent allusions to episodes in his life and ministry.
I scrupulously do not clinch the argument with the first-century Jewish historian Josephus, since his mention (Jewish Antiquities) of Christ as “a perhaps more than human sage” and detailed account (Jewish Wars) of Jesus' life and death in the Slavonic — not the Greek — text are branded by some (not all) commentators as Christian interpolations. Pending more evidence, a Scottish verdict of Not Proven is the fairest.
The overall point is, had any of these hostile sources thought there was the slightest chance of denying the fact of Christ's earthly existence, it is inconceivable that they would not have taken it. This conclusion is enhanced by the neo-platonist Porphyry's remark, quoted by Augustine from his Philosophy from Oracles, that opponents preferred to attack Christianity rather than Christ himself.
