The Number of Words Allegedly Spoken by the Resurrected Jesus from Mark to Matthew to Luke-Acts and John, Grew Over Time

There are very few if any words of the resurrected Jesus in the earliest New Testament writings. Reports of the number of words attributed to the resurrected Jesus appear to have grown over time.

1. Even conservative scholars agree that the first letter by Paul to the Corinthians was composed earlier than the Gospels. That letter only informs us that “Jesus appeared,” without further description. Neither does the order and numbers of the people to whom “Jesus appeared” match later descriptions found in the Gospels.

2. The next earliest writing is the Gospel of Mark. Like 1 Cor. it contains no words of the resurrected Jesus. Most scholars agree that Mark breaks off with “the women” being “afraid” and adds that they fled and “told no one” about what they had seen at Jesusʼ tomb. Some suggest that the Gospel of Mark originally did not stop at that point, but had verses about meeting the resurrected Jesus that were somehow lost (God couldnʼt stop it from being lost? God wanted it lost?), while others point out that Mark was most probably written on a scroll and it is unlikely that a scroll would have its ending lost since the ending is the most protected part when a scroll is rolled up. Whichever happened, early Christians do not appear to have been satisfied with Mark ending with women fleeing in fear from an empty tomb and “telling no one,” because scholars have discovered early copies of Mark featuring both a long and short added ending, along with variants of both. It wasnʼt until the fifth century CE that the long ending of Mark attained dominance both in early texts and in the works of early Christian theologians. But up till the fourth century, the long ending remained in dispute, and theologians noted that they had seen both the long ending and the ending with the women leaving the tomb and “telling no one.”

   The long ending of Mark features commands and promises from the resurrected Jesus that include, “Ye shall take up serpents and drink poison and they shall not harm you,” and, “He who believes not shall be damned.” Such words may have been invented by early Christians. Even a few Christians today continue to take such commands/promises so seriously as to “pick up serpents” and “drink poison” at their services.

   Therefore, looking at the earliest surviving church writings on the resurrection, Paul in 1st Cor., and the Gospel of Mark, they both lack words spoken by the risen Jesus. (Though some claim that the long ending of Mark contained some words of the risen Jesus, it should also be pointed out that they are not many, 84. And disputed by the majority of scholarly experts.)

3. The Gospel of Matthew (chapter 28) contains 79 words of the resurrected Jesus. So we have gone from zero to a textually disputed 84, to a far less textually disputed 79. Scholarly consensus places Matthew after Mark chronologically, and before Luke-Acts. Matthewʼs crucifixion and resurrection stories parallel even the exact wording in Mark more closely than Matthew parallels Luke. Matthew, unlike Luke, also copies Markʼs message at the tomb that “He has gone before you unto Galilee, THERE you shall see him.” Here are Matthewʼs words of the resurrected Jesus, 79 English words in translation:

   “Greetings. Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

   “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

   Reading those 79 words, one can see how they mirror what the early church had already begun to teach new converts, a sort of catechism in brief, but placed, perhaps by the church, into the mouth of the resurrected Jesus. Not a very convincing example of post-resurrection speech. Matthewʼs Gospel also ends with a very brief tale about people claiming to see the raised Jesus on a mountain in Galilee, “but some doubted.”

4. The Gospel of Luke (chapter 24) contains 191 words (in English translation) of the resurrected Jesus, more than double the number found in Matthew. And besides those 191, Luke adds a story about the raised Jesus (traveling incognito) and speaking an untold number of words during a walk to Emmaus, words that allegedly explained where “the Christ” was mentioned in “all the Scriptures.” Therefore Luke alludes to the raised Jesus being so talky that he gave a peripatetic seminar, “…beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” (Luke 24:27) Unfortunately not one word is preserved today of that seminar. But here are all the alleged words of the resurrected Jesus that appear in Luke:

   “What are you discussing together as you walk along?… What things?… How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?”

   “Peace be with you. Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have. Do you have anything here to eat? This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms. This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

   Those are all the words of the resurrected Jesus in the third Gospel.

   However, the Gospel of Luke and Book of Acts are a combined work and together they feature even more alleged words of the resurrected Jesus. (There is debate as to the authorship of the Book of Acts, i.e., whether a later writer edited notes/work and finished it in Lukeʼs name. Some verses in Acts suggest the latter view may be nearer the truth. See the latest edition of Bart Ehrmanʼs textbook on The New Testament for a discussion of which verses in Acts raise such questions, and how scholars respond to each othersʼ questions on this issue. See also Gary Willsʼs work, What Paul Meant, that features a brief summary of such questions.)

   According to the Gospel of Luke, the resurrected Jesus appears first to two unnamed disciples on the road to Emmaus, mentioned above, then later that same day to the apostles, all of them at once, and eats some fish to prove heʼs “not a spirit” but has “flesh and bone,” and then “led them as far as Bethany” to a mount near Jerusalem, and rose into the sky. But the Book of Acts expands the time that the physically resurrected Jesus remained on earth making it “40 days” before Jesusʼ bodily ascension/disappearance into heaven. That means that the Book of Acts implied that resurrected Jesus spoke lots more than even Luke was able to record, and over a period of forty days, during which he spoken and ate with the disciples. So the story of the number of words allegedly spoken by the resurrected Jesus continued to grow, even from Lukeʼs Gospel to the Book of Acts.

   And, neither the “seminar on prophecy” allegedly delivered “on the road to Emmaus” nor many words of the “40 days” of preaching exist, except for the very last ones with which Acts 1:3 begins, “He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. Once when he [the resurrected Jesus] was eating with them, he commanded them … Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit… It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

   Is anyone supposed to believe that the disciples failed to report, or failed to record (or God failed to preserve) many post-resurrection sayings and sermons by Jesus, which Luke says Jesus taught over a period of forty days? No scraps of table conversation while eating with the resurrected Jesus, just the final goodbye speech? Thatʼs it? I tend to think that speeches by a dead man risen from the grave would have been taken greater note of, moreso than speeches Jesus spoke while alive.

   (Furthermore, in the case of the “prophecy seminar” that Jesus allegedly delivered “on the road to Emmaus,” the Scriptures do not state in unequivocal fashion that “the Christ must die and then after three day arise.” So the question remains as to what clear Scriptural proofs Jesus could have even cited concerning a Christ who “must die and then must rise after three days.” That simply raises a red flag as to the story in Luke about the whole Road to Emmaus story.)

   Furthermore, how is anyone supposed to believe that it was only in later Gospels that stories first arose concerning the raised Jesus speaking wordy dialogues? And as I asked already, why arenʼt those dialogues preserved?

   Note that these same Gospel authors cribbed from one another, relying mostly on Markʼs and Qʼs collection of sayings and stories to form the Gospels, Matthew and Luke. And the latter two Gospels differ most in the very sections where they could not follow Mark, i.e., in their infancy and resurrection stories. But what the latter two Gospels lacked in originality (reproducing over 90% of everything in the earliest Gospel, Mark, including incidental connecting phrases), they apparently tried to made up for via imaginative allusions to so-called previously unrecorded conversations with the raised Jesus that mouthed creeds already believed and provided a “40 day” period during which the raised Jesus, still on earth per Acts, allegedly continued to teach his disciples. Though no one knows what if anything the raised Jesus actually said since thereʼs only allusions to such speeches in Luke-Acts.

   Contra Luke-Acts, I suspect that the words of anyone who was dead and came back, and whom I got to spend several weeks with, would stick with me a bit more. Same thing goes for all the lost words of others who allegedly returned from the dead, like the Gospel of Matthewʼs “many raised saints who entered the holy city and appeared to many,” or Lazarus in the Fourth Gospel who allegedly returned from the dead.

   Also keep in mind that there are no first person stories in the N.T. concerning meeting the raised Jesus or meeting those whom he allegedly raised from the dead. The only first person story in the N.T. comes from Paul in 1 Cor., who wrote that “Jesus … appeared to me.” No further description given by Paul himself in any of his letters. Everything else (such as the story of the appearance of Jesus to Paul in Acts) is a second, third, or fourth hand story.

5. As stated earlier, not only the Gospel of Luke but also the companion volume, Acts, features additional alleged sayings of the resurrected Jesus. Iʼve mentioned a few of them above, but there are others I have not yet mentioned, namely words that the author of Acts says were spoken to Paul by Jesus. But Paul himself in his letters never mentions hearing so many words. Never mentions a single word spoken by the resurrected Jesus. And these words in Acts read like a late expansion or legendary elaboration that partisan religious believers of all sorts are prone to concocting after a story is repeated, perhaps they were invented to “spell it out” for the reader. One need only compare the endless words a conservative pastor can squeeze out of a single verb even today once he starts sermonizing upon it. Here is the preachy version of what Paul allegedly heard, not as recorded in Paulʼs own letters nor even in Paulʼs own words, but as told by the author of the book of Acts, chapter 26:

   “‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting’. ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’” (117 words)

   Total number of alleged words spoken by the resurrected Jesus in the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts combined? 397 words (depending of course on your particular English translation). But, minus the long didactic speech of Jesus to Paul on the road to Damascus: 280.

6. The Gospel of John, the final Gospel written, contains 283 words of the resurrected Jesus. Thatʼs 92 more words of the resurrected Jesus than appeared in the Gospel of Luke, and 204 more words than appeared in Matthew.

   Here are the alleged words of the resurrected Jesus per the Fourth Gospel:

   “Woman, why are you crying?. Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?. Mary. Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

   “Peace be with you!. Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” “Peace be with you! Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe. Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

   “Friends, havenʼt you any fish?. Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some. Bring some of the fish you have just caught. Come and have breakfast. Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?. Feed my lambs. Simon son of John, do you truly love me?. Take care of my sheep. Simon son of John, do you love me?. Do you love me?. Feed my sheep. I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go. Follow me!. If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.”

   The Gospel of John ends with these words, not spoken by Jesus but by that Gospelʼs author(s):

   “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written, every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.” (John 21:25)

   “I suppose that the world could not contain…” “I suppose?” Is that any way to end an inspired Gospel, with mere “supposition?” As for the supposition itself, that the “world itself could not contain the books,” the books we do have that tell of “things Jesus did,” consist of only four slim “Gospels,” not one of them over forty pages in length. Two of them, Matthew and Luke, even repeat over 90% of what appears in Mark including incidental phrases and passages in Greek. So the four Gospels that tell of “things Jesus did,” minus the overlapping portions would be even slimmer. (And speaking of the “world” being unable to “contain the books,” the Fourth Gospel writers were apparently not granted the psychic ability to foresee that one day we might be able to store whole libraries in a laptop computer).

   Among those “many other things which Jesus did,” some of them can no doubt be found in the bevy of non-canonical Gospels and Acts that believers continued to write over time. It is apparent that by the time the fourth Gospel was composed such stories could have already been begun circulating in droves. Otherwise why would the author of the Fourth Gospel end his Gospel with such words? They certainly fit the idea that a plethora of stories abounded in the authorʼs day. One such non-canonical Gospel that we know about was The Gospel of Nicodemus, and itʼs author expanded on the tale in Matthew about “the many raised saints,” identifying some of them. Other non-canonical Gospels told about miracles Jesus allegedly performed in his infancy and youth. And the “Gospel of Peter” even describes Jesus stepping out of his opened tomb, something that neither Mark, Matthew, Luke, nor John, say that anyone “saw.”

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Hereʼs the Word Count once again, in the order in which these works were most likely composed:

Paul 0 words
Mark 0 words (the disputed long ending of Mark, 84 words)
Matthew 79 words
Luke 191 words
Acts 208 words
John 283 words

Many of the words allegedly spoken by the raised Jesus also read like statements devout church leaders could and would have put into the resurrected Jesusʼ mouth to suit the early churchʼs belief in its own heavenly centrality and broadening missionary ideals. Like when Matthewʼs resurrected Jesus says, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Or when Lukeʼs resurrected Jesus says, “Repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” Or when Johnʼs resurrected Jesus says, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Why are those blessed who believe without seeing? Because credulity pleases God Almighty? Then we should also believe the creation accounts too, as written, right? Because Jesus mentioned Adam and Eve and Noah like they were genuine folks and related to genuine events that God had a hand in, right? Where and when exactly does “not believing” or asking questions become a virtue?

“Religions promise a reward for excellence of the will or heart, but none for excellence of the head or understanding.” (Arthur Schopenhauer)

“I do not believe that the same God who endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect had intended for us to forgo their use.” (Galileo)

“The silly fanatic repeats to me that it is not for us to judge what is reasonable and just in the divine Being. That His reason is not like our reason, that His justice is not like our justice. Eh? How, you mad demoniac, shall we judge justice and reason otherwise than by the notions we have of them? Do you want us to walk otherwise than with our feet, and speak otherwise than with our mouths?” (Voltaire)

The Criminal History of Christianity by Karlheinz Deschner

Karl Heinrich Leopold Deschner (born on May 23, 1924, in Bamberg, Germany), is a German researcher and writer who has achieved public attention in Europe for his thorough and critical treatment of Christianity (and Catholicism in particular) as expressed in articles and books (that have appeared thus far in Spanish, Italian, Polish and his native German), culminating in his magum opus The Criminal History of Christianity (Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums, Rowohlt Verlag GmbH, Reinbek) which is planned in 10 volumes, of which 9 have been published so far.

Hans Kung (bestselling Catholic theologian) speaking about Deschner:

During the time of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) the Catholic Church enjoyed a generally high public standing. At the beginning of the third millennium after Christ, however, it is being attacked more than ever in some quarters. Granted, Rome has recently been asking for forgiveness for the monstrous errors and atrocities of the past—but in the meantime, the present-day church administration and Inquisition are producing still more victims. Scarcely any of the great institutions in our democratic age deal in such a despicable way with critics and those of other views in their own ranks, nor does any discriminate so much against women—by prohibiting contraceptives, the marriage of priests, and the ordination of women. None polarizes society and politics worldwide to such a degree by rigid positions in matters of abortion, homosexuality, and euthanasia, positions always invested with an aura of infallibility, as if they were the will of God himself. In view of the apparent inability on the part of the Catholic Church to correct and reform itself, is it not understandable that at the beginning of the third Christian millennium the more or less benevolent indifference widely shown to the church around fifty years ago has turned into hatred, indeed, public hostility? Antagonistic church historians and critics are of the opinion that in the churchʼs two-thousand-year history no organic process maturing [of doctrines and dogmas] can be detected, but rather something more like a criminal history. A once-Catholic author, Karlheinz Deschner, has devoted his life and so far six [now nine, with a tenth on the way] volumes to such a history. In it he describes every possible form of criminality in the churchʼs foreign policy and in policies relating to trade, finance, and education; in the dissemination of ignorance and superstition; in the unscrupulous exploitation of sexual morality, marriage laws, and penal justice… and so on, for hundreds [now 8,000] pages.*

*Though Drescherʼs works have translated into several European languages only a few paragraphs have thus far been translated into English (see below)—but if one is interested in present-day religion-related abuses and crimes, click here.

Synopsis Of Christianityʼs Criminal History, Volume 7, 13th and 14th Centuries by Karlheinz Deschner:

“The Middle Ages,” noted Nietzsche, “is the era of the greatest passions.” How these passions expressed themselves in the 13th and 14th Centuries is related by Karlheinz Deschner in the newest volume of his Christianityʼs Criminal History.

At the beginning of this epoch stood Emperor Henry VI, who claimed for himself dominium mundi, world rule—with or without the blessing of the Pope. At the end stood Emperor Charles IV, who ruled the Holy Roman Empire until 1378. The most powerful ecclesiastical opponent of this imperium was Pope Gregory IX (1227 to 1241), who demanded from the emperor his right to crusades and who managed internal security by means of the Inquisition.

Events of this period: the decisive power struggle between emperor and papacy, the fall of the Hohenstauffen and the end of papal universal domination, the papal bull “Unam Sanctam,” the Mongol Invasion, the Sicilian Vesper, the “Babylonian Captivity” of the popes in exile in Avignon, increasingly devastating anti-Jewish pogroms, crusades in every direction, among them that of Frederick II, the Crusades of Louis I the Holy to Egypt and Tunis, the Crusades of Christians against Christians, against the Albigensians, the Stedinger, the grotesque Childrenʼs Crusade, the destruction of the Templars, the destruction of the Pastorells, the notorious terrorist regime of the German Order, the extermination of the “heathen” in the Northeast of Europe, the suppression of the Balts, the Prussians — and not least the totalitarian Inquisition meant to suppress every stirring of intellectual freedom.

Deschnerʼs meticulous, irrefutable presentation of evidence from eye witnesses who were previously silenced or distorted reveals the very Christian Middle Ages as the high water mark of ruthless power politics involving both secular thrones and the Holy See.

Excerpts From Christianityʼs Criminal History, Volume 7, 13th and 14th Centuries by Karlheinz Deschner:

In the course of sacred history punishments became more and more severe and salutary. The Councils of Reims in 1157 and Oxford in 1160 had imposed facial branding on heretics. Even Innocent III threatened the Albigenses at first “only” with banishment and confiscation. But thereafter capital punishment became more and more frequent with various forms of execution appearing. In Cologne, Nuremberg and Regensburg “heretics” were occasionally drowned, in Würzburg beheaded, but death by fire became the rule for such an offense.

Death by fire, usually on a holiday, became a demonstration of the Churchʼs virtual omnipotence, as a grandiose ritual sacrifice, more popular than any other religious holiday. This human sacrifice was given a Portuguese name, autodafé, which in Latin is actus fidei. It was “an act of faith,” unquestionably the most ardent in the history of religion. Special couriers spread the invitation, the condemned were led forth before crowds of onlookers, special prices were paid for window seats, and every good Catholic who could bring forth wood for the fire was certain of a welcome absolution. This splendid opportunity has been denied the Catholic world since the 19th Century, for the last autodafé was probably celebrated in Mexico in 1815 (the first in 1481 in Seville).

Spiritual and worldly princes participated. The Grand Inquisitor handed over the condemned to the civil authorities following high mass and a sermon in a public square or house of God, not without expressing his heartfelt wish that the “life and limbs” of these people might be spared. The condemned were brought to the place of execution, usually wearing a foolʼs cap to symbolize their mindless perversity, clothed in bright yellow sackcloth and covered with the most outrageous images of the Devil, so that even the most dimwitted Catholic might easily recognize the spiritual father of these miscreants. These bystanders would often express their brotherly love in the usual fashion: by beating the condemned with canes, pinching them with glowing tongs and sometimes chopping off their right hands. In order to spare the delicate sensibilities of Godʼs people, the “heretics” were often gagged to muffle their screams, so that nothing could be heard but the almost cozy crackling of the flames and the chanting of the priests. And while the victims, depending on wind direction, either suffocated or slowly roasted to death, the assembled Christian community, nobility, common people and clergy, all sang: “Almighty God, we praise Thee.”

The courts of the Inquisition were the noblest courts of the Church and shielded from every profane influence. They were deemed immune to corruption; they usually adorned themselves with the attributes “holy” and “most holy.” For the filthier something is, the more it must be verbally rid of filth, embellished, ennobled, elevated to glory and majesty.

Official Church proclamations glorified the Inquisition, as did popes such as Innocent IV and Clemens IV in their papal bulls of March 23, 1254 and February 26, 1266. The inquisitors themselves were placed in an illustrious line of descent stretching back to an entire gallery of glorious Old Testament gangsters, with Saul, e.g., with David (I, 85 ff.!), Joshua (I, 83 f.) and others. But even Jesus, John the Baptist and Peter were numbered in the inquisitorial pedigree. Indeed, God Himself, the expeller of Adam and Eve from Paradise, was viewed as nothing less than the first “inquisitor.” These murdering thugs were in any case agents of the pope. Their derived their plenipotentiary authority everywhere and at all times from him alone.

Prisons of the Inquisitions, Places of Unspeakable Cruelty

The courts of the Inquisition were opened by an invocation to the Holy Spirit [whom, it is promised to believers in the NT, “will lead you unto all truth”].

Prayer also preceded the pronouncement of judgment.

The verdict, however, even in cases of extreme doubt, was not subject to appeal to secular courts, which functioned merely as an executive tool of the Church courts, whose sentences they were to carry out “blindly” (coeca obedientia) and “with closed eyes” (oculis clausis).

Numerous papal bulls sharply admonished the princes to damn well do their duty. Not only the doges of Venice were finally obliged by their oath of office to burn heretics. Otto IV of the Welf dynasty promised “effective support” in the eradication of “evil heresies” as much as his opponent, Frederick II of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, who in fact went further and demanded of all his subordinates, consuls, and rectors that “they in their respective lands make every effort to exterminate everyone designated by the Church as a heretic.” This obligation was confirmed by a public oath, under penalty of deposition and loss of their lands. These oaths proved to be effective.

The popes did everything in their power to ensure that the demands and orders of the inquisitors be quickly obeyed, that the inquisitors themselves be granted armed escort, and especially that the inquisitorial decrees be incorporated into the secular law codes. Innocent IV wrote in his bull “Cum adversus haereticam” of May 28, 1252:

“As the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick has pass certain laws against the heretical evil, by which laws the spread of this plague might be hindered, and as we desire that these laws be observed for the strengthening of the faith and the salvation of the faithful, so we order the beloved sons who are in authority to incorporate these laws, whose exact wording is attached, into their statues, and to proceed against the heretics with great zeal. Therefore we order you [the inquisitors], when these authorities fulfill our orders carelessly, to force them to compliance by means of excommunication and interdiction … We utterly curse those who have fallen from the Catholic faith, we pursue them with punishment, we rob them of their fortunes, deny them succession and revoke any and all their rights.”

The usual punishment for “heretics” was incarceration, often for life. In a partially preserved register of sentences of the Inquisition in Toulouse from the years 1246 to 1248, of 149 prisoners six were serving 10 years, 16 an indeterminate time based on the discretion of the Church, and 127 were serving life terms.

The prisons of the Inquisition were places of unimaginable cruelty, dark and confined by papal prescription, usually without any light or ventilation but full of filth and stench. The clergy filled these places to the point that Gregory IX ordered the building of more and promised generous indulgences to Christians who would contribute to their construction. Sentences served in these hellholes were far worse than any quick death by fire at the stake. Men and women often languished for years without being sentenced or acquitted. A man by the name of Wilhelm Salavert was first interrogated on February 24, 1300 and finally sentenced on September 30, 1319, after 19 years of uninterrupted misery. A woman in Toulouse was “reprieved to bearing the Cross” after lying in the local prisons for 33 years.

(from Karlheinz Deschnerʼs Christianityʼs Criminal History, Volume 7, p. 260 ff.)

Torture, the Most Compelling Instrument of Christian Brotherly Love

Of the three types of Inquisitorial conviction—purification, recantation, torture—“torture is the most suitable. Because heresy is difficult to prove, the judge of the Inquisition should be inclined toward the use of torture: ad torturam judex debet esse promptior.” (Antonius Diana, Consultant to the Sicilian Inquisition)

Augustine, both saint and doctor of the Church and the archetype of all medieval “heretic”-hunters, had already allowed torture against the Donatists, defending it as a trifle when compared to the agonies of hell. He called it a “cure,” an “emendatio.”

Bishop Anselm of Lucca among others in the 11th Century further developed Augustineʼs “heresy” argumentation. Expelled by his own clergy in 1080, he had a quite correct understanding of Augustine: proceeding against evil is not persecution but an expression of love. And Bishop Bonizo of Sutri, blinded and maimed by his own Christians in 1089, called for “combating” schismatics and worse dissenters “with all vigor and weapons.” He did not hesitate to attribute to Augustine the view “that all those are blessed who persecute for the sake of righteousness.”

This most compelling instrument of Christian brotherly love was already being employed north of the Alps during the Carolingian period but did not being to flourish until the 13th Century when Innocent IV, in his bull “Ad exstirpanda” of 1252, called for the use of torture and its canonical regulation in the fight against “heretics” in northern Italy. This policy expanded to include all of Italy in 1256 and was confirmed in the following years by Popes Alexander IV and Clemens IV.

In 1261 Urban IV allowed inquisitors, under whose robust manner of opinion research delinquents might expire, to mutually absolve one another. It was after all not permitted to torture to death a person being questioned. In such a case the inquisitor would face excommunication, from which he could be immediately freed, however, by a priest of the Inquisition uttering the formula: “Ego te absolvo.”

(from Karlheinz Deschnerʼs Christianityʼs Criminal History, Volume 7, p. 266ff)

REVIEWS of Deschnerʼs “Christianityʼs Criminal History”:

“How a religion of love became a religion of worldly power—provocative, discomforting, richly detailed: Karlheinz Deschnerʼs ambitious Christianityʼs Criminal History”—Prof. Ludger Lütkehaus, Badische Zeitung, 29.11.1988

“A shocking panorama of fraud and deceit, blood and murder under the sign of the Cross … The author recounts conscientiously, even in pedantic detail, the multitude of clerical, Christian crimes dating back to the earliest days of the Church. He demolishes with crushing blows monumental figures such as the great Constantine … The venerable doctors of the Church such as Athanasius, Ambrose, and Augustine lose their halos entirely… . Of course there is another side to the story… But that does not negate Deschnerʼs account. He brings to light what has been diligently suppressed, falsified, and played down through two Christian millennia.”—Heinz Schönfeldt, «Mannheimer Morgen»

“Deschner doesnʼt believe in wounding blows. He goes for the throat … And what is the result? A mammoth project. The crowing completion of a lifelong altercation: Christianityʼs Criminal History.”—Dietmar Bittrich, «Hamburger Abendblatt»

“A standard work based on a thorough study of the sources… The absolutely breathtaking descriptions, whose factual content are irrefutable, present a single, massive indictment of Christianity and show to what astonishing degree the gospel of love and mercy preached by Jesus was betrayed again and again. A book which will challenge and shake those above all who cherish a heartfelt commitment to the message of the Gospel.”—Lieselotte von Eltz-Hoffmann, «Salzburger Nachrichten»

“Deschner is not a modern Don Quixote, nor a Michael Kohlhaas. He is a modern proponent of the Enlightenment who still believes in the power of reason. He does not perceive the necessity of a new myth to replace a demystified Christianity no longer able to offer salvation. This fact distinguishes him from some modern critics of the Church who still feel allegiance to some interpretation of primitive Christianity. Deschner is without compromise in this regard.”—Rolf Gawrich, «Frankfurter Rundschau»

“Christianityʼs Criminal History is the name of this work which has now expanded to two volumes and which will eventually encompass a few more volumes as an opus maximum: in its projected entirety probably the most comprehensive critical history of Christianity ever. The title is intended in its absolute, literal sense. Deschner is set on laying forth an uncompromising account of Christianityʼs ‘history of crime.’ The spine title, formulated perhaps out of publication considerations, expresses extenuating circumstances which the book itself does not offer. And ‘Christianityʼs Criminal History’ is also to be understood in the sense of criminal detection, proof and exposure of the crime and the culprits. The halo which has customarily surrounded said criminal history is relentlessly attacked by Deschner as a monstrous hypocrisy.

The monumental figures of sacred history are in fact toppled right and left: the church doctors, the dogmatic patriarchs, the early popes, the “most” Christian emperors: Ambrose, Augustine, Athanasius, Basil, Clemens, Eusebius, Jerome, Irenaeus, Lactantius… A litany of saints of blessed memory becomes an unholy litany of scoundrels one would prefer to forget. Volume 1 is already in its fifth printing and covers the time from Old Testament origins to the death of Saint Augustine. Volume 2 deals with that period from the Catholic “children emperors” to the extermination of the Arian Vandals and Ostrogoths under Justinian I. What these two books reveal is a blood-drenched trail as remote as one can imagine from a message of love and mercy, not a story of salvation but a monstrous catastrophe. In this context, the expression “Christian persecutions” acquires a painfully ironic twist: out of the victims arise the oppressors.

Marshalling arguments against this awful compilation of factual evidence will be difficult. It may be that Deschner in cases of doubt always decides against the accused. As a whole, however, this massive study, whose origins date back to the 1950s, is painstakingly thorough and researched with a scholarly diligence without equal. The first two volumes contain almost 2,000 secondary titles, 130 pages of footnotes and annotations, in addition to a user-friendly, detailed index, all of which makes this compendium of crime a fatally effective reference work. This impressive apparatus also conveys a simple message: the author knows that in spite of all the recognition heʼs received — in 1988 he received the Arno-Schmidt-Prize for his uncompromising literary production — he is not going to be easily, at any rate not voluntarily believed.”—Prof Dr. Ludger Lütkehaus, «Freiburger Universitätsblätter» herausgegeben im Auftrag des Rektors der Albert-LudwigsUniversität Freiburg

“Deschnerʼs Christianityʼs Criminal History should not be absent from any serious scholarly library. It is a standard work, an organon including all the major themes, a necessary corrective of great value belonging on the shelf next to the works of Augustine, the Summa Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas and the Lexica für Theologie und Kirche of our own day.“—Helmut Häußler, Freigeistige Aktion, Hannover

“I am reminded of 18th Century proponents of the Enlightenment such as the Frenchmen Pierre Bayle, Claude Helvetius, and Voltaire or the German poet Heinrich Heine. Now the 20th Century also has its book, Deschnerʼs Christianityʼs Criminal History.… Thanks to Deschnerʼs back-breaking research, the suspicion that Christianity has skeletons in its closet becomes an absolutely certainty. Widely known facts are beginning to replace mere suspicions, and what we learn about reality exceeds even the products of our fantasy.”—Prof. Dr. theol. Horst Herrmann, Der Spiegel

“The Criminal History is a massive work, a lifeʼs work, perhaps the centuryʼs work. So brilliant is the analysis and captivating the style, bold, cutting, skilful, never looking back or down; independent, creative greatness at work.”—Volker A. Zahn, Kölner Illustrierte

“Deschnerʼs Criminal History not just fills a huge gap. It is THE standard work of alternative church history. With his stupendous, comprehensive grasp of detail, the author of this work of the century makes a pressing, existential issue out of the lives and views of those who have defied the Church through the centuries.”—Prof. Dr. theol. Hubertus Mynarek

Quotations from Drescher:

My skepticism keeps me from becoming a fanatic, which is something no faith has ever achieved.

“I would rather err with the majority than in my own way,” so thought St. Augustine. I am just the opposite.

The superstition that a belief based on faith is different from a superstition is the greatest superstition of all.

SNIPPETS from Drescher, cited in someone elseʼs article on the web:

“The Churchʼs efforts of putting an end to the common practice of plundering shipwrecked sailors in the Middle Ages, didnʼt include Arabs or other infidels. The Church didnʼt see any wrong in sending non-Christian prisoners of war into slavery. In the 17th century the Scottish clergy teached that one under no circumstances whatsoever should give food or shelter to a hungry human being if he didnʼt have an orthodox Christian faith (Deschner).

The ninth commandment of not bearing false witness seems to be a tough one for God himself since he tells lies via his own prophets (1 Kings 22:23, 2.Chr. 18:22. Jer. 4:10, 20:7 Ezek 14:9) and deceives(2.Thess 2:11-12). St Paul also admits using lies and deception to spread the word of God (Rom 3:7, 1.Cor 1:19-23). The biblical texts also forge the very word of God (Jer. 8:8). Jehovah also admits this in Ezek 20,25 “Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live.” Even the noble Church Father Origen thinks it should be allowed to lie and deceive to save souls. According to Origen Godʼs love justifies him using lies. Church father John Chrysostom (Golden mouth) thought lies were necessary for saving the soul (Deschner Karlheinz, 1972: ”Abermals krähte der Hahn” Stuttgart, p. 30). Bishop and Church historian Euseb of Cæsarea (ca 265-430 AD) claimed openly that the Church should use deception and fraud if it was in the interest of the Church. The founder of the Jesuit order, Ignatius Loyola, wrote in the 16 th century ”We should always be open for what seems white to us, in reality is black if the leaders of the Church should decide so.”

Additional Books by Deschner

Why I Left the Church (1970)—a book of testimonies from people who left the fold. With contributions by G. von Frankenberg, K. Port, R. Mächler, J. Bjorneboe, F. Vester, G. Zwerenz, K. Harpprecht, W. Baranowsky, O.F. Gmelin, W. Beutin, H. Wollschläger, J. Kahl

Memento! (1999)—A Little Lesson About the “Great Act of Atonement” of the Pope in the Holy Year 2000. In the Holy Year 2000 the Pope asked forgiveness for his organization in a “great act of atonement” from all the millions of victims of crimes committed in the name of Christ through the centuries. Deschner helps the Holy Father search his conscience. Every line of this deeply disturbing litany of crimes cries out “Remember!” - “Memento!”

TV Program About Deschner, on Youtube.com, in Seven Parts (in German)
1/7 Die hasserfüllten Augen des Herrn Deschner

C. S. Lewis: Provocative, Poignant & Profound Words

“I envy you not having to think any more about Christian apologetics. My correspondents force the subject on me again and again. It is very wearing, and not v. good for oneʼs own faith. A Christian doctrine never seems less real to me than when I have just (even if successfully) been defending it. It is particularly tormenting when those who were converted by my books begin to relapse and raise new difficulties.” C. S. Lewis to Mary Van Deusen, June 18, 1956 [1]

“One of the things Christians are disagreed about is the importance of their disagreements. When two Christians of different denominations start arguing, it is usually not long before one asks whether such-and-such a point ‘really matters’ and the other replies: ‘Matter? Why, itʼs absolutely essential.’” C. S. Lewis, Preface to Mere Christianity

To Mary Willis Shelburne, April 26, 1956: “Of course we have all been taught what to do with suffering — offer it in Christ to God as our little, little share of Christʼs sufferings — but it is so hard to do. I am afraid I can better imagine, than really enter into, this. I suppose that if one loves a person enough one would actually wish to share every part of his life: and I suppose the great saints thus really want to share every part of his life: and I suppose the great saints thus really want to share the divine sufferings and that is how they can actually desire pain. But this is far beyond me. To grin and bear it and (in some feeble, desperate way) to trust is the utmost most of us can manage. One tries to take a lesson not only from the saints but from the beasts: how well a sick dog trusts one if one has to do things that hurt it! And this, I know, in some measure you will be able to do.” [2]

To John Beversluis, July 3, 1963 (the year of C. S. Lewisʼ death): “The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not ‘so thereʼs no God after all,’ but, ‘So this is what God is really like. Deceive yourself no longer.’”[3] Only four months before his death, Lewis wrote in a letter to an American philosopher that there were dangers in judging God by moral standards. However, he maintained that “believing in a God whom we cannot but regard as evil, and then, in mere terrified flattery calling Him ‘good’ and worshipping Him, is still greater danger.”[4]

Lewis was responding specifically to the question of Joshuaʼs slaughter of the Canaanites by divine decree and Peterʼs striking Ananias and Sapphira dead.

Knowing that the evangelical doctrine of the Bibleʼs infallibility required him to approve of “the atrocities (and treacheries) of Joshua,” Lewis made this surprising concession: “The ultimate question is whether the doctrine of the goodness of God or that of the inerrancy of Scriptures is to prevail when they conflict. I think the doctrine of the goodness of God is the more certain of the two indeed, only that doctrine renders this worship of Him obligatory or even permissible.” [5]

“To this some will reply ‘ah, but we are fallen and donʼt recognize good when we see it.’ But God Himself does not say that we are as fallen at all that. He constantly, in Scripture, appeals to our conscience: ‘Why do ye not of yourselves judge what is right?’ — ‘What fault hath my people found in me?’ And so on. Socratesʼ answer to Euthyphro is used in Christian form by Hooker. Things are not good because God commands them; God commands certain things because he sees them to be good. (In other words, the Divine Will is the obedient servant to the Divine Reason.) The opposite view (Ockhamʼs, Paleyʼs) leads to an absurdity. If ‘good’ means ‘what God wills’ then to say ‘God is good’ can mean only ‘God wills what he wills.’ Which is equally true of you or me or Judas or Satan.” [6]

To Dom Bede Griffiths, Dec. 20, 1961: “Even more disturbing as you say, is the ghastly record of Christian persecution. It had begun in Our Lordʼs time - ‘Ye know not what spirit ye are of’ (John of all people!)[7] I think we must fully face the fact that when Christianity does not make a man very much better, it makes him very much worse…Conversion may make of one who was, if no better, no worse than an animal, something like a devil.”[8]

Notes

1. Lewis, The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume III, p. 762.
2. Lewis, The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume III, p. 743.
3. C.S. Lewis, A grief Observed (New York: Seabury Press, 1963), pp 9-10.
4. Letter quoted in full in John Beversluis, C.S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), pp. 156 f.
5. Ibid., p. 157. Emphsis added.
6. Cited in ibid., p 157.
7. In the “Gospel of John,” Jesusʼ enemies are depicted more than sixty times as simply, “The Jews.” Jesusʼ concern for Israel as seen in the Gospel of Matthew (10:5-6 & 15:24) is absent from the Jesus who appears in the Gospel of John (5:45-47 & 8:31-47). The Gospel John, having been written after previous Gospels may reflect the growing breakdown of relations between the early Christian church and the Jewish synagog.
8. The Letters of C. S. Lewis, ed., W. H. Lewis, (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1966), p. 301.

Additional Statements

From The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume III

1960

To Mary Willis Shelburne, March 26, p 1141: “Things are not, or not much, worse with us, but life is very terrible. I sometimes feel I am mad to be taking Joy [Lewisʼs wife, suffering from cancer] to Greece in her present condition, but her heart is set upon it. They give the condemned man what he likes for his last breakfast, I am told.”

To Mary Willis Shelburne, April 19, p 1147: “We did get to Greece, and it was a wonderful success. Joy performed prodigies, climbing to the top of the Acropolis and getting as far as the Lion gate of Mycenae. She has (no wonder) come back v. exhausted and full of aches. But I wd. not have had her denied it… She was absolutely enraptured by what she saw.”

“I canʼt begin to describe Greece. Attica is hauntingly beautiful and Rhodes is an earthly paradise — all orange and lemon orchards and wild flowers and vines and olives, and the mountains of Asia on the horizon. And lovely, cheap wines. Iʼve eaten squid and octopus!”

To Chad Walsh, May 23, p 1154: “I had some ado to prevent Joy (and myself) from relapsing into Paganism in Attica! At Daphni it was hard not to pray to Apollo the Healer. But somehow one didnʼt feel it wd. have been very wrong — wd. have only been addressing Christ sub specie Apollinis.”

To the Rev. Peter Bide, July 14, p 1169: “Joy died at 10 oʼclock last night in the Radcliffe… Iʼd like to meet. Perhaps I cd. come up to town some day when you are in town and take you to lunch at the Athenaeum. For I am — oh God that I were not — very free now. One doesnʼt realise in early life that the price of freedom is loneliness. To be happy one must be tied. God bless all three of us.”

A note on p 1182 refers to Lewisʼs writing about his grieving process in letters after Joyʼs death in July, and also his undertaking almost immediately to write A Grief Observed, his journal of the grieving process. Writes editor Hooper: “he followed the advice he had given Arthur Greeves many years ago: ‘Start writing: ink is the great cure for all human ills.’”

To Mary Willis Shelburne, September 24, p 1188, “As to how I take sorrow, the answer is ‘In nearly all the possible ways.’ Because, as you probably know, it isnʼt a state but a process. It keeps on changing — like a winding road with quite a new landscape at each bend. Two curious discoveries I have made. The moments at which you call most desperately and clamorously to God for help are precisely those when you seem to get none. And the moments at which I feel nearest to Joy are precisely those when I mourn her least. Very queer. In both cases a clamorous need seems to shut one off from the thing needed. No one ever told me this. It is almost like ‘Donʼt knock and it shall be opened to you.’ I must think it over.”

To Robin Anstey, November 2, p 1206: “S.F. [science fiction] — however bad most of it is — is now the chief vehicle for ‘thoughts that wander up and down eternity.’ How trivial, by comparison, are most of the issues presented by our ‘serious’ novelists!”

To Meredith Lee, December 6, p 1213: “Why did I become a writer? Chiefly, I think, because my clumsiness of fingers prevented me from making things in any other way. See my Surprised by Joy, chapter 1.”

Same, p 1214: “I have, as usual, dozens of ‘plans’ for books, but I donʼt know which, if any, of these will come off. Very often a book of mine gets written when Iʼm tidying a drawer and come across notes for a plan rejected by me years ago, and now suddenly realise I can do it after all. This, you see, makes predictions rather difficult!”

Same: “I enjoy writing fiction more than writing anything else. Wouldnʼt anyone?”

1961

To Mary Van Deusen, February 13, p 1238, refers to French existentialist novelist Sartre “as an artist in French prose [who] has a sort of wintry grandeur which partly explains his immense influence.”

1962

To Mary Van Deusen, June 10, p 1349: “My friend Charles Williams had a high opinion of Kierkegaard and on that ground I am ready to believe there must be a lot in him. But I could not find it myself. Perhaps I did not give him a long enough trial. I may yet give him another. I have in my time had to change my opinion about a good many authors!“

To Edward A. Allen, December 10, p 1389: “I discovered only the other day that Christmas presents had begun in the time of St. Augustine, and he called them ‘diabolical’ because they originated not in Christmas but in the Pagan Saturnalia. Diabolical is a bit strong: perhaps ‘a darn nuisance’ wd. be more accurate.” Or…bah humbug?

To Mary Willis Shelburne, October 26, p 1376: “I am sorry to hear of the little dogʼs death. The animal creation is a strange mystery. We can make some attempt to understand human suffering: but the sufferings of animals from the beginning of the world till now (inflicted not only by us but by one another) — what is one to think? And again, how strange that God brings us into such intimate relations with creatures of whose real purpose and destiny we remain forever ignorant. We know to some degree what angels and men are for. But what is a flea for, or a wild dog? What you say about the VII Day Adventists interests me extremely. If they have so much charity there must be something very right about them.”

1963

To Joan Lancaster, July 11, p 1440: “Zoroastrianism is one of the finest of the Pagan religions. Do you depend entirely on Nietzsche for your idea of it? I expect you wd. find it well worth time to look at the old sources.”

To Mary Van Deusen, November 16, p 1480: “There are times when I wonder if the invention of the internal combustion engine was not an even greater disaster than that of the hydrogen bomb!”