Search for the Historical Jesus

Got this link from Izzy, who described it as "blogworthy."

Prove Christ exists, judge orders priest.

An Italian judge has ordered a priest to appear in court this month to prove that Jesus Christ existed.

The case against Father Enrico Righi has been brought in the town of Viterbo, north of Rome, by Luigi Cascioli, a retired agronomist who once studied for the priesthood but later became a militant atheist. Signor Cascioli, author of a book called The Fable of Christ, began legal proceedings against Father Righi three years ago after the priest denounced Signor Cascioli in the parish newsletter for questioning Christ's historical existence. ...

Signor Cascioli's contention -- echoed in numerous atheist books and internet sites -- is that there was no reliable evidence that Jesus lived and died in 1st-century Palestine apart from the Gospel accounts, which Christians took on faith. There is therefore no basis for Christianity, he claims. ... He argued that all claims for the existence of Jesus from sources other than the Bible stem from authors who lived “after the time of the hypothetical Jesus” and were therefore not reliable witnesses.

Signor Cascioli maintains that early Christian writers confused Jesus with John of Gamala, an anti-Roman Jewish insurgent in 1st-century Palestine. Church authorities were therefore guilty of “substitution of persons.” The Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius mention a “Christus” or “Chrestus”, but were writing “well after the life of the purported Jesus” and were relying on hearsay.

Father Righi said there was overwhelming testimony to Christ’s existence in religious and secular texts. Millions had in any case believed in Christ as both man and Son of God for 2,000 years.

“If Cascioli does not see the sun in the sky at midday, he cannot sue me because I see it and he does not,” Father Righi said.

Signor Cascioli said that the Gospels themselves were full of inconsistencies and did not agree on the names of the 12 apostles. He said that he would withdraw his legal action if Father Righi came up with irrefutable proof of Christ’s existence by the end of the month. ...

The Vatican has so far declined to comment.

The article goes on to give a few records of Jesus' life, including the Gospels, Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, the mention of Jesus/Christus/Chrestus by Tacitus, Suetonius and in the Quran.

Fr. Righi spoke to Reuters:

... Righi, 76, sounded frustrated by the case and baffled as to why Cascioli -- who, like him, came from the town of Bagnoregio -- singled him out in his crusade against the Church. "We're both from Bagnoregio, both of us. We were in seminary together. Then he took a different path and we didn't see each other anymore," Righi said. "Since I'm a priest, and I write in the parish newspaper, he is now suing me because I 'trick' the people."

Apparently, “abuse of popular credulity” and “impersonation” are crimes in Italy. Do they have fewer televangelists?

There's plenty out there in cyberspace on the "fable of Jesus"--books, a quote (likely spurious) attributed to Pope Leo X, and plenty of angry websites.

I've thought about this a bit today, wondering a few things. On the surface, Signor Cascioli is , man aggrieved--his integrity has been called into question. Luigi, who refers to himself as the most courageous atheist of all times, is upset. Fortunately for the rest of the unsuspecting world out there, he's channeled his anger at the "true" fraud out there--all of Christendom. And why not? The Vatican (also the Illuminati, Tri-Lateral Commission and local PTA?) has profited from defrauding poor saps with some fable borrowed from ancient sources and cobbled together to "invent and impose a monotheistic cult for political aims."

But I cannot help but wonder what it is that fuels Cascioli's anger ... the anger of those who put up the "it's all a fake" websites? No scrap of documentary evidence, no millennia-old shroud or sandle strap or cross fragment--no matter how well authenticated, will make any difference. No unbroken tradition of centuries of passing along the "old, old story" will make a difference. No personal testimony, hagiography, miracle or vision will make a difference.

Cascioli is convinced by his own reading of history, and by his logical conclusions, that there cannot have been a historical person named Jesus from Nazareth (plenty of other Joshuas back then, just not this one) whose followers transformed the world after his death.

Cascioli is no disinterested student of history--somehow (I infer) he was hurt, disappointed, disillusioned. God did not reveal Himself--therefore, He is not.

Casioli has big plans: "following a court sentence, the great fraud of Christianity will be banned from society." His book "besides determining the end of Christianity, will also cause the other two monotheist religions (Judaism and Islam) and all the other religions, based on similar irrational fairy-tales, to totter."

No matter what Fr. Righi presents to the court, no matter how the judge rules, Sr. Casioli will remain convinced of Jesus' "inexistence." Unlike the Jesus Seminar that disbelieves >80% of what is attributed to Jesus, Sr. Casioli is left with nothing of the religion into which he was baptized, in which he was raised, and whose precepts he originally planned to teach.

Writing in the 14th century, Walter Hilton, and Augustinian cannon penned in "The Scale of Perfection,"

A heretic sins mortally in pride because he chooses his resting place and his delight in his own opinion and in what he says, and he supposes it to be true. That opinion and word is against God and holy chuch; and therefore he sins mortally in pride, for he loves himself and his own will and wit so much that he will not leave it even though it is plainly against the ordinance of holy church; but he wants to rest in it, as if in the truth, and thus he makes it his god. But he deceives himself, for God and holy church are so united and agreed together that whoever acts against the one is acting against both.

Sr. Casioli would deny heresy, saying he is devoted to the truth. It's tragic that he has, somehow, lost his faith in the One who is via, veritas et vita.