Note 34 — Chapter VIII · SUPPLEMENTARY MYTH

The theologians, reluctantly admitting, of late, that the Devil could not carry Jesus through the air, anxiously debate as to whether or not Jesus had strange psychic experiences which he communicated to his disciples; and, utterly ignoring comparative mythology, look for motivation, as usual, only in the Old Testament. Spitta, after checking these researches, and declaring that the man is not to be envied who hopes to explain the story by Old Testament parallels from the forty years of wandering in the wilderness,34 confidently concludes that it stands for the spiritual experience of Jesus in regard to his Messianic ideal.35 To such a biographical inference he has not the slightest critical right on his own principles. The gospels say nothing whatever of any communication on the subject by Jesus to his disciples. The story is myth pure and simple, and belongs to universal mythology.