Studies in Political Philosophy

Masochism and Atonement

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Political Studies

Lesson: Masochism and Atonement

Genre: Speech

Track: 01

Dictation Name: RR124A1

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto thee as we gather together in thy name, that thou hast given unto us Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, that in him we have remission of sins and newness of life, and are free from the power of sin and death. Make us strong, therefore, our Father, in this faith and to the end that we may serve thee faithfully and that the kingdoms of this world might become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. In Jesus name. Amen.

Let us turn to Isaiah 52:13-53:12. We shall begin today a series of studies in the biblical treatment of guilt, atonement, justification. Those of you who have read my book on Freud know the answer that has been given by modern science to this subject. We shall analyze now the biblical answer, this afternoon, and for several weeks to come.

Isaiah 52:13. “Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high. Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high. As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men: so shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”

When we deal with the doctrine of atonement and of justification, we are not dealing with matters that are merely technical and theological. We are dealing with the everyday realities of the world we live in. There is not man living who escapes the realities of atonement and justification. We often speak of someone and say that he is trying to justify himself. We mean that here is a person who is guilty who is trying to make himself out to be righteous, because every man feels the need for justification. It is an inescapable necessity, and every man, in one way or another, tries to make atonement for his sins, tries to wipe out his guilt by atonement.

Let us, before we analyze this passage of scripture, deal with the reality of atonement in everyday life. It is a basic phenomenon of man’s psychology. The word that is commonly used to describe it by psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, however, is masochism. This is self-atonement.

Now, in the older sense, masochism referred to a sexual crime, whereby a man, before he committed the sinful act, submitted to a severe punishment, voluntarily, which was his payment in advance for the privilege of sinning, so that he was saying, “I have bought the right to sin by submission to this punishment,” but, as this particular phenomenon was studied, it became increasingly apparent that masochism is far more general than in the sexual masochist, that masochism is self-punishment which guilty man brings upon himself in order to pay for his sin, and it has been called the basic neurosis of man, and the basic factor in the psychology of all men, and we can agree that all people who are not Christians are masochists, that they are determined and governed by masochistic impulses.

Perhaps one of the most commonly known forms of masochism is psychosomatic illness, and there are people who are very prone to psychosomatic illnesses. It is their way of punishing themselves for their sins, and the rationale behind it is, “If I suffer enough, I will pay for my sins.” Some years ago, I had the privilege of hearing Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones of London when he was here in this country. He was lecturing to a medical society in Northern Society, and I was one of the two non-medical men who was present to hear him, having been extended an invitation by a doctor, and Dr. Lloyd Jones called attention to the prevalence to this kind of illness, and he cited the example, and this was from his own practice, of a very wealthy and powerful person. He’s in England. Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones was second royal position to King George and late in life, as he became a Christian and went into the ministry, but as a top cardiac specialist, he retained his position in medicine, and served on many prominent committees in the British medical societies.

This particular prominent personage had been a healthy man for years and years, and then suddenly became seriously ill, and went through one surgery after another. Just about everything that could be taken out of him was taken out of him over a period of several years, and again, he was facing illness, and the specialist to which he went began to suspect that this sudden series over a period of a few years of serious illnesses had psychosomatic causes, and so he referred the man to Dr. Lloyd Jones, and Dr. Lloyd Jones, studying the figures, saw the man in his church study. When the man went to the office and went in, he was shocked and offended that he was not in a medical office, but in a minister’s office, and Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones told him he believed that his illness had a spiritual root, that he was a deeply guilty man and he was inflicting self-punishment upon himself. The man was furious, got up and said he was going to leave. He was going to enter a protest against this kind of treatment. He had come for medical advice and he had been referred ostensibly to a specialist, and so on, but Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones said, “Nevertheless, the fact remains that you have been a desperately sick man repeatedly in recent years, and you will continue to be ill until you face the fact of the root cause of your sickness.”

The consequence, Dr. Lloyd Jones said, was that the man broke down, confessed that indeed, he had gained tremendous power a few years ago by wronging a man and the man had committed suicide and he had no family to whom he could make amends. He wanted to make atonement somehow, to make recompense, but there was no one to whom he could make amends, and so he was atoning by self-punishment, and steadily killing himself. He left that office a Christian, having found his atonement in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, but this is a common form of masochistic activity; psychosomatic ailments.

Then again, gambling is another common form of masochism. The gambler knows that the odds are against him. He gambles, although he doesn’t admit it openly, he gambles to lose. When I lived in Nevada, I’d see every summer a dealer from Harrold’s Club, who came up into that country to hunt, and he used to say that he had never seen but one man leave Harrold’s Club a winner. He said a lot of people talk about their winnings, but he said, “The only man I ever saw go out ahead was a man who was so drunk, he passed out at the roulette wheel while he was still ahead,” but he said, “We could stand at the door and hand them a $20 bill as they walked in and never lose a nickel, and they gambled to lose,” he said. Now, he may have overstated it when he said no one walked out a winner, but I don’t believe he was too far from the truth, and certainly he believed, and there was no hesitation in his mind, that they gambled to lose, and they never gambled faster and harder than when they were ahead. They had to lose, because the purpose was to lose.

One man in Nevada whom I knew gambled so heavily that he was on the verge of losing everything, his home, his business, and was suddenly rescued out of this situation by an unexpected inheritance, but his immediate reaction was to gamble all the more desperately and then lose everything.

I buried a friend a few years ago, not a Christian, very likeable man, who came from a very prominent family in the Midwest. His father was mayor of one of the major cities. Between his discharge after World War 2, and his death in 1957, two or three times he accumulated between $40,000 and $50,000, but this man, guilt-ridden, could never rest when he accumulated money, and although he was not normally a gambler, when that money accumulate, he could no longer eat nor sleep. He lived on coffee and cigarettes, until finally he would drop everything and head for Nevada, and then come back a relaxed and happy man after he lost every last penny. For a time, his masochistic drive had been quieted, but only for a time.

Alcoholism is another form of masochistic activity and self-punishment, and very often, some women will masochistically, deliberately marry, knowingly marry an alcoholic, because they want a cross to bear, and some of the ugliest experiences I’ve had in the ministry, if not the ugliest, have come from wives of alcoholics who have quit drinking, and their wrath was something to behold. They had been robbed of their cross. I talked with someone from the Alcoholics Anonymous once who told me this was quite a common problem.

With other people, burden-bearing with other forms becomes a means of masochistic atonement. Some people will masochistically work for the down-trodden and the {?}, although they themselves have no love for minority groups or for the Negros, for example. They will become passionate advocates of Negro rights, of the Negro cause and speak endlessly about loving the Negro, when they seethe with hatred within, but this is a masochistic form of burden-bearing. This is their way of punishing themselves.

In one academic community, a faculty wife who had never in her married life, once, cooked a meal for her husband and two sons, or done the laundry, because she considered herself above such things. She was a lady, who was quite famous among the graduate students for the work she did in their home. If any graduate student’s wife had a baby, or was ill, she was in there to do the ironing, to do the cooking, to do the mending, and everything necessary, but never in her own home. It was her way of being a public saint, to atone for her private guilt. Thus, many public works and charitable works are means of atoning.

Injustice collecting is another form. Some people are injustice collectors. They continually put themselves in a situation, force themselves into a situation where people are going to be offended, and act against them, and they will assume an injured innocence and will collect these instances of injustice, and continually talk about how so many people have let them down, or hurt them, or disappointed them. This is their form of masochistic atonement. The will to failure, in some people, is again a form of masochistic atonement. They will to fail.

One scholar in the field, Theodore Wright, in his study, Masochism in Modern Man, has written, “The unconscious force which drives people to deny themselves enjoyment and success, to spoil their chances in life for naught to make use of them may be more accurately defined as the need for punishment. Unconsciously, these people inflict punishment on themselves to which an inner court has sentenced them. Not only are these punishments expected, but they are even unconsciously desired. Suffering is aimed at unconsciously, even if they do not know or do not want to know it. These individuals act as if they were controlled by stringent, moral laws and prohibition, and as if they were forced to punish themselves for disobeying them.”

Another scholar, E.J. Warner, has written a very telling book, again from a totally non-Christian perspective, titled The Urge to Mass Destruction. This masochistic impulse is ultimately suicidal, because man, feeling his guilt and his sin, feels the need for punishment and the penalty of death, and so his activities become suicidal progressively, and the more deeply guilty a culture becomes and the more it departs from God, the more suicidal it will become until it is governed by what Warner called the urge to mass destruction, and Warner, writing approximately ten years ago, said that this urge to mass destruction was taking over the politics of modern man so that our modern politics is the politics of the urge to mass destruction. These men are all talking about atonement, about the desperate, the crying need for atonement in the heart of man, and it’s a sad fact that the pulpit doesn’t recognize that everything we deal with every day is wrapped up in this mad desire for self-atonement, for atonement without Christ.

The advertisers realize it. Advertising is based on death psychology, and death psychology is based upon the recognition that people want atonement. They want to be rid of their sense of guilt, and have a feeling of purity, of cleanliness, and so what do you do? You sell them the idea that a new car will give them that feeling of floating on a cloud of clean, white purity, and all the television ads of the cars emphasize this picture of the floating car, into a world of purity and cleanliness. New furniture and new home so that it’s a new life, a new beginning. Everything’s cellophane-wrapped, and sterilized, including food, until it is no longer fit to eat, because what you are selling is not food, but new life, and a few years back, a new soap hit the jackpot. It became one of the best sellers in the soap industry because of one simple sentence which tied up all these things, and offered purification, atonement, a new life, in one sentence, as the TV ads drummed it across and the sales zoomed: “For the first time in your life, feel really clean. Use Zest.” What they were offering was cleansing and justification, all wrapped up in a bar of soap. Cheap atonement.

This is modern man. He is a masochist. He is punishing himself. He is hungry for cleansing. He is hungry for atonement, for justification, but he doesn’t want it in Christ, and this is the only place where man can truly find cleansing, atonement, regeneration. And centuries before our Lord came, the prophet Isaiah described what our Lord was to do. “Behold, my servant shall deal prudently.” He shall prosper. His kingdom shall prevail and the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. But how? Through a way that shall be a source of amazement to the nations. Shall be exalted, and if so then be very high, but “many were astonished at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men.” This way shall seem to be one that mars him, and the word “mar” conveys the impression of looking like a leper. This shall be the epitome of everything that seems wrong, but “so shall he sprinkle (so shall he cleanse) many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider.”

Men shall see him as unclean, undesirable, but it is he who cleanses, and he who frees men into their heart’s desire so that he who was regarded as utterly unclean and himself in great need of purification will rather the priest himself sprinkle water and blood and purify many nations, and then Isaiah goes on to declare, “Who hath believed our report? (who hath believed this doctrine?) and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” Those who believe this doctrine are those to whom the arm of the Lord is revealed, those who by God’s grace are turned in their hearts to God.

[Tape here becomes very rough] {?} a double comparison by our Lord right from the {?} men to be the epitome of {?} tender plant. The word there is a technical one in the Hebrew which means the same thing as what {?} as a “sucker.” {?} the new grapes will come {?} and so {?} Israel {?} something that needs to be cut off to prevent the food or the {?} comeliness {?} This has reference to Matthew {?} represents that which he claimed to {?} to men. {?} “ He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him.” {?} and man {?} has a sense of sickness and of sin. Upon him was laid the iniquity of {?} the burden there {?} the elect {?} who bears their griefs, their sickness and their sin, and {?} in that situation, because he was despised and rejected of men, all those {?} not one remained faithful. “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.”

To bear {?} means to bear the guilt brought upon a person by {?} and in this case, he bore the iniquity of us all. The punishment which is ours {?} becomes his punishment, because he is the second and last Adam, the fountainhead of the new humanity, and even as all those who are born of Adam are born into a heritage of sin and death, and the burden of guilt and the need for masochism, so are we born of Jesus Christ because he has proved{?} them by his atonement, from the burden of sin and death, from guilt, now can walk in newness of life, and with a clear conscience {?}. It is the desire of the wicked to bind the conscience of men, because the bound conscience is an enslaved conscience, and the politics of {?} the politics of guilt, a politics whose purpose is to enslave men’s conscience, to make men feel guilty if they aren’t thinking about all the peoples of the world. They are going to make them work out their atonement, because they are guilt-ridden, because they are not Christians, by bearing the burdens of age, and the burdens of Africa, and the burdens of Watts, and the burdens of all the criminals in the prisons, and we are to make atonement by bearing all these burdens, and so the purpose is enslavement, and the only thing that can come of men if they are not regenerate, if they are not in Jesus Christ, is to be enslaved, because they are in bondage within to their sense of guilt, and they will be in bondage without. They will be enslaved by men whose purpose is to bind the conscience of men, and there has been scarcely a presidential message, if a one, in the last generation of any consequence that has not had this purpose, to bind the conscience of men, to enslave them.

But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed. He came and it is not his sin and iniquity which crushed him, but it is our sin and iniquity which crushed him, for he was our sin bearer, our representative, and through him we have peace with God and peace with ourselves. Our conscience is cleansed that we can stand in God’s presence, innocent in the name and person of Jesus Christ, and we can come to him boldly, day by day, acknowledging indeed that in ourselves, we are sinners, but we stand, not in ourselves, but in the person of Jesus Christ and his atoning work, and so we are free men. This is the glorious liberty of the sons of God. This is Christ{?} we are healed.

“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” All of us have gone astray. There is the total depravity of all men, but God in his sovereignty, saves us by his grace, by the vicarious punishment of his only begotten son, Jesus Christ, who renders satisfaction and expiation for us, and so these servants suffering was not accidental, but he is the lamb of God, slain before the foundation of the world. This was his calling.

“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.” He was afflicted and he {?} to be afflicted, voluntarily and {?}. He set his face toward Jerusalem and {?} because this was his destiny and declared, “For this hour have I come.” This is the road, the cross to my kingship and to my dominion, and this is the way in which I gather unto myself my elect, a free people. This is the way to their freedom, through the cross, and therefore, he set his face towards Jerusalem.

“He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.” That which caused him to die was the sin of those whom he purposed to save, his own elect. It was for them that he died, and it was their sin which brought him to the grave.

Then Isaiah declared that, “his grave was destined to be with the wicked, but instead, even with his death and burial, and his exaltation, his glorification began, for he made his grave instead with the rich, “because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.”

Isaiah says that as he was taken from prison to be executed, Who shall declare his generation? He died without children, die without heirs, died without family, but now, in having given his life an atonement for many, he shall see his seed. We are born of him and unto him, and we are his generation. The new humanity, born of the Second Adam, the last Adam Jesus Christ, because he made himself an offering for sin, and a trespass offering, the primary idea was that of satisfaction. It was a sacrifice which paid the debt or satisfied the guilt, and thereby freed the sinner, and so Jesus Christ, as our great high priest who is both the priest, and the sacrificial lamb, performing the work of a priest, and performing the sacrifice upon himself, and so, because of the travail of his soul, God the Father is satisfied, and by knowledge of Jesus Christ, many are justified before he shall bear their iniquities, and so he divides the spoil of the strong. He is now the conqueror, and the kingdoms of this world are his, and he can say, as he declared unto his disciples, “All power, all authority on heaven and earth has been given unto me. Therefore go ye and make disciples of all nations, teaching them and baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.” For they were called therefore to {?} victory in Jesus Christ, and it is this victory which shall be manifested for the only conclusion of the powers of evil around us, because they are masochistic since theirs is the politics of guilt. His destruction and the urge to mass destruction has overwhelmed them.

They do stand in terms of the atonement of Jesus Christ. His conscience has been cleansed and undefiled, shalt see the triumph of the Lord. This is our destiny. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we give thanks unto thee for this, thy glorious work. We thank thee that thou hast delivered us from masochistic activities, that thou hast made us new creatures in Christ. Teach us, therefore, day by day, to forsake the ways of the old Adam and put the whole of our trust in Jesus Christ. Know that, in him, we have been cleansed, that in him we are more than conquerors. Make us strong in this faith, we beseech thee. In Jesus name. Amen.

Do we have any questions at this time? Yes?

[Audience] {?} Do you prescribe the chip on the shoulder {?}. {?} group is Israeli {?} Jewish people, and their {?}, by and large was {?} as though they were carrying the burden of the world on their shoulders. Every once in awhile they would leap for heaven, and their hands raised toward heaven, and immediately drop down into this {?} position. {?}

[Rushdoony] What you will find in every people these qualities. In one of the succeeding Sundays, I will deal with the fact that modern anthropologists are able to describe cultures in terms of guilt. This is so basic to every culture that cultures can be described by the way they deal with guilt. This is the basic characteristic of them, and this to me is all the more revealing since this classification comes from people who have nothing but hatred for the Gospel. Just as the descriptions of masochism have been given to us by men who have an intense hatred of the faith, because they recognize that here is something that gives an answer to {?}, and the prominent scholars in this field, I mentioned Lite{?}, but even more prominent was the late Edmund Burgler{?}, an M.D. and a psychiatrist, who was insistent that there was no escape, no escape from this masochistic activity. All you could do, in effect, was to grin and bear it.

[Audience] At this point I’d like to bring something out that applies to {?}. You all know probably that we’re taping tapes of these Sunday sessions, and the demand for them is increasing. I get orders, I think, about every other day, but I did get a letter and I want to read to you just a portion of it.

“One suggestion I would like to make is to ask you to speak up when they ask questions so that the mic can pick them up better. Now even if you were to talk very loud, I’m not sure {?} offers some information {?} I don’t know where {?} pick up, hardly at all {?}, but I’d like to add {?} where someone here offers more information and {?} I would like to {?}.”

[Audience] There are multi-directional mics that you can purchase that are very sensitive, and will pick up the whole room, and I’m sure that {?} you can get one from some person that work very well. I don’t believe {?} require {?}. It might be so sensitive, that the directional, multi-directional, you just have to describe your problem and {?}.

[Rushdoony] Alright, any questions now?

Last week, as I was reporting on my trip to Mississippi, I called attention to the fact that when I left Mississippi and went to New Orleans, what an unhappy situation the conservative picture there was, that there where they see most definitely what is happening, they are running away from the knowledge most of all, and the only conservatives who are standing up in the face of what New Orleans is going through are the conservatives who are Christians. The others are in head-long flight, and the liberals are working all the more fanatically in the face of what is being driven home to them, the reality of this situation, to give everything to the Negroes and the civil righters, under the illusion that this will suddenly, miraculously change everything when they get all that they want.

I’ve been interested in this book, Robert Taber, The War of the Flea. It’s a very, very important book on guerilla warfare, and it’s all the more interesting that the Students for a Democratic Society are having a retreat in this area, with Robert Taber giving them instructions in revolutionary warfare. I have here some of the newsletters and reports of the SDS, the local regional office, for January 24, and if you’d like to have a copy, help yourself afterwards. They are very revealing.

Now, I think it will be interesting to read a few passages from Taber’s The War of the Flea, in which he discusses what’s going to happen. Yes?

[Audience] May I ask a question? When you said that comparatively there are {?}, did you mean physically or in their thinking?

[Rushdoony] In their thinking. Into the most absurd kind of illusions.

Now, one of the things that Taber says Guerilla warfare must accomplish is to create the climate of collapse, and the Negros would be important in doing this. There are three things which are the basic principle powers of the Negros. One, to stop the machinery of government. Two, the power to hurt the economy. Three, the power of unleashing violence, and this is the kind of thing they are planning to do. To create extensive sabotage, blow up pipelines, start revolutionary activity in all the armed forces, begin guerilla warfare in the cities. The new concept dislocates the organ of the harmony and order, and reduces central power to the level of a helpless sprawling octopus. During the hours of days, sporadic rioting take place and massive sniping. Night brings all out warfare, organized fighting, and unlimited terror against the oppressor and his forces. Such a campaign will bring about an end to oppression and social injustice in the USA in less than ninety days. The idea is to concentrate on the big cities, and all cities possible. The US is very vulnerable economically and physically. Black youth with the right orientation can stop this entire country. Small bands can damage the eight major dams that supply most of the electricity. Electricity means mass communications. Gasoline can be poured into the sewer systems in major cities, and then ignited. This would burn out communication lines in an entire city.

What would emerge from this chaos? Most likely, guerilla warfare. I don’t think the entire white community will fight, but the entire black community will be fighting. We call the white “creampuffs.” We feel that when TV stops, when the telephone no longer rings, their world will almost come to an end. Like during a major air raid, they will stay in the house. They sit and wait for television to come on.

Now, I read this because this has been, of course, widely circulated. This is a library copy. You can get it in Los Angeles libraries. It’s known across country. This has been reproduced widely, and the reaction of men in the face of this knowledge, for the most part, is to run away from it, or to take courses of action that are only going to bring this down upon them more surely, and we need not be surprised, because when men are masochistic, they are going to invite, in one way or another, judgment upon themselves. They court it. They are suicidal in their activities, both in the opposition camp and in our camp where they are not Christian. So that facts will save no one. You can inform every American of this sort of thing and it will not change matters. They already know more than enough, and they are running away from the knowledge they have, and there is nothing more offensive to many, many people than to inform them of these things, because they don’t want to acknowledge their existence. They are courting disaster, and they’re going to get it.

[Audience] May I ask a question that is on, not on the schedule?

[Rushdoony] Surely.

[Audience] To explain a little bit, a friend of ours {?} his dependents and he looked Jewish, and therefore, {?} do not tell Christians, for instance, and he was denying that he was a Jew, but they wouldn’t believe him, and I think {?}, told him {?} he knew that there had been some {?} that would definitely deny the {?} other than the {?}. Now, my question is this. In going back in the Old Testament, I don’t know my Bible well enough, but is it Isaiah that first mentioned part of the prediction {?}

[Rushdoony] Isaiah 7:14, you have a specific prediction of the Virgin birth.

[Audience] Alright, now, with that, when were the Dead Sea Scrolls written? Were they written prior to this, or after? Or does anyone know? In fact, {?}

[Rushdoony] The majority of the Dead Sea Scrolls are prior to our Lord’s time. The majority of them that have so far been used are approximately 150, 200 B.C. Now, some possibly could have come from as late as 50 or 60 A.D., but all the manuscripts of significance have so far been much older ones, because the colony was established at least in the second century B.C., and apparently was of not any great significance by the time of our Lord’s life, if it was still in existence. It may have been, but not more than, as a little group of survivors, of no significance in that time. Now, as far as discovering any such manuscript, the idea is nonsense. First, there are all kinds of manuscripts against the Virgin birth that have turned up.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Well, I don’t put any stock in that sort of thing, because this is the fact, that no sooner than our Lord appeared and the Gospels were written, then you had all kinds of apocryphal works written, by pagans, by Pharisees, by Sadducees, whose one purpose was to discredit the whole of the Gospel. So that, there are documents of this sort, but it’s significant as far as their date is concerned. They do not appear until after about 125 B.C.

[Audience] This is what I {?}

[Rushdoony] Now, there is a good reason why they do not appear until after that date, and we find virtually no references to the Gospel incidents or to the life of our Lord from the time of his life until a century later, and only then a few begin to appear and it’s by the end of the second century before they become common, and the reason is a very revealing one. If you hated everything that the life of our Lord represents, and neither the Jews nor the Gentiles wanted any part of it, it was something that they felt {?} for. This was a {?}, and we know from the first Roman report we have by a consul, that this was regarded as a menace, how were you going to deal with it when the evidence was so tremendous against you? And how were you going to say, for example, the miracles didn’t take place, or the resurrection didn’t take place when there were thousands of people who could say, “Well, I saw him die, and I saw him raise Lazarus from the grave, and he’d been in the grave three days at the time,” or “I saw him take someone who was blind from birth and give him sight,” and as many as five hundred persons were with him on a single occasion after his resurrection.

Now, if you wrote anything at that time, there were too many people who could say, “Now look, you are a fool. You are just writing out of spite and hatred, and here are all these people that I know who were there, and I was there.” Do you see why they kept silent? And not until not only these eyewitnesses had died and their children, who could say, “Well, my father was there. He saw these things.” Not until they were dead did they begin to write about it because they knew they couldn’t answer it, and what they did instead was to go to all the records and destroy all reference, and we do know that many of the records show that sentences were dropped out, which obviously pointed to Christ, or to Paul, too, because it was such a blow, his defection, that they eliminated references to him. So that, this in itself, is one of the most amazing testimonies.

Now, after it was all over, then they began to produce all kinds of stories, and documents supposedly that were obviously fraudulent. They didn’t convince even the unbelievers of the day, that supposedly Jesus was born of an illegitimate birth, and that these things were not true, and that his disciples stole his body and pretended he had risen from the dead. It didn’t work. All of these stories and the documents that were circulated just fell flat, and so, the result was two things: one, to show nothing but hatred and scorn, and one of the first references we found among the Romans to Jesus Christ is a picture on a wall, apparently some soldiers or somebody in a barracks, of a man on a cross and it’s set, in place of a head, there is an ax’s head. This was their expression of contempt for what he represented.

The second was an all-out attempt to infiltrate and take over this new faith, and that all-out attempt was Gnosticism, which is still with us, and has been a part of many, many subversive and illuminist movements throughout history, and Gnosticism was a combination of all of the Roman and {?} pagan ideas, and some Pharisaic ideas, and for a time, it took over vast segments of the church, but of course, it was ultimately defeated and rooted out.

So that, this idea of these manuscripts is just not that.