Februray 2014

Editors:

Shahid Aziz

Mustaq Ali

Contents: Page

The Call of the Messiah 1

Hudaibiyah 4

The Virgin Birth: an Ancient Fable by Hazrat Dr Basharat Ahmad 6

م می

حالر

ن

م

ح اہلل الر

م س

ب

The Call of the Messiah

by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the Promised Messiah and Mahdi

Four ways and means

For a complete conviction and perfect satisfac-

tion in this matter there are, in the opinion of

the people of Truth, four ways and means:

(1) the clear, decisive statements in the

Book of God or reliable and authentic traditions

of the Holy Prophet communicating explicitly

the signs of the Promised Man as well as the

time of his advent, and also settling and decid-

ing the dispute over the death or otherwise, of

the prophet Jesus the Messiah;

(2) rational arguments and observations

derived from the senses, based on true and

sound knowledge, from which there is no run-

ning away or any way of escape;

(3) those heavenly testimonies and proofs

that have come to pass in the form of signs and

wonders for the sake of the true claimant in an-

swer to his prayer, so that the seal of a living,

heavenly verification is set on his truthfulness;

(4) the evidence tendered by saints and

righteous persons, after receiving Divine revela-

tion, at a time when there was neither sign nor

trace of the claimant, because such evidence,

being news of the unseen, is also a sign from

God Most High.

It is indeed the favour and grace of God

Most High that all the four ways and means of

inducing complete conviction and perfect satis-

faction have been brought together to bear

upon this case, and yet, despite that fact, our

internal opponents would give it no heed. In

the pages that follow, we are writing down and

discussing these four ways and means of induc-

ing conviction, and are drawing towards it the

attention of seekers after truth that they may

question and interrogate these opponents as to

why they should turn away from and denounce

these clear arguments. Was it not necessary

and essential that they should have benefitted

from them? It is, of course, patently obvious

that the matter that has actually come to pass

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has reached the stage of certainty, whereas that

which has not come to pass is as yet in a state of

vagueness and obscurity and it is not known in

what way will it come to pass, whether in the

observable, literal manner or metaphorically,

because there are both possibilities within

prophecies. But the portion that has actually

come to pass and reached the stage of certainty

demands and requires that those matters that

stand against it should be taken in a metaphori-

cal sense, so that there may not be any contra-

diction or inconsistency in the prophecies of

God Most High. These arguments are as follows.

The death of Jesus

For the careful consideration of seekers after

truth, I adduce this point in the first place, that

the death of the prophet Jesus stands clearly

established and proved from the Holy Quran.

The sacred verse has decided beyond فلما توفیتنی

doubt that whatever corruption and vitiation

has crept into the Christian doctrine has hap-

pened after the death of Jesus; and if you should

profess and allow that Jesus is still alive and is

not dead then you will also have to admit that

the Christians have not as yet tainted and cor-

rupted their belief, for it has been clearly stated

in the verse that the perversion of Christian doc-

trine will take place after the death of Jesus. As

to the meaning of the term tawaffa, توفی, it has

been definitely decided in Bukhari that its true

significance is to cause to die, as given by Ibn

Abbas (may God be pleased with him), which

has been further corroborated in Bukhari by the

hadith: الح Now anyone seeking to be . کماقال العبد الص

satisfied is easily able to understand that in the

Holy Quran and in that book that is the most

correct and reliable of all books after the Book

of God it has been clearly stated that Jesus is

dead; and this evidence has been adduced not

only by lmam Bukhari but also by Imam lbn

Ha zam and Imam Malik (may God be pleased

with all of them). Their belief that Jesus is dead

is effectively the belief of all the great divines of

the ummah, for no opposition to this belief has

been reported, and if the distinguished divines

of that age had taken exception to this belief

then that would have certainly mentioned in

some book.

It should be remembered that our claim has

as its basis the fact of the death of Jesus Christ,

and how firm and unshakable this foundation is

can be appreciated from the fact that its correct-

ness has been vouched for and verified by the

Word of God, the hadith of the Holy Prophet, the

statement of Hazrat Ibn Abbas, the evidence of

the distinguished divines of Islam and according

to all testimony of human intellect and reason.

Now the same evidence is furnished by the story

of the second coming of the prophet Elias,

which, as interpreted by Jesus himself, implied

that by Elias was meant John the Baptist

(Yahya). This interpretation, as a matter of fact,

demolished the Jewish teaching that the same

prophet Elias who had passed away from this

world would return to this earth a second time.

Seekers after truth should give serious thought

and consideration to the fact that the true and

correct belief as evinced by the clear and deci-

sive statements of the Holy Quran and the Tradi-

tions of the Holy Prophet, the evidence of the

Februray 2014

3

secondly, to take the soul for a short time and then

return it to the body again, and the latter taking of

the soul relates to the state of sleep and is suitably

applied to a person when his soul is taken by God

in sleep, just as is done to all of us every night; our

body remains lying on a bed or a mat while our

soul is taken by God for the whole night or for any

period of time He chooses. During that time, the

exercise of our free will, in the matter of the soul’s

actions, becomes inactive and inert. When the

night or whatever period He chooses is over, the

soul is again returned to the body; that is to say, we

die at night and are brought to life in the morning.

This is an explicit example of the taking of the soul

during sleep, a circumstance that we all observe

and behold every day. But we, as well as our oppo-

nents, know full well that when our soul is taken at

night, God carries it away wherever He likes, while

our body does not move even an inch from its

place. Can we say and affirm that during sleep our

body goes up into heaven, or moves even a little

from its resting place?

Certainly not. In

short, it has been very

clearly determined

that the meaning of

tawaffa is to take the

soul, be it for a short

time in sleep, or in the

state of death up to the Day of Resurrection.

An objection

It may be recalled here that in Barahin-i Ahmadi-

yya I have, at one place, written by mistake that the

meaning of tawaffa is to give in full measure,

which some maulvis adduce by way of objection.

But this is no basis for an objection. I admit that it

was a mistake on my part, but not that there is any

error in revelation. I am a human being with those

shortcomings of human nature found in all human

beings, for example, committing any number of

errors and omissions. Although I know that God

Most High will not suffer me to remain in any given

error I do not, even so, claim that I am incapable of

making a mistake in my ijtihad. Its foundation is

the Divine word alone, which is above and beyond

error, whereas the word of man is not; to forget

and err is human and unavoidable. In Barahin-i

Ahmadiyya I had also professed the doctrine that

Jesus the Messiah (peace be on him) would return

ancient scriptures and the great divines, and in

addition, the arguments offered by human reason

and intellect, is undoubtedly that Jesus the Mes-

siah is dead, and that the expectation that he will

return to this earth is very like the expectation that

caused the Jews to deny the prophethood of Jesus.

We place this dispute before impartial judges, ask-

ing whether there be any flaw or fallacy in the pro-

nouncement of this decision?

The term tawaffa (توفی)

It is borne out by the entire Quran that the term

tawaffa signifies the taking into possession by God

Most High of the human soul, not the human body,

and this can, of course, be accomplished in two

ways, either through sleep – in which case the soul

is restored to the body again – or in the case of

death; these are the only two conditions men-

tioned in the Holy Quran. But the taking into pos-

session of the human body, has nowhere been

mentioned, neither

has any lexicologist

written that the

meaning of tawaffa is

the taking into pos-

session of a body by

God Most High;

rather, all the lexi-

cologists are unanimous that when, for instance, it

is said that زیدکم this will mean nothing else توفی للاہ

but that God has taken Zaid’s soul into His posses-

sion. Of course, in the Holy Quran, the term has

been used in both senses: either God takes one’s

soul in sleep, leaving the body lying on the bed,

and then places it back in the body again or else, in

the case of death, He takes it for ever and does not

restore it till the Day of Resurrection. But the ac-

tion of taking into possession will always relate to

the soul, and not to the body.

There is yet another mistake often made by the

Ulema who oppose us. They contend that the term

tawaffa also means sleep. God be merciful unto

their condition. They should know that tawaffa

never means sleep, nor has it ever been used to

denote sleep, not in the Holy Quran, nor in any

lexicographical work, nor in the books of Hadith.

The term tawaffa, as I have just stated above, has

only two meanings: firstly, to take the soul for all

time to come, this significance relating to death;

4

February 2014

to this earth for a second visit. But it was again a

mistake, which was inconsistent with the Divine

revelation – recorded in the very same Barahin-i

Ahmadiyya – in which God Most High had con-

ferred on me the name Jesus, stating that I was

the person in whom the Quranic prophecy relat-

ing specially to Jesus the Messiah was to be ful-

filled, and endowed me with all the attributes of

the Promised Messiah. It was, therefore, God’s

will and wisdom that, notwithstanding all this

clarification by revelation, I was not to be

in formed of the intention of these communica-

tions and wrote in Barahin-i Ahmadiyya such

doctrines as were inconsistent with them. This

writing, however, obtains for me an honourable

acquittal, because if those revelations, recorded

in Barahin-i Ahmadiyya, in which I had been

categorically called the Promised Messiah had

been my own fabrication, I would not have gone

against these revelations in my statement;

rather, I would have set forth there and then my

claim that I was the Promised Messiah. But it is

obvious that my own belief which I had written

in Barahin-i Ahmadiyya militated against the

intention of the revelations recorded in Barahin-

i Ahmadiyya, from which fact any sane and

sen sible person can readily understand that

those revelations are absolutely pure and free

from any plan or fabrication on my part. It

should also be remembered that it is not within

the power and capability of a man that he may,

twelve years before a claim, write down a

reve lation and lay the foundation of that claim

and later on, after many years have passed, put

forth a claim the foundation of which had been

laid a long time ago. Such a subtle stratagem

cannot be devised by a man, nor will God Most

High give him so long a time for the propagation

of his forgeries.

Hudaibiyah: a Grand Victory

(From Nur-i-Islam, December 2013)

The name Hudaibiyah denotes a grand victory

for the Muslim nation. Though the Muslims in 6

AH (which corresponds to 628 AD) were by no

means strong militarily, morale remained high

at Hudaibiya. It had been six years since the

Prophet Muhammad, peace on him, and his sup-

porters had left Makkah. The pagans of Makkah

had tried to crush the rising power of Islam and

attacked Muslims at Madinah three times, first

at the battle of Badr, then at the battle of Uhud

and finally at the battle of Khandaq. The Mus-

lims were not strong enough to launch a coun-

terattack on such a large force at Makkah.

The Prophet, peace on him, would declare

his plan to visit Makkah to perform the Umrah

later that year. A large caravan of 1,400 pilgrims

and 70 sacrificial camels consequently headed

for Makkah. The leaders of Quraish at Makkah

were alarmed at this congregation, and despite

the fact that Makkans were bound to allow any

unarmed pilgrims to perform Umrah; they pre-

vented the Muslims from entering the city and

sent their commander Khalid bin Walid with

200 fighters to stop them. Prophet Muhammad,

peace on him, changed his route to avoid con-

frontation and traveled to a lesser known place

called Hudaibiya on the western edge of the

Harem territory. A battle was out of question as

it was a sacred month and they were already in a

state of consecration called ihram.

From there, the Prophet, peace on him, then

sent a message to the leadership of Makkah but

they mistreated the emissary. Hulais bin

Alqama, the chief of Ahabeesh, visited the Mus-

lim camp

and ad-

vised the

M a k k a n

tribe of

Q u r a i s h

that there

was noth-

ing to fear

but his ad-

vice was

i g n o r e d .

S u b s e -

q u e n t l y ,

they sent

Urwah bin

Massoud to

n e g o t i a t e ,

who then re-

layed that “I have visited the royal courts of Em-

perors Caesar, Kisra and Najashi (the Persian,

Roman and Ethiopian courts) but I have never

Lake Saif-ul-Mulk, Pakistan

Februray 2014

5

witnessed such respect and high esteem from

followers like those of Muhammad. They have

come purely for worship.” Still, the Makkan lead-

ers were bent on preventing the Muslims from

entering. As a last resort, the Prophet, peace on

him, sent Uthman bin Affan, who was well-

connected in Makkah, but he was detained and a

rumour was spread that Uthman had been

killed. Though 400km away from his city and

possessing no proper arms to fight, the Prophet,

peace on him, called on his followers to prepare

for war. People rushed to pledge allegiance to

the Prophet and the Makkans were soon in-

formed that 1,400 volunteers were ready to fight

alongside him. Fearing them, the Makkans

agreed to discuss new terms of peace with him.

The Makkans released Uthman bin Affan and

sent Suhail bin Amr Al-Thaqafi to negotiate the

terms of a peace treaty. Though tough in his

dealings, Al-Thaqafi later embraced Islam at

their return to Makkah.

Terms were agreed and documented, includ-

ing an armistice between the two parties for the

following ten years and the liberty for any per-

son to join the opposing side if they so wished.

In addition, they had stipulated that a Makkan

travelling to Madinah

would be sent back to

Makkah but that mi-

grants from Madinah

would be allowed into

Makkah to join Quraish.

This depicted the

Prophet’s absolute tol-

erance to those reject-

ing his teachings and

his support for free-

dom of choice (even where sending back con-

verts to Makkah was concerned, the Prophet had

accepted this on the basis that the convert

would attempt to spread Islam within his tribe).

Furthermore, a minor whose father is still

alive would not be able to join Muhammad with-

out the consent of his guardian but that anyone

from Madinah who joins the Quraish tribe

would not be sent back. Finally, they had agreed

that the Muslims would return to Madinah with-

out entering Makkah but that they would enter

Makkah the following year and perform the Um-

rah ritual for a period of 3 days.

The Makkans attempted to deliberately pro-

voke the Prophet through rigorous terms, but

the Prophet accepted the terms in spite of that

in order to maintain peace and stability. This

treaty, known as the Treaty of Hudaibiya, proved

to be a turning point in the history of Islam.

Very few people could visualize the long-

term benefits of the treaty. The first advantage

of the treaty was that a hostile Makkan leader-

ship recognized the Prophet Muhammad, peace

on him, as the head of state at Madinah. Sec-

ondly, the treaty curtailed the hostile behaviour

of the Quraish against Muslims. They were now

allowed to move freely and talk openly about

Islam. Third, Muslims were allowed to make alli-

ances with other tribes. Finally, the 10-year ar-

mistice with Quraish provided Muslims with a

unique opportunity to preach Islam and to deal

with their rivals in other parts of the peninsula.

They would consequently go on to conquer the

Jewish stronghold of Khyber and the tribe of

Quraish could do nothing to stop this acquisi-

tion.

Following the peaceful armistice at Hudai-

biya, Islam increased by leaps and bounds.

Quraish had lost

three battles

against the Mus-

lims and people

were now begin-

ning to foresee the

eventual triumph of

Islam. Thus began

the conversion to

Islam in the thou-

sands. The Prophet,

peace on him, entered Makkah the following

year with 2,000 pilgrims alongside him, an in-

crease of 600 from the previous year. The treaty

is referred to in the 48th, stipulating that

“converts to Islam be returned to Makkah” be

abrogated, as runaways did not emigrate to

Madinah, knowing they would be returned, but

instead hid at the Red Sea coast and fought the

trade caravans of Quraish as they passed.

The treaty at Hudaibiya proved to be a

prel ude to the conquest of Makkah. As per the

6

February 2014

agreement, the tribe of Banu Bakr joined forces

with Quraish and Banu Khuza‘a entered into

alliance with the Prophet, peace on him. Owing

to a long history of enmity between the two

tribes, Banu Bakr attacked Banu Khuza‘a just 20

months later in the 8th manpower and arms.

Amr bin Salem of Banu Khuza‘a, along with

twenty men, rushed to Madinah and told the

Prophet of the situation on the ground. He con-

sequently sent word to Quraish to pay blood

money for those killed and terminate their alli-

ance with the Banu Bakr tribe or consider the

Hudaibiya treaty void. Quraish refused to pay or

break their alliance with Banu Bakr and voiced

their approval to nullify the terms of the treaty.

Wishing to avoid bloodshed, the Prophet, peace

on him, would devise a secret strategy to sur-

round Makkah with a large force so that Mak-

kans could surrender without a fight. Indeed,

the Prophet had declared his preparation for

war without specifying a location.

The Muslim tribes rushed to Madinah in the

month of Ramadan on the 8th; tribes had en-

tered the fold of Islam in these 20 months fol-

lowing the conquest of Khyber and Taima. Mus-

lim volunteers came in the thousands. The fa-

mous tribes of Aslam, Sulaim, Ghifar, Muzaina,

Ashjaa and Juhaina joined the Islamic forces.

Muslim forces marched towards Makkah and

camped at Marr Zahran. They then surrounded

the holy city. The Quraish were perplexed by

this sudden attack. The Muslims had also sealed

all possible routes of escape. The Prophet, peace

on him, had declared a general amnesty and the

entire city surrendered to him on the 10th.

It is of great significance that the arch-

enemies of Islam grasped the situation and em-

braced Islam after the Hudaibiya treaty and

prior to the conquest of Makkah. These included

Abbas bin Abdul Muttalib, the Prophet’s uncle,

Abu Sufyaan of Quraish, Khalid bin Walid and

Amr bin Al-Aas, the would-be conqueror of

Egypt. Later, Ikrimah bin Abu Jahl, Uteba bin Abi

Lahab, Safwan bin Umayyah, Kaab bin Zuhair,

Suhail bin Amr, Hakim bin Hizam and Hindah

bint Rabeeah embraced Islam. Practically, there

remained virtually no enemies to Islam in Mak-

kah. The Makkan leadership, which had previ-

ously banned his entry to the city on the 6th,

highlighting the great

achievement of the

Hudaibiya treaty.

The Prophet Mu-

hammad, peace on

him, had thus

achieved his divine

mission. While he em-

braced slaves such as

Bilal bin Rabah, Zaid

bin Haritha and

Wahshi, he was also

able to cultivate the

ruling elite. He ad-

dressed nine impor-

tant letters to the rul-

ers of leading empires and prominent kingdoms

including King Najashi, ruler of Abyssinia, Emperor

Heraclius of Rome, Emperor Chosroes of Persia,

King Makawkas of Egypt, Hauza bin Ali, the ruler of

Yamamah in Yemen, the ruler of Busra in Jordan,

Harith bin Shammar, ruler of Damascus, Manzar bin

Sawi, ruler of Bahrain and Jeefar, ruler of Oman.

All these letters were received with great ova-

tion except for the Persian emperor, who is said to

have torn it up. The empire itself disintegrated

when the emperor was killed by his own son as

predicted by the Prophet Muhammad, peace on

him.

Such was the significance of the events that

took place at Hudaibiya near Makkah. People were

to visit this historical place and a mosque was to be

erected at the place where the Prophet offered

prayers during his stay. This mosque, near Shu-

maisi, lies about 20km away from Makkah on the

old road leading up to Jeddah.

The Virgin Birth: an Ancient Fable

by Hazrat Dr Basharat Ahmad

In the preceding pages I have shown, from the

evangelic record itself, that the virgin-birth idea

had no existence in the lifetime of Jesus nor in the

time of the Gospel writers. The story was coined at

a much later period and incorporated in the Gospel.

“There were good reasons,” as I have already stated,

“to clothe Jesus with the halo of a virgin birth and

make of him a son-God – weighty reasons of State.”

Februray 2014

7

These reasons I wish to

disclose in this chapter.

To properly under-

stand the fabrication of

this virgin-birth story

with regard to Jesus, it is

necessary to know the

whole chain of which it

formed just one link.

There was, in the first

place, nothing new in it. It

had come down from

time immemorial and

was prevalent amongst

many an ancient sun-worshipping people who

looked upon their gods as the incarnations of

the sun. Apollo and Dionysus, two Greek gods,

were supposed to be sun-incarnates. And so was

Hercules among the Romans, Mithra, among the

Persians, Adonis among the Syrians, Osiris, Isis

and Horus in Egypt and Baal and Astarte in Ba-

bel. They were all sun gods and according to an

eminent authority, Dr Carpenter, they had the

following features common to them all:

Every one of these sun gods was born on or

about 25 December, the day of the Christian fes-

tival of Christmas.

Every one was born of a virgin.

Every one was born in a cave or some un-

derground chamber.

Every one lived a life of suffering for man-

kind.

Every one was called by such epithets as

intercessor, salvation-giver, healer and light.

Every one was overpowered in this life by

the forces of Darkness.

Every one went underground where Hell is.

Every one rose again from the dead, went up

to Heaven and was worshipped by the people.

Every one founded a school of saints and a

church in which people were baptised and ad-

mitted as disciples.

Every one has his memory commemorated

through the Lord’s Supper.

A glance of comparison will show that the

present-day church scheme of dogma and ritual

is an imitation of the old sun-worshipping cults.

Every one of these mythological touches has

been added to the por-

trait of Jesus. It is obvi-

ous on the face of it

that the Israelite

prophet Jesus, the son

of a humble village

carpenter, has been

made to sit on one of

these ancient pedes-

tals of sun gods with

all the paraphernalia

of the ancient super-

stitious beliefs at-

tached to him. And

among other things, it was necessary to give him

a virgin birth too, which was done.

It was in the time of the Roman Emperor

Constantine that Jesus underwent all this meta-

morphosis and from a poor mortal became a

son of God. There is evidence strong enough to

throw light on this. The idea springs into being

at the time when the Bible was rendered into

Greek. Before that, there is no trace of it. As al-

ready shown, the whole story is based on the

prophecy in Isaiah: “Behold a virgin shall con-

ceive and bear a son and shall call his name Im-

manuel” (7: 14).

Now, higher criticism has made a revelation

with regard to this prophecy that knocks the

whole bottom out of the virgin story. Such an

eminent authority as Dr Davidson’s research on

the point has come to the conclusion that the

word ‘virgin’ is a mistranslation of the Hebrew

word in the original. The original word here was

almah, which means only ‘a grown-up woman’.

In Greek it was rendered as parthenos, which

means ‘virgin’. And this, as I will just show, was

done with a purpose. It shows beyond doubt

that the virgin birth idea crept in at the time

when Christianity put on the Greek garment. A

clear text in the Hebrew original was distorted

from a ‘grown-up woman’ into a ‘virgin’. This

tampering with the Old Testament text should

suffice to explain the incorporation in Matthew

of the virgin birth account which conflicts so

manifestly with the rest of the evidence on that

point.

But the question remains: Why was all this

done? Why at all were such liberties taken with

sacred writings as to twist one word so as to

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February 2014

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make it mean quite another? True, it was done

when Christianity embarked on its career

among the Romans of old. But why? It is not dif-

ficult to see the reason. It is a fact of history that

the Roman king, Constantine, was the one man

who, with his conversion, made Christianity

what all of a sudden it became. At a single leap it

became the state religion and the religion of a

whole people. But history also tells that this

royal convert was little enamoured of the gentle

teacher of Galilee or his teachings. He cared not

a hang what religion he should have or not have.

In his conversion, he was inspired solely by rea-

sons of state. This is admitted by orthodox

Christian critics themselves. Constantine was a

man of a despotic bent of mind and wanted to

rule as such. Such a rule, however, was impossi-

ble in the democratic atmosphere which then

prevailed in Rome. So he hit upon a stratagem.

The Roman populace was at the time divided

into two groups. There were those who were

Constantine’s equals and rivals, the people of

the aristocratic classes. They were all worship-

pers of the sun god Apollo. The others were

those who had generation after generation been

used to a life of slavery. They were almost

wholly Christians. Constantine’s ambition could

not fail to detect in this section the right sort of

material to bend to his own will and use them as

tools in his designs of despotism. To rally these

classes around him, the surest way was to em-

brace their religion – Christianity. But it was no

easy task to renounce the old, inherited and

royal religion and substitute it by another. A via

media, however, was not hard to discover. The

old cult of sun worship might be retained in

every dogma and detail, only Jesus was to be put

on the pedestal of Apollo. This was done. Both

sections of people were satisfied. The upper

classes saw no change in their customary forms

of worship except that the name of Apollo was

replaced by that of Jesus. The common slaves,

the Christians, were overjoyed that the Emperor

should embrace their faith, even though in

name. Besides, they were an ignorant people

and did not know much of their religion. The

mere fact that Jesus was now worshipped was

enough to make them devoted to Constantine’s

rule, however despotic. Thus it was that an an-

cient sun-worship cult was caught hold of and

labelled as Christianity. Jesus, consequently, was

clothed with all the paraphernalia of that cult,

including virgin-birth.

To do things thoroughly, however, it was ne-

cessary to make this borrowed cult put on bibli-

cal feathers. The Hebrew almah, a ‘grown-up

woman’, of Isaiah was therefore rendered into

Greek parthenos, ‘virgin’. And a few verses were

interpolated in the text in Matthew as regards

Jesus’ birth. Likewise in Luke, the words “as was

supposed” were added where Jesus is spoken of

as the son of Joseph. These were only so many

links in a chain forged by greed and ambition

coupled with the designs of statecraft. Jesus of

the church is only Apollo in borrowed plumes

and if today he is supposed to have been born of

a virgin and considered the son of God, it has

nothing to do with the noble soul who lived and

preached in Palestine. That true Jesus now

stands out clear, in the midst of all this mist and

myth that selfishness and superstition have

woven around him. He was a plain man, the son

of a plain village carpenter, Joseph, and a plain

noble woman, Mary.