Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus I: Demonstratio Christiana

Certain ultraradical unbelievers maintain that Jesus was insane; many radicals and liberals, however, contend that he was at least mentally disturbed. The former are rightly called psychiatric critics; the latter, psychopathic critics.

1. The psychiatric criticism.

The psychiatric criticism maintains that Jesus was insane, alleging his delusional fury and his delusional fanaticism.¹

a) They conclude that Jesus was driven by a delusional fury from certain deeds of his own and from the judgment of his contemporaries.

The deeds are the expulsion of the sellers from the temple and the cursing of the barren fig tree.²

Jesus threatens the sellers in the temple precinct with a whip, overturns their seats and the tables of the money-changers, and drives out all the profaners of the house of God, saying: "It is written: My house shall be called a house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves."³ Everyone can see that Jesus acted out of a just zeal for the glory of God, and was not moved by a delusional fury. — Jesus cursed a tree that had leaves, yet neither bore fruit nor promised any,⁴ to signify the severity of the punishment with which fruitless men, and above all the Jewish people, would be visited. Therefore that curse was by no means an act of delusional fury, but a typical or symbolic action, of the kind that occur in countless numbers in the Old Testament and among all oriental peoples.

The judgments of his contemporaries the evangelists report as follows: "For they said: He is beside himself [ἐξέστη]… he has Beelzebub, and by the prince of demons he casts out demons."⁵ "He has a demon and is mad; why do you listen to him?"⁶ The Jews therefore maintain that Jesus was possessed by a demon and consequently deprived of his own senses, because he professed himself the Messiah, worked miracles, and contradicted the Pharisees. This judgment proves not the insanity of Jesus, but the unbelief of the Jews.

b) They say that Jesus, carried away by a delusional fanaticism, commanded his disciples both to mutilate themselves and to pursue their relatives with implacable hatred. Indeed he already said to the disciples: "There are eunuchs who have been so from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it."⁷ … "If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away from you... And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away from you: for it is better for you that one of your members perish, than that your whole body go into hell."⁸

It is evident, however, that Jesus commands not a physical mutilation, but a moral mortification for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. — Likewise, speaking of discipleship, he says: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple."⁹ He bids us bid farewell to our relatives rather than to discipleship of Jesus; he does not in the proper sense bid us hate our relatives, he who commands us to love even our enemies.¹⁰ These and similar words, spoken hyperbolically in the manner of the orientals, are to be understood spiritually, not materially.

2. The psychopathic criticism.

The psychopathic criticism affirms that Jesus was mentally disturbed, attributing to him hallucinations and ecstatic exaltations.¹¹

a) They contend that Jesus suffered from ecstatic hallucinations, that is, vain phantasms of the senses, at the baptism, in the temptation, at the return of the disciples from their preaching, at the transfiguration, and in the agony.

At the baptism he saw, through an error of the eyes, a dove, and perceived, through a delusion of the ears, a voice from heaven; in the temptation he underwent a manifold sensory hallucination, falsely persuading himself of a devil tempting, speaking, and transporting him, and of angels ministering to him; at the transfiguration he falsely imagined a light from heaven, the wraiths of Moses and Elijah, and the words of the Father; in the agony he was deluded by a vain imagination of an angel descending from heaven and consoling him; at the return of the disciples from their preaching he was likewise deceived by a hallucination of the devil falling from heaven.

In reality, however, it is the adversaries themselves who hallucinate, thinking that Jesus saw with his eyes Satan falling from heaven, whereas from the context it is clear that the Lord, speaking metaphorically, was only extolling the victory which he had won over Satan and his kingdom.¹² — Likewise the unbelievers err who contend that the things narrated concerning the baptism, temptation, transfiguration, and agony of Jesus are not objectively true, but only Jesus' purely subjective hallucinations. The evangelists affirm the historicity of these events, trusting the testimony of Jesus, and partly also that of John the Baptist, Peter, James, and John, who were present either at the baptism or at the transfiguration; the modern critics, on the other hand, deny the historical truth of the events altogether gratuitously. Their only ground for denying is unbelief, which refuses to admit the existence of angels and demons and every supernatural power of God in the world. For the sake of this philosophical rationalism they do not shrink from accusing Jesus Christ of psychopathic hallucinations!

b) They bluster that Jesus indulged in ecstatic exaltations, that is, a morbid enthusiasm, throughout his whole life. Why? Because he dulled his concern for temporal things; because he ardently sought the things that were his Father's; because he loved solitary places for the sake of prayer; because, scorning marriage, he chose a celibate life; because he insisted on sublime precepts; because he affirmed that the kingdom of heaven was at hand; because he foretold his passion and his death; because he worked miracles; because he taught that his doctrine was heavenly; because he announced that he himself had come from heaven; because he showed himself the envoy and the Son of God; because he announced that he would come to judge the world. In a word: the psychopathic critics call Jesus a dreaming enthusiast, because he had a supernatural and superhuman self-consciousness, and because his whole life corresponded perfectly to this self-consciousness.¹³

Behold, then, the whole psychiatric and psychopathic criticism of Jesus: the former declares Jesus mentally disturbed or insane for this reason, that he refused to be merely a man, but was Messiah-God; indeed, at times this pseudo-criticism accuses not only Jesus, but also his parents and relatives and the whole people of Israel of a religious paranoia (madness), because they believed in and worshipped God and looked for the Messiah and the kingdom of heaven.¹⁴ Hence the ultimate ground of the psychiatric and psychopathic criticism is a preconceived hatred of revelation, or even of all religion and of God himself, not the psychic state of Jesus. If we examine this state, it will be evident, on the contrary, that Jesus excelled in the highest wisdom.