Foundations of Christianity (Routledge Revivals)

A Study in Christian Origins

Karl Kautsky

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780415736473
• eBook ISBN: 9781317816973
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

First published in 1925, Karl Kautsky presents a Marxist history of Christianity and Christian society. Divided into four key sections, the book begins by considering the personality of Jesus as portrayed within Pagan and Christian sources and highlighting the Church's difficulty in presenting a unified and concurrent image of Jesus and interpretation of His words. Next, Kautsky analyses the structure of Roman society, with particular emphasis on the slave-holding system, the Roman State and the historiography of the period. In the third section, an early history of the Jewish people is presented, whilst the final section discusses the beginnings of Christianity and the social struggles present within early Christian society. This is a fascinating reissue, which will be of particular interest to students of Church History, Christian theology and the various interpretations of Jesus.

Foundations of Christianity

A Study in Christian Origins

By Karl Kautsky

Authorized Translation from the Thirteenth German Edition

LONDON : GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.

RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. I

First published in 1925

(All rights reserved)

Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• INTRODUCTION
• PART ONE THE PERSONALITY OF JESUS
  • CHAPTER I. THE PAGAN SOURCES
  • CHAPTER II. THE CHRISTIAN SOURCES
  • CHAPTER III. THE STRUGGLE FOR THE IMAGE OF JESUS
• PART TWO ROMAN SOCIETY IN THE IMPERIAL PERIOD
  • CHAPTER I. THE SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM
    • a. Property in Land; b. Domestic Slavery; c. Slavery in the Production of Commodities; d. The Technical Inferiority of the Slave-Holding System; e. The Economic Decline
  • CHAPTER II. THE LIFE OF THE STATE
    • a. The State and Trade; b. Patricians and Plebeians; c. The Roman State; d. Usury; e. Absolutism
  • CHAPTER III. CURRENTS OF THOUGHT IN THE ROMAN IMPERIAL PERIOD
    • a. Weakening of Social Ties; b. Credulity; c. The Resort to Lying; d. Humanitarianism; e. Internationalism; f. The Tendency to Religion; g. Monotheism
• PART THREE THE JEWS
  • CHAPTER I. THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL
    • a. Semitic Tribal Migrations; b. Palestine; c. The Conception of God in Ancient Israel; d. Trade and Philosophy; e. Trade and Nationality; f. Canaan a Thoroughfare of Nations; g. Class Struggles in Israel; h. The Downfall of Israel; i. The First Destruction of Jerusalem
  • CHAPTER II. THE JEWS AFTER THE EXILE
    • a. Banishment; b. The Jewish Diaspora; c. The Jewish Propaganda; d, Hatred of the Jews; e. Jerusalem; f. The Sadducees; g. The Pharisees; h. The Zealots; i. The Essenes
• PART FOUR THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIANITY
  • CHAPTER I. THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN CONGREGATION
    • a. The Proletarian Character of the Congregation; b. Class Hatred; c. Communism; d. The Objections to Communism; e. Contempt for Labor; f. The Destruction of the Family
  • CHAPTER II. THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF THE MESSIAH
    • a. The Coming of the Kingdom of God; b. The Ancestry of Jesus; c. Jesus as a Rebel; d. The Resurrection of the Crucified; e. The International Redeemer
  • CHAPTER III. JEWISH CHRISTIANS AND PAGAN CHRISTIANS
    • a. The Agitation among the Pagans; b. The Opposition between Jews and Christians
  • CHAPTER IV. THE STORY OF CHRIST’S PASSION
  • CHAPTER V. THE EVOLUTION OF THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CONGREGATION
    • a. Proletarians and Slaves; b. The Decline of Communism; c. Apostles, Prophets and Teachers; d. The Bishop; e. The Monastery
  • CHAPTER VI. CHRISTIANITY AND SOCIALISM
• INDEX

Introduction

I have long been interested in Christianity and Biblical criticism. Fully twenty-five years ago I contributed an article to Kosmos, on the origin of prehistoric bible history, and two years later I wrote another for the Neue Zeit on the origin of Christianity. It is therefore an old hobby to which I am now returning. The occasion for this return was the necessity of preparing the second edition of my Forerunners of Socialism.

The criticisms of the latter book—those that I had the opportunity to read—had found fault particularly with the Introduction, in which I had given a short outline of the communism of primitive Christianity. It was declared that my view was one that would not bear the light of the knowledge resulting from the latest investigations.

Soon after these criticisms appeared, Göhre and others proclaimed that this view—namely, that nothing definite could be said about the personality of Jesus, and that Christianity could be explained without reference to this personality—first advocated by Bruno Bauer and later accepted in its essential points by Franz Mehring and myself, and formulated by me as early as 1885, was now out of date.

I therefore did not wish to publish a new edition of my book, which had appeared thirteen years before, without first carefully revising, on the basis of the latest literature on the subject, the notions of Christianity which I had obtained from earlier studies.

As a result I came to the gratifying conclusion that nothing needed to be changed, but the later investigations did open up to me a multitude of new points of view and new suggestions, which expanded the revision of my Introduction to the Foreruners into a whole book.

Of course, I make no claim that I am exhausting the subject, which is far too gigantic to be exhausted. I shall be satisfied if I have succeeded in contributing to an understanding of those phases of Christianity which strike me as the most essential from the standpoint of the materialistic conception of history.

Nor can I venture to compare myself in learning, as to matters of religious history, with the theologians who have made this study their life task, whereas I have had to write the present volume in the...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Title Page 1
• Frontmatter 1
• Table of Contents
• INTRODUCTION
• PART ONE THE PERSONALITY OF JESUS
• PART TWO ROMAN SOCIETY IN THE IMPERIAL PERIOD
• PART THREE THE JEWS
• PART FOUR THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIANITY
• INDEX