A little over a half century ago
Kersey Graves created quite a furor in the orthodox religious circles by writing a book in which he discusses the
racial identity of Yahushua (Jesus) and offers evidence that the Christian Savior was a black man. The passage referred to
reads as follows:
There is as much evidence that the
Christian Savior was a black man, or at least a dark man, as there is of his being the son of the Virgin Mary, or that he
once lived and moved upon the earth. And that evidence is the testimony of his disciples, who had nearly as good an opportunity
of knowing what his complexion was as the evangelists who omit to say anything about it.
In pictures and portraits of Christ
by the early Christians he is uniformly represented as being black. To make this more certain a red tinge is given to the
lips; and the tests in the Christian bible quoted by orthodox Christians as describing his complexion, represents it
as being black.
Solomon’s declaration, I am
black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem’ (Sol. I:5), is often cited as referring to Christ.
According to the bible itself, then, Yahushua HaMoshiach (Jesus Christ) was a black man. Let us suppose that at some future
time he makes his second advent to the earth, as some Christians anticipate he will do, and that he comes in the character
of a sable Messiah, how would he be received by our Negro hating Christians of sensitive olfactory nerves. Would they worship
a Negro God?
The question might arise in the mind
of the reader: “Well, the argument of Kersey Graves sounds plausible enough, but really we need a great deal more corroborative
evidence before we can give his conclusions more than palling notice?” This question, the writer believes, is justified.
In questions of historical controversy only the most careful consideration of evidence should satisfy us.
To say that the early pictures and
images of the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus represent them with black complexions is not enough. Our statement must be
backed up by archaeological evidence. This evidence, fortunately, was collected by the Great British Orientalist, Sir Godfrey
Higgins, and has been preserved for posterity in his monumental work, "The Anacalypsis", or "An Inquiry into the Origin of
Languages, Nations and Religions".
Sir Godfrey Higgins informs us that
“In all the Romish (Catholic) countries of Europe, France, Italy, Germany,
etc., the God Christ, as well as his mother, are described in their old pictures to be black. The infant God in the arms of
his black mother, his eyes and drapery white, is himself perfectly black. If the reader doubts my word he may go to the Cathedral
at Moulins—to the famous Chapel of the Virgin at Loretto—to the Church of the Annunciata—the Church at St.
Lazaro or the Church of St. Stephen at Genoa—to St. Francisco at Pisa—to the Church at Brixen in Tyrol and to
that at Padua—to the Church of St. Theodore at Munich—to a church and to the Cathedral at Augsburg, where a black
virgin and child as large as life—to Rome and the Borghese chapel of Maria Maggiore—to the Pantheon—to a
small chapel of St. Peters on the right hand side on entering, near the door; and in fact, to almost innumerable other churches
in countries professing the Romish religion.
“There is scarcely an old church
in Italy where some remains of the worship
of the black virgin and black child are not to be met with. Very often the black figures have given way to white ones and
in these cases the black ones, as being held sacred, were put into retired places in the churches, but were not destroyed,
and are yet to be found there…
“When the circumstance has
been named to the Romish priests they have endeavored to disguise the fact by pretending that the child had become black by
the smoke of candles; but it was black where the smoke of a candle never came and, besides, how came the candles not to blacken
the white of the eyes, the teeth and the shirt, and to redden the lips? Their real blackness is not to be questioned.
“… A black virgin and
child among the white Germans, Swiss, French and Italians” (The Anacalypsis, Vol. I, Book IV, Chap.I). My friend, Mr.
J.A. Rogers, the well-known traveler and journalist, has seen quite a large number of these black images of the Madonna and
infant in his European travels and has discovered that some of the images possess African features. Evidently early Christians
must have thought that Jesus Christ was a member of the Ethiopian race or they would not have so stressed the dark hue of
the skin of the Savior and his mother in their pictures and statues.
According to Christian dogma, Jesus
is the Son of God. Since children are, as a rule, similar in complexion to their parents it is reasonable to assume that God
also is black. This conclusion is both logical and scientific. “There is a strong reason to think,” declares Joseph
McCabe, “that man was at first very dark of skin, wooly haired and flat nosed.” And since the bible tells us that
man was created in God’s image, then beyond all doubt God must be of dark complexion with unmistakably African features.
There have been suggestions that
should it be generally believed in the United States and other western
countries that if Jesus was a black man, that the Christian church would soon go out
of business. They reason that white citizens of the nations, on account of race prejudice, would have absolutely no use for
a black God: and the colored citizens would not have any confidence in an Ethiopian/African (black) God who had so long
neglected his own race of people. However, The overwhelming majority of people do not believe what is plausible or what
is true; they believe what is comforting or pleasing.
