Gerald Massey
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Gerald Massey (; 29 May 1828 – 29 October 1907) was an English
poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...
and writer on
Spiritualism Spiritualism may refer to: * Spiritual church movement, a group of Spiritualist churches and denominations historically based in the African-American community * Spiritualism (beliefs), a metaphysical belief that the world is made up of at leas ...
and
Ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...
.


Early life

Massey was born near Tring,
Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...
in England to poor parents. When little more than a child, he was made to work hard in a silk factory, which he afterward deserted for the equally laborious occupation of
straw plaiting Straw plaiting is a method of manufacturing textiles by braiding straw and the industry that surrounds the craft of producing these straw manufactures. Straw is plaited to produce products including straw hats and ornaments, and the process is u ...
. These early years were rendered gloomy by much distress and deprivation, against which the young man strove with increasing spirit and virility, educating himself in his spare time, and gradually cultivating his innate taste for literary work. He was attracted by the movement known as
Christian socialism Christian socialism is a Religious philosophy, religious and political philosophy that blends Christianity and socialism, endorsing socialist economics on the basis of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. Many Christian socialists believe cap ...
, into which he threw himself with whole-hearted vigour, and so became associated with
Frederick Denison Maurice John Frederick Denison Maurice (29 August 1805 – 1 April 1872), commonly known as F. D. Maurice, was an English Anglican priest and theologian. He was a prolific author and one of the founders of Christian socialism. Since the Second World War ...
and
Charles Kingsley Charles Kingsley (12 June 1819 – 23 January 1875) was a broad church priest of the Church of England, a university professor, social reformer, historian, novelist and poet. He is particularly associated with Christian socialism, the workin ...
.


Later life

From about 1870 onwards, Massey became increasingly interested in Egyptology and the similarities that exist between
ancient Egyptian mythology Egyptian mythology is the collection of myths from ancient Egypt, which describe the actions of the Egyptian gods as a means of understanding the world around them. The beliefs that these myths express are an important part of ancient Egyptia ...
and the
Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...
stories. He studied the extensive Egyptian records housed in the
Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...
n and
Egyptology Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Ancient Greek, Greek , ''wiktionary:-logia, -logia''; ) is the scientific study of ancient Egypt. The topics studied include ancient Egyptian History of Egypt, history, Egyptian language, language, Ancient Egypt ...
section of the
British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...
in London where he worked closely with the curator, Dr.
Samuel Birch Samuel Birch may refer to: * Samuel Birch (Egyptologist) (1813–1885), British Egyptologist and antiquary * Lamorna Birch (Samuel John Birch, 1869–1955), English artist * Samuel Birch (athlete) (born 1963), Liberian Olympic sprinter * Samuel Birc ...
, and other leading Egyptologists of his day, even learning
hieroglyphics Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct characters.I ...
at the time the Temple of Horus at Edfu was first being excavated.Gerald Massey Collection-Upper Norwood Joint Library


Writing career

Massey's first public appearance as a writer was in connection with a journal called the '' Spirit of Freedom'', of which he became editor, and he was only twenty-two when he published his first volume of poems, ''Voices of Freedom and Lyrics of Love'' (1850). These he followed in rapid succession with ''The Ballad of Babe Christabel'' (1854), ''War Waits'' (1855), ''Havelock's March'' (1860), and ''A Tale of Eternity'' (1869). In 1889, Massey published a two-volume collection of his poems called ''My Lyrical Life''. He also published works dealing with
Spiritualism Spiritualism may refer to: * Spiritual church movement, a group of Spiritualist churches and denominations historically based in the African-American community * Spiritualism (beliefs), a metaphysical belief that the world is made up of at leas ...
, the study of
Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
's
sonnet A sonnet is a fixed poetic form with a structure traditionally consisting of fourteen lines adhering to a set Rhyme scheme, rhyming scheme. The term derives from the Italian word ''sonetto'' (, from the Latin word ''sonus'', ). Originating in ...
s (1872 and 1890), and theological speculation. It is generally understood that he was the original of
George Eliot Mary Ann Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880; alternatively Mary Anne or Marian), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrot ...
's Felix Holt. Massey's poetry has a certain rough and vigorous element of sincerity and strength which easily accounts for its popularity at the time of its production. He treated the theme of Sir Richard Grenville before
Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (; 6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's ...
thought of using it, with much force and vitality. Indeed, Tennyson's own praise of Massey's work is still its best eulogy, for the
Laureate In English, the word laureate has come to signify eminence or association with literary awards or Military awards and decorations, military glory. It is also used for recipients of the Nobel Prize, the Gandhi Peace Award, the Student Peace Pri ...
found in him a poet of fine lyrical impulse, and of a rich half-Oriental imagination. The inspiration of his poetry is a combination of his vast knowledge based on travels, research and experiences; he was a patriotic humanist to the core. His poem "The Merry, Merry May" was set to music in 1894 by the composer Cyril Rootham and then in a popular song by composer Christabel Baxendale. Massey was a believer in
spiritual evolution Spiritual evolution, also called higher evolution, is the idea that the mind or spirit, in analogy to biological evolution, collectively evolves from a simple form dominated by nature, to a higher form dominated by the spiritual or divine. It is d ...
; he opined that Darwin's theory of evolution was incomplete without
spiritualism Spiritualism may refer to: * Spiritual church movement, a group of Spiritualist churches and denominations historically based in the African-American community * Spiritualism (beliefs), a metaphysical belief that the world is made up of at leas ...
:
The theory contains only one half the explanation of man's origins and needs spiritualism to carry it through and complete it. For while this ascent on the physical side has been progressing through myriads of ages, the Divine descent has also been going on – man being spiritually an incarnation from the Divine as well as a human development from the animal creation. The cause of the development is spiritual. Mr. Darwin's theory does not in the least militate against ours – we think it necessitates it; he simply does not deal with our side of the subject. He can not go lower than the dust of the earth for the matter of life; and for us, the main interest of our origin must lie in the spiritual domain.
In regard to
Ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...
, Massey first published ''The Book of the Beginnings'', followed by ''The Natural Genesis''. His most important work is ''Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World'', published shortly before his death. Like Godfrey Higgins a half-century earlier, Massey believed that Western religions had Egyptian roots. Massey wrote,
The human mind has long suffered an eclipse and been darkened and dwarfed in the shadow of ideas the real meaning of which has been lost to moderns. Myths and allegories whose significance was once unfolded in the Mysteries have been adopted in ignorance and reissued as real truths directly and divinely vouchsafed to humanity for the first and only time! The early religions had their myths interpreted. We have ours misinterpreted. And a great deal of what has been imposed on us as God’s own true and sole revelation to us is a mass of inverted myths.
One of the more important aspects of Massey's writings were his assertions that there were parallels between
Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...
and the Egyptian god
Horus Horus (), also known as Heru, Har, Her, or Hor () in Egyptian language, Ancient Egyptian, is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities who served many functions, most notably as the god of kingship, healing, protection, the sun, and t ...
, primarily contained in the book ''The Natural Genesis'' first published in 1883. Massey, for example, argued in the book his belief that: both Horus and Jesus were born of virgins on 25 December, raised men from the dead (Massey speculates that the biblical Lazarus, raised from the dead by Jesus, has a parallel in ''El-Asar-Us'', a title of
Osiris Osiris (, from Egyptian ''wikt:wsjr, wsjr'') was the ancient Egyptian deities, god of fertility, agriculture, the Ancient Egyptian religion#Afterlife, afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion. He was ...
), died by
crucifixion Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the condemned is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross, beam or stake and left to hang until eventual death. It was used as a punishment by the Achaemenid Empire, Persians, Ancient Carthag ...
and were resurrected three days later. These assertions have influenced various later writers such as Alvin Boyd Kuhn, Tom Harpur, Yosef Ben-Jochannan, and Dorothy M. Murdock.
Christian ignorance notwithstanding, the Gnostic Jesus is the Egyptian Horus who was continued by the various sects of gnostics under both the names of Horus and of Jesus. In the gnostic iconography of the Roman Catacombs child-Horus reappears as the mummy-babe who wears the solar disc. The royal Horus is represented in the cloak of royalty, and the phallic emblem found there witnesses to Jesus being Horus of the resurrection.


Criticism

Christian theologian W. Ward Gasque, a PhD from
Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...
and Manchester University, sent emails to twenty Egyptologists that he considered leaders of the field – including
Kenneth Kitchen Kenneth Anderson Kitchen (1932 – 6 February 2025) was a British biblical scholar, Ancient Near Eastern historian, and Personal and Brunner Professor Emeritus of Egyptology and honorary research fellow at the School of Archaeology, Classics and ...
of the University of Liverpool and Ron Leprohon of the University of Toronto – in Canada, the United States, Britain, Australia, Germany and Austria to verify academic support for some of these assertions. His primary targets were Tom Harpur, Alvin Boyd Kuhn and the
Christ myth theory The Christ myth theory, also known as the Jesus myth theory, Jesus mythicism, or the Jesus ahistoricity theory, is the fringe view that the story of Jesus is a work of mythology with no historical substance. Alternatively, in terms given by ...
, and only indirectly Massey. Ten out of twenty responded, but most were not named. According to Gasque, Massey's work, which draws comparisons between the Judeo-Christian religion and the Egyptian religion, is not considered significant in the field of modern Egyptology and is not mentioned in the '' Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt'' or similar reference works of modern Egyptology.The Leading Religion Writer in Canada ... Does He Know What He's Talking About?
/ref> Gasque reports that those who responded were unanimous in dismissing the proposed etymologies for Jesus and Christ, and one unspecified Egyptologist referred to Alvin Boyd Kuhn's comparison as "fringe nonsense." However, Harpur's response to Gasque quotes leading contemporary Egyptologist Erik Hornung that there are parallels between Christianity and ancient Egypt, as do the writings of biblical expert Thomas L. Thompson. Theologian Stanley E. Porter has pointed out that Massey's analogies include a number of errors. For example, Massey stated that 25 December as the date of birth of Jesus was selected based on the birth of Horus, but the New Testament does not include any reference to the date or season of the birth of Jesus.''Unmasking the Pagan Christ'' by Stanley E. Porter and Stephen J. Bedard 2006 pages 18–29 The earliest known source recognizing 25 December as the date of birth of Jesus is by
Hippolytus of Rome Hippolytus of Rome ( , ; Romanized: , – ) was a Bishop of Rome and one of the most important second–third centuries Christian theologians, whose provenance, identity and corpus remain elusive to scholars and historians. Suggested communitie ...
, written around the beginning of the 3rd century, based on the assumption that the conception of Jesus took place at the Spring equinox. Hippolytus placed the equinox on 25 March and then added 9 months to get 25 December, thus establishing the date for festivals.''Mercer Dictionary'' of the Bible by Watson E. Mills, Edgar V. McKnight and Roger A. Bullard 2001 page 142 The Roman
Chronography of 354 The Chronograph of 354 is a compilation of chronological and calendrical texts produced in 354 AD for a wealthy Roman Christian named Valentinus by the calligrapher and illustrator Furius Dionysius Filocalus. The original illustrated manuscri ...
then included an early reference to the celebration of a Nativity feast in December, as of the fourth century. Porter states that Massey's serious historical errors often render his works nonsensical. For example, Massey states that the biblical references to
Herod the Great Herod I or Herod the Great () was a History of the Jews in the Roman Empire, Roman Jewish client king of the Herodian kingdom of Judea. He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea. Among these works are the rebuilding of the ...
were based on the myth of "Herrut" the evil hydra serpent, while the existence of Herod the Great can be well established without reliance on Christian sources.


See also

* '' The Pagan Christ''


References


Further reading

*


External links


Ancient Egypt, Light of the World
12 books on Egypt.

many of Massey's articles and poems relating to Egypt. * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Massey, Gerald 1828 births 1907 deaths Chartists British critics of religions English male poets English socialists English spiritualists Pseudohistorians