Gerald Massey

{{Short description|English poet and Egyptologist (1828–1907)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2021}} {{Use British English|date=January 2012}} thumb|250px|Photograph of Gerald Massey dated 1856 '''Gerald Massey''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|m|æ|s|i}}; 29 May 1828 – 29 October 1907) was an English poet, critic, political activist, historian, and writer on Spiritualism and Ancient Egypt. He was heavily involved in Christian socialism and Chartism throughout his lifetime.<ref name="Gerald Massey, ebsco.com">{{cite web |last1=Payne |first1=Craig |title=Gerald Massey |date=2023 |url=https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/gerald-massey |website=EBSCO |access-date=10 April 2026}}</ref>

==Early life== Massey was born in Gamble's Wharf, near Tring, Hertfordshire, England, on 29 May 1828 to canal boatman William Massey and his wife Mary.<ref name="Gerald Massey, ebsco.com" /> Massey was educated at the local penny school before starting work at a silk mill aged eight.<ref name="Gerald Massey, ebsco.com" /> Although no longer receiving formal education, Massey studied John Bunyan and the Bible; after moving to London aged fifteen, he learnt French and continued his self-taught education.<ref name="Gerald Massey, ebsco.com" /> He became involved in Christian socialism, joining the Christian Socialist Board and writing poetry for ''The Christian Socialist''.<ref name="Gerald Massey, ebsco.com" /> He became associated with F. D. Maurice and Charles Kingsley.<ref name=EB1911>{{EB1911 |wstitle=Massey, Gerald |volume=17 |page=867 |inline=1}}</ref>

==Later life==

From about 1870 onwards, Massey became increasingly interested in Egyptology and perceived between Egyptian mythology and the Gospel. He studied the extensive Egyptian records of the British Museum, where he worked closely with curator Samuel Birch and other leading Egyptologists of his day, even learning hieroglyphics at the time the Temple of Edfu was first being excavated.<ref>Tom Harpur, 2004, The Pagan Christ</ref><ref name="ReferenceA">Gerald Massey Collection-Upper Norwood Joint Library</ref>

==Writing career==

Massey's first public appearance as a writer was in connection with the Chartist journal ''Spirit of Freedom, and Working Man's Vindicator'', of which he became editor. His first volume of poems, ''Poems and Chansons'', was printed privately in 1848. The publication of ''The Ballad of Babe Christabel, with Other Lyrical Poems'' (1854) brought Massey to greater attention.<ref name="Gerald Massey, ebsco.com" />

In 1889, Massey published a two-volume collection of his poems called ''My Lyrical Life''. He also published works dealing with Spiritualism, the study of Shakespeare's sonnets, and theological speculation. The title character of George Eliot's novel ''Felix Holt, the Radical'' is sometimes thought to have been based on Massey.<ref name= EB1911/>

Massey's poetry has a certain rough and vigorous element of sincerity and strength which accounts for its popularity at the time of its production. He treated the theme of Sir Richard Grenville before Alfred, Lord Tennyson did, and was praised by Tennyson.<ref name= EB1911/> His poem "The Merry, Merry May" was set to music in 1894 by Cyril Rootham and later by Christabel Baxendale.

Massey was a believer in spiritual evolution; he opined that Darwin's theory of evolution was incomplete without it:<blockquote>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.<ref>Gerald Massey, Concerning evolution, p. 55</ref>{{full citation needed|date=January 2024}}</blockquote>

In regard to Ancient Egypt, Massey first published ''The Book of the Beginnings'', followed by ''The Natural Genesis''. His most important work of Egyptology is ''Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World'', published shortly before his death.<ref name=EB1911/> Like Godfrey Higgins a half-century earlier, Massey believed that Western religions had Egyptian roots:<blockquote>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.<ref>Harpur, 2004, p. 30</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Massey|first=Gerald|author-link=Gerald Massey|title=The Natural Genesis: Or, Second Part of A Book of the Beginnings, Containing an Attempt to Recover and Reconstitute the Lost Origines of the Myths and Mysteries, Types and Symbols, Religion and Language, with Egypt for the Mouthpiece and Africa as the Birthplace|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MaI0AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA13|volume=1|year=1883|publisher=Williams and Norgate|page=13|chapter=The Kamite Typology|quote=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 the moderns. Myths and allegories whose significance was once unfolded to initiates in the mysteries have been adopted in ignorance and re-issued as real truths directly and divinely vouchsafed to mankind for the first and only time: The earlier religions had their myths interpreted. We have ours mis-interpreted. And a great deal of what has been imposed on us as God's own true and sole revelation to man is a mass of inverted myth.}}</ref></blockquote>

One of the more important aspects of Massey's writings were his assertions that there were parallels between Jesus Christ and the Egyptian god Horus. He argued in ''The Natural Genesis'' that both Horus and Jesus were born of virgins on 25 December, raised men from the dead (Massey speculates that the biblical Lazarus had a parallel in ''El-Asar-Us'', a title of Osiris), died by crucifixion and were resurrected three days later.<ref>Massey, Gerald. ''The Natural Genesis''. Cosimo Classics, 2007.</ref> He cited perceived similarities between Christian iconography and Egyptian representations of Horus as evidence of this, and asserted that ancient Gnostic sects considered the two synonymous.<ref>{{cite book|last=Massey|first=Gerald|author-link=Gerald Massey|title=Ancient Egypt, the Light of the World: A Work of Reclamation and Restitution in Twelve Books|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t00XAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA752|volume=2|year=1907|publisher=T. F. Unwin|page=752|chapter=Child-Horus|quote=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.}}</ref> While widely rejected by mainstream historians, these assertions have influenced writers such as Alvin Boyd Kuhn, Tom Harpur, Yosef Ben-Jochannan, Acharya S, and Kenneth Grant.<ref>Maurice Casey Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths? T&T Clark 2014 p21-22</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Hedenborg White |first=Manon |title=The eloquent blood: the goddess Babalon and the construction of femininities in Western esotericism |date=2020 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-006502-7 |series=Oxford studies in Western esotericism |location=New York (N.Y.) |pages=162}}</ref>

==Criticism== Christian theologian W. Ward Gasque solicited twenty Egyptologists worldwide that he considered leaders of the field, including Kenneth Kitchen and Ron Leprohon, to assess some of Massey's assertions. His primary targets were Tom Harpur, Alvin Boyd Kuhn and the Christ myth theory, and only indirectly Massey. Ten out of twenty responded, but most were not named. According to Gasque, Massey's work is not considered significant in the field of modern Egyptology.<ref name=test>[http://hnn.us/articles/6641.html 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 referred to Kuhn's comparison{{Clarify|date=May 2026}} as "fringe nonsense."<ref name=test/>

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.<ref name=Porter18>''Unmasking the Pagan Christ'' by Stanley E. Porter and Stephen J. Bedard 2006 {{ISBN|1-894667-71-9}} pages 18–29</ref><ref>''Ancient Egypt – The Light of the World'' by Gerald Massey (11 December 2008) {{ISBN|1-59547-606-7}} page 661</ref><ref>''Lost Light: An Interpretation of Ancient Scriptures'' by Alvin Boyd Kuhn (11 June 2007) {{ISBN|1-59986-814-8}} page 674</ref> The earliest known source recognizing 25 December as the date of birth of Jesus is by Hippolytus of Rome, written around the beginning of the 3rd century, based on the assumption that the conception of Jesus took place on the vernal equinox.<ref>''Mercer Dictionary'' of the Bible by Watson E. Mills, Edgar V. McKnight and Roger A. Bullard 2001 {{ISBN|0-86554-373-9}} page 142</ref> The Roman Chronograph of 354 then included an early reference to the celebration of a Nativity feast in December, as of the fourth century. Porter states that Massey's errors often render his works nonsensical, such as his assertion that Herod the Great was not a historical figure and was merely based on "Herrut", an Egyptian name for the Hydra.<ref name=Porter18/>

==See also== {{portal|Poetry}} * ''The Pagan Christ''

==References== {{Reflist}}

==Further reading== * {{cite book |last=Flower |first=B. O. |year=1895 |title=Gerald Massey: Poet, Prophet, and Mystic |place=Boston |publisher=Arena Publishing Company |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vrIVAAAAYAAJ}}

==External links== {{wikisource|works=or}} {{Wikiquote}} *[https://web.archive.org/web/20130413021004/http://www.wisdomlib.org/egypt/book/ancient-egypt-the-light-of-the-world/index.html Ancient Egypt, Light of the World], 12 books on Egypt. *[http://www.africawithin.com/massey/gerald_massey.htm Africa Within], many of Massey's articles and poems relating to Egypt. * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Gerald Massey}} * {{Librivox author |id=10743}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Massey, Gerald}} Category:1828 births Category:1907 deaths Category:Chartists Category:British critics of religions Category:English male poets Category:English socialists Category:English spiritualists Category:Pseudohistorians