Gnostic Origins of Alfred Rosenberg’s Thought

By James B. Whisker

It has been said that the Christian opponent of Judaism has but two alternatives: to de-judaize Christ or to deny Him. Houston Stewart Chamberlain, following many theologians of middle Europe in the 19th Century, attempted to prove that Jesus was an Aryan living in an isolated area of Gallilee, and separated racially from the rest of the peoples of the region. The author of Foundations of the 19th Century attempted to show that an isolated group of Nordics had been cut off from the mainstream of the nation, and that Christ was descended from such people. Field Marshal Ludendorf and others merely denied the relevance of Jesus, and were anti-Christian as well as anti-Hebrew. These two traditions accepted in common the idea that the Bible, Old and New Testaments alike, was literal history.