'Yes, that is Christ' for that would be tantamount to saying, 'That is the Son of God as he appears to you!' which would be sheer Docetism. (*)

On the other hand we could not deny his divine status (assuming he preached his 'Sermon on the Mount', died on the cross for their sins, etc.), for he would have the same right to it as Jesus of Nazareth. What could we do? We had Jesus of Nazareth and they had their 'X Christ': both were beings assumed by God, and both species would be included in Christ's 'being man' or 'being X' as separate incarnations of God's word. But if the Son of God happens but once, how can he be simultaneously wholly man and wholly X, i.e. exist as two different corporeal persons? Two corporeal persons are not one. A further point is that we should have quite as much reason for worshipping the ostensible 'X Christ' as our own Jesus Christ, and Christianity would no longer embrace a Trinity, but a fourfoldness, a 'Quadrinity' as it were.

And the following are not my words (although they form my opinion, too!), the scholarly theologian Puccetti is saying them, the professor who worries about the existence of Christianity in the future: What Christianity can do is to disregard the probable existence of intelligent extraterrestrial beings completely. In fact it could happen that Christianity - possibly alone among the great living religions - would be proved false by experiments in interstellar communication.

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[*] Docetism was a second-century heresy which claimed that God only apparently became man in Jesus.

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The news that Jesus was an astronaut has been haunting the press and relevant literature for some time, like the Loch Ness monster, sometimes accepted, sometimes dismissed.

The inventor of the latest Jesus cult is the Soviet philologist Dr. Vyatcheslav Saitsev of the University of Minsk. Saitsev believes that Jesus came from outer space, that he was a representative of a higher civilization and that that would partially explain his supernatural powers and abilities. Saitsev actually says [30]: 'In other words, God's descent to earth is really a cosmic event.'

Essays by Dr. Vyatcheslav Saitsev on 'A Spaceship in the Himalayas' and 'Angels in Spaceships' in the Soviet periodical Sputnik spurred me on to travel to Moscow in the summer of 1968. I cannot go along with Saitsev in his latest speculations.

Of course Saitsev appeals to the Gospels. What is there one cannot prove by them? A little hard work is all that is needed to prove textually that Jesus was a warrior, general or king, politician or seeker of the truth, spirit healer, magician or soothsayer, sectarian preacher or - last but not least - the Son of God. It can also be 'proved' that Jesus was an 'astronaut'.

What grounds did Saitsev find for his thesis? Matthew (1:20), who makes 'the angel of the Lord'

appear for Joseph? In other words the angel is an astronaut.

Or the story of the 'immaculate conception'? In the astronaut version it 'naturally' became artificial insemination. What else?

Or the heavens opening and the voice over Jordan at the baptism of Jesus by John (Matthew 3)?

What else could that be but a spaceship from which a mega-phone bellows earthwards?

or the two 'men in shining garments', who appear in Luke (24)? Astronauts!

Or the angel in Matthew (28) with a face 'like lightning, and his raiment white as snow'? Another extraterrestrial being in a protective suit!

Or Jesus' saying: 'In my Father's house are many mansions'? That can only mean the innumerable inhabited planets in the universe.

Or Mark's assertion (13) about 'the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory'? It's obvious, the Supreme Commander is going to send his son in a spaceship.

Enough of that. The list could be continued with as many 'proofs' as you want.

This is the position I adopt:

1) We must believe the texts of the Gospels if we are going to infer alleged knowledge from them. For example, we must believe that Mary conceived Jesus immaculately, the Spirit of God descended like a dove and alighted on the Lord, and a voice came out of heaven, a gleaming white angel appeared at the tomb, Jesus actually did the deeds and spoke the words which were posthumously put into his mouth. Anyone who does not believe the texts literally, anyone who knows how 'God's word' originated, cannot accept the accounts as reality. Anyone who tries to deduce an 'astronaut Jesus' from the Gospels is committing the same error as judges who form and pronounce a verdict of guilty on the basis of forged documents. (As far as the Soviet citizen Saitsev is concerned, 'belief is a contradicto in adjecto!)

2) What is the astronaut Jesus supposed to have done on earth? To have brought a religion, Christian or moral precepts? He introduced nothing new. From a comparison of the gospels and the Qumran scrolls we know that the core of Jesus' teaching stems from the Essene community. His other contributions made no advance. It was not necessary to send out the cosmonaut Jesus in order to threaten men with punishment, to spread panic, to make hell the terminus for non-believers!

3) Interstellar space travellers would have operated according to a precise programme, but the helpers from the spaceship came too late to save their top man from death. If the astronaut Jesus had been able to count on the help of his brothers in the cosmos at the right moment (which he must have known about), he would not have spent his whole life speaking of his unavoidable death. If we imagine that space-travellers would have left their important special messenger in the lurch, we are really underestimating extraterrestrial beings.

4) Even if the resurrection were adduced as a proof, it would be absurd. Nevertheless, let us assume that the extraterrestrial visitors had succeeded in revivifying Jesus' corpse with their special advanced medical skills (blood banks, transplants etc.). Would they have missed the chance of a public demonstration of their powers over death itself? Only a few people, and they doubted, knew about the miracle of the resurrection. Would not extraterrestrial visitors who had achieved such a feat have taken Jesus straight back to Jerusalem to show him and let him preach there? Their impressive achievement would have remained unknown without a demonstration of their superior abilities. Besides, according to the apostles, the medical reawakening had no consequence. The disciples remained behind in confusion; they did not dare to appear in public.

5) Extraterrestrial intelligences who had mastered space-flight over interstellar distances would not have been so stupid as to visit only one point on the earth in order to introduce one local religious mission. So that they could be more effectively active, they would have made for various geographical locations, which would have meant a little extra effort, but would have been the only possible way to carry out the major operation of founding a religion. Spaceship landings, observations of spaceships, UFOs or similar oddities have not been registered in the history books during Jesus' lifetime, either in Jewish territory or other countries. All the fantastic sightings by religious fanatics of Jesus after his death - Jesus in India, Jesus in Central America - are to be dismissed as fancies, for these 'founders of religions' once again refer to the frequently falsified gospel texts, which first turned Jesus into the 'Son of God' and the 'Redeemer'. He was neither.

6) If the astronaut Jesus, who was on a much higher intellectual plane than the people of Judaea, had wanted to refer to the future, he would have had to conceal words and formulas in the parables that were to be handed down, formulas and codes which distant generations would understand. And should understand! 'Listen, ye sons and daughters,' he might have said, 'when the time is ripe and your scholars know how to split the smallest particle of matter, the Son of God will appear from the clouds.'