Early in this century, before the waltzing stopped in Vienna, a young German Alsatian, until then known principally as a concert organist and accompanist for Bach choral works, published a monograph titled, The Quest for the Historical Jesus.

His name was Albert Schweitzer, the same man who later studied medicine and served in Africa and was his generation's preeminent Goethe scholar.

The monograph was the tip of the iceberg of German Vedic scholarship, which was a full century mature.

German scholars had discovered that their language, as well as the languages of other Europeans, including Slavs, derived from Sanskrit. They discovered that the Torah and the Bible are patched together from divers sources. They discovered that Europe is intimately tied to India for as far backwards as they could see. They discovered that the central figure of Christian literature and devotion, while probably a figure of history, certainly is not clearly indicated by the texts that purport to tell about him.

Schweitzer assembled a number of piquant questions about Jesus and his understanding of himself. He added his own queries: do the New Testament texts talk about the same individual all the time, and, did Jesus think he was the Messiah?

The effect of the monograph in the orbit of scholars and clergy was tremendous. For the conclusion was indisputable: while there was a figure of history named Jesus, the Christian canonical texts in no certain sense talk about him.

In other words, the New Testament cannot be directly relied upon to indicate either Jesus' words or the details of his career. An interest quite other than historical accuracy has drawn together these texts about an individual named Jesus.

Not only so, but the New Testament does not clearly indicate that Jesus thought of himself as the Messiah foretold by Hebrew prophets. In spots it does, but in spots it doesn't. Where it does and doesn't, the known history of the literary strands is such as to make certainty about his Messianic consciousness, based upon those strands, impossible.

In other words, Schweitzer said that the structure of Christian dogmatic theology, starting with the central dogma, the status of Jesus as element of the Triune Godhead, is not supported by the Bible.

Now, it has always been claimed that Christian dogmatic theology rests entirely and solely on the Bible. Schweitzer said that the Bible won't support it. Folks argued with him on this point, but everyone knows that Schweitzer was right.

The effect of Schweitzer's demonstration on theologians and clergy is comparable to the effect, at about the same time, of the demonstration to mathematicians and scientists by Kurt Gödel that nothing can be proven. It took their breath away and left them feeling helpless if not also hopeless.

Theologians and clergy felt they were standing in thin air without a parachute and that they were about to make a quick trip downwards. And so they were, and so they did.

Both Gödel's and Schweitzer's work received attention from competent authority. That authority, however, decided not to deal with the consequences of their work. It decided to ignore them.

Interestingly, during the same period, Jesuits ignored the work of Teilhard, who went to China. Schweitzer went to Africa. Gödel went to Princeton and became a monastic.

All three -- Schweitzer, Gödel and Teilhard -- had demonstrated that the mainstream beliefs in the areas of human endeavor they addressed were not supported by the actual circumstances of those area's origins, and by implication, of life itself. The facts would not produce the stochastic structures then regnant among scholars and academe. Buildings were resting on foundations that do not really exist. The actual foundations would support only buildings looking rather different from those extant.

Schweitzer lost confidence in Christian religion as handed to him. He turned to an aspect of Greek monastic religion called Stoicism. Stoicism is the base of Christian dogmatic theology and of key sections of the Christian Canon. It is a development of Pythagorean monasticism, the ancient Greek and Hellenistic religion which Christianity absorbed and used to define itself without footnoting the fact that it did.

Greek religion, incidentally, is derived from Vedas, as is Semitic religion, although Schweitzer was not well-aware of this.

The monograph he wrote caused Schweitzer some sadness because it raised questions of Christian literary and pietistical ætiology for which he had no answer. It was a sweet sadness that can be seen in the famous pictures from Schweitzer's later years.

Since the time of Schweitzer's publication of The Quest for the Historical Jesus, questions about Jesus' history, career and self-understanding have been suppressed by scholars and ecclesiastical hierarchies. The suppression would have been successful but for an event unforeen by those parties. The questions were reintroduced into Western countries from India during the second half of this century. The questions were put to the Child by the Mother. The Child has started coping with them and exploring for answers. Schweitzer would be pleased.