1
10
5
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/113e5526fefd2c2df142d87b194ee8dc.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=PQ5IZVUAdXv622nAyuUFY-Z9qwxzPA%7EOuv6jJ0ZIx-c-TYwKoqyBDlhuLBp7u%7EiNzgcFToefqLAcMO860Vq%7Eoh2IIEhzsswqW%7ESSs3OOqTXnyeLYrgo4kWpBO0gzDHNYxjPJRCVpf7bh4vA4FqEdL%7Ee2%7ESVEJeyJ0i1PH7hRzVcyr8mCg7otAlMrZ3i2BR5zv7GvSudx5PyWKFnFXHk5kEubKKunTz5W8%7E34p2LQEWf-9fVeJZuIu-BTW1RBhFVJpOvWkSivMhRKz-VAha4mbtszzd5FTeqt1BdWNtUzZ%7EKMFpMtwLLJo6uCJR%7EloyFwCXC2JlLChfLNTur1Lf8dDw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
d221407c1a46368984a1c3bf9b206a4a
PDF Text
Text
\ ~&
Q^¿
io^e/iiÆ Ot^dlvoí^^f-^
di. '(rw'k- d
Qldn*^íat ^ÍA^AhuiLa, QiZCejd^lC O~¿t e¿¿d&^
CA ¿n^e^JJL
Ç
<^‘Oi^jl^
^2/^x4/ín<Zt ^^2
'^r
¿
'fáñf d~
íaj-it^A)
c^
Mo~
e^^suL,
j
Jtdn^avL
p^&rvvv€^>^y ' ¿^Ax^zn^cÁ^ y
(y^'iyCt^cxJ-ßdzL j ,f
M^tydL
jl
far
cc^óC.
dj¿.
(yy^x^c^dd^
O^jdj^-o
XT^A^r
y
K"
<2¿<A^a.e¿C'i ¡JlcZeA. f d^2^^-y
frt^ídvr^ JLifa,M¿B*
ñ^n^dkt^
��— -- - — r
C^L^2^a MjL' Ú
ï
J^CC^CC^ * '. ¿)^&
J
3q
j £<22^fet ¿X?
j ^y^^izc^rz^?
CV^uí’ó
J ¿X
"7
¿2/uL
C^Cî^kl^jC
.C^lZ^^L
/
p
_^aJLOj2CÎ^^q?
¿j fâ&Zj2 <2^Y{/LCcdc? '
OTL^ /kc^ tkr^^C
'oaJI
j
¿n^t
Z
^Tec^f^
' I ?À6
c^J-^/^/- '^,
^CUU^t Crt^e^C
I
1/
rbut-¿~¿^
4ni^
I ?ew^t
un^t
Ta ¿
/^c^L
/ü-rùc^
fa/brt¿tnz
,
��
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
[The Sacred Anthology]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 2 leaves; 20 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Handwritten review by unknown hand of Moncure Conway's work 'The Sacred Anthology' from Pall Mall Gazette, February 17th 1874.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1874?]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5596
Subject
The topic of the resource
Book reviews
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
[Unknown]
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work ([The Sacred Anthology]), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Book Reviews
Conway Tracts
Oriental Literature
Sacred Books
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/ee11a537f84475afcd9cf815d0141c2a.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=eCnqgvjz3wKQbg6uSZbFWH063PqP6JuBC9mNhMXNLjOnsxGc%7EJ1GQjucDGsoV8iBB6bMtnvTuqfvGUwUDccD14I3cERmtACV7ksiM1B3ifZlhoH4L6rKOtb1jsmkXkqEM392JDHOhAvSwxGv5wEVsd77PRQZVbG3HVT5tNYp1o1xBjkbCekpTbjv%7ExhviFXYD-CEYymNny1BN7%7EYLD7gI3FaPeP6UfoT89y1WDRzqXZpW9aXrkKRVdoTvuMhGXp8g5aEgr%7EOTx5AMvWks8TLR%7EvJeb%7E-cTXSfdZzBkWRgtmvN1ceeJDRDulHkH1v3XwLyxBxlAN8e780Cn0A1X5ZZw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
4047a122f038fd5aa21009cb2504457e
PDF Text
Text
From the Philosophical Magazine for July 1874.
ON
SOME PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF ICE;
ON
THE TRANSPOSITION OF BOULDERS FROM
BELOW TO ABOVE THE ICE;
AND ON
MAMMOTH-REMAINS.
BY
JOHN RAE, M.D., LL.D., etc*
S the ice formed on salt water fresh ? or, in other words, if
ice formed on the sea is thawed, will the water obtained
thereby be fresh ?
For a number of years past I have spoken with many persons
on the above subject; and seldom, if ever, have I found a single
individual who did not say that the ice of the sea was fresh.
Some of these gentlemen are known in the scientific world;
and many of them supported their opinions by quoting the
highest written authorities on the subject, chiefly Tyndall's
‘Forms of Water/ p. 132, par. 339, which tells us that “even
when water is saturated with salt, the crystallizing force studi
ously rejects the salt, and devotes itself to the congelation of
the water alone. Hence the ice of sea-water, when melted, pro
duces fresh water”
It is the sentence in italics to which I wish to draw particular
attention.
It would be the extreme of folly and presumption on my
part to question the correctness of results obtained by scientific
men in their experiments in freezing small quantities of sea
water by artificial means, more especially those of the distin
guished gentleman whose name I have mentioned, who, in
addition to holding the high position of being one of our
I
* Read before the Physical Society, May 9, 1874.
�2
Dr. J. Rae on some Physical Properties of Ice.
greatest authorities in all that relates to physical science, pos
sesses the rare gift of being able to communicate his knowledge
in such plain, clear, and forcible language, illustrated by admi
rable experiments, as to make his meaning fully understood,
even by those who had previously been perfectly ignorant of
the subject.
It is only where I have had opportunities of witnessing the
action of cold carried on in a manner which may have been
denied to the scientific man, that I venture to differ from him;
and it is in this way that the conviction has been forced upon
me, that the ice of sea-water if melted does not produce fresh
water.
Before entering upon this subject, however, let me say a word
or two on the first part of the quotation I have given.
If a saturated solution of salt is frozen, and the ice so formed
is fresh, it is evident that the salt that has been “ rejected ”
must be deposited or precipitated in a crystalline or some other
solid form, because the water, if any, that remains unfrozen,
being already saturated, can hold in solution no more salt than
it already contains.
Could not salt be obtained readily and cheaply by this means
from sea-water in cold climates ?
During several long journeys on the Arctic coast, in the early
spring before any thaw had taken place, the only water to be
obtained was by melting snow or ice. By experience I found
that a kettleful of water could be obtained by thawing ice with
a much less expenditure of fuel, and in a shorter time, than
was required to obtain a similar quantity of water by thawing
snow. Now, as we had to carry our fuel with us, this saving of
fuel and of time was an important consideration, and we always
endeavoured to get ice for this purpose. We had another in
ducement to test the sea-ice frequently as to its freshness or
the reverse.
I, presume that almost every one knows that to eat snow
when it is very cold, tends to increase thirst, whereas a piece of
ice in the mouth is refreshing and beneficial,, however cold it
may be; we were consequently always glad to get a bit of fresh
ice whilst at the laborious work of hauling our heavy sledges ;
yet with these strong inducements we were never able to find
sea-ice, in situ either eatable when solid or drinkable when
,
*
thawed, it being invariably much too salt. The only exception
(if it may be called one) to this rule, was when we found rough
ice, which, from its wasted appearance and irregular form, had
evidently been the formation of a previous winter. This old
* What I mean by ice in situ is ice lying flat and unbroken on the
sea, as formed during the winter it is formed in.
�On the Transposition of Boulders from below to above the Ice. 3
ice, if projecting a foot or two above the water-level, was almost
invariably fresh, and, when thawed, gave excellent drinkingwater. It may be said that these pieces of fresh ice were frag
ments of glaciers or icebergs; but this could not be so, as they
were found where neither glaciers nor icebergs are ever seen.
How is this to be accounted for? Unfortunately I have only
a theory to offer in explanation.
When the sea freezes by the abstraction of heat from its
surface, I do not think that the saline matter, although retained
in and incorporated with the ice, assumes the solid state, unless
the cold is very intense, but that it remains fluid in the form of
a very strong brine enclosed in very minute cells. So long as
the ice continues to float at the same level, or nearly the same
level, as the sea, this brine remains; but when the ice is raised
a little above the water-level, the brine, by its greater specific
gravity, and probably by some solvent quality acting on the ice,
gradually drains off from the ice so raised; and the small cells,
by connecting one with another downwards, become channels of
drainage.
There may be several other requisites for this change of salt
ice into fresh, such as temperature raised to the freezing-point,
so as to enable the brine to work out the cell-walls into channels
or tubes—-that is, if my theory has any foundation in fact, which
may be easily tested by any expedition passing one or more
winters on the Arctic, or by any one living where ice of con
siderable thickness is formed on the sea, such as some parts of
Norway.
All that is required, as soon as the winter has advanced far
enough for the purpose, is to cut out a block of sea-ice (taking
care not to be near the outflow of any fresh-water stream) about
3 feet square, remove it from the sea to some convenient posi
tion, test its saltness at the time, and at intervals repeat the
testing both on its upper and lower surfaces, and observe the
drainage if any.
The result of the above experiment, even if continued for a
long while, may not be satisfactory, because the fresh ice that I
have described must have been formed at least twelve months,
perhaps eighteen months, before.
The Transposition of Boulders from below to above the Ice.
When boulders, small stones, sand, gravel, &c. are found
lying on sea-ice, it is very generally supposed that they must
have rolled down a steep place or fallen from a cliff, or been
deposited by a flow of water from a river or other source.
There is, however, another way in which boulders &c. get upon
�4' On the Transposition of Boulders from below to above the Ice.
floe-ice, which I have not seen mentioned in any book on this
subject.
During the spring of 1847, at Repulse Bay on the Arctic
shores of America, I was surprised, to observe, after the thaw
commenced, that large boulders (some of them 3 or 4 feet in
diameter) began to appear on the surface of the ice; and after a
while, about the month of July, they were wholly exposed,
whilst the ice below them was strong, firm, and something like
4 feet thick.
There were no cliffs or steep banks near from which these
boulders could have come; and the only way in which I could
account for their appearance, was that which by subsequent
observation I found to be correct.
On the shores of Repulse Bay the rise and fall of the tide
are 6 or 8 feet, sometimes more. When the ice is forming in
early winter, it rests, when the tide is out, on any boulders &c.
that may be at or near low-water mark. At first, whilst the
ice is weak, the boulders break through it; but when the ice
becomes (say 2 or 3 feet) thick, it freezes firmly to the boulder,
and when the tide rises, is strong enough to lift the boulder
with it. Thus, once fastened to the ice, the stone continues
to rise and fall with the rise and fall of each tide, until, as the
winter advances, it becomes completely enclosed in the ice,
which by measurement I found to attain a thickness of more
than 8 feet.
Small stones, gravel, sand, and shells may be fixed in the
ice in the same way.
In the spring, by the double effect of thaw and evaporation,
the upper surface of the ice, to the extent of 3 feet or more, is
removed, and thus the boulders, which in autumn were lying
at the bottom of the sea, are now on the ice, while it is still
strong and thick enough to travel with its load, before favour
able winds and currents to a great distance.
The finding small stones and gravel on ice out to sea does not
always prove that such ice has been near the shore at some time
or other.
1 have noticed that wherever the Walrus in any numbers
have been for some time lying either on ice or rocks, a not
inconsiderable quantity of gravel has been deposited, apparentlv
a portion of the excreta of that animal, having probably been
taken up from the bottom of the sea and swallowed along with
their food.
�Dr. J. Rae on Mammoth-remains.
J/awwnoM-remcwis.
5
The position in which their Skeletons are
found, fyc.
Tn LyelFs f Principles of Geology/ vol. i. p. 185, we read
“In the flat country near the mouth of the Yenesei river,
Siberia, between latitudes 70° and 75° north, many skeletons of
mammoths, retaining the hair and skin, have been found. The
heads of most of these are said to have been turned to the south.”
As far as I can find, the distinguished geologist gives no
reason why the heads of the mammoths were turned to the
south; nor does he say all that I think might be said of the
reasons why, and the means by which the skins have been pre
served for such a long period of time.
Having lived some years on the banks of two of the great
rivers of America, near to where they enter Hudson’s Bay, and
also on the M'Kenzie, which flows into the Arctic Sea, I have
bad opportunities of observing what takes place on these streams,
all of which have large alluvial deposits, forming flats and shal
lows at their mouths.
What I know to be of common occurrence in these rivers
may, if we reason by analogy, have taken place in ancient times
on the great rivers of Siberia, making due allowance for the
much higher northern latitude to which these streams run before
reaching the sea, and for the difference in size of the fauna that
used to frequent their banks.
When animals, more especially those having horns, tusks, or
otherwise heavily weighted heads, are drifting down a river,
the position of the bodies may lie in any direction as regards
the course of the stream, as long as they are in water deep
enough to float them; but the moment they get into a shallow
place, the head, which sinks deepest (or, as sailors say, “ draws
most water ”), takes the ground, whilst the body, still remaining
afloat, swings to the current, just as a boat or ship does when
brought to anchor in a tideway.
It is probable that the mammoths, having been drowned by
breaking through the ice or in swimming across the river in
spring when the banks were lined with high precipitous drifts
of snow, which prevented them from getting out of the water,
or killed in some other way, floated down stream, perhaps for
hundreds of miles, until they reached the shallows at the mouth,
where the heads, loaded with a great weight of bone and tusks,
would get aground in 3 or 4 feet of water, whilst the bodies
still afloat would swing round with the current as already
described.
�6
Dr. J. Ray on Mammoth-remains.
The Yenesei flows from south to north, so the heads, being
pointed up stream, would be to the south
.
*
Supposing, then, these bodies anchored as above in 3 or 4 feet
water; as soon as the winter set in, they would be frozen up in
this position. The ice in so high a latitude as 70c or 75° north
would acquire a thickness of 5 or 6 feet at least, so that it would
freeze to the bottom on the shallows where the mammoths were
anchored. In the spring, on the breaking up of the ice, this
ice being solidly frozen to the muddy bottom, would not rise to
the surface, but remain fixed, with its contained animal remains,
and the flooded stream would rush over both, leaving a covering
of mud as the water subsided.
Part of this fixed ice, but not the whole, might be thawed
away during summer; and (possibly, but not necessarily) next
winter a fresh layer of ice with a fresh supply of animal re
mains might be formed over the former stratum; and so the
peculiar position and perfect state of preservation of this im
mense collection of extinct animals may be accounted for without
having recourse to the somewhat improbable theory that a very
great and sudden change had taken place in the climate of that
region.
I have seen at the mouth of Hayes River in America animals
frozen up as above described; but as the latitude of this place is
only 57° north, the fixed ice usually wholly disappears before
the next winter sets in, and liberates the animals shut up in it;
but when the rivers reach the sea, as some of those of Siberia
do, 1000 or 1200 miles further to the north, it may be fairly
assumed that a large part of this fixed ice, protected as i would
be by a layer of mud, might continue unthawed.
* Not many years ago, when buffalo were very abundant on the Saskat
chewan, hundreds of them were sometimes drowned in one season whilst
swimming across the river; and many reindeer, moose, and other animals
are annually destroyed in this way in other large American rivers.
Sir Charles Lyell mentions a number of yaks being seen frozen up in
one of the Siberian rivers, which, on the breaking up of the ice in spring,
would be liberated and float down the stream.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
On some physical properties of ice; on the transportation of boulders from below to above the ice and on mammoth-remains
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rae, John
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 6 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Read before the Physical Society, May 9, 1874. Reprinted from Philosophical Magazine, July 1874. Also published in Proceedings of the Physical Society of London, v1 n1 (21 March 1874): 14-20.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1874?]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5286
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (On some physical properties of ice; on the transportation of boulders from below to above the ice and on mammoth-remains), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Subject
The topic of the resource
Science
Conway Tracts
Ice
Physics
Sea Ice Physics
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/236698ac81887d529787d58088aae216.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=gEb064U3UAvfKq-u19GUW4q-PlOEMrr5aINmQPuduwO7RBC3LkCjEHfjOsjeoU5gvT5taTbGJH8qod9CxJB7TGR1CzpCLBAckVNgdE1ymzWojBPzxP5wHeDi%7EDwzYBUXaVti9yrqOafux1p9-f1zRkf27SONuwcIlD0zQaapsZIQqfz%7EIOpyrhfs9T9NO%7E7PvrseK0cx6Gh3xdfLiuSL5g5pOResAnesbarD8ell76zzSN6da-ILEDQ730EZ0jE5hUPgIFu29V4Fyb3DkYXNoM0URz9Ra88BhvpQRJD8AEHzb-v%7ENtwiE%7EOj8NsJ37j4%7EBpNVV2QmpStIVFmVUMfEA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
ef9c682df81a2cf55d3cbc91b64f2aed
PDF Text
Text
ORTHODOXY FROM THE HEBREW
POINT OF VIEW.
PART II.
Z
BY THE
Rev. THOS. P. KIRKMAN, M.A., F.R.S.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Sixpence.
�i
�ORTHODOXY FROM THE HEBREW
POINT OF VIEW.
PART II.
EFORE the dispersion of the clerical party, it was
necessary, by the rule, to decide upon the place of
the next monthly meeting, as well as upon a subject
for discussion. It was the turn of Mr E. the next
time to entertain his brethren, and to preside ; but he
had unluckily disappeared. The majority present were
easily convinced by Mr P., that the debate on the lan
guage spoken by our Lord and the apostles ought to be
continued ; and, above all, from this consideration, that
one side only had been heard. Nobody doubted that
the learned Dean Alford had what appeared to him
valid grounds for his statement, that Greek was in
these days almost universally understood in Jerusalem;
and all the clergy of the club, who had sufficient leisure
and reading, engaged to give to the question, during
the coming month, the best attention in their power.
It was decided that Mr P. should endeavour to obtain
the consent of Mr. E. to the desired arrangement. Dr
Marcus promised, at the request of the party, to be
present at the next meeting; and I also had the good
fortune to receive an invitation.
In the forenoon of the day on which Mr. E. received
the communication of Mr P., as he was pondering about
the answer he should give to it, the archdeacon and
the rural dean walked into his vicarage, having occa-
B
�4
Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
sion to inspect his registers. He gave to them an
account of the discussion in the house of P., which we
have related, and desired the opinion of the two
divines. On the lawfulness or unlawfulness of baptis
ing the Jew, neither of them was prepared to decide at
the moment; but after Mr E.’s account of the argu
ments of Dr Marcus, drawn from Josephus, the
archdeacon exclaimed—“Quotations from Josephus
against the Gospels ! How utterly ridiculous I A fig
for Josephus! He was a bigotted Jew, and a bitter
enemy of the truth. Can any sane man treat him as
an unprejudiced witness ? Not a word that he has to
say against the testimony of the primitive apostolic
church can deserve one moment’s attention.” “ I
agree with you about the value of arguments drawn
from Josephus against the teaching of the church,”
said the rural dean ; “but I am by no means certain
that he was the mere Jew that you term him. The
learned editor of my Whiston’s ‘Josephus’ affirms
that he was a Nazarene Christian, and gives what I
consider to be good reasons for his opinion.”
Mr E. was at this moment called out to speak with a
parishioner, whereupon the archdeacon found it con
venient to change the topic of discourse, saying—
“ What an awful thing it is to find these parochial clergy
and their curates debating such perilous points as these,
and that in the absence of any controlling dignitary 1 ”
“ It is bad enough,” replied the rural dean, “ when the
dignitary is there; for I suppose you consider a rural
dean to be a dignitary, don’t you?” “Assuredly,”
was the reply; “I am but a deacon, but you are a
dean. The whole diocese holds you to be a Euler
Dean, the greatest swell among us.”
“Then,” said the dean, “ you will not ask me again how
it comes to pass that, while other rural deans invite their
clergy to a debate three or four times a year, I do that
only once. I find once rather more than enough. I dis
approve utterly, as the bishop well knows, of these ruri-
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
5
decanal gatherings; and if I had the power, I would
prevent all discussion, except under a dignified and
discreet president, at the meetings of the clerical book
clubs ; for nothing but mischief can possibly come of
this spirit of debate among the inferior clergy.” “ You
told me,” said the archdeacon, “ that the subject of
discussion at your annual gatherings is chosen by the
members of the chapter. What would you do if they
determined to handle in your house this question of
the language spoken by our Lord and the apostles
The rural dean answered, with a little laugh—“ They
shall never meddle with such a topic before me. The
subject would be formally announced, of course ; but I
should fall back upon our fundamental regulation, that
a subject proposed by the bishop must take precedence
of all others. I have a stock of such always on hand.
Diocesan finance is a capital one. I could easily occupy
half the time with a speech about that, much to their
instruction; for, I am sorry to say, they know and
care little about it, and do not raise half the money
that they might.” Here Mr E. came in again, and the
two dignitaries urged and implored him to refuse the
permission asked to continue such an unprofitable dis
cussion in the house, and to protest against the debate
anywhere. They were, as the reader can imagine,
quite eloquent about the danger of corrupting the
minds of curates and young divines, and on the utter
absurdity of attempting to mend the historical decisions
of such men as Dean Alford, on whom, from their
superior learning and leisure, was specially devolved
the task of investigating such questions. Mr E.
listened respectfully to all they had to say, but did
not pledge himself to more than a serious consideration
of their counsel. The truth was, that although the
two gardeners of these highly connected and splendidly
beneficed gentlemen had together about twice the
income of Mr E.’s vicarage, he firmly believed—and for
good reasons—that the two dignified heads were very
�6
Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
far from containing twice his own brains and learning.
Soon after their departure, he took his stout cane, and
walked six miles to the Independent College, of which
the Rev. Dr Jones, E.R.A.S., was the Principal, a *
gentleman of great ability and erudition, with whom
Mr E. had the liberality and good taste to be cordially
intimate. Brought up in the school of the evangelical
Simeon, he and his friend Jones were heartily together
in their abhorrence of the rising tide of conjuring and
pardoning sacerdotalism, and held fast to the leading
principles of the Nicene theology, and to the doctrine
of the Atonement; but their reverence for the old
dogmatic anathemas, and their early faith in the
infallible inspiration and correctness of canonical
Scripture, had been more shaken by their frank inter
change of thought than either was accustomed to con
fess to others.
Dr Jones rubbed his hands with delight when Mr
E., after placing the whole case before him, asked his
advice. “ ’Tis the luckiest thing in the world,” said
the doctor. “ That question has been completely set
at rest by my friend, Dr Roberts. Here is his book
(removing from the shelf a volume of 600 pages) : take
that with you and read it. I know it well. Accede
by all means to the proposal made, and ask me to be
of the party. Together we shall utterly demolish the
Jew.’’ The book was “ Discussions on the Gospels,”
by Dr Alexander Roberts. Mr E. was so pleased, after
turning over a few pages, that he at once 'wrote a note
to Mr P------ , expressing his consent, and begging that
all the members of the club, including Dr Marcus,
should come early enough to begin the resumed debate
at eleven o’clock on the day appointed. He added,
after a little conversation with Dr Jones, that he
thought it of the highest importance, and that as pre
sident he should insist upon it, that the question to
which all the speakers should address themselves,
should be, not whether Greek was understood by the
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View,
y
learned and the higher classes in Palestine, but what
tongue was commonly spoken by the class to which
our Lord and his disciples belonged ; and that all col
lateral and dependent inquiries should be at present
avoided, such as the shewing reasons why the gospels
were written and preserved in Greek only, or the de
manding of reasons why no Hebrew documents have
come down to us. For he was sure that there would be
time little enough for the main discussion of the main
question. He wished to see an honest attempt to de
cide that, or to prove that no decision is attainable.
From either issue, results would follow too vast for one
day’s debate.
The day arrived. The little vicarage was crowded
with guests. Warm was the welcome, and delicious
the cup of fine home-brewed ale which awaited the
smiling visitors, all, for a distance, foot travellers. Mr
and Mrs E. were advanced in life ; and by the prac
tice of self-denial and economy, which our equally rich
artizans and miners will not learn for centuries to come,
had always been able to exercise, on occasion, a refined
though not ambitious hospitality.
Mr E------ had
grown old on a clerical income little more than the
wages and the perquisites of his late enormously en
dowed Hector’s confidential valet; he had done in his
vast parish ten times that Rector’s work in his splendid
park and pretty little village, and, by wonderful energy
in writing and teaching at home, he had made for
himself a literary name, brought up a family, and
turned out a son as second wrangler, fellow of a most
distinguished college, and a rising barrister.
The
reward of his talents and virtues had been not merely
neglect; that can easily be borne ; but insult of pecu
liar cruelty, the true story of which this is not the
place to telL
Mr E------ took the chair at the head of a table,
on which lay his own Philo, Mr P.’s Josephus and
Eusebius, Dr Robert’s “ Dissertations,” with other
�8 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
books. The party was composed of just the persons
of the preceding meeting. Dr Jones, after all, was
not there, as certain members of the Book Society had
objected to the assistance of a non-member who had
not been present at the preceding debate. The book
of Dr Roberts had been read by several of the divines.
Mr E------stated his wish to confine the discussion
to this one question—What was the language commonly
spoken in Judea in the time of our Lord by persons of
the class to which he and his disciples belonged?
“ Before we consider what reply can be given to Dr
Marcus’s inference frem the works of Josephus, that
Greek was not commonly spoken by his countrymen,
but was a foreign tongue unknown to all but a few, I
should wish to have his whole argument before us, and
I would ask him what other passages in Josephus he
can adduce in support of his opinion.” “ There is
something to the purpose,” said Dr Marcus, “ in the
autobiography of Josephus, prefixed to his works. He
speaks of one Justus of Tiberias, the son of Pistus (of
course translations of Hebrew names), the leader of
a faction in Tiberias, thus § 9 : ‘ and, as he said this,
he exhorted the multitude (to go to war against the
Romans) ; for his abilities lay in making harangues
to the people, and in being too hard in his speeches
for such as opposed him, and this by his craftiness and
fallacies ; for he was not unskilful in the learning of the
Greeks, and in dependence on that skill it was that he
undertook to write a history of these affairs.’ Of the
said Justus, he speaks thus in § 65 :—“But if thou
art so hardy as to affirm that thou hast written this
history better than all the rest, why didst thou not
publish thy history whilst the Emperors Vespasian and
Titus, the generals in that war, as well as King
Agrippa and his family, who were men well skilled in
the learning of the Greeks, were all alive ? for then
thou couldest have had the testimony of thy accuracy ?”
“ If,” continued Dr Marcus, “ Greek, the good
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
9
grammatical Greek of the New Testament, was com
monly understood in Jerusalem before Justus was born,
and, as Dr Roberts, whose book is on the table, main
tains, by all classes, even the rabble, all over Palestine,
it would have been a matter of course, that a leader of
a faction in Tiberias should know the language well,
and still more, that King Agrippa and his family should
be familiar with it. How then could it have come into
the head of Josephus to observe of his opponent Justus,
and of those royal personages, that they were not un
skilled in the learning of the Greeks ? According to
Dr Roberts, Greek was more spoken in Palestine than
English is now in Wales. Would any educated Welsh
man think of remarking about his superior or equal
in that country, that he was not unskilful in English ?
I submit that the words of Josephus are not consistent
with the supposition that Greek was commonly under
stood. It is most absurd to imagine that a Jewish
writer, born in a country where the Greek of the New
Testament was spoken by everybody, should treat as a
noteworthy accomplishment that King Agrippa, born
and bred there, should be able to understand the Greek
of Josephus or Justus, which is not a bit more difficult
than that of any literary or diplomatic document of the
day. Josephus evidently speaks of Justus as well able
to stir up the people in Hebrew, and to wrangle with
officials and others in Greek.
“ There is another important passage which should be
well considered by those who argue from the confessedly
wide dissemination of the Greek language after the
conquests of Alexander, that it must needs have be
come familiar to all in the jealous land of Israel,
although they have no evidence in the world that it
was, except that which is founded on the theological
necessity that the first, second, and fourth gospels should
be the writing of Palestinian Jews. In the first book
against Apion, § 12, we read thus—“As for ourselves,
we neither inhabit a maritime country, nor do we de-
�i o Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
light in merchandise, nor in such a mixture with other
men as arises from it; hut, the cities we dwell in are
remote from the sea, and having a fruitful country for
our habitation, we take pains in cultivating that only.
Our principal care of all is this, to educate our children
well; and we think it to be the most necessary busi
ness of our whole life, to observe the laws which have
been given us, and to keep those rules of piety that
have been delivered down to us. Since, therefore,
besides what we have already taken notice of, we have
had a peculiar way of living of our own, there was no
occasion ever offered us in ancient ages for intermix
ing with the Greeks, as they had for mixing among
the Egyptians, by their intercourse of exporting and
importing their several goods ; as they also mixed with
the Phoenicians, who lived by the sea-side, by means of
their love of lucre in trade and merchandise.” It is
plain that Josephus, though he knew that the central
port of Caesarea, the seat of the Roman government,
was a Greek speaking city, and that there were forti
fied cities in the country where many foreigners dwelt,
is here describing his native land as unaltered by com
munion and mixture with the Greeks ; and how is it
possible, that without such mixture the Greek tongue
could have become as familiar as the Hebrew or Ara
maic of the country ? Caesarea, though considered by
geographers to be in Judaea, is spoken of by Josephus,
as the land of the foreigner ; e.g., he begins the 18th
chapter of the second book of the Wars thus —•“ How
the people of Cesarea had slain the Jews that were
among them on the very same day and hour,” &c. In
the fourteenth book also, he speaks of the people of
Cesarea as distinct from the thousands of Jews who
dwelt there ; as when he says, “ the Jews that dwelt at
Cesarea had a synagogue near the place, whose owner
was a certain Cesarean Greek,” evidently a heathen
Greek, who is described as taking pleasure in insult
ing the religion of his Jewish tenants.
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
11
“ In the preface to the Antiquities,” continued Dr
Marcus, “in section 2, Josephus says, in giving an
account of the difficulties he had overcome : ‘ In process
of time, as usually happens to those who undertake great
things, I grew weary, and went on slowly, it being a
large subject, and a difficult thing to translate our
history into a foreign, and to us, unaccustomed lan
guage.’ I ought also to have read to you the words
immediately preceding those to which I first referred
(Part I., p. 14) : ‘ And I am so bold to say, now that
I have so completely perfected the work I proposed to
do, that no other person, whether he were a Jew or a
foreigner, had he ever so great an inclination to it,
could so accurately deliver these accounts to the Greeks
as is done in these books. Por those of my own
nation freely acknowledge that I far exceed them in
the learning belonging to the Jews ; I have also taken
great pains to obtain the learning of the Greeks,’ &c.,
as before quoted.
“ Here Josephus calls Greek a language 1 foreign and
unaccustomed ’ (more correctly foreign and outlandish)
to his countrymen. And he had taken great pains to
learn to write it. What need was there of such great
pains to a scholar born and bred where it was
commonly spoken ? What Welsh or Highland gentle
man will place it on record that he has taken great
pains to obtain the learning of the English ? And,
make what allowances we may for his vanity, it is a
remarkable thing for him to declare his conviction,
that no man living, Jew or Greek, could have written
his book. We can understand why no Greek could do
it—because none had the requisite knowledge of the
ancient Hebrew Scriptures. But why no Jew 1 there
were numbers of learned Jews at Alexandria who
knew far more of Greek literature than he did : but
these he plainly considered disqualified by their ignor
ance of the Hebrew, the Septuagint being the only
form in which they studied the scriptures. What then
�/
12
Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
disqualified all the learned Jews of Jerusalem? they
surely were not all incompetent to throw the Old
Testament into such a narrative as that in the Antiqui
ties. They could be disqualified only by their want of
Greek. And yet they were, as your divines pretend,
educated men, the sons of fathers who had continually
heard the good grammatical, though not most elegant,
Greek of the New Testament, spoken by all classes,
high and low, in Judea.”
When Dr Marcus had ended his remarks, the chair
man said : “ As Josephus is the only Jew born in
Judea in those times, whose testimony distinct from
that of our gospels we have before us, I think we had
best examine carefully the passages of his writing,
which Dr Marcus has adduced, and try to satisfy our
selves whether they prove, as Dr Marcus holds, that
Greek was an unspoken and completely foreign tongue
in Judea in the time of our Lord, or whether, as Dr
Roberts maintains, they prove nothing’ of the kind.
Dr Roberts, in his chap, viii., part I., considers the
objections from the writings of Josephus to his thesis,
that Greek wTas the prevailing language.”
“ Before you read Dr Roberts’s criticisms,’ said Mr
G------ , “ let me beg you, for the information of myself
and others, who have not read his large volume, to give
us in his own words, the exact statement of his thesis.”
Mr E------ . assented, and opening the volume, said,
“ at page 4, Dr Roberts observes : ‘ The Greek language
I believe to have been almost universally prevalent,
and to have been understood and employed, more or
less, by all classes of the community. But I believe
that the Greek, though thus generally used, was
attended by the Aramaean, which was frequently spoken
by all ranks of the native population, was made use by
such, at times, on public as well as private occasions ;
but was, for the most part, employed only in homely
and familiar intercouse, and might still be said, though
with difficulty, and amid many exceptions, to maintain
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View, i 3
its position as the mother-tongue of the inhabitants of
the country.” “ So that,” said Mr G------, “ is the
result of six hundred pages of historical inquiry ! To
me it sounds very like—whichever you please, my
dear, you pay your money, and you take your choice.
Is there anything more definite?” “Do not be in
such a hurry, friend G------ ,” said B------ ; “ on page
5, he says : ‘What I maintain, and shall endeavour to
prove, is that Greek was, in several important respects,
the then prevailing language (prevailing in capitals) of
Palestine; that it was, in particular, the language of
literature and commerce; the language generally
employed in public intercourse ; the language which a
religious teacher would have no hesitation in selecting
and making use of, for the most part, as the vehicle for
conveying his instructions, whether orally or in writ
ing ; and the language, accordingly, which was thus
employed both by our Lord and his apostles.’ ”
“ Hmm ! ” said Mr G------ , “he begins by maintaining
in capitals, and then endeavours to prove, I fear, in
very small. Evidently, he cares little for mere
historical inquiry, but is about to fight his way through
thick and thin, as special pleader for the utterance in
Greek, by our Lord and the apostles, of all their words
recorded in Greek. I do not expect from him much
aid in our examination of Josephus. Does he allow
that Jesus ever spoke Hebrew?” “I cannot find
that he does,” was the answer. “At page 486, he
winds up thus : ‘We must discard such notions and
errors, whosoever may sanction and maintain them,
and cling to that one simple and satisfactory
hypothesis, by which, as has been shown, the whole
facts of the case are easily explained, and by which
alone they become intelligible—that (here all that
follows is in capitals) ‘ Our Lord Jesus Christ spoke
in Greek, and the Evangelists independently
NARRATED HIS ACTIONS, AND REPORTED HIS DISCOURSES
IN THE SAME
EMPLOYED.’ ”
LANGUAGE WHICH
HE
HAD
HIMSELF
�14 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
At this, G------, P----- , and a few others, laughed
heartily, and one gentleman was facetious enough to
venture something funny about capital logic. “ I
suppose,” said one, who had not seen the book, “ he
allows, at least, that our Lord said, talitha cumi.”
“ He does,” said the reader, “ and gives a reason for it
thus, at page 92 : ‘ The person on whom the miracle
was performed, was of tender years, and being the
daughter of a strictly Jewish family, she was probably,
as yet, but little acquainted with the Greek. At any
rate, Greek was to her, as to every native Jew, a
language not generally employed in the domestic circle ;
and it was to Hebrew that her ears, from infancy, had
been accustomed. How beautifully accordant then,
with the character of Him whose heart was tenderness
itself, that now, as he bent over the lifeless frame of
the maiden, and breathed that life-giving whisper into
her ear, it should have been in the loved and familiar
accents of her mother-tongue ! ’ ”
Later in his book, in his concluding chapter, he
claims to have established that our Lord and his apostles
habitually made use of the Greek language. “ And the
conclusion which I have sought to make good amounts
to this—that throughout the whole of his public
ministry : ... in the house of Mary at Bethany, as
well as in the city, our blessed Lord continually made
use of the Greek language” (p. 519).
“ G------is quite correct,” said Mr P. in his estimate of
Dr Roberts. “ He is the most daring and dogmatic
of special pleaders. His one great argument is—the
words of Jesus have come down to us in Greek—ergo,
He uttered them in Greek. He is grand in main
taining and affirming. At page 16, he says, ‘ What I
maintain and mean to prove is, that Greek was the
language which they habitually used in their public
addresses; so that if any one affirms that Hebrew was
used on some occasions, when their discourses have
been reported in Greek, it remains with him to shew
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 15
it. I may be inclined to believe that some such occa
sions are possibly to be met with in the Gospel history;
but, at any rate, I affirm that these were altogether ex
ceptional, and that Greek was the language usually em
ployed in addressing even the very humblest of the
people.’ He allows you as much Aramaic as you like,
attending the Greek, as he says, Aramaic in homely and
familiar intercourse, Aramaic maintaining its position
* as the mother tongue of the inhabitants of the country,’
Aramaic as the language employed in the domestic
circle, even in the house of rulers of the synagogue;
but not a word of it ever uttered by our Lord, unless
you can demonstrate it. The only general notion
which he allows me to frame, so far as I can under
stand him is this;—that the moment a Jew, in any
part of Palestine, put his nose out of doors, he changed
his language and began to talk Greek, or else held his
peace, except on the rarest occasions; afraid, I fancy,
that his old mother tongue would catch the rheu
matics.”
“ Enough,” said the chairman, “ and more than
enough, about the thesis of Dr Roberts. Let us con
sider his replies to objections from Josephus.” “ Are
the replies lengthy,” demanded Mr G. “ Only seven
pages,” was the answer.
“ Then we ought to hear
every word of them,” said Mr G. The chairman read
as follows, from page 286 of the chapter “ Considera
tion of Objections
“The first passage calling for re
mark is found in the preface to his ‘ History of the
Jewish War: ’—‘ I have devoted myself to the task of
translating, for the sake of those who live under the
government of the Romans, the narrative which I for
merly composed in our national language
yXwa'o'jj),
and transmitted to the Barbarians of the interior (roi$
/3a,pf3apois).‘ In section following, he explains that
his object in re-writing his history was, that the Greeks
and Romans, as well as the Parthians, the Babylonians,
the further Arabians, and the Jews beyond the
�16 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
Euphrates, might have access to a true narrative of
events. Dr Roberts concludes his argument thu,s:—
“ Josephus, in composing his history in Greek, intended
it for the use generally of those who lived under the
government of the Romans — manifestly, therefore,
though not exclusively, for his brethren in Palestine.
The same thing appears from his not enumerating the
Jews of Palestine, among those for whom the Hebrew
edition of his narrative was designed.” The inference
drawn is,—“ That a history intended for the natives of
Palestine, among others, would naturally be composed
in the Greek language.” “ Bravo ! Dr Roberts,” cried
Mr G. “ From that inference, and from the remark
that the Jews of Palestine were not named as the in
tended readers of the Hebrew history, we all see what
a dunce Dr Marcus was for telling us that the book
written by Josephus in his native tongue was meant
(Part I., p. 25) for the information of his countrymen!
It was the translation in the foreign and outlandish
tongue which was naturally composed for their reading.”
The fun of this was too much even for the chairman’s
gravity, and there was a peal of refreshing laughter all
round. Mr E. went on—“ there are two other passages
generally quoted from Josephus, in the former of which
(the third quoted above by Dr Marcus, page 11) he
speaks of the Greek in which he wrote his antiquities
as a
xai aWohavi] SiaXtxroc (literally a foreign and
outlandish speech or dialect) ; and in the latter— ”
“ Pardon me,” said Mr P., “ it will save time to take
one passage at once. Tell us how he gets out of the
1 foreign and outlandish.’” “They are dealt with to
gether, and I can find nothing,” said the reader, “ be
sides these two sentences in the page following. •' It was
not his purpose merely to write in Greek, but as far as
possible in pure and classical Greek. The Hebraistic
Greek to which he was accustomed, might almost have
been reckoned a different language from that employed
by the classical historians.’ ”
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
17
“ Here,” said Mr P., “we have completely changed
our ground. Instead of the merry inference just drawn,
that the Greek, into which Josephus translated his
work in his native tongue, was the language in which
information for his countrymen would be 1 naturally
composed,’ we learn now that, compared with that
translation, the Greek to which his countrymen, even
polished scholars like himself, were accustomed, might
almost have been reckoned a different language—so
different, that Josephus calls his own historical Greek
a ‘ foreign and outlandish tongue ’ to his countrymen!
And this laughable juggle of contradiction is an answer
to the objection founded on the plain words of
Josephus! Just now we heard, and Dr Roberts is
never tired of repeating it, that the Greek of our Gospels
is the very Greek which fell from the lips of the Saviour
and the Apostles, and the Greek spoken by all classes
of Jews. Now, we are told that the Greek of the most
polished society in Jerusalem was, from its corruptions,
almost a different language from that strange and out
landish classical Greek. Still more corrupt, then,
must have been the Greek of the fishermen of Galilee.
But this we have, word for word, says the Doctor, in
the New Testament; and we can compare it with the
classical—with what result? The fact is, that the dif
ference is so small, that none of us ever saw it, till
after the labour of years we had learned the refinements
of the language. Both are studied from the same
grammar and dictionary; not one of us, I fancy, is able
to point out anything ungrammatical in one more
than in the other, vast as the complexities of Greek
grammar are. Nor do I believe that all of us together
can recal half-a-dozen phrases in the utterances of our
Lord and the apostles, which can be termed Hebraistic
Greek.”
“ I am astonished,” said Mr C., “ at all this fuss
about
iS/dXEzrog. It means either strange tongue,
or strange dialect. Evidently Josephus is speaking of
B
�18 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
two dialects of Greek. You may shake your heads,
but you cannot deny that, with the grammarians,
means simple dialectus, dialect. We have no
right to affirm that the Greek spoken by our Lord and
the apostles, and by Jews of their station, was quite as
pure and grammatical as our present text. Broad
Scotch or broad Lancashire may well be called a strange
outlandish dialect in comparison with classical English.”
“ That may be,” said the chairman; “but it is not
the same thing as if a writer of classical English should
term his own language strange and outlandish in com
parison of the ruder speech, as you seem to think
Josephus did.”
“ And what harm in that? That’s another thing,”
said C., who was that scarce commodity an Irish highchurchman ; “ I say that, if a divine teacher were to
appear speaking either dialect, his words might be
handed down in pure grammatical English, with perfect
faithfulness as to the phrases used, but modified for all
mankind, not in the tongue spoken, but in dialect only.
I say that the thesis of Dr Roberts is not damaged at
all by this phrase of Josephus.” “That,” said the
chairman, “ demands full consideration, and I am
partly inclined to agree with C. Indeed, I intended to
state, if not to maintain, his view of the matter. You
had best hear Dr Roberts out on these two passages.”
He read on—“ and in the latter he tells us he had de
voted himself, to the study of Greek learning, but had
not been able to acquire a correct pronunciation, on
account of the habit which prevailed in his native
country.” (Vid. the Greek, Part I., p. 24). These
passages have been much insisted on by those who
deny the prevalence of Greek in Palestine. But the
whole difficulty which they seem to present vanishes
when we take into account the object which Josephus
had professedly in view. It was not his purpose
merely to write in Greek, but, as far as possible, in pure
and classical Greek. And it is in perfect consistency
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 19
■with the position which I uphold as to the linguistic
condition of Palestine at the time, that he should have
felt great difficulty in accomplishing his purpose. His
<!rdrpios <fvv7)6eia, greatly hindered it. The Hebraistic
Greek to which he was accustomed, might almost have
been reckoned a different language from that employed
by the classical historians. He adds in a note: ‘ I may
observe that it is not uncommon to find Scottish
writers of the last century speaking in their prefaces of
the pains which they had taken, often, as was felt,
with but partial success, to write in correct and classical
English—Comp. e. g., the Preface to Campbell’s work ‘On
the Gospels.’ “I confess,” added the chairman, “that if
it could be maintained that such Hebraistic Greek was
familiarly spoken by the Jews, the reply of Dr Roberts
to objections from Josephus, is to me satisfactory.”
“ That exactly amounts,” said Mr B., “ to this: that
in your judgment, if the thesis of Dr Roberts be first
vastly altered, and then granted, without one word of
historical proof, the thesis, in spite of Josephus, will
stand. The Greek posited in his thesis is the good
grammatical Greek of the New Testament; the altera
tion required, and ready for use, is to put for that a
Greek as different from it, as broad Scotch or broad
Lancashire is diverse from decent English. Don’t you
twig this sleight of hand? The doctor is conjuring
with two cards, not one.”
“That is precisely so,” said Mr P., rising, “there’s
not in Dr Roberts’ large book a shadow of demonstra
tion that Greek was commonly spoken in Judea 1800
years ago, except his argument from the New Testa
ment books, assumed as authentic. And the only con
siderations worth notice in that argument, besides sim
ple assumption of the matter in debate, are these ; first,
that no hint is even given by the narrators that they
are translating into Greek what was said in Aramaic;
and secondly, that no mention of interpreter be
tween Jew and Greek is ever made. By the help of
�20 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
these two considerations and Dr Roberts’ capitals, it
would be easy to write a book proving that the Iberian,
Celtic and German tribes, with whom the Roman
generals had so much intercourse and correspondence,
all spoke commonly the Latin tongue along with their
vernacular. Such a book would be probably more
difficult to confute from cotemporary history than is
Dr Roberts’ volume. Where could we find a direct
negative, that they did not know Latin? With respect
to these passages from Josephus, I observe, first, that
they all conspire to agree exactly, without qualification
or quibble, with the flat negation of Dr Roberts’ thesis.
Josephus is for him never a witness; he pleads only
against the evidence of that writer. The enormous argu
ment from silence is dead against him. No terms in the
Greek language can be found to describe the strange
ness and difficulty of a foreign tongue, though it were
Chinese, stronger than those used by Josephus about
Greek to a Jew, a life-time after the days of our Lord.
In order to make Josephus in any way agree with Dr
Roberts, we must first get this Hebraistic Greek into
Judea, in spite of the evidence of that author which Dr
Marcus has read to us, concerning the jealous seclusion
of his people from Greek intercourse. Next, we must
conceive of Josephus, a noble and a priest, a renowned
scholar, a famous warrior and diplomatist of the capital,
so drenched in these vulgar Hebraisms, that, in spite
of all the reasons which would have urged him to ob
tain more knowledge than the rabble, whom Dr Roberts
describes at page 188 as perfectly familiar with Greek,
and in spite also of the close relation into which he
was brought for years as a public person, with men,
both friends and enemies, round about Judea, who
spoke and wrote Greek perfectly—we must conceive of
such a man, with such early training, such opportunities
and motives, as content to place on record, when over
forty years old, what very great pains he had taken to
learn Greek, how he had become skilled in the gram-
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 21
mar ot it, how at great he cost had put himself under
tuition in the Greek tongue at Rome, how he had
never managed to pronounce it properly, and how with
the help of others he had surmounted the mighty
difficulty of writing a Greek book, which after all the
rhetorical touching of his “ Graeculus esuriens,” is far
from being a model of classic elegance.
“ This may be natural and pardonable in a man who
had never had nor been supposed to have opportunities
of learning Greek ; but most ridiculous in a scholar
brought up in a capital city where Greek was commonly
spoken before he was born.
“ Yet, far the greatest difficulty in our way to Dr
Robert's thesis, is the getting that Hebraistic Greek
into Palestine. Such a result is contrary to all that
is known of the diffusion of a superior language,
which is always introduced and established by govern
ment officials, military men, or the better class of
proprietors and employers of brains and labour. A
tongue so diffused over a land invariably corrupts the
vernacular, but is not corrupted by it. The Welsh,
Irish, and Gaelic spoken in these islands are ungram
matical and mixed ’with English words ; but the men
who speak them utter a grammatical English, free
from the vernacular, and which they have learned
from their superiors. A Hebraistic Greek is just as
much a nonentity as a Cymricised English. Your
Welsh, Irish, or Highland peasant speaks far better
English than hundreds of wealthy employers in Lan
cashire.
“ Mr C.’s notion of a Scotch or Lancashire sort of
Greek spoken in Judeea is a chimera: it is the cart
before the horse. Our provincial dialects are all ancient
speech which has lagged behind in improvement, not
modern speech imported and degraded, so that they
have no likeness to this fancied Hebraistic Greek. If
we examine the languages of Europe sprung from the
Latin, at least this is true of French, we find scarcely
�22
Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
any mixture in them of the Celtic and Teutonic dis
placed by them. The only book of the New Testament
which deserves to be called Hebraistic Greek is the
Apocalypse. There is not a tittle of evidence that
such Greek was ever a spoken language. The book is
probably the work (I. allude here not to its poetic
splendour) of a Jew, poorly educated, who, late in life,
and with imperfect opportunities, set himself to learn
and write a foreign tongue, just as a half-educated and
ambitious Englishman might turn out a French book
full of Anglicisms. I have read what a writer in
Macmillan’s Magazine has to say concerning the pigeon
English about our factories in the Chinese ports; but
there is no reason to believe that such a jargon ever
was or ever will be commonly spoken by all classes of
a community. Yet I can well imagine that such a
pigeon Greek was current among a meaner sort of Jews
in Caesarea, if there were any who chose to sell their
labour to the Gentiles, and perhaps among the few
who sold their produce there.
“ I shall not debate with Dr Roberts the meaning of
'Trarpiog euvijSeia; that is of little moment; but I do
not admire his concealing from the English reader the
statements of Josephus in two of his passages, that he
had taken lessons in Greek at Rome, and had got hold
of the Greek grammar; and the doctor has no right to
say that the “ custom of his country ” prevented his
writing, but only his pronunciation.” Mr P. sat down.
“It is really wonderfully hard to see one’s way to
the truth in this question,” said the chairman. “We
must read the reply to the remaining passages ■ and
here I shall not have to read all that is written. The
author says : ‘ Other passages are frequently referred
to (“ Wars,” v. 9, 2 ; vi. 2, 6) in which J osephus speaks
of himself as having, by command of Titus, addressed
his besieged countrymen, tjj 'Trarpi^ yXussp (in their
native tongue), and ‘Efipoufyiv (in Hebrew). The only
part of Dr Roberts’ answer to them which appears to
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 23
me worth reading is this : “ They were in arms against
the Roman invaders, and we know that the greatest
fanaticism then prevailed among them. There was a
violent recoil from all that savoured of Gentilism, and
this feeling would be sure to display itself in regard to
language as in other particulars. In fact, as was for
merly mentioned, we find a statement in the Mischna
to the effect that the employment of Greek for certain
purposes was formally prohibited during the war with
Titus; so that we have no difficulty in understanding
why, on the occasions referred to, Josephus should
have made use of the Hebrew language.”
“ That appears to me a sufficient reply,” said the
president.
“With all my heart,” answered Dr Marcus; “but
I beg you not to suppose that there is one word in the
Mischna which indicates that Greek was commonly
spoken. Dr Roberts and the host of writers who have
before handled this question would have produced such
evidence, if it had been there. There were many
things connected with property, marriage, and divorce,
about which the Roman Government had decreed for
their own convenience that legal documents in Greek
should be as valid as those in Hebrew.”
' Hereupon Mr B. remarked : “ In the utter absence
of historical evidence that Greek was a familiar lan
guage, the use of Hebrew by the heralds of Titus will
still found a very strong suspicion, although it supplies
no proof, that no other language would have been
understood. And no more can be urged, from these
passages of Josephus, besides what P. calls the enor
mous historical argument of silence. Josephus has
preserved two long orations which he delivered to his
countrymen by command of Titus in Hebrew; and
tells us, that at the final conference of Titus in person
with the mad generals, an interpreter was employed.
And yet we are to believe that Greek was as familiar
to those generals from their earliest days as to Titus
himself.”
�24 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
11 One more passage,” said the chairman ; “ that in
which Josephus affirms (Cont. Ap. 1-9) that he was
the only person who understood (yvvird) the reports
brought by deserters from the city. The answer of
Dr Roberts is : ‘ I would be inclined to take ovv'njv not
in the sense of understood, but of became acquainted
with, a meaning which the word might possibly bear.
If this explanation of the difficulty be not accepted, I
see no other resource than perhaps the most natural
one of all—that of regarding the statement as cne of
the many exaggerations by which, in the course of his
writings, Josephus seeks to magnify his own import
ance.’ ”
At this there was another laugh all round, and a
great relief we all felt it to be.
One observed that if Dr Roberts chose to maintain
that the ancient Gauls and Britons talked Latin, he
would soon floor arguments from Caesar’s Commentaries.
Here Mr D. rose and said: “ Before we finish our
study of Josephus, I would make a remark which
to me appears of weight. The evidence is strong to
my mind that Josephus grew up without a knowledge
of Greek, such as enabled him either to speak or to
write it. Very likely he never studied it till he was
the prisoner of the Romans, as he affirms (Cont.
Ap. 1, 9) thus : ‘ Vespasian also and Titus had me
kept under a guard, and forced me to attend them con
tinually. At the first I was put into bonds; but was
set at liberty afterward, and sent to accompany Titus,
when he came from Alexandria to the siege of Jeru
salem ; during which time there was nothing done
which escaped my knowledge; for what happened in
the Roman camp I saw and wrote down carefully; and
what information the deserters brought out of the city,
I was the only man that understood them. After
wards I got leisure at Rome,’ &c. (y. part i., p. 25 for
the rest).
“ I agree,” continued Mr D., “ with Dr Alford and
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 25
Dr Roberts as to the prevalence of Greek in Judaea;
but I do not see how any one can read the accounts
given by Josephus of his own studies and acquire
ments, without perceiving that he meant the reader
to conclude that he himself was unacquainted with
that language. The explanation of all that is easy,
and I am amazed that it never occurred to Dr Roberts.
Josephus was a priest, brought up in the house of a
priest, educated among priests, who, as is very well
known, despised and hated the literature and language
of the Gentiles. After his imprisonment, kept as he
was about Vespasian and Titus, who determined to
employ him, he would have both leisure and the
strongest reasons, with good opportunities, to study
Greek; and he doubtless acquired enough of it to
make himself of great use to Titus in the siege. I
think that explains, better than the supposition of
Dr Marcus, how Josephus acted as interpreter.”
To this Dr Marcus, rising, said in reply: “I grant
that Mr D.’s explanation of the last-named matter is
better than mine, which was given at the moment
without due consideration. But I think he will soon
confess as much about the error of his persuasion that
the priests could remain ignorant of Greek in a country
where it was, as he fancies, generally spoken. Priests
know their own interests too well for that. You have
only to read the account given by Josephus of the
distribution of the highest military offices among the
priests. In Book II. of the ‘ Wars,’ c. 20, 4, we read :
‘They also chose other generals for Idumea; Jesus,
the son of Sapphias, one of the high priests, and
Eleazar, the son of Ananias, the high priest. . .Nor
did they neglect the care of other parts of the country;
hut Joseph, the son of Simon—both high priests—
(Antiq. xx., 8, 117) was sent as general to Jericho, as
was Manasseh to Perea; and John, the son of Matthias
(evidently brother of Josephus), was made governor of
the toparchies of Gophnitica and Acrabattene, as was
�26 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
Josephus, the son of Matthias, of both the Galilees
(i.e. the historian himself).’ Now, on your supposition,
that these little governments were not only, as all well
know, surrounded by fortresses full of Greek-speaking
officers, but also crowded with a Greek-speaking popu
lation, it is certainly the most comical of all blunders
that can be attributed by you to the Sanhedrim of
Jerusalem, that they should choose for their generals,
diplomatists, and governors the only men in the coun
try, namely the priests, who were ignorant of Greek !
The truth is, that not half a dozen men in Judaea
proper, resident natives of the country, were familiar
enough with that language to be able to speak it.”
Here the chairman rose and said, “We have done
all in our power, I think, to discuss the information
supplied by Josephus, about this puzzling question.
He was a sad blunderer who called history an old
almanack. I never was so baffled in making out the
meaning of an almanack as I am by this folio of
Josephus, on a subject which he every moment knew
as exactly as the number of his fingers, and which to
me, as a theologian, is of unspeakable importance. If
he had only used the word
or yXc5<r<ra or
instead of &aXs%rog, all would have been clear as the
noon. The words are frequently equivalent, but the
ambiguity in the last is undeniable. I must produce
for your consideration the only passage which I can
find in Philo, which bears upon our inquiry; but I
know that Dr Roberts could fairly argue that it is not
decisive. In his tract Ilepi tou navra, &irovda,7bv Itvai
s'ktvtepov, he praises the Essenes of Judea thus : rot
ovrovg i}
‘irepiep'/itag eXXijvixaiv ovoflLctrwv ddXrirdg
aptrrig cwrtp'yaffrai
•yvfJbvdefLo.ra vponditoa rag
irraivtrdg 'irpdl'iig,
a>v aSouXurog ektutepia, faPaiovrat,
i.e., “ Such athletes of virtue has the philosophy made
them, which, without the superfluous apparatus of
Greek names (or words), sets before them for exercises
those honourable deeds by which the noblest liberty is
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View, zy
established.” I want to know, if any of you can inform
me, what was Philo’s exact meaning in this, ‘ without
the needless fuss of Greek names 1 ’ Does he mean to
affirm that those Essenes knew nothing of Greek1 ”
All agreed that the words might bear the meaning,
though oddly expressed. Some thought he meant to
affirm that: others would have it that the ovo/zara were
the phrases of Greek philosophy: others that the
variety of sects and the names of sophists and philoso
phers are intended.
I begged the chairman’s permission to look for a
clue. I turned to the next tract, Hept (3iov 6eopririx6u.
Here Philo compares with the piety of the Egyptian
Theraputaa, a sort of monastic Jews more contempla
tive than the Essenes, that of the heathen, which
filled its strains with such names as Hephaestus, Hera,
Poseidon, Demeter, and the like, and with their deriva
tions from fanciful connection with the elements. He
goes on to say, aXXa rd [Ltv hh^ara sotpiordv early
'evprifJMra rd St ffroi^edx,
ilXjj Kai
eaurijs
dK/wiro$ (but the names are the inventions of sophists,
and the elements are lifeless matter of itself immov
able). He compliments the Theraputaa on thinking of
something higher than such empty names and mere
elements. They were, as we all know, all Greek-speaking
Jews. But he introduces the epithet sAXjju/xwv into
his compliment to the Essenes, not so much, I think,
by way of making an affirmation about their language,
as by way of allusion to what everybody knew,
that they were encumbered neither with the emptynames of Greek piety, nor with the language in which
they were coined. “ I submit,” said I, that this phrase
of Philo, vague as it is, is a testimony not for, but
against the thesis of Dr Roberts.”
Here Mr B. rose and said—“ We have given time
enough to Josephus and Philo. One thing I am
curious to know. How does Dr Roberts dispose of the
fact established by all ecclesiastical history and tradi
�2 8 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
tion, if they are to be held competent to establish any
thing, that the first record of our Lord’s words was
written in Hebrew by the apostle Matthew ? If none
of our Greek evangelists has translated the words of
Jesus into another tongue, Matthew, at all events, must
have been a translator.”
“ To that question,” said the chairman, “ Dr Roberts
devotes 80 pages ‘ on the original language of St
Matthew’s gospel.’ It is a weary tissue of other men’s
opinions. He assumes that he has proved that our
Lord spoke in Greek all that is recorded of his words,
except a very few. From this it follows, of course,
that the first record must have been in Greek ; but he
does not quite press that. He appeals to evidence.
The internal evidence he shews in his way to be over
whelming that our Greek Matthew is an original. The
external he makes light of, because nobody ever saw
that Hebrew gospel; and he concludes triumphantly
(page 448) that there is no sufficient ground for believ
ing that Matthew ever wrote a gospel in Hebrew at
all. He considers that the ‘ Gospel of the Hebrews,’
of which Eusebius and Jerome speak, was an early
translation from the Greek Matthew, afterwards cor
rupted.”
“No sufficient ground for believing?” said Mr G.
“ I say, because I have taken the trouble to examine
for myself, that there is quite as much ground for
believing the testimony to a Hebrew Matthew, as for
believing anything else of what is called primitive
external evidence for the authenticity of our gospels.
The whole story must stand or fall together. This
blow in the mouth from the staff of Dr Roberts leaves
hardly a tooth in the gums of our poor Church Clio 1
Dr Roberts is almost a match in penetration into
antiquity for our wise and modest Manning. He alone
is worthy to stand cheek by jowl with that dolichouatous dignitary, and cry to us all, 1 Were you ever in
antiquity, or any that belong to you ? We two were
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 2 9
there ! ’ To which the classical mitre could not fail
to wag the rejoinder,
Istis ‘ ‘ florentes aetatibus, Arcades ambo,
Et cantare pares, et respondere parati.”
“ I am grievously disappointed,” said the president,
“ wdth the result of our labour. I am not convinced
either that our Lord spoke Hebrew only, or Greek
only, or sometimes Greek, and sometimes Hebrew.
One of these must be the truth; but I declare to
you honestly, that with my present light and learning,
I am unable to determine which. I can only conclude
that this is one of those things which it is not necessary
for me to know. You may be, or may not be, in a
less embarrassed state of mind; but I have a wish to
know what that state is. There are fourteen of us here,
besides Dr Marcus, and our friend Mr Kirkman. I
put a question to you thirteen. As many of you as have
come to a defined conclusion, satisfactory to your
judgment, about the language in which the Lord Jesus
conveyed his teaching, hold up your hands.” Six
hands were raised. “Then,” said he, “ there are eight
of us not satisfied in our judgments. Now, of the six
who are satisfied, let as many as are convinced that
our Lord taught in the Greek language, hold up their
hands.” Three hands were held up. “ Then the other
three are convinced that our Lord taught in Hebrew.
I heartily wish we could have arrived at a result more
unanimous.”
Upon this Dr Marcus rose with sparkling eyes.
“ Allow me to express my admiration of the learning,
the patience, and the thorough honesty, with which
you have faced my argument from Josephus. Your
result has doubled the power of my general comparison
between the boastful pretensions and the actual assets,
as you say in your Bankruptcy Courts, of your ortho
dox faith and truth. I beg to repeat my statement of
those pretensions, and to write under them your own
valuation of your stock of real knowledge; that with
all your ecclesiastical pomp and pride, with all your
�30 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
Fathers and your pedigrees, the most learned synod
you can assemble is unable to determine in what human
language your Incarnate God delivered to you your
church authority and your dogmatic revelation, ‘ which
whosoever keepeth not whole and undefiled, without
doubt he shall perish everlastingly.’
“ The chairman regrets that no statement is pro
ducible, at least from cotemporary history, of the
direct negative, that no other tongue than the Hebrew
of the day was spoken by Jesus and his disciples.
“ In the discussion which we had about that famous
letter of Jesus to the King of Edessa, you heard evi
dence that ought to count among you almost for that
of an ear witness. If you doubt the story that the
correspondence was to be seen in the day of Eusebius,
in the public records of Edessa, in the Syrian tongue ;
if you doubt his having translated into Greek, or even
his having seen, that Syrian document, or a copy of it;
you cannot doubt that it was the belief and conviction
of Eusebius, the learned bishop of the chief city in his
day of Palestine, that Jesus corresponded in Syrian, if..»
at all, and that his apostle Thomas delivered his words
in Syrian. Now, by Syrian, Eusebius meant exactly
the language of the Jews at the time of Jesus. Proof
of this is in that book of Dr Roberts, and along with
it the direct negative which the chairman desires to
find ; but it is pretty well concealed from the English
reader in the Greek in the small of a note, without
translation. The chairman will kindly read that note,
in which there is nothing but what has been adduced
by Milman and a crowd of writers on this question.”
The note was read thus, from page 24, “ Euseb.
Dem. Evang., Lib. iii. In one passage of this book,
Eusebius speaks of the apostles, as
ibpuv ou v'/.sov
wraJovres tpurfs, (speaking no other tongue but the
Syrian). And in another passage, he represents the
apostles as (but for the promise of Divine assistance)
being in circumstances to reply to their Lord’s com-
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 31
mand to go and teach all nations,” in such words as
these; <ro/a Se
Xsi'ti <irpbs "EXXjjpag, avdpe$ rfi
'Svpuv tvrpa^ivnc, imvv\ tpcuy/j; (but in what language shall
we preach to the Greeks, we who have been bom and
bred to speak the Syrian tongue only?) To the same
effect, Chrysostom in several passages; Comp. Milman,
“ Bampton Leet. ” p. 173.
“ How in the world does Dr Roberts dispose of
those familiar passages ? ” said Mr G. “ I cannot ad
mire his tactics here,” said the president. “ His treat
ment of Eusebius is very summary. In the text over
that note I can find nothing more than this : ‘ Euse
bius may tell us again and again, that the apostles
understood no language except Syriac; but let not
that deter us,’ &c.”
“ That’s right,” said Mr G., “ bundle him out, neck
and shoulders. I could have sworn he would do it,
when I heard his wonderful thesis. Poor Eusebius !
He is very old, and he is all we have; but he is plainly
gone mad. He has contradicted Dr Roberts ; so lock
him up, lock him up, at page 24, and leave the doctor
at peace with his capitals and small, to display his
genius for composing.
“ Here we are left, with a riddle to solve, which
beats all the rest. We have the demonstration of Dr
Roberts, that the true story was at the beginning cor
rectly handed down from bishop to bishop, from sire to
son, in the Churches of Palestine, that our Lord and
the Apostles habitually and continually spoke Greek.
In less than two centuries, antecedently to a period
within certain reach of the learned Pamphilus, the
friend of Eusebius, who did so much for the library of
Caesarea, the true tradition of the Greek speech had been
rooted out of the land, and the opposite falsehood
read in Eusebius had been established in its place,
namely that of Syriac, or what is here the same thing,
Hebrew speech and that only, in the mouths of Christ
and the apostles. We can understand the growth of a
�3 2 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
complex legend, by gradual accretions about some nu
cleus of fact, especially in a story which has travelled
far, and supports some great interest, but where is the
brain that can comprehend this mystery ; how a simple
and clear affirmative, capable of no accretion or orna
ment, that of this Greek speech, an affirmative about
public fact most conducive to the interests of Greek
orthodoxy, should have become transformed in the
mouths of the greatest Greek bishops, such as Chrys
ostom and Eusebius, into its distressing negative ; and
this, too, without travelling at all, the marvellous
transformation having occurred at home in Palestine,
in the very focus of ecclesiastical light, in that library
of Caesarea 1 How many thousand Roberts’s would it
take to accomplish that in all the documents and in
all the memories ? It is a mad impossibility !
“ To me the evidence of Eusebius on this question of
national fact, the language spoken by our Lord and his
disciples, notwithstanding my low opinion of his general
trustworthiness in what concerns church pedigree and
orthodoxy, is as certain a bit of history, as the report
that King George the first and his family talked Ger
man.” To this speech of Mr G------ , no reply was
attempted.
The reader will not suppose that I am reciting all
that was uttered by sixteen speakers, none of whom
was silent, in a debate of five hours before and after
luncheon. My wish is to place on record just the
cream of what was said.
Some time was devoted to the evidence of the Acts
on this question. One urged the inference from Acts
xxii. 2 : “ And when they heard that he spoke in the
Hebrew tcngue to them, they kept the more silence
that they were not accustomed to be always addressed
in Hebrew, but often, perhaps usually, in Greek.
Against this was placed the inference, from the sur
prise of the Ghiliarch, who said, on being addressed
by Paul, ‘ Canst thou speak Greek 1 ’ that Greek was
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 33
quite unusual in the mouth of a Jew in custody in the
streets. The surprise was by some denied, as referring
to a Jew ; it was Greek from an Egyptian which was
surprising j to which it was replied that all the Jews
in Egypt and all other men there likely to travel, spoke
Greek continually. One gentleman created . some
amusement by producing Dr Adam Clarke s evasion of
the argument from surprise; according to whom, by
reason of the noise, the Chiliarch never heard Paul’s
< May I speak with thee 1 ’ nor knew that he could
speak Greek, till after putting the usual 1 Canst thou
speak Greek ? ’ preliminary to examination. All agreed
that that was capital commentating. The result was,
that the inference from xxi. 37, about balanced that
from xxii. 2. One divine was wicked enough to ask
significantly how the parenthesis (xxii. 2) came to be
there, with its repetition of what precedes, and its odd
interruption of the speech. Nothing of importance
was made out of the Acts on the subject, for the chair
man disallowed debate on quotations from the Septuagint, as I thought, very properly, on that occasion.
Mr D------ enquired whether any answer had ever
appeared to the “ Dissertations ” of Dr Roberts.. No
one present could give account of any reply to it. I
then begged leave to draw their attention to a paper
entitled “ An enquiry into the original language of St
Matthew’s Gospel,” by John Newton, Esq., M.R.C.S.,
in Vol. xx. of the Proceedings of the Literary and
Philosophical Society of Liverpool, 1865-66. Mr
Newton says : “ By far the most able and zealous
advocate for the Greek view is Dr Alexander Roberts,
whose recent work, ‘ Dissertations on the Gospels, if
one may judge by the numerous commendatory notices
of it that have appeared in the Reviews, and also in
recent standard religious works, appears to have quite
turned the tide against the ancient opinion.” [Dr
Roberts in the preface to his second edition is able to
quote a very flattering report .of his convincing logic
c
�34 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
from the Saturday Review. ] Mr Newton fills more than
ten pages with an account of Dr Robert’s positions, and
then fills fifty pages more with a scholar-like, convincing,
and very interesting refutation. He states forcibly
the argument from the obstinate conservatism of the
Jews, and from the well-known adherence of the
Welsh (to whom it did not suit Dr Robert’s game to
make allusions) to their native tongue. He states
also fully the argument from Josephus ; but makes
no attempt to show the weakness of Dr Roberts in his
reply to that argument; and this omission is the defect
of Mr Newton’s excellent paper. One or two passages
I may read :—“ If Dr Roberts had been able to tell us
that the Jews of Christ’s time had so intense an
appreciation of the beauties of the Greek tongue, that
the wealthier sent their children to Athens to be
educated, and that the Greek literature was known
to all classes of the Jews, through translations into
Hebrew, this would have been something to the point.
All this and more might have been said of the
Romans. Yet it would be taken for no evidence that
the people of Rome, the Latin race, living in the
country of their fathers, habitually spoke in Greek !
Take another illustration. The French language is
familiarly taught and cultivated among ourselves.
French books abound. All educated persons are well
acquainted with French literature.
Many English
authors have even written works in French. If Dr
Roberts’ mode of argument be worth anything, there
would be here abundant evidence to some foreign
writer, ages hence, that our Wesleys and Spurgeons
must have spoken and taught in French. I have been
putting the argument at the strongest, that we might
better see its absurdity. But the fact is, that Dr
Roberts, with all his industry, has not been able to
adduce the slightest proof that the Palestinian Jews of
Christ’s time had any acquaintance whatever with the
Greek language” (p. 78).
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 35
“ To this end he (Ezra) founded the Great Syna
gogue, as a new centre of religious life among them.
The £ Sopherim,’ as their first care, collected the sacred
writings and established the canon. They authorita
tively expounded the book of the law, and regulated,
by their decisions and teachings, the whole social and
religious life of the Jews. From this beginning arose
that vast literature, which, at first transmitted orally,
was at length, after the destruction of Jerusalem and
the final dispersion of the Jews, carefully committed
to writing by successive Eabbis, and, with ever increasing
amplification, has descended to our times. As Talmud,
it is divided into Mischna, or authoritative exposition,
and Gemara, or the later supplement of Jerusalem
and Babylon. As Midrash, or exposition, it is divided
into Halachah, or authoritative law, and Haggadah, or
sayings, teachings, homilies. In these vast collections
we find recorded the sayings and doings of the great
leaders of Israel during the very life-time of our Lord.
Yet they are entirely written in Shemitic dialects,—
the older in literary Hebrew, the latter portion in
Aramaic. Not a single one of the innumerable
writings and traditions has come down to us in Greek.
Ample materials are thus furnished for judging of the
state of national education, manners, and opinion in
the days of our Lord. A few extracts will illustrate
sufficiently the exclusive spirit of ancient Judaism.
£ Saith Abraham to God, didst thou not raise up
seventy nations unto Noah ? God saith unto him, I
will raise up that nation from thee, of whom it shall
be written, How great a nation is it 1 ’ The gloss is,
£ That peculiar people, excelling all the seventy
nations, as the holy language excells all the seventy
languages? 1 The holy blessed God created seventy
nations, but he found no pleasure in any of them,
save Israel only.’ £ A wise man (that is, one learned
in the law of Moses) is to be preferred before a king ;
for if a wise man die, he hath not left his equal; but
�36 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
if a king die, any Israelite is fit for a kingdom.’ ‘ The
nations of the world are like to dogs.’ ‘ The people ot
the earth do not live.’ The Talmudists speak very ill
even of proselytes. After all, they were not of the
Jewish stock. 1 Our Eabbins teach that proselytes
and Sodomites hinder the coming of the Messiah.’
‘ Proselytes are as a scab to Israel.’ The lawyer who
asked Christ, ‘And who is my neighbour?’ might
well put the question, for he had been taught, the law
‘ excepts all Gentiles, when it saith £< his neighbour.” ’
Again, ‘ An Israelite killing a stranger doth not die for
it by the Sanhedrim, though it saith, “ If any one lift
up himself against his neighbour
he must not be
condemned on account of a Gentile, for they are not to
be esteemed as neighbours.’ In other places it was
taught that a Jew was not bound to. point out to a
Gentile the right path, nor to save him from drowning,
since their law as to neighbours did not apply, ‘ for
such a one is not thy neighbour.’ What Juvenal said
of them was strictly true :—
Non monstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colenti,
Qusesitum ad fontem solos deducere verpas.
Into this Jewish world, then, Christ was born. He
was the contemporary of three most illustrious
teachers and presidents of colleges j Hillel I., his rival
Shammai* Simon ben Hillel, and Gamaliel I., the
teacher of Paul. It was enjoined that at five years
* A curious story of these two famous teachers is told in the
Babylon G-emara. ‘‘ A heathen came to R. Shammai and offered
to become a proselyte, if he might learn the whole law whilst he
could stand upon one foot. But Shamrnai, who was a hot tem
pered man, drove him away, as asking an impossibility. Then he
went to R. Hillel, and he found him taking a bath. . But R. Hillel
folded a sheet hastily around him, and hearing his question he
answered, ‘Yes, my son; whatsoever thou wouldest not have
done to thyself, that do not to thy neighbour. This is the whole
law.’ And he admitted him as a proselyte.” Many other sayings
of this enlightened Rabbi bear a striking resemblance to the teach
ing of Christ.
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 37
old, a boy should commence the study of the Hebrew
Bible, at ten years old the Mischna, at fifteen the
Gemara. Thus the sum and substance of Jewish
education was, after all, their Holy Scriptures, and the
expositions of their Rabbis thereon. Accordingly, our
Lord is represented as lingering behind his parents,
when a boy of twelve years, forgetting his food, every
thing, that he might listen to the teachings of the
Rabbins, and question them in his turn. Traces of the
influence of Rabbinical teaching are to be found in
abundance in his discourses ; as any one may see who
will go through the numerous parallel passages to our
Lord’s teaching, from Rabbinical literature, given by Dr
Lightfoot in Horen Hebraicoe et Talmduicce. Every
phrase in the Lord’s Prayer was already familiar to
the Jews. In the Gemara of Babylon we find the
parable of Dives and Lazarus ; also the parable of the
wise and foolish virgins ; in the Jerusalem Gemara,
the story of the husbandman and the vineyard. These
examples might be multiplied indefinitely. And since
these parallels to, nay often the sources of, the teach
ing, were certainly delivered in Hebrew only, surely
the probabilities are overwhelming against our Lord
having delivered them in Greek” (p. 81).
“ It (the LXX.) was regarded from the first by the
Jews of Palestine with intense dislike. They even
instituted a fast-day to commemorate the origin of so
great a calamity. It is said in the Jerusalem Talmud,
“ That day was bitter to Israel, even as the day when
the golden calf was made. Eor the law could not be
translated according to all things proper for it.” Dr
Roberts would have us believe that Christ himself read
from this Greek version when he stood up in the
synagogue at Nazareth, because the passage of Scrip
ture is given by Luke (iv. 18) from the Septuagint.
But if the Greek translation had thus usurped the
Hebrew verity, even in the synagogues of Judea, of
course the change would be still more complete out of
�38 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
the Holy Land. How comes it, then, that not a single
copy of the Septuagint has ever been found in a Jewish
synagogue, or has ever been traced or derived from,
one ? The ancient MSS. of it which we possess have
all been obtained from Greek monasteries. Again : if
in the Holy Land itself, nineteen hundred years ago,
and in a time of peace, this Greek version had taken
the place of the Hebrew Scriptures, even in the service
of the synagogues, three events must have happened.
First, a new school of Jewish expositors would have
sprung up, using the new version, commenting on it,
and writing in Greek. No trace of such a school
exists. Philo is no exception to the rule; he was a
Greek Jew of Alexandria, not a Palestinian Jew.
Secondly, the Hebrew Scriptures would have utterly
disappeared; instead of which, every synagogue, every
library throughout the world, affords a ready contradic
tion to Dr Roberts’s theory. Lastly, the traditional
interpretation of the Hebrew text might have been
lost” (page 92).
I received many thanks for introducing the instruc
tive and well-written paper of Mr Newton to my
brethren. “ So then,” said Dr Marcus, “ it devolved
upon a scholar of the medical profession to expose
these arguifications of Dr Roberts, which have turned
the tide of belief in England! But why should he
entomb his thoughts in those ‘ Proceedings ? ’ ”
“ Simply,” answers Mr P------ , “ because he had not
the slightest chance of being heard by the English
public, not even by theologians. He might have
printed his tract, and given away a thousand copies,
presenting one to each of the Reviews—the Saturday,
among the rest—who were so fascinated by Dr Roberts;
but he would not have been noticed by any one of
them. If he had written a book as large as Dr
Roberts’s, and made up his mind to throw away £100
for the benefit of printers and publishers, some notice
of it would have appeared, but not with the unctuous
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 39
compliments paid to the genius of Dr Roberts; and
there is no public in England who would have bought
it. We have a religious world which spends vast sums
in books, but it is a world which has a thorough con
tempt for either logic or information; and it is the
business of reviewers to write what pleases them and their
publishers, and to pander to their small sectarianisms.”
“ I think,” said Mr G------ , “ it is very much to the
honour of the Philosophical Society of Liverpool that
they not only heard, but printed, that valuable paper.
The majority of those societies have a most unscientific
dislike for the grandest questions of human thought,
for the noblest problems of human history, and for all
the topics even of learned and critical divines. I
know one of them, of no mean fame, in which, if the
reader of a paper should happen to pronounce the word
Theism, he is very likely to be called to order by the
president for violating the rule against theology; and
if, in a purely philosophical sense, and with the greatest
respect for gentlemen of that school, he should pro
nounce the word Atheism, he is more loudly called to
order for ‘giving a dog a bad name.’ Let us hope
that, in another hundred years, we may have room in
England for such a science as Theological and Biblical
Criticism. At present, I do not think there is a journal
of any kind in the country which would lay before its
readers a concise account of the debate which we have
all enjoyed in this and in our last meeting. And if
we were silly enough to print such a report, we should
have to stamp all our copies, and give them away; nor
is there more than the very faintest probability that any
editor would condescend to notice, or even to read it.”
Mr P'------, Dr Marcus, and I, staid a short time at
the vicarage after the departure of the rest. Nothing
of our conversation needs to be recorded, except Mr
E------ ’s account of the sentiments of his friend, Dr
Jones. “He is a Welshman, a determined adherent
of Dr Roberts, and expresses himself with great force
�40 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of TZfw.
and heat on the subject. From his point of view he
puts the matter somewhat in this way. Suppose that
the claims of divine commission and catholic authority
made in these islands by the bishops, from Cardinal
Cullen to the Colonials, were laid down thus,-—that
God had appeared on earth three or four hundred years
ago in the form of one of my countrymen ; that he had
lived a human lifetime in Wales, a Welshman with
Welshmen, among whom he had taught in their own
tongue, laying the foundation of a church for all the
world, and choosing only Welsh disciples: suppose
that these bishops presented to me, as the title-deeds of
their pedigree, power, and dignity, four little English
books containing an account of the works and teachings
of their Divine Founder, I should certainly ask,
Where are the Welsh originals? If they replied that
the Incarnate and his countrymen had in those days
spoken English habitually, I should be sure they
uttered falsehood. If they affirmed that the Divine
Welshman had spoken only the Welsh of his day and
country; that what he said had been committed to the
love and loyalty of his countrymen, and by them
recorded in their language; but that somehow, by
pure chance and forgetfulness, every scrap of Welsh
writing on the subject had disappeared, and English,
by Divine Inspiration, had taken its place,—then
nothing, not even a visit of God’s Mother in person,
nor any miracle that she could work, would induce me
to believe their story. Vainly would they point out to
me how much more useful to the world were English
documents than Welsh. I should feel quite sure that
there had been falsehood and foul play somewhere;
and every Welshman alive, with brains in his head,
would agree with me. Now, if Dr Roberts is not in
the right, this supposition states the truth of the case,
as it stood in the time of the first great Councils.”
“ Here,” said Dr Marcus, “ you seem to have a key
to that amazing mystery of Hebrew infidelity, which,
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 41
from the days of the apostles, your Greek and Latin
saints have with such affectionate piety deplored, and,
with hands so murderous, punished. Do you wonder
that, in their bright roll of dignitaries, they have not
one authentic J ewish name 1 ”
“ Is it true,” I enquired, “ that the supposition just
stated describes the case of Jerome’s day, late in the
fourth century, a lifetime after Eusebius 1 He tells of
something more than a scrap of Hebrew documenthe
savs that he saw what went in Palestine for the original
Hebrew, ‘ quod vocatur a plerisque Matthasi authenticum,’ of the first Gospel.”
“ Yes,” answered Dr Marcus, “ and he translated it
into Greek! There seems to have been little need to
do that, if it was the true Hebrew original of your
translated Greek Matthew. How comes it to pass that
neither the Hebrew, which he says he found current
and saw, nor the Greek version which he says Tie made
of it, has been permitted to come down to us ? Not a
single line of either is known to exist, or was ever
heard of! Has there been no falsehood nor foul play
of those Greek and Latin saints and fathers, think
you? Jerome was a most learned scholar, employed
by a learned pope to hunt for such documents; and
they had all power to preserve and to destroy, all
power both of burking and forging. Our libraries are
crowded with ponderous folios of their day. Dr
Manning could inform us, because ‘ I was there,’ who
it was that with his holy poker punched that Hebrew
Gospel in the same fire with Jerome’s Greek transla
tion of it.”
Cboft Rectory, near Warrington,
Jan. 24, 1874.
TURNBULL AND Bl'EARS, PRINTERS EDINBURGH.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of view. Part II
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Kirkman, Thomas Penyngton
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 41 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh. Tentative date of publication from KVK. Dated: Croft Rectory, near Warrington, Jan. 24, 1874 [p. 41].
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Thomas Scott
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1874?]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5477
Subject
The topic of the resource
Judaism
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of view. Part II), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Christianity and Other Religions
Conway Tracts
Judaism
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/61bd9db1c0684ecafb96efe430eb41b4.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=KICwaGmJ-MJe9DODINQIMOq2wNHZHbndBtNoQ5esppvoQgcLqYSFtlSZrmdV0ipFOed6gACLX8Bw7DmSIyhm2C-lP4P%7EV01nt7yHl1LoRwDnB0ukMxu4gdLfZelWPkXmjkqWYKUZ22TpV1PXwleoyFX2qn9zW6rryTrBXLDqf7%7E9qH-RY1EYDMo5omsakLMXsIKU0kXbwo-IYFFZAG7VG0g4IiYOko2hf4XkOtauqGAjBi6L0419a4JTTXl7Zgr4dzEEns5z4ZpA9fCFcDQLAU1yTg9C7FiQq0otzKB3zs1CUHr8UVVrFzYiyENAYEWgRgJ824nwApustuVHoYiDag__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
1ff77dfe4169d8d2879335e5e7079e2c
PDF Text
Text
POSITIVE RELIGION:
ITS BASIS AND CHABACTEBIST1CS.
LECTURE IV.
BY THE LATE
REV. JAMES ORANBROOK,
EDINBURGH.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Threepence.
��POSITIVE RELIGION—ITS BASIS AND
CHARACTERISTICS.
E are to travel together to-night over a region where
VY you will require patient thought; not so much
because the subject is especially difficult or recondite,
as because it is one not very generally familiar. The
result, however, will repay, I think, any amount of
attention you may expend, as it will show us the possi
bility of worship even under the stringent conditions
imposed by the phenomenal philosophy.
We must begin by recognising a curious faculty or
tendency common to our human nature, but much
more active amongst some individuals and some races
than others. I mean the faculty or tendency which
leads us to objectively represent, and indeed to vitalise
and give a personal existence, or, at all events, personal
relations, to our general and abstract ideas. Under
its impulse the mind becomes impatient of base and
pure thought, simple ideas collected in classes and
bound together by a common or general name, and by
the instrumentality of fancy hastens to represent them
in concrete forms, and to give them some personal
relation to itself. Indeed, the tendency is not confined
to the sphere of ideas alone, in the strict sense of the
term; it leads us also, in some states of culture, to
ascribe vitality to the inanimate objects of nature,
and to place them in personal relations to ourselves.
And thus, where it predominates, the whole universe
�4
Positive Religion:
becomes living, and man’s affections or personal feel
ings are elicited by every object around him.
But the activity of the tendency greatly varies in
different races, at different periods, under different
temperaments, and with different degrees of culture.
It is predominantly active in childhood. The feelings
the child experiences within itself are promptly trans
ferred to whatever it comes into contact with, and
hence its passions reciprocate the supposed intentions
of all the objects around it according as these objects
become to it the source of pleasure or pain. The
tendency is also generally very active amongst people
in a low and barbarous state. They infuse their own
personality into all the great objects and all the
powerful forces of nature, and seem, therefore, to
themselves, constantly living in the presence of wills
as active as their own. More extended observation
sets limits upon, and in a measure corrects, its action.
The distinction between things animate and inanimate
are more accurately discerned, and the predication of
will is withdrawn from the inanimate objects and
forces themselves and is transferred to some being or
beings standing outside and directing them.
This limitation of the tendency necessitates an im
portant change in the religious conceptions. So long
as it is unrestrained, and every object is vitalised,
fetishism is possible and natural. Immediately a
distinction is drawn between things animate and
inanimate, the fetishism passes into polytheism or
monotheism. A god or gods directing the forces of
nature, and not the forces themselves, become the
objects of worship.
The limitation, however, is not the destruction of
the tendency. It often continues as active as ever,
but in new conditions. There is the same impatience
with abstract ideas; the same effort to embody them
in a concrete form; the same yearning after personal
relations to the objects. Hence, in religion, the god
�Its Basis and Characteristics.
5
or gods are realised as vividly as ever, and are recog
nised and addressed as intimately and personally
present. More than this, the mere mental conception
of them is a cross the soul becomes impatient to bear,
and therefore the fancy strives to embody the concep
tion in some outward form.
It is at this point (I wish you especially to observe,
because of its subsequent application) that this ten
dency gives rise to art. The inward impulses urge to
an outward objective representation of the ideas and
feelings. Efforts are made to realise them by means
of sculpture, music, and poetry, architecture, and
painting. None of the arts were introduced to accom
plish a purpose. They were, and are still, when
genuine, the single, pure, and spontaneous products
of this impulse or tendency towards objective repre
sentation. Whoever had attempted to accomplish
some secondary end by them has always failed in the
art. He who has painted a picture or wrought a
piece of sculpture to gain a pound has never done
anything worth the pound he has gained. Those who
compose a song, or a piece to be played on an instru
ment, in order to make music, will be sure to com
pose what will deserve to be hissed out of creation.
That does not of course refer to singing or playing
what others have composed, much less to learn the
manual art, but to the origination of the work itself.
All art work must be from irresistible impulsion of
the spirit—sculpture, because the spirit is burdened
until it can embody its idea in substantial form;
music, because the spirit cannot restrain the har
monious emotions from uttering themselves ; painting,
because the spirit must proclaim what nature and life
are to it; poetry, because the frenzied love of the
beautiful would cause one to die if it could not find a
rhythmical expression. Accordingly, that which has
ever called forth the most urgent ideas and emotions
has from the beginning constituted the primary
�6
Positive Religion:
materials of art. And so tlie history of genuine art
has been scarcely anything but the history of religious
ideas and emotions striving to embody themselves in
an objective form. This has led some critics to call
religion the parent of art. What I have said will
show you the appellation is incorrect, and that it was
merely the strength and urgency of the religious ideas
and emotions above others which compelled the ten
dency to objective representation to make them the
first objects of its representing efforts; for the ten
dency must needs manifest itself according to the
character of the ideas or emotions most occupying and
burdening the soul, and in all the great eras of art
these ideas and emotions were religious. Hence art
has become the clearest and most distinct record of a
nation’s religious life—the conceptions and sentiments
upon which it was founded. It is not in Thucydides
and Heroditus—not in Plato and Aristotle even, but
in Homer, JEschylus, and Sophocles, in the Apollo
Belvedere, the Venus de Medici and de Milo, the
Laocoon and the Niobe—that the real inner life of the
ancient Greeks is revealed to us and to their profound
religious ideas. In strict keeping with this too is the
fact that the most artistic nations have ever been
the most given to what is called idolatry, and to
elaborateness of religious forms and ceremonies. The
Hebrews and Persians, the most strict of monotheists,
and to whom abstract ideas were least oppressive, had
no idols in their advanced period, and were nearly
destitute of the artistic faculty. The Egyptians, Hin
doos, and Greeks multiplied their idols and brought
art to perfection. The same contrasts exist between
the northern and southern races of Europe, of which
you may take Scotland and Italy as the extreme types.
In Scotland the religion is embodied in the abstract
notions of the Confession of Faith and the Longer and
Shorter Catechisms; in Italy it is embodied in the mass
and Mariolatry; Scotland lias erected Free kirks at so
�Its Basis and Characteristics.
7
many pence per foot; has given birth to Burns and
killed him ; has of late years produced some men who
could paint a little, and sent them to get their living
in London. Italy has erected St. Mark’s and St.
Peter’s (amongst others), has given birth to Dante,
Tasso, and Petrarch: has nurtured Titian, Pra An
gelico, Raphael, and I know not how many others of
the same sort, and claims as her own Palestrina and
Mozart. If religion were the parent of art this con
trast would prove the religion of the Italians to be
stronger, more fervent, more productive than that of
the Scotch. But religion is not the parent. As we
have seen, art is the consequence of an impatience with
abstract ideas and feelings, giving rise to a tendency
to seek for them any kind of outward impression and
embodiment; and in the case of the Italians it assumed
the particular forms we have alluded to in virtue of the
special culture of the times.
But now, it is important to observe, the force of this
tendency to objective expression seems directly con
nected with the depth and intensity of our sense
emotions, i.e., of those emotions or feelings which are
directly excited through our various senses ; and also,
the perfection of the expression depends primarily
upon their purity, adequateness, and full culture.
The ancient Hindoos and Egyptians would both fur
nish us with convincing illustrations of this truth.
But I refer now to the Greeks alone because they are
better known. In them the culture of the senses was
carried to its utmost perfection—-their whole nature
was in complete harmony. They were the most ra
tional and the most sensuous race that ever lived. No
people have surpassed them—I would scarcely say any
have equalled them—in intellect; and no people have
had such eyes to see, such deep emotions to feel, the
beauty and sensuous glory of all nature. In gigantic
stature of intellect no human being that ever lived
came up to Aristotle by the whole head and shoulders ;
�8
Positive Religion:
and yet no other people ever seem to have dreamed of
such exquisite forms as those of the Apollo and the
Venus. In everything they did and said you see the
depth and intensity, the purity and culture of their
sensuous emotions. Accordingly, in keeping with the
principle I have asserted, no people were ever more
impatient of unembodied, unrepresented, abstract ideas
and feelings. They were always striving after objec
tivity; their philosophy no less than all their other
works proves this—Plato, the idealist, no less than
Aristotle, the realistic. Their method of philosophical
inquiry was purely subjective; but the subjective crea
tions to which it led were instantaneously projected
upon the outward world of sense, and existed for them
not as abstractions of the fancy, but as realities of
nature. In religion this comes out still more pal
pably. In their inmost thought and feeling the Greeks
were always pantheistic. The gods of their polytheism
were the mere offspring of their impatience to embody
the pantheistic conception in form. Over them all,
over all the universe, was that awful, terrible, incom
prehensible power they called Fate or Destiny. This
was their real, their universal god. It gave birth to
all things, gods and men not less than the physical
forces of nature, and yet against it both gods and men
had to maintain a perpetual struggle, and to them the
struggle seemed most awful. With the thought of
Zeus they could toy; but the thought of this mys
terious, all-creating, all-determining Fate caused thenwhole being to melt with the most intense and
profound emotion. Impatient of the mere thought,
however, they embodied it in everything. It is the
sublime idea which inspires the tragedies, and moves us
so deeply in the representations of Hecuba, Medea,
Electra, and the rest. And it is this which most of
all we feel in the statues of the gods, in whose coun
tenance and form the individualities of the character
are subdued by that sublime calmness and indifference
�Its Basis and Characteristics.
9
which can only come from a nature at one and in haimony with destiny. Why has the world never since
seen such perfection in Art 1 Because never since
has it possessed a race with ideals of humanity so lofty,
and at the same time with the senses and the sense
emotions so refined, so developed, and so richly cul
tured. The only approach ever made to the perfection
of Grecian religious art was by the Italianised-Gothic
people of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth cen
turies. But their intense sensuousness was tainted
by the Christian notions of asceticism, and therefore
never attained to that full culture which alone could
have brought their art to a level with the Grecian..
But, enticing as the theme is, these observations
must suffice us now in illustration of the principle I
have been endeavouring to establish. I trust enough
has been said, however, to show you that there is in
men a tendency to embody their abstract ideas and
feelings in outward forms and expression, through this
embodiment, and to bring all things into personal lelations to themselves; that this tendency gives rise to
art in its various departments, and some religious ideas
and feelings have hitherto been the most predominant
and so the most urgent for outward embodiment. Art
has hitherto in all its great eras been mainly con
cerned with the expression of religious ideas and feel
ings; and finally, that the urgency and strength of
this tendency to objective expression, and the per
fection of the art, by means of which the expression
is made, seem mainly to depend upon the intensity,
fulness, development, and perfect culture of the senses
and the sense emotions.
Now, these principles being, in my judgment, clearly
and irrefutably established by an analysis of our human
nature, and by the history of all people in the past, I
think they furnish us with data from which we may
derive some tolerably accurate conclusions with regard
to the possibilities and conditions of worship under
�IO
Positive Religion:
that form of religion determined by the phenomenal
philosophy. At present, no doubt, the tendency
amongst those who have embraced the philosophy is
to abandon all kinds of worship. The old forms are
felt to be perfectly incompatible with the new con
ditions of thought. And in itself, at first sight, it may
well appear that the worship of what is unknown and
unknowable is an absurdity and a superstition. Hence
the majority either give up all idea of worship whatso
ever, or attempt to substitute for the old something
which possesses none of the characteristics of worship
excepting the name. At this, however, those will not
be surprised who remember that, until the system of
philosophy has been generally diffused, and it has
become a form of national life, its full, permanent
tendencies cannot be known (excepting by inference),
and a great deal will seem to result from it which are
only peculiarities of the individuals adopting it under
their isolated circumstances. I cannot stay to illus
trate this remark now; but it will be found applicable
to all systems of religion and philosophy in the early
and struggling periods of their history, and fully
explains why phenomenalists so generally abjure all
worship, and yet without making it necessary to
suppose they must continue to do so.
On the other hand, the principles I have expounded
to-night justify the assertion that worship will be
found as inevitable under the influences of pheno
menalism as under every other form of thought. For
worship is nothing but an attempt to objectively
embody or express the religious ideas and feelings.
Unless, therefore, it could be shown that the pheno
menal philosophy destroys all such ideas and feelings,
or else destroys the tendency to objective expression,
worship must be as inevitable under its forms of
thought as under every other. Now, that it does not
destroy the religious ideas and feelings, I think I
clearly showed in the last lecture. It rather deepens
�Its Basis and Characteristics.
11
them, and gives them a sublimer reality. When it
proves to us that we have no faculties to penetrate
the great mystery of existence and to know God, it
deepens and intensifies our sense of that mystery ; and
in the awe, reverence, and conscious littleness which
spring up within us, we have the essence of all religion.
We cannot but believe in a something which is the
determined condition of the universe j that we cannot
know it only makes us realise the thought more
vividly, and feel its mystery and awfulness more
deeply. And this is religion, in its truest, inmost
sense. The phenomenal philosophy, therefore, does not
destroy, but fosters, religion.
But now, seeing it does not destroy religion, the
primary element in worship, the ideas and feelings
working in the mind, let us ask if it destroy the
second element, that tendency to embody or express
our ideas and feelings in all objective form, the nature
of which I have endeavoured to explain. Clearly it
cannot, if that tendency arise out of a primary law of
our nature, as I think every one must own that it
does, seeing it is common to all people, although in
different degrees, and manifesting itself under different
conditions. Nay, if it be conceded that I am correct
in those assertions I have made respecting the connec
tion between the culture of our senses and sense
emotions and the strength and intensity of the tendency,
then most assuredly the phenomenal philosophy must
have the direct effect of greatly intensifying the ten
dency. And the reason of this appears in the fact
that the philosophy must necessarily lead to a culture
of our whole physical nature, and so of our senses and
sense emotions to a degree. and in a rational manner
which has not been known since the times of the
ancient Greeks. Indeed, you already see this conse
quence of it in active operation. Biological studies,
which have done so much to foster the phenomenal
philosophy, and which, on the other hand, are almost
�12
Positive Religion:
entirely due to the influence of its spirit, have already
revealed facts connected with sense and sense emotions
which not only show their importance in our system,
but the absolute necessity to our full development of
their culture upon rational principles. Accordingly,
attention on every hand is awakening up to this
subject, and even those still bound to the old orthodox
and metaphysical doctrines cannot escape the influence,
And hence, in keeping with the principles I have
expounded, there is also a great awakening in the
taste or love for art, and especially in those nations
most coming under the phenomenal spirit. Every
where music, painting, sculpture, architecture, are
more sought after; everywhere true poetry is better
appreciated. If Art be yet wavering, uncertain, and
unsatisfactory, and we have still to go back to the
older springs to slake our thirst for poetry, the fact
arises out of circumstances I may at some future
time explain. But the revival of the taste, the
longing after such things, comes to us as proof of the
intensifying of the tendency to objectivity, and to that
the extending influence of the phenomenal philosophy
is operating in favour of that tendency.
I think, then, that these considerations, amongst
others, serve to prove that worship will still be neces
sary to us in the new era of thought upon which we
are entering, and that the phenomenal philosophy
strengthens and intensifies both the elements of which
it is constituted, £.e., the deep, religious emotion, and
the tendency to give that emotion an outward, objec
tive expression.
But you will recollect that I have already pointed
out that the precise form the outward expression
assumes must depend upon the general culture. Or
perhaps I should say rather, that the general culture
or method of thought will necessarily influence the
ideas and conceptions; these ideas and conceptions
will modify the character of the emotions; and thus
�Its Basis and Characteristics.
13
the objective expression of them will, in proportion to
its truthfulness, vary with the ideas and conceptions.
Accordingly, when the state of culture allowed men to
think every object around them possessed a will like
their own, the emotions each object called forth weie
expressed in the form of fetish worship. Wlien theii
culture allowed them to suppose the conceptions of
their fancies possessed a substantive existence, and
their religion in consequence became polytheistic, then,
as amongst the Greeks, it became possible to worship
these fanciful conceptions by prayer and songs, to
represent them in statues, and consecrate to them the
services of Art. When men came under the Christian
culture, the ideas of God in a bodily form were pro
scribed, and consequently all material representations
were excluded from the worship j but the ideas of God
as possessing mental and moral qualities were allowed ;
the corresponding emotions reciprocating the divine
affections were cherished, and the worship became an
expression of this mental conception accordingly. It
would considerably help my exposition, and be exceed
ingly interesting, if I had time for it, to point out how
the introduction of the metaphysical and yet material
ising doctrine of transubstantiation necessitated a
gorgeous ceremonial, and how the Protestant-attempted
recurrence to the purely mental idea of God necessi
tated the bald forms of Presbyterian and Congrega
tional worship. But I trust you will follow out the
clue I have given you to the explanation for your
selves.
Upon the principles thus far explained, it will at
once be seen how the phenomenal philosophy must
still more than Christian monotheism limit these
objective expressions of worship. For, limiting the
ideas to the phenomenal, and declaring that God is in
Himself unknown and unknowable, merely the con
ceived something to which the phenomena of the uni
verse is referred as its unascertainable antecedent, the
�r4
Positive Religion:
emotions excited by them can have in their character
nothing of the affections called forth by human beings
and therefore all the direct expressions of them objec
tively can be nothing else than the pure outpouring of
the feelings of wonder, awe, and reverence, which the
sense of the great mystery calls forth. Now, even if
there were nothing else possible, since in these feelings
the essence and primary elements of all religions are
contained, the outward worship would be as real as in
any other religions. Nor would the objective expres
sion be confined to one form. Not only poetry and
song, but sculpture, painting, and, above all, architectuie, might be used as freely as under the Grecian
conceptions, and much more freely than is consistent
with Christian monotheism. But of this I shall speak
again.
But observe this is not all. I have shown that this
great mystery is not only spread over the universe as
a whole, but encompasses every particular particle and
every particular force. Each aspect of nature thus
becomes identified with it, and moves our emotions
according to the relations which under its deter
mination thus become evolved. The emotions thus
awakened also seek their objective expression and
mingle in the worship of the one great mystery. The
expression thus becomes a glorification and adoration
of the mystical in the powers of universal nature and
may even assume the forms of trust, longing, and
desire, according to the relations those powers sustain.
And I take it, it was the perception of this truth
which led a certain metaphysical school in Germany,
approaching the subject under pantheistic forms, to
propose, a few years since, the restoration of the
Grecian Cultus as the only possible religion for the
cultivated. The phenomenal philosophy could not do
so. Its method excludes the conception of all fancied
beings whose existence cannot be proved; but it takes
up into its knowledge those forces of nature, the
�Its Basis and Characteristics.
15
Greeks personified and deified ; it views them in their
relations to man and in their relation to the great
mysteryit could not and would not check those
natural emotions they inspire, and thus the worship of
all that is great, beautiful, and good becomes in
evitable. And when Nature, the Universe, God, is
viewed under these aspects, another source of emotion
is speedily opened. The mystery which enshrouds all
things we still 1 ong to penetrate. The longing quickens
our thirst for the knowledge of the laws and succes
sions within our horizon. Especially we long to be
come so conformed with these laws that we may move
in harmony with that destiny which determines all
things, and so have the blessedness of a free and indif
ferent life. Now, in worship, these longings take the
form of aspiration—aspiration after the fuller and a
perfect knowledge ; aspiration after complete conform
ity with the highest laws of our being ; aspiration
after the free, indifferent, blissful life of humanity in
repose with destiny. The aspiration creates for itself
a lyrical expression. The deepest, purest, noblest
worship is in the lyrics it creates.
Nor is it necessary to worship of this kind that an
auditor should be assumed. The true lyric is often
inspired in absolute solitude. It pours itself forth in
overwhelming feeling like the mountain spring, freely
and without reflection. Its essence is not in address,
but in utterance. Like the Hebrew lyrist, who ex
claimed, “ Whilst I was musing the fire burned, then
spake I with my tongue,” so all such utterances, when
real, well up irresistibly and impulsively from the
depths of feeling within, and flow forth independently
of all outward circumstances.
In these later sentences I have spoken I may have
seemed to be thinking only of the worship which
makes use of words for its utterance. But I have
already expounded to you principles which will warn
you that such could not be the case. Still more than
�i6
Positive Religion.
other religions the religion founded on phenomenalism
will be sure to appropriate to its use everything true
in thought, lofty in aspiration, noble and glorious in
life, beautiful and lovely in form ; for to it every such
thing in nature becomes an inspiration, and every such
thing becomes to it a symbol of its deepest emotions.
It must needs therefore lay an embargo upon all nature
and all art and make them subservient to its purposes.
It is therefore that I anticipate an era which, because
of its truer knowledge and method, shall surpass the
most golden period of Grecian culture—when religion
freed from superstition shall once more, not in phrase
merely but in very deed, consecrate all nature as a
sacred temple, and everything noble and beautiful and
good, whether in humanity or the physical world, as
an object before which one may bow down to invoke
his adoration and love; and when Art, no longer
raising a feeble hand in wearying mutation, inspired
with a new life, shall consecrate her genius to the
glorification of the great All-in-all, that Power we
cannot comprehend, but which not the less we wor
ship from the inmost depths of our being.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Positive religion : its basis and characteristics. Lecture IV
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Cranbrook, James
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Thomas Scott
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1874?]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5512
Subject
The topic of the resource
Positivism
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Positive religion : its basis and characteristics. Lecture IV), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
Positivism
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/dd9924c59b29c37e3c04dd2778840c29.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=sx39DVNTjBt2uIfy9pOd3qHsQC4RsK5GH4rjzztr5uMdQtEQ68I%7EAUcQ6eNapMXGNV7ctwtmPHdld-rOjyhite6LizNOqF5CC%7EvZV4wwuOKv2K59jWNyt8TY6eACXJJz8WPDhxI0CSjCaqtpdJX3D44r8VfqFLY4l5s%7EBK4ikZnT2KJP9BbXyqnQ7M0bInapTuHz8X7lff7eB0H3cZb0cJM3iJ8xluSi7YoceB9Vtfvzuj55m7uflEx7z-ZDvXNYQBCnIU-37uZMFaf7PGd9QChu7bZL0-jOnVU9oSkoacPEvJ8JSafufa9HZ3OYOyOtoLSqKF7npcy6RfLIofrZlw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
aed74863bc1cf484c1b27ea5ee2f6c71
PDF Text
Text
imple Meligion
♦
♦
A SERMON
PREACHED BY
Baboo Pro tap Chunder Mozoomdar,
(Missionary of
Etal)tno Sontaj of Jntria)
IN THE-
FREE TRADE HALL, MANCHESTER,
On Sunday Afternoon, the iith October, 1874.
M TRANSCRIPT FROM NOTES.]
MANCHESTER :
JOHNSON AND RAWSON, MARKET STREET.
JOHN HEYWOOD, DEANSGATE.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
�LESSONS.
Nanak lay on the ground, absorbed in devotion, with his
feet towards Mecca. A Moslem priest seeing him cried:
“Base infidel! how darest thou turn thy feet towards the
house of Allah ?” Nanak answered, “And thou—turn
them if thou canst towards any spot where the awful house
of God is not ?”
The height and depth of all the world is centred in
thee, Lord. I know not what thou art; thou art what
thou alone canst be.
Once upon a time the fishes of a certain river took
counsel together, and said : “ They tell us that our life and
being is from the water, but we have never seen water, and
know not what it is.” Then some among them wiser than
the rest said, “ We have learned that there dwelleth in the
sea a very wise and learned fish, who knoweth all things;
let us journey to him and ask him to show us water, or
explain to us what it is.” So several of their number set
out upon their travels, and at last came to the sea wherein
this sage fish resided. On hearing their request he an
swered them thus :
“ O ye who seek to solve the knot,
Ye live in God, yet know him not.
Ye sit upon the river’s brink,
Yet crave in vain a drop to drink.
Ye dwell beside a countless store,
7
Yet perish hungry at the door.”
I
�SERMON.
HERE is a deep and lingering sadness in the mind of
the religious man when he contemplates how men
have made things easy and important most difficult.
our usual worldly life this is painful enough, but it becomes
much more painful when we find it repeated in our reli
gious life. Religion has been made the most difficult of all
things, though nothing in the world is simpler. My object
in addressing you will be to elucidate some of its simplest
principles. The first of these is Faith in God. Faith in
God ! The words call into our remembrance how many
conflicts—how much ignorance and superstition—how much
bitterness and disagreement! Faith in God ! They call into
our remembrance how much life and light and love ! What
power, what sweetness of joy!
Strange recollections and
feelings, the most opposite and inconsistent, are called up in
the mind by that simple phrase, Faith in God. The old
religious world would still hold by its Pharisaism, and what
is worse, would ascribe to God the Pharisaism which be
longs to itself. The God of that world would not accept
the worship of the uncircumcised, would not accept the
sacrifice of love and of trust which is not consecrated by
T
In
�4
authorized ceremonies, forms, and phrases. The God of
that world would exclude more than half the human
race—would consecrate ignorance, darkness, and the do
mination of the few over the many. Yes, He would stand
up against the spirit of the age, and hurl anathemas upon
the divine utterances of Nature and Knowledge. He is only
to be found in the sanctuary or nowhere. The universe
is not His abode, He is too small for it. He is only to be
found in the Sacred Book, or nowhere. The soul and the
universe cannot teach about Him. The Moslem sage went
and rebuked Nanak, saying, “ Base Infidel! what! wouldst
thou dishonour the House of God 1” The misfortune is that
many of us are not so strong in faith, or so powerful in
mind as Nanak was, and cannot return that glorious retort
that came readily to his lips—“ Then show me the place
which is not the House of God! ” We silently, meekly,
weakly accept the Pharisaism which is placed before us,
bend before it, or rebel against it, and in rebelling against
it, rebel against our God and our own soul. Nanak saw
God in His sanctuary. He saw God sitting on the throne of
the whole universe, with the sun and moon for His altar
lights, with the canopy of the stars over His head ; but we,
we would follow our priest into the narrow precincts of our
temple, and there or nowhere should we worship Him!
No one respects Pharisaism more than I do. There is a
strictness in it without which religion is often false liberalism.
There is a fidelity in it which I admire, and which I court, but
there is also in it much I cannot and dare not accept. I dare
not accept that unnatural bondage of the intellect and con
science which theology would often impose. The greatest
mischief which Pharisaism has produced has been to render
servile the minds of those that rebelled against it. If one was
a follower of the old religion, and if one conformed to all its
dictates, it would not matter; but the misfortune is that
�5
when one rebels against it, then is one most enslaved.
The exclusive theology of the world would not recognise
God in the world of His laws, and in the world of His
nature ; therefore a scientific man, whose mind is unpreju
diced and liberal, seems forced to reject the entire notion
of a God. Because there is the one extreme of superstition
and orthodoxy, therefore he must go to the other extreme of
scepticism and unbelief. Yes, this has been the greatest
misfortune of the world. This unbelief is to my mind the
direct effect of the slavery which a narrow theology imposes,
the effect of a necessary reaction, a servile sedition.
, The two evils I deplore most in connection with exclu
sive theology are, in the first place, the evil of exclusiveness
and superstition ; in the second place the evil of false libe
rality and scepticism. The true man of science, when he
contemplates the world, traces and understands its laws—
ascends from fact to fact, from the deep bottom of the sea
to the ethereal regions of the sky, and sees that outside
and beyond the domain of intellectual investigation there is
a mystery which Science cannot solve and Reason cannot
explain—the great problem of problems—the great mystery
of mysteries—which has hung over the creation since the
day of its birth. And then within the inner world, where
the laws of mind are acting, as the laws of matter are acting
outside, the man of science beholds certain wants, cravings,
and instincts which reason cannot satisfy, which philosophy
cannot remove. If I am not mistaken, this is the conclu
sion recognised by the most advanced scientific men
of your country. I call this a faithful admission. I call
this a great truth, which has to be owned by science and
placed before the religious world. The scientific man has
done what he can do. He has discovered all that he could;
at least, he has defined the region of his discoveries. He
has solved and explained all within his own sphere, and
�6
the problems which he cannot solve he places before you
honestly and faithfully. Now it is for the man of Religion to
come forward, and, in the name of God, to try, if he is able,
to solve the mystery which science recognises but cannot
explain. Here, to my mind, begins the world of true
religion. If theology is able, let it come forward and
establish its position here. If it is not able, let it retire
to its own place in the arena of human speculation. Let
the solitary soul, seeking God and Truth, winged with In
spiration, look up towards heaven and answer the great
question that the universe asks.
Yes, there is a mystery, in the darkness of which the
world has sat and worshipped for many centuries. There
are wants which have inspired the profoundest worship and
the grandest faith of which human nature is capable—that
noblest self-sacrifice which makes up the manhood of the
world. Religion deals with that mystery. Religion deals with
those wants. Yet does the mystery always remain a mystery ?
Is there no light in God’s heaven that dispels this darkness
of the soul ? There is. Let us look at the mystery in the
face. What is it 1 Why to my mind, and I proceed upon
the admission of the scientific man, this mystery is the great
grand mystery of Life. Over the face of all things, in
heaven and earth, and the soul of man, there is a lurking,
indwelling Life which I am awe-struck to behold, and which
I cannot explain. My profound spiritual forefathers, who
sat on the ice-crowned mountains of my fatherland and
worshipped there in solitude and silence—beheld this mys
tery of Life, and bent before it and adored it. They called
this mystery the Life of Life—the Life of the Creation—the
Spirit which enters into everything, but is different from all,
which gives brightness for darkness—life for death—design
for disorder, and harmony for discord. Go down bravely
into the depths of this mystery and you shall find a Life
�7
in it, a Spirit/ a Soul. It is nothing more than that all
pervading, that throbbing, glorious Life which makes the
universe what it is—a grand, growing, living thing. It is
the Spirit, the Soul, that makes us what we all are, and
within which we live and rest. It is the ocean, within
which the whole universe floats away. It is the Presence
of God.
This great mystery, then, is a great Life, a great Presence,
which the soul recognises, reverences, and calls the supreme
Soul, the supreme Spirit, nay God ! The prophet craves
to understand it more and more, because to him it is a Life
which illumines all the mysteries of the world. It is a Spirit,
a Personality, that can satisfy the deep insatiable wants of
one’s own profoundest spirit and personality. The soul
appeals to, and is appealed to by, its kindred relations, and
in matter beholds a Spirit, and in spirit a Life, Presence,
and Personality that answers its questionings, and bids it
rest, and doubt not. The great spiritual poet finds this
Life and Spirit symbolised and embodied in his heart,
in all that is beautiful, lovely, and sublime in the world.
It furnishes him with the grandest and the most profound
inspiration of poetry of which his soul is capable. The
power of this Life surrounds the mind with that awe and utter
sense of dependence, under which the fatalist crouches down
trembling with fear. This is the All-Dispensing and super
intending power. It is this Life, which is at the bottom
of all things—of all the beauty, and of all harmony with
which the world is full. This is the presence of God. To
the philosopher it is a great mysterious Mind ; to the poet
it is a great mysterious Beauty and Love; to the supersti
tious and the fatalist it is a great mysterious all-crushing
Power; to the humble man of faith it is the fulness and
presence of the Spirit of God. But it is perceived by all.
Yes, I should not conceal from myself or from you the fact
�that, had we but the right mind, we would perceive God—
we would have the perception of His spirit within our spirit.
What is faith in God, if it is not a direct perception ? I
honour the indirect and the second-hand belief in God
which is prevalent amongst most men, but to my mind
belief in God is never perfect unless it is realised as an act
of perception. Do you take objection to that word ? What
is it that produces within my mind an impression of a deeper,
higher, and more glorious wisdom than that which I myself
possess 1 How is it that the fact of a strange wisdom and
knowledge enters into my being, if it is nowhere? Can the
darkness of ignorance create wisdom out of itself? Can that
wisdom which the mind beholds exist, without a mind which
contains it? How is it, that strange beauty comes and makes
its impression within my soul, when I myself possess it not,
and, that goodness which I am awe-struck to behold,
lightens all around me? Where does it all come from? What
is beauty without the Beautiful, and goodness without the
Good ? What is perception ? The recognition of impres
sions which outward objects make upon our minds. It is
from the impressions that we conclude the existence of the
outward objects which produce them. And exactly the same
argument holds good in relation to faith in God. If I am
faithful enough to find that a mighty encircling wisdom
strikes up within me a divine fire of knowledge and insight
that was not in my soul before—and 4. beauty and a tran
quillity in which creation is steeped, and a love which
enlivens everything, and a power which commands the
universe—(if all this happens) I immediately conclude that
there is within me and around me a Spirit which has touched
me! Not to believe in that Spirit is as impossible as not
to believe that the world exists. Faith in God is a percep
tion, the strongest of all perceptions. To God then belongs
the wisdom, the life, the beauty, the harmony, the love,
�9
power, and purity that stand out before us within and with
out. Everyone—at one time or at another—doth behold
the Spirit of God. Yes, He doth pass the door of my
house, but I know Him not. He comes and goes within
and without the soul, but the soul says it hath not seen
Him, and cries and cries again : “ Lord reveal Thyself to
me.” He doth reveal Himself, He hath revealed Him
self, will always reveal Himself to those men and women
who really seek Him, and for them faith grows perfect into
surest and profoundest knowledge.
When the spirit of God is thus recognised in the soul as
the Life and the Truth, the soul cannot but assume a peculiar
attitude, standing face to face before Him. How can we
stand before wisdom, power, love, and purity like His?
How can we stand before His spirit, as we often do, listless
and unabashed, without reverence and without life ? Ah !
when the spirit of God is recognised, the soul stands trans
formed before Him; the breath of His presence and power
calls into bloom all its powers of love and faith, all its aspi
rations after purity and salvation, and the pious soul bends
before its Lord as the tree bends down under the load of its
own fruits. This is the attitude of true and spiritual worship.
It is too painful to notice how worship, with men, often
means only forms and empty words. We cannot dis
pense with forms and with words, I know, but what are they without the natural and earnest feelings which the Father’s
presence evokes in the soul ? Alas, these vain ceremonies
and forms have, on the one hand, driven men to utter
prayerlessness; and, on the other hand, degraded them into
offering selfish appeals for material benefit. There is only one
prayer which I know, which I preach and practise, the infinite
repetition of which fills the hearts of all good men, “ Lord,
pour into my heart Thy spirit!” That is the one prayer
which man can make, infinitely, endlessly, ever growing upon
�IO
the soul; still the same great unsatisfied craving, longing
the more the more it is answered, always seeking, asking,
hungering, thirsting, praying here and hereafter, and receiv
ing through all eternity. When the wisdom of God is seen,
and the ignorance of the soul is owned; when the mercy
and love and goodness of God are beheld, and the dryness
of the soul is felt; when the power and the purity of the
Lord are understood, and the true humility of man’s heart
presents itself in all its nakedness—no other prayer arises
except this prayer: “ Lord pour Thy spirit within me.” What
wealth can be greater than the possession of the spirit of
God? What happiness is more precious than the happi
ness—the unspeakable blissfulness—which proceeds from a
consciousness of God’s love. Aye, and what treasure can
we covet more than that treasure of righteousness, the purity
of will which exists in Him in fulness ? If you are afflicted in
the world, go and tell Him your afflictions. I have nothing
to say to it; but, remember, that what you call affliction
may be happiness disguised. In this world the arrange
ments of life are so strange, that good is often thought
to be evil, and evil good. That which ought to make
us anxious and sorrowful fills us with joy, and when
we ought to laugh and rejoice we sit weeping and brood
ing in melancholy. Do not therefore stand before the
Throne of God and ask deliverance from that which you do
not understand; lest in praying for fancied prosperity, you
pray for evil and misery, but ask from Him that of which
you are sure, that which your soul ought to prize above all
things, ask from the Lord the wealth of His spirit. Let
the physical world act according to physical laws. Let rain
and sunshine, riches and poverty, health and disease, life
and death, come and go according to the laws that regulate
them. Keep those laws and break them not. But, when
you pray to God, pray for nothing except for His love, and
�the sweetness of communion, of salvation. Prayer is the way
to get them. Ask the Lord for what He alone can give. Ask
when you are bent down by the weight of your faith and
love; ask in the light and mystery of His presence; ask
Him in this attitude, in the silent language of the soul, or
in the impassioned words that spontaneously come to the
tongue, in the tears and throbs of the spirit, which the
Lord can count, but no human being can, yea, that only is
the attitude of worship—that only is the language of prayer.
It is a sad thing to find out how often we are all satisfied
merely with the husk of worship, throwing out of sight
altogether the real bread and life for which the soul is dying.
Men and women, be not deceived by mere glaring, glittering
toys of words and forms wherein the wealth of the spirit is not
to be found. It is Love that is worth having. Behold the
Love of God, who stands face to face with the depths of the
faith of your spirit. It is Wisdom that is worth having. Be
hold the infinite ocean of the Wisdom of God, who sits
enthroned on the awful splendour of all the worlds. It is
purity, righteousness, tranquillity, that is worth having.
These exist in their fulness in His spirit. Therefore, in the
presence of Him, let us bend down in the attitude which
best befits the soul, and let us ask from Him, the overflow
ing fruitfulness of that piety, which is love and wisdom, and
righteousness and peace, passing understanding !
And when there is faith in Him, and when there is true
worship, there must be true life also. True life to me is
nothing more than self-sacrifice. The word sacrifice is
much more often misunderstood than any other word in
the dictionary. Sacrifice often merely means self-abnega
tion, suffering, and death. To my mind this meaning is
sad. Sacrifice means true life, consecrated to the service
of God. Sacrifice means, on the one hand, an all-powerful
passion of the spirit; and it means, on the other hand, that
�labour, that unceasing, disinterested work which the faithful
servant of God renders unto Him and unto the world.
True love is known by its devotedness and its intensity;
and what is our love to God, if it is not an intense, devoted
love—if it is not a passion—if it is not a flame of enthusiasm
which consumes all other passions in the depths of the soul 1
That half-hearted, sentimental, unreal devotion which men
commonly call piety is very distressing. How can I be
free from the carnal passions of my own nature unless
there is a more powerful passion to hold them down, and
to turn them from evil unto good ? It is a passion only
that can check another passion; and if the foul desires
and wrong feelings of our nature are to be checked, they
can only be checked by that powerful, intense enthusiasm
of love with which God’s servant ever looks to Him.
When there is this passion of piety, it cannot fail to manifest
itself in the real acts and conduct of life. What is that love
which would not serve ? What is that passion which would
not bear evidence to itself in life ? So, therefore, the true
lover of God devotes his existence to labour, and to ser
vice, and to those deeds which are acceptable before
Him. It is often found that in loving God, and in trying
to serve Him, we are avoided by men, and even persecuted.
Those whom we are trying to serve often rise up against
us, and cruelly stab us in the heart. This is suffering
which often marks the life of the most religious men.
Ah! it is very great suffering indeed. When my love is
frustrated and trampled upon, I feel an agony which finds its
parallel nowhere. The persecution of which I speak may
take the form of physical outrage, or moral cruelty. And
thus the idea of suffering enters into that of true sacrifice.
But then if there is agony in this service of love, is there
not also a reward beyond all comparison 1 What reward
do you want for your love which you give unto God,
�*3
"xcept that you love Him and He accepts your love? If
we offer ourselves—if we suffer—that suffering is trans
formed into joy, is turned into heavenliness, when God’s
love touches it, and it proceeds from our own love. There
is a glory in the suffering of the good man which the world
often deifies. There is an internal glory in the suffering of
the faithful servant of God which more than recompenses
the amount of its pain. The price of life is a very heavy
price to pay, to us who love our lives so much ; the price
of life finds its equivalent nowhere; but what is there
in the giving away of life, when there is a deeper, more
joyful, and beautiful life to be found ? Let those men and
women who do not know that life weep, if they will,
but let them weep for themselves, and not for him who
prepareth to go to his Father’s mansions of everlasting
blessedness. To the man of service and faith, death,
terrible as it is, is a gain, because it is an earnest of
that final triumph with which love must in the end be
crowned even on earth. True sacrifice, then, is God
loving, brother-serving, self-forgetting enthusiasm; true
piety, endless uncalculating self-surrender unto God, and
to His very Own work. How can we serve Him ? How
can we frail mortal beings serve the perfect One, the God
of infinite wisdom and power? That service which we
want to give unto Him is to be given to His world. He does
not on His own account want our service, but when we
can serve His children, when we will simply and absolutely
work with Him, He counts that as the best service to
Himself. True service, therefore, is devotion to the good
of the world. And thus the pious man gives his life as
sacrifice of service for the good of the world because of
the depth of the love which he fosters for God.
Thus, true sacrifice, true worship, and true faith, these
three form, to my mind, the essential principles of religion.
�14
These are the three principles taught by the church to which
I belong. No theology have we got, all our theology is our
earnest, intense faith in the presence of the spirit of God
within us. No ceremonial, no ritual have we got, except
the grand formless ritual of love and of worship, which the
soul spontaneously offers before the Throne of Infinite
Love and Wisdom ; no other sacrifice, no other atonement
do we recognise, except that sacrifice which proceeds from
the intense enthusiasm of piety in the soul, giving evidence
of its power and truth in unchangeable devotedness, in life,
and in death. What name is capacious enough for these
principles 1 If the name Brahmo Somaj appears to you
too narrow, I will not hesitate, for a moment, to advise you
to disown and discard it. Take the spirit, and let not the
name be any stumbling block to you. Has God any name ?
No, we call Him God, because we know no other word.
What word would measure the depth, the height, and the
breadth of that Spirit, who includes in Himself all that is good,
beautiful, and true, who is in everything we know, who is
more than anything we can conceive, or can express ? What
name shall fully express and embody that grand and glorious
worship of love, which humanity in all its forms and stages
has ever offered to its Father, always until now? What
name would measure that sacred offering of self-sacrifice,
that service and labour, that fidelity and trust, that sorrow
and agony through which God’s servants have tried to do
their duty to Him and by the world ? There is one great
nameless Brotherhood over-spreading the whole world, of
which I claim to be a member, of which I call upon
you to be members.
I know no other creed, than
that there is only one Father, and here, in your pre
sence, I recognise Him to be your Father as He
is mine; I recognise Him in every sanctuary, in every
temple, in every philosophy, in every science, in every
�i5
& faith, in every nation, and in every soul. I bow down
honouring every sacrifice that is offered to Him by men
who are in the midst of error, or by those who are partially
free from error.
All over the world there is ignorance
and darkness j all over the world there is true faith and
love. He that loves darkness is enslaved by it in the
midst of night, and would not see the sun that hides its face
behind a transient cloud; he that loves light and truth
beholds sunlight behind the darkness that for a moment
seems to sit upon the face of the earth. Light always
triumphs over darkness. He that has no love in him, de
spairs before the bitterness and evil that have raged, and
still rage, around us; but he that hath true life in his soul,
beholds humanity and truth united in one bond of love
with the Father, who is infinite love. Let ours be that name
less and formless Faith, that which is the perception of
the continued Presence of the One True God; ours be
that Worship without language and without ritual, which is
more real and more beautiful than any other sentiment of
which human nature is capable, and let ours be the Sacrifice
of daily labour, and never-ending service in the cause of
humanity, which is the cause of God. And God’s Spirit
which watches in silence, and in the solitude of every
■ heart, and God’s Truth which dispenses its light, like His
sun, upon the righteous and unrighteous, and God’s Love,
that encircles and embraces the entire universe, be with
us all. May He make the future more glorious than the
past, and, in the present, give the earnest of the future.
Let our religion be simple, our faith be simple, our worship
be simple, and our service be simple, and then our prayer
to God and our sacrifice for brotherhood shall be accepted
by God now and for ever 1
A. Ireland & Co., Printers, Pall Mall, Manchester.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Simple religion: a sermon
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Mozoomdar, Protap Chunder
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: Manchester
Collation: 15 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Sermon delivered in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester on Sunday afternoon, 11th October 1874. Printed by A. Ireland and Co., Manchester. "A transcript from notes".
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Johnson and Rawson; John Heywood
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1874?]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5528
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sermons
Religion
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Simple religion: a sermon), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
Religion