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Or ^9
gts bearing anb mtaice on otljers.
In
HE
THAT
much
wisdom
INCREASETH
sorrow.”—The Preacher.
is
much
KNOWLEDGE
grief,
and
INCREASETH
��INTRODUCTION.
In having committed the few following
remarks in the form of a pamphlet to the
printer, I have been actuated solely by feelings
of sorrow and regret for certain of my friends,
whose peace of mind I know to have been
disturbed by the unguarded expressions of
others and their condemnatory and cavilling
modes of discussion on Scriptural points and
matters of belief in everyday life.
I do not
add my name, lest I be thought as intruding
into the sacred precincts of the clerical world
and arrogating to myself the duties of the
Priestcraft; but I would say one word of kindly
counsel to my readers : “Discountenance all
religious arguments as emanating from no
good and leading to no result.” Let such
reasonings be conducted by those whose duty
�it be to teach in properly appointed places,
and, I hope, to a discriminating audience, in
the cases of some teaching.
If I may stay the hand of any such an one
I am repaid.
J. E. C.
London, Dec. 1874.
�I am a Layman, possessing little qualifi
cation to goodness or greatness, and, permit
me to tell you at starting, that I lay no further
claim to your attention than the all-absorbing
nature of my subject should command ; but of
late, each and every day as I live—spreading
widely and furiously as some raging element
have I seen with alarm the rapid growth of
freedom of thought and expression on matters
of religion.
Possibly some of you will maintain that
one has a perfect right to ventilate opinions
on any subject whatsoever in this free land of
ours.
On things mundane—yes,—on matters
religious, I protest against it, positively and
absolutely ; and simply because in arguing on
matters of the world and everyday life, as a
�rule, men are honest. With greater or less
verbiage, as the' case may be, they discuss this
and that, and if no end be answered, at any
rate no harm is done; no conclusiou being
arrived at, the mind is free to wander on to
some new channel and find vent there.
But the Free Thinker in religion—how
fares it with him and his audience ? He is not
content to reflect, but must give utterance, and
being probably a disappointed and dissatisfied
man, or for the reputation of originality of
thought, or even again, jealous of some harm
less spirit that seems to be supremely content
to live and move in the simple faith of its
Fathers, boldly attacks and openly avows his
utter disbelief in certain tenets, and is pleased
to take exception to technicalities, classes the
miracles as charming fairy tales, would not
insult his common sense, he tells you, by
accepting this or that as an absolute fact, and
so on.
And this because the fashion of the age
2
�is so, and it is convenient, and his audience is
left to ponder, and perhaps to utter damnation
hereafter, upon words uttered at random and
vainly spoken.
A cowardly line this, and
productive of so little good.
If unable to be,
or feel, orthodox, why unsettle the minds of
those who are content to believe in things
as they are ? You may depend upon it there is
no more cruel act that one can be guilty of
than this.
It is taking away the very ground
from under a man’s feet, and giving him
nothing else to stand upon.
And it is so
doubly hard on the comparatively uneducated
mind.
To the philosopher of any nation
whatsoever, whether his mind be stored with
the trite sayings and stern moralities of
Mencius or Confucius, or versed in the
doctrines of Buddah or Mahommed, or if a
deep thinker and skilled in the wisdom and
inventions of more modern times, to him the
case is not so hard. His mind and thought
are occupied, and the void, in some part,
filled ; but to the uncontrolled, weak, ignorant
�mind, or to the poor dejected spirit, suffering
from disease, or deadly ill, a nature to whom
the entire future is a blank; what is there left
to such an one but religion ? Besides, from
time immemorial, the mind of man has
required something wherein to repose, and
it seems to me that everything in its turn has
worn itself threadbare, and been found vain,
but that highest order of faith and unbounded
trust justly termed the Christianity of the soul.
Mind you, I am not attempting a treatise on
theology, or dealing with matters religious
from a theologian’s point of view, I am merely
attempting, as a man of the world, and one
who has seen and visited nearly every known
quarter of the globe, and held converse with
my fellow creatures everywhere, and tried to
learn something of their belief, to assure you
that, from my experience, only where there is
a simple faith and worship is there real happi
ness.
And what I therefore inveigh against is
the attempted overthrow and subversion of
this simple faith.
4
Shew me a leveller and
�revolutionist—a man who is seeking some new
whim and bone of contention in matters
religious—and I will shew you, as a rule, an
unsatisfactory man, a doubtful friend, an unsafe
companion, and an unhappy mind.
Example has had much to do with all
this, and I take it as sincerely to be regretted
that, as men’s minds have become stored with
learning, and their powers of argument in
creased by deep study, so do their great
abilities seem to have been diverted from
channels which might have led them on to
be greater men and far more useful ’to the
State, in a variety of ways, and taught them
instead to set afloat some startling theories in
Religion. And in many instances this is the
case with men who hold high position and
dignity in the ecclesiastical world. To say the
least, it is not loyal, not honest. An officer
composed of such material may rest assured
he finds no sympathy with his men in the time
of real need and trial; yet these are content
to remain in the orthodox ranks in which they
�have nominally enrolled themselves, and to
which they have subscribed, though their own
conscience must tell them their place is not
there, and they are daily and hourly violating
their charter.
Is it a wonder, then, that while such men
seem doubtful as to the standard into which
their metal should be thrown, that the balance
once set a wavering should be kept in motion
by the so-called disciples of “ society,” who
must need a salve to their conscience and a
loophole out of their difficulty to lead the
comparatively free and easy life of the present
day.
I do not raise the hue and cry of the
Pharisee, and bewail that “Woe is me that am
constrained to dwell in such tents,” for I know
of no pleasanter dwelling than this modern
Kedar, and cannot see why, if one be right
minded, enjoyment may not be had and good
done, side by side.
For amongst those so
termed disciples of Society whose friendshp it
6
�is my privilege to possess, certainly, in several
instances, there could not exist truer spirits.
I would stake my salvation on their integrity
and uprightness; they could not do a mean
or ungenerous act, and up to a certain time of
life their course bid fair to be a prosperous
one, and they were happy.
But—and that terribly significant little
preposition—tout s’est passe, they have had to
take their position in the world, and from that
moment their peace of mind was jeopardised
by the surroundings and adjuncts of the circles
in which they moved. At starting, so to speak,
they were handicappped, because they came
into existence with great license of society
and freedom of thought in matters of religion,
and the very atmosphere they breathed was
tainted with an under current of it, and their
future, without careful watching, may now be
open to doubt, which, remember, may speedily
ripen into despair, and Phaeton once hurled
fell rapidly.
May I not live to witness so
unhappy a descent!
7
�Most probably the original failing was
weakness of disposition; be that as it may,
the other component parts of example and
circumstance have much to do with the ripening
of the disease.
The “mens conscia recti” is a
grand institution, and nature asserting her best
qualities for man’s guidance sweet to’a degree,
but as it is difficult to touch pitch and not be
defiled, and as even to the well-regulated
mind and iron will the research into the veins
of thought opened up by a Renan or Ramee
is fraught with extreme danger, I say avoid it,
and all such premium to license of thought as
double-distilled poison. We live in an educa
tional age and one of enquiry, and the mind,
anxious to have its voids filled, will ever exer
cise itself on abstruse points, and as argues
the ardent disciple of to-day’s school, nothing
is so all-absorbing and important as the one
great question of future existence, why may it
not be lawfully sought out by me, and why
may not vital points and questions which have
hitherto in other matters seemed insurmount
�able, be assailed with equal success in the
religious world ?
My answer is, because the
beginning and the future are and shall be
unrevealed to all practical purposes.
Read as
you may and ponder as you please, but the
“ cogito ergo sum” is the only comprehensive
limit, so to speak, I can arrive at, and the
further one strays from this simple text the
more mystified and hopeless does the task
become I feel convinced.
Then why indulge in vain inquiries which
lead to nought else save heart-burnings, doubt,
and misery ? That conscience which renders
man superior to the perishable beast, if rightly
consulted, will as clearly tell you your duty as
it can possibly be defined, the rest we must
leave to time, avoiding, meanwhile, if weak, all
possible contact with those who may destroy
the even current of thought within us. And it
is here that education comes to the rescue,
and why we should in bounden duty bestow it
on our fellows.
�But if education is to lead by its over
working to scepticism, and thus to the drying
up, as it were, of the Fountain springs of hope,
then it becomes a curse, and we live in an
accursed age.
�1
��
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Victorian Blogging
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Modern Free Thought: Its bearing and influence on others.
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Place of publication: London
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Notes: Inscription on title page: With the author's kindest regards 5 Aug. 75. Introduction signed J.E.C. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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[Unknown]
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1874
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[s.n.]
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Free thought
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English
Conway Tracts
Free Thought
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Text
^A/b/2-
DR CARPENTER AT SION COLLEGE;
OR, THE
VIEW OF MIRACLES
TAKEN BY
MEN OF SCIENCE.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SOOTT,
NO. II THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD,
LONDON, S.E. ■
1874.
Price. Sixpence.
�7
�DE CAEPENTEE AT SION COLLEGE ;
OR,
THE VIEW OF MIRACLES
TAKEN BY
MEN OF SCIENCE.
HE following correspondence originated from the
sending to Divinity
the
Tnotice which aappeared ProfessorIndex, copy of atime
in The
a short
since, of a lecture delivered by Dr Carpenter at Sion
College, on “The Reign of Law,” particularly in
relation to the efficacy of prayer, before an audience
two-thirds of which consisted of clergymen. As
exception has been taken to the notice referred to by
some who were present at the meeting, on the ground
that it was not strictly accurate, it may be well to
give the reader an authoritative summary of the
Doctor’s line of thought, by way of introduction to
the general discussion of the subject which succeeds.
No report of the lecture appeared in the English press
at the time, and no formal minutes were kept of the
proceedings by the officials of Sion College. It may
just be premised, further, that while the lecture went
to show that there was no proof of the uniformity of
law observable in the physical universe being in the
least altered by prayer, Dr Carpenter left his hearers
to infer, by natural sequence, that no evidence exists
of the course of physical nature ever having been
interrupted preternaturally from any cause whatso
ever. This latter principle underlies the whole argu
�4
On the View of Miracles
ment of the lecture, and interlaces Dr Carpenter’s
thought throughout. It may be otherwise defined
thus. The structure of the Universe seems, from all
that can be known of it, to be incompatible with the
occurrence of physical miracle ; and the investigation
of this principle will be chiefly kept in view by the
present writer.
Dr Carpenter began by expressing his entire
agreement with Dr Chalmers and other theologians
who have known what science means in regarding
“ the laws of nature ” as simply our expressions of
the uniformities observable in the phenomena of the
universe. The lecturer referred specially to Dr
Chalmers’s sermon, entitled “The Constancy of Nature:
a Testimony to the Faithfulness of God.” He showed
that the whole of our action in the world proceeds
upon the assumption of this uniformity; and whilst
he did not question that the Deity could depart from
it if he so determined, he did emphatically question
whether we had any ground to expect that he ever
would, in accordance with human entreaty.
“If the whole scheme of creation,” argued Dr
Carpenter, “ has been devised with a view to the
highest happiness and welfare of God’s creatures, any
departure from that scheme must be for the worse.
And so, if I ask God for something that I think would
be better for me, it must be at the expense (even
supposing that I should really be the better for it) of
some one else. But any one who really believes in the
infinite paternity of God would shrink from impor
tunity for any change that he may desire for himself;
just as much as a child who trusts implicitly in the
wisdom and affection of an earthly father will abstain
from importuning him, when told that what he asks
would be bad for him.”
“To importune God for any departure from his
uniform course of action seems to me tantamount to
saying either that we know better than he does what
�Taken by Men of Science.
$
is good for us, or that, knowing that his way is best
in the end, we prefer the immediate gratification of
our own selfish desires.”
“ In earlier times pestilences were supposed to be
punishments inflicted by the vengeance of an offended
Deity, who was to be propitiated by prayers and
sacrifices. Now, we regard them as the result of
habitual violations of the laws which God enables us
to read in the course of nature ; and when such occur,
we set ourselves to find out the misdoing and endea
vour to correct it.”
The Doctor then narrated a very remarkable case,
which occurred at Baltimore in the Cholera Epidemic
of 1849. “Though the Poor-House,” he said, “was
supposed to have been free from any special liability
to its attack, and there was no prevalence of cholera
in the town, yet at two or three miles distance from
Baltimore, and in an open salubrious situation, there
was a most fearful outbreak in this Poor-House,
thirty dying in a day out of about eight hundred.
This was traced to a defect of drainage, which was
at once rectified, and immediately the plague was
stayed.” With reference to this Dr Carpenter
asked:—“ Does any gentleman in this room believe
that, if all Baltimore had gone down on its knees for
a week, God would have been moved to avert the
visitation ? ” His argument was that, “ in regard to
the course of nature, it is for the man of science to
study the uniformities of the Divine action, and to
bring down his own into accordance with it.” He
drew, however, “a broad line between the action of
Deity in the physical universe and his spiritual agency
on the mind of man.” “ The religious experience of
ages,” he said, “sanctions the idea that prayer for
enlightenment to know the will of God, and for
strength to enable us to do or bear it, has an effect—■
how or
we cannot tell; and to this view he gave
his entire assent. “ Such prayer,” he maintained,
�6
On the View of Miracles
“ is in accordance with the deepest religious instincts,
and is expressed in the noblest passages of sacred
literature.” “ But, in regard to the work of life,” he
contended “ that laborare (on the highest principles of
action) est orare. ”
One clergyman said, at the close of the lecture,
that if Dr Carpenter’s position were correct he might
as well shut up his church. He said : “ I ask God
for things I want, and I expect to get them.” But
this did not seem the general impression, which was,
that “ prayer does not change the course of nature,
but that, in the ordination of Divine Providence,
Prayer is a condition of our obtaining what we ask.”
In a letter written afterwards by Dr Carpenter to
a friend, containing comments on this latter view of
prayer, he says: “ This is as much as to say that if
we did not ask we should not receive (yet we are told
that material blessings are bestowed alike on the just
and the unjust, on the thankful and the unthankful).
I should call this the mechanical theory of Prayer.
It puts us in the condition of children just learning to
talk, who are made to say ‘ Ta! ’ for a cake or a
sweetie; and it seems to me to lower the spiritual
value of prayer to the material, instead of raising the
material to the spiritual—or, as Miss Cobbe said to
me, to bring God down to us, instead of trying to lift
ourselves to God.”
“ Mr Llewellyn Davies expressed his general ac
cordance with me; and I had subsequent communi
cations from other clergymen to the same effect. I
believe that liberal and thoughtful men generally
would accept these conclusions, if not trammelled by
the letter of Scripture. Many have revolted at the
parables of the Unjust Judge and the Importunate
Widow, and of the Friend who yields to importunity
what he will not give to friendship; as conveying a
low idea of the Divine Fatherhood. Their best inter
pretation has, I think, been given by Robert Collyer
�Taken by Men of Science.
7
(of Chicago), in an admirable sermon entitled “ Knock
ing at the Gate of Heaven,”—their lesson being that
nothing good or great can be got without persevering
effort.”
Letter from the Lev. Dr ----- , Professor of Theology, to
Mr M---- .
----- College, 14 March, 1874.
My dear Mr M----- ,
If the report [from The Index] of which you have kindly
sent me a copy be correct . . . there must have been a most
melancholy exhibition of bigotry, narrowness and fanaticism.
. . . What a god in knowledge Dr Carpenter must be to
be able to use such words as:—“Nature represents a
kingdom of orderly evolution which has never been invaded
by anything preternatural or supernatural, and all liturgies,
litanies, collects, and prayers that were ever uttered never
had influenced—never could influence—the course of this
universe, nor mankind, nor a single individual in the slightest
degree.”*
Do you really think Dr Carpenter knows the entire history of
nature and humanity from the beginning down to this time,
so exactly as to be able of knowledge to affirm that ? If he
do not, such a statement, scientifically considered, is the pro
duct either of ignorance or fanaticism. If this be what is
called “Truth, whatever be the consequences,” the so-called
scientists are as self-deluded as they are fanatical—viewed
from the point of view of sober science. The paper you have
sent has supplied me with another proof that there are no
men more narrow and incapable of reasoning outside their own
limited department than the “scientists.” They are con
stantly protesting against metaphysics, philosophy, faith, &c.,
and yet they are perpetually making a system of the
universe out of the wee bit of earth to which they have
devoted special attention. Speaking solely from a scientific
point of view, I maintain that statements like Dr Carpenter’s
are as unscientific and fanatical as the crudest assertions ever
enunciated by a preacher. There is now far more real
scientific sobriety and caution in believing than in unbelieving
circles. Fanaticism is fast becoming—as has been foretold—
the specialty of those who do not believe. Excuse me
expressing myself plainly. I do so as a thinking man, not as
* These words are cited from the notice in The Index.
�8
On the View of Miracles
a Christian teacher. Wishing that you yourself may soon
again pass from darkness to the true light of life in Christ,
I am, &c.,
---------- .
Letter from Mr M---- to Dr------ .
B----- , 19 March, 1874.
My dear Dr----- ,
. . . The report of the proceedings at Sion College, which
I forwarded you, is substantially correct on the main points,
though faulty in omitting to record that one-third of the
audience was composed of laymen, in erroneously stating that
bishops were present, and in making too much of the protests
uttered by the clergy. Moreover, it puts the argument
of Dr Carpenter too baldly, and without due qualification.
The lecturer did not deny the possibility of Deity effecting a
physical miracle or acting discordantly with the uniform
operation of material law, though he asserted that there was
no ground to expect that the Deity ever would depart from that
uniformity in accordance with human entreaty. Again, in justice
to the Doctor it should have been stated in the report, that
he admitted prayer to be efficacious in the spiritual sphere as
far as to enable us to obtain “enlightenment ” respecting “the
will of God” and “ strength to do or bear it.”
Now one point is clear. Dr Carpenter practically recog
nises interference with the uniform operation of the laws of
nature as a conception at variance with the perfect wisdom
and beneficence he would attribute to the Deity; for he says
in his own account of the lecture written to a correspondent:
“If the whole scheme of creation has been devised with a
view to the highest welfare of God’s creatures, any departure
from that scheme must be for the worse.” In this view I entirely
concur, notwithstanding the epithets with which you gratui
tously bespatter the lecturer and the scientific laymen present
who shared his opinions. As for some of the worthy clergy
men present, their uneasiness under the statements to which
they listened is far from unaccountable. They are not accus
tomed to be contradicted by their people, and perhaps many
of them had not imagined that it was possible for their fond
traditions and devout faith in the miraculous, to receive so
rude a shock from the inexorable conclusions of science. Such
conclusions tended to disturb their faith, which is usually felt
by them to be consoling and strong in proportion as it is not
subjected to the test of historic criticism and to the antisupernatural analyses of science.
�Taken by Men of Science.
9
While virtually at one with Dr Carpenter on this head, I
should be disposed to define my position without his qualifying
considerations. He admits that whatever the Deity may have
the power to will, there is no proof that he has ever performed
a miracle in answer to human entreaty,—and I would venture
to add that there is no real proof that he ever performed a
miracle under any other condition. I believe nature to be a
system of orderly evolution, and in the very essence of the
constitution of the universe, the possibility of what is popu
larly understood as supernatural or miraculous interference
with its laws is necessarily precluded. Nature would cease
to be nature, and the universe to be the universe, on any
other supposition. This is the inductive view of the matter,
which one, unsophisticated by theological bias, instinctively
arrives at, as the result of intelligently observing the struc
ture, phenomena, and laws of the universe. And in this view
we are impregnably supported by the experience of the greatest
thinkers of modern days and by the testimony of all verifiable
history, as distinguished from incoherent, contradictory, and
half-mythical records which belong to unscientific and super
stitious times, and which relate, for the most part, to com
munities notoriously credulous and unacquainted with the
simplest facts of natural science. Niebuhr has played con
siderable havoc with some pleasant stories in the early history
of Rome; and, much to the dismay of those who have been
indulging similarly happy illusions affecting the professed
biographies of Jesus and his apostles, Strauss, Bauer, Schenkel, Meredith, Scott, and others have demonstrated many
historical statements in the four Gospels to be not only irreconcileable with each other, but incapable of proof. The
authenticity of these Gospels touches the very core of the
question of miracles, for they are claimed to be an inspired
history of a supernatural revelation from God; and for this
reason I must ask your permission to submit a few remarks
on these venerated documents in connection with this
subject.
Pagan, Jewish, and Christian writers alike, nearest to the
days of Jesus and his apostles knew nothing of the four
gospels. Moreover, as to the writing spoken of in the alleged
works of a certain Christian Bather, under the title of
‘ Memorials of the Apostles,’ there is no proof that these
‘ Memorials ’ ever existed; no trace of them can be found; and
it is quite possible that the single reference to them in early
Christian literature may be spurious. But even granting that
such ‘ Memorials ’ were genuine and authentic, there is nothing
to show that they were identical with the Gospels in the main,
or that they substantiate the claims of the latter. In no
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On the View of Miracles
instance do the Fathers for the first 150 years mention
Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, or quote words which can,
beyond dispute, be verified as of the authorship of the
“Evangelists.” There is no proof that the Gospels, in their
present shape, or in any real shape, were known to the
Fathers during the period above stated. Not till the time of
Irenceus (A.D. 180) does the doctrine of the Divine origin of the
Gospels begin to be propounded and believed, and even then Christians
were greatly divided as to which Gospels, and how many, were worthy
their acceptance. Nor can it be denied that the second
century was pre-eminent in Christendom for “pious frauds”
in connection with the “ sacred” records of the church,—these frauds being shamelessly practised and justified because
calculated to advance the material and external interests
of the Christian faith. A hundred years from the death of
the oldest apostle was surely a sufficiently long space,—
under such lax ideas of honesty as then prevailed among
Christian writers,—to bring to maturity a considerable
crop of fictitious narratives; and it is well known that tales
of this kind abounded in those times, respecting Jesus and
his immediate followers. A distinguished Church of England
theologian writes:—“Books, countless in number, were
written [in post-apostolic times], professing to give a history
of Jesus and his apostles. The authorship of these was attri
buted to Christ himself, or to some of his apostles and their
companions : our four Gospels were selected from this countless
number.” By.whom were they selected? When were they
selected? Why were they selected? Let Mosheim answer
these questions. “ As to the time when, and the persons by
whom, the books of the New Testament were collected into
one body, there are various opinions, or rather conjectures, of
the learned ; for the subject is attended with great and inexplicable
difficulties to us of these latter times.'’*
What then can really be known of how and by whom these
selected gospels were composed ? Is there no unmistakeable
source of information open to us as to when and how they
came into existence, and when and how the original autographs
of them were lost ? Such autographs are unknown to history.
The very earliest MS. of the gospels the world has, as yet,
had access to, is dated no further back than the beginning of
the fourth century.
Even orthodox theologians of repute saw away the branch
to which they cling, by the admissions which facts compel
them to make concerning the impenetrable obscurity and, I
might add, the strong doubtfulness in which the origin of the
gospels is shrouded. The late Dean Alford, in his ‘ Critical
* Eccles. Hist., vol. i., p. 93.
�Taken by Men of Science.
II
Introduction to the Greek text of the New Testament,
writes: “The Christian world is left in uncertainty
what its Scriptures are as long as the sacred text is full of
Various readings. Some one MS. must be pointed out to us which
carries the weight of verbal inspiration or some text whose authority
shall be undoubted, must be promulgated. But manifestly neither
'of these things can ever happen. To the latest age the reading of
■some important passages will be matter of doubt in the church,
and there is hardly a sentence in the whole of the
FOUR GOSPELS IN WHICH THERE ARE NOT VARIETIES OF
DICTION IN OUR PRINCIPAL MSS., BAFFLING ALL ATTEMPTS
to decide which was its original form.” A frank con
cession truly for a learned exegetical theologian who,
notwithstanding, strangely adhered to the notion that the
gospels were miraculously inspired!
Canon Westcott, who has bestowed, if possible, even more
attention upon the question of New Testament canonieity,
speaks in yet more decisive terms on this point. “It is cer
tainly remarkable,” he says, “that in the controversies of the
second century, which often turned upon disputed readings of
the Scripture, no appeal was made to the apostolic originals; the
few passages in which it has been supposed that they are referred to,
will not bear examination.”* Orthodox critics themselves being
witnesses, therefore, there is no evidence that the gospels
were written by those whose names they bear; there is a total
absence of contemporary testimony in their favour, and no
proof whatever in the next two generations, that the books
were veracious, or written by the persons to whom they are
ascribed. Canon Westcott himself admits that clear quota
tions from the gospels do not occur till the time of Ireneeus
(a.d. 180), Clement of Alexandria (a.d. 220), and Origen
(a.d. 250).
The accepted doctrine of the New Testament, as containing
a supernatural revelation, then, seems simply “to have had
its origin in tradition for at least the first hundred and
seventy years of the Christian era; for the following one
hundred and thirty years it was a matter of speculation, among
men whose ignorance was only equalled by their superstitious
credulity; and, finally, it was decreed to be a divine truth by
a majority of votes in one of those turbulent assemblies of
bishops, which too often had to be dispersed by military force,
after terrible rioting, which was sometimes attended with
bloodshed.”
Until the third Council of Carthage (A.D. 397) numerous
gospels and epistles were in circulation and use among the
Christians, all claiming equally to be of inspired authority.
* Art. Smith’s Diet, of the Bible,vol. ii., p. 506.
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On the View of Miracles
By the bishops assembled at that Council a catalogue of the
books to be chosen and recognised as canonical, was drawn
up and passed, because found to serve best the ends of the
theological party then in power. All other books that
seemed to clash with the dogmas of this ruling party were
promptly burned. After much episcopal wrangling at the
*
Council on the subject, the number of gospels to be included
in the Canon was limited to four, with the consent of the
majority of the bishops, for the following ingenious reason,
which proved to be irresistibly conclusive to their orthodox
minds! Irenaeus was reported to have said, two centuries before :
“ It is impossible that there could have been more or less than
four. For there are four climates, and four cardinal winds,
and the church is spread over the whole earth ; but the gospel
is the pillar and foundation of the church, and its breath of
life. The church, therefore, was to have four pillars, blowing
immortality from every quarter, and giving life to men.”
Hence we happen to have inherited four gospels instead of
forty or fourscore I
Yet on the foundation of this arbitrary, conflicting, and
unproveable collection of narratives, you and your orthodox
friends expect Dr Carpenter to believe in the miracles ascribed
to Jesus and his colleagues, and you charge the Doctor with
“ narrowness, bigotry, and fanaticism ” because he rejects all
past accounts of miracles as improbable. We, who are called
rationalists, disbelieve in miracles (1) because it is of the
nature of supernatural interposition, were such to occur, to
introduce confusion and ruin into the whole indissolubly
connected chain of causes and effects throughout the Uni
verse ; and (2) because there does not exist in support of
religious miracles, or any other sort of miracles, any proof to
satisfy a mind free from traditional or sentimental fetters, and
bent on reaching fact by the only legitimate method—the
inductive method. I should be willing to leave it to any
twelve unprejudiced men of thought and judgment to decide
whether fanaticism lies in believing in miracles on the sandy
foundation of “pious frauds,” obscure superstitions, and con
flicting statements, pertaining to an age and a people remark
able for credulity and ignorance; or whether it lies in
rejecting tales of the miraculous, and trusting to the uniform
“Reign of Law” as essential to the well-being of the Uni
verse at all times and in all regions. If the question be
which side lays itself open to the imputation of fanaticism, I
should imagine the charge would most apply to those who
are satisfied to believe in stories of miracles which are said to
Draper’s Hist, of the Intel. Devpt. of Europe, vol. i., pp. 301-302.
�Taken by Men of Science.
T3
have happened nearly 2,000 years ago, on the authority of very
remote, incoherent, and unverifiable hearsays, coming down
from peasants living in ignorant times. The real fanatics are
surely those who, while so readily taking in those crude
narratives of far-off days, could not be convinced of the
supernatural occurring now, by almost any amount or kind
of testimony. How shall we characterise so singular a mode
of reasoning, except as fanatical ? Proof for an alleged miracle
in the nineteenth century, before it could be received by the
orthodox, must be indisputable; but the most hazy, mythwoven, and incongruous evidence is quite sufficient in their
view to support the affirmation of many miracles having taken
place among illiterate enthusiasts in the first century.
“Dq you really think Dr Carpenter knows the entire history
of nature and humanity from the beginning down to this
time so exactly as to be able of knowledge to affirm that ?
[viz., that a miracle never happened.] ” Such is your
question ; and it contains an intended quietus for the ration
alist which won some Evangelical fame for John Poster sixty
years ago, and the reply has been already given. There is no
proof that the regular course of nature has ever been departed
from, and yet the proof ought to be demonstrable in pro
portion to the extraordinary phenomena to which you invite
our credence. Nay, your question can be matched by another.
Do you really think that the planet Jupiter has the alterna
tion of day and night like our Earth ? Do you really think
that Neptune is influenced by the law of gravitation like this
“ wee bit of earth ” ? Can you say you know such to be the
case ? Have you personally been close enough to these stars,
and had such opportunities of studying their movements, that
you can demonstrate the assertion, of your knowledge, respecting
them ? Have you seen day and night on Jupiter ? Do you
possess tangible evidence that the laws of gravitation extend
to Neptune ? You know you cannot point to the clear evi
dence of your senses in proof of these things; and yet you are
prepared to assert emphatically that the phenomena I have
described belong as much to other planets as to our own.
You have the analogy of material law within the range of
your personal observation to guide you, and the tested con
clusions of science deepen your sense of the universality and
uniformity of law in its operations. But suppose I were to
hurl at you, for your supposed assertions about Jupiter and
Neptune, the ecclesiastical thunderbolt you aim at Dr
Carpenter and other men of science—whose pure, life-long and
successful devotion to the study of nature merits for them the
profoundest respect—for their denial of miracles, what then ?
And yet men of science have simply reached their conclusions as
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On the View of Miracles
to the order of nature excluding the occurrence of miracles
by the same inferential kind of reasoning which might lead you
to venture statements about something going on hundreds of
millions of miles away. There is, however, this difference. While
theologians and men of science in the case supposed would
equally base their reasonings on their convictions of an universal Cosmos, Dr Carpenter and his friends have had much
more experience than professors of theology in observing
the processes of nature, a higher scientific culture and a more
extensive and subtle apparatus for conducting scientific
research. _ Consequently I should feel quite as much justified
in accepting the statement of Dr Carpenter in his challenging
the proof of miracles, as I should in accepting your version of
certain natural events happening in very distant parts of the
universe. What think you now of the severe judgment you
have passed on scientific men as applied to yourself, mutatis
mutandis? “If he do not [i.e., know, by a personal inspection,
all departments of the Universe from the beginning, &c.] such
a statement [i.e., as the one the Doctor makes against
the occurrence of miracles], scientifically considered, is the
product either of ignorance or fanaticism. . . . The socalled scientists are as self-deluded as they are fanatical.
. . . No men more narrow and incapable of reasoning out
side their own limited department.”
Of course theologians (I suppose on Paul’s principle of him
that is spiritual being at liberty to judge all things) are
eminently capable of estimating accurately the profound
analysis of science, their “department” being so proverbially
expansive—especially where creeds, like high walls, attract
their, gaze to the vast range of metaphysico-theological
inscriptions written in these creeds—and shut out the region
beyond! A Pisgah-like prospect certainly, compared with
the “limited ” vista of science which has the grave disadvan
tage of beihg encompassed by no stereotyped creeds—
inventions so admirably adapted to enlarge human thought
and inspire a bold and wholesome love of ‘ ‘ truth, regardless
of consequences !! ”
I have seen, in my time, a good deal of philosophico-theological gymnastics performed round that word ‘ ‘ experience,”
as used by Hume tn relation to the subject of miracles. But
I have yet to find the dilemma in which that philosopher
put his supernaturalist critics, effectually answered by them.
■“ It is more probable (said he) that human testimony should
be false than that a miracle should be true; ” or as Paley
repeats Hume’s objection:—“It is contrary to experience
that a miracle should be true, but not contrary to experience
that testimony should be false.” This objection to miracles
�Taken by Men of Science.
i5
advanced by Hume before science had so completely disclosed
to us the uniform orderly development of nature as it has
since done—I say again has never been really confuted by
theology, but, on the other hand, has been confirmed by the
ever-accumulating verities of science.
Both on the principles, then, of true philosophy—the
philosophy of scientific fact — and on the principles of
scholarly historical criticism, the fairly intelligent mind of
our day, apart from traditional prejudices, cannot but have a
predisposition to trust the order of the universe as an uniform
whole, and as all-sufficient for every need of our race, and to
disbelieve in the aberglaube of supernaturalism.
When any class of men take it upon them to assert that
something miraculous took place somewhat frequently, 2,000
years ago in Palestine among a few obscure Jewish peasants,
of whom contemporary history says nothing, and of whom
trustworthy history takes no account for more than a century
afterwards ; when any class of men insist on our faith in this
preternatural interference on the authority of the most
unsatisfactory evidence ever produced—evidence which never
can be verified; when any class of men maintain that our
escape from eternal misery or eternal annihilation, as the case
may be, depends on our reception of vague and unverifiable
allegations about events avowedly contrary to the known laws
of nature and to the sum of trustworthy human experience,
and more particularly in the most enlightened ages and
countries, then unquestionably a very grave onus of proof
rests upon these believers in miracles. For my part I
unhesitatingly own that I regard miracles as impossible,
unnecessary, and superstitious, and while I see startling
presumption in any party proclaiming the necessity of
believing in them on a basis so frail—not to say illusory—as
the authority on which they are made to stand, I find every
thing harmonious with reason and with accredited and sober
human experience in the position of those of an inductive
habit of mind who disbelieve them.
Your mode of treating the subject calls to one’s mind the
legal exigency in which the policy is resorted to of abusing the
plaintiff’s attorney. You denounce the honest truth-seeking
“scientists,” as you call them, who have no creed to main
tain for pay, and who have consequently vastly less tempta
tion than theologians in the Christian sects have, to stick to a
dogma because it is the shibboleth of a party. We have had
enough of denunciation and reproach from orthodoxy. What
we want is honest and earnest discussion from your side; not
elaborate metaphysical dialectics or effusions of pious senti
ment, which are quite irrelevant, but calm, logical statements
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On the View of Miracles
offact in reply to the historical and scientific statements of fact
put forth by learned sceptics. Yet if we invite you to answer
Dr Carpenter and Professor Tyndall with science for science,
you choose either to evade the real point at issue or to assume
a scornful attitude and refuse our reasonable demand as if it
were malicious and profane. If we ask you to reply to
Spinoza’s ‘Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,’ or Strauss’s ‘‘T/ife
of Jesus,’ or Colenso’s ‘Pentateuch,’ you simply point us to
Neander’s ‘Life of Christ,’ or ‘Aids to Faith,’ or to the
paltering lectures of the “Christian Evidence Society,” and
you go your way, reminding us that our “stale objections”
have been “answered over and over again.” But we will
continue to proclaim our dissatisfaction till the whole question
of the Christian miracles is dealt with by you in a purely
inductive fashion, and the scorn or pity you affect towards
“ scientists ” and “unbelievers” we will only regard as marks
of a weak cause. I recommend to your attention the reply
of Herder, in his ‘ Survey of Spinozism, ’ to the habitual
carping of priests at science in all ages. He argues truly
that just in proportion as physical science has progressed,
men’s ideas of God and nature have been purified and raised,
and the old fancies of “the faithful” respecting the universe
as subject to blind and arbitrary control, have been dispelled.
“The forces of nature,” he says, “are eternal as the God
head in which they inhere. All is, was, and ever will be in
conformity with beneficent, beautiful, necessary law, twin
sister of eternal power, mother of all order, security, and
happiness.”
How different this view from the persistent attempts of the
guardians of ecclesiastical interests everywhere, who can with
difficulty be got to speak kindly of the most disinterested and
reverent attempts to unveil the operation of natural law, unless
the. scientific student happen to profess unquestioning belief in
their metaphysical speculations at the same time. It has rather
been the habit of orthodoxy to refer to the framework of life
around us as God-forsaken, or as containing, at best, a cold,
marred, distant, and unsatisfying revelation of the First Cause;
and this disposition of priests to undervalue revelations of
universal law through science has usually been associated with
a tendency on their part to be most dogmatic and earnest
about things that are most inscrutable—most confident in
their hair-splitting definitions of what is most indefinable.
One of your ablest theological colleagues, I remember some
time ago, charged disbelievers in his view of the supernatural
with ‘ ‘ imprisoning God within a vast and immoveable system
of natural laws.” A strange and, I fear I must say, an
ungrateful conception for any man to have of the system of
�Taken by Men of Science.
*7
the Universe as based upon law,—so constant, progressive, and
infinite in its evolutions. Might we not, with some propriety,
reply: “Orthodox theologians have imprisoned God in a
narrow creed, and represented him as if he were a mere
impersonation of dogmatic theology, or a President of an
Ecclesiastical Assembly ?” Any one who considers the move
ments of the Almighty as unnaturally restrained. because
directed by invariable laws, indicates a state of mind very
becoming, perhaps, a retained counsel defending a cape in
which he has some substantial interest; but, in my . judg
ment, neither philosophical nor religious. The very principle
of undeviating uniformity which you and your friends oppose,
the loftiest scientific minds unite in acknowledging to be the
highest mark of infinite wisdom and goodness. Without it
prudent forethought in the conduct of human affairs would be
impossible. Have you ever been conscious of any experience
material, intellectual, or spiritual that can be proved to be
above and beyond the direction of fixed natural law ? Your
birth, your education, your physical and mental growth, the
formation of your religious convictions, the influences you
have exerted and received in your intercourse with your
fellow creatures ; your work as a Christian teacher—have not
all these things been under the dominion of natural law?
And have you felt the more on that account your legitimate
freedom and happiness limited ? Well, then, you have but
to project your finite experience, in these respects, upon an
infinite scale, to form some idea (remote, I admit, but suf
ficiently clear for the purpose of the present argument) of how
compatible the control of eternal and fixed law is with the
freest movements of the First Cause.
If English Church and Chapel-goers were to trouble them
selves less about what is beyond the sphere of rational proof,
and were to occupy themselves more with the study of
natural law, upon co-operation, with which the true regene
ration of humanity depends ; if the principles of natural
morality had always held sway as the religion of churchism
has done; if science and philanthropy had always wielded
among the masses as wide an influence as theology and priest
craft have done, there would now be immensely less social
vice, physical misery, and intellectual and moral degradation ;
better sanitary regulations; a nobler bodily and mental
organisation in our fellow creatures ; a keener appreciation of
aesthetics; a livelier sense of mutual obligations between
capital and labour, between the governing and the governed,
and between parents and children; a wider diffusion of useful
knowledge, and a worthier conception of religion.
I shoidd like to refer, in concluding my remarks on the
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On the View of Miracles
chief theme of Dr Carpenter’s lecture, to a concession which
he makes to orthodoxy, and to which I am obliged to take
exception. The Doctor admits that prayer is efficacious in the
spiritual sphere, as far as to enable us “to obtain enlighten
ment ” as to “the will of God and strength to do or bear it.”
This concession is remarkable as showing wherein the lecturer
is illogical and unscientific in the application of his principle
of natural law. He thinks that there is “ a spiritual action
of Deity on the mind of the devout petitioner.” He accepts
the testimony of “the Religious Experience of ages” in
support of this supposed direct operation of God on the devout
mind, and he writes in the letter quoted from at the beginning
of this paper, as if he held this direct operation of God as
outside the realm of law ; and yet, while finding it convenient
to bow to the authority of “the Religious Experience of
ages” on this head, he inconsistently rejects the very
same testimony in past times, where physical miracle is
concerned. To be logical, he ought to yield to the “sanc
tion” of the “Religious Experience of ages” equally for
both kinds of preternatural interference, or for neither; for
the testimony is equally weak or strong,—just as we may
please to regard it—for both. If “the Religious Experience
of ages ” may not be trusted by a scientific man when fer
vently adduced in support of the disturbance of physical law,
why should it be trusted when it asserts the influence of
prayer, in modifying the application of law in spiritual
matters? I venture to believe that neither in “Sacred
Literature ” nor in Ecclesiastical History can there be found
a single instance in which “Enlightenment” or “strength”
was ever realised by Saints—Catholic or Protestant,—as a
preternatural result of prayer, and which could not be
realised without it. Intense religious susceptibility will
readily catch fire, in certain moods of the mind, under any
pious act, whether secluded meditation or the strain of a
farm'liar hymn or an impressive sermon ; and the glow of the
feeling, thus excited, will communicate itself to the intellect
and the will, and create a spiritual atmosphere in which
spiritual objects will be vividly realised and spiritual pur
poses vigorously executed. The reflex influence of religious
enthusiasm when directed by pure desire to know and do what
is deemed right, will always be great upon the mind. But
for Dr Carpenter to admit ‘ ‘ the spiritual agency of Deity in
the mind of man,” as he expresses it, as if it were beyond law,
while “the action of Deity in the physical universe” as
according to law, is plainly a begging of the . question.
The
mind of man,”—whatever that may be—is a part of the
Universe, and if the Universe throughout be “a system of
�Taken by Men of Science.
19
orderly evolution,” the harmony of the Universe is broken if
we allow the spiritual department to be independent of law
and the physical to be under law; and surely such a conclusion
is quite contrary to the tendency and teaching of science.
The simple fact seems to be that Dr Carpenter has studied
law as evinced in physical science ; but with the characteristic
modesty of one who knows his own class of subjects well, but
who has not, perhaps, paid the same attention to the quality
of evidence furnished by ecclesiastical history in favour of
the efficacy of prayer for spiritual guidance, he excusably
hesitates, and especially with the solemn array of “the
Religious Experience of ages ” before him, to affirm, that pre
ternatural events may not have occurred in that experience.
It is not improbable, however, that had his analysis of
Ecclesiastical testimony been as thorough as it has been of
physical phenomena, he would not have been so timid in extend
ing the application of uniform law to the spiritual sphere, and
in excluding therefrom the efficacy of prayer as an agent
capable of inducing the direct action of the Deity. The early
history of all religions, it is now well understood, should be
received with extreme caution ; first, because sound modern
criticism has demonstrated that many of the narratives in the
so-called “Sacred Literature” of nations are incapable of
positive authentication both as to authorship and contents •
secondly, because the “sacred ” and “profane ” literature alike
which details “ the Religious Experience of ages,’’pertains, in
variably, to times, places, and societies, in which imagination has
played a mightier part than reason, and in which credulity
and priestcraft, with their attendant fanaticisms, have been
signally rampant. Indeed, one might safely add, without the
least disparagement of any existing sect of religionists, that
those who profess to rely on prayer in our time, as influencing
the Deity, to impart “enlightenment” and “strength” in
the spiritual sphere, are not, as a rule, persons the Doctor
would think pre-eminently distinguished for historic and
scientific attainment, or for the judicious management of their
faculties.
I must add a word on the concluding sentence in your
letter : ‘ ‘ Wishing that you yourself may soon again pass from
darkness to the true light of life in Christ.” The wish I
cannot doubt is sincere, but it surely is one of the marks of
an arrogant system to assume, as orthodoxy always does, that
one is only in a state to have a long face pulled at him, and to
be sighed over if his theory of the Universe be not according
to the Thirty-nine Articles, the Confession of Faith, or some
other sectarian creed. Again, I affirm that in this world of
varying religious ideas, where so-called “believers” are more
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On the View of Miracles
affected, I make bold to say, by sentimental associations than
by deep and rational convictions, and where it is not easy
for most men to find time and ability to struggle through the
stumbling blocks theologians have placed between them and
simple religious truth, it would be a slur on eternal justice
that men should be judged in relation to their moral state or
their future destiny, by their intellectual apprehension of the
things they hold to be religious. I have said elsewhere in this
series, and I make no apology for repeating the declaration
that I know no infidelity but treachery to conscience, and no
orthodoxy but loyalty to conscience. I have felt honoured
and privileged at home and abroad by the intimate friendship
of men of all the principal sects of Europe and America, and
of men standing very sincerely aloof from all, and the im
pression has been forced upon me by my study of character
generally, that in few cases is the ordinary moral conduct of
men influenced by their theological theories and Church prac
tices ; that while it is the tendency of exciting religious dogmas
and ceremonies to spoil the class who yield themselves up
absorbedly to them, the mass of well-meaning people happily
let creeds and churches sit very lightly on them, and depend
most for guidance on those principles of common sense and
human morality which imbue well-governed minds in all
countries.
You wish that I “ may soon pass out of darkness." If my
own consciousness may be allowed to attest the nature of my
changed theological perceptions (unless you suspect “the
natural man”—that much abused Pauline phrase—now rules
within me!) I can assure you that the very opposite of dark
ness would more fitly describe my condition. I have indeed
realised, most fully, in my experience, that description in the
Epistle in a sense not intended by the author: I have “passed
from darkness to marvellous light,” and the light shines
brighter and brighter every day. “ Life in Christ ?” What
is it ? Where shall I find it ? How shall I be sure that in
accepting it according to Evangelicals. I ought not rather to
have sought it among High Churchmen, or Broad Churchmen,
or Unitarians? All these sections of Christians invite us
“unbelievers” to share this life in Christ, and at the same
time involve us in a maze of bitter controversy as to which
party has the genuine thing to offer. You tell me to accept
the Christ of the New Testament. But is it to be the Christ
of the Gospels, the miracle-worker, or the Christ of the
Epistles—the atoning sacrifice for human sin? Am I to
follow the Christology of the Synoptic gospels or that of the
fourth gospel ? The Christology of Paul or of Peter ? Perhaps
you reply that I am mainly to follow the teachings of Christ.
�Taken by Men of Science.
21
But it cannot be proved that the words ascribed to Jesus
were ever used by him, and even if they were, some of his
precepts are for our age utterly impracticable. What Christian
citizen in our day pretends to follow carefully the mode of
life laid down by Christ? Who “takes no thought for the
morrow?” It is only by taking thought that the progress of
the world can be advanced. Who, among even the most
ardent of Christian enthusiasts are willing now “to make
themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake?”
Perhaps you intend by “life in Christ” moral likeness to
Christ. But the question arises, in what are we to be like
Christ ? Are we to be like Christ in all that he clid or only in
those things we ourselves think good and excellent ? Does
the Christianity of Christlikeness include cursing fig-trees for
not having fruit on them out of their season? Does it
include whipping those we think impious with a whip of
small cords ? Does it include denouncing the inconsistent
as “whited sepulchres,” “hypocrites” and a “generation of
vipers ?” Does it include saying to one’s mother, when she
has failed to appreciate him, “Woman, what have I to do
with thee, mine hour is not yet come ?” Does it mean that
we are to tell women of other districts, when they ask for our
benevolence, “ it is not meet to take the meat of the children
and cast it to the dogs ? ” Does it include that we are to
exercise our powers to destroy 200 swine belonging to an
unoffending man ? Or does it mean that. we are to be so
little the friends of temperance as to produce 200 gallons of
good wine for our guests after they have already well drunk?”*
Whatever view, therefore, we take of “life in Christ,” we
shall meet with grave difficulties in forming a clear and defi
nite idea of what it means, and that consideration, if there
were no other, is sufficient to show that a religion so exten
sively the subject of dispute, and open to such conflicting
interpretations, was never intended to be as an organised and
a stereotyped system, the supreme, final, and exhaustive
revelation of moral and religious truth to mankind. Let it
not be understood that I undervalue the elevated tone of
spirituality and consecration attributed to Jesus in the gospels.
He, at all events, seems, above most, to have lived up to his
lights. Human life is incalculably enriched by many of the
sayings and doings ascribed to him in the New Testament.
But as far as these sayings are wise and good they contain
nothing original, and as far as the doings are noble and
historically true they are not without parallel. There is
something even broacler and more in harmony with the devout
* ‘ The Impossibility of Knowing what is Christianity,’ p. 12.
�22
On the View of Miracles, &c.
and cultured aspirations of humanity as a whole, than “life
in Christ.” I accept Jesus only as one of many prophets and
teachers necessary to the full discipline and development of
my intellect, conscience, heart, and will; but while pro
foundly grateful for the instructions of all great and good
men, I bind myself to accept implicitly and without qualifica
tion the teaching of none. Under the guidance of the best
judgment and sense I can command, I strive to discriminate
and arrive at a just conviction. The higher lights of the
nineteenth century enable me to see defects in the utterances
and conduct of the greatest sages of antiquity which their
standard of things—necessarily vague—-precluded them from
detecting. I believe in the gradual evolution of knowledge
and the gradual uplifting of the race in every department,
through human agency and in harmony with fixed law.
Owing to the natural limitation of men’s faculties, right views
in one direction will be mixed up with wrong views in another
direction, in the most valuable contributions to human
enlightenment and progress. But assertion, hypothesis and
theory in the advancement of knowledge, are sifted and
improved upon by successive great minds from age to age, and
thus the revelation of law, in its manifold applications, goes
on; man’s recognition of the vital importance of law is
quickened and deepened, and the general improvement of
mankind is the result. Life, according to the most philoso
phical understanding and practice of law in its varied relations
and bearings, is a far more healthful, rational, and useful
kind of life than the “life” which is limited by what was
thought, said, or done by “Christ,” or by any other single
man, be he ever so great or good.
Yours, &c.,
M. M.
PRINTED BY C. TV. KEYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET.
�
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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>
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Dr. Carpenter at Sion College; or, the view of miracles taken by men of science
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 22 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Remarks and a correspondence on a lecture given at Sion College by W. B. Carpenter on "The Reign of Law." Includes bibliographical references. The piece is signed 'M.M'. KVK gives the author as William Benjamin Carpenter.
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Thomas Scott
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Miracles
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Miracles
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WH>05
PREFACE.
HILE the proof sheets of “ Our First Century ”
(published in this series in July 1873) were
being corrected, a stranger drew the writer’s attention
to a variety of matters connected with documents
supposed to belong to the first half of our second cen
tury. The stranger in question was William J. Birch,
of Florence, Esq., a gentleman and a scholar, who
carefully examined, and furnished the writer with
notes on the works of the Antenicene Fathers. The
mere reduction of those notes into a readable form ap
peared a Herculean task. For a time despair prevailed.
But in a happy moment the writer recollected the
admirable plan by which Mr F. A. Paley reduced
the Homeric chaos to order, and perceived, that since
the publication, in January 1866, of Mr Paley’s “In
troduction ” to his edition of our Iliad, every philolc gieal treatise should be modeled in accordance with
that “ Principia ” of the philological world. M r
Birch has been the originator of this tract, and the
plan of Mr Paley’s “Introduction” has been the
author’s model. The task has been a difficult one,
but the subject is important. For many thoughtful
readers of Church history have remarked that none of
the ecclesiastical historians have given a verified or
satisfactory account of the Christian Church during
the first two centuries of its supposed existence. In
stead of beginning their histories by explaining who
constituted the members of the primitive Christian
Church,—what they did,—what doctrines they taught,
—what became of the original founders,—when they
died,—where they were buried,—'who were their immediate successors,—and what became of them also,
church historians almost invariably commence by
W
�4
Preface.
giving an account concerning the systems of Grecian
philosophy and religion prevalent in the Roman
empire about the 202nd Olympiad, or a.d. 1 to 5,—
the ignorance and vice that then prevailed throughout
that empire,—the wretched condition of Rome (re
sembling very much the condition of all large Chris
tian communities in our own day, according to the
police reports),—the corrupt and harassed condition
of the Jews,—and concluding their commencement
with an essay on the assumed urgent necessity for the
promulgation of some new form of witchcraft in
Christian attire. But the ecclesiastical historians du
not give any evidence in support of the romance
which they try to dignify by naming it the “ history”
of the Christian Church during those two centuries.
They content themselves with grounding their state
ments on the first six books of Eusebius’ “ Ecclesias
tical History,” and on our “ New Testament,” al
though neither of these works, as we have them, can
be proved to be older than our fourth century ; and
although Eusebius expressly avows that he had scarcely
any trustworthy materials at all for the early part of
his history. In short, those historians treat Eusebius
as if he were an almost infallible guide regarding
matters for which he himself states he had not any
evidence or authority ; while they refuse his own
honest and explicit declarations that he knew virtually
nothing about that part of his history.
In the following pages an attempt has been made
to give to any one who may have a desire to write an
honest and well-grounded history of the Primitive
Christian Church, a suggestion regarding the difficul
ties of the subject, and a key to a rational method of
treating it.
Kilferest,
Feast of Assumption of B. F. Mary, 1874.
�PRIMITIVE CHURCH HISTORY.
EUSEBIUS.
O well as our materials afford scope for using our judg
ment, Eusebius, a.d. 315, appears to be not only
the earliest historian of the Christian Church, but also
almost the only authority we have regarding the per
sons, documents, events, and chronology relating to
that period, from a.d. 1 to a.d. 249, which is commonly
regarded as the subject of Primitive Church History.
Dr James S. Reid in his edition of Mosheim’s “ Insti
tutes,” p. 132, styles Eusebius, “this chief source of
our knowledge of ecclesiastical history.” Believers in
nearly all the great works which at one time or other,
have been considered to be of oracular authority, have
claimed for such works divine authority or inspiration.
Thus, it was said that Apollo dictated our “ Iliad ” to
“ Homer,”—that Jehovah dictated our “ Pentateuch ”
to “ Moses,”—that the “ Septuagint ” version of the
Old Testament was written under the influence of divine
illumination; (“for,” says Clemens Alexandrinus, Stro
mata, i. 22, “it was the counsel of God carried out for
the benefit of Grecian ears,”)—that the Holy Spirit dic
tated to the various writers the various tales and tracts
contained in our, “ New Testament,”—that the Arch
angel. Gabriel assisted Mohammed in the composition
of the “ Koran,”—and last, not least, that Constantine
the Great (“ 0, what a falling off was there ! ”) assisted
Eusebius in the compilation of his “ Ecclesiastical His
tory.” It is stated (Dr William Smith’s “ Dictionary
of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology ”), by
the late Mr George E. L. Cotton, that “ when Con
stantine visited Csesarea, he offered to give Eusebius
S
�6
Primitive Church History.
anything which would be beneficial to the Church there;
Eusebius requested him to order an examination to be
made of all documents connected with the history of
martyrs, so as to get a list of the times, places, manners,
and causes of their deaths from the archives of the pro
vinces. On this the history is founded, and of its
general trustworthiness, with the limitation necessary
from the principle of omission noticed above [referring
to “E. H.” viii. 2, of which more hereafter,] there can
be no doubt whatever! ”
Unfortunately, we do not know how far this story is
to be depended on,—if at all; because Mr Cotton has not
given his authority, and as he is dead we are not likely
to find it. Still less likely are we to find what was Mr
Cotton’s reason for believing that regarding the general
trustworthiness of Eusebius’ “ Ecclesiastical History,” at
least as we have it, 11 there can be no doubt whatever.”
We do not know even what means Constantine had at
his disposal for assisting Eusebius. We do not possess
any proof whatever that there were documents con
nected with the history of martyrs stored in the archives
of the provinces within the Roman Empire. It is also
entirely an assumption to say that Christianity as we
have it, possesses a historical existence as old as is
commonly supposed; for we know (‘ Our First Century/
p. 12), that “ All Jewish and heathen writers who
flourished during the first seventy years of our first
century are completely silent on the existence of the
Christian Church, and they appear utterly ignorant of
the miracles, doctrines, persons, and events related in
the narratives both of the now rejected and the received
gospels.” Moreover, to assume that the narratives con
tained in the first six books of Eusebius’ “ Ecclesiastical
History,” are substantially authentic and historical
would be an equally arbitrary assumption; for, in fact,
we know that the very reverse is the case. For those
narratives are stuffed with references to spurious docu
ments, to names of unknown men, with improbable and
�Eusebius.
7
ungrounded statements, and stories about miracles.
Eusebius’ want of sound critical judgment is so pain
fully manifest throughout his “Ecclesiastical History,”
that even his good faith has been called in question. His
accuser, Gibbon, (“Decline and Fall,” ch. xvi.,)says, “The
gravest of the ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius himself,
indirectly confesses that he has related whatever might
redound to the glory, and that he has suppressed all
that could tend to the disgrace of religion.” But this
accusation is scarcely honest. The “confession” re
ferred to occurs in “Ecclesiastical History,” bk. viii.,
ch. ii., and is avowedly applicable only to the last three
books of Eusebius’ “ Ecclesiastical History.” Just be
fore relating the persecution that commenced under
Diocletian, Eusebius says, “But it is not our part to
describe the unsatisfactory results of the inquiry into
these matters which meet us at the end, in addition
to those which occurred at the outset; nor is it our
part to hand down to memory their differences from
each other, or their inconsistencies. Therefore, we have
resolved not to make any further inquiry about them,
than in so far as we are likely to prove the divine
judgment to be true. Therefore, we have resolved not
to mention even those who have been sorely tried by
the inquiry [or persecution], or those who have made a
complete shipwreck of their salvation, and have been
cast away in the depths of the billows ;. but we will
add to the general inquiry only those points which are
likely to prove of use, in the first instance, to ourselves,
and in the second, to those who will succeed us.”
Having regard to the very imperfect literary morality
which prevailed among ancient writers, (sec “The
Iliad of Homer, with English notes,” by F. A. Paley,
M.A., vol. ii., Preface, p. xxxvi.,) this “confession”
of Eusebius is entitled to be regarded as a piece of
eximious literary honesty. For, having put his readers
on their guard, he had a perfect right to shape his
history with a view to any object he pleased.
�8
Primitive Church History.
So far as we are concerned, however, a much more
important subject is here involved—namely, what mate
rials Eusebius had for compiling his history. As he
nourished about a.d. 315, he, by himself, could not be
an authority of any value for events supposed to have
taken place about a.d. 100, still less could he be an
authority for events supposed to have taken place
about a.d. 60, or a.d. 30, or a.d. 1. Therefore with
out the external aid of genuine and authentic docu
ments, Eusebius could not have any better means
than we have for writing the primitive history of the
Christian Church. On this subject, a rational man
might think that Eusebius’ own declarations should be
sufficient. Yet, strange to say, those declarations have
been utterly ignored by writers on Eusebius, and on
ecclesiastical history. Nevertheless, they hold a con
spicuous place in Eusebius’ history; for, in the very
first chapter of the first book, he declares that he was
the first historian ■who had undertaken to write a his
tory of the Christian Church,—that it was beyond his
power to present that history in a full and continuous
state (svrsXT) %ai avapaXsivrov^—that in attempting the
subject, he was entering on a trackless and unbeaten
path,—that he was utterly unable to find even the bare
vestiges
yv^va) of those who may have toiled
through the way before him,—and that he had not
been able to find that any of the Christian Ecclesiasti
cal writers had directed their efforts to present any
thing carefully in this department of writing.
Now, with this candid and explicit declaration before
us, let us ask ourselves honestly, Why are we to suppose
that Eusebius had better materials for the compilation
of his history than those which he says he had ? The
answer is not by any means a difficult one. If the
trustworthiness of Eusebius be disproved, the history
of the Christian Church during our first two centuries,
as it is popularly believed, would be at an end. Euse
bius is our only authority for that period of Church
�Eusebius.
9
history, properly so called. Consequently the genuine
ness and the accuracy of his history have been regarded
as written under the influence of all but verbal inspira
tion. Moreover, Eusebius wrote his history in the very
manner calculated to make a history popular among
those who take an interest in it. A wrriter who wishes
to flatter the vanities and prejudices of nations, sects,
corporations, or families—if he have skill and fluency
—can easily attain his object by assigning dates, ex
ploits, and localities to certain names supposed to repre
sent real or imaginary heroes, martyrs, predecessors or
ancestors who figure in old legends. Speaking of the
legend regarding the settlement of Aeneas and his
Trojans in Latium, Niebuhr (“History of Rome,”
Vol. I., p. 188) says: “A belief of this sort does not
require a long time to become a national one, in spite
of the most obvious facts and the clearest historical
proofs; and then thousands would be ready to shed
blood for it. They that would introduce it need but
tell people roundly that it is what their forefathers
knew and believed, only the belief was neglected and
sank into oblivion.” In like manner, Eusebius has
not only assigned dates, exploits, martyrdoms, and
localities to various and illustrious names supposed to
represent the eponymous founders of Christianity during
our supposed first and second centuries ; but he has
also framed a history of those names which presents to
us a perspicuous and harmonious narrative so long as
we do not examine the doctrinal development and the
philological contradictions and inconsistencies contained
in the writings attributed to some of these names.
Bacon (Novum Organum, I. 88) says: “ It is the
greatest proof of want of skill to investigate the nature
of any object in itself alone; for that same nature,
which seems concealed and hidden in some instances,
is manifest and almost palpable in others, and excites
wonder in the former, whilst it hardly attracts attention
in the latter.” In like manner, Eusebius’ assignment
�io
Primitive Church History.
of dates in ecclesiastical history cannot be relied on as
being truly historical any more, for instance, than a
similar assignment of dates made by the compilers of
classical dictionaries to the Cyclic Poets.
Of course it was easy for Dr John Lempriere to state
that Stasinus wrote the “Cypria,” b.o. 900 ; that
Arctinus wrote the “ JEthiopis” and “Ilioupersis,” B.c.
776; that Agias wrote the “Nostoi,” b.c. 740; that
Lesches wrote the “Little Iliad,” b.c. 708; and that
Eugammon wrote the “Telegonia,” b.c. 566. But there
is not any contemporary evidence for these dates. The
state of penmanship in Greece prior to the time of
Herodotus, b.c. 443, and in the Christian Church prior
to the time of Origen, a.d. 220, are matters regarding
which we have not any direct evidence. Moreover,
what could Lempriere, or Aristotle, or even Herodotus,
know or prove regarding the occurrence of events sup
posed to have taken place in Greece at such remote
periods as those assigned to Arcturus and Stasinus ?
And, in like manner, what could Eusebius or even
Origen know regarding the occurrence of events sup
posed to have taken place among an obscure and insig
nificant sect, calling themselves “ Christians,” more
than two centuries before their time 1 At all events,
the sort of knowledge Eusebius had on the subject is
proved by his utterly uncritical perusal of the writings
attributed to names stated to have been contemporary
with each other, but which writings must have been
written at periods widely distant in time from each
other. As the Jews of Eusebius’ time regarded our
“Pentateuch,” finally revised about B.c. 400 (see Kalisch
on Leviticus, II. 639) as the identical words of Moses,
B.c. 1500, and the fountain-source of all Jewish litera
ture ; as the Greeks of Eusebius’ time regarded our
“Iliad” and “Odyssey,” really “epitomized and selected
from the general mass of ‘Homeric’ or ‘Cyclic’ ballad
poetry, not very long before Plato’s time,” or, say, B.c.
420 (see Paley’s “Iliad,” Introduction, Vol. I., p. xxvi.),
�Lemma.
11
as the work of Homer, b.c. 950, and the fountain-source
of all Greek literature; so, in like manner, Eusebius
took our “New Testament,” compiled probably as late as
a.d. 200, as the work of men supposed to have flourished
about a.d. 40, and the fountain-source of all Christian
literature !
To arrive at any clear approximation to the true state
of Primitive Church History, we must disregard all
mere text-books, since the oldest authority is too modern
and too erroneous to be depended on; and we must ex
amine the earliest extant and authentic works of the
Christian Fathers, and from the contents of these works
we must draw inferences and arrive at conclusions
grounded on sound philological principles.
LEMMA.
When we find a Christian ecclesiastical writer, of our
*
supposed second century, the author of a systematic
treatise of admitted genuineness, and which we have
ground for believing has been handed down to us with
out any serious corruption—(1) calling himself a Chris
tian; (2) explaining that he does so because he had
been “anointed”
but without mentioning or
giving any other indication that he had ever heard of
a person called Christ, or Jesus Christ; and, at the same
time, (3) attributing sayings (sometimes resembling,
but for the principal part differing from sayings put by
the writers of our New Testament into the mouth of
Jesus Christ) to the “Logos,” as an entirely spiritual
being or influence,—we are forced to the conclusion
that the writer in question must have been a Christian,
without any knowledge regarding the existence of the
.Jesus Christ mentioned in our ecclesiastical history;
and the fact of such an omission by such a writer sug
gests forcibly the probability (a) that there was not any
such person as Jesus Christ in existence before that
* For instance, Tatian.
�Primitive Church History.
writer’s time; (Z>) that the existence of such a person,
and all minute records of his life and career, were the
inventions of a later age; because such a writer must
have been aware of the existence of Jesus Christ and
of our “New Testament,” if such a person and such a
compilation had been in existence at or before the
writer’s time; and if the writer had been aware of their
existence, and had admitted their authority, he would
have referred to them specifically, and not to the vague
impersonalities termed “He,” “the Son,” “the Gospel,”
and “the Logos.” Also (c) we should be led to the
conclusion that such a writer must likewise be more
ancient than the writers of our “New Testament;” be
cause, when examining ancient literary works, we find
invariably that a written composition which is vague
in expression and scanty in details is older than another
written composition, on the same subject, which is
definite in expressions and copious in details.
Let us begin by applying these principles to the ex
tant apologies for the Christians by Tatian, Athenagoras,
and Theophilus. These writers are generally considered
to have flourished during our second century. Their
apologies are ominously silent on certain most important
matters. And if our philological principles be correct,
those apologies are most probably the oldest extant
writings produced by the Christian Church.
TATIAN.
Eusebius (“Ecclesiastical History,” IV. 29) tells us
that “Tatian having formed a certain collection of
gospels, I know not how, has given it the title diate-ssaron (“ by four ”), which is in the possession of
some even now.” Of these four gospels we do not
know anything. The only work of Tatian which has
come down to us is his “Address to the Greeks.” In
it he frequently mentions the Logos of Philo and
“Wisdom.” He says (5)—“The Logos, begotten in
�Athenagoras.
13
the beginning, begat in turn our world, having first
created for himself the necessary matter.” But Tatian
never mentions Jesus or the Christ, or Jesus Christ,
or miracles; nor is there anything in his “Address”
that shows he knew anything of our New Testament,
or of the narratives contained in it.
It is impossible to fix a date for Tatian; but as he
does not mention the Christians by name, nor attack
the Jews, it is probable that he may have flourished
before the destruction of Jerusalem by Hadrian, a.d.
135, prior to which time there does not appear to have
been any hostility between the Jews and the Christians.
ATHENAGORAS.
Athenagoras calls himself a Christian in his “Plea
for the Christians.” Yet he never mentions Jesus or
the Christ, or miracles. The authorities he quotes are
remarkable, namely, Homer, Hesiod, the Greek Tragics,
the Septuagint, and the sayings of the Logos.
In his “Plea,” § 32, he quotes, as a precept of the
Logos, “He that looketh on a woman to lust after her,
hath committed adultery already in his heart.” And
“ the Logos again says to us, ‘ If any one kiss a second
time, because it has given him pleasure, he sins,’.adding,
‘ Therefore the kiss, or rather the salutation, should be
given with the greatest care, since if there be mixed
with it the least defilement of thought, it excludes us
from eternal life.’”
Athenagoras does not attack the Jews. Eusebius
does not even mention him. His “Plea” is addressed
to Aurelius and Commodus. This, however, is a matter
of very little weight. What is of much more conse
quence is the fact that while Tatian does not mention
any persecution of the Christians, Athenagoras alludes
to persecution, but only in one passage, namely, § 1,
and even there he does not speak of persecution unto
death; and the style of the passage is different from
�14
t Primitive Church History.
that of the rest of the work.
have been contemporaries.
He and Tatian seem to
THEOPHILUS.
Theophilus, of Antioch, has left us a defence of Chris
tianity in three books, addressed to his friend Autolycus.
Although he calls himself a Christian, he never men
tions Jesus or the Christ. Like Athenagoras, his
authorities are Homer, Hesiod, the Greek Tragics, and
the Septuagint, to which he adds prophecies of the
Sibyl; but he does not appear to have been acquainted
with our New Testament.
His definition of Christianity (I. 12) is remarkable.
He says to Autolycus—“About your laughing at me,
and calling me ‘Christian/ you know not what you are
saying. First, because that which is anointed is sweet
and serviceable, and far from contemptible. For what
ship can be serviceable and seaworthy, unless it be first
anointed with oil ? Or what castle or house is beauti
ful or serviceable when it has not been anointed ? And
what man, when he enters into this fife or into the
gymnasium, is not anointed with oil ? And what work
has either ornament or beauty, unless it be anointed
and burnished? Then the air and all that is under
heaven is in a certain sort anointed by light and spirit;
and are you unwilling to be anointed with the oil of
God? Wherefore we are called Christians on this
account, because we are anointed with the oil of God.”
Theophilus treats the subject of miracles with con
tempt. Speaking (§ 13) concerning the doctrine of the
resurrection of the body, he says—“Then, as to your
denying that the dead are raised—for you say, ‘ Show
me even one who has been raised from the dead, that
seeing I may believe’—what great thing is it if you be
lieve when you have seen the thing done ?”
Eusebius makes Theophilus of Antioch and Irenaeus
of Lyons contemporaries. But this is most improbable;
�Silence of Our Second Century.
!5
because, while Theophilus apparently does not know
anything of Jesus, or the Christ, or our New Testament,
all these matters are perfectly well known by Irenseus,
who, therefore, we may reasonably infer to have been
a much later writer than Theophilus. For Christian
apologists could not have been ignorant of and silent
concerning Jesus Christ, if our New Testament had
been in existence and received in the Church when
they wrote.
SILENCE OF OUR SECOND CENTURY.
But not only are Tatian, Athenagoras, and Theo
philus silent regarding Jesus Christ, but all the Pagan
writers who flourished during our second century are
silent, not only regarding him, but regarding the Chris
tians. Now, is it probable that Josephus, Suetonius,
Pliny (junior), and Tacitus really knew more about
Jesus Christ than those early apologists for the Chris
tians who never name him ? Or is it probable that if
“great multitudes of Christians” during our first century
attracted the attention of one Jewish and three Pagan
writers, who flourished towards the end of that period,
that not even one Pagan writer would have taken
notice of so remarkable a sect during the whole of our
second century? These improbabilities amount to
almost an impossibility. And the fact (1) that there
is not any Pagan writer of our second century who
mentions the Christians, and (2) that those early apolo
gists never mention Jesus or Christ, amount almost
to positive proof that the passages regarding the Chris
tians now found in Josephus, Suetonius, Pliny (junior),
and Tacitus, are forgeries.
To this may be added the consideration that although
an uncritical antiquity might not instinctively anticipate
the doubts of modern criticism regarding the personality
of Jesus Christ, yet it should be borne in mind—(1)
That the historical reality of the gospel stories was
�16
Primitive Church History.
assailed at an early period, even before the time of
Tertullian; (2) That the early Christians were con
stantly altering, and frequently adding to, the narratives
and doctrines contained in their various and very different gospels ; and (3) That during several centuries the
Church had uncontrolled possession of all the remains
of Pagan literature now extant, and frequently corrupted
it for apologetic purposes.
Scarcely less remarkable is the fact that while Tatian,.
Athenagoras, and Theophilus scarcely ever mention the
Jews, and never with any expressions of hostility,
and while they are wholly silent regarding the destruc
tion of Jerusalem, the hostility between the Jews and
Christians and the destruction of Jerusalem are matters
which are perfectly familiar to our Matthew (xxiv. 1,2),
Mark (xiii. 1, 2), and Luke (xix. 44, xxi. 5, 6); while
the writer of our first epistle to the Thessalonians (ii.
16), speaking of the Jews, says—“The wrath is come
upon them to the uttermost,” and thereby shows plainly
that he was acquainted with the fact that Jerusalem
had been destroyed utterly, a.d. 135, by Hadrian. If
these latter writers flourished before the former, then
these latter writers could have acquired their knowledge
only by means of a miracle, which is a thing that has
never yet been proved to have occurred.
These facts (pointed out above) are very important,
and yet they do not appear to have attracted the serious
attention of the numerous and learned scholars who
have written against the supposed truth of Christianity.
Can it be that Primitive Christianity was a shadowy
system of mere asceticism and monotheism embodied
in the collections of sayings attributed to the Logos
who is mentioned by Philo and the writer of “The
Wisdom of Solomon,” xviii. 14-16 ; that those
“sayings” were expanded into the recondite doctrines
of baptismal regeneration, justification by faith, the
efficacy of the sacraments, electing grace, the final
perseverance of the saints, the verbal inspiration of
�Silence of our Second Century.
*7
holy scripture, salvation by means of a human sacrifice,
overlasting torments, inherited guilt, priestly remission
■of sin, and the like ; that, in course of time, this Logos
was, by some writers, identified with the Jewish
Christ; that these two ethereal beings were identified
with a mythical Jewish carpenter, who, it was pre
tended, bore the name of Jesus ; that this Jesus, for
the purposes of the mythology, was pretended to have
flourished at least seventy years before any person
heard of him; that the fabulous and rude exploits
attributed to this Jewish carpenter were invented by
the writers of the so-called Apocryphal Gospels; that,
*
in course of time, to those rude exploits more benevo
lent exploits were added ; that to identify the Jesus of
the Apocryphal Gospels with the Christ of the
Septuagint all the exploits of Jesus were referred sub
sequently to events, supposed prophecies, laws and
imagined allegories contained in the Septuagint; and
that from those expanded doctrines and a selection
from those exploits our New Testament has been
manufactured—in short, that our New Testament is a
growth from the Apocryphal Gospels and the Septua
gint 1 Startling as this hypothesis may appear to those
who see it here for the first time, it is strongly sup
ported by the remains we possess of the writings
attributed to those Fathers of the Christian Church,
who are supposed to have flourished during the first
two centuries of our era.
Among these remains are the writings known as the
Clementine “ Homilies ” and the Clementine “ Recog
nitions,” supposed originally to have been written by
the Clement mentioned in Philippians iv. 3. They
certainly represent the strong antagonistic views held
by the Petrine and Pauline parties in the early Chris
* Throughout tliis tract the word “ apocryphal” is used in the
conventional sense of ecclesiastical usage. If everything in this
world received its strictly just rights, it is wr four gospels that
are entitled to that epithet.
B
�18
Primitive Church History.
tian Church, and they must be very old productions.
By the best authorities they are considered to have
been written at a late part of our second century.
Others think that they belong to a still later date. Be
that as it may, they are very remarkable. The writer
quotes freely from Apocryphal Gospels and other
sources which have been long extinct, and he never
quotes from our New Testament. So, the later the
date of these “Homilies” and “Recognitions,” the
stronger is their evidence of the fact that our New
Testament is a collection of writings of much later date
than is usually supposed. As the Homilies contain the
more remarkable passages, only they shall be examined
here.
CLEMENTINE HOMILIES.
It is remarkable that in the second apology attributed
to Justin there are not any quotations from the sayings
of the Logos or from our New Testament. But in the
last section it aims a blow at Simon Magus who in the
Clementine Homilies xvii. 19, is generally admitted to
be identical with Paul. Referring to the opinion in
the Stromata of Clement of Alexandria, bk. 1, “It was
necessary that Jesus should preach only a year; this
also is written (Isaiah Ixi. 2; Luke iv. 18, 19), ‘ He
hath sent me to proclaim the acceptable year of the
Lord.’ This both the prophet spake and the gospel.”
Peter says to Simon, “ If our Jesus appeared to you in
a vision, made himself known to you, and spoke to you,
it was as one who is enraged with an adversary; and this
is the reason why it was through visions and dreams, or
through revelations that were from without, that he
spoke to you. But can any one be rendered fit for
instruction through apparitions ? And if you will say
1 it is possible,’ then I ask, ‘Why did our teacher abide
and discourse a whole year to those who were awake? ’
*
* If the writer knew of our fourth gospel, why did he not say
three years ?
�Clementine Homilies.
And how are we to believe your word, when you tell
us that he appeared to you 1 And how did he appear
to you, when you entertain opinions contrary to his
teaching ? But if you were seen and taught by him,
and became his apostle for a single, hour, proclaim his
utterances, interpret his sayings, love his apostles, con
tend not with me who companied with him.”
There is here evidently an allusion to some version
of the legend known as “ The Conversion of St Paul,”
which is related in our book called “ The Acts of the
Apostles,” ix. 1-19, in an improbable manner:—Paul
was leading an armed band to Damascus to make havoc
of the Christians there. Suddenly there shone about
him a light from heaven. He fell to the earth blinded,
and heard a voice saying to him, “ Saul! Saul! why
persecutest thou me?” Paul said, “Who art' thou,
Lord ?” And the Lord said, “lam Jesus whom thou
persecutest. ‘It is hard for thee to kick against the
goad.'’” Paul, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord,
what wilt thou have me to do ? ” And the Lord said
unto him, “ Arise, and go. into the city, and it shall be
told thee what thou must do.” His companions
stood by speechless, hearing a voice, but not seeing any
man. Paul arose blinded, and was led by his com
panions into Damascus. After three days the Lord
appeared in a vision to a disciple at Damascus, named
Ananias, whom he informed that he intended to send
Paul as an apostle, to the Gentiles, and he directed
Ananias to restore eyesight to Paul, who had already
seen Ananias in a vision. Ananias, after seeing hisvision, went his way, and, putting his hands on Paul,
said, “ Brother Saul I the Lord hath sent me that thou
mightest receive thy sight.” Immediately there fell
from Paul’s eyes a substance like scales, and lie received
sight, and was baptized. Then Paul remained some
days with the disciples who were at Damascus, and in
the synagogues he preached that Jesus is the son of
the Deity. The whole of this last clause is at variance
�20
Primitive Church History.
with the story in Galatians i. and ii., especially that
part i. 16, where Paul says that when he was converted
■“immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood,”
but, 17, “I went into Arabia!”
Taking the foregoing incidents in the order in which
they are related in the “Acts,” we have (1), a super
natural light from heaven,—(2), among the number
who saw it, only one man was blinded by it,—(3), a
voice whose words were heard by only that one man,—
(4), quoting from JEschylus’ Agamemnon, 1624, Dindorf, a precept exhorting Paul “not to kick against the
goad,”—(5), the immediate recognition of Jesus by
Paul, who had never seen or heard Jesus previously,—
<(6), the immediate conversion of Paul without any
reasons or arguments,—(7), the creation of Ananias,—
(8), a supernatural vision to Paul introducing him to a
knowledge of the yet unseen Ananias,—(9), a vision to
Ananias, introducing him to the as yet unseen Paul,—
■(10), and the restoration of Paul’s eyesight by the
mere touch of Ananias’ hand.
Here we have, firstly, a miracle overdoing its object;
because, by blinding Paul, his conversion was of but
little use to any one except himself, and as it was in
tended that he should become an apostle of Christianity,
more than half his worth would have been lost if his
■eyesight had not been restored.
Then, secondly, we have five miracles converting
Paul, but malignantly excluding his companions from
a, knowledge of the saving truth.
Thirdly, as it seems to be implied, Galatians ii. 18,
that the Lord could not undo his own work whether it
were bad or good, it became necessary to create Ananias
(verse 10), a man never heard of before or afterwards !
“ Oh ! what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive.”
Fourthly, we have two visions preparing Ananias
and Paul for each other. And the whole is wound up
�Clementine Homilies.
2I
with the tenth miracle by which Ananias restores sight
to Paul! Five miracles to convert Paul, and five to
restore his eyesight.
Not to dwell on the idea that, in order to give force
to his own language, Divine Providence required to
quote from 2Eschylus, just as if an Englishman were to
say he heard him quoting from Shakspere—-can any
one for a moment doubt that such a complication of
miracles, involving the commission and correction of a
blunder, is a positive proof that they did not emanate
from Omniscience?
Regarding the age of these “ Homilies,” there is a
remarkable passage, Homily iii. 50, which throws some
light on the subject:—“Then Peter said: That the
true is mixed with the false. I remember on one occa
sion, that he said, in finding fault with the Sadducees,
‘ On this account you are in error, because you do not
know the true sayings of the Scriptures; for which
reason you are ignorant of the power of God.’ Now,
if he thought they ‘ did not know the truths of Scrip
ture,’ it is clear that he said this on the assumption that
there were falsehoods. Indeed, this appears in his
saying, ‘ Be ye well-approved money-changers,’—on the
view that there were both genuine and spurious sayings.
And by saying, ‘ Why do ye not perceive the reason
ableness of the Scriptures ? ’ he makes the intellect of
him who voluntarily exercises sound judgment a surer
guide [than that of him who does not.] ”
Some writers try to identify the first of the above
quotations with our Matthew xxii. 29, and with our
Mark xii. 24. But the expression, “ the true sayings
of the Scriptures,” is not to be found in our Matthew
or Mark. The writer of the passage above quoted
must have had a well known edition of that speech by
Jesus containing these words ; because otherwise the
whole argument which the writer puts into Peter’s
mouth would not have possessed any weight whatever.
From this circumstance, it may be inferred safely, that
�22
Primitive Church History.
■when the author of the Clementine Homilies was writ
ing, there was not attributed to our New Testament
that exclusive authority which it acquired subsequently :
if, in fact, at that time our New Testament, in its pre
sent shape, had any existence whatever. The hypo
thesis that it had not any existence is corroborated by
an examination of the references to the precepts of
Jesus, and to the incidents in his history contained in
the extant remains of the Fathers who are supposed to
have flourished during our first and second centuries.
If those Fathers were acquainted with our New Testa
ment, why do they systematically ignore it? Nay, why
do they use invariably the Apocryphal Gospels and
other lost sources of Gospel doctrine and history ?
REFERENCES.
Whatever may be thought concerning the silence of
the Pagan world regarding Christianity during our
second century, the silence of the earliest Christian
Fathers regarding our New Testament, is a matter of
undeniable importance. There are extant remains of
Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Hernias, Clement the
Homan, Barnabas, Ignatius, Polycarp, Papias, Hegisippus, Justin Martyr, The Clementine Homilies and
Recognitions, the Epistle to Diognetus, Basilides,
Valentinus, Marcion, Dionysius, Melito, Claudius, the
Epistle of Vienne and Lyons, the Canon of Muratori,
Ptolemseus, and Heraclion. These are virtually all the
remains we have of Christian literature during our
second century, except, perhaps, some quotations from
the attack made on Christianity by Celsus, who
flourished towards the end of that century. Whether
any of these remains contains a reference to our New
Testament is a question which has been much disputed.
But, it is generally admitted, that if they do, then, such
references are very few when compared with the vast
number of references contained in those remains to other
�References.
23
Gospels, and other now lost and unknown sources re
garding the sayings and history of Jesus.
That there were a great number of other Gospels and
other now unknown sources in existence during our
second century is proved by the direct reference to
“many” who had taken in hand the history of Jesus
and Christianity prior to the compilation of our third
Gospel. See Luke i. 1. The author of “ Supernatural
Religion,”!. 218-9 says, “Looking at the close simi
larity of large portions of three synoptics, it is almost
certain that many of the croXXo/ here mentioned bore a
close analogy to each other, and to our Gospels; and
this is known to have been the case, for instance,
amongst the various forms of the 1 Gospel according to
the Hebrews,’ distinct mention of which we meet with
long before we hear anything of our Gospels. When
therefore, in early writings, we meet with quotations
closely resembling, or, we may add, even identical with
passages which are found in our Gospels, the source of
which, however, is not mentioned, nor is any author’s
name indicated, the similarity or even identity cannot
by any means be admitted as evidence that the quota
tion is necessarily from our Gospels, and not from some
other similar work now no longer extant, and more
especially not when in the same writings there are other
quotations from apocryphal sources different from our
Gospels. Whether regarded as historical records, or as
writings embodying the mere tradition of the early
Christians, our Gospels cannot for a moment be recog
nised as the exclusive depositories of the genuine say
ings and doings of Jesus; and, so far from the com
mon possession by many works in early times of such'
words of Jesus in closely similar form being either
strange or improbable, the really remarkable phenome
non is, that such material variation in the report of the
more important historical teaching should exist amongst
them. But while similarity to our Gospels in passages
quoted by early writers from unnamed sources cannot
�24
Primitive Church History.
prove the use of our Gospels, variation from them
would suggest or prove a different origin, and at least
it is obvious that quotations which do not agree with
our Gospels, cannot, in any case, indicate their exist
ence. ... In proportion as we remove from apostolic
times without positive evidence of the existence and
authenticity of our Gospels, so does the value of their
testimony dwindle away.” Further on (ii. 248-50),
the writer says, “ After having exhausted the literature
and the testimony bearing on the point, we have not
found a single distinct trace of any one of those [synop
tic] Gospels during the first century and a-half after
the death of Jesus. Only once during the whole of
that period do we find any tradition even, that anyone
of our evangelists composed a Gospel at all, and that
tradition, so far from favouring our synoptics, is fatal
to the claims of the first and second. About the middle
of the second century, Papias, on the occasion to which
we refer, records that Matthew composed the Discourses
of the Lord in the Hebrew tongue : a statement which
totally excludes the claim of our Greek Gospel to
apostolic origin. Mark, he said, wrote down from the
casual preaching of Peter the sayings and doings of
Jesus, but without orderly arrangement, as he was not
himself a follower of the Master, and merely recorded
what fell from the apostle. This description, likewise^
shows that our actual second Gospel could not, in its
present form, have been the work of Mark. There is
no other reference during the period to any writing of
Matthew or Mark, and no mention at all of any work
ascribed to Luke. If it be considered that there is any
connection between Marcion’s Gospel and our third
synoptic, any evidence so derived is of an unfavourable
character for that Gospel, as it involves a charge against
it, of being interpolated and debased by Jewish ele
ments. Any argument for the mere existence of our
synoptics based upon their supposed rejection by her
etical leaders and sects has the inevitable disadvantage
�References.
0.5
that the very testimony which would shew their exist
ence would oppose their authenticity. There is no
evidence of their use by heretical leaders, however, and
no direct reference to them by any writer, heretical or
orthodox, whom we have examined. We need scarcely
add that no reason whatever has been shown for ac
cepting the testimony of these Gospels as sufficient to
establish the reality of miracles and of a direct Divine
revelation. It is not pretended that more than one of
the synoptic Gospels was written by an eye-witness of
the miraculous occurrences reported, and whilst no evi
dence has been, or can be, produced even of the histo
rical accuracy of the narratives, no testimony as to the
correctness of the inferences from the external pheno
mena exists, or is now even conceivable. The discre
pancy between the amount of evidence required, and
that which is forthcoming, however, is greater than,
under the circumstances, could have been thought pos
sible.” And (ii. 387), regarding our fourth Gospel he
says, “ For some century and a half, after the events
recorded in the work, there is not only no testimony
whatever connecting the fourth Gospel with the apostle
John, but no certain trace even of the existence of the
Gospel. There has not been the slightest evidence in
any of the writings of the Fathers which we have ex
amined, even of a tradition, that the apostle John had
composed any evangelical work at all; and the claim
advanced in favour of the Christian miracles of con
temporaneous evidence, of extraordinary force and
veracity, by undoubted eye-vritnesses completely falls
to the ground.”
Justin Martyr, in his “ First Apology,” sect, xv.,
enumerates several doctrines which Jesus Christ taught.
Amongst others, Justin says, “And of our love to all,.
He taught thus : £ If ye love them that love you, what
new thing do ye ? for even fornicators do this. But I
say unto you, pray for your enemies, and love them
that hate you, and bless them that curse you, and pray
�16
Primitive Church History.
for them that despitefully use you.’ ” The apologists
for Christianity refer this passage to our Matthew,
v. 46, 44 ; Luke vi. 28. These are fair specimens of
patristic quotation and apologetic reference. The re
semblances and the variations are patent to any one
who is able to read. Some readers will think the
differences so slight as to suggest that the passage was
a quotation from memory, while other readers will per
ceive that since the precept “ Pray for your enemies”
is not to be found in our New Testament, the passage
must have been taken from some other source.
In one of the very few fragments which we possess
from the Cyclic Poems, and also in our “ Iliad,” v. 83,
xvi. 334, xx. 477, the following line occurs,—
“Him dark death seized and the strong grasp of fate.”
To assume that the writer of the lost Cyclic borrowed
this line from our “ Iliad,” or vice versa, is to beg the
point in dispute. Under existing circumstances, it is
impossible to give a decided answer. It may be that
the line in question was a well-known formula taken by
both writers from some third source.
*
In our New Testament we have distinct references
-to apocryphal writings, Matthew xxiii. 35, Romans xv.
19, 24, 1 Corinthians xv. 6, Jude 14, 1 Peter iii. 19,
Ephesians iv. 9, &c., &c. While the writer of our
canonical book of “ Acts,” xx. 35, actually quotes from
an apocryphal writing when he gives us, as the words
of the Lord Jesus, the precept “ It is more blessed to
give than to receive.”
Sometimes the references in question exhibit only
slight variations from passages in our New Testament.
Regarding these variations, the writer of “ Supernatural
Religion,” with slight correction, ii. 17, 18, says, “The
* From Jerome’s Commentary on Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians
we learn that the Apostle John, towards the close of his life, used
to quote, as a commandment of Jesus, the words, “ Little children,
love one anotherWhere did the framer of this story find that
quotation ?
�References.
variation in these passages, it may be argued, are not
very important. Certainly, if they were the exceptional
variations amongst a mass of quotations perfectly agree
ing with parallels in our Gospels, it might be exaggera
tion to base on such divergences a conclusion that they
were derived from a different source. When it is con
sidered, however, that the very reverse is the case, and
that these are passages selected for their closer agree
ment out of a multitude of others either more decidedly
differing from our Gospels, or not found in them at all,
the case entirely changes, and variations being the rule
instead of the exception, these, however slight, become
■evidence of the use of a Gospel different from ours.
As an illustration of the importance of slight variations
in connection with the question as to the source from
which quotations are derived, the following may at
random be pointed out. The passage, ‘ See thou say
nothing to any man, but go thy way, shew thyself to
the priest,’ occurring in a work like the Homilies,
would, supposing our second Gospel no longer extant,
be referred to Matthew viii. 4, with which it entirely
agrees, with the exception of its containing the one
extra word ‘ nothing.’ It however actually corre
sponds with Mark i. 44, though not with our first
Gospel. Then again, supposing that our first Gospel
had shared the fate of so many others of the -roXXo/ of
Luke (i. 1), and in some early work the following pas
sage were found : £ A prophet is not without honour
except in his own country and in his own house,’ this
passage would undoubtedly be claimed by apologists as
a quotation from Mark vi. 4, and as proving the exis
tence and use of that Gospel. The omission of the
words 1 and among his own kin’ would, at first, be ex
plained as mere abbreviation, or defect of memory ;
but on the discovery that part or all of these words are
omitted from some MSS., that, for instance, the phrase
is erased from the oldest copy known, the Codex
Sinaiticus, the derivation from the second Gospel would.
�28
Primitive Church History.
be considered as established. The author, notwith
standing, might never have seen that Gospel, for the
quotation corresponds with Matthew xiii. 57.”
In short, the author of “Supernatural Religion”
makes out a good case, which may be taken as proved
at least provisionally, for holding that the remains of
the Fathers in question (i.) mention incidents in the
Gospel history recorded in our New Testament, but
describe them differently. That (ii.) they mention in
cidents which are not recorded in our New Testament.
That (iii.) they quote precepts and sayings which partly *
agree and partly disagree with some of the precepts
and sayings contained in our New Testament. That
(iv.) they quote precepts similar in sense, but different
in words, from some precepts in our New Testament.
That (v.) they quote precepts similar in words, but
different in context, from some precepts in our New
Testament. That (vi.) they quote precepts which are
not in our New Testament. And (vii.), that they refer
frequently to (a.) other Gospels not now extant; to (6.)
other epistles not now extant; to (c.) other revelations
different from our Apocalypse; to (cZ.) other works,
now extant, as “ scripture,” but which works are not
now considered to be “scripture;” to (e.) works not
now extant, which those Fathers considered to be
“scripture,” and (/.) they never quote from our NewTestament ; on the contrary, as the author of “ Super
natural Religion,” i. 244, observes, “ AR the early
writers avoid our ^Gospels, if they knew them at all,
and systematically use other works.” Which “ other
works ” shall now be considered under the title of
THE APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS.
So long as a family has been always poor the mem
bers of it are indifferent to their genealogy. In like
manner nations, so long as they are depressed by igno
rance and want of home and foreign commerce, have
�The Apocryphal Gospels.
not any history. In hotli cases it happens that when
the family or nation become “ respectable,” which is a
euphemism for “ rich,” they search for their history
and origin. But by that time discovery may be vir
tually impossible. However, kind nature lias given
man faculties sufficient to provide for all his wants.
Where perception fails him fancy consoles him. Hence,
has arisen the vast mass of clannish, religious, and
national legends which exist even in the present day,
as well as the countless myriads of them which are ex
tinct. From these, therefore, all that a really veracious
historian can achieve is to point out the earliest histo
rical trace he can discover of the family, the. religion,
or the nation. Unfortunately, this method of proceed
ing is regarded by the persons interested as disrespect
ful : so disagreeable is truth to the human mind, even
though that mind be illuminated by the light of the
Gospel. There are, however, some people who prefer
truth to flattery, and
will not be shocked to hear
that before the time of Origen, a.d. 220, the Christian
Church has not any reliable history.
Unvarying tradition represents the founders of that
Church as “ unlettered and unskilful clowns,”—Acts
iv. 13, avdpa-roi aypayyaroi xai idiw-ai,—men, therefore,
who were utterly unable to write. Consequently the
original Gospel relating the doctrines, discourses, and
exploits of Jesus must have been preserved orally. If
so, variations in that Gospel must necessarily have
arisen, unless they were prevented by a miracle, and
we know from our fourth Gospel that such a miracle
was not called into existence, by the fact that the
writer of that Gospel took the liberty of making his
Gospel differ from all the extant Gospels, apocryphal
and canonical,—from every lost Gospel of which we
have any definite knowledge,—and from every extant
quotation from any other Gospel.
Even when reduced to writing, that original Gospel
would naturally be in an uncouth state, recoiding vindic-
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Primitive Church History.
live as well as beneficent exploits. Preaching puerile
doctrines (Luke xii. 33), and (Luke xiv. 26) impossibili
ties. Recording mere thaumaturgies,—Matthew xvii.
2, xxi. 19; Thomas i. 2,—such as the transfiguration
of Jesus, his withering of the barren fig tree, and his
giving life to twelve sparrows which he made of clay.
The utterly useless nature of these miracles renders it
highly probable that they are fragments of the primi
tive Gospel.
Several of the names, given in the Gospels to the
heroes and heroines who figure in them, savour strongly
of personification. To give a few instances
Jesus
means a “ Saviour;” Peter means a “ rock;” Paul means
a “worker;” St Perpetua is merely the first part of
perpetua felicitas, “eternal happiness.”
She and
Potentiana, “ power,” figure in the Acts of Peter and
Paul. Perpetua is retained in the Church of England
calendar (7th March), as are also St Prisca (18th Janu
ary), which is merely the first part of prisca fides,
“ancient faith,”—St Faith (6th October) and Lucy
(13th December), which is merely lux, “light,” speak
for themselves. St Felix, “ fortunate,” the saint that
brings good luck, has in some calendars not less than six
festival days. (See De Morgan’s “Book of Almanacs.’ )
The story of St Veronica is told in the Gospel regarding
“ The Avenging of the Saviour.” The name is really
a corruption of Bernice, but was afterwards ignorantly
supposed to be a jumble of vera, “ true,” and s/xuv, “ a
likeness,” meaning a true likeness of Jesus, and was
given to a holy woman who, it was said, had taken the
precaution of preserving the true likeness, miraculously
impressed on the handkerchief with which she wiped
the perspiration from his face.
Out of such shadows to manufacture anything re
sembling flesh and blood was a task of the very greatest
difficulty, requiring the inventive genius of anJEschylus.
Such a genius was not given to the Christian Church,
and the construction of the Gospels fell to the lot of
�‘The Apocryphal Gospels.
li
very inferior workmen. Nevertheless, although their
task was a very difficult one, their performances are not
wholly destitute of merit. On the writers of the oldest
Apocryphal Gospels, for instance “ The Gospel accord
ing to the Hebrews,” the task was laid of inventing
incidents, combining those incidents with the sayingsof the Logos, and weaving them into a self-consistent
although very improbable narrative. That their suc
cess, and even that of our later four evangelists, was
only partial, is a fact that was patent to the perception
of Origen, who (De Principiis, book iv., chap. i. § 16) tells
us repeatedly that the “ Scriptures do not contain
throughout a pure history of events, but of such as are
interwoven indeed according to the letter, but which
did not actually occur.” And he says, “ The Gospels
themselves are filled with the same kind of narratives :
v. c., the devil leading Jesus into a high mountain, to
show him from thence the kingdoms of the whole
world, and the glory of them. For who is there among
those who do not read such accounts carelessly, that
would not condemn those who think that with the eye
of the body—which requires a lofty height in order
that the parts lying under and adjacent may be seen—
the kingdoms of the Persians, and Scythians, and
Indians, and Parthians, were beheld, and the manner
in which their princes are glorified among men 1 And
the attentive reader may notice in the Gospels innu
merable other passages like these, so that he will be
convinced that, in the histories that are literally re
corded, circumstances that did not occur are inserted.”
From the writings of Tatian, Athenagoras, and Theo
philus, it is evident that the “ sayings” of the Logos
preceded the history of Jesus. That history—even as
represented in our four Gospels—is so conflicting with
itself, and the events related are so improbable, that,
among the events related, we strain our sight in vain to
distinguish between the false and the true ; if, in fact,
any of the events be true. That history was related in
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Primitive Church History.
a number of Gospels which are now lost. Among these
was the above-mentioned “ Gospel according to the
Hebrews,” which is quoted by Ignatius, who never
quotes from our Gospels. As before-mentioned, these
so-called Apocryphal Gospels were very numerous. We
know of Gospels according to Peter, to Thomas, to
James, to Judas, to Nicodemus, to Barnabas, to Mat
thias, to the Egyptians, to the Ebionites, to the Nazarenes, to the Twelve Apostles, &c., &c. In short, every
man who thought himself able to write a Gospel cleverly
felt himself at liberty to do so, and from what we know
regarding some of the incidents contained in them, it
is evident that the writers did not feel in the least con
strained to follow any particular model. There was
not any New Testament canon in existence until a
canon was framed by the council of Laodicea, a.d. 362.
So that during centuries the Christian Church had not
any reliable history of its founders or of itself. This
alone was a source of disagreement, uncertainty, doubt,
and confusion.
But in addition to this, we know from the Clemen
tine Homilies, and the canonical Acts and Pauline
Epistles, that there were two hostile parties in the
primitive Church which threatened to exterminate each
other. The one party, said to be headed by Peter, con
sidered Christianity a mere continuation of the Jewish
law j the other, said to be headed by Paul, represented
the glad tidings as the introduction of an entirely new
system of salvation, applicable to all mankind, and
superseding the dispensation of the law by a dispensa
tion of grace.
By these means Christianity came into the world
amidst a whirlwind of heresy, insubordination, schism,
and controversy. It may be, but we do not know,
that there was a time when the original founder of
Christianity, whoever he was, had not any followers.
If so, then, there was a time when the whole Christian
•Church was of one mind. Of course, to this time we
�The Apocryphal Gospels.
33
cannot assign any certain date, and it is quite possible
that it may not have had any existence. And unless
it can be shown that there has been such a time, these
controversies prove that there never was in the Church
any universally received account of Jesus Christ: the
idea of him was a myth from the beginning. The extant
remains of the Fathers, supposed to have flourished
during our first two centuries, abound with disputation,
malignity, superciliousness, and denunciation. It is
plain that the writers of those remains were men wholly
unacquainted with literary criticism, and with philology
as a science. Many of their arguments are extremely
puerile. But from these very circumstances they have
preserved to us the outline of a Gospel which may be
regarded as an edition, at least, of the primitive Gospel.
An intelligent, virtuous, zealous, and eminent Chris
tian of his day was one Marcion, said to have been
born at Sinope, in Paphlagonia, during the early part
■of our second century. He belonged to the Pauline
school of Christianity. He rejected the teaching of all
the apostles except Paul’s. This drew on him the
hatred of many contemporary writers. But so high
was his character, and so well did he support his views
that, even in the time of Epiphanius, A.D. 367, the fol
lowers of Marcion were said to be found throughout
the whole Christian world.
It is said that Marcion regarded as his sources of
Christian doctrine a Gospel and ten epistles supposed
to have been written by Paul, namely, Galatians, two
Corinthians, two Thessalonians, Romans, Laodiceans,
answering to our Ephesians, Philemon, Colossians, and
Philippians. The writer of “ Supernatural Religion,”
ii. 81, &c., says, “ None of the other books which now
form part of the canonical New Testament were either
mentioned or recognised by Marcion. This is the old
est collection of apostolic writings of which there is
any trace, but there was at that time no other ‘ Holy
Scripture’ than the Old Testament, and no New Testac
�34
Primitive Church History.
ment canon had yet been imagined. Marcion neither
claimed canonical authority for these writings, nor did
he associate with them any idea whatever of inspiration.”
Any remains of Marcion’s Gospel exist only in the
extant writings of his bitter and unphilological oppo
nents. It appears from those writings that Marcion’s
Gospel resembled our third Gospel, but was consider
ably shorter. Marcion held that matter is essentially
*
sinful, and that although material acts and functions
were in his Gospel assigned to Jesus, yet that He was
not a material being; a doctrine which has, at least,
the merit of accounting for the incident (John xx. 19)
that Jesus was able to glide, without causing disturb
ance, through a wall. Marcion’s opponents accused
him of having mutilated and adulterated our third
Gospel to support, his own views. But the fact is, that
passages in our Luke, said to have been omitted by
Marcion, are often not opposed to his system at all,
and sometimes even in favour of it; and, on the other
hand, passages which were retained in his Gospel are
contradictory to his views. This is not intelligible
upon any theory of arbitrary garbling of a Gospel in
the interest of a system. It is much more probable
that those unphilological Fathers mistook, and, with
characteristic assumption, asserted that the shorter, but
earlier, Gospel of Marcion was an abbreviation of our
much later canonical Gospel, instead of recognising the
latter as an extension of the former. It is not only
possible but very probable that, in the remote region
of Paphlagonia, the Gospel, used by Marcion, had re
mained unaltered, in sacred quietness, on the outskirts
* This Gnostic doctrine occurs more than once in our New Tes
tament. (See “The Jesus of History,” bk. iii., ch. 2, &c.) It lies
at the root of our John i. 3, where the writer (after saying that
the Logos was a god) adds, “all things were made by him, and
without him was not anything made that was made,” in order to
keep the Supreme Deity free from the pollution of touching matter,
and at the same time to keep the Logos in his proper place of
inferiority,
�The Apocryphal Gospels.
35
of Christianity; whilst, in the more active religious
centres of the Church, into the other Gospels there had
been infused fresh matter which had modified and in
creased their earlier forms. In the time of Irenaeus, a
comparatively late writer, it was easy to join him in
asserting that, because Marcion recognised only one
Gospel, he rejected our Gospels. But Irenaeus has not
even attempted to prove that Marcion was acquainted
with our Gospels, or that in Marcion’s day they had
any existence.
*
During all the controversies and debates, before the
time of Irenaeus,! we never hear our Gospels quoted.
It is to the lost Gospels and the Apocryphal Gospels
that those early Fathers appeal as containing “ The
Gospel.” This is an argument of very great weight,
and well worthy of the reader’s most serious considera
tion. For, there are writers who seek to disparage the
Apocryphal Gospels, and assert our much more modern
Gospels to be genuine, original, apostolical, and written
under the guidance of divine inspiration. Amongst
the number of such writers is Mosheim (“ Institutes,”
* Marcion’s so called l< heresy,” and the slanders heaped on him,
form a fair sample of the uncritical manner in which orthodoxy
treats mere difference. Marcion’s certainly old, and probably
genuine, edition of “The Gospel” was asserted to be a garbled
novelty, merely because it partly differed from our Luke’s Gospel,
which avowedly (i. 1) had “many” predecessors !—See the admir
able treatise on “Supernatural Religion,” part ii., ch. vii. Speak
ing of “a learned mythologist who had long laboured to rebuild
the fallen temple of Jupiter,” and who, to some persons, “ appeared
to be non compos,” Peacock says, “He has a system of his own,
which appears, in the present day, more absurd than other systems,
only because it has fewer followers. The manner in which the
spirit of system twists everything to its own views is truly wonder
ful. I believe that in every nation of the earth th e system which
has most followers will be found the most absurd in the eye of an
enlightened philosophy.”—Melincourt, ch. vi.
p It is impossible to assign an exact date to Irenaeus. The stories
which make him a contemporary of Tatian, and at the same time
relegate him to Gaul, are great nonsense. Prom his knowledge of
the greater part of the writings in our N ew Testament, it is probable
that Irenaeus flourished during our third century—a short time
before Origen.
�36
Primitive Church History.
century i., Part ii., chap, ii., sec. 17). According to
these writers, the Apocryphal Gospels are full of im
positions and fables, composed by persons of not any
bad intentions, perhaps, but who were superstitious,
simple, and addicted to what we should consider pious
frauds, although not so considered by those ignorant
and simple people. Such writers also inform us, in the
words of Mosheim, that the rulers of the Church sea
sonably interposed, and “ caused books which were
truly divine, and which came from apostolic hands, to
be speedily separated from that mass of trash into a
volume by themselves.” Such writers are bound to
explain how it came to pass that the early Fathers
invariably used that “ mass of trash,” and never noticed
those “ books which were truly divine, and which came
from apostolic hands! ” On the contrary, if those
“truly divine books” had any existence at that time,
those Fathers studiously avoided them. Just as Pindar
and the Greek Tragics “avoid” our Homer, and use
systematically the much older Cyclic Poems, if, in fact,
they knew our Homer at all, or if our Homer, in their
day, had any existence.
This omission by the early Fathers is a strong proof
that the works we have, purporting to be their remains,
are the genuine remains of at least a time prior to the
existence of the writings contained in our New Testa
ment. Because if those remains had been forgeries,
invented after the appearance of our New Testament,
assuredly the quotations found in those remains would
have been altered to correspond with the partly similar
and partly dissimilar passages in our New Testament,
while the other quotations would have been obliterated
altogether.
Nevertheless the old Apocryphal Gospels were so
imperfect in affording materials for proving that their
Logos or Jesus was identical with the Christ of the
Septuagint, that several of the early apologists for the
Christians were compelled to have recourse to the
�The Exaltation of Prophecy.
37
Greek Tragics, ecclesiastical miracles, Sibylline verses,
Hesiod, and even onr “ Homer,” to eke out their theory.
In the meantime—until more artistically framed Gospels
had been constructed—all writers of a Gospel considered
themselves at liberty to write a life of Jesus as best
they could, and without feeling themselves in the least
restricted by the contents of any previously existing
Gospel: just as prior to the time of Plato all the nume
rous Grecian “ Homers” considered themselves at
liberty to construct, and, as we know, did construct,
just as they pleased, any “Tale of Troy,” likely to
prove a good hit, without being restricted by the con
tents of any previously existing “ Ajaciad,” “ Achilliad,”
or “ Iliad."
Subsequently the great point with writers of Gospels
became the identification of Jesus, his exploits, and the
incidents in his mythical career, with certain incidents,
statements, supposed prophecies, and allegories con
tained in the Septuagint. The absence of all real facts
relating to a character so purely mythical as Jesus
Christ rendered this a difficult task. All great achieve
ments of the human mind must originate in very rudi
mentary beginnings. The formation of our Gospels is
not an exception to that rule. Their commencement
is clearly traceable to a mental phenomenon which
next manifested itself in the Church, namely,
THE EXALTATION OF PROPHECY.
Trypho, “Dialogue,” sec. viii., says to Justin, “But
if Christ be come and is anywhere, he is unknown,
nor does he know himself, nor can he be endued with
any power till Elias shall come and anoint him, and
make him manifest to all men. But you having re
ceived an idle rumour, shape a Christ for yourselves,
and for his sake lose utterly the present time.” To
this argument Justin does not reply by adducing any
miracle attributed to Jesus Christ, or any passage
from our New Testament, or the evidence of any
�38
Primitive Church History.
apostle, or of any person supposed to have been a con
temporary of Jesus.
*
But in reply, sec. xi., Justin
quotes Isaiah li. 4, 5, “ Hearken to me my people, and
give ear unto me, 0 ye kings : for a law shall proceed
from me, and my judgment for a light to the Gentiles.
My righteousness approaches speedily, and my salva
tion shall go forth, and on mine arm shall the Gentiles
trust.” And Justin quotes Jeremiah xxxi. 31, 32, to
* It is important to note here the omission of any reference to
Jesus’ baptism by J ohn the Baptist. Certainly that incident in
the life of Jesus was known to Justin, who relates it, “Dialogue,”
sec. lxxxviii., and states that on that occasion a fire was kindled
in the river Jordan, and that a voice came from heaven and
quoted from our second Psalm the words, “ Thou art my Son,
this day I have begotten thee.” This account of the incident is
in conformity with the record of it contained in Marcion’s Gospel,
Codex Bezae, and from what we know concerning “ The Gospel
according to the Hebrews,” it is extremely probable that Justin
quoted his account of that incident from the last-mentioned source.
The omission of it here suggests the idea that Justin did not
attach any weight to an unction in the administration of which
there was not any physical oil used. The neglect, by the primi
tive Christian mythologists, to cook a story to the effect that some
high priest, or other competent functionary, anointed Jesus, cre
ated an insuperable difficulty.
It is gravely asserted in Dr Wm. Smith’s “ New Testament
History,” p. 222-4, that the difficulty was surmounted (Luke vii.
36-50) by the easy and convenient, but not strictly legal interposi
tion of a prostitute ! But all really moral readers will prefer the
more dignified attempt to overcome the difficulty made in the
“Clementine Recognitions,” i. 45, where Peter says that “after
God had made the world .... he set an angel as chief over the
angels, a spirit over the spirits, a star over the stars, a demon
over the demons, a bird over the birds, a beast over the beasts, a
serpent over the serpents, a fish over the fishes, over men a man
who is Jesus Christ. But he is called Christ by a certain excellent
rite of religion ; for as there are certain names common to kings,
as Arsaces among the Persians, Caesar among the Romans, Pharaoh
among the Egyptians, so among the Jews a king is called Christ.
And the reason of the appellation is this : although, indeed, he
was the Son of God and the beginning of all things, he became
Man ; him first God anointed with oil which was taken from the
wood of the tree of life; therefore, from that anointing he is
called Christ.”—Q.E.D.
A disinterested looker-on may well be excused if he regard the
modern rejection of all the extant remains of Christian literature
that are older than our New Testament, as being virtually a piece
of critical suicide.
�The Exaltation of Prophecy.
39
the like effect. And then from these supposed pro
phecies Justin draws the following characteristic and
inconclusive inference : “ Therefore, if God did foretell
that he would make a new covenant, and that it should
he for a light of the Gentiles, and we plainly see and
are fully persuaded that, through the name of that
Jesus Christ, who wras crucified, men turn from idols
and all iniquity to the living God, and continue even
nnto death in the profession and in the practice of
piety ; both from the performance of such good works,
and also from the mighty miracles that followed, it was
easy for all men to perceive that this is the new law
and the new covenant, and the expectation of those
who, out of all nations, expected to receive bless
ings from God. For we are the true and spiritual
Israel.”
In like manner the writer of our second Peter i.
16-19, says, “We have not followed cunningly-devised
fables when we made known unto you the power and
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye-wit
nesses of his majesty; for he received from God the
Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice
to him from the excellent glory, 1 This is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased.’ And this voice
which came from heaven we heard, when we were
•with him in the holy mountain; also we have a more
sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye
take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dirty place,
until the day dawn, and the light-bringer arise in
your hearts.” So, according to this -writer, supposed
prophecies contained in the Septuagint were “more
sure ” than the evidence of “ hearers ” and of “ eye
witnesses.”
Gibbon, “Decline and Fall,” ch. xv., observes cor
rectly regarding these apologists, that “ when they
would demonstrate the divine origin of Christianity,
they insist much more strongly on the predictions
�40
Primitive Church History.
which announced than the miracles which accompanied
the appearance of the Messiah.”
But the very idea of a prediction or prophecy in
volves a miracle, which, to say the least, is an event
the existence of which has never yet Been proved.
According to the logic of these Christian apologists,
passages in the Septuagint, written by persons and
under circumstances utterly unknown, are supposed to
be supernatural predictions necessarily involving the
future occurrence of certain other supernatural events.
Thus the former class of miracles prove the latter class
of miracles, while the former class of miracles rest on
an arbitrary interpretation of old and obscure writings.
But the weakness of this system of logic soon became
unsatisfactory. And the next development in the
Christian Church was a readiness to assert and a will
ingness to believe that the Christian religion proved
its divine origin because it had spread very widely.
This development gave rise to
ECCLESIASTICAL EXAGGERATION.
Justin in his “ Dialogue,” sec. cxvii., says, “ speak'
ing generally, there is not any race of men—either
foreign or Greek—or, in one word, by whatever name
called, either living on wains, or without houses at all,
or dwelling in huts as breeders of cattle, in which in
the name of the crucified Jesus, prayers and thanks
givings are not made to the father and creator of all.”
This assertion the learned and candid Mosheim, in his
“ Commentaries,” characterises as an “ exaggeration.”
Tertullian, in his tract, “ Against the Jews,” says :
“ In whom but the Christ now come have all nations
believed ? For in whom do all other nations (except
the Jews) confide? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and
the dwellers in Mesopotamia, Armenia, Phrygia,
Cappadocia, and inhabitants of Pontus, and Asia, and
Pamphylia; the dwellers in Egypt, and inhabitants of
�Ecclesiastical Exaggeration.
41
the region beyond Cyrene; Romans and strangers ; and
in Jerusalem, both Jews and Proselytes; so that the
*
various tribes of the Getuli and the numerous hordes
of the Moors ; all the Spanish clans, and the different
nations of Gauls, and those regions of the Britons
inaccessible to the Romans but subject to Christ, and
of the Sarmatians, and the Dacians, and Germans, and
Scythians, and many unexplored nations and provinces,
and islands unknown to us, and which we cannot
enumerate: in all which places the name of Christ,
who has already come, now reigns.”
Commenting on this passage, Mosheim (p. 4) says :
“ What Tertullian here says of Christianity’s having in
his time been professed by various nations of the
Gauls, is directly contrary to the fact. In the time of
Tertullian the church of Gaul had not attained to any
degree of strength or size, but was quite in its infancy,
and confined within the limits of one individual nation,
as the inhabitants of the country themselves acknow
ledge. What he adds about Christ’s being acknow
ledged in those parts of Britain to which the Roman
arms had not penetrated, is still more widely removed
from the truth. Finally, his assertion that many
unexplored nations and unknown provinces and islands
had embraced Christianity, most plainly evinces that
lie suffered himself to be carried away by the warmth
of imagination, and did not sufficiently attend to what
he was committing to paper. For how could it be
possible that Tertullian should have been made
acquainted with what was done in unexplored regions
and unknown islands and provinces 1 In fact, instead
of feeling his way by means of certain and approved
testimony, he appears, in this instance, to have become
the dupe of vague and indistinct rumour.”
So far as Britain is concerned, a very different view
from that given by Tertullian is given by Mr Thomas
* It is a notorious fact that at this time, A.D. 220, there werenot any Jews permitted to even enter Jerusalem !
�42
Primitive Church History.
Wright in his admirable treatise, “ The Celt, the
Roman, and the Saxon,” p. 299, 300. Mr Wright says,
“It cannot but excite our astonishment that among
such an immense number of altars and inscriptions of
temples, and with so many hundreds of Roman
sepulchres and graves as have been opened in this
country, we find not a single trace of the religion of the
Gospel. We must bear in mind, moreover, that a
large proportion of these monuments belong to a late
period of the Roman occupation ; * in many of the
inscriptions relating to temples, the building is said to
have been rebuilt after having fallen into ruin through
its antiquity—vetustate collapsum—and the examina
tion of more than one of the more magnificent villas
has proved that they were erected on the site of an
older villa, which had probably been taken down for
the same reason. We seem driven by these circum
stances to the unavoidable conclusion that Christianity
was not established in Roman Britain, although it is a
conclusion totally at variance with the preconceived
notions into which we have been led by the ecclesiasti
cal historians.”
The writer of our epistle to the Colossians, i. 23,
says that “ the gospel was preached to every creature
which is under heaven.”
But the writer of our epistle to the Romans com
bines ecclesiastical exaggeration with the exaltation of
prophecy in a unique manner. The writer of the
nineteenth “Psalm” says, “The heavens declare the
glory of God.......... their voice is gone forth into all
the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.”
Meaning thereby that the regular movements and the
splendour of the heavenly bodies proved them to be
the work of a great and superhuman intelligence. The
writer of our Epistle to the Romans, x. 18, quotes this
passage to prove that Christianity had been proclaimed
nil over the earth. He says, “Faith cometh by hear* That occupation terminated a.d. 4IS.
�Allegory.
43
ing, and hearing by the word of God. Bnt I say, have
they not heard ? Yes, verily, 4 their sound went into
all the earth and their words unto the ends of the
world.’ ” This curious and, in fact, childish sort of
reasoning was very prevalent among the Jews of
Alexandria; and as in our fourth gospel, xix. 36, we
have a ceremonial law perverted allegorically into a
prophecy concerning an incident in the mythical
history of Jesus, so here we have a statement concern
ing the heavenly bodies perverted allegorically into a
prophecy regarding the spread of Christianity. The
argument, such as it is, may be stated thus :—The
writer of our nineteenth “ Psalm ” foretold allegorically
the spread of Christianity over all the earth; that
writer wrote under the influence and with the aid of
divine guidance ; Christianity has been proclaimed;
therefore Christianity has spread over all the earth 1
Here, in addition to prophecy and exaggeration, we
have that distinguishing characteristic of the Jewish
philosophic school in Alexandria, namely, the
dement of
ALLEGORY.
It is difficult to understand how the human mind
could ever have thought that a description of one thing
under the image of another—that is to say, allegory—
-could possibly increase knowledge or diminish ignorance.
All allegorical interpretationsandillustrations are ground
less, uncertain, fanciful, and indistinct. The real par
allels they contain are mostly few and trifling. They
cannot prove anything. And, worst of all, the few
similitudes that allegories contain are invariably accom
panied by divergences, and in most cases the divergences
preponderate. In fact, nothing except extensive ac
quaintance with the phases of human folly could lead
a sensible man to believe that such a system of inter
pretation ever prevailed anywhere on earth. Never
theless such has been the case, nor is it yet wholly
extinct.
�44
Primitive Church History.
Dr Kalisch (“Leviticus,” i. 143, et seqi) says: “As
in nature, so in history, the same things are often
repeated at different times and in different degrees of
perfection; the development of nations and of mankind
advances in rhythmic cycles, each complete in itself,
and each analogous, hut superior, to the preceding..
The Hebrew mind, in the period of the old canon, had
created for itself a certain system of religious thought
and public devotion, compact and consistent, and for
the time entirely satisfactory. But the Jews advanced;
they unfolded the germs of the earlier literature, and
they assimilated to their own views ideas borrowed
from the creeds of other nations. Yet they had long
learnt to look upon the Old Testament as the allembracing code of wisdom and knowledge, which must
contain—it may be in obscure allusions or hidden
allegories—all truths that can ever be discovered by
the human intellect to the end of time; they acted
upon the conviction, ‘Turn it and turn it, for every
thing is in it.’ Therefore they strove to corroborate
any new conception or opinion by connecting it with
some really or apparently kindred passage of the Scrip
tures ; and they introduced that connection by the
word, ‘As it is written.’ For instance, Ben Zoma said,
‘ Who is wise ? He who learns from every body ■ forit is written, I acquired knowledge from all whotaught me’ (Psalm cxix. 99), though the words em
ployed have in the Psalms where they occur a very
different meaning, viz., ‘I have more knowledge than
all my teachers.’
“ Such midrashic elements began to appear from very
early times; in fact, not long after the completion of
the second Temple. ... At first the Jewish doctors
were cautious in this method : preserving the conscious
ness that the combinations were the work of their own
judgment, they desired the Scriptural passage to be
regarded as no more than, a mere ‘ support ’ of their
own view, or as implying, at best, only a ‘ hint ’ in
�Allegory.
45
reference to it; and the Mishna, still sparing in that
process, speaks of many new laws that ‘fly in the air
and have no Biblical foundation; ’ and of others that
are ‘like mountains suspended by a hair, as they are
little alluded to in the Bible, yet developed into
numerous ordinances.’ But gradually, though not
without opposition from some more sober sects, as the
Sadducees and Bseothusians, they pursued the same
path with greater boldness and assurance; they con
sidered no opinion safe against later fluctuations unless
guarded by Scriptural authority; they deemed it,
therefore, necessary to trace all the innumerable ex
pansions of the Law to the Bible, which they diligently
searched and unscrupulously employed for that object;
and they seriously and confidently pointed to their
discoveries, no matter how strange soever, as ‘ proofs ’
of the doctrines they were anxious to diffuse. In this
manner, that which at first was understood merely
as a happy and welcome parallel was imperceptibly
converted into an irrefutable argument. . . . Every
trace of sound comment vanished, and the Bible was
•overgrown with the weeds of eccentric paradox. All
the conclusions so obtained were endowed with tlie
same authority and holiness as the clear utterances of
the Bible. They were regarded not only as justified,
but as so excessively genuine and infallible, that Tal
mudists could propound the surprising rule, ‘He who
renders a verse according to its plain form (that is,
literally) is a falsifier,’ although they had the boldness
to add, ‘ He who makes any addition is a blasphemer.’
“ The history of the Christian or typical interpreta
tion of the Bible was in many respects analogous to
that of the Jewish schools. . . . The Hew Testament
offers numerous instances both of ‘ the support ’ and
‘ the proof: ’ the former is, as in the Mishnah and
Talmud, introduced by ‘ as it is written ’ or ‘ spoken; ’
the latter usually by ‘ that it might be fulfilled, what
was spoken or written.’
�46
Primitive Church History.
11 In narrating the life of Jesus, the Evangelists
introduce a series of events which, though they had
happened in previous times, occurred again in the
[supposed] history of Christ, but in a manner so
much more real that they were considered as the
‘fulfilment’ of the former. Jesus was born of the
Virgin Mary, that a corresponding promise given to
Isaiah more than seven hundred years before, and at
that time literally realised, might be fulfilled (Matthew
i. 23, ii. 15; Isaiah vii. 14; Hosea xi. 1). He was
taken to Egypt as a child and brought back to Pales
tine, that he might ‘ fulfil ’ in a deeper sense the words
of the prophet Hosea, originally applied to the
Hebrews, ‘out of Egypt have I called my son.’ The
child-murder at Bethlehem which he occasioned, was
the ‘fulfilment’ of the carnage perpetrated by the
Babylonians in Jerusalem at the time of its destruction,
about six centuries before; although the former was
utterly insignificant compared with the fearful blood
shed of the latter. . . . But the New Testament
proceeded even further in this direction.
The
principle of fulfilment was applied not only to events
but to laws. The command to roast the paschal lamb
entire, so that no bone of it is broken—to symbolise
the unity of the families and the nation-—-found its
true fulfilment (Exodus xii. 9, 46 ; John xix. 36),
when the legs of Christ were not broken after the
crucifixion. . . .
“A number of objections against these and all
typical views must at once crowd upon the reader’s
attention. He will first of all be struck by the
uncertainty and indistinctness of the interpretations.
Can Christ be at the same time the victim and the
mediating priest 1 If the victim, how can he inter
cede ? If the high-priest, how can his blood be shed
for atonement ? Yet he is represented both as the
one and the other; in either case the parallels are
worked out into microscopic details; and the inevitable
�Allegory.
Agy
result is a most perplexing confusion both in the
sacrificial rites and in the attributes of Christ. The
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews seems indeed to
have felt this difficulty; for he represents Christ as
the victim on earth, but as the high-priest after his
crucifixion in heaven, which is the holy of holies
where he performs his ministrations ; but if so, where
is the analogy between the ordinary sacrifices and that
of Christ ?
That one and chief inaccuracy led
naturally to unlimited and almost universal identifica
tions. Christ was contended to be, in his own and
sole person (Hebrews v. 9, 10, vi. 19, 20, vii. 26,
viii. 4), ‘victim, sacrifice, priest, altar, God, man, king,
high-priest, sheep, lamb, in fact, all in all, that he may
be our life in every respect; ’ till in this maze of
entanglement every landmark disappeared, and all
connection with the Old Testament was utterly lost.
Occasional similarities may be discoverable, because,
as -we have above remarked, historical events repeat
themselves within certain conditions; but even a
cursory examination will generally prove the decided
preponderance of the divergences. If Christ be the
‘ Passover,’ how can his life, even by the remotest
allegories, be harmonised with the requirements of the
paschal lamb, which was to be roasted, consumed
entirely, without the least portion being left, eaten
with bitter herbs, and killed annually ? Typical
explanations cannot be consistently followed out
without leading to absurdities, of which a treatise
(Quadratus quomodo Christus fuerit, by J. J. Cramer, in
his work De ara exteriori, xii. 1), entitled ‘ How Christ
-—the altar—was square ? ’ is but one specimen in a
large class. If their adherents gave due weight to this
consideration, they would attempt to test their re
ligious tenets by their own intrinsic merits, rather than
by unnaturally grafting them upon the Old Testament.
As many theologians, therefore, had not the courage
to interpret typically all details, they selected some as
�48
Primitive Church History.
adapted for that method, while they understood the
rest literally; but a principle which is not generally
applicable is not any principle at all, and reveals its
fatal weakness.”
OUR NEW TESTAMENT CANON.
So well as experience can guide us, and as (p. 37)
we have before observed, all great works are the
growth of human efforts from very small beginnings.
They are the joint production of time, study, per
severance, leisure, and skill. We know from their
own avowals that most of the great dramas of
JEschylus and of Sophocles were manufactured out
of the old Homeric ballads and the Cyclic Poems.
We know from the references contained in our “ Old
Testament” that it is for the most part a work
compiled after the return of the Jews from Babylon,
and manufactured out of between twenty and thirty
old works long since lost, such as “ The visions of
Iddo the Seer,” 2 Chron. ix. 29 ; “ The book of the
Wars of the Lord,” Numbers xxi. 14; “The book of
Jashur,” Joshua x. 13, &c. We know that there is
not any trace of our “Homer’s Iliad” until about the
time of Plato. Those who have made Shakspere their
study are generally agreed that his plays are to a very
considerable extent manufactured out of previously ex
isting ballads and dramas. Sir Isaac Newton was aided
in the composition of his Principia by the previous
works of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. And our
“ New Testament” was compiled out of previously ex
isting compilations, long ago either lost or destroyed,
and some still remaining, such as “The Gospel of the
Infancy,” “The Gospel of Nicodemus,” &c., * between
* See “The Book of Days,” Dec. 28, where, in an article by the
late Mr Wm. Pinkerton, the origin of the noble and unparalleled
game of Whist is traced, about a.d. 1740, from the puerile and
vulgar games called “ Whisk” and “Swabbers.”
�Our New Testament Canon.
49
the second and fourth centuries of the Christian
era.
Uncouth and worthless old ballads, and marvellous
tales, are highly prized, so long as those who read them
or listen to them have not anything better. In like
manner, during our second and third centuries there
existed a considerable quantity of what is now called
apocryphal ecclesiastical literature, which was then
decidedly popular, and at least a portion of it was by
many Christians regarded as scripture. So lately as
our fourth century, Athanasius, in his tract on the
“ Incarnation of the Word,” refers to the downfall of
idols in Egypt when Jesus went thither: a story re
corded in the gospel of the now called Pseudo Mat
thew. And in his fourth oration against the Arians
also, Athanasius mentions the fear of the keepers in
Hades when Jesus descended to the under world: a
story recorded in our Gospel of Nicodemus, and re
ferred to clearly in Ephesians iv. 9, 10, and 1 Peter
iii. 19, 20.
Of course it may be argued that our “ New Testa
ment” was written about a.d. 50,—that it sunk into
oblivion,—remained in utter obscurity for upwards of
a century and a half, in fact until the time of Irenaeus,
whatever time that may be,—and rose again after the
Apocryphal Gospels, &c., had enjoyed their little day of
popularity. But there is not any evidence to prove this.
There is not any analogous instance of such an occur
rence in the history of literature. And as the earliest
specimens of apocryphal Christian literature are silent
regarding the existence of Christ, this supposed long
slumber of our “New Testament” renders all knowledge
of him by Pliny junior, and Tacitus virtually impos
sible. While, on the other hand, there is such a close
relationship between parts of our “New Testament,”
and some sayings of the Logos quoted by the early
Fathers and parts of the gospel of Nicodemus, the
“Infancy,” &c., that reason compels us to infer that as
D
�50
Primitive Church History.
the great works of zEschylus, Sophocles, Shakspere,
“Homer,” our “Old Testament,” Newton, &c., arose
out of the older and inferior collections of literature
above mentioned; so the writings contained in our
“ New Testament ” arose out of the inferior and older
apocryphal Christian literature, which had been highly
prized by the members of the primitive Christian
Church so long as they had not any more skilfully
written doctrinal tracts or tales of thaumaturgy to read
or listen to. The world’s history shows us invariably
that ignorance must precede knowledge, that inefficiency
must precede skill, and that the human race must be
educated before the individual can achieve anything
useful or enduring.
Furthermore, the Logos, Jesus, Paul, and the Twelve
Apostles are shadowy personages, like all the unreal
heroes of the mythological world. Some of them—
such as Jesus, Peter, &c.—are made to pass through
three or four editions, just as the Homeric heroes Ajax,
Achilles, &c., are made to pass. It is admitted by all
advocates of Christianity that outside our “New Testa
ment” there is not any genuine and authentic account
of the heroes who flourish in that collection of writings.
Did those heroes, then, as well as our “New Testament,”
flourish, sink into oblivion, remain unknown dming a
century and a half, and rise again after the heroes and
heroines, Abgarus or Agbarus, Polycarp, Ignatius,
Thecla, Perpetua, Papias, Potentiana, Veronica, Felicitas, Lucy, Flora, &c., had enjoyed their little day of
notoriety ? This supposition is quite as untenable as the
former; because several documents, even in the extant
remains of the apocryphal Christian literature, mention
Jesus, Paul, Thomas, Peter, &c., but the writers of
those documents do not appeal to our “New Testament”
as being invested with exclusive authority, for the very
good reason (as stated before) that there is not any
trace of its having been so regarded by the Church
prior to the Council of Laodicea, a.d. 362. The apocry
�Our New Testament Canon.
5i
phal gospels—at least those according to “the Hebrews,"
“the ^Egyptians,” &c., &c.—were used not only by
heretical writers, but they were used by the whole
Christian Church down to the end of our second cen
tury, and by several orthodox writers after that time
Our four gospels were not able, at their first appearance,
to supersede the inferior, but really older, gospels which
were already in possession of authority and of the affec
tions of believers. The recognition of merit is a work
of time. No doubt so far back in the history of the
Church as the times of Irenaeus and Origen those
eminent writers perceived the great advantage which
our gospels gained over the older gospels, by rehabili
tating the memoirs of Jesus and his immediate followers,
and making the incidents therein contained identical
with some incident, prophecy, or allegory contained, or
supposed to be contained, in the Septuagint: in short,
in proving that “Jesus was the Christ;” that is to say,
identifying the Jesus of the apocryphal gospels with
the Christ of the Septuagint. But this superiority was
not at first recognized by those who had not the ability
to perceive it. They were contented with the rude
models which our evangelists rehabilitated. So lately
as our fourth century Eusebius (“E. H.,” iii. 25) tells
us “there are some who number among these [genuine
books of our New Testament] the Gospel according to
the Hebrews, with which those of the Hebrews that
have received Christ are particularly delighted.” That
gospel is much the most ancient of which we have
any distinct traces. It appears to have been the model,
not only of the other old apocryphal gospels, “the
Gospel according to Peter,” that “according to the
-Egyptians,” that “according to the Nazarenes,” &c.,
&c.; but it appears to have been the model of our first
three gospels. Those gospels are remarkable for traces
of ingenuity, rather than originality; for old precepts
dressed in new words; for old stories with a new in
flexion given to them; personifications, and the like,
�52
Primitive Church History.
When these gospels gained ground, the temptation to
make Jesus no longer a man, but a demigod, and to
surround him with a dramatic narrative, relating super
natural incidents and nothing else, became irresistible.
In short, Jesus was now rendered a fit subject for a
romance, a tragedy, or an epic poem. The old “Gospel
according to the Hebrews ” furnished too tame a model
for the writer of our fourth gospel. It is remarkable,
moreover, that our fourth evangelist considered himself
quite free to clothe Jesus with any narrative he pleased,
provided he made a good hit. It is also remarkable
that the result verified the anticipation of the evangelist.
He appears to have taken as his model “Prometheus
Bound,” or “CEdipus Coloneus.” At all events, in our
fourth gospel all history, all realities of every kind, are
excluded utterly. And here the question arises, Could
such a being as Jesus ever have existed ? It is quite
plain that even the members of the early Christian
Church paused before they ascribed divine authority
to any of the numerous gospels that were afloat during
our second, third, and the greater part of our fourth
centuries. Credulity itself was startled! This is a
remarkable fact, and an important one also. It explains
why the formation of our New Testament canon was
postponed to so late a period as the council held at
Laodicea, a.d. 362. Time, and only time, can give an
appearance of reality to the supernatural; and, aided by
allegory, time can effect wonders. For it does not
require any great effort of sagacity to discern in the
Jesus of our New Testament the personification of the
head of the Jewish nation: in the Church, the personi
*
fication of that nation; in the twelve apostles, the
personification of the twelve tribes of Israel; and in
the doctrines of our “ New Testament,” a republication,
in a different form, of the doctrines contained in the
* The members of which nation, during centuries, have been
persecuted for putting to death a man of whom they never knew
anything, and who never had any objective existence.
�Our New Testament Canon.
53
Septuagint. Our “New Testament” does not contain
any useful moral precept not to be found in Pindar,
the Greek Tragics, and the Septuagint; and, conse
quently, it has not any valid claim to be considered a
revelation. It is merely a compilation of writings
selected by the Christian Church at various times
during the second, third, and fourth centuries, until—
as we have it, with the exception of the so-called
“Apocalypse”—it was sanctioned as the canon of faith
by the Council of Laodicea, about a.d. 362. The
“Apocalypse” having found its way into the version
known as the Latin Vulgate, obtained by that circum
stance a dubious sanctity. From the silence of ecclesi
astical history regarding any rational principle of selec
tion used by the Church in council, when arranging
our “New Testament” canon, it may be inferred
reasonably that the selection was not arrived at by
any rational principle, but that the question, in each
case, was put to the votes of the Council’s members,
and carried merely by the vote of the majority.
To say the least, the foregoing explanation is the
most probable approximation to the real history of our
“ New Testament,” and the date of its canonical
authority. That the compilations of narratives con
cerning the supposed life of Jesus contained in our
“New Testament” canon were in general circulation in
the Church during our second century, and more espe
cially that any one of our gospels was known to an
apostle and acknowledged by him, has never been
proved. The vast mass of Apocryphal gospel narra
tives, and epistles, and “Acts” from which our “New
Testament ” has been compiled resemble exactly those
masses of old, rude, uncouth, and legendary documents
from which the Greek Tragics, our “ Old Testament,”
our “Iliad,” Chaucer, and Shakspere have been com
piled. In all those cases the respective compilations
can be accounted for and explained in a natural
manner by treating them as selections, modifications,
�54
Primitive Church History.
adaptations, and reconstructions made skilfully from
rude legends. This explanation is complete in itself,
and does not leave us any improbability to wonder at,
or any miracle to believe. Those who receive that
explanation are not required to recognise in our “ New
Testament” anything except the natural career of
myths and legends again and again altered, modified,
improved, and reconstructed, until that compilation
enabled the Christian Church to model its system of
doctrine and Church government agreeably to the
Levitical system. That explanation possesses the
further merit, namely, that by means of it we can
discern the growth of Christianity. Of course we
cannot assign particular and specific dates to the
various documents we have passed under review; but
by means of that explanation we can perceive that
between the years a.d. 70 and a.d. 362 there took
place in the Christian Church the following
DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT.
A glance at the development of doctrine in the
Christian Church, as shown in the writings of those
Fathers who are supposed to have flourished from
Tatian to Origen, will help the student of Primitive
Church History to arrive at a true perception regarding
the growth of the Christian doctrines.
Firstly, we have Tatian, Hermas, Athenagoras, and
Theophilus, who knew of Christians and the Logos,
but did not know anything about Jesus, or the Christ,
or our New Testament. Their distinguishing doctrines
were (1) Monotheism and (2) Asceticism.
Secondly, we have Barnabas, James, the Clementine
Homilies and Recognitions, Clement the Roman, the
Apocalypse, Jude, Peter, Papias, Ignatius, Polycarp,
and Justin, who heard of Jesus Christ, knew the
sayings of the Logos and the history of Jesus, as
�Christian Mythology.
55
related in the Apocryphal Gospels, but they had not
any narratives of him corresponding with those in our
New Testament.
Thirdly, we have the epistles attributed to Paul and
our fourth Gospel. The writers of these works knew
most of the doctrines held by modern Christians, but
they did not know the narratives contained in our
first three Gospels.
Fourthly, we have the writings attributed to Nico
demus, Matthew, Luke, the writer of “ Acts,” and
Mark. The writers of these works were in possession
of a detailed history concerning the doctrines, preach
ings, genealogy, and exploits of Jesus. That history
was very far from being consistent. It contained as
many various reflections as the fragments of a broken
mirror. Though these writers knew most of the books
contained in our New Testament, yet they considered
other works not contained in that collection as equal in
authority. Both the history and doctrines of these
writers were different from those of the third class.
And, fifthly and lastly, we have the writings of
Irenseus and Origen, which show a knowledge of
everything contained in our New Testament, and of all
the principal doctrines held by modern Christians.
But now arises the question, How were these doc
trines and stories invented ? The answer is that they
were invented partly by zeal and partly by disordered
imagination. When they were believed they were
modified gradually by increase of labour and by in
crease of care and skill. We know in the present day
that savage tribes have their apostles and prophets, and
we know something of the method whereby those
worthies manage their affairs. So our next inquiry
shall be into
CHRISTIAN MYTHOLOGY.
More curiously nonsensical than the principle of
�56
Primitive Church History.
allegory is the principle of mythology. To account for
the origin of fire the myth was invented that
Prometheus stole it from heaven, a place which has not
any existence. To account for the origin of evil the
myths of Pandora’s box and Eve’s forbidden fruit were
invented. Whatever satisfies the minds that accept
such stories will be received, no matter what may be
the differences of time and place.
As we have seen, the 11 sayings ” of the Logos pre
ceded his biography. In Christianity the moral and
the philological preceded the historical; the abstract
preceded the concrete. This gave rise to endless
variations, differences, and contradictions in the history
of Jesus after he had been identified with the Logos.
Every incident of his life was related variously. Even
the date of his supposed crucifixion was disputed; for
we know from Eusebius (“ E. H.,” i., 9) that even in
his day some persons denied that Jesus suffered under
Pilate. Hence it was that in the so-called “Apostles’
Creed,” among remarkable and miraculous events, we
have the tame circumstance insisted on, namely, that
Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate.”
But in addition to this, the primitive Christian liter
ature was formed under a combination of circumstances
which introduced fresh elements of discord and obscu
rity. In ancient times, among both the Greeks and
the Jews, there was developed very remarkably a ten
dency to ascribe modern writings to ancient names.
(See “ Our First Century,” pp. 8-11.) Among the early
Christians, the self-same tendency was developed.
Although all the doctrines contained in the writings of
the early Fathers, and, at a later period, in our “ New
Testament,” are to be found in the ancient Septuagint,
(see “ Our First Century,” pp. 19-30), yet, among the
early Christians, whenever a writer made what the
Church considered to be a good hit, he was allowed to
ascribe his effusion to any ancient name he pleased ;
because the early Christians adopted the very illogical
�Christian Mythology.
57
principle of criticism, that whatever was edifying was
true, whatever was true was genuine, whatever was
genuine was old, whatever was old was apostolic, what
ever was apostolic was authoritative, and whatever
was authoritative was considered to he clothed with
Divine authority. This fanciful and puerile method
of criticism became a fruitful source of error, mysti
cism, nonsense, fable, fraud, and forgery. The texts
of the older Christian writers were thereby corrupted.
The corruptors introduced into the works of pagan
■writers, passages framed by Christians in order to
make those pagans, like the thief at the crucifixion,
testify to the divine origin of Christianity. (See ££ Our
First Century,” pp. 12-19.) And the writings, forming
the cycle of ancient “ New Testament ” literature, were
increased without restriction, and were allowed to be
ascribed to Jesus and his mythical followers : just as
the Greeks attributed any works they pleased to“ Hesiod” or ££ Homer,”—as the compilers of the Sep
tuagint attributed works to “ David ” * or “ Solomon,”
—and as the post-BabyIonian Jews, who compiled the
Hebrew Testament, attributed works to the very con
venient names of ££ Moses,” ££ Joshua,” and ££ Samuel.”
In this way spurious writings, attributed to Barnabas,
Hermas, Thomas, Clement, &c., &c., were regarded as
authoritative, long before our “ New Testament” had
any existence. And several of those spurious writings
were quoted as ££ Scripture,” or “ as it is written,” down
to the time of Irenaeus, Origen, Clement of Alexandria,
and even Athanasius. And there was not any attempt
made in the Christian Church to fix a canon of ££ New
Testament ” Scripture during the first three centuries of
our era. As before mentioned : such an attempt was
first made at the Council which assembled at Laodicea,
A.D. 362.
* See Psalm cli. in the Septuagint collection : it is there stated
that “ this is a genuine psalm of David, although supernumerary,
when he fought in single combat with Goliad.”
�58
Primitive Church History.
But the most difficult thing connected with this
business is to understand how these mythologists
deceived themselves into a belief in their own myths,
inventions, frauds, fables, and forgeries. Yet some of
these mythologists did believe their own myths : such
is the force of human imagination ! For there need
not be any doubt that the writer of our second epistle
to the Corinthians, xii. 2, 4, was quite sincere when
he said that he had been “ caught up into the third
heaven,” and “ into paradise.” The writer of our
“Apocalypse,” i. 10, informs us that he was “in the
spirit”—that is to say, in a trance—while he received the
communications mentioned in that tract. We read in
our “ Acts,” x 9, 10, that “ Peter went up upon the
housetop to pray, about the sixth hour; and he became
very hungry and would have eaten : but, while they
made ready, he fell into a tranceand while he was
in that state he learned, 28, “ that he should not call
any man common or unclean: ” a salutary truth, although
he learned it while in a state of imperfect conscious
ness : just as (see Martineau’s “ Rationale of Religious
Inquiry,” p. 100) the duty of testifying to the truth
was a virtue bom of the superstition that all men, who
will be saved, will owe their salvation to a certain pro
cess of witchcraft known as “justification by faith.”
That there were Freemasonlike secrets in the early
Christian Church we know from the Clementine
Homilies. Arguing against St Paid or Simon Magus,
Homily xix. § 20, “ Peter said : we remember that our
Lord and teacher, commanding us said, 1 Keep the
mysteries for me and the sons of my house.’ Where
fore, also, he explained to his disciples privately the
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. But to you who
do battle with us, and do not examine into anything
except our statements, whether they be true or false, it
would be impious to explain these.” Perhaps the art
of falling into a trance was one of these mysteries. If
so, the secret was preserved for a considerable time.
�Christian Mythology.
59
Mosheim, “Institutes,” century xiv., ch. v., sec. 1, 2,
tells us that “the Hesychasts, or as they may be called
*
in Latin the Quietists, gave the Greek Church much
employment. Barlaam, a native of Calabria, a monk
■of the order of St Basil, and afterwards bishop of
Geraci in Calabria, travelling over Greece to inspect
the conduct of the monks, found not a few things
among them which were reprehensible ; but in none of
them more than in the Hesychasts at Mount Athos in
Thessaly, who were mystics or more perfect monks, who
sought for tranquillity of mind and the extinction of
all the passions by means of contemplation. For these
Quietists, in accordance with the prescription of their
early teachers, who said that there was a divine light
hid in the soul, seated themselves daily in some retired
corner, and fixed their eyes steadfastly for a consider
able time upon the navel of their belly; and in that
situation they boasted that a sort of divine light beamed
forth upon them from the mind itself, which diffused
through their souls wonderful delight. When asked
what kind of light this was, they answered that it was
the glory of God ; and they appealed for illustration to
the light which appeared at the transfiguration of Christ.
Barlaam, who was ignorant of the customs of mystics,
regarded this as absurd and fanatical; and to the monks
who followed this practice he applied the names of
Massalians and Euchites, and also the new name of
Navel-souls. On the other hand, Gregory Palamas,
archbishop of Thessalonica, defended the cause of the
monks against Barlaam. To put an end to this con
test a council was held at Constantinople, a.d. 1314,
in which the emperor Andronicus junior, and the patri
arch presided. Here the monks, with Palamas at their
head, were victorious: Barlaam 'was condemned, and,
leaving Greece, he returned to Italy.”
In the case of Peter we perceive there was the ele
ment of fasting. From what we know of the habits of
* From the Greek
“ tranquillity.”
�60
Primitive Church History.
savage nations, we learn that their sorcerers always fast
before doing anything of much importance. And we
may infer safely that in all the foregoing cases of fall
ing into a trance, the element of fasting was very
powerful. In this manner, then, a man might put
himself into a trance, and in that state he might con
ceive anything, whether useful or nonsensical, and be
lieve it to be a divine revelation. And if the revela
tion give satisfaction to the companions of the inspired
ones, the revelation will have plenty of true believers.
It thus appears that the Christian mythology is
essentially like those of all other known religions. It
is the offspring of disordered imagination. But it has
been said that Christianity is the only religion which
yields consolation to the believer. But all religions
give consolation to their believers. We do not know of
any man who died more firmly and finely than Socrates.
And not only is this the case, but even witchcraft yields
consolation to those who believe in it. In the “ Book of
Days,” under the date of the 21st of February, the reader
may find an elaborate article on “ The Folk Lore of Play
ing Cards,” by the late Mr William Pinkerton, F.S.A.
Towards the end of the article he says : “A few words
must be said on the professional fortune-tellers. That
they are, generally speaking, wilful impostors, is per
haps true. Yet, paradoxical though it may appear, the
writer feels bound to assert that these ‘card-cutters/
whose practice lies among the lowest classes of society,
really do a great deal of good. Few know what the
lowest classes in our large towns suffer when assailed
by mental affliction. They are, in most instances,
utterly destitute of the consolations of religion, and in
capable of sustained thought. Accustomed to live from
hand to mouth, their whole existence is bound in the
present, and they have no idea of the healing effects of
time. Their ill-regulated passions brook no self-denial,
and a predominant element of self rules their confused
minds. They know of no future, they think no o her
�Christian Mythology.
61
human being ever suffered as they do ; as they term it
themselves, ‘ they are upset.’ They perceive no resource,
no other remedy than a leap from the nearest bridge, or
a dose of arsenic from the first chemist’s shop. Haply
some friend or neighbour, one who has already suffered
and has been relieved, takes the wretched creature to a
fortune-teller. The seeress at once perceives that her
client is in distress, and shrewdly guessing the cause,
pretends that she sees it all in the cards. Having thus
asserted her superior intelligence, she affords her sym
pathy and consolation, and points to hope and a happy
future : blessed hope ! although in the form of a greasy
playing card. The sufferer, if not cured, is relieved.
The lacerated wounds, if not healed, are at least dressed :
and, in all probability, a suicide or a murder is pre
vented. Scenes of this character occur every day in the
meaner parts of London.”
It is a well known fact that the much reviled
Epicurean philosophy—the only true philosophy that
has yet been published—afforded consolation to those
who held it. Virgil (Georgies, ii., 490-2) says :—
“ Happy is he who, searching Nature’s laws,
Through known effects has traced the secret cause ;
Has trampled on all fears, relentless fate,
And the idea of a future state.”
Aristotle (Ethics, x., 9) says:—“He, then, who
exercises himself in the way of thought, and does his
best to improve it, and has the best mental disposition,
seems also to be the most beloved by the gods.” Com
menting on this passage, an eminent scholar says “ A very noble and consoling sentiment to those who
care little for popular notions, but everything for
Truth. It is humiliating to think how immeasurably
the Greek philosophers surpassed us of the present day
in this best and holiest of all virtues, love of Truth.”
But another item of Christian mythology is the asser
tion that the spread of the Christian religion was so great
�62
Primitive Church History.
that it must have received supernatural aid. Mosheim
(“Institutes,” century ii., ch. i., sec. 6) says:—“This
[supposed] rapid propagation of Christianity is ascribed
by the writers of the second century almost exclusively
to the efficient will of God, to the energy of divine
truth, and to the miracles wrought by Christians.”
These miracles, as mentioned by Tertullian, Origen,
&c., &c., and duly recorded by Dr Augustus Neander,
may be briefly explained as follows:—Arrangements
were made with certain members of the Christian
Church to say that they had died, and had been raised
from the dead. On being interrogated in the presence
of credulous persons, such as Tertullian and Origen,
these “resurrection-men” avowed the truth of that
which had been told concerning them. In this way
men who never had died, were pointed out, by second,
or third century apostles, as being walking testimonies
to the miraculous powers of the Christian Church
during our second century. But the fact is, that,
according to the latest statistics, while the number of
Christians on earth number about 353,000,000, the
Buddhists number about 483,000,000. There are
about 500,000,000 of other sectaries. And, in addi
tion to these facts, there is not anything supernatural
in the rise and progress of the Christian sect when we
investigate its history and explain its
ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANISATION.
As in the Jewish Church, organised after the return
from Babylon, and subsequently aided by the compila
tion of our Pentateuch, the public functions of religion
were intrusted solely to the priests and Levites, so in
the Primitive Christian Church those functions were
intrusted solely to the bishops and presbyters. At an
early time the bishops began to preside at the assem
blies of the Christians. Each assembly governed itself.
�Ecclesiastical Organisation.
63
By letters and deputations these assembles maintained
a mutual and friendly, but rather loosely connected,
intercourse with each other. So early as towards the
end of our second century provincial councils were
instituted, modeled probably partly on the Jewish
synagogues and partly on traditions regarding the
Amphictyonic Council, the Achaean League, and the
assemblies of the Ionic cities. At these councils or
synods decrees were enacted which were styled canons,
and which regulated every important controversy
regarding faith and discipline. The institution of
synods or councils succeeded so well that in a short
time their influence spread widely throughout the
Christian Church. A regular correspondence was
established between the provincial councils, which
mutually communicated and approved their respective
proceedings; and the Primitive Christian Church
assumed the form and acquired the strength of a fede
rative republic. Even a philosopher of the most scep
tical school must recognise the vast superiority of
Asceticism and Monotheism over uncritical polytheism,
and the revolting impurities of nature worship. The
Christians who held the former doctrines were inspired
with zeal for the promulgation of those tenets. A
consciousness of superiority inspires courage. A per
ception that we are fighting the cause of Virtue against
Vice inspires self-sacrifice. And there can be but very
little doubt that this union of exalted zeal and skilful
church organisation gave the primitive Christians that
almost insuperable power which even a comparatively
small force of well-trained and courageous volunteers
has so frequently exhibited when brought in contact
with an undisciplined multitude, ignorant of the sub
ject in dispute, unaware of its importance, and indif
ferent to the event.
So far the success of the primitive Christian Church
must be regarded as having been beneficial to the human
race. But “ the pulses of ambition may beat as freely
�64
Primitive Church History.
under sleeves of lawn as under an ordinary habit.” * The
bishops established gradually a difference among them
selves in dignity, and afterwards in authority; and the
titles of Metropolitans, and afterwards of Primates,
showed the success of individual ambition, and the
numerical increase of the Church.
Thus this progress of ecclesiastical organisation
showed also the power of the Church to resist any force
that might be brought against it either to exterminate
or persecute it. Before the Church was attacked it was
strong. This is the real secret of its success. It re
sisted successfully the exterminating persecution of it
by Decius, a.d. 249-251. The admiration this resist
ance drew forth increased its strength. It was recog
nised as a power in the state. The “ happy family ”
whose discordant elements composed the dominions of
Rome required daily some bond of union to assist the
Imperial Army in keeping together that once mighty
empire. The established Paganism was intended to be
such a bond of union. But the members of the various
religions that passed under the name which we call
Paganism, and which were tolerated and recognised at
Rome, were, for the most part, destitute of zeal, indif
ferent to the cause of Truth, without patriotism, and
addicted to luxury. Only Roman citizens had a free
country. The rest of Rome’s subjects were careless of
any interests except their own : they were selfish. The
Christians, on the other hand, were in the Roman Em
pire in a position analogous to the primitive Spartans
in Laconia. They were an organised, zealous, com
pact, and united band of warriors in a country whose
inhabitants were hostile but disunited, listless, and de
moralised. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that
when seeking to render the established religion of the
Roman Empire conducive and effective to the purposes
of imperial union, a.d. 313, Constantine should have
* Earl Grey, in reply to a bishop during the debates on the
Reform Bill of 1832.
�First Historical Glimpse of the Christians. 65
substituted Christian zeal and witchcraft for Pagan in
difference and idolatry.
*
Nevertheless, and notwith
standing the boastings of Tertullian, Justin, Paul, &c.,
&c., down to the time of Decius, the Christians were
not only an obscure but also an unobtrusive sect; and
they existed a considerable time before any one in the
present day could catch in civil history the
FIRST HISTORICAL GLIMPSE OF THE
CHRISTIANS.
So much has been written on the history of the
Christians, that a student, beginning his inquiries,
might well be excused if he supposed that the first men
tion of them, outside their church, had been accurately
ascertained long ago. Yet (strange as it may seem) it
would be difficult to mention a subject more enveloped
in disagreement, doubt, difficulty, and error. When
we attempt to examine it we are unable to see it du ring
the first two centuries of the commonly received Chris
tian era. But while the latter part of our first century
is adorned with forgeries introduced into the works of
one Jewish and three Pagan writers, the second century
is enveloped in a darkness that is more opaque than
that of the first. As the writer of our Odyssey says of
the Cimmerians, so we may say of our second century,
“ There darkness as of death is spread over wretched mortals.”
There does not appear to have been any attempt
made to introduce even one forgery into the writings of
the pagans who flourished during our second century.
This is a serious omission. It was a much greater
mistake than tampering with the works of Josephus,
Suetonius, Pliny junior, and Tacitus; because the gap
that occurs in our second century is more modern than
* Of course this substitution was effected by means of Constan
tine’s army, the soldiers of which did not much care about any
particular form of religion. The Christians were only a very small
fraction of his subjects.
E
�66
Primitive Church History.
the gap in the first seventy years of our first century,
and, consequently, is rendered more conspicuous. As we
have seen, Eusebius furnishes us with names analogous
to the names furnished to us by the biographers and
commentators on the Cyclic Poets; but those names
are “without form”—they are as unreal as chaos—
their times and their places have not any existence—
all we have are names which, like the shades in Hades,
flit about “ with an unearthly squeak.” No doubt
Eusebius sometimes quotes authorities, but they give
us little if any information regarding primitive church
history, and we know little if anything about them.
All the names assigned to Christians during~our first
and second centuries, flit about in shade, mist, gloom,
and darkness. They are names of persons supposed to
have been Christians, because they called themselves
by that name. But we know that some of them
attached very different meanings to the word “ Chris
tian.” They are pushed about at the pen points of
writers who compile unreal histories. And these
names are rocked up and down in the ocean of igno
rance, and on the waves of nonsense they are
“ Toss’d to and fro with jaculation dire.”
Outside the Church we have not any authorities for
the supposed persecutions of the Christians by Nero,
Domitian, Trajan, Hadrian, Aurelius, Severus, and
Maximin. After celebrating the felicity and increase
of the church, under good princes, Lactantius, who
died a.d. 325, in his work De Mortibus Persecutorum,
c. 3, 4, says—“After many years that execrable animal
appeared, Decius, who persecuted the church.” Gibbon
says, “ Decline and Fall,” chap, xvi, “ The fall of
Philip [a.d. 249, who is represented as being favour
able to the Christians] introduced, with the change
of masters, a new system of government, so oppres
sive to the Christians, that their former condition,
ever since the time of Domitian, was represented as
�First Historical Glimpse of the Christians. 67
a state of perfect freedom and security, if compared
with the rigorous treatment which they experienced
under the short reign of Decius.” Mosheim, Insti
tutes, century second, ch. i., and century third, ch. ii.,
says, “ Most of the Roman emperors of this [second]
century were of a mild character. .... Through this
lenity of the emperors, Christians living in the Roman
empire suffered far less than they would have done if
they had been under severer rulers. . . . But when
Decius Trajan came to the imperial throne (a.d. 249),
war, in all its horrors, burst upon the Christians."
Eusebius (“E. H.,” vi. 39) says: “Philip, after a
reign of seven years, was succeeded by Decius, who,
in consequence of his hatred to Philip, raised a perse
cution against the Church.” And he says, “The
number and greatness of Origen’s sufferings during
this persecution . . . the many epistles of the man
detail with not less truth than accuracy.” And
(“Roman History,” Vol. V. p. 322) Niebuhr says that
Decius “was the first who instituted a vehement per
secution of the Christians, for which he is cursed by
the ecclesiastical writers as much as he is praised by
the Pagan historians [the writers of the ‘Historia
Augusta ’ and Zosimus.] The cause of this persecution,
I think, must be sought for in the feeling antagonistic
to the tendency of his predecessor. The accounts
which we have of earlier persecutions are highly ex
aggerated, as Henry Dodwell has justly pointed out.
The persecution by Decius, however, was really a very
serious one ; it interrupted the peace which the Chris
tian Church had enjoyed for a long time.” It may be
concluded safely that there was not any persecution of
the Church before that by Decius. The Christians had
not any existence prior to a.d. 70. See “Our First
Century,” p. 51. All the writers on Church history
admit that prior to the accession of Decius to the
throne, a.d. 249, the Church enjoyed a long period
of repose. The stories regarding the martyrdoms of
�68
Primitive Church History.
James, Peter, Paul, Ignatius, Polycarp, and Stephen—
if, indeed, there ever were any such persons—are
stories, and nothing more. They have not any real
foundation. Even the martyrdom of Justin, called
the martyr, is more than doubtful. Of course he may
have been killed; but that circumstance, by itself,
would not prove the existence of a persecution directed
against, the whole Christian Church. The truth is that
from a.d. 70 to a.d. 249 the Church was unmolested,
and prior to A.D. 135 the Church was unknown to the
Pagan world. During that long period, extending over
a century and a half, the Christian Church, with its
skilfully contrived organization, had ample time to
become so strong, that its extirpation, even by a
Roman emperor, would be a matter requiring con
siderable time, expense, and exertion.
Be that as it may, one thing is certain, namely, that
outside the Church there does not appear to be any
trace of the Christians prior to the persecution of them,
a.d. 249, ordered by Decius, with a view to the utter
extermination of a sect which, since his time, has sur
vived to cause more bloodshed and misery to the human
race than any other sect which exists on the records of
history.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
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Text
GOD’S METHOD OF GOVERNMENT.
A DIALOGUE.
BY THE LATE
BEV. JAMES CRANBROOK,
EDINBURGH.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Threepence.
��<GOD’S METHOD OF GOVERNMENT.
PROPOSE discoursing this evening upon certain
evangelical or Calvinistical views of God’s method
•of government. And I think I shall be able to treat
the subject more fairly if I throw it into the form of a
supposed dialogue, held between three gentlemen in one
of the private rooms of an Edinburgh hotel. The
gentlemen were comparatively strangers to each other,
and knew nothing of each other’s religious creed. But
they had met in a tour through the Highlands, and
being pleased with each other’s company, they had kept
together, and on their way homewards had stopped in
Edinburgh, to see what sights therein may be seen.
Amongst other places, they had been to John Knox’s
house, and had looked out of the window whence he
had frequently addressed the people. In the course of
some remarks upon the house, the conversation which
I am now to relate to you arose. The three gentlemen
will be distinguished by the names, Orthodoxies, Mysticus, and Dubitans, each expressive of their respective
stand-points. Orthodoxies, a Calvinist of the old ortho
dox school; Mysticus, one of those semi-mystical theo
logians of the present day, who attempt by metaphysics
to explain away or make appear rational and consistent
with modern thought, the essential principles of the old
system; and Dubitans, who has discarded all belief in
a supernatural revelation, and finds his God revealed in
the whole course of nature.
Orthodoxus had just said he thought something
more ought to be done by the civil authorities for the
preservation of the house, and laying open to the public
I
�4
God’s Method of Government.
so precious a memorial of the Reformation, when Dubitans rejoined that as a relic of the Reformation it had
some interest; hut, for his part, that interest became
wholly lost when it became associated with the name
of Knox, the least learned, the least gifted, and there
fore the most narrow and bigotted of all the reformers.
Orthodox'us. I am surprised to hear you say so. To
me it seems all that is free and religious in this land
must be ascribed to Knox and those who were associ
ated with him.
Dubitans. With regard to the freedom, I think that
a great mistake. The leaders of the movement did
nothing but give to it the definite form which it as
sumed. The people were the real source of the living,
free spirit which established the Reformation and the
political revolution which followed it; and had Knox
and the other leaders never existed, the freedom would
have been created in other, and possibly better, forms.
And then, with regard to the religion, what Knox
really did was to narrow the views of Calvin, and rivet
his system upon the nation in harsher and more repul
sive forms.
0. I fear by what you say you do not accept the
doctrines of Calvinism, and have slipped away from
that sure -ground of anchorage for some one of the new
fangled systems which have sprung up in the present
day. If such be the case, I trust you are looking well
to the ground on which you stand, and are not trusting
your precious, immortal soul to the uncertain results of
mere idle speculation.
D. It is because I have renounced idle speculation,
and am resting all my beliefs upon pure and simple
facts, that I have rejected Calvinism and all other forms
of supernaturalism.
0. My dear sir, you surely mistake. Calvinism rests
upon the most indubitable facts in existence. It appeals
to the experience of all mankind in confirmation of its
truths, and is derived from a revelation established by
�A Dialogue.
5
the most certain evidence. If you rested your beliefs
upon facts, you would most assuredly accept the Calvinistical- system.
D. Will you kindly mention to me one or two of
those facts which lie at the foundation of the system 1
0. Readily. And first, and most important of all,,
is the doctrine, or fact rather, of human depravity..
No one can doubt that human nature is depraved.
The evidence of it appears wherever we turn. The
policeman in the streets is a walking testimony to the
sad truth. Our gaols, our gallows, our laws, our judges,
all proclaim it aloud. The little infant just born, by
its cries of angry passion, bears witness. And we all
go astray from our birth, speaking lies. What sadder
proof could we have of the all-important scriptural doc
trine of human depravity ?
D. In conversations upon such subjects it is
absolutely necessary to have clear definitions of the
terms we employ. Will you therefore be kind enough
to explain to me what you mean by human depravity1?
0. By human depravity I mean that state of sin and
wickedness into which we have come by Adam’s trans
gression, in virtue of which all men at all times commit
sin or tend to the commission of sin.
D. And do you mean to say then that our gaols,
policemen, and laws, and the passions of infants, prove
that our nature became corrupted through Adam’s
transgression ?
0. No. They do not exactly prove that; but they
prove that our nature is corrupt.
D. Then you have given me in your definition two
factors, an alleged fact and an opinion.’ The alleged
fact is that all men universally sin. The opinion is
that this fact of sin arises out of the corruption of
men’s original nature through the sin of Adam. Ex
perience establishes the fact, you say. The opinion is
not derived from experience, but from the Bible.
0. You hardly state the fact of experience strong
�6
God’s Method of Government.
enough. Facts show not only that men universally
sin, hut also that their nature itself is sinful and
corrupt.
D. How so ?
0. Why, you must suppose that the nature which
always produces sin is in itself sinful and corrupt.
D. You must suppose—z.e., you must infer, conclude
by reason. So that again I remind you of my former
statement, experience merely gives the fact of universal
sin. The rest is inference, supposition, reasoning,
opinion, grafted upon the fact. Mow, to a certain
extent I admit the fact that men universally sin; but
I altogether contest the opinion that the sin proves a
sinful and corrupt nature.
0. Not prove a sinful and corrupt nature ! Then,
in the name of common sense, what does it prove ?
Does the vine produce thistles ? or the olive, brambles ?
D. The sins which men commit are transgressions
of some one or the other of the laws of their nature,
and they commit them through the want of knowledge
or sufficient self-discipline and control to act according
to the knowledge. They prove, therefore, not depravity,
but imperfection.
M. I do not accept our friend’s full system of
Calvinism, with its doctrine of universal depravity,
but there is the fact of sin existing in the world, the
darkest and most terrible evil, cursing man’s whole
existence.
D. I must confess I do not feel sin to be this dark
and terrible thing you represent it. You orthodox
people always seem to me to speak of it as though it
were a something of a distinct existence poured into
man’s heart and overwhelming his whole being in
ceaseless and unmitigated misery and wretchedness.
It is nothing of the kind. Sin is doing something
which does not lead to happiness. upon the whole and
in the long run. It is neither more nor less than that.
Now the great amount of happiness men enjoy shews
�A Dialogue.
7
me pretty conclusively that after all is said and done,
their wickedness is anything but of the character you
orthodox people make out. Upon the whole, the sum
of their happiness is much greater than the sum of
their miseries.
0. You have very greatly underrated the true
character of sin. Sin is the transgression of, or want
of conformity with, God’s holy and righteous law,
and the soul which sinneth shall die. It involves,
therefore, the eternal death of the soul, whatever
amount of happiness the sinner in his ignorance may
enjoy.
D. Observe, you are now again bringing in specula
tive opinions, and I thought we had agreed to rest our
beliefs upon facts. I have said that sin is trangression
of law, and by that I mean physical and intellectual,
as well as moral laws. As to the effects of sin, we
know them by experience. Whenever we violate a
law, it leads to suffering of some kind. But still,
experience proves that the suffering is much less than
the happiness in the world, and therefore, I say the
sin cannot exist to anything like the extent, or be
anything like so great an evil as you make out.
M. My conviction is, the real character and evil of
sin can only be seen in the incarnation and sacrifice of
the Son of God. When we see God giving up unto
the accursed death of the cross his only begotten Son,
and the Son voluntarily surrendering himself to death
that he may redeem men from sin, it is then that sin
comes out in its true character. And I do not mean
by this merely that it cost the Son of God so much
suffering to redeem men from it, but that its evil
character is seen in its contrast and antagonism to the
pure and holy love of God manifested in the sacrifice
of his Son.
0. I must just put in one word. I think our friend
Mysticus does not sufficiently bring out the infinite
sufferings the Son of God endured on the Cross to
�8
God's Method of Government.
atone for the transgressions of his elect. Those
infinite sufferings show above all things the exceedingly
dreadful and evil character of sin.
D. Of course, gentlemen so thoroughly versed in the
theology of your Church as you appear to be, will be
able to explain a point or two I never could understand
even when I myself was orthodox, but which are
essential to the whole system. Will you tell me in
what sense God made a sacrifice when he gave up his
Son ? and in what sense the Son of God made a sacri
fice when he gave himself up, as you call it 1
0. In what sense God made a sacrifice ? Why, he
sent forth his co-equal and co-eternal son as the infant
of the Virgin Mary, in the humiliating form of sinful
flesh, to live a life of ignominy and reproach, to endure
persecution and suffering, and at last to die the shame
ful death of the Cross, laden with the sins and guilt of
his elect. Surely that was a sacrifice, if ever there was
one !
D. You spoke of the Son as co-equal and co-eternal
with the Father 1 You give him all the infinite perfec
tions of God 1
0. Most certainly.
D. And these infinite perfections belong to him by
reason and necessity of his own proper nature, and are
not conferred or bestowed upon him ?
0. Certainly.
D. Then, of course, these perfections are unchange
able and indestructible.
0. Of course.
D. It is also the property of God not to suffer ; he
is impassible, as the theologians call it ?
0. It is the essential glory of God to live in the en
joyment of his own absolutely perfect being, inde
pendently of all things without himself. Were the
whole universe to perish, he would still be as glorious
and as blessed—rejoicing in his own absolute per
fection.
�A Dialogue.
9
D. Precisely, and the Son being God, possesses the
same self-sufficiency, independence, and unchangeable
glory and blessedness 1
0. Most assuredly.
D. Then when he became incarnate through the
Virgin Mary, his real and true glory and blessedness
remained unchanged; he continued as perfect and as
happy as he had been through all the past eternity ?
0. That is the doctrine of the church.
D. Then I return my 'former question, Wherein was
the sacrifice made by the incarnation ? Sacrifice is the
giving up of something; what did the Son of God
give up 1 Not his own true and proper glory and
blessedness, you say ; that he could not do as God.
0. He did not give them up, but he veiled them in
the garment of flesh—the infinite condescended and
humiliated himself to appear as the finite.
D. To whom were his perfections veiled ? To the
Father and himself?
0. Of course not.
D. To angels ?
0. No; for even the devils saw his glory and dis
cerned him to be the Son of God.
D. How then was his glory veiled ?
0. Men did not see it. There was no form or
comeliness that they should desire him.
D. Had they seen it before his incarnation 1
0. That depends upon whether we are to consider
the manifestations of God under the Old Testament as
made by the Son.
D. However, that is a critical point you cannot
solve. And at all events, they did not know it was
the Son as distinct from the Father. So that it is
perfectly correct to say the glory or perfections of
the Son as the Son were not discerned before his
incarnation.
0. It seems so.
D. Then how can you call the incarnation a veiling
�io
God's Method of Government.
of his perfections—a hiding of them ? These werediscerned by God the Father, by himself, by angels, by
devils, by all who had ever discerned them before
they only continued to be undiscerned by those who
had never discerned them. I cannot see what humilia
tion or lowering himself there is in that. Nay, I must
go further; according to your theory, the incarnation
became a means through which the perfections of the
Son of God were manifested to men—not at the time
being, but afterwards, when the Spirit enabled the
disciples to discern the meaning of all that he did and
suffered. So that upon your own showing the incar
nation, instead of humiliating, glorified him. And
therefore, I ask again, where was the sacrifice ?
0. You are forgetting all that he suffered on the
Cross.
D. All that who suffered ?
0. The Son of God.
D. The Son of God suffer ! Dreadful! I thought
you told me a little time ago that he possessed the
infinite perfections of God, inalienable and unchange
able. How then could he suffer ?
0. Well, it was not exactly the Son of God who
suffered, but the man Christ Jesus; but in virtue of
the mystical union of the divine and human in his
person, it is counted and is as though the divine
suffered.
D. It is counted and is as though the divine suffered !.
But did the divine nature suffer or not 1
0. The divine nature cannot suffer.
D. Then the Son of God did not suffer, and the
sufferings of the Cross were only the finite sufferings of
the man Christ Jesus. Again, I ask, where is the
sacrifice ?
M. I think our friend Orthodoxus has given you an
undue advantage by adhering to the old Calvinistical
system too closely. I regard the incarnation and death
of Christ as a pure and simple manifestation of God’s
�A Dialogue.
11
love. You will surely admit that it was an act of
infinite condescension upon the part of God when he
took upon himself our nature, and in the person of the
son lived amongst us, teaching, healing all manner of
disease and sickness, enduring the opposition of man,
and at last laying down his life upon the Cross. All
this was done to shew men the evil of sin, and to win
them hack into the paths of holiness. It was the outcoming of God’s infinite pity and grace to us ; and
therefore, I say, “Behold what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called
the sons of God.”
D. You have spoken of all this as being done and
endured by the Son of God. Of course you mean it
was done by Christ Jesus. The Son of God, as has
been admitted, could not in himself suffer, &c. Taking
that for granted, the Son of God merely inspires,
animates, or moves the man Jesus to do these things.
They are still finite actions, although done by a divine
impulse.
M. I admit that; but it was infinite love and con
descension of God to so enter into union with the
human nature as to become its impulse and animating
principle.
D. But you must now admit that it does not differ
from other manifestations of God’s love and condescen
sion, except in degree. All excellent men, all the
saints, are manifestations of God’s love in that way.
He animates their good actions and is the impulse of
them. And they are precisely of the same outward
form and character. It is human goodness, kindness,
truthfulness, love, and endurance which we see, although
of a divine impulse.
M. Yes ; but they possess divine dignity and glory
because of the union of the divine and human in his
person.
D. You give me an opinion superinduced upon the
fact. You do not see the divine dignity and glory in
�12
God's Method of Government.
the acts ; you merely see what is human. Afterwards,
the theological dogma about the union of the natures
leads you to infer the dignity and glory. But that can
have no practical influence whatsoever. The influence
is derived directly from the facts. So that it seems to
me this modern theory which you seem to have embraced
is the weakest of all the theories. You admittedly have
none but human love, goodness, purity, and truthful
ness manifested in Christ. You then add on, to give
effect to these things, the doctrine of the incarnation,
by which you suppose the human actions obtain a
divine glory. You call the Son of God’s being thus
connected with and animating the man Christ Jesus an
act of infinite love and self-sacrifice, and yet you have
to admit the Son of God gives up no single item of
his perfections, glory, and blessedness in the act. You
give up the old doctrine of the atonement.
M. I beg pardon, I do not. I hold it in a modified
form.
D. What form ?
M. Why, I think that Christ, by offering himself
a victim in obedience to the Father’s will, performed
the highest act of sacrifice, and all those who believe
in him have such fellowship with him in the sacrifice,
that it becomes their own, whereby they are delivered
from sin and made to partake of the blessedness of
eternal life.
I). Your terms are very vague. But at all events,
the sacrifice is not the endurance of suffering in lieu
of suffering; it is simply the exertion of a moral
influence which saves from suffering merely by purify
ing and bringing the mind of the saved into sympathy
with the mind of the Saviour. Now this is an abandon
ment of the old ideas of atonement and sacrifice, and,
disguise it as you will, the substituting for them of
merely the influence of a holy example. I admit that
is more rational, but it is less scriptural; and the
nationality is all merged by the introduction of the
�A Dialogue.
*
13
incarnation, in order to enforce the example which is
just as efficacious without it.
0. I perfectly agree with you. If I gave up my
Calvinism, I would give up the whole system of revela
tion which falls to pieces without it. But let me
remind you that, notwithstanding all you have said,
there remains the grand doctrine of the atonement
wherein Christ endured for his elect the infinite suffer
ings due to their sins.
D. You mean the man Christ Jesus endured them.
How could a being who is necessarily finite endure
what is infinite ?
0. By reason of his connection with Deity.
D. But you cannot infuse infinite properties into a
finite nature, else that would be making a man into a
Cod. Whatever that mysterious union you talk of in
the person of Jesus Christ of the divine and human,
the divine nature could not suffer at all; and the
human nature could not suffer what is infinite. So
that, after all, your infinite sacrifice for the elect
becomes a mere finite sacrifice offered by a man.
Orthodoxus—who had lately shown considerable signs
of uneasiness, here gathered himself up in his chair
with great dignity, and looking upon his companion
very gravely, begged, in the most pompous manner, to
say-—My dear sir, you and I have enjoyed many pleasant
days together in our recent tour, and to-morrow we
separate, perhaps never to meet again in this lower
world; but we shall meet hereafter at the judgment
bar of God. At the risk of even offending you, which
I should be unwilling to do, I must deliver myself from
the blood of your soul. You seem to me to be entirely
lost in a maze of carnal reasonings, which the Evil One
is always ready to lead self-sufficient intellects into. As
a friend, I therefore warn you of the danger in which
you stand. My brother, your precious soul is in jeo
pardy ! Yes ! your precious, never-dying, immortal
soul. There is only one name given under heaven
�14
God's Method of Government.
whereby men. can be saved, and yon are rejecting that
name. In yonr pride of intellect, you say, I will not
have this man to reign over me. What must be your
doom ? Ah ! already I seem to see the events of the
last great day. There sits the Judge, no longer the
meek and lowly Saviour you despise, but the righteous
and holy One, with eyes like a flame of fire, piercing
through and through you. Around him stand ten
thousand times ten thousand angels, ready to conduct
his elect to the joys of Paradise, and thrust down the
unbelievers to Hell. There, my friend, must you
stand and pass your last solemn trial. You reject
Christ, you put from you his precious sacrifice.
Nothing, therefore, can save you from the sentence,
which already methinks I hear pronounced—“Depart
from me, ye cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for
the Devil and his angels.” Then will you realize the
woes in the hymn of that devout servant of God, Dr
Bonar:—
“ Descend, 0 sinner, to the woe!
Thy day of hope is done;
Light shall revisit thee no more,
Life, with its sanguine dream, is o’er,
Love reaches not yon awful shore;
For ever sets thy sun.
“ Call upon God, he hears no more;
Call upon death, ’tis dead;
Ask the live lightnings in their flight,
Seek for some sword of hell and night,
The worm that never dies, to smite,
No weapon strikes its head.
“Descend, 0 sinner, to the gloom!
Hear the deep judgment knell
Send forth its terror-shrieking sound
These walls of adamant around,
And filling to its utmost bound
The woful, woful hell!
“ Depart, 0 sinner, to the chain!
Enter the eternal cell;
, To all that’s good, and true, and right,
To all that’s fond, and fair, and bright,
To all of holiness and light,
Bid thou thy last farewell! ”
�A Dialogue.
J5
Alas 1 my friend, there shall he weeping, and wailing.,
and gnashing of teeth. Already I seem to hear the
despairing cry of your soul—I am lost, I am lost for
ever.
Orthodoxus had delivered his speech with great ex
citement, rising out of his chair in the midst of it,
waving his hand about in the air, and using most
vehement gesture. He sat down bathed in perspira
tion. When a minute’s silence had followed, Mysticus
turned towards Dubitans, and said : I cannot concur
with those denunciatory terms our friend has used, and
I think they misrepresent the character of God’s govern
ment. I have hope that at last the worst will be
rescued and saved. But, my dear sir, I am not less
■concerned about your soul than is he. I would rather,
however, draw you by the tender love and grace of our
God. I can hardly believe that you have ever fairly
looked at that grace as manifested in his beloved Son,
nr surely your heart would have long ago been melted
and won. Think, my dear sir, of all he has done for
you. See him born in poverty, a tiny infant in the
manger of Bethlehem. See him toiling along the lanes
of Palestine, and through the hot sun-scorched streets
of its cities, during the whole of a weary life, to do
good to men. Oh, precious Jesus 1 how he endures so
meekly the stupidity of his disciples, the treachery of
false friends, the sneers of the self-righteous Pharisees,
the contempt of infidel Sadducees, the brutality of the
mob ! How he hungers and thirsts, and has not where
to lay his head ! How ready he is to forget himself in
the service of others! Then, come to the last sad
scenes. Ah! see through shadows of the trees of
Olives that prostrate form in prayer. Hear what in his
agony he cries : “ Father, if it be possible, let this cup
pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou
wilt.” Ah! what is that which bedews his forehead, his
cheeks, and falls upon the ground 1 It is the sweat of
agony in great drops of blood ! Follow him to Pilate’s
�16
God's Method of Government.
judgment-hall. See him there spit upoD, and crowned
with thorns. Stand now on Calvary : behold the
victim of man’s sin and the gift of God’s love. Oh,
dark hour of sorrow ! What agonies the sinless One
endures, and how lovingly he bears it all! Not the
nails, not the laceration of the flesh, produce that dole
ful agony, but a deeper sorrow, poured forth in those
memorable words, “Eli, Eli, lama sabacbthani,” &c.
And now, let earth be clothed in darkness, for the
Son of God bows his head, and gives up the ghost!
And why ? Why all this sorrow ? Ah ! my friend,
for you, for you, for you he dies, that you may be won
to God, and be blessed for ever. Oh ! turn, turn unto
him, and yield your heart in recompence for such love,.
“Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my heart, my life, my all.”
During both these addresses Duhitans had sat very
quietly, resting his head upon his hand, and listening
with great, though apparently amused, attention.
When Mysticus had done, he quietly moved round
his chair, facing them more directly, and said: I
suppose I ought to be grateful to you both for the
deep anxiety you have shown for the salvation of my
soul. I am afraid my gratitude is not so deep as it
ought to be, but I will prove it to the full extent in my
power, by making a speech to you in return for your
own. Bear with me, then, while I say I think, Orthodoxus, the whole system of Calvinism, with its doc
trines of human depravity, predestination, atonement,
and punishment, one of the most grossly immoral and
degrading systems that ever was propounded by man.
It represents God as an omnipotent fiend, without the
sense of common justice, and much less of goodness
and love. Here he creates and sends into this world
millions upon millions of wretched beings, with natures
�A Dialogue.
<7
so depraved that they cannot but sin. Amongst them
he has a select few, for whom he made his Son endure
the sufferings due to the sins they could not help; these
he changes into saints by a supernatural power called
grace, and at last brings to blessedness. The rest—the
millions upon millions, being denied the grace, without
which they could not be changed into saints—perish,
and perish everlastingly. Hopelessly they are thrust
into eternal torments, and that for crimes they could
not possibly avoid, since Adam fell. Such a system is
perfectly fiendish; and a god who could so govern the
world would be a monster of iniquity, deserving to be
scouted out of the universe by all the creatures he has
made. Bor my part, if I were the creature of such a
god, all the torments he could inflict upon me by his
omnipotence should not make me cease to look upon
him with loathing and disgust. And as for your
system, Mysticus, it has but few more charms in my
eyes than that of Orthodoxus. You deny, indeed, the
iniquitous doctrine of eternal punishment, but you have
no right to do so. It is the doctrine of the New Testa
ment. To deny that seems to me a disgraceful tamper
ing with words to suit a necessity created by your
false position. You endeavour, by the help of your
moral and spiritual instincts, to get a system of religion
out of the Bible consistent with the thought and spirit
of the present day. Your attempt is in vain. The
system of the New Testament is an embodiment of
thought and spirit of the second century, not of the
nineteenth. I have read all that your leaders, Maurice,
Robertson, and the rest, have to say. It is vague,
illogical, and will not bear the test of analysis for one
moment. Your words are full of mysticism, which,
as soon as explained, throws you back on the old
Calvinism, or reduces your system to merely human
elements. The truth of it is, my friends, you are both
of you leaning on a broken reed. You are resting upon
the infallible inspiration of the Bible, the one of you
�18
God’s Method of Government.
endeavouring to sustain by it the theology of the six
teenth and seventeenth centuries, and the other a
mongrel system you have devised in the nineteenth,
out of a patchwork of modern metaphysics and old
theologies. But for that infallibility you have not the
shadow of a proof. The evidence altogether breaks
down when it is thoroughly examined. The books you
rest upon mostly belong to the second century. Their
statement of facts is mingled with myths; and most
•certainly they are directly opposed to all the conceptions
of modern science and the whole spirit and thinking of
this age. I exhort you, therefore, in return for the ex
hortations you have addressed to me, to throw off these
terrible superstitions by which your reason is enthralled.
Look the facts fairly and fully in the face, and then you
will learn that these notions of yours are only the con
ceptions of ignorant and barbarous times, and that by
far higher and better laws than you have dreamed of
God governs the world.
Here the waiter brought in their supper, soon after
which they retired to bed. Next morning they break
fasted separately, in order to suit the time of their re
spective trains, and went their way each one to his own
home. Which of them upheld the truth in their dis
cussion, I shall leave you all to judge.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
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God's method of government: a dialogue
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Cranbrook, James
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 18 p. ; 18 cm.
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Thomas Scott
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God
Calvinism
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Calvinism
Conway Tracts
God
Heaven
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Text
THE
ORIGIN OF THE WEEK EXPLAINED,
BEING A PAPER
the <^rLtgin of the gwision of feu
INTO PERIODS OF SEVEN DAYS,
READ BEFORE THE
LIBERAL
SOCIAL
UNION,
At the Meeting on July 30, 1874.
BY
A. D. TYSSEN, B.C.L., M.A.
WILLIAMS AND NORGATE,
14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT
GARDEN,
LONDON;
AND 20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH.
1874.
Price One Shilling.
�I
�ANALYSIS.
1. The theory stated
2. Necessity of knowing the season of the year 3. Observations of the sun
4. The lunar year
5. Possible origin of the superstition against dining thirteen
6. Disadvantages of the lunar year
7. The calendar year
8. Full moon the best time for summoning an assembly 9. And religious feasts fixed by lunar epochs
10. Reason for reckoning days onwards in early times, and
considering the day to commence at sunset
11. Two passages from Tacitus and Herodotus bearing on
the subject 12. National duties performed in rotation 13. Explanation of division of the tribe of Joseph into two
14. And subsequent division of the tribe of Manasseh
15. The guard changed originally at the quarters of the moon
16. And afterwards every seventh day
17. This supported by —
18. (1) The meaning of the word Sabbath, which is equi
valent to relief
19. (2) The passage 2 Kings xi. 1—16
20. (3) The shewbread
21. (4) The double sacrifice upon the Sabbath
22. (5) The fact that the Roman calendar marked the
quarters of the moon, and gave rise to a system of
eight-day weeks
23. (6) The traces of a week amongst the Persians, Buddhists,
English, and Germans
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�iv
ANALYSIS.
PAGE
24. The rise of the Jewish Sabbath traced 25. The ten commandments in Exodus and Deuteronomy
compared 26. Abstinence from fighting not found till after the captivity
27. Veneration of the Sabbath probably grew gradually 28. The number seven also made sacred by the planets
29. The days of the week still called by their names
30. Introduction of the names told by Dion Cassius, and
attributed to the Egyptians 31. No doubt furthered by the customs of the Jews and
Christians 32. Observance of Sunday enjoined by Constantine
33. Conclusion
Note on Egyptian Week
-
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�ON THE ORIGIN OF THE DIVISION
OF TIME INTO PERIODS
OF SEVEN DAYS.
1. The theory about to be propounded in this paper
as to the origin of the division of time into periods of
seven days is, that our word week comes fro m the
same origin as the words wake and watch, and that
the present system of weeks of fixed periods of seven
days each, which may fairly be called a system of
calendar weeks, arose out of an earlier irregular system
of lunar watches, extending from one quarter of the
moon to another, very much in the same way that the
existing system of twelve calendar months arose out
of an earlier irregular system of twelve or thirteen
lunar ones.
Before proceeding to criticise the historical evidence
on the subject, it will be well to call attention to some
elementary points in astronomy which will shew more
clearly the meaning of the proposition above laid
down.
2. Men in primitive times of course required to
know just as much as we do now, the approach of
certain periods of the year. They required to know
when the rainy season was about to commence, when
B
�2
On the Division of Time
the rivers might be expected to rise, when drought
was to be provided against, when they ought to sow,
and when to reap, when their flocks would breed, and
many other similar points, differing according to their
habits, and the physical and atmospheric incidents of
their country.
3. To teach themselves these matters it became
necessary for them to have some means of determining
the commencement of each year, and dividing it into
periods convenient for ordinary purposes of computa
tion. The commencement of the year, and the re
currence of corresponding periods was best told by
observing the sun.
The solstices were two epochs
which could be observed approximately. For the
summer solstice the sun after rising more and more
to the North every morning and setting in like manner,
turned and began to rise and set more to the South,
and for the winter solstice the reverse took place.
Many localities would afford natural marks for ob
serving these phenomena, while in all cases artificial
marks could be erected.
There can be little doubt that one of the uses of
Stonehenge was to enable such observations to be
made. A man standing in the centre of the circle
could tell approximately the season of the year by
noticing behind which stone, or between which two
stones the sun rose and set each day. There are
moreover two outlying stones beyond the main circle
at Stonehenge at about the points where the sun rises
on the longest and shortest days respectively. Further
evidence of the astro, omieal purposes of Stonehenge
�into Periods of Seven Days.
3
is found in the fact that the number of stones in the
outer circle appears to have been originally 29, being
the number of whole days in a lunar month.
Another mode of determining the season of the year
is by noticing what stars are just rising or just setting
at sunrise or sunset, these being the same for the
corresponding seasons, subject only to a very slight
variation.* And of all the stars, there is probably no
set more convenient to select for this purpose than the
Pleiades, that being a bright little group of which
part might be above and part below the horizon. And
this is probably the origin of the peculiar veneration
paid to the Pleiades in early times.
A third mode of fixing a point for the commence
ment of the year would be by observing the equinoxes.
These might be ascertained by fixing a thin upright
post in the ground, and noticing the direction in which
the sun rose and set every day. At the equinoxes the
two lines from the post pointing to the spots where
the sun rose and set would form one straight line.
4. These observations of the sun however are evi
dently matters requiring some nicety of observation,
and comparison of the results of one season with an
other. But in the meantime the moon afforded a
measure of time plain enough for all folk to see. Anri
it is no doubt owing to the very palpable nature of the
phases of the moon, that it occupies a more prominent
* The expression in Judges v. 20, ‘ The stars in their courses
fought against Sisera, the river Kishon swept them away,’ no
doubt implies that the stars were then rising which ushered in
the rainy season.
B 2
�4
On the Division of Time
part in early astronomy than the stars or even the
sun.
If the number of revolutions of the moon round
the earth had been an exact or nearly exact measure of
a revolution of the earth round the sun, there can be
little doubt that a lunar year would have been uni
versally adopted. But it happens that the revolutions
of the moon are so far from fitting in with the natural
year that the inaccuracy of any attempt to make them
agree must become at once apparent. The average
interval between new moon and new moon will be
found to be very nearly 29| days, while
the average length of the solar year is
29|
well known to be about 365| days.
12
From this it will be seen that 12 lunar
months, which is the number which
6
comes nearest to the solar year is about
348
11 days short of it, a difference which
354
would become apparent to every one in
the course of a very few years.
If we may trust to Roman traditions, their year
consisted at first of only ten months, which seems to
indicate that in early times they only found it neces
sary to attend to these divisions of time during that
portion of the year. Their system would then have
been to have made their year commence with a new
moon happening about the time that agricultural
operations had to commence, and to reckon on thence
ten moons, and then leave an interval till it became
time to look out for the first moon of the next year.
�into Periods of Seven Days.
5
If the Romans however ever did thus leave the
winter to take care of itself, they must soon have come
to reckon the moons during it to aid them in fixing
the proper one for the commencement of the following
year, and so been brought to face the problem which
almost all nations seemed to have faced, of making
lunar years and solar years coincide.*
The first attempt at solving this problem evidently
consists in taking 12 lunar months for the year. This
however would result, as has been already shown, in
throwing the calendar 11 days before the natural year
in the second year, 22 days in the third, 33 in the
fourth, and so on. In fact, for practical purposes, such
asystem would soon become most misleading. It would
then be found that a thirteenth month would have to
be intercalated every now and then in order to correct
the error. Such a month might perhaps be at first
thrown in whenever it had become perfectly obvious
that it was requisite in order to bring back the com
mencement of the year to its old place in the seasons.
Then as time rolled on more accurate observations
would be made, and a rule might come to be adopted
that the first new moon after one of the solstices or
equinoxes or after the rising or setting of some star,
was to be considered the commencement of the year.
The Romans and the Jews appear both to have
adopted the plan of making the first new moon after
the vernal equinox the commencement of the year.
* A vast amount of information on this point, and on other
points treated of in this essay will be found in “ Time and Faith,”
Groombridge and Sons, 1857.
�6
On the Division of Time
The first month in the old Roman year was March,
which occupied therefore in early times a rather later
place in the natural year than was assigned to it by
Julius Caesar on his reformation of the calendar. The
marks of March having originally been the commence. ment of the year are seen in the names of the four last
months whose names signify 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th
respectively, and also in the fact that the intercalation
necessary to correct the calendar still takes place at
the end of February.
Further observations might show that a system
giving twelve months each to 5 years out of 8 and
13 months each to the other three would make the
Calendar agree very nearly with the seasons. And
still further observations would show that a cycle of
19 lunar years containing 12 short years and 7 long
ones would almost exactly coincide with 19 solar
years. This system is called the Metonic cycle, and
is said to have been discovered and introduced at
Athens about the year 432 b.c. by an Astronomer
named Meton, and according to the better reading of
a passage in Livy (I. 19) a similar system was insti
tuted at Rome by Numa.
•
“ Intercalaris mensibus interponendis ita disposuit
ut vicesimo anno ad metam eandem solis unde orsi sunt,
plenis annorum omnium spatiis, dies congruerent.”
“ By inserting intercalary months he so arranged
matters that in the twentieth year the days came
round to the same point in the sun’s course from
which they had started, the intervening years being
all complete.”
�into Periods of Seven Days.
7
Reasons will however appear presently for doubting
whether the Romans could have known of this cycle
even at a much later period. The Jews became
acquainted with the Metonic cycle in the course of
time, and use it still in regulating the length of their
years. Among the advantages to be derived from the
knowledge of a cycle over a mere empirical system
of fixing the end of each year by observation at the
moment, we may mention that it enabled every one to
know before-hand the times for payment of taxes and
for magistrates entering and leaving office, and for
contracts in many cases to commence and expire, and
payments of money to be made.
5. Before, however, any cycle was discovered, and
while men were making merely empirical attempts at
adjusting the lunar year, it would be found that the
majority of years contained 12 months each, and the
minority being something more than every third year
contained 13. There would therefore often be two
years containing 12 months together, but never two
containing 13. And it is possible that a popular rule
stating that when there were 13 one year there would
only be 12 the next, may have something to do with
the popular superstition that if 13 people sit down to
dinner together at the end of the year, one of them
will die before the end of the next. The superstition
is of course generally considered to have originated
from the circumstances of the Last Supper, but that
origin hardly accounts for the idea of one person
dying within a year.
6. Now it is evident that even the best arranged
�8
On the Division of Time
lunar system that could be devised is open to the
serious objection of placing the corresponding periods
of the natural year in different positions in the arti
ficial year, and for practical purposes it must have
become necessary to note that the first day of the first
month, and of course all other days, would be so much
earlier one year than another. The place of the sun
amongst the stars, in fact, would be found to be more
important than the phase of the moon ;* the number
12 derived from the moon’s revolutions would be
taken to be the number of periods into which to divide
the year; and the belt of stars through which the
sun apparently passed would be mapped out into 12
portions—the 12 signs of the Zodiac, in fact—and
give rise to a system of 12 calendar months under
lying, and eventually superseding the system of 12 or
13 lunar months.
7. Up to about b.c. 448 the Bomans had lunar
months, but they then endeavoured to introduce a
system of fixed months, not coinciding at all with
the lunar ones, but having fixed numbers of days;
and they left it to the Pontiffs every year to fix the
number of extra days to be added to make the year
complete.
* The moon at the full being always opposite the sun, its
position among the stars might be used to determine that of the
sun, or to tell the commencement of the year or the season directly.
Possibly the commencement of the Jewish year was originally
fixed by the first full moon which occurred beyond a certain line
amongst the stars, and the feast held at it was called the Passover, to signify tliaL the full moon had passed that line.
�into Periods of Seven Days,
9
The Pontiffs, however, partly through ignorance,
and partly through wilful attempts to shorten the
years of unpopular magistrates, managed the interca
lation so incorrectly, that in Julius Caesar’s time the
months came some 90 days earlier than their traditional
proper places. Julius Caesar then assigned to them
the places they hold now, and ordained for the future
the observance of the system which, with a slight
modification, we still use.
The fact that the Romans were unsuccessful in their
earlier attempts to settle the calendar on a definite
basis, throws considerable doubt on the statement of
Livy that they were acquainted with the Metonic cycle
at the time of Numa.
8. The lunar system has, however, some practical
advantages over a solar or stellar system. The latter
being more complex would be difficult to teach to the
mass of a primitive people, though it might be well
understood by a few initiated persons at head-quarters,
and a command issued through the land calling all
men to assemble under arms on the first of the next
calendar month would not be so easy to obey in
primitive times as a summons to meet at the next full
moon.* In the latter case the heavenly body itself
would act as a monitor, showing by its form each
* It may be remembered that the Spartans failed to take part
in the battle of Marathon because they waited for a full moon
to start at. Their superstition was no doubt derived from a
custom of assembling at the full moon, the custom being
based on the fact that it was the easiest time to summon a
gathering.
�1o
On the Division of Dime
evening how many days were to elapse before the
appointed meeting.
9. Moreover, owing to the lunar division of time
being the earlier in point of date, all sacred festivals
would come to be regulated by it, and that being so
it would be preserved for their sake long after it had
been superseded by a calendar system for all other
purposes. Indeed at the present day Easter and the
other so-called moveable festivals are nothing more
than feasts derived by the early Christians from the
Jews and regulated according to a lunar system also
derived from them. But probably many good people
in this country would look upon it as the height of
impiety to propose to give these festivals fixed places
in the calendar, even though it were possible to ascer
tain the days on which the events commemorated on
them occurred, so far as they are the commemoration
of events, and it was proposed to fix them on those
days.
10. But to go back to primitive times and make
one more remark. It is evident that the general
phenomena of the phases of the moon, the place of
the sun, and the rising and setting of the stars, must
have been matters far more familiar to people in
ancient times than to us at the present day. The
heavens were their calendar, their crier of public
meetings, their notifier of sacred festivals, holidays
and market days, their compass for journeys by land
and sea. Every evening the inhabitants of each
village must have gazed on the stars for directions
both on sacred and secular affairs. And every tribe
�into Periods of Seven Days.
11
must have had some one sacred spot for constant
observations to be made to regulate the national
calendar.
A little further reflection on this matter will furnish
explanations of two curious points in ancient modes
of speaking on these subjects. Firstly, the import
ant matters for which divisions of time were required
were to know beforehand when the various gatherings
were to take place. Hence we find that they fre
quently reckoned the days not from the commence
ment of the current month as we do, but towards
the beginning of the next month, or towards the next
feast day. Thus in the Boman calendar the first day
of each month was called the Calends, but the next
day was not called the second, but so many days
before the nones, a festival which fell on the 5th or
7th, and after the nones, the days were called by their
number before the Ides a festival which fell eight
days after the nones, and after the Ides the days were
called by their number before the Calends of the next
month. Secondly, the evening being naturally the
most convenient time for making observations, the
phenomena then observed would in many cases deter
mine the character of the following day, and on that
account the evening would be considered as belonging
to it rather than to the day past, and the division of
day from day would be reckoned at sunset, and not as
we reckon it at midnight.*
* The expressions in the first chapter of Genesis “ the evening
and the morning were the first day,” &c. will no doubt occur to
every one.
�12
On the Division of Time
11. It may be well here to introduce a few passages
illustrating the foregoing remarks.
Tacitus, writing of the Germans in the first century
of our era, speaks as follows :—
(Tacitus, Germania, 11.)
“ Coeunt, nisi quid, fortuitum et subitum incidit,
certis diebus, cum aut inchoatur luna aut impletur :
nam agendis rebus hoc anspicatissimum initium
credunt. Nec dierum numerum, at nos, sed noctium
computant. Sic constituunt, sic condicunt: nox ducere
diem videtur.”
“ They meet, unless any thing accidental and sudden
happens, on certain days when it is either new or full
moon : for they think that the most auspicious com
mencement for business. Nor do they reckon the
number of days as we do, but the number of nights.
They so express themselves both officially and
colloquially—night is considered to precede day.”
And Herodotus, who visited Egypt about 450 years
before our era writes as follows:—
(Herod, ii. 4.)
“ The Egyptians said they were the first to discover
the length of the year, setting out twelve divisions to
make it up. And they said that they discovered this
from the stars. And they manage it much more
cleverly than the Greeks, as it seems to me, inasmuch
as the Greeks put in an intercalary month every
third year, for the sake of the seasons, but the
Egyptians giving the twelve months 30 days each,
add every year 5 days beyond the number and the
�into Periods of Seven Days.
13
cycle of seasons as it rolls on comes to them at the
same place.”
And in another place (Herod, ii. 47) he gives an
account of an Egyptian feast at a full moon, resembling
in several points the Jewish passover. “ To Selene and
Dionysus alone at the same time, at the same full moon,
they sacrifice swine and eat the flesh. And the sacrifice
of swine to Selene is done in this way. When they sacri
fice, putting the tip of the tail and the spleen and the
caul together they wrap them up in all the fat of the
beast about the stomach and burn it in the fire—and
the rest of the flesh they eat at the full moon at which
they make the sacrifice, and they will not touch it on
another day. And the poor amongst them through
want of means mould swine of dough, and cook them
and sacrifice them. And to Dionysus on the eve of the
feast each man slays a pig before his door and gives
it to be taken away by the swineherd who brought
it.”
12. To come now to a point nearer the subject of
this paper, there would necessarily be various public
duties to be performed in every state. The national
observations of the heavens would be kept up, various
sacred rites would be performed, and the sanctuary
would be guarded. Such duties might in some cases
be performed by special persons set apart for the pur
pose, and in other cases by all the members of the
community in rotation. In the case of the Israelites
we find it stated that originally the first born of all
the tribes filled the priestly offices. May we not
�14
On the Division of Time
infer then that the twelve tribes performed the duties
of these offices in rotation according to the twelve
months of the normal year ?
13. And when we find one of the reputed original
tribes, namely, that of Joseph, represented by the two
tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, may it not be that
that tribe officiated on the last month of the year and
became divided into two portions for the purpose
of supplying the intercalary month whenever it
occurred ? The word Manasseh is said to mean
etymologically, “ divided,” and so favours this view.
The change from a priesthood shared by all the
tribes to that of a single tribe appears to be indicated
in the 32nd chapter of Exodus, the substance of which
may be shortly stated to be that at a time at which
two members of the tribe of Levi were at the head of
affairs an oracle was pronounced declaring that the
people had given offence to the Deity and calling for
volunteers to avenge it; that the tribe of Levi res
ponded to the call and flew to arms, and after some
bloodshed the anger of the Lord was considered to be
appeased, and we find the priesthood given to the
tribe of Levi in place of the first born of all the tribes,
(see Numbers, chap, iii.)
14. This change however may not have entirely put
an end to the practice of service by rotation. We
know that at Rome and Athens after the abolition of
the kingly power there were certain sacred offices
which only a person with the title of king was thought
worthy to perform, and special subordinate officers
were accordingly instituted with that title to provide
�into Periods of Seven Days.
15
for their due performance. And conversely, when the
ministry of the sanctuary was turned into an hereditary
office among the Israelites, it may well have happened
that there were some secular offices such as that of
forming a military guard about the holy place, which
came to be thought only fit to be performed by persons
not invested with the priestly dignity. For these then
the other tribes would be summoned as before, and
would naturally follow in the old order merely leaving
out the tribe of Levi. In an ordinary year the twelve
tribes would be sufficient for the service, but when the
intercalary month occurred some further subdivision
would be necessary, and what is more the strain would
be felt at the very same point in the circle at which
the strain had been felt on the original system of
12 tribes. And curiously enough it does happen that
the tribe of Manasseh, the second half of the original
tribe of Joseph, appears in history itself divided into
two halves which have separate portions of the con
quered territory alloted to them, and are in fact in
everything except in name, two independent tribes.
The idea of the tribes performing military service
by rotation appears as late as the 1st chapter of the
Book of Judges, after the conquest of Canaan, but
when the various tribes became settled in distinct
territories, and each had its own affairs to attend to,
any custom of service by tribes must have fallen into
disuse.
15. At all times however, and in all places, as long
as lunar epochs were adopted for market days, festivals
and military duties, some system of rotation of guards
�16
On the Division of Time
and watchmen must have been observed. The new
moon and full moon of course formed the two most
natural points for a change to take place, and the first
and last quarter the next most eligible days, and the
theory here advocated is that amongst the Jews and
Romans, and the Teutonic tribes, and other primitive
nations, the guards were changed at these epochs.
Now when we recollect that the number of days in a
lunar month is about 29|, it is evident that seven days
would be the most usual length of the period from one
quarter to another. Two lunar months would comprise
eight watches, of which five would consist of seven
days each, and three of eight days each.
16. In the course of time the inconvenience of the
uncertainty of the length of a watch would be felt, and
a fixed system of seven day weeks would come to
supersede the irregular system of observing the actual
quarters of the moon.
17. Let us look now at the evidence for or against
this supposition which can be found in any quarter.
18. .First of all the idea of rest connected with the
Sabbath is consistent with this origin of it. The
change of guards is called in modern military language
“ the relief,” and there can be no doubt that in ancient
times also the word denoting it would be one which
looked on it from the point of view of the men going
off guard, and not from the point of view of those
going on. When any coming event is likely to give
pleasure to one party, and pain to another, the party
to whom it will give pleasure are sure to talk most
about it. It is observable also that the Hebrew word
�into Periods of Seven Days.
sabbath was used to express a whole week, as well as
the last day, just as the modern word “ relief” is used
to indicate the whole period, during which a man
continues on guard, as well as the hour at which he is
taken off.
19. Secondly, there is one distinct passage in the
Old Testament, mentioning quite incidentally the
change of guard on the Sabbath as a matter wellknown at the time. The passage (2 Kings xi. 4-9),
which will call again for comment on another point,
contains the account of the restoration of King Jehoash to the throne of his ancestors, and is in the
following words.
4. “ And the seventh year Jehoiada sent and fetched
the rulers over hundreds with the captains and the
guard, and brought them to him into the house of the
Lord, and made a covenant with them, and took an
oath of them in the house of the Lord, and shewed
them the king’s son.
5. “ And he commanded them, saying, this is the
thing that ye shall do ; a third part of you that enter
in on the sabbath shall even be keepers of the watch of
the king’s house.
6. “ And a third part shall be at the gate of Sur, and
a third part at the gate behind the guard: so that ye
keep the watch of the house that it be not broken
down.
7. “ And two parts of all you that go forth on the
sabbath, even they shall keep the watch of the house
of the Lord about the king.
8. “ And ye shall compass the king round about,
c
�18
On the Division of Time
every man with his weapons in his hand : and he that
cometh within the ranges, let him be slain : and be
ye with the king as he cometh out, and as he goeth in.
9. “ And the captains over the hundreds did accord
ing to all things that Jehoiada the priest commanded:
and they took every man his men that were to come in
on the sabbath, with them that should go out on the
sabbath, and came to Jehoiada the priest.”
The narrative then proceeds to relate how Jehoash
was proclaimed king and Athaliah slain.
20. Thirdly. This origin of the sabbath affords an
explanation of the curious ceremony of the weekly ex
hibition of the shewbread. Such an institution has
every appearance of being what is called in Darwinian
language a rudimentary organ. It consisted in later
times of the placing a few cakes on a table in the
sanctuary every sabbath and leaving them there for
a week. May this not have originated from a pro
cess of storing up provisions for a week for the men
on guard, and may not the officer have required that
one meal should always be ready set out in order that
he might see at a glance that there were sufficient
provisions for the day ?
21. Fourthly. The double sacrifice on the sabbath
is explained if originally on that day food had to be
provided for twice the usual number of men, the old
guard as well as the new.
22. Turning again to the Roman Calendar, we
find the tendency to mark the quarters of the moon.
The month began with the new moon, the first
day being celebrated as the Calends, a name which
�into Periods of Seven Days.
*9
signifies “ call or calling,” and is no donbt derived
from a practice of publicly announcing the com
mencement of the new month. One of the ob
jects of the announcement may well have been to
summon a new set of officers to their monthly duties.
The other noticeable days of the month were the ides,
which fell at the full moon, and the nones, which fell
at the first quarter. The third quarter was not
marked, but this omission is a variety w hich we might
expect to find when we remember that the evening
was the time for observation, and at the new moon, the
first quarter, and the full moon, the moon is visible in
the evening ; while, when it has got to its third quar
ter, it does not rise till midnight. It is quite intelli
gible therefore that when it was in that quarter no
feast was held in its honour.
Furthermore, we find among the Romans that a
fixed week of eight days came to be adopted, every
eighth day being a market day, on which the country
people flocked into the city, and the law courts were
closed, in order that the market goers might not be
harassed by having legal proceedings brought against
them. Some evidence that this system of eight-day
markets arose out of an earlier system of holding
market-days at the quarters of the moon is found in
the fact that the same or a similar word (nonas or
nundinae) was used to denote both the market days
and the feast at the first quarter of the moon.
Then our finding an eight day week in one nation
and seven day weeks in several others, strongly tends
to show that they both arose out of some cause capable
c2
�20
On the Division of Time
of giving rise to either. And such we see the quarters
of the moon to be, constituting as it did originally an
irregular system of 5 periods of 7 days to 3 of 8 days.
[Such a system was of course more likely to give rise
to a fixed system of 7 day weeks ; still on the mere
doctrine of mathematical probabilities it might be ex
pected that in some cases it would give rise to an
eight day system.
23. To this we may add that the ancient Persians
appear to have observed a system of weeks containing
alternately seven and eight days ; and the Buddists
are stated at the present time to make their offerings
at the temples on the actual four quarters of the
moon. (Priaulx’s Q.uestiones Mosaicse, pp. 33, 38.)
Also when we find that the English and Germans
have native words for a week, and native names for
several of the days of the week, we are surely justified
in concluding that a week of seven days with recur
ring names was known to the ancient Teutonic nations ;
and the inference appears to be just that the English
word ‘ week ’ and the German word ‘ woch’ are de
rived from the same root as the words 1 wake’ and
‘ watch,’ and thus point to the same origin for the
Teutonic week as the Hebrew week appears to have
had.*
* The following passages may here be referred to: “Nundinas feriatum diem esse voluerunt antiqui, ut rustici convenirent mercandi vendendique causa; eumque nefastum, ne, si
liceret cum populo agi, interpellarentur nundinatores.”
“ The ancients settled that every eighth day should be a market
day for the country people to meet to buy and sell; and they
�into Periods of Seven Days.
21
24. Turning again to the Jews, if we compare the
version of the Ten Commandments which is given in
Exodus, with that which is contained in Deuteronomy,
we shall find that they differ in one important parti
cular. The clause at the end of the Fourth Command
ment, “ For in six days the Lord made the heavens
and the earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and
rested the seventh day” is omitted in Deuteronomy,
and in its place we find substituted, “ And remember
that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and
that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence
through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm,
therefore the Lord thy God commanded thte to keep
the sabbath day.” Deut. v. 15.
25. Exodus xx. 2-17.
Deut. v. 6-21, 22.
“ I am the Lord thy God,
“ I am the Lord thy God,
which have brought thee out of which brought thee out of the
the land of Egypt, out of the land of Egypt, from the house
house of bondage.
of bondage.
closed the law courts upon it, for fear that the market gbers
might be molested, if actions could be brought against them.”
(Sextus Pompeius Eestus, a.d. 500, p. 173, ed. Mull; cf. Macrobius, s. 1, 16, a.d. 395.)
“ Annum ita diviserunt, ut nonis modo diebus urbanas res
usurparent, reliquis septem ut rura colerent.” (Varro, de re
rustica 2 Praef. 1. Varro died b.c. 26.)
“ They so divided the year that they attended to city affairs
every eighth day, and cultivated the fields on the other seven.”
Macrob. Sat. i, 9, 15, says that some people thought the word
Ides was derived from the Greek word “ eidos” signifying
“ form,” because on “ that day the moon displayed its full form.”
Dionysius Antiq. x. 59, says that the Romans had lunar
months in B.c. 448.
�22
On the Division of Time
“ Thou shalt have no other
gods before me.
“ Thou shalt not make unto
thee any graven image, or any
likeness of any thing that is in
heaven above, or that is in the
earth beneath, or that is in the
water under the earth :
“Thou shalt not bow down
thyself to them, nor serve them:
tor I the Lord thy God am a
jealous God, visiting the ini
quity of the fathers upon the
children unto the third and
fourth generation of them that
hate me;
“ And shewing mercy unto
thousands of them that love me,
and keep my commandments.
“ Thou shalt not take the
name of the Lord thy God in
vain; for the Lord will not
hold him guiltless that taketh
his name in vain.
“ Remember the sabbath day,
to keep it holy.
“ Six days shalt thou labour,
and do all thy work:
“ But the seventh day is the
sabbath of the Lord thy God:
in it thou shalt not do any
work, thou nor thy son, nor thy
daughter, thy manservant, nor
thy maidservant, nor thy cat
tle, nor thy stranger that is
within thy gates:
“ For in six days the Lord
“ Thou shalt have none other
gods before me.
“ Thou shalt not make thee
any graven image, or any like
ness of any thing that is in
heaven above, or that is in the
waters beneath the earth:
“ Thou shalt not bow down
thyself unto them, nor serve
them: for I the Lord thy God
am a jealous God, visiting the
iniquity of the fathers upon
the children unto the third and
fourth generation of them that
hate me,
“ And shewing mercy unto
thousands of them that love
me and keep my command
ments.
“ Thou shalt not take the
name of the Lord thy God in
vain: for the Lord will not hold
him guiltless that taketh his
name in vain.
“Keep the sabbath day to
sanctify it, as the Lord thy
God hath commanded thee.
“ Six days shalt thou labour,
and do all thy work:
“ But the seventh day is the
sabbath of the Lord thy God:
in it thou shalt not do any
work, thou, nor thy son, nor
thy daughter, nor thy manser
vant, nor thy maidservant, nor
thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any
of thy cattle, nor thy stranger
I
�into Periods of Seven Days.
made heaven and earth, the
sea, and all that in them is, and
rested the seventh day: where
fore the Lord blessed the sab
bath day, and hallowed it.
“ Honour thy father and thy
mother: that thy days may be
long upon the land which the
Lord thy God giveth thee.
“ Thou shalt not kill.
“ Thou shalt not commit
adultery.
“ Thou shalt not steal.
“ Thou shalt not bear false
witness against thy neighbour.
“ Thou shalt not covet thy
neighbour’s house, thou shalt
not covet thy neighbour’s wife,
nor his manservant, nor his
maidservant, nor his ox, nor
his ass, nor any thing that is
thy neighbour’s.”
23
that is within thy gates: that
thy manservant and thy maid
servant may rest as well as thou.
“ And remember that thou
wast a servant in the land of
Egypt and that the Lord thy
God brought thee out thence
through a mighty hand and by a
stretched out arm : therefore
the Lord thy God commanded
thee to keep the sabbath day.
“ Honour thy father and thy
mother, as the Lord thy God
hath commanded thee; that
thy days may be prolonged, and
that it may go well with thee,
in the land which the Lord thy
God giveth thee.
“ Thou shalt not kill.
“ Neither shalt thou commit
adultery.
“ Neither shalt thou steal.
“Neither shalt thou bear
false witness against thy neigh
bour.
“ Neither shalt thou desire
thy neighbour’s wife, neither
shalt thou covet thy neighbour’s
house, his field, or his manser
vant, or his maidservant, his
ox, or his ass, or any thing
that is thy neighbour’s.
“ These words the Lord spake
. '. . and he added no more.
And he wrote them in two tables
of stone,and delivered them unto
me.
�24
On ths Division of Time
This difference of theory as to the origin of the
sabbath involves it may be observed an important
practical consequence. According to the Exodus
theory the sabbath would have been binding upon the
Gentiles, while according to the Deuteronomy theory
it would be a peculiar institution of the Jews. We
know that these two opinions were held by learned
Jews in later times, and it is exceedingly probable
that the question was mooted in early times also.
The most reasonable inference then to draw from these
conflicting versions would seem to be, that there was
a time when the Ten Commandments existed without
either of these final clauses of the Eourth Command
ment, and that they were added by two subsequent
editors belonging to the two schools of Jewish thought
holding the two conflicting opinions as to the obliga
tion of the Gentiles to observe the sabbath.
Of course this necessarily implies that the obser
vance of the sabbath as a fact, and also the codifica
tion of the law of its observance in the stringent
terms of the beginning of the fourth commandment,
were earlier in date than either of the theories of its
origin propounded in the Bible.
26. It is also very easy to show that the strict
observance of the sabbath, and notably the abstinence
from fighting, did not exist before the captivity.
Thus in the time of the Maccabees, which was the
first serious war in which the Jews were engaged
after the captivity, we find the slaughter of the Jews
without resistance on the Sabbath day arising as a
new case, and for that new case a rule is made for the
�into Periods of Seven Days.
25
future to the effect that defensive fighting is permis
sible, but aggressive fighting is forbidden. (1 Macc.
ii. 41; Josephus Ant. xii. vi. 2.) The fact that the
case was new shows that the law under which it arose
was new also.
It is no doubt a curious instance of the tendency
of the human mind to attribute a greater sanctity to
artificial rules of morality than to natural ones, that
the Jews felt no scruple whatever in holding that a
war for the existence of their nation and religion
formed an exception to the rule “Thou shalt not kill,”
but they could not bring themselves to regard it as
forming an exception to the rule “ Thou shalt do no
work on the seventh day.”
Then in later history, and notably in the two sieges
of Jerusalem by Pompey and Titus, the unwillingness
of the Jews to fight on the Sabbath plays a prominent
part, and the historians attribute the capture of the
city on both occasions to that cause (Jos. Ant. xiv.
iv. 2 ; Dion Cassius, xxxvii. 16).
But in earlier times we hear nothing of this, neither
in the Bible itself, nor in any of the records of the
nations, which came in contact with the Jews, do we
find a trace of any unwillingness to fight on any dav.
We have accounts of sieges of Jerusalem by the Assy
rians and Babylonians, and accounts of wars of the
Jews with the Philistines, Syrians, Egyptians, and
with each other, but never a word about refusing to
fight on the sabbath. Indeed when we go back far
in history and read the account of the siege of Jericho,
we find a period of seven days observed indeed in
�26
On the Division of Time
war, but the seventh day is the very day for assault
ing the enemy’s town, and expecting a divine inter
position in aid of aggressive warfare.
There is also distinct evidence in the Old Testa
ment that the Jews, in later times, were aware that
the sabbath had not formerly been observed as it was
observed by them. And indeed they frequently attri
buted the captivity to the Divine wrath for their
ancestors’ neglect in this respeet. Thus in Nehemiah,
xiii. 15-18, we read :
“ In those days saw I in Judah some treading wine
presses on the sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and
lading asses, as also wine, grapes and figs, and all
manner of burdens which they brought into Jerusalem
on the sabbath day: and I testified against them in
the day wherein they sold victuals.
“There dwelt men of Tyre also therein, which
brought fish and all manner of ware, and sold on the
sabbath unto the children of Judah and in Jerusalem.
“ Then I contended with the nobles of Judah and
said unto them, What evil thing is this that ye do,
and profane the sabbath day ?
“ Did not your fathers thus, and did not our God
bring all this evil upon us, and upon this city? yet
ye bring more wrath upon Israel, by profaning the
sabbath.”
And again at the end of the book of Chronicles,
after the account of the Captivity, we find, (2 Chro
nicles xxxvi. 21.)
“ To fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of
Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths;
�into Periods of Seven Days.
'ly
for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to
fulfil threescore and ten years.”
And the idea embodied in this verse appears more
clearly in Leviticus xxvi. 34, 35, which it is very diffi
cult to imagine to have been written before the
Captivity.
“ Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long
as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies’ land ;
even then shall the land, rest, and enjoy her sabbaths.
“ As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest, because it
did not rest in your sabbaths when ye dwelt upon itP
27. Now, we may, I think, fairly assume that it
would have been impossible for the Jewish legislators
suddenly to have promulgated their law of the strict
observance of the Sabbath, and to have declared it to
have been divinely delivered to Moses, and to have
called on their people to condemn whole generations
of their ancestors as sabbath breakers, if the nation
had not been gradually educated up to this state of
feeling, by the sabbath being constantly regarded with
greater feelings of sanctity, and some observance of
it being ordained by earlier laws. And both these
facts may be said to be established by the evidence we
have before us.
Thus in the sixth chapter of Leviticus, which
appears to contain an early collection of laws of date
anterior to the Ten Commandments, we read in the
3rd verse, “ Ye shall fear every man his mother
and his father, and keep my sabbaths ; I am the Lord
your God.”
And in the 30th verse,
�28
On the Division of Time
“ Ye shall keep my sabbaths and reverence my
sanctuary : I am the Lord.”
Here then we have a command to reverence the
Sabbath; but the Sabbath is not defined to be every
seventh day, nor is work forbidden upon it.
Again, we find in the Ordinances of the Feasts that
certain special days were to be celebrated with holy
convocations, and abstinence from servile work, and
such days are called Sabbaths, though not necessarily
coinciding with the ordinary Sabbaths. The special
days thus to be attended to include (1) the Passover
on the 14th day of the first month, being at a full
moon ; (2) the first aud 7th days of the feast of
unleavened bread, which lasted for seven days after
the Passover, up therefore to the 3rd quarter of the
moon ; (3) the first day of the 7th month, a new
moon, and (4) the first and last days of the Feast
of Tabernacles, being the 15th and 22nd days of the
7th month, a full moon, and a last quarter. (Exodus
xii. 1-16 ; Lev. xxiii.)
The fact that we have here five special days held at
quarters of the moon, observed like ordinary Sabbaths
and in places called Sabbaths, is surely strongly con
firmatory of the theory that the ordinary Sabbaths
themselves arose from a similar origin.
Turning now from the Laws to the notices of the
Sabbath in the times of the Kings, we may first recur
to the passage already quoted of the restoration of
Jehoash (2 Kings xi. 1-16), from which it is clear that
the inhabitants of Jerusalem in the times of Jehoiada
entertained no scruple against bringing about a revolu-
�into Periods of Seven Days.
29
tion on the Sabbath day, and slaving a queen who had
held the throne more than six years.
We find another notice of the Sabbath in the story
of the raising of the Shunamite’s son by Elijah
(2 Kings iv. 22, 23). After the child is dead, we read
“ And she called unto her husband and said, Send me
I pray thee one of the young men, and one of the
asses, that I may run to the man of God, and come
again. And he said, Wherefore wilt thou go to him
to-day? it is neither new moon nor Sabbath.”
Here then the Sabbath is regarded as a day on
which a journey may lawfully be taken, and also as a
day on which a visit to a man of God would properly
be paid. The Sabbath is invested with some sanctity,
but the impropriety of work upon it is not estab
lished. The association of the new moon with the
Sabbath is also noticeable. As this association also
occurs in the two next passages about to be quoted, a
few words may be said upon it. The mention of the
new moon shows that it was not included in the
Sabbath, and we may therefore infer that the lunar
sabbaths had already been superseded by the calendar
system of seven day weeks. At the same time the
continuance of the observance of the new moon
after the observance of the other quarters, with the
exception of the special feasts, had been given up, is
easily explained when we remember that the new moon
still marked the commencement of the month.
The other passages in which new moons and
sabbaths are associated are in Isaiah. In chap, i., ver.
13, we find “ Bring no more vain oblations; incense is
�30
On the Division of Time
an abomination unto me, the new moons and sabbaths,
the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it
is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.”
Here then is evidence that in Isaiah’s time, which
was before and during the reign of Hezekiah, the
Sabbath was celebrated with solemn meetings, which
he regarded however as inconsistent with the true
principles of religion and morality.
And in the 23rd verse of the 66th chapter of
Isaiah, we find “ And it shall come to pass from one
new moon to another, and from one sabbath to
another, shall all flesh come to worship before me,
saith the Lord.”
So that at the time at which this was written the
practice of going to worship on the Sabbath was
approved by the writer.
It may be well to notice that the account of the
Flood contains several notices of the observance of a
period of seven days, but in each case the seventh day
is the day of action and not of rest. Thus seven
days before the Flood begins Noah is addressed (Gen.
xii. 4,) “ Yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain
upon the earth,” and at the end Noah waits seven
days after the first return of the dove, and sends it
it forth again, when it returns with an olive leaf, and
he again waits seven days and sends it forth again
when it does not come back. However on looking
closely into the story of the Flood there is one very
noticeable fact. We are first told (vii. 11) that the
rain began on the seventeenth day of the second
month, and then we read (viii. 3, 4) “ and after the
�into Periods of Seven Days.
31
end of the 150 days the waters were abated, and the
ark rested in the seventh month on the seventeenth
day of the month.”
Therefore five months contained 150 days, and each
month contained 30, or in other words the story
indicates a calendar system of months and not a lunar
one. Now the whole of the other evidence shows
that the Jews always observed a lunar system. From
this it has been justly inferred that the story of the
Flood contained in the Bible is not a native Jewish
story, but is a translation from the writings of some
alien nation which observed a calendar system of
months. The Babylonians appear to have observed
such a system. (“ Records of the Past,” Vol. I.)
28. We ought, moreover, to observe that there is one
very material circumstance besides those which we
have already noticed which led to the number 7 being
regarded as sacred in early times, and no doubt helped
to bring about the adoption of a fixed system of seven
day weeks, in preference to eight day weeks, and
that circumstance is that the exceptional phenomena
of the heavens are seven in number.
The Sun and Moon are of course the two chief
exceptional phenonena in the heavens, and the other
five are the five planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars,
Jupiter and Saturn, being the only five known to the
ancients, and the only five readily discoverable by the
naked eye. It is not surprising that the early star
gazers were struck with the fact that these five
heavenly bodies wandered about amid the host of
heaven, while all the others maintained the same
�32
On the Division of Time
relative positions, and that they regarded them accord
ingly with mysterious awe and attached to them a
peculiar sanctity.
Thus Berosus, a priest of Belus at Babylon, who
shortly after the Greek conquest of Asia, that is about
B.c. 300, wrote a history of his country from the origin
of all things down to his own time, of which a few
fragments have been preserved, ends his account of the
creation by saying, “ Likewise Belus made the Stars,
the Sun and the Moon and the five Planets.”*
29. And the strangest fact on this part of the sub
ject is that the days of the week in modern Europe
still bear the names of the Sun and Moon and the five
Planets. Thus we in England call three of the days,
Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, and our neighbours
across the Channel call the other four Mardi, Mercredi,
Jeudi, and Vendredi, meaning the days of Mars,
Mercury, Jove, and Venus. These names are un
doubtedly derived from the Bomans, and the intro
duction of them amongst the Bomans is told by Dion
Cassius, who in about the year a.d. 200 wrote a history
of Borne. (Dion Cassius, xxxvii. 16.) He has just
been giving an account of the capture of Jerusalfem
by Pompey, which he tells us took place on a day of
Kronos or Saturn, and he has been mentioning the
fact that the Jews would not fight on that day, and
then he proceeds:
30. “ And as to the system of referring the days to
the seven heavenly bodies called the Planets, it was
* Josephus Ant. III. vi. 7, refers the seven branches of the
golden candlestick to the same origin.
�into Periods of Seven Days.
33
instituted by the Egyptians, and is used by all people,
its commencement being, so to speak, not very long ago.
The ancient Greeks knew nothing about it, so far as I
am aware. But since it is established among all other
people, and the Bomans themselves, and is already in a
sense a national institution of theirs, I wish to say a
few words as to how and in what manner the arrange
ment was made.”
He then says there are two theories as to the origin
of the arrangement, one being that you arranged the
bodies in order, beginning with the furthest from the
earth, and then took them as if you were playing on
a diatessaron, which consists in skipping over two
each time and taking the third, and going over them
again and again till you have struck every note ; and
the other being that you arranged them in the same
order and called the 24 hours by their names succes
sively, and then called each day by the name of its
first hour. These theories are evidently fanciful, and
on looking into them it will be found that they
require the bodies to be arranged thus.
Saturn.
Jupiter.
Mars.
Sun.
Venus.
Mercury.
Moon.
An arrangement which obviously involves the error of
transposing Mercury and Venus.
These theories therefore are valueless, but the state-
�34
On the Divsion of Time
ment of Dion Cassius that the system had recently
spread over the Roman world, may be accepted as
correct, being a statement of a recent matter of
general notoriety, and one which is moreover borne
out by other good evidence. And his statement that
it was invented by the Egyptians appears also to have
some truth in it. There is a passage in Herodotus in
which he says that the Egyptians had discovered to
what God each month and each day belonged, and it
seems that the names of their days recurred every
seven days, and that the Gods denoted by them were
identifiable with the Sun and the Moon, and the five
Planets.—(Herod, ii. 82. See also note at end.)
31. At the same time, although the names of the
days undoubtedly indicate a heathen origin, there
can be little doubt that the observance of a Seven
day period by both the Jews and Christians, who were
spreading over the Boman Empire at the time we are
considering, helped to lead their Pagan neighbours
to adopt a similar system, and caused it to supersede
the various irregular local customs which previously
existed.* The utility of a fixed system for holding
* Tacitus writing a.d. 110, the account of the fall of Jeru
salem in a.d. 70 says : “They say that rest pleased them on the
seventh day because it brought the end of labours ; then as idle
ness was pleasant, the seventh year also was devoted to sloth.
Others say that that honour is paid to Saturn, either because the
Idsei delivered the principles of their religion, whom we have
settled to have been driven out with Saturn and to have been the
founders of the race, or because that of the seven stars by which
mortals are governed, that of Saturn is carried in the loftiest orbit
�into Periods of Seven Days.
35
markets, paying domestic bills and school pence, and
carrying on matters of municipal administration is
obvious, and we cannot be surprised at its introduc
tion. It is, however, a curious coincidence that the
first day of the Jewish week, on which the Christians
held their solemn meetings, coincided with the day
named after the sun, the chief of the seven luminaries.
And it is worth noticing, though less remarkable,
that the heathen came to attach some sacredness to
that day, and gave to the Sun a prominent place in
the revived form of Paganism, which they endea
voured to cultivate.
Still no legal sanction was
attached to the observance of the day until Constan
tine came to the throne; but he, in a.d. 321, some
time before he embraced Christianity issued an edict,
enjoining its observance.
This Edict, which was
and has the mightiest influence, and many of the celestial matters
show their power and pursue their course by sevens.”
“ Septimo die otium placuisse ferunt, quia is finem laborem
tulerit, dein, blandiente inertia, septimum quoque annum igaavise
datum. Alii honorem eum Satumo haberi, seu principia religionis
tradentibus Idaeis, quos cum Saturno pulsos et conditores gentis
accepimus, seu quod de septem sideribus quis mortales reguntur
altissimo orbe et praecipua potentia stella Saturni feratur, ac
pleraque coelestium vim suam et cursum septimos per numeros
commeare.”—(Tacitus, Hist. v. 4.)
Amongst other instances of the number seven occurring in
celestial matters it may be mentioned that each of the constella
tions of the Great and Little Bear is denoted by a group of seven
stars, whence the north was called in Latin “ Septentriones,”
also the Pleiades seem to have appeared to clear-sighted observers
in early times as a group of seven stars.
�36
On the Division of Dime
justly considered as shewing the inclination of Con
stantine’s mind towards Christianity, was in words
which may be translated as follows:
32. “ Let all the Judges and the common people
of the towns and the working of all arts, rest on the
sacred day of the sun. But let dwellers in the coun
try freely and lawfully labour at the cultivation of
the fields, since it often happens that corn cannot be
better committed to the furrows, or vines to the
trenches, on any other day; so that the opportunity
granted by the providence of heaven may not be lost
by occasion of the season.”
Codex Justiniani, Lib. iii. Tit. xii. Lex 3.
Imperator Constantinus A Elpidio. Omnes judices,
urbanaeque plebes, et cunctarum artium officia vererabili die solis quiescant: ruri tamen positi agrorum
culturae libere licenterque inserviant: quum frequen
ter convenit ut non aptius alio die frumenta sulci s,
aut vinesa scrobibus mandentur: ne occasion e
momenti pereat commoditas coelesti provisione concessa. Datum monis Martiis Crispo secundo et Con
stantino secundo consulibus.
See also Cod. Theodos. Lib. ii. T. x. Lex 1.
And the law thus introduced by Constantine was
preserved iu the same terms by succeeding Christian
Emperors.
33. We have now reviewed the main points in the
observance of a seven-day week from the earliest
times down to a period in history connected with our
own day by a well-known chain of events. And it
only remains to add that I hope that no one will
�into Periods of Seven Days.
37
imagine that in arguing that the observance of Sun
day has a purely humau origin, I am any advocate
for abolishing it, and opening the Law Courts and set
ting the working men of all classes of society to
labour upon it. No one, who works at all, will deny
the desirability of having some intervals of rest, and
if intervals there must be, it is surely most pleasing
to keep up a custom handed down from the remotest
antiquity and invested with such sentiments of rever
ence and historical and archaeological interest as are
not attached to any other institution in the world.
Nor need our sentiments of reverence for the day of
rest be the least impaired by finding that it does not
owe its origin to a capricious whim on the part of tho
Creator, but that its periods have been determined by
the Motions of the Hands of the Chronometer of tho
Heavens, and its prevalence is due to its beneficent
tendency in promoting virtue and happiness amongst
mankind.
NOTE ON THE EGYPTIAN WEEK,
Kindly communicated by Dr. G. G. Zerffi,.
Judging from the Egyptian mythology wo are jus
tified in assuming, that they had some corroct notions
of the division of time. Their 8 gods of the first
order, point to an incarnation of the cosmical forces,
or the planetary system. The 12 gods of tho second
order undoubtedly presided over tho 12 months of
the year; whilst the 7 gods of the third order we.ro
to watch over the 7 days of the week. The seven
�38
Note.
gods were—1. Seh or Typhon. 2. Hesiri, Osiris.
3. Hes or Isis. 4. Nebt-hi, the sister of the former.
5. Her-Her, or Aroeris, corresponding to the Venus
of the Greeks and Homans, or Freya of the Teutons
and Sukras of the Indians. 6. Her or Horus; and 7.
Anups or Anubis. The Teutons (especially AngloSaxons and Germans) have inherited the division not
only of the week in 7 days, but also the names by
which these days are called from the Indians. Suryas,
Sunday; Chandras, Monday; Mangalas, Mars’ day,
or the day of the god of war; Tuisko’s day, Tuesday ;
Buddhas, Buddha’s day, or Woodan’s day, our Wed
nesday; Vrihaspatis, or Divaspitar, the Latin Jupiter
or the Teuton Thor’s day, our Thursday; Sukras, the
day of the goddess of love, the Teuton Freya or
Friday; and Sanis, Saturn’s day, our Saturday. (Refer
to Bohlen, “ Das alte Indien ;” “ Toth,” by Dr. Uhlemann, and Bunsen’s “Egypt’s place in History.”
Tacitus, Suidas, Pliny, and Amosis.)
THE END.
���
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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>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The origin of the week explained, being a paper on the origin of the division of time into periods of seven days, read before the Liberal Social Union at the meeting on July 30th 1874.
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Tyssen, A. D.
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Place of publication: London; Edinburgh
Collation: 38 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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Williams and Norgate
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1874
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CT15
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Astronomy
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English
Astronomy
Calendars
Conway Tracts
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
CRUELTY AND CHRISTIANITY:
A LECTURE,
DELIVERED BY
ALLEN D. GRAHAM, Esq., M.A.,
UNDER THE AUSPICES OR THE
“SUNDAY EVENINGS FOR THE PEOPLE,”
AT THE
FREEMASONS’. HALL, LONDON,
On SUNDAY, NOV. 9th, 1873.
PUBLISHED
NO.
BY
THOMAS
SCOTT,
II THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD.
LONDON, S.E.
1874.
Price Sixpence.
�SUMMARY.
INTRODUCTORY.---- MEDIEVAL CRUELTY.—TO A GREAT EX
TENT DUE
TO
THE
CORRUPTION
OF CHRISTIANITY.----
THIS CORRUPTION TO BE SEEN IN THE DEVELOPMENT
OF
THREE
IDEAS,
WHICH
DIRECTLY
OR
INDIRECTLY
FOSTERED A CRUEL SPIRIT.—THESE IDEAS IRRATIONAL.
—THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST.
�MW
CRUELTY AND CHRISTIANITY.
AN’S cruelty to man ! It is not a pleasant
subject. You will say, perhaps, “ Why take
it ? ” My answer is, because there is a great deal
to be learnt from it. The facts about which I propose
to speak to you are some of the most instructive
facts in history; facts, that is, from which we may
draw very important inferences. Many persons read
history without being instructed. They take the
facts and the dates and pack them away in their
brains on the shelf called memory, labelled and
arranged like pots of jam in a cupboard, and they
are proud to bring them out occasionally at a
moment’s notice to show to company : but they don’t
use their facts, they never eat their jam ; they don’t
compare their facts together so as to draw conclusions
from them; they have a two here and a two there,
but they never put two and two together and so
arrive at four. But he who wishes that his know
ledge should become wisdom, that instead of being
sterile and barren it should be the fruitful mother of
useful lessons, he treats his facts as children treat their
toy letters, that is, as having no particular interest
in themselves, but as capable of being so sorted and
arranged as to produce words full of meaning and
value. And this is my apology. If I were going to
talk of facts only I would choose pleasant ones, if we
were not going beyond letters you should have pretty
ones ; but I hope to put my letters together, and
then, although I confess that taken singly they are
M
A
�4
Cruelty and Christianity.
black and ugly, I expect that we shall be able to
spell out from them many beautiful words—such as
these, Tolerance, Love, Christianity.
But first of all I will tell you in two or three
sentences what is the general scope and purpose of
this lecture. I want to give you what I take to be
the explanation of one of the strangest facts in
history. This fact, one of the strangest facts in all
history, is the cruelty of the Christian world a few
years ago. Please to notice exactly the expression,
the Christian world a few years ago; that is to say, we
are not going to think about barbarous savages upon
whom the light of religion and civilisation has never
shone, or of tyrants whom the intoxication of abso
lute power has brutalised to insanity ; we are not
going to think of Europe in the Dark Ages, when, it
might be objected, the voice of humanity was drowned
in violence, and the voice of Christianity as yet
but faintly heard ; but we are to think of a world that
knew something of order and culture, a world that
for a thousand years had professed the Christian
faith, a world in which the Christian Church was
the chief institution—Christian Europe two and three
centuries ago. And the cruelty of Christian Europe
at that time was so gross, the indifference to human
suffering so complete, that my great difficulty in
preparing this lecture has been to give you an
adequately suggestive account without distressing
you beyond endurance by horrible and disgusting
details.
Surely I am justified in calling this a remarkably
strange fact when we remember that the cruel world
before us made its boast of a religion which was
emphatically a religion of love. Is it not passing
strange that cruelty should have been for a time the
chief characteristic of a Church which represented
Christianity, when gentleness, mercy, and a forgiving
spirit were chief characteristics of him who founded
�Cruelty and Christianity,
$
Christianity ? My object this evening is to explain
how this curious anomaly came to be.
We must take a hurried look at our facts, at the
-cruelties of the age. I shall confine myself to the
treatment of criminals, and I do so not only because
it would take too long to bring forward a great
variety of facts, but also because the treatment of
criminals illustrates most fairly the temper of the
times. Excesses committed in war, or in riot, or by
tyrants, or by men of unusual brutality, although
they have their significance, do not necessarily reflect
the public conscience ; but in the treatment of
criminals by legal tribunals we have a deliberate
expression of that conscience, perturbed it is true
very frequently by panic and passion, but yet reveal
ing on the whole with tolerable accuracy the ideas of
justice and mercy entertained by the community at
large.
See how the times have changed. How careful
we are with our criminals. We caution them not to
commit themselves, if there is a doubt of their guilt
they get the benefit of it, if convicted of the grossest
violence we hesitate as to flogging them, we differ as
to the expediency in any case of capital punishment.
In the Reformation age, on the contrary, everywhere
I believe but in this country—and even here, as we
shall see, the exception did not invariably prevail—
prisoners were tortured during and after trial;
during their trial that they might confess to their
own guilt or to that of their supposed accomplices,
and after trial for the sake of aggravating the horrors
of death. Old writers give us fourteen kinds of
torture and thirteen methods of inflicting capital
punishment.
[The next few paragraphs were illustrated by sketches, and,
as these cannot here be referred to, this portion of the lecture
has received a slight alteration.]
�6
Cruelty and Christianity.
The four principal sorts of torture were by the
rack, cords, water, and the pulley.
The sketch represents the racking of Cuthbert
Simson in the Tower, here in London, a little more
than three hundred years ago. He was the minister
of a Protestant congregation, and was racked that he
might be made to betray the names of his supporters.
He was afterwards burnt in Smithfield. The rack
was again used in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
The instrument was an oblong frame, placed hori
zontally upon the ground, with a windlass at each
end. The hands and feet of the prisoner as he lay
within the frame were made fast to cords which
passed round the windlasses, so that when these were
turned his limbs were strained to dislocation. Ima
gine delicate women being subjected to this agony,
these indignities ! Yet we read of such horrors in
histories of the Inquisition. You all know, I daresay,
that the Inquisition was the tribunal set up by the
Church of Rome for the discovery and punishment
of heretics, or, as Mr Motley puts it, “a machine for
inquiring into a man’s thoughts, and for burning
him if the result was not satisfactory.” On the
Zucws a non lucendo principle, it was called the
Holy Office. Its process was simple and effective.
“ It arrested on suspicion, tortured till confession,
and then punished by fire.” A Dr Rule, who is I
believe a well-known Wesleyan minister, published
a History of the Inquisition about five years ago
which seems to have been written with care and
candour, and in it you will see an account of the
atrocities perpetrated upon women as well as men in
the dungeons of the Inquisition. I will quote two
of the many cases he records, by way of illustrating
the torture by cords and by water. In the first of
these tortures cords were bound round the limbs,
and then by means of some mechanism, which appears
to have varied in different prisons, they were suddenly
tightened until they cut into the flesh.
�Cruelty and Christianity,
7
A certain lady of Seville in the year 1559 was
suspected of heresy. “To be suspected, in . the
meaning of the Holy Office, is to be guilty;
and this lady was instantly seized, and thrown
into the castle of Triana. As they found that she
was soon to become a mother they allowed her to
remain in an upper apartment until the birth of
a male child, which was taken from her at the end
of eight days; and after the lapse of seven more
she was sent down into a dungeon. Then began
the trial. Charges were made which she could np^
acknowledge with truth, and they were not slow
in applying torture. But how could friends be ex
pected to pity this young mother ? To bind her
arms and legs with cords, and to gash the limbs with
successive strainings by the levers, or to dislocate
her joints by swinging her from pulleys, yet sparing
vital parts, would have been the usual course of
torment, and from all that she might have recovered.
But anguish brought no confession: and as one of
their authorities afterwards wrote in the Cartilla of
that same Holy House, “ there are other parts.” The
savages in their fury, passed a cord over her breast,
thinking to add new pangs; and by an additional
outrage of decency, as well as humanity, extort some
cry that might serve to criminate husband or friend.
But when the tormentor weighed down the bar, her
frame gave way, the ribs crushed inwards. Blood
flowed from her mouth and nostrils, and she was
carried to her cell, where life just lingered for another
week, and then the God of pity took her to himself.”
The following will sufficiently describe the torture
by water. “ A physician, Juan de Salas, was accused
of having used a profane expression, twelve months
before, in the heat of a dispute. He denied the
charge, and brought several witnesses in support of
the denial. But the Inquisitor Moriz at Valladolid,
where the information was laid, caused De Salas to
�8
Cruelty and Christianity.
be brought again into his presence in the torment
chamber, stripped to his shirt, and laid on the ladder
or donkey, an instrument resembling a wooden trough,
just large enough to receive the body, with no bottom,
but having a bar, or bars, so placed that the body
bent by its own weight into an exquisitely painful
position. The poor man, so laid, was bound round
the arms and legs with hempen cords, each of them
encircling the limb eleven times. During this part of
the operation they admonished him to confess the
blasphemy; but he only answered that he had never
spoken a sentence of such a kind, and then, resigning
himself to suffer, repeated the Athanasian Creed, and
prayed “ to God and Our Lady many times.” Being
still bound, they raised his head, covered his face
with a piece of fine linen, and, forcing open the mouth,
caused water to drip into it from an earthern jar,
slightly perforated at the bottom, producing, in addi
tion to his sufferings from distension, a horrid sensa
tion of choking. But again, when they removed the
jar for a moment, he declared that he had never
uttered such a sentence : and this was repeated often.
They then pulled the cords on his right leg, cutting
into the flesh, replaced the linen on his face, dropped
the water as before, and tightened the cords on his
right leg the second time; but still he maintained
that he had never spoken such a thing; and, in
answer to the questions of his tormentors, still con
stantly reiterated that he had never spoken such a
thing. Moriz then pronounced that the torture
should be regarded as begun, but not finished; and
De Salas was released, to live, if he could survive, in
the incessant apprehension that if he gave the least
umbrage to a familiar or to an informer, he would be
carried again into the same chamber, and be racked
in every limb. This was one case of thousands. Tor
tures and deaths were of every-day occurrence.”
The torture in which the pulley was a principal
�Cruelty and Christianity.
9
feature consisted in raising the victim to a height by
means of a cord fastened to his wrists or thumbs,
with a weight attached to his feet. Sometimes he
would be made to drop suddenly to within a short
distance of the floor, the usual result being that he
was crippled for life.
These were the more moderate tortures—tortures
which, since they were employed by the officials of
the Church, may be deemed to have been respectable.
There were others, resorted to by local tribunals,
ingeniously horrible, but too painful to be described.
We may pass on to the methods used for putting.crimi
nals to death. I will mention two out of the thirteen.
A punishment, called hrealving on the wheel, became
common in France about 350 years ago. The name
more properly belongs to a very ancient punishment
in which a huge wheel was the instrument actually
used. The modern process was this: the criminal
was stretched out flat upon two pieces of timber fixed
together in the form of a St Andrew s cross, these
being deeply notched in eight places underneath the
principal limbs. The executioner with an iron bar
then broke the arms and legs at these points, and
finally, by two or three blows upon the chest, resigned
his victim to the welcome mercy of death.
A still more horrible fate was reserved for those
who had attempted the life of the Sovereign. Horses
were harnessed to their feet and hands, and made to
pull gently for an hour or two, until vengeance had
been quenched in agony. Then, and not till then,
the animals were allowed to put out all their strength,
and the memberless trunk remained upon the scaffold,
a bloody and startling commentary upon those famous
words—“ A new commandment I give unto you, that
ye love one another.” Jean Chatel, who wounded
Henry the Fourth of France in 1595 ; Ravaillac, whd
assassinated him fifteen years later; and Damiens,
who tried but failed to murder Louis the Fifteenth
�IO
Cruelty and Christianity.
in 1757, were all executed in this manner. Now,
just imagine such a punishment as this being inflicted
in a Christian country 116 years ago, and for a crime
that was not consummated. We read of Damiens—
11 The hand by which he attempted the murder was
burned at a slow fire ; the fleshy parts of his body
were then torn off by pincers; and, finally, he was
dragged about for an hour by four strong horses,
while into his numerous wounds were poured molten
lead, resin, oil, and boiling wax.” Where could such
infernal atrocities have come from ? Surely AeZZ /
And, strange to say, this, the answer that seems
instinctively to leap to our lips, has in it a real
element of literal truth.
Those who have not looked into the subject have
little idea how slowly the horrors we have been
dwelling upon ceased to be. Torture was not aban
doned by Continental nations until about a century
ago. France is indebted for her emancipation to
her great revolution. When our George the Third
was king the most brutal punishments were being
inflicted in France and Spain, and it is stated in
“ Chambers’s Encyclopaedia ” that breaking on the
wheel “ has been occasionally inflicted during the
present century in Germany on persons convicted of
treason and parricide.”
You might be tempted to ask why the Church was
unable to check the barbarities of the civil power.
The answer lies in the fact that example is stronger
than precept; and the example set by the Church
during the Reformation age is seen in the torment
rooms of the Inquisition. Protestants, however,
must take care not to make the mistake of supposing
that the Church was cruel because it was Catholic.
The Reformed Churches have nothing to boast of on
the score of humanity. They did not set up an In
quisition, because this would have been impossible
among peoples who had exercised independence
�Cruelty and Christianity.
11
to the extent of separating themselves from Rome;
but the Inquisitor spirit was strong in them, and
they lacked the power rather than the will to perse
cute. Knox, in Scotland, declares that all idolaters,
that is, all Roman Catholics, should be put to death;
Calvin, at Geneva, burns Servetus; and Queen Eliza
beth, in London, sends two Anabaptists to the flames,
where they perish, in the words of one who was living
at the time, “in great horror, crying and roaring.”
This cruelty of the Christian world, a few years
ago, is it not a remarkable fact ? People have said
to me, “ It was the times.” It is odd they do not
Bee that this is a sham answer ; that they have only
put the question a step further back; that the very
point we are puzzled about is why the times were so
cruel. Civilisation was not recent; religion was not
a new thing. To what, then, are we to attribute the
inhumanity of Christian nations ? To Christianity ?
No I But to the corruption of Christianity.
You see it is not for nothing that I rake up the
cruelties of the past. I do not call our forefathers
from the tomb merely to abuse and scold them. My
object is to discover the causes that led them astray.
When men make mistakes upon such a large scale,
when the action of society in any particular is so long
and so widely perverted, it must be because the springs
of action are poisoned, and in the age we have been
considering, the springs of action, that is, the princi
ples and opinions of men, were poisoned bv a corrupt
Christianity. Now in what did the corruption of
Christianity consist, and how had it come about ? I
will make an attempt to give you some account of
the matter, but it is difficult to tell such a story in a
few words.
By Ghristianity, I mean the ideas of Jesus Christ.
By corrupt Ghristianity, I mean the adulterated article
which the Church has circulated as the Christianity
of Christ. I shall say a little more about the Chris-
�12
Cruelty and Christianity,
tianity of Christ at the end of my lecture, but now I
will only say that I believe it to have been, as simple
and beautiful a religion as has ever been offered to
mankind. In fact, too good for mankind. The
mantle that fell from the dying Master—who, dying,
said, “ Father, forgive them; for they know not what
they do ’ ’—that mantle was too large for men, and
men, instead of waiting and hoping to grow to it,
tried to improve upon it, poor creatures ! They put
a patch here and a patch there, they stretched some
parts and took in others, and thus endeavoured to.
bring it down to the level of their own stunted
statures. You understand me ; they distorted the
teaching of Christ, exaggerating the side they fancied,
neglecting the side they did not like, and now and
then, no doubt, attributing to him things he never
said. I will give you instances of each kind of per
version, and the consequences.
Jesus appears to have used some rather strong and
startling language about future punishment. There
is so much metaphor in it that we cannot tell pre
cisely what he meant; but if he intended his words
to bear the construction posterity has put upon them
he contradicted himself, for at other times and far
more frequently he spoke of God as a good God, a
loving Father, an example of forbearance and gentle-,
ness to his children, ideas utterly incompatible with
the doctrine of eternal woe. But these milder ideas
imposed on men reciprocal obligations of love to the
Father, and of gentleness and goodwill towards the
other members of the family, and this was irksome
to poor human nature. A man who would be
honest in respect to his spiritual life, must ever
remember that the law of love, being the highest
law, is so difficult to fulfil that his heart is sure
to cast about for some means of evading it without
incurring its own condemnation. Thus it is that
zeal for the Lord has been more popular than love
�Cruelty and Christianity.
ij
for the Lord, and men have ever been prone to
impute guilt to their brethren in respect to their
religious opinions, only because it is thus easier for
them to hide from themselves the far greater guilt
of their own vanity, jealousy and illwill. We must
keep this truth before us if we would understand how
it was that the early Church neglected the more
tender side of Christ’s teaching and fastened upon its
harsher aspects. The result was the doctrine of
Eternal Punishment, a doctrine which, as developed
by theologians, embodies the most ghastly and blas
phemous idea ever presented to the human mind.
According to this doctrine, the destiny of a large
portion of our race is Hell ; a perpetual Auto-da-Fe ;
a torture-house on a scale commensurate with infinite
power, when guided by infinite skill and impelled by
infinite malice. I use this language with no irreve
rence of mind; I desire to repudiate the horrible
doctrine with all the emphasis I can. I do so for
truth’s sake, believing it to be a lie; for the sake of
man, to whom it has been a curse; and, if I may
humbly say so, for God s sake, because it makes
Atheism preferable to Faith. This doctrine sanc
tioned human cruelty. It represented God—herein
lay the blasphemy—as “ a murderer from the
beginning,” and cruelty being enthroned in heaven
could scarcely be regarded as a crime on earth. It
was not reasonable that men should strive to be
better than their God. He, being of infinite power,
tormented his enemies for ever ; they being limited
in power, tormented their enemies as long as they
could. The imitation was as perfect as the circum
stances would permit.
I said that besides distorting the teaching of Jesus,
men attributed to him words which in all probability
he never used. For instance, in the Gospel of St
Mark, he is made to say, “ He that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved, and he thatbelieveth not shall
�14
Cruelty and Christianity.
be damned.” There is reason for supposing that he
never said anything of the kind ; the passage in which
these words occur is considered by many scholars to
have been added to the Gospel by a later hand. A
most unfortunate addition ! For it asserts the prin
ciple that unbelief is sinful, a principle which has been
a perpetual plague to Christendom, and which even
now disturbs the peace of many an honest man. It
suited the Church to make much of this text. She
assumed that not to agree with her was equivalent to
unbelief, and thus heresy came to be mortal sin. The
heretic, the man who thought for himself and did not
think with the Church, was seen to be a destroyer of
souls. The inquisitor, the man who hunted up the
heretic and put him to death, was seen to be a saviour
of souls. Philip of Spain ordered that every Pro
testant in the Netherlands should be put to death.
If impenitent, they were to be burned. If they re
turned to the Church a milder punishment was
allowed; the men were to be beheaded, the women
buried alive. And from the Church’s point of view
Philip of Spain was right. If heresy was mortal sin
and mortal sin entailed eternal death, it was better
that a nation of heretics should be stamped out than
that they should live to propagate their kind, making
earth, in fact, a mere nursery for hell.
These particular ideas, then, the sinfulness of heresy
and the eternal punishment of sin, tended directly to
foster cruelty; but they also united to give birth to a
third idea, which, although not formulated as a dogma,
had a very real existence, and a very disastrous
influence upon the character of the time. This idea
may be described as a belief in the primary importance
of the theological side of Christianity. Christianity
is first and foremost a way of living, not a way of
believing; but men reversed this, the true aspect
of it, and came to think that Creed was every
thing, Conduct comparatively nothing. Of course
�Cruelty and Christianity,
15
when people held such views as these they lost
all sense of proportion in morality, they had no
true criterion. When orthodoxy went far towards
atoning for every crime, but no degree of virtue could
atone for heresy, the loyal churchman could give him
self up to fraud, or violence, or cruelty, or sensuality,
with but little sense of guilt, and still thank God he
was not so badly off as the blameless heretic.
I have attributed mediaeval cruelty mainly to the
corruption of Christianity, and I have described that
corruption as consisting mainly in the prominence
given to three ideas. Let us now consider for a
moment how irrational those ideas are.
Is it not irrational to suppose that God will visit
the sins of finite mortals, who owe to Him their frail
and fallible natures, with infinite pain ? The idea is
incompatible with any notion of goodness that we are
capable of forming, and if we cannot think of God
as good we had better not think of Him at all. It is
enough to send men mad to think of God as bad. A
good God and an eternal Hell are conceptions
destructive of each other; we must choose which
we will keep; we cannot keep both ; better part with
Hell than with God.
Is it not irrational to suppose that heresy, or dis
belief of theological dogmas, is sinful ? Theology
deals with facts and doctrines. The facts are. so
marvellous that it would be difficult to substantiate
them eVen if they had happened only last week ; but
they happened, it is said, ages ago, and therefore it
is almost impossible for any unprejudiced person to
feel certain that they took place. The doctrines
relate, for the most part, to matters outside the range of
our faculties, so that no man can say he believes them
in the sense in which he believes intelligible proposi
tions. Is it not then irrational to suppose that it can
be sinful for us to differ about facts which are doubt
ful, and about doctrines which are unintelligible?
�16
Cruelty and Christianity.
Difference and doubt are inevitable if men use the
reason God has given them, and the inevitable in
such a case can scarcely be a crime 1
. And is it not irrational to suppose that our theolo
gical belief is more important than character and
conduct ? Our character or what we are, our conduct
or what we do, our dispositions and tempers, and the
words and acts that flow from them are of vital importance, pregnant with misery or happiness to
ourselves and all around us. But our theological
opinions, except in so far as they make us better or
worse, do not signify to anybody. Moreover whilst,
Creeds are, as I said, uncertain and unintelligible,
character and conduct can be studied and under
stood. It is comparatively easy to diseover the laws
of the Religion which is a Life; comparatively easy
to see what “ makes for righteousness ” and to see
how righteousness makes for bliss. I would not on
any account be thought to mean that theology should
be treated with levity, much less with scorn. For to
theology belong those most stupendous problems
which at once provoke and defy the scrutiny of man.
What are we ? Why are we ? Whence do we come ?
W hither are we bound ? The theologies of man repre
sent for the most part his efforts to find an answer to
these questionings, and though we may deem the efforts
unsuccessful they yet deserve our sympathy and our
respect. What I maintain is that the conclusions
to which we may come on matters beyond the reach
of knowledge cannot be regarded as vitally important.
Patience, reverence, carefulness, in forming our
opinions—these are important, but the opinions
themselves—herein is that pearl of great price, the
secret of true toleration—the opinions themselves
have not necessarily any moral character whatsoever,
cannot properly be made a pretext for praise or blame.
You may consider your neighbour foolish or illinformed for holding a certain theological opinion,
�Cruelty and Christianity.
but you have no right to think him a bad man for
doing so. It is silly to blame him because he
believes in a future state or because he disbelieves
in it. A man is not good because he believes
that Christ rose from the dead, but neither is he bad
because he does not believe it. It is not wrong to
believe in God, but neither is it right. These things
are obscure, almost if not quite beyond us ; they de
serve patient, reverent consideration; but that
granted, the actual conclusions we may come to
respecting them are neither meritorious nor blame
worthy. Why do I insist so much upon this ? Why
am I so careful to be plain ? Because in this short
and simple formula—theological opinions have no in
trinsic value—there is great virtue. It represents a
truth which is essential to the progress of the world,
essential to its growth in goodness and in happiness.
Christian Love, once a great reality, fairest of all
flowers that have blossomed in the Earthly Paradise,
the only heal-all of humanity, Christian Love cannot
flourish until men have ceased to quarrel about Chris
tian Creeds. This quarrelling has come of the cor
ruption of Christianity; true Christianity, that is,
Christ’s Christianity, is not responsible for it. I will
not keep you much longer; let me only show you in
a few last words that this corruption of Christianity
which made the Creed of great importance, the Life
of little importance, which put believing before loving;
a corruption which bore fruit in tortures and strife,
and which still finds expression in the Athanasian
Creed of the Church of England, this corrupt phase
is a parody of Christianity, a libel upon the life that
closed on Calvary.
He that died on Calvary, what did he teach ?
There is great uncertainty about him. I have even
heard it questioned whether such a person as Jesus
Christ ever existed; but I don’t think that doubt
need go as far as that. The first three Gospels pro
�18
Cruelty and Christianity.
bably give a fairly accurate account of the teaching
of Jesus. At all events, we have nothing more au
thoritative to appeal to; and therefore, taking my
stand upon them, I am safe in saying that, if we
know anything about Christ’s teaching at all, we
know that he taught—what ? Abstruse doctrines ?
No. Did he make known something new; reveal
something about the supernatural world which had
not been in men’s minds before ? No. Did he pre
scribe some elaborate form of worship ? No. He
taught that men should live lives of love. This was
his great point, his “happy thought.” The theology
of Jesus was of the simplest possible kind. God, the
good father. Prayer, the child’s talk to his father.
Heaven, the child at home with his father. On these
three points he dwelt with the fervour natural to a
religious genius of that day. For these ideas were
not new. They had got dry, that was all, as ideas
do dry up in this world. Dry, withered and un
sightly, like sea-weeds out of water. Steeped in the
fresh enthusiasm of Jesus, these ideas revived again
and recovered grace and brilliancy. But Jesus had
another enthusiasm, an enthusiasm for Love; for
that gentle Sexless Spirit of Love which alone is
needed to make earth a heaven.
For a brief moment the enthusiasm of Love sur
vived in the Church, and the spectacle converted the
world. Marvellous is the transforming power of
Love. It is the source to which we must look for
individual happiness and for the regeneration of the
world. Don’t you feel you want something ? You,
for such no doubt are here, you whose minds have
drifted from the old faiths, don’t you feel sometimes
that we want something not ourselves to live for ?
That our lives need to be warmed by a passion, puri
fied and elevated by an enthusiasm, that the mill in
which we grind is in itself a monotonous sort of place,
that the toil and struggle of life tend somewhat to
�Cruelty and Christianity.
J9
lower and harden us, to make our minds small and
our hearts cold ? Would it not be pleasant to have
an enthusiasm which should take the sting out of
sorrow, the edge off temptation, the chill out of life,
and the gloom away from death ? I think so, I
should like it, and men have for the most part the
same wants. Well—Love is enough, Love is suffi
cient for these things. Live loveful lives—this is
Christianity.
If the Church had been faithful to this Christianity
there would have been by this time little poverty,
little suffering, little sorrow, little sin; little, I mean,
in comparison with the plagues with which the world
is now afflicted. These plagues are not incurable; it
is late, not too late to mend. From time to time in
the world’s history humanity receives a call to rise,
like Lazarus, to a new life. And now, on every side
is heard the sound of many voices calling it to come
forth from the tomb of ignorance and superstition, to
shake off the icy grasp of bigotry and intolerance, to
drop the mouldering cerements of a Church-made
Christianity, and to clothe itself in the simple raiment
of Love, which alone, like the garment for which men
once cast lots, is “without seam, woven from the top
throughout.”
I repeat once more the point I care for most.
There is a religion which does not signify, a religion
which has deluged Europe with blood, and which, if
power be given to it, may so deluge it again; a reli
gion which once inspired its chief representative to
strike a medal in honour of one of the most
atrocious massacres of history; a religion, the forces
of which are even now raving like chained hounds
eager to destroy the growing liberties of the nation^
—this religion which does not signify is a religion
of theologies, a religion, that is, made up of beliefs
about one who is far away and about one who lived
long ago. God—it has pleased infinite wisdom that
�20
Cruelty and Christianity.
this should be—God is far away, far, I mean, from
our understandings. To have clear views about Him
we must wait for other conditions, other faculties,
“ to know more we must be more.” Christ lived long
ago, in the first century, this is the nineteenth; we
cannot, cotemporary history being silent, know cer
tainly what happened so long ago. But there is a
religion which does signify, a religion which may
indeed draw warmth and strength from simple faith
in God and simple love for Christ, but which has no
necessary connection with theologies; a religion
which no change of times shall ever shock, because
its foundations are firmly rooted in the facts of
human nature and human circumstance; a religion
which I Call Christianity because it was, I believe,
taught by Christ; a religion which is not a theology
but a life—the Life of Love.
C. W. REYNELL, PRINTER, BITTLE PULTBNEY STREET, HAYMARKET.
�INDEX
TO
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PUBLICATIONS.
ALPHABETICAL!.-! ARRANGED.
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The Impeachment
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Notes on Bishop Magee’s Pleadings for Christ
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-
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•
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BASTARD, THOMAS HORLOOK.
Scepticism and Social Justice
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:
3
�ii
Index to Thomas Scotfs Publications.
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The Chronological Weakness of Prophetic Interpretation -11
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The Gospel of the Kingdom
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The Church of England Catechism Examined. A Reprint
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Origin of the Legends
Critically Examined -
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of
Isaac, and J acob
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- 0 3
BROWN, GAMALIEL.
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Sunday Lyrics
The New Doxology
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of all the
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.
-
-
• -
- 0 3
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CANTAB, A.
Jesus versus Christianity
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CARROLL, Rev. W. G., Rector of St Bride’s, Dublin.
The Collapse
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by the Orthodox
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CLERGYMAN OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
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COUNTRY VICAR, A.
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The Bible for Man, not Man for the Bible
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- 0 6
�Index to Thomas Scott’s Publications.
CRANBROOK, The late Rev. JAMES.
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On the Formation of Religious Opinions On the Hindrances to Progress in Theology
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DUPUIS, from the French of.
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Everlasting Punishment. A Letter to Thomas Scott
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......
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...
Talk Kindly, but Avoid Argument
GELDART, Rev. E. M.
The Living God
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-, 0 3
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GRAHAM, A. D., and F. H.
On Faith
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-------
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HANSON, Sir R. D., Chief-Justice of South Australia.
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...
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0 4
HARE, The Right Rev. FRANCIS, D.D., formerly Lord Bishop of
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The Difficulties and Discouragements which Attend the Study of
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------- 0 6
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Annotations on the Lord’s Prayer. (See Scott’s Practical Remarks)
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A Reply to the Question, “ Apart from Supernatural Revela
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d'
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Case
in the
.
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of
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.
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_
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’
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Realities
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&
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Sacerdotalism
-------
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Christianity. A Lecture
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and
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Cruelty
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�SCOTT’S 'ENGLISH LIFE OF JESUS.’
In One Volume, 8w, bound in cloth, post free, 4s. 4d.,
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Cruelty and Christianity : a lecture [...]
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Graham, Allen D.
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 20, vi p. ; 17 cm.
Notes: Lecture delivered at the Freemasons' Hall, London, on 9 Nov. 1873, under the auspices of "Sunday evenings for the people." Publisher's list at the end, pages detached. Advertisement for Scott's "English life of Jesus", 2nd ed., on back cover. Printed by C.W. Reynell, Little Pulteney Street, London. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Christianity
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ANCIENT SACRIFICE.
BY
PROFESSOR F. W. NEWMAN.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. II THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD
LONDON, S.E.
1874.
Price Threepence.
�London:
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, 16 LITTLE PDLTENEY STREET,
HAYMARKET, W-
�ANCIENT SACRIFICE.
O our modern intellects all killing of brute or
man, for the pleasure of the most High, seems so
absurd, that perhaps we wonder how such a notion
arose. Nor is the topic very simple. To compose
the idea of Sacrifice, or Sacred Act, or Act'of Faith
(Auto da Fe), streams have flowed together from
many sources.
A first primitive notion is this : that if for human
food we take the life of some tame animal, which is
in our power and under our protection, it befits to
ask permission from the Author of life. He gave
that precious gift alike to sheep and oxen, as to man ;
therefore we must not slay lightly and causelessly,
but only when we can ask bis blessing on the deed.
In the case of wild animals, the hurry and tumult of
hunting did not permit formalities of slaughter. All
that could then be done beforehand, was to offer some
preliminary prayer, that should sanctify the hunting.
But from the primary recognition of God as Lord
and centre of life, other things followed. In some
nations, the blood, as seat of life, was accounted
sacred. It then might not be used for food, but was
poured out religiously. Mystery being thus added
to the blood, a wild and base fancy was liable to
arise, that God, or some God, had pleasure in the
blood. Again, the man who had skill in slaughtering
easily added the religious character to his art, and
nothing was more natural than to remunerate his
services of butchery and prayer by a portion of the
slain beast. Hereby the original Popa (or cook?')
became identified with the Sacerdos; and expected
T
�4
Ancient Sacrifice.
to feed his household by perquisites from the altar.
Thus slaughter became a sacred act, performed by a
priest when possible. It next became the interest of
priesthood to urge sacrifice as a religious duty, that
is, the sacrifice of such animals as were approved for
human food. Moreover, vulgar fantasy conspired to
give currency to the belief, that the god himself
partook in the sacrifice, especially by its smell. On
this the Greek poets are often explicit, and in Genesis
we read, “ Jehovah smelled a sweet savour,” as
denoting his acceptance of Noah’s sacrifice (viii. 21.)
Human sacrifice undoubtedly had one of its sources
in the fantastic picture of a future world, where the
departed soul would need various human aids. In
the grave of a chieftain were buried not only his
armour and his weapons of war, but perhaps his war
horse too, slain to accompany him in the other world.
This we know to have been a modern practice among
North American Indians. But a great Scythian or
Tartar emperor required nobler victims. In the world
of spirits he must have, not a single war-horse, but a
body-guard of mounted youths: these must be slain
for his service; nay, according to Herodotus, to
accompany a king of the Scythians (the Scolotai in
Southern Russia) they ordinarily strangled one of his
concubines, his cup-bearer, his cook, his groom, his
page, his errand-bearer (or adjutant?), and a stud of
horses. We cannot doubt that the same fundamental
ideas suggested the slaughters in Dahomey, on the
death of a king. Cruel as we must deem these acts,
they were not malignant, and did not imply peculiar
atrocity in the agents. No life was regarded as of
any value, if the convenience of the king required its
sacrifice. As, at his command, a dutiful subject
rushed into certain death against a formidable enemy,
bo to accompany a king in the other world was an
ordinary duty of loyalty: nor had any one a conscience
against killing innocent brethren for this purpose.
�Ancient Sacrifice.
S
Perhaps, if we could know it, the slain were consi
dered blessed, and even thought themselves so.
Those killed religiously in Thibet by the arrows of
the boy called Buth, were accounted holy and
peculiarly fortunate, according to the testimony of
the Jesuit missionaries of 1661. Not very unlike is
the moral complexion of a practice among the ancient
Get®, or Goths of the Danube. A belief in immor
tality did but make human life cheaper to them.
Every fifth year they sent a messenger to their deity,
Zalmolxis, to inform him of their needs, and the
mode of dispatch was as follows:—He was tossed
into the air, and received on the points of three
spears. If he died forthwith, the god was accounted
propitious; but if the victim or messenger continued
alive, he was reviled as wicked, and another was sent
in his place. These accounts show how easily,
among men accustomed to slaughter in battle,
poetical fantasy may lead straight to human sacrifice.
The phenomena known to us concerning the Greeks
are rather peculiar. In their historical era, they
utterly repudiated human sacrifice, yet they unani
mously supposed it to have been practised by their
ancestral heroes on various occasions; and their
poets abound in moralisings about Agamemnon
slaying his daughter—the most signal case, but not
at all solitary. Yet the earliest poets show total
unacquaintance with such tales, which (with abund
ance of other sensational horrors) are mere after
invention, suggested probably by the practices of
other nations. Some of their neighbours had wild
fantasies of their own, as in the drowning of horses
to a river god. One may conjecture that, as in the
passage of an army both horses and men were apt
to be drowned, it was imagined that by a voluntary
sacrifice of &few horses to the honour of the god, his
jealousy would be satisfied, and a favourable passage
secured.
�6
Ancient Sacrifice.
This opens a new topic. Greeks and Hebrews
alike attributed to Superior Powers a certain jealousy
of anything pre-eminent in man or in terrestrial
things. Thus Polycrates, according to Herodotus,
being too prosperous, attempted (but in vain) to pro
pitiate divine jealousy by voluntary sacrifices. But
among the Greeks, this never reached to the point of
human victims.
The solemn religious sacrifice of select prisoners
of war was apparently normal to the Mexican races,
and may have been practised by some nations of the
Old World. It is imputed to the Carthaginians ; but
many circumstances lessen the credit of the charge.
Nevertheless, it is easy to see, liow in the interests of
humanity any priest or general might devise the
scheme of a formal sacrifice, in order to stop indis
criminate massacre of prisoners. Perhaps not enough
is known of the facts, to justify any definite theory.
That human sacrifice occasionally arose out of vows,
is more certain. The vow of a sacred spring (yer
sacrum), as recorded in Livy (xxii. 10), was limited
to the births among pigs, sheep, goats, and oxen, all
of which were ceded to the god under certain con
ditions : but it is too evident in Leviticus xxvii. 28,
29, that the Hebrew vow might legitimately include
human children or slaves; in which case the law (as
we now read it) expressly forbids the redemption of
a human being, but commands that he be put to
death, if he have been devoted to Jehovah. The
only practical illustration of this which we find in
the history is the case of Jephthah’s daughter; which
suffices to show that this was really the currently
received law of early Israel, however rare in practice
so extreme and rash a vow. But (what is here to be
observed) not the remotest idea appears, in any of the
cases of sacrifices hitherto adduced, of its being an
expiation or atonement for sin. No doubt, whatever
happened, was readily interpreted as eutailing some
�Ancient Sacrifice.
7
“ gift to the altar,” which was generally a gift to the
priest’s table. Thus the birth of a child in a Hebrew
family required the offering of a lamb, or at least two
young pigeons; not as atoning for any moral sin, but
(according to the notion of the early Hebrews) as
removing ceremonial uncleanness. The offering is
in itself analogous to a baptismal fee paid by a
Christian parent to the clergyman. So among the
Greeks there was sacrifice preliminary to marriage—
TrpnreXeta.
The same remark applies to the other Hebrew
sacrifices, which are spoken of as expiatory. They
never are supposed to remove moral sin, crime, or its
punishment. A thief was ordered to restore the
double ; but his offence having nothing of ceremonial
pollution, no ceremonial expiation was imagined.
Nor was it dissimiliar among the Romans. If any
thing iZZ-omenecZ occurred, such as a monstrous birth,
or a shower of stones, or a cow walking upstairs,
or a Vestal virgin being unchaste, the consul might
be ordered to “ allay the omens ” by a propitiatory
sacrifice; but only external mischief or ceremonial
indecorum was contemplated as thus removable.
The great day of Atonement among the Hebrews
was expiatory of accidental ceremonial neglects alone
(dyrovjuara, Heb. ix. 7). I believe that there is no
standing ground at all for an argument which should
impute to Hebrews, Greeks, or Romans—the ancient
nations best known to us—that any slaying of victims
could atone for conscious wilful sin or crime. When
ever misfortune came, they were liable to be tor
mented by the fear that they had unawares neglected
some honour to a god or goddess, some ceremonial
duty; as Meleager after the Calydonian boarhunt did
homage to other gods, but forgot Artemis: and whereever there was a complex ceremonial law, such forget
fulness might always be suspected. Hence there was
no end of such propitiations ; but in Greece and
�8
Ancient Sacrifice.
Rome they died out with superstitious fears. Temples
received endowments, and priests became too respect
able to propagate any self-invented follies for the sake
of increasing the sacrifices. Besides, contributions
to the treasury of temples had also become an esta
blished form of piety.
One other ground of sacrifice has to be named—
that which accompanied the making of a covenant.
The sacrifice was supposed to add force and security
to the promise or oath. How this should be, is
perhaps most clearly explained by the ancient Roman
practice recorded by Polybius (iii. 35), of swearing
“per Jovenn Lapidem,” as the vulgar called it. He who
was to swear, took a stone in his hand, and said : “ If
I intend or practise anything against this engage
ment, I pray that while all other men remain safe in
their own countries, under their own laws, with their
own modes of life, their temples, and their sepulchres,
I alone may be tossed out, as this stone is now.”
With these words he flings the stone out of his hand.
In the third book of the Iliad, when a treaty is to be
made, a sacrifice and libation of wine is essential.
Agamemnon slays the lambs, and the chieftains pour
wine on the earth. The people around pray,—
“Whoever shall first transgress the treaty, as this
wine is spilt on the ground, so may his brains be
spilt! ” We can hardly doubt that the same was
the meaning of the sacrifice: “ As these murdered
lambs fall helpless, so may he who breaks the treaty
be murdered.” In the Hebrew Pentateuch, Moses is
represented (Exod. xxiv. 8) as sprinkling the people
with “ the blood of the covenant.” But it can hardly
be too often repeated, that neither here or in the
sprinkling of the door-posts with blood of the Paschal
Lamb, does the remotest idea show itself of atone
ment for sin.
The modern Jews, I believe, unanimously uphold
that interpretation of their law, which alone is sug
�Ancient Sacrifice.
9
gested by intelligent criticism : moreover, the learned
and eloquent writer of the Christian “ Epistle to the
Hebrews ” appears fully to admit all that is said
above. He is indeed guilty of one great confusion,
occasioned by the ambiguous sense of the Greek
word biadf)KTi, which, primarily meaning a disposi
tion of affairs, is used either for any special arrange
ment, i.e., covenant, or for a man’s Last Will and
Testament, which is to take effect after his death.
It is undeniable that in Heb. ix. 16, 17, 20, the
writer has argued illogically by confounding Covenant
and Testament—and has bequeathed to Christendom
the absurd phrases, Old and New Testament. But he
is consistent in his declaration that the legal cere
monies, whether gifts or sacrifices, did not touch
“ the conscience ” (ix. 9) of the worshipper, and
could only, “ purify the flesh ” (ix. 13) ; and that it
is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take
away sins (x. 4, 11) ; nor does it anywhere appear
that he mistook the slaughter of the Paschal Lamb
for a sin-atonement, as perhaps we must admit that
Paul does, on comparing 1 Cor. x. 16,18, with 1 Cor.
v. 7. It is therefore the more astonishing that the
writer to the Hebrews or any of his Christian con
temporaries learned in the Hebrew law could have
dreamed of finding there a weight of analogy for the
wild idea, that the violent death of a righteous being
by the hands of wicked men can be construed as a
sacrifice pleasing to God, which purifies the conscience
of believers. Had he argued as follows: “ If the
blood of bulls, offered by a priest in the performance
of his duty, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh,
how much more shall the blood of a hol/y prophet,
wickedly shed, purify your consciences from a sense of
sin,” his words would not have been plausible. The
argument is visibly monstrous. But by throwing
into the back ground the fact that the murder of
Jesus was an odious crime, and of course, in every
�IO
Ancient Sacrifice,
Christian estimate, horrible to God, and converting
it into a voluntary offering of himself, he seeks to
glorify the event. “ Christ (says he) through the
Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God ”
(ix. 14) : and again, 25, 26, “ Nor yet that he should
offer himself often, . . . but once, ... to put away
sin by the sacrifice of himself.” It is notable how
such a writer becomes a victim to other men’s
blunders, error attracting error. Thus he quotes
from the Greek Septuagint, “ a body hast thou pre
pared me,” as the translation of Psalm xl. 6 of our
Version, which, on the contrary, agrees with the
Hebrew, “ mine ears hast thou pierced.” Out of this
spurious word “ body ” (x. 5, 10) he actually makes
an argument which reverses the obvious sense of the
Psalm. The Psalmist insists, “ God does not want
sacrifice, but scorns it: he wants obedience” but this
writer makes out that the Psalmist means, “ God does
not want the sacrifice of bulls and goats, but the
sacrifice of a spotless prophet.” The Psalm says
nothing about bulls and goats, but about sacrifice
and sin-offering absolutely. Now let us concede that
we have a right to forget the part which wicked men
took in the death of Jesus, and to treat it as his own
voluntary act; imagine for a moment that it had been
strictly so—(which ought to make this argument better,
as well as clearer)—and what will be the position of
things ? Jesus will be made out to have slain him
self “for the sins of many,” in order to “sanctify”
his disciples, and “ purify them from an evil con
science” by his “ one sacrifice for sins ” (Heb. x. 12,
14, 22). Would not every Christian shudder at
having such a historical fact put before him, as a
mode of salvation ? One is apt to seem slanderous
and blasphemous, in naming the possibility as a
hypothesis ; yet I repeat, it ought to make the argu
ment of the writer to the Hebrews a fortiori valid,
if there is any validity in what he has written. It does
�Ancient Sacrifice,
ii
appear most marvellous, that in protesting against the
Hebrew ceremonies as carnal and weak, because they
dealt only with impurities of the flesh, the Christian
teachers should have (for the first time perhaps in
the world’s history) propounded so very carnal and
revolting an idea, that the blood of a holy prophet
(whether shed violently or voluntarily) can justly
remove from our consciences a sense of sin and
sanctify us to God. We need not press the extreme
weakness of mind which could dwell upon his “ suffer
ing without the gate ” (Heb. xiii. 12). Nothing but
artificial inculcation of this doctrine (“ the blood of
Jesus ”) can sustain it among us. Every intelligent
English child is shocked when he first hears of
“ hoping pardon through his blood,” and wonders
how “ blood ” is concerned in the matter. The doc
trine, in fact, is lower by far in carnality than any
thing in the Jewish ceremonial; lower, perhaps, than
anything that we have a right to impute to Greeks
or Romans. Animal sacrifice is discarded, to esta
blish a Human sacrifice as cardinal to divine religion !
It is a sufficiently mean idea, that the gods love
the steam and smell of animal slaughter; but it is
still more shocking to imagine that the bloodshed of
a holy person is in any sense “ a sacrifice for sin,”
“ a propitiation ” (or mercy seat ? Rom. iii. 25), “ an
offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling
savour ” (Eph. v. 1), and that by a belief in it, or
by a trust and reliance upon it, we become delivered
from an evil conscience, that is, from a sense of God’s
displeasure for our sins. Are we really to believe,
that the most High was pleased by the crucifixion of
Jesus ? If it be said, “ No, he reprobated the deed,
but he was pleased that Jesus so meekly submitted to
an inevitable fate,” this is mere evasion; for, all com
parison of it to a legitimate sacrifice then vanishes.
If not death, but mere torture had been inflicted,
the “ meek submission ” remains as praiseworthy as
�12
Ancient Sacrifice.
before ; but, except as an example of conduct, nothing
here (be it death, or be it torture,) has any relation
to our consciences, or has the least tendency to
deliver us from a sense of guilt, if the remembrance
of past sins trouble us.
Unitarian Christians are in general unwilling to
admit that the “ atoning blood of Christ ” is taught
in the New Testament. It is not taught exactly as
Archbishop Anselm is said first to have defined it, as
“ compensation ” paid to God for remitting the punish
ment of man ; but that Paul, John the apostle in the
Revelations, the writer to the Hebrews, and the First
Epistle of Peter, inculcate purification by the sacrifice
of Christ, it seems useless to deny. That the Epistle
of James is wholly silent on this and other matters,
is true : and I think, it instructively shows, how
rapidly. James was isolated in holding fast to the
original doctrine of the Jerusalem Church. When
that Church perished corporately with Jerusalem in
the war of Titus, no authoritative protest remained
among Jewish Christians against the notions which
prevailed with the Gentile churches.
It is a remarkable fact, that in the modern Evan
gelical Creed this most untenable and most unspiritual
doctrine of Human Sacrifice is made paramount.
The Divinity of Christ is chiefly valued, because
without it “ the Atonement ” cannot be sustained.
But nothing can sustain “ the Atonement.” It must
be thrown over, equally with Eternal Punishment
and Vicarious Sin, to make Christian doctrines even
plausible to deliberate and impartial thought.
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Ancient Sacrifices
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Ancient sacrifice
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Newman, Francis William [1805-1897]
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Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 4. Publisher's list on numbered pages at the end.
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Thomas Scott
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1874
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Religious practice
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Morris Tracts
Sacrifices
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-4-^ Earn&sh Sowing of Wild Oats*
67
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
AN EARNEST SOWING OF WILD OATS.
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
It is forty-five years since Frances
Wright and I established in the city of
New York a weekly paper of eight large
quarto pages, called The Free Enquirer.
This paper was continued for four years;
namely, throughout 1829, 1830, 1831,
and 1832. It was conducted, during a
portion of that time, with Miss Wright’s
editorial aid, and also with other assist
ance; but it was chiefly managed and
edited by myself.1
Looking back through nearly half a
century on these stirring times, I seem
to be reviewing, not my own doings, but
those of some enthusiastic young propa
gandist in whom I still take an interest,
and whom I think I am able to see pretty
much as he was in those early days of
hope and anticipation; upright but hare
brained, with a much larger stock of
boldness and force than of ballast and
prudence, but withal neither mean nor
arrogant nor selfish. I had failings and
short-comings enough, very certainly, —
among them lack of due meekness and
of a wholesome sense of my own inex
perience and ignorance and liability to
error, — but the time never has been
when I paltered with conscience, or
withheld the expression of whatever I
felt to be true or believed important to
be said, from fear of man or dread of
forfeiting popular favor. I have some
times doubted since whether this zeal
with insufficient knowledge resulted in
much practical good; yet perhaps Her
bert Spencer’s view of cases like mine is
the true one, when he says: —
‘ ‘ On the part of men eager to rectify
* During the first year Frances Wright and I
edited the paper, aided, chiefly in the business de
partment, by Robert L. Jennings, whom I have al
ready mentioned as one of the Nashoba trustees;
then we severed connection with him. In the au
tumn of 1829 Miss Wright left for six months, re
turning in May, 1830; to remain, however, only two
■months, then crossing to Europe and not returning
Until after our paper was discontinued. From July,
1830, to J uly, 1831, I conducted the Free Enquirer
'entirely alone, aided only by occasional communica
tions from Miss Wright; then I engaged the services
of Amos Gilbert, a member of the society of Friends
(Hicksite), one of the most painstaking, upright, and
liberal men I ever knew, but a somewhat heavy
writer, who remained until the paper closed, man
aging it as sole resident editor for the last five
months, when I was in Europe ; but I left him a
dozen editorials, and sent him a regular weekly arti
cle throughout that time.
Orestes A. Brownson, well known since, especially
in the Catholic world, then living at Auburn, New
York (where he had been editing a Universalist
paper), was agent and corresponding editor of our
paper for six months (from November, 1829, to May,
1830), but he sent us only two or three articles. In
one of these he thus defines his creed: " I am no
longer to appear as the advocate of any sect nor of
any religious faith. . . . Bidding adieu to the re
gions where the religionist must ramble, casting
aside the speculations with which he must amuse
himself, I wish to be simply an observer of nature
for my creed, and a benefactor of my brethren foi;
my religion.” — Free Enquirer, vol. ii. p. 38.
In taking temporary leave, last November, of my Atlantic readers, I told
them that, at the age of twenty-seven,
I engaged in a somewhat Quixotic en
terprise, adding: “I saw what seemed
to me grievous errors and abuses, and
mast needs intermeddle, hoping to set
things right. Up to what point I suc
ceeded, and how far, for lack of experi
ence^ I failed, or fell short of my views,
some of those who have followed me
thus far may wish to know.”
It was in one sense, though not in the
popular one, a “ sowing of wild oats; ”
for many of the thoughts and schemes
Which in those days I deemed it a duty
to scatter broadcast were crude and
immature enough. Yet the records of
such errors and efforts — if the errors
be honest and the efforts well-meant —
serve a useful purpose. It is so much
easier to intend good than to do it!
Young and rash reformers need to be
reminded that age and sober thought
must bring chastening influence, before
we make the discovery how little we
know, and how much we have still to
learn.
�68
An Earnest Sowing of Wild Oats.
[July,
wrongs and expel errors, there is still, in which we proposed to conduct it may
as there ever has been, so absorbing a be traced through a few brief extracts
consciousness of the evils caused by old from its prospectus. After premising
forms and old ideas, as to permit no that we had not found, even in this land
consciousness of the benefits these old of freedom, “ a single periodical de-,
forms and old ideas have yielded. This voted — without fear, without; reserves,
partiality of view is, in a sense, neces without pledge to men, parties, sects, or
sary. There must be division of labor systems — to free, unbiased, and univer-1
here as elsewhere: some who have the sal inquiry,” we added: —
“We shall be governed in our choice
function of attacking, and who, that
they may attack effectually, must feel of subjects by their importance, and
strongly the viciousness of that which guided in our estimation of their impor
they attack; some who have the function tance by the influence each shall appear
of defending, and who, that they may to exert on the welfare of mankind.
be good defenders, must over-value the We will discuss all opinions with a ref
erence to human practice, and all prac
things they defend.”1
Some of the leading opinions which tice with a reference to human happi
I put forth in our paper were with ness. Religion, morality, human econ
out foundation. I made assertions, for omy, — those master-principles which
example, touching man’s inability to determine the color of our lives, — shall
obtain knowledge in spiritual matters obtain a prominent place in our columns.
which I now know to be erroneous. Yet ... We exact from our correspondents
perhaps the frank expression even of what we promise for ourselves, courtesy
such errors was not without its use; it and moderation. While there is no
has taught me charity to those who opinion so sacred that we shall approach
make similar mistakes; and I have its discussion with apprehension, there
since taken pains to correct these false is none so extravagant that we shall
conceptions in as public a manner as I -treat its expression with contempt. . . f
expressed them. Then again, there is To the believer as to the heretic we say:
wisdom in what a thoughtful clergyman ‘ He who will tolerate others shall him*
of the Anglican church (holding to the self be tolerated; exclusive pretension,
Oxford Essayist school, however) has only shall be, with us, cause of exclu
sion.’ ”
well said: —
Of ourselves we said:,, “We neither
“It is necessary that absurd and
harmful ideas should be expressed, in dread public censure, nor court public
order that they may be seen to be what applause. We need not popular favor
they are, and that time and conflict may to put bread into our mouths, and w®
destroy them. Hidden, repressed, they care not to put money into our pockets.
exist as an inward disease: freely ex We search truth alone and for itself .
pressed, they are seen and burnt away. We think meanly of man’s present con
. . . Whether any new phase of na dition, and nobly of his capabilities.
tional thought be good or evil, the very Are we wrong ? we want others to proves
fact of its being new will be a good in us so. Are we right? it shall be our
the end; for it will disturb the waters endeavor to convince them of error. . . .
and provoke conflict: if evil, it will We trust that many are wiser and we
throw the opposite idea, which is good, know that many are more gifted than
into sharper outline; and if good, it ourselves; but we have yet to see —
will make its converts and subvert some would that we could see! — those who
existing evil. The only unmixt evil is are as earnest in the work and as fear
less in its execution. ’ ’
to silence it by intolerance. ’ ’ 2
Somewhat boastful, certainly! Not
The scope of our paper and the spirit
at all what I should write to-day! But
1 Study of Sooiology ; concluding chapter.
so it is, in this world. Experience and
2 Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, Freedom in the
Church of England : London, 1871; pp. 5, 6.
enthusiasm are much like the two buck
�1874.]
An Earnest Sowing of Wild Oats.
ets of a well; as the one rises the other
sinks, and they are found only for a
moment together. While the heart is
fresh and the spirits untiring, they lack
prudence for a guide; and when at last
prudence comes to our aid, she too often
finds the heart cold and the spirits slug
gish. Ah, if to the free and buoyant
ardor of youth we could but unite the
deliberate sagacity of age! In the life
to come, perhaps—if, there, old and
young are meaningless terms — some
such dream may be realized.
As regards theology, which during
the first two.years Was our chief topic,
my views touching a First Cause were
substantially identical with those re
cently put forth, in succinct and lucid
terms, by Herbert Spencer. Our con
sciousness, he tells us, which is our sole
guide to any knowledge of mind, does
not enable us to conceive the character
or attributes of an “ originating mind.”
This, he says, is not materialism. It is
not “ an assertion that the world con
tains no mode of existence higher in
nature than that which is present to us
in consciousness.” It is simply “ a
confession of incompetence to grasp in
thought the cause of all things.” It is a
“belief that the ultimate poweris.no
more representable in terms of human
consciousness than human consciousness
is representable in terms of a plant’s
functions.” 1
Such an avowal of inability to com
prehend a first cause called forth, in
those days, a' storm of abuse quite be
yond any with which Spencer and his
co-believers are visited now. Press and
pulpit assailed us as atheists. The mail
brought us daily missives of wrath.
Some of these I consigned to the waste
basket; a few I answered. One of the
last — a fair sample of the rest — in
closed a tract which depicted the horrors
of an unbeliever’s death-bed, and an
anonymous letter in which the writer
said: “ If you feel inclined to make any
remarks in your infidel paper, you are
at liberty to do so; but remember, there
will be a day when you will regret that
1 Herbert Spencer on Evolution, in Popular
Science Monthly for July, 1872.
69
you ever turned a deaf ear to those
warnings that are contained in that
blessed book, the Bible.” I inserted
his letter, and, after stating that I had
most earnestly sought religious truth,
replied: —
If such a day indeed arrive, when I
shall stand before the judgment-seat of
a great immaterial Spirit, to answer for
the deeds done in the body, then and
there will I defend my honest skepticism.
Then — when the secrets of all hearts
shall be known; there — before that Be
ing who will see and approve sincerity,
will I say, as I say now, that for my
heresies I am blameless. e If my corre
spondent be there to accuse me, how
shall he make out his case ? Let us im
agine the scene: —
Accuser. — During thy mortal life,
thou didst turn a deaf ear to holy ex
hortations.
Mortal. — Nay, I heard them, but be
lieved them not.
Accuser.— Thou hast not known on
earth the great Judge before whom thou
now standest in heaven.
Mortal. — True. There I knew him
not, for he concealed his being from me.
Here I know him, for he reveals to me
his existence.
Accuser. ~~ I warned thee of his ex
istence.
Mortal. — But I did not believe the
warning.
Accuser. —Dost thou confess thy sin?
Mortal. — I have no sin to confess in
this; but I confess my human ignorance.
Accuser. — Thy ignorance was sinful.
Mortal. — To thee! hitherto unknown
Spirit, I appeal. I knew thee not on
earth, for thou hiddest thy existence
from me. I thought not of thee, nor of
this day of judgment; I thought only of
the earth and of my fellow-mortals. The
time which others employed in imagining
thy attributes, I spent in seeking to im
prove the talents thou hadst given me,
in striving to add to the happiness of the
companions thou hadst placed around
me, and in endeavors to improve the
abode in which thou hadst caused me
to dwell. I spoke of that which I knew.
�70
An Earnest Sowing of Wild Oats.
I never spoke of thee, because I knew
thee not. To thee I appeal from this
my accusers
Judge. — Thou hast well spoken. I
placed thee on earth, not to dream of
my being, but to improve thine own. I
made thee a man that thou mightest give
and receive happiness among thy fel
lows, not that thou shouldst imagine the
ways and the wishes of gods. Even as
thou condemnedst not the worm that
crawled at thy feet, so neither do I con
demn thy worldly ignorance of me.1
*
An illustration more forcible than
well-judged; yet it will be conceded
that it involves the assertion of a sacred
privilege long and strangely denied to
man — his right freely to express sin
cere convictions, especially in religious
matters. That my creed was simply a
confession of ignorance was due to the
fact that, at that time, I had found no
evidence which seemed to me trust
worthy, of the spiritual or its phe
nomena.
My present opinions as to the evi
dence for a supreme intelligence, in
some way personal, whose directing will
is the equivalent of cosmical law, are at
variance with Herbert Spencer’s, and
may be thus stated: I admit, to modern
science, that force, aggregating atoms
and acting on and through them, is the
immediate cause of all the material ob
jects that are presented to the senses.
But if we go back of force, seeking its
motive-power, can our consciousness sup
ply no aid in the search ? It informs us
that, as regards that class of appear
ances which we call the handiwork of
man, the originating cause is, in a cer
tain sense, our human will. Beyond
this we cannot go; for the materialist
has utterly failed to prove that the will
is the result of molecular changes in the
brain. Whatever the cerebral mech
anism may be, it is the spiritual princi
ple within us which wills, and which,
availing itself of that mechanism and
acting in accordance with cosmical law,
produces the thousand results of human
skill and of human mind.
i Free Enquirer, vol. i. p. 326.
We speak familiarly, in these days, of
motion, when it is arrested, being con
vertible into heat. May not will, when
it is excited, be converted into force?
or may not will be the original form of
force? The spiritual part of man is the
man — is, and will be, in another and a
better phase of life than this; all else is
only earthly induing. Is it not a rea
sonable belief that the entire phenome
nal world, as manifest to sense, is but an
outer investment — the epiphany of a
deeper reality, and traceable to a spirit
ual force?
Certain it is that we reach, as ulti
mate, so far as our consciousness goes,
human will-power; in other words, we
detect what, within the range of its
influence, may be termed originating
mind. Within the petty range of its
influence only, it is true, and subject,
be it remembered, to forces which exist
and operate independently of man. As
to the myriads of phenomena that occur
outside of human agency, or of similar
limited influence, are we not justified, by
strictest rule of analogy, in concluding
that they, too, are due to will-force?
And does not our consciousness thus
enable us to conceive the overruling
will-force of an originating mind, in
finitely higher, wiser, more potent than
ours ?
I may here add that, in some of the
recent developments of science, con
nected with the doctrine of evolution,
and thought by many to be of atheistic
tendency, I find, on the Contrary, pro
vided they are interpreted with en
lightened limitations, proofs confirma
tory of the views which I have here
given touching a supreme intelligence
controlling and directing the universe.
The great principle of natural selec
tion, which in the main explains so
strictly the mode of gradual progress in
the vegetable and animal kingdoms,
seems to me only partially applicable,
as an element of advancement, to man.
The origin of man’s highest mental fac
ulties cannot be logically traced to the
preservation of useful variations. Some
other principle intervenes. The degree
of the human intellect, at any given time,
�18M]
An Earnest Sowing of Wild Oats.
is not so much the result of past selec
tion as the earnest of needs to be satis
fied only in ages to come. The oldest
Jiuman skulls yet found (some of them
equal in size to the average of modern
skulls and all quite disproportioned, in
capacity of brain, to the requirements
of their savage owners) were evident
ly. constituted with prophetic reference
to the distant future. So the human
hands and voice, organs eminently deli
cate and sensitive, were, in the rudest
ages, capable of being trained for ele
vated uses and refined enjoyment which
for tens or hundreds of centuries were
not to be attained.
But if, as from these and similar facts
it appears, savage man’s endowments
(being of proleptic character and look
ing to far-off triumphs in intellectual and
spiritual fields) have been due to some
cause other than natural selection,1 does
not our human consciousness lead us to
conceive that cause as a supreme being,
forecasting the future, foreseeing what
the needs of our race will be when
.generation after generation shall have
passed away, and expressly preparing
man for a high destiny to come —- pre
paring him even in the dim beginnings
of his existence on earth, when the in
stincts of the brute almost sufficed to
provide for his rude wants and to satis
fy his vague longings ? I think we may
rationally rest in such a belief.
71
The opinions which I held in those
days touching a future state are con
densed in this extract:2 “From all
assertions, affirmative or negative, re
garding other worlds than this, I ab
stain. They exist, pr they exist not,
independently of our conceptions of
them. Our belief cannot create, our
unbelief cannot destroy them. Here
after we shall enjoy, or we shall not
enjoy them, whether we have antici
pated such enjoyment, or whether we
have had no such anticipation.”
Mistaking that of which I knew noth
ing for the unknowable, I was, in com
mon with my co-editors, what is now
called a Secularist, and having adopted
from Pope and Southwood Smith 3 the
maxim that “ Whatever is, is right,” I
sought to persuade myself that our hori
zon was wisely bounded by the world we
live in; and that our earthly duties are
better performed because of such a re
striction. I have since had occasion to
express my conviction that evidence,
manifest to the senses, which assures
man of a life to come, is one of the most
cogent among civilizing influences; and
that the human race will never attain
that wisdom and virtue of which its nat
ure is capable, until the masses shall
have reached, not a vague belief, but
a living, ever-present assurance, that
character and conduct in this world de
termine our state of being in the next.
But at that time, in the absence of
such evidence, I not only rejected, as I
hope all men will, some day, reject the
doctrine of plenary inspiration, but I
lacked faith also in any inspiration other
than that of geniusj quite ignoring what
Swedenborg calls influx from the spirit
ual world. My present views on that
subject are given in a recent work: —
st It would be out of place here to follow up in de
tail the argument that primeval man, supplied with
attributes beyond his early needs, could not have
obtained these merely by the persistent survival of
those individuals of his race who were the fittest to
protect and support themselves in ages of barbarism.
For full details on this subject, I refer the reader to
a recent work by a distinguished English scientist,
Alfred Wallace ; the first who put forth, in outline,
the principle of natural selection, and one who has
made special study of that subject. In his Contribu
tions to the Theory of Natural Selection (London,
1870) there is a chapter on The Limits of Natural
Selection as applied to Man (pp. 232-271), which mer
its careful perusal. On that subject his deductions
are, in the main, similar to mine. From the class of
phenomena which he describes, his inference is (p.
359), " that a superior intelligence has guided the
development of man in a definite direction and for a
special purpose, just as man guides the development
of many animal and vegetable forms.”. He does not
regard the human will as " but one link in the chain
of events,” and concludes: " If we have traced one
force, however minute, to an origin in our own will,
while we have no knowledge of any other primary
cause of force, it does not seem an improbable con
clusion that all force may be will-force; and thus
that the whole universe is not merely dependent on,
but actually is, the will of higher intelligences, or
of one supreme intelligence ” (p. 368).
2 From a manuscript lecture now before me,
which I delivered, on various occasions, in the years
1831 and 1832.
8 In his Divine Government, a volume in which
the author advocates earnestly, and (so far as I re
member) logically, the principle of optimism.
�72
An Earnest Sowing of T7z7cZ Oats.
“ Inspiration is a mental or physical
phenomenon, strictly law-governed; oc
casional, but not exceptional or exclu
sive ; sometimes of a spiritual and ultra
mundane character, but never mirac
ulous ; often imparting to us invaluable
knowledge, but never infallible teach
ings; one of the most precious of all
God’s gifts to man, but in no case in
volving a direct message from him — a
message to be accepted, unquestioned
by reason or conscience, as divine truth
unmixed with human error. . . . In
spiration, in phase more or less pure, is
the source of all religions that have held
persistent sway over any considerable
portion of mankind. And just in pro
portion to the relative purity of that
source, welling up in each system of
faith respectively, is the larger or small
er admixture of the Good and the True
which, modern candor is learning to
admit, is to be found in certain meas
ure even in the rudest creed.” 1
But while in those days neither Fran
ces Wright nor I regarded Christ as an
Inspired Teacher, both of us expressed
in strong terms our respect for his ex
alted character. She wrote thus : “The
real history of Jesus, if known, will
probably be found to be that of every
reformer whose views and virtues are
ahead of his generation. By his igno
rant friends his superior natural pow
ers were mistaken for inspiration, and
by his ignorant enemies for witchcraft.
. . . Jesus appears to have been far
too wise and too gentle to have con
ceived the scheme now attached to his
name.” 2
This called forth, from a correspond
ent, one or two articles in opposition,
speaking of Jesus as possibly a myth;
at all events as “ a miracle-monger, a
magician,” and as “wanting in filial
affection and respect,” etc. To these
I replied after this wise: “I think of
Jesus as one of the wise and good . . .
who pleaded the poor man’s cause and
was called the friend of publicans and
sinners; who spoke against hypocritical
forms and idle ceremonies, and was de1 The Debatable Land between this World and
the Next: New York, 1872 ; pp. 242, 243.
[July,
nounced as a Sabbath-breaker setting at
naught the law; who exposed the self
ishness of the rich and the powerful^
and thus incurred their hatred; who at^
tacked the priesthood of the day and by
their machinations lost his life. This is
a picture too strictly verified by all his
tory to be refused credit, merely be
cause its outlines are awkwardly filled
up. There is, mixed with the mystery
which beclouds Jesus’ biography, too
much of gentle, tolerant, high-minded
principle to warrant the supposition that
it was all the biographers’ invention.
Ignorant men do not invent tolerant
democratic principles, nor imagine un
pretending deeds of mercy, nor paint
gentle reformers. . . . And if, speaking
in parables, Jesus kept back much that
might more distinctly have marked the
character of his heresy, let us recollect
that he spoke with his fife in his hand,
and that it is hard to blame him for
having ventured so .little, who suffered
death, probably, for having ventured so
much.” 3
Expressions of sentiment so plain as
these did not save us, however, from
bitter abuse; for instance by a cer
tain Dr. Gibbons, a Quaker preacher
with orthodox proclivities, who, quoting
against us in an abusive pamphlet the
words employed by our anti-christian
correspondent, accused us of treating
with indignity Christ and his teachings;
and also of holding that “ what is vice
in one country is virtue in another.”
To him I replied: —
“No, Dr. Gibbons. You yourself
know that we never expressed any such
doctrine. Virtue is virtue in itself, in-»(
dependently of time, of name, and of
country; honesty, for instance, and can
dor. You know, too, that the quota
tions touching Jesus given by you were
not from our pens. Not one word of
them was approved by us. You know
that; and, knowing it, you suppress our
words, impute to us our very opponents’
arguments as our own, and thereupon
(with a degree of assurance which to be
credited must be seen) you found your
2 Free Enquirer, vol. i. p. 199.
3 Free Enquirer, vol. i. p. 256, and vol. ii. p. 190.
�1874.]
An Earnest Sowing of Wild Oats.
73
assertions that we have ‘ railed against right of every man to testify in a court
Jesus Christ,’ and ‘reviled the author of justice without inquiry made as to
of Christianity.’
his religious creed. Above all, we
S‘“In no country, Dr. Gibbons, will urged the importance of a national sys
this pass for virtue. In no country will tem of education, free from sectarian
it be approved by any one whose ap teachings, with industrial schools where
proval is worth having. No end can the children of the pool’ might be taught
justify such means; no cause sanction .farming or a trade, and obtain, without
such weapons.” 1
charge, support as well as education.
Dr. Gibbons made no answer. This
This last brought upon us the imputa
is but a specimen of a hundred similar tion of favoring communism and holding
attacks, to which I replied after the agrarian views; quite unjustly, however,
same fashion; gradually fighting my for I had taken pains to say: “We
way, I think, to considerable respect. propose no equalization but that which
At all events, after the first two years, an equal system of national education
we were treated with much more con will gradually effect.” As to the prov
sideration than at the outset, by the ince of the general government as dis
press and by the pulpit of the . more tinct from that of the States, I had
liberal sects, Unitarian and Universalist, then, like most foreigners, no very ex
and more especially by the Hicksite act idea of the distinction.
Financially our enterprise was so far
Quakers.
Some of the New York dailies were a success that it ultimately paid all ex
bitter enough, refusing even our paid penses, including those of our house
advertisements; others, hitting us from hold, with a trifle over. This was due
time to time, did it good-naturedly: to very strict economy, for we had .but
among these last, M. M. Noah, then a thousand paying subscribers, at three
conducting the Inquirer. Major Noah dollars a year: in those early days,
(as he was usually called) was a man of however, deemed a fair subscription
infinite humor, and I used to enjoy his list. We leased, at four hundred and
jokes even when made at my expense. forty dollars a year, from Richard
He said of my father, commencing oper Riker, then recorder of the city, a
ations in Indiana: “ Robert Owen, the commodious mansion and grounds on
Scotch philanthropist, has been putting the banks of the East River, some half
his property at New Harmony into com mile southeast of Yorkville. There we
mon stock; he ought to be put into the lived and there our paper was hand
stocks himself for his folly.” When somely printed by three lads who had
some country editor came out against been trained in the New Harmony
him thus: “ We can’t endure Noah for printing-office. They boarded with us,
two reasons: first, we hate his politics; and we paid them a dollar a week each.2
secondly, he spells Enquirer with an We bought a small church in Broome
I”—the major replied: “Any man Street, near the Bowery, for seven thou
who would put out his neighbor’s H’s sand dollars, and converted it into what
(eyes) ought to forfeit all ee’s (ease) we (somewhat ambitiously) called ‘ ‘ The
for the rest of his life.”
Hall of Science;” adding business of
We had other heresies which brought fices in front. In this hall we had lect
us reproach, aside from those of a theo ures and debates every Sunday, and
logical character. We advocated the sometimes on week-days; admission, ten
abolition of imprisonment for debt and cents. It paid interest and expenses,
of capital punishment; equality for leaving the offices free of rent. We
women, social, pecuniary, and political; carried on also a small business in lib
equality of civil rights for all persons eral books; our sales reaching two thou
without distinction of color, and the sand dollars a year.
1 Free Enquirer, vol. ii. pp. 134, 135.
2 They got out the paper in five days of the week,
and we paid them for extra work, when they did
any.
�74
An Earnest Sowing of Wild Oats.
[July,
We lived in the most frugal manner, life f quite different from any which I
giving up tea and coffee, and using little take now in old age. Can a skeptic,
animal food; were supplied with milk with vision restricted to this world and
from a couple of good cows, and vege regarding our existence here as a final
tables from our garden. We kept two ity, not as a novitiate, ever obtain as
horses and a light city carriage; had surance (except perhaps during the
two female servants, and a stout boy heyday of a prosperous youth) that life,
who attended to the stable and garden. with its lights so often overshadowed,
I have now before me a minute account is a gift worth having at all ? 2
which I kept of our expenses.1 In
I think that Frances Wright, less
cluding paper (upwards of five hundred light-hearted than I, took a still gloom
a year), printing, expenses of house, ier view of the world as it is. Our
stable, and office, rent, etc., our total deepest feelings are wont to crop out
expenditure was but three thousand one in genuine poetry; and Miss Wright,
hundred a year when Miss Wright and though it is not generally known, was a
her sister were with us, and after they poet. I have read many of her fugitive
went, twenty-seven hundred dollars pieces in manuscript, but she was never
only. I was my own proof-reader, rode willing to have them issued in a volume.
on horseback to and from the city (ten Some of these possessed, I think, con
miles) daily, and my only assistant in siderable merit; as witness the follow
the office was an excellent young man ing lines: —
of fifteen, Augustus Matsell, to whom
TO GENIUS.
we paid two dollars a week. I was oc
cupied fully twelve hours a day; and,
i.
having a vigorous constitution, my health
Yes ! it is quenched, the spark of heavenly fire
was unimpaired.
Which Genius kindled in my infant mind:
Though it was a somewhat hard and Fled is my fancy, damped the fond desire
Of fame immortal — all my dreams resigned.
self-denying life, my recollections would
All, all are gone !
ne’er
prompt me to say that I was bright Like pilgrim wendingYet turn Inative behind,
from his
land ?
and cheerful through it all, but for a let
Shall I in other paths such beauties find
ter of mine which recently came to my As spring beneath Imagination’s hand,
As bloom on wild Enthusiasm’s visionary strand ?
hands, written to a European friend
n.
in the autumn of 1830, in which, al
luding to the death of my sister Anne, Celestial Genius ! dangerous gift of Heaven !
I wrote: —
How many a heart and mind hast thou o’er
thrown !
“ It is customary to lament the dead;
Broken the first, the last to frenzy driven,
I lament the survivors. If, indeed, the
Or jarred of both for aye the even tone !
Once, once I thought such fate would be my own,
world were what it ought to be, we
looked
an
might sorrow for those who go; for And onlyas I hadto find my early grave;
To die
lived,
powers unknown ;
from how much of enjoyment would they Content, so reason might her empire save,
be cutoff! But as it is, one must be Unseen to sink beneath oblivion’s rayless wave.
very favorably and independently situ
nr.
ated, to render it certain that death is a
with
thou
charm
loss and not a gain. I myself am thus But oh !noughtall thy pains withinhast avale below•
That
may match
this
situated, so that these reflections have E’en for the pangs thou giv’st thou hast a balm,
And renderest sweet the bitterness of woe :
no special application in my own case.
Thy breath ethereal, thy kindling glow,
From nature or education, or both, I Thy visions bright, thy raptures wild and high,
He that has felt, oh, would he e'er forego ?
derived a lightness of heart which few
No ! in thy glistening tear, thy bursting sigh.
circumstances can depress.”
Though fraught with woe, there is a thrill of ec
These are cheerless views of human
stasy.
1 Some of the items sound strangely to-day:
Flour five dollars a barrel, horse feed two dollars
a week each, butter sixteen cents a pound, and
so on.
2 John Stuart Mill, in his Autobiography, says
of his father, James Mill, who was a skeptic in re
ligion but a man of the strictest moral principle :
" He thought human life a poor thing at best, after
the freshness of youth and of unsatisfied curiosity
had gone by.” — Amer. Ed. p. 48.
�1874.]
An Earnest Sowing of Wild Oats.
TV.
And art thou flown, thou high, celestial Power ?
Forever flown ? Ah ! turn thee yet again !
Ah ! yet be with me in the lonely hour !
Yet stoop to guide my wildered fancy’s reign I
Turn thee once more, and wake thy ancient
strain !
No joys that earth can yield I love like thine ;
Nay, more than earth’s best joys I love thy pain.
And could I say I would thy smile resign ?
No; while this bosom beats, oh still, great gift, be
mine !
These verses indicate the writer’s
ambitious aspirations, her self-estimate,
and the restless and desponding moods
to which, though not habitually sad, she
was subject. In middle life, however,
Frances Wright’s ambition took the
form of zealous endeavor to aid her suf
fering fellow-creatures. When the ex
periment at Nashoba proved a failure,
and it became evident that the slaves
there, instead of working out their free
dom, were bringing the institution, year
by year, into debt, she still resolved
that the hopes with which she had in
spired them should not be disappointed.
She left New York for her Tennessee
plantation in the autumn of 1829, and
was absent six months, engaged in car
rying out her final intentions regarding
them.
I have in my possession the manifest
of the brig — appropriately enough it
was the John Quincy Adams, of Boston
— in which the little colony was con
veyed to Hayti. It shows that by that
act, thirteen adults and eighteen chil
dren, — thirty-one souls in all, —liber
ated from slavery, were transported to
a land of freedom. I have also the
letter of the President of Hayti (Boyer),
dated June 15, 1829, in which, after
eulogizing Miss Wright’s philanthropic
intentions, he offers, to all persons of
African blood whom she may bring to
the island, an assured asylum; adding
that they will be placed, as “cultiva
tors,” on land belonging to kind and
trustworthy persons, where they will
find homes, and receive what the law
in such cases guarantees to all Haytien citizens, half the proceeds of their
i " Comme cultivateurs, ils seront places sur les
habitations, dont les propridtaires, connus sous des
rapports de sagesse et de justice, leur prodigueront
tcus les soins que necessiteront leur situation, et
75
labor ;1 ■ all which he faithfully carried
out.
Miss Wright herself accompanied
these people and saw them satisfactorily
settled. The experiment thus brought
to a close cost hex* some sixteen thou
sand dollars; more than half her prop
erty.
M. Phiquepal d’Arusmont, of whom
I have already spoken as a teacher at
New Harmony, escorted Miss Wright to
Hayti; and when she returned, T learned
that they were engaged to be married.
Soon after, she left for France accom
panied by her younger sister: and there,
next year, two misfortunes happened to
her: the one her marriage, the other
her sister’s death. That lady, inferior
in talent to Frances, but unassuming,
amiable, and temperate in her views,
exercised a most salutary influence over
her. The sisters, early left orphans
and without near relatives, had spent
their lives together and were devoted to
each other. When I heard of the death
of the younger, Mrs. Hemans’s touching
fines rushed to my mind: —
" Ye were but two; and, when thy spirit passed,
Woe to the one — the last! ”
In that sister Miss Wright lost her
good angel. In her husband (gifted
with a certain enthusiasm which had its
attraction) she found, from the first, an
unwise, hasty, fanciful counselor, and
ultimately a suspicious and headstrong
man. His influence was of injurious ef
fect, alike on her character and on her
happiness; and certain claims made by
him on her property finally brought
about a separation. Whether there ever
was a legal divorce I do not know. I
saw but little of Madame d’Arusmont
after her marriage, and lost sight of
her altogether in the latter years of her
life.
The “ Fanny Wright ” of Free En
quirer days — her self-sacrificing phi
lanthropy overlooked, or reproached as
rank abolitionism — attained notoriety
not only in virtue of her theological
leur accorderont, suivant la loi qui guarantit et
protfege tous les citoyens, la moitid du produit de
leur travaux.”
�76
An Earnest Sowing of Wild Oats.
[Wy,
heresy, verging nearer to materialism
than mine, but also because of her expressed opinion that, in a wiser and
purer future, men and women would
need no laws to restrict and make con
stant their affections. I shared this
opinion, as a theory; but I think she
was not sufficiently careful explicitly to
declare, as I did: “ I have never recom
mended, and am not prepared to defend,
any sudden abolition of the marriage
law in the present depraved state of
society. That great and immediate
benefit would result from giving to mar
ried women independent rights of prop
erty, I am convinced; and I think such
a change in the old Gothic antiquated
statutes regarding baron and feme will
soon be made in this country. ’ ’ 1
We were both strongly opposed to
indissoluble marriage; favoring divorce
for cruel treatment and for hopeless un
suitability; 2 and adducing, in proof that
this merciful provision was of virtuous
tendency, the domestic morals of Cath
olic France and Spain and Italy, where
marriage was a sacrament binding for
life, which no secular law could reach.
My present opinions remain the same as
those expressed, in detail, on that sub
ject in a correspondence with Horace
Greeley (comprised in five letters each),
originally published in March and April
of 1860, in The New York Daily Trib
une; afterwards in a pamphlet which
had a very wide circulation. Greeley
undoubtedly persisted in holding to his
opinion then expressed, that marriage
was no marriage if it could be severed
by divorce; for, several years after
wards, he called on me, in his hurried
way, one morning before early break
fast, earnestly asking me if I could not
possibly supply him with a copy of that
pamphlet,, to be reprinted in the appen
dix to his Recollections of a Busy Life.
I told him I had no copy remaining, but
should do my very best to get one for
him. I did so, and it appeared as he
proposed; as much, I am quite sure, to
my satisfaction as to his.
An additional cause of the harsh fee
ing toward Miss Wright which was felt,
especially by the orthodox public, wa$
the somewhat bitter manner in which
she was wont to speak of what, like my
father, she used to call the “priest
hood.” Her public lectures, of which
she gave many throughout the country,
East and West, usually attracted large
crowds, thousands sometimes going away
unable to find even standing-room. In
one of these, she spoke of the clergy as
‘ ‘ a class of men whom no one, not ab
solutely bent on self-martyrdom, would
wish to have for enemies; but whom no
honest man ever had — ever could have
—- for friends.”
So sweeping a censure would place
me, with all my heresies, in the cate
gory of the dishonest; seeing that I
have found, throughout my life, nearly
as fair a proportion of friends in the
clerical profession as in any other call
ing.
I myself lectured, not only statedly aft
our hall on Sundays, but also in many
of the principal towns and cities of the
northern and northwestern States. I
met, during my travels, with many
amusing incidents, one of which occurs
to me.
The stage-coach was then the usual
mode of transit even on the chief routes^
and familiar conversation with chance
companions was more common there
than it is now in rail-cars. On one oc
casion I sat next to an old lady of grave
1 Free Enquirer, vol. ii. p. 200.
2 Here is a specimen of the arguments by which
then fortified my position : —
" The household sovereign little thinks, when he
issues capricious commands, exacts grievous service,
or employs tyrannical language, that George Wash
ington’s example will justify domestic disobedience.
Yet are not all women ' endowed with unalienable
rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pur
suit of happiness ’ ? Are not governments (matri
monial and national) ' instituted among men to se
cure these rights ’ ? Do not marriages as well as
governments ' derive their just powers from the con-
sent’ of the contracting parties? Whenever any
marriage (be it of a king to his subjects or a hus
band to his wife)' becomes destructive of these ends,’
is it not right that it should be dissolved ? Has
not ' all experience shown ’ that women (and sub
jects) ' are more disposed to suffer, while evils are
suflerable, than to right themselves by abolishing
the forms to which they are accustomed ? ’ And
is not the abolition of these forms often right, de
sirable, a virtuous wish ? Is not divorce, is not
revolution, a virtuous act, when kings and hus
bands play the despot ? ” — Free Enquirer, vol. iv.
p. 141.
Ji
■4
�1874.]
An Earnest Sowing of Wild Oats.
77
and anxious aspect. She expressed collection of natural curiosities and sci
great interest in the state of my soul. entific specimens. But I was suffered
Then she asked me : “ Are you going to close what. I had to say without in
terruption, except that, while I was
to our great city of Boston ? ’ ’
speaking, a stone, thrown from without,
“ Yes. ’ ’
"Great cities,” she added, " offer crashed through the casement of a win
great temptations; and there are many dow near by, and fell pretty close to
heretics in Boston. Are your religious where I stood.
Next morning I visited the museum;
opinions made up? ”
Unwilling to offend, I replied, in gen and Mr. Dorfeuil showed me, among his
eral terms, that I was a searcher after geological specimens, one a little larger
than a man’s fist, which a friend of his
truth.
‘ ‘ What church do you propose to had picked up in the court house the
evening before, and which now bore the
attend ? ”
" I shall probably visit more than quaint and pithy label: —
one.”
"But you have a preference, I sup
This Argument
pose? ”
was introduced through a window of the
Thus pressed to the wall, I confessed Cincinnati court house, in an attempt to
that I hoped to hear Dr. Channing.
put down Robert Dale Owen, while deliv
“Dr. Channing! ” she repeated, " Dr. ering there an address on Religion, March
Channing! I fear — I greatly fear, young 6, 1832.
sir, that you are one of the moral sort
In addition to lecturing and the ed
of men! ’ ’
"I hope so, madam,” I answered itorship of the' Free Enquirer, I con
quietly. " I should be sorry to believe trived, within the four years during
which that paper appeared, to do a
that I was not.”
Some of the passengers smiled, but good deal of extra work.
I wrote and published a duodecimo
my reply evidently horrified the good
dame. She lifted up her eyes, to heav volume of seventy or eighty pages, enti
en; and, probably regarding the case as tled: Moral Physiology; or, A Brief and
Plain Treatise on the Population Ques
hopeless, relapsed into silence.
My lectures were well attended, com tion. In this little work I took ground
monly listened to with deep attention; against the theory of Malthus that the
in the case of a few audiences, inter checks of vice and misery are necessary
rupted by applause. On one occasion to prevent the world from being over
only did I meet with anything like vio peopled. It had a circulation, in this
lent opposition. It was at Cincinnati, country and in England, of fifty or sixty
where the authorities had granted me thousand copies.
I also engaged in a debate touching
the use of the court house. I lectured
there twice. During the first lecture, The Existence of God and the Au
a member of an orthodox church rose, thenticity of the Bible, with the Rev.
indignantly denied some statement I Origen Bacheler. This extended to ten
had made, and called on the audience •papers each; which were published, first
to put me down. The audience re in the Free Enquirer, and afterwards
sented the interruption by loud cries of in two volumes, which had a fail’ circu
‘ ‘ Out with him! ’ ’ and I had to inter lation.
But the heaviest work I undertook
fere, to prevent his expulsion. Next
day the court house could not contain was in connection with an evening pa
half the crowd that assembled, for op per, called The New York Daily Sen-'
position was expected. I took the pre tinel, commenced in February, 1830, by
caution to obtain two moderators, Mr. a few enterprising journeymen printers,
Gazlay and Mi’. Dorfeuil, proprietor of in the interest of what was called the
a large museum containing an elaborate “ Working Men’s Party.” They were
�78
Dreams.
[July*
disappointed in an editor whom they
had engaged; and, at their request, I
agreed to supply his place for a few
weeks, till they could find another.
The few weeks stretched into months;
find finally to more than a year, during
which time I wrote for them, on the
average, upwards of a column of edito
rial matter daily. This I did partly be*
cause, after a time, I got interested in
editorial skirmishing, and partly to help
the young fellows in their undertak
ing; not charging them, nor receiving
from them, a dollar for my pains. I
concealed my name, always leaving
my articles with a friend, Mr. Samuel
Humphreys; and many were the spec
ulations as to “ who the devil it was
that was running the Workies’ paper.”
I wrote as one of the industrial classes;
and certainly had a good right so to do,
G9asidering my regular twelve hours’
daily labor.
ft was during the years 1828 ,and
1829 that I made the acquaintance of
that young English lady of whom I have
spoken, in one of my works on Spiritu
alism,1 under the name of Violet. Her
early death was a great grief to me.
But I have received a communication
(as to which the attendant circumstances
forbid me to doubt that it was truly
from her) to the effect that she has
been able to aid and guide me from her
home in the other world, more effectu
ally than if she had remained to cheer
and help me in this.
The readers of The Atlantic will be
better able to judge the cogency of evi
dence that forces on me belief in such
phenomena, when they shall have read
my next chapter.
Robert Dale Owen.
1 In The Debatable Land between this World
and the Next: New York and London, 1873; book
iv. chap, Hi., entitled, A Beautiful Spirit manifest
ing Herself.
,
•
' <
’
•-
DREAMS.
■-
'
'L*
f
j,
What do we call them ? Idle, airy things
Broken by stir or sigh,
Or else sweet slumber’s golden, gauzy wings
That into heaven can fly.
s
,
What may we call them? Miracles of might.
For such they are to us
When the grave bursts and yields us for a night
.■
Some risen Lazarus.
r
.
■
■
■;
i l'J-, ..
’■ . < /.
:• ,
■
1^ so- if .
'
\...
<
And if no trace or memory of death
Cling to the throbbing form,
And in a dream we feel the very breath
Coming so fast and warm,—
Then all is real; we know life’s waking thrill
While precious things are told,
ty, such a dream is even stranger still
' Than miracles of old.
Charlotte F. Bates.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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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>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Pamphlet
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Title
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An earnest sowing of wild oats : a chapter of autobiography
Creator
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Owen, Robert Dale [1801-1877]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 67-78 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Apparently extracted from Owen's autobiography, published in an unidentified periodical (The Atlantic), July 1874. Printed in double columns. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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[s.n.]
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1874
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N518
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Autobiography
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<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 (An earnest sowing of wild oats : a chapter of autobiography), 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>
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
NSS
Robert Owen
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/711b1f0ff2abde2597e3a6ffb997e5dc.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=sYCi5vD3jh58AAgA0DvK7fXmOyEknCcw92cr9yvjeZE1YL2ePrzsV7-cISSaRWG3pWb8IMuJhJ44M-w-Vl94fcRNmAaRYSWwEm6YObjSP9pydaVfQLqPhEBZ7iwP7OwJCE4Zou7TESL7U6E3D-W7WezYujiv-tXRgMqv9zKA9QF0%7EdcxkUfo9pjM%7EZKHQ4bOMPiwWbmdz15fDuHsN5193gMRGs9wXhSg-sK3U6mWloi-eDKH18lmlShuZLw4xnoPLZi4d6uf9%7EKg337EFXsiGpSVDYt4TJ68oQ4FNDnWMRhCRz7XAOvapDX1j545AyeTj5ePjtpVtOwmgImi8QEf5A__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
6fb0a80fe7744dd5b5cbedfba8902ca3
PDF Text
Text
“THE SPIRIT OF GOD.”
A SERMON,
PREACHED AT THE REV. CHARLES VOYSEY’S SERVICES, ST.
GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE, AUGUST 2nd, 1874, by
MR.
HOPE
MONCRIEFF.
[From the Eastern Post, August 8th, 1874]
On Sunday (August 2), at the St. George’s Hall, Langham-place,
Mr. Hope Moncrieff took his text from Job xxxii., 8., “There is
a spirit in man; and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them
understanding. ”
He said—The present is called an age of knowledge, and rightly
so-called in comparison with the ages that have preceeded it. But
they are our wisest men who remind us that the real lesson of
modern science is, how much we may know, how little we do
know. We can write volumes on the nature and history of our
world, but all our faculties are lost in amazement before the
ineffable wisdom that has so marvellously made and fitted it for
such myriad gradations of life. We can measure the stars, we
can tell their times and distances, but the further we push our
conquests into space, the more surely does the boldest mind refuse
to set bounds to the universe, even in imagination. We can
analyse matter, following it into its most intricate combinations;
we may claim to explainits influence in the subtlest manifestations
of life; but none can say what life is, or how will and power can
be infused into the senseless clod.
With less assurance we may
dogmatise in the metaphysical parts of human nature; we may
endeavour to resolve man’s highest attributes into their component
parts; we may think that we have traced his virtues and vices
more or less closely to custom, hereditary instinct, bodily constitu
tion, in short, we may come nearer to the modus operands of the
rarer phenomena of being, but only with more awe to pause before
the question—how came this mortal frame by the first breath of
spiritual life; who taught man thus to love and hope and trust ?
�2
Whence this spirit which now prompts the ignorant child to over
come its selfishness at the call of affection and duty, and now
reveals a new moral law to the prophet of all ages .?
In its first survey of the aspects of our existence, knowledge,
indeed, helps us only to despair, showing us all the more clearly
that in life we share the necessities of the beast, and in death
the vileness of the dust. But this very despair arouses us to look
further, and our consciousness of the unworthiness of such a fate
marks us out as superior to the rest of creation. We gaze stead
fastly, and throughout all the dark tangled web of human life, we
perceive one gold thread, broadening and brightening as our eyes
are fixed upon it, hidden often, but- broken never, linking age to
age with a divine continuity, having neither beginning nor end,
coming from that same eternal light that gave us birth, and going
before us into that darkness which awaits our souls. Among the
gross promptings of sense, we feel a purer influence that strikes
the tunefullest chords of our hearts, calls our noblest instincts to
life, and bids us rise in arms against the tyrannous strength of our
animal nature. Though imperfection besets us at every step,
though difficulties and darkness are around us, though with
a’l living creatures we are hurried on in the struggle for
existence, our lives present one phenomenon unparallelled in all
our knowledge, and inexplicable by all our philosophies. Man
will struggle against himself, will help his fellow-man, will look
up from earth and seek a treasure that has no other coin but faith,
will joyfully resign his fleshly will, and pray that through suffering
and labour he may be made perfect, even as he trusts that perfec
tion exists, and shall one day be beheld by him in all its glory.
To this spirit that is in man we are wont to give a name, that
may be disputedly some who, in their own lives, feel and show its
power. Apart from the clear light of faith, apart from tradition
and customary beliefs, the most thoughtful of mankind, looking
reverently into the mysteries of existence, seeing how the human
soul sets a cloud hidden point, as surely as the needle to the pole,
feeling how weak we must indeed be without the aid of such
strength and wisdom and provident care as are revealed in the
meanest object at our feet—the most thoughtful of men, I ven
ture to say, have been constrained to kneel in adoration and call
�Upon the name of God, the Maker and father o£ all. There are,
perhaps, those among us who do not recognise this divine author,
let us not say because their hearts are hardened, but because they
are dazzled to blindness or awed into silence. Those who can
render a reason for calling themselves Atheists, are seen to humble
themselves, not indeed before a Person, but before a Thing, which,
as they conceive of it, might indeed be called divine by our mortal
tongues.
We need not fight with names, and the proofs of God’s exist
ence and nature must be sought by every thinking man in his
own nature and experience of life. What I wish to dwell on at
present is the reality of this faculty by which we apprehend the
importance of things not seen. Call it what you will, altruism,
the enthusiasm of humanity, an anonymous power that makes for
righteousness, the working of that force which we name the spirit
of God, is as much a fact as any law of the physical world.
Theorize on the cause as we may, we see and feel the effect, and
surely we cannot ascribe a mere human source to that influence
which has thus enlightened the dim conscience of man. Again
and again have its prophets appeared to guide us to ever higher
prospects of the moral law. Again and again, deliverers have
been sent to free the soul from the bonds of ignorance and selfish
ness. In all tongues words have been spoken such as man never
spoke before, words which to us, perhaps, sound as truisms but
were once rightly received as revelations. In all nations un
learned men and woman have been taught by a grace which to
them, at least, was thenceforth nothing but divine. In all ages
the sons of God, have come clothed in this spirit, and though they
have been poor and despised and rejected of the foolish crowd they
have never wanted disciples among the more ardent souls, willing
to leave all and follow him who had the words of eternal life.
And not once only, but wherever the broken, wearied heart, has
sought the priceless blessing of communion with this spirit, it has
found a strength which no human power could daunt, a peace
which nought on earth could give or take, away. These witnesses
all declare that there is a spirit in man, and with one voice pro
claim that by the inspiration of the Almighty they understand the
secrets of this troubled life.
�4
Wheh We see koW tniicfk the spirit of God has done for us, we take
hope; it is when we perceive how hardly the heart of man is open
to its gracious influences that we may well lose courage. Not only
have we to fight our way out of the darkness of utter ignorance,
but when we think that we see clearly there is an ever present
temptation to limit his greatness by our weak imaginations, to
doubt his power beyond our personal experience, to seek to bring
Him nearer to us rather than to raise our souls to Him. We
trust in the familiar means by which we think His grace has been
given; we shut our ears to the promise that it will be given in all
ways, at all times, and for all our needs. We believe readily that
God has inspired a book, or a place, or an institution, or a person;
it is hard for us to believe the plain truth that His spirit is in the
human soul, and that we, too, weak and worthless as we are, may
partake of this heavenly enlightenment.
To this very doubt we often give the name of faith, and this
trust in our weakness we are prone to boast of under the title of
humility. Some of us are so humble that they presume to judge
the rest of their race, and to offer up thanks that they are not
like the publicans and sinners around them, so ignorant that they
alone claim to know the whole counsel of God, so weak, that if you
credit them, none others stand firm but they. Such are the men
who are so ready with the nicknames of heretic and infidel, who
turn their backs on the glorious Bun and would forbid us to look
upon it save through their stained windows, who try to force the
scanty grace which they call sufficient upon us who seek for better
things. Light they have among them, for the light cannot but
fill the world, but see how they labour to obscure it with the dark
ness of their minds. Look how their temples are foul with dust
and cobwebs, and choked up with the lumber of a byegone age.
Hear how their words are bitter and empty, often the mere parrot
like repetitions of the phrases of a dead devotion, God is for
them not the Eternal Life of the Universe, but a mere magnified
Master of ecclesiastical Ceremonies or Examiner of Theological
Knowledge, dwelling not in and throughout His works, bur in some
vaguely conceived locality hard by within reach of the wings of our
feeblest aspirations. His spirit is no longer working in every soul
of man, but is degraded to be a mere mechanical force, given forth
�by engines of which these bigots keep the key* They strive to
quench, the spirit—to despise all new prophesyings; God has
spoken once—to them, and has now retired from the guidance of
human affairs, leaving them as his vicars and sole interpreters on
earth. Thus religion loses its divine character, and becomes a
mere clever contrivance for securing a degree of order and comfort
in this world, and a hazy prospect of sufficient prosperity here
after.
We are all ready to use this language of other sects which
deny our doctrines. These Romanizers, say some, are dark-minded
and dangerous • their pretences that the spirit is the inheritance of
their sole priesthood, may well be called presumptuous; their
boasted rites only serve to numb the soul; it were a Christian
duty to root out such superstition from the land. But the Protes
tants soon let us know that we are to be set free from one set of
fetters, only to be invited to fit ourselves with another, under
pain of theological reprobation and its consequences in this world
and the next. And even we who claim the name of Liberal
thinkers may constantly catch ourselves planning new prisons for
the soul, which would be a little more airy than the old ones, but
prisons still, though we call them temples. We are all prone to
forget that God is Almighty, and dwells in no temple but the
heart of man. Most of us, if we were humble enough, might
understand only too well what the weakness is that leads us to
put our faith in the forms and shows of spiritual things. How
few are wise enough to receive aright the new messages which God
ever sends to remind us of the greatness of His glory, and which
this false faith ever labours to petrify into new idols to arrest the
eyes that would look up to Him !
Is not this the history of every development of religion ? The
true prophet, the God-kindled soul, the real lord and master of the
conscience, appears among us, and leaves behind him a glowing
thought to lighten our darkness. Then comes the tribe of lower
minds, theologians, critics, scribes, who do their best to stifle and
confine his revelation, and would wholly extinguish it, but for the
divine strength which again and again bursts the bonds of man’s
folly. Jesus of Nazareth was scarcely vanished from the scene
before his disciples must need set to this work upon his teaching,
�and theirs is a remarkable example of the way in which a gran4
new lesson is dealt with by our petty conceits. I select an
apparently insignificant feature of their earthly mindedness; one
of his twelve chosen companions was wanting, and they imagined
that their first duty was to fill up the number which in their eyes
had a mystic sanctity, little knowing that outside of the sacred
band should arise th© man who was to play the most important
part in shaping the new creed. Later on, it was declared that
there must be four gospels among other reasons, because there
were four seasons, and four quarters of the earth, and four gospels;
there have been ever since to all orthodox Christendom, though in
every century God has inspired his evangelists to give new hopes
to their fellow men. Need I remind you of that same unhappy
weakness which has led men to attempt divisions and definitions of
the Almighty according to their conceptions, and would fain
sacrifice the grandeur of His unity to such puerile love of accuracy
and neatness of form. Alas ! such want of spiritual insight was
no characteristic of the past; we have but to look around us
to see how the earthly soul still loves to feed on the husks of
piety. How many men and women are there, whose eyes are
blind to the love that falls upon us from heaven in every sun and
shower, whose ears are deaf to the varied voices of hope and faith
that rise in one grand sweet harmony from the hearts of the
whole human race, to whom the true communion of Saints is
but an empty name, but who take great satisfaction in thinking
that at this moment so many persons in England are going through
the same form of prayer, under the ministry of priests dressed in
the same fashion, and making the same motions at the same places,
in churches built and adorned after somewhat the same pattern.
In many of these churches, perhaps, people are praising their God
with the obsolete phrases of mediaeval superstition, and hugging
to their souls theological epithets, which in all probability they do
not even understand, with an affectation of as much fervour as if
these expressed the great, yet simple truths that are our real
consolation and hope. And in how many pulpits, now, are
preachers not instructing their docile flocks that God has emptied
into a book, into a sacrament, into a priesthood, that inspiration
which is the inheritance of all His children ! Let us not speak
�7
bitterly against priests and preachers. They are always invited
to make Gods for a thoughtless and unbelieving people. It is
when we neglect the spirit for the letter, when we are careful
io observe customs and ceremonies, and neglect judgement and
mercy and true obedience, that our priests are found quarreling
about the colour of vestments and the authority of creeds, and
dogmatizing upon inspiration to disciples who care not to be in
spired. With souls so nourished, priests and people are ready to
fall together an easy prey to that real infidelity whose sacrament is
worldly gain, whose creed is fleshy lust, and whose gospel—to
morrow ye die.
Against these pernicious influences there is but one resource.
We must remember that the light is eternal at which man has so
often rekindled his flickering faith. W e look away from our own
imperfection to the work of the divine spirit, and see that it is
still striving with us. It works like the invisible forces of nature
that fill all space ond inform all substance, and when our In
fallibilities have decreed that it is to use such and such a channel,
behold! it bursts forth through unlooked for ways, wherever a
human soul is hungering and thirsting after righteousness. It owns
no laws but those natural ones of progress and development, which
the Almighty in His inscrutable wisdom has appointed, and the
unchangeableness of which is b it a guarantee that He will never
forsake us. Not a grain of sand, not a drop of water can be lost
from the earth; what force shall annihilate heavenly truth %
The forms in which we enclose it, perish and pass away into new
manifestations of our unskilfulness; but the word of God, once
spoken to the heart of man, can never die—nay more, it must grow,
and though to our sight it be but as the smallest seed, in time it
will become a mighty tree. Our mad hands may labour to uproot
the tender shoots of grace, but when they are withered in death,
the desert will blossom like the rose. Tyrants and traitors take
counsel to slay spiritual life, and lo 1 the cross or the scaffold is but
its throne, and high priests and cunning scribes and bigoted
crowds come to prostrate themselves before its crown of thorns.
Our prophets are stoned, but among the ponderous sepulchres
beneath which another age will bury their teachings, the sacred
line will not be extinct, and the anointed of the Lord will be
�8
found willing to dare and suffer all things in the service
of His spirit. The human soul goes often into captivity, but always
it shall return with songs of joy and gladness. For the spirit is
ever in man, and from age to age it is the inspiration of the
Almighty that gives him understanding.
-
“ God is not dumb that He should speak no more ;
If thou hasc wanderings in the wilderness,
And find’st not Sinai, ’tis thy soul is poor.
There towers the mountain of the Voice no less,
Which whoso seeks shall find, but he who bends,
Intent on manna still, and mortal ends,
Sees it not, neither hears its thundered lore.
“Slowly the Bible of the race is writ.
And not on paper leaves or leaves of stone;
Each age, each kindred adds a verse to it,
Texts of despair or hope, of joy or moan,
While swings the sea, while mist3 the mountains shroud.
While thunder’s surges burst on cliffs of cloud.
Still at the prophets’ feet the nations sit.”
Why then, are we so unbelieving ? Why should we thus learn
grand national history which we dishonour by our superstitious
veneration of its letter, so that its spirit is sealed from us? The
Jews ceased to be a great people and teachers of Gentile
nation, when they came to look upon their Lord only as a Deliverer
in the dim past, or as a Messiah in the far-off future. They pre
served their glory and their inspiration so long as they believed
that He was among them, and called upon the name of the living
God. The work of each hero and prophet was then but the war
rant of new deliverances, purer revelations. What was the re
quest of the great prophet’s greater disciple when his master was
taken from him ? Not that lie might have understanding to store
up the lessons of the departed teacher, and to expound his words,
but Elisha was bold and cried, let a double portion of Thy spirit
be upon me. He trusted that his eyes could be opened to see
greater things ; nor was his faith in vain.
This should be an example for us.
It is no pre
sumption in man to trust in the fountain of the sacred
spirit as ever flowing and inexhaustible. We may despise
the pure water, but we cannot taint the spring. Grateful
for the lessons that have been given us,^through history, through
nature, through the still small voice of conscience, humble when
we consider the perverseness which we oppose to the divine teach
ing, let us take courage from God’s greatness against our
infirmities, and praise His name for what we shall yet learn of His
ways.
Eastern Post Steam Printing Works, 89, Worship-street, Finsbury, E.C.
��
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 spirit of God: a sermon, preached at the Rev. Charles Voysey's services, St. George's Hall, Langham Place, August 2nd 1874
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hope Moncrieff, A. R.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 8 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 6.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Eastern Post
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
G4833
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sermons
God
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 spirit of God: a sermon, preached at the Rev. Charles Voysey's services, St. George's Hall, Langham Place, August 2nd 1874), 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
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Morris Tracts
Religion
Sermons
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IN MIND AS IN MATTER
AND ITS
BEARING UPON CHRISTIAN DOGMA AND MORAL
RESPONSIBILITY.”
PART II.
THE TRUE MEANING OF RESPONSIBILITY.
BY
CHARLES
BRAY,
AUTHOR OF “A MANUAL OF ANTHROPOLOGY, OR SCIENCE OILMAN,” “MODERN
PROTESTANTISM,” “ILLUSION AND DELUSION,” &C.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Sixpence.
�J
�THE
REIGN OF LAW IN MIND AS IN MATTER
Part
IL
THE TRUE MEANING OF RESPONSIBILITY.
‘ ‘ In the eternal sequence we take the consequence.” —H. G. A.
UT it is said, if men are not free, if they must act
in accordance with the laws of their being, if no
act could therefore have been otherwise than it was,
what becomes of virtue, what of morality ?
If a man could not have done otherwise, where was
the virtue ?
This doctrine of necessity or certainty, it is alleged,
is “ fatal to every germ of morality.”
For what, if it is true, becomes of Responsibility?
You cannot, it is said, properly or consistently use
either praise or blame, reward or punishment, if a man
is not free. The opposite, as I shall show, is really
the case.
Let me answer these questions as shortly as I have
put them. Virtue is not that which is free, but that
which is for the good of mankind, for the greatest hap
piness of all God’s creatures. Our goodness or virtue,
it is said, if necessary or dependent upon our nature, is
no goodness at all; but the goodness of God, which
also is dependent upon his nature, and could not be
otherwise, is the highest goodness of all. Man is good,
because he might, it is supposed, be otherwise; God is
B
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The Reign of Law
good, because he could not be otherwise. “ The good
ness of the nature of the Supreme, we are told, is neces
sary goodness, yet it is voluntary,” that is, in accordance
with the will, but which will is governed by the nature.
Still I do not suppose that if a man’s nature and
training were such that he could not do a mean thing,
he would be thought the worse of on that account.
Morality concerns the relation of man to his fellows,
—it comprises the laws and regulations by which men
can live together most happily, and the more they can
be made binding upon all, and not free, the better for all.
Responsibility only means that we must always
take the natural and necessary consequences of our
actions, whether such actions are free or not.
Responsibility, or accountability, in the ordinary
acceptance of the term, means—and this is the meaning
usually thought to be essential to virtue and morality—
that it will be just to make people suffer as much as they
have made others suffer; it means retribution, retalia
tion, and revenge. Some one has done wrong, some one
must make atonement—that is, suffer for it; it does
not much matter who it is, so that some one suffers,
and particularly since it is supposed that the wrath of
God has been appeased by an arbitrary substitute of the
innocent for the guilty. This kind of responsibility
or retribution is not only unjust, but useless.
External things or objects are moved by what we
call Force; the mind is moved by motive, which is
mental force; but equally in each case the strongest
force prevails. “ It may be, or it may not be,” in any
supposed two or more courses—not because this action
is free or contingent, but according as one or other force
or motive shall become the strongest and prevail. The
strongest force always does prevail, and any uncertainty
we may feel is only consequent on our want of know
ledge. In'Physics we know the force must always be
made proportionate to the end we wish to_attain; in
�in Mind as in Matter.
5
Mind this is overlooked, or left to what is called the
Will; hut it is equally true. This fact is overlooked
both by the Fatalists and by those who believe in the
freedom of the will. The first hold that things come
to pass in spite of our efforts; the latter, that they are
not necessarily dependent upon them. The will is
governed by motive, and as the strongest always neces
sarily prevails, what we have to do is to increase the
strength of the motive or moving power in the direction
we wish to attain. The Eev. Daniel Moore speaks of
“ his consciousness as prompting him to put forth an
act of spontaneous volition, and thus proving the moral
agent free.” “The force of instinct,” he says, “is
stronger than the conclusion of logic.” Certainly it
must be so in this case, or logic would say an act lost
its spontaneity just in proportion as it was prompted or
influenced. Praise and blame, reward and punishment,
are the ordinary means taken to strengthen motives.
If the will were free—that is, capable of acting against
motives, or if it acted spontaneously—these meaijs
would be useless and unavailing.
It is not till an action is passed that our power over
it ceases ; then God himself could not prevent it. We
may always say we can; never that we could. The
motive may have been good or bad, but whichever it
was, the strongest must have prevailed, and the action
could not thus have been different to what it was.
Eesponsibility can have relation to the future only—
the past is past. Punishment for an act that could not
have been otherwise would be unjust, and as the act is
past it would be useless.
Punishment, therefore, that has reference to the
future, and that has for its object the good of the
sufferer, or of the community of which he is a member,
alone can be just and useful.
As every act was necessary, and could not have been
otherwise, there is no such thing as sin, as an offence
against God—only vice and error.
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The Reign of Law
All vice and error must be to the detriment of the
person erring, and punishment that prevents it in
future must be for his good.
To pray, therefore, to be delivered from such pm-iishment—that is, for the forgiveness of sin—is praying
for that which would injure us rather than benefit.
Let us take an illustration. A schoolboy may have
been told that “we should not leave till to-morrow
what we can do to-day,” so he eats all his plumcake
before he goes to bed. He takes the natural conse
quences, and is ill the next day, and the master is very
angry; but the boy says very truly, “Please, sir, I
could not help it.” “ I know you could not, my dear
boy,” says the master, “ but when you have had a black
draft and a little birch added to your present intestinal
malaise, it will enable you to help it for the future,
and will teach you also that there is no rule without
an exception.”
Responsibility means that we must take the natural
and necessary consequences of our actions—of the
“ eternal sequence we take the consequence,” and which
natural consequence may be added to by others to any
extent, with the object of producing in the future one
line of conduct rather than another; but it does not
mean that a person may be justly made to suffer for
any action that is past.
Responsibility or accountability also includes that if
a person has done another an injury, he owes him all
the compensation in his power.
Dr Irons says :—“ To incur the consequences of our
actions, and feel that it ought to &e so—to be subject to
a high law, and feel it to be right, this is moral
responsibility” (“Analysis of Human Responsibility,”
p. 25). I accept this definition entirely, but in a dif
ferent sense to that accorded to it by Dr Irons. We
accept the consequences of our actions, and feel that
“ we ought to do so,” and therefore “ that it is right,”
because it is by its consequences that a reasonable man
�in Mind as in Matter.
7
guides his conduct; they govern his motives, and the
motives govern the will. But this is on the supposi
tion that the consequences of our actions will be always
the same in like circumstances—that the causes, under
like conditions, will always produce the same effects,
which could not be the case if the will were free, and
obeyed no law. It is this feeling, this intuitive
perception of consequences, that people call feeling
accountable —“the great and awful fact of human
responsibility.” This feeling is transmitted, or becomes
hereditary, and then it is called Conscience, and gives
the sense of “ ought.”
Dr Irons also says:—“ It is a fact of our nature that
wrong-doing, such as stirs our own disapproval, is
haunted by the belief of retribution.” No doubt of it.
In the early ages this retribution or revenge was the
■only law, and the fear of it was often the only thing
that kept people from doing wrong, and this fear has
been transmitted, and now haunts us; but that is no
reason why revenge, or retributive justice, as it is
called, is right. A sense of duty and responsibility—
that is, of what is due to our own sense of right, and
-of the consequences to ourselves and others—still
influences, and ought to influence, our conduct; but it
■cannot be otherwise than that the strongest motive
must prevail, and when the action it dictates is past,
it could not have been otherwise. It may have been
very well for a young world, when man had to fight
his way up from the lower animals, to entertain the
■delusion that things might have been otherwise, but
we require now an entire reconstruction of the accepted
modes of thought, which shall not only accept the inevi
table in the past, but conscience must cease to blame us
or others for what must have happened exactly as it
did happen.
The great question, as we are told, is, whether the
universe is governed and arranged on rational or nonrational principles ? and this question is asked by those
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The Reign of Law
to whom free will is a necessary article in their creed.
Certainly, if the mind or will obeys no law, then theuniverse must be governed on non-rational principles,
for reason is based upon certainty, as opposed to con
tingency, in the order of nature. Science alone gives
prevision, necessary to the guidance and regulation of
action.
If prayer had the efficacy which is ordinarily
assigned to it, it would make this “ order of nature ”
impossible, there would be a constant breach in the
chain of cause and effect, and prevision and the exer
cise of reason, which is based upon unbroken law and
certainty, could not exist. “ Requests for a particular
adjustment of the weather,” says the Rev. W. Knight,
“ are irrelevant, unless the petitioner believes that the
prayer he offers may co-operate to the production of
the effect.” The same must be said of all prayers;
they are efficacious only so far as they tend to answer
themselves, and they themselves produce the effect
desired. But wherever prayer is sincere, and not
gabbled over by rote in our public service, this is
generally the case. We are governed or moved by
motive, and sincere prayer is the greatest possible
strengthener of motive. Prayer thus acts through
motive upon man, and through man upon matter and
the universe. But in proportion as we recognise the
Reign of Law, and we become conscious that there is
a natural way by which all we desire may be brought
about, prayer will no longer take the form of asking
for what we can and ought to do for ourselves, but of
simple aspiration and devotion to that unity of which
we all form a part.
We feel that we ought to take the consequences of
our actions, and that it is right we should do so,
because we have no other rule to discriminate between
right and wrong. It is not in actions themselves, or
in the motives that dictate them—being all equally
necessary—that the right or wrong consists, but in.
�in Mind as in Matter.
9
their consequences to ourselves or others. If, as a rule,
the actions are attended with pain, they are wrong; if
with pleasure, they are right. This is God’s simple
and intelligible revelation to all the world alike. The
floral Governor carries on his moral government, not
by calling people to account ages after, when the record
of every idle word would be rather long and prosy even
in eternity, but by immediate intervention—by the
direct punishment or reward or pain or pleasure attend
ing their actions.
Jeremy Bentham says:—“No man ever had, can, or
could have, a motive different to the pursuit of pleasure
or the avoidance of pain.” This has not been generally
accepted, because it has not been understood. It has
been supposed to refer only to physical or bodily pains,
and not mental. We must discriminate also between
pleasure and what are usually called pleasures. The
stern delight of fortitude would hardly be called a “plea
sure;” still delight is a highly pleasurable sensation.
Men have certain impulses to action to attain certain
ends. When these ends are legitimately attained,
.pleasure attends the action; when the ends are not
attained, then there is pain. It is these ends that are
pursued, not pleasure or pain, but pleasure or pain
attending for our guidance and compulsion. The
.aggregate of these pleasures we call happiness—of the
pains, which are the exception, misery.
These impulses, which we call propensities and senti
ments, have various objects, and are more simple and
•calculable than is generally supposed. They are self
protecting, self-regarding, social, moral, and aesthetic.
They are all connected with the brain, and the im
pulses to action are ordinarily strong in proportion to
the size of the parts of the brain with which they are
connected, the dynamical effect being dependent upon
statical conditions in mind as in matter. The impulse to
action is pleasurable, becoming painful if not gratified.
Appetite is slightly pleasurable, hunger is painful, and
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The Reign of Law
the pleasure of eating is in proportion to the appetite
or hunger. All the other feelings have their appetites,
hunger, and gratification, with the pleasures and pains
attending them. The object of the intellect, the action
of which is very little pleasurable in itself, is the guid
ance of these feelings towards their proper ends, and
involves the element of choice in the selection of means.
Locke says, “The will is the last dictate of the under
standing,” but it is not the dictate of the understanding
itself, but of the impulses it may set in motion. It is
the feelings, not the intellect, that ordinarily govern
the will. Bentham’s “ pursuit of pleasure or avoidance
of pain” means the pleasures or pains attending the
action of all our mental faculties. If the propensities
predominate in a character, then the pleasures are only
of an animal nature ; if the moral feelings predominate,
then our pleasures are as intimately connected with the
interests of others as -with our own ; and these feelings
may be so trained and strengthened as to give the in
terests of others a preference over our own (i.e., we may
have more pleasure in promoting the interests of others
than our own). It is these moral feelings that make the
principal distinction between men and other animals,
subordinating individual interests to that of the com
munity. They enable men to combine and co-operate;
upon which their principal strength depends. They
probably do not so much differ in kind from those of
other animals as in degree. They are dependent upon
parts of the brain, which in animals are either absent
or merely rudimentary. The pains of conscience are
often stronger than any mere physical pains, and the
pain attending the breach of his word and the outrage
to all his highest feeling must have been greater to
Regulus than the fear of any physical pain, or other
consequences to which he could be subjected by his
enemies. Of course a man without these higher feel
ings would have sneaked away—there was no free-will
in the matter. But we do not admire Regulus the less,.
�in Mind as in Matter.
11
though few of us perhaps would be able to follow his
example. The habitual exercise of the highest, or un
selfish feelings as they are called, regardless of imme
diate consequences, produces the highest happiness,
although it may sometimes lead, as in Regulus’s case,
to the barrel of spikes; and this is only to be attained,
not by free-will, but by careful training and exercise.
It is exercise that increases structure, and the strength
of the feeling, and its habitual or intuitive action, de
pends upon its size. We love that which is loveable,
and hate that which is hateful; and if we are to love
our neighbour he must make himself loveable, or love
falls to the colder level of duty. The poor toad, not
withstanding the jewel in its head, aesthetically is not
beantiful, and it has few friends or admirers, and few
find out its virtues, and the blame that belongs to
others is laid upon its poor ugly back. We never in
quire if the toad made itself, or if it was its own free
will to be ugly. It is precisely the same with every
thing else—that which gives us pleasure we love, and
that which gives us pain we hate, with small reference
to whether this pain or pleasure was voluntarily given
to us or not. It is the same with all consequences ; as
they are required for the guidance of our actions, they
follow just the same, whether our actions are voluntary
or not. Whether we burn ourselves by accident or
voluntarily, the pain is just the same—the object of
the pain being to keep us out of the fire. This is true
responsibility or accountability which governs the will,
which is not free—no freedom fortunately being allowed
to interfere with God’s purposes in creation.
We are told that “no cogent reason has yet been
advanced why men should not follow their, own wicked
impulses, as well as others follow their virtuous ones.”
The best of all reasons I think has been assigned—
viz., that painful consequences attend the vicious im
pulses, and pleasure the virtuous ones; so that unless
a man prefers pain to pleasure, he has the strongest of
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The Reign of Law
all possible motives for good conduct. We indefinitely
increase the pains as additional motives, and where no
punishment is deterrent, as in some exceptional cases,
restraint, or even capital punishment, is justly re
sorted to.
The writer in the Edinburgh, to whom we have be
fore alluded, says : “ If these anti-christian and atheistic
sentiments should gain the wide acceptance which Dr
Strauss and his school anticipate for them, what is to
prevent a reign of universal chaos ? What is to stave
off the utter shipwreck of human society ? What hope
can survive for man when every redeeming ideal is de
stroyed; when blind destiny is enthroned in the seat
of God; and when the universe is come to be regarded
by all mankind as a dead machine, whose social law is,
that
‘ He may get who has the power,
And he may keep who can. ”
That universal anarchy will then begin, and that the
unchained passions of a human animal, devoid of the
usual animal instincts of restraint, will plunge both
himself and the social fabric he has for ages been
erecting into ruin, no one in his senses can reasonably
doubt. And such is the consummation for which
writers like these are diligently working. Such is the
chaos into which a merely destructive criticism, and a
‘ positive ’ science which, in the domain of religion, is
purely negative, and is therefore falsely so called, are
hurrying the deluded votaries of a godless secularism.”
This “ godless secularism,” as if there were any part of
the creation from which God could be excluded, would
appear to point clearly to the authorship of this article,
as none but a person whose “ calling ” was supposed to
be in danger could write like this, except it were the
American newspapers on the eve of a presidential elec
tion. The New York Herald has also its pious as well
as its political side. In commenting lately upon the
death of a rather notorious character, it says : “He
�in Mind as in Matter.
J3
•calmly fell asleep without a struggle, when, no doubt,
angels accompanied his soul to the peaceful shores of
eternity, there to dwell with his Maker for ever.” The
Edinburgh used to be considered an organ of advanced
liberalism, but think of being able to find a writer in
the present day who evidently knows something of
science, who believes that social order and progress de
pend upon a creed, and such a creed !
li It is the business of morality or moral science,”
says Herbert Spencer, “to deduce, from the laws of life
and the conditions of existence, what kinds of actions
necessarily tend to produce happiness, and what kinds
to produce unhappiness; and having done this, its de
ductions are to be recognised as laws of conduct.”
Morality relates, notwithstanding the high-flown lan
guage usually used with respect to it, simply to the
laws and regulations by which men may live together
in the most happy manner possible—the laws, in fact,
■of their wellbeing—and as it is the “law” of their
nature to seek their happiness or wellbeing, the interests
of morality are fortunately sufficiently assured. Of
-course this will be called a “ godless secularism,” and it
is said that these natural motives will be very much
.strengthened if we add to them the rewards and punish
ments of another world; but the highest morality is
independent of such low personal motives, and people
-do what is right because it is right—that is, because it
promotes the best interests of the community at large—
-of others besides themselves. As to the laws of “ an
eternal and immutable morality,” the laws of morality
have always varied according to the varying interests of
mankind, and with advancing civilisation; as the family
has extended to the clan, the clan to the country, the
country to the world. What has been right in one age
-and country has been wrong in another, as the interests
of the community were different at one time and place
to what they were in another. It is rather singular
that we should hear most of eternal and immutable
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The Reign of Law
morality from those whose whole theological system isbased upon vicarious atonement, upon the sacrifice of
the just for the unjust.
Coleridge says : “ It is not the motive makes the
man, but the man the motive.” This is ordinarily ad
duced to prove that as man makes the motive, and the
motive governs the will, the man must be free, and his
will also; but it is just the reverse. Objectively, a
man is judged by his motive; subjectively, it is man—
that is, the man’s nature that dictates the motive. If
he is of a benevolent disposition, this furnishes the
motive to kindly action; if he is conscientious, the
motive to act justly. The appeal of outward circum
stances will be answered according to the nature of the
man, and whatever you may want to get out of him, if
it is not in him, you cannot get it out of him. A man
does not always act in accordance with his conscience, or
sense of right and wrong; he acts according to his
nature, and the strongest feeling predominates, whetherthat be conscience, fear of punishment, or self-indul
gence at the expense of others. A man with the natureof a pig will act like a pig, whatever may be his know
ledge of his duties to others. To say that he has the
ability to act otherwise, is to say that a pig might be
an angel if he pleased, or at least act in accordance with
those higher human attributes which he does not possess.
As to an appeal to his free-will, there is no free-will in
the case, any more than a blind man is free to separatedifferent colours. All the preaching in the world would
not turn him into the higher man, any more than it
would the pig itself. He might be taught to talk
piously, but he would not be less a pig underneath.
Very little can be done towards a change of nature in
one generation. I am quite aware of the effect of what
has been called “ conversion,” but it does little more
than keep people outwardly correct in their conduct,
and give selfishness another direction; that is, turn
worldliness into other-worldliness. A man, however,.
�in Mind as in Matter.
15
is not the less responsible—i.e., is not the less liable to
take the consequences of his actions, whatever his nature
may be; the consequences, if painful, being intended
to improve that nature, and push him forward to a
higher grade. The conviction that different circum
stances act upon different individuals according to their
nature--which nature depends upon race, organisation,
civilisation, and education—is gradually extending, and
it must continue to extend, till all admit that no action
could have been otherwise than it was under the cir
cumstances. If you want to alter the action, you must
alter the man or alter the circumstances, and cease to
trust anything to free-will.
In the early days of our missionary societies, a savage
presented himself for baptism. Among other things
he was asked how many wives he had. He said five.
He was told that Christianity only admitted of one
wife, and that he could not be received into the Church.
The next year, when the missionary was on the station,
he presented himself again as a candidate, with only
one wife. He was asked what had become of the other
four. He said he had eaten them. This is among the
conditions to which wedlock is liable in some other
countries. The way in which the marriage ceremony
is initiated among the bushmen of Australia is equally
simple and humane, not to say loving, and it is less
costly than with us. The man, having selected his
lady-love, knocks her down with a club, and drags her
to his camp.
Sir Samuel Baker has lately told us of the interesting
customs of the people whom he has lately sought to
emancipate and bring within the borders of civilisation
in Africa. The king, who attacked his stronghold in
his absence, and whom he afterwards defeated, had just
celebrated his accession to the throne by burying all
his relations alive. If the young child of a chief dies,
the nurse is buried with it—sometimes alive, sometimes
she has her throat cut—that she may look after it in
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The Reign of Law
the next world. Sir Samuel found the natives verymuch opposed to slavery, and solicitous to aid him in
putting it down. They objected to it because the
traders took their wives, daughters, children, and fol
lowers without compensation. One of the strongest
objectors offered to Sir Samuel to sell his son for a
spade ■, this he thought the right thing.
These little differences of thought and custom be
tween these interesting people and ourselves will
scarcely, I think, be laid altogether to free-will. The
people and circumstances surely had something to do
with it.
But even this seems matter of opinion. Thus the
Bev. J. A. Picton, agreeing with me, says, “ Is the
will as free to give its casting vote for generosity and
righteousness in a Troppman, or a Nero, or a savage, as
in a civilized St. Francis, or a Washington ?” But why
not, if the will rules the motives, and not the motives
the will ? On the contrary, the Spectator thinks that
we can, by a heave of the will, without motive, and
undetermined by the past, alter our whole life. It
says, “ Certainly we should have said that if there is
one experience more than another by which the “ I ” is
known, and known as something not to be explained
by “ a series of states of feeling,” it is the sense of
creative power connected with the feeling of effort, the
consciousness that you can by a heave of the will alter
your whole life, and that that heave of the will, or
refusal to exert it, is not the mere resultant of the
motives present to you, but is undetermined by the past
—is free.”—(Feb. 21, 1874, p. 234.) It certainly
must have required a very considerable “ heave of the
will ” to have enabled the Spectator to arrive at such a
state of consciousness, and it must have been quite
“undetermined by the past” experience, or present
reason 1 I have no such consciousness of truly creative
power, that is, of something made out of nothing.
�in Mind as in Matter.
17
Quite as great differences as between these savages
and ourselves exist in the very midst of our civilisation.
There are a class of people amongst us whose animal
propensities so decidedly predominate, that, turned
loose upon society, they cannot help but prey upon it.
There are others whose animal and human faculties
are so nicely balanced that their conduct depends entirely
upon education and circumstances.
Others are so far a law unto themselves that if they
fall it must be inadvertently, or from strong temptation.
All these may plead “Not guilty” to our ordinary
notion of responsibility. Each may say truly, whatever
he had done, “I could not help it.” What, then,
vrould be our conduct towards them1? Why, exactly
that, and no more, which would enable them to pre
vent it for the future. The first we should confine for
life, or if it was a very dangerous animal, perhaps put
it out of the way altogether (capital punishment). But
if society will breed such animals, it ought to take the
responsibility, and be obliged at least to go to the
expense of keeping them for life. To the second we
should apply just that discipline that would incline the
balance of motive and action in favour of society for
the future. The third would require only to be put
into the path of right to go straight for the future.
“ Turn to the right, and keep straight forward,” are the
only directions required to be given to them.
The only effort that I know of to induce our
legislators to apply science in this direction, in the
discrimination of character and the classification of
criminals, was made by Sir George S. Mackenzie, in
February 1836. He petitioned the Right Hon. Lord
Glenelg, the then Secretary for the Colonies, that a
classification might be made of criminals in accordance
with the above threefold division. This was accom
panied by certificates from a long list of eminent men
that the Science of Mind we possessed was quite adequate
to the purpose. Sir George says, “ that a discovery of'
�18
The Reign of Law
the true mental constitution of man has been made,
and that it furnishes us with an all-powerful means to
improve our race. . . . That man is a tabula rasa, on
which we may stamp what talent and character we
please, has long been demonstrated, by thousands of
facts of daily occurrence, to be a mere delusion. Dif
ferences in talent, intelligence, and moral character, are
now ascertained to be the effects of differences in
cerebral organisation. . . . These differences are, as the
certificates which accompany this show, sufficient to
indicate externally general dispositions, as they are
proportioned among one another. Hence, we have the
means of estimating, with something like precision, the
actual natural characters of convicts (as of all human
beings), so that we may at once determine the means
best adapted for their reformation, or discover their
incapacity for improvement, and their being propdr
subjects of continued restraint, in order to prevent
their further injuring society.” Sir George says, with
reference to cerebral physiology, that “ attacks are still
made on the science of phrenology; but it is a science
which its enemies have never, in a single instance, been
found to have studied. Gross misrepresentations of
fact, as well as wild, unfounded assertion, have been
brought to bear against it again and again, and have
been again and again exposed.” This kind of injustice
I firmly believe to be quite as applicable, if not more
so, to the present time as it was then. The testi
mony then given by the anatomists, surgeons, eminent
physiologists, and others, was generally to the effect
■that “the natural dispositions are indicated by the
form and size of the brain to such an extent as to
render it quite possible, during life, to distinguish men
•of desperate and dangerous tendencies from those of
good disposition;” and that “it is quite possible to
determine the dispositions of men by an inspection of
their heads with so much precision as to render a
knowledge of phrenology of the utmost importance to
�in Mind as in Matter.
*9
persons whose duties involve the care and management
■of criminals?’ And, allow me to add, it will be found
of equal importance to all persons who have the care
and management of any one, whether schoolmasters,
doctors, or parsons. For want of this knowledge of
cerebral physiology, James Mill was very nearly killing
his son, John S. Mill, or making him an idiot for life,
by overworking a brain whose activity already amounted
-almost to disease. The brain gave way, however, when
he was above twenty years old, and he had one of
those fits of mental depression which are well known to
-attend its overwork. It is a singular fact that neither
he nor any of the reviewers of his autobiography seem
to be aware that it was not Marmontel’s “ Memoires ”
•or Wordsworth’s “Poems” to which he was indebted
for recovery, but to his wanderings in the Pyrenean
mountains, the love of natural beauty, and the rest of
brain. It has been J. S. Mill’s ignorance of cerebral physi
ology, and his diversion of the public mind from the
subject by his “Logic” and “Examination of Sir
William Hamilton,” that has mainly helped to bring
back P>erkeley and the reign of Metaphysics, and to put
off the true science of Mind, based on physiology,
half a century.
The discrimination of character is not so great a
mystery as some people suppose. Statistics show that
people act very much alike under the same circum■stances. People fall in love, and marry according to the
price of bread, and even the number of people who put
their letters into the post without an address are the same
in a given area; knowledge is constantly narrowing
the space between general rules and particular cases.
Of course Sir George Mackenzie’s advice could not
be taken; public opinion was not prepared for it;
neither is it at present, as is evidenced by the return
to torture (flogging) during the last few years, and the
whole spirit of the public press. Take an illustration
from one of our first-class Journals. The Pall. Mall
-Gazette of January 9, 1874, says :—
�20
The Reign of Law
“Imprisonment is not only fast losing its terrors, but,,
owing to the kindness of magistrates and judges, it is becom
ing a real boon to the dishonest and violent, to whom it is
doled out, like funds from the poor-box, according to their
necessities. The other day ‘ a novel and suggestive applica
tion,’ it is stated, was made to the Recorder in Dublin by a
female prisoner, aged twenty-nine years, who had been forty
eight times convicted of indictable offences, and pleaded
guilty to a charge of stealing 7s. 6d. from the pockets of a
drunken man in the streets. The Recorder was proceeding to
sentence the prisoner to twelve months’ imprisonment, when
she earnestly implored him to make the sentence one of five
years’ penal servitude, alleging as a reason for desiring the
change that she might then have a chance of earning an honest
livelihood, whereas if she only got twelve months’ imprison
ment she could do nothing but return to the streets. The
Recorder, ‘ believing her to be sincere in her desire to lead
an honest life, complied with her wish. ’ This was very kind
to the prisoner, but rather hard on those who will have to
support her for five years instead of for one, because she
requires the lengthened period for her own convenience. It
is of course most desirable that prisoners, when they leave
gaol, should ‘earn an honest livelihood;’ but imprisonment
is intended as a punishment, and not as a boon.”
That is, punishment is retributive, and not reformatory.
But I wonder society does not discover that this rough
and ready method of dealing with criminals does not
pay, and that forty-eight convictions in a person only
twenty-nine years old is a very expensive way of taking
its revenge. No, I suppose it would never do to.
admit that a man’s conduct was the result of his mental
constitution and the circumstances in which he was
placed—that there was no freedom in the matter,
except the freedom to act in accordance with the dic
tates. of the will. It would be most dangerous doctrine
to allow that no man could have acted differently to
what he did act—that the strongest motive, whatever
it was, must of necessity have prevailed; and that
all we had to do, therefore, was to alter the constitu
tion and circumstances, and prevent such motives,
whether of conscience—that is, sense of right—or of
fear, that would enable him to do differently for the
�in Mind as in Matter.
21
-future. No, the vengeance of the law must continue
still to be visited upon our Bill Sykeses, and Fagins,
and Artful Dodgers, although it is well known to others
besides M. Quetelet that “ society prepares crime, and
the guilty are only the instruments by which it is
■executed?’ We must still continue to dole out so
■much suffering for so much sin, without reference to
■cause and effect, either past or future; for is not a man
responsible for his actions—that is, may we not justly
■retaliate and make another suffer as much as he has
•entailed upon us ? To the popular mind vengeance
seems a divine institution; and it is impossible ‘ to love
•our enemies and to do good to those who despitefully
use us and persecute us,’ as long as this vulgar notion
of moral desert prevails. It is only Science—the
Science of Mind—that can put an end to this; and
that there is a Science of Mind is at present not even
recognized by the President of the Social Science Asso
ciation. When we have a Science of Man we may
have a Science of Society, and we shall then advance as
rapidly towards its improvement as we have done in
Physics since Bacon’s time. Induction is equally
-applicable to mind and matter, any supposed difference
is consequent upon our ignorance. Bree-will and spon
taneity will disappear as our knowledge extends, and
all will be brought within “the reign of law.” When
we have a Science of Mind we shall cease to take the
absorbing interest we now do in kitchen-middens and
the dust heaps and bones of the past, and shall take to
the study of cerebral physiology, upon which the laws
■of mind depend. Our attention will not be given, as
now, exclusively to short-horns and south-downs, or to
horses and dogs, but to improving the race of men. If
we wish to induce any special line of conduct which
we call moral—that is, more to the interest of society
at large than another—we must collect and direct the
force of mind that will produce it. This can only be
done and become habitual by growing the organization
�' 22
The Reign of Law
upon which it depends. Preaching and dogma go only
a very little way towards it; and education, upon which
so much reliance is now placed, will not do much more.
Education has a refining influence, and so far as it
may tend to direct the propensities, and call the higher
feelings into activity, it is of value. Its influence is
very much overrated; for, as we have said, it is the
feelings and not the intellect that govern the will, and
reading, writing, and arithmetic have little direct in
fluence upon them. It is on this account that many
well-disposed people are so anxious to add religion to
the instruction in our common schools. By religion
here little more is meant than, “ Be good, my boy, or
Bogie ’ll have you,” and surely it is not worth drag
ging religion into all the dirt, and familiarity which
breeds contempt, of our common schools for this, to the
injury of all that deserves to be called religion in after
life. It would be much better to teach the natural
consequences—the real responsibility that attends all
the children’s actions—how, if they lie, no one will
believe them; if they steal, no one will trust them,
&c., attended with short and sharp immediate punish
ment. Future rewards and punishments have a very
remote bearing upon immediate conduct, and I doubt
the policy of turning the Almighty into a sort of head
policeman, with his eye always upon them, ready to
strike if they do wrong. This may beget fear, but never
love, and children soon find out that as far as the imme
diate consequences to themselves are concerned it is not
true, and this damages their faith in their real liability.
But the Science of Mind will introduce a truer
knowledge of what really constitutes Education, which
means the developing and perfecting of all our facul
ties, social, moral, religious, and aesthetic,* as well as
the intellect. This only will make a complete man,
this only will make him find his happiness and there* See “Education of the Feelings,” 4th edition.
■& Co.
Longmans
�in Mind as in Matter.
23
fore his interest in virtue, and enable him to do his
duty here, without either hope of heaven or fear of
hell. The study of the nature of each mental faculty,
and-its direction towards its legitimate objects, is what
is required by Education. Of how much may be done
by education is seen in the cultivation of musical
talent.
Social evolution follows the law of organic modi
fication. It is the exercise of the feelings we wish to
predominate that alone will strengthen them and in
crease the size of the organs with which they are con
nected. The commercial age in which we live-—its
machinery and facility of intercourse—is making all men
better off, and binding all together by a common tie of
interest. When a man is well off and happy he desires
to make others so, exercising his benevolence. When
he is in daily close intercourse with his fellows it shows
him the necessity for honesty and integrity, and this
exercises his conscientiousness or sense of justice. Men
are thus obliged to live for others as well as for them
selves ; they everywhere find it their interest to help
one another, and as combination and co-operation thus
increase, so do civilization and the growth of those
mental habits which enable men to live most happily
together.
We thus progress surely, but slowly, not in con
sequence of, but in spite of, our conflicting creeds, and
when at last we arrive at the conviction that nothing
could have happened otherwise than it did; that the
present and the future only are in our power—-when
we have determined to “let the dead past bury its
dead ”—we shall have made a great advance towards
the more easy practice of justice and benevolence. Of
course, the usual cry about gross matter and materialism
and iron fate may be expected, but all that is highest
which man has ever reasonably looked forward to may
be more immediately expected when science and cer
tainty are welcomed in the place of chance and spon
�24
The Reign of Law
taneity. We are approaching daily in practice, if not
in theory, in this direction. At present our religious
creeds stand directly across our path. But utility, if
not philosopy, is teaching our law-makers that they
cannot mend the past, and this gradual application of
the Science of Mind to legislation will ultimately ex
tend to the people for whose benefit the laws are made,
until all will feel that nothing must be left to accident
in the moral world any more than in the physical.
The effect upon the individual of the reconstruction
of his ethical code upon a scientific basis is most
favourable to the growth of all the higher feelings
upon which conduct and happiness depend. The sup
position that things ought to have been otherwise, and
might have been otherwise, is the source of half the
worry in the world, and revenge, remorse, and retri
butive punishment cause half its misery. Revenge is
not only wicked, but absurd; as applied to the past, it
is like a child beating a table. When we have done
wrong, the experienced consequences are generally suf
ficient for our future guidance, and “ repentance whereby
we forsake sin” is admirable, but remorse for that
which could not have been otherwise is both absurd
and useless. An Irish priest told his congregation that
it was a most providential thing that death had been
placed at the end of life, instead of at the beginning,
as it gave more time for repentance. With this we
can scarcely agree. Our verdict, as it must be now,
would be rather that of the Irish jury, “ Not guilty,
but would advise the accused not to do it again.” But
is this verdict of not guilty just ? Certainly it is, as
regards the past; it could not have been otherwise.
But surely it will be said this is dangerous doctrine.
Is no one to be blamed for anything he has done?
Blame is both unjust and useless as applied to the>
past ; it is only so far as it may influence the future
that it can be of any use. This praise and blame is a
rough-and-ready way of influencing future action, which
�in Mind as in Matter.
25
has a very uncertain effect upon conduct. We assume
that people might have done differently, and, after
scolding or punishing, we leave them to do so, but
there is no certainty that they will. Would it not be
better to inquire into the causes that induced them to
act as they did, and alter them, otherwise they are
certain to do the same again. Society’s conduct with
respect to offences at present is very much like Bartie
Massey’s ideal of woman as cook, -— “ the porridge
would be awk’ard now and then; if it’s wrong, it’s
summat in the meal, or it’s summat in the milk, or it’s
summat in the water.” Is it not time that we, as well
■as our cooks, began to measure the proportion between
the meal and the milk ? As to dangerous doctrine, we
must not forget that “ philosophical certainty ” implies
that everything that will influence conduct in the pre sent or the future is still open to us, only in one case
we trust to science and law, in the other to chance and
free will. In proportion as we extend our dominion
over the darkness of ignorance, and are able to conquer
fresh fields of knowledge, as the domain of law becomes
every year wider and wider, and we gain enlarged
views of the eternal sequence and universal order, all
contingency and spontaneity must vanish. What we
call chance or free-will is nothing more than the action
of hitherto undiscovered causes. As to the past, that
we feel is inevitable, and more, it could not have been
otherwise—the causes then in operation must have pro
duced the effects they did—and when we know a thing
is inevitable we can “grin” and bear it; it is the
mental worry, not the mere physical pain that is hard
to bear. As the proverb says, “ It is of no use crying
over spilt milk.” Few know the peace of mind and
internal quiet which the habitual practice of this mental
attitude secures, but all may know it as science ad
vances, and it is this state of mind which it is the true
function of philosophy to enable us to attain.
There is infinite peace also in the conviction that we
�26
The Reign of Law.
are in higher hands than our own ; that the interests of
morality and virtue are ultimately assured, being based
upon law; that we may forget ourselves in the glory of
the whole of which we are so infinitely small a part;
and that we may thus rest satisfied that something
much better is being secured than the freedom of the
will, and with which that Will will not be allowed to
interfere.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS. PRINTERS. EDINBURGH.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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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>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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"The reign of law in mind as in matter, and its bearing upon Christian dogma and moral responsibility." Part II. The true meaning of responsibility
Creator
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Bray, Charles [1811-1884]
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 26 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway and part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh.
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Thomas Scott
Date
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1874
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CT156
N109
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Christianity
Ethics
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work ("The reign of law in mind as in matter, and its bearing upon Christian dogma and moral responsibility." Part II. The true meaning of responsibility), 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>
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
Conway Tracts
Dogma
NSS
Responsibility